单选题 Questions 16 to 20 are based on the following talk.

单选题 {{B}}Questions 19-22{{/B}}

单选题 {{B}}Questions 23-26{{/B}}

单选题Questions 16 to 20 are based on the following conversation.

单选题 {{B}}Questions 6～10 {{/B}} There has been much hullabaloo about corporate accounting scams in America, yet perhaps the biggest accounting oversight of all time remains hidden in governments' own national figures. GDP per head is the most commonly used measure of a country's success, yet it is badly flawed as a guide to a nation's economic well-being. A new study in the OECD's 2006 "Going for Growth" report considers some alternatives. Economists spend much time discussing how to boost GDP growth. The OECD itself drew attention this week to the widening gap between American' s and Europe's GDP per head. Yet a nation's well-being depends on many factors ignored by GDP, such as leisure time, income inequality and the quality of the environment. GDP was developed primarily as a planning tool to guide the huge production effort of the Second World War. It was never intended to be the definite yardstick of economic welfare. Would another indicator change the ranking of countries or their relative performance over time? GDP is not even the best gauge of the monetary aspects of living standards. It measures the value of goods and services produced by the residents of a country. But some of the income of earned in Britain, say, is paid to non-residents, while residents receive income from abroad. Adding net income from abroad to GDP gives us gross national income (GNI, also known as gross national product), which is more relevant for the prosperity of a nation. Most countries' rank by GNI pre head is similar to that by GDP. One exception is Ireland: its GDP per head is one of the highest in the OECD, but because of large net outflows of investment income, its GNI per head is merely around the OECD average. Its average GNI growth rate over the past decade has also been about one percentage point less than on a GDP basis. Another flaw is that GDP makes no allowance for the depreciation of the capital stock. Subtracting this from GNI leaves net national income (NNI), which is probably the best national account measure of welfare. Awkwardly, the numbers are harder to come by, making it difficult to compare across countries and over time. But even NNI is an imperfect measure of people's welfare: it excludes the value of such important things as leisure, inequality and the environment. GDP should ideally be reduced to take account of pollution and the using-up of non-renewable resources, but no standard accounts that can do this are yet available. On the other hand, the OECD has made a brave attempt to adjust GDP for the distribution of income. To most observers, a country where a few families enjoy huge wealth but most live in abject poverty would have a lower level of well-being than one with the same GDP but less poverty. A dollar of income is, in effect, worth more in the hands of the poor, though just how much more depends on attitudes towards inequality, the gap between American and most other rich countries, which have a more equal distribution of income, should be greatly reduced. By this measure, adjusted income per head is higher in France than in America. Inequality has also risen in recent years in most countries. Assuming again a strong aversion to equality, average adjusted income per head grew by only 0.6% a year in OECD countries between 1985 and 2002, against 1.4% for GDP per head. But such estimates are sensitive to big value judgments. If, instead, people care little about inequality, then the adjustment will be much smaller. Longer holidays and shorter working hours increasing an individual's well-being, yet conventional national accounts completely overlook such benefits. America is one of the world's richest countries, yet its workers toil longer hours than those elsewhere. As a result, adjusting GDP for leisure also narrows the gap between America and Europe. So far, neither the adjustment for inequality nor that for leisure alone overturns America's economic superiority. However, if both adjustments were made, then on certain assumptions, the gap between United States and several European countries could vanish. This does not mean that Europe can afford to abandon economic reforms. Leisure time is valuable, but it will not pay for future pensions. Nevertheless, the OECD is to be congratulated for being the first mainstream organization to challenge the conventional GDP numbers. Its task now is to encourage governments to start producing more relevant statistics.

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单选题Questions 21～25 Like many people, I've always seen the Olympics as the "main" sporting event held every four years—the headline act—and the Paralyrnpics as something of an "add-on"—the supporting act. It you are not disabled yourself it is hard to understand some of the games and the athletes mobility problems. But being in the host city for these Paralympics changed my perspective. I came to realize these athletes were nothing short of superheroes. Deprived of physical abilities that able-bodied people take for granted, they made up for them and then some. They tested their senses and the boundaries of physical ability to extremes that the Bolts and Phelpses of this world would never have to. If some Olympic runners had to undergo a double-amputation, I wonder if they would strap two carbon fiber blades to their knees like Oscar Pistorius, also known as Blade Runner, of South Africa, and relearn everything that once came naturally. If some Olympic swimming heroes suddenly went blind, would they have the courage to still surge through the water like Donovan Tildesley, not knowing when they would reach the end of the pool? Would any of us have the guts to turn around a life-changing experience like a car crash or bad rugby scrum. And not only get our lives back on track but then strive to be the best at a sport? "What Paralympic sport would you do if you were disabled?" was a water-cooler question I posed today. It's not something you would normally think about. You don't watch TV as a kid aspiring to be a Paralympian. But it takes more than early mornings, training programs and special diets to get to the Paralympics. It takes a tragedy or loss that will have been grieved over, worked through and overcome. Skiing is terrifying enough if you have all your faculties. Standing at the top of a ski slope, it's a battle of wills for most people to launch themselves, but Canada's Donovan Tildesley, who has been blind from birth, revealed to a China Daily reporter that not only did he already ski, but he also wanted to take it up competitively. Superheroes indeed, each and every one. The Paralympics should be renamed the "Superlympics". It's nothing to do with the equality denoted by the Greek "para", it's about "super" ability, courage and strength that most of us, the top able-bodied athletes of the world included, will never have to muster. It's worth remembering that many Paralympians suffered horrific injuries while living life to the full. You don't get paralyzed sitting at home playing video games. And having lived life to the full they are not prepared to stop. That's the lesser talked about "Paralympic spirit". I only hope that if life dealt me or my loved ones similar blows we would tackle them in the same way as these outstanding men and women.

单选题Many people are worried about what television has done to the generation of American children who have grown up watching it. For one thing, recent studies show that TV weakens the ability to imagine. Some teachers feel that television has taken away the child's ability to form mental pictures in his own mind, resulting in children who cannot understand a simple story without pictures. Secondly, too much TV too early usually causes children to be removed from real-life experiences. Thus, they grow up to be passive watchers who can only respond to action, but not start doing something actively. The third area for such a worrying situation is the serious dissatisfaction frequently expressed by school teachers that children show a low patience for the pains in learning. Because they have been used to seeing results of all problems in 30 or 60 minutes on TV, they are quickly discouraged by any activity that promises less than immediate satisfaction. But perhaps the most serious result is the TV effect of bloody fights and death on children, who have come to believe that it is an everyday thing. Not only does this increase their admission of terrible acts on others, but some children will follow anti-social acts that they see on television.

单选题 Questions 6-10 In the 1950s, the pioneers of artificial intelligence (AI) predicted that, by the end of this century, computers would be conversing with us at work and robots would be performing our housework. But as useful as computers are, they're nowhere close to achieving anything remotely resembling these early aspirations for humanlike behavior. Never mind something as complex as conversation: the most powerful computers struggle to reliably recognize the shape of an object, the most elementary of tasks for a ten-month-old kid. A growing group of AI researchers think they know where the field went wrong. The problem, the scientists say, is that AI has been trying to separate the highest, most abstract levels of thought, like language and mathematics, and to duplicate them with logical, step-by-step programs. A new movement in AI, on the other hand, takes a closer look at the more roundabout way in which nature came up with intelligence. Many of these researchers study evolution and natural adaptation instead of formal logic and conventional computer programs. Rather than digital computers and transistors, some want to work with brain cells and proteins. The results of these early efforts are as promising as they are peculiar, and the new nature-based AI movement is slowly but surely moving to the forefront of the field. Imitating the brain's neural network is a huge step in the right direction, says computer scientist and biophysicist Michael Conrad, but it still misses an important aspect of natural intelligence. "People tend to treat the brain as if it were made up of color-coded transistors", he explains, "but it's not simply a clever network of switches. There are lots of important things going on inside the brain cells themselves. " Specifically, Conrad believes that many of the brain's capabilities stem from the pattern recognition proficiency of the individual molecules that make up each brain cell. The best way to build an artificially intelligent device, he claims, would be to build it around the same sort of molecular skills. Right now, the option that conventional computers and software are fundamentally incapable of matching the processes that take place in the brain remains controversial. But if it proves true, then the efforts of Conrad and his fellow AI rebels could turn out to be the only game in town.

单选题 Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following interview.

单选题Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following talk.

单选题Joy and sadness are experienced by people in all cultures around the world, but how can we tell when other people are happy or despondent? It turns out that the expression of many emotions may be universal. Smiling is apparently a universal sign of friendliness and approval. Baring the teeth in a hostile way, as noted by Charles Darwin in the nineteenth century, may be a universal sign of anger. As the originator of the theory of evolution, Darwin believed that the universal recognition of facial expressions would have survival value. For example, facial expressions could signal the approach of enemies (or friends) in the absence of language. Most investigators concur that certain facial expressions suggest the same emotions in a people. Moreover, people in diverse cultures recognize the emotions manifested by the facial expressions. In classic research Paul Ekman took photographs of people exhibiting the emotions of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, and sadness. He then asked people around the world to indicate what emotions were being depicted in them. Those queried ranged from European college students to members of the Fore, a tribe that dwells in the New Guinea highlands. All groups including the Fore, who had almost no contact with Western culture, agreed on the portrayed emotions. The Fore also displayed familiar facial expressions when asked how they would respond if they were the characters in stories that called for basic emotional responses. Ekman and his colleagues more recently obtained similar results in a study of ten cultures in which participants were permitted to report that multiple emotions were shown by facial expressions. The participants generally agreed on which two emotions were being shown and which emotion was more intense. Psychological researchers generally recognize that facial expressions reflect emotional states. In fact, various emotional states give rise to certain patterns of electrical activity in the facial muscles and in the brain. The facial-feedback hypothesis argues, however, that the causal relationship between emotions and facial expressions can also work in the opposite direction. According to this hypothesis, signals from the facial muscles ("feedback") are sent back to emotion centers of the brain, and so a person"s facial expression can influence that person"s emotional state. Consider Darwin"s words: "The free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it. On the other hand, the repression, as far as possible, of all outward signs softens our emotions." Can smiling give rise to feelings of good will, for example, and frowning to anger? Psychological research has given rise to some interesting findings concerning the facial- feedback hypothesis. Causing participants in experiments to smile, for example, leads them to report more positive feelings and to rate cartoons (humorous drawings of people or situations) as being more humorous. When they are caused to frown, they rate cartoons as being more aggressive. What are the possible links between facial expressions and emotion? One link is arousal, which is the level of activity or preparedness for activity in an organism. Intense contraction of facial muscles, such as those used in signifying fear, heightens arousal. Self-perception of heightened arousal then leads to heightened emotional activity. Other links may involve changes in brain temperature and the release of neurotransmitters (substances that transmit nerve impulses). The contraction of facial muscles both influences the internal emotional state and reflects it. Ekman has found that the so-called Duchenne smile, which is characterized by "crow"s feet" wrinkles around the eyes and a subtle drop in the eye cover fold so that the skin above the eye moves down slightly toward the eyeball, can lead to pleasant feelings. Ekman"s observation may be relevant to the British expression "keep a stiff upper lip" as a recommendation for handling stress. It might be that a "stiff" lip suppresses emotional response—as long as the lip is not quivering with fear or tension. But when the emotion that leads to stiffening the lip is more intense, and involves strong muscle tension, facial feedback may heighten emotional response.

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单选题 Directions: 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 ONLY ONCE. 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 ANSWER BOOKLET. Questions 11-14

单选题Perhaps we could have our children pledge allegiance to a national motto. So thick and fast tumble the ideas about Britishness from the Government that the ridiculous no longer seems impossible. For the very debate about what it means to be a British citizen, long a particular passion of Gordon Brown, brutally illustrates the ever-decreasing circle that new Labour has become. The idea of a national motto has already attracted derision on a glorious scale—and there"s nothing more British than the refusal to be defined. Times readers chose as their national motto: No motto please, we"re British. Undaunted, here comes the Government with another one: a review of citizenship, which suggests that schoolchildren be asked to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen. It would be hard to think of something more profoundly undemocratic, less aligned to Mr. Brown"s supposed belief in meritocracy and enabling all children to achieve their full potential. Today you will hear the Chancellor profess the Government"s continuing commitment to the abolition of child poverty, encapsulating a view of Britain in which the State tweaks the odds and the tax credit system to iron out inherited inequalities. You do not need to ask how this vision of Britain can sit easily alongside a proposal to ask kids to pledge allegiance to the Queen before leaving school: it cannot. The one looks up towards an equal society, everyone rewarded according to merit and not the lottery of birth; the other bends its knee in obeisance to inherited privilege and an undemocratic social and political system. In Mr. Brown"s view of the world, as I thought ! understood it, an oath of allegiance from children to the Queen ought to be anathema, grotesque, off the scale, not even worth considering. Why then, could No. 10 not dismiss it out of hand yesterday? Asked repeatedly at the morning briefing with journalists whether the Prime Minister supported the proposal, his spokesman hedged his bets. Mr. Brown welcomed the publication of the report; he thinks the themes are important; he hopes it will launch a debate; he is very interested in the theme of Britishness. But no view as to the suitability of the oath. It is baffling in the extreme. Does this Prime Minister believe in nothing, then? A number of things need to be unpicked here. First, to give him due credit, the report from the former Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith contains much more than the oath of allegiance. That is but "a possibility that"s raised". The oath forms a tiny part of a detailed report about what British citizenship means, what it ought to mean and how to strengthen it. It is a serious debate that Mr. Brown is keen to foster about changing the categories of British citizenship, and defining what they mean. But it is in him that the central problem resides, the Prime Minister himself is uncertain what Britishness is, while insisting we should all be wedded to the concept. No wonder there is a problem over what a motto, or an oath of allegiance, should contain. Britain is a set of laws and ancient institutions—monarchy, Parliament, statutes, arguably today EU law as well. An oath of allegiance naturally tends toward these. It wasn"t supposed to be like this. In its younger and bolder days, new Labour used to argue that the traditional version of Britain is outdated. When Labour leaders began debating Britishness in the 1990s, they argued that the institutions in which a sense of Britain is now vested, or should be vested, are those such as the NHS or even the BBC, allied with values of civic participation, all embodying notions of fairness, equality and modernity absent in the traditional institutions. Gordon Brown himself wrote at length about Britishness in The Times in January 2000: "The strong British sense of fair play and duty, together embodied in the ideal of a vibrant civic society, is best expressed today in a uniquely British institution—the institution that for the British people best reflects their Britishness—our National Health Service." An oath of allegiance to the NHS? Ah, those were the days. They really thought they could do it; change the very notion of what it meant to be British. Today, ten years on, they hesitatingly propose an oath of allegiance to the Queen. Could there be a more perfeet illustration of the vanquished hopes and aspirations of new Labour? Look on my works ye Mighty, and despair. Ah, but I see there is to be a national day as well, "introduced to coincide with the Olympics and Diamond Jubilee—which would provide an annual focus for our national narrative". A narrative, a national day, glorifying the monarchy and sport? Yuck. I think I might settle for a national motto after all.

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 Directions: In this part of the test there will be some short talks and conversations. After each one, you will be asked some questions. The talks, conversations and questions will be spoken ONLY ONCE. Now listen carefully and choose the right answer to each question you have heard and write the letter of the answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET. Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following conversation.

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