When a rather dirty, poorly dressed person kneels at your feet and puts out his hands to beg for a few coins, do you hurry on, not knowing what to do, or do you feel sad and hurriedly hand over some money? What should our attitude to beggars be? There can be no question that the world is full of terribly sad stories. It must be terrible to have no idea where our next meal is going to come from. It seems cruel not to give some money to beggars.
Certainly, most of the world’s great religions （宗教） order us to be open-hearted and share what we have with those less fortunate than ourselves. But has the world changed? Maybe what was morally （道德方面） right in the old days, when one knew exactly who in the village had suffered misfortune and needed help, is no longer the best idea. Quite a few people will not give to beggars. Let us look at their arguments.
First, some believe that many city beggars dress up on purpose to look pitiable and actually make a good living from begging. Giving to beggars only encourages this sort of evil （恶行）. Secondly, there is the worry that the money you give will be spent on beer, wine or drugs. Thirdly, there is the opinion that there is no real excuse for begging. One might be poor, but that is no reason for losing one’s sense of pride and self-dependence.
Related to this is the opinion that the problem should be dealt with by the government rather than ordinary people. Some people think beggars should go to the local government department and receive help.
It is hard to come to any final conclusion; there are various cases and we must deal with them differently. A few coins can save a life in some situations, and even if the money is wasted, that does not take away the moral goodness of the giver.
1.What is mainly discussed in the passage?
A.Moral deeds of people. B.Religious activities of the church.
C.Moral goodness of the giver. D.Arguments on giving to beggars.
2.What can we infer from the sentence “But has the world changed ?” in the second
paragraph?
A.People no longer know who suffers misfortune in the village.
B.Some people will not do what was morally right in the past.
C.We don’t meet with those who need help any more.
D.Now it is the government’s duty to help the beggars.
3.Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage?
A.Some people dress up to pretend to be beggars.
B.Some beggars want money to help their children go to school.
C.Some beggars use the money to buy drugs.
D.Some beggars have no excuse for begging.
4.In the last paragraph, the writer thinks that it is hard to come to any final conclusion，because ______.
A.the cases can be so different
B.there are so many beggars
C.there is so much money wasted
D.there are so many different arguments
Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to the patients at the clinic.
One evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful-looking man. He’s hardly taller than my eight-year-old son. “Good evening. I’ve come to see if you’ve a room. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there’s no bus till morning.” He told me he’d been hunting for a room since noon but with no success. “I guess it’s my face…I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments…” For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me: “I could sleep in this chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning.”
I told him we would find him a bed. When I had finished the dishes, I talked with him. He told me he fished for a living to support his five children, and his wife, who was hopelessly crippled (残疾的) from a back injury. He didn’t tell it by way of complaint. Next morning, just before he left, as if asking a great favor, he said, “Could I come back and stay the next time?” He added, “Your children made me feel at home.”
On his next trip he arrived a little after seven in the morning. As a gift, he brought a big fish and the largest oysters (牡蛎) I had ever seen. I knew his bus left at 4:00 a.m. and I wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for us.
In the years he came to stay overnight with us and there was never a time that he did not bring us vegetables from his garden. I know our family always will be grateful to have known him; from him we learned how to accept the bad without complaint when facing the misfortune.Why did the author agree to let the man spend the night in his house at last?
| A．Because the man said others refused to accommodate him. |
| B．Because the man said he would not cause much inconvenience. |
| C．Because the man said he had come from the eastern shore. |
| D．Because the man said he had been hunting for a room since noon. |
How long would it take the man to travel from his home to Baltimore by bus?
| A．About 1 hour. | B．About 2 hours. |
| C．About 3 hours. | D．About 4 hours. |
From the text we can know that __________.
| A．the author’s children were kind and friendly to the man |
| B．the man was fed up with his hard-work and his family |
| C．John Hopkins Hospital provided rooms for the patients to live in |
| D．the author and his family were thought highly of by his neighbors |
The author’s family were grateful to know the man because __________.
| A．he often brought them fish and vegetables from his garden |
| B．he paid them money for his staying |
| C．he taught them how to accept the bad without complaint |
| D．he stayed only overnight with the writer’s family |
The National Gallery
Description:
The National Gallery is the British national art museum built on the north side of Trafalgar Square in London. It houses a diverse collection of more than 2,300 examples of European art ranging from 13th-century religious paintings to more modern ones by Renoir and Van Gogh. The older collections of the gallery are reached through the main entrance while the more modern works in the East Wing are most easily reached from Trafalgar Square by a ground floor entrance
Layout:
The modern Sainsbury Wing on the western side of the building houses 13th- to 15th-century paintings, and artists include Duccio, Uccello, Van Eyck, Lippi, Mantegna, Botticelli and Memling.
The main West Wing houses 16th-century paintings, and artists include Leonardo da Vinci, Cranach, Michelangelo, Raphael, Bruegel, Bronzino, Titan and Veronese.
The North Wing houses 17th-century paintings, and artists include Caravaggio, Rubens, Poussin, Van Dyck, Velazquez, Claude and Vermeer.
The East Wing houses 18th- to early 20th-century paintings, and artists include Canaletto, Goya, Turner, Constable, Renoir and Van Gogh.
Opening Hours:
The Gallery is open every day from 10am to 6pm (Fridays 10am to 9pm) and is free, but charges apply to some special exhibitions.
Getting There:
Nearest underground stations: Charing Cross (2-minute walk), Leicester Square (3-minute walk), Embankment (7-minute walk), and Piccadilly Circus (8-minute walk). In which century’s collection can you see religious paintings?
| A．The 13th. | B．The 17th. | C．The 18th. | D．The 20th. |
Where are Leonardo da Vinci’s works shown?
| A．In the East Wing. | B．In the main West Wing. |
| C．In the Sainsbury Wing. | D．In the North Wing. |
Which underground station is closest to the National Gallery?
| A．Piccadilly Circus. | B．Leicester Square. |
| C．Embankment. | D．Charing Cross. |
It happened to me recently. I was telling someone how much I had enjoyed reading Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father and how it had changed my views of our President. A friend I was talking to agreed with me that it was, in his words, “a brilliantly （精彩地）written book”. However, he then went on to talk about Mr. Obama in a way which suggested he had no idea of his background at all. I sensed that I was talking to a book liar.
And it seems that my friend is not the only one. Approximately two thirds of people have lied about reading a book which they haven’t. In the World Book Day’s “Report on Guilty Secrets”, Dreams From My Father is at number 9. The report lists ten books, and various authors, which people have lied about reading, and as I’m not one to lie too often (I’d hate to be caught out), I’ll admit here and now that I haven’t read the entire top ten. But I am pleased to say that, unlike 42 percent of people, I have read the book at number one, George Orwell’s 1984. I think it’s really brilliant.
The World Book Day report also has some other interesting information in it. It says that many people lie about having read Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky (I haven’t read him, but haven’t lied about it either) and Herman Melville.
Asked why they lied, the most common reason was to “impress” someone they were speaking to. This could be tricky if the conversation became more in–depth!
But when asked which authors they actually enjoy, people named J. K. Rowling, John Grisham, Sophie Kinsella (ah, the big sellers, in other words). Forty-two percent of people asked admitted they turned to the back of the book to read the end before finishing the story (I’ll come clean: I do this and am astonished that 58 percent said they had never done so).How did the author find his friend a book liar?
| A．By judging his manner of speaking. |
| B．By looking into his background. |
| C．By mentioning a famous name. |
| D．By discussing the book itself. |
Which of the following is a “guilty secret” according to the World Book Day report?
| A．Charles Dickens is very low on the top-ten list. |
| B．42% of people pretended to have read 1984. |
| C．The author admitted having read 9 books |
| D．Dreams From My Father is hardly read. |
By lying about reading, a person hopes to .
| A．control the conversation |
| B．appear knowledgeable |
| C．learn about the book |
| D．make more friends |
What is the author’s attitude to 58% of readers?
| A．Favorable. | B．Uncaring |
| C．Doubtful | D．Friendly |
The baby is just one day old and has not yet left hospital. She is quiet but alert （警觉）. Twenty centimeters from her face researchers have placed a white card with two black spots on it. She stares at it carefully. A researcher removes the card and replaces it by another, this time with the spots differently spaced. As the cards change from one to the other, her gaze（凝视） starts to lose its focus — until a third, with three black spots, is presented. Her gaze returns: she looks at it for twice as long as she did at the previous card. Can she tell that the number two is different from three, just 24 hours after coming into the world?
Or do newborns simply prefer more to fewer? The same experiment, but with three spots shown before two, shows the same return of interest when the number of spots changes. Perhaps it is just the newness? When slightly older babies were shown cards with pictures of objects (a comb, a key, an orange and so on), changing the number of objects had an effect separate from changing the objects themselves. Could it be the pattern that two things make, as opposed to three? No again. Babies paid more attention to squares moving randomly on a screen when their number changed from two to three, or three to two. The effect even crosses between senses. Babies who were repeatedly shown two spots became more excited when they then heard three drumbeats than when they heard just two; likewise （同样地） when the researchers started with drumbeats and moved to spots.The experiment described in Paragraph 1 is related to the baby’s__.
| A．sense of hearing | B．sense of sight |
| C．sense of touch | D．sense of smell |
Babies are sensitive to the change in______.
| A．the size of cards | B．the colour of pictures |
| C．the shape of patterns | D．the number of objects |
Why did the researchers test the babies with drumbeats?
| A．To reduce the difficulty of the experiment. |
| B．To see how babies recognize sounds. |
| C．To carry their experiment further. |
| D．To keep the babies’ interest. |
Where does this text probably come from?
| A．Science fiction. | B．Children’s literature. |
| C．An advertisement. | D．A science report. |
Some people will do just about anything to save money. And I am one of them. Take my family’s last vacation. It was my six-year-old son’s winter break form school, and we were heading home from Fort Lauderdale after a weeklong trip. The flight was overbooked, and Delta, the airline, offered us $400 per person in credits to give up our seats and leave the next day. I had meetings in New York，So I had to get back. But that didn't mean my husband and my son couldn't stay. I took my nine-month-old and took off for home.
The next day, my husband and son were offered more credits to take an even later flight. Yes, I encouraged—okay, ordered—them to wait it out at the airport, to "earn" more Delta Dollars. Our total take: $1,600. Not bad, huh?
Now some people may think I'm a bad mother and not such a great wife either. But as a big-time bargain hunter, I know the value of a dollar. And these days, a good deal is something few of us can afford to pass up.
I've made living looking for the best deals and exposing （揭露） the worst tricks. I have been the consumer reporter of NBC's Today show for over a decade. I have written a couple of books including one titled Tricks of the Trade: A Consumer Survival Guide. And I really do what I believe in.
I tell you this because there is no shame in getting your money’s worth. I’m also tightfisted when it comes to shoes, clothes for my children, and expensive restaurants. But I wouldn't hesitate to spend on a good haircut. It keeps its shape longer, and it's the first thing people notice. And I will also spend on a classic piece of furniture. Quality lasts.Why did Delta give the author's family credits?
| A．They took a later flight. |
| B．They had early bookings. |
| C．Their flight had been delayed. |
| D．Their flight had been cancelled. |
What can we learn about the author?
| A．She rarely misses a good deal. |
| B．She seldom makes a compromise. |
| C．She is very strict with her children. |
| D．She is interested in cheap products. |
What does the author do?
| A．She's a teacher. | B．She's a housewife. |
| C．She's a media person. | D．She's a businesswoman. |
What does the author want to tell us?
| A．How to expose bad tricks. |
| B．How to reserve airline seats. |
| C．How to spend money wisely. |
| D．How to make a business deal. |