From the health point of view we are living in a marvelous age. We are immunized from birth against many of the most dangerous diseases. A large number of once fatal illnesses can now be cured by modern drugs and surgery. It is almost certain that one day remedies will be found for the most stubborn remaining diseases. The expectation of life has increased enormously. But though the possibility of living a long and happy life is greater than ever before, every day we witness the incredible slaughter of men, women and children on the roads. Man vs the motor-car! It is a never-ending battle which man is losing. Thousands of people the world over are killed or horribly killed each year and we are quietly sitting back and letting it happen. It has been rightly said that when a man is sitting behind a steering wheel, his car becomes the extension of his personality. There is no doubt that the motor-car often brings out a man’ s very worst qualities. People who are normally quiet and pleasant may become unrecognizable when they are behind a steering-wheel. They are ill-mannered and aggressive, willful as two-year-olds and utterly selfish. All their hidden frustrations, disappointments and jealousies seem to be brought to the surface by the act of driving. The surprising thing is that society smiles so benignly on the motorist and seems to condone his behavior. Everything is done for his convenience. Cities are allowed to become almost uninhabitable because of heavy tragic: towns are made ugly by huge car parks: the countryside is desecrated by road networks: and the mass annual slaughter becomes nothing more than a statistic, to be conveniently forgotten. It is high time a world code were created to reduce this senseless waste of human life. With regard to driving, the laws of some countries are notoriously lax and even the strictest are not strict enough. A code which was universally accepted could only have a dramatically beneficial effect on the accident rate. Here are a few examples of some the things that might be done. The driving test should be standardized and made far more difficult than it is: all the drivers should be made to take a test every three years or so: the age at which young people are allowed to drive any vehicle should be raised to at least 21: all vehicles should be put through stringent annual tests for safety. Even the smallest amount of alcohol in the blood can impair a person’ s driving ability. Present drinking and driving laws(where they exist)should be made much stricter. Maximum and minimum speed limits should be imposed on all roads. Governments should lay down safety specifications for manufacturers, as has been done in the USA. All advertising stressing power and performance should be banned. These measures may sound inordinately harsh. But surely nothing should be considered as to severe if it results in reducing the annual toll of human life. After all, the world is for human beings, not motor-cars.

Spain’s King Juan Carlos, being an emperor for 32 years, turns 70 Saturday. But after years of definite overpraise among Spaniards for putting down an attempted and sudden change of government in 1981, he’ s recently faced more difficult times. Small groups of leftists have burned his photo, and criticism has also come from the right with one leading conservative radio host calling for him to resign. Juan Carlos fired back with a rare public defense of his ruling in a recent speech. “It’s been the longest period of stability and prosperity in Spain ever in a parliamentary monarchy, “ the king said. 1. How long has Juan Carlos been King of Spain? 2. What is the news item mainly about? For 35 years. For 32 years. For 70 years. For 17 years.

The great ship, Titanic, sailed for New York from Southampton on April 10th, 1912. She was carrying 1,316【C1】______and crew of 891. Even by modern standards, the 46,000 ton Titanic was a colossal ship. At the time, however, she was not only the largest ship that had ever been built, but was regarded as【C2】______, for she had sixteen watertight compartments. Even if two of these were flooded, she would still be able to float. The tragic sinking of this great liner will always be【C3】______, for she went down on her first【C4】______with heavy loss of life. Four days after【C5】______out, while the Titanic was sailing across the icy water of the North Atlantic, huge iceberg was suddenly spotted by a lookout. After the alarm had been given, the great ship turned sharply to avoid a direct【C6】______. The Titanic turned just in time, narrowly missing the immense walk of ice which rose over 100 feet out of the water beside her. Suddenly, there was a slight【C7】______sound from below, and the captain went down to see what had happened. The noise had been so faint that no one thought that the ship had been damaged. Below, the captain realized to his【C8】______that the Titanic was sinking rapidly, for five of her sixteen watertight compartments had already been flooded! The order to【C9】______ship was given and hundreds of people【C10】______into the icy water. As there were not enough lifeboats for everybody, 1,500 lives were lost. A) prepared B) passengers C) setting D) plunged E) remembered F) collision G) abandon H) unsinkable I) horror J) qualified K) presentation L) unbelievable M) voyage N) beautiful O) trembling

Although the top men in smuggling business must work together, most of a syndicate’ s small fry, specially the mules, know only their immediate contacts. If caught there is little they can give away. A mule probably will not even know the name of the person who gives him his instructions, nor how to get in touch with him. Usually he even does not know the person to whom he has to make delivery. He will be told just to sit tight in a certain hotel or bar until someone contacts him. In this way if he is blown, coming through airport customs he cannot unwittingly lead agents to the next link in the chain. All that the person at the receiving end do is to hang around the airport among the waiting crowd, and see that the mule comes through safely. If he does not, he is dimply written off as a loss. To make identification of mules easier, several syndicates have devised their own “club ties“ so that a mule wearing one can immediately be picked out. Mules often receive careful training before embarking on their first journey. One Beirut organization, for example, uses a room with three airline seats in it. There the trainee mules sit for hours on end wearing weighted smuggling vests beneath their clothes, so that they become accustomed to standing up after a long flight in a natural way, and without revealing what they are carrying. An outfit in Brussels maintained a comfortable apartment where the mules could relax and get a firm grip on themselves on the night before their first journey: they were helped to dress before setting out for the airport in the morning. More often than not a courier will not know precisely where he is going or what flight number is until he is actually handed his tickets at the airport. This prevents the careless boast in some bar or to a girl friend the night before. Mules occasionally run off with the goods to keep the profit themselves. As insurance against this, a syndicate often sends a high-up on the same plane to keep a wary eye on couriers, particularly new ones. Even then things can go badly wrong. One international currency smuggler who was having trouble getting money out of Britain was offered help by a group of men who said they were in a position to “fix thing“—for a fee of course. Foolishly, the smuggler agreed to accept their help. When he got to London’ s Heathrow Airport, he handed over to one of the men a black suitcase containing nearly $90, 000 in cash, destined for Frankfurt. Just to keep an eye on things, the smuggler went along on the same plane. When they landed at Frankfurt he was handed back his suitcase. He beat a straight path to the men’ s toilet, opened the case, and found only old clothes. The courier had switched suitcase en route, but the smuggler could hardly run to the police and complain that “the man who was smuggling money out of England for me has stolen it.“

如今，京津冀“串门儿旅游”成为一种常态。而这一切源于2014年，京津冀协同发展上升为国家战略，在诸多抓手中，旅游产业是率先破题的领域之一。2014年4月，天津市旅游局与京冀两地旅游部门召开工作会议，明确了组织一体化、管理一体化、市场一体化的发展目标。四年来，天津市旅游部门在加强与京冀旅游优势互补、信息互换、游客互送等方面做了大量务实有效的工作。

For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay entitled Why do More and More People Not Want to Go Home for the Chinese New Year? following the outline given below. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words. 1．一些人因为没时间回家过年。 2．一些人认为过年没意思。 3．你的看法。

In a suburb in northern Johannesburg South Africa, Lorraine Melvill is running around trying to organize hospital visits for her clients staying in her guest house. She started her business, “Surgeon and Safari, “ back in 2000 and since then she has had people from all over the world come to her to do their plastic surgeries, and perhaps go on a trip too. “For most people in the developed countries like the UK, and especially in America, their biggest desire is to go on a trip to see wild animals in Africa, “ she explains, “and yet their greatest want in their life was to have plastic surgery, so why not put the two together?“ Like most companies, however, Surgeon and Safari was affected by the global financial crisis, particularly as a number of Melvill’ s clients were borrowing money to afford their surgeries. However, while the United States and euro zone economies may have been in recession, Melvill says that she has benefited from the growth of some African countries’ economies. “There is a huge emergence of local Africans that chose to come to South Africa for elective surgery, whether it is breast reduction, tummy tucks, “ she says. 3. What is Lorraine Melvill’ s business? 4. Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the news item? Running a plastic surgery clinic. Arranging for surgery and safari. Providing consultancy to local people. Organizing trips to UK and American.

Chinese government is ready to carry out its first national survey of pollution sources in February to help control environmental pollution in the country. The study will identify and collect data on sources of industrial, agricultural and residential pollution for two months. Last year, China’ s environment was facing a serious situation, with several major rivers and lakes blocked by industrial waste. China’s environmental cleanup is delayed by more than two decades of rapid economic growth, and a lack of technology especially. Every province has set up an office and will report to a main center staffed by officials from government departments. Data will be reviewed many times before being put into a database and will be analyzed in the second half of 2008. Findings will be examined and approved by mid-2009. 5. What is the purpose of the national survey? 6. According to the news item, what especially affected efforts of environmental protection? 7. Which of the following details is NOT true according to the news item? To collect data on sources of pollution. To identify pollution in rivers and lakes. To help control environmental pollution. To help control industrial wastes.

W: Hello. Can I take your order? M: Yes. I’d like a large pepperoni pizza with mushrooms and green peppers. Uh, can I make that a half-and-half pizza? W: Sure. What would you like on each half? We have Italian sausage, ham, mushrooms, onions, pineapple, green peppers, bacon and tomatoes. M: I’ll have pineapple and mushrooms on one half and green peppers and Italian sausage on the other. Oh, and could I get extra cheese on that pizza? W: Alright. Would you care for any bread sticks or beverage with your order? Actually, we have a Friday night family special going on right now, and if you order any large pizza and drink, we’ll throw in a free order of bread sticks, plus a three-dollar coupon for use with your next pizza order. M: Huh, sure, why not? And what drink comes with the pizza? W: Either apple or orange juice. M: I’ll take orange juice. W: Okay. Your total comes to seventeen nineteen, which includes tax. And could I have your name, address and telephone number? M: Uh, yeah, Jay Smith. It’s 1340 North 16 East, and the phone number is 340-1870. Questions 8 to 11 are based on the conversation you have just heard. 8. Which is NOT mentioned as one available from this pizza shop? 9. What pizza does the man finally order? 10. Which of the following is NOT true? 11. Which of the following is offered by the Friday night family special if you order any large pizza and drink? Bacon. Mushrooms. Italian sausage. Onions.

M: Good morning. W: Good morning. How can I help you? M: I understand that the school organizes ... umm, trips to different... W: Yes, we run five every month: three during weekends and two Wednesday afternoon trips. M: What sort of places? W: Well, obviously it varies, but always places of historical interest and also which offer a variety of shopping, because our students always ask about that ... and then we go for ones where we know there are guided tours, because this gives a good focus for the visit. M: Do you travel far? W: Well, we’ re lucky here, obviously, because we’ re able to say that all our visits are less than three hours’ drive. M: How much do they cost? W: Again it varies between five and fifteen pounds a head, depending on distance. M: Ah ha... W: Oh, and we do offer to arrange special trips if, you know, there are more than twelve people. M: All right. I’ll keep that in mind. And what are the times normally? W: We try to keep it pretty fixed so that students get to know the pattern. We leave at eight-thirty a.m. and return at six p.m. We figure it’ s best to keep the day fairly short. M: Oh yes. And how do we reserve a place? W: You sign your name on the notice board. Do you know where it is? M: Ah ha. I saw it this morning. W: And we do ask that you sign up three days in advance so we know we’ ve got enough people interested to run it, and we can cancel if necessary, with full refund of course. M: That’s fine. Thanks. Questions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard. 12. How often does the school organize the trips? 13. How much does everyone cost? 14. When will the school arrange special trips? 15. How to reserve a place for a trip? Once a week. Three every month. Five every month. Two every month.

Telephone books in the United States have white, blue and yellow pages. The white pages list people with phones by last name, the blue pages contain numbers of city services, government agencies and public schools. Businesses and professional services are listed in a special section: see the yellow pages. To make a long-distance call, you need an area code. Each area in the U.S. has an area code. The area covered by one area code may be small or large. For example, New York City has one area code, but so does the whole state of Oregon. If you want to know the area code of a place, you can look it up in the area code map, which is printed in the front of the white pages. There are a lot of public telephones in the U.S. They have their own numbers. If you are making a long-distance call on a public telephone and run out of money, give the number on your phone to the person you are talking to, then hang up the receiver, and he can call you back. If you make a long-distance call and get a wrong number, call the opera tor and explain what happened. This means that you can make the call again to the right number without having to pay more money. Questions 19 to 21 are based on the passage you have just heard. 19. Where can you find the telephone number of a city council in the telephone book? 20. Where can you find an area code map of the U.S.? 21. What are you advised to do when you get a wrong number in making a long distance call? In the white page. In the blue page. In the yellow page. In a special section.

Universities Branch Out A) As never before in their long history, universities have become instruments of national competition as well as instruments of peace. They are the place of the scientific discoveries that move economies forward, and the primary means of educating the talent required to obtain and maintain competitive advantage. But at the same time, the opening of national borders to the flow of goods, services, information and especially people has made universities a powerful force for global integration, mutual understanding and geopolitical stability. B) In response to the same forces that have driven the world economy, universities have become more self-consciously global: seeking students from around the world who represent the entire range of cultures and values, sending their own students abroad to prepare them for global careers, offering courses of study that address the challenges of an interconnected world and collaborative (合作的) research programs to advance science for the benefit of all humanity. C) Of the forces shaping higher education none is more sweeping than the movement across borders. Over the past three decades the number of students leaving home each year to study abroad has grown at an annual rate of 3.9 percent, from 800,000 in 1975 to 2.5 million in 2004. Most travel from one developed nation to another, but the flow from developing to developed countries is growing rapidly. The reverse flow, from developed to developing countries, is on the rise, too. Today foreign students earn 30 percent of the doctoral degrees awarded in the United States and 38 percent of those in the United Kingdom. And the number crossing borders for undergraduate study is growing as well, to 8 percent of the undergraduates at America’s best institutions and 10 percent of all undergraduates in the U.K. In the United States, 20 percent of the newly hired professors in science and engineering are foreign-born, and in China many newly hired faculty members at the top research universities received their graduate education abroad. D) Universities are also encouraging students to spend some of their undergraduate years in another country. In Europe, more than 140,000 students participate in the Erasmus program each year, taking courses for credit in one of 2,200 participating institutions across the continent. And in the United States, institutions are helping place students in summer internships (实习) abroad to prepare them for global careers. Yale and Harvard have led the way, offering every undergraduate at least one international study or internship opportunity—and providing the financial resources to make it possible. E) Globalization is also reshaping the way research is done. One new trend involves sourcing portions of a research program to another country. Yale professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Tian Xu directs a research center focused on the genetics of human disease at Shanghai Fudan University, in collaboration with faculty colleagues from both schools. The Shanghai center has 95 employees and graduate students working in a 4,300-square-meter laboratory facility. Yale faculties, post-doctors and graduate students visit regularly and attend videoconference seminars with scientists from both campuses. The arrangement benefits both countries; Xu’ s Yale lab is more productive, thanks to the lower costs of conducting research in China, and Chinese graduate students, post-doctors and faculty get on-the-job training from a world-class scientist and his U.S. team. F) As a result of its strength in science, the United States has consistently led the world in the commercialization of major new technologies, from the mainframe computer and integrated circuit of the 1960s to the Internet infrastructure (基础设施) and applications software of the 1990s. The link between university-based science and industrial application is often indirect but sometimes highly visible: Silicon Valley was intentionally created by Stanford University, and Route 128 outside Boston has long housed companies spun off from MIT and Harvard. Around the world, governments have encouraged copying of this model, perhaps most successfully in Cambridge, England, where Microsoft and scores of other leading software and biotechnology companies have set up shop around the university. G) For all its success, the United States remains deeply hesitant about sustaining the research-university model. Most politicians recognize the link between investment in science and national economic strength, but support for research funding has been unsteady. The budget of the National Institutes of Health doubled between 1998 and 2003, but has risen more slowly than inflations since then. Support for the physical sciences and engineering barely kept pace with inflation during that same period. The attempt to make up lost ground is welcome, but the nation would be better served by steady, predictable increases in science funding at the rate of long-term GDP growth, which is on the order of inflation plus 3 percent per year. H) American politicians have great difficulty recognizing that admitting more foreign students can greatly promote the national interest by increasing international understanding. Adjusted for inflation, public funding for international exchanges and foreign-language study is well below the levels of 40 years ago. In the wake of September 11, changes in the visa process caused a dramatic decline in the number of foreign students seeking admission to U.S. universities, and a corresponding surge in enrollments in Australia, Singapore and the U.K. Objections from American university and business leaders led to improvements in the process and a reversal of the decline, but the United States is still seen by many as unwelcoming to international students. I) Most Americans recognize that universities contribute to the nation’s well-being through their scientific research, but many fear that foreign students threaten American competitiveness by taking their knowledge and skills back home. They fail to grasp that welcoming foreign students to the United States has two important positive effects: first, the very best of them stay in the States and—like immigrants throughout history—strengthen the nation; and second, foreign students who study in the United States become ambassadors for many of its most cherished values when they return home. Or at least they understand them better. In America as elsewhere, few instruments of foreign policy are as effective in promoting peace and stability as welcoming international university students.

Criticism of research lays a significant foundation for future investigative work, but when students begin their own projects, they are likely to find that the standards of validity in fieldwork are considerably more rigorous than the standards for most library research. When students are faced with the concrete problem of proof by field demonstration, they usually discover that many of the “important relationships“ they may have criticized other researchers for failing to demonstrate are very elusive indeed. They will find if they submit an outline or questionnaire to their classmates for criticism, other students will make comments similar to some they themselves may have made in discussing previously published research. For example, student researchers are likely to begin with a general question but find themselves forced to narrow its focus. They may learn that questions whose meanings seem perfectly obvious to them are not clearly understood by others, or that questions which seem entirely objective to them appear to be highly biased to someone else. They usually find that the formulation of good research questions is a much more subtle and frustrating task than is generally believed by these who have not actually attempted it. Questions 16 to 18 are based on the passage you have just heard. 16. What does the author think about trying to find weakness in other people’ s research? 17. According to the passage, what is one major criticism students often make of published research? 18. What does the author conclude about preparing suitable questions for a research project? It should only be attempted by experienced researchers. It may cause researchers to avoid publishing good work. It is currently being done to excess. It can be useful in planning future research.

When you go to a college or high school sports event, you can see cheerleaders. Cheerleaders dress in the colors of their team. They jump and dance in front of the crowd and shout the name of their team. Their job is to excite the crowd. Everybody makes a lot of noise. They want their team to win the game. The first cheerleader was a man. In 1898, Johnny Campbell jumped in front of the crowd at the University of Minnesota and shouted for his team. He shouted, “Hooray Minnesota!“ This was the first organized shout, or “yell“. For the next thirty-two years cheerleaders were men only. Women were not cheerleaders until 1930. Today cheerleaders work in teams. They practice special shouts, dances, and athletic shows. Often the women work separately from the men, but cheerleaders are most exciting when men and women work together. The men throw the women high in the air and catch them. The team members climb on each other’s shoulders to make a human pyramid. They yell and dance too. Cheerleaders now have their own contests. Every year there are local, state, and national contests for cheerleaders. The teams make new, faster, and more exciting shows to be the best. And the crowd shouts. They want their cheerleaders to win. Questions 22 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard. 22. Where can you see cheerleaders? 23. Who was the first cheerleader? 24. In which year did women begin to be cheerleaders? 25. How do cheerleaders work today? College. High school. Sports event. Park.

From the health point of view we are living in a marvelous age. We are immunized from birth against many of the most dangerous diseases. A large number of once fatal illnesses can now be cured by modern drugs and surgery. It is almost certain that one day remedies will be found for the most stubborn remaining diseases. The expectation of life has increased enormously. But though the possibility of living a long and happy life is greater than ever before, every day we witness the incredible slaughter of men, women and children on the roads. Man vs the motor-car! It is a never-ending battle which man is losing. Thousands of people the world over are killed or horribly killed each year and we are quietly sitting back and letting it happen. It has been rightly said that when a man is sitting behind a steering wheel, his car becomes the extension of his personality. There is no doubt that the motor-car often brings out a man’ s very worst qualities. People who are normally quiet and pleasant may become unrecognizable when they are behind a steering-wheel. They are ill-mannered and aggressive, willful as two-year-olds and utterly selfish. All their hidden frustrations, disappointments and jealousies seem to be brought to the surface by the act of driving. The surprising thing is that society smiles so benignly on the motorist and seems to condone his behavior. Everything is done for his convenience. Cities are allowed to become almost uninhabitable because of heavy tragic: towns are made ugly by huge car parks: the countryside is desecrated by road networks: and the mass annual slaughter becomes nothing more than a statistic, to be conveniently forgotten. It is high time a world code were created to reduce this senseless waste of human life. With regard to driving, the laws of some countries are notoriously lax and even the strictest are not strict enough. A code which was universally accepted could only have a dramatically beneficial effect on the accident rate. Here are a few examples of some the things that might be done. The driving test should be standardized and made far more difficult than it is: all the drivers should be made to take a test every three years or so: the age at which young people are allowed to drive any vehicle should be raised to at least 21: all vehicles should be put through stringent annual tests for safety. Even the smallest amount of alcohol in the blood can impair a person’ s driving ability. Present drinking and driving laws(where they exist)should be made much stricter. Maximum and minimum speed limits should be imposed on all roads. Governments should lay down safety specifications for manufacturers, as has been done in the USA. All advertising stressing power and performance should be banned. These measures may sound inordinately harsh. But surely nothing should be considered as to severe if it results in reducing the annual toll of human life. After all, the world is for human beings, not motor-cars.

What does the word “slaughter“ mean?

What we can learn from the sentence “his car becomes the extension of his personality“?

What does the author think of society toward motorists?

Which of the followings is NOT mentioned as a way against traffic accidents?

The main idea of this passage is______.