King Juan Carlos of Spain once insisted“kings don’t abdicate,they dare in their sleep.”But embarrassing scandals and the popularity of the republican left in the recent Euro-elections have forced him to eat his words and stand down.So,does the Spanish crisis suggest that monarchy is seeing its last days?Does that mean the writing is on the wall for all European royals,with their magnificent uniforms and majestic lifestyle?
The Spanish case provides arguments both for and against monarchy.When public opinion is particularly polarised,as it was following the end of the Franco regime,monarchs can rise above“mere”politics and“embody”a spirit of national unity.
It is this apparent transcendence of politics that explains monarchs’continuing popularity polarized.And also,the Middle East excepted,Europe is the most monarch-infested region in the world,with 10 kingdoms（not counting Vatican City and Andorra）.But unlike their absolutist counterparts in the Gulf and Asia,most royal families have survived because they allow voters to avoid the difficult search for a non-controversial but respected public figure.
Even so,kings and queens undoubtedly have a downside.Symbolic of national unity as they claim to be,their very history—and sometimes the way they behave today–embodies outdated and indefensible privileges and inequalities.At a time when Thomas Piketty and other economists are warning of rising inequality and the increasing power of inherited wealth,it is bizarre that wealthy aristocratic families should still be the symbolic heart of modern democratic states.
The most successful monarchies strive to abandon or hide their old aristocratic ways.Princes and princesses have day-jobs and ride bicycles,not horses（or helicopters）.Even so,these are wealthy families who party with the international 1%,and media intrusiveness makes it increasingly difficult to maintain the right image.
While Europe’s monarchies will no doubt be smart enough to survive for some time to come,it is the British royals who have most to fear from the Spanish example.
It is only the Queen who has preserved the monarchy’s reputation with her rather ordinary（if well-heeled）granny style.The danger will come with Charles,who has both an expensive taste of lifestyle and a pretty hierarchical view of the world.He has failed to understand that monarchies have largely survived because they provide a service–as non-controversial and non-political heads of state.Charles ought to know that as English history shows,it is kings,not republicans,who are the monarchy’s worst enemies.
According to the first two Paragraphs,King Juan Carlos of Spain
A.used turn enjoy high public support
B.was unpopular among European royals
C.cased his relationship with his rivals
D.ended his reign in embarrassment

Two years ago,Rupert Murdoch’s daughter,Elisabeth,spoke of the“unsettling dearth of integrity across so many of our institutions”Integrity had collapsed,she argued,because of a collective acceptance that the only“sorting mechanism”in society should be profit and the market.But“it’s us,human beings,we the people who create the society we want,not profit”.
Driving her point home,she continued:“It’s increasingly apparent that the absence of purpose,of a moral language within government,media or business could become one of the most dangerous foals for capitalism and freedom.”This same absence of moral purpose was wounding companies such as News International,shield thought,making it more likely that it would lose its way as it had with widespread illegal telephone hacking.
As the hacking trial concludes–finding guilty ones-editor of the News of the World,Andy Coulson,for conspiring to hack phones,and finding his predecessor,Rebekah Brooks,innocent of the same charge–the winder issue of dearth of integrity still standstill,Journalists are known to have hacked the phones of up to 5,500 people.This is hacking on an industrial scale,as was acknowledged by Glenn Mulcaire,the man hired by the News of the World in 2001 to be the point person for phone hacking.Others await trial.This long story still unfolds.
In many respects,the dearth of moral purpose frames not only the fact of such widespread phone hacking but the terms on which the trial took place.One of the astonishing revelations was how little Rebekah Brooks knew of what went on in her newsroom,wow little she thought to ask and the fact that she never inquired wow the stories arrived.The core of her successful defence was that she knew nothing.
In today’s world,title has become normal that well—paid executives should not be accountable for what happens in the organizations that they run perhaps we should not be so surprised.For a generation,the collective doctrine has been that the sorting mechanism of society should be profit.The words that have mattered are efficiency,flexibility,shareholder value,business–friendly,wealth generation,sales,impact and,in newspapers,circulation.Words degraded to the margin have been justice fairness,tolerance,proportionality and accountability.
The purpose of editing the News of the World was not to promote reader understanding to be fair in what was written or to betray any common humanity.It was to ruin lives in the quest for circulation and impact.Ms Brooks may or may not have had suspicions about how her journalists got their stories,but she asked no questions,gave no instructions—nor received traceable,recorded answers.
It can be inferred from Paragraph 3 that
A.Glem Mulcaire may deny phone hacking as a crime
B.more journalists may be found guilty of phone hacking.
C.Andy Coulson should be held innocent of the charge.
D.phone hacking will be accepted on certain occasions.

Text 3 In his book The Tipping Point,Malcolm Gladwell argues that social epidemics are driven in large part by the acting of a tiny minority of special individuals,often called influentials,who are unusually informed,persuasive,or well-connected.The idea is intuitively compelling,but it doesn't explain how ideas actually spread.The supposed importance of influentials derives from a plausible sounding but largely untested theory called the"two step flow of communication":Information flows from the media to the influentials and from them to everyone else.Marketers have embraced the two-step flow because it suggests that if they can just find and influence the influentials,those selected people will do most of the work for them.The theory also seems to explain the sudden and unexpected popularity of certain looks,brands,or neighborhoods.In many such cases,a cursory search for causes finds that some small group of people was wearing,promoting,or developing whatever it is before anyone else paid attention.Anecdotal evidence of this kind fits nicely with the idea that only certain special people can drive trends In their recent work,however,some researchers have come up with the finding that influentials have far less impact on social epidemics than is generally supposed.In fact,they don't seem to be required of all.The researchers'argument stems from a simple observing about social influence,with the exception of a few celebrities like Oprah Winfrey—whose outsize presence is primarily a function of media,not interpersonal,influence—even the most influential members of a population simply don't interact with that many others.Yet it is precisely these non-celebrity influentials who,according to the two-step-flow theory,are supposed to drive social epidemics by influencing their friends and colleagues directly.For a social epidemic to occur,however,each person so affected,must then influence his or her own acquaintances,who must in turn influence theirs,and so on;and just how many others pay attention to each of these people has little to do with the initial influential.If people in the network just two degrees removed from the initial influential prove resistant,for example,the cascade of change won't propagate very far or affect many people.Building on the basic truth about interpersonal influence,the researchers studied the dynamics of populations manipulating a number of variables relating of populations,manipulating a number of variables relating to people's ability to influence others and their tendency to be influenced.Our work shows that the principal requirement for what we call"global cascades"–the widespread propagation of influence through networks–is the presence not of a few influentials but,rather,of a critical mass of easily influenced people.33.What the researchers have observed recently shows that
A.the power of influence goes with social interactions
B.interpersonal links can be enhanced through the media
C.influentials have more channels to reach the public
D.most celebrities enjoy wide media attention

The children cheered up when they saw hundreds of colorful balloons（ ）slowly into the sky.
A.floating
B.raising
C.heaving
D.ascending

（ ）You want to apply for the position of a teaching assistant for a particular course,write a letter to Professor Stevens to（1）show your interest（2）describe yourself,and（3）explain why you would be suitable for the job You should include the details you think necessary You should write neatly on the ANSWER SHEE/Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter.Use"Li Ming"instead

Governments are keen on higher eclucation,seeing it as a means to boost social mobility and economic growth.Almost all subsidise tuition-in America,to the tune of$200bn a year.But they tend to overestimate the benefits and ignore the costs of expanding university education.Often,public money just feeds the arms race for qualifications.As more young people seek degrees,the returns both to them and to governments are lower.Employers demand degrees for jobs that never required them in the past and have not become more demanding since.Spending on universities is usually justified by the"graduate premium"-the increase in earnings that graduates enjoy over non-graduates.These individual gains,the thinking goes,add up to an economic boost for society as a whole.But the graduate premium is a flawed unit of reckoning.Part of the usefulness of a degree is that it gives a graduate jobseeker an advantage at the expense of non-graduates.It is also a signal to employers of general qualities that someone already has in order to get into a university.Some professions require qualifications.But a degree is not always the best measure of the skills and knowledge needed for a job.With degrees so common,recruiters are using them as a crude way to screen applicants.Non-graduates are thus increasingly locked out of decent work.In any case,the premium counts only the winners and not the losers.Across the rich world,a third of university entrants never graduate.It is the weakest students who are drawn in as higher education expands ancl who are most likely LO drop out.They pay fees and sacrifice earnings to study,but see little boost iii thcir future incomes.When dropouts are includecl,the expected financial return to starting a degree for the weakest studcnts dwindles to almost nothing.Governments need to offer the young a wider range of options after school.They should start by rethinking their own hiring practices.Most insist on degrees for public-sector jobs that used to be done by non-graduates.Instead they should seek other ways for non-graduates to prove they have the right skills and to get more on-the-job training.School-Ieavers should be given a wider variety o:[ways to gain vocational skills and to demonstrate their employability in the private sector.lf school qualifications were made more rigorous,recruiters would be more likely to trust them as signals of ability.and less insistent on degrees."Micro-credentials"-short,work-focused courses approved by big employers in fast-growing fields,such as IT-show promise.Such measures would be more efficient at developing the skills that boost productivity and should save public money.To promote social mobility,governments should direct funds to early-school education and to helping students who would benefit from university but cannot afford it.Young people,both rich and poor,are ill-served by the academic arms race,in which each must study longer because that is what all the rest are doing.It is time to disarm.
In the author's opinion,expanding higher education
A.is an effective way to drive social mobility.
B.will not achieve the anticipated effects.
C.will not place a burden on governments.
D.is a timely response to changes in the job market.