Directions:
Study the following graphs carefully and write an essay in 160-200 words. Your essay should cover these three points:
(1)effect of the country’s growing human population on its wildlife
(2)possible reason for the effect
(3)your suggestion for wildlife protection
Your essay must be written neatly on the ANSWER SHEET.
Directions:In this section, there is one passage followed by 5 statements. Go over the passage quickly and mark the answers on the Answer Sheet. For questions 1-6, mark
T (for True) if the statement agrees with the information given in the passage;
F (for False) if the statement contradicts with information given in the passage;
NG (for Not Given) if the information is not given in the passage.
During World War II at the height of the blitz on East London, a boy of 12 was found wandering the rubble streets near Tower Bridge. His dirty face and torn clothing suggested that something awful had happened.
It was 7 a.m., and dawn was breaking into a sky of crimson red lit up by the many fires that burned across the City, London’s docks were ablaze as far as the eye could see, and the river had become a wall of crackling flame with dark plumes of smoke rising into the air as beleaguered firemen fought to put out fires with their spent hoses.
Wherever he looked, the boy could see the flames, the buildings all around him were on fire, and his nostrils were filled with the smell charcoal and smoke, he could hear the sparks crackle as the flames licked at the burning beams of wood.
It is a vision that the boy, now a man, remembers, as though it were yesterday, for that boy was me and this is my true stow:
That morning my father had sent me out after the “all clear” had sounded, to get fresh milk at the local dairy, I had been scampering up the road when an unexploded bomb went off in a house nearby covering me in rubble.
Somehow, dazed and bewildered, I had managed to brush myself down and run on, but I was badly cut by flying glass, and in no state to continue my journey.
It was then that an Air-raid Precautions Warden appeared, his dog had found me with tail wagging, “Come along son” he said “you need a bandage on that wound”, he looked me over apprehensively, “Come up the road to our first-aid unit and we’ll patch you up.”
By nine o’clock I was covered with sticky plasters and bandages, and looked like a wounded war veteran, “I’ve got to get the milk at Evans now” I said. The Warden looked at me sadly, “I’m afraid there’ll be no milk supplied today; the dairy was blitzed last night.”
I wondered what my father would say, me coming home in such a state and without milk too.
I hobbled back towards home through the back streets covered in rubble and bomb damage, but as I neared I had to rub my eyes, where my home had stood was a large smoldering crater. Everything and everyone had gone, blown away by a bomb.
I remember searching with others for many hours, calling for my father and mother, I found his pocket watch and chain in the rubble just as another air-raid started and we had to rush once more for shelter, I opened up the watch when I felt safe, inside an inscription read “Happy Birthday, Dad”, and I cried.
I can’t ever forget what the war did to me and my family, as a London cockney I have taught my children about their past so that they can guard against the future, this is one family that knows the anguish and loss that war brings, my children have never known their grandparents, but they do know right from wrong, for those who perish in war are often the innocent and we must remember that for all time.
Statements:
1.The author’s father asked him to buy some milk after the air-raid alarm was lifted.
2.he author could not get any milk because the dairy was closed for the day.
3.After the author had his wound bandaged, he walked home in high spirits.
4.The author was sure that his father would scold him for returning home without the milk.
5.When the boy reached home, he found that his home had been destroyed by a bomb.
6.The author found the birthday present his father was going to give him and ran to an air-raid shelter to get a closer look at it.
Directions:
Two months ago, you and some former classmates decided to go for an outing to the Summer Palace during the National Day holidays. As the organizer, you are to write an email message to remind the others of:
(1)when and where to meet,
(2)what to bring, and
(3)why they have to tell you in advance whether they will come.
Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use “Li Ming” instead. You do not need to write the address.
Directions: In this section, there is one passage followed by a summary. Read the passage carefully and complete the summary with the appropriate words from the passage. Remember to write your answers on the Answer Sheet.
Questions 1—5 are based on the following passage.
The most crucial way, however, of improving the labour cost structure at SAH (Sydney Airport Hotel) was to find better, more productive ways of providing customer service. SAH management concluded this would first require a process of “benchmarking”. The prime objective of the benchmarking process was to compare a range of service delivery processes across a range of criteria using teams made up of employees from different departments within the hotel which interacted with each other. This process resulted in performance measures that greatly enhanced SAH’s ability to improve productivity and quality.
The front office team discovered through this project that a high proportion of AHI (Australian Hotels Inc) Club member reservations were incomplete. As a result, the service provided to these guests was below the standard promised to them as part of their membership agreement. Reducing the number of incomplete reservations greatly improved guest perceptions of service.
In addition, a program modelled on an earlier project called “Take Charge” was implemented. Essentially, Take Charge provides an effective feedback loop from both customers and employees. Customer comments, both positive and negative, are recorded by staff. These are collated regularly to identify opportunities for improvement. Just as importantly, employees are requested to note down their own suggestions for improvement. (AHI has set an expectation that employees will submit at least three suggestions for every one they receive from a customer.) Employee feedback is reviewed daily and suggestions are implemented within 48 hours, if possible, or a valid reason is given for non-implementation. If suggestions require analysis or data collection, the Take Charge team has 30 days in which to address the issue and come up with recommendations.
Although quantitative evidence of AHI’s initiatives at SAH are limited at present, anecdotal evidence clearly suggests that these practices are working. Indeed AHI is progressively rolling out these initiatives in other hotels in Australia, whilst numerous overseas visitors have come to see how the program works.
Summary:
What They Did at SAH Teams of employees were selected from different hotel departments to participate in a benchmarking exercise. The information collected was used to compare a range of 1 which, in turn, led to the development of 2 that would be used to increase the hotel’s capacity to improve 3 as well as quality. Also, an older program known as 4 was introduced at SAH. In this program, feedback is sought from customers and staff. If possible, their suggestions are implemented within 48 hours. Some of these suggestions may be investigated for their feasibility for a period of up to 5 .
Practice 1 Directions: Read the text below. Write an essay in about 120 words, in which you should summarize the key points of the text and make comments on them. Try to use your own words. I was driving home the other day on a sunny afternoon. I had a smile on my face as I sang along to the songs on the radio. It was such a beautiful day that I felt full of happiness. My good mood ended, however, when the radio station took a news break between songs. Then suddenly I found myself listening to yet another story of a rich famous man who had broken the law. I shook my head as I came to a red traffic light. As I pulled to a stop I noticed four leather-jacketed bikers. They were standing in the middle of the road with two on either side of the light. They looked rough and dangerous, but as I got closer I noticed each one was holding their helmet in their hands. I rolled down my window as one approached my car. “We are the Brother of the wheel,” he said. “We are collecting money for Christmas Toy Drive for needy children.” As I pulled a dollar out of my wallet I looked past his beard and into his eyes. They shined with goodness and kindness that came right from his soul. I dropped the money in his helmet and waved to the other bikers as I drove off. My good mood had returned. My faith in mankind had been strengthened. And I remembered once again never to judge people by their appearance.
Directions:There is one passage in this section with 5 statements. Go over the passage quickly and answer the questions on the Answer Sheet.
For questions 1-5, mark
Y (for YES) if the statement agrees with the information given in the passage;
N (for NO) if the statement contradicts the information given in the passage;
NG (for NOT GIVEN) if the information is not given in the passage.
Highways Early in the 20th century, most of the streets and roads in the U.S. were made of dirt, bricks, and cedar wood blocks. Built for horse, carriage, and foot traffic, they were usually poorly cared for and too narrow to accommodate (容纳) automobiles.
With the increase in auto production, private turnpike (收费公路) companies under local authorities began to spring up, and by 1921 there were 387,000 miles of paved roads. Many were built using specifications of 19th century Scottish engineers Thomas Telford and John MacAdam (for whom the macadam surface is named), whose specifications stressed the importance of adequate drainage. Beyond that, there were no national standards for size, weight restrictions, or commercial signs. During World War I, roads throughout the country were nearly destroyed by the weight of trucks. When General Eisenhower returned from Germany in 1919, after serving in the U.S. Army’s first transcontinental motor convoy (车队), he noted,“The old convoy had started me thinking about good, two-lane highways, but Germany’s Autobahn or motorway had made me see the wisdom of broader ribbons across the land.”
It would take another war before the federal government would act on a national highway system. During World War II, a tremendous increase in trucks and new roads were required. The war demonstrated how critical highways were to the defense effort. Thirteen percent of defense plants received all their supplies by truck, and almost all other plants shipped more than half of their products by vehicle. The war also revealed that local control of highways had led to a confusing variety of design standards. Even federal and state highways did not follow basic standards. Some states allowed trucks up to 36,000 pounds, while others restricted anything over 7,000 pounds. A government study recommended a national highway system of 33,920 miles, and Congress soon passed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944, which called for strict, centrally controlled design criteria.
The interstate highway system was finally launched in 1956 and has been hailed as one of the greatest public works projects of the century. To build its 44,000-mile web of highways, bridges and tunnels, hundreds of unique engineering designs and solutions had to be worked out. Consider the many geographic features of the country: mountains, steep grades, wetlands, rivers, deserts, and plains. Variables included the slope of the land, the ability of the pavement to support the load, the intensity of road use, and the nature of the underlying soil. Urban areas were another problem. Innovative designs of roadways, tunnels, bridges, overpasses, and interchanges that could run through or bypass urban areas soon began to weave their way across the country, forever altering the face of America.
Long-span, segmented-concrete, cable-stayed bridges such as Hale Boggs in Louisiana and the Sunshine Skyway in Florida, and remarkable tunnels like Fort McHenry in Maryland and Mt. Baker in Washington, met many of the nation’s physical challenges. Traffic control systems and methods of construction developed under the interstate program soon influenced highway construction around the world, and were invaluable in improving the condition of urban streets and traffic patterns.
Today, the interstate system links every major city in the U.S., and the U.S. with Canada and Mexico. Built with safety in mind, the highways have wide lanes and shoulders, dividing medians or barriers, long entry and exit lanes, curves engineered for safe turns, and limited access. The death rate on highways is half that of all other U.S. roads (0.86 deaths per 100 million passenger miles compared to 1.99 deaths per 100 million on all other roads).
By opening the North American continent, highways have enabled consumer goods and services to reach people in remote and rural areas of the country, spurred the growth of suburbs, and provided people with greater options in terms of jobs, access to cultural programs, health care, and other benefits. Above all, the interstate system provides individuals with what they cherish most: personal freedom of mobility.
The interstate system has been an essential element of the nation’s economic growth in terms of shipping and job creation: more than 75 percent of the nation’s freight deliveries arrive by truck; and most products that arrive by rail or air use interstates for the last leg of the journey by vehicle. Not only has the highway system affected the American economy by providing shipping routes, it has led to the growth of spin-off industries like service stations, motels, restaurants, and shopping centers. It has allowed the relocation of manufacturing plants and other industries from urban areas to rural.
By the end of the century there was an immense network of paved roads, residential streets, expressways, and freeways built to support millions of vehicles. The highway system was officially renamed for Eisenhower to honor his vision and leadership. The year construction began he said, “Together, the united forces of our communication and transportation systems are dynamic elements in the very name we bear-United States. Without them, we would be a mere alliance of many separate parts.”
Statements:
1.National standards for paved roads were in place by 1921.
2.General Eisenhower felt that the broad German motorways made more sense than the two-lane highways of America.
3.It was in the 1950s that the American government finally took action to build a national highway system.
4.Many of the problems presented by the country’s geographical features found solutions in innovative engineering projects.
5.In spite of safety considerations, the death rate on interstate highways is still higher than that of other American roads.
Directions: Read the following texts from which five sentences have been removed. Choose from the sentences A—G the most suitable one to fill each numbered gap in the text (1—5). There are TWO extra sentences that you do not need to use. Mark your answers on your ANSWER SHEET.
Practice 1
1 ______ For this reason, there is a current boom in language learning for business people. But unless they can speak a foreign language really well, it is best to save it for socializing.
2 ______ And psychologists say that your body language is much more important than what you say. Doing the wrong thing, making eye contact, touching, using people’s first names, even how you eat and drink—can all be hazardous for people who are unfamiliar with certain cultures.
3 ______ In low context cultures such as North America, Britain, Sweden and Germany, people say things very plainly, and rely on clear verbal communication. High context cultures such as France, Japan, Spain, Saudi Arabia, China and South Korea often use silence or hand signals to communicate, and this can sometimes be as important as speaking.
4 ______ In Japan, people bow to each other. In England, people shake hands firmly, but not very often—while in places like Italy and France people shake hands all the time but not as firmly as the English. The Germans and the Danish nod their heads while they shake hands, as a mark of respect, while people in Mediterranean countries sometimes lean their heads backwards while doing the same thing.
5 ______ For example, the British kiss each other once, on the right cheek, the French kiss each other twice, first on the left cheek and then on the right, but in some cultures, especially in the Middle East, they kiss up to four times and still shake hands!
[A] But actions speak louder than words.
[B] Trying to make people from other cultures feel comfortable can be confusing as well.
[C] One of the most important aspects of doing business internationally is being able to speak other languages.
[D] Some cultures communicate by using signals.
[E] Cultures are divided into “low context” and “high context”.
[F] Shaking hands is often the most common form of greeting people, but even this can create problems.
[G] As a rule, though, close physical greetings such as kissing are not a good idea.
Directions:
Suppose you are Li Ming and your friend Li Hua has just won the first-class science award because of the work in the field of applied chemistry. Write a letter of congratulation to her, and the letter should include the following information:
(1)express your congratulations on the award-winning.
(2)express your opinion that she deserves the award.
(3)express your hope for greater success in her field.
You should write about 100 words. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use “Li Ming” instead. You do not need write the address.
Directions: Write an essay of 160-200 words based on the following drawing. In your essay, you should (1)Write out the messages conveyed by the cartoon. (2)Give your comments
Directions: Directions: Your friend Xiao Feng invites you to attend his birthday party. But you are not able to attend it, Write a letter to him to (1) express your regrets, (2) state the reason, (3) offer your congratulations. You should write about 100 words. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write the address.