阅读理解Passage TwoBefore, whenever we had wealth, we started discussing poverty. Why not now? Why is the currentpolitics of wealth and poverty seemingly about wealth alone? Eight years ago, when Bill Clinton firstran for president, the Dow Jones average was under 3,500, yearly federal budget deficits wereprojected at hundreds of billions of dollars forever and beyond, and no one talked about the“permanent boom” or the “new economy”. Yet in that more straitened time, Clinton made much ofthe importance of “not leaving a single person behind”. It is possible that similar “compassionate”rhetoric might yet play a role in the general election.But it is striking how much less talk there is about the poor than there was eight years ago, when thecountry was economically uncertain, or in previous eras, when the county felt flush. Even lastsummer, when Clinton spent several days on a remarkable tour through impoverished areas fromIndian reservations in South Dakota to ghetto neighborhoods in East St. Louis, the administrationdecided to refer to the effort not as a poverty tour but as a “new market initiative”.What is happening is partly a logical, policy-driven reaction. Poverty really is lower than it has beenin decades, especially for minority groups. The most attractive solution to it—a growingeconomy—is being applied. The people who have been totally left out of this boom often havemedical, mental or other problems for which no one has an immediate solution. “The economy hassucked in anyone who has any preparation, any ability to cope with modern life,” says Franklin D.Raines, the former director of the Office of Management and Budget who is now head of Fannie Mac.When he and other people who specialize in the issue talk about solutions, they talk analytically andon a long term basis: education, development of work sill, shifts in the labor market, and adjustmentsin welfare reform.But I think there is another force that has made this a rich era with barely visible poor people. It isthe unusual social and imaginative separation between prosperous America and those still left out.It’s simple invisibility because of increasing geographic, occupational, and social barriers that blockone group from the other’s view.

阅读理解In some countries where racial prejudice is acute, violence has so come to be taken for granted as a means of solving differences, that it is not even questioned. There are countries where the white man imposes his rule by brute force; there are countries where the black man protests by setting fire to cities and by looting and pillaging. Important people on both sides, who would in other respects appear to be reasonable men, get up and calmly argue in favor of violence — as if it were a legitimate solution, like any other. What is really frightening, what really fills you with despair, is the realization that when it comes to the crunch, we have made no actual progress at all. We may wear collars and ties instead of war-paint, but our instincts remain basically unchanged. The whole of the recorded history of the human race, that tedious documentation of violence, has taught us absolutely nothing. We have still not learnt that violence never solves a problem but makes it more acute. The sheer horror, the bloodshed, the suffering mean nothing. No solution ever comes to light the morning after when we dismally contemplate the smoking ruins and wonder what hit us.The truly reasonable men who know where the solutions lie are finding it harder and harder to get a hearing. They are despised, mistrusted and even persecuted by their own kind because they advocate such apparently outrageous things as law enforcement. If half the energy that goes into violent acts were put to good use, if our efforts were directed at cleaning up the slums and ghettos, at improving living standards and providing education and employment for all, we would have gone a long way to arriving at a solution. Our strength is sapped by having to mop up the mess that violence leaves in its wake. In a well-directed effort, it would not be impossible to fulfill the ideals of a stable social programme. The benefits that can be derived from constructive solutions are everywhere apparent in the world around us. Genuine and lasting solutions are always possible, providing we work within the framework of the law.Before we can even begin to contemplate peaceful co-existence between the races, we must appreciate each other’s problems. And to do this, we must learn about them: it is a simple exercise in communication, in exchanging information. “Talk, talk, talk,” the advocates of violence say, “all you ever do is talk, and we are none the wiser.” It’s rather like the story of the famous barrister who painstakingly explained his case to the judge. After listening to a lengthy argument the judge complained that after all this talk, he was none the wiser. “Possible, my lord,” the barrister replied, “none the wiser, but surely far better informed.” Knowledge is the necessary prerequisite to wisdom: the knowledge that violence creates the evils it pretends to solve.

阅读理解Passage Four: Questions are based on the following passage

阅读理解 Patients whose eyes have suffered heat or chemical burns typically experience severe damage to the cornea—the thin, transparent front of the eye that refracts light and contributes most of the eye's focusing ability. In a long-term study, Italian researchers use stem cells taken from the limbus, the border between the cornea and the white of the eye, to cultivate a graft of healthy cells in a lab to help restore vision in eyes. During the 10-years study, the researchers implanted the healthy stem cells into the damaged cornea in 113 eyes of 112 patients. The treatment was fully successful in more than 75 percent of the patients, and partially successful in 13 percent. Moreover, the restored vision remained stable over 10 years. Success was defined as an absence of all symptoms and permanent restoration of the cornea. Treatment outcome was initially assessed at one year, with up to 10 years of follow-up evaluations. The procedure was even successful in several patients whose burn injuries had occurred years earlier and who had already undergone surgery. Current treatment for burned eyes involves taking stem cells from a patient's healthy eye, or from the eyes of another person, and transferring them to the burned eye. The new procedure, however, stimulates the limbal stem cells from the patient's own eye to reproduce in a lab culture. Several types of treatments using stem cells have proven successful in restoring blindness, but the long-term effectiveness shown here is significant. The treatment is only for blindness caused by damage to the cornea; it is not effective for repairing damaged retinas or optic nerves. Chemical eye burns often occur in the workplace, but can also happen due to mishaps involving household cleaning products and automobile batteries. The results of the study, based at Italy's University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, were published in the June 23 online issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

阅读理解Many objects in daily use have clearly been influenced by science, but their form and function, theirdimensions and appearance were determined by technologists, artisans, designers, inventors, andengineers — using nonscientific modes of thought. Many features and qualities of the objects that atechnologist thinks about cannot be reduced to unambiguous verbal descriptions; they are dealt within the mind by a visual, nonverbal process. In the development of Western technology, it has beennonverbal thinking, by and large, that has fixed the outlines and filled in the details, and rockets existnot because of geometry or thermodynamics, but because they were first a picture in the minds ofthose who built them.The creative shaping process of a technologist’s mind can be seen in nearly every artifact that exists.For example, in designing a diesel engine, a technologist might impress individual ways of nonverbalthinking on the machine by continually using an intuitive sense of rightness and fitness. What wouldbe the shape of the combustion chamber? Where should be the valves played? Should it have a longor short piston? Such questions have a range of answers that are supplied by experience, by physicalrequirements, by limitations of available space, and not least by a sense of form. Some decisions,such as wall thickness and pin diameter, may depend on scientific calculations, but the nonscientificcomponent of design remains primary.Design courses, then, should be an essential element in engineering curricula. Nonverbal thinking, acentral mechanism in engineering design, involves perceptions, the stock in trade of the artist, not thescientist. Because perceptive processes are not assumed to entail “hard thinking”, nonverbal thoughtis sometimes seen as a primitive stage in the development of cognitive process and inferior to verbalor mathematical thought. But it is paradoxical that when the staff of the Historic AmericanEngineering Record wished to have drawings made of machines and isometric (等距) views ofindustrial processes for its historical record of American engineering, the only college students withthe requisite abilities were not engineering students, but rather students attending architecturalschools.If courses in design, which in a strongly analytical engineering curriculum provide the backgroundrequired for practical problem solving, are not provided, we can expect to encounter silly but costlyerrors occurring in advanced engineering systems. For example, early models of high speed railroadcars loaded with sophisticated controls were unable to operate in a snowstorm because a fan suckedsnow into the electrical system. Absurd random failures that plague automatic control systems arenot merely trivial aberrations, they are a reflection of the chaos that results when design is assumedto be primarily a problem in mathematics.

阅读理解Automation refers to the introduction of electronic control and automatic operation of productive machinery. It reduces the human factors, mental and physical, in production and is designed to make possible the manufacture of more goods with fewer workers. The development of automation in American industry has been called the Second Industrial Revolution.Labors concern over automation arises from uncertainty about the effects on employment, and fears of major changes in jobs. In the main, labor has taken the view that resistance to technical change is unfruitful. Eventually the result of automation may well be an increase in employment, since it is expected that vast industries will grow up around manufacturing, maintaining, and repairing automation equipment. The interest of labor lies in bringing about the transition with a minimum of inconvenience and distress to the workers involved. Also, union spokesmen emphasize that the benefit of the increased production and lower costs made possible by automation should be shared by workers in the form of higher wages, more leisure, and improved living standards.To protect the interests of their members in the era of automation, unions have adopted a number of new policies. One of these is the promotion of supplementary unemployment benefit plans. It is emphasized that since the employer involved in such a plan has a direct financial interest in preventing unemployment, he will have a strong drive for planning new installations so as to cause the least possible problems in jobs and job assignments. Some unions are working for dismissal pay agreements, requiring that permanently dismissed workers be paid a sum of money based on length of service. Another approach is the idea of the improvement factor, which calls for wage increases based on increases in productivity. It is possible, however, that labor will rely mainly on reduction in working hours in order to gain a full share in the fruits of automation.

阅读理解 People are extraordinarily skilled at spotting cheats—much better than they are at detecting rule-breaking that does not involve cheating. A study showing that just how good we are at this adds weight to the theory that our exceptional brainpower arose through evolutionary pressures to acquire specific cognitive skills. The still-controversial idea that humans have specialized decision systems in addition to generalized reasoning ability has been around for decades. Its advocates point out that the ability to identify untrustworthy people should be favored evolutionally since cheats risk undermining the social interactions in which people trade goods or services for mutual benefit. To test whether we have a special ability to reason about cheating, Leda Cosmides, an evolutionary psychological test called the Wason selection test, which tests volunteers' ability to reason about 'if/then' statements. The researchers set up scenarios in which they asked undergraduate volunteers to imagine they were supervising workers sorting applications for admission to two schools: a good one in a district where school taxes are high, and a poor one on an equally wealthy, but lightly taxed district. The hypothetical workers were supposed to follow a rule that specified 'if a student is admitted to the good school, they must live in the highly taxed district'. Half the time, the test subjects are told that the workers had children of their own applying to the schools, thus having a motive to cheat; the rest of the time they were told the workers were merely absent-minded and sometimes made innocent errors. Then the test subjects were asked how they would verify that the workers were not breaking the rule. Cosmides found that when the 'supervisors' thought they were checking for innocent errors, just 9 of 33, or 27 percent, got the right answer—looking for a student admitted to the good school who did not live in the highly-taxed district. In contrast, when the supervisors thought they were watching for cheats, they did much better with 23 of 34, or 68 percent getting the right answer. This suggests that people are, indeed more adept at spotting cheat than at detecting mere rule-breaking. Cosmides says, 'Any cues that it's just an innocent mistake actually inactivate the detection mechanism.' The result is what you would expect if natural selection had favored this specific ability in early, pro-social humans—and is not at all what would happen under selection for generalized intelligence, Cosmides says. 'My claim is that there is nothing domain-general in the mind, just that that can't be the only thing going on in the mind.' Other psychologists remain skeptical of this conclusion. 'If you want to conclude that therefore there's a module in the mind for detecting cheater, I see zero evidence for that,' says Steven Sloman, a cognitive scientist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. 'It's certainly possible that it's something we learned through experience. There is no evidence that it's anything innate.'

阅读理解When my wife, Meg, suffered a severe stroke that immobilized her left side, I knew we would be facing a grueling odyssey involving several hospitals, dozens of doctors and countless therapy sessions. What I wasn’t prepared for was the American Way of Managed Health Care, a system that is bureaucratic and often dysfunctional. Yes, medical practitioners in the United States are generally considered among the best in the world, and my wife primarily had first-rate care, but their back-office practice — a business dominated by third-party payers — is badly run at worst and woefully confusing at best.Meg’s stroke occurred while we were vacationing in the south of France last summer. After being stabilized in the emergency room of a small hospital, she was transferred immediately to a large teaching hospital, where she received excellent treatment in a world-renowned stroke pavilion. When I received the bill for her 2—1/2-week stay at the Pasteur Hospital in Nice, I asked the deputy administrator for an itemized statement. I knew I’d need to show it to our health-insurance company — the one-page invoice for more than 20,000 euro wouldn’t do. The administrator was puzzled. There were only two daily rates, he explained, one for soins intensifs — or intensive care — and another for non-acute care. There were no extra charges; the numerous ambulance transfers, MRI brain scans, X-rays and assorted tests associated with any serious injury or illness were all-inclusive. In fact, the only supplement was 10.67 Euros — about $13 — a day for food which, although not three-star bistro quality, was certainly a bargain, and better than anything you can eat in a U.S. hospital.I’m not arguing that the French health-care system should be a world benchmark, but compared with what we faced when we returned home; it was a model of simplicity and efficiency. Of course, everything in American medical care is a la carte, and the invoices are so dense with codes and abbreviations, it’s a wonder anyone can decipher them. I often wonder, how much does this cost the American public annually?At one New York hospital, we received bills from doctors we’d never heard of, including one who charged for an office visit when Meg couldn’t even get out of bed. The managed care provider’s computer sent him a check without question. Had he not billed us for the co-payment I never would have noticed the error. Over the past few months, I spent hours clearing up these kinds of mistakes. A doctor friend who heads a department in a large hospital admitted that these kinds of complaints are all too common.Meg’s medical tab has reached nearly $300,000, which seems monumental, even given the nature of her catastrophic injury. Thankfully, we were covered for most of it. Yet $90,000 of that figure had little or nothing to do with patient care. Roughly 30 cents of each health-care dollar goes to administration, or the processing of paperwork. If that figure could be reduced by a third, even $30,000 would go a long way toward extending her rehab treatments. (Meg’s 2004 benefits have run out.)When Meg was finally discharged after spending 56 days in hospitals, we received co-payment bills for her medical equipment, including an itemized statement for every extra on her wheelchair (no, the brake extensions, foot pedals, armrest, anti-tip bars, seat and seat belt are not included). But the provider billed us two ways, one for leasing the chair and another for purchase. Even now, after numerous phone calls, I still don’t know whether we own or are renting the wheelchair.The outpatient rehab therapy sessions presented their own set of challenges. The hospital sent a number of bills — printed in alphanumeric codes — for additional thousands of dollars even though we made the proper co-payments at the time of treatment. Billing administrators barely raised an eyebrow when I told them I had spent too much time on hold and would no longer bother calling to dispute the charges. (We have since received automated early-morning phone calls asking us to contact the hospital.)I’ve checked with others who have had protracted negotiations with health-care providers and insurers over complex medical treatment. They echo my frustration. Why is it incumbent on the recipient to spend countless hours rectifying the medical administration’s mistakes? How much extra does this process add to the nation’s annual health-care bill?Medicare — our government-subsidized system that cares for the elderly — has a much better record in administrative costs. It spends between three and four cents of every dollar on paperwork and processing. A single-payer system is easier and cheaper to run. We’ve had a two-tier health-care system in the United States for a while, and only one tier works. Isn’t it time for managed care to slim down and help its patients get better instead of burdening them with needlessly expensive paperwork?

作文题 Directions: In this part there is an essay in Chinese. Read it carefully and then write a summary of 200 words in English on the ANSWER SHEET. Make sure that your summary covers the major points of the essay. 什么是健康? 人的健康包括身体健康和心理健康两个方面。一个人的身体和心理都健康才称得上真正的健康。联合国世界卫生组织对健康下的定义是：健康的人不但没有身体疾忠，而且有完整的生理、心理状态和社会适应能力。 日前在我们国家，无论在健康人与病人中，或者在医务人员中，大都在不同程度上忽略心理健康。这对提高人的健康水平与提高医疗效果都产生消极的影响。例如在现实生活中，人们往往重视营养，而忽视饮食时的心理因素作用。人们注意身体的锻炼，而不重视心理的锻炼。甚至不知道什么是心理健康以及如何锻炼。在临床实践中，有些医务人员在病因上，重视病毒、感染等因素，忽视疾病的心理因素的作用；在诊断上重视物理诊断等，忽视心理诊断；在治疗上重视药物治疗，忽视心理治疗。其实，身体健康与心理健康是同等重要的。二者是相互联系、相互制约的。身心两方面健康是相辅相成的。 随着21世纪的到来，人们更加专注自身的健康。追求长寿、健康已成为一种时尚。但是，如何才能健康，怎样才能长寿?健康与长寿的大敌又是什么呢?众多医学保健专家指出，介于疾病与健康之间的“第三状态”是人类健康与长寿的大敌。所谓第三状态，指人们经常感到自己身体难受不适的状态。主要表现为时常感觉身体很累，很疲倦，很想好好睡上一觉。此外，经常出现懒言、少气、食欲欠佳、对什么都不感兴趣、无精打采等症状，也就是人们常说的亚健康状态(sub-health condition)。如果说健康是人的第一状态，疾病是人的第二状态，那么亚健康则为人的第三状态。 有关调查表明，随着经济的高速发展，竞争日趋激烈，生活节奏逐渐加快，亚健康人群的增多已成为一种不可回避的现实。该人群以中年人居多，职业涉及很广。一般来讲，越是有成就、收入越高，亚健康状态的出现频率越高，如经理、秘书、管理人员等都是亚健康状态的高发职业。此外，记者、律师、医生、自由职业者出现亚健康状态的比例也比较高。 目前很“时髦”的“疲劳综合征”(exhaustion syndrome)就是亚健康状态的典型代表。疲劳综合症不仅在发达国家有相当高的发病率，在发展中国家也不少见。这类疾病表面看来对人体并无多大妨碍，仅仅表现为生理功能低下，但其潜伏的危险性却不容忽视，因为疲劳综合征往往就是某些慢性病的先兆。比如大家所熟悉的高血压、心脑血管疾病、肿瘤等，很多都继发于疲劳综合征。 对于亚健康状态，目前国内、国外尚无特效治疗方法，而学会自我调节，对于缓解、纠正人体的亚健康状态非常重要。这里提醒您注意以下几点：一是学会以轻松的心态对待学习、工作和生活，尽量不要故意给自己加压。二是要吃好。所谓吃好，不是指大吃大喝、大鱼大肉，而是指根据自己的实际情况选择饮食。三是一定要睡好，早睡早起。睡上一个好觉，精力、体力就容易恢复。

单选题The government has______ a series of policies to ensure its sustained development in economy. A. reserved B. issued C. stated D. expressed

单选题Questions 28—30 are based on the following monologue. You now have 15 seconds to read questions 28—30.

单选题To our disappointment, the guide also only has a slight______ with Italian.(2003年上海交通大学考博试题)

单选题There's one girl at my school who everybody______ because she doesn't wear what everybody else wears; they are horrible to her. A. picks out B. picks over C. picks on D. picks off

单选题My supply of confidence slowly ______ as the deadline approached.(2002年中国社会科学院考博试题)

单选题He has never worried about his properties because he has______them against disasters and theft. A. assured B. ensured C. insured D. secure