I made a promise to myself on the way down to the vacation beach cottage. For two weeks I would try to be a loving husband and father. Totally loving. No ifs, ands or buts.
The idea had come to me as I listened to a talk on my car radio. The speaker was quoting a passage from the Bible about husbands being thoughtful of their wives. Then he went on to say, “Love is an act of will. A person can choose to love.” To myself, I had to admit that I had been a selfish husband. Well, for two weeks that would change.
And it did. Right from the moment I kissed Evelyn at the door and said, “That new yellow sweater looks great on you.”“Oh, Tom, you noticed,” she said, surprised and pleased. Maybe a little puzzled. After the long drive, I wanted to sit and read. Evelyn suggested a walk on the beach. I started to refuse, but then I thought, “Evelyn’s been alone here with the kids all week and now she wants to be alone with me.” We walked on the beach while the children flew their kites.
So it went. Two weeks of not calling the Wall Street firm where I am a director; a visit to the shell museum though I usually hate museums. Relaxed and happy, that’s how the whole vacation passed. I made a new pledge to keep on remembering to choose love.
There was one thing that went wrong with my experiment, however. Evelyn and I still laugh about it today. On the last night at our cottage, preparing for bed, Evelyn stared at me with the saddest expression.
“What’s the matter?” I asked her.
“Tom,” she said in a voice filled with distress, “do you know something I don’t?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well…that medical checkup I had several weeks ago…our doctor…did he tell you something about me？Tom, you’ve been so good to me…am I dying?” It took a moment for it all to sink in. Then I burst out la
ughing.
“No, honey,” I said, wrapping her in my arms. “You’re not dying; I’m just starting to live.”From the story we may infer that Tom drove to the beach cottage __________.
| A．with his family | B．with Evelyn |
| C．all by himself | D．with his children |
During the two weeks on the beach, Tom showed more love to his wife because __________.
| A．she looked lovely in her new clothes |
| B．he could afford time to care for her |
| C．he was willing to be a good husband |
| D．she was seriously ill |
The author says, “There was one thing that went wrong with my experiment.” What was the one thing that went wrong?
| A．He praised her sweater, which puzzled her. |
| B．She insisted on visiting a museum, which he hated. |
| C．He knew something about her illness but didn’t tell her. |
| D．He was so good to her that she thought she would be dying. |
By saying “I’m just starting to live,” Tom means that __________.
| A．he is just beginning to understand the real meaning of life |
| B．he is just beginning to enjoy life as a loving husband |
| C．he lived an unhappy life before and is now starting to change |
| D．he is beginning to regret what he did to his wife before |
Last summer I went through a training program and became a literacy volunteer（扫盲志愿者）. The training I received, though excellent, did not tell me how it was to work with a real student, however. When I began to discover what other people’s lives were like because they could not read, I realized the true importance of reading.
My first student Marie was a 44-year-old single mother of three. In the first lesson, I found out she walked two miles to the nearest supermarket twice a week because she didn’t know which bus to take. When I told her I would get her a bus schedule. She told me it would not help because she could not read it. She said she also had difficulty once she got to the supermarket, because she couldn’t always remember what she needed. Since she did not know words, she could not write out a shopping list. Also, she could only recognize items by sight, so if the product had a different label, she would not recognize it as the product she wanted.
As we worked together, learning how to read built Marie’s self-confidence, which encouraged her to continue in her studies. She began to make rapid progress and was even able to take the bus to the supermarket. After this successful trip, she reported how self-confident she felt. At the end of the program, she began helping her youngest son, Tony, a shy first grader, with his reading. She sat with him before he went to sleep and together they would read bedtime stories. When his eyes became wide with excitement as she read, pride was written all over her face, and she began to see how her own hard work in learning to read paid off. As she described this experience, I was proud of myself as well. I found that helping Marie to build her self-confidence was more rewarding than anything I had ever done before.
As a literacy volunteer, I learned a great deal about teaching and helping others. In fact, I may have learned more from the experience than Marie did.What did the author do last summer?
| A．She worked in the supermarket. |
| B．She helped someone to learn to read. |
| C．She gave single mothers the help they needed. |
| D．She went to a training program to help a literacy volunteer. |
Why didn’t Marie go to the supermarket by bus at first?
| A．Because she liked to walk to the supermarket. | B．Because she lived far away from the bus stop. |
| C．Because she couldn’t afford the bus ticket. | D．Because she couldn’t find the right bus. |
How did Marie use to find the goods she wanted in the supermarket?
| A．She knew where the goods were in the supermarket. | B．She asked others to take her to the right place. |
| C．She managed to find the goods by their looks. | D．She remembered the names of the goods. |
Which of the following statements is true about Marie?
| A．Marie could do things she had not been able to do before. |
| B．Marie was able to read stories with the help of her son. |
| C．Marie decided to continue her studies in school |
| D．Marie paid for her own lessons. |
Every year landslides (滑坡) cause 25 to 50 deaths and $1.5 billion in damage in the United States. They account for 15 percent of the deaths from natural disasters in Europe. And in December, a single event killed more than 200 people in the Philippines. Sending workers to stabilize (加固) mountainsides using steel bars and cement (水泥) can help prevent disaster, but it introduces new difficulties. Shaking drills produce harmful dust and loosen heavy, dangerous debris (岩屑). "It's quite a risky job," says Giorgio Pezzuto of D'Appolonia, an engineering company in Italy.
D'Appolonia, working with eight other companies, may have an answer: a three-ton robot called Roboclimber. "The idea is to operate a machine far away that can drill without a human being on board," says Pezzuto, manager for the project, which is supported by the European Commission. Engineers claim that the machine will be faster and cheaper than manual labor. The robot, a large radio-controlled four-legged mechanical spider, has cost at least $2 million so far. The final product should be able to climb unstable mountainsides, drill holes, insert bars and cement, and collect data on the slope's stability. Testing should begin in May.The underlined word "event"(in Paragraph 1) refers to _____.
| A．landslide | B．machine | C．earthquake | D．flood |
The purpose in writing this text is _____.
| A．to tell people how serious the damage caused by landslides is |
| B．to tell people that sending workers to stabilize mountainsides is a risky job |
| C．to introduce a product that can be used to stabilize mountainsides |
| D．to show people how to use a new product |
What does the robot look like?
| A．A human being. | B．A spider. | C．A truck. | D．A drill. |
The biggest advantage of this product is that _____.
| A．it will be faster and cheaper than manual labor |
| B．it can climb mountainsides, drill holes, insert bars and cement |
| C．it can collect data on the slope's stability |
| D．it can drill without a human being on board |
If you were to come up with a list of organizations whose failures had done the most damage to the American economy in recent years, you would probably have to start with the Wall Street firms that brought us the financial crisis. From there, you might move on to the automakers in Detroit.
But I would suggest that the list should also include a less obvious nominee: public education.
At its top level, the American system of higher education may be the best in the world. Yet in terms of its core mission---turning teenagers into educated college graduates--- much of the system is failing.
The United States does a good job enrolling (招生) teenagers in college, but only half of the students who enroll end up with a bachelor’s degree.
So identifying the causes of the college dropout crisis in the world’s largest economy matters enormously, and a new book called “Crossing the Finish Line” tries to do precisely that. Its authors are economists William Bowen and Michael McPherson, and a doctoral candidate Matthew Chingos. The first problem they diagnose is something they call under-matching. It refers to students who choose not to attend the best college they can get into. They instead go to a less selective one, perhaps one that is closer to home or less expensive. About half of the low-income students with a grade-point average of at least 3.5 in high school and an SAT score of at least 1,200 do not attend the best college they could have. “I was really astonished by the degree to which well-qualified students from poor families under-matched,” said Mr. Bowen.
In fact, well-off students attend the colleges that do the best job of producing graduates. Meanwhile, lower-income students -–even when they are better qualified—often go to colleges that excel（擅长）in producing drop-outs. “It’s really a waste,” Mr. Bowen said, “and a big problem for the country.” As the authors point out, the only way to lift the college graduation rate significantly is to lift it among poor and working-class students. Instead, it appears to have fallen.
What can be done? Money is clearly part of the answer. Which of the following would people first think of as a factor responsible for the American financial crisis according to this passage?
| A．The government. | B．Public education |
| C．The Detroit automakers. | D．The Wall Street firms. |
What is a big problem with American higher education?
| A．It is hard to enroll enough students into college. |
| B．Many colleges are experiencing low rate of graduation. |
| C．Many college students stay away from classes. |
| D．It is hard for many colleges to get financial aid from the government. |
The title of the book Crossing the Finish Line probably means______.
| A．running to the end of the line | B．going to college |
| C．finishing college education | D．working hard in college |
Why do some students under--match ?
| A．Because they have financial difficulty. | B．Because they face ambition crisis. |
| C．Because they lack confidence. | D．Because they can’t get guidance. |
The passage is mainly about _______.
| A．problems with secondary American education and possible solutions |
| B．America’s financial crisis, its cause and influence |
| C．low rate of American college graduation, its cause and its influence |
| D．relationship between American education and its economy |
In this age of Internet chat, videogames and reality television, there is no shortage of mindless activities to keep a child occupied. Yet, despite the competition, my 8-year-old daughter Rebecca wants to spend her free time writing short stories. She wants to enter one of her stories into a writing contest, a competition she won last year.
As a writer I know about winning contests, and about losing them. I know what it is like to work hard on a story only to receive a rejection slip (退稿条) from the publisher. I also know the pressures of trying to live up to a reputation created by previous victories. What if she doesn’t win the contest again? That’s the strange thing about being a parent. So many of our own past scars and ruined hopes can surface.
A revelation (启示) came last week when I asked her, “Don’t you want to win again?”
“No”, she replied, “I just want to tell the story of an angel going to first grade.”
I had just spent weeks correcting her stories as she spontaneously (自发地) told them. Telling myself that I was merely an experienced writer guiding the young writer across the hall, I offered suggestions for characters, conflicts and endings for her tales. The story about a fearful angel starting first grade was quickly “guided” by me into the tale of a little girl with a wild imagination taking her first music lesson. I had turned her contest into my contest without even realizing it.
Staying back and giving kids space to grow is not as easy as it looks. Because I know very little about farm animals who use tools or angels who go to first grade, I had to accept the fact that I was co-opting (借用) my daughter’s experience.
While stepping back was difficult for me, it was certainly a good first step that I will quickly follow with more steps, putting myself far enough away to give her room but close enough to help if asked. All the while I will be reminding myself that children need room to experiment, grow and find their own voices.What do we learn form the first paragraph?
| A．Now too many entertainments take up too much time. |
| B．Children do find lots of fun in many mindless activities. |
| C．Rebecca is much too occupied to enjoy her free time. |
| D．Rebecca draws on a lot of online materials for her writing. |
What did the author say about her own writing experience?
| A．She was constantly under pressure of writing more. |
| B．Most of her stories had been rejected by publishers. |
| C．She did not quite live up to her reputation as a writer. |
| D．Her way to success was full of pains and frustrations. |
Why did Rebecca want to enter this year’s writing contest?
| A．She had won a prize in the previous contest. |
| B．She wanted to share her stories with readers. |
| C．She was sure of winning with her mother’s help. |
| D．She believed she possessed real talent for writing. |
What’s the author’s advice for parents?
| A．Children should be given every chance to voice their opinions. |
| B．Parents should keep an eye on the activities their kids engage in. |
| C．Children should be allowed freedom to grow through experience. |
| D．A writing career, though attractive, is not for every child to pursue. |
A study of art history might be a good way to learn more about a culture than is possible to learn in general history classes. Most typical history courses concentrate on politics, economics and war. But art history focuses on much more than this because art reflects not only the political values of a people, but also religious beliefs, emotions and psychology. In addition, information about the daily activities of our ancestors can be provided by art. In short, art expresses the essential qualities of a time and a place, and a study of it clearly offers us a deeper understanding than can be found in most history books.
In history books, objective (客观的) information about the political life of a country is presented; that is, facts about politics are given, but opinions are not expressed. Art, on the other hand, is subjective: it reflects emotions and opinions. The great Spanish painter Francisco Goya was perhaps the first truly “political” artist. In his well-known painting The Third of May, 1808, he criticized the Spanish government for its abuse of power over people.
In the same way, art can reflect a culture’s religious beliefs. For hundreds of years in Europe, religious art had been almost the only type of art that existed. Churches and other religious buildings were filled with paintings that described people and stories from the Bible. Although most people couldn’t read, they could still understand the Bible stories in the pictures on church walls. By contrast (对比), one of the main characteristics of art in the Middle East was (and still is) its absence of human and animal images. This reflects the Islamic belief that statues are not holy.Which of the following statements has the closest meaning to the underlined sentence?
| A．General history only focuses on politics. |
| B．Art history shows us nothing but the political values. |
| C．General history concerns only religious beliefs, emotions and psychology. |
| D．Art history gives us an insight (洞察力) into the essential qualities of a time and a place. |
Art is subjective in that __________.
| A．it can easily arouse people’s anger about their government |
| B．it only reflects people’s anger or sadness about social problems. |
| C．a personal and emotional view of history is presented through it. |
| D．artists were or are religious, who reflect only the religious aspect of the society. |
Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．Francisco Goya expressed his religious belief in his painting. |
| B．In history books political views of people are entirely presented. |
| C．For centuries in Europe, painters had only painted on walls of churches. |
| D．In the Middle East, you can hardly find animal or human figures on church walls. |
What’s the main topic of the passage?
| A．The development of art history. |
| B．What we can learn from art. |
| C．The influence of artists on art history. |
| D．The difference between general history and art history. |