Over the last 25 years, British society has changed a great deal - or at least many parts of it have. In some ways, however, very little has changed, particularly where attitudes are concerned. Ideas about social class – whether a person is “working-class” or “middle-class” – are one area in which changes have been extremely slow.

In the past, the working-class tended to be paid less than middle-class people, such as teachers and doctors. As a result of this and also of the fact that workers’ jobs were generally much less secure, distinct differences in lifestyles and attitudes came into existence. The typical working man would collect his wages on Friday evening and then, it was widely believed, having given his wife her “housekeeping”, would go out and spend the rest on beer and betting.

In every society it is necessary to have a general system of laws to ensure justice. Laws are designed to make certain that peopleˈs rights are protected and that people respect each otherˈs rights. Sometimes, however, laws are passed which are specific(明确的) to a time or situation. For example, a town in Indiana once passed a law making it illegal(非法的) to shoot open a can(罐头) of food. Apparently, some gun - carrying citizens(公民) forgot their can openers and naturally enough, used their guns to do the job. This disturbed other citizens, and endangered their lives, so a law was passed to prevent it.

Specific laws sometimes remain in existence long after the problem has disappeared. The laws then seem strange. For example, the Indiana law was no longer necessary when citizens stopped carrying guns and using them as can openers. Since the law was no longer needed, what once made sense now seems like nonsense.

Sometimes laws designed to serve a good purpose were passed but somehow these became mixed up in their wording. As a result, the laws donˈt make sense. In one state there is a law which says that it is "illegal to move or to attempt to move a motor vehicle. " Obviously, a massive traffic jam would occur if everyone suddenly obeyed that law. But no one does, of course, because the intention of the law was not to prevent owners from moving their own cars. It was to prevent people from moving (stealing) other peopleˈs cars.

It is often harder to repeal (废止) a law than to pass one, so many of these old laws remain in existence. Because they no longer fit the way people live or because the problem no longer exists, these laws are ignored. Everyone understands that and life goes on. Thus, laws that once made very good senses now seem like nonsense.

 In ancient Egypt, a shopkeeper discovered that he could attract customers to his shop simply by making changes to its environment. Modern businesses have been following his lead, with more tactics（策略）.

 One tactic involves where to display the goods. For example, stores place fruits and vegetables in the first section. They know that customers who buy the healthy food first will feel happy so that they will buy more junk food（垃圾食品）later in their trip. In department stores, shoes section is generally next to the women’s cosmetics(化妆品) section：while the shop assistant is going back to find the right size shoe, bored customers are likely to wander over cosmetics they might want to try later.

 Besides, businesses seek to appeal to customers’ senses. Stores notice that the smell of baked goods encourages shopping, they make their own bread each morning and then fan the bread smell into the store throughout the day. Music sells goods, too. Researchers in Britain found that when French music was played, sales of French wine went up.

 When it comes to the selling of houses, businesses also use highly rewarding tactics. They find that customers make decision in the first few second upon walking in the door, and turn it into a business opportunity. A California builder designed the structure of its houses smartly. When entering the house, the customer would see the Pacific Ocean through the windows, and then the poll through an open stairway leading to the lower level. The instant view of water on both levels helped sell these $10 million houses.

The hated mobile phone roaming (漫游)charges that greatly affect tourists' trips around Europe are set to be ended, but you'll have to wait until 2017 for it to happen.

   The agreement announced on June 30 will end the frustration (懊恼)of European Union citizens on holiday or abroad for business who face too many charges for using their phones for calls and Internet browsing when in the EU but outside their home country.

   "Coming into force on June 15, 2017, the deal means you can use your mobile phone when traveling in the EU and pay the same prices as at home," the European Commission said in a statement. "if you pay for a monthly volume (月套餐)of minutes, SMS and data in your country, any voice call, SMS and data session you make while traveling abroad in the EU will be removed from that as if you were at home, with no extra charges," it added.

   The deal was reached following discussions that began in 2013, but still needs formal approval by the European Parliament and 28 governments.

   "This is the end of a long process and we're delighted we manage to produce a result that will mean specific improvement for citizens in the single market," European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said.

   Commenting on the agreement, Gautam Srivastava, a mobile phone expert at MoneySuper-Market said, "The end of roaming charges in the EU is a great win for customers both in the UK and in Europe."

   "From June 2017 on, you'll be able to use your mobile phone in the EU-so no more worrying about data limits or making and receiving calls when you're on your holidays," added Gautam Srivastava.

Changing technology stimulates (刺激) the brain and increases intelligence. But that may only be true if the technology challenges us. In a world run by intelligent machines, our lives could get a lot simpler. Would that make us less intelligent?

After the Industrial Revolution, machines began to replace manual workers. The process played out in agriculture as well as manufacturing so that groups of agricultural workers were replaced and forced to move to cities to make a living.

When machines took away much of the manual work, people became less physically active and gained weight. The sedentary(久坐的) lifestyle contributed to a worldwide spreading of overweight and related metabolic disorders such as heart disease, secondary diabetes and kidney disease .

As our bodies rested, our brains were forced to work harder, however. It is much more difficult to drive through an overcrowded modern city than it is to move around in a small rural village, for instance. Modern jobs are also more complex and urgent and they require more education because employees need to process new information quickly. Even during our leisure time, our brains work harder due to greater availability of books and explosion of audiovisual media, for entertainment, study, music, news, and so forth.

Now in the Internet age, the amount of information grows fast along with the advance of electronic technologies. The number of people with whom we interact electronically grows by leaps and bounds thanks to the ease of use of social media like Facebook and Twitter.

All of this extra work for our brains makes us more intelligent. That helps explain why human intelligence increases steadily from generation to generation in all developed countries, a phenomenon named the Flynn Effect. Of course, there are other reasons, including improved nutrition, better medical practices that reduce brain damage, and improved sanitation and public health that reduce diseases of childhood.

In the P.G Wodehouse novels, Bertie Wooster got away with being a fool because Jeeves was there to back him up with superior brain power. Similarly, people of the future are at risk of being less intelligent because machines will do their thinking for them.

Artificial intelligence is taking over many human jobs. For instance, planes are being flown much of the time by automatic pilots. Moreover, the complex problem of controlling air traffic around large modern airports is also achieved by artificial intelligence that operates well beyond the capability of mere human air traffic controllers.

Artificial intelligence exists in many fields of modern life for the simple reason that intelligent machines can already outperform humans, including some aptitudes (天资) which were once thought to be a human advantage, such as playing chess or recalling details in a game of Jeopardy.

Machine intelligence is increasing much faster than human intelligence. As machines get smarter, they will do more of our thinking for us and make life easier.

Instead of struggling to identify ourselves to some electronic system via passwords that are secure only if they are hard to remember, the system will work harder to identify us using biometrics (生物测定学) such as fingerprints or even the individual sound of our hearts. More technologies of the future may also be voice-activated so that we will talk with machines much as we would talk to a friend.

In the future, the electronic assistant will develop to the point where it serves similar functions as a real living chief male servant of a house, fulfilling requests such as:“Organize a dinner party for six on Thursday, Jeeves, and invite the usual guests .”

At that point, our long struggle with challenging technologies is at an end. Like Bertie Wooster, we can take it easy knowing that the hard work of planning and organizing is being done by a better brain---the electronic assistant. Starved of mental effort, our brains will return to an earlier or less advanced form.

The future is still in the fog .

For years, business people in Western Europe were worried. They knew they could not compete against business from the United States. The United States is much larger and had many more resources than any Western European country.

Some European people realized that the European nations need to join together to help each other. If they could forget their language differences and the differences in customs, they might become strong competition against other countries.

In 1958, six of the European countries-Belgium; the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Germany and Italy got together and decided tocooperate.They called their group the European Economic Community, or the Common Market. These countries agreed to join their resources together. Within a few years, the European Economic Community had worked so well that its members were more prosperous(繁荣)than many other European nations.

Soon, other nations began to realize the advantages of the Common Market. Today the Common Market includes most of the important countries in Western Europe. It is helping Western Europe to again take its place as a leader among the industrial nations of the world.

The Coalition for the Homeless is an organization that seeks to address the needs of the homeless population in the United States. It is a network of offices, some of which provide food and houses for the homeless population, and some of which fight for the passing of laws that of over two hundred million people living in the United States,up to three million are homeless—and the number is still growing. Since the late 1970s,fast rising house prices,large cuts in government supported housing programs, and economic recession(经济衰退)have made it impossbile for many Americans to meet housing costs. Sadly, this has resulted in a number of persons being forced to leave their homes and/or unable to find new affordable homes. According to another research,families with children appear to be the fastest-growing part of the homeless population, making up 39% of it.The old idea of a homeless person,that of the single man who gets drunk all the time,is no longer true. A much lager part of the population now finds itself homeless. Even worse, once a person becomes homeless, he often finds it impossible to find a job,since most employers require anyone who wants a job from them to provide a home address on a job applicaton.                                                                                         

President Xi Jinping delivers a policy speech to Chinese and United States’ CEOs during a dinner reception in Seattle, Washington, September 22, 2015

Beijing and Washington must read each other’s strategic intentions correctly, and have “less estrangement (隔阂，疏远) and suspicion in order to forestall (预先阻止) misunderstanding and miscalculation,” said Chinese President Xi Jinping Tuesday night in his first major policy speech on China-US ties since he arrived in the US early Tuesday.

Xi called for more understanding and trust between the US and China, prior to his formal talks with President Barack Obama at the White House on Friday.

“ China is ready to set up a high-level joint-dialogue mechanism with the United States on fighting cybercrimes,” he said, adding that the Chinese government was a firm defender of cybersecurity while also being a victim of cybercrime. The world’s two largest economies “should strictly base our judgment on fact, for fear that we become victims to hearsay, paranoia, or self-imposed bias”.

Xi made his remarks in a 40-minute speech, the only public speech during his US visit, at a dinner attended by more than 750 business leaders and other dignitaries (显要人物), including former secretary of State Henry Kissinger. It was sponsored by the National Committee on United States-China Relations and the US-China Business Council.

In addition to cybersecurity, Xi raised other issues of concern to some in the US audience, including China’s stock market and investment.

Xi said that the government had taken necessary steps to stabilize the stock market after recent turbulence (动荡) triggered wide concern. China’s central bank adjusted its currency exchange rate according to market supply and demand in August, which the president said has achieved “initial success” in correcting the currency rate deviation (货币汇率偏差).

Xi also reiterated (重申) China’s opposition to cyber theft, in spite of high tensions between the two countries because the US has blamed several cyber attacks on China recently.

“ China is a strong defender of cybersecurity. It is also a victim of hacking,” Xi said. “The Chinese government will not, in whatever form, engage in commercial thefts or encourage or support such attempts by anyone. Both commercial cyber theft and hacking against government networks are crimes that must be punished in accordance with the law and relevant international treaties.”

Xi also shared the story of his hard and starving youth in a remote village to illustrate what a Chinese dream means for ordinary Chinese people.

Xi arrived at Seattle early Tuesday morning with his wife Peng Liyuan, and was warmly welcomed by Washington state business leaders and officials.

US Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker said that while this week many significant deals will be announced during Xi’s visit, it exemplifies (例证) US companies’ commitment to support China’s development both with capital and world-class technology.

Kissinger, who played a major role with opening relations between China and the United States in the 1970’s, said Xi’s state visit is an important step in lifting the two countries’ relationship from the day to day solving of problems to the creating of a new world order.

Xi will take part in a round-table discussion with Chinese and American executives, visit Boeing and Microsoft offices and a local high school before flying to Washington on Thursday morning.

     It came as something of a surprise when Diana, Princess of Wales, made a trip to Angola in 1997,
to support the Red Cross campaign for a total ban on all anti-personnel landmines. Within hours of arriving in Angola, television screens around the world were filled with images of her comforting victims injured
in explosions caused by landmines. “I knew the statistics,” she said. “But putting a face to those figures
brought the reality home to me; like when I met Sandra, a 13- year-old girl who had lost her leg, and
people like her.”
     The Princess concluded with a simple message: “We must stop landmines”. And she used every
opportunity during her visit to repeat this message.
     But, back in London, her views were not shared by some members of the British government, which
refused to support a ban on these weapons. Angry politicians launched an attack on the Princess in the
press. They described her as “very ill-informed” and a “loose cannon”. (乱放炮的人)
     The Princess responded by brushing aside the criticisms: “This is a distraction (干扰) we do not need. All I’m trying to do is help.”
     Opposition parties, the media and the public immediately voiced their support for the Princess. To
make matters worse for the government, it soon emerged that the Princess’s trip had been approved by
the Foreign Office, and that she was in fact very well-informed about both the situation in Angola and the
British government’s policy regarding landmines. The result was a severe embarrassment for the
government.
     To try and limit the damage, the Foreign Secretary, Malcolm Rifkidnd, claimed that the Princess’s
views on landmines were not very different from government policy, and that it was “working towards" a
worldwide ban. The Defence Secretary, Michael Portillo, claimed the matter was “a misinterpretation or
misunderstanding.”
     For the Princess, the trip to this war-torn country was an excellent opportunity to use her popularity
to show the world how much destruction and suffering landmines can cause. She said that the experience
had also given her the chance to get closer to people and their problems.
1. Princess Diana paid a visit to Angola in 1997_____.
A. to clarify the British governments stand on landmines
B. to establish her image as a friend of landmine victims
C. to investigate the sufferings of landmine victims there
D. to voice her support for a total ban of landmines
2. Some members of the British government criticized Diana because _____.
A. she had not consulted the government before the visit
B. she was ill-informed of the governments policy
C. they were actually opposed to banning landmines
D. they believed that she had misinterpreted the situation in Angola
3. How did Diana respond to the criticisms?
A. She paid no attention to them          
B. She made more appearances on TV.
C. She met the 13-year-old girl as planned  
D. She rose to argue with her opponents
4. What did Princess Diana think of her visit to Angola?
A. It had caused embarrassment to the British government.
B. It had greatly promoted her popularity.
C. It had brought her closer to the ordinary people.
D. It had affected her relations with the British government.