BPart B/B

If you can"t resist the chance to put on a bet, blame your insula—a region of your brain. Scientists think that when this brain area is overactive, the heart rules our head and we can"t help but【C1】______our losses. The Cambridge University researchers said: "Future treatments for gambling addiction could seek to reduce this overactivity, either by drugs or psychological techniques." The researchers made the【C2】______after asking people with various brain injuries and healthy people play slot machine and roulette (a gambling game). A near miss on the slot machines made the players,【C3】______those with the damaged insulas, extra-keen to try their luck again.【C4】______, all of the players, apart from those with faulty insulas, made a【C5】______mistake when playing roulette. Dr Luke Clark from the University of Cambridge, who led the research, explained that during gambling games, people often【C6】______their chances of winning【C7】______a number of errors of thinking called【C8】______distortions. For example, "near-misses" seem to encourage further play,【C9】______they are no different from any other loss. In a【C10】______sequence like tossing a coin, a【C11】______of one event (heads) makes people think the other【C12】______(tails) is due next; this is known as the "gambler"s fallacy". There is increasing【C13】______that problem gamblers are particularly prone to these erroneous beliefs. By studying these people, the researchers found that all of them—【C14】______the exception of the patients with insula damage—reported a【C15】______motivation to play following near-misses in the slot machine game, and also fell【C16】______to the gambler"s fallacy in the roulette game. The finding, which is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that the insula, which is【C17】______in gut feelings and decision-making, is key to the psychology of gambling. "Based on these results, we【C18】______that the insula could be overactive in problem gamblers, making them more【C19】______to these errors of thinking," said Dr Clarke. "Future treatments for gambling addiction could seek to reduce this overactivity, either by drugs or by psychological techniques like mindfulness【C20】______."

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

Getting a proper amount of rest is absolutely essential for building your energy resources. If you frequently work far into the night or have a poor sleep, it stands to reason that you may start to feel a little run down. Though everybody is different, most people need at least seven to eight hours of sleep per night in order to function at their best. If you have been lacking energy, try going to bed earlier at night. If you can wake up feeling well-rested, it will be an indication that you are starting to get an appropriate amount of sleep at night. If you sleep more than eight hours every night but still don't feel energetic, you may actually be getting too much sleep. Once in a while, you are bound to have nights where you don't get an adequate amount of sleep. When your schedule permits you can also consider taking a short sleep during the day, for sometimes taking a nap is the perfect way to recharge your batteries.

It is a commonplace among moralists that you cannot get happiness by pursuing it. This is only true if you pursue it【C1】______. Gamblers at Monte Carlo are pursuing money, and most of them lose it instead, but there are other ways of pursuing money, which often【C2】______. So it is with happiness. If you pursue it【C3】______drink, you are forgetting the hangover. Epicurus pursued it by living a life surrounded by friends and eating only dry bread,【C4】______by a little cheese on feast days. His【C5】______proved successful in his case, but he was not healthy, and most people would need something more【C6】______. For most people, the pursuit of happiness, 【C7】______supplemented in various ways, is too abstract and theoretical to be adequate【C8】______a personal rule of life. But I think that whatever personal rule of life you may choose it should not, except in rare and heroic cases, be incompatible with happiness. There are a great many people who have all the【C9】______conditions of happiness, i.e. health and a sufficient income, and who,【C10】______, are profoundly unhappy. In such cases it would seem as if the【C11】______must lie with a wrong theory as to how to live. In one sense, we may say that any theory as to how to live is wrong. We imagine ourselves more different from the animals than we are. Animals live on【C12】______, and are happy as long as external conditions are【C13】______. If you have a cat it will enjoy life if it has food and warmth and opportunities for a(n)【C14】______night on the tiles. Your needs are more complex than those of your cat, but they still have their basis in【C15】______. In civilized societies, especially in English-speaking societies, this is too【C16】______to be forgotten. People propose to themselves some one paramount objective, and【C17】______all impulses that do not minister to it. A businessman may be so【C18】______to grow rich that to this end he【C19】______health and private affections. When at last he has become rich, no【C20】______remains to him except pushing other people to imitate his noble example.

In a sweeping overall inspection of its $21 billion Medicaid program, the Florida Legislature approved a bill to shift nearly three million Medicaid recipients into managed-care programs【C1】______saving money and improving services. "Medicaid has grown faster than any other part of our budget," said State Senator Joe Negron, who took the【C2】______on the bill. "It is【C3】______out funding for education, economic development and other parts of the budget that are equally【C4】______." If signed into law as expected, the bill will make Florida,【C5】______one of the largest number of Medicaid patients and a high rate of those who are not insured, one of the biggest states to jump【C6】______entirely from a traditional Medicaid payment system into managed care. The bill, a【C7】______between the House and the Senate versions, would allow the state to decide how much to spend on Medicaid each year,【C8】______in the profits of managed-care companies if they exceed 5 percent and punish networks that【C9】______contracts. To help ensure【C10】______care for patients, the bill would【C11】______require plans to include specialists and provide higher refund rates to doctors. Patients would be charged $10 monthly premiums and $100【C12】______they showed up at the emergency room with a non-emergency. The state and managed -care companies would control which services to provide to Medicaid patients. In so doing, the legislation would【C13】______the existing fee-for-service system, in which the state pays providers for each service, a practice that has led to widespread care【C14】______. Refund rates have dropped so low that many doctors【C15】______not to treat Medicaid patients. The Legislature"s bill seeks to【C16】______those issues with the requirement that plans include specialists and the higher repayment rates to doctors. Another good news for doctors and hospitals is a【C17】______that limits the amount they would have to pay out in【C18】______caused by not proper practice, for pain and suffering to $300,000 for each Medicaid claimant. Senator Negron said the upper limit was【C19】______because doctors who treat Medicaid patients are basically providing a public service and should be【C20】______to do so.

Suppose your cousin Li Ming has just been admitted to a university. Write him/her a letter to 1)congratulate him/her, and2)give him/her suggestions on how to get prepared for university life. You should write about 100 words on ANSWER SHEET 2. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Zhang Wei" instead. Do not write your address.

Suppose you found a loop of keys in the library. Write a notice to 1) make it known, and 2) ask for claim at your dorm. You should write about 100 words on ANSWER SHEET 2. Do not use your own name at the end of the notice. Use "Li Ming" instead.

BSection III Writing/B

If the world"s education systems have a common focus, it is to turn out school-leavers who are proficient in maths. Governments are impressed by evidence from the World Bank and others that better maths results raises GDP and incomes. That, together with the soul-searching provoked by the cross-country PISA comparisons of 15-year-olds" mathematical attainment produced by the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries, is prompting educators in many places to look afresh at what maths to teach, and how to teach it. Those countries fret about how to catch up without turning students off the subject with boring drill. Top performers, most of them Asian, fear that their focus on technical proficiency does not translate into an enthusiasm for maths after leaving school. And everyone worries about how to prepare pupils for a jobs market that will reward creative thinking ever more highly. Maths education has been a battlefield before: the American "maths wars" of the 1980s pitted traditionalists, who emphasized fluency in pen-and-paper calculations, against reformers led by the country"s biggest teaching lobby, who put real-world problem-solving, often with the help of calculators, at the centre of the curriculum. A backlash followed as parents and academics worried that the "new maths" left pupils ill-prepared for university courses in maths and the sciences. But as many countries have since found, training pupils to pass exams is not the same as equipping them to use their hard-won knowledge in work and life. Today"s reformers think new technology renders this old argument redundant. They include Conrad Wolfram, who worked on Mathematica, a program which allows users to solve equations, visualize mathematical functions and much more. He argues that computers make rote procedures, such as long division, obsolete. "If it is high-level problem-solving and critical thinking we"re after, there"s not much in evidence in a lot of curriculums," he says.

BSection III Writing/B

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

According to certain beer commercials, the contemporary version of success【C1】______in moving up to a premium brand that costs a dime or so more per bottle. Credit-card companies would have you【C2】______success inheres in owning their particular piece of plastic. 【C3】______the flag of success, modern-style, liberal arts colleges are withering【C4】______business schools are burgeoning...and yet even business schools are having an increasingly hard time【C5】______faculty members, because teaching isn't【C6】______"successful" enough. Amid a broad consensus【C7】______there is a glut of lawyers and an epidemic of strangling litigation, record numbers of young people continue to flock to law school【C8】______, for the individual practitioner, a law degree is still considered a safe ticket. Many, by external【C9】______, will be "successes". Yet there is a deadening and dangerous flaw in their philosophy: It has little room, little sympathy and less respect for the noble failure, for the person who【C10】______past the limits, who【C11】______gloriously high and falls unashamedly【C12】______. That sort of ambition doesn't have much place in a world【C13】______success is proved by worldly reward【C14】______by accomplishment itself. That sort of ambition is increasingly thought of as the domain of irredeemable eccentrics,【C15】______people who haven't quite caught on—and there is great social pressure not to be one of them. The irony is that today's success-chasers seem obsessed with the idea of not settling. Yet in doggedly【C16】______the rather brittle species of success now in fashion, they are【C17】______themselves to a chokingly narrow swath of turf along the entire【C18】______of human possibilities. Does it ever【C19】______to them that, frequently, success is what people settle for【C20】______they can't think of something noble enough to be worth failing at?

Kentucky is famous mainly for fried chicken, bourbon and horse-racing. Few people think of it as a manufacturing powerhouse. But the bluegrass state is not only the third largest car manufacturer in America; thanks to its central location, it has become a huge logistics hub and now also ranks third among American states in air-cargo shipments. At the state"s Louisville airport, United Parcel Service"s 120-acre site resembles a giant Santa"s grotto, with parcels containing everything from food to medicines to cuddly toys racing around 155 miles of conveyor belts. When the facility was opened in 1982, it handled 2,000 packages every night; now it deals with that number every 17 seconds, mostly automatically. Seventy aeroplanes can be parked outside the hub"s five wings, and each can be loaded or unloaded in 20 minutes. Some 250 flights depart every day. The airport is no more than two hours" flight from 75% of America"s population and four hours from 95% of it. But only one in ten of UPS"s packages go by air. The state is within 600 miles of 60% of the nation"s population, so most of them travel by road. Trucks fan out not just from UPS"s facility but also from that of a rival delivery group, DHL, farther north. Being able to receive and send goods quickly makes all the difference to a business like Geek Squad, which has a site of 240,000 square feet just a few miles from Louisville, employing 1 ,350 staff. The company handles all the repairs for Best Buy, an electronics retailer. Customers hand in their phones and laptops at their local shop, from where they are trucked to the Louisville facility. The first delivery arrives at 5 am and the last truck leaves at 11 pm. Over half the products are sent back to the customers the next day. Nearby Cafe Press handles online orders for a wide range of customised goods, from T-shirts to mugs to wedding invitations. On Cyber Monday, just after Thanksgiving, it had 100,000 orders to fill. As well as UPS, Cafe Press uses Federal Express"s hub in Memphis, Tennessee, six hours" drive away. Good internet connections and cheap power are vital for the company. It has a backup server on site and enjoys the sixth-lowest power costs in the country, according to the Kentucky Association for Economic Development.

Writeanessaybasedonthefollowingchart.Inyourwriting,youshould1)interpretthechart,and2)giveyourcomments.Youshouldwriteabout150wordsontheANSWERSHEET.(15points)

In America we are raised to appreciate the accomplishments of inventors and thinkers—creative people whose ideas have transformed our world. We celebrate the famously imaginative, the greatest artists and innovators from van Gogh to Steve Jobs. Viewing the world creatively is supposed to be an asset, even a virtue. Online job boards burst with ads recruiting "idea people" and "out of the box" thinkers. We are taught that our own creativity will be celebrated as well, and that if we have good ideas, we will succeed. It's all a lie. This is the thing about creativity that is rarely acknowledged: Most people don't actually like it. Studies confirm what many creative people have suspected all along: People are biased against creative thinking, despite all of their insistence otherwise. We celebrate creative people, but the thing we celebrate is the after-effect.

Why do we need the English major? The【C1】______is in every mouth—or, at least, is discussed extensively in columns and【C2】______. The English major is vanishing from our colleges as the Latin vanished before it, we're told, a【C3】______choice bound to a dead subject. This spring at Pomona College, 16 students graduated【C4】______an English major out of a student body of 1,560, a terribly【C5】______number, and from other, similar schools, other, similar numbers. 【C6】______a number of defenses have been mounted, none of them, so far, terribly persuasive even to one【C7】______them to persuade. The defenses come in two kinds: one【C8】______that English majors make better people, the other that English majors (or at least humanities majors) make【C9】______better societies; that, as Christina Pax-son, the president of Brown University, just put it in The New Republic, "there are real, definite benefits to the humanistic【C10】______—to the study of history, literature, art, theater, music, and languages." We need the humanities, she explains patiently,【C11】______they may end up giving us other stuff we actually like: "We do not always know the future benefits of what we study and【C12】______should not rush to reject some forms of research as less【C13】______than others." The study of English, to be sure,【C14】______from its own discontents: it isn't a science, and so the "research" you do is not really research. So why have English majors? Well, because many people like books. Most of those like to talk about them after they've read them, or while they're in the middle. One might call this a natural or【C15】______consequence of literacy. And it's this living, irresistible, permanent interest in reading that【C16】______English departments, and makes【C17】______of English majors.【C18】______we closed down every English department in the country, loud, good, expert, or at least hyper-enthusiastic readers would still emerge. As one important branch of humanities, studying English won't be time-wasted. As Professor Paxson said, the humanities help us【C19】______life more and endure it better. The reason we need the humanities is because we're human. That's【C20】______.

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

You are going to read a list of headings and a text. Choose the most suitable heading from the list[A]to[G]for each numbered paragraph (41-45). There are two extra subheadings which you do not need to use. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET. ( 10 points)[A]Prepare for temptation. [B]Stay organized. [C]Prioritize your assignments. [D]Focus on what you do. [E]Find a productive study environment. [F]Study effectively. [G]Make a detailed schedule. When it comes to studying, managing your time is of the uttermost importance. You should determine how much time spent studying is enough, which varies from student to student and from one class to another. The following are some helpful tips on better managing your time. 【R1】______ Instead of just determining time to study in your head, make a subject-specific calendar and mark is so you can be reminded effectively. You will be more likely to follow through with your study plan if it is clearly marked on your calendar. Making a schedule and sticking to it will allow you to develop a routine that you can easily follow. Remember, you will have to revise your study schedule each semester to accommodate your class schedule and your other changing commitments. 【R2】______ Sorting out your assignments is a good way to ensure you spend the appropriate amount of time studying for each class or subject. Devote more time to studying subjects that are new to you or those in which your grade needs improvement. Also, remember to study the harder subjects first so that you tackle them with a fresh mind. Additionally, you should organize your studies with important tests or exams in mind. 【R3】______ You will inevitably be driven to distraction at some point, but don't get discouraged. Rather, learn from your mistakes, and look for patterns in the times you put off studying. Additionally, establish a way to reward yourself with fun activities after you finish a study session. This will give you the extra boost of energy to accomplish what you need to so you can enjoy spending time with your friends and family. 【R4】______ All students have a place where they are able to stay on task and maximize their time. Actually, some students find it ideal to study in a coffee shop or another place where there is background noise. Some students become more distracted when they study alone because there is no accountability. If you tend to stay on task when there are other students around who are devoting time exclusively to studying, go to these places at the right time. 【R5】______ Since you will be enrolled in several classes at a time, it is important that you systematize your class and study materials in a way that makes it easy to access them. Find a method that works for you, such as using a separate binder or folder for each class. Also, you don't want to interrupt your study session by searching your room for flash cards or notes. If you are taking online courses, figure out how to avoid wasting time sifting through your hard drive for course materials.

BSection III Writing/B