6) By 2050, it’s not unreasonable to guess that we could have eye implants allowing us to see the digital world without the need for a display. （Para. 4)

WecouldmanagetoarrangetheshipmentinAugust,subjecttoyourL/C_usnotlaterthanJuly15.

A.reaches

B.beingreached

C.reaching

D.reach

Global Water Problem

The UN's World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held in Johannesburg from August 26 to September 4 is supposed to result in plans to reduce global poverty and the North-South income gap without causing irreparable damage to the environment. As a follow up to the Earth Summit of 1992, it is using the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) as a guide. These are part of the UN's 2000 Millennium Declaration, which resolved to cut the proportion of people who are unable to get safe drinking water in half by 2015.

Following are some facts and figures on the state of the world's water supplies and the UN's goals regarding water.

Water Supply and Shortage

A new study warns that about thirty percent of the world's people may not have enough water by the year 2025. A private American organization called Population Action International did the new study. It says more than three hundred-thirty-five-million people lack enough water now. The people live in twenty-eight countries which are mostly in Africa or the Middle East.

PAI researcher Robert Engelman says by the year 2025 about three billion people may lack water. At least 18 more countries are expected to have severe water problems. The demand for water keeps increasing. Yet the amount of water on Earth stays the same.

Mr. Engelman says the population in countries that lack water is growing faster than in other parts of the world. He says population growth in these countries will continue to increase.

Freshwater ecosystems cover less than 1 percent of the Earth's surface. Ice mostly in the form. of glacier comprises 69 percent of the world's freshwater supplies and groundwater is 30 percent. Wetlands, which include marshes and swamps, comprise 0. 3 percent, lakes 0.3 percent, and rivers 0.06 percent. However, many experts argue that the world's wells are not about to run dry.

They say that on a global level we have enough water but must use it more wisely and attempt to address uneven distribution around the globe which is related partly to different rainfall patterns.

Problem/Issue

Lacking of water in the future may result in several problems. It may increase health problems. Lack of water often means drinking water is not safe. Mr. Engelman says there are problems all over the world because of diseases, such as cholera (霍乱), which are carried in water. Lack of water may also result in more international conflicts. Countries may have to compete for water in the future. Some countries now get sixty percent of their fresh water from other countries. This is true of Egypt, the Netherlands, Cambodia, Syria, Sudan, and Iraq. Water shortage would affect the ability of developing to improve their economies. This is because new industries often need a large amount of water when they are beginning.

Moreover, there are many problems with the world's fresh water supplies, including pollution from industry, agriculture and untreated sewage. The World Bank says inefficient infrastructure means that water that does not reach customers is not only wasted but ultimately not paid for. This can lead to infrastructure decay because of a lack of funding for maintenance. Tariffs are often kept low by politicians seeking to woo voters, leading many to advocate the privatization of water services-95 percent of municipal water services are publicly run but this is controversial because of concerns that the very poor could be denied access. Privatization advocates argue that services will improve at a lower cost as a result because the contracted operators will have an incentive (动机) to improve their product.

Dams

Dams have brought huge benefits to more than 140 countries but the social and environmental costs have often been high. Perhaps

A．Y

B．N

C．NG

Nearly two thousand years have passed since a census decreed by Caesar Augustus became part of the greatest story ever told. Many things have changed in the intervening years. The hotel industry worries more about overbuilding than overcrowding, and if they had to meet an unexpected influx, few inns would have a manger to accommodate the weary guests. Now it is the census taker that does the traveling in the fond hope that a highly mobile population will stay put long enough to get a good sampling. Methods of gathering, recording, and evaluating information have presumably been improved a great deal. And where then it was the modest purpose of Rome to obtain a simple head count as an adequate basis for levying taxes, now batteries of complicated statistical series furnished by governmental agencies and private organizations are eagerly scanned and interpreted by sages and seers to get a clue to future events. The Bible does not tell us how the Roman census takers made out, and as regards our more immediate concern, the reliability of present day economic forecasting, there are considerable differences of opinion. They were aired at the celebration of the 125th anniversary of the American Statistical Association. There was the thought that business forecasting might well be on its way from an art to a science, and some speakers talked about newfangled computers and high-falutin mathematical systems in terms of excitement and endearment which we, at least in our younger years when these things mattered, would have associated more readily with the description of a fair maiden. But others pointed to the deplorable record of highly esteemed forecasts and forecasters with a batting average below that of the Mets, and the President-elect of the Association' cautioned that "high powered statistical methods are usually in order where the facts are crude and inadequate, the exact contrary of what crude and inadequate statisticians assume". We left his birthday party somewhere between hope and despair and with the conviction, not really newly acquired, that proper statistical methods applied to ascertainable facts have their merits in economic forecasting as long as neither forecaster nor public is deluded into mistaking the delineation of probabilities and trends for a prediction of certainties of mathematical exactitude.

Taxation in Roman days apparently was based on ______.

A．mobility

B．wealth

C．population

D．census takers

Nearly two thousand years have passed since a census decreed by Caesar Augustus became part of the greatest story ever told. Many things have changed in the intervening years. The hotel industry worries more about overbuilding than overcrowding, and if they had to meet an unexpected influx, few inns would have a manger to accommodate the weary guests. Now it is the census taker that does the traveling in the fond hope that a highly mobile population will stay put long enough to get a good sampling. Methods of gathering, recording, and evaluating information have presumably been improved a great deal. And where then it was the modest purpose of Rome to obtain a simple head count as an adequate basis for levying taxes, now batteries of complicated statistical series furnished by governmental agencies and private organizations are eagerly scanned and interpreted by sages and seers to get a clue to future events. The Bible does not tell us how the Roman census takers made out, and as regards our more immediate concern, the reliability of present day economic forecasting, there are considerable differences of opinion. They were aired at the celebration of the 125th anniversary of the American Statistical Association. There was the thought that business forecasting might well be on its way from an art to a science, and some speakers talked about newfangled computers and highfalutin mathematical systems in terms of excitement and endearment which we, at least in our younger years when these things mattered, would have associated more readily with the description of a fair maiden. But others pointed to the deplorable record of highly esteemed forecasts and forecasters with a batting average below that of the Mets, and the President-elect of the Association cautioned that "high powered statistical methods are usually in order where the facts are crude and inadequate, the exact contrary of what crude and inadequate statisticians assume". We left his birthday party somewhere between hope and despair and with the conviction, not really newly acquired, that proper statistical methods applied to ascertainable facts have their merits in economic forecasting as long as neither forecaster nor public is deluded into mistaking the delineation of probabilities and trends for a prediction of certainties of mathematical exactitude.

Taxation in Roman days apparently was based on ______.

A．mobility

B．wealth

C．population

D．census takers

Nearly two thousand years have passed since a census decreed by Caesar Augustus become part of the greatest story ever told. Many things have changed in the intervening years. The hotel industry worries more about overbuilding than overcrowding, and if they had to meet an unexpected influx, few inns would have a manager to accommodate the weary guests. Now it is the census taker that does the traveling in the fond hope that a highly mobile population will stay long enough to get a good sampling. Methods of gathering, recording, and evaluating information have presumably been improved a great deal. And where then it was the modest purpose of Rome to obtain a simple head count as an adequate basis for levying taxes, now batteries of complicated statistical series furnished by governmental agencies and private organizations are eagerly scanned and interpreted by sages and seers to get a clue to future events. The Bible does not tell us how the Roman census takers made out, and as regards our more immediate concern, the reliability of present day economic forecasting, there are considerable differences of opinion. They were aired at the celebration of the 125th anniversary of the American Statistical Association. There was the thought that business forecasting might Well be on its way from an art to a science, and some speakers talked about newfangled computers and high-falutin mathematical system in terms of excitement and endearment which we, at least in our younger years when these things mattered, would have associated more readily with the description of a fair maiden. But others pointed to the deplorable record of highly esteemed forecasts and forecasters with a batting average below that of the Mets, and the President-elect of the Association cautioned that "high powered statistical methods are usually in order where the facts are crude and inadequate, the exact contrary of what crude and inadequate statisticians assume." We left his birthday party somewhere between hope and despair and with the conviction, not really newly acquired, that proper statistical methods applied to ascertainable facts have their merits in economic forecasting as long as neither forecaster nor public is deluded into mistaking the delineation of probabilities and trends for a prediction of certainties of mathematical exactitude.

Taxation in Roman days apparently was based on ______.

A．wealth

B．mobility

C．population

D．census takers

On nothing per annum, 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 and the title of Colonel on his card are the only relics 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, too, to the disgust of the ladies their wives, who could not bear the parvenue. For some months the salons of the Faubourg St. Germain, in which her place was secured, and the splendours of the new Court, where she was received with much distinction, delighted, and perhaps a little intoxicated Mrs. Crawley, who may have been disposed during this period of elation to slight 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 ecart6 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 dont know how the gentleman in question defrays the expenses of his establishment. Questions:

This passage is taken from a famous novel entitled______.