Barack Obama, Lady Gaga and Steve Jobs—what do they have in common? They are, of course, all Americans. And according to a survey by social networking site badoo. com, they all best illustrate(举例说明) the word “cool”. 
But just what does it mean to say someone is “cool”? Most would answer that it is something to do with being independent-minded and not following the crowd.
Yale University art professor Robert Farris Thompson says that the term “cool” goes back to 15th century West African philosophy(哲学). “Cool” relates to ideas of grace(优雅) under pressure.
“In Africa, ” he writes, “coolness is a positive quality which combines calmness, silence, and life.”
The modern idea of “cool” developed largely in the US in the period after World War II. “Post-war ‘cool’ was in part an expression of war-weariness (n. 厌战情绪)
. . . it went against the strict social rules of the time,” write sociologists Dick Pountain and David Robins in Cool Rules:Anatomy of an Attitude.
But it was the American actor James Dean who became the symbol for “cool” in the hugely successful 1955 movie Rebel without a Cause. Dean plays a tough guy who disobeys his parents and the authorities. He always gets the girl, smokes cigarettes, wears a leather jacket and beats up bullies(欺凌弱小者). In the movie, Dean showed what “cool” would mean to American young people for the next 60 years.
Today the focus of “cool” has changed to athletics (体育运动) stars. Often in movies about schools, students gain popularity on the athletics field more than in the classroom. This can be seen quite clearly in movies like Varsity Blues and John Tucker Must Die.
But many teenagers also think being smart is cool. Chess and other thinking games have been becoming more popular in schools.
“Call it the Harry Potterization of America—a time when being smart is the new cool,” writes journalist Joe Sunnen.Barack Obama, Lady Gaga and Steve Jobs are mentioned in the first paragraph to ________.
| A．introduce the topic | B．draw our attention |
| C．tell us what they have in common | D．tell us what is “cool” |
If you were considered “cool” in Africa in the 15th century, you ________.
| A．thought and acted differently from the majority |
| B．had a calm and quiet attitude towards life |
| C．didn’t observe rules and authorities |
| D．had all kinds of “bad” manners |
The heroes in Varsity Blues and John Tucker Must Die are likely to be those who ________.
| A．do very well in their studies |
| B．are very skilled at sports |
| C．are good at chess and other thinking games. |
| D．have supernatural powers like Harry Potter |
Which of the following is NOT true according to the article?
| A．It is generally considered “cool” to be independent-minded and not to follow the crowd. |
| B．“Cool” was used as early as the 15th century. |
| C．Disobeying one’s parents and the authorities is considered “cool” among American young people nowadays. |
| D．Getting the first place in an exam can also be considered “cool”. |
What does the article mainly talk about?
| A．The origin of the word “cool”. |
| B．The kinds of people who are “cool”. |
| C．The changing meaning of the word “cool”. |
| D．How to be a “ cool” person. |
Every day, Daisy wakes up next to a man，who has to convince her they are married．When she expresses doubt，he takes out a photo album and shows her pictures of their wedding 13 years ago·
Only then does amnesiac Daisy accept that she has been married，and that everything he has told her is true．The lady’s condition was caused by brain injuries suffered in two road accidents，a motorbike crash in 1985 and a car accident in 1990.Since then everything that happens on one day is forgotten the next day.
She has no day-to-day memory after the car crash．And it is not just loved ones that Daisy struggles with．She uses hundreds of notes and reminders on her mobile phone’s calendar to keep her informed of appointments and everyday duties．And on the rare occasions when she takes the risk of going out of her home alone，she has to be armed with navigation(导航)programmed with her address.
There are some benefits，however．There is no such thing as a repeat on TV and every joke is funny, because it seemed she has heard it the first time．“It’s like I am living the same day, day after day,’’said Daisy, who does voluntary work at a charity for people with disabilities three days a week．
Dr Peter Nestor said Daisy was suffering from anterograde(顺行的)amnesia. He added，“It is reasonably rare，but it does exist．You are able to carry out day-to-day things，and don’t forget how to do certain things like speaking. But if someone was to ask you what you did yesterday, you wouldn’t have a clue.”What caused Daisy’s condition?
| A．Her disability since birth． |
| B．Brain injuries in accidents． |
| C．Her declining health． |
| D．Tiring working． |
How did Daisy’s family help remind her?
| A．By taking her to the hospital． |
| B．By telling her jokes． |
| C．By showing her old photos and pictures． |
| D．By persuading her to recall the car crash． |
The underlined word“amnesiac”in Paragraph 2 probably means
| A．strong | B．optimistic |
| C．warm-hearted | D．forgetful |
Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．Daisy could still enjoy a lot in spite of her illness． |
| B．The only thing Daisy kept in mind was her home． |
| C．Daisy couldn’t do anything but stay at home． |
| D．Daisy didn’t want to trust anyone else． |
On Sept 18, they arrived before polling stations even opened, dressed in school uniforms, with book bags over their shoulders—and, for the first time in British history, ballot (选票) cards in hands.
More than 109,000 Scottish teenagers aged 16 to 17 took part in the Scottish independence referendum (公民投票), in which Scotland eventually decided not to become independent.
The age group only made up a small part of the 4.29 million total voters, but they have “demonstrated how the youngest voters can be some of the most enthusiastic in a mature democracy”, commented The Associated Press. Casting their ballots, they were “proud and passionate” to help their nation decide whether to break away from the UK after 307 years in union.
“You feel like you’ve got a say, because it is going to be you. You are going to decide what it is like when you’re older,” 16-year-old Erin Cheshire in Glasgow, who voted “yes”, told The Wall Street Journal.
At age 16, Scottish residents are allowed to join the military, get married, and work. Eighteen is the legal drinking age, as well as the UK’s voting age. But in 2013, Scottish law was changed to allow 16- and 17-year-olds in Scotland to vote in the referendum. The government pushed for the change because “younger voters are more likely to vote with their hearts, not their heads—and embrace fundamental change by voting for the pro-independence Yes Scotland campaign”, NBC News said.
But when the decision was handed down, some worried that high school students might not be as informed as adult voters. However, many experts said that assumption was wrong.
Professor Jan Eichhorn of the University of Edinburgh insisted that Scottish teenagers were as likely to read newspaper articles and campaign materials as their parents. They would simply get these resources through social media.
“There’s no evidence to suggest that they’re less capable than adults of voting, from a research point of view,” Eichhorn told NPR.
Scotland’s move to let younger teenagers vote in the referendum has led to a discussion about whether the voting age ought to be lowered to 16, both in the UK and the US.
“By 16, most people have about as stable an ideology (思想意识) as they are going to get,” Professor Jason Brennan of Georgetown University wrote for CNN, arguing that the US should also think about allowing younger US citizens to vote. The Scottish independence referendum was held on Sept. 18 ______.
| A．to encourage youngsters to be concerned with politics |
| B．to lower the minimum voting age to 16 for the referendum |
| C．to elect who would be the new leader of Scotland |
| D．to decide whether Scotland would become independent from the UK |
According to the passage, we can learn ______.
| A．It is possible for the USA to lower the voting age to 16 in the future. |
| B．Scotland gained its independence from the UK eventually. |
| C．All the people in Scotland thought highly of the government’s decision to lower the voting age to 16. |
| D．Scottish teenagers aged 16 are allowed to join the military, get married, work and drink alcohol now. |
What doe the underlined word “embrace” (in para.5) probably mean?
| A．Approve of | B．Object to |
| C．Know about | D．Admit to |
What is Jan Eichhorn’s opinion of the Scottish teenagers aged 16 to 17?
| A．They are too enthusiastic to make informed decisions. |
| B．They make no difference to the voting result. |
| C．They are as informed and capable as adults of voting. |
| D．They are unwilling to be involved in the decision of the country’s future. |
Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.
People use their mouths for many things. They eat, talk, shout and sing. They smile and they kiss. In the English language, there are many expressions using the word mouth. But some of them are not so nice.
For example, if you say bad things about a person, the person might protest and say “Do not bad mouth me.”
Sometimes, people say something to a friend or a family member that they later regret because it hurts that person’s feelings. Or they tell the person something they were not supposed to tell. The speaker might say: “I really put my foot in my mouth this time.” If this should happen, the speaker might feel down in the mouth. In other words, he might feel sad for saying the wrong thing.
Another situation is when someone falsely claims another person said something. The other person might protest: “I did not say that. Do not put words in my mouth.”
Information is often spread through word of mouth. This is general communication between people, like friends talking to each other. “How did you hear about that new movie?” someone might ask. “Oh, by word of mouth.” A more official way of getting information is through a company or government mouthpiece. This is an official spokesperson. Government-run media could also be called a mouthpiece.
Sometimes when one person is speaking, he says the same thing that his friend was going to say. When this happens, the friend might say: “You took the words right out of my mouth!” Sometimes a person has a bad or unpleasant experience with another person. He might say that experience “left a bad taste in my mouth.” Or the person might have had a very frightening experience, like being chased by an angry dog. He might say: “I had my heart in my mouth.”
Some people have lots of money because they were born into a very rich family. There is an expression for this, too. You might say such a person, “was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.” This rich person is the opposite of a person who lives from hand to mouth. This person is very poor and only has enough money for the most important things in life, like food.
Parents might sometimes withhold sweet food from a child as a form of punishment for saying bad things. For example, if a child says things she should not say to her parents, she might be described as a mouthy child. The parents might even tell the child to stop mouthing off.
But enough of all this talk. I have been running my mouth long enough.Which of the following can best describe his or her feeling if a speaker feels down in the mouth?
| A．Delighted | B．Regretful |
| C．Disappointed | D．Respectful |
When your car was close to knocking into a truck, you might say “_______”
| A．I really put my foot in my mouth this time. |
| B．I had my heart in my mouth. |
| C．I live from hand to mouth. |
| D．I get to know it by word of mouth. |
According to the passage, which behavior is surely Not welcome?
a. bad mouthing somebody
b. mouthing off about something
c. putting words in somebody’s mouth
d. taking the words right out of somebody’s mouth
| A．abc | B．abd | C．bcd | D．acd |
What do “I” probably (in the last Para.) do?
| A．A host | B．A journalist |
| C．A director | D．A listener |
If you are sitting down listening to what I’m going to say, stand up. Move your legs. Touch your toes, if you can. Do anything but sit.
If you cut down on the time you spend sitting, you might live longer. New research shows that sitting less than three hours a day might extend your life by two years.
Just the opposite, says Peter Katzmarzyk. He is a scientist at the University of Louisiana in the southern United States. He says that sitting is ubiquitous in our lives. "We sit while we're eating; we sit in the car; we sit while we watch TV. Many of us sit for many hours at work. " But, he adds, that does not make sitting good for us. The human body is designed to move. But modern lifestyles and office jobs rarely give us the chance to move around.
Exercise is important. So is not sitting.
"We can't throw away physical activity. It's extremely important. We have 60 years of research showing us that. Even if you exercise for 30 minutes a day, what goes on in the other 23-and-a-half hours a day is also very important."
Mr. Katzmarzyk and his co-workers are part of a new generation of researchers studying how sitting all day affects length of life. This is a relatively new area of study—studies that have assessed the relationship between sitting and mortality(死亡) or television viewing and mortality.
Making uses of the few studies available to them, they found that cutting television time to less than two hours a day could add one-point four years to life.
New desk designs are helping
Change is already coming to some offices, especially in the design of desks. A "standing desk" lets people stand while they work. Another new design is called the "treadmill desk." A treadmill is an exercise machine that lets you walk in one place. That's one of the strategies that many companies are using now. Some companies may equip their employees with a "standing desk" or a "treadmill desk". Other companies may not buy one for everybody, but they'll have a bank of these desks where people can go for an hour a day and answer their emails or talk on the phone. Even some U.S. schools are beginning to experiment with such desks to keep children moving.
Mr. Katzmarzyk says studying this problem has inspired his team to make a few changes in their own lives. "As a university professor, you know, it is a very sedentary occupation. We're chained to a desk in terms of writing papers and doing research. We really try to limit the amount of time we spend doing that."
Suggestions for sitting less
If you work in office job or have a sedentary job, Mr. Katzmarzyk and his team suggest a few simple changes:
get up from your desk as often as you can take walks at lunch time walk to your colleagues’ offices and talk directly instead of emailing them All these activities may help you live longer.What might be the best title for the passage?
| A．Take exercise, keep fit. |
| B．Change more, achieve greater. |
| C．Talk directly, improve relationship. |
| D．Sit less, live longer. |
The word “ubiquitous ” (in Para. 3) means “_______”.
| A．common | B．normal |
| C．individual | D．specific |
Mr Katzmarzyk holds the view that _______.
| A．the study doesn’t benefit him at all |
| B．it’s unnecessary to limit television time |
| C．emailing colleagues is better than a face-to-face talk |
| D．those taking exercises 30 minutes a day still can’t sit long |
The passage is most likely to be _______.
| A．a medical research | B．a book review |
| C．a health report | D．a sports feature |
The first day of school always goes wrong. For many students in the United States, however, this year it was even more so. It was all due to one extra school policy – they are now required to follow a new standardized dress code.
According to the handbooks of all high schools in Allentown, Pennsylvania, students must wear short- or long-sleeve polo shirts and khaki (卡其色) or black pants. Skinny jeans, leggings and open-toe shoes are not allowed.
Allentown schools are not alone. At Edgewater High School in Florida, shirts must have collars or sleeves, and pants must not sag (下垂) and reach at least mid-thigh (大腿中部). No see-through shirts or T- shirts with references to sex on them are allowed.
Overall, more than half of US public schools now enforce dress codes, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. About 57 percent of schools now have a “strict dress code”, up from more than 47 percent a decade earlier, USA Today said.
Among young people, there are mixed emotions. Some don’t mind wearing similar clothes every day while others aren’t happy. Despite dress codes in many school districts, some students still come to school – even on their first day – in skirts that are too short, necklines that are too low and sagging pants that don’t stay up on their hips.
But there are punishments. If they are out of dress code, students can be removed from the classroom until they fix the problem. In Florida, wearing sagging pants is illegal for youths according to a state law issued in 2011. Breaking the rule results in not being able to do after-school activities, and even being forbidden to attend class.
Some US schools go further and require students to wear uniforms. Many say that they simplify their jobs, saving teachers from having to punish students for wearing skirts or shorts that are too short, for instance. They can also prevent feelings of competition and envy among students.
“It takes away the daily fashion show and helps level the playing field a little bit with the haves and have-nots,” longtime school safety consultant Ken Trump told USA Today.
Critics of uniforms say they rob students of individuality. But for some people, that’s a lazy argument.
“Clothing isn’t the only form of self-expression. Students should know that it’s what they do that counts,” commented a parent named Beth Kassab in The Orlando Sentinel in Florida.According to the new standardized dress code, students in the US are allowed to wear.
| A．knee-length pants |
| B．shirts without sleeves |
| C．transparent T-shirts |
| D．jeans sticking to skin |
What is the main idea of Para 5?
| A．What the new dress code is. |
| B．How students dressed themselves. |
| C．What punishments students may receive. |
| D．How students responded to the code. |
Students in some US schools are required to wear uniforms Not to.
| A．pay less attention to their appearance |
| B．prevent comparison among students |
| C．bring out the best in students |
| D．spare teachers from punishing students for their improper dress |
What do Beth Kassab’s words imply?
| A．Uniforms limit the individuality of students. |
| B．Students should pay more attention to their behavior. |
| C．Clothing is of no importance to students. |
| D．Students should concentrate more on their study. |