John Lee likes to tinker with vehicles: his four-wheel-drive resembles a tractor more than a car. "It"s watertight," he smiles. For the past week he has been driving down sodden lanes in Surrey, southwest of London, transporting people and medicines. Flooding is a misery, but at least it provides an opportunity to show off a set of wheels. Much of southern England is now sodden, and parts of the Thames Valley and Somerset are simply underwater. In Shepperton, a town in Surrey, the village green used for the summer fete is best reached by canoe. In Devon a sea wall has collapsed, shutting down a vital railway link to the south-west. As The Economist went to press, 16 severe flood warnings had been issued by the Environment Agency, a much-criticised quango that oversees flood defence. Floods are like snowflakes, says Andrew McKenzie of the British Geological Survey, a research body: none is quite like another. Rivers can overflow, as in Somerset. Groundwater can flood, as in the Thames Valley. Tides can surge, inundating villages, as they have in Lincolnshire. Rain can pound down too quickly to be absorbed. None of these is rare on its own. But over the past two months Britain has been subject to the whole lot, often in combination, over a large area. Last month was the wettest January in southern England since 1910. The rain was unusually prolonged, falling on 23 days out of 31 , a four-decade record. Rain continues to fall on this sodden ground. As a result, the Thames river has been running high for longer than at any point since records began in 1883. The calamitous floods that struck England in 1947, by contrast, were over much more quickly. Fingers have been pointed at the government, for squeezing the Environment Agency"s budget. According to the Committee on Climate Change, an independent body, government funding for flood management between 2011 and 2015 will be less than in the previous four years, even in cash terms. The maintenance budget was cut particularly savagely, says Iain Sturdy of the Somerset drainage board.

BPart BDirections: Write an essay of 160-200 words based 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. 手机是如此普及，以致大多数大学生都拥有手机。一些学生甚至在课堂上使用手机来解闷，这可能影响到周围的人。但也有人认为。手机也许可以成为课堂教具之一。你的想法如何?

Advancing age means losing your hair, your waistline and your memory, right? Dana Denis is just 40 years old, but【C1】______ she's worried about what she calls "my rolling mental blackouts." "I try to remember something and I just blank out," she says. You may【C2】______ about these lapses, calling them " senior moments " or blaming " early Alzheimer's (老年痴呆症) ". Is it an inescapable fact that the older you get, the【C3】______ you remember? Well, sort of. But as time goes by, we tend to blame age【C4】______ problems that are not necessarily age-related. "When a teenager can't find her keys, she thinks it's because she's distracted or disorganized," says Paul Gold. "A 70-year-old blames her【C5】______ ."In fact, the 70-year-old may have been【C6】______ things for decades. In healthy people, memory doesn't worsen as【C7】______ as many of us think. "As we【C8】______ , the memory mechanism isn't【C9】______ ," says psychologist Fergus Craik. "It's just inefficient." The brain's processing【C10】______ slows down over the years, though no one knows exactly【C11】______ Recent research suggests that nerve cells lose efficiency and【C12】______ there's less activity in the brain. But, cautions Barry Gordon, "It's not clear that less activity is【C13】______ A beginning athlete is winded (气喘吁吁) more easily than a【C14】______ athlete. In the same way,【C15】______ the brain gets more skilled at a task, it expends less energy on it." There are【C16】______ you can take to compensate for normal slippage in your memory gears, though it【C17】______ effort. Margaret Sewell says; "We're a quick-fix culture, but you have to【C18】______ to keep your brain【C19】______ shape. It's like having a good body. You can't go to the gym once a year【C20】______ expect to stay in top form."

Directions:Writeanessaybasedonthechart.Inyourwriting,youshould1)interpretthechart,and2)giveyourcomments.Youshouldwriteabout150words.

BSection I Use of EnglishDirections: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D./B

Thelasttimeshewasrecruitingforherexport-salesteam,SarahGrainhiredaLithuanianwhospeaksRussian,PolishandGerman.HertwoprevioushiresforEriezMagnetics,whichmakesindustrialequipmentinSouthWales,wereanItalianwhoalsospeaksFrench,andaVenezuelanwhospeaksSpanishandPortuguese.AllofthemspeakfluentEnglish."TherewerenoBritishapplicantswhohadtherequisitelanguageskills,"shesays.MsGrain'sconclusionisnotunusualforaBritishcompany.In2012aEuropeanCommissionsurveytestedtheforeign-languageproficiencyof54,000studentsaged14and15,in14nations.Swedencametop,with82%ofpupilsreachingan"independent"or"advancedindependent"standard.Theaverageforall14stateswas42%.Englandcamebottom,withjust9%.Partoftheexplanationisthatmanypeople'ssecondlanguageisEnglish,whilemanyBritonscontinuetobelievethat,asnativespeakers,theydonotneedtobotherwithforeignlanguages.Theymayberight—intermsofcommunication.Butitmeansthat,notonlyaretheymissingoutonmuchculturalinteraction,theymayalsobeharmingtheirownjobprospects.Theyhavenotbeenhelpedbytheeducationalpoliciesofsuccessivegovernments.In2004TonyBlair'sLabourgovernmentabolishedtherequirementtolearnalanguageaftertheageof14,causingthenumberstakingalanguageGCSEexamat16tofallbyhalfinstateschoolsoverthenextsevenyears.Concernedaboutthisrapiddecline,thecoalitiongovernmentbroughtinanewperformanceindicatorcalledtheEnglishBaccalaureate,orEBacc,in2011.Amodernlanguagewasoneofitsfivecoredisciplines.Languageteachers—anembattledbreed—rejoiced.ThenumberofstudentsenteringaGCSElanguageexamin2013,thefirstyearthechangestookeffect,roseby20%.Now,however,thosegainscouldbelost,asthegovernmenthasseeminglyloosenedtherequirement.From2016,underanewinitiativecalledProgress8,ithasextendedthenumberofcoresubjectstoeight,appearingtomakelearningalanguagevoluntary.Thishaspleasedsometeachers,whofelttheEBaccwastoonarrow,butlinguistsareshocking.ThedeclineoflanguagesatGCSEhasinevitablyhadaneffecthigheruptheacademicfoodchain.ThoughthenumberofthosestudyinglanguagestoALevelwillincreasethankstotheGCSEcohortof2013-2014,itislikelytofallbackagain.FrenchandGermanarehalfaspopularastheywere20yearsago.Thenumberofuniversitiesofferinglanguagedegreeshasfallen,too:by50%forGermanand40%forFrenchsince1998.ThenumberofferingSpanishhasalsofallen.Degreesinotherlanguages,suchasChineseandArabic,arebecomingmorepopular,buttheyarestillrare.Theeconomyandthelabourmarketbeartheconsequences.In2012theBritishChambersofCommercefound,inasurveyof8,000Britishcompanies,that96%hadnoforeign-languagespeakers.First-timeexporterscitedlanguageasabarriertoenteringinternationalmarkets.ThoughBritainmakesup12%ofthepopulationoftheEU,lessthan5%ofEUcivilservantsinBrusselsareBritish.NotenoughBritonscanfulfilthelanguagerequirementofbeingabletoworkinFrenchorGerman.AndevenifmonoglotBritscangetjobsatmultinationals,claimsRichardHar-die,non-executivechairmanoftheBritisharmofUBS,abank,"thechancesofgettingtothetopifyouonlyhaveEnglisharemuchlowerthanbefore".

There is a widespread belief that humanities Ph. D. s have limited job prospects. The story goes that since tenure-track professorships are increasingly being replaced by contingent faculty, the vast majority of English and history Ph. D. s now roam the earth as poorly-paid adjuncts or, if they leave academia, as baristas and bookstore cashiers. As English professor William Pannapacker put it in Slate a few years back, "a humanities Ph. D. will place you at a disadvantage competing against 22-year-olds for entry-level jobs that barely require a high-school diploma. " His advice to would-be graduate students was simple: Recognize that a humanities Ph. D. is now a worthless degree and avoid getting one at all cost. It is true that the plate tectonics of academia has been shifting since the 1970s, reducing the number of good jobs available in the field. In the wake of these changes, there is no question that humanities doctorates have struggled with their employment prospects, but what is less widely known is between a fifth and a quarter of them go on to work in well-paying jobs in media, corporate America, non-profits, and government. Humanities Ph. D. s are all around us—and they are not serving coffee. The American Historical Association (AHA) and the Modern Language Association (MLA) have staked out the position that the lack of reliable data about employment outcomes is hindering any productive discussion about the future of academia. Preliminary reports released in the past few months show that 24. 1 percent of history Ph. D. s and 21 percent of English and foreign language Ph. D. s over the last decade took jobs in business, museums, and publishing houses, among other industries. Humanities Ph. D. s typically secure non-academic jobs through their own networks, without the support of their departments. For those Ph. D. s who ultimately find work outside academia, the job-hunting process is often longer and harder than it needs to be. Few universities offer humanities doctoral candidates career counseling for non-academic jobs, which would help them market themselves and leverage alumni networks. As a solution to the shrinking academic job market, several top Ph. D. programs have opted to reduce the number of incoming doctoral candidates to limit their oversupply. However, some argue that this approach does not recognize that many humanities Ph. D. s will go on to positively impact other industries, as many already have. "Academic institutions hold a responsibility to advance knowledge," Victoria Blodgett, director of Graduate Career Services at Yale University, argues. "We should be in the business of putting Ph. D. s in government, non-profits, the media and lots of industries where we will be better off if we have people who are trained to think as deeply as they are. "

For months Twitter, the micro-blogging service, has received the kind of free attention of which most companies can only dream. Politicians, corporate bosses, activists and citizens【C1】______the platform to catch every tweet of America's new president, who has become the service's【C2】______"The whole world is watching Twitter,"【C3】______Jack Dorsey, the company's chief executive,【C4】______he presented its results on February 9th. He has little else to brag about. But Donald Trump has not provided the kind of boost the【C5】______firm really needs. It reported【C6】______revenue growth and a loss of $ 167m. User growth has been sluggish, too; it added just 2m users in that period. Facebook added 72m. The day of the results, shares in Twitter dropped by 12%.【C7】______news outlets around the world already report【C8】______Mr Trump's most sensational tweets, many do not feel compelled to join the platform to【C9】______them. Others are【C10】______by mobs of trolls and large amounts of misinformation. And not【C11】______Mr Trump could change the cold, hard truth about Twitter: that it can never be Facebook. True, it has become one of the most important【C12】______for public and political【C13】______among its 319m monthly users. It played an important role in the Arab spring and【C14】______such as Black Lives Matter. But the platform's freewheeling nature makes it hard to spin gold from.【C15】______, really trying to do so—by packing Twitter feeds【C16】______advertising, say—would drive away users. Twitter's latest results are likely to encourage those who think it should never have become a【C17】______listed company, and want it to consider alternate models of ownership, such as a co-operative. They【C18】______Twitter as a kind of public utility—a "people's platform" —the management of which should concern public【C19】______rather more than commercial ones. If the company were cooperatively owned by users, it would be【C20】______from short-term pressure to please its investors and meet earnings targets.

Directions:Writeanessaybasedonthechart.Inyourwriting,youshould1)interpretthechart,and2)giveyourcomments.Youshouldwriteabout150words.

BSection I Use of EnglishDirections: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D./B

Directions:Writeanessaybasedonthechart.Inyourwriting,youshould1)interpretthechart,and2)giveyourcomments.Youshouldwriteabout150words.

BPart B/B

Experts have long known that children imitate many of the deeds—good and bad—that they see on television. But it has rarely been shown that changing a young child's viewing habits at home can lead to improved behavior. In a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, researchers reported the results of a program designed to limit the exposure of preschool children to violence-laden videos and television shows and increase their time with educational programming that encourages empathy. They found that the experiment reduced the children's aggression toward others, compared with a group of children who were allowed to watch whatever they wanted. "Here we have an experiment that proposes a potential solution," said Thomas Robinson, a professor of pediatrics at Stanford, who was not involved in the study. "Giving this intervention— exposing kids to less adult television, less aggression on television and more prosocial television— will have an effect on behavior." While the research showed "a small to moderate effect" on the preschoolers' behavior, he added, the broader public health impact could be "very meaningful." The new study was a randomized trial, rare in research on the effects of media on children. The researchers, at Seattle Children's Research Institute and the University of Washington, divided 565 parents of children ages 3 to 5 into two groups. Both were told to track their children' s media consumption in a diary that the researchers assessed for violent, didactic and prosocial content, which they defined as showing empathy, helping others and resolving disputes without violence. The control group was given advice only on better dietary habits for children. The second group of parents were sent program guides highlighting positive shows for young children. They also received newsletters encouraging parents to watch television with their children and ask questions during the shows about the best ways to deal with conflict. The parents also received monthly phone calls from the researchers, who helped them set television-watching goals for their preschoolers. The researchers surveyed the parents at six months and again after a year about their children' s social behavior. After six months, parents in the group receiving advice about television-watching said their children were somewhat less aggressive with others, compared with those in the control group. The children who watched less violent shows also scored higher on measures of social competence, a difference that persisted after one year. Low-income boys showed the most improvement, though the researchers could not say why. Total viewing time did not differ between the two groups. "The key message for parents is it's not just about turning off the TV; it's about changing the channel," said Dr. Dimitri Christakis, the lead author of the study and a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington. The new study has limitations, experts noted. Data on both the children's television habits and their behavior was reported by their parents, who may not be objective. And the study focused only on media content in the home, although some preschool-aged children are exposed to programming elsewhere. [A]their children behaved less aggressively. [B]their children are more aggressive than others. [C]children show less violent actions after they watch less aggressive TV programs. [D]they had better turn off the TV. [E]they were not only sent program guides about positive shows for children but also received newsletters telling them how to deal with conflict. [F]they should move to another channel. [G]parents may be somewhat subjective.

Directions:Writeanessaybasedonthedrawing.Inyourwriting,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.Youshouldwriteabout150words.

The past five years have been a bad time to be a taxpayer in Europe. Across the continent, governments have relied heavily on tax rises to cut budget deficits, increasing the total burden by almost 5% of GDP in France and Greece. But rather than raise taxes any further, many countries are starting to cut them. The European Commission reckons that the euro zone's tax-to-GDP ratio stabilised in 2013 and is now falling. In January France announced plans to cut payroll taxes by 30 billion. This month Italy unveiled income-tax cuts worth 10 billion for those earning less than 25,000 a year. This week Britain proposed tax cuts for most people on low or medium incomes. Ireland and Spain are also planning tax cuts later this year. Lower taxes may be popular, but how are such giveaways being financed? Few countries have the scope to borrow much more. The commission has criticised France and Spain for repeatedly missing their deficit-reduction targets, though it is not taking action against them. Italy's high level of public debt, which hit 133% of GDP in 2013, has also landed it on the commission's fiscal "watch list". Instead, most countries plan to pay for their tax proposals with public-spending cuts. Italy says it will reduce spending by an extra 7 billion this year and save a further 2. 2 billion thanks to lower yields on its debt—though these figures may prove optimistic. The politicians hope that lower taxes will boost growth. As euro-zone countries cannot devalue or lower their own interest rates, tax cuts are one of the few ways of trimming business costs fast, says Guillaume Menuet at Citigroup. France and Italy both hope to improve their competitiveness by reducing the tax "wedge" between employers' costs and what workers actually take home. In 2012 this tax take reached nearly 50% of the payroll bill in France and Italy, against an OECD average of just 36%. Some economists doubt that cutting income tax, Italy's approach, is the best way forward. Instead, they favour slashing Europe's high employer-paid social security charges, as France proposes to do. This would directly lower labour costs, encouraging companies to hire extra workers as well as to increase their investment. That would also give a welcome boost to growth.

BSection I Use of EnglishDirections: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D./B

"What's the difference between God and Larry Ellison?" asks an old software industry joke. Answer: God doesn't think he's Larry Ellison. The boss of Oracle is hardly alone a-mong corporate chiefs in having a reputation for being rather keen on himself.Indeed, until the bubble burst and the public turned nasty at the start of the decade, the worship of the celebrity chief executive seemed to demand bossly narcissism, as evidence that a firm was being led by an all-conquering hero. Narcissus met a nasty end , of course. And in recent years, boss-worship has come to be seen as bad for business. In his management bestseller," Good to Great", Jim Collins argued that the truly successful bosses were not the self-proclaimed stars who adorn the covers of Forbes and Fortune, but instead self-effacing, thoughtful sorts who lead by inspiring example. A statistical answer may be at hand. For the first time, a new study, "It's All About Me", to be presented next week at the annual gathering of the American Academy of Manage ment, offers a systematic, empirical analysis of what effect narcissistic bosses have on the firms they run. The authors, Arijit Chatterjee and Donald Hambrick, of Pennsylvania State University, examined narcissism in the upper rank of 105 firms in the computer and software industries. To do this, they had to solve a practical problem: studies of narcissism have relied on surveying individuals personally, something for which few chief executives are likely to have time or inclination. So the authors devised an index of narcissism using six publicly available indicators obtainable without the co-operation of the boss. These are: the prominence of the boss's photo in the annual report; his prominence in company press releases; the length of his "Who's Who" entry; the frequency of his use of the first person singular in interviews; and the ratios of his cash and non-cash compensation to those of the firm's second-highest paid executive. Narcissism naturally drives people to seek positions of power and influence, and because great self-esteem helps your professional advance, say the authors, chief executives will tend on average to be more narcissistic than the general population. Messrs Chatterjee and Hambrick found that highly narcissistic bosses tended to make bigger changes in the use of important resources, such as research and development, or in spending; they carried out more and bigger mergers and acquisitions; and their results were both more extreme (more big wins or big losses) and more unstable than those of firms run by their humbler peers.

Remember books? They were those pieces of paper with words printed on them【C1】______in between two, sometimes,【C2】______covers. People bought them, and people borrowed them, but,【C3】______people used to read them. And then came screens. Six years into the【C4】______rise of mobile, half of American adults own a smartphone; over a third owns a tablet. Now, I'm joking about the end of books, but it's easy and tempting to【C5】______that screens will continue their【C6】______on words and paper-bound books will be at the【C7】______of vanishing. But if you take a hard look at the data, it's not the end of print. Not by a long shot. 【C8】______years, there hasn't been a more【C9】______technology for capturing the hopes and the fears of new parents than the tablet. Touchscreens are so easy to【C10】______that babies can use them and learn at younger ages than we thought possible—or babies can use them and use them and use them and lose out on other skills. We just don't know what this does【C11】______young brains. All we know is we're【C12】______a generation that sometimes finds magazines more【C13】______than iPads. Parents, of course, can't not know. Or, if they really can't, then they don't want to take any【C14】______. And that's why it's not at all【C15】______that the vast, vast【C16】______of parents prefer reading printed books to their young children. Pew Research found that 94 percent of parents think it's important to read print books to their children. Print【C17】______isn't going away soon.【C18】______more people prefer e-readers, some would still rather read print. Books will become "luxuries". But, of course, the real test will come in the next few years when we see what kids who have been using tablets since before they could walk prefer to read. Print is in a long, slow【C19】______that feels like a death spiral, but isn't quite so. For now, at least, the end of print is a long way off, even if kids these days can't【C20】______how to turn the page.

As a general rule, American men earn more than American women. This holds true across industries, across education levels, and across states. But, there's at least one big【C1】______: part-time employees. In 2012, women who worked less than 40 hours a week generally out-earned men who spent the same【C2】______at their jobs. If they worked 35 hours a week, they earned about 11 percent more. If they worked 25 hours a week, they earned about 4 percent more. But once females hit that magic 40 hour【C3】______their relative pay declined dramatically. So why do women beat out men while working part-time and【C4】______out while working full-time? My guess is that much (【C5】______certainly not all) of the explanation【C6】______down to two reasons: marriage and children. Women, including highly educated【C7】______, tend to cut their hours once they have families and children, especially【C8】______their husband has a higher salary. Men, meanwhile, are more likely to keep working a【C9】______week And so part-time women, as a group, are somewhat more likely to have gone to college, and【C10】______less likely to have dropped out of high school, than part-time men, who may well be working shorter【C11】______for lack of better options. The problem for women is that working part-time early in their careers can cost them salary while working full-time later in their careers,【C12】______lost experience and perhaps some【C13】______opportunities for promotions. Motherhood might be the most【C14】______job in the world. But all too often, our economy still makes it【C15】______a career killer. So【C16】______part-timers, which other women out-earn men? The BLS includes a job-by-job breakdown of the wage【C17】______, and among the nearly 150【C18】______with good-enough data to【C19】______, it found just two where females were better paid: counselors and health technicians. That said, as men look more toward those sorts of traditionally pink-collar jobs for employment, one has to【C20】______how long that pay advantage will last.