Suppose you failed to finish an important task assigned by Professor Liu because of a severe illness. Write him a letter to 1) express your apology, 2) explain your reason, and 3) ask for more time to finish the task. You should write about 100 words. Do not use your own name. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write your address.

Inthispart,youareaskedtowriteanessaybasedonthefollowingtable.Inyourwriting,youshould1)interpretthetableand2)giveyourcomments.Youshouldwriteatleast150words,WriteyouressayonANSWERSHEET2.(15points)

The new aircraft represents a $ 250m bet by Bombardier that Mexico could provide not just routine labour but manufacturing that depended on high-tech materials. It placed the bet, according to Michael McAdoo, head of global strategy, because it was seeing old European rivals go bust and new ones emerging in low-cost countries such as China and India. Workers in Wichita and Montreal complained. But Mr McAdoo says they came to realise that if outsourcing some manufacturing to Mexico ensured Bombardier"s future, it would safeguard their own jobs for years to come. A shared concern with employment is one of the reasons that politicians are starting to pay more attention to NAFTA(North American Free Trade Agreement), which in recent years has been failing to live up to its early promise. Rebooting the agreement tops the agenda at the meeting of the leaders of the three countries scheduled to take place in Mexico this February. " There"s a joint willingness among all three countries to relaunch the idea of North America, not just in terms of manufacturing, but in innovation and design," says Sergio Alcocer, under-secretary for North America in Mexico"s foreign ministry. In May 2013 Barack Obama—who in 2007, on the campaign trail, called NAFTA a "mistake" —trumpeted cross-border trade on a visit to Mexico, noting that the United States exports more to Mexico than to the BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India and China—combined. On a visit in September his vice-president, Joe Biden, dwelt on NAFTA"s untapped potential. The trade agreement was beginning to look out of date. There needed to be freer movement of "goods, people and information" across the borders, despite security worries. More shared infrastructure investment was necessary. He acknowledged that politicians had held up such improvements: " Make us do it," he urged business people and the public. In the United States, the potential of closer integration has been outweighed—at least in the eyes of politicians—by the fear of job losses, as well as illegal drugs, crime and immigration from Mexico. Canada, however, long ago started seeing Mexico as a rival in its relationship with the United States, rather than a partner. Mexico, in which almost half of the population lives in poverty, much the same level as 20 years ago, has mixed feelings.

If you have high blood pressure, you"re in good【C1】______. Hypertension affects 67 million Americans, including nearly two-thirds of people over age 60. But it isn"t an inevitable part of the aging【C2】______It"s better to think of it as【C3】______sodium poisoning. And, there"s a way to prevent the problem—and to save many, many lives. A lifetime of【C4】______too much sodium (mostly in the form of table salt) raises blood pressure, and high blood pressure kills and disables people by【C5】______strokes and heart attacks. In the United States, according to best estimates,【C6】______sodium is killing between 40,000 and 90,000 people and running up to $20 billion in medical costs a year. Americans on average【C7】______about 3,300 milligrams of sodium per day, but experts recommend less than 2,300 milligrams—and less than 1,500 milligrams for people over age 50, black people, or those who already have hypertension, diabetes or kidney disease, which【C8】______a majority of American adults. Either【C9】______is far below where most Americans are now. The reason that nearly everyone eats【C10】______too much sodium is that our food is loaded with it, and often where we don"t【C11】______or expect it. Of course ham and canned soup are full of salt, but so are many foods that are【C12】______: A blueberry cake can have more than double the salt of a serving of potato chips.【C13】______healthy-sounding food can pack【C14】______sodium loads. Many restaurant main courses have far more sodium than is recommended for an【C15】______day. Doctors warn people with high blood pressure to go on a low-salt diet, but that"s virtually impossible in today"s world,【C16】______nearly 80 percent of the sodium that Americans eat comes in【C17】______and restaurant food. You can"t take it out. And【C18】______everyone, not just people with hypertension【C19】______over food labels, should be taking in less sodium. The only way to prevent millions of Americans from developing high blood pressure is for companies and restaurants to stop loading up their food with sodium. It"s not easy,【C20】______it isn"t impossible either.

Directions: You bought a digital camera in a store last week, and you have found that there is something wrong with it. Write a letter to the store manager to explain the problem, express your complaints and suggest a solution. You should write about 100 words on ANSWER SHEET 2. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.(10 points)

Writeanessaybasedonthefollowingchart.Youshould1)describethechartand2)giveyourcomments.Youshouldwriteabout150wordsontheANSWERSHEET.(15points)

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

If you want to lose weight, but are not a fan of the gym, the results of a new study could offer a welcome alternative. People who wake up and go to bed at the same time every day are【C1】______than those with irregular sleep patterns, the study found. Researchers studied more than 300 women and found that those with the best—or most consistent—sleeping【C2】______had less body fat. The volunteers were【C3】______for body composition, and then were given an activity tracker to【C4】______their movements during the day, and their sleep patterns at night. The. study found that getting【C5】______than 6.5 hours, or more than 8.5 hours, sleep a night is【C6】______higher levels of body fat. Women with more than 90 minutes of variation in sleep and wake time during the week had higher body fat levels than those with less than 60 minutes of variation. Exercise science professor Bruce Bailey said【C7】______sleep quality can result in higher body fat【C8】______affecting the hormones levels【C9】______to appetite. He said: "We have these【C10】______clocks and throwing them off and not【C11】______them to get into a pattern does have a(an) 【C12】______on our physiology." He says there are ways to【C13】______sleep quality, such as【C14】______exercise, keeping your bedroom quiet and dark, and using beds only for sleeping. "Sleep is often a casualty of trying to do more and be better and it is often【C15】______," Professor Bailey said. Previous research from Temple University revealed that when people get a good night's sleep they don't feel so【C16】______They found that when children slept more, they【C17】______134 fewer calories a day and lost weight. These findings were supported by research from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota which also revealed that sleep【C18】______people eat more calories. The researchers studied 17 healthy young people and found that when they slept less they ate more. They believe this is【C19】______when the volunteers were tired, they had higher levels of the hormones leptin and ghrelin, both of which are【C20】______appetite.

It's midday, and your phone's battery is dangerously close to the 20 per cent mark. If you're like the majority of people, that red icon will leave you feeling panicked, annoyed and hunting for a spare charger. L Company has dubbed this condition "Low Battery Anxiety" and says that nearly 9 out of 10 people suffer from the fear of losing power on their phone. The company polled a random sample of more than 2,000 adult smartphone users in the US earlier this year. When it comes to choosing between hitting the gym or charging their smartphone, it found one in three people are likely to skip the gym. But millennials tend to have it worse— with 42 per cent likely to skip the gym when choosing between working out or charging their phone. Smart phone users will even "drop everything" and make a U-turn to head back home to charge their phone.

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

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】______.

BSection III Writing/B

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. 近年来，一些学生努力学习英语，但是却忽略了汉语的学习，认为它并不重要。这样下去势必会出现一些问题。你的看法如何?

The Nobel Prize is a mysterious incarnation of power and authority, an anointed ritual whose claims are accepted as part of the order of things. The Nobel Prize is at once a relic of the past and a self-admiring mirror of our democratized, scientized, secularized modern culture. After a century of existence, the Nobel has become a problematic part of modern history: it helps shape our perception of ourselves for better or worse. Like monarchy, the Nobel Prize surrounds itself with mystery and extraordinary secretiveness. Indeed, the media have more easily breached the privacy of the British royal family than that of the Nobel institution.The prizes present themselves as if handed down from eternity. But as even a cursory inspection will reveal, the juries that pick the laureates have often shown bias, lapses of judgment and bitter infighting. In the sciences, a number of quarrels, scandals, and even lawsuits have erupted over claims to priority or credit for collaborations honored by Nobles. And while widely admired, the science prizes have also been charged with swaying research goals and funding, however inadvertently, and more insidiously with corrupting scientific ambitions by the lure of Nobel fames. Such controversies, together with public dissent from several prizes, have been part of the Nobel history since its beginning. All prizes stir arguments; the Nobel's fame simply magnifies this hugely. The very glory and stature of the Nobel Prizes prompt some sharp questions. Should such high endeavors of the human spirit as science, literature, and peace be treated as competitions, however exalted? Should these priceless efforts be paid the enormous, though "honorary," price lavished on the winners? Would it matter if there never had been a Nobel Price? Or if it vanished tomorrow? The problem is that the prices are not merely awards and medals but are aspects of power woven into our lives: it was once and future Nobelists who built the nuclear bombs that still hang fatefully over us; Nobelists now play an important part in public and military policy. It is also true that the Nobel Prizes show modern fame: the Nobel Prize pays honor to some of the highest human adventures in nature and matter, creativity and justice. Where else, moreover, can both the unfamed and the general public find a replacement for the authority and coherence, to whatever degree, the Nobel has come to possess? In a world and age as inwardly fractured as ours this is a question not lightly dismissed.

[A]Crisis Seems Far [B]The Firm Is At Risk [C]More Rivals Join In [D]Natural Foods Are Unreal [E]Stop Buying Organic Foods [F]The Recall Makes Things Worse [G]Traditional Foods Face Challenge The colourful chalkboards and baskets of fruit that greet customers at the entrances of Whole Foods Market's shops paint a rosy picture. Yet shares in the American seller of organic and natural food have fallen by more than 40% since hitting a peak last October, in a period when stock markets have been strong. 【R1】______ It is not that the retailer is in immediate crisis: its latest quarterly figures, on July 30th, showed sales and profits both up a bit. And it is not that people are going off the idea of paying more for food produced without chemical fertilisers, pesticides or additives: the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements reckons that the industry's worldwide revenues were a record of 63 billion in 2012; and Techsci Research, a market-research firm, predicts that the American market for such foods—the world's largest—may grow by 14% by 2018. 【R2】______ The problem is that at Whole Foods, shoppers have been paying way over the cost of regular produce, and its success in getting them to do so has now attracted a lot of competitors, from rival organics chains like Sprouts and Trader Joe's to mass-market retailers like Walmart and Costco. As a result, the price premium for organic produce is crashing down. On a recent shopping trip, a pound of organic apples cost 2. 99 at Whole Foods but just 1. 99 at Sprouts and even less at Costco. 【R3】______ The firm has been trimming costs to keep its margins up, but the slump in its share price reflects investors' expectation that this cannot continue, that profits will suffer and that Whole Foods' dominance of the market is coming to an end. 【R4】______ That the company has had to recall a number of products—in late July it and other grocers recalled plums and peaches suspected of contamination with Listeria bacteria—has made it harder to maintain an air of superiority over its competitors. Organic foods' claim to superiority is questionable anyway. Both Britain's Food Standards Agency and the Annals of Internal Medicine, a journal, concluded after reviewing the extensive studies on the issue that there is no substantial difference in the nutritiousness of organics and non-organics. In some respects organics may be bad for the environment, because growing them uses land less efficiently than non-organics. 【R5】______ As for "natural" foods, there is no official definition of this,in America at least; so the label, which Whole Foods also applies to many products, is close to meaningless. Alan McHughen, a botanist at the University of California, Riverside, argues that the whole industry is "99% marketing and public perception," reeling people in through a fabricated concept of a time when food, and life in general, was simple and wholesome. If true,the trick has worked nicely for Whole Foods. But its success has attracted so many imitators that it is losing its uniqueness. Even recent speculation about a takeover bid has failed to lift its shares. It may insist its food is sustainable. But it seems its prices are not.

You are scheduled to head for a job interview tomorrow afternoon. However, you have just been informed that there will be an important lecture then, and you can't excuse yourself. So write a letter to the interviewer: 1) Express your apology; 2) Explain the reason why you can't meet the appointment; 3) Request your appointment be scheduled for another time. Write your letter with no less than 100 words. Write it neatly on Answer Sheet 2. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter, use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write the address. (10 points)

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

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

Directions: Instant foods, instant communication, faster transportation—all of these recent developments are designed to save time. Ironically, though, instead of making more leisure time available, these developments have contributed to a pace of human affairs that is more rushed than ever before. In this section, you are asked to write an essay on a major disadvantage of "instant" technology. You can provide specific reasons and examples to support your idea. You should write at least 150 words.

When Paul Gorski, the founder of an organization called EdChange, visits colleges and universities to advise them on campus diversity, he has come to see a pattern. Initially, schools are enthusiastic,【C1】______their full commitment to ensuring their campuses are【C2】______of racial, religious, and gender bias. They【C3】______participate in surveys that measure students'【C4】______of cross-cultural relations on campus. They【C5】______international dinners, sponsor diversity days, and spend weeks writing and refining diversity statements. 【C6】______when Gorski begins to suggest the work that he believes really【C7】______, for example, reevaluating policies, reallocating budgets, and【C8】______challenging the current situations—they stop returning his phone calls. They【C9】______someone new, and they start again. Since student bodies turn over so quickly, it always looks as if the school is making an effort,【C10】______they're actually just staying in the same place. It's true that many colleges and universities make【C11】______efforts to recruit racially, ethnically, and religiously diverse student bodies with the【C12】______of creating an integrated campus where diversity is truly【C13】______for students, preparing them to work in a global economy and a society with different cultures. Some are【C14】______willing to fight affirmative-action【C15】______in the highest courts to get there. But, as Gorski's experience indicates, some seem to forget that the admissions office is just the beginning of the struggle【C16】______an integrated campus. Of course it's hard for a university or college to purposefully【C17】______problems that they're not aware of. Biases and resentments are often suppressed below the【C18】______invisible to all but those directly affected. Gorski says that in 14 years on the job, his surveys have always revealed unresolved issues involving race and diversity— typically there's a profound difference between the understandings held by different【C19】______, with students of color reporting that racism is still a problem, while white students and higher-level officials【C20】______that there's anything wrong. "Diversity day is for white people to learn about people of color," Gorski says. "Generally speaking, people of color don't need organized opportunities to learn about white people."