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Directions: Read the following 20 sentences and decide which of the four meanings below each sentence is closest in meaning to fill in the gap. Write the item number and the corresponding letter A, B, C, or D on the Answer Sheet.
1. Investors appeared to take_____ from a smattering of news from banks and the government.
A.breath B.heart
C.courage D.encouragement
2. The survey results suggest that the magic of air travel has been replaced by travelers’ desire to reach destinations at the most_____ price.
A.economic B.economical
C.lowest D.cheapest
3. Organic food is produced without_____ chemicals or pesticides.
A.artificial B.intentional
C.fake D.false
4. Airlines have been forced to discount fares heavily in order to_____ demand.
A.acquire B.whip
C.spur D.affect
5. The facilities have been adapted to give_____ to wheelchair users.
A.way B.allowance
C.entrance D.access
6. The bank charges a fixed rate for each_____.
A.transition B.transaction
C.transmission D.transformation
7. Restaurant companies are_____ to offer more-healthful menu options for children at a time when concern is growing over the role of fast food in childhood obesity.
A.pledging B.praying
C.pleading D.preserving
8. The newly elected president reaffirmed his_____ to the country’s economic reform program.
A.comment B.contentment
C.compliment D.commitment
9. The government has_____ a massive new house-building program.
A.embarked B.initiated
C.derived D.projected
10. Statistics paint a sobering picture—unemployment, tight credit, lower home values,_____ job growth.
A.advised B.reduced
C.sluggish D.recommended
11. Last night he saw two dark_____ enter the building, and then came the explosion.
A.features B.figures
C.sketches D.images
12. It is obvious that this new rule is applicable to everyone without_____.
A.exception B.exclusion
C.modification D.substitution
13. His temper and personality show that he can become a soldier of the top_____.
A.circle B.rank
C.category D.grade
14. During the lecture, the speaker occasionally_____ his point by relating his own experiences.
A.illustrated B.hinted
C.cited D.displayed
15. Only those who can_____ to lose their money should make high-risk investments.
A.maintain B.sustain
C.endure D.afford
16. Please_____ dictionaries when you are not sure of word spelling or meaning.
A.seek B.inquire
C.search D.consult
17. At yesterday’s party, Elizabeth’s boyfriend amused us by_____ Charlie Chaplin.
A.copying B.following
C.imitating D.modeling
18. She keeps a supply of candles in the house in case of power_____.
A.failure B.lack
C.absence D.drop
19. The group of technicians are engaged in a study which_____ all aspects of urban planning.
A.inserts B.grips
C.performs D.embraces
20. The lecture which lasted about three hours was so_____ that the audience couldn’t help yawning.
A.tedious B.bored
C.clumsy D.tired
Directions: In this section, there is a passage with 10 blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word-bank. You may not use any of the words more than once, and you do not have to change the word form. Write on the Answer Sheet the corresponding number with the letter before the word you’ve picked up.
China’s economic growth is (1)_____ to hold up in 2017 and 2018, partly thanks to the(2)_____ of earlier fiscal and monetary stimulus. Infrastructure investment is picking up on the back of regional development (3)_____, including the Belt and Road and the BeijingHebei-Tianjin Corridor. Real estate investment will remain buoyant notwithstanding measures to (4)_____ demand. Private investment growth has bottomed out and consumption growth will remain (5)_____, underpinned by continued strong job creation. Recovering global demand will (6)_____ exports, but surging tourism imports will limit the effect on the current account balance. In a context of low inflation, China’s monetary policy is appropriately geared to (7)_____ on financial risks, which have mounted. Fiscal policy will remain supportive but should prioritize social inclusion more. Productivity-enhancing reforms, such as further reducing the costs of doing business, phasing out the implicit guarantees enjoyed by stateowned enterprises and improving corporate governance frameworks, are necessary to keep up the(8)_____ of convergence in income per capita to the advanced economies. Integration into global value chains was (9)_____ in China’s spectacular economic growth in recent decades. Moving to higher value-added production (10)_____ for improvements in the quality and relevance of innovation.
Directions: There are 3 passages in this section, each followed by several questions. For each of the questions there are four choices marked A, B, C, and D.You should decide on the best choice and write them on the Answer Sheet with the corresponding number of each item.
The stress of organizing a big wedding can leave many couples at breaking point, as they battle to coordinate a celebration on a scale which would tax even professional event planners. But couples wrestling with 150-seat table plans should take heart, for new research suggests that bigger weddings predict more successful marriages. A study by the University of Virginia in the US, found that couple who had larger ceremonies had higher-quality marriages.
Although cynics may argue that people who can afford an opulent wedding are likely to be financially secure, and therefore happier, the researchers claim that the correlation remains even when controlling for wealth. They believe that marrying in front of a large number of people demonstrates greater commitment to the union while also discouraging divorce.
“There is some reason to believe that having more witnesses at a wedding may actually strengthen marital quality,” said lead author Dr. Galena Rhoades.
“We try to keep our present attitudes and behaviors in line with our past conduct. The desire for consistency is likely enhanced by public expressions of intention. Weddings may foster support for the new marriage from within a couple’s network of friends and family. Those who hold a formal wedding are likely to have stronger social networks in the first place.”
The report is part of the ongoing National Marriage Project in the US which has been studying what makes marriages work since 1997. The survey of 418 people found that only 30 percent of couples who had 50 or fewer guests at the wedding had highly-successful marriages. In contrast, nearly half (47 percent) of couples who had 150 guests or more had strong unions.
National Marriage Project director Brad Wilcox added: “Couples with larger networks of friends and family may have more help, and encouragement, in navigating the challenges of married life.”
The research also discovered that couples who had fewer partners before marriage were happier and more content. Having several relationships before getting married may lead couples to compare their current partners with former lovers, the authors warn. “We generally think that having more experience is better. If you were hiring an architect, for example, you would want to hire an architect with more, not less, experience to build your house,” said Dr. Rhoades. “But what we find for relationships is just the opposite. Having more experience was related to having a less happy marriage. People who had been married before; people who had lived with a boyfriend or girlfriend before and those who had more sexual partners before marriage were each associated with having lower marital quality. Having more relationship experience may lead to a greater sense of what the allernatives are. If you have a greater sense of other options it may be harder to invest in, or commit to a marriage.”
The researchers call it the “Vegas Fallacy”—not everything that happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,they warn. “The past does not alway stay in the past,” added Dt. Rhoades.
Recent figures from the Office for National Statistics show that marriage in Britain is stronger than it has been for a generation. The trend towards more stable marriages is being driven by younger people,with the divorce rates falling in all age groups up to 50 for men and 45 for women. By contrast so-called“silver splitter” separations continue to surge, with the number of people over 60 heading to the divorce courts up three percent in a single year and 45 percent in a decade. Adultery as a cause for divorce has also dropped to an all-time low, accounting for just 14 percent of dissolutions granted to wives in 2012.More than half of wives filing for divorce now cite their husband’s “unreasonable behavior”.
The overall divorce rate in England and Wales now stands at 10.8 for every 1,000 married people, a fifth lower than its level in 2002. However, an estimated 42 percent of marriages will still end in divorce.
1. What’s the main idea of this passage?
A.A big wedding can leave many couples at breaking point.
B.Couples wrestling with 150-seat table plans should take heart.
C.Bigger weddings predict more successful marriages.
D.The larger ceremonies the couples have, the higher-quality marriages they will enjoy.2. Researchers believe bigger weddings predict more successful marriages because_____.
A.people who can afford an opulent wedding are likely to be financially secure
B.people who can afford an opulent wedding can control their wealth better
C.marrying in front of a large number of people demonstrates greater commitment
D.marrying in front of a large number of people discourages divorce
3. It can be inferred from paragraph 4 that_____.
A.wedding is a public expression of love and commitment
B.people try to keep present attitudes and behaviors in line with our past coducct
C.the desire for consistency is likely enhanced by public expressions of intention
D.those who hold a formal wedding are likely to have stronger social networks
4. According to Dr. Rhoades, “having more experience” refers to people_____.
A.whose marriage were happier and more content
B.who had more sexual partners before marriage
C.who want to hire an experience architect
D.who may be harder to invest in, or commit to a marriage
5. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that_____.
A.marriage in Britain is stronger in the older generation
B.the divorce rates are falling in the younger generation
C.adultery has dropped to an all-time low
D.the divorce rates are climbing in the older generation
At the heart of the debate over illegal immigration lies one key question: are immigrants good or bad for the economy? The American public overwhelmingly thinks they’re bad. Yet the consensus among most economists is that immigration, both legal and illegal, provides a small net boost to the economy. Immigrants provide cheap labor, lower the prices of everything from farm produce to new homes, and leave consumers with a little more money in their pockets. So why is there such a discrepancy between the perception of immigrants’ impact on the economy and the reality?
There are a number of familiar theories. Some argue that people are anxious and feel threatened by an inflow of new workers. Others highlight the strain that undocumented immigrants place on public services, like schools, hospitals, and jails. Still others emphasize the role of race, arguing that foreigners add to the nation’s fears and insecurities. There’s some truth to all these explanations, but they aren’t quite sufficient.
To get a better understanding of what’s going on, consider the way immigration’s impact is felt.Though its overall effect may be positive, its costs and benefits are distributed unevenly. David Card, an economist at UC Berkeley, notes that the ones who profit most directly from immigrants’ low-cost labor are businesses and employers—meatpacking plants in Nebraska, for instance, or agricultural businesses in California. Granted, these producers’ savings probably translate into lower prices at the grocery store,but how many consumers make that mental connection at the checkout counter? As for the drawbacks of illegal immigration, these, too, are concentrated. Native low-skilled workers suffer most from the competition of foreign labor. According to a study by George Boras, a Harvard economist, immigration reduced the wages of American high-school dropouts by 9% between 1980-2000.
Among high-skilled, better-educated employees, however, opposition was strongest in states with both high numbers of immigrants and relatively generous social services. What worried them most, in other words, was the fiscal （财政的） burden of immigration. That conclusion was reinforced by another finding: that their opposition appeared to soften when that fiscal burden decreased, as occurred with welfare reform in the 1990s, which curbed immigrants’ access to certain benefits.
The irony is that for all the overexcited debate, the net effect of immigration is minimal. Even for those most acutely affected—say, low-skilled workers, or California residents—the impact isn’t all that dramatic. “The unpleasant voices have tended to dominate our perceptions,” says Daniel Michener, a political science professor at the University of Oregon. “But when all those factors are put together and the economists calculate the numbers, it ends up being a net positive, but a small one.” Too bad most people don’t realize it.
6. What can we learn from the first paragraph?
A.Whether immigrants are good or bad for the economy has been puzzling economists.
B.The American economy used to thrive on immigration but now it’s a different story.
C.The consensus among economists is that immigration should not be encouraged.
D.The general public thinks differently from most economists on the impact of immigration.
7. In what way does the author think ordinary Americans benefit from immigration?
A.They can access all kinds of public services.
B.They can get consumer goods at lower prices.
C.They can mix with people of different cultures.
D.They can avoid doing much of the manual labor.
8. Why do native low-skilled workers suffer most from illegal immigration?
A.They have greater difficulty getting welfare support.
B.They are more likely to encounter interracial conflicts.
C.They have a harder time getting a job with decent pay.
D.They are no match for illegal immigrants in labor skills.
9. What is the chief concern of native high-skilled, better-educated employees about the inflow of immigrants?
A.It may change the existing social structure.
B.It may pose a threat to their economic status.
C.It may lead to social instability in the country.
D.It may place a great strain on the state budget.
10. What is the irony about the debate over immigration?
A.Even economists can’t reach a consensus about its impact.
B.Those who are opposed to it turn out to benefit most from it.
C.People are making too big a fuss about something of small impact.
D.There is no essential difference between seemingly opposite opinions.
In his book The Tipping Point , Malcolm Glad well argues that “social epidemics” are driven in large part by the actions of a tiny minority of special individuals, often called influentials, who are unusually informed, persuasive, or well connected. The idea is intuitively compelling, but it doesn’t explain how ideas actually spread.
The supposed importance of influentials derives from a plausible sounding but largely untested theory called the “two step flow of communication”: Information flows from the media to the influentials and from them to everyone else. Marketers have embraced the two-step flow because it suggests that if they can just find and influence the influentials, those select people will do most of the work for them. The theory also seems to explain the sudden and unexpectcd popularity of certain looks, brands, or neighborhoods. In many such cases, a cursory search for causes finds that some small group of people was wearing, promoting, or developing whatever it is before anyone else paid attention.Anecdotal evidence of this kind fits nicely with the idea that only certain special people can drive trends.
In their recent work, however, some researchers have come up with the finding that influentials have far less impact on social epidemics than is generally supposed. In fact, they don’t seem to be required at all.
The researchers’ argument stems from a simple observation about social influcnce; With the exception of a few celebrities like Oprah Winfrey—whose outsize presence is primarily a function of media, not interpersonal, influence—even the most influential members of a population simply don’t interact with that many others. Yet it is precisely these noncelebrity influentials who, according to the two-step flow theory, are supposed to drive social epidemics, by influencing their friends and colleagues directly. For a social epidemic to occur, however, each person so affected must then influence his or her own acquaintances, who must in turn influence theirs, and so on; and just how many others pay attention to each of these people has little to do with the initial influential. If people in the network just two degrees removed from the initial influential prove resistant, for example, the cascade of change won’t propagate very far or affect many people.
Building on this basic truth about interpersonal influence, the researchers studied the dynamics of social influence by conducting thousands of computer simulations of populations, manipulating a number of variables relating to people’s ability to influence others and their tendency to be influenced.They found that the principal requirement for what is called “global cascades” —the widespread propagation of influence through networks—is the presence not of a few influenctials but, rather, of a critical mass of easily influenced people.
11. By citing the book The Tipping Point , the author intends to_____.
A.analyze the consequences of social epidemics
B.discuss influentials’ function in spreading ideas
C.exemplify people’s intuitive response to social epidemics
D.describe the essential characteristics of influentials
12. The author suggests that the “two-step-flow theory”_____.
A.serves as a solution to marketing problems
B.has helped explain certain prevalent trends
C.has won support from influentials
D.requires solid evidence for its validity
13. What the researchers have observed recently shows that_____.
A.the power of influence goes with social interactions
B.interpersonal links can be enhanced through the media
C.influentials have more channels to reach the public
D.most celebrities enjoy wide media attention
14. The underlined phrase “these people” in paragraph 4 refers to the ones who_____.
A.stay outside the network of social influence
B.have little contact with the source of influence
C.are influenced and then influence others
D.are influenced by the initial influential
15. What is the essential element in the dynamics of social influence?
A.The eagerness to be accepted.
B.The impulse to influence others.
C.The readiness to be influenced.
D.The inclination to rely on others.
Directions: Read the passage and write a a brief summary of about 200 words in Chinese. Write your answer on the Answer Sheet.
Chancellor Merkel,
Dear colleagues,
It is a great pleasure to be with you in Hamburg, the City of Bridges, to discuss ways of building a bridge of cooperation to advance our shared prosperity. First of all, I express heartfelt appreciation to you, Chancellor Merkel, and the German govermment for your warm hospitality.
The global economy is showing signs of moving in the right direction. The related international organizations forecast that it will grow by 3.5 percent this year, the best performance that we have seen in several years. This would not be possible without the efforts of the G20. On the other hand, the global economy is still plagued by deep-seated problems and faces many uncertainties and destabilizing factors.
Facing such challenges, the G20 agreed in Hangzhou last year on the path forward: building an innovative, invigorated, interconnected and inclusive world economy. This year, building on the theme of the Hangzhou Summit, the Hamburg Summit has made “Shaping an Interconnected World” its theme.What we need to do now is to work together to translate our vision into action. With this in mind, I wish to state the following.
Firstly, we should stay committed to building an open global economy. This commitment of the G20 to build open economics saw us through the global financial crisis, and this commitment is vital to reenergizing the global economy. Various international organizations have revised upward forecast for this year’s global growth, mainly because of a projected 2.4 percent growth for global trade and 5 percent growth for global investment. We must remain committed to openness and mutual benefit for all so as to increase the size of the global economic “pie”. As the world’s major economies, we should and must lead the way, support the multilateral trading system, observe the jointly established rules and,through consultation, seek all-win solutions to common challenges we face.
Secondly, we should foster new sources of growth for the global economy. Innovation, more than anything else, is such a new source of growth. Research shows that 95 percent of the world’s businesses are now closely linked with the Intenet, and the global economy is transitioning toward a digital economy. This means we should boost cooperation in digital economy and the new industrial revolution and jointly develop new technologies, new industries, new business models and new products. Another source of growth derives from making greater efforts to address the issue of development and implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and such efforts will both benefit developing countries and generate business and investment opportunities for developed countries. In other words, this will be a win-win game for all. At the Hangzhou Summit last year, we reached important consensus on innovation and development. This momentum of cooperation created has been sustained this year under the German chairmanship of G20. Going forward, we should see that more substantial and concrete outcomes are delivered.
Thirdly, we should work together to achieve more inclusive global growth. Currently, global economic growth is not balanced, and technological advances work against job creation. According to the projection of the World Economic Forum, artificial intelligence will take away more than 5 million jobs in the world by 2020. The G20 has an important mission, which is to reaffirm the vision of pursuing inclusive growth agreed upon at the Hangzhou Summit last year, and strike a balance between fairness and efficiency, between capital and labor, and between technology and employment. To achieve this goal, we must ensure synergy between economic and social policies, address the mismatch between industrial upgrading and knowledge and skills, and ensure more equitable income distribution. The G20 needs to place more importance on cooperation in education, training, employment, business start-up and wealth distribution-related mechanisms, as progress on these fronts will make economic globalization work better.
Fourthly, we should continue improving global economic govermance. In the wake of the global financial crisis, the G20 has done a lot to improve macroeconomic policy coordination, reform international financial institutions, tighten international financial regulation and combat tax avoidance,thus ensuring financial market stability and recovery. We should build on these achievements. In particular, we should strengthen coordination of macroeconomic policies, forestall risks in financial markets and develop financial inclusion and green finance to make the financial sector truly drive the development of the real economy.
China recently hosted a successful Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. Acting in the spirit of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, the forum participants achieved fruitful outcomes in terms of boosting the connectivity of policies, infrastructure, trade, finance and people. Guided by a new vision of governance, we built a new platform of cooperation to tap into new sources of growth. The commitment of the Belt acd Road Forum is highly compatible with the goal of the G20.
A German saying goes to the effect that, “Those who work alone, add; those who work together,multiply.” In this spirit, let us work together to promote interconnected growth for shared prosperity and build toward a global community with a shared future.
Thank you.
Direction: Write a composition of about 400 words and entitle it based on the information below.
According to a newly-amended Ministry of Education regulation, college students who have started their studies can apply for leave for several semesters and their period of schooling can be extended. It’s a huge step to encourage students to start their own businesses while at university. However, some people doubt whether the regulation will have an effect on students’ grades or performance. Should college students be encouraged to start businesses before graduation?