Questions 11～15
It has been a lousy few years for much of the media, and 2008 has offered no respite. But to quote the hideous '70s band Bachman Turner Overdrive, b-b-b-baby, you just ain't see n-n-nothing yet.
Because on top of the wrenching change affecting essentially every non- online media, here comes a very scary-looking economic downturn.
Think of the recession, says Barclays analyst Anthony DiClemente, "as a vine growing up a wall. Except instead of a healthy vine, like at Wrigley [Field], it's like—'feed me, Seymour'—from The Little Shop of Horrors."
Forgive the surfeit of pop-culture jokes. I'm only trying to inject levity into an extremely grim picture. According to ad tracker TNS Media Intelligence, which provided all such figures for this column, automotive and financial services were the No. 1 and No. 3 U.S. ad categories last year. We all know what happened to the latter in recent months. In 2007, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, and Washington Mutual spent $213.1 million on advertising. Even if those companies' new owners spend something to reassure old customers, you're likely looking at a nine-figure sum sucked out of the ad marketplace by those guys alone. And when major carmakers report sales drops of 30%, boffo ad buys do not follow. Ford Motor's ad spending was down over 31% for the first half of this year. Car sales' slide has accelerated since. In case you're wondering, the No. 2 ad category was retail, which is now under severe pressure as consumers spend less.
The consequences of all this contraction are readily apparent when you talk to key media executives. Magazines sell ads long before they appear, and advertisers already are making noises about cutting back in the first half of 2009, says one senior executive in that industry. "Everyone says they are going to keep advertising in a downturn," says another executive, who has run major sales organizations in different media. "But not everyone actually does it. That's just the reality of having to report earnings and profits." And while the wealthiest consumer may remain relatively untouched, those who have recently traded up to high-end products may slam the brakes on such consumption, raising chances that luxury advertisers will be affected, too. Food looks more likely to stay stable. One mordant TV executive puts it this way: "The auto industry is out. And Campbell's Soup is in."
How the dollars flow—or rather don't flow—in any downturn can shape events in ways obscured until much later. As strange as it sounds today, the tech bust that started in 2000 meant that total dollars spent on online display advertising declined 21% between 2001 and 2002. And as strange as it sounds today, many established media organizations used that decline as a rationale for deemphasizing the Web in favor of their traditional businesses—and underinvestment allowed all manner of Web-only startups to outflank them in the one medium that's still growing. While online display ads will still be up in '09, says BMO Capital Markets analyst Leland Westerfield, that growth rate will likely slow. Look for search advertising to hold up, so Google should be hurt the least.
Elsewhere, Barclay's DiClemente suggests, the slowdown's effects will move up a media ladder of sorts, starting with newspapers, magazines, radio, local TV, and then hitting broadcast and—possibly—cable TV. There's a "high probability," he says, that the "advertising malaise spreads to network TV"—the one long-running medium that's held steadiest as others have fallen off.
DiClemente is forecasting a 5.5% pullback in ad spending next year, with only Web and cable TV posting ad upticks. It may be hard to conjure a scenario worse than today's, given what radio, local TV, and newspapers are currently experiencing. This has been a year, in which many unthinkable things have happened— newspaper executives, for instance, mulling which days of the week they won't publish. But the coming downturn means that what once was unthinkable ... well, you better start thinking it.
11. Why does the author begin the article with '70s band Bachman Turner Overdrive?
A. To cite a lousy example.
B. To display the main idea of the article.
C. To exempllify the gist as following.
D. To show the overtone of irony.
12. What does the sentence "I'm only trying to inject levity into an extremely grim picture." (para. 4) imply?
A. Along with the economic downturn, less money will be sucked out of the ad marketplaces.
B. Jokes can relieve tension on ad industry.
C. Car industry will put less money on advertisements.
D. Financial services are speanding less to reassure old customers.
13. TV executive says: "The auto industry is out. And Campbell's Soup is in.", because___.
A. Cash-rich consumers will remain untouched in sluggish economy.
B. People will pay more attention on food than automobiles.
C. Luxuries will lose some of the buyers while necessities of existence still cover big market share.
D. Ad industry should pay more attention to ordinary people's life.
14. What does the word "rationale" in the sentence "many established media organizations used that decline as a rationale for deemphasizing the Web in favor of their traditional businesses" mean?
A.Decrease
B. Excuse
C. Opportunity
D. Challenge
15.Why does the author say Google should be hurt the least?
A. Because Google shows the strongest profit-making trend.
B. Because Google does search advertising business.
C. Because search advertising is the only medium outrunning traditional ones.
D. Because search advertising will attract more investment.
Questions 16～20
UNDER a grey sky on October 27th, Larry Bowoto provided an improbable splash of colour in his Nigerian agbada gown before the federal courthouse in San Francisco. He is the lead plaintiff in a case against Chevron, an oil giant based in California, over something that happened in May 1998 on a platform operated by Chevron’s Nigerian subsidiary, nine miles off the Niger Delta. A group of more than 100 people, including Mr Bowoto, took over the platform for three days to protest against what Chevron was doing in the delta. The protest ended when Nigerian troops arrived and shot at the protesters, killing two. Mr Bowoto was injured and is now suing for damages.
Bowoto v Chevron is likely to test how the American legal system can be applied to human rights in other countries. The civil suit is being brought under the 1789 Alien Tort Claims Act, one of America’s oldest laws (it was signed by George Washington). The act allows foreigners to bring civil cases before American courts arising from violations of law or treaty anywhere in the world. It was invoked just twice before 1980, when it was used by a victim of state repression in Paraguay. Since then the act has been invoked in around 100 cases. In 1993 a case against Radovan Karadzic for crimes against humanity in Bosnia broadened its applicability to non-state actors. In 1996 a group of Burmese villagers brought a suit against Unocal, another oil company (subsequently bought by Chevron), over the use of forced labour by Burmese soldiers guarding the route of a gas pipeline. The case was settled in 2004.
Opponents of the use of the Alien Tort Claims Act to sue companies for alleged human-rights violations associated with their operations include the Bush administration and many companies. They fear it could unleash a flood of suits and interfere with foreign policy. Proponents argue that international law has evolved since 1789, and now encompasses well-defined human rights that fall squarely within the act’s simple wording. In 2004 America’s Supreme Court affirmed that the act applied to violations of modern international laws as well as older ones, but its ruling left doubts about corporate cases. “It’s still a question of whether aiding and abetting is sufficient [to bring a case],” says William Dodge, a professor at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law.
Bowoto v Chevron will test just this point. The plaintiffs say the Nigerian troops were transported to the platform in helicopters provided by Chevron and its local partner. Chevron says the protesters were hostage-takers who initiated the violence on the platform and are now motivated by the possibility of winning damages. Bowoto v Chevron has been making its way through America’s courts for nearly a decade and has been refined to a narrow Alien Tort Claims suit, making it an ideal test case. Marco Simons, a lawyer with EarthRights International, one of the groups representing the plaintiffs, notes that the case has survived around a dozen motions for dismissal.
Nearly all Alien Tort Claims suits against companies have been settled on confidential terms. Only two have gone to trial. “Extractive industries especially need to go where the resources are—they have to do business with regimes with notorious records,” says Tyler Giannini, a specialist in human rights at Harvard Law School, who was one of the lawyers who argued the case against Unocal. “These cases are important because they are setting standards for what is acceptable and what isn’t.”
But those standards are now in flux. “Some day the Supreme Court will take this on,” says Mr Dodge. And if Bowoto v Chevron does not make it that far, other cases are in the pipeline: in February a case against Royal Dutch Shell, another oil giant, will get under way in New York on behalf of Ken Saro Wiwa, a hanged Nobel laureate, and other Nigerian plaintiffs.
16. Which of the following serves best as the title of the passage?
A. How far can America’s legal system be applied to foreign human-rights cases?
B. The 1789 Alien Tort Claims Act.
C. Bowoto v Chevron case
D. Will the Nigerians win?
17. What does the word "unleash" mean?
A. expedite
B. relieve
C. impel
D. give rise to
18. Which of the following is TRUE about the 1789 Alien Tort Claims Act?
A. It wasone of America’s oldest laws and was signed by George Washington.
B. It allows foreigners to bring criminal cases before American courts arising from violations of law or treaty anywhere in the world.
C. It allows courts in U.S. to solve almost any cases when invoked.
D. Since it was invoked in from time to time, people around the United states have come to universal acceptance of the act.
19. According to the passage, which of the following statements is NOT TRUE?
A. Although Bush Administration worries about the compatibility with its foreign policy, the Superem Court affirmed its application to the international laws.
B. It has been well-accepted that international law has evolved since 1789, and now encompasses well-defined human rights that fall squarely within the act’s simple wording.
C. Providing necessities can also bring a case to court.
D. Rulings of these cases are important because they can be cited as test cases and set up as standards for ensuing lawsuits.
20. What does the word "in flux" mean?
A. in danger
B. in dispute
C. in tow
D. in chains
keys:
11. struggle
12. frustrating
13. harder
14. computers
15. understand
16. communicate
17. better
18. educational
19. TV
20. different
SECTION 3: TRANSLATION TEST(30 minutes)
Directions: Translate the following passage into Chinese and write your version in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.
Fifteen years ago it seemed that the great debate about the proper size and role of the state had been resolved as privatising state-run companies was all the rage. Today big government is back with a vengeance: not just as a brute fact, but as a vigorous ideology. Many European countries have devoted a high proportion of their GDP to public spending and many governments cannot wait to get out of their new-found business of running banks and car companies. But the past decade has clearly produced changes which, taken cumulatively, have put the question of the state back at the centre of political debate.
The obvious reason for the change is the financial crisis. As global markets collapsed, governments intervened on an unprecedented scale, injecting liquidity into their economies and taking over, or otherwise rescuing, banks and other companies that were judged “too big to fail”. A few months after Lehman Brothers had collapsed, the American government was in charge of General Motors and Chrysler, the British government was running high street banks.
The crisis upended conventional wisdom about the relative merits of governments and markets. Where government was once the problem, today the default villain is the market. Yet even before Lehman Brothers collapsed the state was on the march.
The revival of the state is creating a series of fierce debates that will shape policymaking over the coming decades. American government is beginning to cut public spending in an attempt to deal with its surging deficits, which, boosted by recession, is already hovering at a post-war high of 12% of GDP, and the American economy depends on the willingness of other countries to fund its debt.
SECTION 4: LISTENING TEST (30 minutes)
Part A: Note-taking and Gap-filling
Directions:In this part of the test you will hear a short talk. You will hear the talk only once.While listening to the talk, you may take notes on the important points so that you can have enough information to complete a gap-filling task on a separate ANSWER BOOKLET. You are required to write ONE word or figure only in each blank. You will not get your ANSWER BOOKLET until after you have listened to the talk.
Babies begin to develop language skills long before they begin speaking. Adults have a __(1)___ time learning new languages as they grow older, but ___(2)___ have the ability to learn any language easily. Such studies show that, up to about ___(3)___ months of age, babies can recognize all the sounds that make up all the languages in the world. Most kids speak in full sentences by age ___(4)___. Children begin ___(5)___ only to the sounds of the language they hear the most.
About ___(6)___ sounds make up the languages spoken around the globe, but not every language uses every sound. To a native Japanese speaker, the letters ___(7)___ and ___(8)___ sound identical. So a Japanese speaker cannot tell "row" from "low," or "rake" from "lake."
By around age 7, a baby's brain has disposed of all the ___(9)___ connections that the infant was born with. So, if you don't start studying a foreign language until ___(10)___ school, you must ___(11)___ against years of brain development, and progress can be ___(12)___. A 12-year-old's brain has to work much ___(13)___ to forge language connections than an infant's brain does.
Learning the baby's brain might also help scientists design ___(14)___ that learn languages as easily as babies do. Useful as computers are, they cannot ___(15)___ and ___(16)___ like people do.
Researchers have found that it is far ___(17)___ for a language learner to talk with people who speak the language than to rely on ___(18)___ CDs and DVDs with recorded conversations.
When infants watched someone speaking a foreign language on ___(19)___, they had a completely ___(20)___ experience than they did if they watched the same speaker in real life.
Part B: Listening and Translation
1. Sentence Translation
Directions: In this part of the test, you will hear 5 sentences in English. You will hear the sentences ONLY ONCE. After you have heard each sentence, translate it into Chinese and write your version in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
2. Passage Translation
Directions: In this part of the test, you will hear 2 passages in English. You will hear the passages ONLY ONCE. After you have heard each passage, translate it into Chinese and write your version in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET. You may take notes while you are listening.
(1)
(2)
SECTION 5: READING TEST (30 minutes)
Directions:Read the following passages and then answer IN COMPLETE SENTENCES the questions which follow each passage. Use only information from the passage you have just read and write your answer in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.
Questions 1～3
Every four years, beginning in 1984, the artists Antoni Muntadas and Marshall Reese have collected political ads from the Presidential election, adding a dozen or so particularly striking new spots to their project, “Political Advertisement.” On a recent evening, they met at Goldcrest studios, in the meatpacking district, to work on the seventh edition of the film, which has become what Reese calls “the longest-running video art project in the world.” The artists would be screening the film—now a seventy-five-minute compilation of a hundred and two ads, spanning fifty-six years—at the Museum of Modern Art, on October 30th.
Reese, at the keyboard of an Avid editing workstation, called up ads, while Muntadas looked over his shoulder and made comments. They viewed ads featuring telephones—Clinton’s 3 A.M. ad, Obama’s response, and a McCain phone ad—and discussed which one they should use. Several days of watching political commercials had left them feeling a little dazed. Muntadas seemed somewhat weary, but Reese was animated, almost punchy. Muntadas, who is sixty-six, grew up in Spain under Franco, an experience that sharpened his awareness of the dangers of political propaganda. Reese, fifty-two, watched political ads as a kid in Washington, D.C., and he views the medium with nostalgia, even affection. “One of my first experiences was waiting in line in my elementary school and seeing a classmate with a can of Goldwater ginger ale,” he said.
Reese explained that, in making their selections, they hoped both to spotlight innovative ads and to show how certain motifs return again and again. The politician’s desk, which Nixon used to considerable effect in 1960, is one such trope; the testimonial, such as Caroline Kennedy’s endorsement of Obama, dates to the earliest political ads, like those in the Eisenhower-Stevenson race, in 1952.
This year, in addition to hundreds of ads produced by the campaigns and the national committees, there are ads made by political-action committees and special-interest groups. And there are the straight-to-YouTube videos, like “Obama Girl,” and all the smashups and parodies these videos inspired. “The campaign can no longer control its messaging—that’s the big change this year,” Reese said. “But Obama does well in that environment,” he added, calling up the Senator’s smiling face. “He’s an empty screen, on which people project what they want him to be.” Their potential selections included the Phil de Vellis “Vote Different” mashup of Ridley Scott’s 1984 Apple ad, with Hillary Clinton as the Big Brother figure on the screen, and the California Nurses Association’s anti-Palin ad, “One Heartbeat Away,” which is a remake of an anti-Dan Quayle ad from 1988.
Watching “Political Advertisement” in its entirety is a powerful but disorienting experience. Time hurtles forward with each Presidential election, but there is no clear progress on the fundamental issues. Jobs, better schools, tax relief, help for small businesses, change, peace through strength, and out-of-touch Washington insiders ebb and flow in importance. It’s morning again in America in 1984, with the Reagan ads, but soon it’s nighttime, with the darkening sky of a 1992 Ross Perot spot on the national debt. Tonally, the film is a perfect hybrid of its creators’ sensibilities. It’s funny and nostalgic, and has an innocent quality, while at the same time offering a bleak view of a specifically American form of propaganda, born in 1952, that has grown to shape our political process—not just the way we sell our politicians but the nature of the political discourse itself.
The film will close, Reese said, with an excerpt from the music video that Jesse Dylan and Will.i.am made from Obama’s “Yes We Can” speech. It points the way toward a new kind of user-made political advertising, in which it is impossible to say where personal expression leaves off and propaganda begins.
“This edit’s still going to end ‘To Be Continued,’ same as every other,” Reese said. “We’ll be back.”
1. Describe Antoni Muntadas and Marshall Reese's art "Political Advertisement."
2. Why do they make these selections?
3.Explain the sentence "Watching “Political Advertisement” in its entirety is a powerful but disorienting experience."
Questions 4-6
Pharmaceutical giants face a conundrum, as illustrated by two recent events. Eli Lilly agreed to pay $6.5 billion in cash for ImClone Systems to get its hands on a roster of experimental cancer drugs. And Roche, bowing to pressure from Britain's National Institute for Health & Clinical Excellence, slashed the price of lung cancer drug Tarceva by $1,200 to $10,830 per four-month course of treatment. Roche says it wants patients in Britain to benefit from Tarceva and that it is working with NICE, an independent body that advises the British National Health Service.
How are these two developments related? Pharmaceutical companies are charging into the cancer arena, convinced that these costly treatments will open a new path to revenue growth. But national health authorities are balking at the drugs' high prices, given that most of them extend life by only a few months. If insurers in the U.S. follow suit, Lilly and its pharma peers could run into severe pricing constraints.
"At some point—and that point will come sooner rather than later—payers are not going to approve spending $100,000 for someone to live an extra six months," says Erik Gordon, director of biomedicine at Stevens Institute of Technology. David Balekdjian, a partner at strategy consulting firm the Bruckner Group, confirms that "for many diseases, U.S. insurers are rigorously examining the outcomes new drugs produce, relative to their cost." As insurers increasingly scrutinize cancer drugs, "many will never reach their markets," Balekdjian warns.
In the world of giant pharma companies, cancer medicine has long taken a backseat to heart treatments, depression drugs, sleep aids, and other billion-dollar sellers. Because cancer treatments often consist of complex protein molecules that take years to develop, the drug multinationals left these risky products to small biotech ventures such as ImClone. But lately drugmakers have been embracing cancer treatments, in part because older blockbusters such as Pfizer's Lipitor and Lilly's anti-psychotic Zyprexa are approaching the end of their patent life. Moreover, because of safety concerns, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration is reluctant to approve pills taken by millions of people for minor ailments. But the FDA demands less of cancer drugs that could save patients who face near-certain death.
Cancer drugs also require little marketing support—no TV ads or lavish magazine spreads. Oncologists tend to be hyper-aware of any new treatment that might help mortally ill patients. "You don't need thousands of sales reps, you just need good data," says Lazard Capital Markets analyst Gene Mack.
Best of all for makers of cancer drugs, these products have long enjoyed considerable pricing power because they are so difficult to develop. Genentech's Avastin costs up to $100,000 a year. Erbitux, ImClone's only marketed drug, costs around $10,000 a month and pulled in revenues of $1.3 billion in 2007. That's why Lilly is willing to make its largest acquisition ever, and why Pfizer is exiting heart drugs in order to focus on treatments for cancer, as well as Alzheimer's and diabetes.
The cost controversy could end up limiting the cancer market's promise, however. Last April, Bristol-Myers Squibb, which holds 60% of the North American marketing rights to Erbitux, bowed to Canada's health authority and dropped the drug's price there. Britain's NICE already restricts the use of Erbitux due to cost. And in August it rejected four kidney cancer treatments, among them Pfizer's Sutent and Genentech's Avastin, for that reason.
The pricing environment is "becoming more challenging," acknowledges Dr. Richard Gaynor, Lilly's head of cancer research. The company has been discussing drug development with insurers to get a handle on what they are willing to pay for, he says.
4. Why does the author cite cases of Eli Lilly and Roche?
5. Why do drugmakers focus more on cancer medicine lately?
6. Explain the sentence "The cost controversy could end up limiting the cancer market's promise, however."
Questions 7-10
Is the world headed for a food crisis? India, Mexico and Yemen have seen food riots this year. Argentines boycotted tomatoes during the country's recent presidential elections when the vegetable became more expensive than meat; and in Italy, shoppers organized a one-day boycott of pasta to protest rising prices. In late October, the Russian government, hoping to ease tensions ahead of parliamentary elections early next year, announced a price freeze for milk, bread and other foods through the end of January.
What's the cause for these shortages and price hikes? Expensive oil, for the most part.
The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) reported last week that, at nearly $100 a barrel, the price of oil has sent the cost of food imports skyrocketing this year. Add in escalating crop prices, the FAO warned, and a direct consequence could soon be an increase in global hunger — and, as a consequence, increased social unrest. Faced with internal rumblings, "politicians tend to act to protect their own nationals rather than for the good of all," says Ali Ghurkan, a Rome-based FAO analyst who co-authored the report. Because of the lack of international cooperation, he adds, "Worldwide markets get tighter and the pain only lasts longer."
What's more, worldwide food reserves are at their lowest in 35 years, so prices are likely to stay high for the foreseeable future. "Past shocks have quickly dissipated, but that's not likely to be the case this time," says Ghurkan. "Supply and demand have become unbalanced, and... can't be fixed quickly."
The world's food import bill will rise in 2007 to $745 billion, up 21% from last year, the FAO estimated in its biannual Food Outlook. In developing countries, costs will go up by a quarter to nearly $233 billion. The FAO says the price increases are a result of record oil prices, farmers switching out of cereals to grow biofuel crops, extreme weather and growing demand from countries like India and China. The year 2008 will likely offer no relief. "The situation could deteriorate further in the coming months," the FAO report cautioned, "leading to a reduction in imports and consumption in many low-income food-deficit countries."
Hardest hit will likely be sub-Saharan Africa, where many of the world's poorest nations depend on both high-cost energy as well as food imports. Cash-poor governments will be forced to choose between the two, the FAO says, and the former has almost always won out in the past. That means more people will go malnourished. Further exacerbating the problem are the current record prices for freight shipping brought on by record fuel prices. An estimated 854 million people, or one in six in the world, already don't have enough to eat, according to the World Food Programme.
Nearly every region of the world has experienced drastic food price inflation this year. Retail prices are up 18% in China, 17% in Sri Lanka and 10% or more throughout Latin America and Russia. Zimbabwe tops the chart with a more than a 25% increase. That inflation has been driven by double-digit price hikes for almost every basic foodstuff over the past 12 months. Dairy products are as much as 200% more expensive since last year in some countries. Maize prices hit a 10-year high in February. Wheat is up 50%, rice up 16% and poultry nearly 10%.
On the demand side, one of the key issues is biofuels. Biofuels, made from food crops such as corn, sugar cane, and palm oil, are seen as easing the world's dependence on gasoline or diesel. But when crude oil is expensive, as it is now, these alternative energy sources can also be sold at market-competitive prices, rising steeply in relation to petroleum.
With one-quarter of the U.S. corn harvest in 2007 diverted towards biofuel production, the attendant rise in cereal prices has already had an impact on the cost and availability of food. Critics worry that the gold rush toward biofuels is taking away food from the hungry. Jean Ziegler, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on The Right to Food, recently described it as a "crime against humanity" to convert food crops to fuel, calling for a five-year moratorium on biofuel production.
Leaders in the biofuel industry respond that energy costs are more to blame for high food prices than biofuels. "Energy is the blood of the world, so if oil goes up then other commodities follow," Claus Sauter, CEO of German bioenergy firm Verbio said following Ziegler's comments. Others argue that cleaner-burning biofuels could help stem the effects of climate change, another factor identified by the FAO as causing food shortages. Ghurkan notes that scientists believe climate change could be behind recent extreme weather patterns, including catastrophic floods, heat waves and drought. All can diminish food harvests and stockpiles. But so can market forces.
7.Why does oil answer to the shortages and price hikes?
8.Describe the situation of food shortage in sub-Saharan Africa.
9. What is bio-fuel?
10.Describe comments on the five-year moratorium on biofuel production.
SECTION 6: TRANSLATION TEST(30 minutes)
Directions: Translate the following passage into English and write your version in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.
行路难，但人生之路谁都要走。有的人在赶路，心急切切，步急匆匆，眼中只有目标却忽略了风景，可路迢迢不知哪是终点。有的人如游客，不急不慌，走走停停，看花开花落，看云卷云舒。有时也在风中走，雨中行，心却像张开的网，放过焦躁苦恼。人生之路谁不走?只是走路时别忽略了一路的良辰美景。
一个人工作的地方是小的，居住的家是小的，社交的圈子是小的，有的人就越来越不满这缺乏变化的单调。有的人却总是怡然自得，随遇而安。世界浩渺，一个人只能居于一隅。比海洋大的是天空，比天空大的是心灵，因为这小小的心灵内住着一只时起时落的想象鸟。人生旅途上，有人背负着名利急急奔走，有人回归自然，飘逸而行。
keys:
1. Waste can be used to determine with great accuracy how many people are living in a particular place, how old they are, how much they earn and which ethnic group they come from.
人们可以根据垃圾比较准确地判断出在某地住着多少人，他们都多大年纪，他们收入如何和来自和种族。
accuracy n. 准确度
ethnic adj. 种族的，部落的
2. This is the Age of Shrinking. Home prices, the stock market, G.DP., corporate profits, employment: they’re all a fraction of what they once were.
这是一个缩水的时代，房地产价格，股票市场，GDP，公司利润，就业率：这些通通都变成了曾经的一小部分。
GDP 国民生产总值(gross national product)
a fraction of 一小部分
3. Most people have experienced the dreaded ice cream headache at some point. You are minding your own business, eating something like an ice cream cone, a milk shake, a snow cone... Then, suddenly you are hit with the most excruciating headache!
大多数人都曾有过吃冰淇淋引起可怕头疼的经历。你正一边做着手头的事儿，一边吃着甜筒、奶昔或者冰沙之类的冰淇淋，突然就感到一阵剧烈的头疼。
cream cone 甜筒冰激淋
milk shake 奶昔
snow cone 冰沙
excruciating adj. 极为疼痛的
4. Her health has changed dramatically after she picked up martial arts eight years ago. Before then, she was a smoking, take-out-every-night, espresso-drinking girl in her 20s.
自从她8年前开始练武术她的健康就戏剧般改变了。在这之前，二十几岁时，她是一个吸烟、每天晚上都出去吃饭和喝浓咖啡的女孩。
martial art 武术
espresso n. 浓咖啡
5.One reason to bone up on your brushing and gargling is that poor oral hygiene and gum disease have been linked to more serious illnesses, including diabetes.
使你坚定不移地刷牙和漱口的原因是糟糕的口腔卫生和口腔疾病和更严重的疾病有关联，包括糖尿病。
Bone up on 专心致志于
gargle vi. 漱口
diabetes n. 糖尿病
1. Body odor is special—the authors note that in previous studies men’s and women’s scent detection did not differ when it came to other aromas. The researchers also concluded that men’s odor is harder to mask than women’s, regardless of who sniffs. Only a fifth of the fragrances could cover up male odor. But half of the scents masked female odor. The researchers suggest that for women there may be important biological information contained in male sweat. So maybe don’t wash those towels just yet.
体味真是特别---该研究的作者们注意到，对于其它气味来说，以前的研究中发现男性和女性对这些气味的嗅觉能力没有什么区别。研究者们还得出结论：不论是谁闻体味儿，男人的体味比女人的体味能难于被掩盖。仅仅只有五分之一的香水能掩盖男性的气味。但是有一半的香水能掩盖女性的气味。研究者们推测，对于女性来说男性的体味中可能含有一些重要的生物信息。既然是这样，或许还是留着那些发臭的毛巾为好。
odor n. 气味
aroma n. 香味
scent n. 气味
2. A survey revealed that 60 percent of respondents believing Japan has the strictest work etiquette. English and American businessmen were also more easily offended than their colleagues in the Middle East, Japan and China, nations with cultural traditions spanning centuries. Almost 25 percent of Australians, however, thought it was perfectly acceptable to swear -- something the majority of Japanese and Middle Easterners found deeply offensive.
一项调查显示，有60%的受访者认为日本的办公室礼节最严格。与具有悠久文化传统的中东、日本和中国等国家相比，英国和美国的商界人士更容易因疏于礼节而被冒犯。而近25%的澳大利亚受访者认为说粗话完全可以接受，而日本和中东的多数受访者则对此深恶痛绝。
Reading test
1-5 CBDAB
6-10 CABAA
11-15 DACBC
16-20 ADBCB
【参考译文】
有关政府规模和政府作用的争论似乎在15年前就已尘埃落定，国有企业私有化风行一时。如今，大政府又卷土重来，这不仅是赤裸裸的事实，而且成为极具说服力的理念。
多年来，许多欧洲国家的政府支出占国民生产总值的比率一直很高，很多政府迫不及待地希望摆脱银行和汽车行业的管理事务。然而，在过去十年里，放手的做法生了显著的变化，而日复一日，这些变化使得政府问题重新成为了政治争论的焦点。
显然，促成这种改变的正是金融危机。随着全球市场的崩溃，政府实施了前所未有的强力干预，为经济体注入更多流动资金，接管或是拯救那些被认为是规模太大不能倒闭的银行和企业。在雷曼兄弟倒闭后的几个月，美国政府接管了通用和克莱斯勒，英国政府成了城市繁荣商业区银行的掌门人
这场危机颠覆了有关政府和市场的相对定位。政府曾经是问题的症结所在，如今市场却被认定为罪魁祸首。然而在雷曼银行倒闭之前，大政府就已然踏上归途。
大政府的复活引发了一系列的激烈讨论，而这将影响今后数十年的决策模式。美国政府已开始削减政府支出，以应对激增的赤字。美国因经济衰退而加剧的政府赤字已达到国民生产总值的12%，创下战后的最高纪录，美国经济的发展将取决于其他国家是否愿意购买美国国债。
【参考译文】
To go on a journey is often full of hardships, but so long as one lives he proceeds on his life’s journey. Different people go along differently. Some take hasty steps in anxiety. Obsessed with reaching the next goal in time, they spare no time for sightseeing along the way, nor do they have a clear view of where their long roads end. Others travel leisurely like tourists. They would take time off now and then for a look at blooming flowers or fallen petals. They would stop to admire clouds gathering and dispersing. Even when they go against the wind or are cautht in the rain, they never get annoyed, for worries slip off their minds as from an open net. Everyone goes his way in life. What makes a diffeence is: does he have a pleasant trip enjoying the landsacpe along the way?
Cramped is one’s workplace, narrow is one’s residence and small is the social circle one moves about---such limitiedness in space entails lack of variety which is the source of some people’s complaint. But others are always contendid and happy for he can adapt himself to different circumstances. Compared with the vastness of the universe it is only a tiny sopt one occupies on earth. However, though larger than the ocean is the sky, even larger is the human mind, for in it imagination can come and go on the wing without limitation.In their jouney through life, some people hurry on with a heavy heart in pursuit of fame and gain, while others go with an easy, grace, enjoying themselves in harmony with nature.
