Researchers have established that when people are mentally engaged, biochemical changes occur in the brain that allow it to act more effectively in cognitive (认知的) areas such as attention and memory. This is true regardless of age.
    People will be alert (警觉的) and receptive (接受能力强的) if they are faced with information that gets them to think about things they are interested in. And someone with a history of doing more rather than less will go into old age more cognitively sound than someone who has not had an active mind.
    Many experts are so convinced of the benefits of challenging the brain that they are putting, the theory to work in their own lives. “The idea is not necessarily to learn to memorize enormous amounts of information.” says James Fozard, associate director of the national Institute on Aging. “Most of us don’t need that kind of skill. Such specific training is of less interest than being able to maintain mental alertness. Fozard and others say they challenge their brains with different mental skill, both because they enjoy them and because they are sure that their range of activities will help the way their brains work.
    Gene Cohen, acting director of the same institute, suggests that people in their old age should engage in mental and physical activities individually as well as in groups. Cohen says that we are frequently advised to keep physically active as we age, but older people need to keep mentally active as well. Those who do are more likely to maintain their intellectual abilities and to be generally happier and better adjusted. “The point is, you need to do both,” Cohen says. “Intellectual activity influences brain-cell health and size.”

    Attention to detail is something everyone can and should do—especially in a tight job market. Bob Crossley, a human-resources expert notices this in the job applications that come across his desk every day. “It’s amazing how many candidates eliminate themselves.” he says.
    Resume (简历) arrive with stains. Some candidates don’t bother to spell the company’s name correctly. Once I see a mistake, I eliminate the candidate, Crossley concludes. “If they cannot take of these details, why should we trust them with a job?”
    Can we pay too much attention to detail? Absolutely. Perfectionists struggle over little things at the cost of something larger they work toward, “To keep from losing the forest for the trees”, says Charles Garfield, associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco, “We must constantly ask ourselves how the details we’re working on fit into the larger picture. If they don’t, we should drop them and move to something else”.
    Garfield compares this process to his work as a computer scientist at NASA. “The Apollo II moon launch was slightly off-course 90 percent of the time.” Says Garfield, “But a successful landing was still likely because we knew the exact coordinates of our goal. This allowed us to make adjustments as necessary.” Knowing where we want to go helps us judge the importance of every task we undertake.
    Too often we believe what accounts for others’ success is some special secret or a lucky break (机遇). But rarely is success so mysterious. Again and again, we see that by doing little things within our grasp well, large rewards follow.

    Britain almost more than any other country in the world must seriously face the problem of building upwards, that is to say, of accommodating a considerable proportion of its population in high blocks of flats. It is said that the English man objects to this type of existence, but if the case is such, he does in fact differ from the inhabitants of most countries of the world today. In the past our own blocks of flats have been associated with the lower-income groups and they have lacked the obvious provisions, such as central heating, constant hot water supply, electrically operated lifts from top to bottom, and so on, as well as such details, important notwithstanding (然而), as easy facilities for disposal of dust and rubbish and storage places for baby carriages in the ground floor, playgrounds for children on the top of the buildings, and drying grounds for washing. It is likely that the dispute regarding flats versus (对，对抗) individual houses will continue to rage on for a long time as far as Britain is concerned. And it is unfortunate that there should be hot feelings on both sides whenever this subject is raised. Those who oppose the building of flats base their case primarily on the assumption (设想) that everyone prefers an individual home and on the high cost per unit of accommodation. The latter ignores the higher cost of providing full services to a scattered community and the cost in both money and time of the journeys to work for the suburban resident.

    Where do pesticides (杀虫剂) fit into the picture of environmental disease? We have seen that they now pollute soil, water and food, that they have the power to make our streams fishless and our gardens and woodlands silent and birdless. Man, however much he may like to pretend the contrary, is part of nature. Can he escape a pollution that is now so thoroughly distributed throughout our world:
    We know that even single exposures to these chemicals, if the amount is large enough, can cause extremely severe poisoning. But this is not the major problem. The sudden illness or death of farmers, farm workers, and others exposed to sufficient quantities of pesticides is very sad and should not occur. For the population as a whole, we must be more concerned with the delayed effects of absorbing small amounts of the pesticides that invisibly pollute our world.
    Responsible public health officials have pointed out that the biological effects of chemicals are cumulative (累积) over long periods of time, and that the danger to individual may depend on the sum of the exposures received throughout his lifetime. For these very reasons the danger is easily ignored. It is human nature to shake off what may seem to us a threat of future disaster. “Men are naturally most impressed by diseases which have obvious signs,” says a wise physician, Dr. Rene Dubos, “yet some of their worst enemies slowly approach them unnoticed.”

Then the speaker______the warious factor leading to the present econonic crisis

    A land free from destruction, plus wealth, natural resources, and labor supply—all these were important (1)_____ in helping England to become the center for the Industrial Revolution. (2)_____ they were not enough. Something (3)_____ was needed to start the industrial process. That “something special” was men-(4)_____ individuals who could invent machines, find new (5)_____ of power, and establish business organizations to reshape society.
    The men who (6)_____ the machines of the Industrial Revolution (7)_____ from many backgrounds and many occupations. Many of them were (8)_____ inventors than scientists. A man who is a (9)_____ scientist is primarily interested in doing his research (10)_____. He is not necessarily working (11)_____ that his findings can be used.
    An inventor or one interested in applied science is (12)_____ trying to make something that has a concrete (13)_____. He may try to solve a problem by using the theories (14)_____ science or by experimenting through trial and error. Regardless of his method, he is working to obtain a (15)_____ result: the construction of a harvesting machine, the burning of a light bulb, or one of (16)_____ other objectives.
    Most of the people who (17)_____ the machines of the Industrial Revolution were inventors, not trained scientists. A few were both scientists and inventors. Even those who had (18)_____ or no training in science might not have made their inventions (19)_____ a groundwork had not been laid by scientists years (20)_____.

Directions: For this part, you are allowed thirty minutes to write a composition on the topic Advantage of a Job Interview. You should write at least 100 words and you should base your composition on outline (given in Chinese) below:
(1) 现在找工作一般都要面试，通过面试，面试者(interviewer)和应试者(interviewee) 可以互相了解情况。
(2) 面试者可以向应试者介绍情况如工作性质、条件、待遇等。
(3) 应试者也有机会给对方留下一个好印象，如可以表现出自信心，可以介绍教育背景，工作能力等。