A characteristic of American culture that has become almost a tradition is to respect the self-made man — the man who has risen to the top through his own efforts, usually beginning by working with his hands. While the leader in business or industry or the college professor occupies a higher social position and commands greater respect in the community than the common laborer or even
the skilled factory worker, he may take pains to point out that his father started life in America as a farmer or laborer of some sort.
This attitude toward manual labor is now still seen in many aspects of American life. One is invited to dinner at a home that is not only comfortably but even luxuriously (豪华地) furnished and in which there is every proof of the fact that the family has been able to afford foreign travel, expensive hobbies, and college education for the children; yet the hostess probably will cook the dinner herself, will serve it herself and will wash dishes afterward, furthermore the dinner will not consist only of something quickly and easily collected from contents of various cans and a cake or a pie bought at the nearby shop. On the contrary, the hostess usually takes pride in careful preparation of special dishes. A professional man may talk about washing the car, digging in his flowerbeds, painting the house. His wife may even help with these things, just as he often helps her with the dishwashing. The son who is away at college may wait on table and wash
dishes for his living, or during the summer he may work with a construction group 
on a highway in order to pay for his education.
1. From paragraph 1, we can know that in America _________.
A. people feel painful to mention their fathers as labors.
B. people can always rise to the top through their won efforts
C. college professors win great respect from common workers
D. people tend to have a high opinion of the self-made man
2. According to the passage, the hostess cooks dinner herself mainly because _________.
A. she takes pride in what she can do herself
B. servants in American are hard to get
C. she can hardly afford servants
D. It is easy to prepare a meal with canned food
3. The expression “ wait on table” in the second paragraph means “_________”.
A. work in a furniture shop B. keep accounts for a bar
C. serve customers in a restaurant D. wait to lay the tabl
4. Which of the following may serve as the best title of the passage?
A. A Respectable Self-made Family B.American Attitude toward Manual Labor
C. Characteristics of American Culture D. The Development of Manual Labor
（十一）
Word Power
Author(s): Kaplan $13.95
You’ll never be at a loss for words again. Energize your vocabulary with must-know everyday words that are the essentials of a good vocabulary, engaging lessons to help you use words in text, hot words often found on tests, tips to help you figure out new words, roots, and more.
Grades: 8 & up Ages: 13 & up
Word Smart Junior
Author(s): Russell Stauffer $ 17.95
Now this is the way to add new words to your vocabulary! Word Smart Junior will make you laugh so much. You’ll be amazed that you’ve just learned more than 120 fascinating and very useful words! Parents, teachers, and friends will marvel at your eloquence (口才)!
Grades: 3-5 Ages: 8-10
Grammar Smart Junior
Author(s): Marcia Reynolds $ 16.85
Do you quake when your teacher says, “Now it’s time for grammar”? Do your verbs agree with your subjects?
Fear no more! A big Hollywood producer and a famous movie star will help you learn all those nasty (讨厌的) elements of grammar. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you learn, and how much fun it can be. You’ll finally know your grammar backwards and forwards, and you’ll never have to worry about it again.
Grades: 7-9 Ages: 12-14
Grammar Smart: An Audio Guide to Perfect Usage
Author(s): Julian Fleisher $ 12.68
The words you use say a lot about you … but the way you put them together says even more. Your grammar makes an immediate and lasting impression on your teachers, and even your friends. So don’t make the mistake of thinking that grammar is too complicated. We’ve created Grammar Smart to help you write and speak with clarity and confidence.
Grades: 6-8 Ages: 11-13
5. If a ten-year-old boy wants himself to be admired because of his speech ability, he may buy _______.
A. Word Power
B. Word Smart Junior
C. Grammar Smart Junior
D. Grammar Smart: An Audio Guide to Perfect Usage
6. By saying “You’ll finally know your grammar backwards and forwards”, the writer means “________”.
A. You will be clearly familiar with grammar
B. You will know the history of grammar
C. You will know the make-up of grammar
D. You will learn about the future of grammar
7. The four books are all about _______.
A. fiction and mysteries
B. parenting and teaching
C. literature and arts
D. language study
（九）
Wugging, or web use giving, describes the act of giving to charity at no cost to the user. By using Everyclick.com, which is being added to a number of university computers across the UK, students can raise money every time they search, but it won’t cost them a penny.
Research shows that students are extremely passionate about supporting charity — 88% of full time students have used the Internet to give to charity. This age group is often the least likely to have their own income. 19% of 22 to 24 year olds have short-term debts of more than £5,000. With rising personal debt levels in this age group, due to university tuition fees or personal loans and a lack of long-term savings, traditional methods of donating to charity are often not appealing (有感染力的) or possible.
Beth Truman, a 21 year old recent university graduate, has used Everyclick.com to donate to her chosen charity, the RSPCA, for two years and has seen the “wugging” movement grow in popularity with students. “When you’re at university you become more socially aware, but it’s sometimes hard to give to others when you have little money yourself,” says Beth. “Wugging is great for people in this age group as it allows them to use the technology on a daily basis to give to charity, without costing them a single penny.”
Wugging is perfect for people who want to be more socially aware and supportive but don’t feel they have the means to do so. Students using the web can raise money for causes they care about without costing them anything in terms of time or money, and charities get a valuable source of funding.
Everyclick.com works like any other search engine, allowing users to search for information, news and images but users can decide which of the UK’s 170,000 charities they would like to support through their clicks. Everyclick.com then makes monthly payments to every registered charity. Launched in June 2005, Everyclick.com is now the eighth largest search engine and one of the busiest charity websites in the UK.
6. According to the passage, “wugging” is actually ______.
A. a website
B. a charity-related action
C. a school organization
D. a student movement
7. In the case of charity, Everyclick.com ______.
A. frees students of the financial worries
B. receives much money from students
C. offers valuable information to students
D. praises students for their money-raising
8. What does Beth Truman think of the “wugging” movement?
A. It makes Everyclick.com popular in the UK.
B. It becomes easy to do charity because of it.
C. It results in students’ more social awareness.
D. It helps students to save money.
9. From the passage, we can conclude that ______.
A. most full time students do charity on the Internet every day
B. Everyclick.com helps students pay for the college education
C. “wugging” is a win-win idea for both students and charities
D. Everyclick.com is the most successful search engine in the UK
10. What would be the best title for this passage?
A. “Wugging”, a new popular term on the Internet.
B. British people show strong interest in charity.
C. More Britain charities benefit from the Internet.
D. Students raise money for charity by “wugging”.
（八）
Why do men die earlier than women? The latest research makes it known that the reason could be that men’s hearts go into rapid decline when they reach middle age.
The largest study of the effects of ageing on the heart has found that women’s longevity may be linked to the fact that their hearts do not lose their pumping power with age.
“We have found that the power of the male heart falls by 20-25 percent between 18 and 70 years of age,” said the head of the study, David Goldspink of Liverpool John Moores University in the UK.
“Within the heart there are millions of cells that enable it to beat. Between the age of 20 and 70, one-third of those cells die and are not replaced in men,” said Goldspink. “This is part of the ageing process.”
What surprises scientists is that the female heart sees very little loss of these cells. A healthy 70-year-old woman’s heart could perform almost as well as a 20-year-old one’s.
“This gender difference might just explain why women live longer than men,” said Goldspink. They studied more than 250 healthy men and women between the ages of 18 and 80, focusing on healthy persons to remove the confusing influence of disease. “The team has yet to find why ageing takes a greater loss on the male heart,” said Goldspink.
The good news is that men can improve the health of their heart with regular exercise. Goldspink stressed that women also need regular exercise to prevent their leg muscles becoming smaller and weaker as they age.
1. The underlined word “longevity” in the second paragraph probably refers to “________”.
A. health
B. long life
C. ageing
D. effect
2. The text mainly talks about ________.
A. men’s heart cells
B. women’s ageing process、
C. the gender difference
D. hearts and long life
3. According to the text, the UK scientists have known that ________.
A. women have more cells than men when they are born
B. women can replace the cells that enable the heart to beat
C. the female heart loses few of the cells with age
D. women never lose their pumping power with age
4. If you want to live longer, you should ________.
A. enable your heart to beat much faster
B. find out the reason for ageing
C. exercise regularly to keep your heart healthy
D. prevent your cells from being lost
5. We can know from the passage that ________.
A. the reason why ageing takes a greater loss on the male heart has been found out
B. scientists are on the way to finding out why the male heart loses more of the cells
C. the team has done something to prevent the male from suffering the greater loss
D. women over 70 could lose more heart cells than those at the age of 20
（七）
“Children who eat less salt and drink fewer sugar-sweetened soft drinks may significantly lower their risks of obesity,” researchers recently reported in the journal Hypertension.
“Sugar-sweetened soft drinks are a significant source of calorie intake in children,” said Feng J. He, a researcher at St George’s University of London, England. “It has been shown that sugar-sweetened soft drink consumption is related to obesity in young people.” They wanted to know whether there is a link between salt intake and sugar-sweetened soft drink consumption.
Dr He and colleagues analyzed data from a 1997 national survey of more than 2,000 people between 4 and 18 in Britain. “We found that children eating a lower-salt diet drank less fluid,” said He. “From our research, we estimated that 1 gram of salt cut from their daily diet would reduce fluid intake by 100 grams per day.”
The researchers also found that children eating a lower-salt diet drank fewer sugar-sweetened soft drinks. From their research, they predicted that reducing salt intake by 1 gram each day would reduce sugar-sweetened soft drink consumption by 27 grams per day, after. “If children aged 4 to 18 cut their salt intake by half, there would be a decrease of about two sugar-sweetened soft drinks per week per child, so each child would decrease calorie intake by almost 250 kilocalories per week,” Dr He said.
In previous studies, researchers found that a low-salt diet lowers blood pressure in children, and prevents the development of high blood pressure later in life. “Both high blood pressure and obesity increase the risk of having strokes and heart attacks,” Dr He said.
Dr He recommends that parents check labels and choose low-salt food products. “Small reductions in the salt content of 10 to 20 percent cannot be detected by the human salt taste receptors (感受器) and do not cause any technological or safety problems,” Dr He said.
5. According to the passage, obesity is directly linked to ______.
A. high-salt foods
B. sugar-sweetened soft drinks
C. high blood pressure
D. strokes and heart attacks
6. Compared with previous studies, the recent one found that ______.
A. a lower-salt diet may mean less sugar-sweetened soft drink consumption
B. a low-salt diet keeps children out of high blood pressure
C. children face the risk of having strokes and heart attacks
D. low-salt food products do not do harm to people’s health
7. Which of the following statements would Dr He agree to?
A. The less salt people eat, the healthier people become.
B. Children should reduce fluid intake in their daily life.
C. No high-salt food products will be available in shops.
D. A low-salt diet may prevent both high blood pressure and obesity.
8. After reading the passage, who should take effective action?
A. Children.
B. Parents.
C. Doctors.
D. Researchers.
（六）
A qualified doct who rarely practiced but instead devoted his life to writing. He once said: “Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my lover.” Russian writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, was a great playwright and one of the masters of the modern short story.
When Chekhov entered the Moscow University Medical School in 1879, he started to publish hundreds of comic short stories to support his family. After he graduated, he wrote regularly for a local daily newspaper.
As a writer he was extremely fast, often producing a short story in an hour or less. Chekhov’s medical and science experience can be seen through the indifference(冷漠) many of his characters show to tragic events. In 1892, he became a full time writer and published some of his most memorable stories.
Chekhov often wrote about the sufferings of life in small town Russia. Tragic events control his characters who are filled with feelings of hopelessness and despair.
It is often said that nothing happens in Chekhov’s stories and plays. He made up for this with his exciting technique for developing drama within his characters. Chekhov’s work combined the calm attitude of a scientist and doctor with the sensitivity(敏感) of an artist.
Some of Chekhov's works were translated into Chinese as early as the 1940s. One of his famous stories, The Man in a Shell, about a school teacher’s extraordinarily orderly life, was selected as a text for Chinese senior students.
1. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov ________.
A. had a lawful lover
B. was an illegal writer
C. used to be a lawyer
D. was a competent doctor
2. In 1880, Chekhov ________.
A. became a full-time writer
B. studied medicine in Moscow University
C. practiced medicine in his hometown
D. published his most memorable stories
3. Which of the following adjectives can’t be used to describe Chekhov?
A. Sensitive.
B. Cool.
C. Quick-minded.
D. Warm-hearted.
4. Which of the following is the right order of the events?
a. became a doctor
b. became a full time writer
c. started to publish comic short stories
d. wrote regularly for a local daily newspaper.
e. entered the Moscow University Medical School
A. e→c→a→d→b
B. d→a→b→c→e
C. e→c→b→a→d
D. a→e→c→b→d