Dear Betty,
My roommate’s family wants me to celebrate Thanksgiving Day with them in their home. I accepted the invitation, and I’m excited about going, but I’m a little nervous about it, too. The social customs in my country are different from those here, so I’m a little worried about making mistakes.
Should I bring a gift, such as candy or flowers? Should I arrive on time or a little late? At the dinner table, how can I know which fork or knife to use? How can I let the family know that I’m thankful for their kindness?
Yours,
Knowing Nothing
Dear Knowing Nothing,
It’s a good idea to bring a gift when you go to a dinner party. Flowers are always welcome, or you can bring a bottle of wine if you know the family drink it.
You should arrive on time or five to ten minutes late. Don’t get there early. If you are going to be more than fifteen minutes late, you should call and tell them.
Try to relax at the dinner table. If you don’t know how to use the right fork, knife or spoon, just watch the other guests, and follow them. If you still have no idea of what to do, don’t be shy about asking the person next to you; it’s better to ask them than to be silently uncomfortable and nervous.
If you like the food, say so. Of course, you’ll thank the host and hostess for the meal and for their kindness. It’s also a good idea to send a card to thank them the day after.
Yours,
Betty
| A．tell Betty some good news | B．ask for some advice |
| C．answer some questions | D．invite her to dinner |
| A．can only bring some flowers |
| B．can’t bring wine |
| C．should arrive on time or five to ten minutes late |
| D．should arrive twenty minutes late |
| A．relax at the dinner table | B．watch the other guests |
| C．ask the person beside him | D．keep silent at table |
Australian scientists are trying to give kangaroo-style stomachs to cattle and sheep in a bid to cut the emission of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
Thanks to special bacteria in their stomachs, kangaroo farts contain no methane (甲烷)and scientists want to transfer that bacteria to cattle and sheep who emit large quantities of the harmful gas.
While the usual image of greenhouse gas pollution is a billowing smokestack pushing out carbon dioxide，livestock passing wind contribute a surprisingly high percentage of total emissions in some countries.
"Fourteen percent of emissions from all sources in Australia is from enteric methane from cattle and sheep，" said Athol Klieve，a senior research scientist with the Queensland state government.
"And if you look at another country such as New Zealand, which has got a much higher agricultural base，they're actually up around 50 percent," he said.
Researchers say the bacteria also makes the digestive process much more efficient and could potentially save millions of dollars in feed costs for farmers.
But it will take researchers at least three years to isolate the bacteria，before they can even start to develop a way of transferring it to cattle and sheep.
Another group of scientists, meanwhile, has suggested Australians should farm fewer cattle and sheep and just eat more kangaroos.
The idea is controversial (争议)，but about 20 percent of health conscious Australians are believed to eat the national symbol already.
"It's low in fat，it's got high protein levels and it's very clean in the sense that basically it's the ultimate free range animal (散养动物)，" said Peter Ampt of the University of New South Wales's institute of environmental studies. According to the passage, global warming is now mainly caused by ______.
| A．methane | B．carbon dioxide |
| C．livestock passing wind | D．not mention in this passage |
What does the underlined phrase "the idea" (Paragraph 9)refer to?
| A．Australians should give kangaroo-style stomachs to cattle and sheep. |
| B．The bacteria could make the digestive process much more efficient. |
| C．Australians should farm fewer cattle and sheep and just eat more kangaroos. |
| D．The bacteria could potentially save millions of dollars in feed costs for farmers. |
How will Australian scientists solve the problem of global warming?
| A．Eating more kangaroos. |
| B．Killing more cattle and sheep. |
| C．Letting cattle and sheep pass less wind. |
| D．Transferring the special bacteria in kangaroos' stomachs to cattle and sheep. |
Mr. Brozina is a single father and an elementary school librarian who reads aloud for a living. When his daughter, Kristen, hit fourth grade, he proposed The Streak： to see if they could read together for 100 straight bedtimes without missing once.
When The Streak reached 100, they celebrated with a pancake breakfast, and Kristen whispered， "I think we should try for 1,000 nights."
Mr. Brozina was delighted, but what he was thinking was, a thousand nights? ！ "I thought, we'll never do it，" he recalled. "And then we got to 1,000, and we said, ‘How can we stop? ’"
For 3, 218 nights (and some mornings, if Mr. Brozina was coming home too late to read) ，The Streak went on. It progressed from picture books to middle-school classics to Harry Potter, Agatha Christie, Dickens and Shakespeare，continuing on, until Kristen's first day of college.
In those nine-plus years, they survived many close calls. When Kristen was still in elementary school，her father went to Washington. "The phone rang at 10:45 at the hotel and it was Kristen," Mr. Brozina recalled. "She said, ‘ Dad, we forgot The Streak！’ Fortunately, I always traveled with several books and we read right then and there."
This spring, Kristen graduated from Rowan University. She has performed as you'd expect for a product of The Streak，an English major with a 3. 94 average. She also won two national writing contests ，was an editor of the humor arid literary publications and won the annual English department award.According to the passage, Mr. Brozina and his daughter read together for ______ .
| A．100 bedtimes |
| B．1，000 nights |
| C．over nine years |
| D．nearly 3,000 nights and some mornings |
In the passage, the underlined phrase "The Streak" in Paragraph 1 probably means ______ .
| A．the period of time for reading together |
| B．the children's book |
| C．the special night |
| D．the school work |
How has Kristen benefited from reading with her father?
| A．She has grown closer to her father. |
| B．She has become a school librarian herself. |
| C．She has performed well at university. |
| D．She has won many reading awards. |
This passage is about a father who ______ .
| A．is very strict in his work |
| B．enjoys reading when travelling |
| C．makes his daughter love reading |
| D．has a hard time bringing up his daughter |
Birthdays often involve surprises. But this year's surprise on the birthday of the great British playwright William Shakespeare is surely one of the most dramatic.
On April 22，one day before his 441st birthday anniversary, experts discovered that one of the most recognizable portraits of William Shakespeare is a fake. This means that we no longer have a good idea of what Shakespeare looked like. "It's very possible that many pictures of Shakespeare might be unreliable because many of them are copies of this one," said an expert from Britain's National Portrait Gallery.
The discovery comes after four months of testing using X-rays, ultraviolet light, microphotography and paint samples. The experts from the gallery say the image—commonly known as the "Flower portrait"—was actually painted in the 1800s, about two centuries after Shakespeare's death. The art experts who work at the gallery say they also used modern chemistry technology to check the paint on the picture. These checks found traces of paint dating from about 1814. Shakespeare died in 1616, and the date that appears on the portrait is 1609.
"We now think the portrait dates back to around 1818 to 1840. This was when there was a renewed interest in Shakespeare's plays, "Tamya Cooper, the gallery's curator (馆长), told the Associated President.
The fake picture has often been used as a cover for collections of his plays. It is called the Flower portrait because one of its owners, Desmond Flower, gave it to the Royal Shakespeare Company.
"There have always been questions about the painting," said David Howelis, curator for the Royal Shakespeare Company. "Now we know the truth, we can put the image in its proper place in the history of Shakespearean portraiture."
Two other images of. Shakespeare，are also being studied as part of the investigation (调查)and the results will come out later this month.________________________ . What makes the birthday of Shakespeare dramatic this year? ______
| A．It was found that he painted a portrait in 1814 instead of in 1609. |
| B．The Flower portrait has been found to be a fake. |
| C．Three portraits of Shakespeare are being tested to identify a real one. |
| D．It was found that there was a renewed interest in Shakespeare's plays around 1818 to 1840. |
Which statement is True according to the passage? ______
| A．Portraits of Shakespeare are all unreliable. |
| B．“Flower portrait ”was a portrait of Shakespeare given to Desmond Flower. |
| C．1814 might be when the portrait was drawn. |
| D．The Flower portrait is not often used as a cover for Shakespeare's plays. |
How many methods were used to test the portrait? ______
| A．Not mentioned. | B．Two. |
| C．Three. | D．At least four. |
The best title for this passage is ______ .
| A．Birthdays often involve surprises |
| B．The surprise on the 441st birthday of Shakespeare |
| C．One portrait of Shakespeare is a fake |
| D．How can we know Shakespeare's appearance? |
Which is the best sentence to fill in the blank in the last paragraph? ______
| A．Soon we'll know which portrait is reliable. |
| B．Maybe we cannot find a real portrait of Shakespeare. |
| C．If the two portraits are found to be false, they will test more. |
| D．For now what Shakespeare really looked like will remain a mystery. |
The Beijing International Marathon has acquired a new name among some disappointed participants: Smogathon.
About 30,000 runners, many from other parts of China or abroad, awoke in the Chinese capital on Sunday to an orange sun glowing weakly through a dirty haze(雾霾). Some ran anyway. Some ran away. But no one cancelled on the advice of the organizers, the Chinese Athletic Association and the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Sports, because those organizations did not call it off. That has made participants call the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), which has approved the 26-mile, or 42-kilometer race, to set air quality standards in the future to avoid damaging the runners’ health. The association could not be reached by telephone on Sunday.
“Does the IAAF have guidelines?” asked Chas Pope, a British engineer who took part in the marathon on Sunday. “If they don’t, they should consider it,” said Mr. Pope, who has lived in Beijing for 11 years and runs several long-distance races each year. “It’s meant to be fun and good for your health,” Mr. Pope said of the marathon. “But in such air, it’s just ridiculous to be running,” he said. He abandoned the course. “Most of my overseas friends pulled out,” he said. “And quite a few of my Chinese friends too, but a lot didn’t. I think they don’t know as much about the health impact.”
Images on Twitter and Chinese social media showed Chinese runners wearing a variety of face protections, from light cloth masks to World War I-style gas masks. Still many completed the race without masks. “Today’s race should definitely have been called off or rescheduled,” said Zhang Kai, Beijing-based campaigner with Greenpeace East Asia. “What happened today to this sports even is just another reminder to the government that much remains to be done to China’s energy and industrial structure to solve pollution,” said Mr. Zhang. “If the battle against pollution is a marathon, it is now time to catch up on speed.”
In the end, the race was won by two Ethiopians: Girmay Birhanu Gebru won the men’s race in 2 hours, 10 minutes and 42 seconds while Fatuma Sado Dergo won the women’s in 2 hours, 30 minutes and 3 seconds, breaking Chinese women’s advantage of the race for the last 22 years.
The favored Chinese woman runner, Gong Lihua, told China News Net that the smog didn’t affect her too much but it interfered with many people’s ability to sweat, affecting their performance.The underlined sentences “Some ran anyway. Some ran away.” mean _____________.
| A．Some runners who dropped out returned to run. |
| B．Some runners gave up after running a short distance. |
| C．Not all runners continued to run. |
| D．Most runners quit the race. |
Why did participants call the IAAF?
| A．To tell it the Beijing International Marathon was also named Smogathon. |
| B．To appeal to it to set air quality standards in the future. |
| C．To tell it the 42-kilometer race should be cancelled. |
| D．To appeal to it to make some laws to prevent pollution. |
Which of the following states does Chas Pope agree to?
| A．A dirty haze is harmful to health. |
| B．Running in any air is good. |
| C．The marathon in China should be cancelled. |
| D．Friends should learn from each other. |
Zhang Kai thinks the battle against pollution _______.
| A．will be the most urgent thing in China. |
| B．should be got rid of immediately. |
| C．is connected with China’s unreasonable energy and industrial structure. |
| D．will remind all the Chinese to reduce pollution. |
Director of Overseas Finance
Financial Services
Edinburgh
Permanent
Updated October 30, 2014
Reporting into the Administration and Finance Partner, this is a new role with responsibility for oversight and leadership in international financial matters, overseas tax issues and overseas operational management.
Key responsibilities include:
•Overseeing(监督) development and implementation(实施) of overseas tax strategy and managing relationships with relevant authorities and advisors.
•Managing international financial planning, forecasting and reporting requirements.
•Analysis and communication of impacts and responses to tax and other regulatory
(管理的) documents.
•Establishment and maintenance of appropriate systems, controls and records.
•Managing and leading senior accountants and managers.
Who we’re looking for
The successful candidate will be a qualified accountant with a strong academic record and will have:
•Experience of managing the finances of an international commercial organization.
•A track record of delivering improved efficiency and effectiveness in financial operations.
•Experience of leading and developing teams with proven change management experience.
About our customers
Baillie Gifford is one of the UK’s leading investment management firms and is a major player in the asset（资产）management business. As a market leader they have built their success around the stability of their partnership structure which provides guarantee for customers and motivation for employees. As by 31 December 2013 they managed more than ￡72 billion （US 113 billion）in active equity and bond portfolios(股票和债券组合) for customers in the UK and throughout the world.
What’s on offer
Attractive Salary + Benefits PackageWhere is the director of overseas finance supposed to work?
| A．In France | B．In the US |
| C．In London | D．In Edinburgh |
The primary responsibility of this position is to manage ______.
| A．international financial matters and national ones appropriately. |
| B．relationships between the relevant matters and tax strategy. |
| C．overseas tax strategy and relationships with authorities and advisors. |
| D．establishment and communication of systems, responses and other requirements. |
Which of the following people is qualified for the position?
| A．The one who has ever managed financial planning and reporting requirements. |
| B．The one who can analyze tax and other regulatory documents. |
| C．The one who is good at leading and developing teams without experience. |
| D．The one who is a good accountant with rich management experience. |
What is the purpose of this passage?
| A．To tell people how to invest their money. |
| B．To introduce a director of overseas finance. |
| C．To advertise for a director of overseas finance. |
| D．To introduce a UK’s leading investment management firm. |