As any housewives who has tried to keep order at the dinner table knows, there is far more to a family meal than food. Sociologist Michael Lewis has been studying 50 families to find out just how much more.
Lewis carried out his study by videotaping the families while they ate ordinary meals in their own homes. They found that parents with small families talk actively with each other and their children. But as the number of children gets larger, conversation gives way to the parents’ efforts to control the loud noise they make. That can have an important effect on the children. “In general the more question-asking the parents do, the higher the children’s IQ scores,” Lewis says. “And the more children there are, the less question-asking there is.”
The study also provides an explanation for why middle children often seem to have a harder time in life than their siblings. Lewis found that in families with three or four children, dinner conversation is likely to center on the oldest child, who has the most to talk about, and the youngest, who needs the most attention. “Middle children are invisible,” says Lewis. “When you see someone get up from the table and walk around during dinner, chances are it’s the middle child.” There is, however, one thing that stops all conversation and prevents anyone from having attention: “When the TV is on,” Lewis says, “dinner is nothing.”The writer’s purpose in writing the text is to _________.
| A．show the relationship between parents and children |
| B．teach parents ways to keep order at the dinner table |
| C．report on the findings of a study |
| D．give information about family problems |
By saying “Middle children are invisible” in paragraph 3, Lewis means that middle children _________.
| A．have to help their parents to serve dinner |
| B．get the least attention from the family |
| C．are often not allowed to come to the dinner table |
| D．find it hard to get along well with other children |
Which of the following statements would the writer agree to?
| A．Parents should talk to each of their children frequently. |
| B．It is a good idea to have the TV on during dinner. |
| C．It is important to have the right food for children. |
| D．Elder children should help the younger ones at dinner. |
He has vowed that he will not stop building his business until it is worth £100 million. But hard-working Owens can stop for at least a moment's celebration after making his first £1 million at the age of 16. Owens, who has used a computer since the age of seven, began teaching himself basic web design at the age of ten when he was given his first Mac computer. He used his pocket money to fund his first business project, website Mac Box Bundle at just 14 which has made £700,000 since its establishment in 2008. Mac Box Bundle sells a combination of popular Mac applications which are worth up to $400 together for under just $100 and donates 10 percent of the money to charities.
He then established an advertising company Branchr a year later and worked on the business after school and at weekends. Branchr made a surprising £500,000 in its first year. Branchr works as a platform for website owners to sell advertising.
Owens, from Northampton, currently employs eight staff---all adults--
-around the UK and America as sales and technical assistants. The young man lives with his parents. His mother who is a company secretary said he was inspired to go into business after observing the huge success achieved by Apple's chief executive officers(首席执行官) Steve Jobs.
Owens said, "I think everyone has business sense in them, and they just need to gain experience and be determined to make it. There is no magical formula(法则) for business, It takes hard work, determination and the drive to do something great. My aim is to become a leading name in the world of Internet and mobile advertising and push myself right to the top of the game.
The teenager insists his professional success has not affected his personal life, and says his interests include photography and playing the guitar. "My friends and I don't really talk about my success. To them I'm just a nor
mal teenager and it doesn't change anything between us." What can we know from Paragraph 1?
| A．Owens' company is worth £1 million now. |
| B．Owens learned to use computers at the age of 10. |
| C．Owens made £700,000 from Mac Box Bundle in 2008. |
| D．Owens is successful and enthusiastic about public welfare. |
From Paragraph 2 we know that Branchr _____________.
| A．takes up all Owens' spare time |
| B．offers a platform for advertising business |
| C．designs practical software for website owners |
| D．takes up advertising business for Nac Box Bundle |
Why did Owens come up with the idea of doing business?
| A．Because eight adults were ready to help. |
| B．Because it was easy to establish web companies. |
| C．Because his parents wanted him to have a try. |
| D．Because he drew inspiration from Steve jobs. |
Owens tends to think that ____________.
| A．every person has potential talent for business |
| B．getting experienced in business needs determination |
| C．it is hard work for people to decide to do something great. |
| D．he is sure to play a leading part in the world of the Internet. |
What do Ownes' friends think
about him?
| A．He sets a good example. | B．He does quite well in music. |
| C．He is a common school boy. | D．He puts friendship above anything else. |
How to improve my life? Many people think that they have to accept whatever life throws at them. They'll say, "This is my fate, my destiny. I cannot change it."
Of course not! You don't have to suffer needlessly. Your destiny depends on you, not on any other external factors.
I know someone wh
o says she just accepts what life gives her because she has done everything she can to improve it. Guess what her lifestyle is? She wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes back home, relaxes, chats with people, watches TV, then goes to sleep. Next day, the same routine cycle follows.
Huh! Is this what she calls "doing her best"? She believes she has tried her best and just accepts it in her heart that this is the life that God has intended for her to live; that her luck can only change if God wills it. Of course God wants us to be happy and live our life to the fullest, but we have to do our share of exerting(运用) the effort to live the life of our dreams.
Remember that you reap what you sow. You just don't sit around and wait for a million dollars to fall from the sky. You have to get off the couch, get your eyes off the TV screen, get your hands off the phone. Don’t expect your luck to change unless you do something about it. If something goes wrong, don't just regard it as a temporary setback; but use it as feedback. Learn your lesson, make the most of the situation, and do something to solve the problem. It's not enough to think positively; you also have to act positively.
If someone's life is in the trouble, do you just hope and pray that things will turn out fine? Of course not! You get to do anything you can to save the person. So it is with your own life. It is not enough to hope for the best, but you have to do your best. In other words, don't just stand (or sit ) there, do something to improve your life.According to the woman mentioned in Para.3, her life ____________.
| A．Doesn't need improving | B．couldn't be improved |
| C．will be better some day | D．Will be worse in the future |
What does the author think of the woman's life?
| A．positive | B．satisfying | C．colorful | D．passive |
Which of the following statements is the author's opinion?
| A．Your temporary problem is not discouraging. |
| B．Your luck can be changed by your efforts |
| C．You can only achieve success when God wills it. |
| D．You should treat yourself in the way you treat friends. |
In Para.5, the author emphasized the importance of _____________.
| A．positive action | B．positive thinking | C．hope for the best | D．intention to succeed |
The text is mainly written to advise you to ____________.
| A．understand yourself | B．improve your life |
| C．believe in yourself | D．change your normal way |
Sustainable development is applied to just about everything from energy to clean water and economic growth, and as a result it has become difficult to question either the basic assumptions behind it or the way the concept is put to use. This is especially true in agriculture, where sustainable development is often taken as the measure of progress without a proper appreciation of historical and cultural perspectives.
To start with, it is important to remember that the nature of agriculture has changed markedly throughout history, and will continue to do so. Medieval agriculture in northern Europe fed, clothed and sheltered a mainly rural society with a much lower population density than it is today. It had minimal effect on biodiversity, and any pollution it caused was typically localized. In terms of energy use and the nutrients captured in the product it was relatively inefficient.
Contrast this with farming since the start of the industrial revolution. Competition from overseas led farmers to specialize and increase yields. Throughout this period food became cheaper, safer and more reliable. However, these changes have also led to habitat loss and to reducing biodiversity.
All this means that agriculture in the 21st century will have to be very different from how it was in the 20th. This will require thorough thinking. For example, we need to move away from the idea that traditional practices are certainly more sustainable than new ones. We also need to abandon the notion that agriculture can be “zero impact”. The key will be to abandon the rather simple and static(稳定的)measures of sustainability, which centre on the need to maintain production without increasing damage. Instead we need a more dynamic interpretation, one that looks at the pros and cons of all the various way land is used. There are many different ways to measure agricultural performance besides food yield: energy use, environmental costs, water purity, carbon footprint and biodiversity. It is clear, for example, that the carbon of transporting tomatoes from Spain to the UK is less than that of producing them in the UK with additional heating and lighting. But we do not know whether lower carbon footprints will always be better for biodiversity.
What is important is recognizing that sustainable agriculture is not just about sustainable food production.How do people often measure progress in agriculture?
| A．By its impact on the environment | B．By its contribution to economic growth |
| C．By its productivity | D．By its sustainability |
Specialization and the effort to increase yields have resulted in.
| A．Localized pollution | B．The shrinking of farmland |
| C．the decrease of biodiversity | D．competition from overseas |
What does the author think of traditional farming practices?
| A．They are not necessarily sustainable | B．They have not kept pace with population growth |
| C．They have remained the same over the centuries | D．They are environmentally friendly |
What will agriculture be like in the 21st century?
| A．It will abandon traditional farming practices | B．It will mainly keep traditional farming |
| C．It will go through complete changes | D．It will cause zero damage to the environment |
What is the author’s purpose in writing this passage?
| A．To remind people of the need of sustainable development. |
| B．To urge people to rethink what sustainable agriculture is. |
| C．To advance new criteria for measuring farming progress. |
| D．To suggest ways of ensuring sustainable food production. |
I’ve been writing for most of my life. The book Writing Without Teachers introduced me to one distinction(区别)and one practice that has helped my writing processes tremendously. The distinction is between the creative mind and the critical mind. While you need to employ both to get to a finished result, they cannot work in parallel no matter how much we might like to think so.
Trying to criticize writing on the fly is possibly the single greatest barrier to writing that most of us encounter. If you are listening to that 5th grade English teacher correct your grammar while you are trying to capture a fleeting (稍纵即逝的) thought, the thought will die. If you capture the fleeting thought and simply share it with the world in raw form, no one is likely to understand. You must learn to create first and then criticize if you want to make writing the tool for thinking that it is.
The practice that can help you past your learned bad habits of trying to edit as you write is what Elbow calls “free writing.” In free writing, the objective is to get words down on paper non-stop, usually for 15-20 minutes. No stopping, no going back, no criticizing. The goal is to get the words flowing. As the words begin to flow, the ideas will come from the shadows and let themselves be captured on your notepad or your screen.
Now you have raw materials that you can begin to work with using the critical mind that you’ve persuaded to sit on the side and watch quietly. Most likely, you will believe that this will take more time than you actually have and you will end up staring blankly at the pages as the deadline draws near.
Instead of staring at a blank start filling it with words no matter how bad. Halfway through your available time, stop and rework your raw writing into something closer to finished product. Move back and forth until you run out of time and the final result will most likely be far better than your current practices.When the author says the creative mind and the critical mind “cannot work in parallel” in the writing process, he means .
| A．one cannot use them at the same time | B．they cannot be regarded as equally important |
| C．they are in constant conflict with each other | D．no one can be both creative and critical |
What prevents people from writing on is .
| A．putting their ideas in raw form | B．ignoring grammatical soundness |
| C．attempting to edit as they write | D．trying to capture fleeting thoughts |
What is the chief objective of the first stage of writing?
| A．To organize one’s thoughts logically. | B．To get one’s ideas down. |
| C．To choose an appropriate topic. | D．To collect raw materials. |
One common concern of writers about “free writing” is that .
| A．it overstresses the role of the creative mind | B．it does not help them to think clearly |
| C．it may bring about too much criticism | D．it takes too much time to edit afterwards |
In what way does the critical mind help the writer in the writing process?
| A．It allows him to sit on the side and observe. | B．It helps him to come up with new ideas. |
| C．It saves the writing time available to him. | D．It improves his writing into better shape. |
Many people take it for granted that black is a color of bad things while white should always mean something good. This may be because, in their opinion, black is related to darkness and white to purity. However, that is not always the case. Did you know that the same colour may mean differently in different places of the world?
In the English-speaking world, black is the colour of mourning. People wear black clothes at the funeral. Red is concerned with danger or bloodshed (流血). Yellow is the word for fear. If you are afraid, you are yellow. Yet none of these sayings is true outside the English-speaking world. In China and Korea white is the colour of mourning. In Russia, China and some other countries, red stands for beauty, life and excellence. In Italy and Germany, you are yellow with anger, not with fear.
Even within the English-speaking area it is not difficult to find colour contradictions. A redcap in the United States is a porter in a railway station. In Britain, however, a redcap is a military policeman. Both names are logical because both men wear red caps. Similarly, the British term for an American white collar worker is sometimes called a black-coated worker.
One does not have to cross an area to find colour differences. Would you rather be red-blooded? If we go back to the origin
, we find that both terms are logical as both names suggest. The expression "blueblood" comes from Spain, where some noble families 
proudly said that they had "blue blood". But then why "blue" blood? Because they were fairskinned, and it is only natural that their blood vessels (血管) stood out appearing blue.Yellow is concerned with anger in .
| A．Russia | B．China | C．Britain | D．Germany |
The two meanings of the term "redcap" form a difference in .
| A．pronunciation | B．logical relationship | C． custom | D．climate |
Both Britain and America would probably agree that .
| A．a black-coated worker is employed in an office | B．black is the color of mourning |
| C．red stands for beauty and excellence | D．a redcap is a porter in a station |
The best title for this passage is
| A．The Development of the Symbolic use of Colors | B．The Meaning Concerned With Certain Colors |
| C．Colors that Carry Bad Meanings | D．The Origin of Blue Blood. |
When some Spanish called themselves “blueblood”, they actually meant.
| A．they came from a noble family | B．their faces looked blue |
| C．they had blue blood in their vessels | D．they were fairskinned |