.
I go to interview a great man.“What surprises you most in your life?” I ask.The great man answers, “People don’t like to be children; when they grow up, they wish to be children again.They lose their health to make money and then lose their money to restore their health.They think anxiously about the future, but they forget the present, so they live neither for the present nor the future.”
I have never heard of these words. I am silent for a while, write these words down, and then I ask the second question prepared ahead of time, “As a parent, what lessons do you want your children to learn from life?”
The great man answers with a smile, “I want them to learn that they cannot make anyone love them.What they can do is to let themselves be loved.I want them to learn that the most valuable thing is not what they have in their lives, but who they have in their lives.I want them to learn that it is not good to compare themselves with others.I want them to learn that a rich person is not the one who has the most, but is the one who needs the least.I want them to learn to forgive by practicing forgiveness.I want them to learn that there are persons that love them dearly, but do not know how to express their feelings.I want them to learn that money can buy everything but happiness.I want them to learn that two people can look at the same thing and see it differently.I want them to learn that a true friend is someone who likes them anyway.I want them to learn that it is not always enough that they are forgiven by others, but that they have to forgive themselves.”
64.What makes the great man feel puzzled most in his life?
A.People don’t like to be a child nor a grown-up.
B.People don’t try their best to keep healthy.
C.People don’t live a meaningful life.
D.People don’t treasure what they own today.
65.Why is the writer silent for a while after having asked the first question?
A.Because he can’t hear the great man’s words clearly.
B.Because he wants to have enough time to write the answers down.
C.Because he is touched by what the great man says.
D.Because he needs time to think over what to ask next.
66.From the last paragraph, we can learn that ________.
A.letting all the people like you is possible as long as you try your best
B.the things in your life is more important than the people in your life
C.the more a person loves you, the more clearly the person can express himself / herself
D.different people have different viewpoints on the same thing
67.After reading the whole passage, we can conclude that the passage is ________.
A.educational B.funny C.strange D. interesting
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 be 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 teenager 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 out 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 worry about school | 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 age, 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 author, teenage rebellion____.
A.may be a false belief | B.is common nowadays |
C.existed only in the 1960s | D.resulted from changes in families |
You're in a department store and you see a couple of attractive young women looking at a sweater. You listen to their conversation:
“I can't believe it--a Lorenzo Bertolla! They are almost impossible to find. Isn't it beautiful? And it's a lot cheaper than the one Sara bought in Rome. ”
They leave and you go over to see this incredible sweater. It's nice and the price is right. You've never heard of Lorenzo Bertolla, but those girls looked really stylish. They must know. So, you buy it. You never realize that those young women are employees of an advertising agency. They are actually paid to go from store to store, talking loudly about Lorenzo Bertolla clothes.
Every day we notice what people are wearing, driving and eating. If the person looks cool, the product seems cool, too. This is the secret of undercover marketing. Companies from Ford to Nike are starting to use it.
Undercover marketing is important because it reaches people that don't pay attention to traditional advertising. This is particularly true of the MTV generation----consumers between the age of 18 and 34. It is a golden group. They have a lot of money to spend, but they don't trust ads.
So advertising agencies hire young actors to “perform” in bars and other places where young adults go. Some people might call this practice deceptive(骗人的), but marketing executive Jonathan Ressler calls it creative. “Look at traditional advertising. Its effectiveness is decreasing. ”
However, one might ask what exactly is “real” about of young women pretending to be enthusiastic about a sweater? Advertising executives would say it's no less real than an ad. The difference is that you know an ad is trying to persuade you to buy something. You don' t know when a conversation you overhear is just a performance. The two attractive young women were talking so that they could ________.
A.get the sweater at a lower price | B.be heard by people around |
C.be admired by other shoppers | D.decide on buying the sweater |
Lorenzo Bertolla is __________.
A.a very popular male singer | B.an advertising agency |
C.a clothing company in Rome | D.the brand name of a sweater |
Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
A.The two girls are in fact employed by the Lorenzo Bertolla Company. |
B.The MTV generation tend to be more easily influenced by ads. |
C.Traditional advertising is becoming less effective because it's too direct. |
D.Undercover marketing will surely be banned soon by the government. |
Which of the following would be the best title for the text?
A.Two Attractive Shoppers | B.Lorenzo Bertolla Sweaters |
C.Ways of Advertising | D.Undercover Marketing |
Ask someone what they have done to help the environment recently and they will almost certainly mention recycling.Recycling in the home is very important of course.However, being forced to recycle often means we already have more material than we need.We are dealing with the results of that over–consumption in the greenest way possible, but it would be far better if we did not need to bring so much material home in the first place.
The total amount of packaging has increased by 12% between 1999 and 2005.It now makes up a third of a typical household’s waste in the UK.In many supermarkets nowadays food items are packaged twice with plastic and cardboard.
Too much packaging is doing serious damage to the environment.The UK, for example, is running out of it for burying this unnecessary waste.If such packaging is burnt, it gives off greenhouse gases which go on to cause the greenhouse effect.Recycling helps, but the process itself uses energy.The solution is not to produce such items in the first place.Food waste is a serious problem, too.Too many supermarkets encourage customers to buy more than they need.However, few of them are coming round to the idea that this cannot continue, encouraging customers to reuse their plastic bags, for example.
But this is not just about supermarkets.It is about all of us.We have learned to associate packaging with quality.We have learned to think that something unpackaged is of poor quality.This is especially true of food.But it is also applied to a wide range of consumer products, which often have far more packaging than necessary.
There are signs of hope.As more of us recycle, we are beginning to realize just how much unnecessary materials are collected.We need to face the wastefulness of our consumer culture, but we have a mountain to climb.What does the underlined phrase “that over-consumption” refer to?
A.Using too much packaging. |
B.Recycling too many wastes. |
C.Making more products than necessary. |
D.Having more material than is needed. |
The author uses figures in Paragraph 2 to show ___________.
A.the tendency of cutting household waste |
B.the increase of packaging recycling |
C.the rapid growth of supermarkets |
D.the fact of packaging overuse |
According to the text, recycling ___________.
A.helps control the greenhouse effect |
B.means burning packaging for energy |
C.is the solution to gas shortage |
D.leads to a waste of land |
What can be inferred from Paragraph 4?
A.Unpackaged products are of bad quality. |
B.Supermarkets care more about packaging. |
C.It is improper to judge quality by packaging. |
D.Other products are better packaged than food. |
What can we learn from the last paragraph?
A.Fighting wastefulness is difficult. |
B.Needless material is mostly recycled. |
C.People like collecting recyclable wastes. |
D.The author is proud of their consumer culture. |
A good friend of mine was complaining about her son the other day.“Did you notice,” she started, “how he didn’t wait for me to get my salad before he dove into his?”
True enough, the boy attacked his plate faster than a cat in the wild.Without manners, we’re no more than animals.Actually, that’s not true.I’ve been watching and feeding a group of wild cats, and they show unusual politeness toward each other.Even when food is scarce, they take turns, leaving at least a small part for the next in line.
My mother educated her three children to have good manners all the time.We were made to feel very uncomfortable as if we were sitting on pins and needles until we got used to saying please, thank you, pardon me, and I’m sorry.And I have to say, while it was a painful learning experience, it was one of the most valuable.
I can’t tell you how often I sat with my friends, eating at their dinner tables, and their parents thought highly of my good manners.While it was a little embarrassing, I knew even then that my mother’s teachings were paying off.
Many years later, when I was attending seminars across the country, my manners were quite useful.
While I regret that I haven’t been a perfect example, I’m still working on it.I suppose, in this regard, my mother lives on through me.I didn’t have her beautiful singing voice or her green eyes, but she did make sure I received one of her finest characteristics.What did the writer’s friend most probably complain about?
A.Her son’s eating too quickly. |
B.Her son’s not having a healthy diet. |
C.Her son’s not having good table manners. |
D.Teenagers’ not having good manners. |
The underlined word “scarce” in Paragraph 3 probably means “________”.
A.too much | B.not delicious |
C.not enough | D.quite hot |
We learn that the writer’s mother __________.
A.was strict about her children’s manners |
B.never punished her children |
C.had beautiful blue eyes |
D.was not good at singing |
What does the writer think of her experience of learning good manners?
A.Easy and relaxing | B.Painful and valuable |
C.Easy but useless | D.Too horrible |
We can infer from the passage that the writer _________.
A.is surely liked by everyone around her |
B.is not satisfied with most people’s manners around her |
C.thinks she has been a perfect example to the young |
D.thanks her mother for teaching her the good manners a lot |
Not all think laughter is the best medicine, but it seems to help.So scientists carried on a new study of diabetes (糖尿病) patients who were given a good dose of humor for a year to prove it.
Researchers divide 20 high-risk diabetic patients into two groups.Both groups were given standard diabetes medicine.Group L viewed 30 minutes of humor of their choice, while Group C, the control group, did not.This went on for a year of treatments.
By two months into the study, the patients in the laughter group had lower level of the hormones epinephrine (肾上腺素), considered to cause stress, which is known to be deadly.After the 12 months, HDL cholesterol rises 26 percent in Group L but only 3 percent in Group C.In another measure, C-reactive proteins, a maker of heart disease, drop 66 percent in the laughter group but only 26 percent in the control group.
“The best doctors believe that there is a physical good brought about by the positive emotion, happy laughter,” said study leader Lee Berk of Loma Linda University.And other research has found that humor makes us more hopeful.Still, more study is needed, Berk said.The research by Berk found that humor can bring about similar changes in body chemistry, which was proved in the new study.The research result will be presented this month at the meeting in the US.Research at the University of Maryland School of Medicine shows that laughter causes the inner lining of blood vessels to expand, increasing blood flow in a way thought to be healthy.
“Lifestyle choices have an important effect on health and these are choices which we and patients should pay attention to, rather than prevention and treatment,” Berk said in a statement this week.Why did the scientists carry on the new research?
A.To find out if laughter was good to health. |
B.To discover the best medicine to cure diabetes. |
C.Because the number of diabetic patients is the largest in the world. |
D.Because diabetic patients need more laughter than other patients. |
After 12 months into the study, ___________.
A.C-reactive proteins increase 66 percent in Group C |
B.the level of the hormones epinephrine stays the same in both groups |
C.the level of the hormones epinephrine has dropped |
D.C-reactive proteins reduced 66 percent in Group L |
The underlined part “HDL cholesterol” in Paragraph 3 must be _______.
A.something bad to our health | B.something good to our health |
C.a kind of wonderful medicine | D.a kind of dangerous disease |
In what way does laughter benefit people’s health?
A.Blood is made thick by laughter. | B.Laughter makes blood vessels thin. |
C.Laughter increases blood pressure. | D.Laughter makes blood flow fast. |
According to Berk, we should _________.
A.choose lifestyles carefully | B.change our lifestyles |
C.prevent our lifestyles in advance | D.pay less attention to the positive emotion |