BSection II Reading Comprehension/B

BSection III Writing/B

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

Directions: An international conference on global warming will be held in Beijing in December this year. The organization committee is now looking for volunteers who can provide language service, computer aid and at least one week of working for the conference. You're asked to write a letter to apply for this position. 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. Do not write your address. (10 points)

Everyone knows that the first rule of driving is never taking your eyes off the road. Teen drivers【C1】______being careful, but they tend to start multitasking after just a few months behind the wheel, according to research published Tuesday. And【C2】______older drivers can handle eating or talking to passengers, which【C3】______up the new drivers, dialing a cell phone increased the risk of accidents among young and【C4】______drivers alike. This isn"t great news, since it"s well【C5】______that distracted driving is a leading cause of accidents among all drivers. It makes sense that young drivers will start testing their limits after a few months behind the wheel, according to Bruce Simons-Morton, a behavioral scientist. "You increase the difficulty of a task until you make an【C6】______," Simons-Morton says. "It seems like a very natural thing but still it"s very【C7】______, because good driving ability and safety judgment develops【C8】______a very long period of time." Within six months of getting their licenses, young drivers in this study -started texting, eating and【C9】______the radio while driving as much as their more skilled【C10】______But it takes thousands of hours of【C11】______to get good at driving, according to Simons-Morton. That disconnect may help【C12】______the high accident rates among teenage drivers. The researchers compared data from two small studies—one tracked 42【C13】______licensed young drivers and the other looked at 100 drivers with more experience . All the participants had sensors and cameras【C14】______in their cars. The researchers used the sensors to track when drivers got into accidents or close calls. The videos were then used to see what the drivers were doing just before the accidents【C15】______. Because the researchers wanted to focus on the【C16】______of distracted driving, they【C17】______crashes caused by drunk driving and ones that were clearly caused by other drivers. Since the number of people in this study was small, Simons-Morton says the results will have to be【C18】______by other research. A couple of bigger studies already【C19】______the works, might make things clearer. But Simons-Morton says this is the first totally【C20】______look at teen driver distraction.

Some futurologists have assumed that the vast upsurge of women in the workforce may portend a rejection of marriage. Many women, according to this hypothesis, would rather work than marry. The converse of this concern is that the prospects of becoming a multi -paycheck household could encourage marriages. In the past, only the earnings and financial prospects of the man counted in the marriage decision. Now, however, the earning ability of a woman can make her more attractive as a marriage partner. Data show that economic downturns tend to postpone marriage because the parties cannot afford to establish a family or are concerned about rainy days ahead. As the economy rebounds, the number of marriages also rises. Coincident with the increase in women working outside the home is the increase in divorce rates. Yet, it may be wrong to jump to any simple cause-and-effect conclusions. The impact of a wife' s work on divorce is no less cloudy than its impact on marriage decisions. The realization that she can be a good provider may increase the chances that a working wife will choose divorce over an unsatisfactory marriage. But the reverse is equally plausible. Tensions grounded in financial problems often play a key role in ending a marriage. Given high unemployment, inflationary problems, and slow growth in real earnings, a working wife can increase household income and relieve some of these pressing financial burdens. By raising a family' s standard of living, a working wife may strengthen her family' s financial and emotional stability. Psychological factors also should be considered. For example, a wife blocked from a career outside the home may feel caged in the house. She may view her only choice as seeking a divorce. On the other hand, if she can find fulfillment through work outside the home, work and marriage can go together to create a stronger and more stable union. Also, a major part of women's inequality in marriage has been due to the fact that, in most cases, men have remained the main breadwinners. With higher earning capacity and status occupations outside of the home comes the Capacity to exercise power within the family. A working wife may rob a husband of being the master of the house. Depending upon how the couple reacts to these new conditions, it could create a stronger equal partnership or it could create new insecurities.

One of the biggest hurdles to getting more electric cars on the road is " range anxiety," the worry people have of their car battery dying before they get to a charging station. A new study should help brush those fears aside. Most American drivers do not go beyond the distance that today's electric cars can go on a single battery charge in one day, the study found. In fact, 87 percent of the vehicles on the road could be replaced by low-cost EVs on the market today even if they were only charged overnight, say the MIT researchers who conducted the study published in Nature Energy. If this large-scale swap were to happen, it would lead to roughly 30 percent less carbon emissions even if the electricity were coming from carbon-emitting power plants. The researchers analyzed daily vehicle travel patterns across the U. S. by bringing together two large datasets. One, the National Household Travel Survey, gave them information on millions of trips made by all kinds of cars. The other included detailed GPS-based data collected by state agencies that measured second-by-second velocity of each kind of trip. The researchers also factored in ambient temperature and inefficient driving behavior to calculate the energy consumption of each trip: extensive heating or cooling and driving habits such as hard acceleration zap energy and can reduce driving range. Taking the 2013 Nissan Leaf as an example of an affordable EV on the market, the researchers found that it could meet the driving needs of 87 percent of vehicles on a single day. That number could go up to 98 percent as batteries meet new capacity targets set by the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. What about the remaining 13 percent of trips? The researchers admit that electric cars might not cut it for longer trips, such as vacation travel. For those times, they suggest that people in a two-car household could use their gasoline-powered vehicle, or they could rely on car-sharing or renting services. The data covered the country's 12 major metro cities, from dense urban areas such as New York to sprawling cities like Houston. Surprisingly, the adoption potential of electric vehicles was pretty similar across these diverse cities: it only varied from 84-93 percent. " This goes against the view that electric vehicles—at least affordable ones, which have limited range—only really work in dense urban centers," said the study's lead author Jessika E. Trancik in a press release. Trancik and her colleagues admit that addressing range anxiety might not be enough to boost EV sales. "Satisfying consumer preferences for vehicle performance and aesthetics will also be important, as will financing options to offset the purchase price," they say in the paper.

Inactivity, fuelled by cars and a sedentary work life, has been dubbed the biggest public health problem of the 21st century, a global pandemic with dramatic impact on people's wellbeing. The latest reports suggest that around the world it was responsible for 5. 3 million deaths in 2008, which amounts to 1 in 10 people—even more than smoking. Not only does exercise make you fitter, it can also ward off numerous and often unexpected diseases, from heart attacks, to diabetes, some forms of cancer and dementia. There are tentative signs it might even make you cleverer, by boosting cognitive performance and brain function. "It's irrefutable that physical activity and exercise are beneficial for health," says sports scientist Chris Easton. The biggest benefits are seen when people go from being unfit to being moderately fit. At higher fitness levels, you don't see the same benefits in longevity and disease risk reduction. And although being vigorous is good, you don't need to go overboard.

Power and water are interconnected and that has serious consequences for the American West as it grapples with climate change. By now, everyone knows you save energy by turning out lights. And you conserve water by taking shorter showers. But it's just as true that saving water may be one of the most effective ways to save energy—and vice versa . "It's a 'buy one, get one free' deal," said Douglas Kenney, a professor at the University of Colorado Law School and the editor of an upcoming book that explores the nexus of water and energy. In California today, just delivering water accounts for 20 percent of the state's energy consumption. It takes power to gather water, purify water, and distribute water, especially in places like southern California where water is piped hundreds of miles to supply Los Angeles' sprawling demands. Nationally, energy production sucks more water from freshwater sources than any other sector except agriculture. It takes water to create the power we use to drive our cars, transport our groceries, and run our toaster ovens. Virtually every source of electricity in a typical American home or manufacturing plant—whether it comes from hydroelectricity, coal, natural gas, nuclear, biofuels, or even concentrated solar—also requires water. Lots of water. That's a growing problem, because in many places, finding water for energy isn't easy— and it's bound to get tougher as energy demands soar and climate change alters hydrological cycles in already arid regions. The energy sector is the fastest-growing water consumer in the United States, according to a January 2011 Congressional Research Service report. Nationally, that's a challenge, but regionally it could be a calamity. As the Congressional Research report notes, "much of the growth in the energy sector's water demand is concentrated in regions with already intense competition over water." The connection between energy and water—and the precariousness of that link in the western United States—is exemplified in a gigantic plug of concrete stopping the muddy Colorado River above Las Vegas, otherwise known as Hoover Dam. At the ceremony inaugurating the Hoover Dam provided the two key ingredients—water and power—that freed the Southwest and southern California to go on a 75-year growth spurt. Lake Mead now supplies water to more than 22 million people, and it produces more than four billion kilowatts of electricity per year. The Colorado River, lifeblood of seven western states, is already as overdrawn as the federal treasury. Drought conditions during most of the 21st century have forced water managers to plan for a day when the region' s vast system of dams and reservoirs no longer have enough water to store. Already, utilities have to scramble to respond on days when everybody in Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles wants to crank their air conditioners during the same heat wave.

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?

During the day, Leipzig's airport is quiet. It is at night that the airfield comes to life. Next to the runway a yellow warehouse serves as the global sorting hub for DHL, a delivery firm owned by Deutsche Post of Germany. A huge extension, which opened in October, means it can sort 150,000 parcels each hour, says Ken Allen, DHL's CEO. With falling trade barrier, cross-border e-commerce has become a key term in the modern economy. The rise of cross-border e-commerce has meant booming business for express-delivery firms. On January 31st UPS revealed record revenues for the fourth quarter of 2016; FedEx and DHL are expected to report similarly buoyant results next month. Since 2008 half of the increase in express-delivery volumes has come from shoppers buying items online from another country. Falling trade barriers have greatly helped them. When DHL and FedEx were getting going in the 1970s, there was little demand for international express deliveries. Packages often got stuck in customs for weeks and were heavily taxed. The expansion of free-trade areas, lower tariffs and the Internet brought years of growth. But after Mr. Trump's threats to raise tariffs on goods from China and Mexico, together with the indication last month from Theresa May, Britain's prime minister, that the country will leave the EU's customs union, there are widespread fears that the favourable tailwinds enjoyed by the industry for decades are gone. The express-delivery industry faces a new challenge: the return of trade barriers due to the protectionist bent of Donald Trump and because of Brexit. The return of borders poses a challenge to the soaring parcel-delivery business. " It's all a real nightmare," groans David Jinks of ParcelHero, a British parcel broker which works with DHL, FedEx and UPS. Start with Brexit. Post-Brexit costs will probably come from long wrangles over which of 19,000 customs codes should be applied to a consignment. As an example of what could happen, Halloween costumes from China often get stuck at Britain's border while customs officials work out whether they are toys or children's clothes, which attract different duties. Such complexity would force delivery firms to put up their prices to customers, Mr. Jinks says. Sending an item from Britain to Switzerland (outside the EU) costs 150% more than it does to Italy (inside the EU). The most severe impact on business would come from higher tariffs, which would hurt demand for cross-border imports and deliveries in favour of local goods. This is where Mr. Trump's threats come into focus.

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

The essential functions of the UN are to maintain international peace and security, to develop friendly relations among nations, to cooperate internationally in solving international economic, social, cultural and human problems, promoting respect for human rights, and fundamental freedoms, and to be a centre of coordinating the actions of nations in attaining these common ends. No country takes precedence over another in the UN. Each member's obligations and rights are the same. All must contribute to the peaceful settlement of international disputes, and members have pledged to refrain from the threat or use of force against other states. Though the UN has no right to intervene in any state's internal affairs, it tries to ensure that non-member states act according to its principles of peace and security. UN members must offer every assistance in an approved UN action and in no way assist states against which the UN is taking preventive or enforcement action.

BSection III Writing/B

BPart B/B

The early retirement of experienced workers is seriously harming the U. S. economy, according to a new report from the Hudson Institute, a public policy research organization. Currently, many older experienced workers retire at an early age. According to the recently issued statistics, 79 percent of qualified workers begin collecting retirement benefits at age 62; if that trend continues, there will be a labor shortage that will hinder the economic growth in the twenty-first century. Older Americans constitute an increasing proportion of the population, according to the U. S. Census Bureau, and the population of those over age 65 will grow by 60% between 2001 and 2020. During the same period, the group aged 18 to 44 will increase by only 4%. Keeping older skilled workers employed, even part time, would increase U. S. economic output and strengthen the tax base; but without significant policy reforms, massive early retirement among baby boomers seems more likely. Retirement at age 62 is an economically rational decision today. Social Security and Medicaid earnings limits and tax penalties subject our most experienced workers to marginal tax rates as high as 67%. Social Security formulas encourage early retirement. Although incomes usually rise with additional years of work, any pay increases after the 35-year mark result in higher social Security taxes but only small increases in benefits. Hudson Institute researchers believe that federal tax and benefit policies are at fault and reforms are urgently needed, but they disagree with the popular proposal that much older Americans will have to work because Social Security will not support them and that baby boomers are not saving enough for retirement. According to the increase in 401 (k) and Keogh retirement plans, the ongoing stock market on Wall Street, and the likelihood of large inheritances, there is evidence that baby boomers will reach age 65 with greater financial assets than previous generations. The Hudson institute advocates reforming government policies that now discourage work and savings, especially for older worker. Among the report's recommendations: Tax half of all Social Security benefits, regardless of other income; provide 8 % larger benefits for each year beyond 65 ; and permit workers nearing retirement to negotiate compensation packages that may include a lower salary but with greater healthcare benefits. However, it may take real and fruitful planning to find the right solution to the early retirement of older experienced workers; any measures taken must be allowed to prolong the serviceability of older experienced workers.

BSection III Writing/B

BSection III Writing/B

BSection II Reading Comprehension/B

Wholesale prices in July rose more sharply than expected and at a faster rate than consumer prices,【C1】______ that businesses were still protecting consumers 【C2】______ the full brunt(冲击) of higher energy costs. The Producer Price Index,【C3】______ measures what producers receive for goods and services,【C4】______ 1 percent in July, the Labor Department reported yesterday, double【C5】______ economists had been expecting and a sharp turnaround from flat prices in June. Excluding【C6】______ and energy, the core index of producer prices rose 0.4 percent,【C7】______ than the 0.1 percent that economists had【C8】______ . Much of that increase was a result of an【C9】______ increase in car and truck prices. On Tuesday, the Labor Department said the【C10】______ that consumers paid for goods and services in July were【C11】______ 0.5 percent over all, and up 0.1 percent, excluding food and energy. 【C12】______ the overall rise in both consumer and producer prices【C13】______ caused by energy costs, which increased 4.4 percent in the month. (Wholesale food prices【C14】______ 0.3 percent in July.【C15】______ July 2004, wholesale prices were up 4.6 percent, the core rate【C16】______ 2.8 percent, its fastest pace since 1995.) Typically, increases in the Producer Price Index indicate similar changes in the consumer index【C17】______ businesses recoup (补偿) higher costs from customers.【C18】______ for much of this expansion, which started【C19】______ the end of 2001, that has not been the【C20】______ . In fact, many businesses like automakers have been aggressively discounting their products.