问答题Taking a stand
Xuemei Han was a second-year graduate student in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University. Last month, she was facing expulsion (开除). Efforts to transfer to the university’’s forestry school had failed, and it looked as though the 26-year-old might have to return to China within a matter of weeks.
In June, Han had been told that she was "not in good academic standing" with her department — an accusation she disputed. She had passed her qualifying exams at the first attempt and, after a few more tries, her required language exam as well. So she did something that many Chinese graduate students would never dream of doing: on 20 October she filed a complaint against Yale, accusing the university of treating Chinese students unfairly. The only Chinese student in her department, Han wrote in her complaint that she suspected professors were reluctant to work with her because they thought she would need extra help preparing manuscripts and grant proposals.
Her grievance quickly gained a high profile on campus and beyond. Three other graduate students filed supporting testimonials that detailed problems they had experienced in their departments, and just over half of the 274 Chinese graduate students at Yale signed a statement backing her. The case was reported by media in the United States and even made the evening news in China. Within a week, university administrators relented and allowed Han to transfer to the department of forestry, where she had found an adviser willing to support her.
Yale flatly denies any accusations of discrimination against Chinese students. Yale spokesman Tom Conroy said in a statement, "Yale has a long standing tradition of being a welcoming and supportive university for international students, and especially those from China."
Whether or not it was discrimination, Han’’s story taps into a rarely seen vein of discontent among Chinese students and postdocs (博士后) across the country. Chinese nationals are by far the largest group of foreign academics working in US universities. Between 1985 and 2000, some 26,500 Chinese students earned science and engineering PhDs in the United States — more than double the number of students from all of Western Europe, according to the National Science Foundation. And a recent survey of postdocs by scientific research society Sigma Xi in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, showed that Chinese postdocs tend to work longer hours for less pay than their American counterparts.
Language obstacles and culture shock
Many Chinese come to the United States to participate in cutting-edge research, but must first overcome language barriers, cultural differences. They frequently feel isolated from their US lab-mates. And although all graduate students are at the mercy of their advisers, foreign students are especially vulnerable. They lack alternative options, so a disagreement or funding problem is all that it takes for them to be sent back to China.
The high percentage of Chinese in the lab is no coincidence. US researchers are happy to recruit academically gifted Chinese scholars, while the best and brightest Chinese are drawn to the country by research opportunities that they cannot get at home.
That opportunity is what brought Han from Inner Mongolia to Yale in 2003. She received her undergraduate and master’’s degree in ecology from Beijing Normal University, but had never travelled outside China. "Ecology research has only just started in China, so my professors recommended that I study here," she recalls. She was ecstatic when she learned that Yale had admitted her to a PhD programme with funding from a Fan Family Fellowship, which supports Chinese students.
But shortly after arriving in the United States, Han ran into difficulty. Like many Chinese students, she had studied English extensively in China, but that training focused primarily on reading and writing, not speaking. "The first semester was very hard," she says. "In physics and other departments, there are other Chinese graduate students who can help, but I was the only one in my department."
Han’’s experience is not unusual. Many Chinese students have trouble fitting in when they first reach the United States, according to Hongwen Zhu, a graduate student at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. Zhu says many students are embarrassed to admit that they don’’t understand what is being asked of them, or they are reluctant to raise their concerns vocally with their professors. "Most Chinese students tend to be very quiet, and this is a very big problem," he says.
Han made steady progress in her language skills, but it came at a cost. She was unable to teach, a requirement of her department, and she had trouble finding a research adviser. Still, Han was shocked to learn in June that she was no longer in good standing with her programme.
On the edge of fellowship
In the Han’’s case, Han could transfer to other department of Yale University, but she was informed that she would lose the Fan Family Fellowship.
Foreign students and postdocs frequently run into these sorts of funding problems, says Ji-Cheng Wang, a postdoc cancer researcher. Unlike American students, who can switch advisers if necessary, many foreigners are financially tied to their principal investigator (PI). "If anything happens to the PI then the student is put at risk," Wang says.
This relationship can put students in a precarious position. When Wei Fu, not his real name, moved from Peking University to become a postdoc at a midwestern university, he was hoping for a chance to expand his own research career in biophysics. Instead, Fu’’s lab director asked him to devote most of his time to existing experiments. "I didn’’t have much independence, I didn’’t feel free," he says. When Fu told the PI of his unhappiness, he found himself suddenly out of a job. He had just three months to scramble for a new position, or risk expulsion from the country. Eventually, he managed to find a position at a lab in California. "You can imagine that I was very stressed," he says.
Visa obstacles
That stress has been exacerbated (加重) by recent US and Chinese immigration policy. Most international students and scholars get a multiple-entry visa for the duration of their studies, but Chinese students must reapply for a new visa every six months. That is an improvement over the old rules, which required students to reapply each time they left the country, but it still causes trouble for researchers such as Yangheng Zheng, a postdoc studying high-energy physics at the University of California, Los Angeles. While conducting graduate research at the University of Hawaii, Zheng frequently traveled between the United States and Japan, and each trip required a new visa both ways. "In three years I used up all of my passport’’s pages," he says. Although the situation is better now, there are still problems, he says. Two months ago, on his latest excursion to CERN, the European particle-physics lab, he ended up stuck in Geneva for three weeks waiting for a US security check.
Different views from Chinese students
There is little consensus in the Chinese community over how serious these issues are. Some students and postdocs said they had not encountered significant problems, and many reported strong relationships with their advisers, who helped them resolve issues. "The people I know are very nice to me," says Ye Jin, a postdoc in molecular biology at the University of California, Berkeley. "When I try to write papers and proposals my PI has been very patient and corrects my grammar. She has been very encouraging."
"Language is not a barrier if you are willing to learn," adds Grace Wong, the president of Student Vision, a Boston-based group that helps students find jobs in biotechnology. "If your skills are good and you’’re willing to work really hard, any boss will love you."
But Huang disagrees. "We really appreciate that the university gives us the chance to come here and study," he says. "But even if you work hard, sometimes you still have the risk of being kicked out because of a funding problem or a disagreement with your adviser."
Hongwen Zhu says many students admit embarrassedly that they don’’t understand__________.
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1.填空题Noise constitutes a real and present danger to people’’s health. Day and night, at home, at work, and at play, noise can produce serious 【B1】 and psychological stress. No one is 【B2】 to this stress. Though we seem to 【B3】 to noise by ignoring it, the ear, in fact, never closes and the body still 【B4】 — sometimes with extreme tension — to a strange sound in the night.
The 【B5】 we feel when faced with noise is the most common outward 【B6】 of the stress building up inside us. The more 【B7】 and more serious health hazards 【B8】 with the stress caused by noise traditionally have been given much 【B9】 attention. 【B10】 . when we are annoyed or made irritable by noise, we should consider these symptoms fair warning 【B11】 other things may be happening to us, some of which may be damaging to our health.
【B12】 many health hazards of noise, hearing loss is the most clearly 【B13】 and measurable by health professionals. The other hazards are harder to 【B14】 . For many of us, there may be a risk that 【B15】 to the stress of noise increases susceptibility to disease and infection. The more 【B16】 among us may experience noise as a 【B17】 factor in heart problems and other diseases. Noise that causes annoyance and irritability in healthy persons may have more serious consequences for those already ill in mind or body. 【B18】 . the link between noise and many disabilities or diseases has not yet been 【B19】 demonstrated, and we 【B20】 to dismiss annoyance caused by noise as a price to pay for living in the modern world.
A．adapt
B．adjust
C．be adaptive
D．be adjustable
2.填空题The more women and (36)_________make their way into the ranks of management, the more they seem to want a talk about things (37)_________judged to be best left unsaid. The newcomers also tend to see office matters with a (38)_________eye, in the process sometimes coming up with (39)_________ analyses of the forces that (40)_________everyone’’s experience in the organization.
Consider the novel views of Harvey Coleman of Atlanta on the subject of getting ahead. Coleman is black. He spent 11 years with IBM, half of them working in management development, and now serves as a (41)_________to the likes of AT&T, Co-ca-Cola, Prudential, and Merch. Coleman says that based on what he’’s seen at big companies, he (42)_________ the different elements that make for (43) _________career success as follows; performance counts a mere 10%, image, 30%, and exposure, a full 60%. Coleman concludes that (44)______________________, it won’’t secure you the big promotion. He finds that advancement more often depends on how many people know you and your work, and how high up they are.
Ridiculous beliefs Not to many people, (45) ______________________. "Women and blacks in organizations work under false beliefs," says Kaleen Jamison, a New York-based management consultant who helps corporations deal with these issues. "They think that if you work hard, you’’ll get ahead—that someone in authority will reach down and give you promotion." She adds, "Most women and blacks are so frightened that people will think they’’ve gotten ahead because of their sex or color that they play down their visibility." Her advice to those folks: (46) ______________________.
3.单项选择题If you had told me back in 1971 — the year I graduated high school—that I’d be going off to college soon, I would have assured you that you were sorely mistaken. I was the son of a plumber living in western Massachusetts, and we had all assumed that in the end I’d be a plumber, too.
I spent the year after high school working in construction. Then one day I went to visit some friends at Dean College, a two-year residential college 45 minutes outside of Boston, and my mind-set began to change. As I walked around campus and listened to my friends talk about their experiences, I realized this was an opportunity to change my path that might not come again. So I enrolled at Dean, and I can honestly say it was a life-altering experience.
The school’’s philosophy is to educate, energize and inspire. In fact, it was a Dean professor, Charlie Kramer, who ignited my passion for economics and taught me how to think analytically. After all these years, I still have my notes from his economics classes, and I’’ve referred back to them from time to time — even as I went on to Babson College, where I earned my bachelor of science degree in economics and then an M.B.A.. I’m proud to say that today I’m a member of Dean College’’s board of trustees.
Would I be running a global consulting company with $17 billion in revenue and 130,000 employees today if I’’ d followed a different path Who knows But there is no doubt that my two years at Dean College not only prepared me for advancing my education and gearing up for a career, but also transformed me as a person. And that’’s not a bad start no matter where life takes you.
But while Americans are waking up to the idea that we need to sharpen our competitive edge in the world — President George W. Bush threw down the gauntlet in his State of the Union address earlier this year — many still overlook our system of community and junior colleges.
Whenever I get the chance to talk to young people, I urge them to consider options other than four-year schools. Junior and community colleges can help them become better equipped to continue their education and to face real-world challenges. These colleges can smooth their transition from high school to work life, provide them with core decision-making skills and teach them how to think and learn.
Community colleges excel at working with local businesses to identify specific needs. Chances are, if there’’s a large manufacturing plant in your town, your community college offers technical training in conjunction with the plant. Better skills and better pay lead to happier, more productive employees. That boosts the economy, which gives us all a better standard of living.
According to the author, the following are the function of a junior and community college except______.A．it can help you become better equipped to continue education
B．it can help you to learn to face the challenges in life
C．you will learn how to think and learn
D．you will have decision-making classes
4.单项选择题I am a mother of three (ages 14, 12, 3) and have recently completed my college degree. The last class I had to take was Sociology. The teacher was absolutely inspiring with the qualities that I wish every human being had been graced with. Her last project of the term was called "Smile". The class was asked to go out and smile at three people and document their reaction.
I am a very friendly person and always smile at everyone and say hello anyway... so, I thought, this would be a piece of cake.
Soon after we were assigned the project, my husband, youngest son, and I went out to McDonald’’s, one crisp March morning. It was just our way of sharing special play time with our son.
We were standing in line, waiting to be served, when all of a sudden everyone around us began to back away, and then even my husband did. I did not move an inch... an overwhelming feeling of panic welled up inside of me as I turned to see why they had moved.
As I turned around I smelled a horrible "dirty body" smell... and there standing behind me were two poor homeless men. As I looked down at the short gentleman, close to me, he was "smiling"... his beautiful sky blue eyes were full of God’’s Light as he searched for acceptance.
He said, "Good day" as he counted the few coins he had been clutching. The second man fumbled (瞎摸乱找) with his hands as he stood behind his friend. I realized the second man was mentally deficient and the blue-eyed gentleman was his salvation. I held my tears... as I stood there with them.
The young lady at the counter asked him what they wanted. He said, "Coffee is all, Miss." because that was all they could afford (to sit in the restaurant and warm up they had to buy something... they just wanted to be warm).
Then I really felt it... the compulsion was so great I almost reached out and embraced the little man with the blue eyes. That is when I noticed all eyes in the restaurant were set on me... judging my every action. I smiled and asked the young lady behind the counter to give me two more breakfast meals on a separate tray. I then walked around the corner to the table that the men had chosen as a resting spot.
I put the tray on the table and laid my hand on the blue-eyed gentleman’’s cold hand. He looked up at me, with tears in his eyes, and said, "Thank you". I leaned over, began to pat his hand and said, "I did not do this for you... God is here working through me to give you hope". I started to cry as I walked away to join my husband and son. When I sat down my husband smiled at me and said, "That is why God gave you to me honey. .. to give me hope". We held hands for a moment and at that time we knew that only because of the Grace were we able to give.....
We are not church goers but we are believers. That day showed me the pure Light of God’’s sweet love.
I returned to college, on the last evening of class, with this story in hand. I turned in "my project" and the instructor read it... then she looked up at me and said, "Can I share this" I slowly nodded as she got the attention of the class. She began to read and that is when I knew that we as human beings share this need to heal.
In my own way I had touched the people at McDonald’’s, my husband, son, instructor, and every soul that shared the classroom on the last night I spent as a college student. I graduated with one of the biggest lessons I would ever learn... unconditional acceptance... after all... we are here to learn!
When she encountered these two men, the author________.A．felt too embarrassed to get away immediately
B．was very nervous due to the public attention to her
C．realized it would be a great opportunity to accomplish her project assignment
D．felt the urgent need to do something to help these two men
5.问答题The vast expanse of the United States of America stretches from the heavily industrialized, metropolitan Atlantic seaboard across the rich flat farms of the central plains, over the Rocky Mountains to the fertile west coast, then halfway across the Pacific to the balmy (温和的) island-state of Hawaii. The American scene awes the viewer with both its variety and size. The continental United States (not counting outlying Alaska and Hawaii) measures, 4,500 kilometers from its Atlantic to Pacific coasts, 2,575 kilometers from Canada to Mexico. The entire nation (all 50 states) covers an area of 9 million square kilometers and has a population of 220 million people.
The sparsely settled, far-northern state of Alaska is the largest of America’’s 50 states. It is more than two and a half times the size of Sichuan province. Texas, in the southern part of the country, is second in size. Texas is half the size of Alaska.
A land of heavy forests (311 million hectares) and barren deserts, of high-peaked mountains and deep canyons, America also enjoys bountiful rivers and lakes. The broad Mississippi River system, famed in song and legend, meanders 6,400 kilometers from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico— the world’’s third longest river after the Nile and Amazon. A canal in the north join the Mississippi to the five Great Lakes— the world’’s largest inland water transportation route and the biggest body of fresh water in the world.
America’’s early settlers were attracted by the fertile land and varied climates it offered for farming. Today, with 121 million hectares under cultivation, American farmers plant spring wheat on the cold western plain; they raise corn and fine beef cattle in the central plains, and rice in the damp heat of Louisiana. Florida and California are famous for their citrus fruits and tropical avocados; the cool rainy northeastern states for apples, pears, berries and vegetables.
America has long been known as a "melting pot," for it is a nation of immigrants from all over the world. Europe, the major source of immigrants, began sending colonists to America in the early 17th century. Tens of millions flooded to America’’s shores from Europe between 1880 and the First World War. The next largest group of Americans trace their ancestry to Africa, black people now constitute over 11 percent of the population. The melting pot has also absorbed nearly 600,000 Japanese, half a million Chinese and 340,000 Filipinos. Many live in Hawaii, more than two-thirds of whose people boast on Asian or Polynesian heritage.
Thanks to the__________America offers for agriculture, different states have their different special farming products. 参考答案：fertile land and varied climates 6.单项选择题A．John should not talk to Bill anymore.
B．John should tell Bill not to think negatively.
C．John should take Bill’’s remarks seriously.
D．John should pay little attention to what Bill says.
7.填空题Noise constitutes a real and present danger to people’’s health. Day and night, at home, at work, and at play, noise can produce serious 【B1】 and psychological stress. No one is 【B2】 to this stress. Though we seem to 【B3】 to noise by ignoring it, the ear, in fact, never closes and the body still 【B4】 — sometimes with extreme tension — to a strange sound in the night.
The 【B5】 we feel when faced with noise is the most common outward 【B6】 of the stress building up inside us. The more 【B7】 and more serious health hazards 【B8】 with the stress caused by noise traditionally have been given much 【B9】 attention. 【B10】 . when we are annoyed or made irritable by noise, we should consider these symptoms fair warning 【B11】 other things may be happening to us, some of which may be damaging to our health.
【B12】 many health hazards of noise, hearing loss is the most clearly 【B13】 and measurable by health professionals. The other hazards are harder to 【B14】 . For many of us, there may be a risk that 【B15】 to the stress of noise increases susceptibility to disease and infection. The more 【B16】 among us may experience noise as a 【B17】 factor in heart problems and other diseases. Noise that causes annoyance and irritability in healthy persons may have more serious consequences for those already ill in mind or body. 【B18】 . the link between noise and many disabilities or diseases has not yet been 【B19】 demonstrated, and we 【B20】 to dismiss annoyance caused by noise as a price to pay for living in the modern world.
A．immune
B．used
C．accustomed
D．neutral
8.问答题The vast expanse of the United States of America stretches from the heavily industrialized, metropolitan Atlantic seaboard across the rich flat farms of the central plains, over the Rocky Mountains to the fertile west coast, then halfway across the Pacific to the balmy (温和的) island-state of Hawaii. The American scene awes the viewer with both its variety and size. The continental United States (not counting outlying Alaska and Hawaii) measures, 4,500 kilometers from its Atlantic to Pacific coasts, 2,575 kilometers from Canada to Mexico. The entire nation (all 50 states) covers an area of 9 million square kilometers and has a population of 220 million people.
The sparsely settled, far-northern state of Alaska is the largest of America’’s 50 states. It is more than two and a half times the size of Sichuan province. Texas, in the southern part of the country, is second in size. Texas is half the size of Alaska.
A land of heavy forests (311 million hectares) and barren deserts, of high-peaked mountains and deep canyons, America also enjoys bountiful rivers and lakes. The broad Mississippi River system, famed in song and legend, meanders 6,400 kilometers from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico— the world’’s third longest river after the Nile and Amazon. A canal in the north join the Mississippi to the five Great Lakes— the world’’s largest inland water transportation route and the biggest body of fresh water in the world.
America’’s early settlers were attracted by the fertile land and varied climates it offered for farming. Today, with 121 million hectares under cultivation, American farmers plant spring wheat on the cold western plain; they raise corn and fine beef cattle in the central plains, and rice in the damp heat of Louisiana. Florida and California are famous for their citrus fruits and tropical avocados; the cool rainy northeastern states for apples, pears, berries and vegetables.
America has long been known as a "melting pot," for it is a nation of immigrants from all over the world. Europe, the major source of immigrants, began sending colonists to America in the early 17th century. Tens of millions flooded to America’’s shores from Europe between 1880 and the First World War. The next largest group of Americans trace their ancestry to Africa, black people now constitute over 11 percent of the population. The melting pot has also absorbed nearly 600,000 Japanese, half a million Chinese and 340,000 Filipinos. Many live in Hawaii, more than two-thirds of whose people boast on Asian or Polynesian heritage.
The second longest river in the world is__________. 9.填空题The more women and (36)_________make their way into the ranks of management, the more they seem to want a talk about things (37)_________judged to be best left unsaid. The newcomers also tend to see office matters with a (38)_________eye, in the process sometimes coming up with (39)_________ analyses of the forces that (40)_________everyone’’s experience in the organization.
Consider the novel views of Harvey Coleman of Atlanta on the subject of getting ahead. Coleman is black. He spent 11 years with IBM, half of them working in management development, and now serves as a (41)_________to the likes of AT&T, Co-ca-Cola, Prudential, and Merch. Coleman says that based on what he’’s seen at big companies, he (42)_________ the different elements that make for (43) _________career success as follows; performance counts a mere 10%, image, 30%, and exposure, a full 60%. Coleman concludes that (44)______________________, it won’’t secure you the big promotion. He finds that advancement more often depends on how many people know you and your work, and how high up they are.
Ridiculous beliefs Not to many people, (45) ______________________. "Women and blacks in organizations work under false beliefs," says Kaleen Jamison, a New York-based management consultant who helps corporations deal with these issues. "They think that if you work hard, you’’ll get ahead—that someone in authority will reach down and give you promotion." She adds, "Most women and blacks are so frightened that people will think they’’ve gotten ahead because of their sex or color that they play down their visibility." Her advice to those folks: (46) ______________________.
10.问答题Taking a stand
Xuemei Han was a second-year graduate student in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University. Last month, she was facing expulsion (开除). Efforts to transfer to the university’’s forestry school had failed, and it looked as though the 26-year-old might have to return to China within a matter of weeks.
In June, Han had been told that she was "not in good academic standing" with her department — an accusation she disputed. She had passed her qualifying exams at the first attempt and, after a few more tries, her required language exam as well. So she did something that many Chinese graduate students would never dream of doing: on 20 October she filed a complaint against Yale, accusing the university of treating Chinese students unfairly. The only Chinese student in her department, Han wrote in her complaint that she suspected professors were reluctant to work with her because they thought she would need extra help preparing manuscripts and grant proposals.
Her grievance quickly gained a high profile on campus and beyond. Three other graduate students filed supporting testimonials that detailed problems they had experienced in their departments, and just over half of the 274 Chinese graduate students at Yale signed a statement backing her. The case was reported by media in the United States and even made the evening news in China. Within a week, university administrators relented and allowed Han to transfer to the department of forestry, where she had found an adviser willing to support her.
Yale flatly denies any accusations of discrimination against Chinese students. Yale spokesman Tom Conroy said in a statement, "Yale has a long standing tradition of being a welcoming and supportive university for international students, and especially those from China."
Whether or not it was discrimination, Han’’s story taps into a rarely seen vein of discontent among Chinese students and postdocs (博士后) across the country. Chinese nationals are by far the largest group of foreign academics working in US universities. Between 1985 and 2000, some 26,500 Chinese students earned science and engineering PhDs in the United States — more than double the number of students from all of Western Europe, according to the National Science Foundation. And a recent survey of postdocs by scientific research society Sigma Xi in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, showed that Chinese postdocs tend to work longer hours for less pay than their American counterparts.
Language obstacles and culture shock
Many Chinese come to the United States to participate in cutting-edge research, but must first overcome language barriers, cultural differences. They frequently feel isolated from their US lab-mates. And although all graduate students are at the mercy of their advisers, foreign students are especially vulnerable. They lack alternative options, so a disagreement or funding problem is all that it takes for them to be sent back to China.
The high percentage of Chinese in the lab is no coincidence. US researchers are happy to recruit academically gifted Chinese scholars, while the best and brightest Chinese are drawn to the country by research opportunities that they cannot get at home.
That opportunity is what brought Han from Inner Mongolia to Yale in 2003. She received her undergraduate and master’’s degree in ecology from Beijing Normal University, but had never travelled outside China. "Ecology research has only just started in China, so my professors recommended that I study here," she recalls. She was ecstatic when she learned that Yale had admitted her to a PhD programme with funding from a Fan Family Fellowship, which supports Chinese students.
But shortly after arriving in the United States, Han ran into difficulty. Like many Chinese students, she had studied English extensively in China, but that training focused primarily on reading and writing, not speaking. "The first semester was very hard," she says. "In physics and other departments, there are other Chinese graduate students who can help, but I was the only one in my department."
Han’’s experience is not unusual. Many Chinese students have trouble fitting in when they first reach the United States, according to Hongwen Zhu, a graduate student at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. Zhu says many students are embarrassed to admit that they don’’t understand what is being asked of them, or they are reluctant to raise their concerns vocally with their professors. "Most Chinese students tend to be very quiet, and this is a very big problem," he says.
Han made steady progress in her language skills, but it came at a cost. She was unable to teach, a requirement of her department, and she had trouble finding a research adviser. Still, Han was shocked to learn in June that she was no longer in good standing with her programme.
On the edge of fellowship
In the Han’’s case, Han could transfer to other department of Yale University, but she was informed that she would lose the Fan Family Fellowship.
Foreign students and postdocs frequently run into these sorts of funding problems, says Ji-Cheng Wang, a postdoc cancer researcher. Unlike American students, who can switch advisers if necessary, many foreigners are financially tied to their principal investigator (PI). "If anything happens to the PI then the student is put at risk," Wang says.
This relationship can put students in a precarious position. When Wei Fu, not his real name, moved from Peking University to become a postdoc at a midwestern university, he was hoping for a chance to expand his own research career in biophysics. Instead, Fu’’s lab director asked him to devote most of his time to existing experiments. "I didn’’t have much independence, I didn’’t feel free," he says. When Fu told the PI of his unhappiness, he found himself suddenly out of a job. He had just three months to scramble for a new position, or risk expulsion from the country. Eventually, he managed to find a position at a lab in California. "You can imagine that I was very stressed," he says.
Visa obstacles
That stress has been exacerbated (加重) by recent US and Chinese immigration policy. Most international students and scholars get a multiple-entry visa for the duration of their studies, but Chinese students must reapply for a new visa every six months. That is an improvement over the old rules, which required students to reapply each time they left the country, but it still causes trouble for researchers such as Yangheng Zheng, a postdoc studying high-energy physics at the University of California, Los Angeles. While conducting graduate research at the University of Hawaii, Zheng frequently traveled between the United States and Japan, and each trip required a new visa both ways. "In three years I used up all of my passport’’s pages," he says. Although the situation is better now, there are still problems, he says. Two months ago, on his latest excursion to CERN, the European particle-physics lab, he ended up stuck in Geneva for three weeks waiting for a US security check.
Different views from Chinese students
There is little consensus in the Chinese community over how serious these issues are. Some students and postdocs said they had not encountered significant problems, and many reported strong relationships with their advisers, who helped them resolve issues. "The people I know are very nice to me," says Ye Jin, a postdoc in molecular biology at the University of California, Berkeley. "When I try to write papers and proposals my PI has been very patient and corrects my grammar. She has been very encouraging."
"Language is not a barrier if you are willing to learn," adds Grace Wong, the president of Student Vision, a Boston-based group that helps students find jobs in biotechnology. "If your skills are good and you’’re willing to work really hard, any boss will love you."
But Huang disagrees. "We really appreciate that the university gives us the chance to come here and study," he says. "But even if you work hard, sometimes you still have the risk of being kicked out because of a funding problem or a disagreement with your adviser."
Shortly after arriving in the United States, Han found it difficulty to__________. 参考答案：speak English／communicate with other people in English