SECTION 5: LISTENING TEST (30 minutes)

Directions: Read the following passages and then answer IN COMPLETE SENTENCES the questions which follow each passage. Use only information from the passage you have just read and write your answer in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.

Questions 1-3 //tr.hjenglish.com/
     When you next buy a tub of potato salad, the container it comes in may be made from another vegetable -- corn. A new line of corn-based plastics, called polylactides or PLA, has begun to land on supermarket shelves. Its strongest selling points are that it fully degrades in 47 days, doesn't emit toxic fumes when incinerated, and requires 20 to 50 percent less fossil fuel to manufacture than regular plastics.

     In May, 11 Wild Oats Markets on the West Coast became the first grocery stores in North America to switch from conventional plastics to the new corn-based product, with plans to roll them out nationally into all 90 stores later this year. As part of the roll-out, Wild Oats has installed in-store bins where customers can return their empty containers. "We then take them to an industrial composting facility and they turn the containers into compost, which we then sell in our stores to people who buy it for their gardens," says Sonja Tuitele, communications director of Wild Oats. A European retailer has also been selling the new plastic products. IPER, a 21-store chain in Italy, has been using the packaging for a year and has expanded its use from deli departments to dairy and bakery areas. //tr.hjenglish.com/

     The new plastic has a few quirks, however. The biodegradable materials won't break down in regular landfills; they have to be taken to special industrial sites and treated like compost. Nor will they decompose in home compost bins: Temperatures there don't reach the required 284 degrees F. Yet the containers will melt if filled with hot food, or placed in the dishwasher or microwave. Cargill, an international agriculture corporation, and Dow Chemical, have a joint venture making one line of PLA. Within 10 years, says Cargill spokesman Michael O'Brian, the company expects to be making 1 billion pounds of corn-derived plastii:s each year. That would mean 10 percent of the nation's annual corn supply would be converted into plastics and fiber.
 
     PLA can also be used as an altemative for molded foam products, electronic packaging, and cups. For instance, the Coca-Cola Company used 500,000 cups made from corn at the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City. And instead of creating a huge trash problem, the used cups were composted and turned into dirt.

     What separates biodegradable plastics from their more long-lived cousins are polymers. Plastics based on natural plant polymers, derived from wheat or corn starches, have molecules that are easily broken down by microbes; traditional plastics have polymer molecules too large and too tightly bonded together to be broken apart by decomposer organisms.

     Most biodegradable plastics currently on the market are between two and 10 times more expensive than traditional plastics. Yet plastics constitute 9 percent of the 156 million tons of trash Americans generate each year, and many consumers would be willing to pay the extra costs for a replacement product that biodegrades. According to a recent survey from market research firm RoperASW, 51 percent of respondents would pay a premium of up to 10 percent for environmentally safer versions of plastic packaging.

1.   What are the major differences between corn-based plastics and regular plastics?
2.   The new plastic also has some unusual features. What are they?
3.   Introduce briefly the major uses of com-based plastics and the significance of this invention.

Questions 4-6 //tr.hjenglish.com/
     Trends in psychotherapy have shifted dramatically in the past two decades. Most patients (and medical plans) have taken a pass on the long-term commitment to Freudian analysis, turning instead to shorter approaches. One therapy that has taken over--especially for depression--is a method called cognitive behavioral therapy.

     CBT is based on the idea that all moods--and their disorders--originate in thoughts. The therapy aims to adjust attitudes by recognizing and refuting negative thoughts as they occur. For instance, some people react to a mistake or mishap by generalizing to "I'm a failure." A CBT therapist would help the patient get to a more accurate assessment of the event, like "What a bad day." The effectiveness of this hugely popular treatment has been touted in a number of academic studies and general-interest books. Proponents say that it often works faster and can be more effective than traditional psychotherapy—or even antidepressants.

     Except they may be wrong. Gordon Parker, head of the School of Psychiatry at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and two researchers went over the results of every available effectiveness study that's: been done on CBT. Taken together, Parker argues in a recent issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, the results really don't support the claims. Their conclusion: "CBT has been oversold," says Parker. "...As far as we can tell, it doesn't have any superiority over any other psychotherapy."

     CBT has snowballed in popularity not because the scientific evidence is compelling, Parker says, but because "it is immensely appealing [and sounds] so terribly logical." Parker, who is somewhat disappointed in his own findings, has recommended the therapy to many of his patients. Now, he speculates that any positive outcomes might have come not from CBT itself but simply from spending time with an empathetic therapist.

     The review did contain one caveat: "There may be a subgroup of people who do very well with CBT." Indeed, part of the difficulty with evaluation is that studies tend to be done on heterogeneous groups, instead of subgroups of people with specific symptoms, he says. So it's not clear who is really benefiting. //tr.hjenglish.com/

     Taking issue. Not surprisingly, many fans disagree with Parker's conclusion. Andrew Butler, research coordinator for the Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., is critical of the methodology used in Parker's review. (The institute is named after Aaron Beck, the psychiatrist who came up with CBT in the 1960s.) Butler says that while some research flaws do exist, "numerous studies have shown that clients who overcome their depression using cognitive therapy are twice as likely to remain depression free a year later as clients who got better using antidepressant medication." Others argue that, while the studies are imperfect, there is enough solid empirical evidence to justify CBT's reputation. Jacqueline Persons, director of the San Francisco Bay Area Center for Cognitive Therapy, says that the bottom line is that CBT does work: "And that is true even though we do not know as much as we would like to about why or how it works."

     Psychiatrist David Bums is the most well-known popularizer of CBT. His book Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy has more than 4 million copies in print. He says: "I'm no less in love with the cognitive model than I was 30 years ago." But even Bums agrees that the studies are "underwhelming" and that "there's a huge need to improve how we do research." Along with faulty methodology, he says, there are several human variables that make valid testing difficult. For example, most studies have no way to control for a patient's motivation. Exercises and other "homework" are a big part of the therapeutic process in CBT. Some patients do the work, and some don't bother, and that could account in part for the mixed outcomes.

     Nor do the studies take into account an individual therapist's skills and manner. As a consequence, it's hard to tell if a patient's success or failure is due to the therapeutic technique or the therapist. "We have seen many therapists with big reputations who have poor empathy and get terrible results, and we've seen therapists who seem rather inept get incredible results," says Bums. Despite the fact, he adds, that "all therapists fancy themselves, empathetic and warm." The CBT debate is guaranteed to continue as the studies keep coming. One published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that young, low-income Latin and African-American women on CBT did almost as well as they did on antidepressants. //tr.hjenglish.com/

4.   What is CBT? What is the basic idea behind this therapy?
5.   What is the view of Gordon Parker over CBT? What is Andrew Butler's reaction to Parker's review?
6.   What can be learned from David Bums' book over the issue?

Questions 7-10
     Alabama chief justice Roy Moore has long displayed a reverence or obsession, depending on your point of view--for the Ten Commandments. The Scripture :has been a good calling card for Moore, gaining him notoriety far beyond the realm of circuit-court judges after he first decorated his courtroom in 1995 with a hand-carved rosewood plaque bearing God's laws. He prevailed over civil libertarians who sued for its removal, and rode his fame even further in 2000, when he was elected chief justice of Alabama's supreme court on the slogan "Roy Moore: Still the Ten Commandments Judge." But while he earned folk-hero status among Evangelicals and conservatives, last week he finally pushed the legal establishment too far when he ignored a federal court order to remove his largest monument to the Commandments, a 5,280-1b. granite carving known as Roy's Rock. Moore and some helpers had installed the sculpture in the rotunda of the state's judicial building during off-hours one night in 2001.

     In a stunning show of defiance by a jurist, Moore disregarded the urging of all eight of his fellow supreme court justices and Alabama's attorney general to comply with the federal ruling that the religious artifact is inappropriate in a court of law. Instead Moore declared, to the amens of supporters gathered on the building's portico, "I will never, never deny the God upon whom our laws and country depends", The hundreds of protesters had flocked to Moore's monument last week as if to a revival, carrying Bibles, wooden crosses and placards with phrases like KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS. DUMP THE FEDS. But within 24 hours of Moore's speech, his judicial colleagues suspended him from the bench and ordered him to face trial before the Alabama Court of the Judiciary, which can remove judges for ethical violations.

     The legal case, brought by several civil-liberties groups, is virtually open and shut. Moore's lawyers had argued that U.S. law is founded on the Ten Commandments, which are displayed, more subtly and often surrounded by secular legal symbols, in other government buildings around the country. But federal District Judge Myron Thompson said in his ruling that Roy's Rock is "nothing less than an obtrusive year-round religious display ... The only way to miss the religious or nonsecular appearance of the monument would be to walk through the Alabama State Judicial Building with one's eyes closed." A federal appeals court agreed, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to issue a stay in the case. Moore has said he plans to file an appeal with the Supreme Court by late September, but legal experts don't expect the court to take it. "[Moore] does not have any laws of man to stand on," says University of Alabama law professor Bryan K. Fair. "He's claiming to stand on the laws of God. Apparently he has some difficulty recognizing the separate spheres of his own creed and the laws of the people of Alabama."

     Moore's supporters have compared him to Martin Luther King, to Daniel, and even to Moses. The son of a construction worker, Moore, 56, grew up in northeast Alabama and worshipped at a Baptist church, not "an overbearing church where they shout and dance around," says his brother Jerry, "just a nice little country church." Moore graduated from West Point, served in Vietnam in the military police and earned his law degree at the University of Alabama. After losing a hard-fought election for circuit judge in 1982, Moore turned from law to more exotic battles, training as a kickboxer and wrangling cattle in Australia. //tr.hjenglish.com/

     It was at this stage in his life that Moore carved his plaque of the Ten Commandments and, after being appointed as a circuit judge, hung it in his courtroom and started making headlines. The first lawsuit seeking to remove it was ultimately dismissed on a technicality. His victories in the court of public opinion, however, have been more decisive. He won his chief-justice post with 54% of the vote, and in a July poll of Alabama residents, 77% said they approve of his stone monument. His popularity has led to speculation that Moore is angling for higher office, although his staff denies that. In the meantime, however, his current job depends largely on whether he decides to obey the commandments of his legal colleagues.

7.   Who is Roy Moore? Why is he called the "Ten Commandments judge"?
8.   Give a brief introduction to the argument around Roy's Rock.
9.   Illustrate the public attitude towards Roy Moore and Moore's monument.
10.  What can be inferred from the last sentence of the passage? ("In the meantime, however, his current job depends largely on whether he decides to obey the commandments of his legal colleagues.") //tr.hjenglish.com/

SECTION 6: LISTENING TEST (30 minutes)

Directions: Translate the following passage into English and write your version in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.

    中华民族的传统文化博大精深，源远流长。早在2000多年前，就产生了以孔孟为代表的儒家学说和以老庄为代表的道家学说，以及其他许多也在中国思想史上有地位的学说和学 派。这就是有名的诸子百家。

   从孔夫子到孙中山，中华民族的传统文化有它的许多珍品，许多人民性和民主性的好东西。比如，强调仁爱、强调群体、强调天下为公，特别是“天下兴亡，匹夫有责”的爱国情操 和吃苦耐劳、勤俭持家、尊师重教的传统美德。所有这些，对家庭、对国家和社会都起到了巨大的维系和调节作用。//tr.hjenglish.com/

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