Much of continental Europe is in poor shape. True, the aggregate wealth of people is little changed and the social capital in museums, parks and other amenities is still intact. Yet, in the western part, the economy is failing society. Inclusion of ethnic minorities and youth in the economy is more lacking than ever. Among those who do participate, fewer are prospering. It is a measure of the decline that, in almost every country, the growth of wage rates has steadily slowed since 1995. What has gone wrong? European economists speak of a loss of competitiveness in southern Europe. They suggest that output and employment are down, relative to the past trend, because wages leapt ahead of productivity, making labour too expensive and forcing employers to cut back. Taking this perspective, some German economists argue that wages need to fall in the affected economies. Others argue instead for monetary stimulus—for instance, asset purchases by central banks—to raise prices and make current wage rates affordable. Economists of a classical bent lay a large part of the decline of employment, and thus lagging output, to a contraction of labour supply. And they lay that contraction largely to outbreaks of fiscal profligacy—as happened in Europe from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s. Disciples of Keynes, who focus on aggregate demand, view any increase in household wealth as raising employment because they say it adds to consumer demand. They say Europe needs a lot more fiscal "profligacy" if it is to bring unemployment down. Some evidence favours the classics. Yet both sides of this debate miss the critical force at work. The main cause of Europe's deep fall—the losses of inclusion, job satisfaction and wage growth—is the devastating slowdown of productivity that began in the late 1990s and struck large swathes of the continent. It holds down the growth of wages rates and it depresses employment. That slowdown resulted from narrowing innovation. Even in the postwar years, innovation in Europe was feeble by past standards. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, much of Europe is still suffering a slump on top of its post-1990s fall. The slump will pass but the fall will not be easily overcome. The continent is losing its best talent. It needs to fight for an economic life worth living.

[A]Polite High-tech Circles [B]The European Solution [C]Recycling and Reuse [D]Disposal Crisis of E-waste [E]Public Health Problems [F]The US Is Taking Action [G]Going Global It's long been known, but little discussed in polite high-tech circles, that information-age technology is not the clean industry it claims to be. Manufacturing a single PC can generate 139 pounds of waste and involves chemicals linked to high rates of cancer and birth defects among workers and communities. 【R1】______ Electronic waste (e-waste)—such as obsolete and discarded computers, monitors, printers, cell phones, and televisions—is one of the fastest growing waste streams in the developed world, thanks to the industry's philosophy of "design for immediate obsolescence" and an anemic electronics-recycling infrastructure. An estimated 300 to 500 million computers have descended on landfills by 2007 in the US alone. Three-quarters of all computers ever sold in this country await disposal in garages and storage facilities because their owners don't know what to do with them. 【R2】______ If the full force of the high-tech revolution hits the landfill, its health risks will leave no community untouched. E-waste accounts for 5 percent of all solid waste in America but approximately 40 percent of the lead, 70 percent of the heavy metals, and a significant portion of the organic chemical pollutants in America's dumps. This e-waste can leach into the ground, as it did in the Silicon Valley. It was the widespread contamination of the valley's aquifers in the early 1980s that initially punctured the high-tech industry's clean image. Currently, there are more EPA Superfund clean-up sites in this valley than anywhere else in the US. The threat of soil and drinking water contamination will grow as e-waste surges into the waste stream worldwide. 【R3】______ The European Union is way ahead of the US in recognizing the hazards and moving towards a solution. The first European Union directive on e-waste, adopted last year, requires producers to take responsibility for the entire life cycle of their products. By 2005, companies will either have to take back products directly from consumers or fund independent collectors to do so. Waste that was generated prior to the enactment date will be the responsibility of all existing companies, in proportion to their market share. Future waste is to be the individual responsibility of each company, thereby creating an incentive to redesign products for easier and safer recycling and disposal. No e-waste will be allowed in municipal waste streams. 【R4】______ Because the US high-tech industry and its friends in Washington represent the biggest obstacles to the globalization of take-back laws, a broad coalition of environmental, health, labor, and recycling groups and local governments has formed the Computer Take Back Campaign to support EU-style legislation in the US. Hundreds of organizations and local governments in the US have already endorsed the campaign' s platform. The campaign advocates that the US adopt standards for electronics manufacturers at least as stringent as those adopted by the EU: hazardous materials would be phased out, and all electronics would be designed for reuse and recycling. 【R5】______ The European approach is more than a minor "software patch" on a fundamentally flawed program. By establishing corporate responsibility for products at the end of their useful lives, this strategy could have wide-ranging effects on the information technology industry. The EU approach spreads environmental benefits. If we can adopt the EU's code in the US, we can do a bit of reverse engineering on globalization. By downloading Europe's program to the US, we can finally begin to clean up the "clean industry" around the globe.

Directions: Some people think we should keep all the money we earn and not pay tax to the state. To what extent do you agree or disagree? In this section, you are asked to write an essay on the money we earn and the tax. You can take either stand and provide specific reasons and examples to support your idea. You should write at least 150 words.

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

Yawning can be a problem at the office for Lindsay Eierman, which makes her embarrassed. "I've explained, 'I'm sorry, I didn't get much sleep last night,'" says Ms Eierman, a 26-year-old social worker from Durham, North Carolina. But a lack of sleep may not be the problem. Researchers are starting to unravel the mystery surrounding the yawn, one of the most common and often embarrassing behaviours. Yawning, they have discovered, is much more complicated than previously thought. Although all yawns look the same, they appear to have many different causes and to serve a variety of functions. Yawning is believed to be a means to keep our brains alert in times of stress. Contagious yawning appears to have evolved in many animal species as a way to protect family and friends, by keeping everyone in the group vigilant. Changes in brain chemistry trigger yawns, which typically last about six seconds and often occur in clusters. To unravel the mystery of yawning, scientists built upon early, observed clues. Yawning tends to occur more in summer. Most people yawn upon seeing someone else do it, but infants and people with autism or schizophrenia aren't so affected by this contagion effect. And certain people yawn at surprising times, like parachutists who are about to jump out of a plane or Olympic athletes getting ready to compete. A leading hypothesis is that yawning plays an important role in keeping the brain at its cool, optimal working temperature. The brain is particularly sensitive to overheating, according to Andrew Gallup, an assistant professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Oneonta. Reaction times slow and memory wanes when the brain' s temperature varies even less than a degree from the ideal 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. There are some practical applications. Dr. Gallup said managers might want to keep in mind the brain-cooling role of yawning when a meeting is long and boring. "One way to diminish yawning frequency in an office would be to keep it air-conditioned. If it' s very cold in the room, yawning rates are going to be quite low," Dr. Gallup said.

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. 许多大学生面对写作愁眉不展，因为他们不知道如何安排句子或者写什么内容。怎样才能写出好文章呢?请给大学生一些建议。

Australian children are visiting social media websites at an increasingly younger age, a new survey suggests, with one in five "tweens" (children between the ages of about 10 and 14) admitting they have chatted to someone online they do not know. The report "Tweens, Teens and Technology" by online security company McAfee found that children in the tweens age【C1】______of 8 to 12 were【C2】______technology faster than expected, with 67 percent using a social media website..【C3】______the age eligibility for Facebook being 13, one in four (26 percent)【C4】______using the site— although 95 percent said they had their parents"【C5】______to do so. The most【C6】______site for tweens was Skype (used by 28 percent),【C7】______children were also using Instagram, according to the survey of 500 youngsters geographically【C8】______of Australia"s online population.【C9】______the survey found that one in five tweens (19 percent) said they chatted to someone online that they did not know,【C10】______seven percent said they had shared personal information. Australia"s Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said it was【C11】______that children talk to strangers online. "It shows we must remain【C12】______to online threats," he said. The findings suggest the age at which children first use social media is【C13】______, given a 2012 McAfee survey of teens aged 13-17 found the average age they opened their first social network【C14】______was 13. On average, tweens were using three or four devices that can be Internet【C15】______, with 66 percent of them【C16】______mobile phones and/or tablets. Fifty-four percent said they used a tablet for more than an hour a day. Most tweens use their devices to【C17】______the Internet, and on average spend about 1.5 hours a day browsing the web, the survey said. "Both parents and schools are encouraged to keep a close【C18】______on their child"s online behavior to ensure they have safe online【C19】______," said Andrew Littleproud, president of McAfee Asia-Pacific. "By working closely with child psychologists, we have seen that online behaviors firmly set in the tween age group so active education is【C20】______within eight to 12 age bracket."

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

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

Economics is an important component of the core MBA curriculum because economic principles are behind almost all managerial activities. Economists at business schools research and teach about how markets work; how scarce resources get produced, consumed and allocated; and how various participants in the economy make optimal decisions. These issues will be relevant to managers in virtually all aspects of their work for the rest of their careers. This is true both at the broadest levels—such as strategic management, finance, organizational design, human resources, and managing global organizations—and also when they drill down into more specific areas, such as optimizing prices, setting employee compensation, and analyzing how modern managerial practices affect a firm's performance. One rapidly growing area of economics that has received a lot of attention from business-school economists is market design. Traditionally, economists studied the properties of existing market institutions. More recently, however, they have taken an active role, and have applied economic analysis to design new markets or to improve existing ones.

For hundreds of millions of years, turtles(海龟) have struggled out of the sea to lay their eggs on sandy beaches, long before there were nature documentaries to celebrate them, or GPS satellites and marine biologists to track them, or volunteers to hand-carry the hatchlings (幼龟) down to the water's edge lest they become disoriented by headlights and crawl towards a motel parking lot instead. A formidable wall of bureaucracy has been erected to protect their prime nesting sites on the Atlantic coastlines. With all that attention paid to them, you'd think these creatures would at least have the gratitude not to go extinct. But Nature is indifferent to human notions of fairness, and a report by the Fish and Wildlife Service showed a worrisome drop in the populations of several species of North Atlantic sea turtles, notably loggerheads(红海龟) , which can grow to as much as 400 pounds. The South Florida nesting population, the largest, has declined by 50% in the last decade, according to Elizabeth Griffin, a marine biologist with the environmental group Oceana. The figures prompted Oceana to petition the government to upgrade the level of protection for the North Atlantic loggerheads from "threatened" to "endangered"—meaning they are in danger of disappearing without additional help. Which raises the obvious question; what else do these turtles want from us, anyway? It turns out, according to Griffin, that while we have done a good job of protecting the turtles for the weeks they spend on land (as egg-laying females, as eggs and as hatchlings) , we have neglected the years they spend in the ocean. "The threat is from commercial fishing," says Griffin. Trawlers (which drag large nets through the water and along the ocean floor) and long-line fishers (which can deploy thousands of hooks on lines that can stretch for miles) take a heavy toll(损失) on turtles. Of course, like every other environmental issue today, this is playing out against the background of global warming and human interference with natural ecosystems. The narrow strips of beach on which the turtles lay their eggs are being squeezed on one side by development and on the other by the threat of rising sea levels as the oceans warm. Ultimately we must get a handle on those issues as well, or a creature that outlived the dinosaurs (恐龙) will meet its end at the hands of humans, leaving our descendants to wonder how a creature so ugly could have won so much affection.

Write a letter to Mr Green to apply for a job. In the letter, you should 1) show your interest, 2) describe your previous experience, and 3) explain why you would be suitable for the job. You should write about 100 words neatly on the ANSWER SHEET. Do not sign your own name. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write your address.

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

The casino(赌场)at the smart Atlantis resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas is bigger than 20 tennis courts. Tourists flit from slot machine to roulette table, drift past Temples of the Sun and Moon and walk by Crystal Gate and Poseidon"s Throne. But the only Bahamians in sight are waiters, croupier and cashiers. The Bahamas legalised casino gambling in 1969, when they were still a British colony. But mainly because of the influence of local pastors, both Bahamians and foreigners who live in the country are banned from gambling. This has not stopped residents from placing bets. Instead, they gamble off the books in " number houses" or "webshops"—legal internet cafes that offer illegal bets on the side and operate in plain sight. These have mushroomed in recent years, even as tourism has stagnated and hotels have reduced staff. This pretence will be put to the test on January 28 th, when a referendum will be held on legalising gambling in web shops, as well as on a separate proposal to set up a national lottery. The well-funded campaign supporting the initiative has been distributing posters and T-shirts. It argues that web shops account for almost 2% of jobs in the country, and that gambling taxes could help close the budget deficit. The "no" movement, which calls itself "Save Our Bahamas" , is led by the islands" evangelical(新教会的)churches. Perry Christie, the prime minister, says he has "no horse in the race". The opposition accuses him, without proof, of running a "fixed" referendum on behalf of web-shop owners who back him financially. If the proposal is approved, the government will probably try to pass a series of reforms supported by the big hotel casinos. In order to compete with Las Vegas, New Jersey or Macau, they say, they need authorisation for credit-card payment for chips, online and mobile wagers, private VIP gaming rooms and betting on sports matches while play is in progress. They also want stronger legal tools to collect unpaid debts and the right to void payments caused by computer errors. The tourism minister has already announced support for these policies. However, letting Bahamians into the casinos is not yet on the agenda.

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

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

BSection II Reading Comprehension/B

Last September, the U.S. government announced that its birthrate fell to "another record low". Morally speaking, there's nothing wrong with this. It's【C1】______. in a way. All over the world, birthrates tend to fall a-long with economic development. The thing about an increasingly childless economy is that it has major implications for【C2】______. It is confirmed by a new data from a Gallup survey【C3】______on the average daily spending of families. Even after you control for income, age, education, and【C4】______status, families with young kids spend more every day. What are parents spending on? Not just books, toys, and games. The Department of Agriculture【C5】______surveys the many ways we spend on our kids, to the tune of about $14,000 a year. The【C6】______majority of money goes to the【C7】______: housing, food, transportation, and education. Housing is kind of funny, because young children tend not to have their housing units,【C8】______the parents are extremely well-off and the children are terribly misbehaved. The survey estimates the housing portion of spending by trying to【C9】______a few factors: the cost of an extra bedroom, the cost of moving into safer【C10】______with better schools, and the cost of buying homes with larger yards. It is【C11】______that on economic growth, some of the most discussed variables on editorial pages and cable news are policy choices like tax rates or international events. But buried【C12】______these headlines is the glacier of demographics, the steady and unyielding force of human numbers to【C13】______the economy. The【C14】______in U.S. birthrates in recent years has almost certainly had a negative effect on consumer spending (and,【C15】______, lower birthrates are probably an outcome of the recession). In particular, childless couples don't need space for more kids so they're less【C16】______to buy homes in the suburbs,【C17】______demand for housing that badly needs to sell more homes. In other words,【C18】______families and less household formation【C19】______the U.S. economy of housing and transportation spending, which has historically accounted for half of family【C20】______.