My favorite English teacher could draw humor out of the driest material. It wasn't forced on us either. He took Samuel Johnson's dictionary, Addison's essays, and many other literary wonders from the eighteenth century and made them hilarious, even at eight o'clock in the morning. The thing that amazed me most was that the first time I read these works on my own some of them seemed dead, but the second time, after his explanation, I couldn't believe that I hadn't seen the humor. The stories and poems and plays were suddenly filled with allusions (典故) and irony (反讽) and hilarious moments. I learned more from him than from any other teacher.
My least favorite English teacher also made people laugh. Some students found him to be funny. Many others did not. He assigned journals over a six week period, to be written every day. At the end of the six weeks I had a notebook full of bits and pieces about my ideas, short stories, reactions to what we had read, and so on. Our teacher announced that we would be grading each other's journals. Mine was passed to Joe, that class clown, who always behaved in a funny or silly way. He saw it fit to make joke of and said, " This writing isn't fit to line (衬垫) the bottom of a birdcage. " Our teacher laughed at that funny remark. It hurt me so much that the anger from it has driven my writing and teaching ever since.
So what makes the difference? Humor is one of the most powerful tools teachers or writers have. It can build up students and classes and make them excited about literature and writing, or it can tear them apart. It is true that humor is either productive or counter-productive and self-defeating.The passage mainly discusses ________.
| A．teaching | B．literature |
| C．humor | D．knowledge |
The underlined word "hilarious" in Paragraph 1 probably means ________.
| A．funny | B．tiring |
| C．inspiring | D．brilliant |
The English teacher the writer disliked most ________.
| A．was not able to make students laugh |
| B．hurt his students' feelings |
| C．didn't let his students do the grading |
| D．had no sense of humor |
The impression you make at the beginning of an interview is very important. Employers often decide to hire someone in the first three minutes of the interview. They judge you by your appearance, attitude (态度) and manners.
A friendly smile when you walk into the room is important. A smile shows a confident (自信的) and positive attitude.
When you introduce yourself, make eyes contact with the interviewer. Some interviewers offer a handshake. Others don’t.
Try to be as natural as possible. But pay attention to your body language. The way you sit, walk, gesture, use your voice and show feeling on your face are all parts of your body language. It makes the interviewer know how you feel about yourself and the situation you are in. Are you feeling positive about yourself? Your abilities? Your interest in the job?
Speak clearly and loudly enough. Show interest and enthusiasm in your voice. When you speak, look at the interviewer. Also don’t say negative things about yourself, or former employers.
Listen to questions carefully. If you don’t understand a question, ask the interviewer to repeat or explain.
"I’m sorry, but I didn’t catch that."
"I’m not sure exactly what you mean."
Almost everyone is nervous in a job interview. Interviewers know that. They don’t expect you to be totally calm and relaxed. But they expect you to try to control your nervousness. They expect you to show confidence in your ability to do the job.
At the end of the interview, thank the interviewer for her or him. It’s a good idea to send a short thank-you letter right after the interview, or deliver it by hand.
Phone the company if you have not heard anything after one week. Ask if they have make a decision about the job.It can be inferred from the passage that ________.
| A．you should always put on a smile when meeting the employer |
| B．you should stand still with respect before the employer |
| C．the first impression is very important in an interview |
| D．employers understand and like employees’ nervousness |
Why should we pay attention to our body language?
| A．Because it can help us win the employer’s positive impression. |
| B．Because it can help us feel about the employer. |
| C．Because it is needed by our employer. |
| D．Because we need it to improve our feeling. |
The main purpose of the passage is ________.
| A．to give you some advice on the art of finding a job |
| B．to tell from wrong about job interviews |
| C．to explain why we should do something about an interview |
| D．to suggest not being shy in an interview |
Which of the following can be the best title for the passage?
| A．A Friendly Smile | B．Making a Good Impression |
| C．Don’t Be Nervous | D．Sending a Thank-You Letter |
Everyone becomes a little more forgetful as they get older, but men's minds decline more than women's, according to the results of a worldwide survey.
Certain differences seem to be inherent in male and female brains: Men are better at maintaining and dealing with mental images (useful in mathematical reasoning<推论；说服> and spatial <空间的>skills), while women tend to excel (擅长) at recalling information from their brain's files (helpful with language skills and remembering the locations of objects).
Many studies have looked for a connection between sex and the amount of mental decline (衰退) people experience as they age, but the results have been mixed.
Some studies found more age-related decline in men than in women, while others saw the opposite or even no relationship at all between sex and mental decline. Those results could be improper because the studies involved older people, and women live longer than men: The men tested are the survivors, "so they're the ones that may not have shown such cognitive（认知的；认识的） decline," said study team leader Elizabeth of the University of Warwick in England.
People surveyed completed four tasks that tested sex-related cognitive skills: matching an object to its rotated（旋转的） form, matching lines shown from the same angle, typing as many words in a particular category (范畴) as possible in the given time, e.g. "object usually colored gray", and recalling the location of objects in a line drawing. The first two were tasks at which men usually excel; the latter are typically dominated(占有主导地位的) by women.
Within each age group studied, men and women performed better in their separate categories on average. And though performance declined with age for both genders（性别）, women showed obviously less decline than men overall（全部地）. The underlined word in the second paragraph means_________.
| A．natural | B．great | C．obvious | D．absolute |
According to the passage, which of the following can Not be typed into the same category?
| A．cloud | B．sheep | C．trees | D．goose |
Which of the following statements is true according the article?
| A．Men do better than women when it comes to learning English. |
| B．Women stand out at remembering people’s names. |
| C．Men excel at typing as many words in a particular category as possible in the given time. |
| D．Women excel at dealing mathematic problems. |
One important factor that affects the correctness of the results is that _________.
| A．the old men tested may not have shown such cognitive decline | |
| B．people surveyed are all old | |
| C．people taking part in this test came from all over the world | D．women live longer than men |
The author aims to tell us that __________.
| A．women’s minds perform better than men’s |
| B．men’s minds decline more with age |
| C．everyone becomes a little more forgetful as they get older |
| D．a survey on human’s mind decline was done recently |
Odland remembers like it was yesterday working in an expensive French restaurant in Denver. The ice cream he was serving fell onto the white dress of a rich and important woman.
Thirty years have passed, but Odland can’t get the memory out of his mind, nor the woman’s kind reaction(反应).She was shocked, regained calmness and, in a kind voice, told the young Odland. “It’s OK. It wasn’t your fault.”When she left the restaurant, she also left the future Fortune 500 CEO(总裁) with a life lesson: You can tell a lot about a person by the way he or she treats the waiter.
Odland isn’t the only CEO to have made this discovery. Rather, it seems to be one of those few laws of the land that every CEO learns on the way up. It’s hard to get a dozen CEOS to agree about anything, but most agree with the Waiter Rule. They say how others treat the CEO says nothing. But how others treat the waiter is like a window into the soul.
Watch out for anyone who pulls out the power card to say something like,“I could buy this place and fire you.”or “I know the owner and I could have you fired.”Those who say such things have shown more about their character(人品) than about their wealth and power.
The CEO who came up with it, or at least first wrote it down, is Raytheon CEO Bill Swanson. He wrote a best-selling book called Swanson’s Unwritten Rules of Management.
“A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter, or to others, is not a nice person,” Swanson says. “I will never offer a job to the person who is sweet to the boss but turns rude to someone cleaning the tables.”What happened after Odland dropped the ice cream onto the woman’s dress?
| A．He was fired. |
| B．He was blamed. |
| C．The woman comforted him. |
| D．The woman left the restaurant at once. |
Odland learned one of his life lessons from _______.
| A．his experience as a waiter | B．the advice given by the CEOs |
| C．an article in Fortune | D．an interesting best-selling book |
According to the text, most CEOs have the time opinion about _______.
| A．Fortune 500 companies | B．the Management Rules |
| C．Swanson’s book | D．the Waiter Rule |
From the text we can learn that _______.
| A．one should be nicer to important people |
| B．CEOs often show their power before others |
| C．one should respect others no matter who they are |
| D．CEOs often have meals in expensive restaurants |
Anna Koumikova was born on June 7th, 1981 in Moscow. Her parents' names are Allah and Sergel. When she was 5 years old, her parents sold their TV to buy her the first tennis bat for Christmas. She played in a club near her place until aged 11. Then she moved to Bradenton, Florida(USA) to train with Nick Bollitierri. At 14, she represented Russia in a Fed Cup match and became the youngest player ever to win a Fed Cup match.
Kournikova made her WTA first show at 15 years old at the US Open where she finally lost against player Steffi Graf. But she made it to the double quarter finals that same match. In 1996, Kournikova won the Rookie of the Year award and the next year. She improved very much to even make it to the semi - finals in Wimbledon. She lost to world number one Martina Hingis at the French Open and at Wimbledon. In 1999 she won her professional title at Midland, Miehigon, an international Tennis Federation match. She was 5th favourite in Illinois the same year and won her 2nd career ITF match. She won her first grand slam(大满贯) title ill 1999 with Martina Hingis in doubles at the Australia Open. Since then, they have played regularly together and have quickly become one of the 'best pairs. Aim in 1999,she made her first career WTA final in key Biscayne against Venus Williams in a tough 3 set match. She alto won her first doubles tile with Monica Seles in Tokyo.
At present Kournikova is more successful on the net than at the net. She remains the "most searched" and "most download (网上下载)" on the internet, three times more popular than the NO. 2 sports figure, Michael Jordan. She is still very young and she seems to have a great future ahead ! Which of the following is right?
| A．Kournikova beat Steffi Graf at the US Open when she was 15. |
| B．Kournikova won the Rookie of the Year award in 1999. |
| C．Koumikova is now more lucky at the net than on the Internet. |
| D．In 1997, Kournikova worked hard to make it to the semi - finals in Wimbledon. |
Kournikova won her first grand slam title in doubles at the Australia Open with .
| A．Steffi Graf | B．Venus Williams | C．Martina Hingis | D．Monica Seles |
From the text we can know Kournikova won her professional title in an ITF match .
| A．at Midland | B．in France | C．in Australia | D．at Biscayne |
What can we learn about Kournikova?
| A．She has a lot of fans on the Internet. |
| B．Her parents gave her much support. |
| C．She beat Martina Hings in 1996. |
| D．She played tennis for her home country Russia. |
People use money to buy food, furniture, books, bicycles and hundreds of other things they need or want. Most of the money today is made of metal or paper. But people used to use all kinds of things as money. One of the first kinds of money was shells. Shells were not the only things used as money. In China, cloth and knives were used. In the Philippine Islands, rice was used as money for a long time. Elephant tusks, monkey tails, and salt were used as money in parts of Africa.
Some animals were used as money too. The first metal coins were made in China. They were round and had a square hole in the center. People strung them together and carried them from place to place. The first coins in England were made of tin (锡). Sweden and Russia used copper (铜) to make their money. Later countries began to make coins of gold and silver.
Later the Chinese thought of a way to improve money. They began to use paper money. Money has had an interesting history from the days of shell money until today.People used different kinds of things as .
| A．gold | B．metal | C．money | D．silver |
Tin was first made as money in .
| A．China | B．Philippine Islands | C．England | D．Russia |
The word "strung" in the passage probably means ."
| A．came | B．tied | C．put | D．made |
The best topic of the article is” .”
| A．How Many Kinds of Money Are There in the World | B．The History of Money |
| C．Money in Different Countries | D．The Use of Money |