I began to grow up that winter night when my parents and I were returning from my aunt’s house, and my mother said that we might soon be leaving for America. We were on the bus then. I was crying, and some people on the bus were turning around to look at me. I remember that I could not bear the thought of never hea
ring again the radio program for school children to which listened every morning. I do not remember myself crying for this reason again. In fact, I think I cried very little when I was saying goodbye to my friends and relatives. When we were leaving, I thought about all the places I was going to see—the strange and magical places I had known only from books and pictures. The country I was leaving never to come back was hardly in my head then.
The four years that followed taught me the importance of optimism(乐观主义), but the idea did not come to me at once. For the first two years in New York I was really lost—having to study in three schools as a
result of family moves. I did not quite know what I was or what I should be. Mother remarried, and things became even more complex for me. Some time passed before my stepfather and I got used to each other. I was often sad, and saw no end to “the hard times”.
My responsibilities(职责) in the family increased a lot since I knew English better than everyone else at home. I wrote letters, filled out forms, translated at interviews with i
mmigration officers, took my grandparents to the doctor and translated there, and even discussed telephone bills with company representatives.
From my experiences I have learned one important rule: almost all common troubles ev
entually go away! Something good is certain to happen in the end when you do not give up, and just wait a little! I believe that my life will turn out all right, even though it will not be that easy. How did the author get to know America?
| A．From her relatives. | B．From her mother. | C．From books and pictures. | D．From radio programs. |
For the first two years in New York, the author . .
| A．often lost her way | B．did not think about her job  |
| C．studied in three different schools | D．got on well with her new friends |
What can we learn from the author from Paragraph 3 ?
A．She  worked as a translator. |
B．She attended a lot of job interviews. |
| C．She paid telephone bills for her family . | D．She helped her family with her English. |
The author believes that .
| A．her future will be free from troubles . | B．it is difficult to learn to become patient. |
| C．there are more good things than bad things. | D．good things will happen if one keeps trying. |
When travelers think of an Adriatic cruise, scenes of Venice, Italy—its canals, bridges, piazzas, and stunning architecture—come to mind. It's one of the most popular cruise destinations in Europe. And for many, the sail-away from Venice, through its Giudecca Canal, is an awe-inspiring experience.
Venice may be known as La Serenissima, or "the most peaceful," which, however, isn't entirely accurate these days. Venetians have been increasingly concerned about the impact of tourism and the potential for an environmental disaster off its shoreline due to the number of cruise ships that enter and exit its lagoon(泻湖).
That's why earlier last month, Venice announced a new policy to forbid the transit(穿越) of cruise ships to the city via the Giudecca Canal. It's not that the city wants to shun the cruise industry altogether: It simply wants to force traffic further away from the landmarks along the shoreline. City officials say that most ships will now transit the Contorta Sant'Angelo Canal.
Additionally, the city is clamping down on the size of ships that can visit Venice, as well as the total number of ships that call on it on a daily basis. As of January 2014, Venice plans to reduce the visitations of larger ships (those that are 40,000 tons or heavier) by 20 percent. This effectively caps the number of ships that can enter per day to five. In November, ships heavier than 96,000 tons will not be allowed to enter Guidecca Canal at all.
How the city plans to carry out the new five-ships-per-day rule remains to be seen and have yet to be announced. Which ships will be allowed passage? Will it be first-come, first-served? However they proceed, cruise line executives want their passengers to know that Venice will remain a regular port of call—even if the transit to and from the city must evolve.Before last month, toursits left Venice by ship through ______.
| A．the Giudecca Canal | B．La Serenissima |
| C．the Contorta Sant'Angelo Canal | D．the Adriatic Sea |
The new policy was issued in order to_____________.
| A．stress the accuracy of Venice's fame for peace |
| B．reduce the damage to Venice's enviironment |
| C．depend less on the crusie industry |
| D．limit the number of toursits |
It can be learned from the passage that _____________.
| A．People in Venice are complaining about the toursits' behaviors. |
| B．Venetians are often bothered by noise and pollution. |
| C．The city government has announced the concrete ways to carry out the new five-ships-per-day rule. |
| D．The new policy will not discourage the tourism from developing. |
What does the underlined phrase "clapming down on" mean?
| A．limiting | B．abandoning |
| C．banning | D．punishing |
In spite of the uncertainty of the economy, the movie industry has been stricken by a box-office outburst. Suddenly it seems as if everyone is going to the movies, with ticket sales this year up 17.5 percent, to $1.7 billion.
And it is not just because ticket prices are higher. Attendance has also jumped, by nearly 16 percent. If that pace continues through the year, it would amount to the biggest box-office increase in at least two decades.
Americans, for the moment, just want to hide in a very dark place. People want to forget their troubles, and they want to be with other people. Helping feed the outburst is the mix of movies, which have been more audience-friendly in recent months as the studios have tried to adjust after the discouraging sales of more serious films.
As she stood in line at the 18-screen Bridge theater complex here on Thursday to buy weekend tickets for “Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience,” Angel Hernandez was not thinking much about escaping reality. Instead, Ms. Hernandez, a Los Angeles parking lot attendant and mother of four young girls, was focused on one very specific reality: her wallet.
“Spending hundreds of dollars to take them to Disneyland is ridiculous right now,” she said. “For $60 and some candy money I can still be a good mom and give them a little fun.”
A lot of parents may have been thinking the same thing Friday, as “Jonas Brothers” sold out more than 800 theaters, and was expected to sell a powerful $25 million or more in tickets.
The film industry appears to have had a hand in its recent good luck. Over the last year or two, studios have released movies that are happier, scarier or just less depressing than what came before. After poor results for a rush of serious dramas built around the Middle East, Hollywood got back to comedies.Which of the following is not a reason for the improvement of the movie industry?
| A．A growing number of people are going to the cinema. |
| B．People are richer with the development of economy. |
| C．More comedies are made than serious films. |
| D．People have to pay more to watch a movie. |
Ms. Hernandez purchased the movie tickets because ________.
| A．she tried to escape reality |
| B．she was a crazy movie fan |
| C．she was fond of Disneyland |
| D．she wanted to please her kids |
According to the text, which of the following number is not used to describe the shooting up of the movie industry?
| A．17.5% | B．$1.7 billion |
| C．$60 | D．$25 million |
The passage is developed mainly by ________.
| A．presenting the effect and analyzing the causes |
| B．following the order of time |
| C．describing problems and drawing a conclusion |
| D．making comparison of ideas |
They’re WILD animals
By Ernst-Ulrich Franzen
March 11, 2010(3) Comments
The story about the woman who lost some fingers while feeding a bear at a zoo in Manitowoc, after she ignored warnings and barriers(栅栏), reminded me of the story I heard about a couple who put their baby on the back of a wild horse in South Dakota to get a really cute picture. We all do silly things at times — no one is immune — but treating wild animals as lovely pets has to fall into a special category. Teddy bears and Disney movies aren’t actually representative of real bears.
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1. TosaLeft - Mar 11, 2010 10:46AM
Don’t you think that maybe, just maybe some alcohol was involved?
2. tk421 - Mar 11, 2010 11:09 AM
It was already approved that alcohol was involved. Stories that begin with a drunk person saying “Hey, I got an idea, watch this!” rarely end well.
3. Tristan Kloss - Mar 11, 2010 11:41 AM
Alcohol certainly isn’t involved when people decide to keep “pets” like chimpanzees, baby tigers, etc. Stupidity, definitely. Dogs are pets because of thousands of years of domestication. Even farm animals, which have been kept by humans for thousands of years as well, aren’t let in the house. So why keep animals that treat human contact with, at best, indifference(冷淡、不在乎) and, at worst, violence?In Ernst-Ulrich Franzen’s opinion, the woman lost her fingers because ________.
| A．the zoo keepers didn’t warn her of the danger |
| B．she didn’t know the bear was a wild animal |
| C．she was somehow influenced by cartoon characters |
| D．she climbed over the barriers and angered the bea |
TosaLeft thinks the wounded woman ________.
| A．may have been drunk | B．may be a little stupid |
| C．was addicted to wine | D．fed wine to the bear |
tk421 means a drunk person ________.
| A．should be forbidden to enter the zoo |
| B．usually gets himself into trouble |
| C．is often fond of making up stories |
| D．usually likes to show himself off |
What does Tristan Kloss think of people treating wild animals as pets?
| A．Kind. | B．Illegal. |
| C．Loving. | D．Stupid. |
One day in l965, when I worked at View Ridge School in Seattle, a fourth-grade teacher approached me. She had a student who finished his work before all the others and needed a challenge. "Could he help in the library?" She asked. I said, "Send him along."
Soon a slight, sandy-haired boy in jeans and a T-shift appeared. "Do you have a job for me?" he asked.
I told him about the Dewey Decimal System for shelving books. He picked up the idea immediately. Then I showed him a stack of cards for long-overdue books that I was beginning to think had actually been returned but were misshelved with the wrong cards in them. He said, "Is it kind of a detective job?" I answered yes, and he became working.
He had found three books with wrong cards by the time his teacher opened the door and announced, "Time for break!" He argued for finishing the finding job; She made the case for fresh air. She won.
The next morning, he arrived early. "I want to finish these books," he said. At the end of the day, when he asked to be a librarian on a regular basis, it was easy to say yes. He worked untiringly.
After a few weeks I found a note on my desk, inviting me to dinner at the boy's home. At the end of a pleasant evening, his mother announced that the family would be moving to neighbouring school district. Her son's first concern, she said, was leaving the View Ridge library. "Who will find the lost books?" he asked.
When the time came, I said a reluctant good-bye. I missed him, but not for long. A few days later he came back and joyfully announced: "The librarian over there doesn't let boys work in the library. My mother got me transferred back to View Ridge. My dad will drop me off on his way to work. And if he can't, I'll walk!"
I should have had an inkling(感觉) such focused determination would take that young man wherever he wanted to go. What I could not have guessed, however, was that he would become a wizard of the Information Age: Bill Gates, tycoon of Microsoft and America's richest man. What was the author when the story happened?
| A．A teacher. | B．A librarian. |
| C．A detective. | D．A professor. |
What was the boy told to do on his first day in the library?
| A．To rearrange the books according to the new system. |
| B．To put those overdue books back to the shelves. |
| C．To find out the books with wrong cards in them. |
| D．To put the cards back in the long-overdue books. |
The boy got transferred back to View Ridge because _______.
| A．he did not like his life in the new school |
| B．the transportation there was not convenient |
| C．he missed his old schoolmates and teachers |
| D．he was not allowed to work in the school library |
What impressed the author most was that the boy _______.
| A．had a thirst for learning |
| B．had a strong will |
| C．was extremely quick at learning |
| D．had a kind heart |
A German study suggests that people who were too optimistic about their future actually faced greater risk of disability or death within 10 years than those pessimists( 悲观者)who expected their future to be worse.
The paper, published this March in Psychology and Aging, examined health and welfare surveys from roughly 40,000 Germans between ages 18 and 96. The surveys were conducted every year from 1993 to 2003.
Survey respondents (受访者) were asked to estimate their present and future life satisfaction on a scale of 0 to 10, among other questions.
The researchers found that young adults (age 18 to 39) routinely overestimated their future life satisfaction, while middle-aged adults (age 40 to 64) more accurately predicted how they would feel in the future. Adults of 65 and older, however, were far more likely to underestimate their future life satisfaction. Not only did they feel more satisfied than they thought they would, the older pessimists seemed to suffer a lower ratio (比率) of disability and death for the study period.
“We observed that being too optimistic in predicting a better future than actually observed was associated with a greater risk of disability and a greater risk of death within the following decade,” wrote Frieder R. Lang, a professor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.
Lang and his colleagues believed that people who were pessimistic about their future may be more careful about their actions than people who expected a rosy future.
“Seeing a dark future may encourage positive evaluations of the actual self and may contribute to taking improved precautions (预防措施),” the authors wrote.
Surprisingly, compared with those in poor health or who had low incomes, respondents who enjoyed good health or income were associated with expecting a greater decline. Also, the researchers said that higher income was related to a greater risk of disability.
The authors of the study noted that there were limitations to their conclusions. Illness, medical treatment and personal loss could also have driven health outcomes. However, the researchers said a pattern was clear. “We found that from early to late adulthood, individuals adapt their expectations of future life satisfaction from optimistic, to accurate, to pessimistic,” the authors concluded.According to the study, who made the most accurate prediction of their future life satisfaction?
| A．Optimistic adults. |
| B．Middle-aged adults. |
| C．Adults in poor health. |
| D．Adults of lower income. |
Pessimism may be positive in some way because it causes people ______.
| A．to fully enjoy their present life |
| B．to estimate their contribution accurately |
| C．to take measures against potential risks |
| D．to value health more highly than wealth |
How do people of higher income see their future?
| A．They will earn less money. |
| B．They will become pessimistic. |
| C．They will suffer mental illness. |
| D．They will have less time to enjoy life. |
What is the clear conclusion of the study?
| A．Pessimism guarantees chances of survival. |
| B．Good financial condition leads to good health. |
| C．Medical treatment determines health outcomes. |
| D．Expectations of future life satisfaction decline with age. |