Commuters   who drive to work will face a parking charge of up to PS350 a year.Ministers are backing a workplace parking charge which will come into force in Nottingham in 2013 and is likely to be adopted across the country.The scheme will see firms with more than ten parking places for staff charged PS350 a year for each space in two years. Employers would be free to pass on the charge to their staff--meaning it would effectively be a tax on driving to work.The scheme aims to reduce traffic by preventing unnecessary car journeys and raise funds to improve public transport,but critics say it is just an excuse for councils to fill their coffers  . Some ten million Britons drive to work each day,and the British Chambers of Commerce says the new charge could total PS3.4 billion a year if rolled out nationwide. Already some firms in Nottingham have threatened to leave the city,where 40,000 commuters use their cars to get to work.A spokesman said the scheme was nothing more than a tax on jobs."It is very unfair to discriminate against those employers who have parking spaces,which get vehicles off the streets," he said."And these charges apply around the clock,which is especially unfair on shift workers who rely on their cars because public transport is not available.This is more about increasing the government's income than reducing traffic." However,Transport Minister Sadiq Khan gave the plan an  official approval during a visit to Nottingham. The council says  the tax will raise as much as PS100 million over ten years--one fifth of the cost of a new transport system for the city. Another transport spokesman Theresa Villiers said the tax  would have a devastating impact on businesses struggling to  cope with the economic decline. But Richard Hebditch of the Campaign for Better Transport  said the tax would raise money to invest in better transport."We put forward the idea of workplace parking taxes as a fairer way to raise money to invest in the future local transport services.We are pleased that the people of... Supporters argue that the scheme  _  . A) can help improve the parking conditions for the staff B) should be applied to ail commuters driving to work C) is certain to be carried out despite the objections D) will relieve traffic pressure and improve public transport
D


(Question)
Does being one of the younger students mean you have more of an excuse to make mistakes? The Taiwanese pop duo   Sweety, both 18 years old, will never do  _ . Starting to sing at age 14,Esther Lau   and Joanne Tseng   were among the youngest performers in their company.Over the years, they have learnt to be strict with themselves. "No one forces us,but we have to work very hard to get to the top," they said."The early bird gets the worm." Recently,they have brought their new CD, "Sweet Talk" to Beijing.Their songs are as sweet as their honey looks. Although their voices go together well,they have different personalities.Esther is outgoing,while Joanne looks shy. They also have different ways to set life goals."I have to make short-term goals and realize them one by one," said Esther. But Joanne said she sets longer goals."I like to keep one final goal in my heart and work hard to reach it," she says. Esther studies English at a college.She hopes to be a teacher someday. Joanne says she has got a business mind from her father.Perhaps she'll be a boss someday! Joanne's father is good at   _  .Ks5u A) singing B) dancing C) business D) sports
(Answer)
C


Ques: When you think about math, you probably don't think about breaking the law, solving mysteries or finding criminals. But a mathematician in Maryland does, and he has come up with mathematical tools to help police find criminals. People who solve crimes look for patterns that might reveal  the identity of the criminal. It's long been believed, for example, that criminals will break the law closer to where they live, simply because it's easier to get around in their own neighborhood. If police see a pattern of robberies in a certain area, they may look for a suspect  who lives near the crime scenes. So, the farther away from the area a crime takes place, the less likely it is that the same criminal did it. But Mike O'Leary, a mathematician at Towson University in Maryland, says that this kind of approach may be too simple. He says that police may get better clues to the location of a criminal's home base by combining these patterns with a city's layout  and historical crime records. The records of past crimes contain geographical information and can reveal easy targets -- that is, the kind of stores that might be less difficult to rob. Because these stores are along roads, the locations of past crimes contain information about where major streets and intersections are. O'Leary is writing a new computer program that will quickly provide this kind of information for a given city. His program also includes information about the people who live in the city, and information about how a criminal's patterns change with age. It's been shown, for example, that the younger the criminal, the closer to home the crime. Other computer programmers have worked on similar software, but O'Leary's uses more math. The mathematician plans to make his computer program available, free of charge, to police departments around the country. The program is just one way to use math to fight crime. O'Leary says that criminology -- the study of crime and criminals -- contains a lot of good math problems. "I feel like I'm in a gold mine and ,"... O'Leary is writing a computer program that    _   . A) uses math to increase the speed of calculation B) tells the identity of a criminal in a certain area C) shows changes in criminals' patterns D) provides the crime records of a given city
Ans: D


A survey suggests that people who have dropped out from high school just earn an average of $9,000 less per year than graduates. Now a new study removes a common belief why they quit. It's much more basic than flunking out . Society tends to think of high school dropouts as kids who just can't cut it. They are lazy, and perhaps not too bright. So researchers were surprised when they asked more than 450 kids who quit school about why they left. "The vast majority actually had passing grades and they were confident that they could have graduated from high school." John Bridgeland, the executive researcher said. About one million teens leave school each year. Only about half of African-American and Hispanic students will receive a diploma , and actually all dropouts come to regret their decision. So, if failing grades don't explain why these kids quit, what does? Again, John Bridgeland: "The most dependable finding was that they were bored." "They found classes uninteresting; they weren't inspired or motivated. They didn't see any direct connection between what they were learning in the classroom to their own lives, or to their career aspirations." The study found that most teens who do drop out wait until they turn sixteen, which happens to be the age at which most states allow students to quit. In the U.S., only one state, New Mexico, has a law requiring teenagers to stay in high school until they graduate. Only four states: California, Tennessee, Texas and Utah, plus the District of Columbia, require school attendance until age 18, no exceptions. Jeffrey Grin, another researcher, says raising the compulsory attendance age may be one way to keep more kids in school. "As these dropouts look back, they realize they've made a mistake. And anything that sort of gives these people an extra push to stick it out and see it through to the end, is probably helpful measure." New Hampshire may be the next state to raise its school attendance age to 18. But critics say that forcing the students unwilling to continue their... From the passage, we can infer the following EXCEPT that   _  . A) the grades of most dropouts at school were acceptable B) dropouts' salary is not as satisfying as graduates' C) classes don't appeal to dropouts D) about 500,000 high school dropouts are black and Spanish

D