The view over a valley of a tiny village with thatched (草盖的) roof cottages around a church; a drive through a narrow village street lines with thatched cottages painted pink or white; the sight in parts of England. Most people will agree that the thatched roof is an essential part of the attraction of the English countryside.
    Thatching is in fact the oldest of all the building crafts practiced in the British Isles (英论诸岛).Although thatch has always been used for cottage and farm buildings, it was once used for castles and churches, too.
    Thatching is a solitary (独自的) craft, which often runs in families. The craft of thatching as it is practiced toady has changed very little since the Middle Ages. Over 800full-time thatchers are employed in England and Wales today, maintaining and renewing the old roofs as well as thatching newer houses. Many property owners choose thatch not only for its beauty but because they know it will keep them cool in summer and warm in winter.
    In fact, if we look at developing countries, over half the world lives under thatch, but they all do it in different ways. People in developing countries are often reluctant to go back to traditional materials and would prefer modern buildings. However, they may lack the money to allow them to import the necessary materials. Their temporary mud huts with thatched roofs of wild grasses often only last six months. Thatch which has been done the British way lasts from twenty to sixty years, and is an effective defiance against the heat.

    President Coolidge’s statement, “The business of America is business,” still points to an important truth today-that business in situations have more prestige (威望) in American society than any other kind of organization, including the government. Why do business institutions posses this great prestige?
    One reason is that Americans view business as being more firmly based on the ideal of competition than other institutions in society. Since competition is seen as the major source of progress and prosperity by most Americans, competitive business institutions are respected. Competition is not only good in itself, it is the means by which other basic American values such as individual freedom, equality of opportunity, and hard work are protected.
    Competition protects the freedom of the individual by ensuring that there is nomonopoly (垄断) of power. In contrast to one, all-powerful government, many businesses compete against each other for profits. Theoretically, if one business tries to take unfair advantage of its customers, it will lose to competing business which treats its customers more fairly. Where many businesses compete for the customers’ dollar, they cannot afford to treat them like inferiors or slaves.
    A contrast is often made between business, which is competitive, and government, which is a monopoly. Because business is competitive, many Americans believe that it is more supportive of freedom than government, even though government leaders are elected by the people and business leaders are not. Many Americans believe, then, that competition is as important, or even more important, that democracy in preserving freedom.
    Competition in business is also believed to strengthen the ideal of equality of opportunity. Competition is seen as an open and fair race where success goes to the swiftest person regardless of his or her social class background. Competitive success is commonly seen as the American alternative to social rank based on family background. Business is therefore viewed as an expression of the idea of equality of opportunity rather than the aristocratic (贵族的) idea of inherited privilege.

    The appeal of advertising to buying motives can have both negative and positive effects consumers may be convinced to buy a product of poor quality or high price because of an advertisement. For example, some advertisers have appealed to people’s desire for better fuel economy for their cars by advertising automotive products that improve gasoline mileage. Some of the products work. Others are worthless and a waste of consumers’ money.
    Sometimes advertising is intentionally misleading. A few years ago a brand of bread was offer to dieters (节食者) with the message that there were fewer calories (热量单位，大卡) in every slice. It turned out that the bread was not dietetic (适合于节食的), but just regular bread. There were fewer calories because it was sliced very thin, but there were the same number of calories in every loaf.
    On the positive side, emotional appeals may respond to a consumer’s real concerns. Consider fire insurance. Fire insurance may be sold by appealing to fear of loss. But fear of loss is the real reason for fire insurance. The security of knowing that property is protected by insurance makes the purchase of fire insurance a worthwhile investment for most people. If consumers consider the quality of the insurance plans as well as the message in the ads, they will benefit from the advertising.
    Each consumer must evaluate her or his own situation. Are the benefits of the product important enough to justify buying it? Advertising is intended to appeal to consumers, but it does not force them to buy the product. Consumers still control the final buying decision.

    So long as teachers fail to distinguish between teaching and learning, they will continue to undertake to do for children that which only children can do for themselves. Teaching children to read is not passing reading on to them. It is certainly not endless hours spent in activities about reading. Douglas insists that “reading cannot be taught directly and schools should stop trying to do the impossible.”
    Teaching and learning are two entirely different processes. They differ in kind and function. The function of teaching is to create the conditions and the climate that will make it possible for children to devise the most efficient system for teaching themselves to read. Teaching is also public activity: It can be seen and observed.
    Learning to read involves all that each individual does to make sense of the world of printed language. Almost all of it is private, for learning is an occupation of the mind, and that process is not open to public scrutiny.
    If teacher and learner roles are not interchangeable, what then can be done through teaching that will aid the child in the quest (探索) for knowledge? Smith has one principal rule for all teaching instructions. “Make learning to read easy, which means making reading a meaningful, enjoyable and frequent experience for children.”
    When the roles of teacher and learner are seen for what they are, and when both teacher and learner fulfill the mappropriately, then much of the pressure and feeling of failure for both is eliminated. Learning to read is made easier when teachers create an environment where children are given the opportunity to solve the problem of learning to read by reading.

    Would be language teachers everywhere have one thing in common: they all want some recognition of their professional status and skills, and a job. The former requirement is obviously important on a personal level, but it is vital if you are to have any chance of finding work.
    Ten years ago, the situation was very different. In virtually every developing country, and in many developed countries as well, being a native English speaker was enough to get you employed as an English teacher.
    Now employers will only look at teachers who have the knowledge, the skills and attitudes to teach English effectively. The result of this has been to raise non-native English teachers to the same status as their native counterparts (相对应的人)—something they have always deserved but seldom enjoyed. Non-natives are now happy—linguistic discrimination (语言上的歧视) is a thing of the past.
    An ongoing research project, funded by the University of Cambridge, asked a sample of teachers, teacher educators and employers in more than 40 countries whether they regard the native/non-native speakers distinction as being at all important. “NO” was the answer. As long as candidates could teach and had the required level of English, it didn’t matter who they were and where they came from. Thus, a new form of discrimination—this time justified because it singled out the unqualified—liberated the linguistically oppressed (受压迫的). But the Cambridge project did more than just that: it confirmed that the needs of native and non-native teachers are extremely similar.

Questions: (注意：答题尽量简短，超过10个词要扣分。每条横线限写一个英语单词，标点符号不占格。)

Directions: For this part, you are allowed thirty minutes to write a composition on the topic Don’t Hesitate to Say “No”. You should write at least 100 words and you should base your composition on the outline (given in Chinese) below:
(1) 别人请求帮助时，在什么情况下我们会说“不”。
(2) 为什么有些人在该说“不”的时候不说“不”。
(3) 该说“不”时不说“不”的坏处。

 Don’t Hesitate to Say “No”