Mass production, the defining characteristic of the Second Wave economy, becomes increasingly obsolete as firms install information intensive, often robotized manufacturing systems capable of endless cheap variation, even customization. The revolutionary result is, in effect, the demassification of mass production. The shift toward smart flex techs promotes diversity and feeds consumer choice to the point that a Wal-Mart store can offer the buyer nearly 110,000 products in various types, sizes, models and colors to choose among. But Wal-Mart is a mass merchandiser. Increasingly, the mass market itself is breaking up into differentiated niches as customer needs diverge and better information makes it possible for businesses to identify and serve micro markets. Specialty stores, boutiques, superstores, TV home-shopping systems, computer based buying, direct mail and other systems provide a growing diversity of channels through which producers can distribute their wares to customers in an increasingly demassified marketplace. When we wrote Future Shock in the late 1960s, visionary marketers began talking about “market segmentation“. Today they no longer focus on “ segments“ but on “ particles “—family units and even single individuals. Meanwhile, advertising is targeted at smaller and smaller market segments reached through increasingly demassified media. The dramatic breakup of mass audiences is underscored by the crisis of the once great TV networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC, at a time when Tele-Communications, Inc. of Denver, announces a fiber optic network capable of providing viewers with five hundred interactive channels of television. Such systems mean that sellers will be able to target buyers with even greater precision. The simultaneous demassification of production, distribution and communication revolutionizes the economy and shifts it from homogeneity toward extreme heterogeneity.

As usual, America’s Supreme Court ended its annual term this week by delivering a clutch of controversial decisions. The one that caught the attention of businessmen, and plenty of music lovers, was a ruling concerning the rampant downloading of free music from the internet. Nine elderly judges might have been forgiven for finding the entire subject somewhat baffling. In fact, their lengthy written decisions on the case betray an intense interest, as well as a great deal of knowledge. Moreover, they struck what looks like the best available balance under current laws between the claims of media firms, which are battling massive infringements of their copyrights, and tech firms, which are keen to keep the doors to innovation wide open. This case is only the latest episode in a long-running battle between media and technology companies. In 1984, in a case involving Sony’s Betamax video recorder, the Supreme Court ruled that technology firms are not liable if their users infringe copyright, provided the device is “capable of substantial non-infringing uses.“ For two decades, this served as a green light for innovations. Apple’s iTunes, the legal offspring of illegal internet file-sharing, is among the happy results. But lately, things have turned against the techies. In 2000, a California court shut down Napster, a distributor of peer-to-peer(P2P) file-sharing software. It had, the court decided, failed to stop copyright violations (though the firm relaunched as a legal online-music retailer). In its ruling this week, the court unanimously took the view that two other p2p firms, Grokster and StreamCast, could be held liable if they encourage users to infringe copy rights. The vast majority of content that is swapped using their software infringes copy rights, which media firms say eats into their sales. Although the software firms argued they should not be responsible for their customers’ actions, the court found that they could be sued if they actually encouraged the infringement, and said that there was evidence that they had done so. On the other hand, the court did not go as far as media firms demanded: they wanted virtually any new technology to be vulnerable to legal action if it allowed any copyright infringement at all.The term “betray“(Paragraph 2) most probably means hand out. demonstrate. disclose. ward off.

You are going to read a list of headings and a text about natural selection. Choose the most suitable heading from the list for each numbered paragraph. The first and last paragraphs of the text are not numbered. There is one extra heading which you do not need to use. A. The impotence of creationism. B. Natural selection acts by competition. C. The role of natural selection in this colorful world D. The delicate hierarchy of the natural system. E. The agency of selection can account for more cases. F. No leaps in natural evolution. As each species tends by its geometrical rate of reproduction to increase excessively in number; and as the modified descendants of each species will be enabled to increase by as much as they become more diversified in habits and structure, so as to be able to seize on many and widely different places in natural selection to preserve the most divergent offspring of any one species. Hence, during a long-continued course of modification, the slight differences characteristic of varieties of the same species, tend to be augmented into the greater differences characteristic of the species of the same genus. (41)______. New and improved varieties will inevitably displace and destroy the older, less improved, and intermediate varieties; and thus species are rendered to a large extent defined and distinct objects. Dominant species belonging to the larger groups within each class tend to give birth to new and dominant forms; so that each large group tends to become still larger, and at the same time more divergent in character. But as all groups cannot thus go on increasing in size, for the world would not hold them, the more dominant groups beat the less dominant. (42)______. This tendency in the large groups to go on increasing in size and diverging in character, together with the inevitability of much extinction, explains the arrangement of all the forms of life in groups subordinate to groups, all within a few great classes, which has prevailed throughout all time. This grand fact of the grouping of all organic beings under what is called the Natural System, is utterly unexplainable on the theory of creation. (43)______. As natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight, successive, favorable variations, it can produce no great or sudden modifications; it can act only by short and slow steps. We can see why throughout nature the same general end is gained by an almost infinite diversity of means, for every peculiarity when once acquired in long inherited, and structures already modified in many different ways have to be adapted for the same general purpose. We can, in short, see why nature is extravagant in variety, though not generous in innovation. But why this should be a law of nature if each species has been independently created no man can explain. (44)______. Many other facts are, as it seems to me, explicable on this theory. How strange it is that a bird, under the form of a woodpecker, should prey on insects on the ground and that upland geese which rarely or never swim, should possess webbed feet, and so in endless other cases. But on the view of each species constantly trying to increase in number, with natural selection always ready to adapt the slowly varying descendants of each to any unoccupied or ill-occupied place in nature, these facts cease to be strange, or might even have been anticipated. (45)______. We can to a certain extent understand how it is that there is so much beauty throughout nature; for this may be largely attributed to the agency of selection. That beauty, according to our sense of it, is not universal, must be admitted by every one who will look at some hideous bats with a distorted resemblance to the human face. Sexual selection has given the most brilliant colors, elegant patterns, and other ornaments to the males. With birds it has often rendered the voice of the male musical to the female, as well as to our ears. Flowers and fruit have been rendered conspicuous by brilliant colors in contrast with the green foliage, in order that the flowers may be readily seen, visited and fertilized by insects. As natural selection acts by competition, it adapts and improves the inhabitants of each country only in relation to their co-inhabitants; so that we need feel no surprise at the species of any one country being beaten and supplanted by the naturalized productions from another land. The wonder indeed is, on the theory of natural selection, that more cases of the want of absolute perfection have not been detected.

The “standard of living“ of any country means the average person’s share of the goods and services which the country produces. A country’s standard of living, (1)_____, depends first and (2)_____ on its capacity to produce wealth“. Wealth“ in this sense is not money, for we do not live on money (3)_____ on things that money can buy. “Goods“ such as food and clothing, and “services“ such as transport and “ (4)_____ “. A country’s capacity to produce wealth depends upon many factors, most of (5)_____ have an effect on one another. Wealth depends (6)_____ a great extent upon a country’s natural resources. Some regions of the world are well supplied with coal and minerals, and have a fertile soil and a (7)_____ climate; other regions possess none of them. Next to natural resources (8)_____ the ability to turn them to use. China is perhaps as well (9)_____ as the USA in natural resources, but suffered for many years from civil and (10)_____ wars, and (11)_____ this and other reasons was (12)_____ to develop her resources. (13)_____ and stable political conditions, and (14)_____ from foreign invasion, enable a country to develop its natural resources peacefully and steadily, and to produce more wealth than another country equally well (15)_____ by nature but less well ordered. A country’s standard of living does not only depend upon the wealth that is produced and consumed (16)_____ its own borders, but also upon what is indirectly produced through international trade. (17)_____, Britain’s wealth in foodstuffs and other agricultural products would be much less if she had to depend only on (18)_____ grown at home. Trade makes it possible for her surplus manufactured goods to be traded abroad for the agricultural products that would (19)_____ be lacking. A country’s wealth is, therefore, much influenced by its manufacturing capacity, (20)_____ that other countries can be found ready to accept its manufactures. however therefore nevertheless furthermore

“It is an evil influence on the youth of our country. “ A politician condemning video gaming? Actually, a clergyman denouncing rock and roll 50 years ago. But the sentiment could just as easily have been voiced by Hillary Clinton in the past few weeks, as she blamed video games for “a silent epidemic of media desensitisation“ and “stealing the innocence of our children“. The gaming furore centers on “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas“, a popular and notoriously violent cops and robbers game that turned out to contain hidden sex scenes that could be unlocked using a patch downloaded from the internet. The resulting outcry (mostly from Democratic politicians playing to the centre) caused the game’s rating in America to be changed from “mature“, which means you have to be 17 to buy it, to “adults only“, which means you have to be 18, but also means that big retailers such as Wal-Mart will not stock it. As a result the game has been banned in Australia; and, this autumn, America’s Federal Trade Commission will investigate the complaints. That will give gaming’ s opponents an opportunity to vent their wrath on the industry. Skepticism of new media is a tradition with deep roots, going back at least as far as Socrates’ objections to written texts, outlined in Plato’s Phaedrus. Socrates worried that relying on written texts, rather than the oral tradition, would “create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. “ (He also objected that a written version of a speech was no substitute for the ability to interrogate the speaker, since, when questioned, the text “always gives one unvarying answer“. His objection, in short, was that books were not interactive. Perhaps Socrates would have thought more highly of video games.) Novels were once considered too low-brow for university literature courses, but eventually the disapproving professors retired. Waltz music and dancing were condemned in the 19th century; all that twirling was thought to be “intoxicating“ and “depraved“, and the music was outlawed in some places. Today it is hard to imagine what the fuss was about. And rock and roll was thought to encourage violence, promiscuity and Satanism; but today even grannies buy Coldplay albums.

Britain’s richest people have experienced the biggest-ever rise in their wealth, according to the Sunday Times Rich List. Driven by the new economy of Internet and computer entrepreneurs, the wealth of those at the top of the financial tree has increased at an unprecedented rate. The 12th annual Rich List will show that the collective worth of the country’s richest 1,000 people reached nearly 146 billion by January, the cut-off point for the survey. They represented an increase of 31 billion, or 27%, in just 12 months. Since the survey was compiled, Britain’s richest have added billions more to their wealth, thanks to the continuing boom in technology shares on the stock market. This has pushed up the total value of the wealth of the richest 1,000 to a probable 160 billion according to Dr. Philip Beresford, Britain’s acknowledged expert on personal wealth who compiles the Sunday Times Rich List. The millennium boom exceeds anything in Britain’s economic history, including the railway boom of the 1840s and the South Sea bubble of 1720. “It has made Margaret Thatcher’s boom seem as sluggish as Edward Heath’s three-day week,“ said Beresford. “We are seeing billions being added to the national wealth every week.“ William Rubinstein, professor of modem history at the University of Wales, Abe Ystwyth, confirmed that the growth in wealth was unprecedented. “Almost all of today’s wealth has been created since the industrial revolution, but even by those heady standards the current boom is extraordinary,“ he said. “There is no large-scale cultural opposition or guilt about making money. In many ways British business attitudes can now challenge the United States.“ Although the Britain’s richest are experiencing the sharpest surge in wealth, the rest of the population has also benefited from the stock market boom and rising house prices. Last year wealth rose by 16% to a record 4,267 billion, according to calculation by the investment bank Salomon Smith Barney. In real terms, wealth has increased by more than a third since the late 1980s. Much of the wealth of the richest is held in shares in start-up companies. Some of these paper fortunes, analysts agree, could easily be wiped out, although the wealth-generating effects of the interest revolution seem to be here to stay. A Sunday Times Young Rich List confirms that people are becoming wealthier younger. It includes the 60 richest millionaires aged 30 or under. At the top, on 600m, is the “old money“ Earl of Iveagh, 30, head of the Guinness brewing family. In second place is Charles Nasser, also 30, who launched the Clara-NET Internet provider four years ago and is worth 300m. The remaining eight in the top 10 young millionaires made their money from computing and the Internet.The “cut-off point for the survey“ (Paragraph 1) refers to January—the deadline for the survey. 31 million—the increase of wealth in just 12 months. 160 million—the total value of the wealth of the richest 1000. 146 billion—the collective worth of the country’s richest 1000 people.

Suppose you are a witness of a traffic accident, Li Ming. Please write a report to the principal of the Traffic Accident Investigation Unit of the Police Station according to your information: 时间：2004-2-8；地点：市中心，第二拐角处；原因：卡车司机开车前饮酒过量，开车头晕，失控撞翻一辆摩托车；伤亡情况：摩托车司机当场死亡，卡车司机受重伤；影响：交通中断2小时；经济损失：2万元。 You should write about 100 words. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use “Li Ming“ instead. You do not need to write the address.

Do students learn from programmed instruction? The research leaves us in no doubt of this. They do, indeed, learn. (46)Many kinds of students learn—college, high school, secondary, primary, preschool, adult, professional, skilled labor, clerical employees, military, deaf, retarded imprisoned every kind of students that programs have been tried on. Using programs, these students are able to learn mathematics and science at different levels, foreign languages, English language correctness, spelling, electronics, computer science, psychology, statistics, business skills, reading skills, instrument flying rules, and many other subjects; the limits of the topics which can be studied efficiently by means of programs are not yet known. For each of the kinds of subject matter and the kinds of student mentioned above, experiments have demonstrated that a considerable amount of learning can be derived from programs; this learning has been measured either by comparing pre-and post-tests or the time and trials needed to reach a set criterion of performance. (47)But the question, how well do students learn from programs as compared to how well they learn from other kinds of instruction, we cannot answer quite confidently. Experimental psychologists typically do not take very seriously the evaluative experiments in which learning from programs is compared with learning from conventional teaching. Such experiments are doubtlessly useful, they say, for school administrators or teachers to prove to themselves (or their boards of education) that programs work. (48)But whereas one can describe fairly well the characteristics of a program, can one describe the characteristics of a classroom teaching situation so that the result of the comparison will have any generality? What kind of teacher is being compared to what kind of program? Furthermore, these early evaluative experiments with programs are likely to suffer from the Hawthorne effect; that is to say, students are in the spotlight when testing something new, and are challenged to do well. (49)It is very hard to make allowance for this effect; therefore, the evaluative tests may be useful administratively, say many of the experiments, but do not contribute much to science, and should properly be kept for private use. These objections are well taken. And yet, do they justify us in ignoring the evaluative studies? The great strength of a program is that it permits the student to learn efficiently by himself. (50)Is it not therefore important to know how much and what kind of skills, concepts, insights, or attitudes he can learn by himself from a program as compared to what he can learn from a teacher? Admittedly, this is a very difficult and complex research problem, but that should not keep us from trying to solve it.

Copying Birds May Save Aircraft Fuel Both Boeing and Airbus have trumpeted the efficiency of their newest aircraft, the 787 and A350 respectively. Their clever designs and lightweight composites certainly make a difference. But a group of researchers at Stanford University, led by Ilan Kroo, has suggested that airlines could take a more naturalistic approach to cutting jet-fuel use, and it would not require them to buy new aircraft. The answer, says Dr Kroo, lies with birds. Since 1914, scientists have known that birds flying in formation—a V-shape—expend less energy. The air flowing over a bird’s wings curls upwards behind the wingtips, a phenomenon known as upwash. Other birds flying in the upwash experience reduced drag, and spend less energy propelling themselves. Peter Lissaman, an aeronautics expert who was formerly at Caltech and the University of Southern California, has suggested that a formation of 25 birds might enjoy a range increase of 71 % . When applied to aircraft, the principles are not substantially different. Dr Kroo and his team modelled what would happen if three passenger jets departing from Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas were to assemble over Utah, assume an inverted V-formation, occasionally change places so all could have a turn in the most favourable positions, and proceed to London. They found that the aircraft consumed as much as 15% less fuel (coupled with a reduction in carbon-dioxide output). Nitrogen-oxide emissions during the cruising portions of the flight fell by around a quarter. There are, of course, knots to be worked out. One consideration is safety, or at least the perception of it. Would passengers feel comfortable travelling in companion? Dr Kroo points out that the aircraft could be separated by several nautical miles, and would not be in the intimate groupings favoured by display teams like the Red Arrows. A passenger peering out of the window might not even see the other planes. Whether the separation distances involved would satisfy air-traffic-control regulations is another matter, although a working group at the International Civil Aviation Organisation has included the possibility of formation flying in a blueprint for new operational guidelines. It remains to be seen how weather conditions affect the air flows that make formation flight more efficient. In zones of increased turbulence, the planes’ wakes will decay more quickly and the effect will diminish. Dr Kroo says this is one of the areas his team will investigate further. It might also be hard for airlines to co-ordinate the departure times and destinations of passenger aircraft in a way that would allow them to gain from formation flight. Cargo aircraft, in contrast, might be easier to reschedule, as might routine military flights. As it happens, America’s armed forces are on the case already. Earlier this year the country’s Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency announced plans to pay Boeing to investigate formation flight, thought the programme has yet to begin. There are reports that some military aircraft flew in formation when they were low on fuel during the Second World War, but Dr Lissaman says they are unsubstantiated. “My father was an RAF pilot and my cousin the skipper of a Lancaster lost over Berlin, “he adds. So he should know.

Study the two pictures carefully and write an essay entitled “On Education of China“. In the essay, you should (1) describe the pictures; (2) interpret their meaning; (3) give your opinion about the phenomenon. You should write about 200 words neatly. [*]

Which is true about “mass production“ according to the author?

The word “niches“ in this context in Paragraph 2 means______.

The author calls those marketers “visionary“ mainly because______.

Why are great TV networks, ABS, CBS and NBC mentioned in the passage?

What would be the proper title for this passage?