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Next week, according to United Nations projections(预测), the world will pass seven billion in population, and by the end of this century it’s likely to grow by half again to ten billion.
What will determine their quality of life? From an economist’s view, what matters is the productivity of the ten billion—will they be educated and have jobs that contribute to economic growth? From a sociologist’s view, what matters is whether the ten billion are socialized into stable roles in society—can they build families and join communities where they have dignity and focus on building for the future? From a political scientist’s view, what matters is the quality of government in countries where most of the ten billion will live—will those governments avoid corruption, enforce the rule of law, and protect participation and civil rights?
At present, the prospects are not bright. While most of the world’s capital, managerial experience, and engineering expertise is concentrated in the high-income and emerging economies of Europe, China, North America, and Japan, none of those areas will be significant contributors to future population growth. Even China, is now reaping(获得)the results of its one-child policy and is projected to suffer a decline in population of 400 million by 2100.
Three billion additional people will join the world this century, and virtually all of them will be growing up in countries that today are rated by the George Mason University Fragile States Index as having governments that have serious, high, or extreme fragility. These are governments that do not enforce the rule of law, have high rates of internal violence, and do a poor job providing education and jobs for their people.
Three billion additional people will grow up in countries that are rated as having governments that have______.
By 2100, China would suffer a decline in______.
What kind of economies is most of the world’s capital concentrated in?
The important thing is the quality of government in the view of the______.
From an economist’s view, it’s important if the ten billion people would contribute to______.
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If you’re confused about how much water you really need, I’m not surprised. Conflicting advice in recent headlines appears against the old “eight-a-day“ advice. Is it necessary to swallow down eight glasses of water daily, or is this recommendation out of date? We’ve heard for years that eight glasses of water daily is the least amount necessary to keep healthy. And we’re warned of the danger of water shortage in our body without at least eight glasses. But, should each of us drink the same amount of water every day?(20)The answer is—you need what you need! If it’s summer, you need more. If you’re exercising, you need more.(19)If you’re a “normal“ person who sits a lot, who is not sweating, and not exercising more than 15 to 20 minutes daily, you need no more than four glasses of water daily. Although the World Health Organization(WHO)recommends that everyone should drink a minimum of two liters of water daily, or about eight cups, the old “eight-a-day“ rule is based on studies performed on people under special situations, including soldiers at quite high places and hospitalized patients.(20)What you and I need is different.
18. Which field does this passage belong to?
19. Who need no more than four glasses of water daily?
20. What can we learn about the amount of water that we should drink? Science and Technology. Life and Health. Entertainment. Finance and Business.
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In the American family, the husband and wife usually share important decision-making. When the children are old enough, they take part as well. Foreigners are often 【T1】______by the permissiveness of American parents. The old rule that “children should be seen and not heard“ is 【T2】______followed, and children are often allowed to do what they wish without strict parental control. The father seldom expects his children to 【T3】______him without question, and children are encouraged to be 【T4】______at an early age.
Some people believe that American parents carry this 【T5】______too far. Others think that a strong father image would not suit the American values of equality and independence. Because Americans 【T6】______the importance of independence, young people are expected to 【T7】______away from their parental families by the time they have reached their late teens or early twenties.
This pattern of independence often results in serious problems for the aging parents of a small family. 【T8】______. The retirement age is usually 65. The children have left home, 【T9】______. At least 20 percent of all people over 65 do not have enough retirement incomes. 【T10】______. They feel useless and lonely with neither an occupation nor a close family group.
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The evidence keeps mounting that America is no longer a leader when it comes to educating its children. The dangerous situation is exposed by each new report on the data. The National Assessment of Educational Progress shows little improvement over the decades. The achievement gap between the black and the white is as wide as ever. SAT scores are declining. I am convinced that one of the reasons is that the school day and year are too short. Without additional time, it is virtually impossible for students behind grade level—particularly poor and minority students—to catch up.
Longer school days can lead to fewer crimes committed by young people and a decline in teen pregnancies (怀孕). An extended school day gives administrators the ability to ensure that children get a well-rounded education. Many schools today are sacrificing social studies, the arts and physical education, so that children can cover basic subjects like math, English and science. This is hurting children across America.
Extending the school day would also help families. In two-parent households, women have increasingly entered the workplace, and in single-parent households, there is even more of a need for the adults to work. That means parents do not fully control their own schedule, since they have to scramble to find high-quality after-school options.
What happens when children are not engaged in enriching activities is well-documented: crimes committed by youths in the hours immediately after school soar, as do teen pregnancies. These hours can either provide an opportunity for children to grow or to get bored and drift into self-destructive behaviour. Meanwhile, our global competitors are keeping students in school longer, giving them a better shot at success. Failing to do our best to educate all of America’s children is a mistake that will hurt this country for years to come.
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Talk is hot, whether it’s on TV, radio, or the Internet. Experts disagree about why Americans love to hear and participate in talk programming, but many believe talk media helps people feel connected with others. It’s also entertaining.
Talk programming across all media has grown rapidly. In 1983, only 53 radio stations had news/talk formats, compared with more than 1 000 today, while the total number of stations remained constant at 10 000. The number of talk shows on television soared from just a handful in 1986, to 15 in the 1989~1990 season, to 19 during the 1996~1997 season, according to Nielsen Media Research.
What makes the talk media so popular? Is it bored viewers and listeners wanting the most shocking gossip(流言)available? Not entirely, says Michael Harrison, writer for Talkers Magazine, which covers the talk-media industry.
“It all serves the simple need for connections with other people,“ he says. “People don’t know their neighbors anymore, and they wouldn’t have time to talk even if they did. But there’s still a human need for community, so it’s a virtual, electronic, global media community.“
Economics also help account for the rise in talk. Television talk shows are much cheaper than other shows to produce. And talk sells better than any other radio format. Programmers, can also fit more advertisements into fast-paced talk than into a music format.
What’s more, our commuter(常乘公共车辆往返者)culture may be giving talk-radio, in particular, a popularity boost. Americans on the road to work are an enthusiastic audience for talk-radio. And in some large or fast-growing cities, time spent on the way to work is on the rise. In Los Angeles, the individual drive time will go up at least five minutes a year for the next 20 years because of population growth and the lack of new infrastructure(基础设施).
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Two-year-old Angelica and Angelina Sabuco love listening to stories and music. They also know their colors and can【D1】______to 10. But one important【D2】______keeps them from being typical toddlers(学步的儿童)—they’re conjoined twins(连体婴儿).
But on Tuesday, an operation were planned to give them a chance to be able to live【D3】______from each other for the first time. The surgery took place at Stanford University’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in Northern California. The sisters were【D4】______at their chest and abdomens(腹部), according to the hospital. They had separate hearts, brains, kidneys and stomachs. Dividing the girls’ single liver would be “probably the greatest【D5】______of the procedure,“ said Dr. Gary Hartman. “About a quarter of our blood【D6】______through our liver every single minute.“
More than 40 people were in the operating room【D7】______the surgery to separate the girls, who were born in the Philippines and live in San Jose with their parents and 10-year-old brother. Hartman has【D8】______five surgeries to separate conjoined twins—more than any other surgeon in the United States. He expected the twins to【D9】______and do well. The children were being kept calm and doctors said they could be【D10】______as early as Wednesday.
A)joined F)come K)survive
B)count G)awakened L)account
C)isolating H)danger M)during
D)risk I)performed N)distinction
E)double J)independently O)goes
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W: What do you think of Jane s proposal on the meeting?
M: Um, it’s a creative idea, but sounds impractical to carry out.
Q: What does the man think of Jane’s proposal? It lacks creativity. It will be well carried out. It is not as good as expected. It seems creative but not realistic.
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M: Good morning! I’m corning to return these two books.
W: OK, but they have been two days overdue, so you’ll have to pay the fines.
Q: Where does this conversation most probably take place? At a supermarket. At a bookstore. At a library. At a bank.
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(17)Some trees can survive a long time without water. Think of trees that grow in the desert. But other trees may need more moisture than they can get from rainfall or from the air. The soil stores moisture during cooler weather. But most of that moisture is gone by the middle or end of the hottest months of the year.(18)Trees and other plants can look thirsty. Leaves hang downward and turn brown or yellow. Here are some suggestions for watering newly planted trees and established trees. With a newly planted tree, the roots have not yet spread out from the root ball. The root ball can become dry faster than the dirt around it. So put water on the area of the football and the surrounding soil until the roots become established.(19)Once a tree is well established, water deeply instead of often. During the hottest season, a deep watering may satisfy a tree for anywhere from ten days to two weeks.(20)One of the effective watering skills is to stop when the soil needs a little time to absorb the water. Otherwise the water runs off the surface and gets wasted.
17. What can we learn about trees in the desert?
18. What’s the symptom when trees look thirsty?
19. How should we water a tree after it has grown up?
20. Why should we stop watering when the soil absorbs the water? They only get moisture from rainfall. They need more moisture than trees elsewhere. They can live a long life without water. They do not need water to ensure their growth.
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Hello, everyone! Thank yOu for coming to this meeting.(15)Since all of you are those who will be remaining on campus to finish the research project during the winter break, now I want you to fill out the forms giving the dates you will be on campus. First of all, I want to let you know the work hours of different departments. To reduce heating costs, Butler Hall will be the only dormitory open.(16)All the others will be closed at 5:00 p.m. on Friday, Feb, 7 and won’t be reopened until 6:00 p.m. on Feb, 16. Once we have your completed forms, we’ll find you a room in Butler Hall. Please have all that you will need moved there by the 7th. Most college facilities, including the college store and the dining hall, will be closed during the vacation. The library and the computer center will be open, but on a reduced schedule.(17)Only the post office and the college office will keep their regular hours. Since I imagine most of you are staying here to finish the project, let me wish you good luck with your work. Now if you have any special problems, please don’t hesitate to ask me. Thank you!
15. Why will the students remain on campus during the vacation?
16. How long will most of the dormitories be closed?
17. What will remain open as usual? To finish a project. To prepare for their exam. To finish an experiment. To make up for their missed lessons.
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It would be difficult to have a society like ours without public goods such as defense, transportation, and other services.
A public good is one that a person can use without reducing the use of it for another person. One of the best examples of a public good is national defense. One person can benefit from our national defense without reducing another person’s benefits. In fact, it is difficult to keep any person in our society from enjoying the benefits of national defense.
The market system does not work well in producing public goods. This is because a person who refuses to pay for a public good cannot be kept from using it. Suppose that the neighbors in a high crime area decide to hire a police force. Each neighbor, except Mrs. Smith, agrees to pay $ 100 a year for it. Mrs. Smith refuses to pay because she knows that if all the others pay the $ 100, the police will guard the area anyway. So Mrs. Smith can enjoy the services of the police force without paying $ 100.
The market system has no way to deal with this type of problem. For this reason, we cannot ask each person to make a direct payment in the form of product price. Therefore, we collect money for public goods by using taxes
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The link between health and income seems pretty uncontroversial.【C1】______all, healthy people can work longer and harder than sick people. Healthier children are【C2】______to stay in school longer and learn more,【C3】______more when they enter the workforce. Even across countries the【C4】______seems clear: those with better health are【C5】______richer.
The researchers of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are skeptical about the notion【C6】______healthier countries are richer, because countries with【C7】______incomes may simply spend more on health. To investigate, they needed to study health improvements that were not【C8】______by economic growth in the countries concerned.
Beginning in the 1940s, several medical【C9】______involving penicillin (青霉素) and DDT (滴滴涕) made it easier to【C10】______diseases—such as tuberculosis (结核病), malaria (疟疾) and yellow fever—that【C11】______people in developing countries. Because these ideas【C12】______in the rich world and were spread by【C13】______such as the WHO, any improvement in【C14】______they led to would have been unconnected with prior improvements in the economic【C15】______of poor countries.
This international revolution in public health【C16】______lead to substantial increases in life 【C17】______in poor countries by the 1950s. However, the researchers found that income per head actually【C18】______when life expectancy went up. The reason was that increased life expectancy led to a larger population using a【C19】______stock of things like land and capital,【C20】______depressing income per person.
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Next week, according to United Nations projections(预测), the world will pass seven billion in population, and by the end of this century it’s likely to grow by half again to ten billion.
What will determine their quality of life? From an economist’s view, what matters is the productivity of the ten billion—will they be educated and have jobs that contribute to economic growth? From a sociologist’s view, what matters is whether the ten billion are socialized into stable roles in society—can they build families and join communities where they have dignity and focus on building for the future? From a political scientist’s view, what matters is the quality of government in countries where most of the ten billion will live—will those governments avoid corruption, enforce the rule of law, and protect participation and civil rights?
At present, the prospects are not bright. While most of the world’s capital, managerial experience, and engineering expertise is concentrated in the high-income and emerging economies of Europe, China, North America, and Japan, none of those areas will be significant contributors to future population growth. Even China, is now reaping(获得)the results of its one-child policy and is projected to suffer a decline in population of 400 million by 2100.
Three billion additional people will join the world this century, and virtually all of them will be growing up in countries that today are rated by the George Mason University Fragile States Index as having governments that have serious, high, or extreme fragility. These are governments that do not enforce the rule of law, have high rates of internal violence, and do a poor job providing education and jobs for their people.
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For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a letter of recommendation for one of your students who apply for studying abroad. You should write at least 100 words, and base your composition on the outline given in Chinese below:
你是浙江大学的一位教授，名叫杨晴，你的学生吴英要申请去剑桥大学学习。请为她写一封推荐信。必须包括收信人的称谓、写信日期、发信人的签名等基本格式。
内容：1．写信的原因，2．写信的理由；3．恳切的愿望。
注意：务必按信函的格式书写。
Words for reference：
学士学位a bachelor’s degree 优异的成绩outstanding marks
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