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Hoffman, 40, a former senior vice president of a financial company, had what she describes as “one of those extreme jobs.” “I loved working,” she says. But her career path reached a crossroad when her second child was born, and she left her job in February 2007. Hoffman is one of many people who have left the work force to take a break, but she has a position as consultant. she has described this type of career detour(绕路)—— which is more common for women than for men —— as “off-ramping.” Typically it occurs when the balancing act of parenting and work becomes too tough.
A study by the center found that more than 90 percent of women who off-ramp want to on-ramp back into the work force eventually. But making the transition back to work is rarely easy, and it is even harder in this economic climate of layoffs and hiring freezes.
Considering some of the obstacles faced by on-rampers, a three-day program called “Greater Returns: Restarting Your Career” was held at Columbia University. The goal of the three days was to have them walk away with a big shot of confidence.”
According to one school of thought women looking to make a comeback might even have an advantage in the current economy, especially if they are looking for part-time or consultant positions that do not offer benefits. And a majority of on-rampers are women with extensive working experiences that could give them a slight advantage over less-experienced competition.
“You absolutely cannot be defensive about why you off-ramped,” Ms Hoffman says, “defensive” would have put her into a hard situation if the Greater Returns program had not taught her how to describe the years she spent at home. “I now feel confident talking to an employer and saying, ‘Yes, I have been out of the work force, but here is where I can make significant contributions.’”
1. What is the best title for the passage?
A. Off-ramp: it is common
B. Off-ramp: it is easy
C. Off-ramp to on-ramp: it can be a hard journey
D. Off-ramp to on-ramp: it depends on confidence
2. According to the passage, Greater Returns                    .
A. is intended to relieve the pressure of the jobless women
B. has all the jobless women restart their career
C. is to last all the year around for the jobless women
D. will build up the confidence of those in search of jobs
3. The main reason for the women’s off-ramping is that                          .
A. they have to suffer the sexual discrimination
B. they reach a crossroad of career
C. they have to parent their children
D. they have great work pressure
4. Which job is easier to get for a woman off-ramper?
A. Regular workers.             B. Casual workers.       
C. Company managers.           D. Band clerks.
5. From what Ms. Hoffman says in the last paragraph, we can conclude                        .
A. she didn't get advice from the Greater Returns program
B. she was defensive about her off-ramping
C. she didn’t get the job because she lied about her experience
D. she is on-ramp partly due to her straightforward manner

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B
“Have you ever been out on a boat and felt it lifted up by a wave? Or have you jumped in the water and felt the rush of energy as waves came over you?” asked Jamie Taylor of the Wave Energy Group at the University of Edinburgh. “There is certainly a lot of energy in waves,” he said. Scientists are working to use that energy to make electricity. Most waves are created when winds blow across the ocean. “The wind starts out by making little ripples(涟漪), but if they keep on blowing, those ripples get bigger and bigger and turn into waves,” Taylor said. “Waves are one of nature’s ways of picking up energy and then sending it off on a journey.” When waves come toward the shore, people can set up dams to block the water and send it through a large wheel called a turbine(涡轮机). The turbine can then power an electrical generator to produce electricity.
“The resource is huge,” said Janet Swain of the World Watch Institute. “We will never run out of wave power.” Besides, wave energy does not create the same pollution as other energy sources, such as oil or coal. Oceans cover three quarters of the Earth’s surface—that would make wave power seem ideal for creating energy throughout the world, though there are some weak points yet to overcome.
Swain said that wave power still costs too much money. She also said that its effects on sea animals are still unknown. What is more, wave power could affect fishing and boat traffic. Traditional sources of energy like oil and gas may someday run out. “Demand for energy to power our TVs and computers, drive our cars, and heat and cool our homes is rising rapidly throughout the world,” Swain said. In the future when you turn on a light, an ocean wave could be providing the electricity!
The writer uses the two questions at the beginning of the passage to .

A.test the readers’ knowledge about waves
B.draw the readers’ attention to the topic
C.show Jamie Taylor’s importance
D.invite the readers to answer them

The underlined phrase “picking up” is closest in meaning to .

A.starting again B.speeding up
C.improving D.gathering

We can make better use of wave energy if we .

A.shorten its journey to thousands of homes
B.build more small power stations on the oceans
C.reduce the cost of turning it into electric power
D.quicken the steps of producing electricity

It can be inferred that someday we might not worry about .

A.our power supply
B.our boat traffic
C.air pollution
D.our supply of sea fish

A
A shopkeeper sent his son to learn about the secret of happiness from the wisest man in the world. The boy walked a long way, and finally came upon the beautiful castle where the wise man lived.
On entering the main room of the castle, the boy was quite surprised: tradesmen coming and going, people chatting in the corners, and a small orchestra playing soft music. The wise man talked with everyone, and the boy had to wait for two hours before it was his turn.
The wise man listened carefully to the boy’s explanation of why he had come, but told him that he didn’t have time just then to explain the secret of happiness. He suggested that the boy look around the palace and return in two hours.
“Meanwhile, I want to ask you to do something,” said the wise man, handing the boy a teaspoon that held two drops of oil. “As you wander around, carry this spoon with you without allowing the oil to spill.”
The boy began to walk up and down stairs of the palace, keeping his eyes fixed on the spoon. After two hours, he returned to the wise man.
“Well,” asked the wise man, “Did you see the Persian tapestries(挂毯)in the hall? Did you see the garden that took the master gardener ten years to create?” The boy was embarrassed, and replied that he had observed nothing. His only concern had been not to spill the oil.
“Then go back and observe the wonders of my world,” said the wise man. The boy picked up the spoon and returned to his exploration of the palace. This time he observed all of the works of art on the ceilings and the walls. When he returned, he described in detail everything he had seen.
“But where are the drops of oil?” asked the wise man. Looking down at the spoon he held, the boy saw that the oil was gone.
“Well, there is only one piece of advice I can give you,” said the wise man. “The secret of happiness is to see all the wonders of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.”
When the boy arrived at the castle, he .

A.received a warm welcome from the wise man
B.had already missed his chance to talk to the wise man
C.was shown around the palace by the local people
D.didn’t expect to see so many people around

The wise man gave the boy two tasks in order to .

A.show him how to observe the wonders in the world
B.teach him the secret of happiness
C.make him learn from his mistakes
D.let the boy enjoy his palace and garden

We can infer from the article that “the drops of the oil on the spoon” probably refer to .

A.the beauty of one’s nature
B.the fortune a person possesses
C.the responsibilities one has to take on
D.the great opportunities in life

What would be the best title for the article?

A.Lesson about Happiness
B.The Secret of Happiness
C.Learning about Happiness
D.Searching for Happiness

Even in a weak job market, the old college try isn’t the answer for everyone. A briefing paper from the Brookings Institution warns that “we may have overdone the message” on college, senior fellow Isabel Sawhill said.
“We’ve been telling students and their families for years that college is the only way to succeed in the economy and of course there’s a lot of truth to that,” Ms. Sawhill said. “On average it does pay off… But if you load up on a whole lot of student debt and then you don’t graduate, that is a very bad situation.”
One comment that people often repeat among the years of slow job growth has been the value of education for landing a job and advancing in a career. April’s national unemployment rate stood at 7.5%, according to the Labor Department. The unemployment rate for high-school graduates over 25 years old who hadn’t attended college was 7.4%, compared with 3.9% for those with a bachelor’s degree or more education. The difference is even bigger among those aged 16-24. The jobless rate for those with only a high school diploma in that age group is about 20%. At the same time, recent research by Canadian economists warns that a college degree is no guarantee of promising employment.
Ms. Sawhill pointed out that among the aspects that affect the value of a college education is the field of one’s major: students in engineering or other sciences end up earning more than those who major in the arts or education. The cost of tuition and the availability of financial aid are other considerations, with public institutions generally a better financial bargain than private ones.
She suggested two ways of improving the situation: increasing vocational-technical(职业技能) training programs and taking a page from Europe’s focus on early education rather than post-secondary learning. “The European countries put a little more attention to getting people prepared in the primary grades,” she said. “Then they have a higher requirement for whoever goes to college—but once you get into college, you’re more likely to be highly subsidized(资助).”
She also is a supporter of technical training—to teach students how to be workers, such as plumbers, welders and computer programmers—because “employers are desperate” for workers with these skills.
People usually think that _____.

A.the cost of technical schooling is a problem
B.one will not succeed without a college degree
C.technical skills are most important for landing a job
D.there is an increased competition in getting into a college

What does the underlined part “taking a page from” mean?

A.hearing from.
B.changing from.
C.differing from.
D.learning from.

What can we infer from the passage?

A.Public institutions charge more for education.
B.European universities are stricter with students.
C.Students with certain skills are in great demand.
D.Canadian students prefer to major in engineering.

Which would be the best title for the text?

A.Is the ‘Go to College’ message overdone?
B.The new requirement of Labor Market
C.Primary education in European countries
D.Is technical training more popular?

The extraordinary Eastgate Building in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital city, is said to be the only one in the world to use the same cooling and heating principles like the termite mound(白蚁堆).
Architect Mick Pearce used precisely the same strategy when designing the Eastgate Building, which has no air-conditioning and almost no heating. The building—the country’s largest commercial and shopping mall—uses less than 10% of the energy of a traditional building of its size. The Eastgate’s owners saved $3.5 million on a $36 million building because an air-conditioning plant didn’t have to be imported.
The mall is actually two buildings linked by bridges across a shady, glass-roofed atrium(天井) open to the air. Fans suck fresh air in from the atrium, blow it upstairs through hollow spaces under the floors and from there into each office through baseboard vents(通风口). As it rises and warms, it is drawn out via ceiling vents and finally exists through forty-eight brick chimneys.
During summer’s cool nights, big fans blow air through the building seven times an hour to cool the empty floors. By day, smaller fans blow two changes of air an hour through the building to circulate(流通) the air which has been in contact with the cool floors. For winter days, there are small heaters in the vents.
This is all possible only because Harare is 1600 feet above sea level, has cloudless skies, little dampness and rapid temperature swings (摆幅)—days as warm as 31℃commonly drop to 14℃at night. “You couldn’t do this in New York, with its fantastically hot summers and fantastically cold winters,” Pearce said.
The engineering firm of Ove Arup&Partners monitors daily temperatures. It is found that the temperature of the building has generally stayed between 23℃and 25℃, with the exception of the annual hot period just before the summer rains in October and three days in November, when a doorkeeper accidentally switched off the fans at night. And the air is fresh—far more so than in air-conditioned buildings, where up to 30% of the air is recycled.
Why was Eastgate cheaper to be built than a traditional building?

A.It was designed in a smaller size.
B.No air conditioners were fixed in.
C.Its heating system was less advanced.
D.It used rather different building materials.

What does “it” refer to in Paragraph 3?

A.Fresh air from outside.
B.Heat in the building.
C.Hollow space.
D.Baseboard vent.

Why would a building like Eastgate Not work efficiently in New York?

A.New York has less clear skies as Harare.
B.Its dampness affects the circulation of air.
C.New York covers a larger area than Harare.
D.Its temperature changes seasonally rather than daily.

The data in the last paragraph suggests Eastgate’s temperature control system_____.

A.allows a wide range of temperatures
B.functions well for most of the year
C.can recycle up to 30% of the air
D.works better in hot seasons

Here are the comments on CRI (China Radio International) given by people from different countries on the Internet.

People
Comments
Yingtian Hu
Guangzhou, China
This is the first time that I participate in CRI. And I like it very much. I hope its website will become the most excellent one with the foreign languages. And I choose the important news which I think has a great influence on our society and our lives. In the end, I hope that more and more persons join in CRI and make it perfect!
SujanParajuli,
Select city, Nepal
I am both a regular listener of CRI and visitor of its wonderful Website. First of all, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to CRI for its great efforts to keep the listeners up-to-date during the year 2008. We, the listeners, are greatly grateful to CRI for its praise-worthy efforts to quench the thirst of its dear listeners. During the Year 2008, I found all of your programs quite interesting, informative and educational. Once again, thanks a lot for offering lots of information, news, entertainment and many items which have indeed broaden the horizons of our knowledge and understanding as well.
Ibrahim
Rustamov,
Tajikistan
With CRI, I was impressed by China’s rapid development in all spheres. But I felt so sorry to get to know about the snowstorms in China and Wenchuan earthquake. CRI and CCTV play a great role in introducing China to the world! Kudos! My friends and I wish CRI all the best!
Mike Thatcher,
London
My family and I are all keen on Chinese Culture, especially the beautiful Chinese folk music. Various interesting programs by CRI just open a window for us foreigners, through which we can know more about China and have a better understanding of the Chinese culture. Best wishes to CRI! Best wishes to China!

Which of the following benefits of CRI is NOT mentioned above?

A.CRI helps to keep its listeners up-to-date.
B.CRI helps its listeners to better understand China.
C.CRI helps its listeners to practice and improve foreign languages.
D.CRI helps its listeners broaden their knowledge with its rich contents.

The underlined phrase “quench the thirst” refers to _____.

A.satisfy one’s need
B.supply drinks
C.take care of
D.keep in touch with

What can be concluded from the four comments?

A.CRI has a great influence on our society and lives.
B.Wonderful though CRI is, there are still many weaknesses.
C.CRI plays an important role in introducing the world to China.
D.CRI has made great efforts to make itself better and gained popularity.

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