Population Change

Why is the world’s population growing? The answer is not what you might think. The reason for the explosion is not that people have been reproducing like rabbits, but that people have stopped dropping dead like flies. In 1900, people died at the average age of 30. By 2000 the average age was 65. But while increasing health was a typical feature of the 20^th century, declining birth rate could be a defining one of the 21^st.

Statistics show that the average number of births per woman has fallen from 4.9 in the early 1960s to 2.5 nowadays. Furthermore, around 50% of the world’s population live in regions where the figure is now below the replacement level (i.e.2.1 births per woman) and almost all developed nations are experiencing sub-replacement birth rate. You might think that developing nations would make up the loss (especially since 80% of the world’s people now live in such nations), but you’d be wrong. Declining birth rate is a major problem in many developing regions too, which might cause catastrophic global shortages of work force within a few decades.

A great decline in young work force is likely to occur in China, for instance. What does it imply? First, China needs to undergo rapid economic development before a population decline hits the country. Second, if other factors such as technology remain constant, economic growth and material expectations will fall well below recent standards and this could invite trouble.

Russia is another country with population problems that could break its economic promise. Since 1992 the number of people dying has been bigger than that of those being born by a massive 50%. Indeed official figures suggest the country has shrunk by 5% since 1993 and people in Russia live a shorter life now than those in 1961.Why is this occurring? Nobody is quite sure, but poor diet an above all long-time alcoholism have much to do with it. If current trends don’t bend, Russia’s population will be about the size of Yemen’s by the year 2050.

In the north of India, the population is booming due to high birth rates, but in the south, where most economic development is taking place, birth rate is falling rapidly. In a further twist, birth rate is highest in poorly educated rural areas and lowest in highly educated urban areas. In total, 25% of India’s working-age population has no education. In 2030, a sixth of the country’s potential work force could be totally uneducated.

One solution is obviously to import foreign workers via immigration. As for the USA, it is almost unique among developed nations in having a population that is expected to grow by 20% from 2010-2030. Moreover, the USA has a track record of successfully accepting immigrants. As a result it’s likely to see a rise in the size of its working-age population and to witness strong economic growth over the longer term.

Acting is the activity of performing in plays or films. It’s about living an alternative reality. It lets you explore all kinds of possibilities of what you could be. Just being your own self can be boring sometimes, and acting gives you an opportunity to be someone else for a while. It is voluntarily entering the psyche (心灵) of another personality and thinking according to a different set of values and constraints (约束). It lets you explore many parts of you, which you thought never existed. It lets you deeply explore what it means to be a human being.

One of the best ways to begin your own acting studies is to start reading some good plays. Choose your favorite role from one of your favorite plays and prepare to act it out in front of the audience. To learn to act, you must act. Here are some tips on how to become an actor with no experience:

To play a role, you must understand the character that you are going to play with open arms. Understand the plot of the play, as well as the psyche of your character. Understand the conditions in which your character lives. Try to understand why your character behaves in that way. So you must learn the lines or dialogues thoroughly and explore the thought behind every sentence. This will help you picture the circumstances in which the character finds himself/herself. Some actors go as far as “living” as that person for a while, to understand him or her. The idea is to go as close as possible to being that person. More importantly, only through practice can you get close to actually being that person. So seize every chance and perform as frequently as you can. This will help you develop confidence and overcome stage fright.

As a student of acting, you need to always be a sponge (海绵), ready to absorb, learn, and observe the performances of great actors, to learn the slight differences of the art. While you watch movies, plays and any other performance, study the differences of a role played by any actors, especially the masters. By just keeping your eyes open, you can pick up a lot of things.

Why do you want to act? Is it for money, fame, or genuine love for the art? Would you do it if you were not paid for it? If the answer and y our motivation is love for acting, you are sure to eventually succeed.

Nowadays, advertisements can be seen everywhere. They have made a really bad i  (1)  on people for various reasons. First of all, their constant   (2)  (出现) on different media disturbs people’s normal life. Besides, the skillful methods are used so   (3)   (频繁地)to cheat consumers that they have great difficulty d  (4)  useful information from lies. However, despite the s  (5)  mentioned above, advertisements do play an important role in our daily life. With different products being developed everyday, advertisements make it more   (6)  (方便的）for consumers to get necessary information and make comparisons, thus purchasing the best goods. What’s more, public service advertisements, or PSAs, provide people with e  (7)   about health, safety, or any other problem that affects public welfare. By dealing with widespread s  (8)  concerns, they us lead better lives.  (9)  (因此), instead of blaming advertisements all the time, we have to admit that they are indeed b  (10)  to each person as well as the society.

Do People in Public Life Have a Right to Privacy?

People, famous or not, have a right to privacy, which is a basic human right. Although some of them have voluntarily made themselves known to the world, they are still entitled to live a life without others following them all the time.

However, we have to distinguish between famous people. Basically, there are those who were seeking a public life—or at least knew to some extent what they were going into—and those who were not. Politicians, athletes, actors, musicians and entertainers belong to the former. The latter are ordinary citizens who become significant, because of their extraordinary experiences, for example, victims of crimes or tragedies, but also criminals.

The number of ordinary citizens who receive their celebrity(名人) status unwillingly is quite big and the privacy of those people needs to be especially respected and maintained. Names, addresses or pictures that could lead to the identification of a person should never be made public. It is not of interest for the readers, and it usually does not make a difference for them, what the name of someone is, but for the one concerned publication of identity could mean embarrassment and harassment(骚扰). Suspected criminals, for instance, could lose their jobs, their families could break up or their whole lives could get destroyed, even when they are innocent. Apart from that, as soon as someone is well known, they are pursued and harassed by journalists demanding interviews. Also in cases where a family just had to experience the loss of a dear person, the press usually shows little respect for that.

In the case of politicians or other powerful people, the right to privacy comes into conflict with another right, the publicˈs right to know. Therefore, the right to privacy of certain politicians sometimes has to be neglected to ensure a rightful running of the country. But do we need to get informed about everything there is?

Actually, the position of politicians in the eye of the public is especially difficult to judge. On the one hand politicians use their happy family and home in campaigns; on the other hand, we know personal behaviors have nothing to do with competence in running a country and private details, even if completely irrelevant, can still ruin careers. Sometimes only due to the intrusion(侵入) of privacy, corruption or similar crimes can be made public, but at the same time not everything in oneˈs life is connected to oneˈs office.

When personal morality and family values are deliberately used by politicians as a reason for them to be elected, they have chosen to make it a public issue rather than a private one. This is a sad fact, but it does not justify intrusion of the personal lives of all politicians. A politician still is, like everyone else, entitled to privacy.

___________this, VR can be used to practice skills in a secure environment that ___________would be quite dangerous. For example, firefighters could use RealCine to train safely, without the risk of getting injured in a burning building. It could be used in class as well. Teachers could ___________ history ___________ by placing students in an ancient town., or they could teach biology by allowing students to _____________the world as a whale or a squirrel.

The Nobel Prize is a series of awards given to people excelling (胜出) in scientific,  literary and social fields. The Nobel Prizes have been awarded annually since 1901 to those who stand out in their field of expert knowledge or skill，and specifically those who make great progress in the advancement of these fields. The best known prize is the Nobel Peace Prize，but there are also awards for physics，chemistry，medicine and literature. Nobel Prize nominees arenˈt told about their nomination(提名)，only the winners are announced publicly. Winners are announced every October and the ceremony is in December. Each prize is made up of a medal，a personal diploma and a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor(1.4 million US dollars)．

If you want to win one of these awards，you must stand out in your field and earn the

nomination. Therefore，first focus your studies in one of the Nobel Prize fields. The categories are peace，physics，chemistry，physiology，economics and literature. Get a background education in one of these fields.

Then find a world problem and try to solve it. Curing diseases，discovering new things or

even just attempting to fix a problem may attract the attention of a Nobel nominator. Find one issue you think you can solve and work on that. It may take years before your work gets anywhere，but you should stay focused and work toward a solution.

Network(沟通)with others in your field. Since you canˈt nominate yourself for a Nobel Prize，you must make other people know your work. Attend conferences and write articles to newspapers and magazines about your work. The more you make your work known，the better your chances of earning a nomination. If your work gets the attention of a Nobel Prize nominator，he or she may nominate you.

Ignore frustration. It can take years or even decades for your work to gain recognition，so

donˈt give up if you havenˈt won a prize. In some scientific categories the Nobel Prize selection

committee actually delays giving a prize for several years，just in case a theory is discredited(不足信的). Keep at your work and realize that even if you donˈt win a Nobel Prize youˈll still be doing the world some good.