As late as 1800, women’s only place was in the home. The idea of woman in the business world was unthinkable. Men were certain that no woman could do a good job outside her home. This was such a widely accepted idea that when the well-known Bronte sisters began writing books in 1864, they had to sign their books with men’s names instead.
Teaching was the first profession open to women soon after 1800. But even that was not an easy profession for women to enter because most schools and colleges were open only to men. Oberlin College in Ohio was the first college in America to accept women.
Hospital nursing became respectable work for women only after Nightingale became famous. Seeing that she was not only a nurse but also a rich and well-educated woman, people began to believe it was possible for women to nurse the sick and still be “ladies”. Miss Nightingale opened England’s first training school for nurse in 1860.
The invention of the typewriter in 1867 helped to bring women out of the home and into the business world. By 1900, thousands of women were working at real jobs in schools, hospitals and offices in both England and America. Some women even managed to become doctors or lawyers. The idea that women could work in the business world had been accepted.Why couldn’t women become teachers easily? Because___________
| A．the first profession open to them was writing. |
| B． most schools and colleges were open only to men. |
| C． they wanted to be nurses instead. |
| D． they had to work in the business world. |
The article is mainly about __________.
| A． women are in the business world |
| B． the famous Bronte sisters |
| C． schools and colleges in America |
| D． rights for American women |
Which fact does the article lead you to believe?
| A．The Bronte sisters thought that they were men. |
| B． England’s first training school for nurses was in Ohio. |
| C． There are more men than women in professional jobs. |
D． Women find it neces sary to work harder than before. |
When I was 12, all I wanted was a signet (图章) ring. They were the "in" thing and it seemed every girl except me had one. On my 13th birthday, my Mum gave me a signet ring with my initials(姓名首字母) carved into it. I was in heaven.
What made it even more special was that it was about the only thing that wasn't being "replaced". We'd been burnt out in fires that swept through our area earlier that year and had lost everything-so most of the " new" stuff (东西) we got was really just to replace what we'd lost. But not my ring. My ring was new.
Then, only one month later, I lost it. I took it off before bed and it was missing in the morning. I was sad and searched everywhere for it. But it seemed to have disappeared. Eventually, I gave up and stopped looking for it. And two years later, we sold the house and moved away.
Years passed, and a couple of moves later, I was visiting my parents' when Mum told me that she had something for me. It wasn't my birthday, nor was it Easter or Christmas or any other gift-giving occasion. Mum noticed my questioning look. " You'll recognize this one," she said, smiling.
Then she handed me a small ring box. I took it from her and opened it to find my beautiful signet ring inside. The family who had bought our house 13 years earlier had recently decided to do some redecorations, which included replacing the carpets. When they pulled the carpet up in my old bedroom, they found the ring. As it had my initials carved into it, they realized who owned the ring. They'd had it professionally cleaned up by a jeweler before sending it to my mother. And it still fits me.
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The underlined word "in" in the first paragraph probably means "".
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When she got the ring back, the writer was about.
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Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
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What would be the best title for the passage?
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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 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.
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According to the study, who made the most accurate prediction of their future life satisfaction?
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Pessimism may be positive in some way because it causes people.
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How do people of higher income see their future?
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What is the clear conclusion of the study?
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The technology is great. Without it we wouldn’t have been able to put a man on the moon, explore the ocean’s depths or eat microwave sausages. Computers have revolutionized our lives and they have the power to educate and pass on knowledge. But sometimes this power can create more problems than it solves.
Every doctor has had to try their best to calm down patients who’ve come into their surgery waving an Internet print-out, convinced that they have some rare incurable disease, say, throat cancer. The truth is usually far more ordinary, though: they don’t have throat cancer, and it’s just that their throats are swollen. Being a graduate of the Internet “school” of medicine does not guarantee accurate self-health-checks.
One day Mrs. Almond came to my hospital after feeling faint at work. While I took her blood sample and tried to find out what was wrong, she said calmly, “I know what’s wrong；I’ve got throat cancer. I know there’s nothing you doctors can do about it and I’ve just got to wait until the day comes.”
As a matter of routine I ordered a chest X-ray. I looked at it and the blood results an hour later. Something wasn’t right. “Did your local doctor do an X-ray?” I asked. “Oh, I haven’t been to the doctor for years,” she replied. “I read about it on a website and the symptoms fitted, so I knew that’s what I had.”
However, some of her symptoms, like the severe cough and weight loss, didn’t fit with it—but she’d just ignored this.
I looked at the X-ray again, and more tests confirmed it wasn’t the cancer but tuberculosis (肺结核)—something that most certainly did need treating, and could be deadly. She was lucky we caught it when we did.
Mrs. Almond went pale when I explained she would have to be on treatment for the next six months to ensure that she was fully recovered. It was certainly a lesson for her. “I’m so embarrassed,” she said, shaking her head, as I explained that all the people she had come into close contact with would have to be found out and tested. She listed up to about 20, and then I went to my office to type up my notes. Unexpectedly, the computer was not working, so I had to wait until someone from the IT department came to fix it. Typical. Maybe I should have a microwave sausage while I waited?Mrs. Almond talked about her illness calmly because ______.
| A．she thought she knew it well |
| B．she had purchased medicine online |
| C．she graduated from a medical school |
| D．she had been treated by local doctors |
It was lucky for Mrs. Almond ______.
| A．to have contacted many friends |
| B．to have recovered in a short time |
| C．to have her assumption confirmed |
| D．to have her disease identified in time |
Mrs. Almond said “I’m so embarrassed” (Para. 7) because ______.
| A．she had distrusted her close friends |
| B．she had caused unnecessary trouble |
| C．she had to refuse the doctor’s advice |
| D．she had to tell the truth to the doctor |
By mentioning the breakdown of the computer, the author probably wants to prove ______.
| A．it’s a must to take a break at work |
| B．it’s vital to believe in IT professionals |
| C．it’s unwise to simply rely on technology |
| D．it’s a danger to work long hours on computers |
We've reached a strange-some would say unusual-point. While fighting world hunger continues to be the matter of vital importance according to a recent report from the World Health Organization (WHO), more people now die from being overweight, or say, from being extremely fat, than from being underweight. It's the good life that's more likely to kill us these days.
Worse, nearly l8 million children under the age of five around the world are estimated to be overweight. What's going on?
We really don't have many excuses for our weight problems. The dangers of the problem have been drilled into us by public-health campaigns since 2001 and the message is getting through-up to a point.
In the 1970s, Finland, for example, had the highest rate of heart disease in the world and being overweight was its main cause. Not any more. A public-health campaign has greatly reduced the number of heart disease deaths by 80 per cent over the past three decades.
Maybe that explains why the percentage of people in Finland taking diet pills doubled between 2001 and 2005, and doctors even offer surgery of removing fat inside and change the shape of the body. That has become a sort of fashion. No wonder it ranks as the world's most body-conscious country.
We know what we should be doing to lose weight-but actually doing it is another matter. By far the most popular excuse is not taking enough exercise. More than half of us admit we lack willpower.
Others blame good food. They say: it's just too inviting and it makes them overeat. Still others lay the blame on the Americans, complaining that pounds have piled on thanks to eating too much American-style fast food.
Some also blame their parents-their genes. But unfortunately, the parents are wronged because they're normal in shape, or rather slim.
It's a similar story around the world, although people are relatively unlikely to have tried to lose weight. Parents are eager to see their kids shape up. Do as I say-not as I do.
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What is the "strange" point mentioned in the first sentence?
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Why does the author think that people have no excuse for being overweight?
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The example of Finland is used to illustrate.
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Which would be the best title for the passage?
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Mothers and daughters go through so much—yet when was the last time a mother and daughter sat down to write a book together about it all? Perri Klass and her mother, Sheila Solomon Klass, both gifted professional writers, prove to be ideal co-writers as they examine their decades of motherhood, daughterhood, and the wonderful ways their lives have overlapped (重叠).
Perri notes with amazement how closely her own life has mirrored her mother’s: both have full-time careers； both have published books, articles, and stories； each has three children； they both love to read. They also love to travel—in fact, they often take trips together. But in truth, the harder they look at their lives, the more they acknowledge their big differences in circumstance and basic nature.
A child of the Depression (大萧条), Sheila was raised in Brooklyn by parents who considered education a luxury for girls. Starting with her college education, she has fought for everything she’s ever accomplished. Perri, on the other hand, grew up privileged in the New Jersey suburbs of the 1960s and 1970s. For Sheila, wasting time or money is a crime, and luxury is unthinkable while Perri enjoys the occasional small luxury, but has not been successful at trying to persuade her mother into enjoying even the tiniest thing she likes.
Each writing in her own unmistakable voice, Perri and Sheila take turns exploring the joys and pains, the love and bitterness, the minor troubles and lasting respect that have always bonded them together. Sheila describes the adventure of giving birth to Perri in a tiny town in Trinidad where her husband was doing research fieldwork. Perri admits that she can’t sort out all the mess in the households, even though she knows it drives her mother crazy. Together they compare thoughts on bringing up children and working, admit long-hidden sorrows, and enjoy precious memories.
Looking deep into the lives they have lived separately and together, Perri and Sheila tell their mother-daughter story with honesty, humor, enthusiasm, and admiration for each other. A written account in two voices, Every Mother Is a Daughter is a duet (二重奏) that produces a deep, strong sound with the experiences that all mothers and daughters will recognize.Why does Perri think that her own life has mirrored her mother’s?
| A．They both have gone through difficult times. |
| B．They have strong emotional ties with each other. |
| C．They have the same joys and pains, and love and bitterness. |
| D．They both have experiences as daughter, mother and writer. |
The word “luxury” in Paragraph 3 means ______.
| A．something rare but not pleasant |
| B．something that cannot be imagined |
| C．something expensive but not necessary |
| D．something that can only be enjoyed by boys |
What is Paragraph 4 mainly about?
| A．The content of the book. | B．The purpose of the book. |
| C．The influence of the book. | D．The writing style of the book. |
How are women’s lives explored in this book?
| A．In a musical form. | B．Through field research. |
| C．With unique writing skills. | D．From different points of view. |