Combining families with kids can be tough and offers even more unexpected problems. You just don’t know how things will shake out until everyone is under one roof, trying on new roles with name that start with “step”. This is what happened to Sheila and Will, and Sheila’s 8-year-old daughter Ashley. After the couple got married, and Will became the member of the new family, things got worse than expected. How did they make it work? Read the full version of the story here.
Shelia’s Turn: When Shelia and Will were dating, he seemed like kids, especially Ashley. He’d bring her presents, play games with her. But after the wedding, things took a turn. Will suddenly became a super strict stepfather, scolding Ashley for watching too much cartoons, constantly picking fights and punishing her for offenses as small as spilling milk. Shelia’s thought about leaving Will, but soon after they married, they had a son, Billy. Will adores his well-behaved boy, but Ashley hates him. Shelia doesn’t know what to do--- her daughter is miserable, but leaving her husband might mean losing her son.
Will’s turn: Will was so excited to be a male role model in Ashley’s life. He didn’t just want to be a guy living in her house; he wanted to treat her like his own daughter, which, to Will, meant giving Ashley more rules and help her learn responsibility. He’d always felt that Shelia let Ashley loose on everything. But after the wedding, Will was surprised that Shelia didn’t want him to do that. If Will takes away Ashley’s TV privileges or tells her to clean up her room, Shelia just lets Ashley do what she likes and does it herself. Will was tired of this and he’d rather take his son and go.
The advisor’s turn: The counselor(顾问) quickly recognized their conflict as a classic case of unspoken, hidden expectations. Before the wedding, when it was just Shelia and Will, everything was easy. But now, everyone in their big family is competing for attention, and the couple never sat down and discussed the biggest issue---their child-upbringing philosophies(育儿经). The counselor suggested Shelia allow Will to give some rules on Ashley but Will’s punishments couldn’t be extreme. Once Ashley saw that her mom and stepdad had become a united front, she cooperated more.The text is most likely to be found in a book about______.
| A．popular science | B．historical events |
| C．social problems | D．political systems |
The reasons for Ashley’s dislike of Will are as follows except_____?
| A．Will often picked fights with Ashley. |
| B．Ashley often spilled milk on the floor. |
| C．Will always punished her for bad behaviors. |
| D．Ashley was stopped watching too many cartoons. |
What can we know about Will?
| A．Will has a good intention. |
| B．Will does not love children |
| C．Will does not love Shelia any more |
| D．Will’s way of parenting is very perfect. |
It can be inferred from the passage that the advisor’s attitude to their problem?
| A．Negative | B．Objective | C．Critical | D．. Subjective |
In the kitchen of my mother's houses there has always been a wooden stand with a small notepad and a hole for a pencil.
I’m looking for paper on which to note down the name of a book I am recommending to my mother. Over forty years since my earliest memories of the kitchen pad and pencil, five houses later, the current paper and pencil look the same as they always did. Surely it can't be the same pencil. The pad is more modern, but the wooden stand is definitely the original one.
“I'm just amazed you still have the same stand for holding the pad and pencil after all these years.” I say to her, walking back into the living-room with a sheet of paper and the pencil. “You still use a pencil. Can’t you afford a pen?”
My mother replies a little sharply. “It works perfectly well. I've always kept the stand in the kitchen. I never knew when I might want to note down an idea, and I was always in the kitchen these days. ”
Immediately I can picture her, hair wild, blue housecoat covered in flour, a wooden spoon in one hand, the pencil in the other, her mouth moving silently. My mother smiles and says, “One day I was cooking and watching baby Pauline, and I had a brilliant thought, but the stand was empty. One of the children must have taken the paper. So I just picked up the breadboard and wrote it all down on the back. It turned out to be a real breakthrough for solving the mathematical problem I was working on.”
This story—which happened before I was born—reminds me how extraordinary my mother was, and is also a gifted mathematician. I feel embarrassed that I complain about not having enough child-free time to work. Later, when my mother is in the bathroom, I go into her kitchen and turn over the breadboards. Sure enough, on the back of the smallest one, are some penciled marks I recognize as mathematics. Those symbols have traveled unaffected through fifty years, rooted in the soil of a cheap wooden breadboard, invisible exhibits at every meal. Why has the author's mother always kept the notepad and pencil in the kitchen?
| A．To leave messages. |
| B．To list her everyday tasks. |
| C．To note down maths problems. |
| D．To write down a flash of inspiration（灵感）. |
What is the author's original opinion about the wooden stand?
| A．It has great value for the family. |
| B．It needs to be replaced by a better one. |
| C．It brings her back to her lonely childhood. |
| D．It should be passed on to the next generation. |
The author feels embarrassed for ______.
| A．blaming her mother wrongly |
| B．giving her mother a lot of trouble |
| C．not making good use of time as her mother did |
| D．not making any breakthrough in her field |
What can be inferred from the last paragraph?
| A．The mother is successful in her career. |
| B．The family members like traveling. |
| C．The author had little time to play when young. |
| D．The marks on the breadboard have disappeared. |
In the author's mind, her mother is ______.
| A．strange in behavior |
| B．enthusiastic about her research |
| C．fond of collecting old things |
| D．careless about her appearance |
Want to travel as cheaply as possible while enjoying the great scenery as much as you like?
Backpacking is the way. As the most popular traveling choice among young western people, backpacking allows you to travel at your own free will. Carrying a tent, sleeping bag and clothes, backpackers also need to pack an attitude that will help them deal with many mental and physical challenges.
It is a thrill to put our ability to test and challenge ourselves with sorts of difficulties we might come across. So, backpacking is something young people can hardly deny.
Young people in Europe often travel around by train. Now, with plane tickets dropping in price, more are traveling to distant countries, such as Australia and China. And some just travel within their own countries.
But no matter where a backpacker travels, planning in advance is important if he or she wants to enjoy the trip.
Clothing
In summer, light, waterproof clothes are best. Backpackers must remember to travel lightly and not pack too many clothes.
Medicine
There are many medicines, especially for summer, such as those for sunstroke, snake bites and mosquitoes. Others are useful in every season, such as those for common colds, poisoning and diarrhea.
Cards
Three types of cards are of great value for backpacks: student Identity Card, personal ID and a credit card.
A student ID card can be helpful for saving money. It often gets train tickets and entrance tickets for cheaper prices in many Western countries.
Personal ID card can, not only get you out of trouble with local police, but also prove useful in all sorts of other situations.
Carrying a credit card can be a safe way of carrying money, as cash can easily get lost, stolen or wet.
And of course, don’t forget to enjoy your trip!What does the underlined sentence mean?
| A．Backpackers also need to be in high spirits when they want to travel. |
| B．Backpackers may also face dangerous situations. |
| C．Backpackers also need to talk with doctors about their traveling. |
| D．Backpackers need to make preparation for many kinds of difficulty in advance. |
What does the underlined word “waterproof” mean?
| A．Easy to wash. | B．Not letting water go through. | C．Washed without water. | D．Used in water. |
If you are stopped by a policeman in the street, you should show ______ to the police.
| A．your student ID | B．your credit card | C．your personal ID | D．your passport |
What is of most advantage to backpackers?
| A．They can travel very easily. |
| B．They won’t worry about where to live. |
| C．They can have the chance to take some adventures. |
| D．They can take some physical exercise. |
What is the author’s purpose to write this passage?
| A．To give some ideas about traveling. |
| B．To encourage the young to travel. |
| C．To tell people how to avoid something unpleasant. |
| D．To offer some useful advice for traveling. |
He was the baby with no name. Found and taken from the north Atlantic 6 days after the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, his tiny body so moved the rescue workers that they called him “our baby.” In their home port of Halifax, Nova Scotia, people collected money for a headstone in front of the baby's grave, carved with the words: “To the memory of an unknown child.” He has rested there ever since.
But history has a way of uncovering its secrets. On Nov. 5, this year, three members of a family from Finland arrived at Halifax and laid fresh flowers at the grave. “This is our baby,” says Magda Schleifer, 68, a banker. She grew up hearing stories about a great aunt named Maria Panula, 42, who had sailed on the Titanic for America to be reunited with her husband. According to the information Mrs. Schleifer had gathered, Maria gave up her seat on a lifeboat to search for her five children -- including a 13-month-old boy named Eino, from whom she had become separated during the final minutes of the crossing. "We thought they were all lost in the sea," says Schleifer.
Now, using the teeth and bone pieces taken from the baby's grave, scientists have compared the DNA from the unknown child with those collected from members of five families who lost relatives on the Titanic and never recovered the bodies. The result of the test points only to one possible person: young Eino. Now, the family sees no need for a new grave. "He belongs to the people of Halifax," says Schleifer. "They've taken care of him for 100 years."The baby travelled on the Titanic with his_______.
| A．mother | B．parents | C．aunt | D．relatives |
What is probably the boy's last name?
| A．Schleiferi | B．Eino. | C．Magda. | D．Panula. |
Some members of the family went to Halifax and put flowers at the child's grave on Nov. 5 _______.
| A．1912 | B．1954 | C．2012 | D．2004 |
Which of the following is closest in meaning to the underlined word recover?
| A．uncover | B．find | C．bury | D．gather |
This text is mainly about how______________.
| A．the unknown baby's body was taken from the north Atlantic |
| B．the unknown baby was buried in Halifax, Nova Scotia |
| C．people found out who the unknown baby was |
| D．people took care of the unknown baby for 100 years |
Have you ever picked a job based on the fact that you were good at it but later found it made you feel very uncomfortable over time? When you select your career, there's a whole lot more to it than assessing your skills and matching them with a particular position. If you ignore your personality, it will hurt you long-term regardless of your skills or the job's pay. There are several areas of your personality that you need to consider to help you find a good job. Here are a few of those main areas;
1) Do you prefer working alone or with other people?
There are isolating（使孤立）jobs that will drive an outgoing person crazy and also interactive jobs that will make a shy person uneasy. Most people are not extremes in either direction but do have a tendency that they prefer. There are also positions that are sometimes a combination of the two, which may be best for someone in the middle who adapts easily to either situation.
2) How do you handle change?
Most jobs these days have some elements of change to them, but some are more than others. If you need stability in your life, you may need a job where the changes don't happen so often. Other people would be bored of the same daily routine.
3) Do you enjoy working with computers？
I do see this as a kind of personality characteristic. There are people who are happy to spend more than 40 hours a week on a computer, while there are others who need a lot of human interaction throughout the day. Again, these are extremes and you'll likely find a lot of positions somewhere in the middle as well.
4) What type of work environment do you enjoy？
This can range from being in a large building with a lot of people you won't know immediately to a smaller setting where you'll get to know almost all the people there fairly quickly.
5) How do you like to get paid?
Some people are motivated by the pay they get, while others feel too stressed to be like that. The variety of payment designs in the sales industry is a typical example for this.
Anyway, these are a great starting point for you. I've seen it over and over again with people that they make more money over time when they do something they love. It may take you a little longer, but making a move to do what you have a passion for can change the course of your life for the better.Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．Isolating jobs usually drive people mad. |
| B．Almost everyone has a tendency in jobs. |
| C．Interactive jobs make people shy easily. |
| D．Extreme people tend to work with others. |
What does the underlined sentence in paragraph one mean?
| A．Before you select your job, you should assess your skills and match them with your position |
| B．You should ignore your skills when you select job. |
| C．Nothing is important than assessing skills and match them with the position when you select job. |
| D．There are more important things than assessing skills and match them with the position when you select job. |
What is the missing word about a job search in the following chart?
| A．Design. | B．Changes. | C．Cooperation. | D．Hobbies. |
What is the best title for this passage?
| A．Lifestyles and Job Pay | B．Jobs and Environment |
| C．Personalities and Jobs | D．Job Skills and Abilities |
Nuclear power’s danger to health, safety, and even life itself can be summed up in one word: radiation.
Nuclear radiation has a certain mystery about it, partly because it cannot be detected by human senses. It can’t be seen or heard, or touched or tasted, even though it may be all around us. There are other things like that. For example, radio waves are all around us but we can’t detect them, sense them, without a radio receiver. Similarly, we can’t sense radioactivity without a radiation detector. But unlike common radio waves, nuclear radiation is not harmless to human beings and other living things.
At very high levels, radiation can kill an animal or human being immediately by killing masses of cells in vital organs. But even the lowest levels can do serious damage. There is no levels of radiation that is completely safe. If the radiation does not hit anything important, the damage may not be serious. This is the case when only a few cells are hit, and if they are killed immediately, your body will replace the dead cells with healthy ones. But if the few cells are only damaged, and if they reproduce themselves, you may be in trouble. They can grow into cancer. Sometimes this does not show up for many years.
This is another reason for some of the mystery about nuclear radiation. Serious damage can be done without the victim being aware at the time that damage has occurred. A person can be irradiated（辐射）and feel fine, then die for cancer five, ten, or twenty years later as a result. Or a child can be born weak as a result of radiation absorbed by its grandparents.
Radiation can hurt us. We must know the truth.What is the main idea of the passage?
| A．How to detect nuclear radiation. |
| B．How radiation kill a man. |
| C．The mystery about nuclear radiation. |
| D．Serious damage caused by nuclear radiation. |
Which of the following statements is true?
| A．Nuclear radiation can cause cancer to human beings. |
| B．Nuclear radiation can be safe to human beings if its level is low. |
| C．Nuclear radiation can be detected by human senses. |
| D．Nuclear radiation is just like common radio waves. |
What is not the reason why nuclear radiation has a certain mystery?
| A．The hurt cells can stay in the body many years and then grow into cancer. |
| B．It can do harm to a person while the victim isn't aware the damage has occurred. |
| C．Nuclear radiation can kill a person very easily. |
| D．Radiation can seldom kill a person immediately. |
If a human being is hit by nuclear radiation, he may _______.
| A．die of cancer after many years | B．die immediately |
| C．have a child who may be born weak | D．all of the above |