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问答题 Passage 1   (1)______ There is a tendency to see Japan as a harbinger of all that is doomed in the economies of the euro zone and America--even though figures released on November 14th show its economy grew by an annualised 6% in the third quarter, rebounding quickly from the March tsunami and nuclear disaster.   Look dispassionately at Japan's economic performance over the past ten years, though, and "the second lost decade", if not the first, is a misnomer. Much of what tarnishes Japan's image is the result of demography—more than half its population is over 45—as well as its poor policy in dealing with it. (2)______   In aggregate, Japan's economy grew at half the pace of America's between 2001 and 2010. Yet if judged by growth in GDP per person over the same period, then Japan has outperformed America and the euro zone. In part this is because its population has shrunk whereas America's population has increased.   Though growth in labour productivity fell slightly short of America's from 2000 to2008, total factor productivity, a measure of how a country uses capital and labour, grew faster, according to the Tokyo-based Asian Productivity Organisation. Japan's unemployment rate is higher than in 2000, yet it remains about half the level of America and Europe.   Besides supposed stagnation, the two other curses of the Japanese economy are debt and deflation. Yet these also partly reflect demography and can be overstated. People often think of Japan as an indebted country. In fact, it is the world's biggest creditor nation, boasting 253 trillion ($3.3 trillion) in net foreign assets.   To be sure, its government is a large debtor; its net debt as a share of GDP is one of the highest in the OECD. (3)______ Social security expenditure doubled as a share of GDP between 1990 and 2010 to pay rising pensions and health-care costs. Over the same period tax revenues have shrunk.   (4)______ That gives it plenty of room to manoeuvre. Takatoshi Ito, an economist at the University of Tokyo, says increasing the consumption tax by 20 percentage points from its current 5%—putting it at the level of a high-tax European country—would raise 50 trillion and immediately wipe out Japan's fiscal deficit.   That sounds draconian. But here again, demography plays a role. Officials say the elderly resist higher taxes or benefit cuts, and the young, who are in a minority, do not have the political power to push for what is in their long-term interest. David Weinstein, professor of Japanese economy at Columbia University in New York, says the elderly would rather give money to their children than pay it in taxes. Ultimately that may mean that benefits may shrink in the future. "If you want benefits to grow in line with income, as they are now, you need a massive increase in taxes of about10% of GDP," he says.   (5)______ After all, falling prices give savers—most of whom are elderly—positive real yields even when nominal interest rates are close to zero. Up until now, holding government bonds has been a good bet. Domestic savers remain willing to roll them over, which enables the government to fund its deficits. Yet this comes at a cost to the rest of the economy. In short, Japan's economy works better for those middle-aged and older than it does for the young. But it is not yet in crisis, and economists say there is plenty it could do to raise its potential growth rate, as well as to lower its debt burden. [A] Falling tax revenues are a problem. The flip side, though, is that Japan has the lowest tax take of any country in the OECD, at just 17% of GDP. [B] Demography helps explain Japan's stubborn deflation, too, he says. [C] Even so, most Japanese have grown richer over the decade. [D] However, the public debt has been accrued not primarily through wasteful spending or "bridges to nowhere", but because of aging, says the IMF. [E] Young people also express their strong dissatisfaction towards economical injustice. [F] The Japanese say they suffer from an economic disease called “structural pessimism”. Overseas too, [G] In fact, the financial situation is not that bad during the last decade.

问答题 Passage 1   [A] Time Away That Shapes Careers   [B] Faculty Weigh in   [C] Admissions Impact   [D] No Regrets   [E] Help Students Develop Strategies to Mingle   [F] Finding Opportunities   [G] Build Strong Sense of Responsibility   Data from the National Science Foundation indicate that over the last 25 years, there has been a fairly consistent 1- to 2-year time variance in the interval between an undergraduate degree and a Ph.D. So where does the extra time go?   Part of it is the “postbac”: recent graduates often take between the bachelor’s degree and graduate school. “Postbac” time allows recent graduates to mature, gain some perspective, and learn new skills before starting out on a long graduate program. A short hiatus before the long road, students and faculty members say, is almost always good.   (1) ______   Most faculty members agree that if students have a clear idea of what they want to study and what their goals are, they can make a successful direct transition to graduate school. “For the great majority of students, some time off is a good idea,” says Deborah Goldberg, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Michigan. Students with more life experience often have the maturity it takes to persevere through a Ph.D., she says. She has observed that students without that experience are more likely to feel burned out and to drop out of their Ph. D. programs than are students who take time off.   (2) ______   Faculty members agree that 1 to 2 years away does not hurt a student in the graduate-admissions process. But relevant work—especially research experience—often has a better-than-neutral effect on admissions prospects. As he considered graduate programs, Gries was able to discuss his research in one-on-one interviews with faculty members, and all of them, he says, considered his year of work an advantage. Maturity and life experience are the main selling points for “postbac” time, but the details of what you learn can matter, too. In addition, many faculty members appreciate the perspectives students with added life experience bring to their classrooms and laboratories.   (3) ______   Individuals we spoke to who had completed a “postbac” expressed no regrets about their decisions. Sarah Walker sees only advantages to the time that she spent in the Peace Corps and working in Africa. After she finished her undergraduate degree at Smith College in Northatmpton, Massachusetts, in 1994, she worked as a biology and mathematics teacher for 2 years in Lesotho. When she returned to graduate school at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, in 1998, Walker found that her experience in the Peace Cows made teaching assignments easier. Her experience in Africa shaped her career goals: Her thesis research in environmental science examined the impact of land-use changes on ecological systems. Walker says her relationships with faculty members were also improved by her time away.   (4) ______   Finding a postgraduate position outside of organized programs such as the Peace Cows requires undergraduates to mine a diverse network of resources. Talk to as many people as possible, Goldberg says; faculty members might know of colleagues who are looking for research assistants. Regional and national meetings present great chances for undergraduates to scout for positions.   (5) ______   After completing the core requirements for her Ph.D. in 2005, Walker took a job at Winrock International, a nonprofit international development organization in Arlington, Virginia. Her job —advising projects that help limit carbon emissions and deforestation in the developing world-builds on both her Peace Corps experience and scientific expertise. Unsurprisingly, she’s a strong advocate of the postbac. “Taking 2 years off has zero negative impact on your ability to continue on in school,” she advises. It allows you to grow as a person and have a better sense of what it is that you want to do.

问答题 Passage 2   [A] Certainly commercialism generates a fair amount of regularity. For example, when a non-commercial or anti-commercial movement or organization emerges, it is immediately scanned as a business opportunity—for the sale of legal services, counseling, gear, memberships, and material exploitable by the news and entertainment industry. Money-free zones are hard to find in the social landscape, only features more saturated or less saturated with commercialism. To take another example, booms and busts occur repeatedly. Booms involve overconfidence in technology, loose credit, excess capacity, manipulation and swindling, gold rush fever. Busts involve loss, bankruptcy, unemployment, and panic. Safeguards are installed too late to prevent busts and removed too soon to prevent booms. It's the way we do things.   [B] The short answer is no. Americans are predictable, very predictable, in their social behavior but erratic in justifying it. This could be interpreted in several ways. All theories, including Foucault's, tend to come up short against reality. America is too crude to suit a European model. And so on. It is more interesting, though, to explore the native pattern in its own right.   [C] As you may have heard too often already, the French historian and social theorist Michel Foucault posited an iron law of cultural hegemony. Local contests and assertions of power, according to him, feed into networks. Cliques, coalitions, institutions, regimes, and social classes channel the friction and flatten orbits into overall strategies of domination. Social structure is power consolidated, including control of wealth. To sustain power, elites are said to create a thick cultural overlay, "hegemonic discourse," that shapes what will be thought and expressed. Its purpose is to make what goes on seem correct. When it is working well, this nefarious process fills people's consciousness with myths, images, spectacles, codes, bodies of knowledge, and assignments more beguiling than the raw power formation they mask.   [D] On balance, however, Americans are poor at mystification. Cover stories on a par with those developed where the cultural overlay was thicker-say afterlife, courtly love, wheel of dharma, proletariat—are hard to come by. Economics, thoroughly mathematized, is indeed mystifying, comparable to priest craft. Yet when economists lapse into ordinary language, they could be mistaken for comedians. Given the recurrence of booms and busts, their term “market efficiency” borders on facetiousness. In any case, the lay audience for studies of booms and busts only seeks clues to timing. Given a chance, they intend to run through the cycle again, this time jumping in sooner and pulling out earlier.   [E] The United States is a business society and always has been. Does it fit Foucault's model—regularity of social relations interlocked with a sophisticated mystique?   [F] Certainly too there are, in some areas of American life, mystifications such as Foucault had in mind, regarded as sacrosanct without awareness of their background. The American lawn, for instance, began with the rich trying to imitate English estates in the wrong climate, whereupon the merely well-to-do took it up in a wave of second hand snobbery The U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Garden Club of America, real estate dealers, landscaping firms, and zoning boards then pushed the lawn farther down and across the class system. Today about $25 billion per year changes hands for seed and fertilizer, pesticides and water, mowing equipment and gasoline. By weight, grass clippings make up the nation's biggest crop. Multitudes, oblivious to origins, profits, and waste, now identify lawn care with civilization.   [G] Thus in the United States a home grown model has to be substituted for Foucault's linkage of power and well-wrought symbolic culture. Behavior is closely attuned to the mobility of capital but haphazardly combined with an uneven cultural overlay.

问答题 Passage 3   [A] Evening entertainment   [B] Main tourist attraction   [C] Good times to visit   [D] Other places of interest   [E] Introduction and location   [F] the number of tourists   [G] Clubs and pubs Edinburgh  (1) ______   Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, is in the south-east of the country. It is situated on the coast, and the beautiful, green Pentland hills are not far from the city centre. Castle Rock stands in the centre of Edinburgh and is the best place for fantastic views of the city.   With a population of almost half a million people, the city is an exciting mix of traditional and modern.   (2) ______.   The first stop for most visitors to the city is the castle on Castle Rock. It is certainly worth a visit and the area nearby is full of shops that sell whisky and tartans to the tourists. Edinburgh’s most famous street, the Royal Mile, runs from the castle to the Palace of Holyroodhouse and the Scottish Parliament. Along the street, you can see many interesting buildings and you can stop for a drink at a traditional, old Scottish pub.   (3) ______.   During your visit, you should certainly take the time to see other parts of the city. Prince’s Street has lovely gardens, museums and shops. The New Town is a superb area for walking with its attractive 18th century houses, offices and churches. Finally, the Grassmarket is an old part of the city which is full of cafes, bars and restaurants.   (4) ______.   Edinburgh has a large student population and the nightlife is excellent. Clubs usually stay open until three in the morning. You can hear live music in many of the pubs, choose from a number of first-class cinemas or go to a “ceilidh” (a traditional Scottish dance).   (5) ______.   The best time to come to the city is in August. Every year, thousands of people visit the Edinburgh Festival, the world’s biggest arts festival. With concerts, opera, theatre and art exhibitions, there is something for everyone. For winter visitors, Hogmanay (the Scottish New Year) is also an incredible experience that you will never forget.

问答题 Passage 4   Shortly after I began a career in business, I learned that Carl Weatherup, president of PepsiCo(百事可乐公司), was speaking at the University of Colorado. I tracked down the person handling his, schedule and managed to get myself an appointment. (1) ______   So there I was sitting outside the university’s auditorium, waiting for the president of PepsiCo. I could hear him talking to the students…and talking, and talking. (2)______ He was now five minutes over, which dropped my time with him down to 10 minutes. Decision time.   I wrote a note on the back of my business card, reminding him that he had a meeting. “You have a meeting with Jeff Hoye at 2:30 pm.”I took a deep breath, pushed open the doors of the auditorium and walked straight up the middle aisle(过道) toward him as he talked. Mr. Weatherup stopped. (3)______ Just before I reached the door, I heard him tell the group that he was running late. He thanked them for their attention, wished them luck and walked out to where 1 was now sitting, holding my breath.   He looked at the card and then at me. “Let me guess.” he said. “You’re Jeff.” He smiled. (4)______ He spent the next 30 minutes offering me his time, some wonderful stories that I still use, and an invitation to visit him and his group in New York. But what he gave me that I value the most was the encouragement to continue to do as I had done. (5)______ When things need to happen, you either have the nerve to act or you don’t. [A] I began breathing again and we grabbed(霸占) an office right there at school and closed the door. [B] As I sat listening to him, I knew that I could trust him, and that he deserved every bit of loyalty I could give to him. [C] I became alarmed:his talk wasn’t ending when it should have. [D] He said that it took nerve for me to interrupt him, and that nerve was the key to success in the business world. [E] I was told, however, that he was on a tight schedule and only had 15 minutes available after his talk to the business class. [F] I handed him the card then I turned and walked out the way I came. [G] I gradually lost my patience and thought that maybe I should give up.

问答题 Passage 2   [A] The Right Stuff Employee is results-oriented.   [B] Multitasking ability.   [C] Improvement oriented.   [D] The Right Stuff Employee has high levels of enthusiasm and energy.   [E] The Right Stuff Employee is a true team player.   [F] Growth potential.   [G] Know the boss.   Fast growing, entrepreneurial organizations need employees who regularly demonstrate entrepreneurial characteristics and work habits. Management of entrepreneurial companies must work diligently to recognize, identify and attract this type of employee during the recruitment process to assure a steady stream of the people with the "Right Stuff" to fuel growth of the venture. So what are the characteristics of highly effective "Right Stuff" entrepreneurial employees? Here are a few to keep in mind as you interview potential new hires.   (1) ______   The Right Stuff Employee takes ownership to get the task done. She is a "can do" person who demonstrates common sense in her decision and actions and is able to cut through and resolve problems that divert others. Her business judgment is sound and becomes stronger with each experience, decision or recommendation. While supervisors and managers may disagree with her ultimate recommendation, they usually agree that the alternatives she presents are reasonable for the situation at hand.   (2) ______   Employee consistently generates output that is higher than could be reasonably expected. He is fully committed to the organization, its goals and overall success. Not only does he desire to make a contribution to results, he needs to see the results of his contributions quickly, not measured in years! He will seek out an organization that solicits and acts upon his ideas, gives credit where credit is due and points out errors and poor decisions quickly and clearly. He performs effectively with limited supervision and is able to self-motivate and set priorities with minimal guidance.   (3) ______   The Right Stuff Employee is flexible to accept new duties, assignments and responsibilities. He can perform more than one role until the incremental duties and functions assumed can be assigned to co-workers in newly defined roles. He is also willing to dig in and do grunt work tasks which eventually will be performed by lower level employees.   (4) ______   The Right Stuff Employee's reach exceeds her grasp today. Today's Right Stuff Employee is often next year's supervisor and a department manager soon thereafter. She is willing to accept much higher levels of responsibility that is the norm for her position, title, experience level or salary, She acts as a strong role model, trains and coaches others, and soon begins to assume supervisory responsibilities, again much earlier than would be expected in a normal corporate environment.   (5) ______   The Right Stuff Employee is more than willing to challenge in a constructive way existing procedures and systems; to her the status quo is temporary. She suggests changes and improvements frequently and encourages others to do so also. Right Stuff Employees are easier to manage in some ways but require a higher level of management involvement in others. Ordinary (average) employees will not produce extraordinary results over time; Right Stuff Employees will generally produce extraordinary results consistently over time. Unfortunately, unless properly motivated, managed and rewarded, Right Stuff Employees could perform at lower levels and only produce ordinary results.   So when you interview each new employee or manager, look beyond the mere facts of the resume and ask yourself is this a "Right Stuff" person? You are most likely interviewing the person because of the resume. Now is the time to put the resume aside and focus on the "Right Questions".

问答题 Passage 2   Many scientists have wondered whether there is some quirk in the way depression is inherited, such as a depressed parent or grandparent is more likely to pass on a predisposition for the disorder to female than to male descendants. Based on studies that trace family histories of depression, the answer to that question appears to be no. (1)______   Simply tracing family histories, though, without considering environmental influences, might not offer a complete picture of how depression is inherited.   Indeed, Kenneth S. Kendler and his colleagues at the Medical College of Virginia found in a study of 2060 female twins that genetics might contribute to how women respond to environmental pressures. The researchers examined twins with and without a family history of depression; some twins in both groups had recently undergone a trauma, such as the death of a loved one or a divorce. The investigators found that among the women who did not have a family history of depression, stressful events raised their risk for depression by only 6 percent. (2)______.   A similar study has not been done in men, leaving open the question of whether environmental stress and genetic risk for depression interact similarly in both sexes. But research is being done, to determine whether men and women generally experience similar amounts and types of stress. Studies of key hormones hint that they do not. Hormones are not new to depression researchers. Many have wondered whether the gonadal steroids estrogen and progesterone--whose cyclic fluctuations in women regulate menstruation--might put women at a greater risk for depression. There are at least two ways in which they might do so.   First, because of differences between theX and Y chromosomes, male and female brains are exposed to different hormonal milieus. (3)______.   Indeed, animal experiments show that early hormonal influences have marked behavioral consequences later on, although the phenomenon is of course difficult to study in humans.   Second, the fact that postpuberal men and women have different levels of circulating gonad steroids might somehow pull women at higher risk for depression. Research shows girls become more susceptible to depression than boys only after puberty, when they begin menstruating and experience hormonal fluxes. (4)______.   For example, Peter J. Schmidt and David R. Rubinow of the National Institute of Mental Health recently reported that manipulations of estrogen and progesterone did not affect mood, except in women who suffer from severe premenstrual mood changes.   It now appears, however, that estrogen might set the stage for depression indirectly by priming the body's stress response. During stressful times, the adrenal glands--which sit on top of the kidneys and are controlled by the pituitary gland in the brain--secrete higher levels of a hormone called cortical, which increases the activity of the body's metabolic and immune systems, among others: (5)______.   Evidence is emerging that estrogen might not only increase cortical secretion but also decrease mortise’s ability to shut down its own secretion. The result might be a stress response that is not only more pronounced but also longer-lasting in women than in men. [A] But the same risk rose almost 14 percent among the women who did have a family history of depression. In other words, these women had seemingly inherited the propensity to become depressed in the wake of crises. [B] To figure out why depression is more common among women, scientists have to study how genetics and environment divide the sexes and how the two conspire to produce the symptoms we describe as depression. [C] In the normal course of events, stress increases cortical secretion, but these elevated levels have a negative feedback effect on the pituitary, so that cortical levels gradually return to normal; [D] Despite their importance, estrogen and cortical are not the only hormones involved in female depression, medium stress is not the only environmental influence that might hold more sway over women than men. [E] These hormonal differences may affect brain development so that men and women have different vulnerabilities and different physiological reactions to environmental stresses later in life. [F] Even so, scientists have never been able to establish a direct relation between emotional states and levels of estrogen and progesterone in the blood of women. [G] Women and men with similar heritage seem equally likely to develop disorder.

问答题 Passage 1   Comparisons were drawn between the development of television in the 20th century and the diffusion of printing in the 15th and 16th centuries. Yet much had happened between. As was discussed before, it was not  1 the 19th century that the newspaper became the dominant pre-electronic medium, following in the wake of the pamphlet and the book and in the company of the periodical. It was during the same time that the communications revolution speeded  2 , beginning  3 transport, the railway, and leading on through the telegraph, the telephone, radio, and motion pictures into the 20th-century world  4 the motor car and the airplane. Not everyone sees that  5 in perspective.   It is generally recognized, however, that the introduction of the computer in the early 20th century, followed  6 the invention of the integrated circuit during the 1960s, radically changed the process,  7 its impact  8 the media was not immediately apparent.  9 time went by, computers became smaller and more powerful, and they became “personal” too, as  10 as institutional, with display becoming sharper and storage capacity  11 . They were thought of, like people, in terms of generations, with the distance between generations much smaller.   It was within the computer age that the term “information society” began to be widely used to describe the context 12 we now live. The communications revolution has  13 both work and leisure and how we think and feel both about place and time,  14 there have been controversial views about its economic, political, social and cultural implications. “Benefits” have been weighed  15 “harmful” outcomes. And generalizations have proved difficult.

问答题 Passage 1   Believe it or  1 , airlines really are trying to do better. They promised to improve customer service last year under pressure from a Congress which was fed  2 with stories of nightmare flights. So why is it that flying is getting 3 for so many passengers, even though airlines are spending billions of dollars to improve service, investing in new equipment  4 mobile check-in stations and portable phone banks so travelers can quickly rebook a  5 when it is delayed or canceled? The  6 is that air travel has always been such an annoyance, and customer complaints  7 the Transportation Department doubled in 1999 since 1998.   It seems Mother Nature would prefer people by bus this year. An unusual run of bad weather, featuring long walls of thunderstorms, has crippled airports lately and led to widespread  8 and cancellations. After similar problems last summer, the FAA promised to work more closely  9 airlines responding to weather slowdowns—for example, FAA and airline representatives now gather at a single location in Herndon, Va., to figure  10 the best way to allocate the available airspace. But even the FAA admits the new initiative has fallen short of expectations, and  11 passengers complain that the delays seem absolute.   Part of the problem is overcrowded planes. Based on the strong economy, U.S. airlines are expected to  12 a record 665 million passengers this year, up 5 percent from last year. On average, planes are about 76 percent full these days, also a record. That’s good news for the Transport Department, which are profitably loading more passengers  13 each flight, and  14 news for passengers, 15 irritations build rapidly in tight quarters.

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