The immune system is equal in complexity to the combined intricacies of the brain and nervous system. The success of the immune system in defending the body relies on a dynamic regulatory communications network consisting of millions and millions of cells. Organized into sets and subsets, these cells pass information back and forth like clouds of bees swarming around a hive. The result is a sensitive system of checks and balances that produces an immune response that is prompt, appropriate, effective, and self-limiting. At the heart of the immune system is the ability to distinguish between self and non-self. When immune defenders encounter cells or organisms carrying foreign or non-self molecules, the immune troops move quickly to eliminate the intruders. Virtually every body cell carries distinctive molecules that identify it as self. The body's immune defenses do not normally attack tissues that carry a self-marker. Rather, immune cells and other body cells coexist peaceably in a state known as self-tolerance. When a normally functioning immune system attacks a non-self molecule, the system has the ability to remember the specifics of the foreign body. Upon subsequent encounters with the same species of molecules, the immune system reacts accordingly. With the possible exception of antibodies passed during lactation, this so-called immune system memory is not inherited. Despite the occurrence of a virus in your family, your immune system must learn from experience with the many millions of distinctive non-self molecules in the sea of microbes in which we live. Learning entails producing the appropriate molecules and cells to match up with and counteract each non-self invader. Any substance capable of triggering an immune response is called an antigen. Antigens are not to be confused with allergens, which are most often harmless substances ( such as ragweed pollen or cat hair) that provoke the immune system to set off the inappropriate and harmful response known as allergy. An antigen can be a virus, a bacterium, a fungus, a parasite, or even a portion or product of one of these organisms. Tissues or cells from another individual ( except an identical twin, whose cells carry identical selfmarkers) also act as antigens; because the immune system recognizes transplanted tissues as foreign, it rejects them. The body will even reject nourishing proteins unless they are first broken down by the digestive system into their primary, non-antigenic building blocks. An antigen announces its foreignness by means of intricate and characteristic shapes called epitopes, which protrude from its surface. Most antigens, even the simplest microbes, carry several different kinds of epitopes on their surface; some may even carry several hundred. Some epitopes will be more effective than others at stimulating an immune response. Only in abnormal situations does the immune system wrongly identify self as non-self and execute a misdirected immune attack. The result can be a so-called autoimmune disease such as rheumatoid arthritis or systemic lupus erythematosis. The painful side effects of these diseases are caused by a person's immune system actually attacking itself.

Scientists have long argued over the relative contributions of practice and native talent to the development of elite performance. This debate swings back and forth every century, it seems, but a paper in the current issue of the journal Psychological Science illustrates where the discussion now stands and hints—more tantalizingly, for people who just want to do their best—at where the research will go next. The value-of-practice debate has reached a stalemate. In a landmark 1993 study of musicians, a research team led by K. Anders Ericsson found that practice time explained almost all the difference(about 80 percent)between elite performers and committed amateurs. The finding rippled quickly through the popular culture, perhaps most visibly as the apparent inspiration for the "10,000-hour rule" in Malcolm Gladwell's best-selling "Outliers" —a rough average of the amount of practice time required for expert performance. The new paper, the most comprehensive review of relevant research to date, comes to a different conclusion. Compiling results from 88 studies across a wide range of skills, it estimates that practice time explains about 20 percent to 25 percent of the difference in performance in music, sports and games like chess. In academics, the number is much lower—4 percent—in part because it's hard to assess the effect of previous knowledge, the authors wrote. One of those people, Dr. Ericsson, had by last week already written his critique of the new review. He points out that the paper uses a definition of practice that includes a variety of related activities, including playing music or sports for fun or playing in a group. But his own studies focused on what he calls deliberate practice: one-on-one lessons in which an instructor pushes a student continually, gives immediate feedback and focuses on weak spots. "If you throw all these kinds of practice into one big soup, of course you are going to reduce the effect of deliberate practice," he said in a telephone interview. Zach Hambrick, a co-author of the paper of the journal Psychological Science, said that using Dr. Ericsson' s definition of practice would not change the results much, if at all, and partisans on both sides have staked out positions. Like most branches of the nature-nurture debate, this one has produced multiple camps, whose estimates of the effects of practice vary by as much as 50 percentage points.

Does the language we speak determine how healthy and rich we will be? New research by Keith Chen of Yale Business School suggests so. The structure of languages【C1】______our judgments and decisions about the future and this might have【C2】______long-term consequences. There has been a lot of research【C3】______how we deal with the future.【C4】______, the famous marshmallow studies of Walter Mischel and colleagues showed that being able to resist【C5】______is predictive of future success. Four-year-old kids were given a marshmallow and were told that【C6】______they do not eat that marshmallow and wait for the experimenter to come back, they will get two marshmallows instead of one. Follow-up studies showed that the kids who were able to wait for the bigger future【C7】______became more successful young adults. Chen"s recent findings suggest that an unlikely【C8】______, language, strongly influences our future-oriented【C9】______Some languages strongly distinguish the present and the future【C10】______other languages can only weakly tell them apart. Chen"s recent research suggests that people who speak languages that weakly distinguish the present and the future are better【C11】______for the future. They accumulate more wealth and they are better able to【C12】______their health. The way these people conceive the future is similar【C13】______the way they conceive the present. As a result, the future does not feel very【C14】______and it is easier for them to act【C15】______their future interests. Chen analyzed individual-level data from 76 developed and developing countries. The analyses showed that speaking a language that does not have obligatory future markers, such as Mandarin, makes people accumulate more retirement【C16】______smoke less, exercise more, and【C17】______be healthier in older age. Language also has an impact on countries" national savings rates. Chen"s research shows that language【C18】______our future-related thoughts. And the research also points at the possibility that the way we talk about the future can shape our mindsets. Language can【C19】______the future back and forth in our mental space and this might have significant【C20】______on our judgments and decisions.

It only takes ten minutes, but reading your baby a bedtime story could yield benefits for years to come, scientists said today. Research shows that children who are【C1】______to a lot are faster at understanding words. This【C2】______processing helps them do better at school— and could【C3】______help them get a good job, have a happy【C4】______and keep on the right side of the law. Psychologist Anne Fernald said that the effects are so【C5】______that talking to children should be【C6】______as importantly as feeding them. And it is never too【C7】______to start. Dr Fernald said: "【C8】______you want your kid to do well in school, talk to them【C9】______a baby. If you bring a child into the world, we【C10】______the responsibility for feeding them, keeping them clean and keeping them safe. I think we now have enough scientific evidence to add something else to that list—and that is【C11】______learning from infancy on. Long before your baby is speaking, it is【C12】______information about language." In a series of studies on babies, Dr Fernald showed that there are big differences in how quickly children process words. Speedy processing is important【C13】______it frees up the brain to think about the next word—or the world【C14】______. Dr Fernald said: "You are building a mind that can conceptualize and【C15】______and think about the past and think about the future." She also showed that children who are【C16】______at understanding words tend to hear more words at home. In her studies, some【C17】______had as few as 600 words a day directly talked to them. To put this in【C18】______, the average adult speaks around 200 words a minute. Other children heard more than 12,000 words. Dr Fernald has also shown that children who can quickly process words at the age of two do better at school at the age of eight. Other research has shown that children who do well in【C19】______school are more likely to go onto higher education, get a good job, re-mam married and stay out of【C20】______.

BPart BDirections: Write an essay of 160-200 words based on the following information./B

BPart B/B

Warren Buffett, who will host Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholders' meeting on May 3rd, is an icon of American capitalism. At 83, he also epitomizes a striking demographic【C1】______: for highly skilled people to go on working well into【C2】______was once thought to be old age. Across the rich world,well-educated people【C3】______work longer than the less-skilled. Some 65% of American men aged 62-74 with a professional degree are in the【C4】______, compared with 32% of men with only a high-school certificate. In the European Union the pattern is similar. This【C5】______is part of a deepening divide between the well-educated【C6】______and the unskilled poor that is slicing【C7】______all age groups. Rapid innovation has raised the incomes of the highly skilled while【C8】______those of the unskilled. Those at the top are working longer hours each year than those at the bottom.【C9】______the well-qualified are extending their working lives, compared with those of less-educated people. The【C10】______, for individuals and society,are profound. The world is on the【C11】______rise in the number of old people, and they will live longer than ever before.【C12】______the next 20 years the global population of those aged 65 or more will almost double, from 600m to 1.1 billion. The【C13】______of the 20th century, when greater longevity translated into more years in retirement【C14】______more years at work, has persuaded many observers that this shift will【C15】______slower economic growth and "secular stagnation" , while the【C16】______ranks of pensioners will bust government budgets. But the notion of a sharp division between the working young and the【C17】______old misses a new trend, the【C18】______gap between the skilled and the unskilled. Employment rates are falling among younger unskilled people,【C19】______older skilled folk are working longer. The divide is most extreme in America, where well-educated baby-boomers are【C20】______retirement while many less-skilled younger people have dropped out of the workforce.

Tropical rain pounds on the roof of a cavernous warehouse near Jakarta, Indonesia's capital. Inside , youngsters in orange T-shirts haul around clothes, luggage and electrical goods for Lazada, an e-commerce firm, which has just moved in. The 12,000 square metre space is three times the size of the old one, but it already looks full. Three years ago Lazada's entire stock filled a storeroom the size of a studio flat, recalls Magnus Ekbom, its twenty-something boss in Indonesia. Internet shopping accounts for less than 1 % of all purchases in South-East Asia—a region twice as populous as America, where the proportion is nearly 10%. But surging smartphone use and a broadening middle class mean the market is set to multiply; perhaps five fold by 2018,reckons Frost & Sullivan, a consulting firm. Since it launched in 2012 Lazada has laid claim to six South-East Asian countries, largely unchallenged by e-commerce giants such as Amazon of the United States, Alibaba of China and Rakuten of Japan. It may soon have to fight them for its territory. Lazada was created by Rocket Internet, a Berlin-based investor that helps out startups designed to dominate emerging markets. Rocket still holds a 24% stake, though Lazada has now raised more than $ 600m from investors including Tesco, a British grocer, and Temasek, a Singaporean sovereign-wealth fund. These deals appear to value it at about $ 1.3 billion, which could well make it South-East Asia's dearest technology firm. Like other Rocket companies, Lazada is run by a group of young European emigrants, plucked from finance and consulting. It seems ready to stomach years of losses. In the first half of 2014—the only recent period for which results are available—it lost $ 50m before interest and tax, on revenues of $ 60m. Again like other Rocket companies, its critics say it is just a copycat, in this case a mere clone of Amazon. Lazada's bosses say such charges underestimate the sophistication and ambition required to succeed in places such as Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Online marketing is trickier there than in America or Europe, because locals use a much wider variety of search and social-media sites. The region's diversity means constant adjustment of online portals to suit local languages and cultures. It also means battling a hotch-potch of customs rules.

For many people, emotions are a scary thing. 【C1】______of the problem is that we just don't know what to do with them, according to Darlene Mininni, Ph. D, author of The Emotional Toolkit. So we adopt the only strategies we【C2】______know. If you're a man, you might distract yourself【C3】______playing video games, tinkering with your tools or drinking alcohol, she said. If you're a woman, you might shop or eat. 【C4】______to these tools occasionally is OK, Mininni said. Making them part of your regular coping repertoire, however, is problematic. Emotions are valuable, and【C5】______a bounty of benefits. Emotions send us important messages and help us connect with others and accomplish great things, Mininni said. Using【C6】______strategies, however, can sabotage our relationships, job and even our health, Mininni said. In fact, people who handle stress effectively have healthier immune systems, don't get sick as often and age【C7】______16 years more slowly than people who don't. There's actually【C8】______consensus on what an emotion is, and scientists may have various interpretations. Mininni【C9】______emotions as a "full-body experience," an interplay between our thoughts and physical sensations. For instance, a kind of giddy happiness and anxiety have the same sensations, such as tight muscles and a【C10】______heart. What determines whether we feel happy or anxious are our thoughts. Mininni said that all emotions【C11】______into these categories: anxiety, sadness, anger and happiness. In order to identify the【C12】______of your emotion, ask yourself these questions: Anxiety: What am I afraid of? Sadness; What have I lost? Anger: How have I or my values been attacked? Happiness; What have I gained? Once you've identified your emotional state, the last step is to take【C13】______. Ask yourself if there's anything you can do to solve the situation, Mininni said. If there is, consider what you can do. If there's【C14】______you can do, determine how you can cope with the emotion, she said. Mininni suggested meditating, getting social support, writing, exercising and seeking therapy. Think of these strategies as an emotional toolkit. You simply【C15】______your kit, and pick out the healthy tool you need, Mininni said. In fact, you can create an real toolkit, and pack it with【C16】______items such as sneakers, your journal, funny films, favorite books and a list of people you'd like to call when you're【C17】______. The strategies that work best will【C18】______with each person, depending on your personality, physiology and other individual factors, Mininni said. For some people, running works wonders in alleviating anxiety. For others, meditation is【C19】______. Emotions may seem confusing and threatening but applying the above practical and clear-cut approach reveals emotions for【C20】______they really are; useful, informative and far from murky.

Readthefollowingtextandmatcheachofthenumbereditemsintheleftcolumntoitscorrespondinginformationintherightcolumn.Therearetwoextrachoicesintherightcolumn.MarkyouranswersontheANSWERSHEET.(10points)Expertshavelongknownthatchildrenimitatemanyofthedeeds—goodandbad—thattheyseeontelevision.Butithasrarelybeenshownthatchangingayoungchild'sviewinghabitsathomecanleadtoimprovedbehavior.InastudypublishedMondayinthejournalPediatrics,researchersreportedtheresultsofaprogramdesignedtolimittheexposureofpreschoolchildrentoviolence-ladenvideosandtelevisionshowsandincreasetheirtimewitheducationalprogrammingthatencouragesempathy.Theyfoundthattheexperimentreducedthechildren'saggressiontowardothers,comparedwithagroupofchildrenwhowereallowedtowatchwhatevertheywanted."Herewehaveanexperimentthatproposesapotentialsolution,"saidThomasRobinson,aprofessorofpediatricsatStanford,whowasnotinvolvedinthestudy."Givingthisintervention—exposingkidstolessadulttelevision,lessaggressionontelevisionandmoreprosocialtelevision—willhaveaneffectonbehavior."Whiletheresearchshowed"asmalltomoderateeffect"onthepreschoolers'behavior,headded,thebroaderpublichealthimpactcouldbe"verymeaningful."Thenewstudywasarandomizedtrial,rareinresearchontheeffectsofmediaonchildren.Theresearchers,atSeattleChildren'sResearchInstituteandtheUniversityofWashington,divided565parentsofchildrenages3to5intotwogroups.Bothweretoldtotracktheirchildren'smediaconsumptioninadiarythattheresearchersassessedforviolent,didacticandprosocialcontent,whichtheydefinedasshowingempathy,helpingothersandresolvingdisputeswithoutviolence.Thecontrolgroupwasgivenadviceonlyonbetterdietaryhabitsforchildren.Thesecondgroupofparentsweresentprogramguideshighlightingpositiveshowsforyoungchildren.Theyalsoreceivednewslettersencouragingparentstowatchtelevisionwiththeirchildrenandaskquestionsduringtheshowsaboutthebestwaystodealwithconflict.Theparentsalsoreceivedmonthlyphonecallsfromtheresearchers,whohelpedthemsettelevision-watchinggoalsfortheirpreschoolers.Theresearcherssurveyedtheparentsatsixmonthsandagainafterayearabouttheirchildren'ssocialbehavior.Aftersixmonths,parentsinthegroupreceivingadviceabouttelevision-watchingsaidtheirchildrenweresomewhatlessaggressivewithothers,comparedwiththoseinthecontrolgroup.Thechildrenwhowatchedlessviolentshowsalsoscoredhigheronmeasuresofsocialcompetence,adifferencethatpersistedafteroneyear.Low-incomeboysshowedthemostimprovement,thoughtheresearcherscouldnotsaywhy.Totalviewingtimedidnotdifferbetweenthetwogroups."Thekeymessageforparentsisit'snotjustaboutturningofftheTV;it'saboutchangingthechannel,"saidDr.DimitriChristakis,theleadauthorofthestudyandaprofessorofpediatricsattheUniversityofWashington.Thenewstudyhaslimitations,expertsnoted.Dataonboththechildren'stelevisionhabitsandtheirbehaviorwasreportedbytheirparents,whomaynotbeobjective.Andthestudyfocusedonlyonmediacontentinthehome,althoughsomepreschool-agedchildrenareexposedtoprogrammingelsewhere.

Directions: 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. 很多人认为学语言是非常需要天赋的。当人们试图表达他们对语言天赋看法时，有的人会说，没有天赋就难以学好外语。你的看法如何?

Now that the economy is at last growing again, the burning issue in Britain is the cost of living. Prices have exceeded wages for the past six years. But the thing that is really out of control is the cost of housing. In the past year wages have risen by 1% ; property prices are up by 8.4%. This is merely the latest in a long surge. If since 1971 the price of groceries had risen as steeply as the cost of housing, a chicken would cost ￡ 51($ 83). By subsidising mortgages, and thus boosting demand, the government is aggravating the problem. But that is not the main reason for rising prices. Driven by a baby-boom, immigration and longer lives, Britain"s population is growing by around 0. 8% per year, faster than in most rich countries. Foreign wealth, in the meantime, is pouring into London. If supply were rising fast too, increasing demand would not matter; but it is not. Though some 221,000 additional households are formed in England annually, just 108,000 homes were built in the year to September 2013. The lack of housing is an economic drag. About three-quarters of English job growth last year was in London and its inland, but high prices make it hard for people to move there from less favoured spots. It also damages lives. New British homes are smaller than those anywhere else in Europe, household size is rising in London and slums are spreading as immigrants squash into shared houses(and, sometimes, garden sheds). Inequality is growing, because the higher property prices are, the greater the advantage that belongs to those whose parents own their homes. This is all the result of deliberate policymaking. Since the 1940s house-building in Britain has been regulated by a system designed to prevent urban sprawl, something it has achieved well. It is almost impossible to construct any new building anywhere without permission from the local council. In the places where people most want to live—suburbs at the edge of big cities—councils tend not to give it.

After decades of worsening diets and sharp increases in obesity, Americans' eating habits have begun changing for the better. Calories consumed daily by the typical American adult, which peaked around 2003, are in the midst of their first sustained decline since federal statistics began to track the subject, more than 40 years ago. The declines cut across most major demographic groups—including higher- and lower-income families, and blacks and whites—though they vary somewhat by group. In the most striking shift, the amount of full-calorie soda drunk by the average American has dropped 25 percent since the late 1990s. As calorie consumption has declined, obesity rates appear to have stopped rising for adults and school-aged children and have come down for the youngest children, suggesting the calorie reductions are making a difference. The reversal appears to stem from people's growing realization that they were harming their health by eating and drinking too much. The awareness began to build in the late 1990s, thanks to a burst of scientific research about the costs of obesity, and to public health campaigns in recent years. The encouraging data does not mean an end to the obesity epidemic: More than a third of American adults are still considered obese, putting them at increased risk of diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Americans are still eating far too few fruits and vegetables and far too much junk food, even if they are eating somewhat less of it, experts say. But the changes in eating habits suggest that what once seemed an inexorable decline in health may finally be changing course. Since the mid-1970s, when American eating habits began to rapidly change, calorie consumption had been on a near-steady incline. Barry Popkin, a University of North Carolina professor who has studied food data extensively, described the development as a "turning point". There is no perfect way to measure American calorie consumption. But three large sources of data about diet all point in the same direction. Detailed daily food diaries tracked by government researchers, data from food bar codes and estimates of food production all show reductions in the calories consumed by the average American since the early 2000s. Those signals, along with the flattening of the national obesity rate, have convinced many public health researchers that the changes are meaningful.

Directions: Two months ago you got a job as an editor for the magazine Designs use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write the address. (10 points )

Throughout this long, tense election, everyone has focused on the presidential candidates and how they'll change America. Rightly so. But selfishly, I'm more fascinated by Michelle Obama and what she might be able to do, not just for this country, but for me as an African-American woman. As the potential First Lady, she would have the world's attention. And that means that for the first time people will have a chance to get up close and personal with the type of African-American woman they so rarely see. Usually, the lives of black women go largely unexamined. The prevailing theory seems to be that we're all hot-tempered single mothers who can't keep a man. Even in the world of make-believe, black women still can't escape the stereotype of being eye-rolling, oversexed females raised by our never-married, alcoholic (酗酒的) mothers. These images have helped define the way all black women are viewed, including Michelle Obama. Before she ever gets the chance to commit to a cause, charity or foundation as First Lady, her most urgent and perhaps most complicated duty may be simply to be herself. It won't be easy. Because few mainstream publications have done in-depth features on regular African-American women, little is known about who we are, what we think and what we face on a regular basis. For better or worse, Michelle will represent us all. Just as she will have her critics, she will also have millions of fans who usually have little interest in the First Lady. Many African-American blogs have written about what they'd like to see Michelle bring to the White House—mainly showing the world that a black woman can support her man and raise a strong black family. Michelle will have to work to please everyone—an impossible task. But for many African-American women like me, just a little of her poise(沉着) , confidence and intelligence will go a long way in changing an image that's been around for far too long.

The human voice, like any sound produced by thrumming a stretched string, has a fundamental frequency. For voice, the centre of that frequency lies mostly below 300Hz depending on the speaker"s sex. Information is conveyed through simultaneous higher-frequency overtones(泛音)and additional components that can stretch up to 20,000 Hz(20kHz). Modern hearing aids are able to distinguish only a small part of that range, typically between 300Hz and 6kHz, reducing noise and amplifying those frequencies where the wearer"s hearing is the weakest. But differentiating elements of many common parts of speech occur in higher frequencies. This is the result both of harmonics(和声)that ripple out from the main tone, and from non-voiced elements used to utter consonants(辅音), which employ the tongue, teeth, cheeks and lips. Take the words "sailing" and "failing". Cut off the higher frequencies and the two are indistinguishable. The problem is compounded on telephone calls, which do not transmit frequencies below 300Hz or above 3.3kHz. People with hearing aids experience this problem constantly, says Brian Moore of the University of Cambridge. Typical hearing loss tends to be most acute at frequencies above 10kHz, which contain quieter sounds but where speech can still include important cues. Older hearing aids cut off at no higher than 6kHz, but much modern equipment stretches this range to 8-10kHz. However, a problem remains, Dr Moore says, because bespoke hearing-aid calibrations for individual users, called "fittings" , do not properly boost the gain of these higher frequencies. So Dr Moore and his colleagues have come up with a better method. Their approach can be applied to many existing devices, and is also being built into some newer ones. A key step in any fitting involves testing an individual"s ability to hear sounds in different frequency bands. Each hearing loss is unique, and for most users a standard profile would be too loud in some ranges and too soft in others. But current tests pay scant attention to the higher frequencies that a device"s tiny speaker can produce, regardless of whether the user needs a boost. Dr Moore"s new test, known as CAM2, which is both a set of specifications and an implementation in software, extends and modifies fittings to include frequencies as high as 10kHz. When the results are used to calibrate a modern hearing aid, the result is greater intelligibility(可懂度)of speech compared with existing alternatives. CAM2 also improves the experience of listening to music, which makes greater use of higher frequencies than speech does.

It is a good time to be a fisherman. The global fish-price index of the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) hit a record high in May. Changing consumer diets, particularly in China, explain much of the sustained upward movement. High oil prices, which increase the cost of fishing and transportation, also add to the price of putting fish on the table. Not all fish are created equal, however. There are two types offish production; "capture" (or wild) and "aquaculture" (or farmed). And they seem to be on different tracks. Fish such as tuna, the majority of which is caught wild, saw much bigger price increases than salmon, which is easier to farm. Overall, the FAO's price index for wild fish nearly doubled between 1990 and 2012, whereas the one for farmed fish rose by only a fifth. What explains this big difference? The amount of wild fish captured globally has barely changed in the past two decades. The ceiling, of about 90m tonnes a year, seems to have been reached at the end of the 1980s. Overfishing is one reason, as is the limited room for productivity growth, particularly if consumers want high quality. Patrice Guillotreau of the University of Nantes tells the story of a fleet in France that decided to trawl, rather than line-catch, its tuna. It brought more back to shore, but the fish were damaged. It could not be sold as high-value fillets and was only good for canning. The old ways of catching fish are still best if you want the highest profits, says Mr Guillotreau. In contrast, the farmed-fish industry continues to make productivity improvements. Fish farms have found crafty ways to use lower quantities of fish meal as feed. In the early days of aquaculture, it could take up to ten pounds of wild fish to produce one pound of salmon. Now the number is down to five. That may still be an inefficient use of protein, but the ratio is set to improve further. Fish farms have also become more energy-efficient, meaning that they are less affected by higher energy prices. And they have learned how to handle diseases better, reducing the quantity of fish that ends up being unsellable. As a result of all these improvements, the global production of farmed fish, measured in tonnes, now exceeds the production of beef. Output is likely to continue growing: the FAO estimates that by 2020 it will reach six times its 1990 level.

The average British people get six-and-a-half hours" sleep a night, according to the Sleep Council. It has been known for some time that the amount of sleep people get has,【C1】______declined over the years. But【C2】______the average amount of sleep we are getting has fallen, rates of obesity and diabetes have soared. Could the two be connected? We wanted to see what the【C3】______would be of increasing average sleep by just one hour. So we asked seven volunteers, who【C4】______sleep anywhere between six and nine hours, to be【C5】______at the University of Surrey"s Sleep Research Centre. The volunteers were randomly【C6】______to two groups. One group was asked to sleep for six-and-a-half hours a night, the other got seven-and-a-half hours. After a week the researchers took blood tests and the volunteers were asked to switch sleep【C7】______. The group that had been sleeping six-and-a-half hours got an【C8】______hour, the other group slept an hour less. Computer tests designed to measure brain wave activity【C9】______that most of them struggled with mental agility tasks when they had less sleep, but the most interesting results came from the blood tests that were【C10】______. Dr Simon Archer and his team at Surrey University were【C11】______interested in looking at the genes that were switched on or off in our volunteers【C12】______changes in the amount that we had made them sleep. "We found that【C13】______there were around 500 genes that were affected," Archer【C14】______. "Some which were going up, and some which were going down." What they discovered is that when the volunteers【C15】______back from seven-and-a-half to six-and-a-half hours" sleep a night, genes that are【C16】______with processes like immune response and response to stress became more【C17】______The team also saw increase in the activity of genes related to diabetes and risk of cancer. The【C18】______happened when the volunteers added an hour of sleep. So the clear【C19】______from this experiment was that if you are getting less than seven hours" sleep a night and can alter your sleep habits, even one hour more, it could make you【C20】______.

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

Web art has been "accepted" by traditional institutions, critics and thus the general public because it "fits" into our culture and society, a society which has been groomed by postmodern ideals. Thus web art has not been subjected to "cultural limbo" as photography had for a century and a half by the constraints imposed by modernism. The postmodernists embraced the idea that technology, especially reproductive mediums, would radically affect the perception of art. The rejection of traditional notions created a strong affinity towards new genres for postmodernists. The support given by postmodernism to technological art forms has played an important role in redefining the value of web-based mediums today. The nature of web-based art facilitates this acceptance. The infinite reproducibility of the web art form reaffirms postmodern deconstruction of the "unique existence" of the art object and thus its exuded authority and authentic value. Web art has crossed the boundaries of what was once the "unreproducibility of the aesthetic original" and introduced a world that exists free from the concept of either the original or the copy. Web art also elevates the viewer to the level of interactive creator and thus promote the process of artistic realization. Because of the interactive nature of web art, the viewer has ultimately replaced the artist, thus confirming Barthes' theory of "death of the author". The existence of web art in a non-physical, temporal realm also contributes to the rejection of the modern value of the spatial art object. The audience understands the virtuality of this technology as it pervades daily life on the net. Finally, the inherent makeup of the Internet as a catalog of information, coded language, and raw data, allows web art to present art as text and equally text as art. The limitless interchangeability of text and web art constitutes the revelation of postmodern theorists that the meaning of art can only be found through the relationship of the "world outside the text that is nevertheless inscribed in the text". Postmodern ideals set forth the current society's methodology of valuing art and thus new art forms. It is because web art so accurately mirrors the canons of postmodernism, that it is such a favored form in the art world. Web art's acceptance and popularity exist because it is a concept as much as it is a "tool". Web art, like photography, is an instrument reiterating the values posed by postmodernists in order to reject traditional mediums. The opposition of tradition powers our society forward to seek out new ways to explain old ideas and explore new questions that pervade our environment.