BSection III Writing/B

Immigration stirs up strong enough fears to justify questionable measures of protection against it— from arrests at the doors of French schools to the border wall that separates the USA from Mexico. Economic research suggests that the intensity of these reactions seems completely disproportionate to immigration's real economic impact on the local population. David Card has shown that even massive waves of immigration don't result in lower salaries or fewer jobs for local people in the US. In a recent survey article, he concluded that the " new immigration" assimilates just as well as previous waves had, and that the wages and employment prospects of natives are not any lower in cities that received more migrants. Furthermore, Patricia Cortes also showed that an increase in the number of immigrants causes a price-drop in the sectors where they're concentrated.

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

Is Stanford still a university? The Wall Street Journal recently reported that more than a dozen students have left school to work on a new technology start-up called Clinkle. Faculty members have【C1】______, the former dean of Stanford's business school is on the board, and one computer-science professor who taught several of the employees now owns【C2】______. The founder of Clinkle was an undergraduate advisee of the president of the university, John Hennessy, who has also been advising the company. Clinkle【C3】______mobile payments, and, if all goes well, there will be many payments to many people on【C4】______. Maybe, as it did with Google, Stanford will get stock grants. There are【C5】______of interest here; and questions of power dynamics. The leadership of a university has encouraged an【C6】______in which students drop out in order to do something that will【C7】______the faculty. Stanford has been【C8】______in this direction for a while. As Ken Auletta reported in this magazine a year ago, the【C9】______between Stanford and Silicon Valley are【C10】______. Federal Telegraph was started by a Stanford grad a hundred and four years ago. William Hewlett and David Packard started inventing things as students, as did the Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Stanford feeds Silicon Valley, and Silicon Valley【C11】______Stanford. You can't have one【C12】______the other. But what's the point of having a great university among the palm trees【C13】______students feel like they have to treat their professors as【C14】______investors, found companies before they can legally drink, and drop out in an effort to get rich fast? Shouldn't it be a place to drift, to think, to read, to meet new people, and to work at whatever【C15】______you? And Stanford has, in its day, produced a great variety of graduates: hippies, novelists, politicians,【C16】______dropouts, and, of course, athletes. Now,【C17】______, it seems like all the countless identities are being included. Students can still study Chaucer, and there are still lovely palm trees. But the center of【C18】______at the university appears to have【C19】______. The school now【C20】______a giant tech incubator with a football team.

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.

BSection II Reading Comprehension/B

Poets, songwriters and politicians hate the idea, but for decades opinion-poll evidence has been clear; money buys happiness and the richer you are, the more likely you are to express satisfaction with your life. Until now, a survey of 43 countries【C1】______on October 30th by the Pew Research Centre of Washington, DC, shows that people in【C2】______markets are expressing almost the same level of satisfaction as people in rich countries. It is the biggest【C3】______to the standard view of happiness and income seen【C4】______. The Pew poll asks respondents to【C5】______, on a scale from zero to ten, how good their lives are. (Those who say between seven and ten are counted as【C6】______) In 2007, 57% of respondents in rich countries put themselves in the top four tiers; in emerging markets the【C7】______was 33%; in poor countries only 16%—a classic【C8】______of the standard view. But in 2014, 54% of rich-country respondents counted themselves as happy, whereas in emerging markets the percentage【C9】______to 51%. This was happening just at a time when emerging markets' chances of converging economically【C10】______the West seemed to be【C11】______. Rich countries did not experience【C12】______declines in happiness. The decreases in America and Britain were tiny (a single percentage point) ,【C13】______the share of happy Germans rose 13 points. A large drop in formerly joyful Spain ensured a modest overall decline for the rich.【C14】______the convergence happened【C15】______huge improvements in countries such as Indonesia and Pakistan. In 12 of the 24 emerging markets, half or more people【C16】______their life satisfaction in the top tiers of the ladder. This is not to【C17】______the link between income and satisfaction has been snapped. Poor countries still【C18】______; only a quarter of the people there are in the happy tiers—half the level of the other two groups. There is【C19】______a clear link between happiness and income growth. China's GDP rose at an annual average rate of 10% in 2007-2014 and its happiness level rose 26 points.【C20】______countries, richer people express more satisfaction than their poorer neighbours.

Today, widespread social pressure to immediately go to college in conjunction with increasingly high expectations in a fast-moving world often causes students to completely overlook the possibility of taking a gap year. After all, if everyone you know is going to college in the fall, it seems silly to stay back a year, doesn' t it? And after going to school for 12 years, it doesn' t feel natural to spend a year doing something that isn' t academic. But while this may be true, it' s not a good enough reason to condemn gap years. There' s always a constant fear of falling behind everyone else on the socially perpetuated " race to the finish line," whether that be toward graduate school, medical school or lucrative career. But despite common misconceptions, a gap year does not hinder the success of academic pursuits—in fact, it probably enhances it. Studies from the United States and Australia show that students who take a gap year are generally better prepared for and perform better in college than those who do not. Rather than pulling students back, a gap year pushes them ahead by preparing them for independence, new responsibilities and environmental changes—all things that first-year students often struggle with the most. Gap year experiences can lessen the blow when it comes to adjusting to college and being thrown into a brand new environment, making it easier to focus on academics and activities rather than acclimation blunders. If you' re not convinced of the inherent value in taking a year off to explore interests, then consider its financial impact on future academic choices. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, nearly 80 percent of college students end up changing their majors at least once. This isn' t surprising, considering the basic mandatory high school curriculum leaves students with a poor understanding of themselves listing one major on their college applications, but switching to another after taking college classes. It' s not necessarily a bad thing, but depending on the school, it can be costly to make up credits after switching too late in the game. At Boston College, for example, you would have to complete an extra year were you to switch to the nursing school from another department. Taking a gap year to figure things out initially can help prevent stress and save money later on.

BSection III Writing/B

It amazes me when people proclaim that they are bored. Actually, it amazes me that I am ever bored, or that any of us are. With so much to occupy us these days, boredom should be a relic of a bygone age—an age devoid of the internet, social media, multi-channel TV, 24-hour shopping, multiplex cinemas, game consoles, texting and whatever other myriad possibilities are available these days to entertain us. Yet despite the plethora of high-iniensity entertainment constantly at our disposal, we are still bored. Up to half of us are "often bored" at home or at school, while more than two-thirds of us are chronically bored at work. We are bored by paperwork, by the commute and by dull meetings. TV is boring, as is Facebook and other social media. There are a number of explanations for our ennui. This, in fact, is part of the problem—we are overstimulated. The more entertained we are the more entertainment we need in order to feel satisfied. The more we fill our world with fast-moving, high-intensity, ever-changing stimulation, the more we get used to that and the less tolerant we become of lower levels. Our attention spans are now thought to be less than that of a goldfish ( eight seconds). We are hard-wired to seek novelty, which produces a hit of dopamine, that feel-good chemical, in our brains. As soon as a new stimulus is noticed, however, it is no longer new, and after a while it bores us. To get that same pleasurable dopamine hit we seek fresh sources of distraction. Our increasing reliance on screentime is also to blame. We seem to live in a varied and exciting world with a wealth of entertainment at our fingertips, and many of these amusements are obtained in remarkably similar ways—via our fingers. On average we spend six to seven hours in front of our phone, tablet, computer and TV screens every day. The irony is that while our mobile devices should allow us to fill every moment, our means of obtaining that entertainment has become so repetitive and routine that it's a source of boredom in itself. Research suggests that chronic boredom is responsible for a profusion of negative outcomes such as overeating, gambling, truancy, antisocial behaviour, drug use, accidents, risk taking and much more. We need less, not more, stimulation and novelty. It seems paradoxical, but feeling bored in the short term will make us less bored in the long term.

Using tools doesn't make humans, dolphins, and crows smart. Rather, it's the stress and challenge of living with others—recognizing friend from foe, calculating who to deceive and who to befriend—that led these and other social creatures to evolve their cognitive skills. That's the gist of the social intelligence hypothesis, an idea that's been around since 1966. But does having to remember whose lice need picking actually improve other mental abilities, like figuring out how to open a locked box with a hunk of meat inside? A new study of four carnivores—two social and two solitary species—suggests that it does. "They've taken an important issue and tested it in a simple but novel way," says Richard Byrne, an evolutionary psychologist at The University of St. Andrews in the United Kingdom, who was not involved in the study. "The results are clear; The cognitive benefit from being a social carnivore does transfer" to a mental ability that has nothing to do with being social , he says. Other researchers think the results aren't as clear-cut. " It is important and a valuable stepping stone in our quest to understand how intelligence evolved, but like all studies, it is one piece of a larger puzzle," says Sarah Benson-Amram, a zoologist at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, whose recent comparative study of 39 species of carnivores reached the opposite conclusion. Scientists devised the social intelligence hypothesis to explain the evolution of the human brain. They've found that most social species (from chimpanzees to social wasps) have relatively large brains and are cognitively sophisticated, adept at experiments designed to test their smarts. But some researchers argue that another factor—a challenging environment—may also stimulate cognitive evolution. If so, then more solitary species could also be large-brained and smart thanks to the ecological difficulties they face. Other researchers concur, but with caveats. " They did find a nice link between sociality and success" on this task, says Evan MacLean, a comparative psychologist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. But he wonders what type of cognition the ability to open a puzzle box actually demonstrates. " It may be reflective of trial and error learning, insight, or just of curiosity or interest in novel objects. " The puzzle box is also not particularly " ecologically relevant," to the carnivores, notes primatolo-gist Frans de Waal at Emory University in Atlanta, who would like to see the animals tested on some type of predator-prey task. Still, it is " a good first step and a fresh approach to the intelligence of carnivores , a group we have neglected for too long. "

BSection II Reading Comprehension/B

Suppose you have recently joined an international friendship club. But you are not satisfied with the service you have received. Write a letter to the director of the club to1) make a complaint, and2) ask for an explanation. 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 BDirections: Write an essay of 160-200 words based on the following information./B

Some chief executives say they are unplugging as best they can, when they can. Baratunde Thurston, CEO of humor company Cultivated Wit, braved a 25-day Internet detox last year and now settles for what he calls "micro-disconnecting". For example, not checking Twitter at a meeting. And Spencer Rascoff, the CEO of online real estate center Zillow, turns off his company email for a 24-hour stretch every week. Internet sabbaticals is popular recently, but those at the helm of companies aren't usually able to completely cut the wire. Still, many CEOs say they want to find a balance, suspecting it might actually help their work. "I am constantly thinking about Zillow, even when I'm sleeping," Mr. Rascoff says. "Without technology, I can think about it more thoughtfully without interruptions." Leslie Perlow, a Harvard Business School professor, says time away from technology can make people more creative, innovative and productive. "Everybody is bombarded all the time these days," she says. "The more senior you are, the more you perceive, there' s nobody but me." Jim Moffatt, CEO of Deloitte Consulting LLP, finds that occasionally turning out helps him cut through the "fog" and "clutter" of the day-to-day grind, making it easier to solve big problems. While "recharging" on a recent summer vacation he caught a movie with his 14 year-old son. As the credits rolled, he had an epiphany about who the elusive, missing employee should be for a team he was putting together. During fireworks this past Fourth of July, he mapped out global strategy in his head. Recent research from the University of Glasgow and UK-based Modeuro Consulting showed that executive email habits can be contagious; when the leadership team at a London-based power company decreased their email output, employees followed suit. Mr. Moffatt says one of the reasons he's so public about his unplugging is to show his employees that it is important to have a life outside of work. Plus, his occasional absences give colleagues the chance to exercise more power. "It sends a pretty strong signal to your team: I don' t have to be there all the time," he says. Handing over the reins does occasionally come with growing pains. Mr. Thurston of Cultivated Wit eschewed everything from work email to Facebook to Instagram last December and found it to be a "humbling" experience.

There is a widespread belief that humanities Ph. D. s have limited job prospects. The story goes that since tenure-track professorships are increasingly being replaced by contingent faculty, the vast majority of English and history Ph. D. s now roam the earth as poorly-paid adjuncts or, if they leave academia, as baristas and bookstore cashiers. As English professor William Pannapacker put it in Slate a few years back, "a humanities Ph. D. will place you at a disadvantage competing against 22-year-olds for entry-level jobs that barely require a high-school diploma. " His advice to would-be graduate students was simple: Recognize that a humanities Ph. D. is now a worthless degree and avoid getting one at all cost. It is true that the plate tectonics of academia has been shifting since the 1970s, reducing the number of good jobs available in the field. In the wake of these changes, there is no question that humanities doctorates have struggled with their employment prospects, but what is less widely known is between a fifth and a quarter of them go on to work in well-paying jobs in media, corporate America, non-profits, and government. Humanities Ph. D. s are all around us—and they are not serving coffee. The American Historical Association (AHA) and the Modern Language Association (MLA) have staked out the position that the lack of reliable data about employment outcomes is hindering any productive discussion about the future of academia. Preliminary reports released in the past few months show that 24. 1 percent of history Ph. D. s and 21 percent of English and foreign language Ph. D. s over the last decade took jobs in business, museums, and publishing houses, among other industries. Humanities Ph. D. s typically secure non-academic jobs through their own networks, without the support of their departments. For those Ph. D. s who ultimately find work outside academia, the job-hunting process is often longer and harder than it needs to be. Few universities offer humanities doctoral candidates career counseling for non-academic jobs, which would help them market themselves and leverage alumni networks. As a solution to the shrinking academic job market, several top Ph. D. programs have opted to reduce the number of incoming doctoral candidates to limit their oversupply. However, some argue that this approach does not recognize that many humanities Ph. D. s will go on to positively impact other industries, as many already have. "Academic institutions hold a responsibility to advance knowledge," Victoria Blodgett, director of Graduate Career Services at Yale University, argues. "We should be in the business of putting Ph. D. s in government, non-profits, the media and lots of industries where we will be better off if we have people who are trained to think as deeply as they are. "

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

If you have ever wondered how an elephant smells, scientists have the answer. Researchers have discovered that African Elephants have the largest number of genes【C1】______smell of any mammal. Given the size of their trunks, and how important it is【C2】______their survival, it is probably unsurprising that an elephant's nose is not only the longest in the animal kingdom, but also the most effective. In【C3】______, humans and other primates have a poor sense of smell. "The functions of these genes are not well known,【C4】______they are likely important for the living environment of African elephants," said author Dr Yoshihito Niimura of the University of Tokyo. "【C5】______, an elephant's nose is not only long but also superior. " The sense of smell is【C6】______to all mammals, and they use it for【C7】______food, finding mates and locating their offspring. In a study published in Genome Research, scientists【C8】______the 13 mammal species and found that African Elephants have twice the number of smell genes【C9】______dogs and five times more than humans. They have around 2,000 genes alone that are associated with scent. Humans in comparison have just under 400 and some other primates even【C10】______. The study found that 20,000 genes are【C11】______for the sense of smell in mammals, of which around half are functional, but the collections【C12】______for each species. Horses have around 1,000 smell genes, rabbits around 750 and rats about 1,200. "The large repertoire of elephant (smell) genes might be attributed to elephants' heavy【C13】______on scent in various contexts, including social【C14】______and reproduction," added Dr Niimura. African and Asian elephants possess a【C15】______scent organ behind each eye, and male elephants can produce a special substance during annual mating, which is characterized【C16】______increased aggressiveness. And【C17】______studies have revealed that, African elephants can reportedly【C18】______between two Kenyan ethnic groups—the Maasai, whose young men【C19】______manhood by spearing elephants, and the Kamba, who are agricultural people that【C20】______little threat to elephants through smell.

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

Directions: There is a lot of imported merchandise available in our market Some people advocate that we should only buy things that are made in our own country. Do you agree? In this section, you are asked to write an essay on whether we should only buy things made in our own country. You can provide specific reasons and examples to support your idea. You should write at least 150 words.