MADONNA seems like a person used to getting her own way. So the pop star must have been dismayed when a court in Malawi refused to her request to adopt a three-year-old girl, Chifundo James. A judge ruled on Friday April 3rd that the adoption of Chifundo could not go ahead because Madonna had not fulfilled residency requirements. The last time Madonna tried to adopt a Malawian child she met with more success and a heap of criticism.
By plucking David Banda from grinding poverty in Malawi in 2006 she provoked mixed reactions. Some praised the singer for offering a child an escape from a life of misery. Others suggested that the pop queen might have used her wealth and stardom to bypass usual procedures and jump the queue. Detractors also suggested that it was wrong to take David away from his country of birth and his remaining family. The criticisms grew louder when it emerged that David was not, in fact, an orphan.
That circumstance is not particularly uncommon. Children given up for adoption often do have a surviving parent but one who cannot provide adequate care. David"s father was still alive but gave him up to an orphanage where he hoped his offspring would have a better life.
The number of families from rich countries wanting to adopt children from poor countries has grown substantially in the past 30 years. And there is little shortage of children who need additional help. In 2005 it was estimated that there were 132m children who had lost at least one parent in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Around 13m of these had lost both parents, although most of them lived with extended family.
But difficulties abound. (Would-be parents) typically want to adopt a healthy, young, orphan, usually a small baby. Older children, or those who suffer chronic illnesses, are not in demand.
Governments are understandably uneasy about outsiders removing their citizens. And as demand for children to adopt has grown, so have examples of abuse, including cases of children who have been kidnapped or parents who have been coerced or bribed. The absence of effective international regulation also allows middlemen to profit from the demand for children to adopt.
The Hague Convention on Inter Country Adoptions is intended to regulate international adoptions. It states that these can only go ahead if the parents" consent, where applicable, has been obtained without any kind of payment or compensation. Costs and expenses can be paid, and a reasonable fee may go to the adoption agency involved, but nothing more.

1. 
Paragraph 1 tells that Madonna ______.

A rarely failed to get whatever she wanted

B adopted a Malawian girl named Mercy James

C had an illegal adoption of a Malawian child

D regretted residing in a wrong community

2. 
We can infer that an adoption is generally acceptable if ______.

A the adopted has no close kin

B the adopted is a foreign child

C the adopter is wealthy enough

D the adopter has won some fame

3. 
Children like David are put on the list for adoption mostly because ______.

A their families suffer from poverty

B they have lost both of their parents

C their parents neglect their growth

D they have escaped from their home

4. 
Which can be concluded about the stated situation of adoption?

A Most children put up for adoption have found adopters

B Those to be adopted outnumber those wanting to adopt

C People are anxious to adopt healthy infants

D The adopted rarely remain in their home country

5. 
Paragraph 6 focuses on the corrupt practices concerning ______.

A choosing alien adoptees

B caretaking of the adopted

C the search of suitable adopters

D the growing demand for adoption

6. 
The adoption regulations in the Hague Convention will ban ______.

A charging the parents for giving up children

B adopting children for profit

C adopting two children in one family

D forcing one to accept any adoptee

All art booms are different. The previous one ended in 1989, when Japanese buyers withdrew from the Impressionist market. Interest rates rose in the slump that followed; there were plenty of sellers but no buyers. Today the reverse is true. Buyers are looking to diversify into alternative assets. The only problem is the sellers. There is plenty of money, but little to buy.
It should follow, then, that buyers will snap up anything. But that is not quite the case, as the Old Master sales at Christie"s in London on December 8th showed only too well. In the recent sales the best pieces sold brilliantly, and the rest hardly at all. The best included a rare Raphael drawing, and an elegant self-portrait by Sir Anthony van Dyck. Many of the leading dealers were present, including Philip Mould, known as the BBC"s "art detective;" Alfred Bader, a rich American art-market broker; and the heirs to two important art-dealing businesses, William Noortman and Simon Green.
Van Dyck"s oval shaped self-portrait, painted in 1640, the year before he died, had been in the same family for almost 300 years. Mr. Mould joined forces with Mr. Bader to try and win the painting. Young Mr. Noortman, the under bidder who was trying to buy the picture for stock, did not stand a chance. The winning bid was ￡7.4m, nearly three times van Dyck"s previous auction record.
The last lot in Christie"s sale was a black chalk drawing, less than a foot square, by Raphael, an early 16th-century Italian master. It is the study of a head for one of the Greek muses. Its beauty, rarity and the sense that the study may well have been used by the artist himself when working on a larger painting drew collectors from far and wide.
Christie"s had estimated the study would fetch ￡12m-16m. Bidding opened at ￡8.5m, with three buyers on the telephone. Jennifer Wright, Christie"s New York-based drawings specialist, made a final bid for the Raphael of if 26m—a world record for a work on paper.
After the sale, Christie"s international co-head, Richard Knight, was quick to point out that, at ￡ 68.4m, theirs had been the biggest Old Master sale ever. "This result shows what a very solid market this is," he said. But that took no account of the failures, which were considerable. 15 of the 43 lots in Christie"s auction failed to sell at all.

1. 
Unlike 1989, today, the art market is characterized by an increase of ______.

A sales

B prices

C buyers

D supplies

2. 
Christie"s sale showed that ______.

A many of the paintings were left on the shelf

B portraits were in greater demand than others

C buyers all found their favorite pieces

D sellers worried little about selling their lots

3. 
The self-portrait of Sir Anthony van Dyck was ______.

A kept in one home for three centuries

B once sold for about 2

C put up for auction for the first time

D won by two American art dealers

4. 
Raphael"s drawing at the sale was undoubtedly ______.

A the portrait of the artist himself

B the part of a larger painting

C the copy of a Greek sculpture

D the only one in the world

5. 
According to the passage, the ￡ 26m for the Raphael was most probably unexpected by ______.

A Alfred Bader

B Jennifer Wright

C Richard Knight

D Simon Green

6. 
It can safely be concluded that the Old Master sale mentioned ______.

A reflected a very solid market

B had both wins and losses

C turned out to be a total failure

D sold more works than any other auctions

A few years ago, in their search for ways to sell more goods, advertising men hit on a new and controversial gimmick. It is a silent, invisible commercial that, the ad men claim, can be rushed past the consumer"s conscious mind and planted in his subconscious- and without the consumer"s knowledge.
Developed by James Vicary, a research man who studies what makes people buy, this technique relies on the psychological principle of subliminal perception. Scientists tell us that many of the sights coming to or eyes are not consciously "seen". We select only a few for conscious "seeing" and ignore the rest. Actually the discarded impressions are recorded in the brain though they are below the threshold of consciousness.
There"s little doubt in Vicary"s mind as to the subliminal ad"s effectiveness. His proof can be summed up in just two words: sales increase.
In an unidentified movie house not so long ago, unknown audiences saw a curious film program. At the same time, on the same screen on which the film hero was courting the heroine a subliminal projector was flashing its invisible commercials.
"Get popcorn", ordered the commercial for a reported one three-thousandths of a second every five seconds. It announced "Coca-Cola" at the same speed and frequency to other audiences. At the end of a six weeks trial, popcorn sales had gone up 57 percent, Coke sales 18 percent.
Experimental Films. Inc, says the technique is not new. It began research on subliminal perception in 1954. Experimental Films stresses that its equipment was designed for helping problematic students and treating the mentally ill. At NYU two doctors showed twenty women the projected image of an expressionless face. They told the subjects to watch the face for some change of expression. Then they flashed the word angry on the screen at subliminal speeds. Now the women thought the face looked unpleasant. When the word happy was flashed on the screen instead, the subjects thought the woman"s facial expression looked much more pleasant.
Subliminal techniques, its promoters believe, are good for more than selling popcorn. Perhaps the process can even be used to sell political candidates, by leaving a favorable impression of the candidate in the minds of the electorates subliminally.
How convincing are these invisible commercials? Skeptical psychologists answer that they aren"t anywhere near as effective as the ad men would like to think they are. Nothing has been proven yet scientifically, says a prominent research man.

1. 
Subliminal perception is when one______

A has an attempt to buy with a good reason

B recalls some past events and activities

C enjoys seeing some images in his mind

D gets a mental picture without consciousness

2. 
To advertising sponsors, the true test of subliminal projection is whether it______

A proves worth the money spent

B call create a mental impression

C helps sell more of their products

D can arouse anger in the audience

3. 
Subliminal ads are invisible because they are shown very______

A fast

B naturally

C often

D vaguely

4. 
Subliminal techniques have NOT been used for______

A promoting sales

B making commercials

C curing mental illness

D selling political candidates

5. 
Some psychologists seem to believe that subliminal projection______

A needs a cautious application

B has no effect on sales

C benefits the customers

D causes a mental confusion

6. 
What is the author"s position on subliminal projection in ads?

A He reveals none in the passage

B He advocates its prohibition

C He considers it an exaggeration

D He acclaims its effectiveness

To avoid the various foolish opinions to which mankind is prone, no superhuman genius is required. A few simple rules will keep you, not from all error, but from silly error.
1 Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted. He did not do so because he thought he knew.
Many matters, however, are less easily brought to the test of experience. If, like most of mankind, you have passionate convictions on many such matters, there are ways in which you can make yourself aware of your own bias. 2 If someone maintains that two and two are five, or that Iceland is on the equator, you feel pity rather than anger, unless you know so little of arithmetic or geography that his opinion shakes your own contrary conviction. The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmeticthere is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion. 3
A good way of ridding yourself of certain kinds of dogmatism is to become aware of opinions held in social circles different from your own. When I was young, I lived much outside my own country. I found this very profitable in diminishing the intensity of insular prejudice. 4 If the people and the newspaper seem mad, perverse, and wicked, remind yourself that you seem so to them.
For those who have enough psychological imagination, it is a good plan to imagine an argument with a person having a different bias. 5 I have sometimes been led actually to change my mind as a result of this kind of imaginary dialogue, and, short of this, I have frequently found myself growing less dogmatic through realizing the possible reasonableness of a hypothetical opponent.
A. This has one advantage, and only one, as compared with actual conversation with opponents; this one advantage is that the method is not subject to the same limitations of time and space.
B. If you cannot travel, seek out people with whom you disagree, and read a newspaper belonging to a party that is not yours.
C. If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do.
D. In this opinion both parties may be right, but they cannot both be wrong.
E. If the matter is one that can be settled by observation, make the observation yourself.
F. So whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants.

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

Few numbers tell a happier story than those that measure life expectancy. An American born in 1900 could expect to live 47 years. Thanks to colossal improvements in sanitation and medicine, that figure is now 75 for men and 80 for women. 1
So it is both alarming and surprising when life expectancy falls, even for a small part of the population. Yet that is what some researchers at Harvard have found. They looked at death rates by county, having corrected for migration and merged sparsely populated ones so that America"s 3,141 counties became 2,068 "county units".
2 But between 1983 and 1999, it fell significantly (by about a year) for women in 180 county units, and stagnated in another 783. Men fared less poorly, their life expectancy fell significantly in only 11 county units, and stagnated in another 48.
Put differently, life expectancy appears to have either stagnated or fallen slightly for some 4% of American men and 19% of women. The main culprits are diseases linked to smoking or obesity, such as lung cancer and diabetes. 3
Majid Ezzati, one of the study"s authors, says it is too soon to say. An optimist would point out that women took up smoking later than men. It was not until after the Second World War that they started puffing at anything like the male rate. The increase of poor women now dying of lung cancer may be a hangover from the end of the taboo on female smoking. 4
A pessimist would reply that the other big killer, obesity, keeps spreading, especially among the poor. "We"ve been saying for ages that it must have peaked, but it keeps going up," says Dr. Ezzati. Two decades ago, no state had an obesity rate above 15%. Now, 22 have passed the 25% mark. 5 Neither are getting any smaller.
A. For most Americans, life expectancy continues merrily to rise.
B. And the poorest Americans have gained the most: blacks, for example, live more than twice as long now as they did a century ago.
C. Even though smoking takes an average of 14. 5 years off women"s lives, almost one in five American women age 18 and older smokes.
D. The counties where life expectancy has fallen are nearly all in the South or Appalachia, where huge deep-fried portions are the norm and waistlines are among America"s widest.
E. But both sexes have quit in droves since the 1970s, so the death toll may fall in the future.
F. The crucial question is whether this represents a blip or the start of a trend.

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

America"s Federal Reserve cut interest rates by another quarter-point, to 3.75 %. Wall Street, which had been 21 for a sixth half-point cut, was disappointed. The Dow fell by 2% 22 the week. The past week"s economic statistics gave mixed signals. Exports dropped by 2% in both March and April, largely
23 a decline in high-tech investment 24 ;the merchandise-trade 25 widened to $ 458 billion in the 12 months 26 April. 27 ,the Conference Board"s index of consumer confidence was higher than 28 in June.
Concerns 29 inflation in the Euro area 30 . Preliminary data 31 that German consumer price inflation fell to 3. 1% in the year to June, from 3.5 % in May; wage growth 32 to 1.4% in April, a real pay cut of 1.5%. Some economists fear that Germany is on the 33 of recession. The IFO index of business confidence dropped more 34 than expected in May, and the institute has cut its forecast of GDP 35 this year to only 1.2% ,well below the German government"s forecast of 2%.

1. 

A expecting

B hoping

C wishing

D dreaming

2. 

A in

B above

C during

D about

3. 

A because of

B since

C because

D thanks to

4. 

A at home

B home

C from abroad

D abroad

5. 

A deficit

B shortage

C scarcity

D shortfall

6. 

A to

B until

C up

D onto

7. 

A Although

B Therefore

C However

D Hence

8. 

A projected

B planned

C predicted

D expected

9. 

A on

B for

C of

D over

10. 

A stopped

B eased

C relieved

D improved

11. 

A showed

B demonstrated

C illustrated

D explained

12. 

A reduced

B cut

C slow

D lessened

13. 

A edge

B rim

C lip

D brink

14. 

A harshly

B huskily

C strictly

D severely

15. 

A growth

B rise

C increase

D escalation

As we enter the 21st century, the gap between the world"s rich and poor is widening, both with in and among countries. 1. The vast majority of the world"s population is receiving an ever-decreasing share of its collective wealth, while the share claimed by a few rich nations and individuals is steadily growing. In 2001 Forbes magazine counted 538 billionaires with a total net worth of 1.7 trillion dollars, while the United Nations identified 2.8 billion people surviving on less than two dollars a day. Overall, the richest 20 percent of the world"s people control 86 percent of global income, while the poorest 20 percent control barely one percent.
The impacts of this widening rich-poor gap are varied and worrisome. 2. They include environmental destruction—richer nations and individuals can afford to over-consume resources, poorer nations and individuals are forced to over-exploit the environment just to survive. They include migration—people are forced to, move in search of adequate resources. And they include conflict—wealthier nations and individuals fight to keep what they have, while those suffering a lack of resources fight to obtain them. 3. Because poorer groups typically lack the assets and technology to conduct large-scale conventional war to obtain their goals, they often resort to low-intensity conflict and terrorism.
The causes of this global disparity are diverse and complex, but include colonial era trading patterns that favor industrialized nations; the globalization of economies and economic structures, in which poor nations struggle to compete; a growing "digital divide" characterized by lack of access to information technology; inadequate governance and protection of law; and lack of access to education, healthcare, and social safety nets, especially for women and girls.
4. Individuals and nations need not remain in poverty indefinitely, however. With an awareness of the interdependence of our modern world and a concerted political will, it is possible to reverse this trend that threatens to divide the world against itself. And reversing this trend would have powerful and positive impacts on our future.
5. Bringing the nearly 5 billion people of the less industrialized world into a sustainable economy through "pro-poor" policies would provide a tremendous boost to the world economy, as well as to those people. With increased economic opportunities come improved access to nutrition, education, and health care. With those come higher income, greater autonomy—especially for women—and the opportunity to pursue environmentally sound technologies and products.

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

Topic
When do you think is the best time for a college candidate to decide on his major: before going to college or while enrolled in college? Provide your reasons and supporting details.