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The social sciences are flourishing. As of 2005, there were almost half a million professional social scientists from all fields in the world, working both inside and outside academia. According to the World Social Science Report 2010, the number of social-science students worldwide has swollen by about 11% every year since 2000.Yet this enormous resource is not contributing enough to today's global challenges including climate change, security, sustainable development and health.（1）. Humanity has the necessary agro-technological tools to eradicate hunger, from genetically engineered crops to artificial fertilizers. Here, too, the problems are social: the organization and distribution of food, wealth and prosperity.（2）. This is a shame—the community should be grasping the opportunity to raise its influence in the real world. To paraphrase the great social scientist Joseph Schumpeter: there is no radical innovation without creative destruction.Today, the social sciences are largely focused on disciplinary problems and internal scholarly debates, rather than on topics with external impact. Analyses reveal that the number of papers including the keywords “environmental change” or “climate change” have increased rapidly since 2004. （3）.When social scientists do tackle practical issues, their scope is often local: Belgium is interested mainly in the effects of poverty on Belgium, for example. And whether the community's work contributes much to an overall accumulation of knowledge is doubtful.The problem is not necessarily the amount of available funding. （4）. This is an adequate amount so long as it is aimed in the right direction. Social scientists who complain about a lack of funding should not expect more in today's economic climate.The trick is to direct these funds better. The European Union Framework funding programs have long had a category specifically targeted at social scientists. This year, it was proposed that system be changed: Horizon 2020, a new program to be enacted in 2014, would not have such a category. This has resulted in protests from social scientists. But the intention is not to neglect social science; rather, the complete opposite. （5）. That should create more collaborative endeavors and help to develop projects aimed directly at solving global problems.[A] It could be that we are evolving two communities of social scientists: one that is discipline-oriented and publishing in highly specialized journals, and one that is problem-oriented and publishing elsewhere, such as policy briefs.[B] However, the numbers are still small: in 2010, about 1,600 of the 100,000 social-sciences papers published globally included one of these Keywords.[C] The idea is to force social to integrate their work with other categories, including health and demographic change food security, marine research and the bio-economy, clear, efficient energy; and inclusive, innovative and secure societies.[D] The solution is to change the mindset of the academic community, and what it considers to be its main goal. Global challenges and social innovation ought to receive much more attention from scientists, especially the young ones.[E] These issues all have root causes in human behavior. All require behavioral change and social innovations, as well as technological development. Stemming climate change, for example, is as much about changing consumption patterns and promoting tax acceptance as it is about developing clean energy.[F] Despite these factors, many social scientists seem reluctant to tackle such problems. And in Europe, some are up in arms over a proposal to drop a specific funding category for social-science research and to integrate it within cross-cutting topics of sustainable development.[G] During the late 1990s, national spending on social sciences and the humanities as a percentage of all research and development funds-including government, higher education, non-profit and corporate -varied from around 4% to 25%; in most European nations, it is about 15%.

Write an e-mail of about 100 words to a foreign teacher in your college, inviting him/her to be a judge for the upcoming English speech contest.You should include the details you think necessary.You should write neatly on the ANSWER SHEET.Do not sign your own name at the end of the e-mail. Use “Li Ming” instead.Do not write the address.

You are going to host a club reading session. Write an email of about 100 words recommending a book to the club members.You should state reasons for your recommendation.You should write neatly on the ANSWER SHEET.Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use “Li Ming” instead.Do not write the address.

Write an essay of 160-200 words based on the following picture. In your essay, you should1)describe the picture briefly,2)interpret its intended meaning, and3)give your comments.You should write neatly on the ANSWER SHEET.

[A] In December of 1869, Congress appointed a commission to select a site and prepare plans and cost estimates for a new State Department Building. The commission was also to consider possible arrangements for the War and Navy Departments. To the horror of some who expected a Greek Revival twin of the Treasury Building to be erected on the other side of the White House, the elaborate French Second Empire style design by Alfred Mullett was selected, and construction of a building to house all three departments began in June of 1871.[B] Completed in 1875, the State Department's south wing was the first to be occupied, with its elegant four-story library ( completed in 1876 ), Diplomatic Reception Room, and Secretary's office decorated with carved wood, Oriental rugs, and stenciled wall patterns. The Navy Department moved into the east wing in 1879, where elaborate wall and ceiling stenciling and marquetry floors decorated the office of the Secretary.[C] The State, War, and Navy Building, as it was originally known, housed the three Executive Branch Departments most intimately associated with formulating and conducting the nation's foreign policy in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth century — the period when the United States emerged as an international power. The building has housed some of the nation's most significant diplomats and politicians and has been the scene of many historic events.[D] Many of the most celebrated national figures have participated in historical events that have taken place within the EEOB's granite walls. Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson, Gerald Ford, and George H. W. Bush all had offices in this building before becoming President. It has housed 16 Secretaries of the Navy, 21 Secretaries of War, and 24 Secretaries of State. Winston Churchill once walked its corridors and Japanese emissaries met here with Secretary of State Cordell Hull after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.[E] The Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB) commands a unique position in both the national history and the architectural heritage of the United States. Designed by Supervising Architect of the Treasury, Alfred B. Mullett, it was built from 1871 to 1888 to house the growing staffs of the State, War, and Navy Departments, and is considered one of the best examples of French Second Empire architecture in the country.[F] Construction took 17 years as the building slowly rose wing by wing. When the EEOB was finished, it was the largest office building in Washington, with nearly 2 miles of black and white tiled corridors. Almost all of the interior detail is of cast iron or plaster; the use of wood was minimized to insure fire safety. Eight monumental curving staircases of granite with over 4,000 individually cast bronze balusters are capped by four skylight domes and two stained glass rotundas.[G] The history of the EEOB began long before its foundations were laid. The first executive offices were constructed between 1799 and 1820. A series of fires (including those set by the British in 1814) and overcrowded conditions led to the construction of the existing Treasury Building. In 1866, the construction of the North Wing of the Treasury Building necessitated the demolition of the State Department building.1.（）→C→ 2.（） → 3.（） →F→ 4.（） →5.（）

Write an e-mail to all international experts on campus, inviting them to attend the graduation ceremony. In your e-mail, you should include the time, place and other relevant information about the ceremony.You should write about 100 words neatly on the ANSWER SHEET.Do not use your own name at the end of the e-mail. Use “Li Ming” instead.

If you’re heading for your nearest branch of Waterstones in search of the Duchess of Sussex’s new children’s book The Bench, you might have to be prepared to hunt around a bit; the same may be true of The President's Daughter, the new thriller by Bill Clinton and James Patterson. Both of these books are published next week by Penguin Random House, a company currently involved in a stand-off with Waterstones. The problem began late last year, when Penguin Random House confirmed that it had introduced a credit limit with Waterstones “at a very significant level”. The trade magazine The Bookseller reported that Waterstones branch managers were being told to remove PRH books from prominent areas such as tables, display spaces and windows, and were “quietly retiring them to their relevant sections”. PRH declined to comment on the issue, but a spokesperson for Waterstones told me: “Waterstones are currently operating with reduced credit terms from PRH, the only publisher in the UK to place any limitations on our ability to trade. We are not boycotting PRH titles but we are doing our utmost to ensure that availability for customers remains good despite the lower overall levels of stock. We do this generally by giving their titles less prominent positioning within our bookshops. In the meantime, PRH authors have been the losers - as have customers, who might expect the new titles from the country’s biggest publisher to be prominently displayed by its biggest book retailer. Big-name PRH authors may suffer a bit, but it’s those mid-list authors, who normally rely on Waterstones staff’s passion for promoting books by lesser-known writers, who will be praying for an end to the dispute. It comes at a time when authors are already worried about the consequences of the proposed merger between PRH and another big publisher, Simon & Schuster - the reduction in the number of unaligned UK publishers is likely to lead to fewer bidding wars, lower advances, and more conformity in terms of what is published. And one wonders if PRH would have been confident enough to deal with Waterstones in the way it has if it weren’t quite such a big company (it was formed with the merger of Penguin and Random House in 2013) and likely to get bigger. “This is all part of a wider change towards concentration of power and cartels. Literary agencies are getting bigger to have the clout to negotiate better terms with publishers, publishers consolidating to deal with Amazon,” says Lownie. “The publishing industry talks about diversity in terms of authors and staff but it also needs a plurality of ways of delivering intellectual contact, choice and different voices. After all, many of the most interesting books in recent years have come from small publishers.”We shall see whether that plurality is a casualty of the current need among publishers to be big enough to take on all-comers.31.the author mentions two books in the paragraph 1 to present32.Why did Waterstones shops retire PRH books to their relevant sections?33.What message did the spokesman of Waterstones seem to convey?34.What can be one consequence of the current dispute?35.Which of the following statements best represents Lownie's view?

How can the train operators possibly justify yet another increase to rail passenger fares? It has become a grimly reliable annual ritual: every January the cost of travelling by train rises, imposing a significant extra burden on those who have no option but to use the rail network to get to work or otherwise. This year's rise, an average of 2.7 per cent, may be a fraction lower than last year's, but it is still well above the official Consumer Price Index (CPI) measure of inflation.Successive governments have permitted such increases on the grounds that the cost of investing in and running the rail network should be borne by those who use it, rather than the general taxpayer. Why, the argument goes, should a car-driving pensioner from Lincoln shire have to subsidize the daily commute of a stockbroker from Surrey? Equally, there is a sense that the travails of commuters in the South East, many of whom will face among the biggest rises, have received too much attention compared to those who must endure the relatively poor infrastructure of the Midlands and the North.However, over the past 12 months, those commuters have also experienced some of the worst rail strikes in years. It is all very well train operators trumpeting the improvements they are making to the network, but passengers should be able to expect a basic level of service for the substantial sums they are now paying to travel. The responsibility for the latest wave of strikes rests on the unions. However, there is a strong case that those who have been worst affected by industrial action should receive compensation for the disruption they have suffered.The Government has pledged to change the law to introduce a minimum service requirement so that, even when strikes occur, services can continue to operate. This should form part of a wider package of measures to address the long-running problems on Britain's railways. Yes, more investment is needed, but passengers will not be willing to pay more indefinitely if they must also endure cramped, unreliable services, punctuated by regular chaos when timetables are changed, or planned maintenance is managed incompetently. The threat of nationalization may have been seen off for now, but it will return with a vengeance if the justified anger of passengers is not addressed in short order.1.The author holds that this year's increase in rail passengers fares （）.2.The stockbroker in Paragraph 2 is used to stand for（） .3. It is indicated in Paragraph 3 that train operators （）.4. If unable to calm down passengers, the railways may have to face（）.5. Which of the following would be the best title for the text?

Last year marked the third year in a row that Indonesia’s bleak rate of deforestation has slowed in pace. One reason for the turnaround may be the country's antipoverty program.In 2007, Indonesia started phasing in a program that gives money to its poorest residents under certain conditions, such as requiring people to keep kids in school or get regular medical care. Called conditional cash transfers or CCTs, these social assistance programs are designed to reduce inequality and break the cycle of poverty. They're already used in dozens of countries worldwide. In Indonesia, the program has provided enough food and medicine to substantially reduce severe growth problems among children.But CCT programs don't generally consider effects on the environment. In fact, poverty alleviation and environmental protection are often viewed as conflicting goals, says Paul Ferraro, an economist at Johns Hopkins University.That's because economic growth can be correlated with environmental degradation, while protecting the environment is sometimes correlated with greater poverty. However, those correlations don't prove cause and effect. The only previous study analyzing causality, based on an area in Mexico that had instituted CCTs, supported the traditional view. There, as people got more money, some of them may have more cleared land for cattle to raise for meat, Ferraro says.Such programs do not have to negatively affect the environment, though. Ferraro wanted to see if Indonesia’s poverty-alleviation program was affecting deforestation. Indonesia has the third-largest area of tropical forest in the world and one of the highest deforestation rates. Ferraro analyzed satellite data showing annual forest loss from 2008 to 2012 — including during Indonesia's phase-in of the antipoverty program — in 7,468 forested villages across 15 provinces and multiple islands. The duo separated the effects of the CCT program on forest loss from other factors, like weather and macroeconomic changes, which were also affecting forest loss. With that, “we see that the program is associated with a 30 percent reduction in deforestation,” Ferraro says.That's likely because the rural poor are using the money as makeshift insurance policies against inclement weather, Ferraro says. Typically, if rains are delayed, people may clear land to plant more rice to supplement their harvests. With the CCTs, individuals instead can use the money to supplement their harvests.Whether this research translates elsewhere is anybody's guess. Ferraro suggests the importance of growing rice and market access. And regardless of transferability, the study shows that what's good for people may also be good value of the avoided deforestation just for carbon dioxide emissions alone is more than the program costs.1.According to the first two paragraphs, CCT programs aim to （）.2.The study based on an area in Mexico is cited to show that （）.3.In his study about Indonesia, Ferraro intends to find out （）.4.According to Ferraro, the CCT program in Indonesia is most valuable in that （）. 5.What is the text centered on?

First two hours, now three hours—this is how far in advance authorities are recommending people show up to catch a domestic flight, at least at some major U.S. airports with increasingly massive security lines. Americans are willing to tolerate time-consuming security procedures in return for increased safety. The crash of EgyptAir Flight 804, which terrorists may have downed over the Mediterranean Sea, provides another tragic reminder of why. But demanding too much of air travelers or providing too little security in return undermines public support for the process. And it should: Wasted time is a drag on Americans’ economic and private lives, not to mention infuriating. Last year, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) found in a secret check that undercover investigators were able to sneak weapons—both fake and real—past airport security nearly every time they tried. Enhanced security measures since then, combined with a rise in airline travel due to the improving economy and low oil prices, have resulted in long waits at major airports such as Chicago’s O’Hare International. It is not yet clear how much more effective airline security has become—but the lines are obvious. Part of the issue is that the government did not anticipate the steep increase in airline travel, so the TSA is now rushing to get new screeners on the line. Part of the issue is that airports have only so much room for screening lanes. Another factor may be that more people are trying to overpack their carry-on bags to avoid checked-baggage fees, though the airlines strongly dispute this. There is one step the TSA could take that would not require remodeling airports or rushing to hire: Enroll more people in the PreCheck program. PreCheck is supposed to be a win-win for travelers and the TSA. Passengers who pass a background check are eligible to use expedited screening lanes. This allows the TSA to focus on travelers who are higher risk, saving time for everyone involved. The TSA wants to enroll 25 million people in PreCheck. It has not gotten anywhere close to that, and one big reason is sticker shock: Passengers must pay $85 every five years to process their background checks. Since the beginning, this price tag has been PreCheck’s fatal flaw. Upcoming reforms might bring the price to a more reasonable level. But Congress should look into doing so directly, by helping to finance PreCheck enrollment or to cut costs in other ways. The TSA cannot continue diverting resources into underused PreCheck lanes while most of the traveling public suffers in unnecessary lines. It is long past time to make the program work. 1、The crash of EgyptAir Flight 804 is mentioned to ___.2、Which of the following contributes to long waits at major airports?3、The word “expedited” (Para. 5) is closest in meaning to _.4、One problem with the PreCheck program is ___.5、Which of the following would be the best title for the text?

A group of labour MPs, among them Yvette Cooper, are bringing in the new year with a call to institute a UK "town of culture" award. The proposal is that it should sit alongside the existing city of culture title, which was held by Hull in 2017 and has been awarded to Coventry for 2021. Cooper and her colleagues argue that the success of the crown for Hull, where it brought in £220m of investment and an avalanche of arts, ought not to be confined to cities. Britain's towns, it is true, are not prevented from applying, but they generally lack the resources to put together a bid to beat their bigger competitors. A town of culture award could, it is argued, become an annual event, attracting funding and creating jobs.Some might see the proposal as a boo by prize for the fact that Britain is no longer able to apply for the much more prestigious title of European capital of culture, a sought-after award bagged by Glasgow in 1990 and Liverpool in 2008. A cynic might speculate that the UK is on the verge of disappearing into an endless fever of self-celebration in its desperation to reinvent itself for the post-Brexit world: after town of culture, who knows what will follow—village of culture? Suburb of culture? Hamlet of culture?It is also wise to recall that such titles are not a cure-all. A badly run "year of culture" washes in and out of a place like the tide, bringing prominence for a spell but leaving no lasting benefits to the community. The really successful holders of such titles are those that do a great deal more than fill hotel bedrooms and bring in high-profile arts events and good press for a year. They transform the aspirations of the people who live there; they nudge the self-image of the city into a bolder and more optimistic light. It is hard to get right, and requires a remarkable degree of vision, as well as cooperation between city authorities, the private sector, community groups and cultural organizations. But it can be done: Glasgow's year as European capital of a culture can certainly be seen as one of a complex series of factors that have turned the city into the powerhouse of art, music and theatre that it remains today.A “town of culture" could be not just about the arts but about honoring a town’s peculiarities—helping sustain its high street, supporting local facilities and above all celebrating its people. Jeremy Wright, the culture secretary, should welcome this positive, hope-filled proposal, and turn it into action.1.Copper and her colleague argue that a "town of culture" award would（）.2.According to paragraph 2, the proposal might be regarded by some as（）.3.The author suggests that a title holder is successful only if it（）.4.“ Glasgow” is mentioned in Paragraph 3 to present（）.5.What is the author's attitude towards the proposal?

Financial regulators in Britain have imposed a rather unusual rule on the bosses of big banks. Starting next year, any guaranteed bonus of top executives could be delayed 10 years if their banks are under investigation for wrongdoing. The main purpose of this “clawback” rule is to hold bankers accountable for harmful risk-taking and to restore public trust in financial institution. Yet officials also hope for a much larger benefit: more long term decision-making not only by banks but also by all corporations, to build a stronger economy for future generations.“ Short-termism” or the desire for quick profits, has worsened in publicly traded companies, says the Bank of England's top economist, Andrew Haldane. He quotes a giant of classical economies, Alfred Marshall, in describing this financial impatience as acting like “Children who pick the plums out of their pudding to eat them at once” rather than putting them aside to be eaten last.The average time for holding a stock in both the United States and Britain, he notes, has dropped from seven years to seven months in recent decades. Transient investors, who demand high quarterly profits from companies, can hinder a firm's efforts to invest in long-term research or to build up customer loyalty. This has been dubbed "quarterly capitalism" In addition, new digital technologies have allowed more rapid trading of equities, quicker use of information, and thus shortens attention spans in financial markers. "There seems to be a predominance of short-term thinking at the expense of long-term investing," said Commissioner Daniel Gallagher of the US Securities and Exchange Commission in speech this week.In the US, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 has pushed most public companies to defer performance bonuses for senior executives by about a year, slightly helping reduce “short-termism”. In its latest survey of CEO pay, The Wall Street Journal finds that "a substantial part” of executive pay is now tied to performance.Much more could be done to encourage “long-termism,” such as changes in the tax code and quicker disclosure of stock acquisitions. In France, shareholders who hold onto a company investment for at least two years can sometimes earn more voting rights in a company.Within companies, the right compensation design can provide incentives for executives to think beyond their own time at the company and on behalf of all stakeholders. Britain rule is a reminder to bankers that society has an interest in their performance, not just for the short term but for the long term.1.According to Paragraph 1, one motive in imposing the new rule is the（） .2.Alfred Marshall is quoted to indicate（）.3.It is argued that the influence of transient investment on public companies can be（）.4.The US and France examples are used to illustrate（）.5.Which of the following would be the best title for the text?

Grade inflation—the gradual increase in average GPAs (grade-point averages) over the past few decades— is often considered a product of a consumer era in higher education, in which students are treated like customers to be pleased. But another, related force—a policy often buried deep in course catalogs called “grade forgiveness”—is helping raise GPAs.Grade forgiveness allows students to retake a course in which they received a low grade, and the most recent grade or the highest grade is the only one that counts in calculating a student's overall GPA. The use of this little-known practice has accelerated in recent years, as colleges continue to do their utmost to keep students in school (and paying tuition) and improve their graduation rates. When this practice first started decades ago, it was usually limited to freshmen, to give them a second chance to take a class in their first year if they struggled in their transition to college-level courses. But now most colleges save for many selective campuses, allow all undergraduates, and even graduate students, to get their low grades forgiven.College officials tend to emphasize that the goal of grade forgiveness is less about the grade itself and more about encouraging students to retake courses critical to their degree program and graduation without incurring a big penalty. “Untimely,” said Jack Miner, Ohio State University's registrar, “we see students achieve more success because they retake a course and do better in subsequent contents or master the content that allows them to graduate on time.”That said, there is a way in which grade forgiveness satisfies colleges'own needs as well. For public institutions, state funds are sometimes tied partly to their success on metrics such as graduation rates and student retention- so better grades can, by boosting figures like those, mean more money. And anything that raises GPAs will likely make students- who, at the end of the day, are paying the bill-feel they've gotten a better value for their tuition dollars, which is another big concern for colleges.Indeed, grade forgiveness is just another way that universities are responding to consumers' expectations for higher education. Since students and parents expect a college degree to lead a job, it is in the best interest of a school to turn out graduates who are as qualified as possible—or at least appear to be. On this, students' and colleges' incentive seem to be aligned.1.What is commonly regarded as the cause of grade inflation?2.What was the original purpose of grade forgiveness?3.According to Paragraph 5, grade forgiveness enable colleges to（）.4.What does the phrase "to be aligned" (Para.6) most probably mean?5.The author examines the practice of grade forgiveness by（）.

This year marks exactly two centuries since the publication of Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, by Mary Shelley. Even before the invention of the electric light bulb, the author produced a remarkable work of speculative fiction that would foreshadow many ethical questions to be raised by technologies yet to come.Today the rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI) raises fundamental questions: “What is intelligence, identify, or consciousness? What makes humans humans?” What is being called artificial general intelligence, machines that would imitate the way humans think, continues to evade scientists. Yet humans remain fascinated by the idea of robots that would look, move, and respond like humans, similar to those recently depicted on popular sci-fi TV series such as “West world” and “Humans”.“Just how people think is still far too complex to be understood, let alone reproduced,” says David Eagleman, a Stanford University neuroscientist. “We are just in a situation where there are no good theories explaining what consciousnesss actually is and how you could ever build a machine to get there.” But that doesn’t mean crucial ethical issues involving AI aren't at hand. The coming use of autonomous vehicles, for example, poses thorny ethical questions. Human drivers sometimes must make split-second decisions. Their reactions may be a complex combination of instant reflexes, input from past driving experiences, and what their eyes and ears tell them in that moment. AI “vision” today is not nearly as sophisticated as that of humans. And to anticipate every imaginable driving situation is a difficult programming problem.Whenever decisions are based on masses of data, “you quickly get into a lot of ethical questions,” notes Tan Kiat How, chief executive of a Singapore-based agency that is helping the government develop a voluntary code for the ethical use of AI. Along with Singapore, other governments and mega-corporations are beginning to establish their own guidelines. Britain is setting up a data ethics center. India released its AI ethics strategy this spring.On June 7 Google pledged not to “design or deploy AI” that would cause “overall harm,” or to develop AI-directed weapons or use AI for surveillance that would violate international norms. It also pledged not to deploy AI whose use would violate international laws or human rights.While the statement is vague, it represents one starting point. So does the idea that decisions made by AI systems should be explainable, transparent, and fair. To put it another way: How can we make sure that the thinking of intelligent machines reflects humanity's highest values? Only then will they be useful servants and not Frankenstein's out-of-control monster. 1.Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein is mentioned because it（）.2.In David Eagleman's opinion, our current knowledge of consciousness（）.3.The solution to the ethical issues brought by autonomous vehicles（）.4.The author's attitude toward Google's pledge is one of（）.5.Which of the following would be the best title for the text?

States will be able to force more people to pay sales tax when they make online purchases under a Supreme Court decision Thursday that will leave shoppers with lighter wallets but is a big financial win for states.The Supreme Court's opinion Thursday overruled a pair of decades-old decisions that states said cost them billions of dollars in lost revenue annually. The decisions made it more difficult for states to collect sales tax on certain online purchases.The cases the court overturned said that if a business was shipping a customer's purchase to a state where the business didn't have a physical presence such as a warehouse or office, the business didn't have to collect sales tax for the state. Customers were generally responsible for paying the sales tax to the state themselves if they weren't charged it, but most didn't realize they owed it and few paid.Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that the previous decisions were flawed. “Each year physical presence rule becomes further removed from economic reality and results in significant revenue losses to the States,” he wrote in an opinion joined by four other justices. Kennedy wrote that the rule “limited states' ability to seek long-term prosperity and has prevented market participants from competing on an even playing field.”The ruling is a victory for big chains with a presence in many states, since they usually collect sales tax on online purchases already. Now, rivals will be charging sales tax where they hadn't before. Big chains have been collecting sales tax nationwide because they typically have physical stores in whatever state a purchase is being shipped to. Amazon.com, with its network of warehouses, also collects sales tax in every state that charges it, though third-party sellers who use the site don't have to.Until now, many sellers that have a physical presence in only a single state or a few states have been able to avoid charging sales taxes when they ship to addresses outside those states. Sellers that use eBay and Etsy, which provide platforms for smaller sellers, also haven collecting sales tax nationwide. Under the ruling Thursday, states can pass laws requiring out-of-state sellers to collect the state's sales tax from customers and send it to the state.Retail trade groups praised the ruling, saying it levels the playing field for local and online businesses. The losers, said retail analyst Neil Saunders, are online-only retailers, especially smaller ones. Those retailers may face headaches complying with various state sales tax laws. The Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council advocacy group said in a a statement, "businesses and internet entrepreneurs are not well served at all by this decision.”1.The Supreme Court decision Thursday will（）.2.It can be learned from paragraphs 2 and 3 that the overruled decisions（）.3.According to Justice Anthony Kennedy, the physical presence rule has（）.4.Who are most likely to welcome the Supreme Court ruling（）.5.In dealing with the Supreme Court decision Thursday, the author（）.

It was only after I started to write a weekly column about the medical journals, and began to read scientific papers from beginning to end, that I realized just how bad much of the medical literature frequently was. I came to recognize various signs of a bad paper: the kind of paper that purports to show that people who eat more than one kilo of broccoli a week were 1.17 times more likely than those who eat less to suffer late in life from pernicious anaemia. (46) There is a great deal of this kind of nonsense in the medical journals which, when taken up by broadcasters and the lay press, generates both health scares and short-lived dietary enthusiasms. Why is so much bad science published? A recent paper, titled ‘The Natural Selection of Bad Science’, published on the Royal Society’s open science website, attempts to answer this intriguing and important question. It says that the problem is not merely that people do bad science, but that our current system of career advancement positively encourages it. What is important is not truth, but publication, which has become almost an end in itself. There has been a kind of inflationary process at work: (47) nowadays anyone applying for a research post has to have published twice the number of papers that would have been required for the same post only 10 years ago. Never mind the quality, then, count the number. (48) Attempts have been made to curb this tendency, for example, by trying to incorporate some measure of quality as well as quantity into the assessment of an applicant’s papers. This is the famed citation index, that is to say the number of times a paper has been quoted elsewhere in the scientific literature, the assumption being that an important paper will be cited more often than one of small account. (49) This would be reasonable enough if it were not for the fact that scientists can easily arrange to cite themselves in their future publications, or get associates to do so for them in return for similar favors. Boiling down an individual’s output to simple metrics, such as number of publications or journal impacts, entails considerable savings in time, energy and ambiguity. Unfortunately, the long-term costs of using simple quantitative metrics to assess researcher merit are likely to be quite great. (50) If we are serious about ensuring that our science is both meaningful and reproducible, we must ensure that our institutions encourage that kind of science.

Trust is a tricky business. On the one hand, it’s a necessary condition 1 many worthwhile things: child care, friendships, etc. On the other hand, putting your 2 in the wrong place often carries a high 3 . 4 , why do we trust at all? Well, because it feels good. 5 people place their trust in an individual or an institution, their brains release oxytocin, a hormone that 6 pleasurable feelings and triggers the herding instinct that prompts humans to 7 with one another. Scientists have found that exposure 8 this hormone puts us in a trusting 9 : In a Swiss study, researchers sprayed oxytocin into the noses of half the subjects; those subjects were ready to lend significantly higher amounts of money to strangers than were their 10 who inhaled something else. 11 for us, we also have a sixth sense for dishonesty that may 12 us. A Canadian study found that children as young as 14 months can differentiate 13 a credible person and a dishonest one. Sixty toddlers were each 14 to an adult tester holding a plastic container. The tester would ask, “What’s in here?” before looking into the container, smiling, and exclaiming, “Wow!” Each subject was then invited to look 15 . Half of them found a toy; the other half 16 the container was empty--and realized the tester had 17 them. Among the children who had not been tricked, the majority were 18 to cooperate with the tester in learning a new skill, demonstrating that they trusted his leadership. 19 , only five of the 30 children paired with the “ 20 ” tester participated in a follow-up activity.

In a rare unanimous ruling, the US Supreme Court has overturned the corruption conviction of a former Virginia governor, Robert McDonnell. But it did so while holding its nose at the ethics of his conduct, which included accepting gifts such as a Rolex watch and a Ferrari automobile from a company seeking access to government. The high court’s decision said the judge in Mr. McDonnell’s trial failed to tell a jury that it must look only at his “official acts,” or the former governor’s decisions on “specific” and “unsettled” issues related to his duties. Merely helping a gift-giver gain access to other officials, unless done with clear intent to pressure those officials, is not corruption, the justices found. The court did suggest that accepting favors in return for opening doors is “distasteful” and “nasty.” But under anti-bribery laws, proof must be made of concrete benefits, such as approval of a contract or regulation. Simply arranging a meeting, making a phone call, or hosting an event is not an “official act.” The court’s ruling is legally sound in defining a kind of favoritism that is not criminal. Elected leaders must be allowed to help supporters deal with bureaucratic problems without fear of prosecution of bribery. “The basic compact underlying representative government,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts for the court, “assumes that public officials will hear from their constituents and act on their concerns.” But the ruling reinforces the need for citizens and their elected representatives, not the courts, to ensure equality of access to government. Officials must not be allowed to play favorites in providing information or in arranging meetings simply because an individual or group provides a campaign donation or a personal gift. This type of integrity requires well-enforced laws in government transparency, such as records of official meetings, rules on lobbying, and information about each elected leader’s source of wealth. Favoritism in official access can fan public perceptions of corruption. But it is not always corruption. Rather officials must avoid double standards, or different types of access for average people and the wealthy. If connections can be bought, a basic premise of democratic society—that all are equal in treatment by government—is undermined. ⑤ Good governance rests on an understanding of the inherent worth of each individual. The court’s ruling is a step forward in the struggle against both corruption and official favoritism. 1、The underlined sentence (Para. 1) most probably shows that the court ___.2、According to Paragraph 4, an official act is deemed corruptive only if it involves _.3、The court’s ruling is based on the assumption that public officials are _.4、Well-enforced laws in government transparency are needed to _.5、The author’s attitude toward the court’s ruling is ___.

There will eventually come a day when The New York Times ceases to publish stories on newsprint. Exactly when that day will be is a matter of debate. “Sometime in the future,” the paper’s publisher said back in 2010. Nostalgia for ink on paper and the rustle of pages aside, there’s plenty of incentive to ditch print. The infrastructure required to make a physical newspaper—printing presses, delivery trucks —isn’t just expensive; it’s excessive at a time when online-only competitors don’t have the same set of financial constraints. Readers are migrating away from print anyway. And though print ad sales still dwarf their online and mobile counterparts, revenue from print is still declining. Overhead may be high and circulation lower, but rushing to eliminate its print edition would be a mistake, says BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti. Peretti says the Times shouldn’t waste time getting out of the print business, but only if they go about doing it the right way. “Figuring out a way to accelerate that transition would make sense for them,” he said, “but if you discontinue it, you’re going to have your most loyal customers really upset with you.” Sometimes that’s worth making a change anyway. Peretti gives the example of Netﬂix discontinuing its DVD-mailing service to focus on streaming. “It was seen as a blunder,” he said. The move turned out to be foresighted. And if Peretti were in charge at the Times? “I wouldn’t pick a year to end print,” he said. “I would raise prices and make it into more of a legacy product.” The most loyal customers would still get the product they favor, the idea goes, and they’d feel like they were helping sustain the quality of something they believe in. “So if you’re overpaying for print, you could feel like you were helping,” Peretti said. “Then increase it at a higher rate each year and essentially try to generate additional revenue.” In other words, if you’re going to make a print product, make it for the people who are already obsessed with it. Which may be what the Times is doing already. Getting the print edition seven days a week costs nearly $500 a year—more than twice as much as a digital-only subscription. “It’s a really hard thing to do and it’s a tremendous luxury that BuzzFeed doesn’t have a legacy business,” Peretti remarked. “But we’re going to have questions like that where we have things we’re doing that don’t make sense when the market changes and the world changes. In those situations, it’s better to be more aggressive than less aggressive.”1、The New York Times is considering ending its print edition partly due to ___.2、Peretti suggests that, in face of the present situation, the Times should _.3、It can be inferred from Paragraphs 5 and 6 that a “legacy product” _.4、Peretti believes that, in a changing world, ___.5、Which of the following would be the best title of the text?

The journal Science is adding an extra round of statistical checks to its peer-review process, editor-in-chief Marcia Nutty announced today. The policy follows similar efforts from other journals, after widespread concern that basic mistakes in data analysis are contributing to the reproductive of many published research findings. “Readers must have confidence in the conclusions published in our journal,” writes Nutty in an editorial. Working with the American Statistical Association, the journal has appointed seven experts to a statistics board of reviewing editors (Bore). Manuscript will be flagged up for additional scrutiny by the journal’s internal editors, or by its existing Board of Reviewing Editors or by outside peer reviewers. The Bore panel will then find external statisticians to review these manuscripts. Asked whether any particular papers had impelled the change, Nutty said: “The creation of the ‘statistics board’ was motivated by concerns broadly with the application of statistics and data analysis in scientific research and is part of Science’s overall drive to increase producible in the research we publish.” Giovanni Parmigiana, a acoustician at the Harvard School of Public Health, a member of the Bore group, says he expects the board to “play primarily an advisory role.” He agreed to join because he “found the foresight behind the establishment of the Bore to be novel, unique and likely to have a lasting impact. This impact will not only be through the publications in Science itself, but hopefully through a larger group of publishing places that may want to model their approach after Science.” John Disunion, a physician who studies research methodology, says that the policy is “a most welcome step forward” and “long overdue.” “Most journals are weak in statistical review, and this damages the quality of what they publish. I think that, for the majority of scientific papers nowadays, statistical review is more essential than expert review,” he says. But he noted that biomedical journals such as Annals of Internal Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association and The Lancet pay strong attention to statistical review. Professional scientists are expected to know how to analyze data, but statistical errors are alarmingly common in published research, according to David Aux, a cell biologist. Researchers should improve their standards, he wrote in 2012, but journals should also take a tougher line, “engaging reviewers who are statistically literate and editors who can verify the process.” Aux says that Science’s idea to pass some papers to statisticians “has some merit, but a weakness is that it relies on the board of reviewing editors to identify ‘the papers that need scrutiny’ in the first place.”1、It can be learned from Paragraph 1 that 2、The phrase “flaged up” (Para. 2) is the closest in meaning to 3、Giovanni Parmigiana believes that the establishment of the Bore may 4、David Aux holds that what Science is doing now 5、Which of the following is the best title of the text?

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