It is pretty much a one-way street. While it may be common for university researchers to try their luck in the commercial world, there is very little traffic in the opposite direction. Pay has always been the biggest deterrent, as people with families often feel they cannot afford the drop in salary when moving to a university job. For some industrial scientists, however, the attractions of academia (学术界) are more important than any financial considerations.
Helen Lee took a 70% cut in salary when she moved from a senior post in Abbott Laboratories to a medical department at the University of Cambridge. Her main reason for returning to academia in the middle of her career was to take advantage of the greater freedom to choose research questions.
The effect of a salary cut is probably less serious for a scientist in the early stages of a career. Guy Grant, now a research associate at the Unilever Centre for Molecular Informatics at the University of Cambridge, spent two years working for a pharmaceutical (制药的) company before returning to university as a post-doctoral(博士后的) researcher. He took a 30% salary cut but felt it worthwhile for the greater intellectual opportunities.
Higher up the ladder, where a pay cut is usually more significant, the demand for scientists with a wealth of experience in industry is forcing universities to make the transition (转换) to academia more attractive, according to Lee. Industrial scientists tend to receive training that academics do not, such as how to manage budgets and negotiate contracts. They are also well placed to bring something extra to their teaching that will help students get a job when they graduate, says Lee, perhaps experience in manufacturing practice or product development. “Only a small number of undergraduates will continue in an academic career. So someone leaving university who already has the skills needed to work in an industrial lab has far more potential in the job market than someone who has spent all their time on a narrow research project.”By “a one-way street” (Line 1, Para. 1), the author means ______.
A.university researchers know little about the commercial world |
B.there is little exchange between industry and academia |
C.few industrial scientists would quit to work in a university |
D.few university professors are willing to do industrial research |
The underlined word “deterrent” (Line 3, Para. 1) most probably refers to something that ______.
A.keeps someone from taking action |
B.encourages someone to succeed |
C.attracts people’s attention |
D.brings someone a financial burden |
What was Helen Lee’s major consideration when she changed her job in the middle of her career?
A.Flexible working hours. | B.Her research interests. |
C.Peaceful life on campus. | D.Her fame in academia. |
What contribution can industrial scientists make when they come to teach in a university?
A.Increase its graduates’ competitiveness in the job market. |
B.Develop its students’ potential in research. |
C.Help to get financial support from industry. |
D.Get more students interested in the field of industry. |
James Blunt is one of the most popular singers in the UK. His first album, Back to Bedlam, and his number one hit, You’re Beautiful, brought him fame in 2005. His music is a mix of pop, rock and folk.
Blunt comes to China for the first time this month, he will hold two concerts, one in Beijing and one in Shanghai on April 18 and 19 respectively.
Blunt, 34, took an unusual path to stardom. His father was a soldier and so was his grandfather.
“The only music he heard growing up was Happy Birthday and Silent Night. His father considered all music, even classical, to be unnecessary noise,” reads Blunt’s official website.
Even though Blunt did not want to join the military, he eventually followed his father’s wishes, and served as a soldier in Kosovo on peacekeeping duty.
“Like any parents, mine wanted me to have a secure job with a regular wage and career prospects,” Blunt said. “And the one job my father knew of, that he’d had experience of himself, was the army, so he could help me in that direction.”
Blunt eventually became a Captain. One of his final duties in the army before retirement was carrying the coffin (棺材) at the funeral of the Queen Mother of England in 2002.
But Blunt couldn’t escape his love for music. So, after leaving the British Army he moved to Los Angeles and worked on his first album. While in LA, Blunt lived with the actress Carrie Fisher, who played the lead female role in the Star Wars movie. He recorded his song, Goodbye My Lover, in his bathroom, where he kept a piano.
Blunt took his new album back to England where it was not very successful. But he kept performing and eventually his song, You’re Beautiful, became a number one hit.
Now Blunt has won numerous awards, sold millions of records and dated super models.
But his greatest accomplishment might be that his father now enjoys music!
1. All of the following belong to Blunt EXCEPT _____________.
A. Back to Bedlam B. Silent Night
C. Goodbye My Lover D. You’re Beautiful
2. Which of the following proves “Blunt took an unusual path to stardom”?
A. Blunt was 34 when he became famous.
B. Blunt recorded his most famous song in a bathroom.
C. Blunt’s father wanted him to have a secure job.
D. Blunt began to pursue a career in music after military service.
3. We can infer from the passage that _____________.
A. Blunt is living in Los Angeles at present
B. Blunt rose to fame two years after he left the army
C. Blunt became successful immediately he recorded his first song
D. Blunt has changed his father’s attitude towards music
4. What is the passage mainly about?
A. Blunt’s visit to China.B. Blunt’s military life.
C. How Blunt became famous. D. How Blunt’s father fell in love with music.
Would you eat a ready meal from the fridge rather than cook by yourself? Have you been doing Internet shopping rather than going to the stores? What can't you be bothered to do?
A study into how lazy British people are has found more than half of the adults are so idle (懒散的) that they'd catch the lift rather than climb two flights of stairs.
Just over 2000 people were quizzed by independent researchers at Nuffield Health, Britain's largest health center. The results were extremely surprising.
About one in six people questioned said if their remote control was broken, they would continue watching the same channel rather than get up.
More than one third of those questioned said they would not run to catch a bus. Worryingly, of the 654 respondents with children, 64% said they were often too tired to play with them.
This led the report to conclude that it's no wonder that one in six children in the UK are classified as obese (very fat) before they start school.
Dr Sarah Dauncey, medical director of Nuffield Health, said, “People need to get fitter, not just for their own sake, but for the sake of their families, friends and evidently (明显地;显然) their pets too.”
“If we don't start to take control of this problem, a whole generation will become too unfit to perform even the most fundamental tasks.”
And Scotland's largest city, Glasgow, was shamed as the most idle city in the UK, with 75% questioned admitting they do not get enough exercise, followed closely by Birmingham and Southampton, both with 67%.
The results bring serious challenges for the National Health Service, where obesity-related illnesses such as heart disease and cancer have been on a steady increase for the past 40 years and are costing billions of pounds every year.
1. How many people questioned don't play with their children?
A. 1280. B. More than 333. C. 654. D. About 420.
2. The study leads us to believe that _____________.
A. the pets in the UK will be in trouble if their owners keep their way of life
B. Glasgow people feel ashamed because they don't get enough exercise
C. British people are the laziest around the world
D. five sixths of the British children are healthy
3. How does the author convince the readers?
A. By presenting the results of a study. B. By providing answers to questions.
C. By interviewing some experts. D. By telling a story.
4. What is the passage mainly about?
A. A study of British people's laziness. B. A study of British people's lifestyles.
C. The health service in the UK. D. The obesity problem in the UK.
Read the following reviews for movies that are showing at the moment. And then answer questions.
Happiness(Romance)★★★★
Happiness tells the story of two people(Lisa Turbot and Danny Roy)who work for different advertising companies. They talk on the phone all the time and don't like each other. But then they correspond by e-mail and fall in love. This movie will be very popular with teenagers and people who like romances. It also has beautiful music.
I Scream(Thriller)★★
In I Scream, Paul(Colin Jacks)is a young man who joins a thriller club. Each of the members tries to frighten the others. Paul is told to stay in an old house for the night. Everyone who has tried to stay in the house before has died. This movie is very frightening but also quite silly. It doesn't make sense for Paul to stay in the house when things start to go wrong. Only for people who like thrillers.
Paul's Heroes(Comedy)★★★
This is a very funny war movie set in World War Two. Six soldiers(including Sammy Turblow)have to get to Italy to take secret messages to the American army there. During the movie, they dress up as women and fight with Italian workers. You can guess the ending, but it's great fun getting there.
_____________(Drama)★★★★
This is a very good drama with Jack Ross, who plays a hard-working truck driver. His wife becomes ill and he has to find a doctor who can help her. In his travels he meets Dr. Lloyd(Phil Driver)who has found the cure for the illness, but Jack Ross has only twelve hours to get the medicine back to his wife on the other side of America. This is an excellent movie, which is very exciting.
1. Which of the four movies is the least popular with people?
A. The 1st one. B. The 2nd one. C. The 3rd one. D. The 4th one.
2. The underlined word "correspond" can be replaced by _____________.
A. date B. exchange C. write D. communicate
3. A thriller is most probably a film which tells something _____________.
A. frightening B. instructive C. humorous D. interesting
4. Which of the following is the best title for the fourth film?
A. A Hard-working Truck Driver B. Medicine
C. A Strange Illness D. Twelve Hours
第三部分阅读理解(共15小题;每小题2分,满分30分)
请认真阅读下列短文,从短文后各题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中,选出最佳选项,并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
At present, in many American cities especially, many teachers in the public schools say they are underpaid. They point to jobs such as secretary or truck driver, which often pay more to start than that of a teacher. In many other fields, such as law, medicine, computer science, a beginning worker may make more than a teacher who has taught for several years.
Teaching has never been a profession that attracted people interested in high salaries. It is by history a profession that has provided rewards in addition to money—the satisfaction of sharing knowledge, of influencing others, of guiding young people. But in the past several years, there are more difficulties in teaching, for many, than there are rewards.
Unruly(蛮横的)students, especially in big cities, large classes and a lack of support from the public in terms of money and understanding have led many public school teachers to leave the profession.
As a result, many of the best students, who would have chosen teaching as their life career in the past, are going into other fields.
Another reason for this change in teacher candidates is the changing status(地位)of women in the United States. Until the late 1960s and 1970s, one of the most popular choices for women was teaching. But as other professions, such as law and medicine opened up to women, women stopped pouring into teacher training programs. Thus, a major pool of excellent candidates for the teaching profession dwindled (减少;缩小).
Bit by bit government officials and others realized that the status of the teacher had suffered. They talked about change. But the change in a vast society like the United States is not easy. People’s attitudes have formed over many years, and sometimes change takes many years.
1. The underlined word “that” in Paragraph 1 refers to “_____________”.
A. money B. job C. secretary D. truck driver
2. What is the present situation of the teaching?
A. Teachers work harder and get underpaid.
B. Teachers have no opportunities to work in other fields.
C. Teaching can attract best students to work as a teacher.
D. Teaching can provide rewards as well as high salaries.
3. Many public school teachers turn to other professions because _____________.
A. the government doesn’t financially support them
B. they have to work longer hours than a lawyer
C. their students refuse to listen to them
D. they are not fairly treated
Among rich countries , people in the United States work the longest hours. They work much longer than in Europe. This difference is quite surprising because productivity per hour worked is the same in the United States as it is in France, Spain and Germany, and it is growing at a similar speed.
In most countries and at most times in history, as people have become richer they have chosen to work less. In other words they have decided to “spend” a part of their extra income on a fuller personal life. Over the last fifty years Europeans have continued this pattern, and hours of work have fallen sharply. But not in the United States. We do not fully know why this is. One reason may be more satisfying work, or less satisfying personal lives.
Longer hours do of course increase the GDP (国内生产总值). So the United States has produced more per worker than, say, France. The United States also has more of its people at work, while in France many more mothers and older workers have decided to stay at home. The overall result is that American GDP per head is 40% higher than in France, even though productivity per hour worked is the same.
It is not clear which of the two situations is better. As we have seen, work has to be compared with other values like family life, which often get lost in interest. It is too early to explain the different trends(趋势)in happiness over time in different countries. But it is a disappointing idea that in the United States happiness has made no progress since 1975, while it has risen in Europe. Could this have anything to do with trends in the work-life balance (平衡) ?
1.From the text we know that the author _____.
A. believes that longer working hours is better
B. prefers shorter working hours to longer ones
C. says nothing certain about which pattern is better
D. thinks neither of the patterns is good
2.Which of the following countries has more of its people at work?
A. Spain. B. France. C. Germany. D. America.
3.In the last paragraph, the underlined word “which” refers to_______.
A. family life B. situations C. other values D. trends
4.What message can we get from the text?
A. The GDP of Europe is higher than that of America.
B. Two possible reasons are given for working longer hours in the US.
C. People all over the world choose to work less when they are richer.
D. Americans are happier than Europeans.
5.Which of the following would be the best title for the text?
A. Americans and Europeans B. Staying at Home
C. Work and Productivity D. Work and Happiness