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.

BSection III Writing/B

If this weekend is yawning ahead of you, offering nothing but the same old routines and household duties, then don't despair: boredom is good for you, a new study claims. Far from【C1】______the mind and leading to a lack of productivity, boredom can【C2】______people to seek out ways of being selfless and to engage in prosocial tasks,【C3】______uneasy ones such as giving blood. "Bored people feel that their actions are【C4】______and so they are motivated to engage in meaningful behavior," said Wjjnand van Tilburg, co-author of the paper, A Pragmatic Meaning—Regulation Hypothesis on Boredom and Prosocial Behavior. If prosocial behavior【C5】______this requirement, boredom promotes prosocial behavior. " Investigating the link between boredom and prosocial behavior is not only highly【C6】______but also counter-intuitive," said Van Tilburg, "Past research has【C7】______boredom almost exclusively with disgusting correlates,【C8】______closer inspection suggests a much richer【C9】______of potential consequences that may well go beyond merely negative outcomes, such as prosocial behavior. Boredom makes people【C10】______different and purposeful activities, and as a result they turn towards more challenging and meaningful activities, turning towards what they【C11】______to be really meaningful in life. Of course, this does not mean that boredom is necessary for prosocial behavior. It is one positive【C12】______of an utterly negative experience, demonstrating the【C13】______character of how people attempt to re-establish a【C14】______of meaningfulness." The paper has been【C15】______by Adrian Savage, an editor at the online life coach site. "Being bored turns your mind【C16】______and encourages reflection. When you're rushing【C17】______there's no time to think. When you're bored, there's nothing else to do but think," he said. "Boredom is nearly always【C18】______to creativity. It isn't true that creativity is mostly【C19】______by having a specific problem to be solved. It's far more likely to arise because the person is bored with the way something has been done a thousand times before and wants to try something new. Boredom stimulates the search for better【C20】______to things like nothing else does."

BPart ADirections: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D./B

Suppose the Student's Union in your department is holding an end-of-semester party on July 11. Write an invitation letter to Mr. Black, the dean, and invite him to join you. Let him know the time and place and what he is expected to do at the party. 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)

BPart ADirections: Write a composition/letter of no less than 100 words on the following information./B

It"s a safe bet that David Joyce knows more than you did when you were his birth age. That"s not hard, since what you knew back then was pretty much nothing at all. You knew warmth, you knew darkness, you knew a sublime, drifting peace. You had been conceived 29 weeks earlier, and if you were like most people, you had 11 weeks to go before you reached your fully formed 40. It was only then that you"d emerge into the storm of stimuli that is the world. No such luck for David. He was born on Jan. 28—well shy of his April 16 due date—in an e-mergency cesarean(剖腹产的)section after his mother had begun bleeding heavily. He weighed 2 lb. 11 oz. , or 1,200g, and was just 15 in.(38cm)tall. An American Girl doll is 3 in.(8cm)taller. Immediately, he began learning a lot of things—about bright lights and cold hands, needle sticks and loud noises. He learned what it feels like to be hungry, to be frightened, to be unable to breathe. What all this meant was that if David wanted to stay alive, he"d have to work hard at it, and he was. Take drinking from a bottle—which he had never tried until a morning in late March, at the neonatal intensive care unit(NICU)of the Children"s Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. David had spent every day of his then seven-week life there, in the company of 58 other very fragile babies being looked after by a round-the-clock SWAT team of nearly 300 nutritionists, pharmacologists, pulmonary specialists, surgeons, nurses and dietitians and, for when the need arises, a pair of chaplains. Under their care, he had grown to 18. lin.(46cm)and weighed 51b. 11.5 oz.(2594g), nourished by breast milk from his mother, which was fed to him through a nasogastric tube(鼻胃管)threaded through his nose to his stomach. David"s father and mother live 90 minutes away in Randolph, Wis. They had been at the hospital every day after work for 51 days straight at that point—a three-hour round-trip—to spend a few more hours with David.

Writeanessaybasedonthefollowingtable.Inyourwriting,youshould1)interpretthetable,and2)giveyourcomments.Youshouldwriteabout150wordsontheANSWERSHEET.(15points)

BPart CDirections: Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese./B

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

As a wise man once said, we are all ultimately alone. But an increasing number of Europeans are choosing to be so at an ever earlier age. This isn't the stuff of gloomy philosophical contemplations, but a fact of Europe' s new economic landscape, embraced by sociologists, real-estate developers and ad executives alike. The shift away from family life to solo lifestyle, observes a French sociologist, is part of the "irresistible momentum of individualism" over the last century. The communications revolution, the shift from a business culture of stability to one of mobility and the mass entry of women into the workforce have greatly wreaked havoc on Europeans private lives. Europe's new economic climate has largely fostered the trend toward independence. The current generation of home-aloners came of age during Europe's shift from social democracy to the sharper, more individualistic climate of American-style capitalism. Raised in an era of privatization and increased consumer choice, today's tech-savvy workers have embraced a free market in love as well as economics. Modern Europeans are rich enough to afford to live alone, and temperamentally independent enough to want to do so. Once upon a time, people who lived alone tended to be those on either side of marriage twenty something professionals or widowed senior citizens. While pensioners, particularly elderly women, make up a large proportion of those living alone, the newest crop of singles are high earners in their 30s and 40s who increasingly view living alone as a lifestyle choice. Living alone was conceived to be negative—dark and cold, while being together suggested warmth and light. But then came along the idea of singles. They were young, beautiful, strong! Now, young people want to live alone. The booming economy means people are working harder than ever. And that doesn't leave much room for relationships. Pimpi Arroyo, a 35-year-old composer who lives alone in a house in Paris, says he hasn' t got time to get lonely because he has too much work. "I have deadlines which would make life with someone else fairly difficult." Only an Ideal Woman would make him change his lifestyle, he says. Kaufmann, author of a recent book called "The Single Woman and Prince Chaining" thinks this fierce new individualism means that people expect more and more of mates, so relationships don't last long—if they start at all. Eppendorf, a blond Berliner with a deep tan, teaches grade school in the mornings. In the afternoon she sunbathes or sleeps, resting up for going dancing. Just shy of 50, she says she'd never have wanted to do what her mother did—give up a career to raise a family. Instead, "I've always done what I wanted to do: live a self-determined life."

Zhu Guang, a 25-year-old product tester, is a university graduate, the only child of a pair of factory workers in Shanghai. He works for Lenovo, one of China's leading computer-makers. He earns 4,000 yuan a month after tax and says he feels like a faceless drone at work. He eats at the office canteen and goes home at night to a rented, 20-square-metre room in a shared flat, where he plays online games. He does not have a girlfriend or any prospect of finding one. "Lack of confidence" , he explains when asked why not. Like millions of others, he mockingly calls himself a di-aosi. Vividly it is a declaration of powerlessness in an economy where it is getting harder for the regular guy to succeed. Calling himself by this nickname is a way of crying out, "like Gandhi" , says Mr Zhu, " It is a quiet form of protest. "

BPart ADirections: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D./B

ThetablesandpiechartshowinpercentagetermstheresultsofasurveyofanewshoppingcomplexinLondon.Summarizetheinformationbyselectingandreportingthemainfeatures,andmakecomparisonswhererelevant.Youshouldwriteabout150wordsontheANSWERSHEET.(15points)

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. 有的人认为政府应该在每个城镇设立免费的图书馆。但是另一些人认为这样做是浪费资金，因为公众可以利用家里的因特网来获得需要的信息，而不必去图书馆。你的看法如何?

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 a wise father that knows his own child, but today a man can boost his paternal (fatherly) wisdom — or at least confirm that he' s the kid' s dad. All he needs to do is to shell out $30 for paternity testing kit (PTK) at his local drugstore — and another $120 to get the results. More than 60 000 people have purchased the PTKs since they first become available without prescriptions last year, according to Doug Fogg, chief operating officer of Identigene, which makes the over-the-counter(无需处方的) kits. More than two dozen companies sell DNA tests directly to the public, ranging in price from a few hundred dollars to more than $2 500. Among the most popular: paternity and kinship (亲属关系) testing, which adopted children can use to find their biological relatives and families can use to track down kids put up for adoption. DNA testing is also the latest rage among passionate genealogists (系谱学者)— and supports businesses that offer to search for a family' s geographic roots. Most tests require collecting cells by swabbing saliva (唾液) in the mouth and sending it to the company for testing. All tests require a potential candidate with whom to compare DNA. But some observers are skeptical. "There's a kind of false precision being hawked by people claiming they are doing ancestry testing," says Troy Duster, a New York University sociologist. He notes that each individual has many ancestors — numbering in the hundreds just a few centuries back. Yet most ancestry testing only considers a single lineage, either the Y chromosome(染色体) inherited through men in a father' s line or mitochondrial (线粒体的) DNA, which is passed down only from mothers. This DNA can reveal genetic information about only one or two ancestors, even though, for example, just three generations back people also have six other great-grandparents or, four generations back, 14 other great-great-grandparents. Critics also argue that commercial genetic testing is only as good as the reference collections to which a sample is compared. Databases used by some companies don't rely on data collected systematically but rather lump together information from different research projects. This means that a DNA database may have a lot of data from some regions and not others, so a person's test results may differ depending on the company that processes the results. In addition, the computer programs a company uses to estimate relationships may be patented and not subject to peer review or outside evaluation.

BPart CDirections: Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese./B

Some houses are designed to be smart. Others have smart designs. An example of the second type of house won an Award of Excellence from the American Institute of Architects. Located on the shore of Sullivan's Island off the coast of South Carolina, the award-winning cube-shaped beach house was built to replace one smashed to pieces by Hurricane Hugo 10 years ago. In September 1989, Hugo struck South Carolina, killing 18 people and damaging or destroying 36 000 homes in the state. Before Hugo, many new houses built along South Carolina's shoreline were poorly constructed, and enforcement of building codes wasn't strict, according to architect Ray Huff, who created the cleverly-designed beach house. In Hugo's wake, all new shoreline houses are required to meet stricter, better-enforced codes. The new beach house on Sullivan's Island should be able to withstand a Category 3 hurricane with peak winds of 179 to 209 kilometers per hour. At first sight, the house on Sullivan's Island looks anything but hurricane-proof. Its redwood shell makes it resemble "a large party lantern" at night, according to one observer. But looks can be deceiving. The house's wooden frame is reinforced with long steel rods to give it extra strength. To further protect the house from hurricane damage, Huff raised it 2. 7 meters off the ground on timber pilings—long, slender columns of wood anchored deep in the sand. Pilings might appear insecure, but they are strong enough to support the weight of the house. They also elevate the house above storm surges. The pilings allow the surges to run under the house instead of running into it. "These swells of water come ashore at tremendous speeds and cause most of the damage done to beach-front buildings." said Huff. Huff designed the timber pilings to be partially concealed by the house's ground-to-roof shell. "The shell masks the pilings so that the house doesn't look like it's standing with its pant legs pulled up." said Huff. In the event of a storm surge, the shell should break apart and let the waves rush under the house, the architect explained.

BPart CDirections: Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese./B