Whydoesthewriterintroducesoman-优题课

Has anyone noticed how, with the passage of time, one’s relationship with one’s grown-up daughters and sons becomes changed? I’ve been aware of this for some time but I’m not quite sure how to deal with it.
Take the kitchen sink for example.
Following a family get-together at my place, I walked into the kitchen to find Kate, my daughter carefully cleaning the sink.
“Don’t do that; what are you doing that for?” I said, unhappy about the hidden criticism.
“Mum,” she said, “you really ought to put your glasses on when you clean the sink. Behind the tap here was black!”
But it’s not just things like kitchen sinks. Another time Kate arrived to pick me up to lunch. She looked at me and then asked, “Mum, why do you use brown eyebrow pencil when your hair is grey?”
A sudden memory of her, aged 14, going to her first mixed party flooded back. She had come in to say goodbye. For a moment I thought she’d been an accident. Both eyes were black. I remember suggesting that perhaps a little less eye make-up might be more effective.
Now I told her, “My hair used to be brown.”
“It looks absurd.”
“Mrs. Menzies had dark eyebrows with grey hair.”
“Yes, but you’re not Mrs. Menzies, are you?” she said triumphantly, as if that proved her point.
But a recent event made me realize that something really must be done.
She had returned some for a few weeks before getting married. One evening I went out on a dinner date. By the time my companion left me at the front door, it was about 2am. As I stepped in, an angry figure in a white nightgown stopped me.
“Well, what time of night is this to be coming home?” she shouted. “Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick!”
Shades of the past come back to disturb me. But what should I do about all this? Nothing, probably. Maybe, after all, it’s only a stage young people are going through.
The daughter thought her mother didn’t clean the kitchen sink well because of her .

A．laziness

B．carelessness

C．unhappiness

D．poor-quality glasses

From the passage we know the daughter .

A．didn’t want to help with the sink

B．didn’t like brown eyebrow pencils

C．had an accident when she went to her first party

D．shouted at her mum because she came home late

How does the mother feel after all these have happened?

A．Shocked.

B．Proud.

C．Envious.

D．Confused.

The author writes the stories to prove that .

A．their relationship became stronger

B．their roles changed as time passed

C．her daughter very much cared about her

D．her daughter got upset as she grew up

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请认真阅读下列短文，并根据所读内容在文章后表格中的空格里填入一个最恰当的单词。注意：每个空格只填1个单词。请将答案写在答题卡上相应题号的横线上。
Health researchers have noticed that some groups of people are more consistently healthy than others, and wondered… Is it race? Income? Where you live? In the United States, these disagreements in health outcomes have been the focus of intense research for the past several decades.
Harvard University health policy researcher Ellen Meara says scholars have found some clues as to why some groups of people have more or less disease than others. She says one important factor in people’s health is the amount of education they have.
In her most recent paper, Meara looked at data from the United states census. These counts of people occur every 10 years. Meara and her colleagues examined data from several decades.
“We looked at life expectancy(预测寿命) at age 25,” Meara says.
“How many additional years can you expect to live if you arrive at age 25 and your education has stopped at high school, or sooner? Versus how many years, can you expect to live if you’ve reached aged 25 and you’ve gone on to at least some college…”
Meara says they found that in 1990, a 25-year-old who only had some secondary school could expect to live for a total of 75 years. In 2000, a 25-year-old with some secondary education could also expect to live to the age of 75.
In contrast, for a better educated 25-year-old, they could expect to live to the age of 80 in 1990. Someone with a similar education level in the year 2000, could expect to live to be more than 81 years, 81.6 years to be exact.
Meara says, not only do better-educated people live longer to begin with, but in the past ten years, more educated people have made gains in the length of their lives. Meanwhile, the life expectancy hasn’t changed for less educated people.
Some of these gains can be explained. Meara says researchers know that people who are more educated are more likely to quit smoking cigarettes, or not start at all, compared to people with less education.
“I think it’s a reminder not to be satisfactory,” Meara says. “Just because a population overall appears to be getting healthier, it doesn’t always mean that those advantages and successes that many people have enjoyed really extend into all parts of the population. And I think that’s something to really pay attention to regardless of whether you live in the US or elsewhere.”
Meara points out that education can often determine income---people with more education frequently make more money. This makes them aware of health care, and purchase other resources and services that can keep them healthier. But the data on income do NOT show that people who make more money are automatically healthier.
Meara says education is key. People need to be educated in order to take advantage of opportunities for better health.

Title	The Amount of Contributes to People’s Health
	The less educated people	The ______ educated people
Comparisons	In 1990	They could live for 75 years	They could live to the age of 80
In 2000	Their life expectancy was the same as in 1990.	They could live to the age of 81.6 ____
___ of the research	In the past ten years	Their life expectancy remained _____.	They’ve made gains in the length of their lives, partly due to their __ smoking.
People are getting healthier, but it doesn’t mean that the advantages and successes extend into all parts of the ____.
Education____income.	People with more education make more money
Getting more money helps to increase their___ of health care, which can keep them healthier.
____	Education is the key to better health.

BUKHANNON, West Virginia—Two rescue teams slowly moved along a two-mile path on Monday night to the site of a coal mine explosion that trapped 13 miners, who had not been heard from since the early morning accident．
Meanwhile, at a nearby church, more than 250 family members and friends gathered, waiting for updates（最新报道）on the rescuers’ progress．
The miners were trapped at about 6:30 and many families weren’t informed of the accident until about 10 a．m-more than three hours after it happened．“It’s very upsetting, but you’ve got to be patient, I guess,” said John Helms, whose brother, Terry, was trapped in the mine．
The trapped miners were about 260 feet underground and about 10,000 feet from the Sago Mine’s entrance, said Roger Nicholson, general counsel from International Coal Group．
At a late night news conference, Nicholson said one team had advanced about 4, 800 feet in the four hours since entering the mine just before 6 p．m．Another team entered the mine about 30 minutes later．
He said the crew was very experienced, with some members having worked underground for 30 to 35 years．The miners were equipped with about one hour of breathable oxygen each．The company has not released the names of the miners．
The teams test the air about every 500 feet, and have to disconnect （remove） the power to the phones they use to communicate with the surface before doing that．“ We don’t want to be energizing anything if it’s in an atmosphere with burnable gases,” Kips said．
The cause of the explosion was not immediately known．High levels of carbon monoxide were discovered shortly after the explosion, which delayed rescue efforts, but those levels have since subsided（减退）, authorities said．
According to the passage, we can infer that ________．

A．all the miners who were trapped underground were still alive

B．communication with the trapped miners was cut off

C．the two rescue teams entered the mine at the same time

D．the rescue started as soon as the accident happened

If the first team advanced at an average speed, they could dig about _______ per hour．

A．1,000 feet

B．2,400 feet

C．1,200feet

D．4,800feet

Where can the passage be seen?

A．In a magazine．	B．In a newspaper．
C．In a science book．．	D．On an advertisement．

Which of the following shows the position where the miners were trapped?

For a 400-year-old art form, opera had a bad fame: overweight actresses singing the words which were hard to understand in one of those romance languages you were supposed to learn in high school. And with tickets costing as much as $145 a performance, opera goers also had a certain appearance in people's mind: rich, well-dressed and old.
But now opera companies around the country are loosening their ties and kicking off their shoes in an attempt to keep opera alive and take it to a younger and not so wealthy audience.
Opera producers have found that to attract this crowd, they need to make the opera closer to common people. Because young people don't or won't come to the opera, companies are bringing the opera to them, giving performances in such unusual places as parks, libraries and public schools.
The Houston Grand Opera's choice is the public library, where it performs “mobile operas” shortened versions(剧本) of child-friendly operas. This summer's production is Hansel ＆ Gretel. By performing smaller versions of large productions, producers are able to make people interested while keeping costs at a reasonable level. The San Francisco Opera, which will be celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, is staging Cinderella free of charge, keeping costs down by employing students from its Young Artists' Training Program.
Which is the main idea of this passage？

A． Opera is famous for its long history.

B． Opera is only performed for rich people.

C． Opera companies are trying to keep opera alive.

D． Young people are not interested in opera.

The underlined phrase in the second paragraph means ______.

A． breaking up the old rules	B． changing the dresses
C． making the audience at ease	D．advertising themselves

Opera companies prefer to perform short versions because ______ .

A． they can be performed in public libraries

B． short versions are easy to perform

C． it is hard to find long versions

D． they can make more people come to opera

The San Francisco Opera employs students in order to ______.

A． celebrate its 75th anniversary	B． reduce the cost
C． attract young people	D． make Cinderella popular

A．8:30 a.m. Wednesday.	B．9:30 a.m. Friday.
C．3:00 p.m. Sunday.	D．5:00 p.m. Tuesday.