产品详情

Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning) (15 minutes)
Passage1:
The Next Society
    The new economy may or may not materialize, but there is no doubt that the next society will be with us shortly. In the developed world, and probably in the emerging countries as well, this new society will be a good deal more important than the new economy (if any). It will be quite different from the society of the late 20th century, and also different from what most people expect. Much of it will be unprecedented.  And most of it is already here, or is rapidly emerging.
    In the developed countries, the dominant factor in the next society will be something to which most people are only just beginning to pay attention: the rapid growth in the older population and the rapid shrinking of the younger generation. Politicians everywhere still promise to save the existing pension system, but they--and their constituents--know perfectly well that in another 25 years people will have to keep working until their mid-70s, health permitting.
    What has not yet sunk in is that a growing number of older people--say those over 50--will not keep on working as traditional full time nine-to-five employees, but will participate in the labor force in many new and different ways: as temporaries, as part-timers, as consultants on special assignments, and so on. What used to be personnel and are now known as human resources departments still assume that those who work for an organization are full-time employees. Employment laws and regulations are based on the same assumption. Within 20 or 25 years, however, perhaps as many as half the people who work for an organization will not be employed by it, certainly not on a full-time basis. This will be especially true for older people. New ways of working with people at arm's length will increasingly become the central managerial issue of employing organizations, and not just of businesses.
    The shrinking of the younger population will cause an even greater upheaval, if only because nothing like this has happened since the dying centuries of the Roman Empire. In every single developed country, but also in China and Brazil, the birth rate is now well below the replacement rate of 2.2 live births per woman of reproductive age. Politically, this means that immigration will become an important and highly divisive issue in all rich countries. It will cut across all traditional political alignments. Economically, the decline in the young population will change markets in fundamental ways. Growth in family formation has been the driving force of all domestic markets in the developed world, but the rate of family formation is certain to fall steadily unless bolstered by large-scale immigration of younger people. The homogeneous mass market that emerged in all rich countries after the Second World War has been youth-determined from the start. It will now become middle-age-determined, or perhaps more likely it will split into two: a middle-age-determined mass market and a much smaller youth-determined one. And because the supply of young people will shrink, creating new employment patterns to attract and hold the growing number of older people (especially older educated people) will become increasingly important.
KnowLEDge is all
    The next society will be a knowledge society. Knowledge will be its key resource, and knowledge workers will be the dominant group in its workforce. Its three main characteristics will be:
    · Borderlessness, because knowledge travels even more effortlessly than money.
    · Upward mobility, available to everyone through easily acquired formal education.
    · The potential for failure as well as success. Anyone can acquire the "means of production",
    i. e, the knowledge required for the job, but not everyone can win.
    Together, those three characteristics will make the knowledge society a highly comPETitive one, for organizations and individuals alike. Information technology, although only one of many new features of the next society, is already having one hugely important effect: it is allowing knowledge to spread near-instantly, and making it accessible to everyone. Given the ease and speed at which information travels, every institution in the knowledge society--not only businesses, but also schools, universities, hospitals and increasingly government agencies too-- has to be globally competitive, even though most organizations will continue to be local in their activities and in their markets. This is because the Internet will keep customers everywhere informed on what is available anywhere in the world, and at what price.
This new knowledge economy will rely heavily on knowledge workers. At present, this term is widely used to describe people with considerable theoretical knowledge and learning: doctors, lawyers, teachers, accountants, chemical engineers. But the most striking growth will be in "knowledge technologists" ~ computer technicians, software designers, analysts in clinical labs, manufacturing technologists, paralegals. These people are as much manual workers as they are knowledge workers; in fact, they usually spend far more time working with their hands than with their brains.  But their manual work is based on a substantial amount of theoretical knowledge which can be acquired only through formal education, not through an apprenticeship. They are not, as a rule, much better paid than traditional skilled workers, but they see themselves as "professionals" . Just as unskilled manual workers in manufacturing were the dominant social and political force in the 20th century, knowledge technologists are likely to become the dominant social--and perhaps also political--force over the next decades.
The new protectionism
    Structurally, too, the next society is already diverging from the society almost all of us still live in. The 20th century saw the rapid decline 'of the sector that had dominated society for 10,000 years: agriculture. In volume terms, farm production now is at least four or five times what it was before the First World War. But in 1913 farm products accounted for 70% of world trade, whereas now their share is at most 17%.  In the early years of the 20th century, agriculture in most developed countries was the largest single contributor to GDP; now in rich countries its contribution has dwindled to the point of becoming marginal.  And the farm population is down to a tiny proportion of the total.
    Manufacturing has traveled a long way down the same road. Since the Second World War, manufacturing output in the developed world has probably tripled in volume, but inflation adjusted manufacturing prices have fallen steadily, whereas the cost of prime knowledge products-health care and education-has tripled,  again adjusted for inflation.  The relative purchasing power of manufactured goods against knowledge products is now only one-fifth or one-sixth of what it was 50 years ago. Manufacturing employment in America has fallen from 35% of the workforce in the 1950s to less than half that now, without causing much social disruption. But it may be too much to hope for an equally easy transition in countries such as Japan or Germany, where blue-collar manufacturing workers still make up 25--30% of the labor force.
    The decline of farming as a producer of wealth and of livelihoods has allowed farm protectionism to spread to a degree that would have been unthinkable before the Second World War. In the same way, the decline of manufacturing will trigger an explosion of manufacturing protectionism-even as lip service continues to be paid to free trade. This protectionism may not necessarily take the form of traditional tariffs, but of subsidies, quotas and regulations of all kinds. Even more likely, regional blocks will emerge that trade freely internally but are highly protectionist externally.  The European Union, NAFFA and Mercosur already point in that direction.
The future of the corporation
    Statistically, multinational companies play much the same part in the world economy as they did in 1913. But they have become very different animals. Multinationals in 1913 were domestic firms with subsidiaries abroad, each of them self-contained, in charge of a politically defined territory, and highly autonomous.  Multinationals now tend to be organized globally along product or service lines. But like the multinationals of 1913, they are held together and controlled by ownership. By contrast, the multinationals of 2025 are likely to be held together and controlled by strategy. There will still be ownership, of course. But alliances, joint ventures, minority stakes, know-how agreements contracts will increasingly be the building blocks of a confederation. This kind of organization will need a new kind of top management.
    In most countries, and even in a good many large and complex companies, top management is still seen as an extension of operating management. Tomorrow's top management, however, is likely to be a distinct and separate organ: it will stand for the company. One of the most important jobs ahead for the top management of {he big company of tomorrow, and especially of the multinational, will be to balance the conflicting demands on business being made by the need for both short-term and long-term results, and by the corporation's various constituencies: customers, shareholders, knowledge employees and communities.
    1. The new society will be much more important than the new economy only in the developed countries.
    2. In another 25 years people will have to keep working as full-time employees until their mid- 70s if health permits.
    3. Nowadays in China, because of the population policy, the birth rate has decreased.
    4. In developed countries, the issue of immigration will become important politically.
    5. The dominant part in the next society's work force is
    6. ______ makes knowledge spread rapidly and available to everyone.
    7. ______ had dominated society for 10,000 years but declined rapidly in the 20th century.
    8. In order to adjust for inflation, the cost of ______ which are the main knowledge products was tripled.
    9. Multinationals in 1913 were composed of a domestic firms and its self-contained and autonomous
    10. Top management in the Next society will be a ______ organ.
Passage2:
Rain forests
    Tropical rainforests are the most diverse ecosystem (生态系统) on Earth, and also the oldest. Today, tropical rainforests cover only 6 percent of the Earth's ground surface, but they are home to over half of the planet’s plant and animal species.
What Is a Rainforest?
    Generally speaking, a rainforest is an environment that receives high rainfall and is dominated by tall trees. A wide range of ecosystems fall into this category, of course. But most of the time when people talk about rainforests, they mean the tropical rainforests located near the equator.
    These forests receive between 160 and 400 inches of rain per year. The total annual rainfall is spread pretty evenly throughout the year, and the temperature rarely dips below 60 degrees Fahrenheit.
    This steady climate is due to the position of rainforests on the globe. Because of the orientation of the Earth's axis, the Northern and Southern hemispheres each spend part of the year tilted away from the sun. Since rainforests are at the middle of the globe, located near the equator, they arc not especially affected by this change. They receive nearly the same amount of sunlight, and therefore heat, all year. Consequently, the weather in these regions remains fairly constant.
    The consistently wet, warm weather and ample sunlight give plant life everything it needs to thrive. Trees have the resources to grow to tremendous heights, and they live for hundreds, even thousands, of years. These giants, which reach 60 to 150 ft in the air, form the basic structure of the rainforest. Their top branches spread wide in order to capture maximum sunlight. This creates a thick canopy (树冠) level at the top of the forest, with thinner greenery levels underneath. Some large trees grow so tall that they even tower over the canopy layer.
    As you go lower, down into the rainforest, you find less and less greenery. The forest floor is made up of moss, fungi, and decaying plant matter that has fallen from the upper layers. The reason for this decrease in greenery is very simple the overabundance of plants gathering sunlight at the top of the forest blocks most sunlight from reaching the bottom of the forest, making it difficult for robust plants to thrive.
The, Forest for the Trees
    The ample sunlight and extremely wet climate of many tropical areas encourage the growth of towering trees with wide canopies. This thick top layer of the rainforest dictates the lives of all other plants in the forest. New tree seedlings rarely survive to make it to the top unless some older trees die, creating a "hole" in the canopy. When this happens, all of the seedlings on the ground level compete intensely to reach the sunlight.
    Many plant species reach the top of the forest by climbing the tall trees. It is much easier to ascend this way, because the plant doesn't have to form its own supporting structure.
    Some plant species, called epiphytes, grow directly on the surface of the giant trees. These plants, which include a variety of orchids and ferns, make up much of the understory, the layer of the rainforest right below the canopy. Epiphytes are close enough to the top to receive adequate light, and the runoff from the canopy layer provides all the water and nutrients(养分)they need, which is important since they don't have access to the nutrients in the ground.
Stranglers and Buttresses
    Some epiphytes eventually develop into stranglers. They grow long, thick roots that extend down the tree trunk into the ground. As they continue to grow, the roots form a sort of web structure all around the tree. At the same time, the strangler plant's branches extend upward, spreading out into the canopy. Eventually, the strangler may block so much light from above, and absorb such a high percentage of nutrients from the ground below, that the host tree dies.
    Competition over nutrients is almost as intense as competition for light. The excessive rainfall rapidly dissolves nutrients in the soil making it relatively infertile except at the top layers. For this reason, rainforest tree roots grow outward to cover a wider area, rather than downward to lower levels. This makes rainforest trees somewhat unstable, since they don't have very strong anchors in the ground. Some trees compensate for this by growing natural buttresses. These buttresses are basically tree trunks that extend out from the side of the tree and clown to the ground, giving the tree additional support.
    Rainforest trees are dependent on bacteria that are continually producing nutrients in the ground. Rainforest bacteria and trees have a very close, symbiotic (共生的) relationship. The trees provide the bacteria with food, in the form of fallen leaves and other material, and the bacteria break this material down into the nutrients that the trees need to survive.
    One of the most remarkable things about rainforest plant life is its diversity. The temperate rainforests of the PACific Northwest are mainly composed of a dozen or so tree species. A tropical rainforest, on the other hand, might have 300 distinct tree species.
All Creatures, Great and Small
    Rainforests are home to the majority of animal species in the world. And a great number of species who now live in other environments, including humans, originally inhabited the rainforests. Researchers estimate that in a large rainforest area, there may be more than 10 million different animal species.
    Most of these species have adapted for life in the upper levels of the rainforest, where food is most plentiful. Insects, which can easily climb or fly from tree to tree, make up the largest group (ants are the most abundant animal in the rainforest). Insect species have a highly symbiotic relationship with the plant life in a rainforest. The insects move from plant to plant, enjoying the wealth of food provided there. As they travel, the insects may pick up the plants' seeds, dropping them some distance away. This helps to disperse the population of the plant species over a larger area.
    The numerous birds of the rainforest also play a major part in seed dispersal. When they eat fruit from a plant, the seeds pass through their digestive system. By the time they excrete (排泄) the seeds, the birds may have flown many miles away from the fruit-bearing tree.
    There are also a large number of reptiles and mammals in the rainforest. Since the weather is so hot and humid during the day, most rainforest mammals are active only at night, dusk or dawn. The many rainforest bat species are especially well adapted for this lifestyle. Using their sonar, bats navigate easily through the mass of trees in the rainforest, feeding on insects and fruit.
    While most rainforest species spend their lives in the trees, there is also a lot of life on the forest floor. Great apes, wild pigs, big cats and even elephants can all be found in rainforests. There are a number of people who live in the rainforests, as well. These tribes--which, up until recently, numbered in the thousands--are being forced out of the rainforests at an alarming rate because of deforestation.
Deforestation
    In the past hundred years, humans have begun destroying rainforests at an alarming rate. Today, roughly 1.5 acres of rainforest are destroyed every second. People are cutting down the rainforests in pursuit of three major resources:
    · land for crops
    · lumber for paper and other wood products
    · land for livestock pastures
    In the current economy, people obviously have a need for all of these resources. But almost all experts agree that, over time, we will suffer much more from the destruction of the rainforests than we will benefit.
    The world's rainforests are an extremely valuable natural resource, to be sure, but not for their lumber or their land. They are the main cradle of life on Earth, and they hold millions of unique life forms that we have yet to discover.  Destroying the rainforests is comparable to destroying an unknown planet we have no idea what we're losing. If deforestation continues at its current rate, the world's tropical rainforests will be wiped out within 40 years.
1. Virtually all plant and animal species on Earth can be found in tropical rainforests.
2. There is not much change in the weather in the tropical rainforests all the year round.
3. The largest number of rainforests in the world are located on the African continent.
4. Below the canopy level of a tropical rainforest grows an overabundance of plants.
5. New tree seedlings will not survive to reach the canopy level unless ______.
6. Epiphytes, which form much of the understory of the rainforest, get all their water and nutrients from ______.
7. Stranglers are so called because they ______ by blocking the sunlight and competing for the nutrients.
8. Since rainforest bacteria and trees depend on each other for life, the relationship they form is termed ______.
9. Plant species are dispersed over a large area with the help of ______.
10. As we are still ignorant of millions of unique life forms in the rainforest, deforestation can be compared to the destruction of ______.
Passage3:
Some Notes on Gender-Neutral Language
General
    The practice of assigning masculine gender to neutral terms comes from the fact that every language reflects the prejudices of the society in which it evolved, and English evolved through most of its history in a male-centered, patriarchal society. Like any other language, however, English is always changing. One only has to read aloud sentences from the 19th century hooks assigned for this class to sense the shifts that have occurred in the last 150 years. When readers pick up something to read, they expect different conventions depending on the time in which the material was written. As writers in 1995, we need to be not only aware of the conventions that our readers may expect, but also conscious of the responses our words may elicit. In addition, we need to know how the shifting nature of language can make certain words awkward or misleading.
"Man"
    Man once was a truly generic word referring to all humans, but has gradually narrowed in meaning to become a word that refers to adult male human beings. Anglo-Saxons used the word to refer to all people. One example of this occurs when an Anglo-Saxon writer refers to a seventh-century English princess as "a wonderful man". Man paralleled the Latin word homo, "a member of the human species." not vir, "an adult male of the species." The Old English word for adult male was waepman and the old English word for adult woman was wifman. In the course of time, wifman evolved into the word "woman." "Man" eventually ceased to be used to refer to individual women and replaced waepman as a specific term distinguishing an adult male from an adult female. But man continued to be used in generalizations about both sexes.
    By the 18th century, the modern, narrow sense of man was firmly established as the predominant one. When Edmund Burke, writing of the French Revolution, used men in the old, inclusive way, he took pains to spell out his meaning: "Such a deplorable havoc is made in the minds of men (both sexes) in France..." Thomas Jefferson did not make the same distinction in declaring that "all men are created equal" and "governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." In a time when women, having no vote, could neither give nor withhold consent, Jefferson had to be using the word men in its principal sense of "males," and it probably never occurred to him that anyone would think otherwise. Looking at modern dictionaries indicate that the definition that links "man' with males is the predominant one. Studies of college students and school children indicate that even when the broad definitions of "msn" and "men" are taught, they tend to conjure up images of male people only. We would never use the sentence "A girl grows up to be a man," because we assume the narrower definition of the word man.
The Pronoun Problem
    The first grammars of modern English were written in the 16th and 17th centuries. They were mainly intended to help boys from upper class families prepare for the study of Latin, a language most scholars considered superior to English. The male authors of these earliest English grammars wrote for male readers in an age when few women were literate. The masculine-gender pronouns(代词) did not reflect a belief that masculine pronouns could refer to both sexes. The grammars of this period contain no indication that masculine pronouns were sex-inclusive when used in general references. Instead these pronouns reflected the reality of male cultural dominance and the male-centered world view that resulted.
    "He" started to be used as a generic pronoun by grammarians who were trying to change a long-established tradition of using "they" as a singular pronoun. In 1850 an Act of Parliament gave official sanction(批准)to the recently invented concept of the "generic" he. In the language used in acts of Parliament, the new law said, "words importing the masculine gender shall be deemed and taken to include females." Although similar language in contracts and other legal documents subsequently helped reinforce this grammatical edict in all English-speaking countries, it was often conveniently ignored. In 1879, for example, a move to admit female physicians to the all-male Massachusetts Medical Society was effectively blocked on the grounds 'that the society's by-laws describing membership used the pronoun he.
    Just as "man" is not truly generic in the 1990s, "he" is not a true generic pronoun. Studies have confirmed that most people understand "he" to refer to men only. Sentences like "A doctor is a busy person; he must be able to balance a million obligations at once" imply that all doctors are men. As a result of the fact that "he" is read by many as a masculine pronoun, many people, especially women, have come to feel that the generic pronouns excludes women. This means that more and more people find the use of such a pronoun problematic.
Solving the Pronoun Problem
    They as a Singular -Most people, when writing and speaking informally, rely on singular they as a matter of course: "If you love someone, set them free" (Sting). If you pay attention to your own speech, you'll probably catch yourself using the same construction yourself. "It's enough to drive anyone out of their senses" (George Bernard Shaw). "I shouldn't like to punish anyone, even ii they'd done me wrong" (George Eliot). Some people are annoyed by the incorrect grammar that this solution necessitates, but this construction is used more and more frequently.
    He or She---Despite the charge of clumsiness, double-pronoun constructions have made a comeback: "To be black in this country is simply too pervasive an experience for any writer to omit from her or his work," wrote Samuel R. Delany. Overuse of this solution can be awkward, however.
    Pluralizing-A writer can often recast material in the plural.  For instance, instead of "As he advances in his program, the medical student has increasing opportunities for clinical work," try "As they advance in their program, medical students have increasing opportunities for clinical work"
    Eliminating Pronouns--Avoid having to use pronouns at all; instead of "a first grader can feed and dress himself," you could write, "a first grader can eat find get dressed without assistance."
    Further Alternatives--he she or s/he, using one instead of he, or using a new generic pronoun (thon, co, E, try, hash, hit).
1. "Man" could be used to refer to female human being in the past.
2. In "all men are created equal" in Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson, the word "men" refer to both males and females whether they have vote right or not.
3. In 1879, Massachusetts Medical Society refused to admit more than ten female physicians because the society's by-laws describing membership used the pronoun he.
4. The first grammars of modern English were written in order to help boys from the upper class prepare for the study of Latin.
5. "Man" paralleled the Latin word "homo" 'which means ______.
6. Studies show that even when students are taught the broad definition of "man" and "men", they think of ______.
7. Grammarians started to use "he" as a generic pronoun because they were trying to change a tradition of using "they" as ______.
8. When most people read the word "he", they would understand it to rater to ______.
9. Although some people are annoyed by ______ of singular they, this construction is used more and more frequently to solve the pronoun problem.
10. Another way of solving the pronoun problem is to use ______ instead of the singular.
Passage4:
Soichiro Honda
    The founder of Honda, Soichiro Honda was a mechanical engineer with a passion for motorcycle and automobile racing.  Honda started his company in 1946 by building motorized bicycles with small, war-surplus engines.  Honda would grow to become the world's leading manufacturer of motorcycles and later one of the leading automakers. Following its founder's lead, Honda has always been a leader in technology, especially in the area of engine development.
    Soichiro Honda was described as a maverick(特立独行的人) in a nation of conformists. He made it a point to wear loud suits and wildly colored shirts. An inventor by nature who often joined the work on the floors of his factories and research laboratories, Honda developed engines that transformed the motorcycle into a worldwide means of transportation.
    Born in 1906, Honda grew up in the town of Tenryu, Japan. The eldest son of a blacksmith who repaired bicycles, the young Soichiro had only an elementary school education when, in his teens, he left home to seek his fortune in Tokyo. An auto repair company hired him in 1922, but for a year he was forced to serve as a baby-sitter for the auto shop's owner and his wife. While employed at the auto shop, however, Honda built his own racing car using an old aircraft engine and handmade parts and participated in racing. His racing career was short lived, however. He suffered serious injuries in a 1936 crash.
    By 1937, Honda had recovered from his injuries. He established his own company, manufacturing piston rings, but he found that he lacked a basic knowledge of casting. To obtain it, he enrolled in a technical high school, applying theories as he learned them in the classrooms to his own factory. But he did not bother to take examinations at the school. Informed that he would not be graduated, Honda commented that a diploma was "worth less than a movie theater ticket. A ticket guarantees that you can get into the theater. But a diploma doesn't guarantee that you can make a living."
    Honda's burgeoning company mass produced metal propellers during WW Ⅱ, replacing wooden ones. Allied bombing and an earthquake destroyed most of his factory and he sold what was left to Toyota in 1945.
    In 1946, he established the Honda Technical Research Institute to motorize bicycles with small, war-surplus engines. These bikes became very popular in Japan. The institute soon began making engines. Renamed Honda Motor in 1948, the company began manufacturing motorcycles. Business executive Takeo Fujisawa was hired to manage the company while Honda focused on engineering.
    In 1951, Honda brought out the Dream Type E motorcycle, which proved an immediate success thanks to Honda's innovative overhead valve design, The smaller F-type cub (1952) accounted for 70% of Japan's motorcycle production by the end of that year. A public offering and support from Mitsubishi Bank allowed Honda to expand and begin exporting. The versatile C100 Super Cub, released in 1958, became an international bestseller.
    In 1959, the American Honda Motor was founded and soon began using the slogan, "You meet the nicest people on a Honda," to offset the stereotype of motorcyclists during that period. Though the small bikes were dismissed by the dominant American and British manufacturers of the time, the inexpensive imports brought new riders into motorcycling and changed the industry forever in the United States.
    Ever the racing enthusiast, Honda began entering his company's motorcycles in domestic Japanese races during the 1950s. In the mid-1950s, Honda declared that his company would someday win world championship events--a declaration that seemed unrealistic at the time.
    In June 1959, the Honda racing team brought their first motorbike to compete in the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy race, then the world's most popular motorcycle race. This was the first entry by a Japanese team. With riders Naomi Taniguchi, who finished sixth, Teisuke Tanaka, who finished eighth, and Kiyoshi Kawashima, who would later succeed Soichiro as Honda Motor president, as team manager, Honda won the manufacturer's prize.
    However, they were not pleased with their performance. Kawashima remembers: "We were clobbered. Our horsepower was less than half that of the winner."
    Learning from this experience, Soichiro and his team worked even harder to make rapid progress in their motorsports activities. Two years after their first failure, they were the sensation at the TT by capturing the first five places in both the 125ce and 250cc classes. The UPStart Japanese had outclassed all their rivals. As a result of the team's stellar performance, the Honda name became well known worldwide, and its export volume rose dramatically. Soichiro seemed to have foreseen the future of Japan, which, twenty years later, was to become one of the world's leading economies.
    Honda would become the most successful manufacturer in all of motorcycle racing. Honda has since won hundreds of national and world championships in all forms of motorcycle competition.
    While Honda oversaw a worldwide company by the early-1970s (Honda entered the automobile market in 1967), he never shied away from getting his hands greasy. Sol Sanders, author of a Honda biography, said Honda appeared "almost daily" at the research lab where development work was being done. Even as president of the company, "he worked as one of the researchers,' Sanders quoted a Honda engineer as saying. "Whenever we encountered a problem, he studied it along with us."
    In 1973, Honda, at 67, retired on the 25th anniversary of Honda's founding. He declared his conviction that Honda should remain a youthful company. "Honda has always moved ahead of the times, and I attribute its success to the fact that the firm possesses dreams and youthfulness," Honda said at the time.
    Unlike most chief executive officers in Japan, who step down to become chairmen of their firms, Honda retained onty the title of "supreme adviser". In retirement, Honda devoted himself to public service and frequent travel abroad. He received the Order of the Sacred Treasure, first class, the highest honor bestowed by Japan's emperor.  He also received the American auto industry's highest award when he was admitted to the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1989. Honda was awarded the AMA's highest honor, the Dud Perkins Award, in 1971.
    Honda died on August 5, 1991 from liver failure at 84. His wife, Sachi, and three children survived him.
1. Soichiro Honda was a man who preferred to wear plain clothes.
2. When enrolled in a technical high school to obtain basic knowledge of casting, Soichiro Honda finally got the diploma after attending the examinations.
3. Like most chief executive officers in Japan, Soichiro Honda Stepped down to become chairmen of Honda after his retirement.
4. Even as the president of a worldwide company, Soichiro Honda would work at the research lab with the employees.
5. Following its founder's lead, Honda has always been a leader in technology, especially in the area of ______.
6. After WW Ⅱ, Honda mounted ______ on bicycles and these motorized bicycles sold rapidly in Japan.
7. A public offering and support from ______ allowed Honda to expand his business and begin to invade the international market.
8. In 1959, the American Honda Motor used the slogan," ______" to change the negative image of motorcyclists in America.
9. In 1959 with their first motorbike Honda racing team participate in ______ race, which was the most popular motorcycle race at that time.
10. According to Honda, ______ are, the major factors that led to the success of Honda company.
Passage5:
A Brief History of Clock
Clocks
    At best, historians know that 5,000-6,000 years ago, great civilizations in the Middle East and North Africa started to examine forms of clock-making instead of working with only the monthly and annual calendar. Little is known on exactly how these forms worked or indeed the actual deconstruction of the time, but it has been suggested that the intention was to maximize time available to achieve more as the size of the population grew. Perhaps such future periods of time were intended to benefit the community by allotting specific lengths of time to tasks. Was this the beginning of the working week?
Sun Clocks
    With the disappearance of any ancient civilization, such as the Sumerian culture, knowledge is also lost. Whilst we can only hypothesize on the reasons of why the equivalent to the modern wristwatch was never completed, we know that the ancient Egyptians were next to layout a system of dividing the day into parts, similar to hours.
    "Obelisks" (tall four-sided tapered monuments) were carefully constructed and even purposefully geographically located around 3500 BC. A shadow was east as the Sun moved across the sky by the obelisk, which it appears was then marked out in sections, allowing people to clearly see the two halves of the day. Some of the sections have also been found to indicate the "year"s longest and shortest days, which it is thought were developments added later to allow identification of other important time subdivisions.
    Another ancient Egyptian "shadow clock" or "sundial" has been discovered to have been in use around 1500 BC, which allowed the measuring of the passage of "hours". The sections were divided into ten parts, With two "twilight hours" indicated, occurring in the morning and the evening. For it to work successfully then at midday or noon, the device had to be turned 180 degrees to measure the afternoon hours.
Water Clocks
    "Water clocks" were among the earliest time keeping devices that didn't use the observation of the celestial bodies to calculate the passage of time. The ancient Greeks, it is believed, began using water clocks around 325 BC. Most of these clocks were used to determine the hours of the night, but may have also been used during daylight. An inherent problem with the water clock was that they were not totally accurate, as the system of measurement was based on the flow of water either into, or out of, a container which had markers around the sides. Another very similar form was that of a bowl that sank during a period as it was filled of water from a regulated flow. It is known that water clocks were common across the Middle East, and that these were still being used in North Africa during the early part of the twentieth-century.
Mechanical Clocks
    In 1656, "Christian Huygens' (Dutch scientist), made the first "Pendulum(钟摆) clock", with a mechanism using a "natural" period of oscillation(振幅). "Galileo Galilei" is credited, in most historical books, for inventing the pendulum as early as 1582, but his design was not built before his death. Huygens' clock, when built, had an error of "less than only one minute a day". This was a massive leap in the development of maintaining accuracy, as this had previously never been achieved. Later refinements to the pendulum clock reduced this margin of error to "less than 10 seconds a day".
    The mechanical clock continued to develop until they achieved an accuracy of "a hundredth-of- a-second a day", when the pendulum clock became the accepted standard in most astronomical observatories.
Quartz Clocks
    The running of a "Quartz clock" is based on the piezoelectric property of the quartz crystal. When an electric field is applied to a quartz crystal, it actually changes the shape of the crystal itself, If you then squeeze it or bend it, an electric field is generated.  When placed in an appropriate electronic circuit, this interaction between the mechanical stress and the electrical field causes the crystal to vibrate, generating a constant electric signal which can then be used for example on an electronic clock display. The first wrist-watches that appeared in mass production used "LED", "Light Emitting Diode" displays. By the 1970's these were to be replaced by a "LCD", "Liquid Crystal Display".
    Quartz clocks continue to dominate the market because of the accuracy and reliability of the performance, also being inexpensive to produce on mass scale. The time keeping performance of the quartz clock has now been surpassed by the "Atomic clock".
Atomic Clocks
    Scientists discovered some time ago that atoms and molecules have "resonances" and that each chemical element and compound absorbs and emits "electromagnetic radiation" within its own characteristic "frequencies". This we are told is highly accurate even over "Time and Space".
    The development of radar and the subsequent experimentation with high frequency radio communications during the 1930s and 1940s created a vast amount of knowledge regarding "electromagnetic waves", also known as "microwaves". which interact with the atoms.  The development of atomic clocks focused firstly on microwave resonances in the chemical Ammonia and its molecules. In 1957. "NIST". the "National Institute of Standards and Technology", completed a series of tests using a "Cesium Atomic Beam" device, followed by a second program of experiments by NIST in order to have something for comparison when working at the atomic level. By 1960, as the outcome of the programs, "Cesium Time Standards" were incorporated as the official time keeping system at NIST.
    The "Natural frequency" recognized currently is the measurement of time. used by all scientists, defines the period of "one second" as exactly "9,192,631,770 Oscillations" or "9,192,631,770 Cycles of the Cesium Atom's Resonant Frequency". From the "Macrocosm", or "Planetary Alignment", to the "Microcosm", or "Atomic Frequency", the cesium now maintains accuracy with a degree of error to about "one-millionth of a second per year".
    Much of modern life has come to depend on such precise measurements of time. The day is long past when we could get by with a timepiece(钟)accurate to the nearest quarter hour. Transportation, financial markets, communication, manufacturing, electric power and many other technologies have become dependent on super-accurate clocks. Scientific research and the demands of modern technology continue re drive our search for ever more accuracy, The next generation of Cesium Time Standards is presently under development at NIST's "Boulder Laboratory" and other laboratories around the world.
Something to Remember
    The only thing that should be remembered during all this technological development is that we should never lose the ability to tell the time approximately by natural means and the powers of deduction without requiring crutches(拐杖)to lean on.
    Our concept of TIME and using it together with TECHNOLOGY still has room for radical reassessment in terms of man's evolutionary thinking regarding our view of the past, our onward journey into the future and our concept of time in relationship to universe.
1. It is suggested that 5,000-6,000 years ago people in the Middle East and North Africa started to allot specific lengths of time to tasks.
2. Ancient Egyptian "shadow clock" or "sundial" discovered around 1500 BC, could measure passage of "hours" automatically and continuously.
3. "Water clocks" was the first device that didn't use the observation of the celestial bodies to calculate the passage of time.
4. Galileo Galilei built the first "pendulum clock" as early as 1656.
5. Water clocks were mostly used to determine ______.
6. Huygens' clock, a mechanical one, had an error of "less than only one minute a day", which was a massive leap in the development of ______.
7. Since Quartz clocks are both inexpensive to produce in mass scale and ______ in performance, they continue to dominate the market.
8. Scientific research and the ______ continue to drive our search for ever more accuracy in time.
9. Of all the clocks introduced in the passage, the one with the most accuracy is ______.
10. No matter how advanced the technology of measuring time will be we should never lose the ability to tell the time approximately by ______.
Passage6:
It's Never Too Late to Start Exercise
    Researchers Find Great Rewards When Mild Exercise Programs Are Started Late In Life.
    May 13, 2003--You know the benefits of exercise programs. And if you've been inactive, you may have also felt them--with sore muscles and bruised motivation to continue. But a new study in women shows that the old adage is true--it's never too late to start when it comes to exercise programs. So now what can you do to jump on the exercise bandwagon (乐队花车)?
WebMD got exercise tips from the experts.
    "There certainly seems to be something here to suggest that women can start exercising later in life and still reap the rewards," lead researcher and CDC epidemiologist Edward W. Gregg, PhD, tells WebMD.  His findings are published in the May 16 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.
    Researchers tracked 9,500 women for 12 years, starting when they were at least age 66. In that time, they found that those who went from doing little or nothing to walking just a mile a day slashed(减少) their risk Of death from all causes and from cancer by nearly half. Their risk of heart disease also fell by more than a third. In fact, they enjoyed nearly as much protection as women who were physically active before the study began and remained so.
    During the study, he and his colleagues surveyed the women on their exercise levels at the start of the trial and again up to six years later. Years later, the researchers tracked their rates of death and disease.
    The new information we found is that older women who went from being sedentary(少活动的) or walking about two miles a week to "walking eight miles a week between the two visits had significant life improvements," says another study researcher, Jane A. Cauley, DrPH, of the University of Pittsburgh.
    "We're talking about women with an average age of 77 at the second visit," she tells WebMD. "And we're talking about their engaging in very mild exercise--and not running marathons."
    But if the only workout(运动)you've been getting lately involves the TV remote, here's how to avoid those walks around the block from making your body feel as if it just tackled Boston Marathon's infamous "Heartbreak Hill".
Get a checkup before a workout.
    A visit to your doctor is wise for anyone beginning an exercise program, but it's crucial for the elderly or others who have been inactive because of health problems. In addition to the obvious-- checking your heart and lungs--your doctor can help determine if your regimen(养生法) needs to consider other medical conditions, and the drugs you take for them.
    "People can sometimes control conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure with weight loss and exercise so they don't need to continue their medications," says William A. Banks, MD, professor of geriatrics at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. It's important to let your doctor know about your new exercise program in case your medication doses need to be changed.
    "A doctor can also help facilitate the best type of exercise if you have a disability or impairment. For instance, many of my patients have bad knees, so I tell them that if they start running or even walking, they're going tohave problems that will likely impact their ability to continue," he tells WebMD. "So I try to steer them to another activity, such as swimmings which is especially good for people with joint problems or obesity(肥胖)."
Start slow.
    once you get the green light, the key to avoiding fatigue and muscle pain is to pull out of the gate very slowly. "You hear so much about the importance of getting 30 minutes of exercise a day, but those recommendations should not be viewed as goals if you've been sedentary--even if you're healthy," Banks says. "Initially, you should actually shoot below your comfort level.
    "Too often, people-especially those who are older overdo it in the beginning and hurt themselves to the point where they need two weeks to recover. It's better to walk for a few minutes a days every day, than do 10 minutes your first day and then not be able to walk for the rest of the week."
Go more often.
    Of course, those few minutes of your exercise program can be done several times a day. First, try to do some activity for a few minutes several times a day. Then slowly increase the time spent in each session. But don't worry about going faster until you've exercised regularly for at least one month. A key to intensity= Ideally, you want to be aerobic(需要氧气的)enough so you can utter a few words or syllables in each sentence, but not so little that you're speaking in complete sentences or too much so you can barely talk, advises Banks.
Don't go solo.
    Although there is no evidence that people are fitter when they exercise with others, they are more likely to stick to an exercise program, or anything else, with the buddy system.  "We're always better in the company of others," says Banks.
    Another benefit to group activities: Organized exercise programs, like those available for low or no cost at the YMCA or local hospitals, often include professional guidance--especially useful [or those with conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and arthritis. "There are exercise therapists or physiologists who can expertly guide you to the proper way to increase your endurance and intensity without risking injury or fatigue," says Gregg.
Do what you enjoy.
    While Gregg's study and others have focused on walking because it's among the easiest and most popular forms of exercise, you should pick an activity you like, so you continue it. ]t could be gardening, swimming, tennis, or the old favorite, walking. "If you absolutely hate exercise, like me, I recommend exercise machines," says Banks. "Since I hate to exercise, I run on a treadmill(踏车) while watching TV. I'm especially fond of working out while watching the cartoon Pinky and the Brain."
1. It is suggested that women should not do exercises if they are over sixty.
2. According to Edward W. Gregg, it's never too late for women to start exercise.
3. All the 9,500 women who participated in the research would have little exercises or would only walk just a mile a day before the research.
4. Another benefit of group activities is that professional guidance in the group can help cure obesity, diabetes, and arthritis.
5. Since exercises may control conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure, some old people don't need to ______ if they begin an exercise program.
6. As is suggested by William A. Banks, ______ is especially good for people with joint problems or obesity.
7. For those who just start to exercise, the best way to avoid fatigue and muscle pain is to ______.
8. For the exerciser, a simple method in checking the intensity of the exercise is to see that whether one can ______ while having the exercise.
9. In organized exercise programs, exercise therapists or physiologists can expertly guide an exerciser to the proper way to increase his or her ______ without risking injury or fatigue.
10. It is recommended that the exerciser should pick up an activity he/she likes so that he/she may ______.
Passage7:
Preparing for Weight Loss Surgery
    For those who consider weight loss surgery, they are at the end of their ropes. Traditional methods of diet and exercise have had no effect, and this procedure is a last resort. But by no means is the leap from thinking about weight loss surgery to the operating table a short one.
    "People need to be aware, in great detail, of the risk and benefits of weight loss surgery so they understand what it is all about," says Harvey J. Sugerman, president of the American Society for Bariatric Surgery. "The procedure is not without risk, and there is a great deal of anxiety that comes with it, so it takes considerable preparation."
    From checking on insurance coverage to psychological exams to support groups, preparing for this life-changing procedure takes time, physical and mental readiness, and most of all, commitment.
First Steps
    "From the time a person first thinks about having weight loss surgery, to the time they make the commitment to have it done is typically about two years," says James Kolenich, a bariatric surgeon at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, Horizon. "Most people don't rush into this, they talk to family and friends, they talk to the hospital, they go home and they think about it more; it's usually a very thoughtful approach."
    More than 60 million obese people are living in the U. S. , according to the American Obesity Association (AOA), and about 9 million are severely obese. Weight loss surgery, also called bariatric surgery, can be successful when diet and exercise have failed, and a person's health is on the line. Overweight is the second leading cause of preventable death, after smoking, in the U. S. , according to the AOA.
    "The first thing a person should do is contact his insurance company to learn if he is covered for the surgery, and he should contact his primary care doctor to find out if there is documentation of his struggle with obesity," says Kolenich. "Many insurance companies want to know that a primary care doctor has tried to help the patient lose weight with psychological counseling, diet, and an exercise plan for five years, and for many patients, this is a big road block."
    While there are other options, such as personally financing the procedure, they are costly: The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases web site states that this procedure can run from $ 20,000 to $ 35,000.
    With such a hefty price tag on weight loss surgery, it pays to ensure that your doctor documents your battle with obesity early on, to open up options down the road. When you've crossed all your is and dotted all your is in the insurance category, it is time to find a hospital or center, and a surgeon, which are first-rate.
Finding a Batiatric Surgeon
    "When you're looking for a surgeon, ask if he or she is board-certified by the American Board of Surgery," says Kotenich. "Is he a member of the American Society of Bariatrie Surgeons? What is the mortality rate of the surgeon, the morbidity rate, the success rate?"
    Clearly, the surgeon you find should be well experienced in the area of weight loss surgery.
    "Make sure the surgeon you choose is an experienced and qualified bariatrie surgeon," says Daniel Herren, chief of bariatric surgery at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. "It's clear that the more experienced the surgeon, the lower the risk of mortality. Ideally, you would prefer to find a surgeon who has performed at least 100 of these procedures."
    What you are looking for doesn't stop with numbers and statistics--you will also need a support system, Look for a center or hospital that offers educational seminars to those who are just beginning the process so you can learn more about the actual procedure, the benefits, and the risks. Also look for support groups, that can be utilized pre- and post-operatively.
Preparing for Weight Loss Surgery
    "The single most important factor is that they have to realize the surgery is not a cure for obesity," says Herren. "It's a very powerful tool used in the fight against obesity. It needs to be considered as part of a process, and a lifelong commitment to follow up with physicians, a regular exercise program, and healthy eating.  If a person doesn't understand that this is a lifelong commitment, that it's net a quick fix, then he or she is not a good candidate."
    From a physical standpoint, the preparation for weight loss surgery involves meeting with doctors--a lot of them.
    A person also needs to meet with a nutritionist, to begin to better understand the elements of healthy eating, and how eating habits need to change before and after the surgery. "By getting into a proper nutritional mindset before surgery, such as learning to eat smaller portions, eating Slowly, paying closer attention to the nutritional make-up of meals, a person is better adapted for the major changes in their lifestyle after the surgery," says Herron.
Understanding the Risks
    Understanding the possible outcomes of weight loss surgery, including the risks, is an important part of preparing for the procedure. "Education is a tremendously important part of the preoperative process," says Herron.  "There is no question that there are major risks associated with the operation. However, those risks can be minimized by having a thorough preoperative workup so there aren't surprises during the procedure, and by making sure the surgeon is experienced and qualified."
    Nonetheless, dealing with the emotional toll of this procedure can be difficult, especially when considering the possibility of death. "There have been good studies looking at the risk of dying after weight loss surgery, showing that although there is a risk of death with surgery, the overall survival rate is improved with surgery compared to not having the surgery at all, and living with obesity," says Herron.
    It helps that most centers and hospitals and insurance companies, require psychological evaluations prior to the allowing the procedure--which benefits both patient and doctor. "You have to fill your mind with as much optimism and positive thinking as possible," says Joe De Simone, PhD, a psychiatrist in private practice in N. Y., who works with patients preparing for weight loss surgery.  "Basically, the preparation is to become more conscious of what you are thinking and feeling, and start preparing yourself to think of food and your life in a different way. This is a courageous step for people to take, and it's not just about weight changing--it's about life changing."
Pest-Op Expectations
    While weight loss surgery does have a major impact on a person's life, it requires, like any surgical procedure, some recovery time. "The recovery period is quite variable," says Herron. "I have some patients who take a week off and are back full time, and others who take three to four weeks to recover. While it's certainly physically possible to be back to 90% of capacity after a week, most people take longer to adjust to the new lifestyle."
    New techniques have also helped to lessen recovery time.  Today, the procedure can be performed minimally invasively via small incisions. In a few centers around the country it can even be done on an outpatient basis.
    Patients also need to remember weight loss surgery is not a cure. "It's not a magic bullet, but is an amazingly powerful weight-loss tool," says Herron. "A person will find they will lose about a pound per day for the first month or so. Then they'll lose between 50%-75% of their excess body weight typically during the first 12 months after surgery." What follows is dedication to a healthy diet and exercise regimen, continual follow-up with doctors to monitor progress, and commitment to a new life.
1. Weight loss surgery is one of the traditional ways of losing weight.
2. Many people have weight loss surgery possibly because overweight may give rise to death. 3. After having the weight loss surgery, a person will not suffer from obesity any more.
4. A person also might be required to quit smoking to improve the outcome of the operation.
5. It is advisable that a patient have his/her operation covered by the insurance company because weight loss surgery is usually ______.
6. A person who thinks about having weight loss surgery should find ______ bariatric surgeon.
7. Eating smaller portions, eating slowly, paying attention to the nutritional ______ of meals are examples of healthy eating habits.
8. During the preparing procedure, one important part is to help the candidates understand the possible outcomes and ______.
9. According to Herron, after having the surgery, the recovery time ______ from person to person.
10. With the development of ______, the recovery period may become shorter and shorter.
Passage8:
Bird Brains
Cracking Walnuts
    The scene: a traffic light crossing on a university campus in Japan. Carrion crows and humans line up patiently, waiting for the traffic to halt. When the lights change, the birds hop in front of the cars and place walnuts, which they picked from the adjoining trees, on the road. After the lights turn green again, the birds fly away and vehicles drive over the nuts, cracking them open. Finally, when it's time to cross again, the crows join the pedestrians and pick up their meal.
    Biologists already knew the corvine family--it includes crows, ravens, rooks, magpies and jackdaws--to be among the smartest of all birds. But this remarkable piece of behavior would seem to be a particularly acute demonstration of bird intelligence.  Researchers believe they probably noticed cars driving over nuts fallen from a walnut tree overhanging a road. The crows already knew about dropping clams from a height on the seashore to break them open, but found this did not work for walnuts because of their soft green outer shell.
    Other birds do this, although not with quite the same precision. In the Dardia Mountains of Greece, eagles can be seen carrying tortoises up to a great height and dropping them on to rocks below.
Do Birds Have Intelligence?
    Scientists have argued for decades over whether wild creatures, including birds, show genuine intelligence. Some still consider the human mind to be unique, with animals capable of only the simplest mental processes.  But a new generation of scientists believes that creatures, including birds, can solve problems by insight and even learn by example, as human children do. Birds can even talk in a meaningful way.
Good Memory
    Some birds show quite astonishing powers of recall. A type of North American crow may have the animal world's keenest memory.  It collects up to 30,000 pine seeds over three weeks in November, and then carefully buries them for safe keeping across over an area of 200 square miles. Over the next eight months, it succeeds in retrieving over 90 percent of them, even when they are covered in feet of snow.
Making and Using Tools
    On the Pacific island of New Caledonia, the crows demonstrate a tool-making, and tool using capability comparable to Paleolithic man's. Dr Gavin Hunt, a New Zealand biologist, spent three years observing the birds. He found that they used two different forms of hooked "tool" to pull grubs from deep within tree trunks. Other birds and some primates have been seen to use objects to forage. But what is unusual here is that the crows also make their own tools. Using their beaks as scissors and snippers, they fashion hooks from twigs, and make barbed, serrated rakes or combs from stiff leathery leaves. And they don't throw the tools away after one use--they carry them from one foraging place to another.
    Scientists are still debating what this behavior means. Man's use of tools is considered a prime indication of his intelligence, is this a skill acquired by chance? Did the crows acquire tool making skills by trial and error rather than planning? Or, in its ability to