For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay about the impact of information explosion by referring to the saying “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention." You can give examples to illustrate your point and then explain what you can do to avoid being distracted by irrelevant information. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.

    It’s difficult to estimate the number of youngsters involved in home schooling, where children are not sent to school and receive their formal education from one or both parents. (1) ________ and court decisions have made it legally possible in most states for parents to educate their children at home, and each year more people take advantage of that opportunity. Some states require parents or a home tutor to meet teacher certification standards, and many require parents to complete legal forms to verify that their children are receiving (2) ________ in state-approved curricula.
    Supports of home education claim that it‟s less expensive and far more (3) ________ than mass public education. Moreover, they cite several advantages: alleviation of school overcrowding, strengthened family relationships, lower (4) ________ rates, the fact that students are allowed to learn at their own rate, increased (5) ________, higher standardized test scores, and reduced (6) ________ problems.
    Critics of the home schooling movement (7) ________ that it creates as many problems as it solves. They acknowledge that, in a few cases, home schooling offers educational opportunities superior to those found in most public schools, but few parents can provide such educational advantages. Some parents who withdraw their children from the schools (8) ________ home schooling have an inadequate educational background and insufficient formal training to provide a satisfactory education for their children. Typically, parents have fewer technological resources (9) ________ than do schools. However, the relatively inexpensive computer technology that is readily available today is causing some to challenge the notion that home schooling is in any way (10) ________ more highly structured classroom education.

　　Some performance evaluations require supervisors to take action. Employees who receive a very favorable evaluation may deserve some type of recognition or even a promotion. If supervisors do not acknowledge such outstanding performance, employees may either lose their (1) ______ and reduce their effort or search for a new job at a firm that will (2) ______ them for high performance. Supervisors should acknowledge high performance so that the employee will continue to perform well in the future.
　　Employees who receive unfavorable evaluations must also be given attentions. Supervisors must (3) ______ the reasons for poor performance. Some reasons, such as family illness, may have a temporary adverse (4) ______ on performance and can be corrected. Other reasons, such as a bad attitude, may not be temporary. When supervisors give employees and unfavorable evaluation, they must decide whether to take any (5) ______ actions. If the employees were unaware of their own deficiencies, the unfavorable evaluation can pinpoint the deficiencies that employees must correct. In this case, the supervisor may simply need to monitor the employees (6) ______ and ensure that the deficiencies are corrected. If the employees were already aware of their deficiencies before the evaluation period, however, they may be unable or willing to correct them. This situation is more serious, and the supervisor may need to take action. The action should be (7) ______ with the firm’s guidelines and may include reassigning the employees to new jobs, (8) ______ them temporarily, or firing them. A supervisor’s action toward a poorly performing worker can (9) ______ the attitudes of other employees. If no (10) ______ is imposed on an employee for poor performance, other employees may react by reducing their productivity as well.

The College Essay: Why Those 500 Words Drive Us Crazy

　　A) Meg is a lawyer-mom in suburban Washington, D.C., where lawyer-moms are thick on the ground. Her son Doug is one of several hundred thousand high-school seniors who had a painful fall. The deadline for applying to his favorite college was Nov. 1, and by early October he had yet to fill out the application. More to the point, he had yet to settle on a subject for the personal essay accompanying the application. According to college folklore, a well-turned essay has the power to seduce (诱惑) an admissions committee. “He wanted to do one thing at a time,” Meg says, explaining her son‟s delay. “But really, my son is a huge procrastinator (拖延者). The essay is the hardest thing to do, so he‟s put it off the longest.” Friends and other veterans of the process have warned Meg that the back and forth between editing parent and writing student can be traumatic (痛苦的).
　　B) Back in the good old days—say, two years ago, when the last of my children suffered the ordeal (折磨)—a high-school student applying to college could procrastinate all the way to New Year‟s Day of their senior year, assuming they could withstand the parental pestering (烦扰).But things change fast in the nail-biting world of college admissions. The recent trend toward early decision and early action among selective colleges and universities has pushed the traditional deadline of January up to Nov. 1 or early December for many students.
　　C) If the time for heel-dragging has been shortened, the true source of the anxiety and panic remains what it has always been. And it‟s not the application itself. A college application is a relatively straightforward questionnaire asking for the basics: name, address, family history employment history. It would all be innocent enough—20 minutes of busy work—except it comes attached to a personal essay.
　　D) “There are good reasons it causes such anxiety,” says Lisa Sohmer, director of college counseling at the Garden School in Jackson Heights, N.Y. “It’s not just the actual writing. By now everything else is already set. Your course load is set, your grades are set, your test scores are set. But the essay is something you can still control, and it‟s open-ended. So the temptation is to write and rewrite and rewrite.” Or stall and stall and stall.
　　E) The application essay, along with its mythical importance, is a recent invention. In the 1930s,when only one in 10 Americans had a degree from a four-year college, an admissions committee was content to ask for a sample of applicants‟ school papers to assess their writing ability. By the 1950s, most schools required a brief personal statement of why the student had chosen to apply to one school over another.
　　F) Today nearly 70 percent of graduating seniors go off to college, including two-year and four-year institutions. Even apart from the increased competition, the kids enter a process that has been utterly transformed from the one baby boomers knew. Nearly all application materials are submitted online, and the Common Application provides a one-size-fits form accepted by more than 400 schools, including the nation‟s most selective.
　　G) Those schools usually require essays of their own, but the longest essay, 500 words maximum, is generally attached to the Common Application. Students choose one of six questions. Applicants are asked to describe an ethical dilemma they‟ve faced and its impact on them, or discuss a public issue of special concern to them, or tell of a fictional character or creative work that has profoundly influenced them. Another question invites them to write about the importance (to them, again) of diversity― a word that has assumed magic power in American higher education. The most popular option: write on a topic of your choice.
　　H) “Boys in particular look at the other questions and say, „Oh, that‟s too much work,‟” says John Boshoven, a counselor in the Ann Arbor, Mich., public schools. “ They think if they do a topic of their choice, “I‟ll just go get that history paper I did last year on the Roman Empire and turn it into a first-person application essay!‟ And they end up producing something utterly ridiculous.”
　　I) Talking to admissions professionals like Boshoven, you realize that the list of “don'ts” in essay writing is much longer than the “dos.” “No book reports, no history papers, no character studies,” says Sohmer.
　　J) “It drives you crazy, how easily kids slip into clichés(老生常谈),”says Boshoven. “They don’t realize how typical their experiences are. ‘I scored the winning goal in soccer against our arch-rival.’ ‘My grandfather served in World War II, and I hope to be just like him someday.’That may mean a lot to that particular kid. But in the world of the application essay, it‟s nothing. You‟ll lose the reader in the first paragraph.”
　　K) “The greatest strength you bring to this essay,” says the College Board‟s how-to book, “is 17 years or so of familiarity with the topic: YOU. The form and style are very familiar, and best of all, you are the world-class expert on the subject of YOU ... It has been the subject of your close scrutiny every morning since you were tall enough to see into the bathroom mirror.” The key word in the Common Application prompts is “you.”
　　L) The college admission essay contains the grandest American themes― status anxiety, parental piety (孝顺), intellectual standards—and so it is only a matter of time before it becomes infected by the country‟s culture of excessive concern with self-esteem. Even if the question is ostensibly (表面上) about something outside the self (describe a fictional character or solve a problem of geopolitics), the essay invariably returns to the favorite topic: what is its impact on YOU?
　　M)“For all the anxiety the essay causes,” says Bill McClintick of Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania, “it‟s a very small piece of the puzzle. I was in college admissions for 10 years. I saw kids and parents beat themselves up over this. And at the vast majority of places, it is simply not a big variable in the college‟s decision-making process.”
　　N) Many admissions officers say they spend less than a couple of minutes on each application, including the essay. According to a recent survey of admissions officers, only one in four private colleges say the essay is of “considerable importance” in judging an application. Among public colleges and universities, the number drops to roughly one in 10. By contrast, 86 percent place “considerable importance” on an applicant‟s grades, 70 percent on “strength of curriculum.”
　　O) Still, at the most selective schools, where thousands of candidates may submit identically high grades and test scores, a marginal item like the essay may serve as a tie-breaker between two equally qualified candidates. The thought is certainly enough to keep the pot boiling under parents like Meg, the lawyer-mom, as she tries to help her son choose an essay topic. For a moment the other day, she thought she might have hit on a good one. “His father’s from France,” she says. “I said maybe you could write about that, as something that makes you different. You know: half French, half American. I said, “You could write about your identity issues.” He said, “I don’t have any identity issues!” And he’s right. He’s a well-adjusted, normal kid. But that doesn’t make for a good essay, does it?”

    There was a time not long ago when new science Ph.D.s in the United States were expected to pursue a career path in academia (学术界).But today, most graduates end up working outside academia, not only in industry but also in careers such as science policy, communications, and patent law. Partly this is a result of how bleak the academic job market is, but there's also a rising awareness of career options that Ph.D. scientists haven't trained for directly—but for which they have useful knowledge, skills, and experience. Still, there's a huge disconnect between the way we currently train scientists and the actual employment opportunities available for them, and an urgent need for dramatic improvements in training programs to help close the gap. One critical step that could help to drive change would be to require Ph.D. students and postdoctoral scientists to follow an individual development plan (IDP).
    In 2002 the U.S. Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology recommended that every postdoctoral researcher put together an IDP in consultation with an adviser. Since then, several academic institutions have begun to require IDPs for postdocs. And in June, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) Biomedical Research Workforce Working Group recommended that the NIH require IDPs for the approximately 32,000 postdoctoral researchers they support. Other funding agencies, public and private, are moving in a similar direction.
    IDPs have long been used by government agencies and the private sector to achieve specific goals for the employee and the organization. The aim is to ensure that employees have an explicit tool to help them understand their own abilities and aspirations, determine career possibilities, and set (usually short-term) goals. In science, graduate students and new Ph.D. scientists can use an IDP to identify and navigate an effective career path.
    A free Web application for this purpose, called myIDF.has become available this week. It's designed to guide early-career scientists through a confidential, rigorous process of introspection (内省)to create a customized career plan. Guided by expert knowledge from a panel of science-focused career advisers, each trainee’s self-assessment is used to rank a set of career trajectories(轨迹). After the user has identified a long-term career goal, myIDP walks her or him through the process of setting short-term goals directed toward accumulating new skills and experiences important for that career choice.
    Although surveys reveal the IDP process to be useful, trainees report a need for additional resources to help them identify a long-term career path and complete an IDP. Thus, myIDP will be most effective when it’s embedded in larger career-development efforts. For example, universities could incorporate IDPs into their graduate curricula to help students discuss, plan, prepare for, and achieve their long-term career goals.

    Just over a decade into the 21st century, women‟s progress can be celebrated across a range of fields. They hold the highest political offices from Thailand to Brazil, Costa Rica to Australia. A woman holds the top spot at the International Monetary Fund; another won the Nobel Prize in economics. Self-made billionaires in Beijing, tech innovators in Silicon Valley, pioneering justices in Ghana—in these and countless other areas, women are leaving their mark.
    But hold the applause. In Saudi Arabia, women aren’t allowed to drive. In Pakistan, 1,000women die in honor killings every year. In the developed world, women lag behind men in pay and political power. The poverty rate among women in the U.S. rose to 14.5% last year.
    To measure the state of women‟s progress. Newsweek ranked 165 countries, looking at five areas that affect women‟s lives; treatment under the law, workforce participation, political power, and access to education and health care. Analyzing data from the United Nations and the World Economic Forum, among others, and consulting with experts and academics, we measured 28 factors to come up with our rankings.
    Countries with the highest scores tend to be clustered in the West, where gender discrimination is against the law, and equal rights are constitutionally enshrined(神圣化). But there were some surprises. Some otherwise high-ranking countries had relatively low scores for political representation. Canada ranked third overall but 26th in power, behind countries such as Cuba and Burundi. Does this suggest that a woman in a nation‟s top office translates to better lives for women in general? Not exactly. “Trying to quantify or measure the impact of women in politics is hard because in very few countries have there been enough women in politics to make a difference, ”says Anne-Marie Goetz, peace and security adviser for U.N. Women.
    Of course, no index can account for everything. Declaring that one country is better than another in the way that it treats more than half its citizens means relying on broad strokes and generalities. Some things simply can‟t be measured. And cross-cultural comparisons can t account for difference of opinion.
    Certain conclusions are nonetheless clear. For one thing, our index backs up a simple but profound statement made by Hillary Clinton at the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. “When we liberate the economic potential of women, we elevate the economic performance of communities, nations, and the world,” she said. “There’s a stimulative effect that kicks in when women have greater access to jobs and the economic lives of our countries: Greater political stability. Fewer military conflicts. More food. More educational opportunity for children. By harnessing the economic potential of all women, we boost opportunity for all people.”

   闻名于世的丝绸之路是一系列连接东西方的路线。丝绸之路延伸6,000多公里。得名于古代中国的丝绸贸易。丝绸之路上的贸易在中国、南亚、欧洲和中东文明发展中发挥了重要作用。正是通过丝绸之路，中国的造纸、火药、指南针、印刷等四大发明才被引介到世界各地。同样，中国的丝绸、茶叶和瓷器(porcelain)也传遍全球。物质文化的交流是双向的。欧洲也通过丝绸之路出口各种商品和植物，满足中国市场的需要。