PENRICECOMMUNITYCOLLEGECornwal-优题课

You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. I’ve learned that through my personal experiences. A few months ago, I woke up deaf in one ear. I did not pay much attention to it at first. It felt that I had water in my ear. However, I began to hear less and less out of that ear. I even had to ask people to talk into my other ear so that I could hear them. I didn’t realize how serious it was until late in the day (为时太晚). One evening, when I was sitting on my bed doing chemistry homework, I fell off my bed. When trying to get up, I was incredibly dizzy (头晕的).
I went to see a doctor and he told me that hearing loss was common. However, hearing loss is usually bilateral, or occurs in both ears. He said that my hearing should come back within a week. After about a week the dizziness eventually went away, but the hearing loss did not. The medicine helped and I gained some of my hearing back. After many hearing tests, the doctor diagnosed (诊断) that I had permanent hearing loss in that ear.
School became harder for me because I couldn’t hear my teachers. I was very depressed. Finally, I bought a hearing aid. With the hearing aid, my hearing is almost back to normal. It makes school and group conversations easier.
My friends, teachers and even complete strangers always ask me questions about hearing loss. I answer them patiently. I never get offended because I know this is new to them. I am delighted that I can teach them something new.
What I have learned from this particular situation is that when things are desperate（绝望的；急切的）, there is always something good that can come out of it. My experiences have given me an opportunity to teach people about hearing loss and also taught me about the value of hearing.
What happened to the author?

A．He is born deaf.

B．He becomes deaf in a traffic accident.

C．He woke up deaf in one ear one day.

D．He becomes deaf due to taking some medicine.

The author fell off his bed when .

A．getting up from bed	B．doing his homework
C．waking up from a dream	D．wearing his clothes

From the text we can infer that .

A．the author’s hearing loss was cured after the treatment

B．the author is unwilling to talk about his hearing loss with others

C．the author took some medicine to treat his hearing loss

D．the medicine that doctors gave him didn’t work at all

At present, the author is.

A．desperate	B．optimistic
C．depressed	D．angry

Only about 30 percent of people in the US know how to perform CPR (心肺复苏术). Recently, a 9-year-old boy showed a Georgia woman how to perform CPR on her newborn baby.
Susanna Rohm said she had experienced a parent’s worst nightmare (噩梦) — her 2-month-old son, Isiah, was not breathing. “I noticed he looked pale. I looked at his arms and his legs and they were limp (无力的),” Rohm told a local newspaper. “Then I noticed that he looked like he wasn’t alive.” In dismay, she dropped and broke her cellphone. Rohm had to run into the street, screaming for help.
“I had him in my arms and screamed over and over. Then I ran outside. I saw two boys playing across the street, and I yelled, ‘Go and ask your parents to call 911,’” Rohm said. But the two boys were able to do more than that. Nine-year-old Ethan Wilson took action, showing Rohm how to perform CPR on little Isiah while ten-year-old Rocky Hurt helped as well.
Rocky said he had learned the CPR technique from a poster in a health class at their school, Sedalia Park Elementary. “I was thinking we’d better give her a helping hand instead of getting scared,” Ethan said. “I told her to push on the baby’s chest five to ten times a minute with only two fingers, tilt back the baby’s head, plug the baby’s nose and breathe into the baby’s mouth,” Ethan said in an interview.
At last, Isiah began crying and was breathing again. He spent two nights in a local hospital. “If the little boy hadn’t shown me what to do right there, my baby would probably not be alive right now,” Rohm said.
We can learn from Paragraph 1 that in the US, .

A．CPR is considered important by most people

B．most children are taught how to perform CPR

C．many parents don’t know how to perform CPR

D．kids must learn how to perform CPR on babies

What does the underlined word “dismay” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?

A．Panic.	B．Anger.
C．Excitement.	D．Joy.

What did Rohm do when she saw the two boys?

A．She asked them to call 911 as soon as possible.

B．She asked them to teach her how to perform CPR.

C．She asked them to ask their parents for help.

D．She asked them to help her perform CPR on her baby.

What Rohm said in the last paragraph shows that she was.

A．grateful	B．regretful
C．surprised	D．ashamed

Imagine shopping for clothes online and being able to run your hand across the screen of your computer or smartphone to feel the materials. That kind of simulation (仿真) technology could be available within the next five years.
“We’re talking about reinventing how computers interact （互动）with humans,” said Bernie Meyerson, IBM Vice President. Extending our sense of touch is one of the innovations (创新) IBM believes will change the world in the next five years, according to the company’s annual “Five in Five” list.
Smart machines will also be able to listen to the environment and highlight （强调；突出）the sounds we care about most. For instance, an advanced speech recognition system will tell new parents why their baby is crying. This kind of thing is not possible today, but with an advanced enough system, it’s actually possible.
In the near future, personal computers will be able to do more than recognize images and visual data. Their built-in cameras will be able to analyze features such as colors, and understand the meaning of visual media, such as knowing how to sort family photos.
Smart machines will also be able to smell. If you sneeze on your computer or cellphone, tiny sensors (传感器) in the machine will be able to analyze thousands of molecules (分子) in your breath. “It can give you an alarm and says, ‘Hey, you are probably sick, go to see your doctor immediately,’” Meyerson says.
Mark Maloo is a computer science professor from Georgetown University. He hopes the advances will encourage more students to study science, technology, engineering and math, preparing them to play a role in future innovations. He believes there’s little doubt that advances in computer technology over the next five years will make what now seems like science fiction a part of our everyday lives.
The purpose of the text is to show us

A．how smart machines will replace humans

B．what our lives will be like in the future

C．how to go shopping on the Internet

D．why IBM wants to invent these smart machines

In the future, if you buy clothes online, you may .

A．feel the materials of the clothes by touching the screen

B．ask your computer to give you some advice

C．ask your computer to make the decision for you

D．save a lot of money by using a smartphone

How will a smart machine figure out that you are probably sick?

A．By analyzing the thousands of molecules in your breath.

B．By analyzing your comments about your body condition.

C．By referring your condition to doctors.

D．By asking you to describe how you feel.

Chinese girl looking for language exchanger
Posted Feb 10, 2010 16:25 by Sophia
Tag: Seeking Language partners Guangzhou Sex: Female
Race/Ethnicity: Chinese
I am a Chinese girl in my 20’s, can speak and write in English, but I’d like to make some improvement. People always look for making it better, right?
Meanwhile, I also like to meet more friends if we really have some topics to share.
And if you are in Guangzhou or visit here, I am more than willing to show you around in my spare time.
Reply to happycora@hotmail.com or call 15015704625
Tianhe nice apartment for share
Posted Feb 24, 2010 16:47 by Vivian
Tag: Seeking roommates Guangzhou Tianhe District Up to 2000 RMB
I have a room available for rent in a shared apartment in Central Tianhe district.
The room has a big window with a nice view. The apartment itself is on the 22th floor of a new secure building on Tianhe Bei Lu, about 10 minutes walk from metro stations(地铁站) on lines 1 and 3, as well as buses and other transportation methods very close.
If you are interested, please feel free to phone me (Vivian) on 13145751201 (message preferred), or email me on vivian_liu2003@hotmail.com.
Business Interpreter/Guide
Posted Feb 26, 2010 08:46 by Sony
Tag: Business Services Guangzhou Baiyun District
Dear Foreign Friends, I am a professional interpreter（口译者）, now looking for a Freelance interpreter job urgently. Please read my CV at below：
Name: Sony Song
Gender: Male
Age: 22 years old
Education: Studied English in Da Shan Foreign Language College
Birth: 9th Oct 1987, Luohe city, Henan province, China.
Ability: Speak fluent English, know Guangzhou city very well, can also guide you to Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Dongguan, Shunde, Macao, Hongkong, etc.
Contact Detail: E-mail/MSN: sonysong4@hotmail.com; cell phone: 15112015812
Looking for flat
Posted Mar 11, 2010 14:03 by Lucy
Tag: Apartments wanted Guangzhou
Hello,
This is Lucy coming from Peru and looking for a short term flat, from 15th April until 4th May 2010. If somebody can give some information, send me pictures, price and address.
Email: lucitamaron@hotmail.com; cell phone: 13800013900
Thanks a lot in advance!
If foreigner wants to learn some Chinese and make friends; he / she can call _________.

A．15015704625	B．13800013900
C．13145751201	D．15112015812

To share a department where the traffic is quite convenient, you may send text message to ________.

A．Sophia	B．Vivian
C．Lucy	D．Sony

What do the four advisers have in common?

A．All of them speak both Chinese and English.

B．All of them are in their twenties.

C．All of them are Guangzhou citizens.

D．All of them are hotmail users.

The information above can be probably found_________.

A．in a magazine	B．in a newspaper
C．at a website	D．in a guidebook

How do you design a pay plan that motivates people to do their best work? A new study by three Harvard researchers suggests a novel answer: Shortly after you hire new workers, give them a raise.
"Previous research has shown that paying people more than they expect may elicit reciprocity(相互作用) in the form of greater productivity," notes Deepak Malhotra, a Harvard business-administration professor who worked on the study. What he and his colleagues found, however, was that the connection between more pay and extra effort depends on presenting the increase "as a gift—that is, as something you've chosen to do purely as a nice gesture, with no strings attached."
Malhotra and his team studied 267 people hired by oDesk, a global online network of freelancers, to do a one-time data-entry project for four hours. All of the new hires were people in developing countries, for whom hourly wages of $3 and $4 were higher than what they had been making in previous jobs.
The researchers split the group up into three equal parts. One group was told they would earn $3 an hour. A second group was initially hired at $3 an hour but, before they started working, they got a surprise: The budget for the project had expanded unexpectedly, they were told, and they would now be paid $4 an hour. The third group was offered $4 an hour from the start and given no increase.
Even though the second and third groups were eventually paid the same amount, the second group worked harder and produced more—about 20% more—than either of the other two. People in the second group also showed the most stamina, maintaining their focus all the way through the assigned task and performing especially well toward the end of the four hours. Interestingly, the more experienced employees in the high-performing group were the most productive of all, apparently because their previous work experience led them to appreciate the rarity of an unexpected raise.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, Malhotra points out that higher pay, in and of itself, didn't promote productivity: People who made $4 an hour from the beginning worked no harder than those who were hired at $3 and were then paid $3.
To get the most impact from their pay plans, he adds, companies might consider not only what to pay new hires, but when to pay it.
"The key thing is how you present [the reason for an increase]," he says. Doling out extra money could promote productivity most "if you make it clear that the pay raise is something you're choosing to do just because you can. Our theory is that people will reciprocate. If you do something nice, they'll do something nice back."
What does the underlined word “stamina” most probably mean?

A．The quality of being intelligent or clever.

B．The quality of doing something difficult or dangerous.

C．The physical or mental energy needed to do a tiring activity for a long time.

D．A particular method of doing an activity, usually involving practical skills.

Why did the second group produce more than the other two groups?

A．Because they thought they were better paid than the other groups.

B．Because they were experienced employees from developing countries.

C．Because an unexpected raise reminded them of their previous work.

D．Because they felt they were nicely treated and tried best to repay it.

What can we infer from this passage?

A．No pains, no gains.

B．It matters not what we give but how.

C．Honesty is the best policy.

D．Actions speak louder than words.