What’ s the main topic of this passage?Before a new plane goes into service, every part of it is tested again and again. But there are two tests that are more important than all the others. In , the first test, a modern airliner must fly at very high altitudes. Air must be pushed into the airliner so that the passengers can breathe. The metal structure of the plane has to be very strong for this reason. When the airliner is filled with air, the air presses against the skin of the plane inside. The pressure on a small window, for instance, is like a huge, giant foot that is trying to get out. If a small part of the plane were to crack, the plane would explode in the sky. It is lowered into a huge tank of water to test the structrue of the plane. Then it is filled with air. The pressure inside the plane is greater than it ever will be when it is in the air. Finally, there is an explosion. Engineers can discover which part of the plane has cracked. In the second test, the test pilot must find out exactly what happens when all the engines are shut off at once. He takes the plane up very high. Then he shuts the engines off, the plane begins to fall like a stone. It is the pilot’s job to find out how he can control the plane again. These two tests are examples of how planes are made safe before they ever carry passengers. It’ s about the tests of a new airliner before its flying. It’ s about how to protect a new airliner. It’ s about how to train a new pilot. It’ s about what the airliner engineers should do.

[*]M: Hello, Peggy. Why are you going through all those newspapers? W: Oh, David. I’ m trying to find a flat and I’ ve got to go through all these advertisements. I just can’t find anything good. M: Are you wanting to share or do you want a flat on your own? W: Well, you know Sara and Mary? I’ d really like to share with them. M: Well, I know of an empty flat. I don’t know if you’ d like it. It is on the No. 10 bus route in Woodsite Road No. 12, I think it is. W: Oh, I know Woodside Road and the bus is the one that brings me to work. It would be a marvelous place. How many rooms has it got? M: Well, it’ s got kitchen and bathroom. Um, apart from that I think it’ s got two bedrooms. W: Mm, well, I suppose two of us could share. How much is the rent? M: I think they want $ 21 a week for it. W: Oh, that’ s fine, that would be $ 7 each. I don’t really want to spend more than $ 7. M: No, but you see the trouble is it might be a bit noisy. Woodside Road is really quite busy. It’ s on the bus route after all. With all that traffic going past I don’t know if you’ d really like it. W: Oh, that doesn’t matter, we’ d be out all day. It’ s marvelous to be on the bus route, we wouldn’ t have to walk at all and we’ d get to work so quickly. Oh thanks so much, David. I must go and tell Sara and Mary. M: Well, I hope it’ s what you want. W: Oh yes, thanks a lot. M: That’ s all right.

How long does a master’ s degree take in Switzerland?Here in Switzerland you get a bachelor’ s degree in two years and three years later a master’ s. Usually, people stop at a master’ s, but if you want to go on for a Ph. D. , that takes another four years. Most people stay in one subject, so you need to decide the direction you want to take after high school. There are required core courses for bachelor’ s and master’ s programs. My university is a technical university, so the core courses are the same for everybody—computer science, mathematics, physics, mechanics and so on. For students specializing in computer science, there is another set of required courses that we call basic computer science. Completing these takes two years. At that point, you can choose a specialty in one of the four areas—system software, information technology, hardware or theoretical computer science. For students doing Ph. D. , the program is mostly fixed in the first four semesters. During the next two years, you can choose up to 90 percent of what you want to study. There’ s a booklet of about 50 courses from which to choose. I think computer science education in Switzerland is particularly good in that it is quite wide-ranging, from theoretical computer science and mathematical computer science to databases and computer systems. It’ s possible that there’ s more emphasis in the U. S. on applied Information Technology because in America, there are more grants available for basic research at the Ph. D. level from the companies or the U. S. government. This is not the case here. We normally get our money from the state, and we are restricted to applied research. One year. Two years. Three years. Four years.

Using a public telephone may well be one of the minor irritations of life, demanding patience, determination and a strong possibility of failure together on occasion with considerable unpopularity. The hopeful【C1】______(shall we call him George?) waits till six o’ clock in the evening to take【C2】______of the so-called “cheap rates“ for a long distance call. The telephone box, with two broken panes of glass in the side, stands at the【C3】______of two main roads with buses, lorries and cars roaring past. It is pouring with rain as George【C4】______a queue of four depressed-looking people. Time passes slowly and seems to come to a standstill【C5】______the person immediately before George【C6】______on an endless conversation, pausing only to insert another coin every minute or so. Eventually the receiver is replaced and the caller leaves the【C7】______. George enters and picks up one of the directories inside, only to discover that someone unknown has torn out the 【C8】______page he needs. Nothing for it but to dial Directory Enquiries. He waits patiently for a reply (while someone outside【C9】______repeatedly on the door) and finally notes down the number given. At last George can go【C10】______with his call. Just as he is starting to dial, however, the door opens and an unpleasant-looking face peers in with the demand “can’t you hurry up?“. 【C11】______such barbarity, George continues to dial and his unwanted companion withdraws. At last he hears the burr-burr of the ringing【C12】______, immediately followed by rapid pips demanding his money, but he is now so upset that he knocks down the coins he has placed ready on the top of the box. Having at last located them, he dials again the pips are repeated and he hastily inserts the coins. A cold voice【C13】______him, “Grand Hotel, Chalfont Well. “ “I’ve an urgent message for a Mr. Smith who is a guest in your hotel. Could you put me through to him? I’ m afraid I don’ t know his room number. “ The response appears less than enthusiastic and a long silence【C14】______. George inserts more coins. Then the voice informs him, “I’ ve been trying to locate Mr. Smith but the hall porter reports having seen him leave about a minute ago. “ Breathing heavily, George【C15】______the receiver, just as the knocking on the door starts again.

The time for sharpening pencils, arranging your desk, and doing almost anything else instead of writing has ended. The first draft will appear on the page only if you stop avoiding the inevitable and sit, stand up, or lie down to write. 【R1】______. Be flexible. Your outline should smoothly conduct you from one point to the next, but do not permit it to railroad you. If a relevant and important idea occurs to you now, work it into the draft. 【R2】______. Grammar, punctuation, and spelling can wait until you revise. Concentrate on what you are saying. Good writing most often occurs when you are in hot pursuit of an idea rather than in a nervous search for errors. 【R3】______. Your pages will be easier to keep track of that way, and, if you have to clip a paragraph to place it elsewhere, you will not lose any writing on the other side. If you are working on a word processor, you can take advantage of its capacity to make additions and deletions as well as move entire paragraphs by making just a few simple keyboard commands. Some software programs can also check spelling and certain grammatical elements in your writing. 【R4】______. These printouts are also easier to read than the screen when you work on revisions. Once you have a first draft on paper, you can delete material that is unrelated to your thesis and add material necessary to illustrate your points and make your paper convincing. The student who wrote “The A & P as a State of Mind“ wisely dropped a paragraph that questioned whether Sammy displays chauvinistic attitudes toward women. 【R5】______. Remember that your initial draft is only that. You should go through the paper many times— and then again—working to substantiate and clarify your ideas. You may even end up with several entire versions of the paper. Rewrite. The sentences within each paragraph should be related to a single topic. Transitions should connect one paragraph to the next so that there are no abrupt or confusing shifts. Awkward or wordy phrasing or unclear sentences and paragraphs should be mercilessly poked and prodded into shape. [A] To make revising easier, leave wide margins and extra space between lines so that you can easily add words, sentences, and corrections. Write on only one side of the paper. [B] After you have clearly and adequately developed the body of your paper, pay particular attention to the introductory and concluding paragraphs. It’ s probably best to write the introduction last, after you know precisely what you are introducing. Concluding paragraphs demand equal attention because they leave the reader with a final impression. [C] It’ s worth remembering, however, that though a clean copy fresh off a printer may look terrific , it will read only as well as the thinking and writing that have gone into it. Many writers prudently store their data on disks and print their pages each time they finish a draft to avoid losing any material because of power failures or other problems. [D] It makes no difference how you write, just so you do. Now that you have developed a topic into a tentative thesis, you can assemble your notes and begin to flesh out whatever outline you have made. [E] Although this is an interesting issue, it has nothing to do with the thesis, which explains how the setting influences Sammy’ s decision to quit his job. Instead of including that paragraph, she added one that described Lengel’ s crabbed response to the girls so that she could lead up to the “A &P-policy“ he enforces. [F] In the final paragraph about the significance of the setting in “A &P“ , the student brings together the reasons Sammy quit his job by referring to his refusal to accept Lengel’ s store policies. [G] By using the first draft as a means of thinking about what you want to say, you will very likely discover more than your notes originally suggested. Plenty of good writers don’ t use outlines at all but discover ordering principles as they write. Do not attempt to compose a perfectly correct draft the first time around.

Read the following text(s) and write an essay to 1) summarize the main points of the text(s), 2) make clear your own viewpoints, and 3) justify your stand. In your essay, make full use of the information provided in the text(s). If you use more than three consecutive words from the text(s), use quotation marks(“ “). You should write 160 -200 words on the ANSWER SHEET. An invisible border divides those arguing for computers in the classroom on the behalf of students’ career prospects and those arguing for computers in the classroom for broader reasons of radical educational reform. There are some good arguments for a technical education given the right kind of student. Many European schools introduce the concept of professional training early on in order to make sure children are properly equipped for the professions they want to join. It is, however, presumptuous to insist that there will only be so many jobs for so many scientists, so many businessmen, so many accountants. Besides, this is unlikely to produce the needed number of every kind of professional in a country as large as ours and where the economy is spread over so many states and involves so many international corporations. But, for a small group of students, professional training might be the way to go since well-developed skills, all other factors being equal, can be the difference between having a job and not. Of course, the basics of using any computer these days are very simple. It does not take a lifelong acquaintance to pick up various software programs. If one wanted to become a computer engineer, that is, of course, an entirely different story. Basic computer skills take—at the very longest—a couple of months to learn. In any case, basic computer skills are only complementary to the host of real skills that are necessary to becoming any kind of professional. It should be observed, of course, that no school, vocational or not, is helped by a confusion over its purpose.

No company likes to be told it is contributing to the moral decline of a nation. “ Is this what you like to accomplish with your careers?“ an American senator asked Time Warner executives recently. “ You have sold your souls, but must you corrupt our nation and threaten our children as well?“ At Time Warner, however, such questions are simply the latest manifestation of the soul-searching that has involved the company ever since the company was born in 1990. It’s a self-examination that has, at different times, involved issues of responsibility, creative freedom and the corporate bottom line. At the core of this debate is chairman Gerald Levin, 56, who took over from the late Steve Ross in the early 1990s. On the financial front, Levin is under pressure to raise the stock price and reduce the company’s mountainous debt, which will increase to $ 17.3 billion after two new cable deals close. He has promised to sell off some of the property and restructure the company, but investors are waiting impatiently. The flap over rap is not making life any easier for him. Levin has consistently defended the company’s rap music on the grounds of expression. In 1992, when Time Warner was under fire for releasing Ice-T’s violent rap song Cop Killer, Levin described rap as a lawful expression of street culture, which deserves an outlet. “ The test of any democratic society, “ he wrote in a Wall Street Journal column, “ lies not in how well it can control expression but in whether it gives freedom of thought and expression the widest possible latitude, however disputable or irritating the results may sometimes be. We won’t retreat when we face any threats. Levin would not comment on the debate last week, but there were signs that the chairman was backing off his hard-line stand, at least to some extent. During the discussion of rock singing verses at last month’s stockholders’ meeting, Levin asserted that “music is not the cause of society’s ills “and even cited his son, a teacher in the Bronx, New York, who uses rap to communicate with students. But he talked as well about the “balanced struggle“between creative freedom and social responsibility, and he proclaimed that the company would launch a drive to develop standards for distribution and labeling of potentially objectionable music. The 15-member Time Warner board is generally supportive of Levin and his corporate strategy. But insiders say some of them have shown their concerns in this matter. “Some of us have known for many, many years that the freedoms under the First Amendment are not totally unlimited, “says Luce. “I think it is perhaps the case that some people associated with the company have only recently come to realize this.

In the 1960s the West Coast became an important center for rock music. Los Angeles and Southern California are famous for sunshine and surfing. There, a quieter kind of rock called surf rock became famous. The Beach Boys sang songs like “Surfin’ U. S. A. “ , “California Girls“ and “Fun, Fun, Fun“. These songs made people dream about the good life in California. San Francisco was a center for young people and rock music in the late 1960s. This was the time of the Vietnam War, student protest, hippies, and drugs. Hippies talked about love and peace. They wore brightly colored clothes and had long hair. They listened to rock and folk-rock music. Drugs were a serious problem during that time. The deaths of three young rock stars, Janis Jo-pling, Jim Morrison and the great guitar player Jimi Hendrix were all related to drugs. Not all of the rock musicians came from California or the U. S. A. . That was the time of the great British rock groups like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. British rock musicians had a very important place in the rock music of the 1960s in America. Another kind of softer rock music was created by the singers. Singers like Joni Mitchell and James Taylor wrote their own lyrics and their own music. Their songs were about love and friendship, good and bad times. In the 1960s big rock concerts were very welcomed by everyone. The most famous concert was Woodstock. In 1969 in New York State, a million young people came together to hear the rock stars. This peaceful Woodstock concert was the most important musical event of the 1960s. After World War II a great number of black people moved from the South to the big industrial cities like New York, Detroit, and Philadelphia. Many black people lived in poor parts of the city such as Harlem in New York. Musicians wrote and sang about life in the big cities. Life was difficult but music and dancing made it a little easier. Popular black music had a strong beat for dancing. At first this music was called rhythm and blues. The 1960s called it soul. In Detroit, a black musician named Berry Gordy set up an all black record company. It was called Motown. Motown or motor town is another name for Detroit, where cars are made. Most of the famous soul musicians like the Supremes, the Temptations, and the Jackson Five recorded with Motown.

[*]Shakespeare was born in 1564. He probably studied Latin in the village school, and his plays show that he had read widely the books in his day, but we know little of his education. He left his hometown in 1586 and in 1592 he was well known in London as an actor and a dramatist. In the next few years he published two poems, and by this time he was also writing some famous poems. His life seems to have lacked the adventure found in the careers of many Elizabethans and indeed in those of some of his early dramatists. He early became a member of one of the leading dramatic companies and he continued a shareholder in its profits until his death. Shakespeare’ s plays were popular both in the theatre and at court, but less than half were printed. It was only late in his career that man began to realize that his successful and interesting dramas were to be a part of the world’ s great literature. Shakespeare did not appear as an actor after 1603, but he continued writing plays for nearly ten years more, when he was retired to his hometown, where he died in 1616.

When was Twain bom?Mark Twain, who wrote the story we are going to read, travelled quite a lot, often because circumstances, usually financial circumstances forced him to. He was born in Florida Missouri in 1835, and moved to Hannibal Missouri with his family when he was about four years old. Most people think he was born in Hannibal, but that wasn’ t true. After his father died when he was about 12, Twain worked in Hannibal for a while and then left so that he could earn more money. He worked for a while as a type-setter on various newspapers and then got a job as a river pilot on the Mississippi. Twain loved his job and many of his books showed it. The river job didn’ t last, however, because of the outbreak of the Civil War. Twain was in the Confederal Army for just two weeks and then he and his whole company went to West to get away from the war and the army. In Nevada and California, Twain prospected for silver and gold without much luck but did succeed as a writer. When that happened, Twain travelled around the country, giving lectures and earning enough money to go to Europe. Twain didn’ t travel much the last ten years of his life and he didn’ t publish much either. Somehow, his travels, even when forced, inspired his writings. Like many other popular writers, Twain derived much of the materials for his writing from the wealth and diversity of his own personal experiences. 1865. 1825. 1835 1845

What’ s the main topic of this passage?Before a new plane goes into service, every part of it is tested again and again. But there are two tests that are more important than all the others. In , the first test, a modern airliner must fly at very high altitudes. Air must be pushed into the airliner so that the passengers can breathe. The metal structure of the plane has to be very strong for this reason. When the airliner is filled with air, the air presses against the skin of the plane inside. The pressure on a small window, for instance, is like a huge, giant foot that is trying to get out. If a small part of the plane were to crack, the plane would explode in the sky. It is lowered into a huge tank of water to test the structrue of the plane. Then it is filled with air. The pressure inside the plane is greater than it ever will be when it is in the air. Finally, there is an explosion. Engineers can discover which part of the plane has cracked. In the second test, the test pilot must find out exactly what happens when all the engines are shut off at once. He takes the plane up very high. Then he shuts the engines off, the plane begins to fall like a stone. It is the pilot’s job to find out how he can control the plane again. These two tests are examples of how planes are made safe before they ever carry passengers. It’ s about the tests of a new airliner before its flying. It’ s about how to protect a new airliner. It’ s about how to train a new pilot. It’ s about what the airliner engineers should do.

Parents now have a popular belief that schools are no longer interested in spelling. No school I have taught in has ever ignored spelling or considered it unimportant as a basic skill. There are, however, greatly different ideas about how to teach it or how much priority(优先)it must be given over general language development and writing ability. The problem is that how to encourage a child to express himself freely and confidently in writing without holding him back with the complexities of spelling. If spelling becomes the only focal point of his teacher’s interest, clearly a bright child will be likely to “play safe“. He will be prone to write only words within his spelling range, choosing to a-void adventurous language. That’s why teachers often encourage the early use of dictionaries and pay attention to content rather than technical ability. I was once shocked to read on the bottom of a sensitive piece of writing about a personal experience : “ This work is terrible! There are far too many spelling errors and your writing is illegible(难以辨认的). “It may have been a sharp criticism of the pupil’s technical abilities in writing, but it was also a sad reflection on the teacher who had omitted to read the essay, which included some beautiful expressions of the child’s deep feelings. The teacher was not wrong to draw attention to the errors, but if his priorities had centred on the child’s ideas, an expression of his disappointment with the presentation would have given the pupil more motivation(动力)to seek improvement.

【T1】While there are almost as many definitions of history as there are historians, modern practice most closely conforms to one that sees history as the attempt to recreate and explain the significant events of the past. Caught in the web of its own time and place, each generation of historians determines anew what is significant for it in the past. In this search the evidence found is always incomplete and scattered; it is also frequently partial or partisan. The irony of the historians craft is that its practitioners always know that their efforts are but contributions to an unending process. Interest in historical methods has arisen less through external challenge to the validity of history as an intellectual discipline and more from internal quarrels among historians themselves. While history once revered its affinity to literature and philosophy, the emerging social sciences seemed to afford greater opportunities for asking new questions and providing rewarding approaches to an understanding of the past. Social science methodologies had to be adapted to a discipline governed by the primacy of historical sources rather than the imperatives of the contemporary world. 【T2】During this transfer, traditional historical methods were augmented by additional methodologies designed to interpret the new forms of evidence in the historical study. Methodology is a term that remains inherently ambiguous in the historical profession. 【T3】There is no agreement whether methodology refers to the concepts peculiar to historical work in general or to the research techniques appropriate to the various branches of historical inquiry. Historians , especially those so blinded by their research interests that they have been accused of “ tunnel method“ , frequently fall victim to the“technicist fallacy“. 【T4】Also common in the natural sciences, the technicist fallacy mistakenly identifies the discipline as a whole with certain parts of its technical implementation. 【T5】It applies equally to traditional historians who view history as only the external and internal criticism of sources. And to social science historians who equate their activity with specific techniques.

For what purpose does the pilot shut off all the engines?

What would happen if a small part of the plane were to crack?

Why air must be pumped into the plane?