Now that the recession（经济衰退）is most likely over, it,s time to start looking at which companies, institutions, and individuals developed well during this unpleasant period. In the downturn that began in December 2007, the recession ruined the wealthiest consumer markets—the united States, Europe, Japan—there were very few safe shelters. But some countries, such as Peru, managed to grow right through the global recession. And some companies arranged their business so that they resisted the contraction and benefited from the trends affecting their industry. Some even managed to bring more business.
Chief among the Great Recession’s winners is McDonald,s. McDonald,s sales growth in 2008 was greater than in 2006 and 2007. While many restaurants reduced their business operation, it opened nearly 600 stores in 2008. And the chain has achieved same-store sales growth in each of 2009,s first seven months.
In 2008, after a decade of severely trading up to higher quality consumer goods and services, Americans began to trade down with a vengeance（报复）. McDonald,s, which has 44 percent of its 32,000 stores in the United States, was set up to profit from trading down in two ways. First, in a recession, people eat out less and at home more frequently. And when they eat out, they eat at cheaper places. McDonald,s is so cheap, efficient, and convenient that it was a practical alternative to casual restaurants like Ruby Tuesday.
In the United States, McDonald,s may be a cheap source of calories in food. In other parts of the world, McDonald,s is an appealing brand, identified with middle-class, westernized consumerism. Much of the world, such as China, India, is still not developed for the Golden Arches. Coincidentally, these are the right places where its business has continued to grow during the global recession. While it faces operational challenges in markets, McDonald,s has benefited form a weakening dollar and rising incomes in Asia.
The question now for investors（投资者）is whether McDonald,s can survive the recovery. When people feel better-off, will they still stop by? The growth in same-store sales in the United States has come down a little in recent months. And there,s a rising amount of the population that has grown accustomed to eating healthier and better. Going forward, McDonald,s may face larger cultural barriers in the United States than in China.
64．From the passage we can infer that in the recession.
A．the developing countries grew wealthier
B．the rich countries became unable to recover 
C．the Western companies suffered a great loss
D．the opportunities were brought as well as challenges
65．McDonald,s managed to remain popular in the recession mainly because of .
A．its good operation B．the American food culture
C．its low price and convenience D．the weak value of dollars
66．The underlined word “contraction” in Paragraph I means .
A．formal written agreement B．influence on industry
C．disappointing management D．process of reduced trade
67．What can be the best title for this passage?
A．Who Won the Recession
B．Who Traded down in the Recession
C．How Western Business Survived the Recession
D．How McDonald‘s Kept Growing after the Recession
Encouraging early reading skills can build a path to a lifelong love of reading and can help your child get a head start in school. While reading to your child is still the most important thing you can do to build reading skills, there are many techniques that can help.
Make reading fun. Play games with your child as you read. Many traditional children's games can be adapted to encourage reading skills.
While reading or during play, tell your child, "I spy with my little eye, something that begins with the letter "b". Help the child find something on the page or in the room that begins with that letter. For example, “I see a barn.” This can also be used to teach beginning letter sounds.Ｉspy with my little eye something that begins with the sound “s”. Help the child find a word that begins with the "s" sound.
In this variation on the popular game, instruct the child that, "Simon says, point to something that starts with the letter "n". The child can then find an object in the room or a body part, such as the nose, that starts with the letter presented. This can also be used to teach beginning sounds.
Make a game out of rhyming (押韵) words by making up silly words to rhyme with the child's name or favorite toys. This sets the stage for rhyming real words by showing the child the similarities of sounds. As the child masters making up the words, begin rhyming real words to one another.
Tips to raise a successful reader:
Put books in places where the child plays. If books are easily accessible, children are more likely to pick them up.
Let children "read to you" by looking at pictures. Making up stories to go along with illustrations helps children discover how words relate to pictures.
Take books along on trips or even short visits to the doctor's office or grocery store.
Have children help you shop. Reading grocery lists and looking for specific items helps build vocabulary. Which of the following statements is TRUE?
| A．A good reading habit can benefit your child at school. |
| B．Computer games help children develop reading skills. |
| C．You should be careful as for what books to read. |
| D．Children enjoy reading poems to their parents. |
What does the underlined word “accessible” most probably mean?
| A．available | B．beneficial | C．readable | D．worthwhile |
What can we conclude from the text?
| A．The most important thing is to make reading funny. |
| B．Children have a preference for stories with pictures. |
| C．Rhyming games should begin only with real words. |
| D．Children tend to read more if books are at hand. |
Which of the following can be the best title of the text?
| A．Interest is the best teacher |
| B．Practice makes perfect |
| C．Good methods are half done |
| D．Failure teaches success |
What are the intended readers of the text?
| A．Parents. | B．Adolescents. | C．Educators. | D．People in general. |
Many animals recognize their food because they see it. So do humans. When you see an apple or a piece of chocolate you know that these are things you can eat. You can also use other senses when you choose your food. You may like it because it smells good or because it tastes good. You may dislike some types of food because they do not look, smell or taste very nice. Different animals use different senses to find and choose their food. A few animals depend on only one of their senses, while most animals use more than one sense.
Although there are many different types of food, some animals spend their lives eating only one type. The giant panda eats only one particular type of bamboo. Other animals eat only one type of food even when given the choice. A kind of white butterfly will stay on the leaves of a cabbage, even though there are plenty of other vegetables in the garden. However, most animals have a more varied diet. The bear eats fruits and fish. The fox eats small animals, birds and fruits. The diet of these animals will be different depending on the season.
Humans have a very varied diet. We often eat food because we like it and not because it is good for us. In countries such as France and Britain, people eat foods with too much sugar. This makes them overweight, which is bad for their health. Eating too much red meat and animal products, such as butter, can also be bad for the health. Choosing the right food, therefore, has become an area of study in modern life. We can infer from the text that humans and animals ____.
| A．depend on one sense in choosing food |
| B．are not satisfied with their food |
| C．choose food in similar ways |
| D．eat entirely different food |
Which of the following eats only one type of food?
| A．A white butterfly. | B．A small bird. |
| C．The bear. | D．The fox. |
Certain animals change their choice of food when ____.
| A．the season changes |
| B．the food color changes |
| C．they move to different places |
| D．they are attracted by different smells |
We can learn from the last paragraph that ____.
| A．food is chosen for a good reason |
| B．French and British food is good |
| C．some people have few choices of food |
| D．some people care little about healthy diet |
What will most probably be talked about in the next paragraph?
| A．Why choosing the right food is important. |
| B．How to choose the right food. |
| C．The right amount of food for a person. |
| D．Vegetables matter more than meat and sugar. |
The 30-mile road that runs through the mountains of Willie Valley makes most drivers′ hands sweat. But Andersen, a 46-year-old father of four, wasn’t expecting any trouble on the road last New Year’s Eve, when he set off for a ski trip to the Bear Mountains with nine-year-old daughter Mia, four-old son Baylor, and nine-year-old neighbor Kenya. Andersen had driven through the Valley hundreds of times over the years.
The weather was fine. But the higher they drove, the more slippery the road became. Rounding a sharp U-turn, Andersen saw a heavy truck off the road and immediately hit his brakes. In a minute, the car was going at 25 miles per hour down the mountain before falling down from a ten-foot dam into the extremely cold Logan River.
The crash had broken a few windows, and within seconds, the car was filled with water. “It was frightening that we were going fast into deep water,” remembers Andersen, a soft-spoken manager.
Having lost all sense of direction, Andersen began to search the freezing water for the kids. Mia had been right next to him in the front seat; now, in the blackness, he couldn’t find her. “I thought, if I don’t get out, maybe none of us are going to get out.” Andersen got out of his seat belt, swam through a broken window, and, deeply and quickly, breathed air at the surface. That’s when he saw a group of men, about ten in all, appear at the top of the dam. One after another, they rushed down into the water. Helping onto safety all the three children, they began to shout at the father, “Who else is in the car？”
Andersen says respectfully, “It was like the sight of angels.” What might be the main cause of the car accident？
| A．The bad weather. | B．The high dam. |
| C．The sudden brake. | D．The heavy truck. |
Andersen didn’t expect any trouble on the road because _____.
| A．he was familiar with the road |
| B．he was good at driving |
| C．his hands didn’t have sweat |
| D．the weather was fine |
What can be learned from the last paragraph？
| A．Andersen lost consciousness in the water. |
| B．Strangers helped Andersen out of the car. |
| C．Andersen liked Mia most among the children. |
| D．Strangers teamed together to save three children. |
The underlined sentence is to express Andersen’s feeling of being _____.
| A．tired | B．excited | C．doubtful | D．thankful |
Which of the following can be the best title of the text？
| A．Stay calm when in trouble |
| B．Drive rounding a U-turn |
| C．Miracle rescue from a river |
| D．Mystery of the Bear Mountains |
When Mary Moore began her high school in 1951, her mother told her, “Be sure and take a typing course so when this show business thing doesn't work out, you'll have something to rely on.” Mary responded in typical teenage fashion. From that moment on, "the very last thing I ever thought about doing was taking a typing course," she recalls.
The show business thing worked out, of course. In her career, Mary won many awards. Only recently, when she began to write Growing Up Again, did she regret ignoring her mom, “I don't know how to use a computer,” she admits.
Unlike her 1995 autobiography(自传), After All, her second book is less about life as an award-winning actress and more about living with diabetes (糖尿病). All the money from the book is intended for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), an organization she serves as international chairman. “I felt there was a need for a book like this,” she says. “I didn't want to lecture, but I wanted other diabetics to know that things get better when we're self-controlled and do our part in managing the disease.”
But she hasn't always practiced what she teaches. In her book, she describes that awful day, almost 40 years ago, when she received two pieces of life-changing news. First, she had lost the baby she was carrying, and second, tests showed that she had diabetes. In a childlike act, she left the hospital and treated herself to a box of doughnuts (甜甜圈). Years would pass before she realized she had to grow up ---again---and take control of her diabetes, not let it control her. Only then did she kick her three-pack-a-day cigarette habit, overcome her addiction to alcohol, and begin to follow a balanced diet.
Although her disease has affected her eyesight and forced her to the sidelines of the dance floor, she refuses to fall into self-pity. “Everybody on earth can ask, 'why me?' about something or other,” she insists. “It doesn't do any good. No one is immune (免疫的) to heartache, pain, and disappointments. Sometimes we can make things better by helping others. I've come to realize the importance of that as I've grown up this second time. I want to speak out and be as helpful as I can be.”Why did Mary feel regretful?
| A．She didn't achieve her ambition. |
| B．She didn't take care of her mother. |
| C．She didn't complete her high school. |
| D．She didn't follow her mother's advice. |
We can know that before 1995, Mary__________.
| A．had two books published |
| B．received many career awards |
| C．knew how to use a computer |
| D．supported the JDRF by writing |
Mary's second book Growing Up Again is mainly about her__________ .
| A．living with diabetes | B．successful show business |
| C．service for an organization | D．remembrance of her mother |
When Mary received the life-changing news, she_____________ .
| A．lost control of herself | B．began a balanced diet |
| C．tried to get a treatment | D．behaved in an adult way |
What can we know from the last paragraph?
| A．Mary feels pity for herself. |
| B．Mary has recovered from her disease. |
| C．Mary wants to help others as much as possible. |
| D．Mary determines to go back to the dance floor. |
If a business wants to sell its products internationally, it had better do some market research first. This is a lesson that some large American corporations have learned the hard way.
What’s in the name?
Sometimes the problem is the name. When General Motors introduced its Chevy Nova into Latin America, it overlooked the fact that Nova in Spanish means “It doesn’t go”. Sure enough, the Chevy Nova never went anywhere in Latin America.
Translation problems
Sometimes it is the slogan that doesn’t work. No company knows this better than Pepsi-Cola, with its “Come alive with Pepsi!” campaign. The campaign was so successful in the United States , Pepsi translated its slogan literally for its international campaign. As it turned out , the translations weren’t quite right. Pepsi was begging Germans to “Come out of the grave(坟墓)” and telling the Chinese that “Pepsi brings your ancestors(老祖宗) back from the grave.”
A picture’s worth a thousand words
Other times, the problem involves packaging . A picture of a smiling baby has helped sell countless jars of Gerber baby food. When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the smiling baby on the label. Later they learned that in African countries, the picture on the jar shows what the jar has in it, for many people there can’t read.
Twist of fate
Even the culture and religious factors and pure coincidence can be involved. Thorn McAn shoes have a Thorn McAn “signature” inside. To people in Bangladesh, which is a Muslim country, this signature looked like Arabic script for the word Allah. In that country, feet are considered unclean, and Muslims felt the company was offending God’s name by having people walk on it.From the text we learned that _________.
| A．Chevy Nova was brought in Latin America |
| B．General Motors did the best market research of all companies |
| C．Pepsi still sold well in China owing to the translation problems |
| D．the “Come alive with Pepsi” campaign worked well in the US |
What was “Gerber’s problem”?
| A．A translation problem | B．Cultural factor |
| C．Religious factor | D．The picture on the jar |
For what reason were Thorn McAn shoes turned down in Bangladesh?
| A．They are not designed attractively |
| B．Their advertisements are not persuasive |
| C．A signature looking like the word Allah was in the shoes |
| D．Problem for Thorn McAn was the company’s name |
What does the text mainly tell us?
| A．Lessons from some large corporations. |
| B．How to make use of advertisements |
| C．The importance of market research |
| D．The importance of packaging |