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[*]Announcer: And now here are some of the things you can listen to this evening here on Radio 3. Our Thursday play is at nine and is called Wisdom People Talking; it’s about a small group of old age men sitting in a social club remembering the past. At 7:30 we have My Favorite Discs in which Jenny Lindley talks about the records that influenced her musical career. At 10: 30 there is an account by James Farmer of his travels in the Middle East by bicycle and at 11: 00 there is a service from St. Paul’s. On Radio 4 the big event of the evening is the broadcast of La Traviata from the Albert Hall; it’s at 9: 00 and it has Felicity Newcombe in the major role. The interval talk at 9: 15 is Peter Morris remembering his adventures while fishing in Scotland. Radio 1 has usual continuous pop music; from 6 to 8 it’s the Tommy Brian Show with interviews with live pop stars; from 10 till midnight it’s Joe New-land with his friend. So if you are in for the evening or listening to the car radio, there should be something for you; stay tuned.
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[*]W: Good morning. Can I help you?
M: Yes, please. I would want to have some information about the courses at Swan School.
W: Is that a summer course you’ re interested in?
M: Yes, please.
W: Yes, fine. Well, we have short intensive full-time courses during the summer.
M: I would want to know the length of one course.
W: Yes. Each course lasts for three weeks.
M: How many hours per week, please?
W: Well, it’ s about twenty-three hours a week. Usually four and a half days each week.
M: You must have a lot of students in the class, haven’t you?
W: We have a lot of students in the school but in the classes only about between twelve and fourteen students.
M: Twelve and fourteen. Could you please give me the dates of the first and the second course?
W: Yes, certainly. The first course begins on July 3 and lasts until July 20 and the second course is from July 24 until August 10.
M: What about the fees per course?
W: Yes, each course costs $ 150, and a $ 5 registration fee.
M: And deposit, please?
W: Yes, for each course we need a deposit of $ 20 and the registration fee.
M: Oh thank you. Do we have to find our own accommodation?
W: No, we can do that for you. We have a lady who arranges the accommodation for you with Oxford families.
M: How much does that cost?
W: Well, you can choose to have bed and breakfast only, which is $ 20 a week, or bed, breakfast and dinner which is about $ 27 a week.
M: $27. Thank you very much.
W: You’ re welcome.
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The patient, according to the analyst’ s report, isM: Well, madam, the first and the most important thing I have to tell you is that there is really nothing seriously wrong with you, physically that is. The analyst’ s report shows that basically you are very fit.
W: So, why is it that I’ m always so nervous...tense...ready to jump on anybody-my husband, children, and colleagues?
M: I think your condition has a lot to do with your habits.
W: Habits?
M: Yes...now tell me, madam, you smoke, don’t you?
W: Yes, F m afraid I do, doctor.
M: And, very heavily, I imagine.
W: Yes, quite heavily.
M: What do you eat normally?
W: I’m a good eater. Yes, F d say F m a good eater. But usually, I don’t eat breakfast.
M: That’ s bad for your health. I think you should get up early and have breakfast. And, another question, do you get up early?
W: No, I usually get up at 9: 00 a. m. I get up late because I go to bed too late. I stay up late watching TV till the midnight.
M: What sport do you usually do?
W: I don’t like sports. But sometimes I play cards with some friends; that may be my sport.
M: I think, madam, for your health, you’ d better change your way of life. physically ill. mentally ill. fit. nervous.
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How many children did Susan and Michael interview?The piano and violin are girls’ instruments. Drums and trumpets are for boys. According to Psychologists Susan O’ Neil and Michael Bottome, children have very clear ideas about which musical instruments they should play. They found that despite the best efforts of teachers, these ideas have changed very little over the past decade. They interviewed 153 children, aged between 9 and 11, from schools in northwest England. They asked them to i-dentify four musical instruments and then say which they would like to play most and which they would least like to play. They also asked the children for their views on whether boys or girls should not play any of the four instruments. The piano and violin were both ranked more favorably by girls than by boys, while boys preferred the drums and trumpets. There was a broad agreement between boys and girls on which instruments each sex should play and the reasons varied. And while almost half of all boys said they avoided certain instruments because they were too difficult to play. Only 15 percent of girls gave that as a reason. Earlier studies indicated that very young school children aged between 5 and 7, showed no bias in choosing musical instruments. But their tastes become more clear between the ages of 8 and 10. One survey of 78 teachers suggested that after that age, both boys and girls begin to restrict themselves to the so-called male or female instruments. 150. 151. 152 153
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What is the food hall of Harold’ s noted for?W: Tell me, Peter, what makes Harold’ s so famous?
M: Well, it’s the biggest department store in the UK, and its food hall and Egyptian hall are very famous. People come to Harold’ s just to see them.
W: What is special about the food hall?
M: It sells many different kinds of food. For example, it has two hundred and fifty kinds of cheese from all over the world, more than 180 kinds of bread. Customers also love all the different kinds of chocolate. They buy a hundred tons every year.
W: That’ s amazing, and why is the Egyptian hall so famous?
M: Well, when people see it they feel they’ re in another world. It looks like an Egyptian building from 4,000 years ago, and it sells beautiful objects. They are not 4,000 years old, of course.
W;Is it true that Harold’ s produces its own electricity?
M: Yes, it is 70% , enough for a small town. To light the outside of the building we use 11,500 light bulbs.
W;Really, tell me, how many customers do you have on an average day? And how much do they spend?
M;About 30,000 people come on an average day. But during the sales, the number increases to 300, 000 customers a day. How much do they spend? Well, on average, customers spend about 1. 5 million pounds a day. The record for one day is 9 million pounds.
W: 9 million pounds in one day?
M: Yes, on the first day of the January sales.
W;Harold’ s says it sells everything to everybody everywhere. Is that really true?
M: Oh, yes, of course. Absolutely everything. The cheese sold there is very special. It sells many different kinds of food. It sells 250 kinds of bread. It sells more than 180 kinds of chocolate.
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You may say that the business of marking books is going to slow down your reading. It probably will. That’ s one of the【C1】______for doing it. Most of us have been taken in by the notion that speed of【C2】______ is a measure of our intelligence. There is no such things as the right【C3】______for intelligent reading. Some things should be【C4】______quickly and effortlessly, and some should be read slowly and even laboriously. The sign of intelligence 【C5】______reading is the ability to read different things differently according to their worth. In the【C6】______of good books, the point is not to see how many of them can you get through, 【C7】______how many can you get through them—how many you can【C8】______your own. A few friends are better than a thousand acquaintances. If this be your goal,【C9】______ it should be, you will not be impatient if it takes more time and effort to read a great book than a newspaper【C10】______.
You may have another objection to【C11】______ books. You can’ t lend them to your friends【C12】______nobody else can read them【C13】______being distracted by your notes. What’ s more, you won’t want to lend them because a【C14】______copy is a kind of intellectual diary, and【C15】______it is almost like giving your mind away.
If your friend hopes to read your Shakespeare, or The Federalist Papers, tell him, gently but firmly, to buy a copy. You will lend him your car or your coat—but your books are as much a part of you as your head or your heart.
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[A] The first and more important is the consumer’ s growing preference for eating out: the consumption of food and drink in places other than homes has risen from about 32 percent of total consumption in 1995 to 35 percent in 2000 and is expected to approach 38 percent by 2005. This development is boosting wholesale demand from the food service segment by 4 to 5 percent a year across Europe, compared with growth in retail demand of 1 to 2 percent. Meanwhile, as the recession is looming large, people are getting anxious. They tend to keep a tighter hold on their purse and consider eating at home a realistic alternative.
[B] Retail sales of food and drink in Europe’ s largest markets are at a standstill, leaving European grocery retailers hungry for opportunities to grow. Most leading retailers have already tried e-commerce, with limited success, and expansion abroad. But almost all have ignored the big, profitable opportunity in their own backyard: the wholesale food and drink trade, which ap-pears to be just the kind of market retailers need.
[C] Will such variations bring about a change in the overall structure of the food and drink market? Definitely not. The functioning of the market is based, on flexible trends dominated by potential buyers. In other words, it is up to the buyer, rather than the seller, to decide what to buy. At any rate, this change will ultimately be acclaimed by an ever-growing number of both domestic and international consumers, regardless of how long the current consumer pattern will take hold.
[D] All in all, this clearly seems to be a market in which big retailers could profitably apply their gigantic scale, existing infrastructure, and proven skills in the management of product ranges, logistics, and marketing intelligence. Retailers that master the intricacies of wholesaling in Europe may well expect to rake in substantial profits thereby. At least, that is how it looks as a whole. Closer inspection reveals important differences among the biggest national markets, especially in their customer segments and wholesale structures, as well as the competitive dynamics of individual food and drink categories. Big retailers must understand these differences before they can identify the segments of European wholesaling in which their particular abilities might unseat smaller but entrenched competitors. New skills and unfamiliar business models are needed too.
[E] Despite variations in detail, wholesale markets in the countries that have been closely examined—France, Germany, Italy and Spain—are made out of the same building blocks. Demand comes mainly from two sources; independent mom-and-pop grocery stores which, unlike large retail chains, are too small to buy straight from producers, and food service operators that cater to consumers when they don’ t eat at home. Such food service operators range from snack machines to large institutional catering ventures, but most of these businesses are known in the trade as “horeca“ : hotels, restaurants, and cafes. Overall, Europe’ s wholesale market for food and drink is growing at the same sluggish pace as the retail market, but the figures, when added together, mask two opposing trends.
[F] For example, wholesale food and drink sales came to $268 billion in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom in 2000—more than 40 percent of retail sales. Moreover, average overall margins are higher in wholesale than in retail; wholesale demand from the food service sector is growing quickly as more Europeans eat out more often; and changes in the competitive dynamics of this fragmented industry are at last making it feasible for wholesalers to considerate.
[G] However, none of these requirements should deter large retails (and even some large food producers and existing wholesalers) from trying their hand, for those that master the intricacies of wholesaling in Europe stand to reap considerable gains.
Order:
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Now the politics of US health reform is in a mess but the odds on a bill passing in the end are improving. It will not be a tidy thing, but if it moves the country close to universal health insurance the administration will call it a success.
At this moment, that point of view may seem too optimistic. Last Friday, the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives had hoped to produce a finished bill. But they failed, because the party’ s fiscal conservatives demanded further savings. House Democrats are also divided on revenue-raising measures.
The Senate is dealing with the same problems: how to contain the cost of expanded insurance coverage, and how to pay for what remains, so that the reform adds nothing to the budget deficit over the course of 10 years.
Where the money comes from remains the crucial problem. Apparently, the answer is straightforward: tax employer-provided health benefits. At present, an employer in the U. S. is free from paying tax if he pays the health insurance while an individual purchaser has to buy it with after-tax dollars. This anomaly costs nearly $ 250bn a year in revenue—enough to pay for universal coverage, and then some. Yet many Democrats in both the House and the Senate oppose to ending it. Will there be a breakthrough in terms of that aspect?
However, to get employers out of health insurance should be an aim, not something to be feared. Many US workers have complained that if they lose their job, their health insurance will go with it and tying insurance to employment will undoubtedly worsen the insecurity.
What about high-risk workers who are thrown on to the individual market? If the tax break were abolished as part of a larger reform which obliges insurers to offer affordable coverage to all people regardless of pre-existing conditions, it will not be a problem. It’ s true this change needs to increase tax, and many people in Congress are reluctant to contemplate in any form. But some kind of increase is inescapable. This one makes more sense than most.
The President should say so. His Republican opponent John McCain called for this change during the election campaign and Mr Obama and other Democrats assailed the idea. So what? Mr. Obama has changed his ideas on other aspects of health reform. For example, it seems that he now prefers an individual mandate to buy insurance. Let us see a similar flexibility on taxing employer-provided insurance.
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According to Peter Salovey, Yale psychologist and author of the term EQ, IQ gets you hired and EQ gets you promoted.
Salovey tells of a simple test. Some four-year-old kids were invited into a room and were given the following instruction: “ You can have this marshmallow right now; or if you wait, you can have two marshmallows when I get back. “ Then, the researcher left. Some kids grabbed for the treat as soon as the researcher was out the door, while others waited for the researcher to return. By the time the kids reached high school, significant differences appeared between the two groups. The kids who held out for two marshmallows were better adjusted, more popular, more adventurous, more confident, and more dependable than kids in the quick gratification group. The latter group was also more likely to be lonely, more easily frustrated, more stubborn, more likely to buckle under stress, and more likely to shy away from challenges. When both groups took scholastic aptitude tests, the “hold out group“ walloped the “quick gratification group“ by 210 points(the test scores range from a minimum of 200 points to a maximum of 800, with an average for all students of 500 points).
Researchers have been discussing whether it’ s possible to raise a person’ s IQ. Geneticists say No, while social scientists say Yes. But while brain power researchers continue the debate, social science researchers have concluded that it’ s possible to improve a person’ s EQ, and in particular, a person’ s “people skills, “ such as empathy, graciousness, and the ability to “read“ a social situation.
According to the social scientists, there is little doubt that people without sufficient EQ will have a hard time surviving in life. EQ is perhaps best observed in people described as either pessimists or optimists. Optimistic people have high EQ and treat obstacles as minor, while the pessimistic people have low EQ and personalizes all setbacks. In social research circles, EQ denotes one’ s ability to survive, and it’ s here that there may be an overlap between EQ, IQ, genetics and environment. As to that, I am reminded of the words of Darwin, “The biggest, the smartest, and the strongest are not the survivors. Rather, the survivors are the most adaptable. “ Those of us who survive and thrive in this complex world are not only the most adaptable, but also the most optimistic and the most likely to have a high EQ.
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Nowadays, our society is being reshaped by information technologies—computers, telecommunications networks, and other digital systems. Of course, our society has gone through other periods of dramatic change before, driven by such innovations as the steam engine, railroad, telephone, and automobile. But never before have we experienced technologies that are evolving so rapidly, altering the constraints of time and space, and reshaping the way we communicate, learn, and think.
The rapid development of digital technologies creates not only more opportunities for the society but challenges to it as well. Institutions of every stripe are grappling to respond by adapting their strategies and activities. It is no exaggeration to say that information technology is completely changing the relationship between people and knowledge.
But ironically, at the most knowledge-based entities—the colleges and universities—the pace of transformation has been relatively modest. Although research has been transformed by information technology in many ways, and it is increasingly used for student and faculty communications, other higher-education functions have remained almost unchanged. For example, teaching largely continues to follow a classroom-centered, seat-based paradigm. However, some major technology-aided teaching experiments are emerging, and some factors suggest that digital technologies may e-ventually drive significant change throughout academia.
American academia has undergone significant change before. The establishment of secular education began during the 18th century and the Land-Grant College Act of 1862 resulted in another transformation. That Act created institutions serving agriculture and industries; academia was no longer just for the wealthy but charged with providing educational opportunities to the working class as well. Around the year of 1900, the introduction of graduate education began to expand the role of the university in training students for careers both scholarly and professional.
Higher education has already experienced significant technology-based change, even if it currently lags other sectors in some areas. We expect that the new technology will eventually impose a profound impact on university’ s teaching by freeing the classroom from its physical and temporal bounds and by providing students with access to original source materials and that new learning communities driven by information technology will allow universities to better teach students how to be critical analyzers and consumers of information.
The information society has greatly expanded the need for university-level education; lifelong learning is not only a private good for those who pursue it but also a social good in terms of our nation’ s ability to maintain a vibrant democracy and support a competitive workforce.
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That low moaning sound in the background just might be the founding fathers protesting from beyond the grave. They have been doing it ever since the republicans announced a “religious war“ in the name of “traditional values“. It grew several decibels louder last week when george bush, at a breakfast of religious leaders, attacked the democrats for failing to mention god in their doctrines and declaimed that a president needs to believe in the almighty. What about the constitutional ban on “religious tests“ for public office? The founding fathers would want to know. 【T1】What about Tom Jefferson’s conviction that it is possible for a nonbeliever to be a moral person, “find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise“ ? Even George Washington must shudder in his sleep to hear the constant emphasis on “judeo-christian values“. 【T2】It was he who wrote, “We have abundant reasons to rejoice that in this land... every person may here worship god according to the dictates of his own heart.“
George Bush should know better than to encourage the theocratic ambitions of the christian right. 【T3】He has claimed—to much ironic scorn—that when he was shot down during World War II and lay floating in the pacific for four hours, he meditated on “ god and faith and the separation of church and state“. But there could be no better themes for a patriot to address in his final moments. 【T4】The “wall of separation“ the founding fathers built between church and state is one of the best defenses freedom has ever had. Or have we already forgotten why the founding fathers put it up? They had seen enough religious intolerance in the colonies: quaker women were burned at the stake in puritan massachusetts; Virginians could be jailed for denying the bible’s authority. They knew Europe had terribly disfigured itself in a religious war recalled now only by its duration—30 years. 【T5】No wonder John Adams once described the Judeo-Christian tradition as “the most bloody religion that ever existed, “ and that the founding fathers took such pains to keep the hand that holds the musket separate from the one that carries the cross.
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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.
Nowadays, leaders all over the world are busy mapping out blueprints for a new age with environmental protection high on their agenda. Sustainable development hits headlines almost every day. It is of utmost importance to restore the harmonious balance between man and nature, given the damage we’ ve already done to it.
First of all, we must realize that man and nature are interactive. To begin with, we derive everything from nature. Among other things, I’ m sure you’ ve all tasted natural produce that is otherwise known as green food. And you must have noticed mat nearly all beautifying products boast of being natural creams, natural lotions or natural gels. For man, nature has an irresistible appeal.
But on the other hand we must also realize that nature can be unruly. Nature is indeed like a riddle, some areas of which are beyond the reach of science and technology, at least in the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, the advancement of science and technology will still characterize the next millennium. The coming new age will provide many opportunities, but it will be likewise run of challenges. This will aggravate the current scarcity of natural resources caused by environmental degradation. More conflicts over this scarcity may occur with the ghost of nuclear wars always hiding in the background. To prevent this nightmare from coming true, governments need to work closely with each other and back up their verbal commitment by actions. However, it is not enough only to ask what governments can do to achieve the harmony between man and nature. We must ask ourselves what we as individuals can do.
Can we all be economical with food, water, electricity or other resources? Can we, or rather, some greedy ones among us, stop making rare plants and animals into delicious dishes? If not, one day they may bury us in an ocean of white rubbish. After all, the earth is not a dustbin; it’ s our common home.
