It’s difficult to imagine the sea ever running out of fish. It’s so vast, so deep, so (1)________. Unfortunately, it’s not bottomless. Over-fishing, (2)________ with destructive fishing practices, is killing off the fish and (3)________ their environment.
    Destroy the fish, and you destroy the fishermen’s means of living. At least 60 (4)________ of the world’s commercially important fish (5)________ are already over-fished, or fished to the limit. As a result, governments have had to close down some areas of sea to commercial fishing.
    Big, high-tech fleets (6)________ that everything in their path is pulled out of water. Anything too small, or the wrong thing, is thrown back either dead or dying. That’s an (7)________ of more than 20 million metric tons every year. (8)________.
    In some parts of the world, for every kilogram of prawns (对虾) caught, up to 15 kilograms of unsuspecting fish and other marine wildlife die, simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
    True, (9)________, then catch them in a way that doesn’t kill other innocent sea life.

    Like many of my generation, I have a weakness for hero worship. At some point, however, we all begin to question our heroes and our need for them. This leads us to ask: What is a hero?
Despite immense differences in cultures, heroes around the world generally share a number of characteristics that instruct and inspire people.
    A hero does something worth talking about. A hero has a story of adventure to tell and a community who will listen. But a hero goes beyond mere fame.
    Heroes serve powers or principles larger than themselves. Like high-voltage transformers, heroes take the energy of higher powers and step it down so that it can be used by ordinary people.
    The hero lives a life worthy of imitation. Those who imitate a genuine hero experience life with new depth, enthusiasm, and meaning. A sure test for would-be heroes is what or whom do they serve? What are they willing to live and die for? If the answer or evidence suggests they serve only their own fame, they may be famous persons but not heroes. Madonna and Michael Jackson are famous, but who would claim that their fans find life more abundant?
    Heroes are catalysts (催化剂) for change. They have a vision from the mountaintop. They have the skill and the charm to move the masses. They create new possibilities. Without Gandhi, India might still be part of the British Empire. Without Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., we might still have segregated (隔离的) buses, restaurants, and parks. It may be possible for large-scale change to occur without leaders with magnetic personalities, but the pace of change would be slow, the vision uncertain, and the committee meetings endless.

    According to a survey, which was based on the responses of over 188,000 students, today’s traditional-age college freshmen are “more materialistic and less altruistic (利他主义的)” than at any time in the 17 years of the poll.
    Not surprising in these hard times, the student’s major objective “is to be financially well off. Less important than ever is developing a meaningful philosophy of life.” It follows then that today the most popular course is not literature or history but accounting.
    Interest in teaching, social service and the “altruistic” fields is at a low. On the other hand, enrollment in business programs, engineering and computer science is way up.
    That’s no surprise either. A friend of mine (a sales representative for a chemical company) was making twice the salary of her college instructors her first year on the job—even before she completed her two-year associate degree.
     While it’s true that we all need a career, it is equally true that our civilization has accumulated an incredible amount of knowledge in fields far removed from our own and that we are better for our understanding of these other contributions—be they scientific or artistic. It is equally true that, in studying the diverse wisdom of others, we learn how to think. More important, perhaps, education teaches us to see the connections between things, as well as to see beyond our immediate needs.
    Weekly we read of unions who went on strike for higher wages, only to drive their employer out of business. No company; no job. How shortsighted in the long run!
    But the most important argument for a broad education is that in studying the accumulated wisdom of the ages, we improve our moral sense. I saw a cartoon recently which shows a group of businessmen looking puzzled as they sit around a conference table; one of them is talking on the intercom (对讲机): “Miss Baxter,” he says, “could you please send in someone who can distinguish right from wrong?”
    From the long-term point of view, that’s what education really ought to be about.

    New technology links the world as never before. Our planet has shrunk. It’s now a “global village” where countries are only seconds away by fax or phone or satellite link. And, of course, our ability to benefit from this high-tech communications equipment is greatly enhanced by foreign language skills.
    Deeply involved with this new technology is a breed of modern businesspeople who have a growing respect for the economic value of doing business abroad. In modern markets, success overseas often helps support domestic business efforts.
    Overseas assignments are becoming increasingly important to advancement within executive ranks. The executive stationed in another country no longer need fear being “out of sight and out of mind.”He or she can be sure that the overseas effort is central to the company’s plan for success, and that promotions often follow or accompany an assignment abroad. If an employee can succeed in a difficult assignment overseas, superiors will have greater confidence in his or her ability to cope back in the United States where cross-cultural considerations and foreign language issues are becoming more and more prevalent (普遍的).
    Thanks to a variety of relatively inexpensive communications devices with business applications, even small businesses in the United States are able to get into international markets.
    English is still the international language of business. But there is an ever-growing need for people who can speak another language. A second language isn’t generally required to get a job in business, but having language skills gives a candidate the edge when other qualifications appear to be equal
    The employee posted abroad who speaks the country’s principal language has an opportunity to fast-forward certain negotiations, and cam have the cultural insight to know when it is better to move more slowly. The employee at the home office who can communicate well with foreign clients over the telephone or by fax machine is an obvious asset to the firm.

    In recent years, Israeli consumers have grown more demanding as they’ve become wealthier and more worldly-wise. Foreign travel is a national passion; this summer alone, one in 10 citizens will go abroad. Exposed to higher standards of service elsewhere, Israelis are returning home expecting the same. American firms have also begun arriving in large numbers. Chains such as KFC, McDonald’s and Pizza Hut are setting a new standard of customer service, using strict employee training and constant monitoring to ensure the friendliness of frontline staff. Even the American habit of telling departing customers to “Have a nice day” has caught on all over Israel. “Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, ‘Let’s be nicer,’” says Itsik Cohen, director of a consulting firm. “Nothing happens without competition.”
    Privatization, or the threat of it, is a motivation as well. Monopolies (垄断者) that until recently have been free to take their customers for granted now fear what Michael Perry, a marketing professor, calls “the revengeful (报复的) consumer.” When the government opened up competition with Bezaq, the phone company, its international branch lost 40% of its market share, even while offering competitive rates. Says Perry, “People wanted revenge for all the years of bad service.” The electric company, whose monopoly may be short-lived, has suddenly mopped requiring users to wait half a day for a repairman. Now, appointments are scheduled to the half-hour. The graceless El Al Airlines, which is already at auction (拍卖), has retrained its employees to emphasize service and is boasting about the results in an ad campaign with the slogan, “You can feel the change in the air.” For the first time, praise outnumbers complaints on customer survey sheets.

    A language is a signaling system which operates with symbolic vocal sounds (语声), and which is used by a group of people for the purpose of communication.
    Let’s look at this (1)_____ in more detail because it is language, more than anything else, (2)_____ distinguishes man from the rest of the (3)_____ world.
    Other animals, it is true, communicate with one another by (4)_____ of cries: for example, many birds utter (5)_____ calls at the approach of danger; monkeys utter (6)_____ cries, such as expressions of anger, fear and pleasure. (7)_____ these various means of communication differ in important ways (8)_____ human language. For instance, animals’ cries do not (9)_____ thoughts and feelings clearly. This means, basically, that they lack structure. They lack the kind of structure that (10)_____ us to divide a human utterance into (11)_____.
    We can change an utterance by (12)_____ one word in it with (13)_____: a good illustration of this is a soldier who can say, e.g., “tanks approaching from the north“, (14)_____ who can change one word and say aircraft approaching from the north” or “tanks approaching from the west”; but a bird has a single alarm cry, (15)_____ means “danger!”
    This is why the number of (16)_____ that an animal can make is very limited: the great tit (山雀) is a case (17)_____ point; it has about twenty different calls, (18)_____ in human language the number of possible utterances is (19)_____. It also explains why animal cries are very (20)_____ in meaning.

Directions: For this part, you are allowed thirty minutes to write a composition on the topic It Pays to Be Honest. You should write at least 120 words according to the outline given below in Chinese.
(1) 当前社会上存在许多不诚实的现象
(2) 诚实利人利已，做人应该诚实

It Pays to Be Honest