Part III Reading Comprehension （40 minutes）

Section A

Directions: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.

The tree people in the Lord of the Rings—the Ents—can get around by walking. But for real trees, well, it's harder to uproot. Because they're literally rooted into the ground, they are unable to leave and go 26.

When a tree first starts growing in a certain area, it's likely that the 27 envelope—the temperature, humidity, rainfall patterns and so on—suits it. Otherwise, it would be unable to grow from a seedling. But as it 28, these conditions may change and the area around it may no longer be suitable for its 29.

When that happens, many trees like walnuts, oaks and pines, rely 30 on so-called “scatter-hoarders,”such as birds, to move their seeds to new localities. Many birds like to store food for the winter, which they 31 retrieve.

When the birds forget to retrieve their food—and they do sometimes—a seedling has a chance to grow. The bird Clark's nutcracker, for example, hides up to 100,000 seeds per year, up to 30 kilometers away from the seed source, and have a very close symbiotic （共生的）relationship with several pine species, most 32 the whitebark pine.

As trees outgrow their ideal 33 in the face of climate change, these flying ecosystem engineers could be a big help in 34 trees. It's a solution for us—getting birds to do the work is cheap and effective—and it could give 35 oaks and pines the option to truly “make like a tree and leave.”

Section B

Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.

The American Workplace Is Broken. Here's How We Can Start Fixing It.

A) Americans are working longer and harder hours than ever before. 83% of workers say they're stressed about their jobs, nearly 50% say work-related stress is interfering with their sleep, and 60% use their smartphones to check in with work outside of normal working hours. No wonder only 13% of employees worldwide feel engaged in their occupation.

B) Glimmers （少许）of hope, however, are beginning to emerge in this bruising environment: Americans are becoming aware of the toll their jobs take on them, and employers are exploring ways to alleviate the harmful effects of stress and overwork. Yet much more work remains to be done. To call stress an epidemic isn't exaggeration. The 83% of American employees who are stressed about their jobs—up from 73% just a year before—say that poor compensation and an unreasonable workload are their number-one sources of stress. And if you suspected that the workplace had gotten more stressful than it was just a few decades ago, you're right. Stress levels increased 18% for women and 24% for men from 1983 to 2009. Stress is also starting earlier in life, with some data suggesting that today's teens are even more stressed than adults.

C) Stress is taking a significant toll on our health, and the collective public health cost may be enormous. Occupational stress increases the risk of heart attack and diabetes, accelerates the aging process, decreases longevity, and contributes to depression and anxiety, among numerous other negative health outcomes. Overall, stress-related health problems account for up to 90% of hospital visits, many of them preventable. Your job is “literally killing you,”as The Washington Post put it. It's also hurting our relationships. Working parents say they feel stressed, tired, rushed and short on quality time with their children, friends and partners.

D) Seven in 10 workers say they struggle to maintain work-life balance. As technology （and with it, work emails）seeps （渗入）into every aspect of our lives, work-life balance has become an almost meaningless term. Add a rapidly changing economy and an uncertain future to this 24/7 connectivity, and you've got a recipe for overwork, according to Phyllis Moen. “There's rising work demand coupled with the insecurity of mergers, takeovers, downsizing and other factors,”Moen said. “Part of the work-life issue has to talk about uncertainty about the future.”

E) These factors have converged to create an increasingly impossible situation with many employees overworking to the point of burnout. It's not only unsustainable for workers, but also for the companies that employ them. Science has shown a clear correlation between high stress levels in workers and absenteeism （旷工）, reduced productivity, disengagement and high turnover. Too many workplace policies effectively prohibit employees from developing a healthy work-life balance by barring them from taking time off, even when they need it most.

F) The U.S. trails far behind every wealthy nation and many developing ones that have family-friendly work policies including paid parental leave, paid sick days and breast-feeding support, according to a 2007 study. The U.S. is also the only advanced economy that does not guarantee workers paid vacation time, and it's one of only two countries in the world that does not offer guaranteed paid maternity leave. But even when employees are given paid time off, workplace norms and expectations that pressure them to overwork often prevent them from taking it. Full-time employees who do have paid vacation days only use half of them on average.

G) Our modern workplaces also operate based on outdated time constraints. The practice of clocking in for an eight-hour workday is a leftover from the days of the Industrial Revolution, as reflected in the then-popular saying, “Eight hours labor, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest.”

H) We've held on to this workday structure—but thanks to our digital devices, many employees never really clock out. Today, the average American spends 8.8 hours at work daily, and the majority of working professionals spend additional hours checking in with work during evenings, weekends and even vacations. The problem isn't the technology itself, but that the technology is being used to create more flexibility for the employer rather than the employee. In a competitive work environment, employers are able to use technology to demand more from their employees rather than motivating workers with flexibility that benefits them.

I) In a study published last year, psychologists coined the term “workplace telepressure”to describe an employee's urge to immediately respond to emails and engage in obsessive thoughts about returning an email to one's boss, colleagues or clients. The researchers found that telepressure is a major cause of stress at work, which over time contributes to physical and mental burnout. Of the 300 employees participating in the study, those who experienced high levels of telepressure were more likely to agree with statements assessing burnout, like “I've no energy for going to work in the morning,”and to report feeling fatigued and unfocused. Telepressure was also correlated with sleeping poorly and missing work.

J) Harvard Business School professor Leslie Perlow explains that when people feel the pressure to be always “on,”they find ways to accommodate that pressure, including altering their schedules, work habits and interactions with family and friends. Perlow calls this vicious cycle the “cycle of responsiveness”: Once bosses and colleagues experience an employee's increased responsiveness, they increase their demands on the employee's time. And because a failure to accept these increased demands indicates a lack of commitment to one's work, the employee complies.

K) To address skyrocketing employee stress levels, many companies have implemented workplace wellness programs, partnering with health care providers that have created programs to promote employee health and well-being. Some research does suggest that these programs hold promise. A study of employees at health insurance provider Aetna revealed that roughly one quarter of those taking in-office yoga and mindfulness classes reported a 28% reduction in their stress levels and a 20% improvement in sleep quality. These less-stressed workers gained an average of 62 minutes per week of productivity. While yoga and meditation （静思）are scientifically proven to reduce stress levels, these programs do little to target the root causes of burnout and disengagement. The conditions creating the stress are long hours, unrealistic demands and deadlines, and work-life conflict.

L) Moen and her colleagues may have found the solution. In a 2011 study, she investigated the effects of implementing a Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) on the productivity and well-being of employees at Best Buy's corporate headquarters.

M) For the study, 325 employees spent six months taking part in ROWE, while a control group of 334 employees continued with their normal workflow. The ROWE participants were allowed to freely determine when, where and how they worked—the only thing that mattered was that they got the job done. The results were striking. After six months, the employees who participated in ROWE reported reduced work-family conflict and a better sense of control of their time, and they were getting a full hour of extra sleep each night. The employees were less likely to leave their jobs, resulting in reduced turnover. It's important to note that the increased flexibility didn't encourage them to work around the clock. “They didn't work anywhere and all the time—they were better able to manage their work,”Moen said. “Flexibility and control is key,”she continued.

36. Workplace norms pressure employees to overwork, deterring them from taking paid time off.

37. The overwhelming majority of employees attribute their stress mainly to low pay and an excessive workload.

38. According to Moen, flexibility gives employees better control over their work and time.

39. Flexibility resulting from the use of digital devices benefits employers instead of employees.

40. Research finds that if employees suffer from high stress, they will be less motivated, less productive and more likely to quit.

41. In-office wellness programs may help reduce stress levels, but they are hardly an ultimate solution to the problem.

42. Health problems caused by stress in the workplace result in huge public health expenses.

43. If employees respond quickly to their job assignments, the employer is likely to demand more from them.

44. With technology everywhere in our life, it has become virtually impossible for most workers to keep a balance between work and life.

45. In America today, even teenagers suffer from stress, and their problem is even more serious than grown-ups.

Section C

Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.

Passage One

Questions 46 to 50 are based on the following passage.

Dr. Donald Sadoway at MIT started his own battery company with the hope of changing the world's energy future. It's a dramatic endorsement for a technology most people think about only when their smartphone goes dark. But Sadoway isn't alone in trumpeting energy storage as a missing link to a cleaner, more efficient, and more equitable energy future.

Scientists and engineers have long believed in the promise of batteries to change the world. Advanced batteries are moving out of specialized markets and creeping into the mainstream, signaling a tipping point for forward-looking technologies such as electric cars and rooftop solar panels.

The ubiquitous （无所不在的）battery has already come a long way, of course. For better or worse, batteries make possible our mobile-first lifestyles, our screen culture, our increasingly globalized world. Still, as impressive as all this is, it may be trivial compared with what comes next. Having already enabled a communications revolution, the battery is now poised to transform just about everything else.

The wireless age is expanding to include not just our phones, tablets, and laptops, but also our cars, homes, and even whole communities. In emerging economies, rural communities are bypassing the wires and wooden poles that spread power. Instead, some in Africa and Asia are seeing their first lightbulbs illuminated by the power of sunlight stored in batteries.

Today, energy storage is a $33 billion global industry that generates nearly 100 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year. By the end of the decade, it's expected to be worth over $50 billion and generate 160 gigawatt-hours, enough to attract the attention of major companies that might not otherwise be interested in a decidedly pedestrian technology. Even utility companies, which have long viewed batteries and alternative forms of energy as a threat, are learning to embrace the technologies as enabling rather than disrupting.

Today's battery breakthroughs come as the world looks to expand modern energy access to the billion or so people without it, while also cutting back on fuels that warm the planet. Those simultaneous challenges appear less overwhelming with increasingly better answers to a centuries-old question: how to make power portable.

To be sure, the battery still has a long way to go before the nightly recharge completely replaces the weekly trip to the gas station. A battery-powered world comes with its own risks, too. What happens to the centralized electric grid, which took decades and billions of dollars to build, as more and more people become “prosumers,”who produce and consume their own energy onsite?

No one knows which—if any—battery technology will ultimately dominate, but one thing remains clear. The future of energy is in how we store it.

46. What does Dr. Sadoway think of energy storage?

A) It involves the application of sophisticated technology.

B) It is the direction energy development should follow.

C) It will prove to be a profitable business.

D) It is a technology benefiting everyone.

47. What is most likely to happen when advanced batteries become widely used?

A) Mobile-first lifestyles will become popular.

B) The globalization process will be accelerated.

C) Communications will take more diverse forms.

D) The world will undergo revolutionary changes.

48. In some rural communities of emerging economies, people have begun to ______.

A) find digital devices simply indispensable

B) communicate primarily by mobile phone

C) light their homes with stored solar energy

D) distribute power with wires and wooden poles

49. Utility companies have begun to realize that battery technologies ______.

A) benefit their business

B) transmit power faster

C) promote innovation

D) encourage competition

50. What does the author imply about the centralized electric grid?

A) It might become a thing of the past.

B) It might turn out to be a “prosumer”.

C) It will be easier to operate and maintain.

D) It will have to be completely transformed.

Passage Two

Questions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.

More than 100 years ago, American sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois was concerned that race was being used as a biological explanation for what he understood to be social and cultural differences between different populations of people. He spoke out against the idea of “white”and “black”as distinct groups, claiming that these distinctions ignored the scope of human diversity.

Science would favor Du Bois. Today, the mainstream belief among scientists is that race is a social construct without biological meaning. In an article published in the journal Science, four scholars say racial categories need to be phased out.

“Essentially, I could not agree more with the authors,”said Svante Pääbo, a biologist and director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany. In one example that demonstrated genetic differences were not fixed along racial lines, the full genomes（基因组）of James Watson and Graig Venter, two famous American scientists of European ancestry, were compared to that of a Korean scientist, Seong-Jin Kim. It turned out that Watson and Venter shared fewer variations in their genetic sequences than they each shared with Kim.

Michael Yudell, a professor of public health at Drexel University in Philadelphia, said that modern genetics research is operating in a paradox: on the one hand, race is understood to be a useful tool to illuminate human genetic diversity, but on the other hand, race is also understood to be a poorly defined marker of that diversity.

Assumptions about genetic differences between people of different races could be particularly dangerous in a medical setting. “If you make clinical predictions based on somebody's race, you're going to be wrong a good chunk of the time,”Yudell told Live Science. In the paper, he and his colleagues used the example of cystic fibrosis, which is underdiagnosed in people of African ancestry because it is thought of as a “white”disease.

So what other variables could be used if the racial concept is thrown out? Yudell said scientists need to get more specific with their language, perhaps using terms like “ancestry”or “population”that might more precisely reflect the relationship between humans and their genes, on both the individual and population level. The researchers also acknowledged that there are a few areas where race as a construct might still be useful in scientific research: as a political and social, but not biological, variable.

“While we argue phasing out racial terminology （术语）in the biological sciences, we also acknowledge that using race as a political or social category to study racism, although filled with lots of challenges, remains necessary given our need to understand how structural inequities and discrimination produce health disparities （差异）between groups.”Yudell said.

51. Du Bois was opposed to the use of race as ________.

A) a basis for explaining human genetic diversity

B) an aid to understanding different populations

C) an explanation for social and cultural differences

D) a term to describe individual human characteristics

52. The study by Svante Pääbo served as an example to show ______.

A) modern genetics research is likely to fuel racial conflicts

B) race is a poorly defined marker of human genetic diversity

C) race as a biological term can explain human genetic diversity

D) genetics research should consider social and cultural variables

53. The example of the disease cystic fibrosis underdiagnosed in people of African ancestry demonstrates that ______.

A) it is absolutely necessary to put race aside in making diagnosis

B) it is important to include social variables in genetics research

C) racial categories for genetic diversity could lead to wrong clinical predictions

D) discrimination against black people may cause negligence in clinical treatment

54. What is Yudell's suggestion to scientists?

A) They be more precise with the language they use.

B) They refrain from using politically sensitive terms.

C) They throw out irrelevant concepts in their research.

D) They examine all possible variables in their research.

55. What can be inferred from Yudell's remark in the last paragraph?

A) Clinging to racism prolongs inequity and discrimination.

B) Physiological disparities are quite striking among races.

C) Doing away with racial discrimination is challenging.

D) Racial terms are still useful in certain fields of study.