Children who grip their pens too close to the writing point are likely to be at a disadvantage in examinations, 1 to the first serious investigation into the way in which writing technique can dramatically affect educational achievement.
The survey of 643 children and adults, ranking from pre-school to 40-plus, also suggests 2 pen-holding techniques have deteriorated sharply over one generation, with teachers now paying far 3 attention to correct pen grip and handwriting style.
Stephanie Thomas, a learning support teacher 4 findings have been published, was inspired to investigate this area 5 he noticed that those students who had the most trouble with spelling 6 had a poor pen grip. While Mr. Thomas could not establish a significant statistical link 7 pen-holding style and accuracy in spelling, he 8 find huge differences in technique between the young children and the mature adults, and a definite 9 between near-point gripping and slow, illegible writing.
People who 10 their pens at the writing point also show other characteristics 11 inhibit learning, 12 as poor posture, leaning too 13 to the desk, using four fingers to grip the pen 14 than three, and clumsy positioning of the thumb (which can obscure 15 is being written).
Mr. Thomas believes that the 16 between elder and younger writers is 17 too dramatic to be accounted for simply by the possibility that people get better at writing as they grow 18 . He attributes it to a failure to teach the most effective methods, pointing out that the differences between 19 groups coincides with the abandonment of formal handwriting instruction in classrooms in the sixties. "The 30-year-old showed a huge diversity of grips, 20 the over 40s group all had a uniform "tripod" grip."

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On an average of six limes a day, a doctor in Holland practices "active" euthanasia: intentionally administering a lethal drug to a terminally ill patient who has asked to be relieved of suffering. Twenty times a day, life-prolonging treatment is withheld or withdrawn when there is no hope that it can affect an ultimate cure. "Active" euthanasia remains a crime on the Dutch statute books punishable by 12 years in prison. But a series of court cases over the past 15 years has made it clear that a competent physician who carries it out will not be prosecuted.
Euthanasia, often called "mercy killing", is a crime everywhere in Western Europe. But more and more doctors and nurses in Britain, West Germany, Holland and elsewhere readily admit to practicing it, most often in the "passive" form of withholding or withdrawing treatment. The long simmering euthanasia issue has lately boiled over into a sometimes fierce public debate, with both sides claiming the mantle of ultimate righteousness. Those opposed to the practice see themselves up-holding sacred principles of respect for life, while those in favor raise the banner of humane treatment. After years on the defensive, the advocates now seem to be gaining ground. Recent polls in Britain show that 72 percent of British subjects favor euthanasia in some circumstances. An astonishing 76 percent of respondents to a poll taken late last year in France said they would like the law changed to decriminalize mercy killings.
Reasons for the latest surge of interest in euthanasia are not hard to find. Europeans, like Americans, are now living longer. The average European male now lives to the age of 72, women to almost 80. As Derek Humphrey, a leading British advocate of "rational euthanasia" says, "lingering chronic diseases have replaced critical illnesses as the primary cause of death."
And so the euthanasists have begun to press their case with greater force. They argue that every human being should have the right to "die with dignity", by which they usually mean the right to escape the horrors of a painful or degrading hospitalization. Most advocates of voluntary euthanasia have argued that the right to die should be accorded only to the terminally and incurably ill, but the movement also includes a small minority who believe in euthanasia for anyone who rationally decides to take his own life.
That right is unlikely to get legal recognition any time in the near future. Even in the Netherlands, the proposals now before Parliament would restrict euthanasia to a small number of cases and would surround even those with elaborate safeguards.

1. 
According to Paragraph 1, which of the following is not true?

A "Active" euthanasia is regarded as a crime by Dutch law.

B The doctor who carried out euthanasia will be charged.

C An unqualified doctor carrying out euthanasia will be accused.

D "Active" euthanasia executives will be sentenced to 12 years imprisonment.

2. 
Euthanasia is often called "mercy killing", which implies that ______.

A people should show sympathy for a terminally ill patient.

B some doctors murder patients shielding themselves from mercy.

C humane treatment to dying patients should be required.

D the dying patients are suffering from the pain and they don"t want to live on.

3. 
Most advocates of voluntary euthanasia hold the opinion that ______.

A only terminally ill patients can have euthanasia.

B if anyone who rationally decides to end his life, he can have euthanasia.

C people should respect for life.

D no matter what punishment they get, they"ll carry out euthanasia to patients.

4. 
The author"s attitudes towards euthanasia are ______.

A positive.

B negative.

C objective.

D uncertain.

5. 
In Paragraph 2, "boiled over" means ______.

A bursting into.

B making the water hot enough to boil.

C causing great anger.

D fighting one another.

Earthquake survivors trapped in rubble could one day be saved by an unlikely rescuer: A robotic caterpillar that burrows its way through debris. Just a few centimeters wide, the robot relies on magnetic fields to propel it through the kind of tiny crevices that would foil the wheeled or tracked search robots currently used to locate people trapped in collapsed buildings.
The caterpillar"s inventor, Norihiko Saga of Akita Prefectural University in Japan, will demonstrate his new method of locomotion at a conference on magnetic materials in Seattle. In addition to lights and cameras, a search caterpillar could be equipped with an array of sensors to measure other factors—such as radioactivity or oxygen levels—that could tell human rescuers if an area is safe to enter.
The magnetic caterpillar is amazingly simple. It moves by a process similar to peristalsis, the rhythmic contraction that moves food down your intestine. Saga made the caterpillar from a series of rubber capsules filled with a magnetic fluid consisting of iron particles, water, and a detergent-like surfactant, which reduces the surface tension of the fluid. Each capsule is linked to the next by a pair of rubber rods. The caterpillar"s guts are wrapped in a clear, flexible polymer tube that protects it from the environment.
To make the caterpillar move forwards, Saga moves a magnetic field backwards along the caterpillar. Inside the caterpillar"s "head" capsule, magnetic fluid surges towards the attractive magnetic field, causing the capsule to bulge out to the sides and draw its front and rear portions up. As the magnetic field passes to the next capsule, the first breaks free and springs forward and the next capsule bunches up. In this way, the caterpillar can reach speeds of 4 centimeters per second as it crawls along.
Moving the magnetic field faster can make it traverse the caterpillar before all the capsules have sprung back to their original shapes. The segments then all spring back, almost but not quite simultaneously.
Saga plans to automate the movement of the caterpillar by placing electromagnets at regular intervals along the inside of its polymer tube. By phasing the current flow to the electromagnets, he"ll be able to control it wirelessly via remote control. He also needs to find a new type of rubber for the magnetic capsules, because the one he"s using at the minute eventually begins to leak.
But crawling is not the most efficient form of locomotion for robots, says Robert Full of the University of California at Berkeley, an expert in animal motion who occasionally advises robotics designers. "If you look at the energetic cost of crawling, compared to walking, swimming or flying, crawling is very expensive," he says. Walking, on the other every step, energy is conserved in the foot and then released to help the foot spring up.
Saga acknowledges this inefficiency but says his caterpillar is far more stable than one that walks, rolls on wheels or flies. It has no moving parts save for a few fluid-filled rubber capsules. Biped robots and wheeled robots require a smooth surface and are difficult to miniaturize, and flying robots have too many moving parts. "My peristaltic crawling robot is simple and it works," he says.

1. 
From this passage, we can learn that ______.

A a robotic caterpillar can crawl by a pair of rubber rods

B when a caterpillar moves, the magnetic field moves backwards along it

C the environment couldn"t influence a robotic caterpillar"s guts, which are wrapped in a capsule

D crawling is very stable and efficient, and when it moves, only a few elements are needed

2. 
According to this passage, which is not true about the construction of the robotic caterpillar?

A A robotic caterpillar is made from a series of rubber capsules filled with a magnetic fluid.

B Iron particles, water, and a detergent-like surfactant form a magnetic fluid.

C Each capsule filled with a magnetic fluid is linked to the next by a pair of rubber rods.

D In order to keep stable condition, the caterpillar"s guts are wrapped in a clear, flexible polymer tube.

3. 
The meaning of the word "peristalsis" in Paragraph 3 is similar to ______.

A swimming

B flying

C crawling

D walking

4. 
Comparing the robotic caterpillar and the other robots, which of the following is not true?

A A smooth surface is indispensable to biped robots and wheeled robots.

B Flying robots are very inconvenient when moving, because they have too many moving parts.

C The robotic caterpillar only has rubber capsules filled with a magnetic fluid.

D It"s incapable for wheeled robots to locate trapped people because they are impossible to miniaturize.

5. 
The passage is mainly about ______.

A why a robotic caterpillar can find trapped people

B how a robotic caterpillar works

C the instruction of the magnetic caterpillar

D how a robotic caterpillar crawls

The government will be told next month that a stark new class divide is opening between career women and mothers who give up work to become housewives.
While career mums are able to build on the increased "social capital" or status that a modem education and equal access to the workplace have afforded them, stay-at-home mothers rapidly lose their social status.
The new study of social mobility and its conclusion that middle-class women are becoming increasingly "polarised" will be presented at a Cabinet Office meeting later this month by Professor Jonathan Gershuny, a leading sociologists.
He will say that while reforms in equal opportunities legislation over the past 30 years have improved women"s life chances, all the gains can be lost at the point when they have children if they are unable to afford nurseries or nannies.
"When they enter the labor force, young men and women now have similar level of educational attainment, but from the first child"s birth a new dynamic emerges," said Gershuny.
"In almost all cases where childcare is unaffordable, the woman withdraws (from work). And the withdrawal means a progressive reduction in accumulated work experience, perhaps the loss of a promotion, so the wife"s capital falls."
Critics claim the constant emphasis on equal economic attainment for men and women is feeding the divorce rate and destroying family life. In addition, many mothers choose to stay at home to ensure that they, rather than an outsider, play the main role in bringing up their children.
While women"s place in the class system is increasingly determined by their ability to afford children, the declining social status of stay-at-home mums may be accentuated by the break-up of local communities, itself partly a product in increased social mobility.
The importance of access to child-care and the determining effect it can have on women"s lives is leading them to delay the age at which they have their first child. Many middle-class women do not even consider having their children until they are into their thirties.
Researchers say that other social changes have made the life of the stay-at-home mother even less attractive. Greater social mobility means relatives are now less likely to be available to offer help.
Danielle Stewart, 41, form south London, is a member of the "superwomen" tribe and has two children, Francesca, 7, and Isabelle, 4. she earns more than ￡ 150,000 a year, of which she spends ￡ 24,000 a year on a nanny.
"I am a strong woman who is giving my girl a great example. The intellectual inspiration of work has been fantastic, and I think if I had stayed at home and given up work I would not have got that."
Gershumy"s research suggests that career women like Stewart, who are able to afford childcare, almost always come from well-to-do backgrounds. It suggests that the old British class system where privilege and status are passed down the generations is still very much alive.

1. 
How can you interpret the sentence, middle-class women are becoming increasingly "polarised" (Para. 3) ?

A middle-class women are undergoing opposing division.

B middle-class women prefer to go to the Poles of the world.

C middle-class women are becoming more and more popular.

D middle-class women have more and more problems.

2. 
The following statements are right except that ______.

A many middle-class women do not even consider having their children until, they are over thirty years old.

B career mums are able to go into higher social status compared with housewives.

C all are endowed with equality by law but things could be different between career women and housewives.

D most mothers would choose to stay at home to bring up their children.

3. 
What attributes to the housewives" declining social status?

A They have less work experience.

B They lose chance of getting promoted.

C They attain less in economy.

D All the above.

4. 
What plays a decisive role in women"s withdrawing from work?

A Their inability to afford childcare.

B Their reluctance to have babysitters.

C Their declining social status.

D The social mobility.

5. 
What can be the best title of the passage?

A Housewives Go Backwards in Status Race.

B Career Women and Housewives.

C Social Mobility and Women.

D A Dilemma: Staying at Home or Working.

The place seemed as unlikely as the coming together of the two principals. In June 1995, Princess Diana went to visit Mother Terea in New York City"s South Bronx, where the founder of the Missionaries of Charity was recovering from an illness at one of her order"s residences.
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So they met and chatted about the work they loved, for no more than an hour. Diana helped Mother Teresa rise from her wheelchair, and the two of them emerged from a private conversation holding hands, to be greeted by squealing children in a crowd. Diana, in a cream-colored linen suit, stood over her companion.
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Now they are dead, within a week, and one wonders how to grasp what has been lost. In a way, their deaths are the ending to two stories.
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When she was killed, her story was curtailed, and the silence that followed was overwhelming. One reason that masses stood in lines all over the world is that they knew a story they yearned to hear, and thought would go on, was over.
Mother Teresa"s story was more of process and had fewer elements with which the audience could easily identify. For most of the years of her life, no cameras followed her when she bent down in the wretched streets of Calcutta to take dying people in her arms or when she touched the open wounds of the poor, the discarded and alone. When the Nobel Committee blasted her with fame, she had already written most of the tale of her life, which was without much plot, was propelled by a main character who never changed direction, yet had a great theme. The end of Mother Teresa"s story is not the end of her order"s work, which is one reason (her age is another) that her death makes one sad without shock.
The two women were united by an impulse toward charity, and charity is tricky way to live. A nun I know in Brooklyn, Sister Mary Paul, who has worked with the down-and-nearly-out all her life, once told me, "People in the helping professions are curious. I think they may feel something is missing in their lives. There can be a lot of ego, a lot of indirect fulfillment. One wants to see oneself as a good and giving person. There is nothing wrong in that, but it can"t be the goal. The ultimate goal must be a change in the system in which both the giver and taker live."
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The idea behind such thinking is that life is a journey and one catches others on the way. Mother Teresa must have felt this. Within whatever controversies arose about her work, the central gesture of her life was to bend toward the suffering and recall them to the world of God"s province. The people she inclined toward had been chewed by rats and had magots in their skin.
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The public mourning for Diana has so outrun the importance of the event that it has taken on the cast of an international grieving unrelated to any particular cause. It is as if the world has felt the need to be moved, to feel sympathy itself, and if that feeling of sympathy is fleeting, it will still have brought a general catharsis. Perhaps this is counterfeit emotion, aroused by television, and fueled and sustained by itself. That would not be true of the emotion shown at the death of Mother Teresa, who will draw fewer mourners to her funeral but more in the long run of history.
A. She doesn"t like the word charity except in the sense of caritas, love. "Love," she said, "is not based on marking people up by assets and virtues. Love is based on the mystery of the person, who is immeasurable and is going somewhere I will never know."
B. That is why the princess came to meet the nun, to pay her respect to the woman whose devotion to the poor and dying she was beginning to absorb. Surrounding the world"s two most recognizable women were the dusty tenements and deserted cars of the not yet revived area. The Saint of the Gutters was in her element, which more recently had become Diana"s too.
C. Princess Diana"s was the less significant but the more enthralling, a royal soap opera played by real people suffering real pain.
D. All she wanted for them was the dignity of being human.
E. Like Mother Teresa, the princess addressed to the children she came across, and nurseries, kindergartens and schools were the places where she was most frequently spotted.
F. They were affectionate to each other. Mother Teresa clasped her palms together in the Indian namaste, signifying both hello and farewell. The princess got into her silver ear. And that was that.

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Scenario 1: In this first scenario, the Arctic in 2040 has become an integral component of the global economic system. Formerly a hinterland, the region has rapidly been drawn into the globalization age. Abundant natural resources, a less-harsh climate, mostly sparse populations, and a geography permitting shorter global air and sea routes between North America and Euroasia have been critical factors influencing the Arctic"s development.
The Arctic remains a bellwether for global environmental change, because the manifestations of global warming are amplified in the high latitudes. The Arctic"s dramatic environmental changes include the shrinking and thinning of sea ice and significant thawing of permafrost in the Russian Arctic, Alaska, and northern regions of Canada. Arctic sea ice disappeared completely for a two-week period during summer 2040. Such climatic change has had profound and largely unfavorable consequences for a majority of the Arctic"s indigenous peoples. Several coastal communities in Alaska and Canada have simply washed away.
The age of polar transportation has arrived, as the Arctic now offers greater access than at any other period in circumpolar history. The opening of Russian airspace over the Arctic early in the twenty-first century shortened flights between North America and Asia and have relieved congestion on trans-Pacific routes.
B
Scenario 2: In this scenario, there is substantial international cooperation and harmony among many actors and stakeholders, principally because the circumpolar nations realize they have significant environmental, social, and economic interests and responsibilities in the Arctic. The indigenous organizations around the Arctic have a much higher profile and significant influence over decisions related to regional environmental protection and economic development.
The Arctic continues as a key indicator of global climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions have remained relatively high, and the resulting impacts on the Arctic by 2040 are widespread and serious. Visible effects of decades of warming—on land and sea—are observed over large expanse of the Arctic.
A full-scale assault on Arctic oil and gas has not yet materialized. World prices have risen, but not enough for all regions of the Arctic to be competitive. New developments in the Caspian Sea, offshore Sakhalin Island, and in deep waters have generally met global energy demand. While northwest Russia and the Alaskan Arctic have witnessed expanded oil and gas development, the Canadian Arctic and offshore Barents Sea have experienced only minimal investment.
Transportation system are more robust in the Arctic than ever before. Polar air routes are thriving, as in the Globalized Frontier scenario, but international accords have controlled aircraft emissions, limiting their impacts on the Arctic atmosphere.
C
Scenario 3: Widespread resource exploitation and increased international tension exist throughout the Arctic in this scenario. The Arctic is viewed by much of the global community as a storehouse of natural resources that is being jealously guarded and developed by a handful of wealthy circumpolar nations. Preventing uncontrolled access to these vital resources, especially oil and natural gas, has become an obsession for all Arctic stakeholders. The Arctic is a part of the global economic system, but any linkage is orchestrated or dictated by the most powerful Arctic states.
The Arctic is undergoing extreme environmental stress as global warming continues unabated. Greenhouse gas emissions have been unleashed globally at unprecedented rates; The result has been massive permafrost thawing (and disappearance), rapid glacial retreat in Greenland and Canada, extensive coastal shore erosion, and a historic retreat of Arctic sea ice in all marginal seas and the central Arctic Ocean. Multiyear sea ice—that is, ice that survives the summer melt season—has disappeared, as no Arctic sea ice has been observed anywhere in the Arctic Ocean during September of the past two years.
Many Arctic indigenous populations have been displaced from their traditional homelands due to extreme environmental events. For the first time in history, illegal immigration into many subarctic regions is a reality.
D
Scenario 4: In this scenario, the Arctic remains integrated with the global economic system in 2040, but the evolving international sustainability paradigm has altered the region"s development strategy to one emphasizing gradualism. Resource exploitation such as fishing is a given (not an option) in much of the Arctic, but such commercial activities are being tempered by greater consideration of broad social and environmental concerns. Mutual respect and cooperation among the circumpolar nations are the norm. The Arctic governance system is viewed as a model for resolving complex sustainable development issues and regional disputes.
While the International Global Climate Treaty has resulted in sizable and continuing reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, these changes have had little immediate impact on the Arctic. Eight decades of unprecedented regional warming have taken their toll on the cryosphere. Thus, a comprehensive set of adaptive strategies has evolved to take into account such regional changes as thinner permafrost layers, an elevated sea level, and longer seasons 9f open water normally covered by Arctic sea ice. Transport user fees and other eco-taxes have funded the implementation of these strategies in cases where change has seriously impacted indigenous communities.
Social well-being and quality of life in the Arctic has been transformed: Poverty has been reduced thanks to revenue sharing from tourism, transport, and minerals extraction, which has created sustainable incomes and helped develop affordable housing.
· air and marine transportation has greatly expanded but is under stricter
international regulation? 1
· global warming has caused some coastal communities to wash away? 2
· arctic states guard natural resources prevent uncontrolled access by global
community? 3
· the Arctic is an integral part of the global economic system? 4
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· illegal immigration into subarctic areas becomes a major problem? 6
· indigenous organizations have a greater say in environmental and
economic development decision making? 7
· new polar air routes have eased congestion between North America and Asia? 8
· poverty among indigenous peoples has been reduced due to revenue sharing
from industries such as tourism, transportation, and minerals extraction? 9
· tapping into Arctic resources has not become a reality? 10

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You have read an article in a newspaper which states that "Children should be paid for doing housework, for this helps them to learn to be economically independent at an early age."
Write an article for the same newspaper to clarify your own points of view towards this issue. You should use your own ideas, knowledge or experience to generate support for your argument and include an example.
You should write no less than 250 words. Write your article on ANSWER SHEET 2.