The house was quiet at 5 am and Tim’s mother was asleep. Only the sound of the big freezer broke the quiet. He’d dreamt of the cave last night. The purring（轻微颤动声）of the freezer had been the sea.
Tim pulled on a sweater and put some apples into his schoolbag. It was too early for breakfast. He’d eat after he’d been through the cave, sitting on the rocks and staring at the sea.
He wished he had a proper pack. His schoolbag would have to do. What else? Sandwiches—but his mother might wake up if he started pulling out bread for sandwiches. She’d want to know why he had to leave so early. He settled for some biscuits, and left a note stuck to the table:
Gone to Michael’s. Back tonight, Tim.
The sky was high and soft and light outside, though the sun still wasn’t up. Even the highway up the hill was quiet as he made his way down the street. The wind from the sea was fresh and sweet.
The sand hills still breathed heat from yesterday’s sun, though the top of the sand was cool. He ran down to the beach impatiently, but there was no one, just dry sand dancing in the early wind and seabirds marching up and down watching the waves.
The light changed suddenly. The first rays of sunlight stretched (延伸) across the sea. The sun was pushing its way over the edge of the world.
Over the first rocks, along to the point, Tim glanced back. The beach was still empty. The sun sailed higher in the sky.
He could see the cave now, even darker in the morning light. The sand turned silver then dark gold as the water flowed away from it. He had to force himself to go closer. Why was it so much more mysterious now? But it would be silly to go back now after so much trouble. He needn’t go in all the way...What did Tim do at the beginning of the story?
| A．He left the house quietly. | B．He had breakfast at home. |
| C．He left a note on the freezer. | D．He put a sweater in his schoolbag. |
“He settled for some biscuits” means that Tim_______.
| A．had to leave the biscuits on the table |
| B．liked biscuits better than sandwiches |
| C．had to take biscuits instead of sandwiches |
| D．could only find some biscuits in the kitchen |
What made it possible for Tim to see the entry to the cave?
| A．The height of the first rocks. | B．The ups and downs of the waves. |
| C．The change in the position of the sun. | D．The vast stretch of the sunlit beach. |
Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the story?
| A．The sea looked like a piece of gold. |
| B．Seabirds flew away when Tim arrived. |
| C．Tim was the only person on the beach. |
| D．The sky got dark as Tim reached the cave. |
In the story, Tim’s mood changed from_______.
| A．loneliness to craziness | B．anxiousness to excitement |
| C．helplessness to happiness | D．eagerness to nervousness |
In modern society there is a great deal of argument about competition. Some value it highly, believing that it is responsible for social progress and prosperity, others say that competition is bad; that it sets one person against another; that it leads to unfriendly relationship between people.
I have taught many children who held the belief that their self – worth relied on how well they performed at tennis and other skills. For them, playing well and winning are often life – and – death affairs. In their single – minded pursuit (追求) of success, the development of many other human qualities is sadly forgotten.
However, while some seem to be lost in the desire to succeed, others take an opposite attitude. In a culture which values only the winner and pays no attention to the ordinary players, they strongly blame competition. Among the most vocal are youngsters who have suffered under competitive pressures from their parents or society. Teaching these young people, I often observe in them a desire to fail. They seem to seek failure by not trying to win or achieve success. By not trying, they always have an excuse: “I may have lost, but it doesn’t matter because I really didn’t try.” What is not usually admitted by themselves is the belief that if they had really tried and lost, that would mean a lot. Such a loss would be a measure of their worth. Clearly, this belief is the same as that of the true competitors who try to prove themselves. Both are based on the mistaken belief that one’s self – respect relies on how well one performs in comparison with others. Both are afraid of not being valued. Only as this basic and often troublesome fear begins to dissolve (缓解) can we discover a new meaning in competition.What does this passage mainly talk about?
| A．Competition helps to set up self – respect. |
| B．Competition is harmful to personal quality development. |
| C．Opinions about competition are different among people. |
| D．Failures are necessary experiences in competition |
Why do some people favor competition according to the passage?
| A．It improves personal abilities. | B．It builds up a sense of duty. |
| C．It pushes society forward. | D．It encourages individual efforts. |
The underlined phrase “the most vocal” in Paragraph 3 means ___________.
| A．those who try their best to win |
| B．those who value competition most highly |
| C．those who rely on others most for success |
| D．those who are against competition most strongly. |
Which point of view may the author agree to?
| A．Fear of failure should be removed in competition. |
| B．Competition should be encouraged. |
| C．Winning should be a life – and – death matter. |
| D．Every effort should be paid back. |
Surgical teams accidentally leave clamps, sponges and other tools inside about 1,500 patients nationwide each year.
The mistakes largely result not from surgeon tiredness, but from the stress arising from emergencies or complications(并发症) discovered on the operating table, the researchers reported.
The study found that emergency operations are nine times more likely to lead to such mistakes, and operating–room complications requiring a change in procedure are four times more likely.
It also happens more often to fat patients, simply because there is more room inside them to lose equipment, according to the study.
Two–thirds of the mistakes happened even though the equipment was counted before and after the procedure, in keeping with the standard practice.
Most lost objects were sponges, but also included were metal clamps and electrodes(电极). In two cases, 11–inch retractors (牵引器) metal strips were forgotten inside patients. In another operation, four sponges were left inside someone. When there is significant bleeding and a sponge is placed in a patient, it can sometimes look indistinguishable from the tissue around it.
The lost objects usually lay around the abdomen (腹腔) or hips but sometimes in the chest. They often caused tears or infections. Most patients needed additional surgery to remove the object. In other cases, patients even sensed nothing about the object, and it turned up in later surgery for other problems.
To prevent such mistakes from happening, Loyola University Medical Center is becoming one of the first hospitals in the country to use sponges outfitted with bar codes. The new system was brought to Loyola through the efforts of the hospital’s operating room nurses.
Another effective way is to X–ray patients after surgery to reduce the likelihood of objects being left inside patients.In which of the following situations are objects most likely to be left inside a patient?
| A．The nurses are counting the equipment and the patient is being X–rayed. |
| B．The surgeons are doing the last operation of the day, and everyone is exhausted. |
| C．unexpected happens and some changes must be made in the procedure. |
| D．A complex operation is going on according to the plan made by many experts. |
Which of the following statements is NOT true?
| A．Such mistakes happen more often to fat patients. |
| B．1,500 patients suffer from the mistake all over the world every year. |
| C．X–ray examination can help to find the lost objects. |
| D．The mistake largely results from stress rather than tiredness. |
What can we infer from the passage?
| A．Surgical teams aren’t to blame for the mistakes. |
| B．Some people never know there is something left inside their body. |
| C．Most mistakes happen because equipment isn’t counted after the procedure. |
| D．Only some small objects may be left inside the patients. |
What is the best title for the passage?
| A．Never Trust Anyone | B．A Mistake in the Operating Room |
| C．Carelessness and Mistakes | D．Tips for Patient Safety |
Laws that would have ensured pupils from five to 16 received a full financial education got lost in the ‘wash up’. An application is calling on the next government to bring it back.
At school the children are taught to add up and subtract(减法) but, extraordinarily, are not routinely shown how to open a bank account — let alone how to manage their finances in an increasingly complex and demanding world.
Today the parenting website Mumsnet and the consumer campaigner Martin Lewis have joined forces to launch an online application to make financial education a compulsory element of the school curriculum in England. Children from five to 16 should be taught about everything from pocket money to pensions, they say. And that was exactly the plan preserved in the Children, Schools and Families bill that was shelved by the government in the so-called “wash-up” earlier this month — the rush to legislation before parliament was dismissed. Consumer and parent groups believe financial education has always been one of the most frustrating omissions of the curriculum.
As the Personal Finance Education Group (Pfeg) points out, the good habits of young children do not last long. Over 75% of seven- to 11-year-olds are savers but by the time they get to 17, over half of them are in debt to family and friends. By this age, 26% see a credit card or overdraft(透支) as a way of extending their spending power. Pfeg predicts that these young people will “find it much harder to avoid the serious unexpected dangers that have befallen many of their parents' generation unless they receive good quality financial education while at school.”
The UK has been in the worst financial recession(衰退)for generations. It does seem odd that — unless parents step in — young people are left in the dark until they are cruelly introduced to the world of debt when they turn up at university. In a recent poll of over 8,000 people, 97% supported financial education in schools, while 3% said it was a job for parents.The passage is mainly about _____________.
| A．how to manage school lessons | B． teaching young people about money |
| C．how to deal with the financial crisis | D．teaching students how to study effectively |
It can be inferred from the first two paragraphs that __________.
| A．laws on financial education have been effectively carried out |
| B．pupils should not be taught to add up and subtract |
| C．students have been taught to manage their finances |
| D．the author complains about the school education |
The website and the consumer campaigner joined to _________.
| A．instruct the pupils to donate their pocket money |
| B．promote the connection of schools and families |
| C．ask the government to dismiss the parliament |
| D．appeal for the curriculum of financial education |
A poll is mentioned to ___________.
| A．show the seriousness of the financial recession |
| B．stress the necessity of the curriculum reform |
| C．make the readers aware of burden of the parents |
| D．illustrate some people are strongly against the proposal |
Family Vs Technology
Modern technology certainly changes family behavior, but does it really damage family life as many people fear? Not necessarily, says Dr. Silva, a professor in Sociology(社会学) at the Open University, she also argues it is wrong to assume technology erodes(腐蚀，侵蚀) the quality of family life.
“There is the idea that technology has an influence on the family and the family suffers. My take is quite different,” she explains. “Technological change happens because people’s lives change. And it is people’s choices of how to live that creates processes of innovation(革新) as well. The family has a role like the economy or like technology itself in changing the world. The imagination is important in driving the things technologists want to find for our daily lives. People desire to see nature as it is, so color television comes about,” she says.
In another case, the increase in working mothers helped create a market for labor-saving kitchen equipment. “The time that women have to shop every day for food is no longer available so there is a need to have a refrigerator for food storage,” says Dr. Silva. “The need to cook that food more easily and quickly, means you have developments in cooking technology like the microwave oven(微波炉). The microwave oven already existed because it was developed for the navy during World War Two but it wasn’t used in ordinary families until the early 1980s.
“Technologies for housework were as important as those for work itself,” she says, “So washing machines, refrigerators and microwave ovens are terribly important. We couldn’t imagine what life would be like if we didn’t have them.” Technological changes in the kitchen have played an important role in the changes of family behavior, creating a new social focus in the home.
“With advanced technology, you can feed the family in an easier manner. People can do housework with less difficulty. But that doesn’t mean that family practices are not important — it’s just a different way of doing things.”What is Dr. Silva’s attitude towards the effect that technology has on family life?
| A．Worried. | B．Optimistic(乐观的). |
| C．Puzzled. | D．Uncertain. |
What causes advances in technology according to Dr. Silva?
| A．People’s love for nature. |
| B．Great changes in people’s way of life. |
| C．People’s desire to change the world. |
| D．The wonderful imagination in inventing things. |
What can we learn from the passage?
| A．The microwave oven was first used by working mothers. |
| B．People cook less because of modern kitchen equipment. |
| C．Technology has little effect on the changes of family behavior. |
| D．People need less skill to do housework due to advanced technology. |
Fifty-two years ago in the USA, a little black girl named Ruby Bridges arrived at her new primary school. The school was in New Orleans, Louisiana.
As she walked toward the school’s front door, an angry crowd of people shouted at her. United States marshals walked with her. A marshal is a police officer. They were there to protect the first grader. That’s because the people didn’t want Ruby to go inside the school. But the 6-year-old walked into the school anyway. As she did, she marched into history books.
The day was Nov. 14, 1960. On that morning, little Ruby became one of the first African Americans to attend an all-white primary school in the South.
Before then, the law in many states said that black children could not attend the same schools as white children. People of different races also had to use separate public restrooms. It was called segregation. That is when people of different races are kept separate.
U.S. leaders worked to end segregation. They helped bring civil rights to all Americans. Those are the rights mean that all people should be treated equally. A few months before Ruby started school, a federal court (联邦法庭) had just ordered an end to school segregation in New Orleans.
By the time Ruby started the second grade, there were no more angry people outside her school. There were other African American students in her class. Today, children of all races go to school together.
Bridges said she was never scared to go to school during the first grade. She wasn’t really afraid and she didn’t really know what was going on at the time.Why was Ruby Bridges famous in the American history?
| A．She served on the U.S. federal court. |
| B．She got along well with the U.S. marshals. |
| C．She helped end school segregation in New Orleans. |
| D．She brought all rights to the Americans with U.S. leaders. |
Which of the following is about “segregation” (in Paragraph 4)?
| A．White and black children couldn’t study in the same school. |
| B．All people should have the right to be treated equally. |
| C．Different races can use the same public convenience. |
| D．Students of all races should be able to attend school together. |
What do you think of the U.S. leaders’ work to end segregation?
| A．Disappointing. | B．Acceptable. |
| C．Successful. | D．Confusing. |