Americans who volunteer for the Peace Corps get a chance to help improve lives in developing countries. They also get a chance to learn more about the world, and about themselves. This week this program is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
President John Kennedy established the Peace Corps soon after he took office in 1961. It was the time of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. The new program gave Americans a chance to answer the call to service that the president made in his inaugural(就职的)speech. “Ask not what your country can do for you,” he said. “Ask what you can do for your country.” Kennedy told Peace Corps volunteers that America’s image in the countries where they were going would depend largely on them.
On August 30th, 1961, the first group of 51 Peace Corps volunteers arrived in Accra, Ghana, to serve as teachers. They had agreed to work for almost no pay. They would spend two years in Ghana helping its people and learning the reality of life in a developing country. Most of the volunteers had just completed college. About half of them taught English or health care. In the 50 years since then, more than 200，000 Americans have served as Peace Corps volunteers. They have worked in 139 countries.
The Peace Corps is a government agency that was created to promote world peace and friendship. There are three goals: First, to help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women. Second, to help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the people served. And, third. to help promote a better understanding of other people on the part of Americans.
Today, the Peace Corps has more than 8,000 volunteers and trainees in 77 countries. They work in agriculture, economic development, education, the environment and health care. Some work in programs related to youth development.
Sixty percent of current Peace Corps volunteers are women. The average age of a volunteer is 28. But the ages of Peace Corps volunteers range from 18 to 86. Some Americans join the Peace Corps after they retire. Today seven percent of volunteers are over the age of 50. And 19 percent are members of minority groups. Volunteers for the Peace Corps can _______.
| A．improve their abilities by learning in some developed countries |
| B．travel to many foreign countries to learn more about the world |
| C．have an opportunity to help all the people in developing countries |
| D．contribute to lives in developing countries and develop themselves |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the text?
| A．Volunteers served as teachers to work for no pay in Accra, Ghana. |
| B．Kennedy established the Peace Corps before he took office in 1961. |
| C．Most of the volunteers of the first group had just graduated from college. |
| D．America’s image in the foreign countries depends completely on volunteers. |
The fourth paragraph is mainly about _______.
| A．what the Peace Corps is and its steps |
| B．why the Peace Corps was created and what are its goals |
| C．what role the Peace Corps play in daily life |
| D．How the Peace Corps was created and its aims |
According to the text, volunteers and trainees assist in the following aspects EXCEPT _______.
| A．industry | B．environment | C．education | D．health care |
What can we learn from the last paragraph?
| A．Most of the volunteers for the Peace Corps are women. |
| B．Few minority groups joined the Peace Corps. |
| C．Half of the retired volunteers joined the Peace Corps. |
| D．People of different ages take an active part in the Peace Corps. |
An important question about eating out is who pays for the meal. If a friend of yours asks you to have lunch with him. You may say something like this, “I’m afraid it’ll have to be some place cheap, as I have very little money.” The other person may say, “OK, I’ll meet you at McDonald’s.” This means that two agree to go Dutch, that is, each person pays for himself. He may also say, “Oh, no. I want to take you to lunch at Johnson’s”, or “I want you to try the steak(牛排) there. It’s great.” This means the person wants to pay for both of you. If you feel friendly towards this person, you can go with him and you needn’t pay for the meal. You may just say, “Thank you. That would be very nice.”
American customs about who pays for dates(约会) are much the same as in other parts of the world. In the old days, American women wanted men to pay for all the meals. But, today, a university girl or a woman in the business world will usually pay her own way during the day. If a man asks her to dinner or a dance outside the working hours, it means “come as my guest”. So as you can see, it is a polite thing to make the question clear at the very beginning. In the old days _______ often paid for all the meals.
| A．women | B．men |
| C．university students | D．businessmen |
“To go Dutch” means to _______.
| A．go to play outside | B．eat out |
| C．pay for oneself | D．go to a cheaper eating place |
“McDonald’s” here means _______.
| A．a tea house | B．a gate |
| C．an office | D．an eating place |
If you feel friendly to the person, _______.
| A．you should pay for him | B．you needn’t pay for him |
| C．you can accept his invitation | D．you can’t accept his invitation |
We’d better know who will pay for the meal _______.
| A．at the beginning | B．at the end |
| C．in the middle of the meal | D．after drinking |
Any mistake made in the printing of a stamp raises its value to stamp collectors. A mistake on one inexpensive postage stamp has made the stamp worth a million and a half times its original value.
The mistake was made more than a hundred years ago in the British colony of Mauritius, a small island in the Indian Ocean. In 1847 an order for stamps was sent to a London printer — Mauritius was to become the fourth country in the world to issue stamps.
Before the order was filled and delivered, a ball was planned at Mauritius’ Government House, and stamps were needed to send out the invitations. A local printer was instructed to copy the design for the stamps. He accidentally inscribed the words “Post Office” instead of “Post Paid” on the several hundred stamps that he printed.
Today there are only twenty-six of these misprinted stamps left fourteen One Penny Orange-Reds and twelve Two Penny Blues. Because of the Two Penny Blue’s rareness and age, collectors have paid as much as ＄16 800 for it.Over a century ago, Mauritius _______.
| A．was an independent country |
| B．belonged to India |
| C．was one of the British colonies |
| D．was a small island in the Pacific Ocean |
The mistake on the stamps was made _______.
| A．in Mauritius | B．at Mauritius Government House |
| C．in a post office | D．in London |
Stamp collectors have paid 16 800 for _______.
| A．fourteen One Penny Orange-Reds |
| B．twelve Two Penny Blues |
| C．one One Penny Orange-Red |
| D．one Two Penny Blue |
Before the early 1960’s people interested in the differing roles of the left and right hemispheres(半球) of the brain depended almost entirely on facts drawn from animal research, form studies of patients with one-sided brain damage. But it was possible to find out which brain hemisphere was most involved in speech and other functions in normal people by having them listen to two different words coming to the two ears at the same time. This became known as the “dichotic listening” procedure. When several word pairs are given in a row, people are unable to report them all, and most right-handers prefer to report, and report more correctly, words given to their right ears. This seems to be related to the fact that signals from the right ear, although sent to both hemispheres, are better sent to the left hemisphere which controls speech. People who have speech represented(回忆) in the right hemisphere, a very unusual occurrence even in left-handed people, more correctly report what their left ears hear.
In contrast to the right-ear advantage for speech, there is generally a left-ear advantage for another type of auditory(听觉的) signal: music. When right-handed people listen to melodic patterns they report them better from the left ear.Which of the following would be the most proper title for the passage?
| A．An Introduction to Speech Damage in Patients with Brain Damage. |
| B．An Investigation into the Role of the Brain’s Hemispheres. |
| C．An Analysis of Left and Right-handed People. |
| D．An Examination of “Dichotic Listening”. |
The “dichotic listening” procedure could best be described as hearing _______.
| A．two different words in the same ear twice |
| B．the same word twice in the same ear |
| C．two different words in different ears |
| D．two different words twice in two ears |
according to the passage, right-handed people normally _______.
| A．have better hearing in their both ears |
| B．have little difficulty in reporting words given to their right ears |
| C．are unable to report word pairs given to their left ears |
| D．correctly report word pairs given in a row |
according to the passage, music is best appreciated when heard by _______.
| A．the left ear of right-handers |
| B．people with a left-ear advantage |
| C．left-handers in their right ears |
| D．right-handed people who understand melodic patterns |
“It was all his own idea, ” says Pat Peters, the 38-year-old wife of Palo Alto, California high school football coach Bob Peters, 39. Bob had just drawn up a “motherhood contract” -a document(文件) stating that for 70 days this summer he would take over the care and feeding of the couple’s four children, plus all household chores(杂务). Although he didn’t even know how to make coffee when he signed, he was quite confident.(He thought the experience would make a nice book.)
After 40 of the 70 days, he was ready to give up. “I was beaten down, completely humbled, ” admits Peters. Three weeks later he spoke to the local press(also part of the bargain), stating, “Not only is motherhood a difficult task, not only is it never-ending, it is an impossible job for any normal human being.”
Bob and Pat were high school sweethearts. After they were married in 1960, she worked as a secretary to help put him through university. Since then Bob has been the football and wrestling coach at Palo Alto’s Cubberley High while Pat raised the kids.
Then two years ago Pat went back to work as a secretary at Cubberley. “I had been around children so much,” she sighs(叹气), “I couldn’t talk to a grown-up.” She continued to run the household, however-until Bob signed the contract, whereupon she decided to relax and enjoy it.
Although Peters had consulted(咨询) with his school’s home economics teachers and the head of the cafeteria(食堂), his meals were sometimes a disaster. “I tried to slip the butter I’d forgotten under the eggs after they were frying, ” he says. For the last three weeks, the family ate out a lot—sometimes having Macdonald’s hamburgers for lunch and dinner.
As for housekeeping, a home economics teacher had told Bob that a room always looks clean if the bed is made. “I found an easier way-I shut the doors, ” he says. Soon the kids were wearing the same clothes for a week. “I made them wear their shirts inside out, and when we went to pick up Pat at work they turned them right side out so they would look clean.”
Now that Bob has publicly admitted he was wrong, he is routinely(日常地) sharing the child-raising and household tasks with Pat. The tentative(暂定的) title of his book about the summer is taken from something he shouted at the kids one day.The couple signed the contract because _______.
| A．Pat complained a lot about her doing the housework all by herself |
| B．Bob loved taking care of children and wanted his wife to have a good rest |
| C．they agreed that husband and wife should share household tasks |
| D．Bob thought it easy to take care of the family and wanted the experience for a book |
It was agreed that if Bob failed to keep to the contract, he would have to _______.
| A．pay a certain amount of money |
| B．do all the housework for years |
| C．say sorry to his wife |
| D．admit publicly he was wrong about motherhood |
What can we learn about Pat Peters?
| A．She was hard-working and selfless. |
| B．She was pretty and kind-hearted. |
| C．She was tired of the child-raising and household tasks. |
| D．She did not love Bob any longer. |
Which of the following is true according to the passage?
| A．Bob managed to keep the kids’clothes clean. |
| B．Bob tried to cook good meals for his children. |
| C．Bob frequently took the kids out to eat because he was too busy at work. |
| D．Bob taught the kids to make their beds every day. |
Which of the following can best end the news story?
| A．“My experience of being a mother.” |
| B．“I’m proud of you all, my dear!” |
| C．“Wait till your mother gets home!” |
| D．“Motherhood: an impossible job for anyone.” |
Why do women earn less than men?
Women earn less than men. For example, in 1988 the hourly wages of women in the U.S. were 16% less than those of men. The gap between male and female incomes varies with age. The gap between the labor incomes of young women and young men is much smaller than that between middle-aged women and men. It is also clear that jobs in which women are concentrated pay less. The larger the number of workers in an industry who are women, the lower the average wages.
Why do women earn less than men? Are the differences explained by the fact that women are looked down upon? If so, the government has to intervene, to force the employers to pay equal wages to equal jobs. however, there is no agreement among economists about the causes of the gap. One view argues that women on the average have chosen low-paying jobs in which workers enjoy the freedom of entering and leaving the labor force, which reduces their years of experience relative to men. Other people say the gap can also be explained by the difference in educational background which is shown in the difference in the marginal product between men and women.
Much of the gap, however, has not been fully explained. It might be the result of some bias against women. It is this part that has produced calls for government action. What would happen if the government did intervene to increase the wages paid to women? One possibility is that incomes for women as a group might actually decline. An increase in wage decreases the quantity of labor input demanded, resulting in decreased employment as the rate of hiring new workers declines. The result will be a surplus of labor. Those who can find jobs might be better off while those who had jobs might find themselves out of work.The difference in labor incomes is most obvious between _______.
| A．young men and young women |
| B．young women in the same industry |
| C．middle-aged men and middle-aged women |
| D．middle-aged women in the same industry |
Some economists believe women earn less than men partly because ______.
| A．women are less experienced than men |
| B．women are only provided with low-paying jobs |
| C．women have much freedom in selecting their jobs |
| D．there is more than enough women in the labor force |
Which of the following cannot be inferred from the second paragraph?
| A．Women receive less education than men. |
| B．Women are not as productive as men. |
| C．Levels of education are closely related to productivity. |
| D．Goods produced by women are not as good as those by men. |
What does the author suggest that the government should do for women workers?
| A．To ensure equal pay for women. |
| B．To explain why women are paid less. |
| C．To force employers to hire more women. |
| D．No solution is clearly suggested. |
What would happen if women’s wages were raised?
| A．Input of capital would be increased. |
| B．The unemployment rate would go up. |
| C．Those that have jobs would become better off. |
| D．Women as a group would earn more than before. |