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.

In the second half of the twentieth century, many countries of the South began to send students to the industrialized countries for further education. They 26 needed supplies of highly trained personnel to 27 concept of development based on modernization. But many of these students decided to stay on in the developed countries when they had finished their training.

In the 1960s, some Latin American countries tried to solve this problem by setting up special “return”programs to encourage their professionals to come back home. These programs received support from international bodies such as the International Organization for Migration, which in 1974 enabled over 1,600 28 scientists and technicians to return to Latin America.

In the 1980s and 1990s, “temporary return”programs were set up in order to make the best use of trained personnel 29 strategic positions in the developed countries. This gave rise to the United Nations Development Program's Transfer of Knowledge through Expatriate Nationals, which encourages technicians and scientists to work in their own countries for short periods. But the brain drain from these countries may well increase in 30 to the new laws of the international market in knowledge.

Recent studies 31 that the most developed countries are going to need more and more highly qualified professionals around twice as many as their educational systems will be able to produce, or so it is thought. As a 32 there is an urgent need for developing countries which send students abroad to give 33 to fields where they need competent people to give muscle to their own institutions, instead of encouraging the training of people who may not come back because there are no professional outlets for them. And the countries of the South must not be content with institutional structures that simply take back professionals sent abroad; they must introduce 34 administrative procedures to encourage them to return. If they do not do this, the brain drain is 35 to continue.

A) forecast

B) flexible

C) neutrally

D) preference

E) detach

F) bound

G) implement

H) consequence

I) qualified

J) dismissing

K) result

L) occupying

M) urgently

N) skeptical

O) response

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.

Facebook Moms

A) Kimberly Gervaise, a stay-at-home mother of three in Little Silver, N.J., joined Facebook five years ago and only posts every couple of months, mostly sharing photos from special events, like birthdays. She has 393 friends, and wishes some of them would tuck it in(收敛) a bit. “I get a little annoyed about people who feel the need to post a picture of a straight-A report card—and there are many,”she says. “I am sure that most of the time, they are just proud, but I find it annoying.”

B) Gervaise says more and more mothers are using Facebook as a platform to boast about their lives, their kids, their parenting techniques. And that's making it harder and harder for moms like her to log on without getting slapped in the face. Bragging about your kids is nothing new, but before Facebook, the Compare & Contrast game was mostly played at the playground or the preschool parking lot. Moms would stand around discreetly scrutinizing kids to see who was hitting milestones faster or slower than their own children. Now it's going on all day, every day, in a vast electronic sandbox.

C) Facebook moms are constantly bombarded with updates about their friends' kids and their accomplishments. Daily, hourly even. According to Edison Research's Moms and Media 2013 report, 57% of moms on Facebook are over 35—these women are the first generation to have raised their children entirely in the Facebook era. They started out single, gossiping and posting party photos and flirting, and now they're changing diapers, worrying about peanut allergies and diligently navigating the sometimes treacherous mommy waters. And if they're active on Facebook, they're learning in front of a huge, rapt audience.

D) Mothers are heavy Facebook users. Edison's 2013 research reveals that 7 out of 10 moms have a profile, and there are more than 1,000 mommy groups, public and private. These groups range in size from hundreds of members to tens of thousands, and they are discussing everything from potty training to gaming that private-school admissions test.

E) Of all the members on Facebook, moms check in the most (an average of 5.1 times a day, according to Edison), and they keep coming back, even if they are being battered with subtle—and sometimes not so subtle—“My kid's smarter/healthier/happier than yours”remarks. For the mom who barely gets her kids' shoes on before hustling them off to school, posts that portray the perfect family can stir up guilt or even self-loathing(自我厌恶). “Who has time to draw pictures with children? Who has time to clean up the giant mess?”says Meredith DePersia, a working mother of two in San Francisco. “When I see these posts, I definitely feel like a lazy person.”

F) The great time-killer is now a massive ego-killer, and even a mommy-blogger with a huge following feels vulnerable. “Facebook makes me feel bad,”says Glennon Doyle Melton, who had a New York Times best-seller with Carry On, Warrior. “No matter how satisfied I am with my life, career, family, social life, house, etc., as soon as I log on to Facebook and peek into others' lives, I immediately feel that unease caused by comparison.”

G) This is turning many moms off. “One thing that drove me crazy when my son was younger was moms posting about how well their baby slept,”a mom from Texas recalls. “Our son was a pretty poor sleeper, and we spent so much of that first year utterly exhausted. So to be honest, when I would see a post gloating, ‘X slept for six hours straight last night!' I would immediately hide that person for a while because it would irritate me.”An online media professional and mom of one from Falls Church, Va., is so tired of playing the game. “I kind of avoid Facebook entirely,”she says, “because I'm sick of everyone's presentation of perfection.”

H) There is nothing in the Facebook rules that requires complete honesty and total disclosure, and it is human nature to portray the best version of one's life. From carefully presenting our vacation pictures to sharing perfectly posed first-day-of-school photos, all of us, not just moms, try to portray a problem-free, fun-filled, blissful life. And that can be pretty annoying if you've just spent the morning watching your 4-year-old repaint your kitchen walls with oatmeal(麦片粥).

I) “An acquaintance posted a drawing her daughter had made, and it was so perfect. Way more than my son could do, even though he is the same age,”says a teacher and mother from Texas. “I panicked for a minute, but talked myself down. If someone is posting positive, cheerful, perfect things all the time, I always think: Nope. Not buying it. No one's life is that perfect.”

J) Part of the problem is that this isn't happening in real time, face to face. That means moms who might not mean to offend are missing the social cues that normally put a damper on excessive crowing. “Social networks like Facebook haven't changed the way people respond to bragging; they've changed how much people brag,”says Dr. Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center. “The ability to publicize so much has blurred the line between sharing and boasting. When you brag in a group, you notice when they wander away. When you brag on Facebook, it's harder to tell who you're alienating.”

K) Dr. Saedi, author of the blog Millennial Media, thinks it's important to keep it all in perspective. “Remember that, like TV, not everything you see on Facebook is true. No one's life is perfect. And the more that people try to prove how great it is, the more it's often a sign that it's not. It's important for moms on Facebook to take a step back, get some distance and reassess.”

L) Many feeling-smothered mothers don't want to “step back”; they want to escape, to be free. “I deleted my Facebook account!”crows a stay-at-home mom of two in Austin, Texas. “I hated the ‘Keeping up with the Joneses' behavior that Facebook engenders.”Not everyone is ready—or able—to completely cut the Facebook umbilical cord(脐带). One mom decided she just needed to take control of her page, and silence the braggers and know-everythings. “I cleaned house a year ago and only connect with people I'm actually friends or family with,”she says. “I found that I'd catch up on Facebook and be bad-tempered after, so I changed my profile to only let Facebook be what I want it to be.”

M) Even mommy-blogger Melton took a Facebook vacation. For 40 days, the 101,000 followers of her Momastery website waited patiently as she took a rest. It was during this break that she realized how unhappy Facebook made her at times. “I called my younger sister the other day and said, ‘I'm going to quit Facebook. I don't use it right. Whether I want to or not, I just end up comparing myself to everyone else.' ”

N) “And my sister said, ‘Actually, you're using it for the exact thing it was originally designed for. Remember, some college guys made it so that students could compare women to each other and decide who was hotter.' ”Melton ponders this for a moment. “And I thought, Ah. Right. Huh. The origin of Facebook is really annoying and offensive, when you think about it. And even more annoying is that we often still use it for what it was originally intended: comparison.”

36．Comparison was the original function when people designed Facebook and the function has been in use since then.

37．People on Facebook are not required to tell completely true stories about themselves when sharing information with others.

38．Kimberly Gervaise hopes some of her almost 400 hundred friends on Facebook can be modest a bit.

39．A mom from Fall Church, Va. is fed up with the endless comparison and the show-off of one's perfect life on Facebook.

40．Due to the non-real-time communication on Facebook, moms don't know they have hurt others when they boast about themselves.

41．According to Edison 2013 research, mothers use Facebook a lot since 70% percent of them own a profile.

42．Facebook makes it possible now for mothers to compare and boast kids at every moment every day.

43．Meredith DePersia felt ashamed for herself when she read from Facebook the perfect life of others.

44．Edison Research finds that more than half of the Facebook moms have started to use it even before they were married.

45．Dr. Sadei thinks that when people post their perfect life on Facebook, the reality may not be the case.

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.

The idea of public works projects as a device to prevent or control depression was designed as means of creating job opportunities for unemployed workers and as a “pump priming”device to aid business to revive. It was conceived during the early year as of the New Deal Era (1933-1937). By 1933, the number of unemployed workers had reached about 13 million. This meant that about 50 million people—about one third of the nation—were without means of support. At first, direct relief in the form of cash or food was provided for these people. This made them recipients(接受者) of government charity. In order to remove this stigma (耻辱)and restore to the unemployed some measure of respectability and human dignity, a plan was devised to create governmentally sponsored work projects that private industry would not or could not provide. This would also stimulate production and revive business activity.

The best way to explain how this procedure is expected to work is to explain how it actually worked when it was first tried. The first experiment with it was the creation of the Works Project Administration(WPA). This agency set up work projects in various fields in which there were many unemployed. For example, unemployed actors were organized into theater projects; orchestras were organized for unemployed musicians, teaching projects for unemployed teachers, and even writers' projects for unemployed writers. Unemployed laborers were put to building work or maintaining roads, parks, playgrounds, or public buildings. These were all temporary “work relief”projects rather than permanent work opportunities.

More substantial work projects of a permanent nature were organized by another agency, the Public Works Administration(PWA). This agency undertook the planning of construction of schools, houses, post offices, dams, and other public structures. It entered into contracts with private construction firms to erect them, or it loaned money to local or state governments which undertook their construction. This created many jobs in the factories producing the material as well as in the projects themselves, and greatly reduced the number of the unemployed.

Still another agency which provided work projects for the unemployed was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). This agency provided job opportunities for youths aged 16 to 20 to work in national parks or forests clearing land, guarding against fires, building roads, or doing other conservation work. In the event of a future depression, the federal government might revive any or all of the above methods to relieve unemployment and stimulate business.

46．It was at the beginning of the New Deal Era that public works projects______.

A) were ignored by most American socialists

B) proved its advantages over other plans

C) were given a serious consideration

D) were put into use immediately

47．According to the passage, during the New Deal Era, the public works projects might______.

A) make a great leap in guiding the economic development

B) help those unemployed to resume respect and dignity

C) urge private businesses to employ more workers

D) prevent government from lending money to the unemployed

48．The Works Project Administration could______.

A) relieve the burden of both the unemployed and the government

B) satisfy the need of people from various fields of the society

C) meet the need of most people who were once white-collars

D) offer people no jobs which would support them for a whole life

49．Compared with WPA, the Public Works Administration______.

A) got private businesses involved in the restoring of economy

B) encouraged the local governments to make concrete plans

C) offered jobs in all the aspects concerning construction

D) stimulated the economy by lending money to local governments

50．The Civilian Conservation Corps mainly offered jobs______.

A) to give more opportunities to various age groups

B) to foster the spirit of American youths

C) that are laborious to youngsters

D) under the name of relieving family burdens

Passage Two

Questions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.

We all know that the normal human daily cycle of activity is of some 7-8 hours sleep alternating with some 16-17 hours wakefulness and that, broadly speaking, the sleep normally coincides with the hours of darkness. Our present concern is with how easily and to what extent this cycle can be modified.

The question is no mere academic one. The ease, for example, with which people can change from working in the day to working at night is a question of growing importance in industry where automation calls for round-the-clock working of machines. It normally takes from five days to one week for a person to adapt to a reversed routine of sleep and wakefulness, sleeping during the day and working at night. Unfortunately, it is often the case in industry that shifts are changed every week; a person may work from 12 midnight to 8 a.m. one week, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. the next, and 4 p.m. to 12 midnight the third and so on. This means that no sooner has he got used to one routine than he has to change to another, so that much of his time is spent neither working nor sleeping very efficiently.

One answer would seem to be longer periods on each shift, a month, or even three months. Recent research by Bonjer of the Netherlands, however, has shown that people on such systems will revert to their normal habits of sleep and wakefulness during the weekend and that this is quite enough to destroy any adaptation to night work built up during the week.

The only real solution appears to be to hand over the night shift to a number of permanent night workers. An interesting study of the domestic life and health of night-shift workers was carried out by Brown in 1957. She found a high incidence of disturbed sleep and other disorders among those on alternating day and night shifts, but no abnormal occurrence of these phenomena among those on permanent night work.

This latter system then appears to be the best long-term policy, but meanwhile something may be done to relieve the strains of alternate day and night work by selecting those people who can adapt most quickly to the changes of routine. One way of knowing when a person has adapted is by measuring his body temperature. People engaged in normal day-time work will have a high temperature during the hours of wakefulness and a low one at night; when they change to night work the pattern will only gradually go back to match the new routine and the speed with which it does so parallels, broadly speaking, the adaptation of the body as a whole, particularly in terms of performance. Therefore, by taking body temperature at intervals of two hours throughout the period of wakefulness it can be seen how quickly a person can adapt to a reversed routine, and this could be used as a basis for selection. So far, however, such a form of selection does not seem to have been applied in practice.

51．The study of sleep cycle can be of practical use to places where______.

A) strict work shifts are required to cater for the need of automatic machines

B) working at night is normal for most employees

C) employees work according to different requirements of machines

D) employees have to adapt to irregular work patterns and organizations

52．According to Bonjer, after the training of a different sleep pattern during the weekdays, people______.

A) resume their original sleep habits for night shifts before the training

B) tend to come back to their routine sleep patterns at weekends

C) suffer a lot when they come back home to sleep at weekends

D) enjoy the benefits of adjusting to various sleep patterns quickly

53．Which of the following is Brown's finding?

A) People should choose a sleep pattern and work according to the pattern.

B) Regular changes between day shifts and the night ones do good to workers.

C) Permanent night workers suffer no disturbed sleep or other disorders.

D) Workers act abnormally when they work on night shift every day.

54．What can be done in arranging day and night shifts in a factory?

A) Make a survey on employees' preference on different shifts.

B) Give a physical test and find those who are always energetic at nights.

C) Stick to the pattern for three months once the shifts are settled down.

D) Look for those who can adjust fast to the change of wakefulness and sleep.

55．According to the passage, body temperature______.

A) plays a vital role in selecting people for alternative day and night shifts

B) changes every two hours during the day and every three hours during the night

C) has been used for industries in selecting people for alternative shifts

D) changes after a person has finished the training for alternative shifts