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On a recent sunny day, 13,000 chickens roam over Larry Brown’s 40 windswept acres in Shiner, Texas. Some rest in the shade of a parked car. Others drink water with the cows. This all seems random, but it’s by design, part of what the $6.1 billion U.S. egg industry bets will be its next big thing: climate-friendly eggs.These eggs, which are making their debut now on shelves for as much as $8 a dozen, are still labeled organic and animal-friendly, but they’re also from birds that live on farms using regenerative agriculture—special techniques to cultivate rich soils that can trap greenhouse gases. Such eggs could be marketed as helping to fight climate change.“I’m excited about our progress,” says Brown, who harvests eggs for Denver-based NestFresh Eggs and is adding more cover crops that draw worms and crickets for the chickens to eat. The birds’ waste then fertilizes fields. Such improvements “allow our hens to forage for higher-quality natural feed that will be good for the land, the hens, and the eggs that we supply to our customers.”The egg industry’s push is the first major test of whether animal products from regenerative farms can become the next premium offering. In barely more than a decade, organic eggs went from being dismissed as a niche product in natural foods stores to being sold at Walmart. More recently there were similar doubts about probiotics and plant-based meats, but both have exploded into major supermarket categories. If the sustainable-egg rollout is successful, it could open the floodgates for regenerative beef, broccoli, and beyond.Regenerative products could be a hard sell, because the concept is tough to define quickly, says Julie Stanton, associate professor of agricultural economics at Pennsylvania State University Brandywine. Such farming also brings minimal, if any, improvement to the food products (though some producers say their eggs have more protein).The industry is betting that the same consumers paying more for premium attributes such as free-range, non-GMO, and pasture-raised eggs will embrace sustainability. Surveys show that younger generations are more concerned about climate change, and some of the success of plant-based meat can be chalked up to shoppers wanting to signal their desire to protect the environment. Young adults “really care about the planet,” says John Brunnquell, president of Egg Innovations. “They are absolutely altering the food chain beyond what I think even they understand what they’re doing.”1. The climate-friendly eggs are produced .2. Larry Brown is excited about his progress in .3. The example of organic eggs is used in Paragraph 4 to suggest .4. It can be learned from the last paragraph that young people .5. John Brunnquell would disagree with Julie Stanton over regenerative product’s .

Harlan Coben believes that if you’re a writer, you’ll find the time; and that if you can’t find the time, then writing isn’t a priority and you’re not a writer. For him, writing is a （1） job—a job like any other. He has （2） it with plumbing. Pointing out that a plumber doesn’t wake up and say that he can’t work with pipes today. （3）, like most writers these days, you’re holding down a job to pay the bills, it’s not （4） to find the time to write. But it’s not impossible. It requires determination and single-mindedness. （5） that most best-selling authors began writing when they were doing other things to earn a living. And today, even writers who are fairly （6） often have to do other work to （7） their writing income. As Harlan Coben has suggested it’s a （8） of priorities. To make writing a priority, you’ll have to （9） some of your day-to-day activities and some things you really enjoy. Depending on your （10） and your lifestyle, that might mean spending less time watching television or listening to music, though some people can write （11） they listen to music. You might have to （12） the amount of exercise or sport you do. You’ll have to make social media an （13） activity rather than a daily, time-consuming （14）. There’ll probably have to be less socializing with your friends and less time with your family. It’s a （15） learning curve, and it won’t always make you popular. There’s just one thing you should try to keep at least some time for, （16） your writing—and that’s reading. Any writer needs to read as much and as widely as they can; it’s the one （17） supporter—something you can’t do without. Time is finite. The older you get, the （18） it seems to go. We need to use it as carefully and as （19） as we can. That means prioritising our activities so that we spend most time on the things we really want to do. If you’re a writer, that means—（20）—writing.

ClozeThe producers of instant coffee found their product strongly resisted in the market places despite their obvious advantages. Furthermore, the advertising expenditure for instant coffee was far greater than that for regular coffee. Efforts are （1） to find the cause of the consumers’ seemingly unreasonable （2） to the product. The reason given by most people was （3） for the taste. The producers suspected that there might be （4） reasons, however. This was confirmed by one of （5） research’s classic studies, one often cited in the trade. Mason Haire, of the University of California, （6） two shopping lists that were identical except for one （7） . There were six items common to both lists, carrots, baking powder, bread, canned peaches and potatoes, （8） the brands or amounts specified. The seventh item, in the fifth （9） both lists, read “one pound Maxwell House coffee” on the list and “Nescafe instant coffee” on the （10） . One list was given to each person in a group of fifty （11） , and the other list to those in another group of the same （12） . The women were asked to study their lists and then to describe （13） they could, the kind of woman (personality and character) （14） would draw up that shopping list. （15） half of those who had received the list including instant coffee （16） a housewife who was lazy and a poor planner. （17） , only one woman in the other group described the housewife, who had （18） regular coffee on her list, （19） lazy; only six of that group suggested that she was a poor planner. Eight women felt that the instant-coffee user was probably not a good wife! No one in the other group （20） such a conclusion about the housewife who intended to buy regular coffee.

For thousands of Canadians, bad service is neither make-believe nor amusing. It is an aggravating and worsening real-life phenomenon that encompasses behavior ranging from indifference and rudeness to naked hostility and even physical violence. Across the country, better business bureaus report a lengthening litany of complaints about contractors, car dealers, repair shops, moving companies, airlines and department stores. There is almost an adversarial feeling between businesses and consumers.Experts say there are several explanations for ill feeling in the marketplace. One is that customer service was an early and inevitable casualty when retailers responded to brutal competition by replacing employees with technology such as 1~800 numbers and voice mail. Another factor is that business generally has begun placing more emphasis on getting customers than on keeping them. Still another is that strident, frustrated and impatient shoppers vex shop owners and make them even less hospitable—especially at busier times of the year like Christmas. On both sides, simple courtesy has gone by the board. And for a multitude of consumers, service went with it.The Better Business Bureau at Vancouver gets 250 complaints a week, twice as many as five years ago. The bureau then had one complaints counsellor and now has four. People complain about being insulted, having their intelligence and integrity questioned, and being threatened. One will hear about people being hauled almost bodily out the door by somebody saying things like “I don’t have to serve you!” or “this is private property, get out and don’t come back!” What can customers do? If the bureau’s arbitration process fails to settle a dispute, a customer’s only recourse is to sue in small claims court. But because of the costs and time it takes, relatively few ever do.There is a lot of support for the notion that service has, in part, fallen victim to generational change. Many young people regard retailing “as just a dead-end job that you’re just going to do temporarily on your way to a real job”. Young clerks often lack both knowledge and civility. Employers are having to train young people in simple manners because that is not being done at home. Salespeople today, especially the younger ones, have grown up in a television-computer society where they’ve interacted largely with machines. One of the biggest complaints from businesses about graduates is the lack of interpersonal skills.What customers really want is access. They want to get through when they call, they don’t want busy signals, they don’t want interactive systems telling them to push one for this and two for that—they don’t want voice mail. And if customers do not get what they want, they defect. Some people go back to local small businesses: the Asian greengrocer, a Greek baker and a Greek fishmonger. They don’t wear name tags, but one gets to know them, all by name.46. At a business place of bad service, the worst one can get is .47. One of the reasons for such ill feeling in the marketplace is that .48. What has changed at Vancouver Beler Service Burcau in the past five years?49. Young clerks often lack interpersonal skills chiefly because they .50. The author’s attitude towards businesses and bad service is them.

Insurance companies provide a service to the community by protecting it against expected and unexpected disasters. Before an insurance company will agree to insure anything, it collects accurate figures about the risk. It knows, for example, that the risk of a man being killed in a plane accident is less than the risk he takes in crossing a busy road. This enables it to quote （报价）low figures for travel insurance. Sometimes the risk may be high, as in motor-racing or mountaineering. Then the company charges a much higher price. If too many climbers have accidents, the price rises still further. If the majority of climbers fall off mountains, the company will refuse to insure them.An ordinary householder may wish to protect his home against fire or his property against burglary. A shop-keeper may wish to insure against theft. In normal cases, the company will check its statistics and quote a premium （保险费）. If it is suspicious, it may refuse to quote. If it insures a shop and then receives a suspicious claim, it will investigate the claim as a means of protecting itself against false claims. It is not unknown for a businessman in debt to burn down his own premises（房产）so that he can claim much money from his insurance company. He can be sure that the fire will be investigated most carefully. Insurance companies also accept insurance against shipwreck or disaster in the air. Planes and ships are very expensive, so a large premium is charged, but a reduction is given to companies with an accident-free record.Every week insurance companies receive premium payments from customers. These payments can form a very large total running into millions of dollars. The company does not leave the money in the bank. It invests in property, shares, farms and even antique paintings and stamps. Its aim is to obtain the best possible return on its investment. This is not as greedy as it may seem, since this is one way by which it can keep its premiums down and continue to make a profit while being of service to the community.1. According to the first paragraph in the passage, which of the following statements is TRUE?2. The word “quote”（Line 3, Paragraph 2）most probably means （）.3. From the passage, we know that if accidents will happen nine times out of ten or more, the insurance company will （）.4. According to the passage, if an air plane has an accident-free record, it usually pays to the insurance company （）.5. Which of the following will the insurance company NOT provide insurance service for?6. How do insurance companies make profit?7. The main idea of the last paragraph is （）.

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?

Directions:Write an essay based on the chart below. In your writing, you should1) interpret the chart, and2) give your commentsYou should write about 150 words on the ANSWER SHEET. (15 points)

Directions:Suppose you are organizing an online meeting. Write an email to Jack, an international student.1) invite him to participate, and2) tell him the detailsYou should write neatly on ANSWER SHEET 2.Do not sign your own name at the end of the e-mail. Use "Li Ming"instead.Do not write the address.(10 points)

We tend to think that friends and family members are our biggest sources of connection, laughter and warmth. While that may well be true, researchers have also recently found that interacting with strangers actually brings a boost in mood and feelings of belong that we didn’t expect.In one series of studies, researchers instructed Chicago area commuters using public transportation to strike up a conversation with someone near them. On average,participants who followed the instruction felt better than those who had been told to stand or sit in silence. There searchers also argued that when we shy away from casual interaction with strangers, it is often due to a misplaced anxiety that they might not want to talk to us. Much of the time, however, this belief is false. As it turns out, many people are actually perfectly willing to talk—and may even be flattered to receive your attention.

How to Disagree with Someone more powerful than you.Your boss proposes a new initiative you think won’t work. Your senior colleague outlines a project timeline you think is unrealist. What do you say when you disagree with someone who has more power than you do? How do you decide whether it's worth speaking up? And if you do, what exactly should you say? Here is how to disagree with someone more powerful than you.1.（）After this risk assessment, You may decide it’s best to hold off on voicing your opinion. Maybe you haven’t finished thinking the problem through the whole discussion was a surprise to you, or you want to get a clearer sense of what the group thinks. If you think other people are going to disagree too, you might want to gather your army first. People can contribute experience or information to your thinking--all the things that would make the disagreement stronger or more valid It' s also a good idea to delay the conversation if you re in a meeting or other public space. Discussing the issue in private will make the powerful person feel less threatened.2. （）Before you share your thoughts, think about what the powerful person cares about—it may be “the credibility of their team of getting a project done on time. You're more likely to be heard if you can connect your disagreement to a higher purpose. When you do speak up, don' t assume the link will be clear You ll want to state it overtly, contextualizing your statements so that you re seen not as a disagreeable underling but as a colleague who' s trying to advance a shared goal. The discussionwill then become more like a chess game than a boxing match,” says Weeks3. （）This step may sound overly deferential, but it's a smart way to give the powerful person psychological safety and control. You can say something like, I know we seem to be moving toward a first-quarter commitment here i have reasons to think that won't work i' d like to way out my reasoning. Would that be ok? This gives the person a choice, allowing them to verbally opt in. And, assuming they say yes it will make you feel more confident about voicing you disagreement.4.（）You might feel your heart racing or your face turning red but do whatever you can to remain neutral in both your words and actions. When your body language communicates reluctance or anxiety,it undercuts the message. It sends a mixed message, and your counterpart gets to choose what to read. Deep breaths can help, as can speaking more slowly and deliberately. When we feel panicky we tend to talk louder and faster. Simply slowing the pace and talking in an even tone helps the other person calm down and does the same or you. It also makes you seem confident, even if you aren’t.5.（）Emphasize that you re offering your opinion, not gospel truth.I may be a well-informed, well-researched opinion, but it's still an opinion, my talk tentatively and slightly understate your confidence instead of saying something like,"If we set an end-of-quarter deadline, we'll never make it," say,This is just my opinion, but don’t see how we will make that deadline. Having asserted your position(as a position, not as a fact)demonstrate equal curiosity about other views remind the person that this isyour point of view and then invite critique. Be open to hearing other opinions.

We’re fairly good at judging people based on first impressions, thin slices of experience ranging from a glimpse of a photo to a five-minute interaction, and deliberation can be not only extraneous but intrusive. In one study of the ability she dubbed “thin slicing.” The late psychologist Nalini Ambady asked participants to watch silent 10-second video clips of professors and to rate the instructor’s overall effectiveness. Their ratings correlated strongly with students’ end-of-semester ratings.Another set of participants had to count backward from 1,000 by nines as they watched the clips,occupying their conscious working memory. Their ratings were just as accurate, demonstrating the intuitive nature of the social processing.Critically, another group was asked to spend a minute writing down reasons for their judgment,before giving the rating. Accuracy dropped dramatically.Ambady suspected that deliberation focused them on vivid but misleading cues, such as certain gestures of utterances, rather than letting the complex interplay of subtle signals form a holistic impression. She found similar interference when participants watched 15-second clips of pairs of people and judged whether they were strangers, friends, or dating partners.Other research shows we're better at detecting deception and sexual orientation from thin slices when we rely on intuition instead of reflection.“It’ s as if you’re driving a stick shift," says Judith Hall,a psychologist at Northeastern University, "and if you start thinking about it too much, you can' t remember what you' re doing.But if you go on automatic pilot, you’re fine.Much of our social life is like that."Thinking too much can also harm our ability to form preferences College students' ratings of strawberry jams and college courses aligned better with experts' opinions when the students weren't asked to analyze their rationale. And people made car-buying decisions that were both objectively better and more personally satisfying when asked to focus on their feelings rather than on details,but only if the decision was complex — when they had a lot of information to process.Intuition's special powers are unleashed only in certain circumstances. In onestudy, participants completed a battery of eight tasks, including four that tappedreflective thinking (discerning rules, comprehending vocabulary) and four that tappedintuition and creativity (generating new products or figures of speech).Then they rated the degree to which they had used intuition (“gut feelings,” “hunches,” “my heart”).Use of their gut hurt their performance on the first four tasks,as expected, and helped them on the rest Sometimes the heart is smarter than the head.Other research shows we re better at detecting deception and sexual orientation from thin slices when we rely on intuition instead of reflection. "It' s as if you' redriving a stick shift," says Judith Hall, a psychologist at Northeastern University,"and if you start thinking about it too much, you can't remember what you're doing. But if you go on automatic pilot, you re fine. Much of our social life is like that." Thinking too much can also harm our ability to form preferences College students ratings ofstrawberry jams and college courses aligned better with experts' opinions when the students weren't asked to analyze their rationale.And people made car-buying decisions that were both objectively better and more personally satisfying when asked to focus on their feelings rather than on details, but only if the decision was complex-when they had a lot of information to process.1. Nalini Ambady’s study deals with （）.2.In Ambady’s study, rating accuracy dropped when participants（）.3.Judith Hall mentions driving to mention that（）.4.When you are making complex decisions, it is advisable to（）.5.What can we learn from the last paragraph?

When Microsoft bought task management app Wunderlist and mobile calendar Sunrise in 2015, it picked up two newcomers that were attracting considerable buzz in Silicon Valley. Microsoft’s own Office dominates the market for “productivity” software, but the start-ups represented a new wave of technology designed from the ground up for the smart phone world.Both apps, however, were later scrapped, after Microsoft said it had used their best features in its own products. Their teams of engineers stayed on, making them two of the many “acquit-hires”that the biggest companies have used to feed their insatiable hunger for tech talent.To Microsoft’s critics, the fates of Wunderlist and Sunrise are examples of a remorseless drive by Big Tech to chew up any innovative companies that lie in their.path. “They bought the seedlings and closed them down,” complained Paul Arnold, a partner at San Francisco-based Switch Ventures, putting paid to businesses that might one day turn into competitors. Microsoft declined to comment.Like other start-up investors, Mr Arnold’ s own business often depends on selling start-ups to larger tech companies, though he admits to mixed feelings about the result:“I think these things are good for me, if I put my selfish hat on. But are they good for the American economy? I don’t know.”The US Federal Trade Commission says it wants to find the answer to that question. This week, it asked the five most valuable US tech companies for information about their many small acquisitions over the past decade. Although only a research project at this stage, the request has raised the prospect of regulators wading into early-stage tech markets that until now have been beyond their reach.Given their combined market value of more than $5.5tn, rifling through such small deals—many of them much less prominent than Wunderlist and Sunrise—might seem beside the point. Between them, the five companies (Apple, Microsoft, Google,Amazon and Facebook) have spent an average of only $3.4bn a year on sub-$1bn acquisitions over the past five years—a drop in the ocean compared with their massive financial reserves, and the more than $130bn of venture capital that was invested in the US last year.However, critics say that the big companies use such deals to buy their most threatening potential competitors before their businesses have a chance to gain momentum, in some cases as part of a “buy and kill”. tactic to simply close them down.1.What is true about Wunderlist and sunrise after their acquisitions（）.2. Microsoft’s critics believe that the big tech companies tend to （） . 3.PaulArnold is concerned that small acquisitions might（）.4.The US Federal Trade Commission intend to（）.5.For the five biggest tech companies, their small acquisition have（）.

With the global population predicted to hit close to 10 billion by 2050, and forecasts that agricultural production in, some regions will need to nearly double to keep pace, food security is increasingly making headlines. In the UK, it has become a big talking point recently too, for rather particular reason: Brexit.Brexit is seen by some as an opportunity to reverse a recent trend towards the UK importing food. The country produces only about 60 percent of the food it eats,down from almost three-quarters in the late 1980s.A move back to self-sufficiency, the argument goes, would boost the farming industry, political sovereignty and even the nation's health. Sounds great—but bow feasible is this vision?According to a report on UK food production from the University of Leeds,UK,85 per cent of the country's total land area is associated with meat and dairy production. That supplies 80 per cent of what is consumed, so even covering the whole country in livestock farms wouldn't allow us to cover all our meat and dairy needs.There are many caveats to those figures, but they are still grave. To become much more self- sufficient, the UK would need to drastically reduce its consumption of animal foods,and probably also farm more intensively—meaning fewer green fields, and more factory-style production.But switching to a mainly plant-based diet wouldn't help. There is a good reason why the UK is dominated by animal husbandry: most of its terrain doesn't have the right soil or climate to grow crops on a commercial basis. Just 25 percent of the county's land is suitable for crop-growing, most of which is already occupied by arable fields. Even if we converted all the suitable land to fields of fruit and veg—which would involve taking out all the nature reserves and removing thousands of people from their homes—we would achieve only a 30 percent boost in crop production.Just 23 percent of the fruit and vegetables consumed in the UK are currently home-grown, so even with the most extreme measures we could meet only 30 percent of our fresh produce needs. That is before we look for the space to grow the grains,sugars,seeds and oils that provide us with the vast bulk of our current calorie intake.1.Some people argue that food self-sufficient in UK would2.The report by the University of Leeds shows that in the UK3.Crop-growing in he UK is restricted due to4.It can be learned from the last paragraph that British people5.The author's attitude to food self-sufficient in the UK is

“Reskilling” is something that sounds like a buzzword but is actually a requirement if we plan to have a future where a lot of would-be workers do not get left behind. We know we are moving into a period where the jobs in demand will change rapidly, as will the requirements of the jobs that remain. Research by the World Economic Forum finds that on average 42 per cent of the “core skills” within job roles will change by 2022. That is a very short timeline.The question of who should pay for reskilling is a thorny one. For individual companies, the temptation is always to let go of workers whose skills are no longer in demand and replace them with those whose skills are. That does not always happen. AT&T is often given as the gold standard of a company that decided to do a massive reskilling program rather than go with a fire-and-hire strategy. Other companies had also pledged to create their own plans. When the skills mismatch is in the broader economy, though, the focus usually turns to government to handle. Efforts in Canada and elsewhere have been arguably languid at best, and have given us a situation where we frequently hear of employers begging for workers, even at times and in regions where unemployment is high.With the pandemic, unemployment is very high indeed. In February, at 3.5 per cent and 5.5 per cent respectively, unemployment rates in Canada and United States were at generational lows and worker shortages were everywhere. As of May, those rates had spiked up to 13.3 per cent and 13.7 per cent, and although many worker shortages had disappeared, not all had done so. In the medical field, to take an obvious example, the pandemic meant that there were still clear shortages of doctors, nurses and other medical personnel.Of course, it is not like you can take an unemployed waiter and train him to be a doctor in a few weeks. But even if you cannot close that gap, maybe you can close others, and doing so would be to the benefit of all concerned. That seems to be the case in Sweden: When forced to furlough 90 per cent of their cabin staff, Scandinavian Airlines decided to start up a short retraining program that reskilled the laid-off workers to support hospital staff. The effort was a collective one and involved other companies as well as a Swedish university.1.Research by the World Economic Forum suggests（）.2.AT&T is cited to show（）.3.Efforts to resolve the skills mismatch in Canada（）.4.We can learn from Paragraph 3 that there was（）.5.Scandinavian Airlines decided to（）.

It’s not difficult to set targets for staff. It is much harder, _1_, to understand their negative consequences. Most work-related behaviors have multiple components. _2_ one and the others become distorted.Travel on a London bus and you’ll _3_ see how this works with drivers. Watch people get on and show their tickets. Are they carefully inspected? Never. Do people get on without paying? Of course! Are there inspectors to _4_ that people have paid? Possibly, but very few. And people who run for the bus? They are _5_. How about jumping lights? Buses do so almost as frequently as cyclists.Why? Because the target is _6_. People complained that buses were late and infrequent. _7_, the number of buses and bus lanes were increased, and drivers were _8_ or punished according to the time they took. And drivers hit these targets. But they _9_ hit cyclists. If the target was changed to _10_, you would have more inspectors and more sensitive pricing. If the criterion changed to safety, you would get more _11_ drivers who obeyed traffic laws. But both these criteria would be at the expense of time.There is another _12_: people became immensely inventive in hitting targets. Have you _13_ that you can leave on a flight an hour late but still arrive on time? Tailwinds? Of course not! Airlines have simply changed the time a _14_ is meant to take. A one-hour flight is now ballad as a two-hour flight.The _15_ of the story is simple. Most jobs are multidimensional, with multiple criteria. Choose one criterion and you may well _16_ others. Everything can be done faster and made cheaper, but there is a _17_. Setting targets can and does have unforeseen negative consequences.This is not an argument against target-setting. But it is an argument for exploring consequences first. All good targets should have multiple criteria _18_ critical factors such as time, money, quality and customer feedback. The trick is not only to _19_ just one or even two dimensions of the objective, but also to understand how to help people better _20_ the objective.

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?

Fluid intelligence is the type of intelligence that involves short-term memory and the ability to think quickly, logically, and abstractly in order to solve new problem. It （1）in young adulthood (between the ages of 20 and 30), levels out for a period of time, and then （2）starts to slowly decline as we age. But （3）aging is inevitable, scientists are finding out that certain changes in brain function may not be.One study found that muscle loss and the （4）of body fat around the abdomen, which often begin in middle age and continue into advanced age, are associated with a decline in fluid intelligence. This suggests the （5） that lifestyle factors, such as the type of diet you follow and the type and amount of exercise you get throughout the years to maintain more lean muscle, might help prevent or （6） this type of decline.The researchers looked at data that （7）measurements of lean muscle, abdominal fat and subcutaneous fat (the type of fat you can see and grab hold of) from more than 4,000 middle-to-older-aged men and women and （8）that data to reported changes in fluid intelligence over a six-year period. They found that middle-aged people （9）higher measures of abdominal fat（10）worse on measures of fluid intelligence as the years（11）.For women, the association may be（12）to changes in immunity that resulted from excess abdominal fat; in men, the immune system did not appear to be （13）. Future studies could （14）these differences and perhaps lead to different（15）for men and women.（16） there are steps you can （17）to help reduce abdominal fat and maintain lean muscle mass as you age in order to protect both your physical and mental（18）. The two most generally recommended lifestyle approaches are maintaining or increasing your （19）of aerobic exercise and following a Mediterranean-style （20） that is high in fiber from whole grains, vegetables, and other plant foods and eliminates highly processed foods. If you carry extra belly fat, speak with your health care provider to determine a plan that is best for you.

Write an essay based on the chart below. In your writing, you should1) interpret the chart, and2) give your comments.You should write about 150 words on the ANSWER SHEET. (15 points)

Suppose you are planning a tour of a historical site for a group of international students. Write an email to1) tell them about the site, and 2) give them some tips for the tour Please write you answer on the ANSWER SHEET.Do not use your own name, use “Li Ming” instead. (10 points)

It’s almost impossible to go through life without experiencing some kind of failure. But, the wonderful thing about failure is that it’s entirely up to us to decide how to look at it.We can choose to see failure as “the end of the world”. Or, we can look at failure as the incredible learning experience that it often is. Every time we fail at something, we can choose to look for the lesson we’re meant to learn. These lessons are very important; they’re how we grow, and how we keep from making that same mistake again. Failures stop us only if we let them.Failure can also teach us things about ourselves that we would never have learned otherwise. For instance, failure can help you discover how strong a person you are. Failing at something can help you discover your truest friends, or help you find unexpected motivation to succeed.

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