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Directions: Write a composition of about 250 words on the topic “Mistakes and Progress”. Write down your composition on the Answer Sheet.

The ascendancy of the Net economyAs we cross the threshold into the next century, human society is beginning its move from the industrial economy into the knowledge-based economy. The general trend is that the 21st century will be a new era of the knowledge-based economy. The most notable characteristics of this new era of the knowledge-based economy is information-driven economic growth and globalization (1).In more specific terms, the application of information to the economy is best exemplified in the networking of communication, or the so-called Net economy. This Net refers to the computer network of satellites, optic fibers, cables and telephone lines that connect the whole world. With the click of a mouse, information from the other end of the globe will be transported to your computer screen at the dizzying speed of seven-and-a-half times around the earth per second (2).Singapore has an early start in networking. If we deposit a sum of money at a particular POSB (邮政储蓄所) branch, we can withdraw our money from any other POSB branches in Singapore (3). This was an early step in networking. The networks of the future would have greater significance and implications.Generally, there are two aspects of the Net. One is the networking between businesses and their customers. The other is the networking between individual businesses, or the regional and even global networking between industrial production and scientific research. The examples of the POSB and Internet shopping belong to the first aspect.From a long-term perspective, Internet shopping is but a low-level aspect of the Net, and it is not likely to become the most important trend. After all, most merchandise are unsuitable for Internet shopping. Besides, if everyone shops on the Net, what will happen to our Orchard Road? Or New York’s Broadway? A friend said if he were to force his daughter to shop on the Net instead of letting her shop at Orchard Road, the daughter would rather kill herself.Therefore, the second aspect of the Net will be more important. Its significance goes beyond that of connecting businesses. There have been reports of simultaneous consultation of doctors from all over the world, surgery on the Net and cooperation in research and development made possible by the Internet (4). These are early examples of high-level networking.The president of Intel, producer of the Pentium micro-processors, feels that the new synergy between computers and Net technology will have multiple implications for industry of the future. The sheer power of electronic commerce (e-commerce) will change the face of trade dramatically. Sporting goods company Puma was on the verge of bankruptcy back in 1992. From 1993, Puma began to diffuse its production, logistics and marketing divisions to 80 Net enterprises worldwide, and the results were spectacular. Puma was transformed from a sickly feline into a magnificent beast. The reason for this transformation is that intra-and inter-business electronic links greatly increase the efficiency of production, planning, the collecting of information and data exchange (5). As the business is rapidly being rationalized, production figures go up while costs come down.

Is Having a Home a Right?Even on these coldest nights of the year, Americans can’t claim a right to adequate housing— not yet. But the notion that having a home is a basic human right is one that is gaining some currency around the globe, as well as on the corners of some of the most frigid cities in the United States.Record-breaking cold spells this winter have brought fresh attention to the plight of the 840,000 Americans who sleep in streets or in makeshift shelters on any given night. Twenty-five cities are reporting an average 13 percent increase in requests for emergency shelter over 2002, according to a US Conference of Mayors survey.Arguing that housing is a basic human entitlement, some advocates for the homeless have sharply criticized the situation in the US. Despite the country’s enormous wealth, a growing number of its citizens are homeless—a state of affairs that some international groups view as unacceptable and unjust.An investigator for the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in January cited the US for “a range of violations” in a “dire reality” of “human rights denial” in the area of housing.Homeless advocates have also cried foul. A January report from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty says US promises made in 1948, 1949, and 1996 to progressively house all its citizens “have been badly broken.” The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, meanwhile, is preparing to argue that a projected net loss of 8,000 public housing units over the next five years would, for as many as 10,000 squatters, constitute unfair “forced eviction” under international human rights law.“I think a lot of us are groping for ways to square local, state, and national law with human rights principles,” says Rene Heybach, director of the Chicago Coalition’s Law Project. “There’s a great yearning to find an international focus because our government hasn’t provided enough to keep our people safe.”But changes are a foot, argue some members of the Bush administration.“It may very well be,” says Philip Mangano, executive director of the federal Interagency Council on Homelessness and the government’s point person on homelessness, that remedying “this wrong of homelessness will lead us to establish the right to housing. That would be consistent with our history of righting wrongs in this country, like slavery, and then creating rights afterward.”Mr. Mangano disputes the claim that the Bush administration has failed to address what he acknowledges to be a problem exacerbated by simultaneous job losses and rising housing costs. He points to the current year’s $1.27 billion investment in a range of programs to reduce homelessness. The figure marks a $100 million increase over the prior year, he said, and represents “probably the most ever invested anywhere” to put the needy in homes.The United States is not alone in experiencing a rise in homelessness, Mangano points out. And although other countries, such as Scotland and France, have in recent years passed legislation toward housing all citizens, the US is in his view honoring the spirit of its international pledges by funding programs to stem the causes of homelessness.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland has been given the nod to lead a robotic lunar mission in 2008—a key step in President George W. Bush’s recently announced space vision strategy. The lunar reconnaissance orbiter would likely be geared to investigate the potential for water ice trapped at the Moon’s poles. This type of investigation may involve powerful radar to scan the always darkened craters, thought by some scientists to contain bountiful quantities of water ice.Water ice is believed to have been brought to the Moon by impacting comets. Both NASA’s Lunar Prospector and the Pentagon’s Clementine spacecraft offered tantalizing data interpreted by some experts as indicative of water ice deposits.A number of alterative, fast-track approaches are under review at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) to build the lunar orbiter. A newly formed GSFC lunar study team held their first meeting Thursday to begin scoping out how best to move the project forward.President Bush has directed NASA to undertake lunar exploration activities to enable sustained human and robotic exploration of Mars and more distant destinations in the solar system. Starting no later than 2008, the Bush plan calls for initiating a series of robotic missions to the Moon to prepare for and support future human exploration activities. A follow-on robotic lunar lander is also slated for 2009. The White House space directive states that the first extended human expedition to the lunar surface could occur as early as 2015, but no later than the year 2020.In reestablishing and reenergizing NASA’s Moon program, the White House envisions lunar exploration activities to further science, and to develop and test new approaches, technologies, and systems, including use of lunar and other space resources, to support sustained human space exploration to Mars and other destinations.1. On the robotic lunar mission which is to be led by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the lunar orbiter 2. On the robotic lunar mission, will be explored to search for water ice.3. According to the third paragraph of the passage, why a newly formed GSFC lunar study team held their first meeting on Thursday?4. Federal government of the U.S. states in its space directive that .5. One of the purposes of NASA’s Series lunar exploration missions is to .

A Chinese study found that antibiotics can help prevent stomach cancer in people who carry a common strain of bacteria known to cause ulcers. The study adds to the already strong evidence that Helicobacter pylori bacteria can cause stomach cancer, a disease especially prevalent in Asia but far less common in the United States. Still, experts said the findings do not solve the dilemma of whether and how to treat carriers of the bacteria.The study involved 1,630 men and women from Fujian Province in southern China. All were carriers of H. pylori; hundreds of them already had precancerous lesions (癌变) at the outset of the study. Patients were randomly assigned to receive two weeks of treatment with antibiotics and an anti-ulcer drug, or a dummy medicine, and were followed for 7 years and a half after that. Among the 988 patients without precancerous lesions at the outset, none on the treatment got stomach cancer, compared with six in the placebo group.The findings among those with precancerous lesions were not as clear-cut: Seven in the treatment group developed stomach cancer, versus 11 in the placebo group. The study appears in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association. H. pylori is estimated to affect as many as 90 percent of people in some developing nations and up to 50 percent of people in some industrialized countries, according to the World Health Organization. Chronic H. pylori is thought to cause stomach cancer, and doctors have come to believe since the early 1980s that it is the No. 1 cause of ulcers.The findings suggest that doctors should consider routine screening for such lesions in H. pylori patients in high-incidence areas, and treating the infections in patients with no precancerous lesions, said the authors, led by Benjamin Chun-Yu Wong of the University of Hong Kong.Dr. Michael Brown, a gastroenterologist at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, said routine H. pylori screening would not be cost-effective in the United States because the rates of infection and cancer are so low.1. According to the passage, experts in the Chinese study mentioned in the passage are still not .2. Among people who developed cancer in the study, proportion of patients in the treatment group to patients in the placebo group is .3. In the study, what medicine did the placebo group take during the two-week treatment?4. How many patients in the study already had precancerous lesions at the outset of the study?5. The findings of the study propose that .

Globalization is not just some passing trend. Today it is an overarching international system shaping the domestic politics and foreign relations of virtually every country, and we need to understand it as such.As thoughtful people concerned about world affairs, our job is to pick up “globalization,” examine it from all sides, dissect it, figure out what makes it tick, and then nurture and promote the good parts and mitigate or slow down the bad parts. Globalization is much like fire. Fire itself is neither good nor bad. Used properly, it can cook food, sterilize equipment, form iron, and heat our homes. Used carelessly, fire can destroy lives, towns and forests in an instant. As Friedman says: “Globalization can be incredibly empowering and incredibly coercive. It can democratize opportunity and democratize panic. It makes the whales bigger and the minnows stronger. It leaves you behind faster and faster, and it catches up to you faster and faster. While it is homogenizing cultures, it is also enabling people to share their unique individuality farther and wider.”Globalization has dangers and an ugly dark side. But it can also bring tremendous opportunities and benefits. Just as capitalism requires a network of governing systems to keep it from devouring societies, globalization requires vigilance and the rule of law. Anti-trust laws, the Securities and Exchange Commission, labor unions, charities, the Federal Trade Commission, and countless other agencies and organizations keep American capitalism in check. Similar transparent mechanisms are needed to make sure globalization is a positive force in the world.Globalization will always have cheerleaders who are blind to the destruction globalization can cause. And it will always have strident opponents blind to the way globalization gives some people their first opportunity to fulfill basic aspirations.As with most issues, the majority of people will be in the middle. They will see globalization not as something to worship or demonize. Instead, they will see it as something to mold, shape and manage for the betterment of everyone.1. What does the word “mitigate” in paragraph 2 most likely mean?2. Why does the author compare globalization as fire?3. Why is globalization compared as capitalism in the passage?4. People who worship globalization usually while people who demonize globalization usually .5. Which of the following is not necessarily required to make positive use of globalization?

In recent years, there has been a steady assault on salt from the doctors. Politicians also got on board. “There is a direct relationship,” US congressman Neal Smith noted, “between the amount of sodium a person consumes and heart disease, circulatory disorders, stroke and even early death.”Frightening, if true! But many doctors and medical researchers are now beginning to feel the salt scare has gone too far. “All this hue and cry about eating salt is unnecessary,” Dr. Dustan insists. “For most of us it probably doesn’t make much difference how much salt we eat.” Dustan’s most recent short-term study of 150 people showed that those with normal blood pressure experienced no change at all when placed on an extremely low-salt diet, or later when salt was reintroduced. Of the hypertensive subjects, however, half of those on the low-salt diet did experience a drop in blood pressure, which returned to its previous level when salt was reintroduced.“An adequate to somewhat excessive salt intake has probably saved many more lives than it has cost in the general population,” notes Dr. John H. Laragh. “So a recommendation that the whole population should avoid salt makes no sense.” Medical experts agree that everyone should practice reasonable “moderation” in salt consumption. For the average person, a moderate amount might run from four to ten grams a day, or roughly 1/2 to 1/3 of a teaspoon. The equivalent of one to two grams of this salt allowance would come from the natural sodium in food. The rest would be added in processing, preparation or at the table.Those with kidney, liver or heart problems may have to limit dietary salt, if their doctor advises. But even the very vocal “low salt” exponent, Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr. admits that “we do not know whether increased sodium consumption causes hypertension.” In fact, there is growing scientific evidence that other factors may be involved: deficiencies in calcium, potassium, perhaps magnesium; obesity (much more dangerous than sodium); genetic predisposition; stress. “It is not your enemy,” says Dr. Laragh. “Salt is the No. 1 natural component of all human tissue, and the idea that you don’t need it is wrong. Unless your doctor has proven that you have a salt-related health problem, there is no reason to give it up.”1. According to some doctors and politicians, the amount of salt consumed 2. From Dr. Dustan’s study we can infer that 3. In the third paragraph, Dr. Laragh implies that 4. The phrase “vocal …exponent” (Para. 4) most probably refers to 5. What is the main message of this text?

According to the report, the ____ of the epidemic was frightening in that country.

When he went to the airport for the ticket, Tom suddenly realized that his passport had ____ for half a year.

At last his firm was ____ up by a multinational corporation.

The mayor was asked to give a rough ____ of the cost of the construction of the new bridge.

I just can’t ____ how he managed to finish his report so soon. He said he was only halfway through it yesterday!

Most of the nations in the world are working in a collaborative effort to ____ hunger from the world.

Travelers are advised to use traveler’s checks, which provide a secure ____ to carrying all the money in cash.

I have said nothing like that. He intentionally ____ my ideas to achieve his personal ends.

When the wealthy man died his illegitimate son ____ half of his legacy.

The young flower girl has been in town for only several months, but she seems to be ____ with everyone who comes to the store.

It is ____ that women should be paid less than men for doing the same kind of work.

We hope there will be a peaceful ____ to the new system.

The discovery of new oil fields in various parts of the country filled the government with ____ hope.

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