SECTION 1: LISTENING TEST (30 minutes) Part A: Spot Dictation
Directions: In this part of the test, you will hear a passage and read the same passage with blanks in it. Fill in each of the blanks with the word or words you have heard on the tape. Write your answer in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET. Remember you will hear the passage ONLY ONCE.
When you stop and think about your high school or college alma mater, were your experiences more positive or negative? Do your feelings of ____________(1) in that school have anything to do with whether or not your school was single-sex or coed? ____________(2) to send their children to single-sex schools, because they feel both ______________(3) when they study in the company of students of the same sex. They _______________(4). For years, only parents who could afford to send their children to private schools or who had _____________________(5) chose single-sex education for their children. Single-sex schooling was
___________(6) for most American families. Today, however, along with _______________(7), public schools are experimenting with the idea of _____________(8).
Girls may be the ones who benefit most from single-sex schooling. Studies have shown that _____________(9) in coed classrooms because teachers sometimes pay more attention to boys. Girls' _____________(10) toward their studies tends to disappear as they began to feel less successful. They start to ___________(11) outperform them in math and science. As boys ____________(12), girls start to lose it. Moreover, adolescence is __________(13) for girls. As they experience adolescent changes some girls become depressed, develop an addiction or suffer from _____________(14).
In the early 1990s, some influential people said that being in single-sex classes could ___________(15). Schools across the country began creating single-sex classrooms and schools but many critics claim that ______________(16) may actually be detrimental to a girls' education, because they ___________(17) of sex differences.
The renewed interest in single-sex schooling ________________(18) among Americans. Those who give it full endorsement believe girls need an all-female environment to take risks and find their own voices. Those who ______________(19) of single-sex schooling wonder whether students' lack of achievement warrants returning to an educational system that divides the sexes. They believe there is no ___________________(20). Part B: Listening Comprehension
Directions: In this part of the test there will be some short talks and conversations. After each one, you will be asked some questions. The talks, conversations and questions will be spoken ONLY ONCE. Now listen carefully and choose the right answer to each question you have heard and write the letter of the answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.
Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following conversation. 1. (What is the woman's present job?)
A. A courier for a tour operator C. An agency manager
B. An agent for models D. A personal assistant
2. (Which of the following is not involved in the woman's present job?)
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A. To keep the accounts
B. To writer letters and answer the telephone. C. To organize business trips and conferences.
D. To look after the models and keep them happy.
3. (What foreign languages does the woman speak?) A. Spanish and French B. French and Italian C. Italian and English
D. English and Spanish
4. (What salary does the woman expect from her perspective of employer?) A. Around 15,000. B. No less than 18,000
C. Somewhere between 20,000 and 22,000
D. At least 25,000
5. (Which of the following statements is true about the woman according to the conversation?) A. She has a university degree in accounting and economics B. She is in her twenties.
C. She is applying for the job of a conference coordinator. D. She has adequate formal qualifications for the job.
Questions 6 to 10 are based on the following interview.
6. How many lives has the Dengue fever outbreak claimed in India?
7. Which of the following statements best describes Britain's current economic situation? 8. What is reported to have happened in Gaza city early Tuesday morning?
9. What do the new regulations stipulate according to South African Department of the Environment？10. Which of the following statements is true about Hawaii's disaster early Sunday? Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following interview. 11. What is meant in the interview by the term ‘presenteeism'?
12. For what reason is ‘presenteeism' considered as a problem for companies?
13. What percentage of employers will actually send an employee home when finding him/her sick?
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14. Employers do several things to prevent sick people from coming to work. Which of the following is not one of these things?
15. According to the interview, which of the following are the primary carrier of germs? Questions 16 to 20 are based on the following interview.
16. Which of the following best describes the drug problem in the U.S.?
17. How much is spent each year in fighting against the use of illegal drugs in the U.S.? 18. Which of the following is cited as evidence in support of the proposal to make drugs legal?
19. There are several arguments against legalizing drugs, which of the following is not one of these arguments? 20. Which of the following statements is true according to the passage? SECTION 2: READING TEST （部分考题欠奉）
Directions: In this section you will read several passages. Each one is followed by several questions about it. You are to choose ONE best answer, (A), (B), (C) or (D), to each question. Answer all the questions following each passage on the basis of what is stated or implied in that passage and write the letter of the answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET. Questions 1-5
Source：Christian Science Monitor
Years ago, when I first started building websites for newspapers, many journalists told me that they saw the Internet as the end of reliable journalism. Since anyone could publish whatever they wanted online, \"real journalism\" would be overwhelmed, they said. Who would need professional reporters and editors if anyone could be a reporter or an editor? I would tell them not to worry. While my personal belief is that anyone can be a reporter or editor, I also know that quality counts. And that the \"viral\" nature of the Internet means that when people find quality, they let other people know about it. Even nontraditional media sites online will survive only if the quality of their information is trusted. The future of online news will demand more good reporters and editors, not fewer.
So I was intrigued when Newsweek recently published a story called \"Revenge of the Expert.\" It argued that expertise would be the main component of \"Web 3.0.\" \"The wisdom of the crowds has peaked,\" says Jason Calacanis, founder of the Maholo \"people-powered search engine\" and a former AOL executive. \"Web 3.0 is taking what we've built in Web 2.0 - the wisdom of the crowds - and putting an editorial layer on it of truly talented, compensated people to make the product more trusted and refined.\" Well, yes and no. Sure, it is important for people to trust the information they find online. And as the Newsweek article argues, the need for people to find trusted information online is increasing, thus the need for more expertise. But the article fails to mention the most important feature of the world of digital information. It's not expertise - it's choice.
In many cases the sites that people come to trust are built on nontraditional models of expertise. Look at sites like Digg.com, Reddit.com, or Slashdot.com. There, users provide the expertise on which others depend. When many users select a particular story, that story accumulates votes of confidence, which often lead other users to choose that story. The choices of the accumulated community are seen as more trustworthy than the \"gatekeeper\" model of traditional news and information. Sometimes such sites highlight great reporting from traditional media. But often they bring forward bits of important information that are ignored (or missed) by \"experts.\" It's sort of the \"open source\" idea of information - a million eyes looking on the Web for information is better than a few.
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Jay Rosen, who writes the PressThink blog, says in an e-mail that he's seen this kind of story before, calling it a \"kind of pathetic\" trend reporting. \"I said in 2006, when starting NewAssignment.Net, that the strongest editorial combinations will be pro-am. I still think that. Why? Because for most reporters covering a big sprawling beat, it's still true what Dan Gillmor said: ‘My readers know more than I do.' And it's still the case that tapping into that knowledge is becoming more practical because of the Internet.\"
J.D. Lasica, a social-media strategist and former editor, also says he sees no departure from the \"wisdom of the crowds\" model. \"I've seen very little evidence that the sweeping cultural shifts we've seen in the past half dozen years show any signs of retreating,\" Mr. Lasica says. \"Young people now rely on social networks ... to take cues from their friends on which movies to see, books to read.... And didn't ‘Lonely Planet Guide' explore this terrain for travel and Zagat's for dining back in the ‘90s?\"
In many cases, traditional media is still the first choice of online users because the reporters and editors of these media outlets have created a level of trust for many people - but not for everyone. When you combine the idea of expertise with the idea of choice, you discover nontraditional information sites that become some of the Internet's most trusted places. Take SCOTUSblog.com, written by lawyers about cases in the Supreme Court. It has become the place to go for other lawyers, reporters, and editors to find in-depth information about important cases. The Internet also allows individuals to achieve this level of trust. For instance, the Scobleizer.com blog written by Robert Scoble. Mr. Scoble, a former Microsoft employee and tech expert, is widely seen as one of the most important people to read when you want to learn what's happening in the world of technology. He built his large audience on the fact that people trust his writing.
To me, it's the best of all possible information worlds.
Questions 6-10 Source: Times
Perhaps we could have our children pledge allegiance to a national motto. So thick and fast and inchoate tumble the ideas about Britishness from the Government that the ridiculous no longer seems impossible. For the very debate about what it means to be a British citizen, long a particular passion of Gordon Brown, brutally illustrates the ever-decreasing circle that new Labour has become. The idea of a national motto has already attracted derision on a glorious scale -- and there's nothing more British than the refusal to be defined. Times readers chose as their national motto: No motto please, we're British.
Undaunted, here comes the Government with another one: a review of citizenship, which suggests that schoolchildren be asked to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen. It would be hard to think of something more profoundly undemocratic, less aligned to Mr Brown's supposed belief in meritocracy and enabling all children to achieve their full potential. Today you will hear the Chancellor profess the Government's continuing commitment to the abolition of child poverty, encapsulating a view of Britain in which the State tweaks the odds and the tax credit system to iron out inherited inequalities.
You do not need to ask how this vision of Britain can sit easily alongside a proposal to ask kids to pledge
allegiance to the Queen before leaving school: it cannot. The one looks up towards an equal society, everyone rewarded according to merit and not the lottery of birth; the other bends its knee in obeisance to inherited privilege and an undemocratic social and political system. In Mr Brown's view of the world, as I thought I understood it, an oath of allegiance from children to the Queen ought to be anathema, grotesque, off the scale, not even worth considering.
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Why, then, could No 10 not dismiss it out of hand yesterday? Asked repeatedly at the morning briefing with journalists whether the Prime Minister supported the proposal, his spokesman hedged his bets. Mr Brown welcomed the publication of the report; he thinks the themes are important; he hopes it will launch a debate; he is very interested in the theme of Britishness. []But no view as to the suitability of the oath. It is baffling in the extreme. Does this Prime Minister believe in nothing, then? A number of things need to be unpicked here. First, to give him due credit, the report from the former Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith contains much more than the oath of allegiance. That is but \"a possibility that's raised\". The oath forms a tiny part of a detailed report about what British citizenship means, what it ought to mean and how to strengthen it.
It is a serious debate that Mr Brown is keen to foster about changing the categories of British citizenship, and defining what they mean. But it is in him that the central problem resides: the Prime Minister himself is uncertain what Britishness is, while insisting we should all be wedded to the concept. No wonder there is a problem over what a motto, or an oath of allegiance, should contain. Britain is a set of laws and ancient institutions - monarchy, Parliament, statutes, arguably today EU law as well. An oath of allegiance naturally tends towards these.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. In its younger and bolder days, new Labour used to argue that the traditional version of Britain is outdated. When Labour leaders began debating Britishness in the 1990s, they argued that the institutions in which a sense of Britain is now vested, or should be vested, are those such as the NHS or even the BBC, allied with values of civic participation, all embodying notions of fairness, equality and modernity absent in the traditional institutions. Gordon Brown himself wrote at length about Britishness in The Times in January 2000: \"The strong British sense of fair play and duty, together embodied in the ideal of a vibrant civic society, is best expressed today in a uniquely British institution -- the institution that for the British people best reflects their Britishness -- our National Health Service.\"
An oath of allegiance to the NHS? Ah, those were the days. They really thought they could do it; change the very notion of what it meant to be British. Today, ten years on, they hesitatingly propose an oath of allegiance to the Queen. Could there be a more perfect illustration of the vanquished hopes and aspirations of new Labour? Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair. Ah, but I see there is to be a national day as well, \"introduced to coincide with the Olympics and Diamond Jubilee - which would provide an annual focus for our national narrative\". A narrative, a national day, glorifying the monarchy and sport? Yuck. I think I might settle for a national motto after all.
Questions 11-15
Source: the Guardian
Over lunch, a writer outlined a new book idea to his editor. It was to be a niche concern but promised much. The writer left the restaurant with a glow and decided to get an outline over, pronto. But days and weeks of being too busy turned to months and then, eventually, came the shocking discovery that his editor had been rather elusive of late for a reason: he had been busy crafting a book based on the writer's idea, and it was now in the shops. An apocryphal tale, maybe, but it will send shivers down any writer's spine. What's more, if the writer were to turn to the law in such a dread scenario, the law would be of no use to him at all.
Phil Sherrell, a media lawyer with Eversheds, explains: \"Intellectual property law protects the expression of ideas, not the ideas themselves.\" Sherrell agrees that \"the distinction is not always satisfactory,\" but says that there needs to be a limit to the protection conferred on creativity by the law. \"To extend the ambit of copyright protection to embrace ideas would be difficult in practice - how would the artist prove that they have conceived the idea if it has not been reduced to a tangible form? It would also open the door to undesirably wide monopolies.\"
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But copyright's 300-year pedigree might be a cause for concern rather than veneration. The means by which we communicate has changed out of all recognition from the time when copyright was invented. Today, in the
post-modernist world, what constitutes an artistic, literary or musical work is radically different, not least in the field of conceptual art. Here, copyright's timehonoured reluctance to protect ideas is of dubious merit, according to Hubert Best, a media lawyer with Best & Soames.
\"If you look at Martin Creed's [art installation] Work No. 227, The Lights Going On and Off, where is the work?\" asks Best. \"Is it in the fact that a light bulb goes on and off, or in the concept? I suspect it's the latter. But
old-fashioned copyright law does not cover this kind of thing.\" Creed's Work No. 227 was an empty room in which the lights periodically switched on and off. It won the Turner Prize in 2001 to a predictable chorus of controversy. This goes with the territory in conceptual art, but other artists have found their work inspires not merely lively debate but accusations of plagiarism.
Last year, three weeks after he unveiled his diamond-encrusted, ￡50m skull, Damien Hirst was alleged to have stolen the idea for the work from another artist, John LeKay. In 2006, Robert Dixon, a graphics artist, said that Hirst's print, Valium, was too close for comfort to one of his circular designs in The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Geometry. Hirst had another brush with intellectual property law when Norman Emms complained about a ￡1m bronze torso which, he said, was copied from a ￡14.99 plastic anatomical toy. Emms later received a \"goodwill payment\" from the artist.
As one of the world's wealthiest artists, Hirst is well-placed to fight such battles, but due allowance should be given for art's intertextual essence. Writers borrow plots and embed allusions to their forebears, artists adapt well-known motifs, musicians play each other's songs and sample existing riffs and melodies. But there is a fine line between plagiarism and creative allusion, and it was considered by the courts in the case of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. The Court of Appeal upheld the initial ruling that Brown had not reproduced substantial content from The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. The decision was also widely seen as confirming English law's disinclination to protect ideas. Yet if ideas can't be protected, where does that leave the writer aggrieved by the appearance of his idea in another's book? \"It sounds harsh,\" says Sherrell, \"but unless a writer has gone some way to creating the work - by way of an outline and perhaps a chapter or two - there is no remedy if the same idea appears under another author's name. However, given that everything is done on computers these days, it would be relatively easy to prove first creation by looking at the hard drive. Other than that, anyone in the creative arena should keep full and dated records to evidence their work.\"
There is another thing that can be done. \"You can impose a confidentiality obligation on those with whom you want to discuss your idea,\" says Best. \"Nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) are often used in the corporate world to give a contractual remedy for breach of confidence if an idea is stolen. But the trouble is that a writer, musician or artist who comes into a meeting wielding an NDA isn't likely to make friends. It's a fairly aggressive way to proceed.\" Best is doubtless correct when he says: \"You've just got to get on with it and do it. Once your work exists, in material form, you can sue if anyone steals it.\" Questions 16-20
A new golden age of cartography has suddenly dawned, everywhere. We can all be map-makers now, navigating across a landscape of ideas that the cartographers of the past could never have imagined. Maps were once the preserve of an elite, an expression of power, control and, latterly, of minute scientific measurement. Today map-making has been democratised by the internet, where digital technology is spawning an astonishing array of maps, reflecting an infinite variety of interests and concerns, some beautiful, some political and some extremely odd.
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If the Budget has made you feel gloomy, you can log on to a map that will tell you just how depressed you and the rest of the world are feeling. For more than two years, the makers of wefeelfine.org have harvested feelings from a wide variety of personal blogs and then projected these on to the globe. How happy are they in Happy Valley? How grim is Grimsby? You can find out.
Where maps once described mountains, forests and rivers, now they depict the contours of human existence from quite different perspectives: maps showing the incidence of UFOs, speed cameras or the density of doctors in any part of the world. A remarkable new map reflects global telephone usage as it happens, starkly illustrating the technological gap between, say, New York and Nairobi. Almost any measurable human activity can be projected, using a computer \"mash-up\". A new online map called whoissick.org allows American hypochondriacs to track who is ill with what and where at any given moment. A hilarious disclaimer adds: \"whoissick is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice.\" The new generation of amateur map-makers are doing for the traditional atlas what Wikipedia has already done to the encyclopaedia, adding layer upon layer of new information, some that is fascinating and useful, much that is pointless and misleading, and almost all from a distinctly personal perspective.
The new digital geography marks a return to an earlier form of cartography, when maps were designed to reveal the world through a particular prism. The earliest maps each told a story framed by politics, culture and belief. Ancient Greeks painted maps depicting unknown lands and strange creatures beyond the known world. Early Christian maps placed Jerusalem at the middle of the world. British imperial maps showed the great advance of pink colonialism spreading outwards from our tiny islands at the centre.
Maps were used to settle scores and score points, just as they are today. When Jesuit map-makers drew up a chart of the Moon's surface in 1651, craters named after heretical scientists such as Copernicus and Galileo were dumped in the Sea of Storms, while more acceptable thinkers were allowed to float in the Sea of Tranquillity. The 19th century heralded a more scientific approach to map-making; much of the artistry and symbolism was stripped away in an attempt to create a two-dimensional representation of three-dimensional reality. Maps became much more accurate, but less imaginative and culturally revealing.
The boom in amateur mapping, by contrast, marks a return to the earlier way of imagining the world when maps were used to tell stories and impose ideas, to interpret the world and not simply to describe its physical character. New maps showing how to avoid surveillance cameras, or the routes taken by CIA planes carrying terrorist suspects on \"extraordinary rendition\
The earliest maps were also philosophical guides. They showed what was important and what was peripheral and what might be imagined beyond the edges of the known. A stunning tapestry map of the Midlands made around the time of Shakespeare and recently rediscovered, depicts forests, churches and the houses of the most powerful families, yet not a single road. It does not purport to show a physical landscape, but a mental one. Maps have always tried to show where we are, literally or philosophically. The explosion of online mapping, however, offers something even broader: a set of maps that combine to express individual personality.
Oscar Wilde wrote that \"a map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it
leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail.\" If Utopia means knowing where you fit in your own world - knowing how many UFOs hover above you, how much graffiti has appeared overnight, how happy your next-door neighbour is and whether he is likely to have picked up anything contagious - then humanity may finally have a map showing how to get there. 16. According to the passage, the makers of wefeelfine.org ____ on the maps. (A) have marked how happy people are around the world
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(B) have shown different feelings people have in different parts of the world (C) have depicted how depressed people are in the world today
(D) have illustrated the changes of personal feeling for peoplr of the world
17. The word \"preserve\" in the sentence \"Maps were once the preserve of an elite\" (para.1) can best be paraphrased as _____.
(A) unique preservation (B) privileged right (C) exclusive enjoyment (D) advantageous activity 18. Copernicus and Galileo are mentioned in the passage because ___. (A) they were considered acceptable thinkers by Jesuit map-makers then
(B) they were condemned by Jesuit map-makers in their charting of the Moon's surface (C) they were famous for their annoucement of the sun-centered theory to the world (D) they were the first scientists who had drawn the map of the Moon's surface 19. At the end of passage, the author quoted Oscar Wilde _____.
(A) to give the rationale for all these changes in map-making with digital technology (B) to tell the readers the definition of maps given by the famous British playwright (C) to introduce the changes in the definition of the word Utopia over the centuries (D) to provide the background for all these changes in the practice of cartography 20. Which of the following can best express the main idea of the passage? (A) The new digital geography marks a return to an earlier form of cartography.
(B) Any measurable human activity can be projected and shown through different maps. (C) With digital technology, map-making has been undergoing a most radical change. (D) Different types of maps can reveal a wide variety of purposes and perspectives. SECTION 3: TRANSLATION TEST (30 minutes)
Directions: Translate of the following passage into Chinese and write your version in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.
In general, investment in the United States will be in the form of a subsidiary. It is possible for a non-U.S corporation to operate a branch office in the United States, but there are significant disadvantages to a branch, particularly with respect to its tax treatment.
Branches of non-U.S corporations are not subject to federal regulation or registration requirements. However, each state will require a \"foreign\" corporation to \"qualify\" before \"doing business\" in that state. A corporation will be considered \"foreign\" if it is organized under the laws of another country or another state, and so this is a requirement imposed only on non-U.S investors.
\"Doing business\" is a technical term that implies a substantial presence in the state. This would include the ownership of leasing of real property, the maintenance of a stock of goods for local sale, employee and the like. Selling
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products to local customers, either directly or through an independent sales representative or distributor, would not in itself constitute \"doing business\".
The State actually exercise little control over the qualification process other than to ensure that the qualifying entity's name is not confusingly similar to an already registered entity and that all registration fees and taxes are paid (qualification is basically a form of taxation). In most states, qualification for a non-U.S corporation consists of a relatively easy application, a registration fee, and a notarized of legalized copy of the corporation's articles of incorporation (in English or a certified translation). SECTION 4: LISTENING TEST
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 will not get your ANSWER BOOKLET until after you have listened to the talk.
Research studies show that there are some fundamental ____(1) between men and women In their attitudes to ____ (2) matters. Women are far more likely to save for their children's ____(3) and to save up to buy a ____(4). Men tend to save for a ____(5), and for their ____(6). But In fact the need for women to save for their old age Is far ____(7) than for men. Throughout the world, women are likely to lively many years____(8) than men. For thermore It Is the ____(9) women who will most often have to look after the children and thus they need more____(10) to look after not just themselves but others. Women today need to look ahead, think ahead, not wait until they're under __________(11).
A number of __________(12) have been set up to help them do this. Some educational institutions offers night ________(13) in Money __________(14). They can be given ___________(15) on different ways of saving. It is usually advised that at least ___________(16) of a person's savings should be in low-risk investments but for the rest, ____________(17) advisors often advise taking some __________(18) risks. Initiatives such as this can five women the economic _____________(19) and knowledge they need for a comfortable, __________(20) retirement. Part B: Listening and Translation I. Sentence Translation
Directions: In this part of the test, you will hear 5 English sentences. 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)
II. Passage Translation
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Directions: In this part of the test, you will hear 2 English passages. 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 （部分题目欠奉）
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
Joe Harberg became an energy-efficiency guru because he didn't know the first thing about energy efficiency. In 2003 he was constructing a new home in Dallas and wanted to work with his builder to make the place as
environmentally friendly as possible. But neither Harberg nor his designer had any training in how to turn an ordinary house green, and they found few resources to help them. \"It was so frustrating,\" says Harberg, 46, a Dallas-based entrepreneur.
Relying principally on the Internet, Harberg--who previously had worked as a marketing expert and real estate
developer--did manage to build an energy-efficient home. He boasts that his electricity bills are regularly 50% less than those of similar homes in his neighborhood, and the entrepreneur in him saw an opportunity. Lots of people worry about global warming, not to mention the soaring costs of powering a home, but they don't know what to do about it. Working with his brother-in-law Josh Stern, Harberg helped launch what would become Current Energy, in 2005, to provide the needed expertise. \"We aspire to be the ones who put it all together for you,\" Harberg says.
Today Current Energy operates what is probably the first dedicated energy-efficiency retail store in the U.S., a hip space in Dallas' tony Highland Park where shoppers can buy ultraefficient air conditioners, tankless water heaters and even electric votive candles. But while the store itself is green cool--reminiscent of the Apple retail shops that Harberg helped roll out in his previous career--the real value in Current Energy isn't in its gadgets but in the services it offers. \"It's an art to figure out how to save money at home,\" Harberg says. \"We do the work.\"
Homeowners who come to Current Energy can order an energy audit--a socket-to-faucet analysis of how to eliminate energy and water waste. After receiving the report, customers can follow as many of the recommendations as they wish, with Current Energy employees involved in the installation work--down to changing the lightbulbs. Joseph VanBlargan, a writer, secured an assessment for his Dallas home and estimates that the upgrades save him about 30% on his monthly energy bill. \"I could have done it on my own, but there would have been bits and parts I would have missed,\" he says. Greenies who live outside Dallas will soon be able to get an energy assessment from currentenergy.com and the company will work with licensed auditors in your town to carry out the improvements. What Current Energy does isn't as easy as it looks. Maximizing the efficiency in your home means more than just chucking your incandescent lightbulbs. You might improve your attic insulation to prevent the loss of heat in the winter, but go overboard, and you could end up choking on indoor air pollution. Just as a house is more than four walls and a door, energy efficiency should be holistic, with insulation, appliances, lighting and clean electricity all working together.
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That's a message the tireless Harberg--who could probably power Texas Stadium if you plugged him into the grid--spreads with zeal. He hosts a weekly radio call-in show and was recently on the TV show Good Morning Texas touting the benefits of an indoor air-quality monitor. \"You're saving people money and saving the earth at the same time,\" he says excitedly. As business plans go, that's an awfully good one. Questions 4-6
What is globalization? Most answers lead quickly to abstractions about trade, finance and the movement of people. Carlo Ratti, by contrast, has come up with something far more concrete. Working with data from AT&T, the U.S. telecommunications operator, Ratti and his team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed luminous and fluctuating maps that show how international phone calls and data traffic travel between New York and more than 200 countries. \"It's like having a real-time view of globalization,\" says Ratti, who directs mapping research at MIT. Phone calls and data flows are good indicators of how the world is organizing itself.
The wall-size maps, on display at New York's Museum of Modern Art, are \"as engaging as a good movie,\" says curator Paola Antonelli. (The maps, called \"New York Time Exchange,\" are part of an exhibition entitled \"Design and the Elastic Mind,\" which runs through May 12.) As flows of telecommunications data change, arcs of light, glowing dots and landmasses expand and shrink. (The maps aren't quite in real time: data are delayed for two hours for technical reasons.) The result is a vivid and emotional picture of a united world. The information may also yield insights into social patterns.
On one map, regions expand as the number of phone connections with New York increases. This reveals a global pecking order of sorts: when it is day in New York, callers in other time zones get up very early, or stay up very late, to talk to the Big Apple. But the reverse isn't true; the world accommodates New York, but New Yorkers don't accommodate the world. \"It's as if these [time-zone] lines get distorted and bend inwards into the city of New York,\" says Kristian Kloeckl, project leader at MIT's SENSEable City Laboratory, which designed the maps.
The maps are not pure art, but part of ongoing research into how the world exchanges data. MIT researchers studied British Telecom data to gauge, among other things, the influence of New York with that of rival London (the BT data were not mapped). MIT's findings? New York has more telephone contact than London not just with Latin America, as was expected, but also with Asia. This shows up as more calls and more minutes connected, even for certain parts of the Middle East-including Riyadh-despite the greater time difference. Saskia Sassen, a globalization sociologist at New York's Columbia University who was privy to the BT data, refers to these mapped phone calls as \"a geography of power.\" She notes that tallies of international phone calls is a good approximate measure of
globalization. Unlike statistics that measure high-level economic activity such as foreign investment, telephony also captures global interactions among people in lower socioeconomic groups, such as poor immigrants, thus giving a more complete picture of overall activity.
MIT's approach to mapping live data may appeal to audiences beyond museum-goers. Maps of
telecommunications would come in handy for the airline industry, which is always looking for ways to better understand the degree of \"connectedness\" between cities. At present, to gauge the potential profitability of a route, airlines rely essentially on passenger records from other flights. Knowing how much talking \"connects\" any two cities would be \"incredibly helpful\" to route planners who must estimate the number of likely passengers, says Jon Woolf, senior consultant at ASM, an airline-route consultancy in Manchester, UK.
The local detail provided in the maps is another potential treasure trove of information. The MIT charts break down AT&T phone traffic at 100 points, or \"switches,\" throughout New York. (No information is provided that could link individuals to phone calls.) This breakdown allows for a high level of detail-down to the neighborhood-which
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would be useful to advertisers or political campaign operatives. A speechwriter whose candidate will be stumping in Flushing, Queens, might want to know that 10 percent of international calls placed from the neighborhood connect with Seoul, South Korea. Questions 7-10
What's behind Fox's unrivaled string of money-making movies? A relentless focus on costs
If there were an Oscar for most consistently profitable Hollywood studio, it probably would go to 20th Century Fox (NWS). Hollywood is a hit-driven business, and most studios bounce from box-office hit to dud with depressing regularity. But for the past seven years, Fox has scored with both blockbusters (Alvin and the Chipmunks) and indie hits (Juno) that have generated the kind of double-digit return on investment you might expect from a business making widgets, not films. Tom Pollock, a former Universal Pictures chairman who produces movies for Fox and other studios, says: \"Fox is simply the best-run studio in town.\"
You were expecting anything less from Rupert Murdoch's guys? At Fox, the mantra is \"to be creatively driven but fiscally astute,\" says James N. Gianopulos, who co-chairs the studio with Thomas Rothman of Fox Filmed
Entertainment (NWS). Translation: to be almost pathologically obsessed with costs. Not that the co-chairs run from risk. They outbid most of Hollywood in 2004 for the script to the apocalyptic The Day After Tomorrow, but made it for $100 million, relatively cheap for a special-effects picture. It grossed more than half a billion dollars worldwide. Double-digit profits are rare in Hollywood. Yet for the past six years, Fox has delivered 12% to 18% operating margins. Halfway through its fiscal year, it earned operating income of $765 million on nearly $3.6 billion in revenues-a 21.5% operating margin. And that doesn't include Horton Hears a Who!, which grossed a hefty $45 million on its Mar. 14 opening weekend and was made for just over $85 million, nearly half what an animated Pixar Animation Studios (PIXR) film costs.
\"No one in Hollywood negotiates tougher than these guys,\" says producer John Davis, who made I, Robot and Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties for Fox. The hardballing starts with development, which Davis says typically costs Fox 10% to 15% less than usual because it holds the line on costly rewrites. On top of that, Fox rarely gives anyone but the biggies-Steven Spielberg, say-a piece of the profits. It also sets tough budgets and sticks with them. For his Lord of the Rings-esque Eragon, Davis had a $100 million budget, which forced him to cut some special effects and limit stars such as John Malkovich to cameos. It earned just $75 million domestically but did well globally.
Special effects often eat up an action film's budget. Not at Fox. The studio learned its lesson 10 years ago with Titanic, which cost Fox and Paramount Pictures (VIA) a then-unthinkable $200 million to make. After Titanic, Fox hired an in-house effects czar, whose main job is riding herd on special effects houses, often playing them against each other to get the best price. \"They beat you over the head,\" says X-Men producer Avi Arad. \"If it costs $30 million, they'll ask why it can't cost $20 million.\" To keep downtime to a minimum, Arad used several shops on Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
Fox's biggest hits are its smallest films. Peter Rice runs the studio's independent unit, Fox Searchlight Pictures (NWS), which is in the business of finding tiny films, like Little Miss Sunshine, that were made on a shoestring. Rice's limit: $15 million. His latest triumph: Juno. It cost $7.5 million to produce and pulled in $135 million-plus in the U.S. alone.
Which brings us to marketing, an expense that has been known to account for one-third of a film's overall budget. While executives say they pay full freight for ads on Fox's far-flung global properties, their stars pop up all over. Samuel L. Jackson, who starred in the flick Jumper, walked the carpet at the Super Bowl on the Fox Network. And
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wasn't that Jim Carrey, who provided Horton's voice, recently grinning insanely in the audience of Fox's megahit American Idol?
Fox has stumbled before. Its 2005 picture Kingdom of Heaven bombed in the U.S. and cost a very unFoxlike $130 million to make. But even then, Fox turned things around. It had loaded the film with international stars, including Orlando Bloom, so it made enough outside the U.S. to break even.
7. What is a \"hit-driven business\"? Explain briefly the sentence \"most studios bounce from box-office hit to dud with depressing regularity.\" (para.1)
8. Explain Gianopulos' comment what \"At fox, the mantra is 'to be creatively driven but fiscally astute'\". (para.2) 9. What are the hardballing measures in Fox's control of its costs in making films?
10. Cite examples to illustrate the statement \"Fox biggest hits are its smallest films.\" (Para.6) SECTION 6: TRANSLATION TEST
Directions: Translate the following passage into English and write your version in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.
中国古代圣人孔子曾说过：\"劳心者治人，劳力者治于人。\"这句话反映了中国传统文化中人的地位等级的划分，也直接影响了人们对职业的选择。现代意义上的\"白领阶层\"是让人羡慕的对象，而\"蓝领阶层\"即使工资较高，仍有被人看不起的压力。
在中国，还有另外一句流传甚广的话，叫做\"无商不奸\"，认为商人\"唯利是图\"，与君子重义轻利的追求背道而驰，所以在传统文化中经商是被人看不起的职业，但是，随着社会主义市场经济的发展，从商\"下海\"已经变成许多年轻人择业时的第一选择。现代年轻人选择职业时，已较少传统的观念，更具有现代意识。
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