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Text 4 Like all quintessentially British things, gardening is a pastime that has long been in decline. From a high point of ￡5 billion in 2001, spending on plants, tools and garden furniture has fallen every year since then, to around ~3 billion in 2008．The arrival of economic recession only deepened the gloom: to credit-crunched consumers, shrubs and hanging baskets seemed obvious candidates for cuts. Yet the latest figures from the Horticultural Trades Association (HTA) suggest a bumper year for garden-related expenditure is in the making. Sales volumes were up by 21% in March and 28% in April compared with the same months a year earlier. This was not the result of deep discounting, a strategy that many other retailers have been adopting. The value of garden goods sold was 37% higher in March and 42% higher in April than a year earlier, whereas the value of all sales had increased by just 3% in April. Datamonitor, a market-research firm, reckons that gardening will continue to outperform the rest of retailing for at least the next two years. Much of the good news is due to the weather, admits Tim Briercliffe, the HTA’s director of business development. Last year the vital spring months were damp and miserable; this year sunshine (and weathermen’s prediction of a hot summer) has boosted custom. But the economic downturn itself has turned out to be as much a blessing as a curse. Gardening may be a luxury, argues Mr. Briercliffe, but it competes with other, more expensive luxuries. "People who might have otherwise booked a city break to Prague are staying at home and making the best of what they have," he maintains. According to Ipsos MORI, a pollster, three-quarters of people plan to spend at least as much on their garden this year as last. Economic hardship has created a new breed of gardener too. Partly, that reflects people making the most of their enforced leisure: "We get some unemployed city types who are just filling time while looking for another job," admits a garden-centre worker near the London commuter town of Guilford. But there are more positive developments. Much of the growth in garden spending has come from the under-35s, not traditionally a green-fingered demographic. One explanation is that environmentalism and thriftiness have made growing vegetables trendy, an idea that is supported by growing shortage of allotments. But there is more to it than pleasant weather and belt-tightening. The HTA detects deeper, and darker, changes in the national psyche. Citing research from the Future Foundation, a prognosticatory consultancy, it reckons that people are spending more time in their homes, fortifying them into havens from an unwelcoming world haunted by crime, bureaucracy and rising unemployment. The longer the downturn persists, the greener the grass may grow. According to the text, what are the reasons for the "Renaissance" of gardening
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Some young adults want to be independent from their parents as soon as possible. Other young adults prefer to live with their families for a longer time. Which of these situations do you think is better Write an essay with specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
Directions: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and. Strange things have been happening to England. Still (1) from the dissolution of the empire in the years (2) World War Ⅱ, now the English find they are not even British. As the cherished "United Kingdom" breaks into its (3) parts, Scots are clearly (4) and the Welsh, Welsh. But who exactly are the English What’s left of them, with everything but the (5) half of their island taken away Going back in time to (6) roots doesn’t help. First came the Celts, then the Romans, then Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes. Invasion after invasion, until the Norman Conquest. English national identity only seemed to find its (7) later, on the shifting sands of expansionism, from Elizabethan times onwards. The empire seemed to seal it. But now there’s just England, (8) of a green island in the northern seas, lashed by rain, scarred by two (9) of vicious industrialization fallen (10) dereliction, ruined, as D．H. Lawrence thought, by "the tragedy of ugliness," its abominable architecture. Of all English institutions, the one to (11) on would surely be the pub. Shelter to Chaucer’s pilgrims, home to Falstaff and Hal, throne of felicity to Dr. Johnson, the pub- that smoky, yeasty den of jollity-is the womb of (12) , if anywhere is. Yet in the midst of this national (13) crisis, the pub, the mainstay of English life, a staff driven (14) into the sump of history, (15) as the Saxons, is suddenly dying and evolving at (16) rates. Closing at something like a rate of more than three a day, pubs have become (17) enough that for the first time since the Domesday Book, more than half the villages in England no longer have one. It’s a rare pub that still (18) , or even limps on, by being what it was (19) to be: a drinking establishment. The old (20) of a pub as a place for a "session," a lengthy, restful, increasingly tipsy evening of swigging, is all but defunct.
Part ADirections: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D． Text 1 The swine flu will probably return in force earlier than seasonal flu usually begins, federal health officials predicted Friday, saying they expected it to erupt as soon as schools open rather than in October or November. The swine flu is still circulating in the United States, especially in summer camps, even though hot weather has arrived and the regular flu season ended months ago, "so we expect challenges when people return to school, when kids are congregating together," Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of respiratory diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a telephone news conference held jointly with vaccine experts from the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services. It is still unclear how many doses of a swine flu vaccine will be available by then, and officials have been reluctant to make firm predictions beyond saying that they expect tens of millions, rather than hundreds of millions, and they plan to distribute them to people who are the most vulnerable, like pregnant women and people who are the most likely to encounter the flu, like health care workers. The number of doses available will depend on how fast seed strains grow, how much protection a small dose provides, and whether immune-system boosters called adjuvants are needed and prove to be safe; adjuvants are not used in American flu vaccines now. Clinical trials testing those questions are expected to take another couple of months, said Dr. Jesse L. Goodman, director of the F. D．A．’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. Assuming a swine flu vaccination campaign begins, it will be voluntary, Dr. Schuchat emphasized, but she "strongly encouraged" pregnant women to get both a seasonal flu shot and a swine flu shot when they are available. The C．D．C．has been closely following the disease in the Southern Hemisphere winter, and it is mimicking the patterns seen in the United States and Mexico in the spring, she said. Most infections and most serious cases are in children and young adults, and those with underlying conditions, including pregnancy, are the most likely to die. Dr. Schuchat likened the spread’s unpredictability to that of popcorn: one city could see an explosion of cases and overwhelmed hospitals while another saw few. Her most important message, she added, was that "the virus isn’t gone, and we fully expect there will be challenges in the fall. " Why did officials expect the swine flu to erupt as soon as schools open rather than in October or November
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