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听力原文：W: I guess I'll send Mary a postcard from Hawaii when I go there on my vacation.
M: I'm sure that she'd be glad to get one. She has a collection of cards from all over the world.
Q: What do we learn about Mary？
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The city's attempt to resolve its education plight is aptly illustrated by the story of Pe-ter DeMarco, formerly an aspiring comedian, who was recruited to teach English in the city's high schools. Mr. DeMarco and about 300 other people joined the teaching ranks under the New York Teaching Fellows program, an initiative set up to fill numerous "technical vacancies" that are usually filled by teachers lacking full certification.
Some 2,300 people from as far away as South Africa and Nigeria applied for the scheme. The successful candidates underwent an intensive induction program at the City University of New York during the summer and were sent to classrooms at the beginning of the school year. Most were sent to schools in troubled parts of the city.
For many, including Mr. DeMarco, becoming a teacher meant a pay cut. "But I am not doing this for money. . . I am doing it for some meaning, and to make an impact on some lives," he says.
Now, at 38, after a variety of jobs—including stand-up comedy and acting roles—he says he is "finally where I want to be". Teaching is difficult but satisfying, Mr. DeMarco says. He liked the job a week into it and still likes it now, months later. He plans to teach through the two years required by the program, and possibly even longer. "Tough as they are, the kids are great. .. some of their writing and creativity, it is just phenomenal. "
People like Mr. DeMarco "demonstrated concern for the quality of teaching in New York schools", says Harold Levy, chancellor of the state's board of education. His board estimates New York will need 40,000 to 55,000 more teachers than it expects to get over the next five years. Colleges are not producing enough teachers, he says. Teacher shortage is a national problem in the U. S. , art issue highlighted in this year's presidential election.
It can be inferred from the passage that the author thinks .
In 1998 America introduced so-called "business-method" patents, granting for the first time patent monopolies simply for new ways of doing business, many of which were not so new. This was a mistake. It not only ushered in a wave of new applications, but it is probably inhibiting, rather than encouraging, commercial innovation, which had never received, or needed, legal protection in the past. Europe has not, so far, made the same blunder, but the European Parliament is considering the easing of roles for innovations incorporated in software. This might have a similarly deleterious effect as business-method patents, because many of these have been simply the application of computers to long-established practices. In Japan, firms are winning large numbers of patents with extremely narrow claims, mostly to obfuscate what is new and so to ward off rivals. As more innovation happens in China and India, these problems are likely to spread there as well.
There is an urgent need for patent offices to return to first principles. A patent is a government-granted temporary monopoly (patents in most countries are given about 20 years' protection) intended to reward innovators in exchange for a disclosure by the patent holder of how his invention works, thereby encouraging others to further innovation. The qualifying tests for patents are straightforward--that an idea be useful, novel and not obvious. Unfortunately most patent offices, swamped by applications that can run to thousands of pages and confronted by companies wielding teams of lawyers, are no longer applying these tests strictly or reliably. For example, in America, many experts believe that dubious patents abound, such as the notorious one for a "sealed crustless sandwich". Of the few patents that are re-examined by the Patent and Trademark Office itself, often after complaints from others, most are invalidated or their claims clipped down. The number of duplicate claims among patents is far too high. What happens in America matters globally, since it is the world's leading patent office, approving about 170,000 patents each year, half of which are granted to foreign applicants.
Europe's patent system is also in a mess in another regard: the quilt of national patent offices and languages means that the cost of obtaining a patent for the entire European Union is too high, a burden in particular on smaller firms and individual inventors. The European Patent Office may award a patent, but the patent holder must then file certified translations at national patent offices to receive protection. Negotiations to simplify this have gone on for over a decade without success.
As a start, patent applications should be made public. In most countries they are, but in America this is the case only under certain circumstances, and after 18 months. More openness would encourage rivals to offer the overworked patent office evidence with which to judge whether an application is truly novel an
听力原文：Man: Because you need water for various reasons, you often end up making your overnight camp by a river. Providing you take care to keep insects away, this can be as healthy a place as any. Much as you might feel you need a good wash, one trap not to fall into, though, is the use of soap or shampoo. These may make you feel good, but actually give off unnatural smells in the jungle which act as a magnet to insects, thus increasing the chances of your getting bitten. Better to actually go in for a dip, being careful to dry off and re-apply your anti-insect cream immediately afterwards.
You hear a man talking to a group of people who are going on an expedition into the rainforest. What does he advise them against？ ......
A．He had no interest in it.B．His grades aren't good enough.C．He missed the business co
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