1 . Our neighbors had a loud party last night. We weren’t _______ but this was one of those celebrations that I didn’t mind. They are a bunch of young, single guys and I would have felt out of place.

What _______ me was the way they behaved. Ono of the young men came over _______ in the day to “warn” us of the upcoming event and said it would be over at about 11 p. m. That was the first step. Even more _______ was what they did next. “Here’s my _______”, offered our neighbor _______ “Text me if it’s too noisy.” That was a level of _______ I had never experienced in all my years of being a neighbor!

And it really worked in their favor. My husband and I were so friendly that even when the event went past the _______ end time, even when the music reached high decibels(分贝), and even when we couldn’t get through to the phone number, we felt no _______. We knew they would stop and ________ to it eventually.

It takes such little effort to make people feel that they ________ and get people on your side. Everyone needs to ________ every now and then, especially in these uniquely tough times. But people who do it without disturbing others are few and far between. I hadn’t fully ________ my neighbors until this week. But now I see them in a new light and with greater ________ . They didn’t just bring the noise to the neighborhood; they showed us a good manner of ________ in life.

Contributions Wanted

The English Newspaper

8 . In recent years American society has become increasingly dependent on its universities to find solutions to its major problems. It is the universities that have been to blame for developing the expertise to place men on the moon; for dealing with our urban problems and with our worsening environment; for developing the means to feed the world’s rapidly increasing population. The effort involved in meeting these demands presents its own problems. In addition, however, this concentration on the creation of new knowledge significantly impinges on the universities’ efforts to perform their other principal functions, the transmission and interpretation of knowledge-the imparting of the heritage of the past and the preparing of the next generation to carry it forward.

With regard to this, perhaps their most traditionally acknowledged task, college and universities today find themselves in a serious situation. On one hand, there is the American commitment, especially since World War Ⅱ, to provide higher education for all young people who can profit from it. The result of the commitment has been a dramatic rise in enrollments(登记入学) in our universities, coupled with a striking shift from the private to the public sector of higher education.

On the other hand, there are serious and continuing limitations on the resources available for higher education. While higher education has become a great ”growth industry“, it is also at the same time a tremendous drain(耗竭) on the resources of the nation. With the vast increase in enrollment and the shift in priorities away from education in state and federal(联邦的) budgets, there is in most of our public institutions a significant decrease in expenses for their students. One crucial aspect of this drain on resources lies in the persistent shortage of trained faculty(全体教师), which has led, in turn, to a declining standard of competence in instruction.

Intensifying these difficulties is, as indicated above, the concern with research, with its increasing claims on resources and the attention of the faculty. In addition, there is a strong tendency for the institutions’ organization and functioning to fulfill the demands of research rather than those of teaching.

9 . How similar are language and music?

Language is part of our daily lives, no matter where we live in the world.     1     Both language and music play a huge role in our culture and here are some of their similarities.

Both language and music have a writing system.

Both language and music have their own systems of notation. Language uses alphabets to represent sounds and create meaning.     2     By reading and writing in these systems, we can communicate and preserve ideas and compositions through time.

    3    

Listening to the language someone speaks can provide valuable clues about their geographical origin. In the same way, we know that styles of music are different around the world, giving us the opportunity to explore many different cultures through their music and providing us with music for every situation.

Both share emotion.

    4     While you may be able to perceive it through my facial expressions, you can judge it with certainty through my words. Similarly, music has the ability to convey emotions such as anger, sadness, or happiness through its sound. Music can show you exactly how the composer was or is feeling, and allows us to share that emotion. When you feel happy, you might want to sing and dance to a happy song to celebrate your happiness.     5     I think we have all used music to express or process our emotions, often combining it with language in the form of song lyrics (歌词).

Delicate, shining, and soft to the touch. The fabric called silk     1     (find) its way into the heart of Chinese people in the past thousands of years.     2     origin of it is not clear, but the ancient Chinese people     3     (credit) their own wisdom to Leizu, wife of the Yellow Emperor, as the inventor of sericulture (养蚕业).

The style and texture (质地) of silk are     4     (variety). Hangluo satin from Hangzhou,Zhejiang province, is famous for its airy and thin texture,     5     Yunjin brocade from Nanjing, Jiangsu province, a luxurious fabric often     6     (use) for royal clothes, represents China’s silk weaving (纺织) technique at its best time. Yunjin brocade is best made     7    hand, in a complex procedure that comprises more than a hundred steps. Even the most skilled artisans can only weave a few centimeters a day.

In the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC—AD 24), with Zhang Qian     8     (open) up the routes to the western regions, silk graced countries in Central Asia, and later other parts of Eurasia and beyond.     9     (appropriate), its name marked China’s major international trade     10     (route), the ancient Silk Road and Maritime Silk Road.

As one of the wonders of ancient China, silk is not merely a type of fabric but a cultural symbol and a representative of elegance.