仔细阅读：It’s nice to have people of like mindaround.

Could youreproduce Silicon Valley elsewhere, or is there something unique about it?

It wouldn’t besurprising if it were hard to reproduce in other countries, because youcouldn’t reproduce it in most of the US either. What does it take to make aSilicon Valley?

It’s the rightpeople. If you could get the right ten thousand people to move from SiliconValley to Buffalo, Buffalo would become Silicon Valley.

You only needtwo kinds of people to create a technology hub （中心）:rich people and nerds （痴迷科研的人）.

Observationbears this out. Within the US, towns have become startup hubs if and only ifthey have both rich people and nerds. Few startups happen in Miami, forexample, because although it’s full of rich people, it has few nerds. It’s notthe kind of place nerds like.

WhereasPittsburg has the opposite problem: plenty of nerds, but no rich people. Thetop US Computer Science departments are said to be MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, andCarnegie-Mellon. MIT yielded Route 128. 　　Stanford and Berkeley yielded SiliconValley. But what did Carnegie-Mellon yield in Pittsburgh? And whathappened in Ithaca, home of Cornell University, which is also high on the list.

I grew up inPittsburgh and went to college at Cornell, so I can answer for both. Theweather is terrible, particularly in winter, and there’s no interesting oldcity to make up for it, as there is in Boston. Rich people don’t want to livein Pittsburgh or Ithaca. So while there are plenty of hackers （电脑迷）who could start startups, there’s no one to invest in them.

Do you reallyneed the rich people? Wouldn’t it work to have the government invest the nerds?No, it would not. Startup investors are a distinct type of rich people. Theytend to have a lot of experience themselves in the technology business. Thishelps them pick the right startups, and means they can supply advice andconnections as well as money. And the fact that they have a personal stake inthe outcome makes them really pay attention.

56. What do welearn about Silicon Valley from the passage?

A) Its success is hard to copy any where else.

B) It is the biggest technology hub in the US.

C) Its fame in high technology is incomparable.

D) It leads the world in information technology.

57. What makesMiami unfit to produce a Silicon Valley?

A) Lack of incentive for investments.

B) Lack of the right kind of talents.

C) Lack of government support.

D) Lack of famous universities.

58. In that wayis Carnegie-Mellon different from Stanford, Berkeley and MIT?

A) Its location is not as attractive to rich people

B) Its science department are not nearly as good

C) It does not produce computer hackers and nerds

D) It does not pay much attention to business startups

59. What doesthe author imply about Boston?

A) It has pleasant weather all year round.

B) It produces wealth as well as high-tech

C) It is not likely to attract lots of investor and nerds.

D) It is an old city with many sites of historical interest.

60. What doesthe author say about startup investors?

A) They are especially wise in making investments.

B) They have good connections in the government.

C) They can do more than providing money.

D) They are enough to invest in nerds.

ThePerfect Essay

A) Looking back on too many yearsof education, I can identify one truly impossible teacher. She cared about me,and my intellectual life, even when I didn’t. Her expectations were highimpossibly so. She was an English teacher. She was also my mother.

B) When good students turn in anessay, they dream of their instructor returning it to them in exactly the samecondition, save for a single word added in the margin of the final page:”Flawless.” This dream came true for me one afternoon in the ninth grade. Ofcourse, I had heard that genius could show itself at an early age, so I wasonly slightly taken aback that I had achieved perfection at the tender age of14. Obviously, I did what any professional writer would do; I hurried off tospread the good news. I didn’t get very far. The first person I told was mymother.

C) My mother, who is just shy offive feet tall, is normally incredibly soft-spoken, but on the rare occasionwhen she got angry, she was terrifying. I am not sure if she was more upset bymy hubris(得意忘形) or by the fact that my Englishteacher had let my ego get so out of hand. In any event, my mother and her redpen showed me how deeply flawed a flawless essay could be. At the time, I amsure she thought she was teaching me about mechanics, transitions(过渡), structure, style. and voice. But what I learned, and what stuckwith me through my time teaching writing at Harvard, was a deeper lesson aboutthe nature of creative criticism.

D) Fist off, it hurts. Genuinecriticism, the type that leaves a lasting mark on you as a writer, also leavesan existential imprint(印记) on you asa person. I have heard people say that a writer should never take criticismpersonally. I say that we should never listen to these people.

E) Criticism, at its best, isdeeply personal, and gets to the heart of why we write the way we do. Theintimate nature of genuine criticism implies something about who is able togive it, namely, someone who knows you well enough to show you how your mentallife is getting in the way of good writing. Conveniently, they are also thepeople who care enough to see you through this painful realization. For me ittook the form. of my first, and I hope only, encounter with writer’s block—I wasnot able to produce anything for three years.

F) Franz Kafka once said:” Writingis utter solitude(独处), the descentinto the cold abyss(深渊) ofoneself. “My mother’s criticism had shown me that Kafka is right about the coldabyss, and when you make the introspective (内省的) decent that writing requires you are out always pleased by whatyou find.” But, in the years that followed, her sustained tutoring suggestedthat Kafka might be wrong about the solitude. I was lucky enough to find acritic and teacher who was willing to make the journey of writing with me. “Itis a thing of no great difficulty,” according to Plutarch, “to raise objectionsagainst another man’s speech, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a betterin its place is a work extremely troublesome.” I am sure I wrote essays in thelater years of high school without my mother’s guidance, but I can’t recallthem. What I remember, however, is how we took up the “extremely troublesome”work of ongoing criticism.

G) There are two ways to interpretPlutarch when he suggests that a critic should be able to produce “a better inits place.” In a straightforward sense, he could mean that a critic must bemore talented than the artist she critiques(评论). My mother was well covered on this count. But perhaps Plutarch issuggesting something slightly different, something a bit closer to MarcusCicero’s claim that one should “criticize by creation, not by finding fault.”Genuine criticism creates a precious opening for an author to become better onthis own terms—a process that is often extremely painful, but also almostalways meaningful.

H) My mother said she would helpme with my writing, but fist I had myself. For each assignment, I was write thebest essay I could. Real criticism is not meant to find obvious mistakes, so ifshe found any—the type I could have found on my own—I had to start fromscratch. From scratch. Once the essay was “flawless,” she would take an eveningto walk me through my errors. That was when true criticism, the type thatchanged me as a person, began.

I) She criticized me when Iincluded little-known references and professional jargon(行话). She had no patience for brilliant but irrelevant figures ofspeech. “Writers can’t bluff(虚张声势) theirway through ignorance.” That was news to me—I would need to find another way tostructure my daily existence.

J) She trimmed back my flowerylanguage, drew lines through my exclamation marks and argued for the value ofrestraint in expression. “John,” she almost whispered. I learned in to hearher:”I can’t hear you when you shout at me.” So I stopped shouting andbluffing, and slowly my writing improved.

K) Somewhere along the way I setaside my hopes of writing that flawless essay. But perhaps I missed somethingimportant in my mother’s lessons about creativity and perfection. Perhaps thepoint of writing the flawless essay was not to give up, but to never willinglyfinish. Whitman repeatedly reworded “Song of Myself” between 1855 and 1891.Repeatedly. We do our absolute best wiry a piece of writing, and come as closeas we can to the ideal. And, for the time being, we settle. In critique,however, we are forced to depart, to give up the perfection we thought we hadachieved for the chance of being even a little bit better. This is the lesson Itook from my mother. If perfection were possible, it would not be motivating.

46. The author was advised against theimproper use of figures of speech.

47. The author’s mother taught him avaluable lesson by pointing out lots of flaws in his seemingly perfect essay.

48. A writer should polish his writingrepeatedly so as to get closer to perfection.

49. Writers may experience periods of timein their life when they just can’t produce anything.

50. The author was not much surprised whenhis school teacher marked his essay as “flawless”.

51. Criticizing someone’s speech is said tobe easier than coming up with a better one.

52. The author looks upon his mother as hismost demanding and caring instructor.

53. The criticism the author received fromhis mother changed him as a person.

54. The author gradually improved hiswriting by avoiding fact language.

55. Constructive criticism gives an authora good start to improve his writing.

Questions 36 to 45 are based on the following passage.

For many Americans, 2013 ended with an unusually bitter cold spell. November and December（36） early snow and bone-chilling temperatures in much of the country, part of a year when, for the first time in two（37）, record-cold days will likely turn out to have outnumbered record-warm ones. But the U.S. was the exception; November was the warmest ever （38）, and current data indicates that 2013 is likely to have been the fourth hottest year on record.

Enjoy the snow now, because （39）are good that 2014 will be even hotter, perhaps the hottest year since records have been kept. That’s because, scientists are predicting, 2014 will be an EI Niuo year.

EI niuo, Spanish for “the child”, （40） when surface ocean waters in the southern Pacific become abnormally warm. So large is the Pacific, covering 30% of the planet’s surface, that the（41 ）energy generated by its warming is enough to touch off a series of weather changes around the world. EI Ninos are （42）with abnormally dry conditions in Southeast Asia and Australia. They can lead to extreme rain in parts of North and South America, even as southern Africa（43） dry weather. Marine life may be affected too; EI Ninos can （44 ） the rising of the cold, nutrient-rich（营养丰富的）water that supports large fish （45）,and the unusually warm ocean temperatures can destroy coral(珊瑚).

For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to translate a passage from Chinese into English. You should write your answer on Answer Sheet 2.

云南省的丽江古镇是中国著名的旅游目的地之一。那里的生活节奏比大多数中国的城市都要缓慢。丽江到处都是美丽的自然风光，众多的少数民族同胞提供了各式各样，丰富多彩的文化让游客体验。历史上，丽江还以“爱之城”而闻名。当地人中流传着许多关于人生，为爱而死的故事。如今，在中外游客眼中，这个古镇被视为爱情和浪漫的天堂。（paradise）

How should we treat our rivals after asuccessful debate?

A) Try to make peace with them.

B) Try to make up the differences.

C) Invite them to the ring nexttime.

D) Acknowledge their contribution.

What advice does the author give topeople engaged in a fierce debate?

A) They listen carefully to theiropponents’ views.

B) They slow due respect for eachother’s beliefs.

C) They present their viewsclearly and explicitly.

D) They take care not to hurt eachother’s feelings.

What is the purpose of holding a debate?

A) To find out the truth about anissue.

B) To build up people’s moralstrength.

C) To remove misunderstandings.

D) To look for worthy opponents.

What does the author suggest leaders do?

A) Avoid arguments with businesspartners.

B) Encourage people to disagreeand argue.

C) Build a wide and strongbusiness network.

D) Seek advice from their worthycompetitors.

What happens when you have like-mindedpeople around you all the while?

A) It will help your companyexpand more rapidly.

B) It will be create a harmoniousworking atmosphere.

C) It may prevent your businessand career from advancing.

D) It may make you fell uncertainabout your own decision.

What doesthe author say about startup investors?

A) They are especially wise in making investments.

B) They have good connections in the government.

C) They can do more than providing money.

D) They are enough to invest in nerds.