Beauty has always been regarded as something admirable .Almost everyone thinks that attractive people are happier and healthier; they have better marriages and have more respectable jobs. Personal consultants(顾问)give them better advice for finding jobs. Even judges are softer on attractive persons. But in the executive circle, beauty can become a liability.
While attractiveness is a positive thing for a man’s rise, it is harmful to a woman’s .Handsome male executives were considered as having more honesty than plainer men; effort and ability were thought to be the reasons for their success .Attractive female executives were considered to have less honesty than unattractive ones; their success was attributed not to ability but to factors such as luck. All unattractive women executives were thought to have more honesty and to be more capable than the attractive female executives.
Why are attractive women not thought to be able? An attractive woman is thought to be more feminine(女性的)and an attractive man more masculine(男性的)than the less attractive ones. Thus , an attractive woman has an advantage in traditionally female jobs, but an attractive woman in a traditionally masculine position appears to lack the “masculine”qualities required.
This is true even in politics. Anne Bowman recently published a study on the effects of attractiveness on political candidates(候选人).She asked 125 undergraduate students to rank two groups of photographs, one of men and one of women ,in order of attractiveness. The students were told the photographs were of candidates for political offices. They were asked to rank them again, in the order they would vote for them.
The results showed that attractive males completely defeated unattractive men , but the woman who had been ranked most attractive always received the fewest votes.In traditionally female jobs, attractiveness __________________ .
A.strengthens the feminine qualities required |
B.makes women look more honest and capable |
C.is of great importance to women |
D.often enables women to succeed quickly |
Bowman’s experiment shows that when it comes to politics, attractiveness _____________________.
A.turns out to be an obstacle to men |
B.affects men and women alike |
C.has as little effect on men as on women |
D.is more of an obstacle than a benefit to women |
It can be inferred from the passage that people’s views on beauty are often ____________ .
A.practical | B.old-fashioned | C.prejudiced(偏见的) | D.serious |
The author writes this passage to_______________________ .
A.discuss the negative aspects of being attractive |
B.give advice to job-seekers who are attractive |
C.demand equal rights for women |
D.emphasize the importance of appearance |
The Best of Friends
The evidence for harmony may not be obvious in some families. But it seems that four out of five young people now get on with their parents, which is the opposite of the popularly held image(印象)of unhappy teenagers locked in their room after endless family quarrels.
An important new study into teenage attitudes surprisingly shows that their family life is more harmonious than it has ever been in the past.” We were surprised by just how positive today’s young people seen to be about their families,” said one member of the research team.” They’re expected to b
e rebellious(叛逆的) and selfish but actually they have other things on their minds; they want a car and material goods, and they worry about whether school is serving them well. There’s more negotiation(商议) and discussion between parents and children, and children expect to take part in the family decision-making process. They don’t want to rock the boat.”
So it seems that this generation of parents is much more likely than parents of 30 years ago to treat their children as friends.” My parents are happy to discuss things with me and willing to listen to me,” says 17-years-old Daniel Lazall. ”I always tell them when I’m going out clubbing. As long as they know what I’m doing, they’re fine with it.” Susan Crome, who is now 21,agrees.”Looking back on the last 10 years, there was a lot of what you could call negotiation. For example, as long as I’d done all my homework, I could go out on a Saturday night. But I think my grandparents were a lot stricter with my parents than that.”
Maybe this positive view of family life should not be unexpected. It is possible that the idea of teenagers rebellion is not rooted in real facts. A researcher comments,” Our surprise that teenagers say they get along well with their parents comes because of a brief period in our social history when teenagers were regarded as different beings. But that idea of rebelling and breaking away from their parents really only happened during that one time in the 1960s when everyone rebelled. The normal situation throughout history has been a smooth change from helping out with the family business to taking it over.”What is the popular images of teenagers today?
A.They![]() |
B.They dislike living with their parents |
C.They have to be locked in to avoid troubles |
D.They quarrel a lot with other family members |
The study shows that teenagers don’t want to ___
A.share family responsibility | B.cause trouble in their families |
C.go boating with their family | D.make family decisions |
Compared with parents of 30 years ago, today’s parents___.
A.go to clubs more often with their children |
B.are much stricter with their children |
C.care less about their children’s life |
D.give their children more freedom |
According to the authour,teenage rebellion____.
A.may be a false belief | B.is common nowadays |
C.existed only in the 1960s | D.resulted from changes in families |
What is the passage mainly about?
A.Negotiation in family | B.Education in family |
C.Harmony in family | D.Teenage trouble in family |
As the pace of life continues to increase, we are fast losing the art of relaxation. Once you are in the habit of rushing through lift, being on the go from morning till night, it is hard to slow down. But relaxation is essential for a healthy mind and body.
Stress is a natural part of everyday life and there is no way to avoid it. In fact, it is not the bad thing it is often supposed to be. A certain amount of stress is vital to provide motivation and give purpose to life. It is only when the stress gets out of control that it can lead to poor performance and ill health.
The amount of stress a person can withstand(抵抗)depends very much on the individual. Some people are not afraid of stress, and such characters are obviously prime material for managerial responsibilities. Others lose heart at the first signs of unusual difficulties. When exposed to stress, in whatever form, we react both chemically and physically. In fact we make choice between "fight" or "flight" and in more primitive days the choice made the difference between life or death. The crises we meet today are unlikely to be so extreme, but however little the stress is, it involves the same response. It is when such a reaction lasts long, through continued exposure to stress, that health becomes endangered. Such serious conditions as high blood pressure and heart disease have established links with stress. Since we cannot remove stress from our lives (it would be unwise to do so even if we could), we need to find ways to deal with it.
People are finding less and less time for relaxing themselves because_____.
A.they do not know how to enjoy themselves |
B.they do not believe that relaxation is important for health![]() |
C.they are travelling fast all the time |
D.they are becoming busier with their work |
According to the writer, the most important character for a good manager is his ________.
A.not fearing stress | B.knowing the art of relaxation |
C.high sense of responsibility | D.having control over performance |
Which of the following statements is true?
A.We can find some ways to avoid stress. |
B.Stress is always harmful to people. |
C.It is easy to change the habit of keeping oneself busy with work. |
D.Different people can withstand ![]() |
In Paragraph 3, "such a reaction" refers back to_______.
A."making a choice between 'flight' or 'fight'" |
B."reaction to stress both chemically and physically" |
C."responding to crises quickly" |
D."losing heart at the signs difficulties" |
In the last sentence of the passage, "do so " refers to ______.
A."expose ourselves to stress" |
B."find ways to deal with stress" |
C."remove stress from our lives" |
D."established links between diseases and stress" |
Advertising means to draw people’s attention to something. It is a central feature of our lives. Sales depend upon it. So does our knowledge of what is available. Read the following advertisements and see how much you understand them. About what they advertise, we can safely say that .
A.advertisements(I)and(III)advertise two products |
B.advertisements(III)and(IV)advertise services |
C.advertisements(II)and(III)advertise beliefs |
D.advertisements(I)and(IV)provide jobs |
How many advertisements are trying to be price competitive?
A.1. | B.2. | C.3. | D.4. |
Which of the following statements about the advertisements above is NOT true?
A.A newspaper uses one of them in its own newspaper. |
B.All of them advertise for the largest number of customers. |
C.All of them list the prices. |
D.All of them have included contact in formation. |
From these examples of advertisements, we can conclude that .
A.some advertisements are provided by newspapers free of charge |
B.newspaper is the most common means of advertising |
C.advertising is an expensive business |
D.advertisements should appeal to customers |
If you want someone to do some cleaning for you, you can call .
A.232567 | B.73204683 |
C.444237058 | D.0732605041 |
As the US wakes up to China’s rising status (地位) as an economic and strategic competitor, US parents are urging their children to learn Chinese, reports Julian Borger.
The US is being swept by a rush to learn Mandarin (普通话) -- from wealthy New York mothers hiring Chinese nannies (保姆) for their small children to a defence department education project in Oregon.
The forces driving Mandarin’s momentum (势头) are parental ambition for children facing a future in which China is almost certain to be a major player, and the government is worried about that America may get left behind in that new world.
The bottleneck is the supply of teachers. Mandarin instructors are difficult to import and difficult to train. There are visa problems in bringing over teachers from China but the biggest barrier is cultural. Teaching in Asia is generally done by rote and the change to western, interactive styles of instruction can be a large leap(跳越).
On the other hand, it requires enormous firmness for westerners to learn a language like Chinese, with its thousands of written characters. According to the Asia Society in New York, all of America’s teacher-training institutions turn out only a couple of dozen homegrown Mandarin teachers.
One way to ease the shortage is to find native Mandarin speakers and use fast-track methods to train them. However, the majority of Chinese-Americans grew up speaking Cantonese, the dialect(方言)spoken in Hong Kong, where their parents came from. Many are themselves signing on as Mandarin students at the private language schools springing up on the west coast.
Title :in the USA
You are watching a film in which two men are having a fight. They hit one another hard. At the start they only fight with their fists. But soon they begin hitting one another over the heads with chairs. And so it goes on until one of the men crashes(撞击) through a window and falls thirty feet to the ground below. He is dead!Of course he isn't really dead. With any luck he isn't even hurt. Why? Because the men who fall out of high windows or jump from fast moving trains, who crash cars and run out of them even when they catch fire, are professionals. They do this for a living. These men are called stuntmen. That is to say, they perform tricks. There are two sides to their work. They actually do most of the things you see on the screen. For example, they fall from a high building. However, they do not fall on to hard ground but on to empty cardboard boxes covered with a mattress(床垫). Again, when they hit one another with chairs, the chairs are made of soft wood and when they crash through windows, the glass is made of sugar! But although their work depends on trick of this sort, it also requires a high degree of skill and training. Often a stuntman’s success depends on careful timing. For example, when he is "blown up" in a battle scene, he has to jump out of the way of the explosion just at the right moment.
Naturally stuntmen are well paid for their work, but they lead dangerous lives. They often get seriously injured, and sometimes killed. A Norwegian stuntman, for example, skied over the edge of a cliff(悬崖)a thousand feet high. His parachute(降落伞)failed to open, and he was killed. In spite of all the risks, this is no longer a profession for men only. Men no longer dress up as women when actresses have to perform some dangerous action. For nowadays there are stuntgirls too. Stuntmen are those who ______.
A.often dress up as actors |
B.prefer to lead dangerous lives |
C.often perform seemingly dangerous actions |
D.often fight each other for their lives |
Stuntmen earn their living by ______.
A.playing their dirty tricks | B.selling their special skills |
C.jumping out of high windows | D.jumping from fast moving trains |
When a stuntman falls from a high building, ______.
A.he needs little protection | B.he will be covered with a mattress |
C.his life is endangered | D.his safety is generally all right |
Which of the following is the main factor of a successful performance?
A.Strength. | B.Exactness. | C.Speed. | D.Carefulness |
What can be inferred from the author’s example of the Norwegian stuntman?
A.Sometimes an accident can occur to a stuntman. |
B.The percentage of serious accidents is high. |
C.Parachutes must be of good quality. |
D.The cliff is too high. |