Roy wasn't the only one to receive his call-up(入伍)papers.Stephen Napier's call-up came at the beginning of February and he was pleased to find that he would be going into the Royal Air Force (RAF).
His father was not so pleased and made his feelings known as he and Stephen were on their daily walk. It was the first step in his plans for Stephen to take over the estate(地产)when the time came, and although Stephen was well aware of this, he could think of no reason not to accompany him.
"Thought you'd forgotten that nonsense. Still, I dare say I could pull a few strings to get you to the Army..."
"No, Father! I have told you I want to learn to fly. What chance would I have to do that in the Army? I'd be better off in the Navy——at least they've got the Fleet Air Arm. But I have been put in the RAF and that's where I want to be, so let's leave it at that." His face went red. Sent to his father's school and then to Cambridge, much to his satisfaction, he had never had to defend his own desires and his father was a hard man to oppose.
The father glared at Stephen, "No, I won't leave it at that. I want to know what other ridiculous ideas are in your head. For a start, what's all this about America?"
"America?"
"Yes. All those books I saw in your room the other day. Brochures about emigration(移民)."
The big, silvered head lowered, like that of a bull about to charge."Don't trouble to deny it."
"I won't, Father. Some men at Cambridge have been talking about it. They want people like us here, mathematicians and scientists, for all kinds of research——the sort of research I could do.It would be a worthwhile life for me."
The father responded exactly as his son had known he would."You've got a worthwhile life here!You've got an estate to run!"
"No, Father. You've got an estate to run. I never asked for it. Why not ask Baden to do this stuff? He perhaps can make a good job of it, but I..."
"If he were here, I might think about this silly idea of yours——only think about it, mind you but..." If Father wanted Stephen to take over the estate, the first thing he did would__________.
A.take a walk with Stephen as usual | B.wait till his son graduated from Cambridge |
C.persuade Stephen not to go into RAF | D.send Stephen to the Army instead of RAF |
Which statement is NOT true according to the passage?
A.Stephen preferred to go into the Navy rather than the Army. |
B.Stephen also received his call-up papers as Roy. |
C.The father didn't like Stephen's idea of going to America. |
D.Stephen was eventually forced to stay to run the estate. |
After reading this passage, we can infer that__________.
A.Stephen had never had to defend his desires before |
B.Baden might be one of Stephen's family members |
C.Stephen wanted to fly in RAF and become a pilot in America |
D.if somebody took over the estate, Stephen could realize his dream |
What do we learn from the underlined sentence?
A.It looked as if the father was angry when mentioning the brochures. |
B.The father was very angry and wanted to beat his son Stephen. |
C.Stephen was annoyed when his father referred to the brochures. |
D.A big red bull was about to charge at Stephen. |
Which would be the best title for this passage?
A.RAF——a better choice than the Army | B.A talk between Father and Son |
C.The dreams of a Cambridge student | D.Conflict between Father and Son |
According to body language expert Robert Phipps, the way people sleep at night actually determines a lot about the type of personality they have. Phipps has identified four sleeping positions that affect personality.
Phipps found that worriers, those who stress the most, tend to sleep in the fetal(胎儿的) position. He found that this is the most common bedtime position, with nearly 58 percent of people sleeping on their side with knees up and head down. The more we curl up(蜷曲), the more comfort we are seeking, according to Phipps.
The second most common position is the log. Sleeping with a straight body, with arms at each side, as if they are standing guard at Buckingham Palace, indicates stubbornness, and these people (the 28 percent who sleep this way) often wake up stiffer than when they went to sleep.
"The longer you sleep like this, the more rigid your thinking is and you can become inflexible, which means you make things harder for yourself," according to Phipps.
Yearner(向往型) sleepers are next on the list. About 25 percent of people sleep in this style — on their side with arms stretched out in front, looking as if they are either chasing a dream or perhaps being chased themselves. Yearners are typically their own worst critics, always expecting the best results, explained Phipps. These people often wake up refreshed and eager to face the challenges of the day ahead.
Perhaps the most peculiar(奇怪的) of sleep styles is the freefaller position. This sleep style makes up 17 percent of the population. They sleep face down with arms stretched out. These people, according to Phipps, feel like they have little control over their life. Not only is this the strangest of sleep styles, but also the least comfortable, and people may wake up feeling tired and have no energy.
In conclusion, Phipps has only one more thing to add: "A good night’s sleep sets you up for the following day and our sleeping positions can determine how we feel when we wake."
The underlined word "rigid" is closest in meaning to " ".
A.stubborn | B.flexible | C.comfortable | D.strange |
One Sunday, my family had gathered at my parents’ house to feast upon Mom’s wonderful cooking.During the normal dinner chatter, I noticed that my father was slurring (说话含混) his words.No one mentioned this during dinner, but I felt compelled to discuss it with my mother afterward.
We decided that there was something seriously wrong and that Dad needed to see the doctor.
Mom phoned me two days later.“The doctor found a brain tumor (肿瘤).It’s too large at this point to operate.Maybe they can do something then, but the odds are long.”
Even with the treatment, my father’s condition worsened, and the doctor finally informed us that this condition was terminal.During one of his stays in the hospital, we brought our baby daughter Chelsey with us when we visited him.By this time he had great difficulty speaking.I finally figured out that he wanted Chelsey to sit on his stomach so he could make faces at her.
Watching the two of them together, I realized I was living an experience that would stay with me forever.Though grateful for the times they could share, I couldn’t shake the feeling of a clock ticking in the background.
On the visit to my parents’ home during what we all know was my father’s last days, my mother took Chelsey from my arms and announced, “Your father would like to see you alone for a minute.”
I entered the bedroom where my father lay on a rented hospital bed.He appeared even weaker than the day before.
“How are you feeling, Dad?” I asked.“Can I do anything for you?”
He tried to speak, but he couldn’t make out a word.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t understand you,” I said.
With great difficulty he said, “I love you.”
We don’t learn courage from heroes on the evening news.We learn true courage from watching ordinary people rise above hopeless situations.In many ways my father was a strict, uncommunicative man.He found it difficult to show emotion.The bravest thing I ever saw him do was overcome that barrier to open his heart to his son and family at the end of his life.
What does the underlined sentence “the odds are long” mean?
A.It takes a long time for Father to recover. |
B.There’s little possibility for Father to recover. |
C.Father needs love and care from his family. |
D.They need a proper time to operate on Father. |
Unlike chemists and physicists, who usually do their experiments using machines, biologists and medical researchers have to use living things like rats. But there are three Nobel prize-winning scientists who actually chose to experiment on themselves – all in the name of science, reported The Telegraph.
1. Werner Forssmann (Nobel prize winner in 1956)
Forssmann was a German scientist. He studied how to put a pipe inside the heart to measure the pressure inside and decide whether a patient needs surgery.
Experiments had been done on horses before, so he wanted to try with human patients. But it was not permitted because the experiment was considered too dangerous.
Not giving up, Forssmann decided to experiment on himself. He anaesthetized (麻醉) his own arm and made a cut, putting the pipe 30 centimeters into his vein. He then climbed two floors to the X-ray room before pushing the pipe all the way into his heart.
2. Barry Marshall (Nobel prize winner in 2005)
Most doctors in the mid-20th century believed that gastritis was down to stress, spicy food or an unusually large amount of stomach acid. But in 1979 an Australian scientist named Robin Warren found that the disease might be related to a bacteria called Helicobacter pylori.
So he teamed up with his colleague, Barry Marshall, to continue the study. When their request to experiment on patients was denied, Marshall bravely drank some of the bacteria. Five days later, he lost his appetite and soon was vomiting each morning – he indeed had gastritis.
3. Ralph Steinman (Nobel prize winner in 2011)
This Canadian scientist discovered a new type of immune system cell called the dendritic cell. He believed that it had the ability to fight against cancer.
Steinman knew he couldn’t yet use his method to treat patients. So in 2007, when doctors told him that he had cancer and that it was unlikely for him to live longer than a year, he saw an opportunity.
With the help of his colleagues, he gave himself three different vaccines based on his research and a total of eight experimental therapies(疗法). Even though Steinman eventually died from his cancer, he lived four and a half years, much longer than doctors had said he would.
The underlined word “gastritis” in Paragraph 5 probably means ______.
A.a kind of bacteria | B.a kind of stomach disease |
C.a new type of therapy | D.a large amount of stomach acid |
Occasionally, my father came back drunk. Late at night, he beat on the door, pleading to my mother to open it .He was on his way home from drinking, gambling, or some combination thereof, misspending money that we could have used and wasting time that we desperately needed.
It was the late-1970s. My parents were separated. My mother was now raising a group of boys on her own. My father spouted off about what he planned to do for us, buy for us.In fact, he had no intention of doing anything. As a father who was supposed to love us, in fact, he lacked the understanding of what it truly meant to love a child—or to hurt one. To him, this was a harmless game that kept us excited and begging. In fact, it was a cruel, corrosive lie. I lost faith in his words and in him. I wanted to stop caring, but I couldn’t.
Maybe it was his own complicated relationship to his father and his father’s family that caused him cold. Maybe it was the pain and guilt associated with a life of misfortune. Who knows. Whatever it was, it stole him from us, and particularly from me.
While my brothers talked about breaking and fixing things, I spent many of my evenings reading and wondering. My favorite books were a set of encyclopedias(百科全书) given by my uncle. They allowed me to explore the world beyond my world, to travel without leaving, to dream dreams greater than my life would otherwise have supported. But losing myself in my own mind also meant that I was completely lost to my father. Not understanding me, he simply ignored me—not just emotionally, but physically as well. Never once did he hug me, never once a pat on the back or a hand on the shoulder or a tousling of the hair.
My best memories of him were from his episodic attempts at engagement with us. During the longest of these episodes(插曲), once every month or two, he would come pick us up and drive us down the interstate to Trucker’s Paradise, a seedy, smoke-filled, truck stop with gas pumps, a convenience store, a small dining area and a game room through a door in the back. My dad gave each of us a handful of quarters, and we played until they were gone. He sat up front in the dining area, drinking coffee and being particular about the restaurant’s measly offerings.
I loved these days. To me, Trucker’s Paradise was paradise. The quarters and the games were fun but easily forgotten. It was the presence of my father that was most treasured. But, of course, these trips were short-lived.
It wasn’t until I was much older that I would find something that I would be able to cling to as evidence of my father’s love.
When the Commodore 64 personal computer debuted, I convinced myself that I had to have it even though its price was out of my mother’s range. So I decided to earn the money myself. I mowed every yard I could find that summer for a few dollars each, yet it still wasn’t enough. So my dad agreed to help me raise the rest of the money by driving me to one of the watermelon farms south of town, loading up his truck with wholesale melons and driving me around to sell them. He came for me before daybreak. We made small talk, but it didn’t matter. The fact that he was talking to me was all that mattered. I was a teenager by then, but this was the first time that I had ever spent time alone with him. He laughed and repeatedly introduced me as “my boy,” a phrase he relayed with a sense of pride. It was one of the best days of my life.
Although he had never told me that he loved me, I would cling to that day as the greatest evidence of that fact. He had never intended me any wrong. He just didn’t know how to love me right. He wasn’t a mean man. So I took these random episodes and clung to them like a thing most precious, storing them in my mind for the long stretches of coldness when a warm memory would prove most useful.
It just goes to show that no matter how friendless the father, no matter how deep the damage, no matter how shattered the bond, there is still time, still space, still a need for even the smallest bit of evidence of a father’s love.
“My boy.”
The underlined phrase “cling to” can be replaced by __________.
A.catch hold of | B.depend on |
C.stick to | D.keep |
Recently, the TV show “Where are we going, Dad?” produced by Hunan SatelliteTelevision is a big hit across nation. Many famous stars brought their children to a strange village alone, and they had to spend 72 hours with their children there. The program fully showed us a modern version of the “how to be a good father”. As the young parents today are too busy to take care of their children, this new form of “Lost on the way” played by nanny Daddy and cute kids triggered(触发)a lot of people’s emotional resonance(共鸣). Both the kids and their parents will find that their hearts are being drawn closer. But this kind of feeling has just proved that there is a big spiritual barrier between the modern parents and children.
The TV shows like “Children are hard to support!”, “Where are we going, Dad?”, “hot mom” and “cute kids” are becoming more and more popular. All of these show the new parents’ confusion in children’s education and the appeal for the balance between career and family.
In the real life, on the one hand the young parents feel helpless because they are too busy to accompany their children under the pressures of work and life; on the other hand they continue to do so. The data collected by HNTV shows that nearly two-thirds of their audience are female, among whom 36% are aged from 25 to 34.We can imagine such a scene that one evening a young mother is watching the show with her young children, while her husband is still at work or trapped in socializing, or maybe is just playing computer games in the bedroom. The story of a child without the company of father is still going on. In fact, it is sometimes the same to mothers. In a modern family, it is often the old who take the responsibility of raising a child. The participation of mother in the children’s education is also very low.
It is just this kind of confusion where the parents have gone in the modern family education, and where the parents will guide their children to go that “Where are we going, Dad?” shows us. If a child wants to grow up healthily and safely into a modern citizen with independent personality and free spirit, it is very important for him or her to follow the parents who serve as their first teacher. Maybe this is the real reason why such kind of TV programs could get hot. The truth is that children will go where their parents go; and society will go where the children go.
What does the underlined word “participation” probably mean?
A.taking responsibility | B.understanding |
C.taking part | D.keeping company |