W: I know your company was one of the biggest American corporations to take the idea of customer services seriously... M: Yes, um, I think you can say we were among the pioneers. W: So, with the experience of many years of trying to get it right, what would you define as the most important elements in providing successful customer services? M: Mm... well, that’s quite a difficult question, because so many factors are absolutely vital if you want to succeed, and success with the customer services, I might add, means doing everything you possibly can to please and keep customers. W: Does that include the old idea that, for a company, the customer is always right? M: Not exactly. The slogan that the customer is always right is rather simple, and unrealistic. I would say that, instead, the most important aim of a customer services unit is to encourage communication with customers, to actively seek feedback, including complaints, and to acknowledge all comments, good and bad, from customers because people like to be treated with respect. W: Then what do you think are the most important factors for a company’s success? M: It seems to me that a company’s success, in terms of good reputation and high profits, depends more on the relationship the company establishes with the customers. That relationship involves the company in consistently providing high-quality products and top-quality services. W: So what you’re saying is, in fact, very simply—basically, keeping customers happy depends on providing quality and encouraging communication. M: Yes, but the essential factor is communication. A successful customer services unit is one that acts as a link between the company and the customer to ensure that the company can respond to the needs of the customer. After all, a company’s success can only come from a satisfied customer. 9. According to the conversation, what does success with the customer services mean? 10. What do a company’s good reputation and high profits depend on according to the conversation? 11. What can be said to be the function of the customer services unit? Providing high-quality products for customers. Providing good services for customers. Doing everything you can to please and keep customers. Establishing dialogues with the customers.

This is 4 o’clock. Here is the news summary. There has been a serious accident on the M6 motor way in Lancashire, in which as least 6 people have lost their lives. It happened early this morning near Preston, when a coach carrying 45 passengers collided with a heavy lorry. Rescue operations had been going on throughout the day and the section of the motor way has been closed to traffic. Important talks had been taking place at 10 Downing Street today between the prime minister and trade union leaders. They have agreed to work together to find ways of combating inflation and reducing the present level of unemployment in British industry. Meanwhile the government has failed to avert a national bus strike. And the bus drivers’ union has announced that no buses will run for next Monday. The decision to go ahead of the strike was announced by a union spokesman at the end of a meeting earlier this afternoon, during which government representatives failed to persuade the union and the employers to agree on a new wage plan. The forest fire in southern France. Firemen from 6 different towns had been fighting all day to prevent the fire from spreading further. Latest reports say that the blaze had still not been brought under control. And an estimated 3 million pounds worth of damage has already been caused. Four people have died in the fire so far, and 20 more have been taken to hospital with burns and other injuries. The French government has asked all tourists to avoid the area. 22. What does the news say about the accident on the M6 motor way in Lancashire? 23. What issue did the prime minister and trade u-nion leaders try to solve? 24. What can we learn about the bus strike according to the news? 25. What damage has been caused by the fire? It happened in the night. There was no survivor. A lorry collided with a coach. The collision was caused by fog.

Most of us know to stay low to the floor if we’re caught in a fire, or head to the basement if a storm’s coming, or board up the windows in a hurricane. But because relatively few of us live along fault lines, the massive earthquake that hit Haiti was a reminder that we’re far less experienced in what to do when the ground below us shakes. If we’re in a house or building, for example, our first impulse might be to run outside—but, counterintuitive(与直觉相反的)as it might sound, experts warn against that since people are too often killed by falling or fallen objects as they try to escape. Of course, just as the best way to survive car crashes is to make safer cars, the best way to reduce the risk of being killed in an earthquake is to enact stronger building codes. But given how many of us travel in quake-prone regions today—including, tragically, the four students and two professors from Lynn University in Florida who perished in the Haiti quake—even folks who don’t reside in California should know how to survive an earthquake. But there are two different, and at times competing, schools of thought on the matter—both of which are considered valid but perhaps not always in the same situations. The most conventional and widely accepted practice by the disaster-response community is the “drop, cover and hold on“ approach, which urges people to take cover beneath something like a heavy table to avoid falling objects. The newer method—and less researched—is known as the “triangle of life.“ It rec-ommends lying down in a fetal position not under but next to furniture; as roofs and walls collapse on the top of those sofas and desks, buffer(缓冲)spaces are created that protect people from being crushed. Over the past decade, a consensus has been building that “drop, cover and hold on“ is a more appropriate method for developed countries like the U.S., where improved construction has greatly reduced the likelihood of structures collapsing inwards. The triangle of life is thought to be more suitable in developing nations like Haiti, where inferior building codes make finding a “survivable void“ inside collapsed buildings more important than shielding yourself from falling pieces. “You have to think about the hazard level of the area you’re in,“ says Gary Patterson, a geologist and director of education and outreach at the Center for Earthquake Research & Information at the University of Memphis in Tennessee. “If you’re going to play the odds, drop and cover may be the best way to go, but a lot of emergency responders might say triangle of life because they’re the ones who see the fatalities in buildings that do collapse.“

W: This school is lucky to have a teacher as good as Prof. Helen Johnson. M: She is one in a million. We’ve all benefited from what she imparted to us. I wish I could have taken more courses she teaches. Q: What does the man mean? Outstanding teachers like Professor Johnson are rare. Professor Johnson has won a million dollars as an award. Professor Johnson is likely to get the benefits from the school. There are many teachers as good as Professor Johnson.

W: You are an expert on urban problem, Mr. Parker. I wonder how you would describe the characteristics of these enormous cities. M: The first point to make is that they are different from large cities in Europe and America. W: Surely all large cities are essentially similar. M: It’s true that all large cities experience similar problems provisioning housing and services, but the difference lies in the time factor. W: Surely some of the cities we are considering are just as old and, in some cases, much older, than cities in the United States, for instance. M: Very true, but the large cities of Europe and the United States grew relatively slowly. London had a population of more than a million at the beginning of the nineteenth century and this number is more than eight million. And this growth was parallel to industrial growth throughout the country. The same is true of New York, for example. W: But this is not true if Mexico City or Buenos Aires? M: No, it is not. Throughout Latin America and in parts of Asia, cities have grown much faster than industry, or agriculture for that matter. Some of these cities have increased fourfold in less than two decades, while industrial growth over the same period may have only reached thirty to forty percent. W: What does this mean? M: Essentially the population growth is not equal to the number of employment opportunities. Much of the increase is due to immigration from the countryside, a movement of people in search of better conditions. 12. What are the two speakers talking about? 13. What are the similar problems that all large cities have? 14. What does the man say about large cities in Europe and the United States? 15. Why did those people immigrate into cities? The history of some famous cities. The population in the whole world. The difference between Europe and USA. The characteristics of some large cities.

In public speaking, the watchword is preparation. Most of us tend to put things off, at least occasionally. It’s so easy to put things off, especially those things we do not look forward to doing. So if a speaking engagement is several weeks off, we may feel we still have plenty of time. But as the day draws closer, we begin to panic. Do not let this happen to you. Start preparing as soon as you are given or accept the speaking assignment. You have much to do and to do it right will take time. How much better your speech will be, how much better you will feel, if you have taken the time to do it right. When you are prepared, you have gathered the needed data, determined what is appropriate to the listeners’ understanding and acceptance levels, organized the ideas so they flow logically, selected examples and other supports for your ideas, and made them interesting to your listeners. Develop a great opening that you know will catch the attention of even daydreamers in your audience. Check out the room where you will be speaking. Request any feasible changes you wish in the setup of the room. If you are prepared, you are confident you can best convey your message to your listeners. If you have waited until a few days before your presentation to begin to prepare, no doubt you will be anxious, and with good reasons. But there is not enough time to engage in more than a superficial attempt. Both you and your audience will feel uncomfortable. Like retirement planning, it is never too early to start preparing for your presentation. 16. What is the most important thing in public speaking? 17. When is the best time to start a preparation according to the speaker? 18. Why is useful to develop a great opening? Postponement. Preparation. Confidence. Information.

For years, scientists have been studying how music affects the brain and its functions. Classical music,【B1】______songs by Mozart, has produced measurable results that have become known as “The Mozart Effect.“ The theory, essentially, is that listening to the music of Mozart can improve your【B2】______capacity. The question is, can listening to classical music make you more successful? If music improves cognitive functions, it is reasonable to believe you can【B3】______those same rewards,【B4】______increased performance and efficiency at work. Increased efficiency means you get things done quicker. Finishing earlier means you have increased free time to put towards another【B5】______or to spend relaxing. Music Increases Cognitive Function. Several studies have shown cognitive improvements in those who listened to classical music prior to performing certain tasks or taking tests. Functions that【B6】______in increase in capacity included: Language skills, reading skills, verbal【B7】______, quantitative abilities, concentration, memory, and motor skills. Several studies of students preparing to take the SAT test【B8】______test scores of those who listened to classical music prior to taking the test with those who did not. Those who preceded the test with classical music scored higher on the SAT than the students who did not. A study by the University of Washington showed that copyeditors who listened to classical music for 90 minutes while editing copy found 21% more mistakes than those who did not. Listening to music not only improves functions within your brain, but music has also been shown to have a【B9】______effect on mood. The style of music【B10】______the mood experienced by the listener.

The extent and limits of ape(猿)intelligence is a hot area in science, but most of the research has focused on cognition. Now a team of scientists has turned the spotlight on emotions, and how well apes can read the human kind as displayed in our facial expressions. A paper in the September issue of the journal Developmental Science describes studies from the Wolfgang Kohler Primate Research Center in Leipzig, Germany. In the first test, a researcher sat at a table on one side of a panel while an ape sat on the other side. Two opaque boxes rested on the table. The scientist opened one box(making sure the ape could not see inside)and smiled with pleasure. He next opened the other and made a disgusted face. The ape was then allowed to reach through one of the holes in the panel and pick one box. Which would he choose? In 57 percent of the tests, the ape chose the box that elicited a smile from the scientist rather than an expression of disgust. Good choice. The box that brought the smile contained a grape, and the ape was rewarded for his perspicacity(敏锐)in reading human facial expressions. The other box contained dead insects. The apes’ skill at reading an expression of happiness indicates that they can read meaning in the emotional expressions on human faces, suggesting that despite 6 million years of separate evolution apes and humans share a common emotional language. In the next experiments, the set-up was the same. An ape saw the scientist hold up a grape and a slice of banana, but his view was then blocked as the scientist put one treat under one cup and the other under the other cup. The ape then watched as the scientist looked under each of the two cups in turn, making an expression of happiness at one and of disgust at the other. The scientist next reached under one cup(at, this point, the ape’s view was again blocked, so he could not see which cup the scientist chose)and ate what was inside. His view restored, the ape saw the scientist chewing something with pleasure, and then was allowed to choose a cup for himself. This time the apes tended to choose the cup that had triggered the expression of disgust. Counterintuitive(违反常理的)? Not at all. The apes went beyond the far too simple “pick cup that elicited happy face“ to make a fairly sophisticated computation. That is, they seemed to reason that the human would eat the food that made him smile, emptying that cup, with the result that only the disgust-inducing cup would still contain a snack.

能源是人类社会赖以生存和发展的重要物质基础。人类文明跨出重要的每一步都伴随着能源的革新和更替(substitution)能源的开发利用(utilization)极大地推进了世界经济和人类社会的发展。中国是目前世界上第二位能源生产国和消费国。能源供应的持续增长，为经济增长和社会发展提供了重要的支撑。能源消费的快速增长，为世界能源市场创造了广阔的发展空间。作为世界能源市场不可替代的重要组成部分，中国在维护全球能源安全上，正在发挥着越来越重要的积极作用。

For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay entitled The Importance of Information Security. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words. Write your essay on Answer Sheet 1. 1．很多人认为信息安全很重要 2．有的人认为信息不是实物，所以信息安全无关紧要 3．我认为……

The increase in international business and in foreign investment has created a need for executives with knowledge of foreign languages and skills in cross-cultural communication. Americans, however, have not been well trained in either area and, consequently, have not enjoyed the same level of success in negotiation in an international arena as have their foreign counterparts. Negotiating is the process of communicating back and forth for the purpose of reaching an agreement. It involves persuasion and compromise, but in order to participate in either one, the negotiators must understand the ways in which people are persuaded and how compromise is reached within the culture of the negotiation. In many international business negotiations, Americans are perceived as wealthy and impersonal. It often appears to the foreign negotiator that the American represents a large multi-million-dollar corporation that can afford to pay the price without bargaining further. In studies of American negotiators, several traits have been identified that may serve to confirm this stereotypical perception, while undermining the negotiator’s position. Two traits that cause cross-cultural misunderstanding are directness and impatience on the part of the American negotiator. Furthermore, American negotiators often insist on realizing short-term goals. Foreign negotiators, on the other hand, may value the relationship established between negotiators and may be willing to invest time in it for long-term benefits. In order to solidify the relationship, they may opt for indirect interactions without regard for the time involved in getting to know the other negotiator. 19. What basic skills are required in international business? 20. In international negotiations, what is foreign negotiators’ overall impression on Americans? 21. Why there exists cross-cultural misunderstanding between American negotiators and its foreign counterparts? Relevant trading and financial background. Foreign languages and cross-cultural communication. The ability to persuade and compromise. Foreign language and eloquence.

Our bodies experience an ebb and flow of energy throughout the day. This is called a circadian rhythm, and it has been studied【C1】______by scientists. Our energy level builds gradually to a peak, then【C2】______, reaching a trough about 12 hours later. The exact nature of this cycle varies from person to person, and so do our【C3】______for activity versus rest. Our natural rhythms are【C4】______by internal drives and external stimulation. Typically, external stimulation wins out over what our internal guide tells us. For example, when we fly across six time zones, we have to fit into a different time frame whether we like it or not. The same is true when we work the night shift. These are【C5】______examples of what most of us experience every day on the job. So here we are, many of us working hours that are【C6】______to what our internal rhythms would prefer. Too bad. Or is it? Some forward-looking companies are looking at internal rhythms as they【C7】______to productivity and are finding that a mid-afternoon nap increases work output and【C8】______. But can naptime really fit into the American workday? While experts seem to agree that napping is a good idea, the reality of napping is probably a long shot at best. There are lots of reasons for this. One is the need for predictability and standardization in the workplace,【C9】______in companies that do business around the world. Another is the longstanding American work ethic that【C10】______total commitment from beginning to end of the workday. Napping is viewed as slacking, a real no-no for the go-getter who wants to get ahead. A)contrary I)especially B)exclaimed J)relate C)extensively K)specifically D)affected L)accuracy E)prior M)extreme F)demands N)declines G)preferences O)appropriate H)impact

There’s Gold in Them there Landfills [A] In the movie WALL’E, humankind has left Earth in a bit of a mess. The planet is choked with garbage and all the people have shipped out, leaving robot WALL-E to clean the place up and make it habitable again. Things may not be quite that bad yet, but there’s no doubt that we produce a huge amount of waste. Even with increased recycling, landfill sites are filling up by the day and—in the absence of a brave robot—the waste experts of planet Earth are working on the next best thing: landfill mining. [B] The idea is simple. Instead of disappearing under mountains of our own waste, while paying through the nose for diminishing commodities, why not dig up and recycle what we have already thrown away? [C] Next week, industry experts will gather in London for the first global landfill mining conference. Bringing together environmental scientists, economists and landfill operators, the one-day meeting promises to show delegates how to turn waste into “garbage gold“. [D] Landfill mining has been tried before. The first scheme began in 1953 at Hiriya garbage dump outside Tel Aviv, Israel, and aimed to reclaim fine-particle waste rich in minerals to improve soil quality at local fruit farms. The landfill closed in 1998, but the recycling plant that remains on the site still produces soil improver from green waste. Then during the 1960s and 1970s, a handful of sites in the US began separating waste to recycle the steel and to compost food scraps. In the late 1980s, a pilot programme was set up to extract recyclables from a small, community landfill in the town of Edinburg, New York, and burn the solid leavings to generate energy. This pilot proved uneconomical but during the oil price rising of the 1990s interest in the economic value of waste soared. Investors claimed to snap up scrap metal companies,. only for the price of commodities to drop through the floor in the mid-1990s. [E] Yet now that commodities prices are rising once more, environmental issues are high on everyone’s list of priorities and land prices are increasing, every square kilometre is worth too much to use for landfill. Raiding the dump seems like a good idea again. This time the prospects are more promising. Thanks to a decade of innovation by the recycling industry, the technology to process landfill waste is more readily available. [F] So what’s in a landfill worth recycling? For a start, the average landfill is filled with valuable—and sometimes even precious—metals. Aluminium, from drinks cans, is just one example. According to Patrick Atkins, environmental consultant for private equity fund Pegasus Capital Advisors, and until recently director of energy innovation at US aluminium producer Alcoa, Americans throw away 317 aluminium cans every second of every day. Around half of these, totalling 680,000 tonnes of aluminium each year, dodge the recycling basket and end up in landfill. Given that the cost of aluminium peaked at $2,700 per tonne in July this means America is burying up to $1.83 billion worth of metal per year. Atkins estimates that there is now more aluminium in US landfills than can be produced from ores globally in one year. And it’s not only aluminium that is hiding down there with the used diapers(尿布)and grocery bags. One tonne of scrap from discarded PCs contains more gold than can be produced from 16 tonnes of ore, he says. And the world throws away 18 million tonnes of electronic waste each year. [G] Nowadays it is relatively easy to separate the metal you want from the junk you don’t using recycling technologies. Eddy current(漩涡流)magnets, for example, can avert aluminium and other metals from a flowing stream of waste. Plastic, too, is becoming easier to pick out. Rather than the more expensive process of doing it by hand, some plastic sorting plants are now using some scanners, which sort different types based on the spectrum of light they absorb. And since rising prices are making oil seem like an expensive raw material to produce plastics, recycling existing plastic from landfill seems sensible. [H] Metals and plastics are only part of it, says William Hogland, an environmental engineer at the University of Kalmar in Sweden. All that smelly food and other organic waste rots down sooner or later. And as the TelAviv project discovered back in the 1950s, even this can be worth digging up. [I] “The earth fraction of landfill can be one of the most profitable as coverage material, compost(堆肥)and for lawn improvement,“ Hogland says. There’s also plenty of flammable material in landfills. One kilogram of the coarse earth fraction—containing particles greater than 50 millimetres across—yields between 6 and 10 megajoules(兆焦)of energy, Hogland says, and the average Swedish landfill has 40 million tonnes of the stuff. Burning that waste is a controversial idea because of toxins(毒素)that may be released in the process. But, Hogland says, thanks to new technology for cleaning flue gases, Sweden is building new incinerators(焚烧炉)to provide heat and light for local communities. [J] So if landfill sites are, sometimes literally, gold mines, why aren’t companies tearing into them already? For its part, Alcoa has invested heavily in stopping as many cans as it can from reaching a landfill, but has stopped short of digging them up again. “It’s not something we are doing at this point,“ said Alcoa spokesman Kevin Lowery. “If we thought it was the most efficient thing, we’d do it.“ [K] Part of the reason for this is that while aluminium can be recycled at a fraction of the cost of producing it from ore, and using 94 per cent less energy, that’s only the case once you have collected the cans. Getting them out of landfill is more expensive than buying aluminium directly from a recycling plant. Plus no two landfill sites are the same. Each has a different blend of useful materials, mixed with all kinds of less useful or dangerous materials. And when you consider that companies would likely want to mine more than one site, covered perhaps by different state or national regulations, it starts to look like too much trouble. [L] Reid Lifset, an industrial ecologist at Yale University who has investigated the prospect of extracting copper from landfills, has come to a similar conclusion. “With current technology and prices, landfill mining is generally not economically feasible,“ he says. “The benefits such as revenue from sale of recovered metals, and reduction in regulatory costs, generally did not outweigh the costs.“ In other words, there may be a lot of copper buried in landfills, but if copper is your thing, a huge mine with gigantic equipment makes more sense than picking your way through several different landfill sites. [M] Advocates of landfill mining argue that with more imagination and a sober assessment of the true cost of burying rubbish, there is a reasonable economic case for landfill mining. He and his colleagues have calculated that reclaiming sites in the Baltic region alone could generate billions of euros from various revenue streams. Rather than approaching landfill mining with one outcome in mind, Hogland says, you have to look at the overall advantages, including environmental services like protecting water quality.