阅读理解Reading Passage 2A.For more than forty years the cost of food has been rising. It has now reached a point where a growing number of people believe that it is far too high, and that bringing it down will be one of the great challenges of the twenty first century. That cost, however, is not in immediate cash. In the West at least, most food is now far cheaper to buy in relative terms than it was in 1960. The cost is in the collateral damage of the very methods of food production that have made the food cheaper: in the pollution of water, the enervation of soil, the destruction of wildlife, the harm to animal welfare and the threat to human health caused by modem industrial agriculture. B. First mechanization, then mass use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, then monocultures, then battery rearing of livestock, and now genetic engineering —the onward march of intensive farming has seemed unstoppable in the last half-century, as the yields of produce have soared. But the damage it has caused has been colossal. In Britain, for example, many of our best-loved farmland birds, such as the skylark, the grey partridge, the lapwing and the corn bunting, have vanished from huge stretches of countryside, as have even more wild flowers and insects. This is a direct result of the way we have produced our food in the last four decades. Thousands of miles of hedgerows, thousands of ponds, have disappeared from the landscape. The fecal filth of salmon farming has driven wild salmon from many of the sea lochs and rivers of Scotland. Natural soil fertility is dropping in many areas because of continuous industrial fertilizer and pesticide use, while the growth of algae is increasing in lakes because of the fertilizer run-off. C. Put it all together and it looks like a battlefield, but consumers rarely make the connection at the dinner table. That is mainly because the costs of all this damage are what economists refer to as externalities: they are outside the main transaction, which is for example producing and selling a field of wheat, and are borne directly by neither producers nor consumers. To many, the costs may not even appear to be financial at all, but merely aesthetic—a terrible shame, but nothing to do with money. And anyway they, as consumers of food, certainly aren’ t paying for it, are they? D. But the costs to society can actually be quantified and, when added up, can amount to staggering sums. A remarkable exercise in doing this has been carried out by one of the world’ s leading thinkers on the future of agriculture, Professor Jules Pretty, Director of the Centre for Environment and Society at the University of Essex. Professor Pretty and his colleagues calculated the externalities of British agriculture for one particular year. They added up the costs of repairing the damage it caused, and came up with a total figure of ￡ 2, 343m. This is equivalent to ￡ 208 for every hectare of arable land and permanent pasture, almost as much again as the total government and EU spend on British farming in that year. And according to Professor Pretty, it was a conservative estimate. E. The costs included: ￡ 120m for removal of pesticides; ￡ 16m for removal of nitrates; ￡ 55m for removal of phosphates and soil; ￡ 23m for the removal of the bug cryptosporidium from drinking water by water companies; ￡ 125m for damage to wildlife habitats, hedgerows and dry stone walls; ￡ 1, 113m from emissions of gases likely to contribute to climate change; ￡ 106m from soil erosion and organic carbon losses; ￡ 169m from food poisoning; and ￡ 607m from cattle disease. Professor Pretty draws a simple but memorable conclusion from all this: our food bills are actually threefold. We are paying for our supposedly cheaper food in three separate ways: once over the counter, secondly through our taxes, which provide the enormous subsidies propping up modern intensive fanning, and thirdly to clean up the mess that modem farming leaves behind. F. So can the true cost of food be brought down? Breaking away from industrial agriculture as the solution to hunger may be very hard for some countries, but in Britain, where the immediate need to supply food is less urgent, and the costs and the damage of intensive farming have been clearly seen, it may be more feasible. The government needs to create sustainable, competitive and diverse fanning and food sectors, which will contribute to a thriving and sustainable rural economy, and advance environmental, economic, health, and animal welfare goals. G. But if industrial agriculture is to be replaced, what is a viable alternative? Professor Pretty feels that organic farming would be too big a jump in thinking and in practices for many farmers. Furthermore, the price premium would put the produce out of reach of many poorer consumers. He is recommending the immediate introduction of a ‘ Greener Food Standard’ , which would push the market towards more sustainable environmental practices than the current norm, while not requiring the full commitment to organic production. Such a standard would comprise agreed practices for different kinds of farming, covering agrochemical use, soil health, land management, water and energy use, food safety and animal health. It could go a long way, he says, to shifting consumers as well as farmers towards a more sustainable system of agriculture.Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A-G. Which paragraph contains the following information? Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet.NB (注意) : You may use any letter more than once.

阅读理解Directions: Read the following passages and answer the questions. Choose the most appropriate answer for each question and circle the letter on the answer sheet. Remember to write the letter corresponding to the question number.Hunting for a job late last year, lawyer Gant Redmon stumbled across CareerBuilder, a job database on the Internet. He searched it with no success but was attracted by the site’s “personal search agent”. It’s an interactive feature that lets visitors key in job criteria such as location, title, and salary, then E-mails them when a matching position is posted in the database.Redmon chose the keywords legal, intellectual property, and Washington, D.C. Three weeks later, he got his first notification of an opening. “I struck gold,” says Redmon, who E-mailed his resume to the employer and won a position as in-house counsel for a company.With thousands of career-related sites on the Internet, finding promising openings can be time-consuming and inefficient. Search agents reduce the need for repeated visits to the databases. But although a search agent worked for Redmon, career experts see drawbacks. Narrowing your criteria, for example, may work against you: “Every time you answer a question you eliminate a possibility.” says one expert.For any job search, you should start with a narrow concept—what you think you want to do —then broaden it. “None of these programs do that,” says another expert. “There’s no career counseling implicit in all of this.” Instead, the best strategy is to use the agent as a kind of tip service to keep abreast of jobs in a particular database; when you get E-mail, consider it a reminder to check the database again. “I would not rely on agents for finding everything that is added to a database that might interest me,” says the author of a job- searching guide.Some sites design their agents to tempt job hunters to return. When CareerSite’s agent sends out messages to those who have signed up for its service, for example, it includes only three potential jobs — those it considers the best matches. There may be more matches in the database; job hunters will have to visit the site again to find them — and they do. “On the day after we send our messages, we see a sharp increase in our traffic,” says Seth Peets, vice president of marketing for CareerSite.Even those who aren’t hunting for jobs may find search agents worthwhile. Some use them to keep a close watch on the demand for their line of work or gather information on compensation to arm themselves when negotiating for a raise. Although happily employed, Redmon maintains his agent at CareerBuilder. “You always keep your eyes open,” he says. Working with a personal search agent means having another set of eyes looking out for you.

阅读理解Directions: In this section there are two reading passages, with each passage followed by FIVE multiple- choice questions. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose ONE answer that best answers the question or completes the statement. Then write your answers on the Answer Sheet.Passage TWOThe biggest problem facing Chile as it promotes itself as a tourist destination to be reckoned with is that it is at the end of the earth. It is too far south to be a convenient stop on the way to anywhere else and is much farther than a relatively cheap half-day’ s flight away from the big tourist markets, unlike Mexico, for example.Chile, therefore, is having to fight hard to attract tourists, to convince travelers that it is worth coming halfway round the world to visit. But it is succeeding, not only in existing markets like the USA and Western Europe but in new territories, in particular the Far East. Markets closer to home, however, are not being forgotten. More than 50% of visitors to Chile still come from its nearest neighbor, Argentina, where the cost of living is much higher.Like all South American countries, Chile sees tourism as a valuable earner of foreign currency, although it has been far more serious than most in promoting its image abroad. Relatively stable politically within the region, it has benefited from the problems suffered in other areas. In Peru, guerrilla warfare in recent years has dealt a heavy blow to the tourist industry and fear of street crime in Brazil has reduced the attraction of Rio de Janeiro as a dream destination for foreigners.More than 150, 000 people are directly involved in Chile’ s tourist sector, an industry which earns the country more than US $950 million each year. The state-run National Tourism Service, in partnership with a number of private companies, is currently running a worldwide campaign, taking part in trade fairs and international events to attract visitors to Chile.Chile’ s great strength as a tourist destination is its geographical diversity. From the parched Atacama Desert in the north to the Antarctic snowfields of the south, it is more than 5, 000 km long. With the Pacific on one side and the Andean mountains on the other, Chile boasts natural attractions. Its beaches are not up to Caribbean standards but resorts such as Vina del Mar are generally dean and unspoilt and have a high standard of services.But the tromp card is the Andes mountain range. There are a number of excellent ski resorts within one hour’ s drive of the capital, Santiago, and the national parks in the south are home to rare animal and plant species. The parks already attract specialist visitors, including mountaineers, who come to climb the technically difficult peaks, and fishermen, lured by the salmon and trout in the region’ s rivers. However, infrastructural development in these areas is limited. The ski resorts do not have as many lifts as their European counterparts and the poor quality of roads in the south means that only the most determined travelers see the best of the national parks. Air links between Chile and the rest of the world are, at present, relatively poor. While Chile’ s two largest airlines have extensive networks within South America, they operate only a small number of routes to the United States and Europe, while services to Asia are almost non- existent. Internal transports links are being improved and luxury hotels are being built in one of its national . parks. Nor is development being restricted to the Andes. Easter Island and Chile’ s Antarctic Territory are also on the list of areas where the Government believes it can create tourist markets.But the rush to open hitherto inaccessible areas to mass tourism is not being welcomed by everyone. Indigenous and environmental groups, including Green Peace, say that many parts of the Andes will suffer if they become over- developed. There is a genuine fear that areas of Chile will suffer the cultural destruction witnessed in Mexico and European resorts. The policy of opening up Antarctica to tourism is also politically sensitive. Chile already has permanent settlements on the ice and many people see the decision to allow tourists there as a political move, enhancing Santiago’ s territorial claim over part of Antarctica.Tile Chilean Government has promised to respect the environment as it seeks to bring tourism to these areas. But there are immense Commercial pressures to exploit the country’ s tourism potential. The Government will have to monitor developments closely if it is genuinely concerned in creating a balanced, controlled industry and if the price of an increasingly lucrative tourist market is not going to mean the loss of many of Chile’ s natural fiches.

阅读理解Reading Passage 3Questions are based on the following reading Passage. A. After a long break, online bookseller Amazon is back trying to encourage us to read in a new way. Its Web site now features this description of its Kindle reading device: “Availability; In Stock. Ships from and sold by Amazon. com. Gift-wrap available. ” This good news for consumers comes after the first batch of the devices sold out in just six hours late last year. B. This seems like a fitting time to ask: If the Internet is the most powerful communications advance: ever—and it is—then how do this medium and its new devices affect how and what we read? C. Aristotle lived during the era when the written word displaced the oral tradition, becoming the first to explain that how we communicate alters what we communicate. That’ s for sure. It’ s still early in the process of a digital rhetoric replacing the more traditionally written word. It’ s already an open question whether constant email and multitasking leaves us overloaded humans with the capability to handle longer- form writing. D. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos dedicated his most recent shareholder letter to explaining his cultural ambitions for the Kindle. Laptops, BlackBerrys and mobile phones have “shifted us more toward information snacking, and I would argue toward shorter attention spans. ” He hopes that “Kindle and its successors may gradually and incrementally move us over years into a world with longer spans of attention, providing a counterbalance to the recent proliferation of info-snacking tools. ” E. To an info-snacker of many years, the prospect of a gourmet meal sounds pretty good. Perhaps a new digital device like the Kindle can help us regain the attention spans earlier devices helped us lose. If so, this could become a great era for books, or more accurately for the future of words that for centuries could be delivered only in book form. F. Digitized words can be spread at low cost in newly interactive ways. As the marketing for the Kindle puts it, over 100, 000 books can be delivered wirelessly in less than a minute, “whether you’ re in the back of a taxi, at the airport, or in bed. ” G. In Print Is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age—published in hardcover last November, and now available for the Kindle—author Jeff Gomez challenges authors and publishers to think creatively about the new medium: “It’ s not about the page versus the screen in a technological grudge match. It’ s about the screen doing a dozen things the page can’ t do. ” Digitized words should count for more. “What’ s going to be transformed isn’ t just the reading of one book, but the ability to read a passage from practically any book that exists, at any time that you want to, as well as the ability to click on hyperlinks, experience multimedia, and add notes and share passages with others. ” H. The book introduced a disciplined way of thinking about topics, organized around contents pages, indexing, citation and bibliography. These are at the root of Web structure as well. One theme for the next annual conference on the book is that the digital experience could simply be an evolution: “The information architecture of the book, embodying as it does thousands of years’ experience with recorded knowledge, provides a solid grounding for every adventure we might take in the new world of digital media. ” I. The not-so-positive case is that, at least so far, we’ re not giving up on books for the same words on screens—we’ re giving up on words. Pick your data point: A recent National Endowment for the Arts report, “To Read or Not to Read, ” found that 15-to-24-year-olds spend an average of seven minutes reading on weekdays; people between 35 and 44 spend 12 minutes; and people 65 and older spend close to an hour. J. Much is at stake, As Mr. Gomez concluded, “what’ s really important is the culture of ideas and innovation” books represent. But “to expect future generations to be satisfied with printed books is like expecting the BlackBerry users of today to start communicating by writing letters, stuffing envelopes and licking stamps. ” K. Innovations to address our evolving expectations include combining traditional books with newer media. Scholastic plans a new series for kids called “39 Clues, ” which will feature books, online games and collecting cards; the aim is to get kids “excited about books in a whole new way. ” Leapfrog’ s Leapster device for toddlers looks like a junior videogame device, but actually teaches key skills through titles like “Letters on the Loose” and “Numbers on the Run. ”L. Marshal McLuhan more than 40 years ago warned, “The electric technology is within the gates, and we are numb, deal blind and mute about its encounter with the Gutenberg technology on and through which the American way of life was formed. ” Maybe McLuhan was too pessimistic. With innovations like the Kindle, digital media can help return to us our attention spans and extend what makes books great: words and their meaning.QuestionsFor each question below, choose the answer that best completes the sentence. Then mark the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a single line through the center.

阅读理解Directions: In this section there are reading passagesfollowed by multiple-choice questions. Read the passagesand then mark your answers on your answer sheet.Passage BAgriculture and fishing formed the primary sector of theeconomy in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century.Dutch agriculture was modernized and commercialized newcrops and agricultural techniques raised levels ofproduction so that they were in line with market demands,and cheap grain was imported annually from the Balticregion in large quantities. According to estimates, about120, 000 tons of imported grain fed about 600, 000 people;that is about a third of the Dutch population. Importingthe grain, which would have been expensive and timeconsuming for the Dutch to have produced themselves, keptthe price of grain low and thus simulated individualdemand for other food stuffs and consumer goods.Apart from this, being able to give up labor-intensivegrain production freed both the land and the workforce formore productive agricultural divisions. The peasantsspecialized in Livestock husbandry and dairy farming aswell as in cultivating industrial crops and fodder crops:flax, madder, and rape were grown, as were tobacco, hops,and turnips. These products were bought mostly by urbanbusinesses. There was also a demand among urban consumersfor dairy products, such as butter and cheese, which, inthe sixteenth century, had become more expensive thangrain. The high prices encouraged the peasants to improvetheir animal husbandry techniques; for example, they beganfeeding their animals indoors in order to raise the milkyield of their cows.In addition to dairy farming and cultivating crops, athird sector of the Dutch economy reflected the way inwhich agriculture was being modernized horticulture. Inthe sixteenth century, fruit and vegetables were to befound only in gardens belonging to wealthy people. Thischanged in the early part of the seventeenth century whenhorticulture became accepted as an agricultural sector.Whole villages began to cultivate fruit and vegetables.The produce was then transported by water to markets inthe cities, where the consumption of fruit and vegetableswas no longer restricted to the wealthy.As the demand for agricultural produce from both consumersand industry increased, agricultural land became morevaluable and people tried to work the available land moreintensively and to reclaim more land from wetlands andlakes. In order to increase production on existing land,the peasants made more use of crop rotation and, inparticular, began to apply animal waste to the soilregularly, rather than leaving the fertilization processup to the grazing livestock. For the first time industrialwaste such as ash from the soap-boilers, was collected inthe cities and sold in the country as artificialfertilizer. The increased yield and price of landjustified reclaiming and draining even more land.The Dutch battle against the sea is legendary.Noorderkwariter in Holland, with its numerous lakes andstretches of water, was particularly suitable for landreclamation and one of the biggest projects undertakenthere was the draining of the Beemster lake which began in1608. The richest merchants in Amsterdam contributed moneyto reclaim a good 7, 100 hectares of land. Forty-threewindmills powered the drainage pumps so that they wereable to lease the reclamation to farmers as early as 1612,with the investors receiving annual leasing payments at aninterest rate of 17 percent. Land reclamation continued,and between 1590 and 1665 almost 100, 000 hectares werereclaimed from the wetland areas of Holland, Zeeland, andFriesland. However, land reclamation decreasedsignificantly after the middle of the seventeenth centurybecause the price of agricultural products began to fall,making land reclamation far less profitable in the secondpart of the century.Dutch agriculture was finally affected by the generalagricultural crisis in Europe during the last two decadesof the seventeenth century. However, what is astonishingabout this is not that Dutch agriculture was affected bycritical phenomena such as a decrease in sales andproduction, but the fact that the crisis appeared onlyrelatively late in Dutch agriculture. In Europe as awhole, the exceptional reduction in the population and therelated fall in demand for grain since the beginning ofthe seventeenth century had caused the price ofagricultural products to fall. Dutch peasants were able toremain unaffected by this crisis for a long fine becausethey had specialized in dairy farming industrial crops,and horticulture. However, toward the end of theseventeenth century, they too were, overtaken by thegeneral agricultural crisis.

阅读理解Computer programmers often remark that

阅读理解For about three centuries we have been doing science, trying science out, using science for the construction of what we call modern civilization. Every dispensable item of contemporary technology, from canal locks to dial telephones to penicillin, was pieced together from the analysis of data provided by one or another series of scientific experiments. Three hundred years seems a long time for testing a new approach to human interaction, long enough to settle back for critical appraisal of the scientific method, maybe even long enough to vote on whether to go on with it or not. There is an argument.Voices have been raised in protest since the beginning, rising in pitch and violence in the nineteenth century during the early stages of the industrial revolution, summoning urgent crowds into the streets any day on the issue of nuclear energy. The principal discoveries in this century, all in all, are the glimpses of the depth of our ignorance about nature. Things that used to seem clear and rational, matters of absolute certainty—Newtonian mechanics, for example—have slipped through our fingers, and we are left with a new set of gigantic puzzles, cosmic uncertainties, ambiguities; some of the laws of physics are amended every few years, some are canceled outright, some undergo revised versions of legislative intent as if they were acts of Congress.Just thirty years ago we call it a biological revolution when the fantastic geometry of the DNA molecule was exposed to public view and the linear language of genetics was decoded. For a while, things seemed simple and clear, the cell was a neat little machine, a mechanical device ready for taking to pieces and reassembling, like a tiny watch. But just in the last few years it has become almost unbelievably complex, filled with strange parts whose functions are beyond today’ s imagining.It is not just that there is more to do; there is everything to do. What lies ahead, or what can lie ahead if the efforts in basic research are continued, is much more than the conquest of human disease or the improvement of agricultural technology or the cultivation of nutrients in the sea. As we learn more about fundamental processes of living things in general we will learn more about ourselves.

阅读理解Passage 3Directions: Read the following passage and then answer IN COMPLETE SENTENCES the questions following. Use only information from the passage you have just read.The first and most important rule of legitimate or popular government, that is to say, of government whose object is the good of the people, is therefore, as I have observed, to follow in everything the general will. But to follow this will it is necessary to know it, and above all to distinguish it from the particular will, beginning with one’ s self: this distinction is always very difficult to make, and only the most sublime virtue can afford sufficient illumination for it. As, in order to will, it is necessary to be free, a difficulty no less great than the former arises that of preserving at once the public liberty and the authority of government. Look into the motives which have induced men, once united by their common needs in a general society, to unite themselves still more intimately by means of civil societies: you will find no other motive than that of assuring the property, life and liberty of each member by the protection of all. But can men be forced to defend the liberty of any one among them, without trespassing on that of others? And how can they provide for the public needs, without alienating the individual property of those who are forced to contribute to them? With whatever sophistry all this may be covered over, it is certain that if any constraint can be laid on my will, I am no longer free, and that I am no longer master of my own property, if anyone else can lay a hand on it. This difficulty, which would have seemed insurmountable, has been removed, like the first, by the most sublime of all human institutions, or rather by a divine inspiration, which teaches mankind to imitate here below the unchangeable decrees of the Deity. By what inconceivable art has a means been found of making men free by making them subject; of using in the service of the State the properties, the persons and even the lives of all its members, without constraining and without consulting them; of confining their will by their own admission; of overcoming their refusal by that consent, and forcing them to punish themselves, when they act against their own will? How can it be that all should obey; yet nobody take upon him to command, and that all should serve, and yet have no masters, but be the more free, as, in apparent subjection, each loses no part of his liberty but what might be hurtful to that of another. These wonders are the work of law. It is to law alone that men owe justice and liberty. It is this salutary organ of the will of at which establishes, in civil right, the natural equality between men. It is this celestial voice which dictates to each citizen the precepts of public reason, and teaches him to act according to the rules of his own judgment, and not to behave inconsistently with himself. It is with this voice alone that political rulers should speak when they command; for no sooner does one man, setting aside the law, claim to subject another to his private will, than he departs from the state of civil society, and confronts him face to face in the pure state of nature, in which obedience is prescribed solely by necessity.

阅读理解Ben Was Swell, But He's

阅读理解Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2? On your answer sheet, write:MAKING EVERY DROP COUNTA. The history of human civilization is entwined with the history of the ways we have learned to manipulate water resources. As towns gradually expanded, water was brought from increasingly remote sources, leading to sophisticated engineering efforts such as dams and aqueducts. At the height of the Roman Empire, nine major systems, with an innovative layout of pipes and well-built sewers, supplied the occupants of Rome with as much water per person as is provided in many parts of the industrial world today. B. During the industrial revolution and population explosion of the 19th and 20th centuries, the demand for water rose dramatically. Unprecedented construction of tens of thousands of monumental engineering projects designed to control floods, protect clean water supplies, and provide water for irrigation and hydropower brought great benefits to hundreds of millions of people. Food production has kept pace with soaring populations mainly because of the expansion of artificial irrigation systems that make possible the growth of 40% of the world’ s food. Nearly one fifth of all the electricity generated worldwide is produced by turbines spun by the power of falling water. C. Yet there is a dark side to this picture: despite our progress, half of the world’ s population still suffers, with water services inferior to those available to the ancient Greeks and Romans. As the United Nations report on access to water reiterated in November 2001, more than one billion people lack access to clean drinking water; some two and a half billion do not have adequate sanitation services. Preventable water-related diseases kill an estimated 10, 000 to 20, 000 children every day, and the latest evidence suggests that we are falling behind in efforts to solve these problems. D. The consequences of our water policies extend beyond jeopardizing human health. Tens of millions of people have been forced to move from their homes—often with little warning or compensation—to make way for the reservoirs behind dams. More than 20% of all freshwater fish species are now threatened or endangered because dams and water withdrawals have destroyed the free-flowing river ecosystems where they thrive. Certain irrigation practices degrade soil quality and reduce agricultural productivity. Groundwater aquifers are being pumped down faster than they are naturally replenished in parts of India, China, the USA and elsewhere. And disputes over shared water resources have led to violence and continue to raise local, national and even international tensions. E. At the outset of the new millennium, however, the way resource planners think about water is beginning to change. The focus is slowly shifting back to the provision of basic human and environmental needs as top priority—ensuring some for all, instead of more for some. Some water experts are now demanding that existing infrastructure be used in smarter ways rather than building new facilities, which is increasingly considered the option of last, not first, resort. This shift in philosophy has not been universally accepted, and it comes with strong opposition from some established water organizations. Nevertheless, it may be the only way to address successfully the pressing problems of providing everyone with clean water to drink, adequate water to grow food and a life free from preventable water- related illness. F. Fortunately—and unexpectedly—the demand for water is not rising as rapidly as some predicted. As a result, the pressure to build new water infrastructures has diminished over the past two decades. Although population, industrial output and economic productivity have continued to soar in developed nations, the rate at which people withdraw water from aquifers, rivers and lakes has slowed. And in a few parts of the world, demand has actually fallen. G. What explains this remarkable turn of events? Two factors: people have figured out how to use water more efficiently, and communities are rethinking their priorities for water use. Throughout the first three- quarters of the 20th century, the quantity of freshwater consumed per person doubled on average; in the USA, water withdrawals increased tenfold while the population quadrupled. But since 1980, the amount of water consumed per person has actually decreased, thanks to a range of new technologies that help to conserve water in homes and industry. In 1965, for instance, Japan used approximately 13 million gallons of water to produce $1 million of commercial output; by 1989 this had dropped to 3. 5 million gallons (even accounting for inflation) —almost a quadrupling of water productivity. In the USA, water withdrawals have fallen by more than 20 % from their peak in 1980. H. On the other hand, dams, aqueducts and other kinds of infrastructure will still have to be built, particularly in developing countries where basic human needs have not been met. But such projects must be built to higher specifications and with more accountability to local people and their environment than in the past. And even in regions where new projects seem warranted, we must find ways to meet demands with fewer resources, respecting ecological criteria and to a smaller budget.

阅读理解Directions: There are 3 passages in this part each passage is followed by some questions unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice. Write your answers on the answer sheet.Passage TwoThomas Hardy’ s impulses as a writer, all of which he indulged in his novels, were numerous and divergent, and they did not always work together in harmony. Hardy was to some degree interested in exploring his characters’ psychologies, though impelled less by curiosity than by sympathy. Occasionally he felt the impulse to comedy (in all its detached coldness) as well as the: impulse to farce, but he was more often inclined to see tragedy and record it. He was also inclined to literary realism in the several senses of that phrase. He wanted to describe ordinary human beings; he wanted to speculate on their dilemmas rationally (and, unfortunately, even schematically) ; and he wanted to record precisely, the material universe. Finally, he wanted to be more than a realist. He wanted to transcend what he considered to be the banality of solely recording things exactly and to express as well his awareness of the occult and the strange.In his novels these various impulses were sacrificed to each other inevitably and often. Inevitably, because Hardy did not care in the way that novelists such as Flaubert or James cared, and therefore took paths of least resistance. Thus, one impulse often surrendered to a fresher one and, unfortunately, instead of exacting a compromise, simply disappeared. A desire to throw over reality a light that never was might give way abruptly to the desire on the part of what we might consider a novelist-scientist to record exactly and concretely the structure and texture of a flower. In this instance, the new impulse was at least an energetic one, and thus its indulgence did not result in a relaxed style. But on other occasions Hardy abandoned a perilous, risky, and highly energizing impulse in favor of what was for him the fatally relaxing impulse to classify and schematize abstractly. When a relaxing impulse was indulged, the style—that sure index of an author’ s literary worth—was certain to become verbose. Hardy’ s weakness derived from his apparent inability to control the comings and goings of these divergent impulses and from his unwillingness to cultivate and sustain the energetic and risky ones. He submitted to first one and then another, and the spirit blew where it listed; hence the unevenness of any one of his novels. His most controlled novel, Under the Greenwood Tree, prominently exhibits two different but reconcilable impulses—a desire to be a realist-historian and a desire to be a psychologist of love—but the slight interlockings of plot are not enough to bind the two completely together.Thus even this book splits into two distinct parts.

阅读理解In this section you will read 2 passages. Each one is followed by several questions about it. You are to choose one best answer to each question. Passage 2The Welsh language has always been the ultimate marker of Welsh identity, but a generation ago it looked as if Welsh would go the way of Manx, once widely spoken on the Isle of Man but now extinct. Government financing and central planning, however, have helped reverse the decline of Welsh. Road signs and official public documents are written in both Welsh and English, and schoolchildren are required to learn both languages. Welsh is now one of the most successful of Europe’ s regional languages, spoken by more than a half-million of the country’ s three million people.The revival of the language, particularly among young people, is part of a resurgence of national identity sweeping through this small, proud nation. Last month Wales marked the second anniversary of the opening of the National Assembly, the first parliament to be convened here since 1404. The idea behind devolution was to restore the balance within the union of nations making up the United Kingdom. With most of the people and wealth, England has always had bragging rights. The partial transfer of legislative powers from Westminster, implemented by Tony Blair, was designed to give the other members of the club Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales a bigger say and to counter centrifugal forces that seemed to threaten the very idea of the union.The Welsh showed little enthusiasm for devolution. Whereas the Scots voted overwhelmingly for a parliament, the vote for a Welsh assembly scraped through by less than one percent on a turnout of less than 25 percent. Its powers were proportionately limited. The Assembly can decide how money from Westminster or the European Union is spent. It cannot, unlike its counterpart in Edinburgh, enact laws. But now that it is here, the Welsh are growing to like their Assembly. Many people would like it to have more powers. Its importance as figurehead will grow with the opening in 2003, of a new debating chamber, one of many new buildings that are transforming Cardiff from a decaying seaport into a Baltimore-style-waterfront city. Meanwhile a grant of nearly two million dollars from the European Union will tackle poverty. Wales is one of the poorest regions in Western Europe only Spain, Portugal, and Greece have a lower standard of living. Newspapers and magazines are filled with stories about great Welsh men and women, boosting self-esteem. To familiar faces such as Dylan Thomas and Richard Burton have been added new icons such as Catherine Zeta-Jones, the movie star, and Bryn Terfel, the opera singer. Indigenous foods like salt marsh lamb are in vogue. And Wales now boasts a national airline. Awyr Cymru. Cyrmru, which means “land of compatriots, ” is the Welsh name for Wales. The red dragon, the nation’ s symbol since the time of King Arthur, is everywhere on T-shirts, rugby jerseys and even cell phone covers.“Until very recent times most Welsh people had this feeling of being second-class citizens, ” said Dyfan Jones, an 18-year-old student. It was a warm summer night, and I was sitting on the grass with a group of young people in Llanelli, an industrial town in the south, outside the rock music venue of the National Eisteddfod, Wales’ s annual cultural festival. The disused factory in front of us echoed to the sounds of new Welsh bands.“There was almost a genetic tendency for lack of confidence, ” Dyfan continued. Equally comfortable in his Welshness as in his membership in the English-speaking, global youth culture and the new federal Europe, Dyfan, like the rest of his generation, is growing up with a sense of possibility unimaginable ten years ago. “We used to think. We can’ t do anything, we’ re only Welsh. Now I think that’ s changing. ”

阅读理解(4)Psychologically there are two dangers to

阅读理解When we consider great painters of the past,

阅读理解Crippling health care bills, long emergency-room waits and the inability to find a primary care physician just scratch the surface of the problems that patients face daily.Primary care should be the backbone of any health care system. Countries with appropriate primary care resources score highly when it comes to health outcomes and cost. The U.S. takes the opposite approach by emphasizing the specialist rather than the primary care physician.A recent study analyzed the providers who treat Medicare beneficiaries. The startling finding was that the average Medicare patient saw a total of seven doctors—two primary care physicians and five specialists—in a given year. Contrary to popular belief, the more physicians taking care of you doesn’t guarantee better care. Actually, increasing fragmentation of care results in a corresponding rise in cost and medical errors.How did we let primary care slip so far? The key is how doctors are paid. Most physicians are paid whenever they perform a medical service. The more a physician does, regardless of quality or outcome, the better he’s reimbursed. Moreover, the amount a physician receives leans heavily toward medical or surgical procedures. A specialist who performs a procedure in a 30-minute visit can be paid three times more than a primary care physician using that same 30 minutes to discuss a patient’s disease. Combine this fact with annual government threats to indiscriminately cut reimbursements, physicians are faced with no choice but to increase quantity to boost income.Primary care physicians who refuse to compromise quality are either driven out of business or to cash-only practices, further contributing to the decline of primary care.Medical students aren’t blind to this scenario. They see how heavily the reimbursement deck is stacked against primary care. The recent numbers show that since 1997, newly graduated U.S. medical students who choose primary care as a career have declined by 50%. This trend results in emergency rooms being overwhelmed with patients without regular doctors.How do we fix this problem?It starts with reforming the physician reimbursement system. Remove the pressure for primary care physicians to squeeze in more patients per hour, and reward them for optimally managing their diseases and practicing evidence-based medicine. Make primary care more attractive to medical students by forgiving student loans for those who choose primary care as a career and reconciling the marked difference between specialist and primary care physician salaries.We’re at a point where primary care is needed more than ever. Within a few years, the first wave of the 76 million Baby Boomers will become eligible for Medicare. Patients older than 85, who need chronic care most, will rise by 50% this decade.Who will be there to treat them?

阅读理解Directions: There are 7 passages in this section. Eachpassage is followed by some questions orunfinishedstatements. For each of them there are four choices markedA, B, C, and D. You should decideon the best choice.Passage 5A white kid sells a bag of cocaine at his suburban highschool. A Latino kid does the same hi his inner-cityneighborhood. Both get caught. Both are first-timeoffenders. The white kid walks into juvenile court withhis parents, his priest, a good lawyer and medicalcoverage. The Latino kid walks into court with his mom, nolegal resources and no insurance. The judge lets the whitekid go with his family; he’ s placed in a privatetreatment program. The minority kid has no such option.He’ s detained.There, in a nutshell, is what happens more and more oftenin the juvenile-court system. Minority youths arrested onviolent felony charges in California are more than twiceas likely as their white counterparts to be transferredout of the juvenile-justice system and tried as adults,according to a study released last week by the JusticePolicy Institute, a research center hi San Francisco. Oncethey are in adult courts, young black offenders are 18times more likely to be jailed—and Hispanics seven timesmore likely—than are young white offenders.Discrimination against kids of color accumulates at everystage of the justice system and skyrockets when juvenilesare, tried as adults, says Dan Macallair, a co-author ofthe new study. California has a double standard: throwkids of color behind bars, but rehabilitate white kids whocommit comparable crimes. Even as juvenile crime has declined from its peak in theearly 199Qs, headline grabbing violence by minors hasintensified a get-tough attitude. Over the past six years,43 states have passed laws that make it easier to tryjuveniles as adults, in Texas and Connecticut in 1995, thelatest year for which figures are available, all thejuveniles in jails were minorities. Vincent Schiraldi, theJustice Policy Institute’ s director, concedes that somekids need to be tried as adults. But most can berehabilitated. Instead, adult prisons tend to brutalize juveniles. Theyare eight times more likely to commit suicide and fivetimes more likely to be sexually abused than offendersheld In juvenile detention. Once they get out, they tendto commit more crimes and more violent crimes, says JenniGainsborough, a spokeswoman for the Sentencing Project, areform. group In Washington. The system, in essence, istraining career criminals. And it’ s doing its worst workamong minorities.

阅读理解(3)According to some scientists, migratory

阅读理解Over the past century, all kinds of unfairness and discrimination have been condemned or made illegal. But one insidious form continues to thrive: alphabetism. This, for those as yet unaware of such a disadvantage, refers to discrimination against those whose surnames begin with a letter in the lower half of the alphabet.It has long been known that a taxi firm called AAAA cars has a big advantage over Zodiac cars when customers thumb through their phone directories. Less well known is the advantage that Adam Abbott has in life over Zoe Zysman. English names are fairly evenly spread between the halves of the alphabet. Yet a suspiciously large number of top people have surnames beginning with letters between A and K.Thus the American president and vice-president have surnames starting with B and C respectively; and 26 of George Bush’ s predecessors (including his father) had surnames in the first half of the alphabet against just 16 in the second half. Even more striking, six of the seven heads of government of the G7 rich countries are alphabetically advantaged (Berlusconi, Blair, Bush, Chirac, Chretien and Koizumi) . The world’ s three top central bankers (Greenspan, Duisenberg and Hayami) are all close to the top of the alphabet, even if one of them really uses Japanese characters. As are the world’ s five richest men (Gates, Buffett, Allen, Ellison and Albrecht) .Can this merely be coincidence? One theory, dreamt up in all the spare time enjoyed by the alphabetically disadvantaged, is that the lot sets in early. At the start of the first year in infant school, teachers seat pupils alphabetically from the front, to make it easier to remember their names. So short-sighted Zysman junior gets stuck in the back row, and is rarely asked the improving questions posed by those insensitive teachers. At the time the alphabetically disadvantaged may think they have had a lucky escape. Yet the result may be worse qualifications, because they get less individual attention, as well as less confidence in speaking publicly.The humiliation continues. At university graduation ceremonies, the ABCs proudly get their awards first; by the time they reach the Zysmans most people are literally having a ZZZ. Shortlists for job interviews, election ballot papers, lists of conference speakers and attendees: all tend to be drawn up alphabetically, and their recipients lose interest as they plough through them.

阅读理解In 1960-1961, Chad harvested 9800 tons of cotton seed for the first time in its history, and put out the flag a little too soon. The efforts of the authorities to get the peasants back to work, as they had slacked off (松懈) a great deal the previous year during independence celebrations, largely contributed to it. Also, rains were well spaced, and continued through the whole month of October. If the 1961-1962 total is back to the region of 45000 tons, it is mostly because efforts slackened again and sowing was started too late.The average date of sowing is about July 1st. If this date is simply moved up fifteen or twenty days, 30000 to 60000 tons of cotton are gained, depending on the year. The peasant in Chad sows his millet first, and it is hard to criticize this instinctive priority given to his daily bread. An essential reason for his lateness with sowing cotton is that at the time when he should leave to prepare the fields he has just barely sold the cotton of the previous season. The work required to sow, in great heat, is psychologically far more difficult if one’ s pockets are full of money. The date of cotton sales should therefore be moved forward as much as possible, and purchases of equipment and draught animals encouraged.Peasants should also be encouraged to save money, to help them through the difficult period between harvests. If necessary they should be forced to do so, by having the payments for cotton given to them in installments. The last payment would be made after proof that the peasant has planted before the deadline, the date being advanced to the end of June. Those who have done so would receive extra money whereas the last planters would not receive their last payment until later.Only the first steps are hard, because once work has started the peasants continue willingly on their way. Educational campaigns among the peasants will play an essential role in this basic advance, early sowing, on which all the others depend. It is not a matter of controlling the peasants. Each peasant will remain master of his fields. One could, however, suggest the need for the time being of kind but firm rule, which, as long as it cannot be realized by the people, should at least be for the people.

阅读理解EDUCATING PSYCHEEducating Psyche by Bernie Neville is a book which looks at radical new approaches to learning, describing the effects of emotion, imagination and the unconscious on learning. One theory discussed in the book is that proposed by George Lozanov, which focuses on the power of suggestion.Lozanov’ s instructional technique is based on the evidence that the connections made in the brain through unconscious processing (which he calls non-specific mental reactivity) are more durable than those made through conscious processing. Besides the laboratory evidence for this, we know from our experience that we often remember what we have perceived peripherally, long after we have forgotten what we set out to learn. If we think of a book we studied months or years ago, we will find it easier to recall peripheral details—the color, the binding, the typeface, the table at the library where we sat while studying it—than the content on which we were concentrating.If we think of a lecture we listened to with great concentration, we will recall the lecturer’ s appearance and mannerisms, our place in the auditorium, the failure of the air-conditioning, much more easily than the ideas we went to learn. Even if these peripheral details are a bit elusive, they come back readily in hypnosis or when we relive the event imaginatively, as in psychodrama. The details of the content of the lecture, on the other hand, seem to have gone forever.This phenomenon can be partly attributed to the common counterproductive approach to study (making extreme efforts to memorize, tensing muscles, inducing fatigue) , but it also simply reflects the way the brain functions. Lozanov therefore made indirect instruction (suggestion) central to his teaching system. In suggestopedia, as he called his method, consciousness is shifted away from the curriculum to focus on something peripheral. The curriculum then becomes peripheral and is dealt with by the reserve capacity of the brain.The suggestopedic approach to foreign language learning provides a good illustration. In its most recent variant (1980) , it consists of the reading of vocabulary and text while the class is listening to music. The first session is in two parts. In the first part, the music is classical (Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms) and the teacher reads the text slowly and solemnly, with attention to the dynamics of the music. The students follow the text in their books. This is followed by several minutes of silence. In the second part, they listen to baroque music (Bach, Corelli, Handel) while the teacher reads the text in a normal speaking voice. During this time they have their books closed. During the whole of this session, their attention is passive; they listen to the music but make no attempt to learn the material.Beforehand, the students have been carefully prepared for the language learning experience. Through meeting with the staff and satisfied students they develop the expectation that learning will be easy and pleasant and that they will successfully learn several hundred words of the foreign language during the class. In a preliminary talk, the teacher introduces them to the material to be covered, but does not ‘ teach’ it. Likewise, the students are instructed not to try to learn it during this introduction.Some hours after the two-part session, there is a follow-up class at which the students are stimulated to recall the material presented. Once again the approach is indirect. The students do not focus their attention on trying to remember the vocabulary, but focus on using the language to communicate (e. g. through games or improvised dramatizations) . Such methods are not unusual in language teaching. What is distinctive in the suggestopedic method is that they are devoted entirely to assisting recall. The ‘ learning’ of the material is assumed to be automatic and effortless, accomplished while listening to music. The teacher’ s task is to assist the students to apply what they have learned para-consciously, and in doing so to make it easily accessible to consciousness. Another difference from conventional leaching is the evidence that students can regularly learn 1000 new words of a foreign language during a suggestopedic session, as well as grammar and idiom.Lozanov experimented with teaching by direct suggestion during sleep, hypnosis and trance states, but found such procedures unnecessary. Hypnosis, yoga, Silva mind-control, religious ceremonies and faith healing are all associated with successful suggestion, but none of their techniques seem to be essential to it. Such rituals may be seen as placebos. Lozanov acknowledges that the ritual surrounding suggestion in his own system is also a placebo, but maintains that without such a placebo people are unable or afraid to tap the reserve capacity of their brains. Like any placebo, it must be dispensed with authority to be effective. Just as a doctor calls on the full power of autocratic suggestion by insisting that the patient take precisely this white capsule precisely three times a day before meals, Lozanov is categorical in insisting that the suggestopedic session be conducted exactly in the manner designated, by trained and accredited suggestopedic teachers.While suggestopedia has gained some notoriety through success in the teaching of modern languages, few teachers are able to emulate the spectacular results of Lozanov and his associates. We can, perhaps, attribute mediocre results to an inadequate placebo effect. The students have not developed the appropriate mind set. They are often not motivated to learn through this method. They do not have enough ‘ faith’ . They do not see it as ‘ real teaching’ , especially as it does not seem to involve the ‘ work’ they have learned to believe is essential to learning.Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3? On your answer sheet, write: