As a young bond trader, Buttonwood was given two pieces of advice, trading rules of thumb, if you will: that bad economic news is good news for bond markets and that every utterance dropping from the lips of Paul Volcker, the then chairman of the Federal Reserve, and the man who restored the central bank’s credibility by stomping on runaway inflation, should be respected than Pope’s orders. Today’s traders are, of course, a more sophisticated bunch. But the advice still seems good, apart from two slight drawbacks. The first is that the well-chosen utterances from the present chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, is of more than passing difficulty. The second is that, of late, good news for the economy has not seemed to upset bond investors all that much. For all the cheer that has crackled down the wires, the yield on ten-year bonds—which you would expect to rise on good economic news—is now, at 4. 2% , only two-fifths of a percentage point higher than it was at the start of the year. Pretty much unmoved, in other words. Yet the news from the economic front has been better by far than anyone could have expected. On Tuesday November 25th, revised numbers showed that America’s economy grew by an annual 8.2% in the third quarter, a full percentage point more than originally thought, driven by the ever-spendthrift American consumer and, for once, corporate investment. Just about every other piece of information coming out from special sources shows the same strength. New houses are still being built at a fair clip. Exports are rising, for all the protectionist crying. Even employment, in what had been mocked as a jobless recovery, increased by 125 000 or thereabouts in September and October. Rising corporate profits, low credit spreads and the biggest-ever rally in the junk-bond market do not, on the face of it, suggest anything other than a deep and long-lasting recovery. Yet Treasury-bond yields have fallen. If the rosy economic backdrop makes this odd, making it doubly odd is an apparent absence of foreign demand. Foreign buyers of Treasuries, especially Asian central banks, who had been swallowing American government debt like there was no tomorrow, seem to have had second thoughts lately. In September, according to the latest available figures, foreigners bought only $ 5.6 billion of Treasuries, compared with $ 25. 1 billion the previous month and an average of $ 38. 7 billion in the preceding four months. In an effort to keep a lid on the yen’s rise, the Japanese central bank is still busy buying dollars and parking the money in government debt. Just about everybody else seems to have been selling. [A] fairly well-chosen [B] rising rather slowly [C] setting a limit on yen’s rise [D] buying American government debt bravely [E] spending more and more cautiously [F] carelessly selected [G] domestic consumers

Someday a stranger will read your e-mail without your permission or scan the Website you’ve visited. Or perhaps someone will casually glance through your credit card purchases or cell phone bills to find out your shopping preferences or calling habits. In fact, it’s likely some of these things have already happened to you. Who would watch you without your permission? It might be a spouse, a girl friend, a marketing company, a boss, a cop or a criminal. Whoever it is, they will see you in a way you never intended to be seen — the 21st century equivalent of being caught naked. Psychologists tell us boundaries are healthy, that it’s important to reveal yourself to friends, family and lovers in stages, at appropriate times. But few boundaries remain. The digital bread crumbs(碎屑) you leave everywhere make it easy for strangers to reconstruct who you are, where you are and what you like. In some cases, a simple Google search can reveal what you think. Like it or not, increasingly we live in a world where you simply cannot keep a secret. The key question is: Does that matter? For many Americans, the answer apparently is “no.’’ When opinion polls ask Americans about privacy, most say they are concerned about losing it. A survey found an overwhelming pessimism about privacy, with 60 percent of respondents saying they feel their privacy is“ slipping away, and that bothers me. But people say one thing and do another. Only a tiny fraction of Americans change any behaviors in an effort to preserve their privacy. Few people turn down a discount at tollbooths(收费站) to avoid using the EZ-Pass system that can track automobile movements. And few turn down supermarket loyalty cards. Privacy economist Alessandro Acauisti has run a series of tests that reveal people will surrender personal information like Social Security numbers just to get their hands on a pitiful 50-cents-off coupon(优惠卷)。 But privacy does matter— at least sometimes. It’s like health: When you have it, you don’t notice it. Only when it’s gone do you wish you’d done more to protect it.

Getting a proper amount of rest is absolutely essential for building your energy resources. If you frequently work far into the night or have a poor sleep, it stands to reason that you may start to feel a little run down. Though everybody is different, most people need at least seven to eight hours of sleep per night in order to function at their best. If you have been lacking energy, try going to bed earlier at night. If you can wake up feeling well-rested, it will be an indication that you are starting to get an appropriate amount of sleep at night. If you sleep more than eight hours every night but still don’t feel energetic, you may actually be getting too much sleep. Once in a while, you are bound to have nights where you don’t get an adequate amount of sleep. When your schedule permits you can also consider taking a short sleep during the day, for sometimes taking a nap is the perfect way to recharge your batteries.

An international conference on global warming will be held in Beijing in December this year. The organization committee is now looking for volunteers who can provide language service, computer aid and at least one week of working for the conference. You’re asked to write a letter to apply for this position. You should write about 100 words on ANSWER SHEET 2. Do not use your own name at the end of the notice. Use “Li Ming“ instead. Do not write your address. (10 points)

In this part, you are asked to write an essay according to the information below. You should write more than 150 words neatly on ANSWER SHEET 2. (15 points) 如今，名人（celebrity）在大学里当客座教授或兼职教授的现象很普遍，对于这种现象，不同的人持有不用的看法，请表明你的观点。

Sustainable development is applied to just about everything from energy to clean water and economic growth, and as a result it has become difficult to question either the basic assumptions behind it or the way the concept is put to use. This is especially true in agriculture, where sustainable development is often taken as the sole measure of progress without a proper appreciation of historical and cultural perspectives. To start with, it is important to remember that the nature of agriculture has changed markedly throughout history, and will continue to do so. Medieval agriculture in northern Europe fed, clothed and sheltered a predominantly rural society with a much lower population density than it is today. It had minimal effect on biodiversity, and any pollution it caused was typically localized. In terms of energy use and the nutrients (营养成分) captured in the product it was relatively inefficient. Contrast this with farming since the start of the industrial revolution. Competition from overseas led farmers to specialize and increase yields. Throughout this period food became cheaper, safer and more reliable. However, these changes have also led to habitat (栖息地) loss and to diminishing biodiversity. What’s more, demand for animal products in developing countries is growing so fast that meeting it will require an extra 300 million tons of grain a year by 2050. Yet the growth of cities and industry is reducing the amount of water available for agriculture in many regions. All this means that agriculture in the 21st century will have to be very different from how it was in the 20th. This will require radical thinking. For example, we need to move away from the idea that traditional practices are inevitably more sustainable than new ones. We also need to abandon the notion that agriculture can be “zero impact“. The key will be to abandon the rather simple and static measures of sustainability, which centre on the need to maintain production without increasing damage. Instead we need a more dynamic interpretation, one that looks at the pros and cons(正反两方面) of all the various ways land is used. There are many different ways to measure agricultural performance besides food yield; energy use, environmental costs, water purity, carbon footprint and biodiversity. It is clear, for example, that the carbon of transporting tomatoes from Spain to the UK is less than that of producing them in the UK with additional heating and lighting. But we do not know whether lower carbon footprints will always be better for biodiversity. What is crucial is recognizing that sustainable agriculture is not just about sustainable food production.

Wild Bill Donovan would have loved the Internet. The American spymaster who built the Office of Strategic Services in World War II and later laid the roots for the CIA was fascinated (使着迷) with information. Donovan believed in using whatever tools came to hand in the “great game“ of espionage—spying as a “profession“. These days the Net, which has already re-made such everyday pastimes as buying books and sending mail, is reshaping Donovan’s vocation as well. The latest revolution isn’t simply a matter of gentlemen reading other gentlemen’s e-mail. That kind of electronic spying has been going on for decades. In the past three or four years, the World Wide Web has given birth to a whole industry of point-and-click spying. The spooks (间谍) call it “open-source intelligence“ , and as the Net grows, it is becoming increasingly influential. In 1995 the CIA held a contest to see who could compile the most data about Burundi. The winner, by a large margin, was a tiny Virginia company called Open Source Solutions, whose clear advantage was its mastery of the electronic world. Among the firms making the biggest splash in this new world is Straitford, Inc., a private intelligence-analysis firm based in Austin, Texas. Straitford makes money by selling the results of spying (covering nations from Chile to Russia) to corporations like energy-services firm McDermott International. Many of its predictions are available online at www. straitford. com. Straiford president George Friedman says he sees the online world as a kind of mutually reinforcing tool for both information collection and distribution, a spymaster’s dream. Last week his firm was busy vacuuming up data bits from the far corners of the world and predicting a crisis in Ukraine. “As soon as that report runs, we’ll suddenly get 500 new Internet sign-ups from Ukraine,“ says Friedman, a former political science professor. “And we’ll hear back from some of them.“ Open-source spying does have its risks, of course, since it can be difficult to tell good information from bad. That’s where Straitford earns its keep. Friedman relies on a lean staff of 20 in Austin. Several of his staff members have military-intelligence backgrounds. He sees the firm’s outsider status as the key to its success. Straitford’s briefs don’t sound like the usual Washington back-and-forthing, whereby agencies avoid dramatic declarations on the chance they might be wrong. Straitford, says Friedman, takes pride in its independent voice.

Could the bad old days of economic decline be about to return? Since OPEC agreed to supply-cuts in March, the price of crude oil has jumped to almost $ 26 a barrel, up from less than $ 10 last December. This near-tripling of oil prices calls up scary (可怕的) memories of the 1973 oil shock, when prices quadrupled (成四倍) , and 1979—1980, when they also almost tripled. Both previous shocks resulted in double-digit inflation and global economic decline. So where are the headlines warning of gloom and doom this time? The oil price was given another push up this week when Iraq suspended oil exports. Strengthening economic growth, at the same time as winter grips the northern hemisphere, could push the price higher still in the short term. Yet there are good reasons to expect the economic consequences now to be less severe than in the 1970s. In most countries the cost of crude oil now accounts for a smaller share of the price of petrol than it did in the 1970s. In Europe, taxes account for up to four-fifths of the retail price, so even quite big changes in the price of crude have a more muted(温和的) effect on pump prices than in the past. Rich economies are also less dependent on oil than they were, and so less sensitive to swings (摆动) in the oil price. Energy conservation(节约) , a shift to other fuels and a decline in the importance of heavy, energy-intensive industries have reduced oil consumption. Software, consultancy and mobile telephones use far less oil than steel or car production. For each dollar of GDP (in constant prices) rich economies now use nearly 50% less oil than in 1973. The OECD estimates in its latest Economic Outlook that, if oil prices averaged $ 22 a barrel for a full year, compared with $ 13 in 1998, this would increase the oil import bill in rich economies by only 0. 25% -0.5% of GDP. That is less than one-quarter of the income loss in 1974 or 1980. On the other hand, oil-importing emerging economies — to which heavy industry has shifted — have become more energy-intensive, and so could be more seriously squeezed. One more reason not to lose sleep over the rise in oil prices is that, unlike the rises in the 1970s, it has not occurred against the background of general commodity-price inflation and global excess demand. A sizable portion of the world is only just emerging from economic decline. The Economist’s commodity price index is broadly unchanging from a year ago. In 1973 commodity prices jumped by 70% , and in 1979 by almost 30%.

Some historians say that the most important contribution of Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency (总统任期) in the 1950s was the U. S. interstate highway system. It was a【C1】______ project, easily surpassing the scale of such previous human【C2】______ as the Panama Canal. Eisenhower’s interstate highways【C3】______ the nation together in new ways and【C4】______ major economic growth by making commerce less【C5】______ Today, an information superhighway has been built—an electronic network that【C6】______ libraries, corporations, government agencies and【C7】______ . This electronic superhighway is called the Internet,【C8】______ it is the backbone (主干) of the World Wide Web. The Internet had its【C9】______ in a 1969 U. S. Defense Department computer network called ARPAnet, which【C10】______ Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. The Pentagon built the network for military contractors and universities doing military research to【C11】______ information. In 1983 the National Science Foundation (NSF) ,【C12】______ mission is to promote science, took over. This new NSF network【C13】______ more and more institutional users, many of【C14】______ had their own internal networks. For example, most universities that【C15】______ the NSF network had intra-campus computer networks. The NSF network【C16】______ became a connector for thousands of other networks.【C17】______ a backbone system that interconnects networks, Internet was a name that fit. So we can see that the Internet is the wired infrastructure (基础设施) on which web【C18】______ move. It began as a military communication system, which expanded into a government-funded【C19】______ research network. Today, the Internet is a user-financed system tying institutions of many sorts together【C20】______ an “ information superhighway“.

As a young bond trader, Buttonwood was given two pieces of advice, trading rules of thumb, if you will: that bad economic news is good news for bond markets and that every utterance dropping from the lips of Paul Volcker, the then chairman of the Federal Reserve, and the man who restored the central bank’s credibility by stomping on runaway inflation, should be respected than Pope’s orders. Today’s traders are, of course, a more sophisticated bunch. But the advice still seems good, apart from two slight drawbacks. The first is that the well-chosen utterances from the present chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, is of more than passing difficulty. The second is that, of late, good news for the economy has not seemed to upset bond investors all that much. For all the cheer that has crackled down the wires, the yield on ten-year bonds—which you would expect to rise on good economic news—is now, at 4. 2% , only two-fifths of a percentage point higher than it was at the start of the year. Pretty much unmoved, in other words. Yet the news from the economic front has been better by far than anyone could have expected. On Tuesday November 25th, revised numbers showed that America’s economy grew by an annual 8.2% in the third quarter, a full percentage point more than originally thought, driven by the ever-spendthrift American consumer and, for once, corporate investment. Just about every other piece of information coming out from special sources shows the same strength. New houses are still being built at a fair clip. Exports are rising, for all the protectionist crying. Even employment, in what had been mocked as a jobless recovery, increased by 125 000 or thereabouts in September and October. Rising corporate profits, low credit spreads and the biggest-ever rally in the junk-bond market do not, on the face of it, suggest anything other than a deep and long-lasting recovery. Yet Treasury-bond yields have fallen. If the rosy economic backdrop makes this odd, making it doubly odd is an apparent absence of foreign demand. Foreign buyers of Treasuries, especially Asian central banks, who had been swallowing American government debt like there was no tomorrow, seem to have had second thoughts lately. In September, according to the latest available figures, foreigners bought only $ 5.6 billion of Treasuries, compared with $ 25. 1 billion the previous month and an average of $ 38. 7 billion in the preceding four months. In an effort to keep a lid on the yen’s rise, the Japanese central bank is still busy buying dollars and parking the money in government debt. Just about everybody else seems to have been selling. [A] fairly well-chosen [B] rising rather slowly [C] setting a limit on yen’s rise [D] buying American government debt bravely [E] spending more and more cautiously [F] carelessly selected [G] domestic consumers

The utterances from Alan Greenspan are

The yield on ten-year bonds is

The rapid economic growth results from

Recently, Asian central banks have been

Japanese dollar-buying is for the purpose of