英语考研阅读精选.doc

英语考研阅读精选阿拉伯国家教育与职业的链接阿拉伯国家未来的繁荣昌盛要靠青年一代，因此政府要确保青年人已经掌握了胜任工作所需的技能。A Linking jobs and education in the Arab world阿拉伯国家教育与职业的链接April, 2011 | from McKinsey QuarterlyThe Arab world is experiencing unprecedented turmoil. Any evaluation of its root causes would include unemployment for youth between the ages of 15 and 24. More than 25 percent of youth in the Middle East are unemployed, the highest such rate in the world, while North Africa reports about 24 percent. Unemployment among young females is even higher, reaching and exceeding 30 percent across the region.There is wide recognition that if nothing is done, unemployment levels are likely to rise further as a result of a demographic bubble: about one-third of the population is below age 15. As a result, millions of young people will enter the regions workforce over the next ten years.So far, the regions governments havent focused sufficiently on a vital component of the employment picture: how to ensure that the regions young people have the right skills for the jobs being created. To do so, it will be necessary to orient education directly to work opportunitiesfull- or part-time or even self-employment. There is even less focus on how to encourage the private sector (both employers and education providers) to play a role complementary to that of the government in addressing the regions pressing needs. A new report based on research by McKinsey, Education for employment: Realizing Arab youth potential, highlights the dramatic gaps in education and employment across the region and provides a private sectorbased road map for closing them. The report was commissioned by the International Finance Corporation and the Islamic Development Bank. We base our findings on more than 200 interviews with government officials, employers, education providers, investors, and nonprofit organizations in nine countries and on proprietary surveys of 1,500 employers and 1,500 young people in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.Elsewhere in the world, the private sector, both education providers and employers, has played a critical role in providing opportunities for young people. Given the right conditions, it can play the same part in the Arab world as well. The report therefore highlights these messages: demand is substantial for private-sector involvement but supply is limited; vocational education and training, private universities, and work-readiness programs are the major categories of private investment opportunities; and several critical enablers of private participation are missing, such as rigorous standards to ensure that students are taught the right skills. Surveyed private employers tell us that only one third of new graduate employees are ready for the workplace when hired. Consequently, more than half of all employers provide substantial training for their new hires, to ensure work readiness. On the other side, only one-third of the surveyed young people believed that their education prepared them adequately for the job market, expressing strong doubts about the quality and relevance of their programs.The challenge is big, significant, and urgent. Action is required now: unless all stakeholders come together and embark on ambitious plans to address the employment gaps jointly, the Arab worlds young people face potentially dire consequences. (494words)差别收费-互联网下载服务的未来在过去，美国的互联网用户仅需缴纳一定的费用就可在网上自由下载各类资源。而如今，这种自由却受到了限制。用户即使缴纳了相应的费用，也不得不接受每月下载流量的限制。THOUGH they pay way too much for their web connections and put up with wimpy broadband speeds compared with people elsewhere, the vast majority of Americans have at least been able to download all they can eat from the internet for a fixed monthly fee. Throughout North America, internet service providers (ISPs) have tended to shy away from the kind of monthly download limits and metered pricing widely accepted elsewhere. On May 2nd, however, the countrys era of carefree internet surfing began finally to draw to a close. One of the leading carriers, AT&T, announced that, henceforth, it was introducing monthly data caps on subscribers using its fixed-line connections (as it already does with its mobile services). Those exceeding the data ceiling would be charged accordingly. Comcast, the countrys biggest cable TV company and ISP, started imposing a monthly download limit on residential customers back in 2008in a bid to crack down on a tiny minority of users who consumed a disproportionate amount of bandwidth. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) subsequently ordered Comcast to cease doing so. Limiting the amount of data subscribers could download, or throttling their download speeds, was seen as a breach of network neutrality, the principle that no restrictions whatsoever be placed on the content, services or applications carried over the internet.The original idea of net neutrality was to create a free and open internet. In that, it succeeded beyond anyones wildest dreamsand ushered in an era of unprecedented online innovation and business activity. Unfortunately, the original concept had an inherent flaw: demand for internet bandwidth would rise inevitably at an unsustainable rate. This is precisely what has happened. Under AT&Ts new policy, customers using digital subscriber line (DSL) connections to the internet will have a monthly download limit of 150 gigabytes. Customers with “U-verse” connections will have a 250-gigabyte cap. Subscribers will be charged overage fees only after they have exceeded the limit three times. By any measure, that is remarkably generous. But downloading movies is not the only thing clogging the internet. People are using a lot more bandwidth than they did in the past on other thingsoften without realising it. The problem is that online consumers have come to expect instant access to everything that catches the eye. The preference now is for streamingso videos, movies or games can be consumed in real timerather than downloading for later viewing. The streaming technology has become so slick, the price of the content so cheap and the selection of material so wide that downloading bootlegged videos courtesy of some clunky peer-to-peer client is no longer worth the hassle. The downside is that the demand for instant access to content on the web incurs considerable hidden costs. When everyone wants to stream their favourite television show from Hulu or latest movie from Netflix at the same time, the internet chokes. The only solution is to rein in the greediest users, while continuing to invest in additional network infrastructure to handle the explosion in video trafficnow growing at over 200% a year. Is net neutrality heading for the trash can? It would certainly seem so. Cyrus Mewawalla of CM Research, an investment-research boutique in London, believes that net-neutrality rules that prevent telecoms firms from providing preferential access for specific internet traffic are poised to collapse around the world. As Mr Mewawalla sees it, net neutrality has created a massive industry bottleneck which, under normal circumstances, would be solved by allowing the ISPs to charge more for carrying high-priority traffic (ie, streaming video). As the net-neutrality rules prevent that from happening, they will have to be revised yet again or simply ignored. The betting is the latter.（616 words）电脑取代户外活动，孩子体能明显下降研究表明，儿童身体素质较上代人明显下降，这是因为他们可以参与的户外活动较过去有所减少，这使他们更多的沉迷于网络游戏等室内活动，不能茁壮成长。Children are becoming weaker, less muscular and unable to do physical tasks that previous generations found simple, research has revealed.As a generation dedicated to online pursuits grows up, 10-year-olds can do fewer sit-ups and are less able to hang from wall bars in a gym. Arm strength has declined in that age group, as has their ability to grip an object firmly.The findings, published in the child health journal Acta Paediatrica, have led to fresh concern about the impact on children's health caused by the shift away from outdoor activities.Academics led by Dr Gavin Sandercock, a children's fitness expert at Essex University, studied how strong a group of 315 Essex 10-year-olds in 2008 were compared with 309 children the same age in 1998. They found that: The number of sit-ups 10-year-olds can do declined by 27.1% between 1998 and 2008.Arm strength fell by 26% and grip strength by 7%.While one in 20 children in 1998 could not hold their own weight when hanging from wall bars, one in 10 could not do so in 2008."This is probably due to changes in activity patterns among English 10-year-olds, such as taking part in fewer activities like rope-climbing in PE and tree-climbing for fun," Sandercock said. "Typically, these activities boosted children's strength, making them able to lift and hold their own bodyweight."The fact that 10% could not do the wall bars test and another 10% refused to try was "really shocking", he added. "That probably shows that climbing and holding their own weight was something they hadn't done before."Previous research has already shown that children are becoming more unfit, less active and more sedentary and, in many cases, heavier than before.But the new study also found that children in 2008 had the same body mass index (BMI) as those a decade earlier. Lead author Daniel Cohen, of London Metropolitan University, said this meant that, given their declining strength, the bodies of the recent test group are likely to contain more fat and less muscle then their predecessors. "That's really worrying from a health point of view. It's good news that their BMI hasn't risen, but worrying that pound for pound they're weaker and probably carrying more fat," said Sandercock.The authors want ministers to reduce their reliance on the National Child Measurement Programme, which surveys primary schoolchildren's BMI, and introduce fitness testing in all schools a call made last year by the then-chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson."Climbing trees and ropes used to be standard practice for children, but school authorities and 'health and safety' have contrived to knock the sap out of our children," said Tam Fry of the Child Growth Foundation."Falling off a branch used to be a good lesson in picking yourself up and learning to climb better. Now fear of litigation stops the child climbing in the first place."He added: "Fitness tests may or may not be appropriate, but Sandercock should not be discouraging the use of BMI measurements."A Department of Health spokeswoman said the government had introduced several programmes promoting active lifestyles among the young, and the health survey for England reported back on physical activity levels. She added: "The Department of Health has no current plans to introduce fitness testing for children." (546 words)对年轻人而言，房地产不景气却是一线希望房地产不景气让房价便宜，较少泡沫，利率低，户型小，对于年轻人来说则是一线希望，因为他们能买到更加实惠的房子。If youre a 20-something or even younger, your economic future is at best clouded. Your taxes will almost certainly be higher than todays; your public services (schools, police, sanitation, defense, scientific research) will almost certainly be lower. Paying for old people, covering rising health-care costs, repairing dilapidated roads and servicing government pensions and the huge federal debt will squeeze take-home pay. Is there any hope for economic gains? Well, yes and from a surprising source. Housing. Say what? Almost everyone considers the housing collapse a disaster, and it is. Since 2007, roughly 8 million homes have gone into foreclosure. Housing prices are down about 33 percent from their 2006 peaks. Theyre still falling, albeit at a slower pace. In some cities, theyre at or below 2000 levels. Home sales are stunted, and construction is a quarter of its previous peak. Housings implosion retards the economic recovery. But housings troubles may have a silver lining. If youre a homeowner, the steep fall in prices is calamitous. But if youre a future buyer, its a godsend. What were seeing is a massive wealth transfer from todays older homeowners to tomorrows younger homeowners. From year-end 2006 to 2010, housing values fell $6.3 trillion, reports the Federal Reserve. Assuming theres no sharp rebound in prices a good bet thats $6.3 trillion the young wont pay. Up to a point, the lower home prices merely deflate the artificial “bubble.” But theres evidence that the declines transcend that. The National Association of Realtors routinely publishes a housing “affordability” index, which judges the ability of median families to buy the median-price home at prevailing interest rates. By this measure, existing homes are the most affordable since the index started in 1970. Falling real estate prices have also affected new homes. Theyre getting smaller and less embellished, as they must. New homes typically sell at a 10 to 20 percent premium over comparable existing homes. If prices dont fall, buyers wont buy. From 1973 to 2007, the size of the average new home grew by about 50 percent, from 1,660 square feet to 2,521 square feet. By 2009, that was 2,438 square feet, with more declines expected. People have become much more value oriented,” says Jeff Mezger, chief executive of KB Home, a major builder. At the height of the boom, with cheap mortgage credit widely available, over-confident buyers selected five-bedroom homes with Jacuzzis and granite-top kitchen counters, he says. Now, buyers favor practical amenities: more kitchen cabinets and bigger closets. If the housing collapse mutes this self-defeating syndrome, the main beneficiaries will be todays young. Their homes will be somewhat cheaper and smaller; their operating costs (mainly utilities) will be somewhat lower. The sacrifices in living standards will be barely noticeable, and the savings housing, after all, represents most families largest expense will provide some relief from higher taxes and health costs. Caveats apply. Housing markets are famously local; whats true in one wont be true in another. Moreover, the housing bust still looms large. The young are staying or returning home; new household formations are less than half of previous levels. Mortgage credit is constricted. Private lenders, once promiscuous with loans, are now prudish. The price adjustment, especially for new homes, is incomplete. Unless these problems are overcome, housing construction will remain depressed. Eventually, the scarcity of homes would push prices up. But crises pass and have unintended consequences. The young just might catch a much-needed break from this one. (575 words)广告能扭曲你的记忆研究人员发现，生动逼真的广告能使人产生错误的记忆。Advertising is everywhere people look. It's along the highway, in storefronts, and online. It can be funny or poignant; it can be annoying. New research shows it can also encourage people to recall things that never happened to them.