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It is not a good country where people have to work harder to make less money. It is not a harmonious scene in which a small group of people living on a lonely island of material prosperity in the midst of vast ocean of muss poverty. Indeed, if we cannot help the many who are poor, then we cannot save the few who are rich. And an ideal, harmonious society must rest on the solid rock of common welfare for all its members. Write an essay of about 400 words entitled: The Gap In the first part of your writing you should state your main argument, and in the second part you should support your argument with appropriate details (or examples). In the last part you should bring what you have written to a natural conclusion or make u summary. Marks will be awarded for content, organization, grammar and appropriateness. Failure to follow the above instructions may result in a loss of marks. Write your essay on ANSWER SHEET FOUR.

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TEXT A In 1896 a Georgia couple suing for damages in the accidental death of their two year old was told that since the child had made no real economic contribution to the family, there was no liability for damages. In contrast, less than a century later, in 1979, the parents of a three year old sued in New York for accidental-death damages and won an award of $750,0O0. The transformation in social values implicit in juxtaposing these two incidents is the subject of Viviana Zelizer’s excellent book, Pricing the Priceless Child. During the nineteenth century, she argues, the concept of the "useful" child who contributed to the family economy gave way gradually to the present-day notion of the "useless" child who, though producing no income for, and indeed extremely costly to, its parents, is yet considered emotionally "priceless." Well established among segments of the middle and upper classes by the mid-1800’s, this new view of childhood spread throughout society in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries as reformers introduced child-labor regulations and compulsory education laws predicated in pan on the assumption that a child’s emotional value made child labor taboo. For Zelizer the origins of this transformation were many and complex, The gradual erosion of children’s productive value in a maturing industrial economy, the decline in birth and death rates, especially in child mortality, and the development of the companionate family (a family in which members were united by explicit bonds of love rather than duty) were all factors critical in changing the assessment of children’s worth. Yet "expulsion of children from the ’cash nexus,’ ... although clearly shaped by profound changes in the economic, occupational, and family structures," Zelizer maintains, "was also pan of a cultural process ’of sacralization’ of children’s lives." Protecting children from the crass business world became enormously important for late-nineteenth-century middle-class Americans, she suggests; this sacralization was a way of resisting what they perceived as the relentless corruption of human values by the marketplace. In stressing the cultural determinants of a child’s worth, Zelizer takes issue with practitioners of the new "sociological economics," who have analyzed such traditionally sociological topics as crime, marriage, education, and health solely in terms of their economic determinants. Allowing only a small role for cultural forces in the form of individual "preferences," these sociologists tend to view all human behavior as directed primarily by the principle of maximizing economic gain. Zelizer is highly critical of this approach, and emphasizes instead the opposite phenomenon: the power of social values to transform price. As children became more valuable in emotional terms, she argues, their "exchange" or "surrender" value on the market, that is, the conversion of their intangible worth into cash terms, became much greater. Zelizer refers to all of the following as important influences in changing the assessment of children’s worth EXCEPT changes in ______.

A. the nature of industry
B. the nature of the family
C. attitudes toward reform movements
D. attitudes toward the marketplace

中国是一个发展中国家,也是一个负责任的国家。中国愿意为推进合作共赢、实现可持续发展做出自己的贡献。中国保持经济快速健康发展,对全球经济及地区经济发展有利。改革开放20多年来,中国经济年均增长9.4%,不仅成功解决了十几亿人的温饱问题,而且使中国人民的生活总体上达到小康水平。当前,中国经济发展总的形势很好。虽然经济运行中出现了一些问题,但在我们的宏观调控下,一些不健康、不稳定因素已经得到了有效抑制。

TEXT D A "scientistic" view of language was dominant among philosophers and linguists who affected to develop a scientific analysis of human thought and behavior in the early part of this century, Under the force of this view, it was perhaps inevitable that the art of rhetoric should pass from the status of being regarded as of questionable worth (because although it might be both a source of pleasure and a means to urge people to right action, it might also be a means to distort truth and a source of misguided action) to the status of being wholly condemned. If people are regarded only as machines guided by logic as they were be these "scientistic" thinkers, rhetoric is likely to be held in low regard: for the most obvious truth about rhetoric is that it speaks to the whole person. It presents its arguments first to the person as a rational being, because persuasive discourse, if honestly conceived, always has a basis in reasoning. Logical argument is the plot, as it were, of any speech or essay that is respectfully intended to persuade people. Yet it is a characterizing feature of rhetoric that it goes beyond this and appeals to the parts of our nature that are involved in feeling, desiring, acting, and suffering. It recalls relevant instances of the emotional reactions of people to circumstances real or fictional—that are similar to our own circumstances. Such is the purpose of both historical accounts and fables in persuasive discourse: they indicate literally or symbolically how people may react emotionally, with hope or fear, to particular circumstances. A speech attempting to persuade people can achieve little unless it takes into account the aspect of their being related to such hopes and fears. Rhetoric, then, is addressed to human beings living at particular times and in particular places. From the point of view of rhetoric, we are not merely logical thinking machines, creatures abstracted from time and space. The study of rhetoric should therefore be considered the most humanistic of the humanities, since rhetoric is not directed only to our rational selves. It takes into account what the "scientistic" view leaves out. If it is a weakness to harbor feelings, then rhetoric may be thought of as dealing in weakness. But those who reject the idea of rhetoric because they believe it deals in lies and who at the same time hope to move people to action, must either be liars themselves or be very naive; pure logic has never been a motivating force unless it has been subordinated to human purposes, feelings, and desires, and thereby ceased to be pure logic. Which of the following best states the author’s main point about logical argument

A. It is a sterile, abstract discipline, of little use in real life.
B. It is an essential element of persuasive discourse, but only one such element.
C. It is an important means of persuading people to act against their desires.
D. It is the lowest order of discourse because it is the less imaginative.

TEXT B Replying to our Christmas "good guru guide", Peter Drunker, the grand old man of management theory, speculated that the word "guru" had become popular only because "charlatan" was too long a word for most headlines. Few people are easier to ridicule than management gums. Irrepressible self-publicists and slavish fashion-merchants, they make a splendid living out of recycling other people’s ideas ("chaos management"), coining euphemisms ("downsizing") and laboring the obvious ("managing by wandering around" or the customer is king"). Their books draw heavily on particular case studies—often out-of-date ones that have nasty knack of collapsing later. And their ideas change quickly. Tom Peters, once a self-confessed sycophant to the corporate behemoth, is now an apostle of the small, chaotic, "virtual" organization. Gurus do have their uses, however. Begin with the circumstantial evidence. In America, where management theories are treated with undue reverence, business is bouncing back. In Germany, where business schools hardly exist and management theory is widely seen as an oxymoron, many companies are in trouble. German business magazines are suddenly brimming with articles about "downsizing" and "business process re-engineering". In Japan firms are once again turning to business theories from America—just as their fathers learnt after the Second World War from American quality-control techniques. Coincidence does not prove causation: American firms were just as much in love with gurus when they ware doing badly. But the fact that Germans and Japanese are paying attention again does offer some dues. The most important point in favor of management theories is that they are on the side of change. In 1927 a group of psychologists studying productivity at Western Electric’s Hawthorne factory in Illinois found that workers increased their output whenever the level of lighting was changed, up or down. At the very least, theorists can make change easier by identifying problems, acting as scapegoats for managers—or simply making people think. A vested interest in change can lead to faddism. But, taken with a requisite dose of scepticism, it can be fine complacency-shaker. A second argument for gurus relates to knowledge. The best management theorists collect a lot of information about what makes firms successful. This varies from the highly technical, such as how to discount future cash flow, to softer organizational theories. Few would dispute the usefulness of the first. It is in the second area—the land of "flat hierarchies’ and "multi-functional teams"—that gums have most often stumbled against or contradicted each other. This knowledge is not obviously prodding a strategic recipe for success: there are too many variables in business, and if all competitors used the same recipe it would automatically cease to work. But it does provide something managers want: information about, and understanding of, other companies experience in trying out tactics—thinner management structures, handing power to workers, performance-related pay, or whatever. A good analogy may be with diets. There is no such thing as the "correct" diet, but it is clear that some foods, in some quantities, axe better for you than others: and it is also likely that the main virtue of following a diet is not what you eat but the fact that it forces you to think about it. If management diets come with a lot of hype and some snake-oil, so be it. The 1927 study case described in the second paragraph is used to ______.

A. illustrate the usefulness of management theorists
B. demonstrate the efficiency of management theorists
C. show the important role of psychologists
D. reveal the flexibility of the workers

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