注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
46. Today many universities require their applicants to write an essay of up to five hundred words.
47. One recent change in college admissions is that selective colleges and universities have movedthe traditional deadline to earlier dates.
48. Applicants and their parents are said to believe that the personal essay can sway the admissions committee.
49. Applicants are usually better off if they can write an essay that distinguishes them from the rest.
50. Not only is the competition getting more intense, the application process today is also totally different from what baby boomers knew.
51. In writing about their own experiences many applicants slip into clichés, thus failing to engage the reader.
52. According to a recent survey, most public colleges and universities consider an applicant’s grades highly important.
53. Although the application essay causes lots of anxiety, it does not play so important a role in the college’sdecision-making process.
54. The question you aresupposed to write about may seem outside the self, but the theme of the essay should center around its impact on you.
55. In the old days, applicants only had to submit a sample of their school papers to show their writing ability.
Section C
Directions:There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.
Passage One
Questions 56 to 60 are based on the following passage.
Among the government’s most interesting reports is one that estimates what parents spend on their children. Not surprisingly, the costs are steep. For a middle-class, husband-and-wife family (average pretax income in 2009: $76,250), spending per child is about $12,000 a year. With inflation the family’s spending on a child will total $286,050 by age 17.
The dry statistics ought to inform the ongoing deficit debate, because a budget is not just a catalog of programs and taxes. It reflects a society’s priorities and values. Our society does not— despite rhetoric(说辞) to the contrary—put much value on raising children. Present budget policies tax parents heavily to support the elderly. Meanwhile, tax breaks for children are modest. If deficit reduction aggravates these biases, more Americans may choose not to have children or to have fewer children. Down that path lies economic decline.
Societies that cannot replace their populations discourage investment and innovation. They have stagnant (萧条的) or shrinking markets for goods and services. With older populations, theyresist change. To stabilize its population—discounting immigration—women must have an average of two children. That’s a fertility rate of 2.0.Many countries with struggling economies are well below that.
Though having a child is a deeply personal decision, it’s shaped by culture, religion, economics, and government policy. “No one has a good answer” asto why fertility varies among countries, says sociologist Andrew Cherlin of The Johns Hopkins University. Eroding religious belief in Europe may partly explain lowered birthrates. In Japan young women may be rebelling against their mothers’ isolated lives of child rearing. General optimism and pessimism count. Hopefulness fueled America’s baby boom. After the Soviet union ’s collapse, says Cherlin, “anxiety for the future” depressed birthrates in Russiaand Eastern Europe.
In poor societies, people have children to improve their economic well-being by increasing the number of family workers and providing supports for parents in their old age. In wealthy societies, the logic often reverses. Government now supports the elderly, diminishing the need for children. By some studies, the safety nets for retirees have reduced fertility rates by 0.5 children in the United States and almost 1.0 in Western Europe, reports economist Robert Stein in the journal National Affairs. Similarly, some couples don’t have children because they don’t want to sacrifice their own lifestyles to the lime and expense of a family.
Young Americans already face a bleak labor market that cannot instill (注入) confidence about having children. Piling on higher taxes won’t help, “If higher taxes make it more expensive to raise children,” says Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute, “people will think twice about having another child.” That seems like common sense, despite the multiple influences on becoming parents.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
56. What do we learn from the government report?
A) Inflation increases families’ expenses.
B) Raising children is getting expensive.
C) Budget reduction in around the corner.
D) Average family expenditure is increasing.
57. What is said to be the consequence of a shrinking population?
A) Weakened national strength. C) Economic downturn.
B) Increased immigration. D) Social instability.
58. What accounted for America’s baby boom?
A) Optimism for the future. C) Religious beliefs.
B) Improved living conditions. D) Economic prosperity.