单选题Family doctors routinely prescribe antidepressants to patients who may not need them, according to an exclusive survey for The Times. GPs are ignoring official guidelines by hastily prescribing pills rather than waiting to see if symptoms improve, the survey suggests. It also provides evidence that it is GPs and psychiatrists who are likely to propose medication as a treatment, rather than patients demanding pills to make them feel better. In addition, the findings raise questions about the efficacy of reviews of medication, required to make sure that patients are still receiving appropriate treatment. Some who took part in the survey claimed that their medication had not been reviewed for years. And there is evidence that GPs are reluctant to discuss options for ending medication, fuelling concerns that too many patients are condemned to take antidepressants for the rest of their lives regardless of improvements. The survey, which was carried out by the mental health charity Mind, does contain positive news, however, with 84 percent of patients saying that their antidepressants were effective. Access to talking therapies appeared to be improving, and most patients said that they were able to taper off their medication without suffering harsh side-effects. Last week The Times revealed that more than one million men and women are addicted to benzodiazepine tranquillisers, drugs that include Valium and which should be prescribed for no more than four weeks for a severely restricted number of conditions. The online survey proved to be one of the most popular ever held by Mind, attracting almost 1,500 responses from people who are on antidepressants or who have stopped taking them within the past two years. Paul Farmer, the charity"s chief executive, said: "Many people are being prescribed antidepressants too quickly and taking antidepressants for longer and longer periods without review. We must not demonise drugs and put people off taking something that might help them. But we need also to remember that antidepressants are powerful drugs and as such should be prescribed with caution." More than 46 million prescriptions for antidepressants such as Seroxat and citalopram were written last year, a rise of 9 percent over the previous 12 months. Experts have expressed concern that doctors are prescribing drugs too casually, while GPs claim that patients expect to be given pills to help them through even relatively minor upsets. The Royal College of Psychiatry estimates that between 50 percent and 65 percent of people treated with an antidepressant for depression will benefit. Clare Gerada, a GP and president of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said: "I prescribe antidepressants because they work." The length of time people take antidepressants is a key issue. Of those who took part in our survey 37 percent had been on medication for more than five years and 20 percent for more than ten years. Two thirds said that their GP or psychiatrist had prescribed antidepressants straight away rather than waiting to see if the symptoms improved as recommended in guidelines set by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). Four out of five said that it was their GP or psychiatrist who suggested medication in the first place. Of those, 51 percent said that they agreed that it was the right course of action but 42 percent were not in agreement. Forty-five percent of respondents felt that they were not given enough information about the medication they were prescribed, although this fell to 39 percent among those who were prescribed antidepressants more recently. More than half said that they experienced ongoing side-effects. 27 percent said that antidepressants affected their ability to work or study; 24 percent their social lives; 21 percent their relationships with family, friends or partners; and 44 percent their sex lives. Only half of respondents have their drugs monitored every three months, and 72 percent at least every six months. Alarmingly, 6 percent never have their drugs monitored. A total of 25 people who took part in the survey had been taking drugs for more than five years without being monitored, and ten people for more than ten years. GPs and psychiatrists appear reluctant to discuss coming off drugs with their patients: 71 percent said that they had not talked about discontinuing medication. Even those who had been on antidepressants for a significant amount of time had not had a discussion about coming off. More than a quarter said that they expected to be on antidepressants for life. Only 7 percent of respondents who had come off medication within the past two years said this had been at the suggestion of their GP or psychiatrist. Since stopping medication 17 percent believed that they have recovered from their mental health problems, and 44 percent said that they could manage their mental health without drugs.

单选题Questions 1～5 In early June, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)—the club of the world"s wealthy and almost wealthy nations released a 208-page document perversely titled "Pensions at a Glance". Inside is a rundown of how generous OECD members are to their burgeoning ranks of retirees. The US is near the bottom, with the average wage earner able to count on a government-mandated pension for just 52.4% of what he got (after taxes) in his working days—and higher-income workers even less. But the picture at the other end of the scale (dominated by Continental Europe) is misleading. Most of these governments haven"t put aside money for pensions. As the ranks of retirees grow and workforces do not, countries will have to either renege on commitments or tax the hides off future workers. What the OECD data seem to suggest is that you can run a retirement plan that"s fiscally sound but stingy, or you can make big promises that will eventually go sour. The US fits mostly in the former category—for all the gnashing of teeth about Social Security, its funding problems are modest by global standards. But is that really the choice? Actually, no. At least one country appears to have found a better way. In the Netherlands—"the globe"s No.1 pensions country," says influential retirement-plan consultant Keith Ambachtsheer—the average retiree can count on a pension equal to 96.8% of his working income. Ample money is set aside to fund pensions, and it is invested prudently but not timidly. Companies contribute to employees" accounts but aren"t stuck with profit-killing obligations if their business shrinks or the stock market tanks. The Dutch have steered a middle way between irresponsible Continental generosity and practical Anglo-American stinginess. They have also, to lapse into pension jargon, split the difference between DB and DC plans. In a defined-benefit (DB) plan, workers are promised a retirement income, and the sponsor—usually a corporation or government—is on the hook to provide it. In a defined-contribution (DC) plan, the worker and sometimes the employer set aside money and hope it will be enough. The big problem with DB is that sponsors are prone to lowball or ignore the true cost. In the U. S. , where corporate pensions provide a key supplement to Social Security, Congress has felt the need to pass multiple laws aimed at preventing companies from underfunding them. In response, some companies spent billions shoring up their funds; many others simply stopped offering pensions. Just since 2004, at least 66 big companies have frozen or terminated their DB plans, estimates Barclays Global Investors. Corporate DB has given way to individual DC plans like the 401(k) and IRA, but these put too much responsibility on the shoulders of individual workers. Many don"t save enough money, and those who do set aside enough earn returns that are on average much lower than those of pension funds. The Netherlands, like the US, has long relied on workplace pensions to supplement its government plan. The crucial difference is that these pensions were mandatory. Smaller employers had to band together to make a go of it, and industry-wide funds became standard. Run more as independent cooperatives than as captive corporate divisions, the Dutch funds were less prone to underfunding than their US counterparts. When they nonetheless ran into financial trouble in 2002 after the stock market crashed and interest rates sank, the country came up with a unique response. The Dutch funds are now no longer on the hook for providing a set income in retirement no matter what happens to financial markets that is, they"ve gone DC—but they didn"t shunt everything to individual workers. Risks are shared by all the members of a pension fund, and the money is managed by professionals. Pension consultant Ambachtsheer argues that this "collective DC" is just what the U. S. needs. Many companies here are improving 401(k)s to give employees more guidance, and there"s talk in Washington of supplementing (not supplanting) Social Security with near mandatory retirement accounts. But even those changes would fall well short of going Dutch. Countries don"t always set aside enough money to pay for the pensions they promise.

单选题 Questions 19-22

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单选题Chinese Americans today have higher incomes than Americans in general and higher occupational status. The Chinese have risen to this position despite some of the harshest discrimination and violence faced by any immigrants to the United States in the history of this country. Long confined to a narrow range of occupations, they succeeded in those occupations and then spread out into other areas in later years, when opportunities finally opened up for them. Today much of the Chinese prosperity is due to the simple fact that they work more and have more (usually better) education than others. Almost one out of five Chinese families has three or more income earners compared to one out of thirteen for Puerto Ricans, one out of ten among American Indians, and one out of eight among Whites. When the Chinese advantages in working and educational are held constant, they have no advantage over other Americans. That is in a Chinese Family with a given number of people working and with a given amount of education by the head of the family; the income is not only about average for such families, but offer a little less than average. While Chinese Americans as a group are prosperous and well-educated Chinatowns are pockets of poverty, and illiteracy is much higher among the Chinese than among Americans in general. Those paradoxes are due to sharp internal differences. Descendants of the Chinese Americans who emigrated long ago from Toishan Province have maintained Chinese values and have added acculturation to American society with remarkable success. More recent Hong Kong Chinese are from more diverse cultural origins, and acquired western values and styles in Hong Kong, without having acquired the skills to proper and support those aspirations in the American economy. Foreign- born Chinese men in the United States earn one-fourth lower incomes than native-born Chinese even though the foreign-born have been in the United States an average of seventeen years. While the older Hong Kong Chinese work tenaciously to sustain and advance themselves, the Hong Kong Chinese youths often react with resentment and antisocial behavior, including terrorism and murder. The need to maintain tourism in Chinatown causes the Chinese leaders to mute or downplay these problems as much as possible.

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单选题Questions 27—30

单选题 "You're off to the World Economic Forum?" asked the Oxford economist, enviously. "How very impressive. They've never invited me." Three days later, I queued in the snow outside the conference center in Davos, standing behind mink coals and cashmere overcoats, watched over by Swiss policemen with machineguns. "Reporting press? You can't come in here. Side entrance, please." I stood in line again, this time behind Puffa jackets and Newsweek journalists, waiting to collect my orange badge. Once inside. I found that the seminar I wanted to go to was being held in a half-empty room. "You can't sit here. All seats are reserved for white badges. Coloured badges have to stand." An acquaintance invited me to a dinner he was hosting: "There are people I'd like you to meet." The green-badged Forum employee stopped me at the door. "This is a participants' dinner. Orange badges are not allowed." Then, later, reluctantly: "If you're coming in. please can you turn your badge around? Dinners may be upset if they see you're a colour." "Why does anyone put up with being treated like this?" I asked a Financial Times correspondent. "Because we all live in hope of becoming white badges," he said. "Then we'll know what's really going on." A leading British businessman was wearing a white badge, but it bore a small logo on the top left-hand corner: GLT. "What's a GLT?" I asked. Ah, he said. "well, it's a Davos club. I'm a Global Leader for Tomorrow." "That sounds very important," I said. "Yes." He said, "I thought so myself until I bumped into the man who had sponsored me. On the way to my first meeting. I asked him if he was coming, and he said, "Oh no, dear boy, I don't bother with that any longer. I'm not a GLT any more I'm an IGWEL." "What's an IGWEL?" I asked him. "A member of Informal Group of World Economic Leaders of Today." The World Economic Forum has employed a simple psychological truth — that nothing is more desirable than that which excludes us — to brilliant effect. Year after year, its participants apply to return, in the hope that this time they'll be a little closer to the real elite. Next year, they, too, might be invited to the private receptions for Bill Clinton, Kofi Annan or Bill Gates instead of having to stand on the conference center's steps like teenage rock fans. It's the sheer concentration of individuals in possession of power, wealth or knowledge that makes the privately run Forum so desirable to its participants. The thousand chief executives who attend its annual meeting control, between them, more than 70 percent of international trade. Every year, they are joined by a couple of dozen presidents and prime ministers, by senior journalists, a changing selection of leading thinkers, academics and diplomats, and by rising stars of the business world. Access to the meeting is by invitation only, costs several thousand pounds a time for business participants, and is ruthlessly controlled.

单选题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} In this part of the test, you will hear several short talks and conversations. After each of these, you will hear a few questions. Listen carefully because you will hear the talk or conversation and questions {{B}}ONLY ONCE.{{/B}} When you hear a question, read the four answer choices and choose the best answer to that question. Then write the letter of the answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your {{B}}ANSWER BOOKLET.{{/B}} {{B}}Questions 11—14{{/B}}

单选题Questions 16～20 The 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"s 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 hail-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. Cymru, 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. "

单选题Most growing plants contain much more water than all other materials combined. C. R. Barnes has suggested that it is as proper to term the plant a water structure as to call a house composed mainly of brick a brick building. Certain it is that all essential processes of plant growth and development occur in water. The mineral elements from the soil that are usable by the plant must be dissolved in the soil solution before they can be taken into the root. They are carried to all parts of the growing plant and are built into essential plant materials while in a dissolved state. The carbon dioxide from the air may enter the leaf as a gas but is dissolved in water in the leaf before it is combined with a part of the water to form simple sugars—the base material from which the plant body is mainly built. Actively growing plant parts are generally 75 to 90 percent water. Structural parts of plants, such as woody stems no longer actively growing, may have much less water than growing tissues. The actual amount of water in the plant at any one time, however, is only a very small part of what passes through it during its development. The processes of photosynthesis, by which carbon dioxide and water are combined-in the presence of chlorophyll and with energy derived from light-to form sugars, require that carbon dioxide from the air enter the plant. This occurs mainly in the leaves. The leaf surface is not solid but contains great numbers of minute openings, through which the carbon dioxide enters. The same structure that permits the one gas to enter the leaf, however, permits another gas—water vapor—to be lost from it. Since carbon dioxide is present in the air only in trace quantities (3 to 4 parts in 10,000 parts of air) and water vapor is near saturation in the air spaces within the leaf (at 80°F, saturated air would contain about 186 parts of water vapor in 10,000 parts of air), the total amount of water vapor lost is many times the carbon dioxide intake. Actually, because of wind and other factors, the loss of water in proportion to carbon dioxide intake may be even greater than the relative concentrations of the two gases. Also, not all of the carbon dioxide that enters the leaf is synthesized into carbohydrates.

单选题Questions 11-14

单选题Beldon and Canfield are two seashore towns, not far apart. Both towns have many hotels, and in summer the hotels are full of holiday-makers and other tourists. Last August there was a fire at the Seabreeze Hotel in Beldon. The next day, this news appeared on page two of the town's newspaper. The Beldon Post:FIRE AT SEABREEZE Late last night firemen hurried to the Seabreeze Hotel and quickly put out a small fire in a bedroom. The hotel manager said that a cigarette started the fire. We say again to all our visitors: "Please don't smoke cigarettes in bed." This was Beldon's first hotel fire for five years. The Canfield Times gave the news in these words on page one:ANOTHER BELDON HOTEL CATCHES FIRE Last night Beldon firemen arrived just too late to save clothing, bedclothes and some furniture at the Seabreeze Hotel. An angry holiday-maker said, "An electric lamp probably started the fire. The bedroom lamps are very old at some of these hotels. When I put my bedside light on, I heard a funny noise from the lamp．" We are glad to tell our readers that this sort of adventure does not happen in Canfield. What are the facts, then? It is never easy to find out the exact truth about an accident. There was a fire at the Seabreeze Hotel last August: that is one fact. Do we know anything else? Yes, we know that firemen went to the hotel. Now what do you think of the rest of the "news"?

单选题A new catastrophe faces Afghanistan. The American bombing campaign is conspiring with years of civil conflict and drought to create an environmental crisis. Humanitarian and political concerns are dominating the headlines. But they are also masking the disappearance of the country"s once rich habitat and wildlife, which are quietly being crushed by war. The UN is dispatching a team of investigators to the region next month to evaluate the damage. "A healthy environment is a prerequisite for rehabilitation," says Klaus Topfer, head of the UN environment Programme. Much of south-east Afghanistan was once lush forest watered by monsoon rains. Forests now cover less than 2 per cent of the country. "The Worst deforestation occurred during Taliban rule, when its timber mafia denuded forests to sell to Pakistani markets," says Usman Qazi, an environmental consultant based in Quetta, Pakistan. And the intense bombing intended to flush out the last of the Taliban troops is destroying or burning much of what remains. The refugee crisis is also wrecking the environment, anti much damage may be irreversible. Forests and vegetation are being cleared for much-needed farming, but the gains are likely to be short-term. "Eventually the land will be unfit for even the most basic form of agriculture," warns Hammed Naqi of the World Wide Fund for Nature in Pakistan. Refugees—around 4 million as the last county—are also cutting into forests for firewood. The hail of bombs falling on Afghanistan is making life particularly bard for the country"s wildlife. Birds such as the pelican and endangered Siberian crane cross eastern Afghanistan as they follow one of the world"s great migratory thoroughfares from Siberia to Pakistan and India. But the number of the birds flying across the region has dropped by a staggering 85 per cent. "Cranes are very sensitive and they do not use file route if riley see any danger," says Ashiq Ahgmad, an environmental scientist for file WWF in Peshawar, Pakistan, who has tracked the collapse of the birds" migration this winter. The rugged mountains also usually provide a safe haven for mountain leopards, gazelles, bears and Marco Polo sheep—the world"s largest species. "The same terrain that allows fighters to strike and disappear back into the frills has also historically enabled wild life to survive," says Peter Zahler of the Wildlife Conservation society, based in New York. But he warns they are now under intense pressure from file bombing and invasions of refugees and fighters. For instance, some refugees are hunting rare snow leopards to buy a safe passage across the border, A single fur can fetch $2,000 on the black market, says Zahler. Only 5,000 or so snow leopards are thought to survive in central Asia, and less than 100 in Afghanistan, their numbers already decimated by extensive hunting, and smuggling into Pakistan before the conflict." Timber, falcons and medicinal plants are also being smuggled across the border. The Taliban once controlled much of this trade, but the recent power vacuum could exacerbate the problem. Bombing will also leave its mark beyond file obvious craters. Defence analysts say that while depleted uranium has been used less in Afghanistan than in file Kosovo conflict, conventional explosives will litter the country with pollutants. They contain toxic compounds such as cyclonite, a carcinogen, and rocket propellants contain perchlorates, which damage thyroid glands.

单选题Questions 16-20 Chinese Americans today have higher incomes than Americans in general and higher occupational status. The Chinese have risen to this position despite some of the harshest discrimination and violence faced by any immigrants to the United States in the history of this country. Long confined to a narrow range of occupations, they succeeded in those occupations and then spread out into other areas in later years, when opportunities finally opened up for them. Today much of the Chinese prosperity is due to the simple fact that they work more and have more (usually better) education than others. Almost one out of five Chinese families has three or more income earners compared to one out of thirteen for Puerto Ricans, one out of ten among American Indians, and one out of eight among Whites. When the Chinese advantages in working and educational are held constant, they have no advantage over other Americans. That is in a Chinese Family with a given number of people working and with a given amount of education by the head of the family; the income is not only about average for such families, but offer a little less than average. While Chinese Americans as a group are prosperous and well-educated Chinatowns are pockets of poverty, and illiteracy is much higher among the Chinese than among Americans in general. Those paradoxes are due to sharp internal differences. Descendants of the Chinese Americans who emigrated long ago from Toishan Province have maintained Chinese values and have added acculturation to American society with remarkable success. More recent Hong Kong Chinese are from more diverse cultural origins, and acquired western values and styles in Hong Kong, without having acquired the skills to proper and support those aspirations in the American economy. Foreign- born Chinese men in the United States earn one-fourth lower incomes than native-born Chinese even though the foreign-born have been in the United States an average of seventeen years. While the older Hong Kong Chinese work tenaciously to sustain and advance themselves, the Hong Kong Chinese youths often react with resentment and antisocial behavior, including terrorism and murder. The need to maintain tourism in Chinatown causes the Chinese leaders to mute or downplay these problems as much as possible.

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单选题New York, London, Paris and other big cities are exciting places to live in. There are many interesting things to see and to do. You can go to different kinds of museums, plays and films. You can also go shopping to buy things from all over the world. But there are serious problems in big cities too. The cost of living is high, and there are too many people in some of big cities. Every year many people move to the cities because there are some chances to find jobs, to study at good schools, and to receive good medical care. But sometimes these people cannot find work or a good place to live in. Also, too many people in a small space make it hard to keep the cities safe and clean. Some people enjoy living in big cities. Others do not. Before people move to big cities, they should think about the problems of living there.

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