A guest must make a reservation if he wants to eat at a restaurant.

If you want to spark a heated debate at a dinner party, bring up the topic of genetically modified foods. For many people, the concept of genetically altered, high-tech crop production raises all kinds of environmental, healthy, safety and ethical questions. Particularly in countries with long a grain traditions—and vocal green lobbies—the idea seems against nature.

In fact, genetically modified foods are already very much apart of out lives. A third of corn and more than half the soybeans and cotton grown in the U. S. last year were the product of biotechnology, according to the Department of Agriculture. More than 65 million a-cres of genetically modified crops will be planted in the U. S. this year. The genetic genie(妖怪) is out of the bottle.

Yet there are clearly some very real issues that need to be resolved. Like any new prod-uct entering the food chain, genetically modified foods must be subjected to rigorous testing. In wealthy countries, the debate about biotech is tempered by the fact that we have a rich array of foods to choose from and a supply that far exceeds our needs. In developing countries desperate to feed fast-growing and underfed populations, the issue is simpler and much more urgent: Do the benefits of biotech outweigh the risks?

The statistics on population growth and hunger are disturbing. Last year the world's population reached 6 billion. The U. N. estimates that nearly 800 million people around the world are undernourished. The effects are devastating. About 400 million women of child-bearing age are iron deficient, which means their babies are exposed to various birth defects. As many as 100 million children suffer from vitamin A deficiency, a leading cause of blindness.

How can biotech help? Biotechnologists have developed genetically modified rice that is fortified with beta-carotene—which the body converts into vitamin A—and additional iron, and they are working on other kinds of nutritionally improved crops. Biotech can also improve farming productivity in places where food shortages are caused by crop damage attributable to pests, drought, poor soil and crop viruses, bacteria or fungi.

What's the passage mainly about?

A．The world's food problems.

B．The new advancement in biotech.

C．The characteristics of genetically modified foods.

D．How biotech can help solve the world's food problems.

Whether at home or in a restaurant, meals in Brazil are sacred(神圣的) ; a time to eat, but also to share precious moments with family and friends. Now, here's a Brazilian custom I miss enormously: a decent, sit-down, leisurely-paced lunch and/or dinner. To this day, I have to keep reminding myself, "what's the big hurry? " and I confess that one of the things I look forward to, when I go to Brazil, is the "family" meal. We have a joke that, if you see people sitting around a table in the US, having lunch for longer than 1/2 hour, it must be a business lunch. And also, sitting at your desk and eating lunch while you work is incomprehensible to most Brazilians, who leave their offices to eat with their colleagues and friends in restaurants and cafes. You guess, lunch is usually a more substantial meal than in the U.S.

(68) For lunch and, depending on the location, also dinner, Brazilians have wonderful, inexpensive restaurants where home-style. meals are sold by kilo. You just pile the food on your plate and someone will weigh it for you. The same goes for desserts. You order drinks from your waiter and pay him at the end of your meal.

Dinner is served much later than in the U. S. In the big cities, children are a common sight in restaurants at night, since Brazilians will take their kids out to dinner at all hours. As a result of this and the traditional Sunday lunches, Brazilian kids learn table manners at an early age. For many of my Brazilian friends, dinner is a lighter meal of bread, cheese and cold cuts. So expect either type of meal.

In Brazil, people usually have meals______.

A．in a hurry at restaurants

B．in a leisurely manner

C．at their desk in the office

D．for less than 1/2 hour

Whether at home or in a restaurant, meals in Brazil are sacred(神圣的) ; a time to eat, but also to share precious moments with family and friends. Now, here's a Brazilian custom I miss enormously: a decent, sit-down, leisurely-paced lunch and/or dinner. To this day, I have to keep reminding myself, "what's the big hurry? " and I confess that one of the things I look forward to, when I go to Brazil, is the "family" meal. We have a joke that, if you see people sitting around a table in the US, having lunch for longer than 1/2 hour, it must be a business lunch. And also, sitting at your desk and eating lunch while you work is incomprehensible to most Brazilians, who leave their offices to eat with their colleagues and friends in restaurants and cafes. You guess, lunch is usually a more substantial meal than in the U.S.

(68) For lunch and, depending on the location, also dinner, Brazilians have wonderful, inexpensive restaurants where home-style. meals are sold by kilo. You just pile the food on your plate and someone will weigh it for you. The same goes for desserts. You order drinks from your waiter and pay him at the end of your meal.

Dinner is served much later than in the U. S. In the big cities, children are a common sight in restaurants at night, since Brazilians will take their kids out to dinner at all hours. As a result of this and the traditional Sunday lunches, Brazilian kids learn table manners at an early age. For many of my Brazilian friends, dinner is a lighter meal of bread, cheese and cold cuts. So expect either type of meal.

In Brazil, people usually have meals______.

A．in a hurry at restaurants

B．in a leisurely manner

C．at their desk in the office

D．for less than 1/2 hour

听力原文：(Hu wants to get to his seat—a window seat.)

Hu: Excuse me, sorry to bother you!

Man: Not at all! (standing up to let Hu pass)

Hu: Thanks a lot! (squeezing past) These seats don't get any roomier, do they!

Man: No, they don't!

Hu: Thank you very much!

(A few minutes later...)

Captain: "This is your captain speaking! Welcome aboard the aircraft, ladies and gentlemen! I am sorry to say that there is a small problem, caused by the late arrival of passengers, and we shall be delayed for a short while before leaving. We'll keep you informed of developments. Thank you !"

Hu: Oh, dear! That's bad news!

Man: Yes, it is.

Hu: There's no danger of our missing connecting flights at the other end, is them, do you think?

Man: Hard to say! We'll probably be all fight.

Hu: I hope so!

Captain: "Hello again, ladies and gentlemen! This is your captain speaking! I'm sorry about the slight delay. You'll be pleased to hear that everything's been sorted out, and we'll be taking off in the next few minutes. Thank you!"

Hu: That's a relief.

Man: Yes, well, these things are usually sorted out in the end!

Hu: It sounds as though you are a regular on this flight.

Man: I do it two or three times a year perhaps.

Hu: Business rather than pleasure, I suppose!

Man: I'm afraid so! What about you?

Hu: Oh, I'm off on a study tour of biochemical firms in Australia.

Man: Oh, that's interesting!

Hu: I hope so. Do you have anything to do with any of those companies?

Man: Not really, although, as a matter of fact, I did...

(20)

A．In a plane.

B．On a bus.

C．In a train.

D．On a ship.

The chief executive officer (CEO) of Faoilean Co has just returned from a discussion at a leading university on the ‘application of options to investment decisions and corporate value’. She wants to understand how some of the ideas which were discussed can be applied to decisions made at Faoilean Co. She is still a little unclear about some of the discussion on options and their application, and wants further clarification on the following:

(i) Faoilean Co is involved in the exploration and extraction of oil and gas. Recently there have been indications that there could be significant deposits of oil and gas just off the shores of Ireland. The government of Ireland has invited companies to submit bids for the rights to commence the initial exploration of the area to assess the likelihood and amount of oil and gas deposits, with further extraction rights to follow. Faoilean Co is considering putting in a bid for the rights. The speaker leading the discussion suggested that using options as an investment assessment tool would be particularly useful to Faoilean Co in this respect.

(ii) The speaker further suggested that options were useful in determining the value of equity and default risk, and suggested that this was why companies facing severe financial distress could still have a positive equity value.

(iii) Towards the end of the discussion, the speaker suggested that changes in the values of options can be measured in terms of a number of risk factors known as the ‘greeks’, such as the ‘vega’. The CEO is unclear why option values are affected by so many different risk factors.

Required:

(a) With regard to (i) above, discuss how Faoilean Co may use the idea of options to help with the investment decision in bidding for the exploration rights, and explain the assumptions made when using the idea of options in making investment decisions. (11 marks)

(b) With regard to (ii) above, discuss how options could be useful in determining the value of equity and default risk, and why companies facing severe financial distress still have positive equity values. (9 marks)

(c) With regard to (iii) above, explain why changes in option values are determined by numerous different risk factors and what ‘vega’ determines. (5 marks)