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单选题 Questions 11～15 In Barcelona the Catalonians call them Castells, but these aren't stereotypical castles in Spain. These castles are made up of human beings, not stone. The people who perform this agile feat of acrobatics are called castellers, and to see their towers take shape is to observe a marvel of human cooperation. First the castellers form what looks like a gigantic rugby scrummage. They are the foundation blocks of the castle. Behind them, other people press together, forming outward-radiating ramparts of inward-pushing muscle, flying buttresses for the castle. Then sturdy but lighter castellers scramble over the backs of those at the bottom and stand, barefoot, on their shoulders—then still others, each time adding a higher "story". These human towers can rise higher than small apartment buildings, nine "stories", 35 feet into the air. Then, just when it seems this tower of humanity can't defy gravity any longer, a little kid emerges from the crowd and climbs straight up to the top. Arms extended, the child grins while waving to the cheering crowd far below. Dressed in their traditional costumes, the castellers seem to epitomize an easier time, before Barcelona became a world metropolis and the Mediterranean's most dynamic city. But when you observe them up close, in their street clothes, at practice, you see there's nothing easy about what the castellers do—and that they are not merely reenacting an ancient ritual. None of the castellers can give a logical answer as to why they love doing this. But Victor Luna, 16, touches me on the shoulder and says in English: "We do it because it's beautiful. We do it because we are Catalan. " Barcelona's mother tongue is Catalan, and to understand Barcelona, you must understand two words of Catalan: seny and rauxa. Seny pretty much translates as common sense, or the ability to make money, arrange things, and get things done. Rauxa is reminiscent of our words "raucous" and "ruckus". What makes the castellers' revealing of the city is that they embody rauxa and seny. The idea of a human castle is rauxa—it defies common sense—but to watch one going up is to see seny in action. Success is based on everyone working together to achieve a shared goal. The success of Carlos Tusquets' bank, Fibanc, shows seny at work in everyday life. The bank started as a family concern and now employs hundreds. Tusquets said it exemplifies how the economy in Barcelona is different. Entrepreneurial seny demonstrates why Barcelona and Catalonia—the ancient region of which Barcelona is the capital—are distinct from the rest of Spain yet essential to Spain's emergence, after centuries of repression, as a prosperous, democratic European country. Catalonia, with Barcelona as its dynamo, has turned into an economic powerhouse. Making up 6 percent of Spain's territory, with a sixth of its people, it accounts for nearly a quarter of Spain's production—everything from textiles to computers—even though the rest of Spain has been enjoying its own economic miracle. Hand in hand with seny goes rauxa, and there's no better place to see rauxa in action than on the Ramblas, the venerable, tree-shaded boulevard that, in gentle stages, leads you from the centre of Barcelona down to the port. There are two narrow lanes each way for cars and motorbikes, but it's the wide centre walkway that makes the Ramblas a front-row seat for Barcelona's longest running theatrical event. Plastic armchairs are set out on the sidewalk. Sit in one of them, and an attendant will come and charge you a small fee. Performance artists throng the Ramblas—stilt walkers, witches caked in charcoal dust, Elvis impersonators. But the real stars are the old women and happily playing children, millionaires on motorbikes, and pimps and women who, upon closer inspection, prove not to be. Aficionados (Fans) of Barcelona love to compare notes: "Last night there was a man standing on the balcony of his hotel room," Mariana Bertagnolli, an Italian photographer, told me. "The balcony was on the second floor. He was naked, and he was talking into a ceil phone. " There you have it, Barcelona's essence. The man is naked (rauxa), but he is talking into a cell phone (seny).

单选题A.Nuclearenergywasexpectedtosubstituteelectricitytotallybytheendof1999.B.Nuclearenergydidnotproduceasmuchpowerasthegovernmentexpected.C.Nuclearenergywasusedmorethanelectricityinthelasttwodecades.D.Nuclearenergycouldproducealmostthesamepoweraselectricity.

单选题{{B}}Statements{{/B}} Directions: In this part of the test, you will hear several short statements. These statements will be spoken ONLY ONCE, and you will not find them written on the paper; so you must listen carefully. When you hear a statement, read the answer choices and decide which one is closest in meaning to the statement you have heard. Then write the letter of the answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.

单选题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} In this section, you will read several passages. Each passage is followed by several questions based on its content. You are to choose {{B}}ONE{{/B}} best answer to each question. Answer all the questions following each passage on the basis of what is stated or implied in that passage and write the letter of the answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your {{B}}ANSWER BOOKLET.{{/B}} It was a day that Michael Eisner would undoubtedly like to forget. Sitting in a Los Angeles witness box for four hours last week, the usually unflappable chairman of the Walt Disney Co. struggled to maintain his composure. Eisner's protégé turned nemesis. Jeffrey Katzenberg, his former employee, was seeking $ 500 million in his breach-of-contract suit against Disney, and Eisner was trying to defend his—and his company's integrity. At one point Eisner became flustered when Katzenberg's attorney, Bertram Fields, asked if he recalled telling his biographer, Tony Schwartz, "I think I hate the little midget." Later Eisner recalled that the same day, he had received a fax from Katzenberg meant for Fields, thanking the lawyer for "managing" a magazine story that praised Katzenberg at Eisner's expense: "I said to Schwartz, 'Screw that. If he is going to play this disingenuous game … I simply was not going to pay him his money." Last week's revelations were the latest twist in a dispute that has entertained Hollywood and tarnished Disney's corporate image. The dash began five years ago, when Katzenberg quit Disney after a 10-year reign as studio chief, during which he oversaw production of such animated blockbusters as "The Lion King". Disney's attorneys said that Katzenberg forfeited his bonus—2 percent of profits in perpetuity from all Disney movies, TV shows and stage productions from 1984 to 1994, as well as their sequels and tie-ins—when he left. The company ultimately paid Katzenberg a partial settlement of nearly $117 million, sources say. But talks broke down over how much Disney owed, and the dispute landed in court. Industry insiders never expected that Disney would push it this far. The last Hollywood accounting dispute that aired in public was Art Buchwalds’s lawsuit against Paramount for profits he claimed to be owed from the 1988 Eddie Murphy hit "Coming to America". Paramount chose to fight Buchwald in court—only to wind up paying him $1 million after embarrassing revelations about its business practices. After that, studios made a practice of quietly settling such claims. But Disney under Eisner would rather fight that settle. And he and Katzenberg are both proud, combative types whose business disagreement deepened into personal animus. So far, Disney's image—as well as Eisner's—has taken a beating. In his testimony last week Eisner repeatedly responded to questions by saying "I don't recall" or "I don't know". Katzenberg, by contrast, offered a stack of notes and memos that appeared to bolster his claim. (The Disney executive who negotiated Katzenberg's deal, Frank Wells, died in a helicopter crash five years ago.) The trial has also offered a devastating glimpse into the Magic Kingdom~ s business dealings. Internal documents detail sensitive Disney financial information. One Hollywood lawyer calls a memo sent to Katzenberg from a former Disney top accountant "a road map to riches" for writers, directors and producers eager to press cases against Disney. The company declined requests to comment on the case. The next phase of the trial could be even more embarrassing. As Katzenberg's profit participation is calculated, Eisner will have to argue that his animated treasures are far less valuable than Katzenberg claims. No matter how the judge rules, Disney will look like a loser.

单选题Question 15-18

单选题Global average temperatures are set to rise by 1℃ above pre-industrial levels for the first time, as the world"s climate enters "uncharted territory", scientists at the Met Office said. This year is also expected to be the hottest on record, with the temperatures so far in 2015 beating past records "by a country mile", the meteorologists said. The World Meteorological Organization further announced yesterday that 2016 would be the first year in which the average concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be above 400 parts per million (ppm), because of the continued burning of fossil fuels. The three landmark indicators were announced three weeks before a crunch UN summit in Paris starting on 30 November where world leaders including Barack Obama, Xi Jinping and David Cameron will try to reach a legally binding and universal deal on cutting emissions. The Met Office"s data from January to September 2015 already shows global average temperatures have risen by 1℃ compared to pre-industrial times, for the first time. The increase is due to the "unequivocal" influence of increasing carbon emissions combined with the El Nino climate phenomenon currently under way. The Met Office expects the full-year temperature for 2015 to remain above the 1℃ level. In contrast, it was below 0.9C in 2014, marking a sharp increase in climate terms. "This is the first time we"re set to reach the 1℃ marker and it"s clear that it is human influence driving climate into uncharted territory," said Prof Stephen Belcher, "We have passed the halfway mark to the 2℃ target." The announcement of symbolic milestones in the runup to the Paris summit will increase pressure on negotiators to deliver a strong deal to avert the catastrophic global warming expected beyond 2℃ of warming. "Mother Nature has been kind to the French, but it should not be that way," said Prof Myles Allen from Oxford, referring to the impetus the milestones should give to the Paris conference. "International negotiations on climate change should not be in hock to what happens...in the preceding nine months." In any case, he said: "The last three months of 2015 would have to be really odd to change [projections of unprecedented warming for 2015] as we are beating the records by a country mile." Amber Rudd, the UK"s energy and climate change secretary, said: "Climate change is one of the most serious threats we face to our economic prosperity, poverty eradication and global security. Pledges to reduce emissions made by countries [are] just the beginning. We need to ensure that as the costs of clean energy fall, countries can be more ambitious with their climate targets." Climate change is clear in the Central England Temperature record, which is the longest in the world and stretches back to 1772, said Ed Hawkins, a climate scientist at the University of Reading. "We can see the fingerprint of global warming in our own backyard. Central England has warmed 20% more than the global average and we expect that to continue," he said. The impacts of climate change have been analysed in other research presented yesterday by the UK"s Avoid project. It found that, compared with unchecked global warming, keeping the temperature rise below 2℃ would reduce heatwaves by 89%, flooding by 76%, cropland decline by 41% and water stress by 26%. Joanna Haigh, professor of atmospheric physics said the last UN climate summit in Denmark in 2009 failed, making Paris crucial in preventing widespread damage: "Copenhagen was generally considered a complete disaster, so it is very important that countries get together at Paris." Belcher said 4℃ of warming would be much more harmful than simply doubling the impacts expected with 2℃ . He said the European heatwave of 2003 with 70,000 deaths would be "a rather mild summer" in a 4℃ world. The Met Office report also showed that two-thirds of the world"s "carbon budget"—the maximum CO 2 that can be emitted over time to keep below 2℃—had been used up by the end of 2014. But only one-third of the sea-level rise expected from 2℃ of warming—60cm by 2100—has so far occurred, because of the time it takes for large ice sheets to melt. Prof Andrew Shepherd, at the University of Leeds, said a recent NASA study indicating that ice mass grew in Antarctica from 2003-2008 was contradicted by 57 other studies and had just a 5-10% chance of being a correct prediction.

单选题 I came across an old country guide the other day. It listed all the tradesmen in each village in my part of the country, and it was impressive to see the great variety of services which were available on one's own doorstep in the late Victorian countryside. Nowadays a superficial traveler in rural England might conclude that the only village tradesmen still flourishing were either selling frozen food to the inhabitants or selling antiques to visitors. Nevertheless, this would really be a false impression. Admittedly there has been a contraction of village commerce, but its vigor is still remarkable. Our local grocer's shop, for example, is actually expanding in spite of the competition from supermarkets in the nearest town. Women sensibly prefer to go there and exchange the local news while doing their shopping, instead of queueing up anonymously at a supermarket. And the proprietor knows well that personal service has a substantial cash value. His Prices may be a bit higher than those in the town, but he will deliver anything at any time. His assistants think nothing of bicycling down the village street in their lunch hour to-take a piece of cheese to an old-age pensioner who sent her order by word of mouth with a friend who happened to be passing. The more affluent customers telephone their shopping lists and the goods are on their doorsteps within an hour. They have only to hint at a fancy for some commodity outside the usual stock and the grocer, a red-faced figure, instantly obtains it for them. The village gains from this sort of enterprise, of course. But I also find it satisfactory because a village shop offers one of the few ways in which a modest individualist can still get along in the world without attaching himself to the big battalions of industry or commerce. Most of the village shopkeepers I know, at any rate, are decidedly individualist in their ways. For example, our shoemaker is a formidable figure: a thick-set, irritable man whom children treat with marked respect, knowing that an ill-judged word can provoke an angry eruption at any time. He stares with contempt at the pairs of cheap, mass-produced shoes taken to him for repair: has it come to this, he seems to be saying, that he, a craftsman, should have to waste his skills upon such trash? But we all know he will in fact do excellent work upon them. And he makes beautiful shoes for those who can afford such luxury.

单选题Wheredoestheconversationprobablytakeplace?[A]Athome．[B]Atahotel．[C]Atashop．

单选题Need a ride home for the holidays? Hitchhiking may have fallen out of favor, but a new form of ride sharing has emerged to replace it on—where else?—the Web. Today tens of thousands of Americans go online every month to stick a virtual thumb out in cyberspace, especially during holiday travel seasons. Craigslist.org—the largest ride-sharing forum—expects to receive a 50% increase in requests from users hoping to catch a ride home for Thanksgiving dinner. And why not? As a mode of travel, it"s cheap, fuel efficient and relatively safe. Besides, says Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist, "it"s an adventure." Ride sharing on Craigslist is basically an electronic version of the bulletin boards you find on most college campuses. People seeking rides say where they want to go, and drivers with room to spare arrange a place to meet. Craigslist, which requires no membership and charges no fee, fields 20,000 ride-sharing posts in a typical month, a number that swells to 30,000 during peak travel times. To meet the growing demand, more than a dozen major ride-sharing sites have sprung up, many of them quite sophisticated. At Carpoolworld.com you enter your destination, and the site spits out a list of registered users headed your way. Ridester.com, one of the fastest-growing sites with 11,000 unique users since August, will send you a text message when a potential match arises. It will also bit you with a $2 surcharge for each transaction and take 9.5% off the driver"s fee. How much arc those fees? That depends on what kind of deal you can strike. Ride sharing generally affords more companionship than a train or bus trip. A disclaimer on eRideShare, corn reads, "While the American Automobile Association (AAA) encourages carpooling with someone you know, it warns against ride sharing when you don"t know who is behind the wheel. Ride-sharing sites like Ridester have tried to alleviate safety concerns by requiring users to register and instituting a feedback system in which passengers can rate the quality of their driver. The site also offers an escrow account that holds a passenger"s carpooling fee until the transaction is completed. For now the best advice is the one your mother would give: Don"t get into a car with perfect strangers, and if their driving makes you uncomfortable, ask them to drop you at the nearest bus or train station.

单选题Questions 21-25 What we know of prenatal development makes all this attempt made by a mother to mold the character of her unborn child by studying poetry, art, or mathematics during pregnancy seem utterly impossible. How could such extremely complex influences pass from the mother to the child? There is no connection between their nervous systems. Even the blood vessels of mother and child do not join directly. An emotional shock to the mother will affect her child, because it changes the activity of her glands and so the chemistry in her blood. Any chemical change in the mother"s blood will affect the child for better or worse. But we cannot see how a liking for mathematics or poetic genius can be dissolved in blood and produce a similar liking or genius in the child. In our discussion of instincts we saw that there was reason to believe that whatever we inherit must be of some very simple sort rather than any complicated or very definite kind of behavior. It is certain that no one inherits a knowledge of mathematics. It may be, however, that children inherit more or less of a rather general ability that we may call intelligence. If very intelligent children become deeply interested in mathematics, they will probably make a success of that study. As for musical ability, it may be that what is inherited is an especially sensitive ear, a peculiar structure of the hands or the vocal organs connections between nerves and muscles that make it comparatively easy to learn the movements a musician must execute, and particularly vigorous emotions. If these factors are all organized around music, the child may become a musician. The same factors, in other circumstances might be organized about some other center of interest. The rich emotional equipment might find expression in poetry. The capable fingers might develop skill in surgery. It is not the knowledge of music that is inherited then, nor even the love of it, but a certain bodily structure that makes it comparatively easy to acquire musical knowledge and skill. Whether that ability shall be directed toward music or some other undertaking may be decided entirely by forces in the environment in which a child grows up.

单选题Questions 11-14

单选题 The Supreme Court's decisions on physician-assisted suicide carry important implications for how medicine seeks to relieve dying patients of pain and suffering. Although it ruled that there is no constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide, the Court in effect supported the medical principle of "double effect", a centuries-old moral principle holding that an action having two effects--a good one that is intended and a harmful one that is foreseen—is permissible if the actor intends only the good effect. Doctors have used that principle in recent years to justify using high doses of morphine to control terminally ill patients' pain, even though increasing dosages will eventually kill the patient. Nancy Dubler, director of Montefiore Medical Center, contends that the principle will shield doctors who "until now have very, very strongly insisted that they could not give patients sufficient medication to control their pain if that might hasten death." George Annas, chair of the health law department at Boston University, maintains that, as long as a doctor prescribes a drug for a legitimate medical purpose, the doctor has done nothing illegal even if the patient uses the drug to hasten death. "It's like surgery," he says. "We don't call those deaths homicides because the doctors didn't intend to kill their patients, although they risked their death. If you're a physician, you can risk your patient's suicide as long as you don't intend their suicide." On another level, many in the medical community acknowledge that the assisted-suicide debate has been fueled in part by the despair of patients for whom modem medicine has prolonged the physical agony of dying. Just three weeks before the Court's ruling on physician-assisted suicide, the National Academy of Science (NAS) released a two-volume report, Approaching Death: Improving Care at the End of Life. It identifies the undertreatment of pain and the aggressive use of "ineffectual and forced medical procedures that may prolong and even dishonor the period of dying" as the twin problems of end-of-life care. The profession is taking steps to require young doctors to train in hospices, to test knowledge of aggressive pain management therapies, to develop a Medicare billing code for hospital-based care, and to develop new standards for assessing and treating pain at the end of life. Annas says lawyers can play a key role in insisting that these well-meaning medical initiatives translate into better care. "Large numbers of physicians seem unconcerned with the pain their patients are needlessly and predictably suffering," to the extent that it constitutes "systematic patient abuse". He says medical licensing boards "must make it clear... that painful deaths are presumptively ones that are incompetently managed and should result in license suspension."

单选题For 20 years, Trevor Rowley has worked as an optician in York. Less than five years ago, he put into motion a long-standing idea to build a mail-order contact lens business. "It should be easy to order lenses and supplies," says Rowley. "People should not have to contend with an errand they could easily do from home." He began offering his services through a catalogue and a free phone number, and gained a good deal of notice and sales. Two years ago, Rowley began Google keyword-search advertising. The result of steady growth and persistent vision, Postoptics today claims 80% of the mail order and online contact lens business in the UK. Rowley has been recognized as a "Future Entrepreneur of the Year" for his efforts. Even better, he has grown his business by giving excellent service. One way Postoptics achieves this is by providing customers easy access to their orders and to staff. "We like to communicate with customers any way they choose—online, on the phone, or by post," Rowley says. Approach Rowley was not one to rush into online advertising simply because others were. "We have invested a lot of time studying back-end systems to learn which ones provide the most data on our sales," says Rowley. He appreciated that Google is used as a tool by what he calls "Internet savvy" people "who know what they are looking for." And since Google AdWords is built upon the search queries those users made, it has proved to be a good fit for Postoptics. "The goal of online ads should not be about the amount of traffic they create," he says, "but about knowing who is buying, and the amount of each sale. When you study that over time, you know your return on investment as well as quite a bit about your customers." Results "Google gives us 35% of our traffic and 58% of our orders," Rowley says. And given Postoptics" interest in scrutinizing traffic and purchase patterns, he notes that "day in, day out, month in, month out, Google consistently produces 10% or 15% higher value per order—that much more revenue per sale. It"s so cost-effective to pay per click for Google customers, because we know the quality of leads is very high." Now that Google advertising is a key part of Postoptics" marketing strategy, Rowley says, "We"ve pretty much abandoned offline advertising. We don"t get a good return from running in the Sunday papers. We find that working a combination of Google advertising and direct mail gives us the customer base we need and the most accurate way to calculate in advance pounds per sale. We"re quite ruthless about it." By his own admission, Rowley is a cautious entrepreneur. He takes a leap, but only after understanding the variables and the risks. As far as Postoptics goes, he says, "Google has been very, very good—and I don"t praise things lightly." About Google Advertising Google AdWords TM is the world"s largest search advertising programme, currently used by more than 100,000 businesses to gain new customers cost-effectively. AdWords uses keywords to precisely target ad delivery to web users seeking information about a particular product or service. The programme is based on cost-per-click (CPC) pricing, so advertisers only pay when an ad is clicked on. Advertisers can take advantage of an extremely broad distribution network, and choose the level of support and spending appropriate for their business.

单选题 In almost all cases the soft parts of fossils are gone for ever but they were fitted around or within the hard parts. Many of them also were attached to the hard parts and usually such attachments are visible as depressed or elevated areas, ridges, or grooves, smooth or rough patches on the hard parts. The muscles most important for the activities of the animal and most evident in the appearance of the living animal are those attached to the hard parts and possible to reconstruct from their attachments. Much can be learned about a vanished brain from the inside of the skull in which it was lodged. Restoration of the external appearance of an extinct animal has little or no scientific value. It does not even help in inferring what the activities of the living animal were, how fast it could run, what its food was, or such other conclusions as are important for the history of life. However, what most people want to know about extinct animals is what they looked like when they were alive. Scientists also would like to know. Things like fossil shells present no great problem as a rule, because the hard parts are external when the animal is alive and the outer appearance is actually preserved in the fossils. Animals in which the skeleton is internal present great problems of restoration, and honest restorers admit that they often have to use considerable guessing. The general shape and contours of the body are fixed by the skeleton and by muscles attached to the skeleton, but surface features, which may give the animal its really characteristic look, are seldom restorable with any real probability of accuracy. The present often helps to interpret the past. An extinct animal presumably looked more or less like its living relatives, if it has any. This, however, may be quite equivocal. For example, extinct members of the horse family are usually restored to look somewhat like the most familiar living horses — domestic horses and their closest wild relatives. It is, however, possible and even probable that many extinct horses were striped like zebras. Others probably had patterns no longer present in any living members of the family. If lions and tigers were extinct they would be restored to look exactly alike. No living elephants have much hair and mammoths, which are extinct elephants, would doubtless be restored as hairless if we did not happen to know that they had thick, woolly coats. We know this only because mammoths are so recently extinct that prehistoric men drew pictures of them and that the hide and hair have actually been found in a few specimens. For older extinct animals we have no such clues.

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

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单选题Wild Bill Donovan would have loved the Internet. The American spymaster who built the Office of Strategic Services in the World War II and later laid the roots for the CIA was fascinated with information. Donovan believed in using whatever tools came to hand in the "great game" of espionage—spying as a "profession". These days the Net, which has already re-made pastimes as buying books and sending mail, is reshaping Donovan"s vocation as well. The last revolution isn"t simply a matter of gentlemen reading other gentlemen"s e-mail. That kind of electronic spying has been going on for decades. In the past three or four years, the World Wide Web has given birth to a whole industry of point-and-click spying. The technical talents call it "open source intelligence", and as the Net grows, it is becoming increasingly influential. In 1995 the CIA held a contest to see who could compile the most data about Burundi. The winner, by a large margin, was a tiny Virginia company called Open-Source Solutions, whose clear advantage was its mastery of the electronic world. Among the firms making the biggest splash in the new world is Straitford Inc., a private intelligence-analysis firm based in Austin, Texas. Straitford makes money by selling the results of spying (covering nations from Chile to Russia) to corporations like energy-services firm McDermott International. Many of its predictions are available online at www. straitford, com. Straitford president George Friedman says he sees the online world as a kind of mutually reinforcing tool for both information collection and distribution, a spymaster"s dream. Last week his firm was busy vacuuming up data bits from the far comers of the world and predicting a crisis in Ukraine. "As soon as that report nms, we"ll suddenly get 500 new Internet sign-ups from Ukraine," says Friedman, a former political science professor. "And we"ll hear back from some of them." Open-source spying does have its risks, of course, since it can be difficult to tell good information from bad. That"s where Straitford earns its keep. Friedman relies on a lean staff in Austin. Several of his staff members have military-intelligence backgrounds. He sees the firm"s outsider status as the key to its success. Straitford"s briefs don"t sound like the usual Washington back-and-forthing, whereby agencies avoid dramatic declarations on the chance they might be wrong. Straitford, says Friedman, takes pride in its independent voice.

单选题It"s 1997, and it"s raining. And you"ll have to walk to work again. Any given subway train breaks down one morning out of five. The buses are gone, and on a day like today, bicycles slosh and slide. Lucky you have a job in demolition. It"s slow and dirty work, but steady. The fading structures of a decaying city are the great mineral mines and hardware shops of the nation. Break them down and reuse the parts. Coal is too difficult to dig up and transport to give us energy in the amounts we need, nuclear fission is judged to be too dangerous, the hoped-for breakthrough toward nuclear fusion never took place, and solar batteries are too expensive to maintain in sufficient quantity. Anyone older than ten can remember automobiles. At first, the price of gasoline climbed—way up. Finally, only the well-to-do drove, and that was too clear an indication that they were filthy rich; so any automobile on a city street was overturned and burned. The cars vanished, becoming part of the metal resource. There are advantages in 1997, if you want to look for them. The air is cleaner, and there seem to be fewer cold. The crime rate has dropped. With the police car too expensive, policemen are back on their beats. More important, the streets are full. Legs are king, and people walk everywhere far into the night. There is mutual protection in crowds. If the weather isn"t too cold, people sit out front. If it is hot, the open air is the only air conditioning they get. At least the street lights still burn. Indoors, few people can afford to keep light burning after supper. As for the winter—well, it is inconvenient to be cold, with most of what furnace fuel is allowed hoarded for the dawn. But sweaters are popular indoor wear. Showers are not an everyday luxury. Lukewarm sponge baths must do, and if the air is not always very fragrant in the human vicinity, the automobile fumes are gone. It is worse in the suburbs, which were born with the auto, lived with the auto, and are dying with the auto. Suburbanites form associations that assign turns to the procurement and distribution of food. Pushcarts creak from house to house along the posh suburban roads, and every bad snowstorm is a disaster. It isn"t easy to hoard enough food to last till the roads are open. There is not much refrigeration except for the snow-banks, and then the dogs must be fought off. What energy is left must be conserved for agriculture. The great car factories make trucks and farm machinery almost exclusively. The American population isn"t going up much anymore, but the food supply must be kept high even though the prices and difficulty of distribution force each American to eat less. Food is needed for export to pay for some trickles of oil and for other resources. The rest of the world is not as lucky as we are. They"re starving out there because earth"s population has continued to rise. The population on earth is 5.5 billion—up by 1.5 billion since 1977—and, outside the United States and Europe, not more than one in five has enough to eat at any given time. There is a high infant mortality rate. It"s more than just starvation, though. There are those who manage to survive on barely enough to keep the body working, and that proves to be not enough for the brain. It is estimated that nearly two billion people in the world are permanently brain-damaged by undernutrition, and the number is growing. At least the big armies are gone. Only the United States and the Soviet Union can maintain a few tanks, planes, and ships—which they dare not move for fear of biting into limited fuel reserves. Machines must be replaced by human muscle and beasts of burden. People are working longer hours, and—with lighting restricted, television only three hours a night, new books few and printed in small editions—what is there to do with leisure? Work, sleep, and eating are the great trinity of 1997, and only the first two are guaranteed. Where will it end? It must end in a return to the days before 1800, to the days before the fossil fuels powered a vast machine industry and technology. It must end in subsistence farming and in a world population reduced by starvation, disease, and violence to less than a billion. And what can we do to prevent all this now? Now? In 1997? Almost nothing.