It is a blow for the Ugly Bettys and Plain Janes ——research shows thatgood looks lead to better pay. A study of 4,000 young men and women foundthat beauty boosted pay checks more than intelligence. Those judged to be themore attractive earned up to 10 percent more than their less attractive friends andcolleagues. Applied to the average salary of ￡ 25,000 a year, the “ plainnesspenalty(处罚)”would make a difference of ￡2,500 a year —— or around ￡50a week. 

It is unclear what is behind the phenomenon but it may be that beauty createsconfidence. The self-confident may appear to be doing better than they are andwill not hesitate about asking for a pay rise. 

Researcher Jason Fletcher, of Yale University in the U.S., rated theattractiveness of the 4,000 men and women. Just over half were judged average,while 7 percent were felt to be very attractive and 8 percent were judgedunattractive or very unattractive. The volunteers also sat an IQ test and reportedtheir salary. It became clear that pay scales were far from fair. For instance, a 14-point increase on the IQ score was associated with a 3 to 6 percent increase inwage. But being of above-average looks increased pay by 5 to 10 percent . 

For a plain person to be paid the same as a very attractive one , they wouldhave to be 40 percent brighter, the journal Economics Letters reports. 

Dr Fletcher said:“The results do show that people ’s looks have an impact ontheir wages and it can be very important.” 

6.What is the “plainness penalty ”?

For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a composition on the topic The Most Important Influence on Young Adults . You should write

about 120 words following the Chinese outline given below.

(1)有些人认为父母对年轻人的影响较大，也有些人认为朋友对年轻人的影响较大

(2)我的看法

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Mary was very fond of television, so when she met a young man who workedfor a television company, she was very interested and asked him a lot ofquestions. She discovered that he had also worked for a film company, 【66.so sheasked him whether there was any difference between film work and televisionwork .】 

“Well,” answered the young man, “there is one very big difference. 【67.Ifsomeone makes a mistake while a film is being made, it is possible to stop anddo the scene again.】 In fact, one can do it over and over again a lot of times.Mistakes waste time, money and film, but the audience who see the film when itis finished don ’t know that anything went wrong. In a live television show, onthe other hand, the audience can see any mistakes that are made. ” 

“I can tell you a story about that, 【68. One day, a live television show wasgoing on, and one of the actors was supposed to have been shot.】 He fell to theground, and the camera moved somewhere else to allow time for me to run outwith a bottle of tomato sauce to pour on to him to look like blood. Butunfortunately the camera turned back to him before I had finished, 【69.and thepeople saw me pouring the sauce on to the man. ”】 

“Oh, how terrible! ” Mary said. “And what did you do? ” 

“Well”, answered the young man, “our television director is a very strictman.【70.If anyone makes a mistake, he fires him at once.】 So I just had to pretendthat this was part of the story and eat the man. ” 

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I don ’t know why you ’re so concerned._________________ (这毕竟不是你的问题 ).

For such a big house the price is fairly low. But you’ve got to _________________ (考虑维修所需要的钱 ).

My parents taught me not to take what ’s not mine. I ’ve always tried to_________________ (教育我的子女同样的价值观 ).

I understand the two factors that contributed to my downfall: _________________ (缺乏职业目标和缺乏自信 ).