Part Ⅱ Reading Comprehension
Unless we spend money to spot and prevent asteroids
(小行星)now, one might crash into Earth and destroy life as we know it, say some
scientists.
Asteroids are bigger versions of the meteoroids
(流星)that race across the night sky. Most orbit the sun far from Earth and don't
threaten us. But there are also thousands whose orbits put them on a collision
course with Earth.
Buy $ 40 million worth of new telescopes
right now. Then spend $ 10 million a year for the next 25 years to locate most
of the space rocks. By the time we spot a fatal one, the scientists say, we'll
have a way to change its course.
Some scientists favor pushing
asteroids off course with nuclear weapons. But the cost wouldn't be
cheap.
Is it worth it? Two things experts consider when judging
any risk are : 1) How likely the event is ; and 2) How bad the consequences if
the event occurs. Experts think an asteroid big enough to destroy lots of life
might strike Earth once every 400, 000 years. Sounds pretty rare-but if one did
fall, it would be the end of the world. "If we don't take care of these big
asteroids, they'll take care of us," says one scientist. "It's that simple.
"
The cure, though, might be worse than the disease. Do we
really want fleets of nuclear weapons sitting around on Earth? "The world has
less to fear from doomsday (毁灭性的) rocks than from a great nuclear fleet set
against them," said a New York Times article.
To understand the marketing concept, it is only
necessary to understand the difference between marketing and selling. Not too
many years ago, most industries concentrated primarily on the efficient
production of goods, and then relied on ~'persuasive salesmanship" to move as
much of these goods as possible. Such production and selling focuses on the
needs of the seller to produce goods and then convert them into money.
Marketing, on the other hand, focuses on the wants of consumers. It
begins with first analyzing the preferences and demands of consumers and then
producing goods that will satisfy them. This eye-on-the-consumer approach is
known as the marketing concept, which simply means that instead of trying to
sell whatever is easiest to produce or buy for resale, the makers and dealers
first try to fred out what the consumer wants to buy and then go about making it
according to consumer demand.
This concept does not imply that
consumer satisfaction is given priority over profit in a company. There are
always two sides to every business activity--the fkrrn and the customer. Each
must be satisfied before trade occurs. Successful merchants and producer and
each must be satisfied before trade occurs. Successful merchants and producers,
however, recognize that the surest route to profit is through understanding
customers. This concept has been recognized in such slogans as "Have It Your
Way" and "You're the Boss". A good example of the importance of satisfying the
consumer presented itself in mid 1985, when Coca Cola changed the flavor of its
drink. The non-acceptance of the new flavor by a significant portion of the
public brought about a prompt restoration of the Classic Coke, which was then
marketed alongside the new. King customer ruled !
There has been a lot of hand-wringing over the death
of Elizabeth Steinberg. Without blaming anyone in particular, neighbors,
friends, social workers, the police and newspaper editors have struggled to
define the community's responsibility to Elizabeth and to other battered
children. As the collective soul-searching continues, there is a pervading sense
that the system failed her.
The fact is, in New York State the
system couldn't have saved her. It is almost impossible to protect a child from
violent parents, especially if they are white, middle-class, well-educated and
represented by counsel.
Why does the state permit violence
against Children? There are a number of reasons. First, parental privilege is a
rationalization. In the past, the law was giving its approval to the biblical
injunction against sparing the rod. Second, while everyone agrees that the state
must act to remove children from their homes when there is danger of serious
physical or emotional harm, many child advocates believe that state intervention
in the absence of serious injury is more harmful than helpful. Third, courts and
legislatures tread carefully when their actions intrude or threaten to intrude
on a relationship protected by the Constitution. In 1923, the Supreme Court
recognized the "liberty of parent and guardian to direct the upbringing and
education of children under their control". More recently, in 1977, it upheld
the teacher's privilege to use corporal punishment against schoolchildren. Read
together, these decisions give the constitutional imprimatur to parental use of
physical force.
Under the best conditions, small children
depend utterly on their parents for survival. Under the worst, their dependency
dooms them. While it is questionable whether anyone or anything could have saved
Elizabeth Steinberg, it is plain that the law provided no protection.
To the contrary, by justifying the use of physical force against children
as an acceptable method of education and control, the law lent a measure of
plausibility and legitimacy to her parents' conduct.
More than
80 years ago, in the teeth of parental resistance and Supreme Court doctrine,
the New York State Legislature acted to eliminate child labor law. Now, the
state must act to eliminate child abuse by banning corporal punishment. To break
the vicious cycle of violence, nothing less will answer. If there is a lesson to
be drawn from the death of Elizabeth Steinberg, it is this: spare the rod and
spare the child.
The biosphere is the name biologists give to the
sort of skin on the surface of this planet that is inhabitable by living
organisms. Most land creatures occupy only the interface between the atmosphere
and the land; birds extend their range for a few hundred feet into the
atmosphere; burrowing invertebrates (无脊椎动物) such as earthworms may reach a few
yards into the soil but rarely penetrate farther unless, it has been recently
disturbed by men. Fish cover a wider range, from just beneath the surface of the
sea to those depths of greater than a mile inhabited by specialized creatures.
Fungi (真菌) and bacteria are plentiful in the atmosphere to a height of about
half a mile, blown there by winds from the lower air. Balloon exploration of the
stratosphere (同温 层) as long ago as 1936 indicated that moulds and bacteria could
be found at heights of several miles, recently the USA's National Aeronautics
and Space Administration has detected them, in decreasing numbers, at heights up
to eighteen miles. They are pretty sparse at such levels, about one for every
two thousand cubic feet, compared with 50 to 100 per cubic foot at two to six
miles (the usual altitude of jet aircraft), and they are almost certainly in an
inactive state. Marine bacteria have been detected at the bottom of the deep
Pacific trench, sometimes as deep as seven miles; they are certainly not
inactive. Living microbes have also been obtained on land from cores of rock
drilled (while prospecting for oil) at depths of as much as 1,200 feet. Thus we
can say, disregarding the exploits of astronauts, that the biosphere has a
maximum thickness of about twenty-five miles. Active living processes occur only
within a compass of about seven miles, in the sea, on land and in the lower
atmosphere, but the majority of living creatures live within a zone of a hundred
feet or so. If this planet were sealed down to the size of an orange, the
biosphere, at its extreme width, would occupy the thickness of the
orange-colored skin, excluding the pith.
In this tiny zone of
our planet takes place the multitude of chemical and biological activities that
we call life. The way in which living creatures interact with each other, depend
on each other or compete with each other, has fascinated thinkers since the
beginning of recorded history. Living things exist in a fine balance which is
often taken for granted, from a practical point of view, things could not be
otherwise. Yet it is a source of continual amazement to scientists because of
its intricacy and delicacy. The balance of nature is obvious most often when it
is disturbed. Yet even here it can seem remarkable how quickly it readjusts
itself to a new balance after a disturbance. The science of ecology--the study
of the interaction of organisms with their environment--has grown up to deal
with the minutiae of the balance of nature.
Part Ⅲ Cloze
One country that is certain of the effect of films on
tourism is Australia. The Tourist Office of Queensland say that Crocodile
Dundee, 61 Paul Hogan, made Australia the popular
62 it is today. In the three years after Crocodile Dundee was
63 , visitor numbers doubled. 64 what
makes people want to visit the place where a movie was filmed? In many cases the
reason is 65 the film makes audiences 66
of the existence of a place. 67 the James Bond movie The
Man with the Golden Gun was filmed in Phuket, Thailand, most Westerners had
never heard of it. Today it is a major destination. Leonardo di Caprio's film
The Beach has 68 tourism in another part of Thailand. The
film is about the discovery of the most idyllic beach in the world. As a result
the Thai authorities are 69 a tourist boom in the film's
70 ,Koh Phi Phi.
Some people are influenced
by a movie's 71 as much as its location, especially if it is
a romance. Four Weddings and a Funeral has 72 that" The
Crown" hotel in Amersham has been busy ever 73 the movie was
first shown. In fact the bedroom where the 74 played by Hugh
Grant and Andie McDowell spend their first night together is 75
for years ahead. "We've 76 the number of marriage
proposals that have been made there," say the hotel 77
.
It is not just the tourist boards who are happy
78 the influence of films on a destination. Residents of a rather run
down area of London have seen house prices almost double 79
Julia Robert's romance with Hugh Grant in Notting Hill. Film stars, such as
Madonna, who had previously thought of Notting Hill as a good place for a party,
have now bought 80 there. Perhaps they hope to revive their
romances.
Part Ⅳ Translation
81. By now it's hardly news that as education has risen to the
top of the national agenda, a great wave of school reform has focused on two
related objectives: more-stringent academic standards and increasingly
rigorous accountability for both students and schools.
82.
In state after state, legislatures, governors, and state boards, supported by
business leaders, have imposed tougher requirements in math, English, science,
and other fields, together with new tests by which the performance of both
students and schools is to be judged. In some places students have already
been denied diplomas or held back in grade if they failed these tests. 83. In
some states funding for individual schools and for teachers' and principals'
salaries -- and in some, such as Virginia, the accreditation of schools -- will
depend on how well students do on tests. More than half the states now
require tests for student promotion or graduation.
But a
backlash has begun.
84. In Virginia this spring parents,
teachers, and school administrators opposed to the state's Standard of Learning
assessments, established in 1998, inspired a flurry_ of bills in the
legislature that called for revising the tests of their status as
unavoidable hurdles for promotion and graduation. One bill would also have
required that each new member of the sate board of education "take the eighth
grade Standards of Learning assessments in English, mathematics, science, and
social sciences" and that "the results of such assessments.., be publicly
reported."
85. None of the bills passed, but there's little
doubt that if the system isn't revised and the state's high failure rates don't
decrease by 2004, when the first Virginia senior may be denied diplomas, the
political pressure will intensify. Meanwhile, some parents are talking about
Massachusetts-style boycotts.