I heard many parents complaining that their teenage children are rebelling. I wish it
were so. At your age you ought to be growing away from your parents. You should be learning to stand on your own two feet. But take a good look at the present rebellion. It seems that teenagers are taking the same way of showing that they disagree with their parents. Instead of striking out boldly on their own, most of them are clutching (紧握) at one another’s hands for reassurance.
They claim they want to dress as they please. But they all wear the same clothes. They set off in new directions in music. But somehow they all end up huddled (聚在一起) round listening to the same record. Their reason for thinking or acting in thus-and-such a way is that the crowd is doing it. They have come out of their cocoon (蚕茧) into a larger cocoon.
It has become harder and harder for a teenager to stand up against the popularity wave and to go his or her own way. Industry has firmly carved out a teenage market. These days every teenager can learn from the advertisements what a teenager should have and be. And many of today’s parents have come to award high marks for the popularity of their children. All this adds up to a great barrier for the teenager who wants to find his or her own path.
But the barrier is worth climbing over. The path is worth following. You may want to listen to classical music instead of going to a party. You may want to collect rocks when everyone else is collecting records. You may have some thoughts that you don’t care to share at once wi
th your classmates. Well, go to it. Find yourself. Be yourself. Popularity will come — with the people who respect you for who you are. That is the only kind of popularity that really counts. In this passage, the author wants to tell _______.
| A．readers to try to be popular with people around |
| B．teenagers to try to pursue their real selves |
| C．parents to try to control and guide their children |
| D．people to try to understand and respect each other |
The author disapproves of rebelling teenagers _______.
| A．growing away from their parents | B．turning to their friends for hel p |
| C．walking a new way on their own | D．following the popularity trend |
The phrase “a larger cocoon” at the end of the second paragraph refers to _______.
| A．the distractive and variable society | B．the popularity wave in the society |
| C．the parental care and love | D．the dazzling music world |
What does the author think of advertisements?
| A．Convincing. | B．Instructive. | C．Influential. | D．Authoritative. |
According to the author, what might happen when a teenager stands up against the popularity wave and follows his/her own path?
| A．He/She gains valuable popularity. | B．He/She loses good friends. |
| C．He/She faces all kinds of criticism. | D．He/She falls behind the time. |
Only about 30 percent of people in the US know how to perform CPR (心肺复苏术). Recently, a 9-year-old boy showed a Georgia woman how to perform CPR on her newborn baby.
Susanna Rohm said she had experienced a parent’s worst nightmare (噩梦) — her 2-month-old son, Isiah, was not breathing. “I noticed he looked pale. I looked at his arms and his legs and they were limp (无力的),” Rohm told a local newspaper. “Then I noticed that he looked like he wasn’t alive.” In dismay, she dropped and broke her cellphone. Rohm had to run into the street, screaming for help.
“I had him in my arms and screamed over and over. Then I ran outside. I saw two boys playing across the street, and I yelled, ‘Go and ask your parents to call 911,’” Rohm said. But the two boys were able to do more than that. Nine-year-old Ethan Wilson took action, showing Rohm how to perform CPR on little Isiah while ten-year-old Rocky Hurt helped as well.
Rocky said he had learned the CPR technique from a poster in a health class at their school, Sedalia Park Elementary. “I was thinking we’d better give her a helping hand instead of getting scared,” Ethan said. “I told her to push on the baby’s chest five to ten times a minute with only two fingers, tilt back the baby’s head, plug the baby’s nose and breathe into the baby’s mouth,” Ethan said in an interview.
At last, Isiah began crying and was breathing again. He spent two nights in a local hospital. “If the little boy hadn’t shown me what to do right there, my baby would probably not be alive right now,” Rohm said.We can learn from Paragraph 1 that in the US, .
| A．CPR is considered important by most people |
| B．most children are taught how to perform CPR |
| C．many parents don’t know how to perform CPR |
| D．kids must learn how to perform CPR on babies |
What does the underlined word “dismay” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?
| A．Panic. | B．Anger. |
| C．Excitement. | D．Joy. |
What did Rohm do when she saw the two boys?
| A．She asked them to call 911 as soon as possible. |
| B．She asked them to teach her how to perform CPR. |
| C．She asked them to ask their parents for help. |
| D．She asked them to help her perform CPR on her baby. |
What Rohm said in the last paragraph shows that she was.
| A．grateful | B．regretful |
| C．surprised | D．ashamed |
Imagine shopping for clothes online and being able to run your hand across the screen of your computer or smartphone to feel the materials. That kind of simulation (仿真) technology could be available within the next five years.
“We’re talking about reinventing how computers interact （互动）with humans,” said Bernie Meyerson, IBM Vice President. Extending our sense of touch is one of the innovations (创新) IBM believes will change the world in the next five years, according to the company’s annual “Five in Five” list.
Smart machines will also be able to listen to the environment and highlight （强调；突出）the sounds we care about most. For instance, an advanced speech recognition system will tell new parents why their baby is crying. This kind of thing is not possible today, but with an advanced enough system, it’s actually possible.
In the near future, personal computers will be able to do more than recognize images and visual data. Their built-in cameras will be able to analyze features such as colors, and understand the meaning of visual media, such as knowing how to sort family photos.
Smart machines will also be able to smell. If you sneeze on your computer or cellphone, tiny sensors (传感器) in the machine will be able to analyze thousands of molecules (分子) in your breath. “It can give you an alarm and says, ‘Hey, you are probably sick, go to see your doctor immediately,’” Meyerson says.
Mark Maloo is a computer science professor from Georgetown University. He hopes the advances will encourage more students to study science, technology, engineering and math, preparing them to play a role in future innovations. He believes there’s little doubt that advances in computer technology over the next five years will make what now seems like science fiction a part of our everyday lives.The purpose of the text is to show us
| A．how smart machines will replace humans |
| B．what our lives will be like in the future |
| C．how to go shopping on the Internet |
| D．why IBM wants to invent these smart machines |
In the future, if you buy clothes online, you may .
| A．feel the materials of the clothes by touching the screen |
| B．ask your computer to give you some advice |
| C．ask your computer to make the decision for you |
| D．save a lot of money by using a smartphone |
How will a smart machine figure out that you are probably sick?
| A．By analyzing the thousands of molecules in your breath. |
| B．By analyzing your comments about your body condition. |
| C．By referring your condition to doctors. |
| D．By asking you to describe how you feel. |
Chinese girl looking for language exchanger
Posted Feb 10, 2010 16:25 by Sophia
Tag: Seeking Language partners Guangzhou Sex: Female
Race/Ethnicity: Chinese
I am a Chinese girl in my 20’s, can speak and write in English, but I’d like to make some improvement. People always look for making it better, right?
Meanwhile, I also like to meet more friends if we really have some topics to share.
And if you are in Guangzhou or visit here, I am more than willing to show you around in my spare time.
Reply to happycora@hotmail.com or call 15015704625
Tianhe nice apartment for share
Posted Feb 24, 2010 16:47 by Vivian
Tag: Seeking roommates Guangzhou Tianhe District Up to 2000 RMB
I have a room available for rent in a shared apartment in Central Tianhe district.
The room has a big window with a nice view. The apartment itself is on the 22th floor of a new secure building on Tianhe Bei Lu, about 10 minutes walk from metro stations(地铁站) on lines 1 and 3, as well as buses and other transportation methods very close.
If you are interested, please feel free to phone me (Vivian) on 13145751201 (message preferred), or email me on vivian_liu2003@hotmail.com.
Business Interpreter/Guide
Posted Feb 26, 2010 08:46 by Sony
Tag: Business Services Guangzhou Baiyun District
Dear Foreign Friends, I am a professional interpreter（口译者）, now looking for a Freelance interpreter job urgently. Please read my CV at below：
Name: Sony Song
Gender: Male
Age: 22 years old
Education: Studied English in Da Shan Foreign Language College
Birth: 9th Oct 1987, Luohe city, Henan province, China.
Ability: Speak fluent English, know Guangzhou city very well, can also guide you to Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Dongguan, Shunde, Macao, Hongkong, etc.
Contact Detail: E-mail/MSN: sonysong4@hotmail.com; cell phone: 15112015812
Looking for flat
Posted Mar 11, 2010 14:03 by Lucy
Tag: Apartments wanted Guangzhou
Hello,
This is Lucy coming from Peru and looking for a short term flat, from 15th April until 4th May 2010. If somebody can give some information, send me pictures, price and address.
Email: lucitamaron@hotmail.com; cell phone: 13800013900
Thanks a lot in advance!If foreigner wants to learn some Chinese and make friends; he / she can call _________.
| A．15015704625 | B．13800013900 |
| C．13145751201 | D．15112015812 |
To share a department where the traffic is quite convenient, you may send text message to ________.
| A．Sophia | B．Vivian |
| C．Lucy | D．Sony |
What do the four advisers have in common?
| A．All of them speak both Chinese and English. |
| B．All of them are in their twenties. |
| C．All of them are Guangzhou citizens. |
| D．All of them are hotmail users. |
The information above can be probably found_________.
| A．in a magazine | B．in a newspaper |
| C．at a website | D．in a guidebook |
How do you design a pay plan that motivates people to do their best work? A new study by three Harvard researchers suggests a novel answer: Shortly after you hire new workers, give them a raise.
"Previous research has shown that paying people more than they expect may elicit reciprocity(相互作用) in the form of greater productivity," notes Deepak Malhotra, a Harvard business-administration professor who worked on the study. What he and his colleagues found, however, was that the connection between more pay and extra effort depends on presenting the increase "as a gift—that is, as something you've chosen to do purely as a nice gesture, with no strings attached."
Malhotra and his team studied 267 people hired by oDesk, a global online network of freelancers, to do a one-time data-entry project for four hours. All of the new hires were people in developing countries, for whom hourly wages of $3 and $4 were higher than what they had been making in previous jobs.
The researchers split the group up into three equal parts. One group was told they would earn $3 an hour. A second group was initially hired at $3 an hour but, before they started working, they got a surprise: The budget for the project had expanded unexpectedly, they were told, and they would now be paid $4 an hour. The third group was offered $4 an hour from the start and given no increase.
Even though the second and third groups were eventually paid the same amount, the second group worked harder and produced more—about 20% more—than either of the other two. People in the second group also showed the most stamina, maintaining their focus all the way through the assigned task and performing especially well toward the end of the four hours. Interestingly, the more experienced employees in the high-performing group were the most productive of all, apparently because their previous work experience led them to appreciate the rarity of an unexpected raise.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, Malhotra points out that higher pay, in and of itself, didn't promote productivity: People who made $4 an hour from the beginning worked no harder than those who were hired at $3 and were then paid $3.
To get the most impact from their pay plans, he adds, companies might consider not only what to pay new hires, but when to pay it.
"The key thing is how you present [the reason for an increase]," he says. Doling out extra money could promote productivity most "if you make it clear that the pay raise is something you're choosing to do just because you can. Our theory is that people will reciprocate. If you do something nice, they'll do something nice back."
| A．The quality of being intelligent or clever. |
| B．The quality of doing something difficult or dangerous. |
| C．The physical or mental energy needed to do a tiring activity for a long time. |
| D．A particular method of doing an activity, usually involving practical skills. |
| A．Because they thought they were better paid than the other groups. |
| B．Because they were experienced employees from developing countries. |
| C．Because an unexpected raise reminded them of their previous work. |
| D．Because they felt they were nicely treated and tried best to repay it. |
| A．No pains, no gains. |
| B．It matters not what we give but how. |
| C．Honesty is the best policy. |
| D．Actions speak louder than words. |
They like using the Internet. They have lots of pocket money to spend. And they spend a higher proportion of it online than the rest of us. Teenagers are just the sort of people an online seller is interested in, and the things they want to buy－games, CDs and clothing－are easily sold on the Web.
But paying online is a troublesome business for consumers who are too young to own credit cards. Most have to use a parent’s card. They want a facility that allows them to spend money.
That may come sooner than they think: new ways to take pocket money into cyber (网络的) space are coming out rapidly on both sides of the Atlantic. If successful, these products can stimulate online sales.
In general, teenagers spend huge amounts: $153bn (billion) in the US last year and ￡20bn annually in the UK. Most teenagers have access to the Internet at home or at school－88 percent in the US, 69 percent in the UK. According to the Jupiter Research, one in eight of those with Internet access has bought something online－mainly CDs and books.
In most cases, parents pay for these purchases with credit cards, an arrangement that is often unsatisfactory for them and their children. Pressing parents to spend online is less productive than pressing them to spend on the high street. They are more likely to ask “Why?” if you ask to spend some money online.
One way to help teenagers change notes and coins into cyber cash is through prepaid cards such as Internet Cash in the US and Smart cards in the UK. Similar to those for pay-as-you-go mobile telephones, they are sold in amounts such as￡20 or $50 with a concealed 14-digit number that can be used to load the cash into an online account.
| A．Sellers. | B．Buyers. |
| C．Teenagers. | D．Parents. |
| A．More than half of the teenagers in the US and the UK have Internet access. |
| B．Teenagers pay for goods online with their own credit cards. |
| C．Most teenagers in the US and the UK have bought something online. |
| D．Teenagers found it easier to persuade parents to buy online than in a shop. |
| A．a new machine |
| B．special coins and notes |
| C．prepaid cards |
| D．pay-as-you-go mobile phones |
| A．Online shopping traps. |
| B．Internet users in the US and the UK. |
| C．New credit cards for parents. |
| D．The arrival of cyber pocket money. |