Passage Five

Most of us lead unhealthy lives: we spend far too much time sitting down. If, in addition, we are careless about our diets, our bodies soon become flabby and our system sluggish. The guilt feelings start: “I must go on a diet”, “I must try to lose weight”, “I must get more fresh air and exercise”, “I must stop smoking”, “I must try to keep fit”. There are some aspects of our unhealthy lives that we cannot avoid.

I am thinking of such features of modern urban life as pollution, noise, rushed meals and stress. But keeping fit is a way to minimize the effects of these evils.

The usual suggestion for a person who is looking for a way to keep fit is to take up some sport or other. While it is true that every weekend you will find people playing football and tennis in the local park, they are outnumbered a hundred to one by the people who are simply watching them. It is an illusion to think that you will get fit by going to watch the football match every Saturday, unless you count the effort required to fight your way through the crowds to get to the best seats.

For those who do not particularly enjoy competitive sports — and it is especially difficult to do so if you are not good at them — there are such solitary activities as cycling, walking and swimming. What often happens, though, is that you do them in such a leisurely way, so slowly, that it is doubtful if you are doing yourself much good, apart from the fact that you have at least managed to get up out of your armchair. Of course you can be very thorough about exercises. Many sports shops now sell frightening pieces of apparatus, chest-expanders and other mysterious gadgets of shiny spring steel, which, according to the advertisements, will bring you up to an Olympic standard of fitness, provided programs generally involve long periods of time bending these curious bits of metal into improbable shapes. 

It all strikes me as utterly boring and also time-consuming. Somebody suggested recently that all such effort was pointless anyway because if you spend half an hour every day jogging round the local park, you will add to your life exactly the number of hours that you wasted during the “jogging” in the first place. The argument is false even if the facts are correct, but there is no doubt that exercise in itself can be boring.

Even after you have found a routine for keeping in shape, through sport or gymnastics, you are still only half way to good health, because, according to the experts, you must also master the art of complete mental and physical relaxation.

Now this does not mean snoozing in the armchair or going dancing. It has something to do with deep breathing, emptying your mind of all thoughts, medication and so on.

Questions 21-25 are based on Passage Five.

Paragraph Ten

With the construction of Olympic venues, Beijing has experienced a major overhaul of its urban infrastructure. New subway lines have opened and others are currently being built. New transport facilities and the green environment around Olympic sites have helped real estate prices to skyrocket in these areas.

The “Olympic E______” is evident in Beijing.

Paragraph Nine

Many of the modern world’s most famous discoveries and inventions were not made by scientists, but by non-professional inventors. Often, these inventors have such unusual ideas that they were laughed at. But people like these, working on their own, gave us many of the things that we use everyday in our life.

Many inventions were made by a______ inventors.

Altogether, American consumers today owe about 1.3 trillion dollars.

[46. There is some danger in taking on debts, however, when the economy slackens, and employers lay off workers, families that lose breadwinners often fail to make the payments on their debts. ]If they fall behind too far on these responsibilities, they run the risk of having their houses, cars, or other items taken over or repossessed by the lenders.

But in the U.S. economy, most people are lenders as well as borrowers. Normally a family has a saving account, money that is, in effect, loaned to a saving institution in return for interest.[47. Most also have life insurance, the insurance company takes the premiums, guarantees a payment to be made when a policy-holder dies, and meanwhile invests some of the money.]

Many experts recommend that families save no less than 5 percent of their disposable income for further needs.

Many countries depend much less than the U.S. does on the marketplace to decide who will sell goods and in what quantity. In communist and socialist countries, government agencies decide the amount, type and price of many goods to be produced. Many or all places of economic activity such as factories, farms, mines, utilities and transportation network are owned chiefly by the government.

In the U.S., too, the role of government is growing.[48. Corporate leaders and economists are wondering how much regulation the market system can take before it loses its ability to respond to consumer needs.]But the system continues to function, and business continues to work for more profits and consumers for more income, knowing that they will be able to retain much of their wealth.

Most men and women learn early that society places a certain monetary value on various professions and skills, based again on the law of supply and demand. Doctors, who must study long years to develop specialized skills and are therefore in short supply, earn more than labors who have little training and many competitions for the same job.

That is not to say that good jobs and more wealth are guaranteed to Americans. The U.S. economy has been plagued periodically with two major problems: high unemployment and the rising cost of living - inflation.

The two problems are closely linked.[49. When prices climb faster than people’s incomes, families sooner or later are forced to cut back on buying in order to make each end meet.]

That limits what business can produce and how many people they can employ.[50. It may even start a temporary decline in the country’s economy - such as the one that ran from late 1973 to the spring of 1975, when millions of people were laid off from their jobs.]

Still, despite all of the problems that exist, most Americans prefer the U.S. economic system to any other, as the result of poll after poll indicates.

Paragraph Eight

Every summer thousands of Americans go to Europe. Some go for a change of air, some to improve their minds, some go there because they are tired of making money, others because they are tired of not making money, and still others simply for a vacation.

Europe is an ideal d______ for many American tourists every summer.

Paragraph Seven

Every culture in the world believes certain superstitions. Even societies that are very rational and scientific are sometimes a little superstitious. For example, Americans consider “13” an unlucky number. Some people in the U.S. also believe that if Friday falls on the thirteenth day of the month, they will have bad luck.

It can be said that superstitions e______ in every society.

Paragraph Six

In the United States, not everyone is able to attend a four-year college or university. Many four-year colleges and universities are already too crowded. To give more people a chance to get a college education, many cities and towns have built junior community colleges that offer a two-year course of study in a wide range of subjects.

Junior colleges have been built to o______ more education opportunities.

Paragraph Three

Excessive pressure from schoolwork is probably the most common problem in urban areas affecting Chinese children’s development. Giving children time to dabble in many fields is vital for their physical and mental development. In the process, they will gradually show a liking for particular activities. Parents can help their kids make choices.

“Less work, more p______” is recommended for urban children.

Paragraph Four

Beginning in the 1980s, higher incomes and greater job opportunities in China’s large cities have been enticing growing numbers of farmers into becoming migrant workers. Currently, the migrant population has reached an unprecedented level. About 200 million farmers have left their homes to earn a living in cities.

In China the population is drifting from r______ areas into cities.

Paragraph Five

A bean which has increased enormously in importance in recent years is soybeans. A native of eastern Asia, it is one of the oldest crops known to man. It was first recorded in 2838 B. C. Its value has long been known in the Orient, but only recently has it attracted the attention of European and American scientists.

The value of soybean was u_______ by the European and American scientists.

Paragraph One

A friendly dog can make older people feel less isolated — and it appears to make little difference if that wagging tail belongs to a robot doggie or the real thing. Researchers compared a real dog with a far-from-lifelike robot dog, to see how residents of three U.S. nursing homes would respond.

Robot as good as real dog can ease l____ people.