Competition for admission to the country’s top private schools has always been tough, but this year Elisabeth realized it had reached a new level. Her wake-up call came when a man called the Dalton School in Manhattan, where Elisabeth is admissions director, and inquired about the age cutoff for their kindergarten program. After providing the information, she asked about the age of his child. The man paused for an uncomfortably long time before answering. “Well, we don’t have a child yet. We’re trying to figure out when to conceive a child so the birthday is not a problem. “ Worries are spreading from Manhattan to the rest of the country. Precise current data on private schools are unavailable, but interviews with representatives of independent schools all told the same story: an oversupply of applicants, higher rejection rates. “We have people calling us for spots two years down the road, “said Marilyn of the Seven Hills School in Cincinnati. “We have grandparents calling for pregnant daughters. “ Public opinion polls indicate that Americans’ No. 1 concern is education. Now that the long economic boom has given parents more disposable income, many are turning to private schools, even at price tags of well over $ 10, 000 a year. “We’re getting applicants from a broader area geographically than we ever have in the past, “ said Betsy of the Latin School of Chicago, which experienced a 20 percent increase in applications this year. The problem for the applicants is that while demand has increased, supply has not. “ Every year, there are a few children who do not find places, but this year, for the first time that I know of, there are a significant number without places, “said Elisabeth. So what can parents do to give their 4-year-old an edge? Schools know there is no easy way to pick a class when children are so young. Many schools give preference to children of their graduates. Some make the choice by drawing lots. But most rely on a mix of subjective and objective measures: tests that at best identify developmental maturity and cognitive potential, interviews with parents and observation of applicants in classroom settings. They also want a diverse mix. Children may end up on a waiting list simply because their birthdays fall at the wrong time of year, or because too many applicants were boys. The worst thing a patent can do is to pressure preschoolers to perform—for example, by pushing them to read or do math exercises before they’re ready. Instead, the experts say, parents should take a breath and look for alternatives. Another year in preschool may be all that’s needed.

What was the first step in fighting against infectious disease?The first significant step in the fight against infectious disease was made in 17% with discovery of a vaccine to prevent smallpox by Edward Jenner. Jenner had become aware of the fact that milkmaids who had suffered from a mild illness, cowpox, were unlikely to catch the much more serious smallpox disease. Jenner experimented on a child, introducing cowpox into the bloodstream. Later, the child was inoculated with smallpox, but did not catch the disease. Jenner’s method had proved much safer than the fashionable technique of inoculation, which had been brought to Britain from Turkey by Lady Montague. Despite opposition from the medical establishment, many of whom made a good income from inoculation, the government backed Jenner’s claims: by 1853, vaccination had become compulsory for infants. Louis Pasteur was a French chemist who in 1867 was able to demonstrate for the first time that germs caused disease. Pasteur went on to develop vaccines for chicken cholera, anthrax and fabies. The new science of bacteriology was advanced further by a German scientist, Robert Koch. Using microscopes and innovative methods of staining germs, Koch was able to identify specific germs as being responsible for the cause of disease. In 1882 - 3, he identified the microbes responsible for tuberculosis (TB)and cholera. A rivalry developed between Pasteur and Koch, based in part on the tension which existed following France’s defeat in the Franco—Prussian war of 1870 -1. Both scientists were recognized in their own countries for their work, and set up with research centers. In 1881 .Pasteur, successfully tried vaccine which protected against anthrax in animals. Koch, who quickly heard of the breakthrough by telegram, attempted unsuccessfully to discredit Pasteur. When, in the following year, he had the opportunity to treat a boy with rabies called Joseph Meister, Pasteur succeeded in developing a rabies vaccine. The discovery of a vaccine. A powerful injection. The help of a milkmaid. The help from government.

Trees in rainforests have broad leaves. The advantage isPlants are adapted to the climate they live in for the most part. Trees in rainforests have broad leaves, shaped to encourage the heavy rain to run off the leaves. The large leaves encourage transpiration so the plants don’t overheat. In very dry climates plants may develop an ability to store water, such as the cactus, which also has its leaves reduced into tiny spines which reduce transpiration to almost nothing so its precious water is conserved. At the first sign of drought, plants close their leaf pores to prevent wilting and slowing down growth so that they need less water. Coniferous plants also have small spiky leaves so that they don’t lose too much water during the frozen winters. Grasses roll their leaves into tubes to protect their leaf pores from the drying effect of the wind. Tropical air plants have moisture sensitive plugs attached to their leaf pores which are pulled down over the pores, sealing them to hold in moisture, by the contraction of the stalks in dry weather. Plants are affected by strong winds which make them grow thicker and more stunted stems to strengthen and prevent themselves from being blown over. A special sort of strong wood called “reaction wood“ grows on the leeward side of the wind. Plants are also susceptible to waterlogging and freezing and many plants have developed complex mechanisms and adaptations to protect themselves from disasters. to accept more sun light to encourage the heavy rain to run off the leaves to shade their roots to hide their trunk

What’ s Tom’ s purpose of speaking to Mr. Clinton?Tom: Mr. Clinton, I have been with this company for five years. And I’ve always been very loyal to the company. And I feel that I’ve worked quite hard here. And I’ve never promoted. It’s getting to the point now in my life where, you know, I need more money. I would like to buy a car. I’d like to start a family, and maybe buy a house, all of which is impossible with the current salary you’ re paying me. Mr. Clinton: Tom, I know you’ve been with the company for a while, but raises here are based on merit, not on length of employment. Now, you do your job adequately, but you don’t do it well enough to deserve a raise at this time. I’ve told you before, to earn a raise you need to take more initiative and show more enthusiasm for the job. Uh, for instance, maybe find a way to make the office run more efficiently. Tom: All right. Maybe I could show a little more enthusiasm. I still think that I work hard here. But a company does have at least an obligation to pay its employees enough to live on. And the salary I’m getting here isn’t enough. I can barely cover my expenses. Mr. Clinton: Tom, again, I pay people what they’re worth to the company, not what they think they need to live on comfortably. If you did that the company would go out of business. Tom: Yes, but I have... I have been here for five years and I have been very loyal. And it’s absolutely necessary for me to have a raise or I cannot justify keeping this job any more. Mr. Clinton: Well, that’s a decision you’ll have to make for yourself, Tom. Asking for housing. Asking for a promotion. Asking for a raise. Asking for some help for work.

In 1942, the HMS Edinburgh was sunk in the Barents Sea. It was on its【C1】______back to Britain with ninety-one boxes of Russian gold.【C2】______thirty-nine years it lay there, too deep for divers to【C3】______. No one was allowed to explode it, either, since the bodies of sixty of the crew also lay in the【C4】______. Then, in 1981, an ex-diver called Jessop decided to try using new diving techniques. 【C5】______he could not afford to finance the【C6】______which was going to cost four million pounds, he had to look for people who were【C7】______to take the risk.【C8】______, they were not even sure the gold was going to be there! First a Scottish diving company, then a German shipping company agreed to join in the retrieval【C9】______Not long after that, Jessop【C10】______a fourth company to take a【C11】______. Since the gold was the【C12】______of the British and the Soviet governments, they both hoped to make a【C13】______, too! The biggest problem was how to get【C14】______the gold. Fortunately, they were able to examine the Edinburgh’s sister ship, the HMS Belfast, to【C15】______out the exact location of the bomb room,【C16】______the gold was stored. They knew it was to be an extremely difficult and dangerous undertaking. To reach the gold, they would have to cut a large square【C17】______the body of the ship, go through the empty fuel tank and down to the bomb room. After twenty-eight dives, they【C18】______to find the first bar. Everyone worked【C19】______the clock, helping to clean and stack the gold,【C20】______as to finish the job as quickly as possible.

No man has been more harshly judged than Machiavelli, especially in the two centuries following his death. But he has since found many able champions and the tide has turned. The prince has been termed a manual for tyrants, the effect of which has been most harmful. But were Machiavelli’s doctrines really new? Did he discover them? He merely had the frankness and courage to write down what everybody was thinking and what everybody knew. He merely gives us the impressions he had received from a long and intimate intercourse with princes and the affairs of state. It was Lord Bacon who said that Machiavelli tells us what princes do, not what they ought to do. When Machiavelli takes Caesar Borgia as a model, he does not praise him as a hero at all, but merely as a prince who was capable of attaining the end in view. The life of the state was the primary object. It must be maintained. And Machiavelli has laid down the principles, based upon his stud-y and wide experience, by which this may be accomplished. He wrote from the view-point of the politician—not of the moralist. What is good politics may be bad morals, and in fact, by a strange fatality, where morals and politics clash, the latter generally gets the upper hand. And will anyone contend that the principles set forth by Machiavelli in his Prince or his Discourses have entirely perished from the earth? Has diplomacy been entirely stripped of fraud and duplicity? Let anyone read the famous eighteenth chapter of The Prince: “ In what Manner Princes should Keep their Faith, “ and he will be convinced that what was true nearly four hundred years ago, is quite as true today. Of the remaining works of Machiavelli the most important is the History of Florence written between 1521 and 1525, and dedicated to Clement VII. This book is merely a rapid review of the Middle Ages, and as part of it the history of Florence. Machiavelli’s method has been criticized for adhering at times too closely to the chroniclers of his time, and at others rejecting their testimony without apparent reason, while in its details the authority of his History is often questionable. It is the straightforward , logical narrative, which always holds the interest of the reader, that is the greatest charm of the History.

William Shakespeare described old age as“second childishness“—no teeth, no eyes, no taste. In the case of taste he may, musically speaking, have been more perceptive than he realised. A paper in Neurology by Giovanni Frisoni and his colleagues at the National Centre for Research and Care of Alzheimers’s Disease in Italy, shows that frontotemporal dementia can affect musical desires in ways that suggest a regression, if not to infancy, then at least to a patient’s teens. Frontotemporal dementia, a disease usually found with old people, is caused, as its name suggests, by damage to the front and sides of the brain. These regions are concerned with speech, and with such“ higher“ functions as abstract thinking and judgment. Two of such patients intrigued Dr Frisoni. One was a 68-year-old lawyer, the other a 73-year-old housewife. Both had undamaged memories, but displayed the sorts of defect associated with frontotemporal dementia—a diagnosis that was confirmed by brain scanning. About two years after he was first diagnosed, the lawyer, once a classical music lover who referred to pop music as“ mere noise“ , started listening to the Italian pop band “883“. As his command of language and his emotional attachments to friends and family deteriorated, he continued to listen to the band at full volume for many hours a day. The housewife had not even had the lawyer’s love of classical music, having never enjoyed music of any sort in the past. But about a year after her diagnosis she became very interested in the songs that her 11-year-old granddaughter was listening to. This kind of change in musical taste was not seen in any of the Alzheimer’s patients, and thus appears to be specific to those with frontotemporal dementia. And other studies have remarked on how frontotemporal-dementia patients sometimes gain new talents. Five sufferers who developed artistic abilities are known. And in another case, one woman with the disease suddenly started composing and singing country and western songs. Dr Frisoni speculates that the illness is causing people to develop a new attitude towards novel experiences, Previous studies of novelty-seeking behaviour suggest that it is managed by the brain’s right frontal lobe. A predominance of the right over the left frontal lobe, caused by damage to the latter, might thus lead to a quest for new experience. Alternatively, the damage may have affected some specific nervous system that is needed to appreciate certain kinds of music. Whether that is a gain or a loss is a different matter. As Dr Frisoni puts it in his article, there is no accounting for taste.

Competition for admission to the country’s top private schools has always been tough, but this year Elisabeth realized it had reached a new level. Her wake-up call came when a man called the Dalton School in Manhattan, where Elisabeth is admissions director, and inquired about the age cutoff for their kindergarten program. After providing the information, she asked about the age of his child. The man paused for an uncomfortably long time before answering. “Well, we don’t have a child yet. We’re trying to figure out when to conceive a child so the birthday is not a problem. “ Worries are spreading from Manhattan to the rest of the country. Precise current data on private schools are unavailable, but interviews with representatives of independent schools all told the same story: an oversupply of applicants, higher rejection rates. “We have people calling us for spots two years down the road, “said Marilyn of the Seven Hills School in Cincinnati. “We have grandparents calling for pregnant daughters. “ Public opinion polls indicate that Americans’ No. 1 concern is education. Now that the long economic boom has given parents more disposable income, many are turning to private schools, even at price tags of well over $ 10, 000 a year. “We’re getting applicants from a broader area geographically than we ever have in the past, “ said Betsy of the Latin School of Chicago, which experienced a 20 percent increase in applications this year. The problem for the applicants is that while demand has increased, supply has not. “ Every year, there are a few children who do not find places, but this year, for the first time that I know of, there are a significant number without places, “said Elisabeth. So what can parents do to give their 4-year-old an edge? Schools know there is no easy way to pick a class when children are so young. Many schools give preference to children of their graduates. Some make the choice by drawing lots. But most rely on a mix of subjective and objective measures: tests that at best identify developmental maturity and cognitive potential, interviews with parents and observation of applicants in classroom settings. They also want a diverse mix. Children may end up on a waiting list simply because their birthdays fall at the wrong time of year, or because too many applicants were boys. The worst thing a patent can do is to pressure preschoolers to perform—for example, by pushing them to read or do math exercises before they’re ready. Instead, the experts say, parents should take a breath and look for alternatives. Another year in preschool may be all that’s needed.

In the 16thand 17th centuries, two persons helped lay the foundation of modern education. Comenius, a Czech humanist, greatly influenced both educational and psycho-educational thought. He wrote texts that were based on a developmental theory and in them introduced the use of visual aids in instruction. Media and instructional research, a vital part of contemporary educational psychology , has its origins in the writing and textbook design of Comenius.【T1】He recommended that instruction start with the general and then move to the particular and that nothing in books be accepted unless checked by a demonstration to the senses. He taught that understanding, not memory, is the goal of instruction: that we learn best that which we have an opportunity to teach: and that parents have a role to play in the schooling of their children. The contributions of one of our many ancestors often are overlooked, yet Juan Luis Vives wrote very much as a contemporary educational psychologist might in the first part of the 16 th century.【T2】He stated to teachers and others with educational responsibilities, such as those in government and commerce, that there should be an orderly presentation of the facts to be learned, and in this way he anticipated Herbart and the 19th-century psychologists. He noted that what is to be learned must be practiced, and in this way he anticipated Thorndike’s Law of Exercise. He wrote on practical knowledge and the need to engage student interest, anticipating Dewey.【T3】He wrote a-bout individual differences and about the need to adjust instruction for all students, and anticipated the work of educational and school psychologists in the area of special education. He discussed the schools’s role in moral growth, anticipating the work of Dewey, Piaget, Kohlberg, and Gilligan. He wrote about learning being dependent on self-activity, a precursor to contemporary research on meta-cognition, where the ways in which the self monitors its own activties are studied. Finally,【T4】Vives anticipated both the contemporary motivational theorists who avoid social comparisons and those researchers who find the harmful elements of norm-referenced testing to outweigh their advantages, by writing about the need for students to be evaluated on the basis of their own past accomplishments and not in comparison with other students.【T5】Thus, long before we claimed our professional identity, there were individuals thinking intelligently about what we would eventually call educational psychology, preparing the way for the scientific study of education.

Study the following cartoon carefully and write an essay on it. In your essay, you should (1)describe the cartoon briefly, (2)analyze this situation, and (3)give your comments. You should write 160—200 words neatly on ANSWER SHEET 2. [*]

[*]Interviewer: Hi, John. You’ve been in Japan for a long time. John: Mmm. Interviewer: What differences do you notice between the two countries? John: Well, people in England usually live leisurely and I find people are much busier in Japan. They seem to work the whole day, from Monday to Saturday, even in summer. Interviewer: Oh. John: It’s very hot and humid, and you need to take showers three times a day. Interviewer: Yes, it’s cooler in England. John: That’s right. But in the north, it’s much colder than England, especially in winter—thirty degrees below zero. I’ve also found that Japan is much more mountainous than Britain, especially in the north. The mountains are much higher and much more rocky. They are very beautiful. Interviewer: You like mountains. John: Yes. As Japan is a mountainous country, the cities are more crowed and the houses are smaller. They don’t have a lot of space. Interviewer: Are there a lot of tall buildings in big cities? John: No, not many, because there are a lot of earthquakes and the pollution. Interviewer: Thank you, John.

[*]Hello, I’ll be your tour guide today here at the art museum, so I’d like to welcome you to this month’s exhibit of Native American pottery. We’ll begin our tour in a few minutes. But first I’m going to tell you something a-bout the way this pottery was created. Pottery was made all over ancient North America by many different groups of people. One of the earliest of these ancient American cultures was the Hohokam people. They lived in what is now Arizona from about 300 BC to AD 1500. And it’s their pottery that you will be looking at today. All of the pottery was made from clay. Some objects were mugs, bowls for drinking and eating. You will also see finger rings and animal-shaped incense burners which we believe were probably used in special ritual. The Hohokam formed their pottery vessels from coils of clay. Then shaped them with special tool: create very thin sides on the vessels. Afterwards they painted the pottery with red design. Actual... many of the pieces here have designs right on them that show how the pottery was used. Now, I hope you’ll enjoy the beauty and the uniqueness of the Hohokam pottery and that will give you some interesting insights about the people who created it. Please feel free to ask me any questions and thank you for joining us today.

Who’s to blame? The trail of responsibility goes beyond poor maintenance of British railways, say industry critics. Stingy governments—both Labor and Tory—have cut down on investments in trains and rails. In the mid-1990s a Conservative government pushed through the sale of the entire subsidy-guzzling rail network. Operating franchises were parceled out among private companies and a separate firm, Railtrack, was awarded ownership of the tracks and stations. In the future, the theory ran back then, the private sector could pay for any improvements—with a little help from the state—and take the blame for any failings. Today surveys show that travelers believe privatization is one of the reasons for the railways’s failures. They ask whether the pursuit of profits is compatible with guaranteeing safety. Worse, splitting the network between companies has made coordination nearly impossible. “The railway was torn apart at privatization and the structure that was put in place was...designed, if we are honest, to maximize the proceeds to the Treasury, “ said Railtrack boss Gerald Corbett before resigning last month in the wake of the Hatfield crash. Generally, the contrasts with mainland Europe are stark. Over the past few decades the Germans, French and Italians have invested 50 percent more than the British in transportation infrastructure. As a result, a web of high-speed trains now crisscross the Continent, funded by governments willing to commit state funds to major capital projects. Spain is currently planning 1, 000 miles of new highspeed track. In France superfast trains already shuttle between all major cities, often on dedicated lines. And in Britain? When the Eurostar trains that link Paris, London and Brussels emerge from the Channel Tunnel onto British soil and join the crowded local network, they must slow down from 186 mph to a maximum of 100 mph—and they usually have to go even slower. For once, the government is listening. After all, commuters are voters, too. In a pre-vote spending spree, the government has committed itself to huge investment in transportation, as well as education and the public health service. Over the next 10 years, the railways should get an extra ￡60 billion, partly through higher subsidies to the private companies. As Blair ackoowledged last month, “Britain has been underinvested in and investment is central to Britain’s future. “ You don’t have to tell the 3 million passengers who use the railways every day. Last week trains to Darlington were an hour late—and crawling at Locomotion No. 1 speeds.

Which of the following can serve as a title of this text?

From the text, we can infer that the author

The text indicates that private schools are very selective because they

The sentence“We have people...down the road“ (Line 4, Paragraph 2)probably means

From this text we learn that it is