In communities north of Denver, residents are pitching in to help teachers and administrators as the Vrain school District tries to solve a $13.8 million budget shortage blamed on mismanagement. “We’re worried about our teachers and principals, and we really don’t want to lose them because of this,” one parent said. “If we can help ease their financial burden, we will.”
Teachers are grateful, but I know it may be years before the district is solvent(有综合能力的). They feel really good about the parent support, but they realize it’s impossible for them to solve this problem.
The 22,000-student district discovered the shortage last month. “It’s extraordinary. Nobody would have imagined something happening like this at this level,” said State Treasurer Mike Coffman.
Coffman and district officials last week agreed on a state emergency plan freeing up a $9.8 million loan that enabled the payroll(工资单) to be met for 2,700 teachers and staff in time for the holidays.
District officials also took $1.7 million from student-activity accounts of its 38 schools.
At Coffman’s request, the District Attorney has begun investigating the district’s finances. Coffman says he wants to know whether district officials hid the budget shortage until after the November election, when voters approved a $212 million bond issue for schools.
In Frederick, students’ parents are buying classroom supplies and offering to pay for groceries and utilities to keep first-year teachers and principals in their jobs.
Some $36,000 has been raised in donations from Safeway. A Chevrolet dealership donated $10,000 and forgave the district’s $10,750 bill for renting the driver educating cars. IBM contributed 4,500 packs of paper.
“We employ thousands of people in this community,” said Mitch Carson, a hospital chief executive, who helped raise funds. “We have children in the school, and we see how they could be affected.”
At Creek High School, three students started a website that displays newspaper articles, district information and an email forum. “Rumors about what’s happening to the district are moving at lighting speed,” said a student. “We wanted to know the truth, and spread that around instead.”
46. What has happened to the Vrain School District?
A. A huge financial problem has arisen.
B. Many schools there are mismanaged.
C. Lots of teachers in the district are planning to quit.
D. Many administrative personnel have been la
id off.
47. How did the residents in the Vrain School District respond to the budget shortage?
A. They felt somewhat helpless about it.
B. They accused those responsible for it.
C. They made their efforts to help solve it.
D. They demanded a thorough investigation.
48. In the view of State Treasurer Mike Coffman, the educational budget shortage is ________.
A. unavoidable B. unbelievable C. insolvable D. invisible
49. Why did Coffman request an investigation?
A. To see if the financial problem was covered up on purpose
B. To find out how serious the consequence of the case would be.
C. To make sure that the school principals were innocent.
D. To stop the voters approving the $212 million bond issue.
50. Three high school students started a website in order to ________.
A. attract greater public attention to their needs
B. appeal to the public for contributions and donations
C. expose officials who neglected their duties
D. keep people properly informed of the crisis
Why do parents have such a difficult time to communicate openly and honestly with their teens? For this, there are many reasons but most of them stem from not being able to properly understand their teens. It is a dangerous gap because parents will have to communicate with their teens about a wide variety of issues during the most important years of their lives. Thus, parents must know how to communicate openly and honestly with their teens.
Here are a few tips to make communication easier between parents and teenagers.
1. Try not to talk down to your teens. Make them feel as if their views really matter, which not only helps your discussions with your teen but bring you closer to him.
2. Imagine what it would be like to be a teen. Try to remember some of the negative feelings you experienced as a teenager and apply it to your teen's situation.
3. Never make negative remarks to your teen about what she has said or done.
4. Remember how much courage it would have taken for your teen to come and talk to you about his personal issues. So listen respectfully.
5. Don't ignore your teen's feelings because it is usually a cry for help. For instance, if your teen is unusually angry, it may be time to spend a bit of quality time with your teen to determine what is wrong and where he is coming from.
It is, therefore, necessary for parents to strive to keep lines of communication open at all times with their teens. Try to remember what it was like to be a teenager and how vulnerable（脆弱的）you felt. Then you will be well on your way to help your teen communicate more openly and honestly.Why don't teens want to talk about their personal issues with their parents?
| A．Because they can't respect their parents. |
| B．Because they can't understand their parents. |
| C．Because their parents won't understand them well. |
| D．Because their parents are not honest. |
When your son comes to you for help, you should NOT _____.
| A．listen respectively | B．treat him seriously |
| C．care about his feeling | D．make negative remarks |
Which of the following has the similar meaning to the underlined phrase “talk down to”?
| A．put down | B．look down upon | C．chat with | D．quarrel with |
The best title for this passage is _____.
| A．Causes of generation gap |
| B．Relations between teens and parents |
| C．Suggestions for parents-children effective communication |
| D．Problems with communication between teens and parents |
Making an advertisement for television often costs more than a movie. For example, a two – hour movie costs ＄6 million to make. A TV commercial can cost more than ＄6 000 a second. And that does not include cost of paying for air time. Which is more valuable, the program or the ad? In terms of money – and making money is what television is all about – the commercial is by far the more important.
Research, market testing, talent, time and money —— all come together to make us want to buy a product.
No matter how bad we think a commercial is, it works. The sales of Charm went up once the ads began. TV commercials actually buy their way into our head. We, in turn, buy the product.
And the ads work because so much time and attention are given to them. Here are some rules of commercial ad making. If you want to get the low middle – class buyer, make sure the announcer has a though, manly voice. Put some people in the ad who work with their hands. If you want to sell to upper – class audience, make sure that the house, the furniture, and the hair style are the types that the group identifies with. If you want the buyer feel superior to the character selling the product, then make that person so stupid or silly that everyone will feel great about himself or herself.
We laugh at commercials. We don’t think we pay that much attention to them. But evidence shows we are kidding ourselves. The making of a commercial that costs so much money is not kid stuff. It’s big, big business. And it’s telling us what to think , what we need, and what to buy. To put simply, the TV commercial is a form of brainwashing.TV commercials are more important than other programs to television because .
| A．they bring in great profits | B．they require a lot of money to make |
| C．they are not difficult to produce | D．they attract more viewers than other programs |
The purpose of all the efforts made in turning out TV commercials is.`
| A．to persuade people to buy the product |
| B．to show how valuable the product is |
| C．to test the market value of the product |
| D．to make them as interesting as TV movies |
From the rules set for making commercial ads, we can see that.
| A．the lower – middle – class buyer likes to work with his hand |
| B．the more stupid the characters, the more buyers of the product |
| C．ad designers attract different people with different skills |
| D．an upper – class buyer is only interested in houses and furniture |
It is believed by the writer that.
| A．few people like to watch TV commercials |
| B．TV commercials are a good guide to buyers |
| C．TV commercials often make people laugh |
| D．people do not think highly of TV commercials |
What does the author actually mean in the last paragraph?
| A．He asks TV viewers never to laugh at the TV commercial ads. |
| B．Commercials are used to show the true value of a product to be sold. |
| C．TV commercials cost much and they do influence us in one way or another. |
| D．Brainwashing must be introduced to sell something on TV. |
Harvard University named historian Drew Gilpin Faust as its first female president on Sunday, ending a lengthy and secretive search to find a successor（接任者）to Lawrence Summers .
The seven-member Harvard Corporation elected Faust, a noted scholar on History of the American South and dean of Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, as the university’s 28th president.
“This is a great day, and a historic day for Harvard,” James R. Houghton, chairman of the presidential search committee, said in a statement. “Drew Faust is an inspiring and accomplished leader, a superb scholar, a dedicated teacher, and a wonderful human being.”
Her selection is noteworthy given the heated debates over Summers’ comments that genetic differences between the sexes might help explain the lack of women in top science jobs.
Faust has been dean of Radcliffe since 2001, two years after the former women’s college was combined into the university as a research center with a mission to study gender issues.
Some professors have quietly groused that the 371-year-old university is appointing a fifth president who is not a scientist. No scientist has had the top job since James Bryant Conant retired in 1953; its last four have come from the fields of classics, law, literature and economics.
|
Faust is the first Harvard president who did not receive a degree from the university since Charles Chauncy, a graduate of Cambridge University, who died in office in 1762. She attended the University of Pennsylvania.
“Teaching staff turned to her constantly,” said Sheldon Hackney, a former president of the University of Pennsylvania and historian who worked closely with Faust. “She’s very clear. She has a sense of humor, but she’s very strong-minded. You come to trust in her because she’s so solid.”| A．Harvard named its 1st female president. |
| B．History of Harvard University changed. |
| C．Debates on female equality ended |
| D．Drew Gilpin Faust, a famous woman historian. |
Which is NOT true about Drew Gilpin Faust?
| A．She is the 28th president of Harvard University. |
| B．She is a famous scholar from the American South. |
| C．She isn’t a graduate from Harvard University |
| D．She was head of Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. |
Lawrence Summers held the view that .
| A．women cannot achieve as much as men in management |
| B．women cannot hold important positions in society |
| C．women can match men in science jobs |
| D．few women make top scientists owing to genes |
The underlined word “groused” in the 6th paragraph means .
| A．approved | B．commented | C．complained | D．indicated |
This passage probably appears in a .
| A．biography | B．personal letter | C．research paper | D．newspaper report |
Since the 1970s, scientists have been searching for ways to link the brain with computers. Brain-computer interface(BCI) technology could help people with disabilities send commands to machines.
Recently, two researchers, Jose Millan and Michele Tavella from the Federal Polytechnic school in Lausanne, Switzerland, demonstrated（展示）a small robotic wheelchair directed by a person’s thoughts.
In the laboratory, Tavella operated the wheelchair just by thinking about moving his left or right hand. He could even talk as he watched the vehicle and guided it with his thoughts.
“our brain has billions of nerve ceils. These send signals through the spinal cord（脊髓）to the muscles to give us the ability to move. But spinal cord injuries or other conditions can prevent these weak electrical signals from reaching the muscles,” Tavella says. “Our system allows disabled people to communicate with external world and also to control devices.”
The researchers designed a special cap for the user. This head cover picks up the signals from the scalp(头皮) and sends them to a computer. The computer interprets the signals and commands the motorized wheelchair. The wheelchair also has two cameras that identify objects in its path. They help the computer react to commands from the brain.
Prof. Millan, the team leader, says scientists keep improving the computer software that interprets brain signals and turns them into simple commands. “The practical possibilities that BCI technology offers to disabled people can be grouped in two categories: communication, and controlling devices. One example is this wheelchair.”
He says his team has set two goals. One is testing with real patients, so as to prove that this is a technology they can benefit from. And the other is to make sure that they can use the technology over long periods of time.BCI is a technology that can______.
| A．help to update computer systems | B．link the human brain with computers |
| C．help the disabled to recover | D．control a person's thoughts |
How did Tavella operate the wheelchair in the laboratory?
| A．By controlling his muscles. | B．By talking to the machine |
| C．By moving his hand. | D．By using his mind. |
Which of the following shows the path of the signals described in Paragraph 5?
| A．scalp→computer→cap→wheelchair | B．computer→cap→scalp→wheelchair |
| C．scalp→cap→computer→wheelchair | D．cap→computer→scalp→wheelchair |
The team will test with real patients to _____ .
| A．make profits from them | B．prove the technology useful to them |
| C．make them live longer | D．learn about their physical condition |
Which of the following would be the best title for the text?
| A．Switzerland, the BCI Research Center |
| B．New Findings About How the Human Brain Works |
| C．BCI Could Mean More Freedom for the Disabled |
| D．Robotic Vehicles Could Help to Cure Brain Injuries |
Few people ever took notice of Mr. Jimmy Tan whenever he entered a room. He was a shy, quiet and simple man who preferred to keep to himself in public. On the other hand, Mr. Thomas Kim, a fellow scientist, was a man everyone would notice on the streets. He wore bright outfits with huge flower prints, spoke with a booming voice, and his laughter could be heard from all corners of a room. In addition to the differences in their characters, Mr. Kim and Mr. Tan were also great rivals at work in the Institute of Future Science.
On Christmas Eve, everyone left work early to celebrate the special occasion, except for Mr. Tan and Mr. Kim. They were in their laboratory analyzing the results of their latest experiments. Mr. Tan realized that something special was taking place in his experiment —the bacteria he had cultured were growing extremely quickly under high pressure and at a very low temperature. After noting down the findings in his notebook, he left the room to prepare for another round of tests. Shortly after, Mr. Kim entered.
“Hey Jimmy,” Mr. Kim called out, “do you have an extra copy of the laboratory booking form?”
There was no reply, so Mr. Kim looked through Mr. Tan’s things. He soon found Mr. Tan's notebook and was horrified to see that Mr. Tan had managed to make one of the most important discoveries in modern science. He then looked into the deep-freeze cupboard where a dish containing the bacteria was kept. He put them into his pocket and returned to his own laboratory.
Mr. Tan came back an hour later to find his notebook and the dish missing. He knew that Mr. Kim had taken them and went to Mr. Kim's laboratory to find out. When he opened the door, he found Mr. Kim lying on the floor motionless. His face was pale and his skin had turned black. The deadly bacteria had been handled improperly. He shook his head and left.From the first paragraph we know Mr. Kim was a quiteperson.
| A．famous | B．hardworking |
| C．wealthy | D．outgoing |
The underlined word "rivals" in the first paragraph is closest in meaning to.
| A．enemies | B．colleagues |
| C．competitors | D．friends |
What does the underlined word “them” refer to in the 4th paragraph?
| A．the most important discoveries |
| B．the notebook and the dish |
| C．the cupboard and the bacteria |
| D．the dish and the bacteria |
Which of the following is true according to the passage?
| A．Mr. Kim was afraid Mr. Tan might succeed ahead of him. |
| B．Mr. Tan's bacteria grew very fast in a warm container. |
| C．Mr. Tan worked much harder than Mr. Kim. |
| D．Mr. Kim was so tired that he fell down into sleep. |
What happened to Mr. Kim in the end?
| A．He died on Christmas Eve. |
| B．He was arrested by the police. |
| C．He shared the success with Mr. Tan. |
| D．He succeeded ahead of Mr. Tan. |