《Green shoots》考研时文阅读4
Green shoots
绿色崛起
Mar 19th 2009 | HONG KONG
From The Economist print edition
No matter how bad things get, people still need to eat
不管事情变得多糟糕，人们仍然需要食物
AT A time when much of the global economy is falling apart and demand both for consumer goods and the firms that make and finance them is collapsing, the notoriously cyclical world of agriculture is holding up remarkably well. Prices for grains and meat are down from the peaks of mid-2008, but are 30-50% above their averages over the past decade. There is reason to believe that this strength is more than just another of the many bubbles that have recently inflated, only to pop.
当全球经济体的一大部分开始解体，同时构成这些经济体并为其提供资金的消费品和实业的需求开始衰退的时候，总是周期性陷入困境的世界农业却开始持续向上的良好发展。2008年中期，世界谷物和肉类的价格开始从最高点回落，但是依旧比过去几十年的平均水平高30-50个百分点。我们有理由相信，与那些近期开始恶性膨胀而破碎的经济泡沫比起来，农业经济的抗打击强度要高得多。
Higher prices are hardly a universal blessing: they are good for farmers, many of whom are poor, but bad for consumers. Some of the increase can be blamed on the shift of crops from food to fuel, prompted by wildly inefficient subsidies. But high prices are also a sign of progress because their single largest cause is the steady increase in demand from poorer countries, as people there eat more food—especially more protein. More people are better nourished thanks to a bit more grain, a lot more meat, and much more milk.
偏高的价格注定不会是皆大欢喜的：这对于大部分还处在贫穷的农民来说是好事，但是对消费者来说却无疑是糟糕的。某些价格的上扬可以归咎于在离谱的低效补贴的刺激下，某些国家将原本是食物的农作物当作燃料来使用。但是高价同时也是产业的进步一个标志，因为价格升高的最大的独立因素是贫穷国家的需求正在不断平稳的上升，那里的人们开始需要更多的食物——特别是蛋白质。只要有多一些的谷物、肉类和牛奶，更多居民的营养状况将会更好。
China’s role has been profound, reflecting its enorm ous economic progress and huge population. In the past decade, says Carlo Caiani of Caiani & Company, an investment-advisory firm based in Melbourne, the consumption of milk has grown seven-fold, and that of olive oil six-fold. China is consuming twice as much vegetable oil (instead of less healthy pork fat), 60% more poultry, 30% more beef and 25% more wheat, and these are merely the obvious foods. Scores of niches have expanded dramatically: people are drinking four times as much wine, for example.
令人瞩目的经济进步和庞大的人口数量，让中国在这一方面扮演的角色更加的意义深远。根据墨尔本一家咨询公司Caiani & Company的Carlo Caiani的说法，与十年前相比，中国的牛奶和橄榄油的消费量分别增长了6倍和5倍，菜油（替代了不够健康的猪油）的消耗量翻了一番，家禽、牛肉和小麦同比上涨了60%、30%和25%。上面所列举的数据仅仅来自一些显而易见的食物，事实上许多市场的扩大是动态的，比如说，人们正在饮用四倍之多的啤酒。
And yet even with all this growth, people in China still, on average, consume only one-third as much milk and meat as people in wealthy countries such as Australia, America and Britain. The gap is even larger with India, which is also growing fast. Overall, protein intake in Europe and America is unlikely to expand much, but a combination of rising incomes and population in developing countries could increase demand by more than 5% annually for years to come. “Once people are accustomed to eating more protein, they won’t take it out of their diet,” says Mr Caiani.
虽然消费量上升的如此可观，但仅就牛奶和小麦两方面来看，中国人民的平均消费水平只是富裕国家如澳大利亚、美国和英国的三分之一。若拿印度来与这些发达国家比较，差距就更大了。总的来说，欧洲和美洲的蛋白质摄入量已经趋于饱和，但在发展中国家，收入和人口增长的双重刺激使得人民的食物需求每年以5%的速度递增。“当人们开始习惯蛋白质食物的时候，他们就不会想把它们从餐桌上拿走了”，Caiani 先生如是说。
Expanding supply at the same rate will be difficult, because the amount of arable land under cultivation is growing by only a fraction of a percentage point each year. In China and India many of the most fertile areas are the ones being developed for roads and factories. That means existing land is becoming more valuable, and must become more productive.
以相同的速率扩大供给量在未来将会愈加困难，因为可耕种耕地的数目每年只会以很小的百分比增加，更糟的是，在中国和印度，很多肥沃的土地被用来建设道路和工厂，这就意味着耕地更加宝贵，而产量必须更高才能满足人民的需求。
The consequences stretch from one end of the food chain to the other, as higher food prices prompt a response. BASF, one of the world’s largest produc ers of agrochemicals, saw 9% growth last year in agricultural sales, including 16% growth in Asia. It expects the industry to grow by 17% this year, which has begun well, the global economic tumult notwithstanding.
这种影响会从食物链的一端延伸到另一端，最终导致食品价格的升高。去年，世界最大的农业化学药品生产商之一BASF在农业领域的销售上升了9%，而在亚洲是16%。尽管世界经济持续动荡，但基于如此良好的开端，BASF期望今年的销售量能增长17%
Its competitors are also prospering. The share prices of Agrium, CF Industries, Bunge and Syngenta spiked last year along with food prices, then tumbled (along with the shares of nearly every other company), but then stabilised, even as the rest of the stockmarket continued to tank. Monsanto, which a decade ago had been praised and then trashed for selling highly efficient genetically modified seeds, has seen its popularity restored for exactly the same reason. After years of strong growth, and with the prospect of more to come, its
shares are valued at 20 times trailing earnings, nearly double the market average.
该公司的竞争对手也经营着它们蒸蒸日上的生意，Agrium, CF Industries, Bunge和Syngenta的股价去年先是随着食品价格的上涨而大幅上扬，随后大跌（当时几乎所有其他公司的股价都在下挫），然后稳定下来而没有随着股市一起崩溃。孟山都，十年之前因为其经营的高效转基因种子而闻名于世，该公司经过多年强劲的发展，获得了众多的荣誉好评，其股价是追踪盈余的整整二十倍，几乎是市场平均水平的两倍。
Interest in the industry is still growing. A conference for fund managers tied to agriculture held annually in Sydney by Austock, an Australian broker, attracted a few dozen contrarian souls three years ago. This year’s event, which began on March 16th, had to be restricted to several hundred ticket-holders, with many others turned away. Deals are also being done. On March 13th Terra Firma, a private-equity firm based in London, announced it would buy 90% of Consolidated Pastoral Company, the vast Australian cattle holdings of the Packer family, which encompass 5m hectares (12m acres) of land.
人们对农业相关产业的兴趣只增不减，每年在悉尼，澳大利亚经纪公司Austock都会举办一届基金经理的会议，在三年前就已吸引了几十位逆向投资的灵魂人物。去年3月16日，举办方只发放了几百张入场卷，因此很多慕名而来的人只能转身离开。产业之间的交易也一直在进行着，在3月13日，一家位于伦敦的私人直接投资公司Terra Firma宣布收购联合畜牧公司90%的股份，后者是Packer家族的澳大利亚大型畜牧产业，占地5百万公顷（12万英亩）。
In February Nufarm, an Australian agrochemical maker, won approval for its acquisition of AH Marks, one of Britain’s oldest chemical companies, which has a valuable portfolio of herbicides. Nufarm itself only barely avoided being acquired in 2007 in a joint bid by an American private-equity firm and a Chinese state-owned company. Shares of Mosaic, a maker of fertiliser, have been swept by one acquisition rumour after another. Last year COFCO, China’s state-controlled food conglomerate, bought 5% of Smithfield, the world’s largest pork producer. Al Qudra, an Abu Dhabi-based investment company, said it had bought big tracts of farmland in Morocco and Algeria, and was closing in on purchases in Pakistan, Syria, Vietnam, Thailand, Sudan and India.
去年二月，澳大利亚农业化工品制造商Nufarm获得了不列颠老牌化工公司之一、生产一系列高价值除莠剂的AH Marks的收购许可。而此前在2007年，Nufarm公司好不容易才避免了一家美国私人直接投资公司和一家中国国有企业的联合收购。世界第二大化肥生产商Shares of Mosaic不停的陷入一个又一个恶意收购案。而在去年，中国国有粮食集团COFCO购买了世界最大肉类生产商Smithfield5%的股份。位于阿布扎比的公司Al Qudra声称它们购买了摩洛哥和阿尔及利亚的大量耕地，同时正在跟进巴基斯坦、叙利亚、泰国、苏丹和印度的收购案。
In November China Agri-Industries, a subsidiary of COFCO, established a partnership with Wilmar, the world’s largest trader in palm oil. Landkom, listed on London’s AIM market, and Black Earth Farming, listed in Stockholm, have each made big investments in farming in Ukraine. And reports are circulating in China about local investors buying 50,000 hectares of farmland in Argentina, and considering other investments in Argentina and Brazil.
时年十一月，中粮集团（COFCO）的子公司中国粮油控股有限公司，与世界最大的棕榈油经销商丰益国际建立了合作关系。伦敦交易所二板市场上市的Landkom和斯德哥尔摩证券上市的Black Earth Farming 各自在乌克兰农业市场投入了大量资金。当前有报告显示，中国本土投资者在阿根廷收买了5万公顷的耕地，而且考虑是否继续在阿根廷和巴西投资。
Even China is finally opening up to private agricultural investment, in part because new laws allow farmers to lease land, thus making possible economies of scale. Asian Bamboo, a company that is listed in Frankfurt, leases 27,000 hectares in Fujian province. It announced profits for 2008 of (原文此处有一欧元符号)21m ($30.4m) on sales of (原文此处有一欧元符号)44m, reflecting how, at least for the moment, agriculture can be an extraordinarily high-margin business.
虽然现在中国已经开放私有农业投资许可，一部分原因是新近通过的法案允许农民流转土地承包权，这就导致合理的规模经济的形成。法兰克福的上市公司Asian Bamboo在福建省承包了2万7千公顷的农田，公司声称它们2008年的利润额达到两千一百万欧元（折合三千零四十万美元），销售额为四千四百万欧元，这些数据——至少在当时——揭示了农业如何成为一种超高利润的行业。
There are limits to what can be done, however. By far the most ambitious of all the land deals in the past year was Daewoo Logistics’ contract with the government of Madagascar to lease 1.3m hectares, almost half the country’s arable land, to produce corn for Daewoo’s home country, South Korea. But after riots and a coup in Madagascar, the deal is off. These tensions are not unique. In response to local concerns about the loss of critical food supplies, several governments have imposed taxes or other restrictions on exports: on a key ingredient of fertiliser in China, on grain in Argentina, on rice in India. That sort of meddling undermines some investments and businesses. But in a strong market, it makes the businesses that can operate freely all the more lucrative and valuable.
但是，当前所有允许的商务操作都有不同的限制，截至目前为止，最充满风险的土地交易发生在去年，韩国大宇物流(Daewoo Logistics)租赁了马达加斯加一千三百万公顷的农田，接近该国可耕耕地的一半，目的是为了生产谷物来满足国内的需要。但是在国民骚动和一场突然的政变之后，马达加斯加的新总统在上台后立即宣布该交易作废。类似的紧张局势在世界范围内并不罕见，在某些国家，政府为了打消当地民众对紧缺食物不断流失的担忧，就对相应的出口，比如说中国的化肥关键成分、阿根廷的粮食和印度的大米，进行征税或加上其他的限制，如此这样的政府干涉就削弱了投资和商务的基础。而在坚挺的市场中，商业操作更加自由，因此产生的利润将会更高。
超详细的考研计划安排
本人本科就读于河北医科大学，2008年参加研究生入学考试，以总分388分的成绩考到了北京协和医学院。因为当年看了很多好帖，对我帮助很大，就决定如果自己考上了也来写一篇回报大家。之所以拖了这么久，是因为一直没把握写出来的东西能有什么新意，能否对大家有所帮助，至少不要误导大家。这样沉淀了一年多，期间又陪女朋友经历了一次考研（她最后上的卫生部北京老年医学研究所），终于决定试一试。 本贴的初衷是对各个阶段的同学都有用，所以写得比较细，希望不同阶段的同学有选择性的看，有不同意见也欢迎大家指出探讨。 一、考研时间表： 一般7、8月份大纲出，8、9月份各招生单位的招生简章及招生目录就陆陆续续出了吧（这个没有求证），9月下旬预报名（只针对应届生的），10月中下旬正式网上报名（截止到10月31号），11月中旬现场确认，次年1月20号前后的某个周末初试，3月初出初试成绩，大多数招生单位在3月底至4月中上旬安排复试，之后是调剂，大概到5月份调剂结束，这一年的招生工作基本告一段落了，之后就是政审，调档，6月下旬发放录取通知书。 二、关于报名： 这个看起来简单，但实际操作起来是很是头疼。关于报什么学校？什么方向？技能型还是科研型？虽然正式报名是在10月份，但是这些问题最好能提前想清楚，否则报名的时候会深受这些问题折磨，打乱复习节奏。需要一提的是9月下旬有一个预报名，只针对应届生的，为的是照顾应届生使其熟悉报名系统，这个与正式报名是等效的，预报名了正式报名时可直接修改信息。也可以不预报名，正式报名时再报。报名时要填的信息很多，一定要仔细阅读当地招生部门和拟报考院校的招生公告，去年陕西就发生过一起几百考生因为没有仔细阅读公告选错报考点最后导致报名无效的事，这是血的教训，一定要引以为戒。报上名后在截止日期以前可修改报名信息，最好能打印下来，提前多检查几次，不要等最后一天发现问题再去改，因为到时系统往往会很忙，可能会有打不开的情况。不要让自己处于这样的境地。 关于择校，这是一个大话题，详细情况大家可以去看专门的贴子。我只简章说几句。考研，最终的复习效果取决于一个人的心态、毅力和学习方法的总和，我认为这三方面等重的。所以在决定考什么学校之前，先对自己这三个方面作一大致评价，只要这三方面总体上能给自己打一及格分，同时如果希望自己能有一个比较好的未来，那么恭喜你，你可以考虑从国内一流院校中选择要报考的学校了。不要担心自己本科学校不好，因为越是好学校，对实习抓得越严，都没有时间给学生们看书，所以往往考上一流学校的都是那些来自二、三流学校的学生。好学校并不像我们想象中那么难考，我同学中就有320多分考上华西的，310多分考上中山的…最后你会发现上好学校的不是那些考得分高的，而是胆子大的。毛主席有句话常被引用在这里，叫做“人有多大胆，地有多大产”。重要的是一旦你报了这个学校，你就不要再质疑自己，你就要坚信自己一定能考上，从此就把自己看成这个学校的人了，这样你就一定能考上。看到很多基础很好最后考得比较高的同学上的学校并不好，真的是很令人惋惜。 至于考研同时要不要实习，这个问题比较痛苦，我的经验是，如果一门心思想考研的话，还是放弃实习吧，除非你基础超级好，或者精力超级过剩，否则如果不全心全意的去复习，是很难成功的。考研最忌讳的就是分心和犹豫。同样奉劝那些还在考研与工作之间摇摆的人，早点儿拿定主意，工作的话就去好好实习，考研的话就放弃实习并至少暂时打消找工作的念头。
基础提升考研真题阅读每日一篇(24)(2013.3.30)
2002 T ext 4 The Supreme Court's decisions on physician-assisted suicide carry important implications for how medicine seeks to relieve dying patients of pain and suffering. Although it ruled that there is no constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide, the Court in effect supported the medical principle of "double effect, "a centuries-old moral principle holding that an action having two effects —a good one that is intended and a harmful one that is foresee n —is permissible if the actor intends only the good effect. Doctors have used that principle in recent years to justify using high doses of morphine to control terminally ill patients' pain, even though increasing dosages will eventually kill the patient. Nancy Dubler, director of Montefiore Medical Center, contends that the principle will shield doctors who "until now have very, very strongly insisted that they could not give patients sufficient mediation to control their pain if that might hasten death." George Annas, chair of the health law department at Boston University, maintain s that, as long as a doctor prescribe s a drug for a legitimate medical purpose, the doctor has done nothing illegal even if the patient uses the drug to hasten death. "It's like surgery," he says. "We don't call those deaths homicide s because the doctors didn't intend to kill their patients, although they risked their death. If you're a physician, you can risk your patient's suicide as long as you don't intend their suicide."
英语时文阅读含解析
时文阅读含解析 2 New York Tim—A gunman killed eight people at a mall in Omaha this afternoon and then killed himself, setting off panic among holiday shoppers, the police said. “The person who we believe to be the shooter has died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds,” Sgt. Teresa Negron of the Omaha Police Department said at televised news. “We have been able to clear the mall,” she said. “We don’t believe we have any other shooters.” The police said that at least five other people had been injured in the shootings. She did not give the shooter’s identity. “We are still conducting the investigation,”Sergeant Negron said, adding that the city’s mayor, who was out of town, was on his way back to Omaha. She said the police received a 911 call from someone inside the Westroads Mall on the west side of Omaha, and shots could be heard in the background. The first police officers arrived at the mall six minutes after the first call, she said, but by then the shootings were over. It is reported that the gunman left a suicide note that was found at his home by relatives. A law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity (匿名) said the note indicated that the gunman wanted to “go out style”. The shootings broke the usually banal routine of holiday shopping. The gunman was said by some witnesses to have fired about 20 shots into a crowd. Some customers and workers ran screaming from the mall, while others dived into dressing rooms to hide from the shooter. Some customers and workers ran screaming from the mall, while others dived into dressing rooms to hide from the shooter. Shoppers and store workers were trapped inside the mall, which has roughly 135 stores. Others streamed out of mall exits with their hands raised. President Bush was in Omaha this morning to deliver a speech, but he had left the city by the time the shootings took place. 1. Where did the shooting first come out? A. On a newspaper. B. In the Internet. C. In TV news. D. In a police poster. 2. Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage? A. Nobody knows why the shooter did so and nothing was found at his home. B. The city’s mayor happened not to be in the city when the shooting took place. C. Police arrived at the mall before the shootings were over and rescued customers. D. The official who showed what the note mean have no request of his own identity. 3. We can infer from the passage that _______. A. there is only one shooter in this event B. the shooting created fears among the customers C. an important holiday is coming soon D. president Bush came here for the shooting 4. Which of the following can be the best title of the news? A. Gunman Kills Eight People, and Himself at a Mall in Omaha B. Shoppers in Great Panic before the Holiday C. Bush Happened to Escape a Shot D. Shooter Found Dead in a Mall on the West of Omaha 本文报道了在一个购物中心发生的枪击事件以及事件的来龙去脉。 1. C 推理判断题。虽然这是一篇报纸上的报道，但是最早报道这个时间的应该是电视，因
考研备考英语时文阅读Burnished
考研备考英语时文阅读:Burnished Up goes gold, down goes the dollar Most economists hate gold. Not, you understand, that they would turn up their noses at a bar or two. But they find the reverence in which many hold the metal almost irrational. That it was used as money for millennia is irrelevant: it isn't any more. Modern money takes the form of paper or, more often, electronic data. To economists, gold is now just another commodity. So why is its price soaring? Over the past week, this has topped $450 a troy ounce, up by 9% since the beginning of the year and 77% since April 2001. Ah, comes the reply, gold transactions are denominated in dollars, and the rise in the price simply reflects the dollar's fall in terms of other currencies, especially the euro, against which it hit a new low this week. Expressed in euros, the gold price has moved much less. However, there is no iron link, as it were, between the value of the dollar and the value of gold. A rising price of gold, like that of anything else, can reflect an increase in demand as well as a depreciation of its unit of account. This is where gold bulls come in. The fall in the dollar is important, but mainly because as a store of value the dollar stinks. With a few longish rallies, the greenback has been on a downward trend since it came off the gold standard in 1971. Now it is suffering one of its sharper declines. At the margin, extra demand has come from those who think dollars--indeed any money backed by nothing more than promises to keep inflation low--a decidedly risky investment, mainly because America, with the world's reserve currency, has been able to create and borrow so many of them. The least painful way of repaying those dollars is to make them worth less. The striking exception to this extra demand comes from central banks, which would like to sell some of the gold they already have. As a legacy of the days when their currencies were backed by the metal, central banks still hold one-fifth of the world's gold. Last month the Bank of France said it would sell 500 tonnes in coming years. But big sales by central banks can cause the price to plunge--as when the Bank of England sold 395 tonnes between 1999 and 2002. The result was an agreement between central banks to co-ordinate and limit future sales. If the price of gold marches higher, this agreement will presumably be ripped up, although a dollar crisis might make central banks think twice about switching into paper money. Will the overhang of central-bank gold drag the price down again? Not necessarily. As James Grant, gold bug and publisher of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, a newsletter, points out, in recent years the huge glut of government debt has not stopped a sharp rise in its price. 注(1)：本文选自Economist;12/4/2004, p76-76, 1/3p; 注(2)：本文习题命题模仿2000年真题text 4第3题(1)，2001年真题text 4第2题(2)，text 1第2题(3)，2002年真题text 2第2题(4)和text 5第3题(5); 1.In economists’eyes, gold is something__________. [A] they look down upon that can be exchanged in the market
考研时文阅读2
考研时文阅读（2） Altruism（利他主义）, according to the text books, has two forms. One is known technically as kin selection, and familiarly as nepotism. This spreads an individual's genes collaterally, rather than directly, but is otherwise similar to his helping his own offspring. The second form is reciprocal altruism, or “you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours”. It relies on trust, and a good memory for favours given and received, but is otherwise not much different from simultaneous collaboration (such as a wolf pack hunting) in that the benefit exceeds the cost for all parties involved. Humans, however, show a third sort of altruism—one that has no obvious pay-off. This is altruism towards strangers, for example, charity. That may enhance reputation. But how does an enhanced reputation weigh in the Darwinian balance? To investigate this question, the researchers made an interesting link. At first sight, helping charities looks to be at the opposite end of the selfishness spectrum from conspicuous consumption. Yet they have something in common: both involve the profligate deployment of resources. That is characteristic of the consequences of sexual selection. An individual shows he (or she) has resources to burn—whether those are biochemical reserves, time or, in the human instance, money—by using them to make costly signals. That demonstrates underlying fitness of the sort favoured by evolution. Viewed this way, both conspicuous consumption and what the researchers call “blatant benevolence” are costly signals. A nd since they are behaviours rather than structures, and thus controlled by the brain, they may be part of the mating mind. Researchers divided a bunch of volunteers into two groups. Those in one were put into what the researchers hoped would be a “romantic mindset” by being shown pictures of attractive members of the opposite sex. They were each asked to write a description of a perfect date with one of these people. The unlucky members of the other group were shown pictures of buildings and told to write about the weather. The participants were then asked two things. The first was to imagine they had $5,000 in the bank. They could spend part or all of it on various luxury items such as a new car, a dinner party at a restaurant or a holiday in Europe. They were also asked what fraction of a hypothetical 60 hours of leisure time during the course of a month they would devote to volunteer work. The results were just what the researchers hoped for. In the romantically primed group, the men went wild with the Monopoly money. Conversely, the women volunteered their lives away. Those women continued, however, to be skinflints, and the men remained callously indifferent to those less fortunate than themselves. Meanwhile, in the other group there was little inclination either to profligate spending or to good works. Based on this result, it looks as though the sexes do, indeed, have different strategies for showing off. Moreover, they do not waste their resources by behaving like that all the time. Only when it counts sexually are men profligate and women helpful. （选自Economist, 08/02/2007） 参考译文根据教科书，利他主义有两种表现形式：一种就是所谓的血缘选择，即家庭亲戚关系。这种利他主义是通过一个人的基因间接传播的，而不是直接的，但是另一方面也就像一个人会无私地帮助自己的孩子一样。第二种形式是互惠的利他主义，或者说“你帮我搓背我也帮你搓背”。这种利他主义的基础在于信任，并对自己得到和付出过的帮助保持较好的记忆，但是除此以外，这种利他主义和物种天然的合作关系（比如狼群共同寻找猎物）没有什么大的区别，因为对于所有的参与者来说，他们合作的所得远远超过其付出。但是人类却表现出了第三种利他主义—一种不会有什么赢利的利他主义。这是一种对陌生人的利他主义，
英语时文阅读(一)
英语时文阅读（一） IMF head on suicide watch in New York City jail NEW YORK –The maid came from one of the world's poorest countries to the U. S., working to support the teen daughter she raised alone. To her, the penthouse s uite at the Sofitel Hotel was just another empty room to clean. She says she had no idea there was a man inside or that he was a famous Fren ch politician. She says he was naked, chased her down and tried to rape her. The man, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, remained jailed under a suicide watch Wednes day as a lawyer for the woman sought to rebut whispered allegations that her char ges were a conspiracy and a setup. Calls intensified for the 62-year-old Strauss-Kahn to step down as head of the pow erful International Monetary Fund, with U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner sa ying Strauss-Kahn "is obviously not in a position to run" the agency. Strauss-Kahn was one of France's most high-profile politicians and a potential candi date for president in next year's elections. His arrest on charges including attempte d rape shocked France and cast intense attention on his accuser, a 32-year-old ch ambermaid from the West African nation of Guinea. On Tuesday her lawyer, Jeffrey Shapiro, said he had no doubts his client was telli ng the truth about her encounter with Strauss-Kahn on Saturday. "She came from a country in which poor people had little or no justice, and she's now in a country where the poor have the same rights as do the rich and the po werful," Shapiro said. "What (Strauss-Kahn) might be able to get away with in som e countries, he can't here in this country." Strauss-Kahn's lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said at his client's arraignment this week that defense lawyers believe the forensic evidence "will not be consistent with a f orcible encounter." But Shapiro dismissed suggestions that the woman had made up the charges or tri ed to cover up a consensual encounter. "This is nothing other than a physical, sexual assault by this man on this young w oman," Shapiro said in an interview in his Manhattan office. He said that the woma
考研英语时文阅读(33)
考研时文阅读（33）实体商场从网络商家手中极力挽回消费者(2011-04-15 20:30:24)转载标签：黄涛考研时文阅读教育分类：阅读篇 Bricks-and-mortar shops struggle to win customers back from virtual ones 实体商场从网络商家手中极力挽回消费者 SHOPPERS on Black Friday, the traditional start of the holiday shopping season in America, which falls on November 27th this year, are notoriously aggressive. Some even start queuing outside stores before dawn to be the first to lay their hands on heavily discounted merchandise. Last year berserk bargain-hunters in the suburbs of New York City trampled a Wal-Mart employee to death. Despite the frenzy at many stores, however, the recession appears to have accelerated the pace at which shoppers are abandoning bricks and mortar in favor of online retailers—e-tailers, in the jargon. So this year Black Friday (so named because it is supposed to put shops into profit for the year) also marks the start of many conventional retailers’ attempts to regain the initiative. 黑色星期五通常是美国假日消费季节的开端，今年的黑色星期五恰逢11月27日，场面热闹非凡。有些人甚至天没亮就在商店门外排队希望可以第一个抢到“大跳水”的商品。去年，纽约市郊沃尔玛超市的一名员工因为顾客疯抢打折商品而被踩伤致死。然而，商场销售虽然火爆，但商场萧条之势却越演越烈，因为消费者正在弃实体商场转而投入在线零售商---行话叫电子零售商的怀抱。所以今年的黑色星期五（这样命名源于这一天应该是令商店该年盈利的日子）也标志着传统实体零售商收回失地的第一炮。 E-commerce holds particular appeal in straitened times as it enables people to compare prices across retailers quickly and easily. Buyers can sometimes avoid local sales taxes online, and shipping is often free. No wonder, then, that online shopping continues to grow even as the offline sort shrinks. In 2008 retail sales grew by a feeble 1% in America and are expected to decline by more than 3% this year, according to the National Retail Federation, a trade body. In contrast, online sales grew by 13% in 2008 to over $141 billion and are predicted to grow by 11% in 2009, according to Forrester, a consultancy. 在经济大环境恶化的背景下，电子商务具有独特的优势：消费者可以轻松快捷的货比三家。有时在网上购物可以避开当地营业税，而且通常免邮费。这就难怪网络销售可以在即使实体店销售萎缩的情况下仍然保持增长。2008实体商场零售额增长了可怜的1%, 而且预计今年的销售量将下滑三个百分点，全美零售商联合会（贸易组织）如是说。而与之形成鲜明对比的是网络销售。根据顾问公司福斯特的报告，网络销售量于2008年增长了13%，达到1410亿美元，预计今年将增长11%。 Online sales now account for 6% of all retail sales in America (up from 5% in 2008) and that figure is expected to reach 8% by 2013. E-commerce is also growing in Europe and Asia, where online sales in 2008 totaled $60 billion and $40 billion, respectively. In Britain, internet shopping now accounts for nearly 4% of total retail sales, according to Planet Retail, a research firm. 网络销售目前占全美销售量的6%（2008年为5%），预计到2013年之前这一数字将达
zimita考研英语时文阅读17ab
-+ 懒惰是很奇怪的东西，它使你以为那是安逸，是休息，是福气；但实际上它所给你的是无聊，是倦怠，是消沉;它剥夺你对前途的希望，割断你和别人之间的友情，使你心胸日渐狭窄，对人生也越来越怀疑。 —罗兰 考研时文阅读（17A） (2009-04-04 21:21:15) 转载 标签： 分类：阅读篇 考研 时文阅读 黄涛 杂谈 篇章分析 本文是一篇说明文，主要介绍了两位博士对午睡和健康关系的一项最新研究。第一段提出了有关午睡的话题，并以一些名人的午睡特点来加以例证，接着介绍了纳斯卡和特里克伯罗斯所进行的研究，说明午睡可以延长人的生命；第二段进一步详细地阐述其研究的结果；第三段作者驳斥了地中海饮食可能影响实验结果可信度的说法；在第四段里，特里克伯罗斯博士建议人们为了健康尽量午睡。Sloth(怠惰, 懒惰) may be seen as a sin, but some of history's most accomplished men were fond of lounging around. Leonardo da Vinci enjoyed napping. So did Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill. Richard Buckminster Fuller advocated taking 30-minute naps every six hours. No one has yet proved a correlation between napping and artistic brilliance or professional success, but an intriguing study published this week claims to find a link between daytime siestas and good health. A team of researchers led by Androniki Naska and Dimitrios Trichopoulos of Harvard's School of Public Health followed over 23,000 Greek patients with no history of cancer or stroke, for an average of six years. Their conclusion: napping just might save your life.
英文时文阅读
考研时文阅读（12 Text 11 Why texting harms your IQ 为什么收发短信会降低智商？ The regular use of text messages and e-mails can lower the IQ more than twice as much as smoking marijuana. That is the claim of psychologists who have found that tapping away on a mobile phone or computer keypad or checking them for electronic messages temporarily knocks up to ten points off the user's IQ. This rate of decline in intelligence compares unfavorably with the four-point drop in IQ associated with smoking marijuana, according to British researchers, who have labeled the fleeting phenomenon of enhanced stupidity as infomania. Research on sleep deprivation suggests that the IQ drop caused by electronic obsession is also equivalent to a wakeful night. Infomania is mainly a problem for adult workers, especially men, as the study commissioned by Hewlett Packard, the technology company, has concluded. The noticeable drop in IQ is attributed to the constant distraction of always on technology when employees should be concentrating on what they are paid to do. Infomania means that they lose concentration as their minds remain fixed in an almost permanent state of readiness to react to technology instead of focusing on the task in hand. Workers lose productivity by interrupting a business meeting and disrupt social gatherings because of their infirmity, the report said. The brain also finds it hard to cope with juggling lots of tasks at once, reducing its overall effectiveness, it added. And while modern technology can have huge benefits, excessive use can be damaging not only to a person's mind, but to their social life. Furthermore, infomania is having a negative effect on work colleagues, increasing stress and dissenting feelings. Nine out of ten polled thought that colleagues who answered e-mails or messages during a face-to-face meeting were extremely rude. Y et one in three Britons believes that it is not only acceptable, but actually diligent and efficient to do so. The effects on IQ were studied by Dr Glenn Wilson, a University of London psychologist, as part of the research project. This is a very real and widespread phenomenon, he said. We have found that infomania, if unchecked, will damage a worker's performance by reducing their mental sharpness. Companies should encourage a more balanced and appropriate way of working. 经常收发短信和e-mail会降低人的智商。这种损害比吸食大麻对智商带来的损害要高两倍多。心理学家发现，使用手机或敲击电脑键盘发送或接收电子信息会暂时降低使用者约十个百分点的智商。根据英国研究人员的研究，吸食大麻会使智商下降个百分点，而与之相比，经常使用电子文本信息造成的智力衰减率更加严重。研究人员将这种暂时变笨的现象称为“信息狂躁”。 关于剥夺睡眠的研究表明因为痴迷于电子产品而造成的智力衰退相当于一夜失眠。惠普科技公司委托进行的研究结果表明，信息狂躁主要表现在成年人身上，尤其是成年男性。 造成这种智力明显衰退的原因在于当员工们应该集中精力工作时，“无处不在”的科技却总是不断分散他们的注意力。信息狂躁是指他们的意识近乎一直处于一种随时对“技术”做出反应的状态，因而无法将注意力集中在手头的工作上。报告中说，因为工人们的虚弱，通过中断了业务会议而失去生产效率，并且破坏了社交聚会的范围。 该报告还补充说大脑很难同时应付许多难题，其整体效率会降低。此外，虽然现代科技可以给予我们巨大的帮助，但过多地使用科技也会给人们的大脑和社会生活带来危害。 此外，信息狂躁对同事也有负面影响，增加他们的压力和敌对情绪。90％的被调查者认