It is all very well to blame traffic jams, the cost of petrol and the quick pace of modern life, but manners on the roads are becoming horrible. Everybody knows that the nicest men become monsters behind the wheel. It is all very well, again, to have a tiger in the tank, but to have one in the driver’s seat is another matter altogether. You might tolerate the odd road-hog, the rude and inconsiderate driver, but nowadays the well-mannered motorist is the exception to the rule. Perhaps the situation calls for a ‘Be Kind to Other Drivers’ campaign, otherwise it may get completely out of hand.
    Road politeness is not only good manners, but good sense too. It takes the most cool-headed and good-tempered of drivers to resist the temptation to revenge when subjected to uncivilized behavior. On the other hand, a little politeness goes a long way towards relieving the tensions of motoring. A friendly nod or a wave of acknowledgement in response to an act of politeness helps to create an atmosphere of goodwill and tolerance so necessary in modern traffic conditions. But such acknowledgements of politeness are all too rare today. Many drivers nowadays don’t even seem able to recognize politeness when they see it.
    However, misplaced politeness can also be dangerous. Typical examples are the driver who brakes violently to allow a car to emerge from a side street at some hazard to following traffic, when a few seconds later the road would be clear anyway; or the man who waves a child across a zebra crossing into the path of oncoming vehicles that may be unable to stop in time. The same goes for encouraging old ladies to cross the road wherever and whenever they care to. It always amazes me that the highways are not covered with the dead bodies of these grannies.
    A veteran driver, whose manners are faultless, told me it would help if motorists learnt to filter correctly into traffic streams one at a time without causing the total blockages that give rise to bad temper. Unfortunately, modern motorists can’t even learn to drive, let alone master the subtler aspects of roadsmanship. Years ago the experts warned us that the car-ownership explosion would demand a lot more give-and-take from all road users. It is high time for all of us to take this message to heart.

    In the atmosphere, carbon dioxide acts rather like one-way mirror-the glass in the roof of a green house which allows the sun’s rays to enter but prevents the heat from escaping.
    According to a weather expert’s prediction, the atmosphere will be 3°C warmer in the year 2050 than it is today, if man continues to burn fuels at the present rate. If this warming up took place, the ice caps in the poles would begin to melt, thus raising sea level several metres and severely flooding coastal cities. Also, the increase in atmospheric temperature would lead to great changes in the climate of the northern hemisphere, possibly resulting in an alteration of the earth’s chief food-growing zones.
    In the past, concern about a man-made warming of the earth has concentrated on the Arctic because the Antarctic much colder and has a much thicker ice sheet. But the weather experts are now paying more attention to West Antarctic, which may be affected by only a few degrees of warming: in other words, by a warming on the scale that will possibly take place in the next fifty years from the burning of fuels.
    Satellite pictures show that large areas of Antarctic ice are already disappearing. The evidence available suggests that a warming has taken place. This fits the theory that carbon dioxide warms the earth.
    However, most of the fuel is burnt in the northern hemisphere, where temperatures seem to be falling. Scientists conclude, therefore, that up to now natural influences on the weather have exceeded those caused by man. The question is: Which natural cause has most effect on the weather?
    One possibility is the variable behavior of the sun. Astronomers at one research station have studied the hot spots and ‘cold’ spots (that is, the relatively less hot spots) on the sun. As the sun rotates, every 27. 5 days, it presents hotter or ‘colder’ faces to the earth, and different aspects to different parts of the earth. This seems to have a considerable effect on the distribution of the earth’s atmospheric pressure, and consequently on wind circulation; The sun is also variable over a long term: its heat output goes up and down in cycles, the latest trend being downward.
    Scientists are now finding mutual relations between models of solar-weather interactions and the actual climate over many thousands of years, including the last Ice Age. The problem is that the models are predicting that the world should be entering a new Ice Age and it is not. One way of solving this theoretical difficulty is to assume a delay of thousands of years while the solar effects overcome the inertia(惯性) of the earth’s climate. If this is right, the warming effect of carbon dioxide might thus be serving as a useful counter-balance to the sun’s diminishing heat.

    Some people believe that international sport creates goodwill between the nations and that if countries play games together they will learn to live together. Others say that the opposite is true: that international contests encourage false national pride and lead to misunderstanding and hatred. There is probably some truth in both arguments, but in recent years the Olympic Games have done little to support the view that sports encourages international brotherhood. Not only was there the tragic incident involving the murder of athletes, but the Games were also ruined by lesser incidents caused principally by minor national contests.
    One country received its second-place medals with visible indignation after the hockey (曲棍球) final. There had been noisy scenes at the end of the hockey match, the losers objecting to the final decisions. They were convinced that one of their goals should not have been disallowed and that their opponents’ victory was unfair. Their manager was in a rage when he said: “This wasn’t hockey. Hockey and the International Hockey Federation are finished.” The president of the Federation said later that such behavior could result in the suspension of the team for at least three years.
    The American basketball team announced that they would not yield first place to Russia, after a disputable end to their contest. The game had ended in disturbance. It was thought at first that the United States had won, by a single point, but it was announced that there were three seconds still to play. A Russian player then threw the ball from one end of the court to the other, and another player popped it into the basket. It was the first time the USA had ever lost an Olympic basketball match. An appeal jury debated the matter for four and a half hours before announcing that the result would stand. The American players then voted not to receive the silver medals.
    Incidents of this kind will continue as long as sport is played competitively rather than for the love of the game. The suggestion that athletes should compete as individuals, or in non-national teams, might be too much to hope for. But in the present organization of the Olympics there is far too much that encourages aggressive patriotism.

    The key to the industrialization of space is the U. S. space shuttle. (1) ______ it, astronauts will acquire a workhouse vehicle (2) ______ of flying into space and returning many times. (3) ______ by reusable rockets that can lift a load of 65,000 pounds, the shuttle will carry devices for scientific inquiry, as (4) ______ as a variety of military hardware. (5) ______more significantly, it will (6) ______ materials and machines into space for industrial purposes (7) ______ two decades ago when “sputnik” (artificial satellite) was (8) ______ to the vocabulary. In short, the (9) ______ importance of the shuttle lies in its (10) ______ as an economic tool.
    What makes the space shuttle (11) ______is that it takes off like a rocket but lands like an airplane. (12) ______, when it has accomplished its (13) ______, it can be ready for (14) ______ trip in about’ two weeks,
The space shuttle, the world’s first true spaceship, is a magnificent step (15) ______making the impossible possible for the benefit and survival of man.

Those part-time students expected to offer (A) some jobs on (B) campus during (C) the coming (D) summer vacation.

With (A) production having  gone (B) up steadily, the factory needs an ever-increasing (C) supply of (D) raw materials.

    “Intelligence” at best is an assumptive construct—the meaning of the word has never been clear. (1) There is more agreement on the kinds of behavior referred to by the term than there is on how to interpret or classify them. But it is generally agreed that a person of high intelligence is one who can grasp ideas readily, make distinctions, reason logically, and make use of verbal and mathematical symbols in solving problems. An intelligence test is a rough measure of a child’s capacity for learning, particularly for learning the kinds of things required in school. It does not measure character, social adjustment, physical endurance, manual skills, or artistic abilities. It is not supposed to—it was not designed for such purposes. (2) To criticize it for such failure is roughly comparable to criticizing a thermometer for not measuring wind velocity.
    The other thing we have to notice is that the assessment of the intelligence of any subject is essentially a comparative affair.
    (3) Now since the assessment of intelligence is a comparative matter we must be sure that the scale with which we are comparing our subjects provides a “valid” or “fair” comparison. It is here that some of the difficulties which interest us begin. Any test performed involves at least three factors: the intention to do one’s best, the knowledge required for understanding what you have to do, and the intellectual alto do it. (4) The first two must be equal for all who being compared, if any comparison in terms of intelligence is to be made. In school populations in being compared, if any comparison in terms of intelligence is to be made. In school populations in our culture these assumptions can be made fair and reasonable, and the value of intelligence testing has been proved thoroughly. Its value lies, of course, in its providing a satisfactory basis for prediction. No one is in the least interested in the marks a little child gets on his test; what we are interested in is whether we can conclude his mark on the test that the child will do better or worse than other children of his age at tasks which we think require “general intelligence”. (5) On the whole such a conclusion can be drawn with a certain degree of confidence, but only if the child can be assumed to have had the same attitude towards the test as the other with whom he is being compared, and only if he was not punished by lack of relevant information which they possessed.

Directions:
(A) Title: FOR A BETTER UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN PARENT AND CHILD
(B) Time limit: 40 minutes
(C) Word limit: 120~150 words (not including the given opening sentence)
(D) Your composition should be based on the OUTLINE below and should start with the given opening sentence: “Nowadays there is often a misunderstanding between parent and child.”
(E)Your composition must be written clearly in the ANSWER SHEET.

OUTLINE:
(1) Present situation: Lack of communication between parent and child
(2) Possible reasons: l) Different likes and dislikes  2) Misunderstanding   3) Others
(3) Suggestions: l) For parents   2) For children

For a Better Understanding between Parent and Child