Most parent, I suppose, have had the experience of reading a bedtime story to their  3  and they must have  2  how difficult it is to write a good children's book. Either the author has aimed too  3  , so that the children can follow what is in his (or more often, her) story,  4  the story seems to be talking to the readers.
   The best children's books are neither very difficult nor very simple, and satisfy both the children who  5  the story and the adult who  6  it. Unfortunately, there are in fact  7  books like this, so the problem of finding the right bedtime story is not  8  to solve. This may be why many of books regarded as works of children's literature were in fact written for  9  Alice's Adventure in Wonderland is perhaps the most obvious of this.
   Children, left for themselves, often  10  the worst possible interest in literature. Just leave a child in bookshop or  11  and he will more willingly choose the books written in an imaginative way, or have a  12  at most children's comics, full of the stories and jokes which are the objections of teachers and right-thinking parents.
   Perhaps we parents should  13  trying to brainwash children into accepting our taste in literature. After all children and adults are so  14  that we parents should not expect that they will enjoy the  15  books. So I suppose we'll just have to compromise over that bedtime story.

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   With its common interest in lawbreaking but its immense range of subject-matter and widely-varying methods of treatment, the crime novel could make a legitimate claim to be regarded as a separate branch of literature, or at least, as a distinct, even though a slightly disreputable, offshoot of the traditional novel.
   The detective story is probably the most respectable (at any rate in the narrow sense of the word) of the crime species. Its creation is often the relaxation of university scholars, literary economists, scientists or even poets. Disastrous deaths may occur more frequently and mysteriously than might be expected in polite society, but the world in which they happen, the village, seaside resort, college or studio, is familiar to us, if not from our own experience, at least in the newspaper or the lives of friends. The characters, though normally realized superficially, are as recognizably human and consistent as our less intimate acquaintances. A story set in a more remote African jungle or Australian bush, ancient China or gas-lit London appeals to our interest in geography or history, and most detective story writers are conscientious in providing a reasonably true background. The elaborate, carefully-assembled plot, despised by the modem intellectual critics and creators of "significant" novels, has found refuge in the murder mystery, with its sprinkling of clues, its spicing with apparent impossibilities, all with appropriate solutions and explanations at the end. With the guilt of escapism from real life nagging gently, we secretly take delight in the unmasking of evil by a vaguely super-human detective, who sees through and dispels the cloud of suspicion which has hovered so unjustly over the innocent.
   Though its villain also receives his rightful deserts, the thriller presents a less comfortable and credible world. The sequence of fist fights, revolver duels, car crashes and escapes from gas-filled cellars exhausts the reader far more than the hero, who, suffering from at least two broken ribs, one black eye, uncountable bruises and a hangover, can still chase and overpower an armed villain with the physique of a wrestler. He moves dangerously through a world of ruthless gangs, brutality, a vicious lust for power and money and, in contrast to the detective tale, with a near-omniscient arch-criminal whose defeat seems almost accidental. Perhaps we miss in the thriller the security of being safely led by our imperturbable investigator past a score of red herrings and blind avenues to a final gathering of suspects when an unchallengeable elucidation of all that has bewildered us is given and justice and goodness prevail. All that we vainly hope for from life is granted vicariously.

   Low-level slash-and-bum farming doesn't harm rainforest. On the contrary, it helps farmers and improves forest soils. This is the unorthodox view of a German soil scientist who has shown that burnt clearings in the Amazon, dating back more than 1 000 years, helped create patches of rich, fertile soil that farmers still benefit from today.
   Most rainforest soils are thin and poor because they lack minerals and because the heat and heavy rainfall destroy most organic matter in the soils within four years of it reaching the forest floor. This means topsoil contains few of the ingredients needed for long-term successful farming.
   But Bruno Glaser, a soil scientist of the University of Bayreuth, has studied unexpected patches of fertile soils in the central Amazon. These soils contain lots of organic matter. Glaser has shown that most of this fertile organic matter comes from "black carbon"—the organic particles from camp fires and charred (烧成炭的) wood left over from thousands of years of slash-and-burn faring." The soils, known as Terra Preta, contained up to 70 times more black carbon than the surrounding soil," says Glaser. Unbumt vegetation rots quickly, but black carbon persists in the soil for many centuries. Radiocarbon dating shows that the charred wood in Terra Preta soils is typically more than 1000 years old.
   "Slash-and-burn farming can be good for soils provided it doesn't completely burn all the vegetation, and leaves behind charred wood," says Glaser. "It can be better than manure (粪肥) ." Burning the forest just once can leave behind enough black carbon to keep the soil fertile for thousands of years. And rainforests easily regrow after small-scale clearing. Contrary to the conventional view that human activities damage the environment, Glaser says,"black carbon combined with human wastes is responsible for the richness of Terra Preta soils."
   Terra Preta soils turn up in large patches all over the Amazon, where they are highly prized by farmers. All the patches fall within 500 square kilometers in the central Amazon. Glaser says the widespread presence of pottery confirms the soil's human origins. The findings add weight to the theory that large areas of the Amazon have recovered so well from past periods of agricultural use that the regrowth has been mistaken by generations of biologists for "virgin" forest. During the past decade, researchers have discovered hundreds of large earth works deep in the jungle. They are up to 20 meters high and cover up to a square kilometer. Glaser claims that these earth works, built between AD 400 and 1400, were at the heart of urban civilizations. Now it seems the richness of the Terra Preta soils may explain how such civilizations managed to feed themselves.

   As a wise man once said, we are all ultimately alone. But an increasing number of Europeans are choosing to be so at an ever earlier age. This isn't the stuff of gloomy philosophical contemplations, but a fact of Europe's new economic landscape, embraced by sociologists, real-estate developers and ad executives alike. The shift away from family life to solo lifestyle, observes a French sociologist, is part of the "irresistible momentum of individualism" over the last century. The communications revolution, the shift from a business culture of stability to one of mobility and the mass entry of women into the workforce have greatly wreaked havoc on (扰乱) European's private lives.
   Europe's new economic climate has largely fostered the trend toward independence. The current generation of home-aloners came of age during Europe's shift from social democracy to the sharper, more individualistic climate of American style capitalism. Raised in an era of privatization and increased consumer choice, today's tech-savvy (精通技术的) workers have embraced a free market in love as well as economics. Modem Europeans are rich enough to afford to live alone, and temperamentally independent enough to want to do so.
   Once upon a time, people who lived alone tended to be those on either side of marriage-twenty something professionals or widowed senior citizens. While pensioners, particularly elderly women, make up a large proportion of those living alone, the newest crop of singles are high earners in their 30s and 40s who increasingly view living alone as a lifestyle choice. Living alone was conceived to be negative, dark and cold, while being together suggested warmth and light. But then came along the idea of singles. They were young, beautiful, strong! Now, young people want to live alone.
   The booming economy means people are working harder than ever. And that doesn't leave much room for relationships. Pimpi Arroyo, a 35-year-old composer who lives alone in a house in Paris, says he hasn't got time to get lonely because he has too much work. "I have deadlines which would make life with someone else fairly difficult." Only an Ideal Woman would make him change his lifestyle, he says. Kaufmann, author of a recent book called "The Single Woman and Prince Charming," thinks this fierce new individualism means that people expect more and more of mates, so relationships don't last long-- if they start at all. Eppendorf, a blond Berliner with a deep tan, teaches grade school in the morning. In the afternoon she sunbathes or sleeps, resting up for going dancing. Just shy of 50, she says she'd never have wanted to do what her mother did-- give up a career to raise a family. Instead, "I've always done what I wanted to do: live a self-determined life.\

   It is no secret among athletes that in order to improve performance you've got to work hard. However, hard training breaks you down and makes you weaker. It is rest that makes you stronger. Improvement only occurs during the rest period following hard training. This adaptation is accomplished by improving efficiency of the heart and certain systems within the muscle cells. During recovery periods these systems build to greater levels to compensate for the stress that you have applied. The result is that you are now at a higher level of performance.
   If sufficient rest is not included in a training program, imbalance between excess training and inadequate rest will occur, and performance will decline. The overtralnlng syndrome (综合征)  is the name given to the collection of emotional, behavioral, and physical symptoms due to overtraining that has persisted for weeks to months. It is marked by cumulative exhaustion that persists even after recovery periods.
   The most common symptom is fatigue. This may limit workouts and may be present at rest. The athlete may also become moody, easily irritated, have altered sleep pattems, become depressed, or lose the competitive desire and enthusiasm for the sport, some will report decreased appetite and weight loss. Physical symptoms include persistent muscular soreness, increased frequency of viral (病毒性的) illnesses, and increased incidence of injuries.
   The treatment for the overtraining syndrome is rest. The longer the overtraining has occurred, the more rest required. Therefore, early detection is very important. If the overtraining has only occurred for a short period of time (e. g 3—-4 weeks) then interrupting training for 3—5 days is usually sufficient rest. It is important that the factors that lead to overtraining be identified and corrected. Otherwise, the overtraining syndrome is likely to recur. The overtraining syndrome should be considered in any athlete who manifests symptoms of prolonged fatigue and whose performance has leveled offor decreased. It is important to exclude any underlying illness that may be responsible for the fatigue.

   Given the lack of fit between gifted students and their schools, it is not surprising that such students often have little good to say about their school experience. In one study of 400 adults who had achieved distinction in all areas of life, researchers found that three-fifths of these individuals either did badly in school or were unhappy in school. Few MacArthur Prize fellows, winners of the MacArthur Award for creative accomplishment, had good things to say about their precollegiate schooling if they had not been placed in advanced programs. Anecdotal (名人轶事) reports support this. Pablo Picasso, Charles Darwin, Mark Twain, Oliver Goldsmith, and William Butler Yeats all disliked school. So did Winston Churchill, who almost failed out of Harrow, an elite British school. About Oliver Goldsmith, one of his teachers remarked, "never was so dull a boy." Often these children realize that they know more than their teachers, and their teachers often feel that these children are arrogant, inattentive, or unmotivated.
   Some of these gifted people may have done poorly in school because their gifts were not scholastic. Maybe we can account for Picasso in this way. But most fared poorly in school not because they lacked ability but because they found school unchallenging and consequently lost interest. Yeats described the lack of fit between his mind and school, "because I had found it difficult to attend to anything less interesting than my own thoughts, I was difficult to teach." As noted earlier, gifted children of all kinds tend to be strong-willed nonconformists. Nonconformity and stubbornness (and Yeats's level of arrogance and self-absorption) are likely to lead to conflicts with teachers.
   When highly gifted students in any domain talk about what was important to the development of their abilities, they are far more likely to mention their families than their schools or teachers. A writing prodigy (神童) studied by David Feldman and Lynn Goldsmith was taught far more about writing by his journalist father than his English teacher. High-IQ children, in Australia studied by Miraca Gross had much more positive feelings about their families than their schools. About half of the mathematicians studied by Benjamin Bloom had little good to say about school. They all did well in school and took honors classes when available, and some skipped grades.

   Researchers who are unfamiliar with the cultural and ethnic groups they are studying must take extra precautions to shed any biases they bring with them from their own culture. For example, they must make sure they construct measures that are meaningful for each of the cultural or ethnic minority groups being studied.
   In conducting research on culture and ethnic minority issues, investigators distinguish between the emic approach and the etic approach. In the emic approach, the goal is to describe behavior in one culture or ethnic group in terms that are meaningful and wit to the people in that culture or ethnic group, without regard to other cultures or ethnic groups. In the etic approach, the goal is to describe behavior so that generalizations can be made across cultures. If researchers construct a questionnaire in an emic fashion, their concern is only that the questions are meaningful to the particular culture or ethnic group being studied. If, however, the researchers construct a questionnaire in an etic fashion, they want to include questions that reflect concepts familiar to all cultures involved.
   How might the emic and etic approaches be reflected in the study of family processes? In the emic approach, the researchers might choose to focus only on middle-class White families, without regard for whether the information obtained in the study can be generalized or is appropriate for ethic minority groups. In a Subsequent study the researchers may decide to adopt an etic approach by studying not only middle-class, White families, but also lower-income White families, Black American families, Spanish American families, and Asian American families. In studying in ethic minority families, the researchers would likely discover that the extended family is more frequently a support system in ethnic minority families than in White American families. If so, the emic approach would reveal a different pattern of family interaction than would the etic approach, documenting that research with middle-class White families cannot always be generalized to all ethnic groups.

High grades are supposed to______academic ability, but John's actual performance did not confirm this.
   A. certify          B. clarify          C. classify         D. notify

Before we move, we should______some of the old furniture, so that we can have more room in the new house.
   A. discard          B. dissipate         C. cancel           D. conceal

You cannot imagine how I feel______with my duties sometimes.
   A. overflowed      B. overthrown       C. overwhelmed     D. overturned

His illness first______itself as severe stomach pains and headaches.
   A. expressed       B. manifested       C. reflected        D. displayed

The______they felt for each other was obvious to everyone who saw them.
   A. affection        B. adherence       C. sensibility       D. sensitivity

These continual______in temperature make it impossible to decide what to wear.
   A. transitions       B. transformations   C. exchanges        D. fluctuations

Henry went through the documents again carefully for fear of______any important data.
   A. relaying         B. overlooking      C. deleting         D. revealing

These were stubborn men not easily______to change their mind.
   A. tilted           B. converted        C. persuaded       D. suppressed

The circus has always been very popular because it______both the old and the young.
   A. facilitates        B. fascinates        C. immerses        D. indulges

By patient questioning the lawyer managed to______enough information from the witnesses.
   A. evacuate         B. withdraw        C. impart           D. elicit

The new secretary has written a remarkably______report within a few hundred words but with all the important details included.
   A. concise         B. brisk            C. precise          D. elaborate

A big problem in learning English as a foreign language is lack of opportunities for______ interaction with proficient speakers of English.
   A. instantaneous    B. provocative      C. verbal           D. dual

Within ten years they have tamed the______hill into green woods.
   A. vacant          B. barren          C. weird           D. wasteful

We don't______any difficulties in completing the project so long as we keep within our budget.
   A. foresee          B. fabricate         C. infer            D. inhibit

The high school which my daughter studies in is______our university.
   A. linked by        B. relevant to       C. mingled with     D. affiliated with

The Browns lived in a______and comfortably furnished house in the suburbs.
   A. spacious        B. sufficient        C. wide            D. wretched

A membership card______the holder to use the club's facilities for a period of twelve months.
   A. approves         B. authorizes        C. rectifies          D. endows

It is no______that a large number of violent crimes are committed under the influence of alcohol.
   A. coincidence      B. correspondence   C. inspiration       D. intuition

The first sentence in this paragraph is______; it can be interpreted in many ways.
   A. intricate         B. ambiguous       C. duplicated       D. confused

They used to quarrel a lot, but now they are completely______with each other.
   A. reconciled       B. negotiated        C. associated        D. accommodated

The most important______for assessment in this contest is originality of design.
   A. threshold        B. partition         C. warrant          D. criterion

The woman was worried about the side effects of taking aspirins, but her doctor______her that it is absolutely harmless.
   A. retrieved        B. released         C. reassured        D. reviewed

Although we tried to concentrate on the lecture, we were______by the noise form the next room.
   A. distracted       B. displaced        C. dispersed        D. discarded

Don't trust the speaker any more, since the remarks he made in his lectures are never______ with the facts.
   A. symmetrical     B. comparative      C. compatible       D. harmonious

They had to eat a(n)______meal, or they would be too late for the concert.
   A. temporary       B. hasty            C. immediate       D. urgent

In spite of the______economic forecast, manufacturing output has risen slightly.
   A. faint            B. dizzy           C. gloomy          D. opaque

Excellent films are those which______national and cultural barriers.
   A. transcend        B. traverse         C. abolish          D. suppress

Now the cheers and applause______in a single sustained roar.
   A. mingled         B. tangled          C. baffled          D. huddled

As the manager was away on a business trip, I was asked to______the weekly staff meeting.
   A. preside          B. introduce        C. chair            D. dominate

The______of the word is unknown, but it is certainly not from Greek.
   A. origin           B. generation       C. descent          D. cause

Section A: Translate the following passage into Chinese.
   Opera is expensive: that much is inevitable. But expensive things are not inevitably the province of the rich unless we abdicate society's power of choice. We can choose to make opera, and other expensive forms of culture, accessible to those who cannot individually pay for it. The question is: why should we? Nobody denies the imperatives of food, shelter, defense, health and education. But even in a prehistoric cave, mankind stretched out a hand not just to eat, drink or fight, but also to draw. The impulse towards culture, the desire to express and explore the world through imagination and representation is fundamental. In Europe, this desire has found fulfillment in the masterpieces of our music, art, literature and theatre. These masterpieces are the touchstones for all our efforts; they are the touchstones for the possibilities to which human thought and imagination may aspire; they carry the most profound messages that can be sent from one human to another.

Section B: Translate the following passage into English.
   好的教师知道他们的职责不单是向学生灌输知识，他们深切体会到教学工作不只是授 课。好的教师运用对所教导的科目和热情和爱好，来激发学生的学习兴趣，并不是不断构想新方 法和吸纳新观点，来为每一堂课注入新的生命。最重要的是；好的教师能使每一名学生深信 自己事事都能胜任。他们绝对信任学生的能力，深信每一名孩子都有发挥的潜能成为心目中要 成为的人物。好的教师使学生具备自我肯定本身的能力，鼓励他们勇于追求梦想，并从旁引 导他们如何实现这些梦想

   Interview is frequently used by employers as a means to recruit prospective employees. As a result, there have been many arguments for or against the interview as a selection procedure. What is your opinion? Write an essay to state your view.