56. What gives women a ray of hope to achieve work-life balance?
A) More men taking an extended parental leave.
B) People's changing attitudes towards family.
C) More women entering business management.
D) The improvement of their socioeconomic status.
57. Why does the author say the hope for more full-time fathers is misguided?
A) Women are better at taking care of children.
B) Many men value work more than their family.
C) Their number is too small to make a difference.
D) Not many men have the chance to stay at home.
58. Why do few men take a long parental leave?
A) A long leave will have a negative impact on their career.
B) They just have too many responsibilities to fulfill at work.
C) The economic loss will be too much for their family to bear.
D) They are likely to get fired if absent from work for too long.
59. What is the most likely reaction to men returning from an extended parental leave?
A) Jealousy.
B) Surprise.
C) Admiration.
D) Sympathy.
60. What does the author say about high-potential women in the not-too-distant future?
A) They will benefit from the trend of more fathers staying at home.
B) They will find high-paying professions a bit more family-friendly.
C) They are unlikely to break their career trajectory to raise a family.
D) They will still face the difficult choice between career and children.
Passage Two
Questions 61 to 65 are based on the following passage.
Some of the world's most significant problems never hit headlines. One example comes from agriculture. Food riots and hunger make news. But the trend lying behind these matters is rarely talked about. This is the decline in the growth in yields of some of the world's major crops. A new study by the University of Minnesota and McGill University in Montreal looks at where, and how far, this decline is occurring.
The authors take a vast number of data points for the four most important crops: rice, wheat, com and soyabeans (大豆). They find that on between 24% and 39% of all harvested areas, the improvement in yields that took place before the 1980s slowed down in the 1990s and 2000s.
There are two worrying features of the slowdown. One is that it has been particularly sharp in the world's most populous (人口多的) countries, India and China. Their ability to feed themselves has been an important source of relative stability both within the countries and on world food markets. That self-sufficiency cannot be taken for granted if yields continue to slow down or reverse.
Second, yield growth has been lower in wheat and rice than in corn and soyabeans. This is problematic because wheat and rice are more important as foods, accounting for around half of all calories consumed. Corn and soyabeans are more important as feed grains. The authors note that " we have preferentially focused our crop improvement efforts on feeding animals and cars rather than on crops that feed people and are the basis of food security in much of the world. "
The report qualifies the more optimistic findings of another new paper which suggests that the world will not have to dig up a lot more land for farming in order to feed 9 billion people in 2050, as the Food and Agriculture Organisation has argued.
Instead, it says, thanks to slowing population growth, land currently ploughed up for crops might be able to revert (返回) to forest or wilderness. This could happen. The trouble is that the forecast assumes continued improvements in yields, which may not actually happen.
61. What does the author try to draw attention to?
A) Food riots and hunger in the world.
B) News headlines in the leading media.
C) The decline of the grain yield growth.
D) The food supply in populous countries.
62. Why does the author mention India and China in particular?
A) Their self-sufficiency is vital to the stability of world food markets.
B) Their food yields have begun to decrease sharply in recent years.
C) Their big populations are causing worldwide concerns.
D) Their food self-sufficiency has been taken for granted.
63. What does the new study by the two universities say about recent crop improvement efforts?
A) They fail to produce the same remarkable results as before the 1980s.
B) They contribute a lot to the improvement of human food production.
C) They play a major role in guaranteeing the food security of the world.
D) They focus more on the increase of animal feed than human food grains.
64. What does the Food and Agriculture Organisation say about world food production in the coming decades?
A) The growing population will greatly increase the pressure on world food supplies.
B) The optimistic prediction about food production should be viewed with caution.
C) The slowdown of the growth in yields of major food crops will be reversed.
D) The world will be able to feed its population without increasing farmland.
65. How does the author view the argument of the Food and Agriculture Organisation?
A) It is built on the findings of a new study.
B) It is based on a doubtful assumption.
C) It is backed by strong evidence.
D) It is open to.
Part IV Translation (30 minutes)
Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to translate a passage from Chinese into English. You should write your answer on the ANSWER SHEET 2.
功夫(Kong Fu) 是中国武术(martial arts)的俗称。中国武术的起源可以追溯到自卫的需要，狩猎活动以及古代中国的军士训练。它是中国传统体育运动的一种，年轻人和老年人都练。它已逐渐演变成了中国文化的独特元素。作为中国的国宝，武术有上百种不同的风格，是世界上练得最多的武术形式。有些风格模仿了动物的动作，还有一些则受到了中国哲学思想。
【参考答案】Kung Fu is commonly known as the Chinese martial arts, the origin of which can be traced back to the need of self-defense, hunting activities and military training in ancient China. It is one kind of Chinese traditional sports. The young and the old often practice it. It has gradually evolved into the unique elements of Chinese culture. As a national treasure of China, there are hundreds of different styles for Kung Fu, which is most common forms of martial arts. Some of styles imitate the movement of the animals, and some are inspired by Chinese philosophy, myths and legends.
