Psychologist George Spilich and colleagues at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, decided to find out whether, as many smokers say, smoking helps them to “think and concentrate. Spilich put young non-smokers, active smokers and smokers deprived (被剥夺) of cigarettes through a series of tests.
    In the first test, each subject (试验对象) sat before a computer screen and pressed a key as soon as he or she recognized a target letter among a grouping of 96. In this simple test, smokers, deprived smokers and non-smokers performed equally well.
    The next test was more complex, requiring all to scan sequences of 20 identical letters and respond the instant one of the letters transformed into a different one. Non-smokers were faster, but under the stimulation of nicotine (尼古丁), active smokers were faster than deprived smokers.
In the third test of short-term memory, non-smokers made the fewest errors, but deprived smokers committed fewer errors than active smokers.
    The fourth test required people to read a passage, then answer questions about it. Non-smokers remembered 19 percent more of the most important information than active smokers, and deprived smokers bested those who had smoked a cigarette just before testing. Active smokers tended not only to have poorer memories but also had trouble separating important information from insignificant details.
    “As our tests became more complex,” sums up Spilich, “non-smokers performed better than smokers by wider and wider margins” He predicts, “smokers might perform adequately at many jobs-until they got complicated. A smoking airline pilot could fly adequately if no problems arose, but if something went wrong, smoking might damage his mental capacity.”

    There is no denying that students should learn something about how computers work, just as we expect them at least to understand that the internal-combustion engine (内燃机) has something to do with burning fuel, expanding gases and pistons (活塞) being driven. For people should have some basic idea of how the things that they use do what they do. Further, students might be helped by a course that considers the computer’s impact on society. But that is not what is meant by computer literacy. For computer literacy is not a form of literacy (读写能力); it is a trade skill that should not be taught as a liberal art.
    Learning how to use a computer and learning how to program one are two distinct activities. A case might be made that the competent citizens of tomorrow should free themselves from their fear of computers. But this is quite different from saying that all ought to know how to program one. Leave that to people who have chosen programming as a career. While programming can be lots of fun, and while our society needs some people who are experts at it, the same is true of auto repaid and violin-making.
    Learning how to use a computer is not that difficult, and it gets easier all the time as programs become more “user-friendly”. Let us assume that in the future everyone is going to have to know how to use a computer to be a competent citizen. What does the phrase “learning to use a computer” mean? It sounds like “learning to drive a car”, that is, it sounds as if there is some set of definite skills that, once acquired, enable one to use a computer.
    In fact, “learning to use a computer” is much more like “learning to play a game”, but learning the rules of one game may not help you play a second game, whose rules may not be the same. There is no such a thing as teaching someone how to use a computer. One can only teach people to use this or that program and generally that is easily accomplished.

    The way people hold to the belief that a fun-filled, pain free life equals happiness actually reduces their chances of ever attaining real happiness, if fun and pleasure are equal to happiness then pain must be equal to unhappiness. But in fact, the opposite is true: more often than not things that lead to happiness involve some pain.
    As a result, many people avoid the very attempts that are the source of true happiness. They fear the pain inevitably brought by such things as marriage, raising children, professional achievement, religious commitment (承担的义务), self-improvement.
    Ask a bachelor (单身汉) why he resists marriage even though he finds dating to be less and less satisfying. If he is honest he will tell you that he is afraid of making a commitment. For commitment is in fact quite painful. The single life is filled with fun, adventure, excitement. Marriage has such moments, but they are not its most distinguishing features.
    Couples with infant children are lucky to get a whole night’s sleep or a three-day vacation. I don’t know any parent who would choose the word fun to describe raising children. But couples who decide not to have children never know the joys of watching a child grow up or of playing with a grandchild.
    Understanding and accepting that true happiness has nothing to do with fun is one of the most liberating realizations. It liberates time: now we can devote more hours to activities that can genuinely increase our happiness. It liberates money: buying that new car or those fancy clothes that will do nothing to increase our happiness now seems pointless. And it liberates us from envy: we now understand that all those who are always having so much fun actually may not be happy at all.

    It’s very interesting to note where the debate about diversity (多样化) is taking place. It is taking place primarily in political circles. Here at the College Fund, we have a lot of contact with top corporate (公司的) leaders; none of them is talking about getting rid of those instruments that produce diversity. In fact, they say that if their companies are to compete in the global village and in the global market place, diversity is an imperative. They also say that the need for talented, skilled Americans means we have to expand the pool means promoting policies that help provide skills to more minorities, more women and more immigrants. Corporate leaders know that if that doesn’t occur in our society, they will not have the engineers, the scientist, the lawyers, or the business managers they will need.
    Likewise, I don’t hear people in the academy saying. “Let’s go backward. Let’s go back to the good old days, when we had a meritocracy (不拘一格选人才) “ (which was never true-we never had a meritocracy, although we’ve come close to it in the last 30 years). I recently visited a great little college in New York where the campus had doubled its minority population in the last six years. I talked with an African American who has been a professor there for a long time, and she remembers that when she first joined the community, there were fewer than a handful of minorities on campus. Now, all of us feel the university is better because of the diversity. So where we hear this debate is primarily in political circles and in the media-not in corporate board rooms or on college campuses.

    The task of being accepted and enrolled (招收) in a university begins early for some students. Long (1)_____ they graduate from high school. These Students take special (2)_____ to prepare for advanced study. They may also take one of more examinations that test how (3)_____ prepared they are for the university. In the final year of high school, they (4)_____ applications and send them, with their student records, to the universities which they hope to (5)_____. Some high school students many be _(6)_____ to have an interview with representatives of the university. Neatly, (7)_____, and usually very frightened, they are (8)_____ to show that they have a good attitude and the (9)_____ to succeed.
    When the new students are finally (10)_____, there may be one more step they have to (11)_____ before registering for classes and (12)_____ to work. Many colleges and universities (13)_____ an orientation (情况介绍) program for new students. (14)_____ these programs, the young people get to know the (15)_____ for registration and student advising, university rules, the (16)_____ of the library and all the other (17)_____ services of the college or university.
    Beginning a new life in a new place can be very (18)_____. The more knowledge students have (19)_____ the school, the easier it will be fore them to (20)_____ to the new environment. However, it takes time to get used to college life.

Directions: For this part, you are allowed thirty minutes to write a composition on the topic Do “Lucky Numbers” Really Bring Good Luck? You should write at least 100 words and you should base your composition on the outline (given in Chinese) below.
(1) 有些人认为某些数字会带来好运。
(2) 我认为数字和运气无关，...

Do “Lucky Numbers” Really Bring Good Luck?