Text 3 The global reputation of Japan’s animation industry—an animated cartoon industry—has never been higher, and at first glance it would appear to be in rude health. In the opening weekend of Miyazaki’s new film, Howl’s Moving Castle, a record 1.1 million Japanese crammed into cinemas nationwide. It has since been seen at home by nearly 10 million people, and has made Japan the only country in which The Incredibles has been kept out of the top slot. Yet Japan’s animators are full of gloom. They fear that the future is bleak and that the success enjoyed by Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, which makes his films, is actually masking a sad decline. Indus try experts say that not only is there a lack of creative talent on a par with Miyazaki, but the overall standard of animators has fallen over the past decade as low pay and poor working conditions force many to quit. "Miyazaki can’t be replaced, he’s a one-off," says Jonathan Clements, a British animation expert, "Miyazaki isn’t 100 per cent of Ghibli, but when he goes, the party is over." The creative and commercial success enjoyed by Ghibli has afforded it a unique breathing space. For other studios, however, commercial pressures force work to be done at breakneck speed and on shoestring budgets. Veterans of the industry say quality has been sacrificed as television cartoon episodes are made for as little as ￡10,000. Many young animators rely on parental support to put them through animation schools and continue to need financial help just to afford to work in Tokyo, the world’s most expensive city. Yet, remarkably, animation has little problem attracting recruits. Dozens of students pore over desks painstakingly producing page after page of drawings. Most say they are aware that pay is low but desperately want to work in the industry they fell in love with as children through cartoons such as Doraemon, the blue talking cat, and Battle of the Planets.’ But reality often bites as animators reach their thirties, by which time they typically earn around a third of the average pay for Japanese their age and at lower hourly rates than supermarket clerks. Clements believes that the soul of animation is at stake. "Animation is, by definition, from Japan, but it’s only a matter of time before the number of foreign contributors tips the balance, and what used to be animation becomes plain old cartoons," he says. "It may ultimately remove much of what makes animation appeal to its current foreign audience base: its exoticism."

Text 3 The global reputation of Japan’s animation industry—an animated cartoon industry—has never been higher, and at first glance it would appear to be in rude health. In the opening weekend of Miyazaki’s new film, Howl’s Moving Castle, a record 1.1 million Japanese crammed into cinemas nationwide. It has since been seen at home by nearly 10 million people, and has made Japan the only country in which The Incredibles has been kept out of the top slot. Yet Japan’s animators are full of gloom. They fear that the future is bleak and that the success enjoyed by Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, which makes his films, is actually masking a sad decline. Indus try experts say that not only is there a lack of creative talent on a par with Miyazaki, but the overall standard of animators has fallen over the past decade as low pay and poor working conditions force many to quit. "Miyazaki can’t be replaced, he’s a one-off," says Jonathan Clements, a British animation expert, "Miyazaki isn’t 100 per cent of Ghibli, but when he goes, the party is over." The creative and commercial success enjoyed by Ghibli has afforded it a unique breathing space. For other studios, however, commercial pressures force work to be done at breakneck speed and on shoestring budgets. Veterans of the industry say quality has been sacrificed as television cartoon episodes are made for as little as ￡10,000. Many young animators rely on parental support to put them through animation schools and continue to need financial help just to afford to work in Tokyo, the world’s most expensive city. Yet, remarkably, animation has little problem attracting recruits. Dozens of students pore over desks painstakingly producing page after page of drawings. Most say they are aware that pay is low but desperately want to work in the industry they fell in love with as children through cartoons such as Doraemon, the blue talking cat, and Battle of the Planets.’ But reality often bites as animators reach their thirties, by which time they typically earn around a third of the average pay for Japanese their age and at lower hourly rates than supermarket clerks. Clements believes that the soul of animation is at stake. "Animation is, by definition, from Japan, but it’s only a matter of time before the number of foreign contributors tips the balance, and what used to be animation becomes plain old cartoons," he says. "It may ultimately remove much of what makes animation appeal to its current foreign audience base: its exoticism."

Text 3 The global reputation of Japan’s animation industry—an animated cartoon industry—has never been higher, and at first glance it would appear to be in rude health. In the opening weekend of Miyazaki’s new film, Howl’s Moving Castle, a record 1.1 million Japanese crammed into cinemas nationwide. It has since been seen at home by nearly 10 million people, and has made Japan the only country in which The Incredibles has been kept out of the top slot. Yet Japan’s animators are full of gloom. They fear that the future is bleak and that the success enjoyed by Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, which makes his films, is actually masking a sad decline. Indus try experts say that not only is there a lack of creative talent on a par with Miyazaki, but the overall standard of animators has fallen over the past decade as low pay and poor working conditions force many to quit. "Miyazaki can’t be replaced, he’s a one-off," says Jonathan Clements, a British animation expert, "Miyazaki isn’t 100 per cent of Ghibli, but when he goes, the party is over." The creative and commercial success enjoyed by Ghibli has afforded it a unique breathing space. For other studios, however, commercial pressures force work to be done at breakneck speed and on shoestring budgets. Veterans of the industry say quality has been sacrificed as television cartoon episodes are made for as little as ￡10,000. Many young animators rely on parental support to put them through animation schools and continue to need financial help just to afford to work in Tokyo, the world’s most expensive city. Yet, remarkably, animation has little problem attracting recruits. Dozens of students pore over desks painstakingly producing page after page of drawings. Most say they are aware that pay is low but desperately want to work in the industry they fell in love with as children through cartoons such as Doraemon, the blue talking cat, and Battle of the Planets.’ But reality often bites as animators reach their thirties, by which time they typically earn around a third of the average pay for Japanese their age and at lower hourly rates than supermarket clerks. Clements believes that the soul of animation is at stake. "Animation is, by definition, from Japan, but it’s only a matter of time before the number of foreign contributors tips the balance, and what used to be animation becomes plain old cartoons," he says. "It may ultimately remove much of what makes animation appeal to its current foreign audience base: its exoticism."

Text 3 The global reputation of Japan’s animation industry—an animated cartoon industry—has never been higher, and at first glance it would appear to be in rude health. In the opening weekend of Miyazaki’s new film, Howl’s Moving Castle, a record 1.1 million Japanese crammed into cinemas nationwide. It has since been seen at home by nearly 10 million people, and has made Japan the only country in which The Incredibles has been kept out of the top slot. Yet Japan’s animators are full of gloom. They fear that the future is bleak and that the success enjoyed by Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, which makes his films, is actually masking a sad decline. Indus try experts say that not only is there a lack of creative talent on a par with Miyazaki, but the overall standard of animators has fallen over the past decade as low pay and poor working conditions force many to quit. "Miyazaki can’t be replaced, he’s a one-off," says Jonathan Clements, a British animation expert, "Miyazaki isn’t 100 per cent of Ghibli, but when he goes, the party is over." The creative and commercial success enjoyed by Ghibli has afforded it a unique breathing space. For other studios, however, commercial pressures force work to be done at breakneck speed and on shoestring budgets. Veterans of the industry say quality has been sacrificed as television cartoon episodes are made for as little as ￡10,000. Many young animators rely on parental support to put them through animation schools and continue to need financial help just to afford to work in Tokyo, the world’s most expensive city. Yet, remarkably, animation has little problem attracting recruits. Dozens of students pore over desks painstakingly producing page after page of drawings. Most say they are aware that pay is low but desperately want to work in the industry they fell in love with as children through cartoons such as Doraemon, the blue talking cat, and Battle of the Planets.’ But reality often bites as animators reach their thirties, by which time they typically earn around a third of the average pay for Japanese their age and at lower hourly rates than supermarket clerks. Clements believes that the soul of animation is at stake. "Animation is, by definition, from Japan, but it’s only a matter of time before the number of foreign contributors tips the balance, and what used to be animation becomes plain old cartoons," he says. "It may ultimately remove much of what makes animation appeal to its current foreign audience base: its exoticism."

Text 2 Browse through the racks of dresses, skirts, and tops in almost any trendy clothing store in fashion-savvy Argentina, and whether you find something that fits depends on your size. But shops carry few—if any—options for curvaceous women. When you go into a store and find an extra large, you know that it is really the equivalent of a medium or even a small based on American standards. You feel frustrated bemuse you start to think that everybody is like this, and that you are big. But that’s not true. In this beauty-conscious nation, which has the world’s second-highest rate of anorexia, many are partially blarning the country’s clothing industry for offering only tiny sizes of the latest fashions. The result is a dangerous paradox of girls and women adapting to the clothes rather than clothes adapting to them. The Argentine legislature is considering whether to force clothing manufacturers to cover "all the anthropometric measurements of the Argentine woman" up to extra large size. The bill also ad dresses the related problem of so-called "tricky" labeling in which S, M, and L designations vary by brand and are smaller than international standards. The proposal has raised eyebrows in a historically flirtatious society skeptical of government and well known for its obsession with beauty. "Argentina has the world’s highest rates of aesthetic surgery," says Mabel Bello, founder of the Association for the Fight Against Anorexia. "When you axe talking about how preoccupied with beauty our society is, that is the most telling statistic." For experts such statistics spell futility for legal remedies. "These types of laws are not going to cause lasting changes," says Susana Saulquin, a sociologist of fashion. "A better way to address the problem is through public education that emphasizes balanced eating habits over an unrealistic ideal of beauty." Currently, companies try to preserve brand image by catering to young and extremely thin customers, but over time, she believes, a more balanced view of beauty will emerge. For their part, industry groups condemn the bill as overreaching state intervening. They say their business decisions are guided by consumer demand. "We are not in favor of anything that regulates the market," says Laura Codda, a representative of major clothing manufacturers. "Every clothing company has the right to make anything they can sell—any color, any sizes." She says her group is not op posed to measures that would standardize sizing, but she notes that many, if not most, clothes in Argentine stores already carry the numerical designations called for in the hill. If history is a guide, the fate of the proposed law is somewhat bleak. However, in 2005, the provincial government of Buenos Aires managed to pass a similar law—although the governor failed to sign it.

Text 2 Browse through the racks of dresses, skirts, and tops in almost any trendy clothing store in fashion-savvy Argentina, and whether you find something that fits depends on your size. But shops carry few—if any—options for curvaceous women. When you go into a store and find an extra large, you know that it is really the equivalent of a medium or even a small based on American standards. You feel frustrated bemuse you start to think that everybody is like this, and that you are big. But that’s not true. In this beauty-conscious nation, which has the world’s second-highest rate of anorexia, many are partially blarning the country’s clothing industry for offering only tiny sizes of the latest fashions. The result is a dangerous paradox of girls and women adapting to the clothes rather than clothes adapting to them. The Argentine legislature is considering whether to force clothing manufacturers to cover "all the anthropometric measurements of the Argentine woman" up to extra large size. The bill also ad dresses the related problem of so-called "tricky" labeling in which S, M, and L designations vary by brand and are smaller than international standards. The proposal has raised eyebrows in a historically flirtatious society skeptical of government and well known for its obsession with beauty. "Argentina has the world’s highest rates of aesthetic surgery," says Mabel Bello, founder of the Association for the Fight Against Anorexia. "When you axe talking about how preoccupied with beauty our society is, that is the most telling statistic." For experts such statistics spell futility for legal remedies. "These types of laws are not going to cause lasting changes," says Susana Saulquin, a sociologist of fashion. "A better way to address the problem is through public education that emphasizes balanced eating habits over an unrealistic ideal of beauty." Currently, companies try to preserve brand image by catering to young and extremely thin customers, but over time, she believes, a more balanced view of beauty will emerge. For their part, industry groups condemn the bill as overreaching state intervening. They say their business decisions are guided by consumer demand. "We are not in favor of anything that regulates the market," says Laura Codda, a representative of major clothing manufacturers. "Every clothing company has the right to make anything they can sell—any color, any sizes." She says her group is not op posed to measures that would standardize sizing, but she notes that many, if not most, clothes in Argentine stores already carry the numerical designations called for in the hill. If history is a guide, the fate of the proposed law is somewhat bleak. However, in 2005, the provincial government of Buenos Aires managed to pass a similar law—although the governor failed to sign it.

Text 2 Browse through the racks of dresses, skirts, and tops in almost any trendy clothing store in fashion-savvy Argentina, and whether you find something that fits depends on your size. But shops carry few—if any—options for curvaceous women. When you go into a store and find an extra large, you know that it is really the equivalent of a medium or even a small based on American standards. You feel frustrated bemuse you start to think that everybody is like this, and that you are big. But that’s not true. In this beauty-conscious nation, which has the world’s second-highest rate of anorexia, many are partially blarning the country’s clothing industry for offering only tiny sizes of the latest fashions. The result is a dangerous paradox of girls and women adapting to the clothes rather than clothes adapting to them. The Argentine legislature is considering whether to force clothing manufacturers to cover "all the anthropometric measurements of the Argentine woman" up to extra large size. The bill also ad dresses the related problem of so-called "tricky" labeling in which S, M, and L designations vary by brand and are smaller than international standards. The proposal has raised eyebrows in a historically flirtatious society skeptical of government and well known for its obsession with beauty. "Argentina has the world’s highest rates of aesthetic surgery," says Mabel Bello, founder of the Association for the Fight Against Anorexia. "When you axe talking about how preoccupied with beauty our society is, that is the most telling statistic." For experts such statistics spell futility for legal remedies. "These types of laws are not going to cause lasting changes," says Susana Saulquin, a sociologist of fashion. "A better way to address the problem is through public education that emphasizes balanced eating habits over an unrealistic ideal of beauty." Currently, companies try to preserve brand image by catering to young and extremely thin customers, but over time, she believes, a more balanced view of beauty will emerge. For their part, industry groups condemn the bill as overreaching state intervening. They say their business decisions are guided by consumer demand. "We are not in favor of anything that regulates the market," says Laura Codda, a representative of major clothing manufacturers. "Every clothing company has the right to make anything they can sell—any color, any sizes." She says her group is not op posed to measures that would standardize sizing, but she notes that many, if not most, clothes in Argentine stores already carry the numerical designations called for in the hill. If history is a guide, the fate of the proposed law is somewhat bleak. However, in 2005, the provincial government of Buenos Aires managed to pass a similar law—although the governor failed to sign it.

Text 2 Browse through the racks of dresses, skirts, and tops in almost any trendy clothing store in fashion-savvy Argentina, and whether you find something that fits depends on your size. But shops carry few—if any—options for curvaceous women. When you go into a store and find an extra large, you know that it is really the equivalent of a medium or even a small based on American standards. You feel frustrated bemuse you start to think that everybody is like this, and that you are big. But that’s not true. In this beauty-conscious nation, which has the world’s second-highest rate of anorexia, many are partially blarning the country’s clothing industry for offering only tiny sizes of the latest fashions. The result is a dangerous paradox of girls and women adapting to the clothes rather than clothes adapting to them. The Argentine legislature is considering whether to force clothing manufacturers to cover "all the anthropometric measurements of the Argentine woman" up to extra large size. The bill also ad dresses the related problem of so-called "tricky" labeling in which S, M, and L designations vary by brand and are smaller than international standards. The proposal has raised eyebrows in a historically flirtatious society skeptical of government and well known for its obsession with beauty. "Argentina has the world’s highest rates of aesthetic surgery," says Mabel Bello, founder of the Association for the Fight Against Anorexia. "When you axe talking about how preoccupied with beauty our society is, that is the most telling statistic." For experts such statistics spell futility for legal remedies. "These types of laws are not going to cause lasting changes," says Susana Saulquin, a sociologist of fashion. "A better way to address the problem is through public education that emphasizes balanced eating habits over an unrealistic ideal of beauty." Currently, companies try to preserve brand image by catering to young and extremely thin customers, but over time, she believes, a more balanced view of beauty will emerge. For their part, industry groups condemn the bill as overreaching state intervening. They say their business decisions are guided by consumer demand. "We are not in favor of anything that regulates the market," says Laura Codda, a representative of major clothing manufacturers. "Every clothing company has the right to make anything they can sell—any color, any sizes." She says her group is not op posed to measures that would standardize sizing, but she notes that many, if not most, clothes in Argentine stores already carry the numerical designations called for in the hill. If history is a guide, the fate of the proposed law is somewhat bleak. However, in 2005, the provincial government of Buenos Aires managed to pass a similar law—although the governor failed to sign it.

Text 2 Browse through the racks of dresses, skirts, and tops in almost any trendy clothing store in fashion-savvy Argentina, and whether you find something that fits depends on your size. But shops carry few—if any—options for curvaceous women. When you go into a store and find an extra large, you know that it is really the equivalent of a medium or even a small based on American standards. You feel frustrated bemuse you start to think that everybody is like this, and that you are big. But that’s not true. In this beauty-conscious nation, which has the world’s second-highest rate of anorexia, many are partially blarning the country’s clothing industry for offering only tiny sizes of the latest fashions. The result is a dangerous paradox of girls and women adapting to the clothes rather than clothes adapting to them. The Argentine legislature is considering whether to force clothing manufacturers to cover "all the anthropometric measurements of the Argentine woman" up to extra large size. The bill also ad dresses the related problem of so-called "tricky" labeling in which S, M, and L designations vary by brand and are smaller than international standards. The proposal has raised eyebrows in a historically flirtatious society skeptical of government and well known for its obsession with beauty. "Argentina has the world’s highest rates of aesthetic surgery," says Mabel Bello, founder of the Association for the Fight Against Anorexia. "When you axe talking about how preoccupied with beauty our society is, that is the most telling statistic." For experts such statistics spell futility for legal remedies. "These types of laws are not going to cause lasting changes," says Susana Saulquin, a sociologist of fashion. "A better way to address the problem is through public education that emphasizes balanced eating habits over an unrealistic ideal of beauty." Currently, companies try to preserve brand image by catering to young and extremely thin customers, but over time, she believes, a more balanced view of beauty will emerge. For their part, industry groups condemn the bill as overreaching state intervening. They say their business decisions are guided by consumer demand. "We are not in favor of anything that regulates the market," says Laura Codda, a representative of major clothing manufacturers. "Every clothing company has the right to make anything they can sell—any color, any sizes." She says her group is not op posed to measures that would standardize sizing, but she notes that many, if not most, clothes in Argentine stores already carry the numerical designations called for in the hill. If history is a guide, the fate of the proposed law is somewhat bleak. However, in 2005, the provincial government of Buenos Aires managed to pass a similar law—although the governor failed to sign it.

Section Ⅱ Reading Comprehension Part A Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. Text 1 The planet’s wild creatures face a new threat from yuppies, empty nesters, singletons and one parent families. Biologists studying the pressure on the planet’s dwindling biodiversity today report on a new reason for alarm. Although the rate of growth in the human population is decreasing, the number of individual households is exploding. Even where populations have actually dwindled—in some regions of New Zealand, for instance—the number of individual households has increased, because of divorce, career choice, smaller families and longer lifespans. Jianguo Liu of Michigan State University and colleagues from Stanford University in California re port in Nature, in a paper published online in advance, that a greater number of individual house holds, each containing on average fewer people, meant more pressure on natural resources. Towns and cities began to sprawl as new homes were built. Each household needed fuel to heat and light it; each household required its own plumbing, cooking and refrigeration. "In larger households, the efficiency of resource consumption will be a lot higher, because more people share things," Dr. Liu said. He and his colleagues looked at the population patterns of life in 141 countries, including 76 "hotspot" regions unusually rich in a variety of endemic wildlife. These hot spots included Australia, New Zealand, the US, Brazil, China, India, Kenya, and Italy. They found that between 1985 and 2000 in the "hotspot" parts of the globe, the annual 3.1% growth rate in the number of households was far higher than the population growth rate of 1.8 %. "Had the average household size remained at the 1985 level," the scientists report, "there would have been 155m fewer households in hotspot countries in 2000. Paradoxically, smaller households do not mean smaller homes. In Indian River county, Florida, the average area of a one-storey, single family house increased 33 % in the past three decades." Dr. Liu’s work grew from the alarming discovery that the giant pandas living in China’s Wolong reserve were more at risk now than they were when the reserve was first established. The local population had grown, but the total number of homes had increased more swiftly, to make greater inroads into the bamboo forests. Gretchen Daily of Stanford, one of the authors, said: "We all depend on open space and wild places, not just for peace of mind but for vital services such as crop pollination, water purification and climate stabilization. The alarming thing about this study is the finding that, if family groups continue to become smaller and smaller, we might continue losing biodiversity—even if we get the aggregate human population size stabilised."