Chinese is the only official language of China, Taiwan and Singapore.

Instructions: The Chinese Ministry of Education announced the new policies for Gaokao (college entrance examination) and college enrollment reforms at a news conference the day before yesterday (Sept.4, 2014). The new report by Zhao Xinying from China Daily briefly quoted below briefly covers all those new policies. Please read the report first and then choose one relevant topic (perhaps one policy?) suitable for a short essay written in only 3 hours. You should write an argumentative essay in about 700 words on the topic you choose and follow the basic 5-paragraph essay structure, which includes a title, an introduction, 2~ 4 body paragraphs, and a conclusion. You are expected to present your argument through a thesis statement in the introductory paragraph. Please also remember to support your argument with evidence. As it is an open-book exam, online research is definitely allowed, but please cite all your sources and manage the time efficiently. The Grading Rubrics for your reference: 1. Essay Structure (短文结构, 20 points); 2. Central Claim/Thesis Statement (中心论点, 20 points); 3. Paragraph Development & Coherence (段落扩展及连贯性, 20 points); 4. Support, Evidence, and Reasoning (论据与论证, 20 points); 5. Grammatical Accuracy and Variety (语法准确和多样性, 10 points); 6. Range of Vocabulary (词汇丰富程度, 10 points). Note: No more than 15 % of your essay is allowed to be written by or quoted from others; scholastic dishonesty is definitely not acceptable. The essay would deserve a "0" if proved of plagiarism (剽窃), e.g. 30% and more, or even the whole, of the essay found to be “copy-and-pasted” from others. In addition, please do NOT share your essay drafts or inform others about the exam form and content after you finish the examination so that everybody, including yourself, would have the same fair opportunity as everybody else. ********************************* Govt Vows to Work Toward Equality in Education by Zhao Xinying (China Daily) Updated: 2014-09-05 08:39 (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2014-09/05/content_18551479.htm) Regional college enrollment differences a key target in blueprint for reform The Ministry of Education said on Thursday that it will continue its efforts to narrow the gap in college enrollment in different regions to ensure nationwide equality in higher education. Education Vice-Minister Du Yubo said at a news conference in Beijing that by 2017 the gap between provinces and regions with the lowest college enrollment rate and the national average should be no more than 4 percentage points. The news conference introduced details of reform measures in the education system, including exams and recruitment. Narrowing the regional gap in college enrollment and ensuring that students from across the country have equal access to higher education is one of the focuses of the reform. Du said the government has been taking measures to narrow the gap. By implementing a preferential enrollment policy that requires colleges to recruit more students from central and western regions, 200,000 students from these regions have been recruited since 2008, Du said. He also said that last year, the lowest college enrollment rate among all provinces and regions in China was 70 percent, or 6 percentage points lower than the national average, while the gap in 2007 was 17 percentage points. Rural students have gained greater access to good universities, with the implementation of a policy to improve their chances of being admitted by such universities. The policy, which took effect in 2012, covers 832 impoverished counties nationwide. "This year, 50,000 rural students were admitted to good universities, marking an 11.4 percent increase from last year," Du said. To achieve the goal set for 2017, Du said, the ministry will continue implementing the preferential-enrollment policies, while fully considering regional differences when drawing up each year's recruitment plan. The ministry will also consider many other factors, including the number of students, education resources and the graduates' employment prospects. Chu Zhaohui, a senior researcher at the National Institute of Education Sciences, said the preferential policy "promoted education equity to some extent", but still needs to be improved. Chu said some problems have arisen, such as the children of some officials in these regions taking advantage of the policy to gain admission to good universities. "One way to get rid of these problems is to reduce the administrative power in enrollment and to allow universities to have a bigger say in what kind of students and talent they would like to recruit," he said. With the purpose of promoting education equity and selecting talent in a more scientific way, education reform includes measures such as canceling the division of students into different tracks in high school. Previously, students were asked to follow a science or a liberal-arts track according to their interests and needs. Currently, students on both tracks should learn Chinese, math and English. But in addition, those following the science track should learn physics, chemistry and biology, while students on the liberal-arts track should learn history, geography and politics, which will be tested in the national college entrance exams, or gaokao. In the future, students should learn all nine subjects and take tests before the gaokao, and they can choose any three elective subjects if their scores are satisfactory. Colleges will then admit students on the basis of the scores of the three subjects, as well as their test results in Chinese, math and English. zhaoxinying@chinadaily.com.cn

A、It has determinate business contents.

B、It has become unvarying habit and common use in international business transactions.

C、It’s regulated by the national laws.

D、It’s the general rule that recognized by most countries.

A、the western, the middle and the eastern routes

B、the western, the middle and the southern routes

C、the western, the northern and the eastern routes

D、the eastern, the middle and the southern routes

Vanity Fair, as a masterpiece of Thackeray, is famous for its excellent character portrayal and its keen social satire on a world of snobbery and money-grabbing. Write a short essay of no less than 200 words to define satire and show how Thackeray makes use of it in Vanity Fair. In the first paragraph, define satire clearly. In the following paragraphs, support your view with supporting details from the passages. Finally, bring your essay to a conclusion naturally. (20分) On nothing per annum（每年）then, and during a course of some two or three years, of which we can afford to give but a very brief history, Crawley and his wife lived very happily and comfortably at Paris. It was in this period that he quitted the Guards and sold out of the army. When we find him again, his mustachios (八字须) and the title of Colonel on his card are the only relics (遗留) of his military profession. It has been mentioned that Rebecca, soon after her arrival in Paris, took a very smart and leading position in the society of that capital, and was welcomed at some of the most distinguished houses of the restored French nobility. The English men of fashion in Paris courted her (向她献殷勤), too, to the disgust of the ladies, their wives, who could not bear the parvenue (女暴发户). For some months the salons of the Faubourg St. Germain, in which her place was secured, and the splendours (壮丽辉煌) of the new Court, where she was received with much distinction, delighted and perhaps a little intoxicated (使陶醉) Mrs. Crawley, who may have been disposed during this period of elation to slight (轻视) the people -- honest young military men mostly -- who formed her husband's chief society. But the Colonel yawned sadly among the Duchesses and great ladies of the Court. The old women who played ecarte (玩ecarte纸牌游戏) made such a noise about a five-franc piece that it was not worth Colonel Crawley's while to sit down at a card-table. The wit of their conversation he could not appreciate, being ignorant of their language. And what good could his wife get, he urged, by making curtsies every night to a whole circle of Princesses? He left Rebecca presently to frequent these parties alone, resuming his own simple pursuits and amusements amongst the amiable friends of his own choice. The truth is, when we say of a gentleman that he lives elegantly on nothing a-year, we use the word “nothing” to signify something unknown; meaning, simply, that we don’t know how the gentleman in question defrays（支付） the expenses of his establishment. Now, our friend the Colonel had a great aptitude for all games of chance: and exercising himself, as he continually did, with the cards, the dice-box（骰子盒）, or the cue（球杆）, it is natural to suppose that he attained a much greater skill in the use of these articles than men can possess who only occasionally handle them. To use a cue at billiards（台球）well is like using a pencil, or a German flute, or a small-sword—you cannot master any one of these implements at first, and it is only by repeated study and perseverance, joined to a natural taste, that a man can excel in the handling of either. Now Crawley, from being only a brilliant amateur（业余选手）, had grown to be a consummate master （完美大师）of billiards. Like a great general, his genius used to rise with the danger, and when the luck had been unfavourable to him for a whole game, and the bets were consequently against him, he would, with consummate skill （完美技艺） and boldness, make some prodigious （巨大的） hits which would restore the battle, and come in a victor at the end, to the astonishment of everybody—of everybody, that is, who was a stranger to his play. Those who were accustomed to see it were cautious how they staked their money against a man of such sudden resources, and brilliant and over-powering skill.

A、supply chain responsiveness.

B、supply chain efficiency.

C、cost-responsiveness efficient frontier.

D、implied uncertainty.