How should one invest a sum of money in these clays of inflation (通货膨胀)? Left in a bank it will hardly keep its value, however high the interest rate. Only a brave man, or a very rich one, dares to buy and sell on the Stock Market. Today it seems that one of the best ways to protect your savings, and even increase your wealth is to buy beautiful objects from the past. Here I am going to offer some advice on collecting antique clocks, which I personally consider are among the most interesting of antiques.
I sometimes wonder what a being from another planet might report back about our way of life. "The planet Earth is ruled by a mysterious creature that sits or stands in a room and makes a strange ticking sound. It has a face with twelve black marks and two hands. Men can do nothing without its permission, and it fastens its young round people's wrists so that everywhere men go they are still under its control. This creature is the real master of Earth and men are its slaves."
Whether or not we are slaves of time today depends on our culture and personality, but it is believed that many years ago kings kept special slaves to tell the time. Certain men were very clever at measuring the time of clay according to the beating of their own hearts. They were made to stand in a fixed place and every hour or so would shout tire time. So it seems that the first clocks were human beings.
However, men quickly found more convenient and reliable ways of telling the time. They learned to use the shadows cast by the sun. They marked the hours on candles, used sand in hour- glasses, and invented water-clocks. Indeed, any serious student of antique should spend as much time as possible visiting palaces, stately homes and museums to see some of the finest examples of clocks from the past.
Antique clocks could be very expensive, but one of the joys of collecting clocks is that it is still possible to find quite cheap ones for your own home. After all, if you are going to be ruled by time, why not invest in air antique clock and perhaps make a future profit?According to the passage, collecting antique clocks____.
| A．can hardly keep the value of your savings |
| B．will cost much of your savings |
| C．may increase your wealth |
| D．needs your bravery |
By quoting (引用) the remark of a being from another planet, the author intends to____.
| A．suggest human beings are controlled by a clock |
| B．describe why clocks can rule the planet Earth |
| C．tell readers what clocks look like |
| D．compare chicks to human beings |
Which of the following is NOT mentioned as a way to measure the time?
| A．Counting the beating of one's own heart. |
| B．Making use of candles, sand and water. |
| C．Observing shadows cast by the sun. |
| D．Keeping slaves busy day and night. |
The underlined phrase stately homes in paragraph 4 means
| A．state-owned houses |
| B．houses in very good condition |
| C．grand houses open to the public |
| D．houses where statesmen meet regularly |
The purpose of the passage is
| A．to introduce the culture of antique clocks |
| B．to offer some advice on collecting antique clocks |
| C．to compare different ways to make a future profit |
| D．to explain convenient and reliable ways of telling time |
Modern life is a lot les s to the advantage of friendships and neighborliness than it used to be. The average American moves every five years. People drive straight into their garages, hire lawn services, hang out in their backyards instead of their front porches (前走廊). These days, neighbors don't even know each other's names.
Good neighbors and good friends are a lot like electricity or running water: We don't know how much we depend on them until we don't have them. In fact, the authors of a recent book, Refrigerator Rights, claim that refrigerators are signs of close relationships--after all, you wouldn't snatch a drumstick(鸡腿) from the refrigerator of a stranger.
The surprising thing is that all it takes to strengthen your relationship with friends and neighbors is respect for their feelings, concern for their property, and a helping hand when it's needed. Here's how to develop your relationships with two types of vitally important people in your life.
_________________. A true friend doesn't flee when changes occur. The sign of a good friend is one who stays true through it all--marriage, parenthood, new jobs, new homes, the losses. Just because situations change doesn't mean the person has to.
Friendships fade away if there isn't an balance between the give and the take. So make sure you aren't being a burden to your friends. Be sensitive to how much your friend can and can't offer you--be it time, energy, or help -- and don't step over the line. Meanwhile, friendships that drain(耗尽) you will not last. If a friendship is out of balance in this way, you'll need to talk the situation through.
1. Which sentence in the passage is the closest in meaning to the following one?
A true friend will stay the same even when the situations change.
2. Fill in the blank in Paragraph 4 with a proper sentence. (Within 10 words)
3. What advice is given in the last paragraph? (Within 10 words)
4. What do you think the author will go on talking about if the passage continues?(Within 10 words)
5. Translate the underlined sentence in the last paragraph into Chinese．
So you're between the ages of 13 and 24. What makes you happy? Spending time with family was the top answer to that open-ended question, according to an extensive survey--more than 100 questions asked of 1,280 people aged 13-24 -- conducted by The Associated Press on the nature of happiness among America's young people.
Next was spending time with friends. And good news for parents: Nearly three quarters of young people say their relationship __________ makes them happy.
"They're my foundation," says Kristiana St. John, 17, a high-school student from Queens in New York. "My mom tells me that even if I do something stupid, she's still going to love me no matter what. Just knowing that makes me feel very happy and blessed."
Other results are more disconcerting. While most young people are happy overall with the way their lives are going, there are racial differences: the poll shows whites to be happier than blacks and Hispanics. A lot of young people feel stress, particularly those from the middle class, and females more than males.
You might think money would be clearly tied to a general sense of happiness. But almost no one said "money" when asked what makes them happy, though people with the highest family incomes are generally happier with life. However, having highly educated parents is a stronger predictor of happiness than income.
Overwhelmingly, young people think marriage would make them happy and want to be married some day. Most also want to have kids.
Finally, when asked to name their heroes, nearly half of respondents mentioned one or both of their parents. The winner, by a nose: Mom.
1. What is the best title of the passage? (Please answer within 10 words)
2. Which sentence in the passage can be replaced by the following one?
Although most youths are generally happy with their present life. There are differences between different races.
3. Please fill in the blank in the second paragraph with proper words or phrases to complete the sentence. (Please answer within 10 words)
4. What do you think is the most important factor that makes you happy? Why? (Please answer within 30 words)
5. Translate the underlined sentence into Chinese.
About 40 percent of the top students in college entrance examinations have chosen overseas universities for their postgraduate studies, according to a survey.
Most of them have stayed overseas after finishing their intended courses, showed a survey that tracked 130 top performers in college entrance exams from 1977 to 1998.
The survey, released on the China Alumni Association website, found it worrying that many of the top students would not ________ despite the country’s rapid development in the past few decades.
The government should find better ways to hold back talented students, said Cai Yanhou, a professor with Central South University in Changsha, capital of Hunan Province.
UNESCO figures show Chinese students comprise 14 percent of international students, the highest in the world. Their favorite destinations for higher studies are the US, Britain and Japan. Some experts said handsome scholarships, better job prospects and more opportunities to pursue further studies are the main attractions of foreign universities.
But Cai, who also led the survey team, said "top in exams" does not necessarily mean "top in career" because the study found none of the top students at college entrance exams had become a top Chinese expert or academic. Some of them are just more adaptable to exam-oriented education than their peers, experts said.
The media fill pages and time slots with their "success" stories to gain wider readership and viewership. High schools promote their former students proudly to attract new ones, and universities want to show their superior status by recruiting them, they said.
Wang hoped future reforms would do away with the score-oriented method so that students can be judged from all aspects.
1. What is the best title of the passage? (Please answer within 10 words)
2. Which sentence in the passage can be replaced by the following one?
The top students’ “success” stories are widely announced by the media to attract the readers’ and the viewers’ interest.
3. Please fill in the blank in the second paragraph with proper words or phrases to complete the sentence. (Please answer within 10 words)
4. If you are one of the top students in college entrance examinations, will you choose to study abroad? Why or why not?(Please answer within 30 words)
5. Translate the underlined sentence into Chinese
It is difficult for parents of nearly every family to teach their children to be responsible for housework, but with one of the following suggestions, you really can get your children to help at home.
If you give your children the impression that they_____________________, then they will regard themselves as unfit or unable persons. Unless children believe they can succeed, they will never become totally independent （独立）.
My daughter Carla’s fifth-grade teacher made every child in her class feel special. When students received less than a perfect test score, she would point out what they had mastered and declared firmly they could learn what they had missed.
You can use the same technique when you evaluate （评价）your child’s work at home. Don’t always scold and give lots of praise instead. Talk about what he has done right, not about what he hasn’t done. If your child completes a difficult task, reward him with a Sunday trip or a ball game with Dad.
Learning is a process （过程）of trying and failing and trying and succeeding. If you teach your children not to fear a mistake of failure, they will learn faster and achieve success at last.
1.What’s the best title of the passage?
2.Which sentence in the passage is the closest in meaning to the following one?
The process of learning is full of trying and failing ,and after trying again and again ,one will succeed.
3.Please fill in the blank in the passage with proper words or phrases to complete the sentence.(within ten words)
4.What do you think parents should do to educate their children well according to the passage?(within 30 words)
5.Translate the underlined sentence into Chinese.
Eating disorder is ve ry common now. "When I first wrote about this. the problem was pretty much hidden … I didn’t expect it to get as bad as it is." Susie Orbach, an international authority(权威)on eating disorders, said.
Orbach must at times think the anti-diet message of her book “fat is a Feminist Issue(女权主义问题)”has been lost since it was written more than 20 years ago.
Girls, boys, old people --even the famously well-rounded female population of Fiji are falling victims(牺牲品) to fat fear.
"If anything, the situation has got much, much worse. We now have kids as young as eight and women in old people’s homes worried about the way they look." Orbach said.
Even though it has been proved that repeated dieting results in a little more than regaining most of the lost weight, constant dieting has become a way of life for many women. 48 per cent of British women aged 25 to 35 were on some kind of diet and 20 per cent of young women dieted all or most of time. Some of them said they would pop a pill to give them their beautiful shape, even if it meant risking
their health. Worldwide, 70 million people have an eating disorder. Most are women, but men are increasingly affected, too.
More than half the women and two thirds of the men in Britain weigh too much. while in the United States more than one quarter of adults and about one in five children are overweight. The idea that female beauty is a very thin body could be changed, if clothing factories and magazines showed images(形象) of women of all shapes instead of selecting skeletal-like models and stick-thin actress.
But that is easier said than done.
To get the message across, Orbach is also considering talking to pop stars such as Victoria Beckham and Geri Halliwell, both of whom have admitted__________________.
1.What’s the best title of the passage?
2.Which sentence in the passage is the closest in meaning to the following one?
Lots of women has chosen constant dieting as part of thir life despite the fact that constant dietting leads to the lost weight being regained.
3.Please fill in the blank in the passage with proper words or phrases to complete the sentence.(within ten words)
4.Are you in favor of dieting ?And why?(within 30 words)
5.Translate the underlined sentence into Chinese.