In the fall of 1985. I was a bright-eyed girl heading off to Howard University, aiming at a legal career and dreaming of sitting on a Supreme Court bench somewhere. Twenty-one years later , I am still a bright-eyed dreamer and one with quite a different tale to tell.
My grandma, an amazing woman, graduated from college an the age of 65. She was the first in our family to reach that goal. But one year after I started college, she developed cancer. I made the choice to withdraw from college to care for her. It meant that school and my personal dream would have to wait.
Then I got married with another dream: building my family with a combination of adopt(收养) and biological children. In 1999, we adopted our first son. To lay eyes on him was fantastic---and very emotional. A year later came our second adopted boy. Then followed son No. 3. In 2003, I gave birth to another boy.
You can imagine how fully occupied I became, raising four boys under the age of 8. Our home was a complete zoo---a joyous zoo. Not surprising, I never did make it back to college full-time. But I never gave up on the dream either. I had only one choice: to find a way. That meant taking as few as one class each semester.
The hardest part was feeling guilty about the time I spent away from the boys. They often wanted me to stay home with them. There certainly were times I wanted to quit, But I knew I should set an example for them to follow through the rest of their lives.
In 2007, I graduated from the University of North Carolina. It took me over 21 years to get my college degree！
I am not special, just single-minded. It always struck me that when you’re looking at a big challenge from the outside it looks huge, but when you’re in the midst of it, it just seems normal. Everything you want won’t arrive in your life on one day. It’s a process. Remember；little steps add up to big dreams.When the author went to Howard University, her dream was to be_____________
| A．a writer | B．a teacher |
| C．a judge | D．a doctor |
Why did the author quit school in her second year of college?
| A．She wanted to study by herself. |
| B．She fell in love and got married. |
| C．She suffered from a serious illness. |
| D．She decided to look after her grandma. |
What can we learn about the author from Paragraphs 4 and 5?
| A．She was busy yet happy with her family life. |
| B．She ignored her guilty feeling for her sons. |
| C．She wanted to remain a full-time housewife. |
| D．She was too confused to make a correct choice. |
What doses the author mostly want to tell us in the last paragraph?
| A．Failure is the mother of success. |
| B．Little by little, one goes far. |
| C．Every coin has two sides. |
| D．Well begun, half done. |
Which of the following can best describe the author?
A. Caring and determine.
B. Honest and responsible.
C. Ambitious and sensitive.
Innocent and single-minded.
In Africa, Christmas day begins with groups of carolers (欢唱颂歌的人) walking to and fro through the village, along the roadway, by the houses of the churchmen, singing the lovely carols known the world around. Often people may be awakened by a group of carolers beginning to gather at the church. They return home to make final preparation as to the clothes one must wear and also as to his offering for the Christmas service. The most important part of their Christmas service is the love offering. This is the gift in honor of Jesus. At about 8 or 9 o’clock, everyone makes their way to the celebration of the birthday of Jesus. Everyone who attends the service goes forward to lay down their gift upon the raised platform near the Communion table. Not one person will attend the service without giving a gift.
Christmas in South Africa is a summer holiday. There is no snow, but it has many flowers, many beautiful varieties of wild flowers being in their full pride.
In Ghana, most churches announce the coming of Christmas by decorating the church and homes beginning with the first week in Advent, four weeks before Christmas. This season happens to be the cocoa harvest time, so it is a time of wealth. Everyone returns home from wherever they might be, such as farms or mines.
In Africa, it is the traditional dinner of turkey, roast beef, mince pies, suckling pig, yellow rice with raisins, vegetables, and plum pudding, or crackers. In the afternoon, families go out into the country and usually there are games or bathing in the warm sunshine, and then home in the cool of the evening. Boxing Day is also a public holiday of real relaxation usually spent in the open air, which falls on December 26.The writer of this passage mainly wants to _________.
| A．persuade us to have a holiday in Africa |
| B．introduce to us when Christmas came into being |
| C．tell us how people celebrate Christmas in Africa |
| D．describe some important holidays in Africa |
The correct order of the following festivals should be ________.
| A．Christmas→ Boxing Day→ Advent |
| B．Boxing Day→ Christmas→ Advent |
| C．Christmas→ Advent→ Boxing Day |
| D．Advent→ Christmas→ Boxing Day |
If you visit South Africa on Christmas day, you’ll find ________.
| A．everyone returns home to harvest cocoa |
| B．people enjoy a traditional dinner |
| C．the church and homes are being decorated |
| D．it is snowing heavily everywhere |
In Africa, the traditional dinner for Christmas including the following EXCEPT ________.
| A．pumpkin pies | B．yellow rice |
| C．crackers | D．turkey |
The Cat in the Hat takes place on a cold, wet day with two kids awaiting their mother’s return. Instead of their mother, a strange cat enters the house. He begins balancing a fish bowl on the tip of his umbrella while balancing himself on a beach ball! The two kids and their pet fish worry and worry. But readers around the world laughed and laughed over the Cat and the Hat.
Theodore Seuss Geisel, known to fans as Dr. Seuss, wrote the book. It was first published in 1957. Geisel liked to have fun and make people laugh, but he had a serious reason for writing the book. In 1954, a Life magazine article argued that kids couldn’t read because the books used to teach them how to read were too boring. John Hersey, the Pulitzer-prize winning author of the article, suggested Geisel write a story that “first graders wouldn’t be able to put down”.
To write the book, Geisel had to have a good knowledge of a beginning reader’s word list. Geisel says that he came up with the title by looking for the first two words on the list that rhymed (押韵). And so The Cat in the Hat was born! But it wasn’t an easy book to write. It took Geisel one and a half years to complete.
To celebrate The Cat in the Hat’s birthday, Random House, the book’s publisher, created Project 236. The number 236 represents the number of words Geisel used to write the book. As a part of Project 236, there will be a nationwide read-aloud of The Cat in the Hat at 2:36 on March 2, Dr. Seuss’s birthday.According to Paragraph 1, we know that The Cat in the Hat ______.
| A．tells stories between two kids and their pet fish |
| B．was written for children left alone at home |
| C．entertained children around the world |
| D．was written in winter |
What is Dr. Seuss’s purpose in writing The Cat in the Hat?
| A．To improve children’s reading. |
| B．To support John Hersey. |
| C．To develop educational system. |
| D．To make readers laugh. |
It can be inferred that John Hersey ______.
| A．thought his article was too difficult for first graders to read |
| B．was dissatisfied with children’s readings of that time |
| C．won the Pulitzer-prize because of the book |
| D．was the editor of the magazine Life |
Why did Random House create Project 236?
| A．To celebrate Dr. Seuss’s birthday. |
| B．In support of the nationwide read-loud. |
| C．To make more readers get to know Dr. Seuss. |
| D．In honour of the birth of The Cat in the Hat. |
Cleverness is a gift while kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy––they’re given after all. Choices can be hard.
––Jeff Bezos
I got the idea to start Amazon 16 years ago. I came across the fact that the Internet usage was growing at 2,300 percent per year. I’d never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast, and the idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titles was very exciting to me. I had just turned 30 years old, and I’d been married for a year. I told my wife MacKenzie that I wanted to quit my job and go to do this crazy thing that probably wouldn’t work since most start-ups don’t, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. MacKenzie told me I should go for it. As a young boy, I’d been a garage inventor. I’d always wanted to be an inventor, and she wanted me to follow my passion.
I was working at a financial firm in New York City with a bunch of very smart people, and I had a brilliant boss that I much admired. I went to my boss and told him I wanted to start a company selling books on the Internet. He took me on a long walk in Central Park, listened carefully to me, and finally said, “That sounds like a really good idea, but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn’t already have a good job.” That logic made some sense to me, and he convinced me to think about it for 48 hours before making a final decision. Seen in that light, it really was a difficult choice, but finally, I decided I had to give it a shot. I didn’t think I’d regret trying and failing. And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision to not try at all.
After much consideration, I took the less safe path to follow my passion, and I’m proud of that choice. For all of us, in the end, we are our choices.What inspired the author with the idea of building an online bookstore?
| A．His dream of being an inventor. |
| B．The support of his wife. |
| C．The greatly increasing usage of the Internet. |
| D．Millions of exciting titles. |
We can know from the passage that _______.
| A．the boss thought the idea was suitable for the author |
| B．the author might not regret if he failed the idea |
| C．the author wanted someone else to try the idea |
| D．the author might go back to his boss if he failed |
Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?
| A．Cleverness and Kindness | B．The Starting of Amazon |
| C．Following My Passion | D．We Are What We Choose |
WUHAN - A 72-year-old woman, Wang Yulan, has started legal procedures against Carrefour after she was falsely accused of stealing in the supermarket.
Wang’s lawyer Wen Jun said they filed a lawsuit (提起诉讼) at the Donghu district court, making two demands.
First, Wang wants Carrefour to make a public apology and the apology letter should be put up in the Carrefour store or in the media.
“We also demand 50,000 yuan in compensation (赔偿) for my wife’s psychological injuries,” Wang’s husband, Yan Fucun, said, “We don’t mean to extort money from Carrefour, but asked for it as a recognition of respect. Besides the money spent on lawsuit costs, I will donate the rest to charity.”
Wang earlier said she went to the store’s Guanggu branch to buy cereal. She picked up 20 packs of a particular brand and was given another four as gifts by a saleswoman. However, when she arrived at the checkout, the cashier insisted Wang pay for all 24 packs, which led to an argument. The saleswoman later denied she said the extra packs were free. A store supervisor led Wang to an office, accused her of theft and had her sign a form and pose for photos. Wang and her husband returned to the store the next day with the local media to demand an explanation.
Carrefour China then apologized for the incident on its Sina micro blog, saying the managers and staff members involved have visited Wang’s home and apologized. The company also sent three apology letters to Wang in the following three days.
Eric Legros, president of Carrefour China, said，“We made a mistake and we apologized four times. Four times, you know. And Carrefour will not do anything more about it.”
Wen Jun said the supermarket’s management came with risks. For instance, Wen said the company would offer employees money if they caught a thief in the store. “I hope this case will be a warning for the staff who want to get money by such an immoral (不道德的) method,” Wen said.The purpose of this passage is to ____
| A．warn customers of the trap in buying |
| B．report an incident and related information |
| C．appeal to customers to defend their own rights |
| D．support Wang in dealing with the incident |
It can be inferred that ____.
| A．Wang and Carrefour will soon make up |
| B．Wang and her husband asked for 50,000 yuan for psychological injuries |
| C．Carrefour admitted their mistake but will not do anything more |
| D．It may be long before Wang and Carrefour reach an agreement |
What does the underlined word mean in paragraph 4?
| A．spent money as one likes |
| B．asked for money illegally |
| C．received money in compensation |
| D．collected money for a particular purpose |
What is the order of things happening?
a. The saleswoman denied she said the extra packs were free.
b. Wang and her husband returned to the store for an explanation.
c. Wang took 24 packs of cereal to the checkout
d. A store supervisor accused her of theft
e. Carrefour China apologized for the incident on its micro blog
| A．c, a, d, b, e | B．c, d, a, b, e |
| C．a, d, b, c, e | D．e, b, a, c, d |
Part-Time Trainer -- Hong Kong (Financial Markets)
Objectives and responsibilities:
•Teach public and/or in-house training programs, based on Kaplan training materials
•Work 1 or 2 mornings/afternoons on weekends or a few evenings on weekdays
•Flexibility to work in our centre
Requirements:
•Provide legal advice to banks or financial institutions
•Possess solid knowledge in finance and risk management
•Years of experience as a banker, lawyer, business advisor or analyst
•Strong communication skills
Email your cover letter and resume to seiling.ng@kaplan.com
Lecturer
Requirements:
•Holder of accountancy qualification
•Deliver accounting material in clear and straight-forward manner
•Understand students learning needs
•Keen on teaching & able to work flexible hours
•Full time Universities or Institutions teaching experience is a must.
Send your application letter with full resume stating present and expected salary to: Human Resources Manager, Kaplan Hong Kong via email hr@kaplan.com.hk.
Part-time helper
Duties:
•To add Chinese to videos by using a software, training will be provided
Requirements:
•University Graduate
•Proficient (精通) in English & Chinese
•Able to read & understand simplified Chinese
•Proficient in MS office and Chinese Word Processing (simplified or traditional Chinese)
•Being immediately available is a must.
Send your application letter with full resume stating present and expected salary to: Human Resources Manager, Kaplan Hong Kong via email hr@kaplan.com.hkIf you want to apply for Part-Time Trainer, you should ____.
| A．email hr@kaplan.com.hk |
| B．have experience of teaching before |
| C．speak fluent English and Chinese |
| D．be able to communicate with people easily |
Who can get the job of Lecturer?
| A．A man who has a clear way of teaching accounting materials. |
| B．A man who has ever taught part time in Universities and Institutions. |
| C．A man who can just work on fixed time. |
| D．A man without an accountancy qualification but are keen on teaching |
If a man meets all the requirements but can’t go to the new job at once, which job is NOT suitable?
| A．Part-Time Trainer | B．Lecturer |
| C．Part-time helper | D．All the three jobs |