Last month the first baby-boomers turned 60. The enormous generation born between 1946 and 1964 is heading towards retirement. The coming "demographic cliff" will see vast numbers of skilled workers disappear from the labor force. The workforce is ageing across the rich world. Within the EU the number of workers aged between 50 and 64 will increase by 25% over the next two decades, while those aged 20 -29 will decrease by 20%. Given that most societies have a tendency to retirement at around 65, companies have a problem of knowledge management, of making sure that the boomers do not leave before they have handed over their expertise along with the office keys and their e-mail address. If you look hard enough, you can find companies that have begun to adapt the workplace to older workers. The tools they use to achieve are flexible working, telecommuting, and so forth. Some companies spend "a lot of time" on the ergonomics its factories, making jobs there less tiring. Likewise, for more than a decade, prefix = st1 /Toyota, has been unusually keen to employ older workers. IBM uses its alumni network to recruit retired people for particular projects. But such examples are unusual. A survey in America last month by Ernst & Young found that "although America foresees a significant workforce shortage as boomers retire, it is not dealing with the issue . " Why are firms not working harder to keep old employees? Mostly they are not hanging on to older workers the only way to cope with a falling supply of labor. The participation of developing countries in the world economy has increased the overall supply--whatever the local effect of demographics in the rich countries. What's the best tide of the passage? A) Old workers in the USare ageing B) The first baby-boomers are retiring C) A worldwide shortage of skilled labor D) The problems with the companies in the EU
B
(Question)
There are various reasons why cancers appear to be on the increase. For one thing, though their sufferers are to be found in all age groups, cancers are particularly likely to attack persons in their middle and advanced years. Naturally, since people live longer these years, there are more cancer sufferers than before. Again, with better methods of diagnosis , doctors can more easily recognize cancerous growths that would formerly have passed unnoticed or that would have been wrongly diagnosed. It is also believed that certain habits and conditions of modern living, including heavy smoking and the pollution of the air, may leave people living in more cancer-causing conditions than before. We all look forward to the day when a simple medical test can find cancer while it is still small. Researchers around the world are working on _ . Most of their work deals with the examination of the blood. Researchers in Boston have found something in the blood of cancer patients that does not appear in healthy persons. The test showed which persons had cancer and which did not. It was correct more than 90 percent of the time. The researchers believe the test may be able to show cancer very clearly in its development. Cancers discovered early usually can be treated successfully. The test examines very small bits of fat in the blood called lipids . Cancers seem to change lipids although doctors do not know why. The test showed differences between the lipids of the persons with cancer and the lipids of those without cancer. The researchers say the new test could be a step to develop a simple way to check patients for cancer before the disease shows on an X-ray. Who will fail cancer from the study of the researchers? A) The young. B) The middle age and the older. C) The man. D) The woman.
(Answer)
B
Ques: For thousands of years,we have looked for ways to measure time. Early humans found that the regular movements of the sun,the earth,the moon,and the stars made good ways to measure time. The rising and setting of the sun were used to distinguish day from night. But,eventually,people needed to tell time more accurately,or exactly. So,by using the sun's position in the sky,they divided the day into dawn,morning,midday and evening. Then it was noted that the sun cast a changing shadow as it moved across the sky. Time could be told more accurately by setting up a stick and marking the positions of the sun's shadow. It was the ancient Greeks who divided each position of this "sundial " into hours. But the sun doesn't always shine. So,for the past 6,000 years,many other ways of keeping time have been tried. Slowburning candles were divided into hours,and the hourglass was invented. When all the sand in the top of an hourglass has shifted to the bottom,an hour has passed. Later,the pendulum ,with its regular backandforth movement of weights,was used to move the hands on a clock. Pendulums are still used in grandfather clocks. Today,even more accurate clocks are in use,such as batteryoperated quartz clocks ,digital clocks,and clocks run by electrical tuning forks and tiny atoms. These atomic clocks are the most accurate clocks ever invented. The exact time can be kept to within 1 second a century. A sundial works by _ . A) tracking the movement of the stars around the sun B) marking a shadow cast by the moving sun C) burning candles in the sunlight D) watching the stars
Ans: B
People who have lost the ability to understand or use words due to brain damage are called aphasics . Such patients can be extremely good at something else. From the changing expressions on speakers' faces and the tones of their voices, they can tell lies from truths. Doctors studying the human brain have given a number of examples of this amazing power of aphasics. Some have even compared this power to that of a dog with an ability to find out the drugs hidden in the baggage. Recently, scientists carried out tests to see if all that was said about aphasics was true. They studied a mixed group of people. Some were normal; others were aphasics. It was proved that the aphasics were far ahead of the normal people in recognizing false speeches -- in most cases, the normal people were fooled by words, but the aphasics were not. Some years ago, Dr. Oliver Sacks wrote in his book about his experiences with aphasics. He mentioned a particular case in a hospital. Some aphasics were watching the president giving a speech on TV. Since the president had been an actor earlier, making a good speech was no problem for him. He was trying to put his feelings into every word of his speech. But his way of speaking had the opposite effect on the patients. They didn't seem to believe him. Instead, they burst into laughter. The aphasics knew that the president did not mean a word of what he was saying. He was lying! Many doctors see aphasics as people who are not completely normal because they lack the ability to understand words. However, according to Dr. Sacks, they are more gifted than normal people. Normal people may get carried away by words. Aphasics seem to understand human expressions better, though they cannot understand words. What is so surprising about aphasics? A) They can fool other people. B) They can find out the hidden drugs. C) They can tell whether people are lying. D) They can understand language better.
C