W: Welcome to Backpack Travel! I’m your host, Stacy Goodwin. Today our program is about hitchhiking. We have Dennis Hornyak here to share his hitchhiking experience. Thank you for joining us, Mr. Hornyak. M: Call me Dennis, please. W: Okay, Dennis. Do you hitchhike to save money or do you hitchhike for some other reason? M: I haven’t got any money to save! I’m a student.. I hitchhike in order to travel and, of course, to meet people. W: Is it easy to get a lift? Do people stop or do you have to wait a very long time? M: It depends where you are, what time it is and how many people are with you and whether they are men or women! W: Isn’t it dangerous for a woman to hitchhike by herself? M: Yes. On the other hand a lot of things are dangerous. It is very dangerous to travel in a car. And, in any case, most people in Britain will be respectful of her right to travel as she wants. W: And is it faster for you if you travel with a woman? M: Yes, it’s certainly faster. W: How do you stop the cars? M: In Britain you just hold out your hand, usually you put your thumb upwards. Actually, the best system is to have a sign and make the letters big. W: Any more tips? M: Well, you learn all kinds of things when you do it. The main advice is, try it! You’ll meet a lot of different people. And you’ll learn a lot about the country. 1.For what purpose did the man hitchhike? 2.What do we learn about women’s hitchhiking? 3.How can the man get a lift faster? 4.What is the best system to stop cars in Britain according to the man? To try something different. To travel and meet people. To learn different culture. To save money.

For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay entitled How to Broaden Our Knowledge? You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words. 1.在信息快速发展的今天，我们应该不断扩大自己的知识面 2.具备宽广知识面的意义 3.为此，我们应该……

Life Begins at 100 [A] This year, the number of pensioners in the UK exceeded the number of minors for the first time in history. That’s remarkable in its own right, but the real “population explosion“ has been among the oldest of the old—the centenarians (百岁老人). In fact, this is the fastest-growing group in much of the developed world. In the UK, their numbers have increased by a factor of 60 since the early 20th century. And their ranks are set to swell even further, thanks to the ageing baby-boomer generation: by 2030 there will be about a million worldwide. [B] These trends raise social, ethical and economic dilemmas. Are medical advances artificially prolonging life with little regard for the quality of that life? Old age brings an increased risk of chronic disease and disability, and if growing numbers of elderly people become dependent on state or familial support, society faces soaring costs and commitments. This is the dark cloud outside the silver lining of increasing longevity (长寿). Yet researchers who study the oldest old have made a surprising discovery that presents a less bleak vision of the future than many anticipate. [C] It is becoming clear that people who break through the 90-plus barrier represent a physical elite, markedly different from the elderly who typically die younger than them. Far from gaining a longer burden of disability, their extra years are often healthy ones. They have a remarkable ability to live through, delay or entirely escape a host of diseases that kill off most of their peers. Super centenarians—people aged 110 or over—are even better examples of ageing gracefully. “According to the statistical study, they basically didn’t exist in the 1970s or 80s,“ says Craig Willcox of the Okinawa Centenarian Study in Japan. “They have some sort of genetic booster rocket and they seem to be functioning better for longer periods of time than centenarians.“ The average supercentenarian had freely gone about their daily life until the age of 105 or so, some five to 10 years longer even than centenarians, who are themselves the physical equivalent of people eight to 10 years their junior. This isn’t just good news for the oldest old and for society in general; it also provides clues about how more of us might achieve a long and healthy old age. [D] One of the most comprehensive studies comes from Denmark. In 1998, Kaare Christensen at the University of Southern Denmark, in Odense, exploited the country’s exemplary registries to contact every single one of the 3,600 people born in 1905 who was still alive. Assessing their health over the subsequent decade, he found that the proportion of people who managed to remain independent throughout was constantly around one-third of the total: each individual risked becoming more infirm, but the unhealthiest ones passed away at earlier ages, leaving the strongest behind. In 2005, only 166 of the people in Christensen’s sample were alive, but one-third of those were still entirely self-sufficient. This is good news from both personal and societal perspectives, for it means that exceptional longevity does not necessarily lead to exceptional levels of disability. [E] Christensen’s optimistic findings are echoed in studies all over the world. In the US, almost all of the 700-plus people recruited to the New England Centenarian Study since it began in 1994 had lived independently until the age of 90, and 40 per cent of supercentenarians in the study could still look after themselves. In the UK, Carol Brayne at the University of Cambridge studied 958 people aged over 90 and found that only one-quarter of them were living in institutions or nursing homes. Likewise, research in China reveals that before their deaths, centenarians and nonagenarians (九旬老人) spend fewer days ill than younger elderly groups, though the end comes quickly when it finally comes. [F] Not all of the oldest old survive by delaying illness or disability, though—many soldier through it. Jessica Evert of Ohio State University in Columbus examined the medical histories of over 400 centenarians. She found that those who achieve extreme longevity tend to fall into three categories. About 40 per cent were “delayers“, who avoided chronic diseases until after the age of 80. This “compression of illness“, where chronic illness and disability are squeezed into ever-shorter periods at the end of life, is a recent trend among ageing populations. Another 40 per cent were “survivors“, who suffered from chronic diseases before the age of 80 but lived longer to tell the tale. The final 20 per cent were “escapers“, who hit their century with no sign of the most common chronic diseases, including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, hypertension and stroke. Intriguingly, one-third of male centenarians were in this category, compared with only 15 per cent of women. [G] The “centenarian genome (基因组)“ is a key resource in identifying longevity genes. Such genes have been found in abundance in other organisms. Unfortunately, it’s a different story in humans. While many candidate genes have been suggested to affect lifespan, very few have been consistently verified in multiple populations. [H] Until recently, the only exception was ApoE, and in particular a variant of this gene known as e4, which gives carriers a much higher than average risk of developing Alzheimer’s and heart disease. Across the world, this unfortunate version of ApoE is about half as common in centenarians as in younger adults. Last year, a second promising candidate emerged—a variant of a gene called POX03A. At the University of Hawaii, a team led by Bradley WUlcox, Craig’s identical twin, found that people who carried two copies of a particular form of the gene were almost three times as likely to make it to 100 than those without the variation, and also tended to start their journey into old age with better health and lower levels of stroke, heart disease and cancer. “There are so many false positives in this field that FOX03A is very exciting,“ says Bradley Willcox. [I] FOX03A is involved in several signalling pathways that are conserved across animal species. It controls the insulin/IGF-1 pathway, which influences how our bodies process food. It also controls genes that protect cells from highly reactive oxygen radicals-molecules often thought to drive human ageing through the cumulative damage they work on DNA. FOX03A could even protect against cancer by encouraging apoptosis (细胞凋亡), whereby compromised cells commit suicide. The variant of FOX03A associated with longevity is much more prevalent in 100-year-olds even than in 95-year-olds, which clearly demonstrates the value of studying the centenarian genome. [J] So far the search for longevity genes in humans has been extremely difficult, but prospects brighten as genomic technologies become faster and there are more centenarians to study. Only a lucky few win the genetic lottery of longevity, but if we understand what sets them apart, we may be able to make the rest of us more like them by using lifestyle or therapeutic interventions to manipulate physiological pathways. Such medical advances will not only extend our lives, but also help us remain healthy and independent for as long as possible.

exist between anyone and the others only exist between the richest and the poorest disadvantage the richest more than the poorest seldom disadvantage the most well-off

one’s intelligence the social influence on us our own biological features one’s family status

It’s intended for college students. It’s aimed at helping company employees. It set up the new home for YouTube. It provides benefits of higher education for free.

be commercialized stress democratization turn to on-line marketing be provided on-line for free

W: Welcome to Backpack Travel! I’m your host, Stacy Goodwin. Today our program is about hitchhiking. We have Dennis Hornyak here to share his hitchhiking experience. Thank you for joining us, Mr. Hornyak. M: Call me Dennis, please. W: Okay, Dennis. Do you hitchhike to save money or do you hitchhike for some other reason? M: I haven’t got any money to save! I’m a student.. I hitchhike in order to travel and, of course, to meet people. W: Is it easy to get a lift? Do people stop or do you have to wait a very long time? M: It depends where you are, what time it is and how many people are with you and whether they are men or women! W: Isn’t it dangerous for a woman to hitchhike by herself? M: Yes. On the other hand a lot of things are dangerous. It is very dangerous to travel in a car. And, in any case, most people in Britain will be respectful of her right to travel as she wants. W: And is it faster for you if you travel with a woman? M: Yes, it’s certainly faster. W: How do you stop the cars? M: In Britain you just hold out your hand, usually you put your thumb upwards. Actually, the best system is to have a sign and make the letters big. W: Any more tips? M: Well, you learn all kinds of things when you do it. The main advice is, try it! You’ll meet a lot of different people. And you’ll learn a lot about the country. 1.For what purpose did the man hitchhike? 2.What do we learn about women’s hitchhiking? 3.How can the man get a lift faster? 4.What is the best system to stop cars in Britain according to the man? To try something different. To travel and meet people. To learn different culture. To save money.

It’s not safe for them. Everyone respect them. They are easier to find partners. They only hitchhike in Britain.

By travelling with a woman. By waiting in a queue. By meeting different people. By giving others a hand.

A place with a heavy rain. A town with a sunny day. A beautiful summer resort. An interesting advertisement.

Thank you for coming to my talk this evening. It’s nice to see so many people in the audience. For those of you who don’t know very much about PS Camping, let me start by giving you some background information about the company. The company started twenty five years ago. It actually started as a retail chain selling camping equipment, and then twenty years ago, it bought a small number of campsites in the UK, and began offering camping holidays. The company grew rapidly and has been providing holidays in continental Europe for the last fifteen years. If you book a camping holiday with us, you’ll have a choice of over three hundred sites. In Italy we now have 64 sites that we either own, or have exclusive use of. France is where we have the majority of sites, and we currently have a project to expand into Switzerland. We also have a number of sites in Northern Spain, particularly in the mountainous region of Picos de Europa. We’ve upgraded all these Spanish sites, and improved them considerably from their original three-star rating. We believe our holidays offer superb facilities for the whole family. Parents who want their children to be fully occupied for all or part of the day can take advantage of our children’s activities. These are organized by our well-qualified and enthusiastic staff. Each day kicks off with a sports match, perhaps football, or volleyball, followed by an hour of drama for everyone. This may include singing or dancing, mime or other activities. In the afternoon, there’s a different art activity for each day of the week including a poster competition or model making. What’s more, our sites are truly child-friendly, and, with this in mind, we operate a no-noise rule in the evenings. Children’s evening activities usually finish at 9:30, or occasion ally 10, and from 10:30 holiday-makers are expected to be quiet in the areas where there are tents. There are many advantages to choosing PS Camping. As a regular customer, you’ll be kept informed of special offers. And you can benefit from ten per cent off our holidays, or book a luxury tent for the price of a standard one. If you recommend our holidays to others and they book one, we’ll send you a thank-you present, which you can choose from a list of high-quality items. 16.What do we know about PS Camping? 17.Where does PS Camping have the most sites? 18.What is the first activity of a day for children on holiday? 19.What benefit can you get from PS Camping as a regular customer? It was set up as a wholesaler 25 years ago. It sold camping equipment originally. It began offering holidays 10 years ago. It has been providing holidays for 50 years.

Be informed of latest holidays. Get a 20% discount off the holidays. Book a luxury tent for a lower price. Get a high-quality thank-you present.

The U.S. dollar was supposed to be at the end of its rope. Kicking the bucket Well, maybe not. The dollar continues to【C1】________gloom-and-doom predictions. After a swoon (低迷) last year, the dollar is again enjoying a major rally. The U.S. dollar index, which【C2】________the dollar’s value against other major currencies, is just off an eight-month high. The main reason behind the dollar’s【C3】________is actually no real surprise at all. There is no alternative able to replace the dollar as the world’s No.l currency. Sure, the U.S. budget deficit is expanding, the government’s debt is increasing, and Wall Street is still【C4】________itself. But the dollar remains the prettiest of a flock of ugly ducklings. Is any other major industrialized economy【C5】________better off than the U.S.? Not really. Just about the 【C6】________developed world is suffering with the same problems. That’s why when investors get nervous, they stiH rush to the good old dollar. The dollar wins because no one else is really in the game. The euro has been exposed as a【C7】________. Only a few months ago, economists truly believed the euro could【C8】________the dollar as the top reserve currency. Now experts are questioning if the euro has a future at all. The Greek debt crisis has【C9】________that the euro is only as strong as its weakest link. And after the euro, where do global investors turn? The yen? Japan’s economy, with higher government debt and crushing deflation (通货紧缩), has even deeper structural problems than America’s. Maybe over the next 20 or 30 years, the dollar will slowly lose the dominant status it holds today. That process, 【C10】________, could well be driven by. the appearance of new rivals. A) absolute E) concise I) recovery M) measures B) fraud F) revealed J) rival N) partially C) relieving G) defy K) slump O) repairing D) however H) entire L) particularly

groundless ridiculous justified popular

YouTube has built a global reputation as the place to go for video clips of singing cats, laughing babies, reckless drivers, and harsh wedding processionals. But there’s more to the site than pointless entertainment; there is a growing collection of university lectures available. Earlier this year YouTube launched a new home for education, YouTube EDU, which started as a volunteer project by company employees seeking a better way to aggregate educational content uploaded by U.S. colleges and universities. Last month the subsite went international, with 45 universities in Europe and Israel adding their content to the stream.