BSection II Reading Comprehension/B
The world is on the top of a staggering rise in the number of old people, and they will live longer than ever before.【C1】______the next 20 years the global population of those aged 65 or more will almost double, from 600m to 1.1 billion. The experience of the 20th century, when longer life【C2】______more years in retirement rather than more years at work, has persuaded many observers that this shift will lead to slower economic growth and【C3】______, while the swelling ranks of pensioners will smash government【C4】______. But the notion of a sharp division between the working young and the【C5】______old misses a new trend, the growing gap between the skilled and the unskilled. Employment rates are falling among younger unskilled people,【C6】______older skilled folk are working longer. The【C7】______is most extreme in America, where well-educated baby-boomers are【C8】______retirement while many less-skilled younger people have dropped out of the workforce. Policy is【C9】______responsible. Many European governments have abandoned policies that used to encourage people to retire early. Longer life, combined with the replacement of generous pension plans【C10】______meaner ones, means that even the better-off must work longer to have a【C11】______retirement. But the changing nature of work also plays a big role. Pay has risen sharply for the highly educated, and those people continue to【C12】______rich rewards into old age because these days the educated elderly are more productive than their【C13】______. Technological change may well reinforce that shift: the skills that【C14】______computers, from management expertise to creativity, do not necessarily【C15】______with age. This trend will benefit not just【C16】______elderly people but also, in some ways, society as a whole. Growth will slow less dramatically than expected; government revenues will be in better【C17】______, as high earners pay taxes for longer. At the other end of the social scale, however, things look【C18】______. Manual work gets harder as people get older. The rapid innovation has raised the incomes of the highly skilled while【C19】______those of the unskilled. The consequences, for individuals and society, are【C20】______.
BSection III Writing/B
Suppose you phoned your friend Mary several times yesterday but she didn't answer your call at all. Write her an email to 1) find out what happened, and 2) ask if she need your help. You should write about 100 words. Do not use your own name. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write your address.
BPart ADirections: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D./B
Write a letter of about 100 words to a beach resort where you had a wonderful vocation to express your gratitude for their good service. You should include the details you think necessary. You should write neatly on the ANSWER SHEET. Do not use your own name. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address. (10 points)
Our society is full of competition, which is inevitable. Generally speaking, competition contributes to progress in society. In this section, you are asked to write an essay on the importance of competition. You can provide specific reasons and examples to support your idea. You should write at least 150 words.
Nowadays there are many pirated products in the market, which is very harmful for us. What shall we do? In this section, you are asked to write an essay on pirated products. You can provide specific reasons and examples to support your idea. You should write at least 150 words.
Telecommuting, Internet shopping and online meetings may save energy as compared with in-person alternatives, but as the digital age moves on,
its green reputation is turning a lot browner
. Last year, E-mailing consumed as much as 1.5 percent of the nation's electricity—half of which comes from coal.
In 2005 the computers of the world ate up 123 billion kilo-watt hours of energy. As a result, the power bill to run a computer over its lifetime will surpass the cost of buying the machine in the first place—giving Internet and computer companies a business reason to cut energy costs, as well as an environmental one. One of the biggest energy sinks comes not from the computers themselves but from the air-conditioning needed to keep them from overheating. For every kilowatt-hour of energy used for computing in a data center, another kilowatt-hour is required to cool the furnace like racks of servers.
For Internet giant Google, this reality has driven efforts such as the installation of a solar array that can provide 30 percent of the peak power needs of its headquarters as well as increasing purchases of renewable energy. But to deliver Web pages within seconds, the firm must maintain hundreds of thousands of computer servers in cavernous buildings. "We are actively working to maximize the efficiency of our data centers, which account for most of the energy Google consumes worldwide." remarks Google's green energy czar Bill Weihl. Google will funnel some of its profits into a new effort, dubbed RE
Suppose a department store is recruiting English-speaking assistants to work during the winter. Write an application letter to 1) introduce yourself, and2) request an interview. You should write about 100 words on the ANSWER SHEET. Do not sign your name. Use Li Ming instead. Do not write the address. ( 10 points)
It is the urban driver"s most agonizing everyday experience: the search for an empty parking place. Circling, narrowly missing a spot, cleverly defeating other motorists to finally【C1】______into a space only to discover that it is【C2】______limits during working hours. In San Francisco, it is also a worrying traffic problem. Drivers【C3】______for parking spots generate 30 percent of all【C4】______traffic jam, city officials estimate. Now San Francisco proclaims that they have found a【C5】______—a phone app for spot-seekers that【C6】______information about areas with available spaces. The system, introduced last month, relies on wireless sensors【C7】______in streets and city garages that can tell【C8】______seconds if a spot has opened up.【C9】______the system could come with serious consequences. Safety advocates say that drivers on the search for parking could【C10】______focusing on their phones, not the road. "It could be really【C11】______," said Daniel Simons, a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois, where he studies the science of attention. And, he said, it could also be【C12】______: "Most people are looking for parking spaces in places that have a lot of traffic and a lot of【C13】______." City officials acknowledge the potential【C14】______. They are urging drivers to【C15】______before they pull up the city"s iPhone app, or to do so before they leave home. But the spots can disappear quickly,【C16】______any circling driver knows, and for plugged-in motorists in the habit of texting or glancing at the GPS, the urge to use the parking app is certain to【C17】______as the frustration does. San Francisco has put sensors into 7,000 metered parking spots and 12,250 spots in city garages. If spaces in an area open up, the sensors communicate wirelessly with computers that in turn make the information【C18】______to app users within a minute. On the app, a map shows which blocks have lots of places (blue) and which are【C19】______(red). San Francisco"s is by far the most widespread【C20】______that several cities, universities and private parking garages are experimenting with.
Hallowell argues in his new book, Driven to Distraction at Work: How to Focus and Be More Productive, that when you feel real or imagined concerns piling on, share them with a friend, and there's a better chance that aimless anxiety will change into problem-solving. He believes that worrying alone is one of the major reasons that people can't focus, both at work and elsewhere in their lives. Worrying alone does not have to be toxic, but it tends to become toxic because in isolation we lose perspective. We tend to globalize, catastrophize, when no one is there to act as a reality check. Our imaginations run wild. Indeed, Samuel Johnson, a severe worrier himself, called worry a "disease of the imagination". When we worry alone we risk losing touch with reality, becoming paralyzed in worry, making bad decisions, and even getting sick, as toxic worry depresses immune function.
BSection III Writing/B
Li-Fi, an alternative to Wi-Fi that transmits data using the spectrum of visible light, has achieved a new breakthrough, with UK scientists reporting transmission speeds of 10Gbit/s—more than 250 times faster than "superfast" broadband. The fastest speed【C1】______reported was 3Gbit/s, achieved earlier this year in Germany. Chinese researchers also claimed this month to have【C2】______a 150Mbp/s connection, but some experts were doubtful without seeing further【C3】______ The term Li-Fi was【C4】______by Edinburgh University"s Prof Harald Haas【C5】______the technology is also known as visible light communications (VLC). Many experts claim that Li-Fi represents the future of mobile internet【C6】______its reduced costs and greater efficiency compared to traditional Wi-Fi. Both Wi-Fi and Li-Fi transmit data【C7】______the electromagnetic spectrum, but【C8】______Wi-Fi utilizes radio waves, Li-Fi uses visible light. This is a【C9】______advantage in that the visible light is far more plentiful than the radio spectrum (10,000 times more in fact) and can achieve far greater data【C10】______Li-Fi signals work by【C11】______bulbs on and off【C12】______quickly—too quickly to be noticed by the human eye. This most recent breakthrough builds upon this by using tiny micro-LED bulbs to【C13】______several lines of data in parallel. The research was carried out by the Ultra Parallel Visible Light Communications project, and funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Existing LED light bulbs could be【C14】______to transmit Li-Fi signals with a single microchip, and the technology would also be of use in situations where radio frequencies cannot be used for fear of【C15】______with electronic circuit. And although Li-Fi bulbs would have to be kept on to transmit data, the bulbs could be【C16】______to the point that they were not visible to humans and yet still【C17】______. One draw-back is that the data receiver would have to be in sight of the transmitter-bulb as visible light does not【C18】______solid materials. The makers of Li-Fi note that this quality might actually be an advantage in some【C19】______making Li-Fi more【C20】______than Wi-Fi with hackers unable to access unsecured internet connections from out of sight of the transmitter.
Directions:Writeanessaybasedonthedrawing.Inyourwriting,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.Youshouldwriteabout150words.
As early as the 19th century, shoppers have viewed Thanksgiving Day as the traditional start to the holiday shopping season, an occasion marked by celebrations and sales. Department stores in particular locked onto this marketing notion, hosting parades to launch the start of the first wave of Christmas advertisements, chief among them, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, running in New York City since 1924. The holiday shopping craze became so important to retailers that during the Great Depression, they appealed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 to move Thanksgiving Day up in order to stretch out the holiday shopping season. Roosevelt obliged, moving Thanksgiving Day one week earlier, but didn't announce the change until October. As a result, Americans had two Thanksgivings Day that year—Roosevelt's, jokingly dubbed "Franksgiving," and the original. Because the switchover was handled so poorly, few observed it, and the change resulted in little economic boost.
BPart ADirections: Write a composition/letter of no less than 100 words on the following information./B
In this section, you are asked to write an essay based on the following information. Make comments and express your own opinion. You should write at least 150 words. 校园暴力已经存在了很多年，引起了很多关注。怎样才能遏制校园暴力?请提出你的建议。
Directions:Writeanessaybasedonthepiechart.Inyourwriting,youshould1)interpretthechart,and2)giveyourcomments.Youshouldwriteabout150words.
Directions:Writeanessaybasedonthechart.Inyourwriting,youshould1)interpretthechart,and2)giveyourcomments.Youshouldwriteabout150words.