I worked hard for a whole week. So I decided to relax and went out of town with my son for the 1 . When we were walking on the street, we felt a little 2 . So we found a café and 3 to have lunch there. After we sat down at our table, I 4 an elderly couple having lunch at a table across the room. I must have looked over at them a few times because my son asked me if I 5 them. I shook my head and said no. But I told him that they 6 me of my own grandparents.
When the waitress came over, I asked her if she knew them. She said she did. She said it was the elderly man’s birthday today. On hearing this, I wanted to do something for them, so I told the 7 that I wanted to buy them the lunch and gave her the money.
Some time later, the elderly couple came over to 8 us. They were so excited that someone had bought them lunch. It was really a big 9 for them. They said that they had been a little 10 because their own son and daughter seemed to have 11 the old man’s birthday. But they were really cheered up by my 12 .
My son was surprised that I had paid for this couple who we didn’t know. He asked me why I did it. I smiled at him and replied that my grandparents used to go out for lunch to celebrate their birthdays in the same way and it just felt like the 13 thing to do to make this couple smile, 14 on their birthdays. Hearing my 15 , my son smiled.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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(评定) 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 to be stable 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 it can change the course of your life for the better．What is unnecessary in your job hunting?
| A．Assessing your skills |
| B．Going to different areas |
| C．Matching your skills with a position |
| D．Taking your personality into consideration |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．Isolating jobs usually drive people mad． |
| B．Interactive jobs make people shy easily． |
| C．Extreme people tend to work with others． |
| D．Almost everyone has a tendency in jobs． |
The underlined word in the passage means ________.
| A．not likely to move or change |
| B．calm, reasonable and not easy to upset |
| C．being in the same chemical state |
| D．a group of people working for the same company |
What is the best title for this passage?
| A．Lifestyles and Job Pay | B．Jobs and Environment |
| C．Job Skills and Abilities | D．Personalities and Jobs |
In elementary school, Guadalupe Quintanilla was often referred to as a “slow learner” by her teachers. But she really wasn’t slow at all. She just didn’t understand the language used in the classroom. Her problem was that she didn’t speak English. So she left school after the fourth grade.
When Guadalupe grew up, married, and had children of her own, she knew that her children were clever. But some of their teachers didn’t think so. The children were having trouble in school because they didn’t speak English. Mrs Quintanilla was angry. She didn’t want people to think that her children were slow learners. So she decided to learn English herself as a way of helping them. She practiced English. She looked up words in the dictionary. She asked the school headmaster to let her sit in on classes. It wasn’t easy, but she passed all her exams. She said that many of the other students helped her.
Mrs Quintanilla has helped her children with their lessons. Her two sons have won success. One is a teacher, and the other is a doctor. Her youngest child, a daughter, is studying in a university. Guadalupe was called as low learner .
| A．to make her study harder | B．because she wasn’t clever |
| C．because she stayed at home | D．because she didn’t speak English |
According to the story, children who don’t speak English .
| A．may have more trouble in school | B．have trouble playing football |
| C．often write a diary | D．grow up to be teachers |
Which happened first?
| A．Guadalupe passed all her exams. |
| B．Guadalupe left school after the fourth grade. |
| C．Guadalupe had three children. |
| D．Her two sons won success. |
The story is mainly about .
| A．learning to sing and dance | B．the problem of slow learning |
| C．going to a university | D．Mrs Quintanilla’s success |
Death Valley is a land of beautiful yet dangerous extremes. Death Valley can be dangerously cold during the winter months. Storms in the mountains can produce sudden flooding on the floor of the Valley.
The air temperature during the summer has been as high as fifty- seven degrees Celsius. The sun can heat the ground so that the temperature of the rocks and soil can be as high as seventy -four degrees Celsius.
Death Valley contains evidence of several ancient volcanoes that caused huge explosions. Evidence of one of these explosions is called Ubehebe Crater. The explosion left a huge hole in the ground almost a kilometer and a half wide. In many areas of Death Valley it is easy to see where the ground has been pushed up violently by movement deep in the Earth. This movement has created unusual and beautiful rock formations. Some are red. Others are dark brown, gray, yellow or black.
The area was named by a woman in 1849. Thousands of people from other parts of the ountry traveled to the gold mining areas in California. They were in a hurry to get there before other people did. One group trying to reach California decided to take a path called the Old Spanish Trail. By December they had reached Death Valley. They did not have to survive the terrible heat of summer, but there was still an extreme lack of water. There were few plants for their work animals to eat.
The people could not find a pass through the tall mountains to the west of the Valley, Slowly, they began co suffer from a lack of food. To survive, they killed their work animals for food and began to walk out of the Valley. As they left, one woman looked back and said, "Good -bye, death valley. ” The name has never been changed.
Almost everyone who visits Death Valley visits a huge house called Scotty' s Castle. The building design is Spanish, with high thick walls to provide protection from the fierce heat.
The castle is named for Walter Scott , called Scotty. by his friends. He was a gold miner. He told everyone that he built the house with money he made from his gold mine. Many people believed him. But it was not really the truth. The first two paragraphs discuss Death Valley' s ________.
| A．geography | B．climate | C．location | D．size |
The volcanoes mentioned in the third paragraph proved ________.
| A．a valley that is formed by explosions | B．a place where volcanoes are still active |
| C．a good example of the violence of nature | D．a symbol of rock formations in history |
The woman who named Death Valley intended to ________.
| A．explore the mystery of the valley | B．find an area with plants for animals |
| C．experience the terrible heat of summer | D．look for gold in California |
If the passage continues, it will be about ________.
| A．the truth about Scotty's Castle | B．why Spanish built the castle |
| C．when the castle was built | D．where the castle lies in |
The main idea of the passage is about ________.
| A．the interesting place in Death Valley | B．the facts about Death Valley |
| C．the origin of Death Valley | D．the route to visit Death Valley |
When you get in your car, you reach for it. When you're at work, you take a break to have a moment alone with it. When you get into a lift, you play with it.
Cigarette? Cup of coffee? No, it's the third most addictive thing in modem life, the cell phone. And experts say it is becoming more difficult for many people to curb their longing to hug it more tightly than most of their personal relationships.
The costs are becoming more and more evident, and I don't mean just the monthly bill. Dr. Chris Knippers, a counselor at the Betty ford Center in Southern California, reports that the overuse of cell phones has become a social problem not much different from other harmful addictions: a barrier to one-on-one personal contact, and an escape from reality. Sounds extreme, but we' ve all witnessed the evidence: The person at a restaurant who talks on the phone through an entire meal, ignoring his kids around the table; the woman who talks on the phone in the car, ignoring her husband; the teen who texts messages all the way home from school, avoiding contact with kids all around him. Jim Williams, an industrial sociologist based in Massachusetts, notes that cell - phone addiction is part of a set of symptoms in a widening gulf of personal separation. He points to a study by Duke University researchers that found one-quarter of Americans say they have no one to discuss their most important personal business with. Despite the growing use of phones, e - mail and instant messaging, in other words, Williams says studies show that we don't have as many friends as our parents. " Just as more information has led to less wisdom, more acquaintances via the Internet and cell phones have produced fewer friends," he says.
If the cell phone has truly had these effects, it's because it has become very widespread. Consider that in 1987, there were only l million cell phones in use. Today, something like 300 million Americans carry them. They far outnumber wired phones in the United States. From the first two paragraphs, we can know________.
| A．cell phones have become as addictive as cigarettes |
| B．cell phone addiction is good for building personal relationships |
| C．people are longing to have their own cell phones |
| D．cell phones are the same as cigarettes |
Cell phone addiction has caused the following effects EXCEPT________ .
| A．a barrier to personal contact | B．fewer friends |
| C．an escape from reality | D．a serious illness |
The underlined word "curb" in Paragraph 2 means “________. ”
| A．ignore | B．control | C．develop | D．rescue |
The example of a woman talking on the phone in the car supports the idea that________ .
| A．women Use cell phones more often than men |
| B．talking on the phone while driving is dangerous |
| C．cell phones do not necessarily bring people together |
| D．cell phones make one - on - one personal contact easy |
Which of the following is the best title for the passage?
| A．Cell phones Are the New Cigarettes |
| B．Cell phones Are Harmful to the Society |
| C．The New Report about the Cell phone |
| D．The Disadvantages of the Cell phone |
Not long ago the movie 2012 came into screen. The people were threatened by those scenes of destroying flood, severe earthquake, terrifying hurricane and constructions representing human civilization being destroyed and even swallowed by disaster. Luckily, they are just the director' s imagination, but the present situation is not heading a positive direction, either.
Take my own experience in Alaska as an example. Once I took a trip to the glacier. Along the way there stood signposts marking the snow lines of different years. They started from the foot of the mountain, but it was at the top when I finally saw melting glaciers(融化的冰川). My heart ached seeing the beautiful blue ice melting at every second.
Sad but true, they are the effects of global warming and the result of our human impact. Furthermore, each year the rising sea level will kill 56 million people, and that’s about the population of the entire Italy. According to studies, if the temperature keeps on rising like this, by the year 2050, some islands and coastal cities including New York, Shanghai, Tokyo and Sydney will be drowned in water.
Our fortune is in our own hands. It depends on us to shape our future, to reduce future human impact and find ways to form a peaceful relationship with our environment. Therefore, it's time for actions to be taken right now. Contribute a little to energy saving by using more efficient light bulbs and less hot water. Let recycle become our habit by thinking twice before throwing something away. Let us take public transportation as our first choice when going to a certain place. It might cost more time for now, but it' s to the benefit of a permanent future. Take care of every tree and grass around us by watering them or simply just avoid destroying them.
In a word, small drops of water make a big ocean. The earth does not belong to us. On the contrary, we belong to the earth. Please bear in mind that the earth is our home. It is our responsibility to build a brighter and better future of our planet and prevent what happened in the movie 2012 from becoming reality. Why does the author talk about the movie 2012 in the passage ?
| A．To give example. | B．To lead into the topic. |
| C．To make prediction. | D．To provide the evidence. |
How did the author feel when he took a trip to the glacier?
| A．Worried. | B．Puzzled. | C．Scared. | D．Bored. |
It can be inferred from the third paragraph that________ .
| A．56 million people in Italy have been killed owing to the rising sea level |
| B．Some islands and coastal cities will be drowned in water by the year of 2050 |
| C．Human being will be in danger if we don't take actions to prevent the global warming |
| D．It is certain that what happened in the movie 2012 will come into reality |
According to the passage, you are advised to ________.
| A．drive our own private cars instead of taking buses to some place |
| B．recycle everything that is used |
| C．go to see the movie 2012 at once |
| D．work together to take good care of our planet |
What does the author mean by saying "small drops of water make a big ocean"?
| A．Think twice before taking action. |
| B．It's our duty to protect the ocean. |
| C．Everyone together can make a difference. |
| D．It's important to save every drop of water. |