The Fourth “21st Century Cup” National English Speaking Competition is to be held in Shanghai.
Organizers: China Daily and Shanghai Broadcasting Network.
Co-ordinater: China University English Speaking Association (CUESA).
Co-sponsors(联办单位): English Speaking Union (ESU), Lotus Software (China)Co. Ltd., Times Publishing Group of Singapore, Hilton Shanghai, Pearson Education, Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press.
Date: March 26(Friday), 1999.
Place: Hilton Shanghai.
Competition Format (形式): Each student will present a prepared speech on the given topic, followed by a three -minute off - hand speech and a three - minute question and answer period with the judges.
Prepared speech period: six minutes.
Q & A period: three minutes.
Speech topic: People and Nature: In search of harmony (和谐)in a new age + your personal opinion. (Topics for the off-hand speech will be given on the day of competition).
Prizes: Besides books and certificates (证书), the top two winners will be offered scholarships(奖学金) to travel to the annual international English -speaking competition which will be held by the English Speaking Union in London in May, 1999. The third and fourth place winners will be offered a study trip to Singapore, sponsored by the Times Publishing Group. The fifth through 10th place winners will be offered cash prizes. All the competitors will receive certificates from the English Speaking Union and book prizes provided by Pearson Education and Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press. The teachers of the top winners will also receive a one - year membership to the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language(IATEFL)
The main purpose of this passage is ________.
A.to invite you to take part in the competition |
B.to tell you some information about the competition |
C.to help to improve your spoken English |
D.to show you how to win the competition |
Which of the following is NOT mentioned about the Shanghai English Speaking Competition?________.
A.Where and when it will take place. |
B.Its programs. |
C.What each winner will be offered. |
D.The number of its competitors. |
Suppose you get the sixth place, you’ll________ .
A.travel to London for free. |
B.become a one - year member of IATEFL |
C.get some money, some books and a certificate |
D.get a chance to study in Singapore |
An “off- hand speech” is________.
A.a speech not longer than three minutes |
B.a speech without preparation |
C.a speech with a piece of paper in hand |
D.a speech which is well prepared |
Advertising can be a service to the customer. This is true when advertisements give reliable information about the goods advertised. Such information is needed if the customer is to make a sensible choice when he buys. It is useful in that it lets him know of the kinds of goods in the shops. Printed advertisements do this job best. Customers can collect them and compare them. They can be taken along to shops and their claims can be checked against the actual goods in the shops.
however, some advertisements are not very useful to the customer. Instead of helping him to satisfy his real needs, they set out to make him want things. They set out to create a need. These advertisements are cleverly done. The people who produce them understand our weaknesses. They set out to make us believe that what they advertise will make us cleverer, prettier and more handsome, if only we use it. Actually, it is our money they are after and we should be on guard.
Some advertisements mislead customers by using part of the truth to suggest something false, and it is skillfully made to give that idea to the careless reader, listener or viewer.
At its best advertising can be useful to the customer. At its worst it can mislead him. Many newspapers check on the goods for which the advertisements made claims. Most newspapers are very careful about the small advertisements, which try to sell goods directly to the readers by post. Many newspapers print information about this on their small advertisement pages. Advertising has become a very big business, and good firms in it do all they can to make sure it is conducted with some attention to truth. This is a help to the customer. But the best way is for customers to be on the lookout.It can be inferred from the passage that advertisements can be useful if they ________.
A.how a long list of the goods advertised |
B.give true information about goods |
C.tell customers what to buy |
D.appear on TV and in newspapers at the same time |
Advertisements that play on our weaknesses make us ________.
A.desire things we do not need | B.purchase the goods we need |
C.attracted by them | D.become loyal reader, listener or viewer |
according to the text, which of the following is TRUE?
A.All advertising firms do not care to tell the truth about the goods they advertise. |
B.All advertising firms only care to make money, as advertising is a big business. |
C.Most advertising firms make sure that advertisements do not purposely cheat. |
D.The advertised goods are often of poor quality. |
The underlined word "They" refers to ________.
A.Goods | B.Customers | C.Shops | D.Advertisements |
Mr. Smith is well known in Washington because of his many social blunders. He always likes to attend the various social functions because he wants to expand his circle of friends. Whenever he is invited, he goes, unless he is ill.
Recently he received an invitation to a fashionable banquet. Although he did not know the hostess, he accepted the invitation. He was secretly very pleased, because he felt that his reputation as a desirable guest was growing.
When he arrived at the banquet hall, he found that about one hundred people had been invited. He began to move a-round the hall. He spoke to other guests whether he knew them or not. He soon realized that he had never met any of the other people present, although they seemed to know each other.
At dinner he was seated beside a very dignified woman. The woman tried to be friendly even though she had never met Mr. Smith before. She spoke politely whenever he spoke to her. Between the first and the second course of the meal, she, turned to Mr. Smith and said, “Do you see that gray-haired man at the end of the table? The one with glasses.”
“Ah, yes. Who is he?”
“He’s the Secretary of the Interior!” she replied.
Mr. Smith said, “So that’s the secretary of the Interior! I’ m afraid that I find very little to admire about him, although he is the Secretary.”
The woman stiffened and did not reply. Mr. Smith continued in spite of her coldness. “I really can’t see how he received his appointment unless he is perhaps a relative of the President.”
“It hardly matters whether you like the Secretary or not,” she said. “He was chosen because the President thought he was the man for the job. If he does the job well, you should have no complaint.”
“That’s just it,” persisted Mr. Smith. “No one does the things he does, unless he is a complete fool!”
“Sir!” said the woman in all her dignity. “Do you know who I am?” “No,” replied Mr. Smith.
“I am the Secretary’s wife,” she said coldly. Mr. Smith was shocked, but he went on in spite of his embarrassment. “Madam, do you know who I am?”
“No, I don’t,” the woman replied.
“Thank goodness!” exclaimed Mr. Smith, as he quickly left the table.Why is Mr. Smith well known in Washington?
A.He’s the Secretary of the Interior. |
B.He has more friends than other people. |
C.He always makes foolish mistakes on social occasions. |
D.He likes to go to all kinds of parties. |
At dinner he was seated beside a very dignified woman. The underlined part means ________.
A.beautiful | B.serious | C.noble | D.kind-hearted |
When Mr. Smith learned that the woman didn’t know who he was, he felt ________.
A.shocked | B.worried | C.embarrassed | D.relieved |
"I’ve changed my mind. I wanted to have a telescope, but now I want my dad back." Lucien Lawence’s letter to Father Christmas written after his father had been knifed to death outside his school gate, must have touched every heart. Lucien went on to say that without his father he couldn’t see the stars in the sky. When those whom we love depart from us, we cannot see the stars for a while.
But Lucien, the stars are still there, and one day, when you are older and your tears have gone, you will see them again. And, in a strange way, I expect that you will find your father is there too, in your mind and in your heart. I find that my parents, long dead now, still figure in many of my dreams and that I think of them perhaps more than I ever did when they were alive. I still live to please them and I’m still surprised by their reactions. I remember that when I became a professor, I was so proud, or rather so pleased with myself, that I couldn’t wait to cable my parents. The reply was a long time in coming, but when it did, all mother said was, "I hope this means that now you will have more time for the children.” I haven’t forgotten. The values of my parents still live on.
It makes me pause and think about how I will live on in the hearts and minds of my children and of those for whom I care. Would I have been as ready as Philip Lawrence have been to face the aggressors (挑衅者),and to lay down my life for those in my care? How many people would want me back for Christmas? It’s a serious thought, one to give me pause.
I pray silently, sometimes, in the dead of night, that ancient cry of a poet "Deliver my soul from the sword, and my darling from the power of the dog." Yet I know the death comes to us all, and sometimes comes suddenly. We must therefore plan to live forever, but live as if we will die tomorrow. We live on, in the lives of those we loved, and therefore we ought to have a care for what they will remember and what they will treasure. If more parents knew this in their hearts to be true, there might be fewer knives on our streets today. according to the whole text we can see that the first paragraph ________.
A.puts forward the subject of the text |
B.shows the author’s pity on the kid |
C.acts as an introduction to the discussion |
D.makes a clear statement of the author’s views |
In the second paragraph the author mainly wants to explain to us ________.
A.how much he misses his parents now |
B.why his parents often appear in his dreams |
C.when Lucien will get over all his sadness |
D.how proud he was when he succeeded in life |
What feeling did the author’s mother express in her reply?
A.Proud. | B.Happy. | C.Disappointed. | D.Worried. |
In the author’s opinion, the value of a person’s life is ________.
A.to leave behind a precious memory to the people related |
B.to have a high sense of duty to the whole society |
C.to care what others will remember and treasure |
D.to share happiness and sadness with his family |
What does the writer mean by the sentence taken from an old poem?
A.Call on criminals and murderers to lay down their guns. |
B.Advise parents stay with their children safely at home. |
C.Spend every day meaningfully in memory of the death. |
D.Try to keep violence and murder far away from society. |
We often use the words “growth” and “development” as if they meant basically the same thing. But this may not always be the case. One can easily imagine instances in which a country has achieved higher levels of income (growth) with little or no benefit coming to most of its citizens (development).
In the past, most development policies were aimed at increasing the growth rate of income per capita (人均所得). Many are still based on the theory that benefit of economic growth will come to all members of society. If this theory is correct, growth should encourage development.
By the early 1970s, however, the relationship between growth and development was being questioned. A major study by the World Bank in 1974 concluded that it is now clear that more than decades of rapid growth in developing countries has been of little benefit to & third of their population.
The World Bank study showed that increase in GNP per capita did not promise important improvements in such development indicators as nutrition (营养), health, and education. Although GNP per capita did indeed rise, its benefit came down to only a small part of the population. This realization gives rise to a call for new development policies. These new policies favor agriculture over industry, call for national redistribution (资源分配) of income and wealth, and encourage programs to satisfy such basic needs as food and shelter.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s the international macroeconomic crises (大规模的经济危机) of high oil prices, worldwide recession (衰退) and the third world debt, forced attention away from programs designed to get rid of poverty. however, the lesson remains: economic growth does not promise economic development. Efforts may be required to change growing output capacity (能力) into economic benefit that reach most of a nation’s people. What do we learn from the first paragraph about the relationship between growth and development?
A.Growth and development refer to the same thing. |
B.Growth always brings about development. |
C.Development is not a necessary result of growth. |
D.Development is a reliable measure of growth. |
Before the 1970s, most development policies were based on theory that economic growth would benefit ________.
A.most people in society | B.some people in society |
C.few people in society | D.everyone in society |
according to the study by the World Bank in 1974, economic growth in some backward countries brought ________.
A. benefit to a third of their population
B. benefit to two thirds of their population
C little benefit to their people
D. no benefit at all to their peopleIf the passage continues, what would the author most likely discuss in the next paragraph?
A.How to turn growth into development. |
B.How to remove poverty from society. |
C.How to decrease the third world debt. |
D.How to cope with economic crises. |
Having one of those days or weeks — when everything seems to annoy you? Even if you do nothing about it, your bad mood will probably go away after some time. But with a little effort, you can forget it much faster — often within a day or two.
Walk it off
Exercise is the most popular bad-mood buster. A person who’s in a bad mood has low energy and high tension. Taking a fast ten-minute walk, or doing some quick exercises can do wonders towards changing that bad mood.
Tune it out
Listening to your favorite music for a while can also make tension go away quickly, because music starts associations with past positive experiences we’ve had.
Give yourself a pep talk
Stop and listen to what’s on your mind. Bad moods are often started by too many negative thoughts. Write them all down on paper; the pessimistic (悲观的) messages you’ve been giving yourself and then give optimistic answers. ("I still don’t have a job. "vs" I have two interviews next week.")
Reduce your stress
Relaxation techniques are wonderful mood-lifters. These include deep breathing, stretching and visualizing (想象), all of which sound complicated but aren’t. One easy way to visualize: close your eyes and picture a favorite place, such as the beach. Another simple way to against distress is to make a to-do list. One reason for being in a bad mood is feeling you have no options(选择权) By taking control over certain areas, you realize you’re not helpless. You can make changes in your mood and life.
Avoid things that won’t improve your mood
TV may not help much: You need to increase your energy level and stimulate your mind something — that the TV show "Neighbors" won’t do. And before you reach for that piece of cake and coffee, think about how mood and food are linked. Sugar and caffeine contribute to depressed moods. The better choice? Research shows that carbohydrates, such as potatoes and pasta, produce a calming effect in people who have a desire for them. We learn from the text that it might help rid us of a bad mood ________.
A.to do nothing about it |
B.to take a long walk on the beach |
C.to do some exercises with light music |
D.to talk it to neighbours |
Why is it suggested that you close your eyes and picture the beach?
A.It is not complicated to do so. |
B.It is an area to be easily controlled. |
C.It helps beat a bad mood. |
D.It brings us a new technique. |
TV may not improve your mood because ________.
A.it sometimes shows what happens around you |
B.it keeps you stay unmoved |
C.it reminds you of eating and drinking |
D.it produces a calming effect |
This text most probably appears in ________.
A.a book on physical exercises | B.a doctor’s handbook |
C.a notice | D.a magazine |