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Directions: For this part you are to write an essay on the saying “Respect others, and you will be respected.” You can cite examples to illustrate your views. You should write at least 150 words.

Directions: For this part, you are to translate a passage from Chinese into English.中国的创新正以前所未有的速度蓬勃发展。为了在科学技术上尽快赶超世界发达国家，中国近年来大幅度增加了研究开发资金。中国的大学和研究所正在积极开展创新研究，这些研究覆盖了从大数据到生物化学，从新能源到机器人等各类高科技领域。他们还与各地的科技园合作，使创新成果商业化。与此同时，无论在产品还是商业模式上，中国企业家也在努力争做创新的先锋，以适应国内外消费市场不断变化和增长的需求。

Human memory is notoriously unreliable. Even people with the sharpest facial-recognition skills can only remember so much.It’s tough to quantify how good a person is at remembering. No one really knows how many different faces someone can recall, for example, but various estimates tend to hover in the thousands—based on the number of acquaintances a person might have.Machines aren’t limited this way. Give the right computer a massive database of faces, and it can process what it sees—then recognize a face it’s told to find—with remarkable speed and precision. This skill is what supports the enormous promise of facial-recognition software in the 21st century. It’s also what makes contemporary surveillance systems so scary.The thing is, machines still have limitations when it comes to facial recognition. And scientists are only just beginning to understand what those constraints are. To begin to figure out how computers are struggling, researchers at the University of Washington created a massive database of faces—they call it MegaFace—and tested a variety of facial-recognition algorithms (算法) as they scaled up in complexity. The idea was to test the machines on a database that included up to 1 million different images of nearly 700,000 different people—and not just a large database featuring a relatively small number of different faces, more consistent with what’s been used in other research.As the databases grew, machine accuracy dipped across the board. Algorithms that were right 95% of the time when they were dealing with a 13,000-image database, for example, were accurate about 70% of the time when confronted with 1 million images. That’s still pretty good, says one of the researchers, Ira Kemelmacher-Shlizerman. “Much better than we expected,” she said.Machines also had difficulty adjusting for people who look a lot alike—either doppelgangers (长相极相似的人), whom the machine would have trouble identifying as two separate people, or the same person who appeared in different photos at different ages or in different lighting, whom the machine would incorrectly view as separate people.“Once we scale up, algorithms must be sensitive to tiny changes in identities and at the same time invariant to lighting, pose, age,” Kemelmacher-Shlizerman said.The trouble is, for many of the researchers who’d like to design systems to address these challenges, massive datasets for experimentation just don’t exist—at least, not in formats that are accessible to academic researchers. Training sets like the ones Google and Facebook have are private. There are no public databases that contain millions of faces. MegaFace’s creators say it’s the largest publicly available facial-recognition dataset out there.“An ultimate face recognition algorithm should perform with billions of people in a dataset,” the researchers wrote.11. Compared with human memory, machines can_____.12. Why did researchers create MegaFace?13. What does the passage say about machine accuracy?14. What is said to be a shortcoming-of facial-recognition machines?15. What is the difficulty confronting researchers of facial-recognition machines?

We all have offensive breath at one time or another. In most cases, offensive breath emanates from bacteria in the mouth, although there are other more causes.Until a few years ago, the most doctors could do was to counsel patients with bad breath about oral cleanliness. Now they are finding new ways to treat the usually curable condition.Bad breath can happen whenever the normal flow of saliva (唾液) slows. Our mouths are full of bacteria feeding on protein in bits of food and shed tissue. The bacteria emit evil smelling gases, the worst of which is hydrogen sulfide (硫化物).Mouth bacteria thrive in airless conditions. Oxygen rich saliva keeps their numbers down. When we sleep, for example, the saliva stream slows, and sulfur producing bacteria gain the upper hand, producing classic “morning breath”.Alcohol hunger, too much talking, breathing through the mouth during exercise anything that dries the mouth produces bad breath. So can stress, though it’s not understood why. Some people’s breath turns sour every time they go on a job interview.Saliva flow gradually slows with age, which explains why the elderly have more bad breath trouble than younger people do. Babies, however, who make plenty of saliva and whose mouths contain relatively few bacteria have characteristically sweet breath.For most of us, the simple, dry mouth variety of bad breath is easily cured. Eating or drinking starts saliva and sweeps away many of the bacteria. Breakfast often stops morning breath.Those with chronic dry mouth find that it helps to keep gum, hard candy, or a bottle of water or juice around. Brushing the teeth wipes out dry mouth bad breath because it clears away many of the offending bacteria. Surprisingly, one thing that rarely works is mouthwash. The liquid can mask bad breath odor with its own smell, but the effect lasts no more than an hour. Some mouthwashes claim to kill the bacteria responsible for bad breath. The trouble is, they don’t necessarily reach all offending germs. Most bacteria are well protected from mouthwash under thick layers of mucus (黏液). If the mouthwash contains alcohol—as most do—it can intensify the problem by drying out the mouth.6. The phrase “emanate from” in Paragraph 1 most probably means “___”.7. Which of the following is mentioned as one of the causes of bad breath?8. According to the passage, alcohol has something to do with bad breath mainly because_.9. Mouthwashes are not an effective cure for bad breath mainly because_.10. We can infer from this passage that___.

In the 1920s demand for American farm products fell, as European countries began to recover from World War I and instituted austerity (紧缩) programs to reduce their imports. The result was a sharp drop in farm prices. This period was more disastrous for farmers than earlier times had been, because farmers were no longer self-sufficient. They were paying for machinery, seed, and fertilizer, and they were also buying consumer goods. The prices of the items farmers bought remained constant, while prices they received for their products fell. These developments were made worse by the Great Depression, which began in 1929 and extended throughout the 1939s.In 1929, under President Herbert Hoover, the Federal Farm Board was organized. It established the principle of direct interference with supply and demand, and it represented the first national commitment to provide greater economic stability for farmers.President Hoover’s successor attached even more importance to this problem. One of the first measures proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he took office in 1933 was the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which was subsequently passed by Congress. This law gave the Secretary of Agriculture the power to reduce production through voluntary agreements with farmers who were paid to take their land out of use. A deliberate scarcity of farm products was planned in an effort to raise prices. This law was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on the grounds that general taxes were being collected to pay one special group of people. However, new laws were passed immediately that achieved the same result of resting soil and providing flood-control measures, but which were based on the principle of soil conservation. The Roosevelt Administration believed that rebuilding the nation’s soil was in the national interest and was not simply a plan to help farmers at the expense of other citizens. Later the government guaranteed loans to farmers so that they could buy farm machinery, hybrid (杂交) grain, and fertilizers.1. What brought about the decline in the demand for American farm products?2. The chief concern of the American government in the area of agriculture in the 1920s was___.3. The Agricultural Adjustment Act encouraged American farmers to_.4. The Supreme Court rejected the Agricultural Adjustment Act because it believed that the Act_.5. It was claimed that the new laws passed during the Roosevelt Administration were aimed at___.

Directions: For this part you are to write an essay on the saying about the importance of apology by referring to the remark. “An apology is the super glue of life. It can just about anything.” You can cite examples to illustrate your views and explain what people should do when making an apology. You should write at least 150 words.

Directions: For this part, you are to translate a passage from Chinese into English.西安是我国黄河流域古代文明的重要发源地之一，与雅典、罗马、开罗并称为世界四大古都。西安古称长安，距今已有3000多年的历史。自西周时起一直到唐代，先后有12个王朝在这里建都，历经2000余年。汉、唐两代，更是西安的鼎盛时期。汉代的长安城相当于古罗马城的3倍，唐代的长安城则为汉长安城的2.4倍，人口多达百万以上。中华人民共和国成立后，西安一直是西北的政治中心和陕西省省会所在地。

Across the board, American colleges and universities are not doing a very good job of preparing their students for the workplace or their post-graduation lives. This was made clear by the work of two sociologists, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa. In 2011, they released a landmark study titled “Academically Adrift,” which documented the lack of intellectual growth experienced by many people enrolled in college. In particular, Arum and Roksa found, college students were not developing the critical thinking, analytic reasoning and other higher-level skills that are necessary to thrive in today’s knowledge-based economy and to lead our nation in a time of complex challenges and dynamic change.Arum and Roksa placed the blame for students’ lack of learning on a watered-down college curriculum and lowered undergraduate work standards. Although going to college is supposed to be a full-time job, students spent, on average, only 12 to 14 hours a week studying and many were skating through their semesters without doing a significant amount of reading and writing. Students who take more challenging classes and spend more time studying do learn more. But the priorities of many undergraduates are with extracurricular activities, playing sports, and partying and socializing.Laura Hamilton, the author of a study on parents who pay for college, will argue in a forthcoming book that college administrations are overly concerned with the social and athletic activities of their students. In Paying for the Party, Hamilton describes what she calls the “party pathway,” which eases many students through college, helped along by various clubs that send students into the party scene and a host of easier majors. By sanctioning this watered-down version of college, universities are “catering to the social and educational needs of wealthy students at the expense of others” who won’t enjoy the financial backing or social connections of richer students once they graduate.These students need to build skills and knowledge during college if they are to use their degrees as a stepping-stone to middle-class mobility. But more privileged students must not waste this opportunity either. As recent graduates can testify, the job market isn’t kind to candidates who can’t demonstrate genuine competence, along with a well-cultivated willingness to work hard. Nor is the global economy forgiving of an American workforce with increasingly weak literacy, math and science abilities. College graduates will still far better than those with only a high school education, of course. But a university degree unaccompanied by a gain in knowledge or skills is an empty achievement indeed. For students who have been coasting through college, and for American universities that have been demanding less work, offering more attractions and charging higher tuition, the party may soon be over.11. What is Arum and Roksa’s finding about higher education in America?12. What is responsible for the students’ lack of higher-level skills?13. What does Laura Hamilton say about college administrations?14. What can be learned about the socially and financially privileged students?15. What does the author suggest in the last paragraph?

Like a tired marriage, the relationship between libraries and publishers has long been reassuringly dull. E-books, however, are causing heartache. Libraries know they need digital wares if they are to remain relevant, but many publishers are too wary of piracy and lost sales to co-operate. Among the big six, only Random House and HarperCollins license e-books with most libraries. The others have either denied requests or are reluctantly experimenting. In August, for example, Penguin will start a pilot with public libraries in New York.Publishers are wise to be nervous. Owners of e-readers are exactly the customers they need: book-lovers with money (neither the devices nor broadband connections come cheap). If these wonderful people switch to borrowing e-books instead of buying them, what then?Electronic borrowing is awfully convenient. Unlike printed books, which must be checked out and returned to a physical library miles from where you live, book files can be downloaded at home. Digital library catalogues are often browsed at night, from a comfy sofa. The files disappear from the device when they are due (which means no late fees, nor worry about lost or damaged books).Awkwardly for publishers, buying an e-book costs more than renting one but offers little extra value. You cannot resell it, lend it to a friend or burn it to stay warm. Owning a book is useful if you want to savor (品尝)it repeatedly, but who reads “Fifty Shades of Grey” twice?E-lending is not simple, however. There are lots of different and often incompatible e-book formats, devices and licenses. Most libraries use a company called OverDrive, a global distributor that secures rights from publishers and provides e-books and audio files in every format. Some 35m titles were checked out through OverDrive in 2011, and the company now sends useful data on borrowing behavior to participating publishers. Yet publishers and libraries are worried by OverDrive’s market dominance, as the company can increasingly dictate fees and conditions.Library boosters argue that book borrowers are also book buyers, and that libraries are vital spaces for readers to discover new work. Many were cheered by a recent Pew survey, which found that more than half of Americans with library cards say they prefer to buy their e-books. But the report also noted that few people know that e-books are available at most libraries, and that popular titles often involve long waiting lists, which may be what inspires people to buy.So publishers keep tweaking (对……稍作调整)their lending arrangements in search of the right balance.Random House raised its licensing prices earlier this year, and HarperCollins limits libraries to lending its titles 26 times. Penguin plans to keep new releases out of libraries for at least six months, and each book will expire after a year. The story of the library e-book is a nail-biter.6. What can we learn about the big six publishers?7. What is the advantage of electronic borrowing?8. Why are publishers and libraries worried about OverDrive’s market dominance?9. What was shown in Pew survey?10. What does the author mean by saying “The story of the library e-book is a nail-biter.”?

Less than two months into her breast cancer treatment, Alexandra Jn-Charles was called into a new room at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, where two treating physicians, the chief medical officer and an attorney representing the hospital told her that mistakes had been made.The skin lesions (病变) on her chest, they said, had been caused not by her illness but by the machine that was supposed to cure her. The 32-year-old had received nearly 30 radiotherapy sessions, but at this point it didn’t really make sense to count them, because a programming error had caused each installment to deliver at least three times the prescribed amount of radiation.Jn-Charles, who died two and a half years after this meeting in 2005, would eventually come to exemplify the　emergence of accidental over-radiation in U.S. hospitals. The worst off have reported skin damage, inexplicable hair loss and ribs (肋骨) buckling beneath their chests — debilitating injuries suffered while undergoing screening or treatment for something that would otherwise kill them. A steep price for survival.These tragedies go to the core of an issue as pressing as it is uncomfortable to think about: Have advances in technology, improved treatment methods and more comprehensive screening protocols led to systematic, excessive irradiation of patients?The answer, according to a growing number of health experts, is yes. For example, the CT scan, which has become commonplace in response to rising cancer rates, is itself thought to increase the likelihood that a person develops cancer. The scans deliver several hundred times more radiation than an X-ray — even when guidelines and dosages are followed precisely. “What we do as physicians arguably harms people,” James Ehrlich, a clinical associate professor at the University of Colorado and an adviser for Premier Micronutrient Corp., told Newsweek.A jarring example of that came in 2010, when Walt Bogdanich published an extensive review in The New York Times that listed numerous patients whose lives had been destroyed by mistakes in hospital imaging and radiotherapy. Shortly after the article series went to press, the Food and Drug Administration began to ramp up its efforts to limit excessive exposure, eventually launching its Initiative to Reduce Unnecessary Radiation Exposure From Medical Imaging.Along with organizations like the American College of Radiology, the FDA now supports a number of so-called dose registries that allow facilities to compare radiation dose indexes to regional and national values. To date, hundreds of facilities across the U.S. have enrolled.But the FDA’s regulatory authority is generally focused on equipment manufacturers, and compliance on the state level is never guaranteed. And even compliant facilities run the risk of over-radiating patients: A 2012 paper by the Institute of Medicine found that medical imaging is one of the leading environmental causes of breast cancer___.1. The skin damage on Jn-Charles’ chest was caused by_.2. What does the author want to explain by exemplifying Jn-Charles?3. What can be learnt about the CT scan?4. What does the word “ramp up” mean?5. The author thinks FDA’s solution to reduce radiation exposure is___.

International governments, inaction concerning sustainable development is clearly worrying but the proactive (主动出击的)approaches of some leading-edge companies are encouraging. Toyota, Wal-Mart, DuPont, M&S and General Electric have made tackling environmental wastes a key economic driver.DuPont committed itself to a 65% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the 10 years prior to 2010. By 2007, DuPont was saving $2.2 billion a year through energy efficiency, the same as its total declared profits that year. General Electric aims to reduce the energy intensity of its operations by 50% by 2015. They have invested heavily in projects designed to change the way of using and conserving energy.Companies like Toyota and Wal-Mart are not committing to environmental goals out of the goodness of their hearts. The reason for their actions is a simple yet powerful realization that the environmental and economic footprints fit well together. When M&S launched its “Plan A” sustainability programmer in 2007, it was believed that it would cost over £200 million in the first five years. However, the initiative had generated £105 million by 2011/12.When we prevent physical waste, increase energy efficiency or improve resource productivity, we save money, improve profitability and enhance competitiveness. In fact, there are often huge “quick win” opportunities, thanks to years of neglect.However, there is a considerable gap between leading-edge companies and the rest of the pack. There are far too many companies still delaying creating a lean and green business system, arguing that it will cost money or require sizable capital investments. They remain stuck in the “environment is cost” mentality. Being environmentally friendly does not have to cost money. In fact, going beyond compliance saves cost at the same time that it generates cash, provided that management adopts the new lean and green model.Lean means doing more with less. Nonetheless, in most companies, economic and environmental continuous improvement is viewed as being in conflict with each other. This is one of the biggest opportunities missed across most industries. The size of the opportunity is enormous. The 3% Report recently published by World Wildlife Fund and CDP shows that the economic prize for curbing carbon emissions in the US economy is $780 billion between now and 2020. It suggests that one of the biggest levers for delivering this opportunity is “increased efficiency through management and behavioral change” —in other words, lean and green management.Some 50 studies show that companies that commit to such aspirational goals as zero waste, zero harmful emissions, and zero use of non-renewable resources are financially outperforming their competitors. Conversely, it was found that climate disruption is already costing $1.2 trillion annually, cutting global GDP by 1.6%. Unaddressed, this will double by 2030.11. What does the author say about some leading-edge companies?12. What motivates Toyota and Wal-Mart to make commitments to environmental protection?13. Why are so many companies reluctant to create an environment-friendly business system?14. What is said about the lean and green model of business?15. What is the finding of the studies about companies committed to environmental goals?

Virtually unknown a decade ago, big online teacher education programs now dwarf their traditional competitors, outstripping (超过)even the largest state university teachers’ colleges.A USA TODAY analysis of newly released U.S. Department of Education data finds that four big universities, operating mostly online, have quickly become the largest education schools in the USA. Last year the four — three of which are for profit — awarded one in 16 bachelor’s degrees and post-graduate awards and nearly one in 11 advanced education awards, including master’s degrees and doctorates.A decade ago, the for-profit University of Phoenix awarded 72 education degrees to teachers, administrators and other school personnel through its online program, according to federal data. Last year, it awarded nearly 6,000 degrees, more than any other university.Traditional colleges still produce most of the bachelor’s degrees in teaching — ASU topped the list with 979 bachelor’s degrees in 2011. But online schools such as Phoenix and Walden University awarded thousands more master’s degrees than even the top traditional schools, all of which are pushing to offer online coursework.“We shouldn’t be surprised because the whole industry is moving in that direction,” said Robert Pianta, dean of the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education. “The thing I would be interested in knowing is the degree to which they are simply pushing these things out in order to generate dollars or whether there’s some real innovations in there.”For-profit universities have been the subject of intense scrutiny in Congress. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, last week released findings from a two-year investigation showing that they cost more than comparable not-for-profit schools and have higher dropout rates. For-profits, the investigation found, enroll about 10% of U.S. college students but account for nearly 50% of student loan defaults.Online education schools, many of which have open-enrollment policies similar to community colleges, say their offerings are high quality.Janet Williams, interim associate dean for educator licensure programs at Walden’s Richard W. Riley College of Education & Leadership, said her student-teachers must undergo a full semester in a real-live K-12 school as a “demonstration teacher,” paired with a master teacher and supervisor in the school district.Meredith Curley, dean of the University of Phoenix College of Education, said many students are returning to complete their education after starting families and changing careers. Their average age is 33, she said, and many work while they attend classes. Becky Lodewyck, Phoenix’s associate dean, said teaching candidates must complete at least 100 hours of field experience. She said online classes are “incredibly dynamic” and have the potential to hold students more accountable than face-to-face classes. “You can’t hide,” she said. “Everyone participates — everyone has to be fully engaged in the work.”6. What can we know about the four big universities that mainly operate online?7. The for-profit University of Phoenix_.8. What was Robert Pianta interested in? 9. What was showed in the findings released by Tom Harkin?10. According to Becky Lodewyck, students in online classes_.

One of industrial agriculture’s biggest GMO crops may have just backfired (产生事与愿违的后果). Scientists have confirmed that corn-destroying rootworms have evolved to be resistant to the Bt corn engineered to kill them.Bt stands for Bacillus thuringiensis (苏云金芽孢杆菌), the name of the genetically modified corn’s “donor” organism. Bacillus thuringiensis is a naturally occurring soil bacterium that produces protein crystals that bind to certain receptors in the rootworm’s intestine (肠), killing it. For years, farmers have planted Bt corn as an alternative to spraying insecticides. Bt corn accounted for three-quarters of all corn planting in 2013. That may have to change.After finding a cornfield in Iowa in 2011 that was decimated (大幅度下降)by rootworm despite being planted with the Bt corn, Iowa State University entomologist Aaron Gassmann and his team began to study the pests’ interactions with the genetically modified organism (or GMO) corn in a lab. Their study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describes the western corn rootworm’s rapid evolution after feeding on the engineered crop.But Bt corn is still capable of warding off other pests, so farmers will likely keep planting it. Except now they’ll need to use pesticides to protect their crop from rootworms. As entomologists warned the Environmental Protection Agency in 2012, rootworm resistance means that the environmental advantage of Bt corn — that it could be raised pesticide-free — may disappear.“Unless management practices change, it’s only going to get worse,” Gassmann told Wired. “There needs to be a fundamental change in how the technology is used.”Scientists have predicted for years that this could happen, but warnings were repeatedly ignored by regulators and farmers. It takes millions of dollars to develop seeds like Bt, so engineering an alternative is not an attractive option. Instead, the authors of another study on rootworm Bt resistance, which focuses on Nebraska, take a biodiversity approach.“Crop rotation is the best tool,” University of Nebraska-Lincoln entomologist Lance Meinke told Farm & Ranch Guide. “Generally, one year of soybeans in a field with resistant western corn rootworms wipes out that population. The beetles will lay eggs that hatch, but when larvae (幼虫)try to feed on soybean plants, they don’t find the nutrients they need and they die.”Crop rotation can suppress rootworm populations over time, reducing the threat posed by their new Bt resistance.But as entomologist Elson Shields of Cornell University told Wired, rootworm is just one symptom of an engineered seed trait “will fall under the same pressure,” said Shields, “and the insect will win.”1. What can we know about Bacillus thuringiensis?2. What inspired Aaron Gassmann to start his study?3. Which of the following is true, according to the passage?4. Lance Meinke thinks the best approach to the problem of rootworm Bt resistance is_____.5. What is the problem with the GMO seed industry, according to Elson Shields?

Over the past century, all kinds of unfairness and discrimination have been condemned or made illegal. But one popular form continues to thrive: that is alphabetism. This, for those as yet unaware of such a disadvantage, refers to discrimination against those whose surnames begin with a letter in the lower half of the alphabet.It has long been known that the cars of a taxi firm called AAAA have a big advantage over Zodiac cars when customers look through their phone directories. Less well known is the advantage that Adam Abbot has in life over Zoe Zysman. English names are fairly spread between the halves of the alphabet. Yet a suspiciously large number of top people have surnames beginning with letters between A and K.Thus the American presidents and vice-presidents have surnames starting with B and C separately and 26 of George Bush’s predecessors (including his father) had surnames in the first half of the alphabet against just 16 in the second half. Even more striking, six of the seven heads of government of the G7 rich countries are alphabetically advantaged (Berlusconi, Blair, Bush, Chirac, Chretien and Koizumi). The world’s three top central bankers (Greenspan, Duisenberg and Hayami) are all close to the top of the alphabet, even if one of them really uses Japanese characters. As are the world’s five richest men (Gates, Buffet, Allen, Ellison and Albrecht).Can this merely be coincidence? One theory, dreamt up in all the spare time enjoyed by the alphabetically disadvantaged, is that the rot sets in early. At the start of the first year in infant school, teachers seat pupils alphabetically from the front, to make it easier to remember their names. So shortsighted Zysman junior gets stuck in the back row, and is seldom asked the improving questions by those insensitive teachers. At the time the alphabetically disadvantaged may think they have had a lucky escape. Yet the result may be worse qualifications, because they get less attention, as well as less confidence in speaking publicly.The humiliation continues. At university graduation ceremonies, the ABCs proudly get their awards first; by the time they reach the Zysmans most people are literally having a ZZZ. Shortlists for job interviews, election ballot papers, lists of conference speakers and attendees all tend to be drawn up alphabetically, and their recipients lose interest as they plough through them.11. What does the author intend to illustrate with AAAA cars and Zodiac cars?12. What can we infer from the first three paragraphs?13. The fourth paragraph suggests that_____.14. What does the author mean by “most people are literally having a ZZZ’’ ?15. Which of the following is true according to the text?

As the great low ebb of high tech sweeps through the world of online commerce, two kinds of sites are weathering the storm. The first group is often referred to as “clicks and mortar” — online extensions of stores like Walmart or Sears. They take an existing, traditional business and extend it into the online area. The second group provides a unique service made possible by the Internet’s special characteristics. Job sites and online auctioneer e-Bay are both good examples of the new breed of business that the Internet continues to foster.Cafepress.com is one of the latter group. It’s a website that provides users with online stores where they can sell shirts, mugs, and mouse pads customized with their own logos and/or slogans. By itself, this is a fairly useful service, and an example of how the Internet has changed the art of marketing and customer service.Cafepress.com, however, is rather remarkable for another reason. Customers don’t need to print large lots of items. They don’t need to worry about shipping the goods to their customers. And they don’t need to talk to another human being to get their store “built” in the first place. The site lets you upload an image and choose what sort of item you’d like it to appear on. You can then choose how much to mark the item up—the difference between the item’s base cost and your mark-up price is your profitBase prices are high, but understandable when you consider what cafepress.com does for the initial investment. An 11 ounce mug starts at $10.99, For that, cafepress.com prints the mug on a piece-by-piece basis, provides the ordering software, handles the money, packs it, and ships it for you. The mug’s purchaser pays shipping and handling costs; the store owner's effort is limited to uploading the original image for the mug, setting the cost, and writing a brief description of the item.It seems to be catching on. “More and more companies come to us, who want to do some kind of merchandising, who want to offer a range of products to their users, but don’t want the hassles associated with it,” says Maheesh Jain, cafepress.com’s co-founder and vice-president. “That’s where we come in—we’re one of the few companies that offer this kind of full-service solution.”But the most exciting aspect of cafepress.com is not its ability to help major corporations outsource and customize their merchandising efforts. What’s remarkable about the system is how simple it is to open a store. An average individual with an idea that could sell 50 T-shirts or mugs can’t justify a traditional merchandising effort, but with cafepress.com, users can easily bring ideas to fruition with very little time and no financial risk. Moreover, the quality of the merchandise is good; I’ve ordered a mug and a shirt from cafepress.com, and both were shipped relatively promptly, and arrived exactly as promised.Cafepress.com is an idea that’s easy to get excited about. It’s a small — but tangible — example of how the Internet can change the way we live.6. The expression “weathering the storm” in the first sentence means . 7. The first kind of site differs from the second kind of site in that .8. Which of the following about Cafepress.com is NOT true?9. What kind of customers need Cafepress.com most according to its vice-president?10. What is the most outstanding about Cafepress.com according to the author?

The relationship between formal education and economic growth in poor countries is widely misunderstood by economists and politicians alike. Progress in both area is undoubtedly necessary for the social, political and intellectual development of these and all other societies, however, the conventional view that education should be one of the very highest priorities for promoting rapid economic development in poor countries is wrong. We are fortunate that it is, because building new educational systems there and putting enough people through them to improve economic performance would require two or three generations. The findings of a research institution have consistently shown that workers in all countries can be trained on the job to achieve radical higher productivity and, as a result, radically higher standards of living.Ironically, the first evidence for this idea appeared in the United States. Not long ago, with the country entering a recession and Japan at its pre-bubble peak. The U. S. workforce was derided as poorly educated and one of primary cause of the poor U. S. economic performance. Japan was, and remains, the global leader in automotive-assembly productivity. Yet the research revealed that the U. S. factories of Honda, Nissan, and Toyota achieved about 95 percent of the productivity of their Japanese counterparts—a result of the training that U. S. workers received on the job.More recently, while examine housing construction, the researchers discovered that illiterate, non-English-speaking Mexican workers in Houston, Texas, consistently met best-practice labor productivity standards despite the complexity of the building industry’s work.What is the real relationship between education and economic development? We have to suspect that continuing economic growth promotes the development of education even when governments don’t force it. After all, that’s how education got started. When our ancestors were hunters and gatherers 10,000 years ago, they didn’t have time to wonder much about anything besides finding food. Only when humanity began to get its food in a more productive way was there time for other things.As education improved, humanity's productivity potential increased as well. When the competitive environment pushed our ancestors to achieve that potential, they could in turn afford more education. This increasingly high level of education is probably a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for the complex political systems required by advanced economic performance. Thus poor countries might not be able to escape their poverty traps without political changes that may be possible only with broader formal education. A lack of formal education, however, doesn’t constrain the ability of the developing world's workforce to substantially improve productivity to the forested future. On the contrary, constraints on improving productivity explain why education isn’t developing more quickly there than it is.1. The author holds in paragraph 1 that the importance of education in poor countries ____.2. It is stated in paragraph 1 that construction of a new education system_.3. A major difference between the Japanese and U.S. workforces is that_.4. The author quotes the example of our ancestors to show that education emerged_.5. According to the last paragraph, development of education___.

One hundred years ago, “Colored” was the typical way of referring to Americans of African descent. Twenty years later, it was purposefully dropped to make way for “Negro.” By the late 1960s，that term was overtaken by “Black.” And then, at a press conference in Chicago in 1988, Jesse Jackson declared that “African American” was the term to embrace. This one was chosen because it echoed the labels of groups, such as “Italian Americans” and “Irish Americans,” that had already been freed of widespread discrimination.A century’s worth of calculated name changes point to the fact that naming any group is a politically freighted exercise. A 2001 study cataloged all the ways in which the term “Black” carried connotations (涵义)that were more negative than those of “African American.”But if it was known that “Black” people were viewed differently from “African Americans,” researchers, until now, hadn’t identified what that gap in perception was derived from. A recent study, conducted by Emory University’s Erika Hall, found that “Black” people are viewed more negatively than “African Americans” because of a perceived difference in socioeconomic status. As a result, “Black” people are thought of as less competent and as having colder personalities.The study’s most striking findings shed light on the racial biases permeating the professional world. Even seemingly harmless details on a resume, it appears, can tap into recruiters' biases. A job application might mention affiliations with groups such as the “Wisconsin Association of African-American Lawyers” or the “National Black Employees Association,” the names of which apparently have consequences, and are also beyond their members, control.In one of the study’s experiments, subjects were given a brief description of a man from Chicago with the last name Williams. To one group, he was identified as “African-American,” and another was told he was “Black” With little else to go on, they were asked to estimate Mr. Williams’ salary, professional standing, and educational background.The “African-American” group estimated that he earned about $37,000 a year and bad a two-year college degree. The “Black” group, on the other hand, put his salary at about $29.000, and guessed that he had only “some” college experience. Nearly three-quarters of the first group guessed that Mr. Williams worked at a managerial level, while only 38.5 percent of the second group thought so.Hall’s findings suggest there’s an argument to be made for electing to use “African American,” though one can’t help but get the sense that it’s a decision that papers over the urgency of continued progress. Perhaps a new phrase is needed, one that can bring everyone one big step closer to realizing Du Bois’ original, idealistic hope: “It’s not the name—it’s the thing that counts.”11. Why did Jesse Jackson embrace the term “African American” for people of African descent?12. What does the author say about the naming of an ethnic group?13. What do Erika Hall’s findings indicate?14. What does Erika Hall find in her experiment about a man with the last name Williams?15. What is Dr. Du Bois’s ideal?

If Hillary Clinton made her widely anticipated bid for the presidency, would her age become a legitimate issue?Skeptics have already taken to the Internet to raise their concerns. If Clinton won election in 2016, at age 69, she would be just months younger than our oldest president. Ronald Reagan, when he was elected in 1980. Only one other candidate in 225 years (William Henry Harrison) moved into the White House past age 65, and his health proved so fragile that he contracted pneumonia (肺炎)on inauguration day in 1841 and died a month later. In fact, about half of the 43 men who have held the nation’s top office withered and died well before even reaching Hillary's 2016 Election Day age.The last half-century of presidential history served to shield the American people from such brutal truths about presidential mortality. The assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, a defining events for Clinton and her fellow Baby Boomers, marked the last time a chief executive died in office. But before that bloody day in Dallas, during a sad span of 122 years, sitting presidents perished with revolting regularity.Harrison died four weeks into his term in 1841, and Zachary Taylor succumbed to mysterious digestive ailments nine years later. Assassins killed Abraham Lincoln in 1865, James Garfield in 1881 and William McKinley in 1901. Circulatory problems claimed Warren Harding in 1923, and a cerebral hemorrhage (脑出血) dispatched Franklin Roosevelt in 1945. All these disasters struck presidents younger than Hillary would be on her first day in office. But a balanced response to concerns over Clinton’s age reveals recent, relevant changes in presidential life spans that should reassure the former first lady and her supporters.No president since Lyndon Johnson has died before age 81，and four of the six longest-lived presidents (Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter) have held the office since 1974. This reflects the increase in life expectancy for all of us. In 1963, life expectancy stood at 69 years, but now we can anticipate survival to 79 — a gift of 10 extra years.Another factor working in Hillary’s favor: Women live longer than men by five years (sorry, Bill). This means that a typical woman born in 1947 (as was Hillary) can expect to live an average of 20 more years after today — enough to cover not only the two terms as president that her fans desire, but an additional ten years as U.N. secretary-general, chief justice of the Supreme Court or president of Yale.None of this means that a person of Clinton’s age won’t face significant health risks under the unimaginable pressures of presidential service. Like any other candidate, she must release records detailing every aspect of her personal medical history. When her husband, Bill, first ran for president at age 46, he could get away with providing only selective access to his medical records. Hillary, at age 69, should set a different standard.6. In American history, were elected as presidents after 65_.7. What can we learn about Hillary Clinton?8. All of the following are favorable factors for Hillary Clinton, expect_ 9. What can be inferred from the last paragraph?10. What’s the passage mainly about?

I know cold. And all you Minnesota people may discount me because I am from Phoenix, but trust me, I know cold. I have climbed the highest peak on each continent (the famed Seven Summits) and have skied to both the North and South Poles — a feat known as the Adventure Grand Slam. Each mountain and polar expedition was very different — with the exception of one thing: the cold.Of all the remote places I have been, Antarctica — land of the frozen tundra — is perhaps my favorite. It also happens to be the coldest place on earth. The continent is approximately 98 percent ice and 2 percent rock. Temperatures in the winter have reached 128-below. I have been there twice; once to climb the Vinson Massif and once to ski six-hundred miles from the edge of the western Antarctic ice shelf all the way to the South Pole. “Why would you want to suffer like that” is a question I get all the time. And sure, there are times when you are feeling like you want to take a break from the frigid conditions and go inside the lodge and get a cup of hot cocoa... but you can’t. There is no ski lodge in the middle of Antarctica. There’s just you, your 1501b sled which is harnessed to your waist (containing all of your gear and supplies), your teammates (unless you are on a solo trip — no thanks) and the cold. So you make peace with the sub-zero temperatures, because you’re going to be in them for the better part of two months.So thinking back on my experiences here’s why you should be okay with a couple of days of polar vortex — because 1) you can go inside, and 2) because it makes you smarter — or at least smarter than the warm weather does. Yep. Good news for those in cities affected by the vortex: cold weather can actually be really good for you. Not just because you burn more fat when it’s cold, but because your brain works better when it’s cold. According to an article by Adrian Ward that appeared in Scientific American, it takes more energy to cool your body when it’s hot than it does to warm it up when you’re cold. The energy comes from glucose... which is also necessary for the brain’s mental processes. So basically, cooling off when it is hot uses more glucose than warming up when it’s cold; thus leaving less available glucose for the brain. Therefore, we can assume that cold weather is better for the brain. Quick — everyone go take the MENSA test before the temperature warms up again!1. What do the mountains the author has climbed have in common?2. What can we learn about Antarctica?3. What is not available in the middle of Antarctica?4. Why is cold weather better for the brain?5. We can learn from the test that the MENS A test is a kind of_____.

We can begin our discussion of “population as global issue” with what most persons mean when they discuss “the population problem”: too many people on earth and a too rapid increase in the number added each year. The facts are not in dispute. It was quite right to employ the analogy that likened demographic growth to “a long, thin powder fuse that burns steadily and haltingly until it finally reaches the charge and explodes.”To understand the current situation, which is characterized by rapid increases in population, it is necessary to understand the history of population trends. Rapid growth is a comparatively recent phenomenon. Looking back at the 8,000 years of demographic history, we find that populations have been virtually stable or growing very slightly for most of human history. For most of our ancestors, life was hard, often nasty, and very short. There was high fertility in most places, but this was usually balanced by high mortality. For most of human history, it was seldom the case that one in ten persons would live past forty, while infancy and childhood were especially risky periods. Often, societies were in clear danger of extinction because death rates could exceed their birthrates. Thus, the population problem throughout most of history was how to prevent extinction of the human race.This pattern is important to notice. Not only does it put the current problems of demographic growth into a historical perspective, but it suggests that the cause of rapid increase in population in recent years is not a sudden enthusiasm for more children, but an improvement in the conditions that traditionally have caused high mortality.Demographic history can be divided into two major periods: a time of long slow growth which extended from about 8,000 BC. to approximately AD. 1650. In the first period of some 9600 years, the population increased from some 8 million to 500 million in 1650. Between 1650 and the present, the population has increased from 500 million to more than 4 billion. And it is estimated that by the year 2000 there will be 6.2 billion people throughout the world. One way to appreciate this dramatic difference in such abstract numbers is to reduce the time frame to something that is more manageable. Between 8000BC and 1650，an average of only 50,000 persons was being added annually to the world’s population each year. At present, this number is added every six hours. The increase is about 80,000,000 persons annually.11. Which of the following demographic growth pattern is most suitable for the long thin powder fuse analogy?12. During the first period of demographic history, societies were often in danger of extinction because___.13. Which statement is true about population increase?14. The author of the passage intends to_.15. The word “demographic” in the first paragraph means___.

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