“It was all his own idea, ” says Pat Peters, the 38-year-old wife of Palo Alto, California high school football coach Bob Peters, 39. Bob had just drawn up a “motherhood contract” --a document stating that for 70 days th
is summer he would take over the care and feeding of the couple’s four children, plus all household chores. Although he didn’t even know how to make coffee when he signed, he was quite confident.(He thought the experience would make a nice book.)
After 40 of the 70 days, he was ready to give up. “I was beaten down, pletely humbled（挫败的）,” admits Peters. Three weeks later he spoke to the local press, stating, “Not only is motherhood a difficult task, not only is it never-ending, it is an impossible job for any normal human being.”
Bob and Pat were high school sweethearts. After they were married in 1960, she worked as a secretary to help put him through university. Since then Bob has been the football and wrestling coach at Palo Alto’s Cubberley High while Pat raised the kids. Then two years ago Pat went back to work
as a secretary at Cubberley. “I had been around children so much,” she sighs, “I couldn’t talk to a grown-up.” She continued to run the household, however----until Bob signed the contract, therefore, she decided to relax and enjoy it.
Although Peters had consulted(咨询) with his school’s home economics teachers and the head of the cafeteria, his meals were sometimes a disaster. “I tried to slip the butter I’d forgotten under the eggs after they were frying, ” he says. For the last three weeks, the family ate out a lot—sometimes having Macdonald’s hamburgers for lunch and dinner.
As for housekeeping, a home economics teacher had told Bob that a room always looks clean if the bed is made. “
I found an easier way-I shut the doors, ” he says. Soon the kids were wearing the same clothes for a week. “I made them wear their shirts inside out, and when we went to pick up Pat at work they turned them right side out so they would look clean.”
Now that Bob has publicly admitted he was wrong, he is routinely sharing the child-raising
and household tasks with Pat. The tentative（暂时的） title of his book about the summer is taken from something he shouted at the kids one day. The couple signed the contract because _______.
| A．Pat plained a lot about her doing the housework all by herself |
| B．Bob loved taking care of children and wanted his wife to have a good rest |
| C．they agreed that husband and wife should share household tasks |
| D．Bob thought it easy to take care of the family and wanted the experience for a book |
It was agreed that if Bob failed to keep to the contract, he would have to _______.
| A．pay a certain amount of money |
| B．admit publicly he was wrong about motherhood |
| C．say sorry to his wife |
| D．do all the housework for years |
What can we learn about Pat Peters?
| A．She was hard-working and selfless. |
| B．She was pretty and kind-hearted. |
| C．She was tired of the child-raising and household tasks. |
| D．She did not love Bob any longer. |
Which of the following can best end the news story?
| A．“Wait till your mother gets home!” |
| B．“My experience of being a mother.” |
| C．“I’m proud of you all, my dear!” |
| D．“Motherhood: an impossible job for anyone.” |
The idea for a science experiment can come from an unusual place. After watching a YouTube video of a dancing bird named Snowball, a scientist in Californina decided to study the ability of animals to keep the beat.
Bird lovers have long claimed that their pets have rhyhm, and there are many videos of dancing birds online. Until now, scientists have suspected that humans are the only animals that can accurately keep rhythm with music.
Thanks to Snowball, that scientific opinion is changing. Snowball is a cockatoo, a kind of parrot, and his favorite song is “Everybody” by the Backstreet Boys. When he hears the song, he moves his feet and rocks his body with the tempo, or pace of the music, as though he is the only bird member of the boy band.
Aniruddh Patel is a neuroscientist, or a scientist who studies how the brain and the nervous system contribute to learning, seeing and other mental abilities. He works at the Neurosciences Instiute in San Diego. After seeing Snowbaill’s dance online, Patel visited the cockatoo at the bird rescue facility he’s called home for two years. The scientist played “Everybody” for Snowball and also played versions of the song that were sped up or slowed down. Sometimes, Snowball danced too fast or too slowly. Often, when there was a change in tempo, Snowball adjusted his dancing to match the rhythm. In other experiments, scientists have observed the same abilities in preschool children.
Patel isn’t the only scientist who has studied Snowball’s moves. Adena Schachner, who studies psychology at Harvard University, also wanted to know more about the dancing bird. Schachner’s team played different musical pieces for Snowball and a parrot named Alex, as well as eight human volunteers. The scientists observed that the birds and the humans kept time to the music with about the same accuracy.
Schachner and her team watched thousands of YouTube videos of different animals moving to music. Not all the animals could dance, however. From watching the videos, the scientists observed that only animals that imitate sounds, including 14 parrot species and Asian elephants, accurately moved in time to music.The underlined words “that scientific opinion” in the third paragraph refers to the theory that .
| A．birds like Snowball have the ability to keep the beat |
| B．humans are the only animals that can accurately keep rhythm with music |
| C．the brain and the nervous system contribute to some mental abilities |
| D．bird pets can have their special rhythm under human’s instruction |
From the fourth paragraph we may know that.
| A．Patel is the only scientist who has studied Snowball’s moves. |
| B．Snowball is able to adjust his dandcing to match the rhythm. |
| C．Snowball cannot dance to the versions of the song Everybody. |
| D．it is the brain and the nervous system that control the mental abilities. |
The idea of studying animals’ ability to keep the beat comes from .
| A．bird lovers’ discovery | B．humans musical sense |
| C．the same abilities in children | D．videos of dancing birds |
According to the scientists, Snowball’s ability to dance to music is probably related to the fact that .
| A．it is the only bird member of thd Backstreet Boys band |
| B．it has the ability to imitate sounds |
| C．it is a kind of dancing parrot |
| D．it has the same abilities as preschool children |
Despite all the reports of Internet security attacks over the years, including the recent ones on Google’s e-mail service, many people have reacted to the break-ins with a shrug (耸肩).
Mr. Shulman and his company examined a list of 32 million passwords that an unknown hacker（黑客） stole last month from Rock You, a company that makes software for users of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. The list was briefly posted on the Web, and hackers and security researchers downloaded it.
The list provided an unusually detailed window into computer users’ password habits. Typically, only government agencies like the F.B.I. or the National Security Agency have had access to such a large password list.
Some Web sites try to keep back the attackers by freezing an account for a certain period of time if too many incorrect passwords are typed. But experts say that the hackers simply learn to trick the system, by making guesses at an acceptable rate, for instance.
To improve security, some Wed sites are forcing users to mix letters,numbers even symbols in their passwords. Others, like Twitter, prevent people from picking common passwords.
Still, researchers say, social networking and entertainment Web sites often try to make life simpler for their users and are unwilling to put too many controls in place.
Even commercial sites like eBay must weigh the consequences of freezing accounts, since a hacker could, say, try to win an auction（拍卖） by freezing the accounts of other potential buyers.
But owing to the reality of our overcrowded brains, the experts suggest that everyone choose at least two different passwords— a complex one for Web sites where security is vital, such as banks and e-mail, and a simpler one for less risky places, such as social networking and entertainment sites.
Mr. Moss relies on passwords at least 12 characters long, figuring that those make him a more difficult target than the millions of people who choose five-and six-character passwords.
“It’s like the joke where the hikers run into a bear in the forest, and the hiker that survives is the one who outruns his companions,” Mr. Moss said. “You just want to run that bit faster.”The underlined sentence “Many people have reacted to the break-ins with a shrug” shows that many people .
| A．don’t take seriously the hacker’s break-ins |
| B．are worried and frightened at the hacker’s break-ins |
| C．don’t know what to do with the hacker’s attacks |
| D．are eager to get helps from the experts |
According to the passage, which of the following web sites needs a more complex password?
| A．A social web site. | B．An entertainment web site. |
| C．A commercial web site. | D．A game web site. |
The Internet users are advised to in order to keep back the hackers.
| A．mix letters, numbers and symbols as well |
| B．choose passwords with at least 12 characters |
| C．choose passwords with 5 or 6 characters |
| D．choose at least two different passwords |
Which would be the best title for the passage?
| A．Password, good luck or risk! | B．Popular Passwords, High Risk! |
| C．Clever Hackers, Stupid Netizens. | D．Hacker,the Enemy of Internet Security. |
I shall never forget the night, a few years ago, when Marion J. Douglas was a student in one of my calsses. (I have not used his real name for personal reasons. As he requested.) But here is his real story as he told it before one of our adult – education classes. He told us how tragedy had struck at his home, not once, but twice. The first time he had lost his five-old daughter, a child he adored. He and his wife thought they couldn’t bear that first loss; but, as he said:“Ten months later, God gave us another little girl and she died in five days.”
This double bereavement was almost too much to bear. “I couldn’t take it,” this father told us. “I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t rest or relax. My nerves were entirely shaken and my confidence gone.” At last he went to doctors; one recommended sleeping pills and another recommended a trip. He tried both, but neither helped. He said:“My body felt as if it was surrounded in a vice(大钳子), and the jaws of the vice were being drawn tighter and tighter.” The tension of grief(悲伤)——if you have ever been paralyzed(使瘫痪)by sorrow, you know what he meant.
But thank God, I had one child left ——a four —year— old son. He gave me the solution to my problem. One afternoon as I sat around feeling sorry for myself, he asked; ‘Daddy, will you build a boat for me?’ I was in no mood to build a boat; in fact, I was in no mood to do anything. But my son is a persistent little fellow! I had to give in.
Building that toy boat took me about three hours. By the time it was finished, I realized that those three hours spent building that boat were first hours of mental relaxation and peace that I had had in months! I realized that it is difficult to worry while you are busy doing something that requires planning and thinking. In my case, building the boat had knocked worry out of the ring. So I determined to keep busy.
The following night, I went from room to room in the house, making a list of jobs that ought to be done. Scores of items needed to be repaired: bookcase, stair steps, storm windows, window-shades, locks, leaky taps. Amazing as it seems, in the course of two weeks I had made a list of 242 items that needed attention.
“During the last two years I have completed most of them. I am busy now that I have no time for worry.”
No time for worry! That is exactly what Winston Churchill said when he was working eighteen hours a day at the height of the war. When he was asked if he worried about his huge responsibilities, he said :“I am too busy. I have no time for worry.”The underlined word “bereavement” in the second paragraph refers to .
| A．having lost a loved one | B．having lost a valuable article |
| C．having lost a profit-making business | D．having lost a well-paid job |
Marion felt his body as if it was caught in a vice because.
| A．he couldn’t earn enough money to support his family |
| B．he was suffering from sleeplessness disease |
| C．he couldn’t get out of mental pressure |
| D．he felt tired of adult-education classes |
Marion made a list of over 200 items that needed to be repaired because .
| A．he hadn’t been able to spare time to mend them |
| B．he wanted to kill his free time by repairing them |
| C．the items had actually been broken and needed attention |
| D．repairing the items helped crowd worry out of his mind |
At the end of the passage, the author wrote about Winston Churchill in order to .
| A．prove that he followed Churchill’s example |
| B．support his student’s solution to his problem |
| C．show that he was successful in his career |
| D．clarify how his conclusion was reached |
It was shortly before midnight, and Dr Patricia was getting ready for bed. The phone rang on the end of the line was a woman about to break a promise.
The woman was her mother’s neighbor. Flora Harris had made the neighbor swear she wouldn’t tell her daughter she’d had a heart attack and was in the hospital, for fear her daughter would worry. The neighbor wisely decided to disobey orders.
Harris desperately wanted to get to the hospital immediately, but she couldn’t. She lives in Washington, D. C, and her mother lives in California.
For the past year a half, Harris has gone to Los Angeles every other month to take care of her mother. Flora Harris takes care of her husband, James, who’s 91 and has Alzheimer’s disease. They live in their own home, and a caregiver comes to help them a few hours a day.
Harris is one of many Americans facing the heartache of how to take care of aging parents from afar. She’s often worried, not to mention exrtemely busy with a demanding job, two teenage daughters and the frequent trips to California.
In some ways, Harris is lucky. She has the resources to make the trips to Los Angeles. Plus, Harris is a doctor who treats the elderly.
“But it’s still tough,” she says. “I can foresee what the next few years are going to look like, and it’s not a pretty picture. My father’s going to need diapers (尿布). There will come a time when he won’t recognize me and he’s easily excited. I worry he’s going to be violent and hurt my mother.”
So what do you do when you live a continent away from your aging, sick parents? There are no magic answers. You can hire someone to help, but you can’t oursource it completely.Why was the woman thought to have broken a promise?
| A．She failed to take care of Flora. |
| B．She was not supposed to call Harris at midnight. |
| C．She couldn’t go to hospital on time. |
| D．She told Harris about her mother’s illness. |
What can we learn about Patricia Harris from the passage?
| A．She thinks it harder to look after her parents the next few years. |
| B．Her parents cannot take of themselves at all. |
| C．She cannot do a demanding job. |
| D．She cannot afford to go to California often. |
What does the underlined word “outsource” in the last paragragh mean?
| A．Arrange somebody outside to do a job. |
| B．Work something out by oneself. |
| C．Speak something out for help. |
| D．Understand something. |
What’s the main idea of this passage?
| A．Aging people in the USA are increasing. |
| B．The rate of heart disease is high in America. |
| C．It is difficult to tend aging parents from afar. |
| D．Harris advises on tending aging parents from afar. |
Star Wars Millennium Falcon
This is a gift that, if we’re being honest, many dads want to own for themselves. This huge ship is the greatest Star Wars toy. It lights up and makes some noises. Every boy from 3 to 53 will absolutely like it, if they can find room for it. I dare say even a few grandfathers might go for it.
Biscuit—the Loving Pup
You may clearly know that a pet can be a great thing to a child’s development but you probably don’t think that you can take care of a dog properly. The robot dog Biscuit is less likely to exacerbate the disorder of your house and except for a few dead batteries, won’t leave any surprises on the floor. It will be a good playmate for your kids.
JVC KD-10 Headphones
It’s increasingly common for kids to enjoy themselves on long journeys with a portable (便携式的)DVD player or an iPod MP3, but the headphones that come with expensive electronics are seldom suitable for young ears. Kids should use JVC headphones that have a sound limiter that can be set by the concerned parent.
Sparrow-kids Routemaster Kit
Sparrow-kids Kit makes a huge range of craft (工艺) tools. There are lots of pretty but achievable projects for young girls to take up their (safe plastic) needles and sew.
Holz Wooden Airport
It might be said that Britain doesn’t need another airport but when it’s a traditional wooden toy like this all of you would agree that it’s a good thing. Treated with a little care, this play-set could easily entertain your young air traffic controllers.The underlined word “exacerbate” in the second paragraph can be replaced by “”.
| A．worsen | B．improve | C．protect | D．cure |
Which of the gifts is designed mainly for girls?
| A．Holz Wooden Airport. | B．Sparrow-kids Routemaster Kit |
| C．Star Wars Millennium Falcon. | D．Biscuit—the Loving Pup. |
The five things listed in the passage are .
| A．presents for the whole family | B．gifts mainly for children |
| C．craft tools for children | D．the latest high-tech products |