1. What can be learnt from the study of Anne Case and Christina Paxson?(不多于8字)

3.　　 What conlusion did Edgren draw in the end?(不多于10字)

17

While researchers have long shown that tall people earn more than their shorter counterparts, it's not only social discrimination that accounts for this inequality -- tall people are just smarter than their height-challenged peers, a new study finds. 　　 "As early as age three -- before schooling has had a chance to play a role -- and throughout childhood, taller children perform significantly better on cognitive tests," wrote Anne Case and Christina Paxson of Princeton University in a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The findings were based primarily on two British studies that followed children born in 1958 and 1970, respectively, through adulthood and a U.S. study on height and occupational choice.

Other studies have pointed to low self-esteem, better health that accompanies greater height, and social discrimination as culprits(罪犯) for lower pay for shorter people.

But researchers Case and Paxson believe the height advantage in the job world is more than just a question of image.

"As adults, taller individuals are more likely to select into higher paying occupations that require more advanced verbal and numerical skills and greater intelligence, for which they earn handsome returns," they wrote.

For both men and women in the United States and the United Kingdom, a height advantage of four inches equated with a 10 percent increase in wages on average.

But the researchers said the differences in performance crop up long before the tall people enter the job force. Prenatal care(产前护理) and the time between birth and the age of 3 are critical periods for determining future cognitive ability and height.

"Prenatal care and prenatal nutrition are just incredibly important, even more so than we already knew," Case said in an interview.

Since the study's data only included populations in the United Kingdom and the United States, the findings could not be applied to other regions, Case said.

And how tall are the researchers?

They are both about 5 feet 8 inches tall, well above the average height of 5 feet 4 inches for American women.

2.　　 What’s the common opinion can we infer as to the blood donation from the passage?(不多于8字)

1.　　 What’s the meaning of the underlined word “excess”?(不多于2字)

3.　　 What does Li Yeqiao think of their 3r?(不多于10字)

16

NEW YORK: Frequent blood donation is not harmful to your health, a new study confirms.

"No one should worry that giving blood causes cancer," Dr Gustaf Edgren of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, the study's lead author, told Reuters Health. "If anything, blood donation may actually be good for you."

People who donate blood show lower cancer and mortality rates than their non-donating peers, Edgren and his colleagues note in their report, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Association, but the fact that blood donors tend to be healthier overall could mask any ill effects of frequent donation.

There are also several mechanisms by which frequent blood donation could theoretically affect health, Edgren noted in an interview. For one, drawing blood causes the body to ramp up production of blood cells in the bone marrow. This accelerated cell division, or "mitotic stress," could increase the likelihood of malignancy in blood-forming tissues.

Giving blood has also been shown to result in immune system changes, and some have suggested these immunologic effects could be associated with cancer.

On the positive side, excess iron stores have been tied to heart disease and certain types of cancer, so people who have their blood drawn regularly may be depleting these stores and thus improving their health.

To better understand how repeated blood donations affect health, Edgren and his team looked at data from Swedish and Danish blood banks and transfusion clinics containing records of individuals who donated blood at least once between 1968 and 2002, a total of 1,110,212 people.

The investigators found no relationship between how frequently a person gave blood and their risk of cancer. However, among male donors, the risk of liver, lung, colon, stomach and throat cancer declined as the frequency of donations increased, which suggests that iron depletion may reduce cancer risk.

Even a small excess risk of cancer associated with blood donation would be "a very serious matter," Edgren noted, because so many people donate blood.

However, he added, "we've more or less made very clear that there is no excess risk of cancer associated with frequent blood donation."

2.　　 How does Austin Gutwein raise money for children orphaned by AIDS?(不多于7字)

1.　　 What’s the main idea of this passage?(不多于8字)

3.　　 From the film, what can we learn adults should do to develop the relationship between them and their children?(不多于11字)

15

More than 300 high school students from 40 schools across the globe gathered this week at the Western Academy of Beijing, one of the capital's leading international schools, to discuss how they can "change" the world by helping to solve global problems.

It is the first time an Asian country has hosted the Global Issues Network conference, which was set up in 2006 by teachers and students from six international schools in Europe. It aims to help students realize they can make a difference by empowering them to work with peers to develop solutions to global issues.

The idea for the conference came from the book High Noon: Twenty Global Problems, Twenty Years to Solve Them by Jean-Francois Rischard, former World Bank vice-president for Europe, which presents a series of challenges that can be solved only through global cooperation.

One of the participants at the conference was Austin Gutwein from Arizona in the United States, who was just 9 when he began raising money for children orphaned by AIDS.

In 2004, the junior high school student, now 13, launched the basketball-themed Hoops of Hope, which "charged" people in his neighborhood $1 for every basket he shot.

Since then, thousands of youngsters have picked up on the idea and helped raised more than $325,000 for the cause.

"It works because kids my age want a chance to do something great and be part of something like this," Gutwein told China Daily.

"I realized these kids weren't any different from me, except they were suffering and I wanted to do something to help them," he said.

With the help of non-government organizations, Hoops of Hope has built a school for HIV/AIDS orphans and a medical lab in Zambia in South Africa.

Another participant, Li Yeqiao, a 15-year-old student at Beijing Bayi Middle School who chairs the school's Roots & Shoots group, told the conference how the group seeks to improve the way electronic waste is disposed of, and encourages people to save water and care for animals.

"We have developed 3R (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) living habits and are optimistic our initiatives will have a positive impact on the local environment," Li said.

British animal behavior expert Jane Goodall introduced the Roots & Shoots concept to China in 2000 to promote environmental and humanitarian education programs to children. There are now 300 of such groups in the country.

2.　　 Why doesn’t Melanie’s father want her to go to faraway university?(不多于8字)

1.　　 Find a word in the passage having the closest meaning with the underlined word “comic”.