Part Ⅰ Writing.docVIP

Part Ⅰ Writing Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a composition on the topic A Letter to the Minister of Education. You must base your composition on the following instructions (given in Chinese). Your composition should be no less than 120 words. Remember to write it neatly. 假设你是李文，请你就学校假期的安排给教育部部长写一封信，向他建议将学校传统的长假调整为几次短假并陈述相关原因，比如：学习时间过长可能引起过度疲劳，而放假过长则可能导致浪费时间等等。 Part Ⅱ Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning) Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions on Answer Sheet 1. For questions 1-7, choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D. For questions 8-10, complete the sentences with the information given in the passage. Americans and Food An unusual but timely cartoon recently appeared in the local newspaper. The single panel showed a gravel-pit operation with piles of raw earth and large cranes. Next to one of the cranes stood the owner of the gravel pit—a grizzled, tough-looking character, hammer in hand, pointing proudly to the new sign he had just tacked up. The sign read, Freds Fill Dirt and Croissants. The cartoon illustrates an interesting phenomenon: the changing food habits of Americans. Our meals used to consist of something like home cooked pot roast, mashed potatoes laced with butter and salt, a thick slice of apple pie topped with a healthy scoop of vanilla ice cream—plain, heavy meals, cooked from scratch, and eaten leisurely at home. But America has changed, and as it has, so have what we Americans eat and how we eat it. We used to have simple, unsophisticated tastes and looked with suspicion at anything more exotic than a hamburger. Admittedly, we did adopt some foods from the various immigrant groups who flocked to our shores. We learned to eat croissants, those small, sweet French bread rolls, and also Chinese food and pizza, but in the last few years, the international character of our diet has grown tremendously. We can walk int