Helen Thomas, the pioneering White House reporter known for putting presidents on the hot seat, died at 92．
To those who regularly watch presidential press conferences, Helen Thomas is a familiar figure．Usually dressed in red and always seated in the front row, she is always the first or second reporter the president calls upon．It is an honor she has earned．Besides, it affords her the perfect opportunity to do what she does best - challenge the president and other public officials to tell the plain truth．She said, "We reporters' priority（首要事情） is the people's right to know - without fear or favor．We are the people's servants．"
Helen Thomas was born in Kentucky in 1920．All the nine Thomas children were brought up to value education, and all were expected to make something of themselves through working hard．She made up her mind while still in high school to become a reporter after writing for the student newspaper．After receiving her bachelor's degree in 1942, Thomas headed straight for Washington, D．C．in search of a newspaper job．Before long, she landed one at Washington Daily News．Her duty included fetching coffee and doughnuts for the paper's reporters and editors．The eager young woman found the atmosphere exciting and was convinced she had made the right career choice．
Her big break came when she was sent to Florida to report on the vacation of President-elect John F．Kennedy and his family．Once President Kennedy took office, Thomas changed her focus from the president's family to his policies．She began attending the daily press briefings at the White House as well as presidential press conferences．Thomas has covered every president since Kennedy．Over the years, Thomas found her job "thrilling and inspiring," but never boring．And she took very seriously her duty to "keep an eye on the president" and keep American people informed．What can we learn about Helen Thomas from the passage?
| A．Her career took off after covering the Kennedys． |
| B．Her first job was to deliver doughnuts to a news agency． |
| C．She was born to a large family in Kentucky in 1942． |
| D．She decided to be a reporter while in college． |
Paragraph 3 is written to show Helen Thomas
| A．is a good decision maker for her career |
| B．appreciates education and hard work |
| C．wants to be famous by writing reports |
| D．has great support from her family |
What does Helen Thomas think other work?
| A．Unbearable． | B．Exciting． | C．Challenging． | D．Unforgettable． |
What can be the best title for the text?
| A．A reporter sticking to the facts． |
| B．A reporter challenging President Kennedy． |
| C．A reporter from an ordinary family． |
| D．A reporter for Washington Daily News． |
It's every student's dream to do well in the national college entrance examination and enter a good university. In the eyes of students and parents, a good university should have a high ranking, and the employment rate of its graduates should be high. But be careful! The employment rate they tell you might not always be true.
Recently, people created a Chinese phrase "bei jiuye", which has become popular on the Internet almost overnight across China. The word "bei" has a grammatical use in Chinese: it has a function similar to the passive voice in English. But now people often use it to express their doubts about something. Here, the phrase "bei jiuye" has the literal meaning of "to be hired", but people understand that it really means "to be hired without one's knowledge" or "be hired for jobs that may not exist at all".
The story of "bei jiuye" goes like this. Zhao Dongdong, a graduate of a university in Shanxi province, was surprised to find that he got a job from a company he never applied to, which he wasn't even sure was a real place. On his last day of graduation ceremonies, he was surprised to come across the employment contract.
"God! At that time, I had not landed a job yet, but they gave me an employment contract! I wondered who on earth signed the contract with the company." When Zhao made a phone call to the company to check it out, no one answered.
He was not the only one in his college who was "hired" for a job that did not exist. One of his classmates signed a contract with a company called Xi'an Beilin Industrial Corporation, which could not be found on the Internet either. In the end, it turned out that the college had faked the contract to make it seem like the employment rate for new graduates was higher than that. By doing this, the college could build up a "good" reputation that could help it attract new students.
"Bei jiuye" is just one of many hot "bei" words on the Internet. See some of them in "Bonus". The use of "bei" is a satirical (讽刺的) way for the public to express its helplessness and criticize abuses of power, some people say. People also use "bei" words to bring attention to social problems, hoping they will be noticed by authorities.
| Standards of students’ and parents’ 1.__________ |
Having a high ranking |
| Having a high 2.______________ |
|
| 3._______ of the phrase “ Bei jiuye” |
To be hired 4._________ |
| To be hired with no knowledge or for 5.__________ jobs |
|
| 6._________ of the appearance of the phrase “ Bei jiuye” |
Seemingly 7. __________ rate for new graduates |
| To 8.___________ |
|
| 9.__________ to the hot phrase “Bei jiuye”on the Internet |
A way of expressing helpless and 10.__________ A way of fixing attention to social problems and being noticed by authorities |
Fear can be a wonderful feeling in our lives, protecting us from dangerous situations and keeping us safe. But fear can also limit our lives significantly. While it may not be conscious, fear may make us think we are unacceptable or that what we have to offer isn’t valuable. Fear may make us feel that we are not safe being ourselves.
To avoid feeling fear, we may limit our lives greatly, living in tiny boxes. Living this way gives us the illusion(假象) of safety but leaves us with an unfulfilling life of no passion. If we shine a light on many of our fears, we see they have a very limited view of what is “safe” and how to “protect” us. Many of our fears are concerned only with protecting us from humiliation(羞辱) and failure. While these fears are doing their jobs incredibly well, they are doing so with faulty and outdated programming. Many fears we have as adults are trying to protect us as they protected us when we were children. Indeed, many of our current, automatic reactions to fear were actually formed when we were children.
Even so, it’s important not to judge ourselves for feeling these types of fears. If we judge ourselves, we will bury our fears or disguise them. By denying our fears, however, we also deny our energy, creativity and passion.
So what do we do with fear? We recognize the fear for what it is--- a feeling we’ve experienced many times in the past and a feeling we will experience many times in the future. We become very familiar with our own particular brand of fears and how we allow them to control our lives. It is especially beneficial for each of us to become aware of the particular behavior patterns we’ve adopted when we feel fear, so we can look at our reactions with a sense of humor and compassion. Then, if we wish, we can choose a different response, which can be a scary yet very exciting experience.According to the first paragraph, fear sometimes.
| A．protect us when we’ve made mistakes |
| B．makes sure our feelings are not hurt |
| C．brings great change to our everyday life |
| D．makes us lose confidence in ourselves |
It can be inferred from the passage that the author.
| A．thinks it difficult to control our fear |
| B．believes fears protect us negatively |
| C．thinks it’s good to criticize ourselves |
| D．values the advantages of feeling fear |
According to the author, the ways we react to fear .
| A．vary from person to person |
| B．have been formed since childhood |
| C．develop during our growth |
| D．will not change until we get old |
The last paragraph mainly tells us .
| A．what is the essence of fears |
| B．usual reactions we have when feeling fear |
| C．how to deal with fears reasonably |
| D．the importance of humor and compassion |
What would be the best title for the passage?
| A．Is fear managing your life? |
| B．Be calm when feeling fear |
| C．What do you fear most? |
| D．Passion, chance and fear |
NEW YORK---One in five U.S. workers regularly attends after-work drinks with coworkers, where the most common mishaps range from badmouthing another worker to drinking too much, according to a study released on Tuesday.
Most workers attend so-called happy hours to bond with colleagues, although 15 percent go to hear the latest office gossip and 13 percent go because they feel necessary, said the survey conducted for CareerBuilder. com, an online job site. As to what happens when the after-work drinks flow, 16 percent reported bad-mouthing a colleague, 10 percent shared a secret about a colleague and 8 percent said they drank too much and acted unprofessionally. Five percent said they had shared a secret about the company, and 4 percent confessed to singing karaoke. While 21 percent of those who attended said happy hours were good for networking, 85 percent said attending had not helped them get closer to someone higher up or get a better position. An equal number of men and women said they attended happy hours with co-workers, with younger workers aged 25 to 34 most likely and workers over 55 least likely to attend. Overall, 21 percent of workers attend happy hours with co-workers and of those nearly a quarter go at least once a month.
The survey was conducted online by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder. Com among 6,987 full-time employees between February 11 and March 13. Harris Interactive said the results had a sampling error of plus or minus 1.2 percentage points.Harris Interactive made the survey to find out.
| A．how U.S. workers spend their after-work time |
| B．what U.S. workers do at after-work drinks |
| C．the relationships between U.S. workers |
| D．who are most likely to attend after-work drinks |
of workers who attend after-work drinks speak ill of a colleague.
| A．4 percent | B．8 percent | C．16 percent | D．10 percent |
According to the passage, most of those surveyed believed attending after-work drinks.
| A．benefited them a lot | B．could provide information |
| C．only made them relaxed | D．was of no help to them |
We can learn from the text that .
| A．workers over 55 don’t like to attend happy hours at all |
| B．about 75% of workers go more than once a month |
| C．10.5% of male workers attend happy hours with co-workers |
| D．about 700 workers surveyed shared a secret about a co-worker |
After the survey, it can be inferred that.
| A．all the workers oppose after-work drinks |
| B．the workers may change their attitudes towards after-work drinks |
| C．all the workers support after-work drinks |
| D．all the workers are suggested going to attend after-work drinks |
Senior citizens are permitted to travel cheaply on a bus if they have a special card. Women may get cards when they are sixty.
Mrs. Matthews lived in the country but she went into town once a week to buy food and other things for the house, and she usually went by bus. She always had to pay the full price for her ride.
Then she reached the age of sixty and got her senior citizen’s card, but when she used it for the first time on the bus, it made her feel very old.
The bus driver had often seen her traveling on the bus before, and he noticed that she was feeling unhappy, so after she had paid her money, he winked at her and whispered, “Don’t forget to give your mother’s card back to her when you see her again.”
Mrs. Matthews was very happy when she heard this.Senior citizens in the story refer to .
| A．those who have special cards |
| B．old people with special cards |
| C．people who hold high positions in the government |
| D．those who wanted to travel cheaply |
Women over sixty .
| A．don’t have to pay for taking buses |
| B．pay less for their ride if they have a special card |
| C．have to pay the full price for their ride |
| D．have to pay their special card |
Mrs. Matthews used to pay the full price for her ride because .
| A．she didn’t know the rule |
| B．she wasn’t old enough |
| C．she didn’t know where to get the card |
| D．she had reached sixty but had not got her senior citizen card |
Mrs. Matthews felt unhappy on the bus because .
| A．she still had to pay for the ride |
| B．the card wasn’t hers |
| C．she felt she was now an old woman |
| D．the driver found out she was not honest |
The driver whispered to her .
| A．in order to make her feel younger |
| B．because he thought that she shouldn’t have borrowed her mother’s card |
| C．because he wanted her to pay the full amount |
| D．because he knew her mother was still alive |
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is one of the most loved children’s books of all time, and many adults enjoy it as well. It tells the story of a young girl named Alice, who follows a rabbit entering a magical world called Wonderland. She has many experiences which seem to change the rules of reasoning or common sense. The popularity of the book comes from its imagination, interesting story, and art work.
The writer of the book is Lewis Carroll. In fact, Lewis Carroll was not the writer’s real name. His real name was Charles Dodgson. One day, he took a boat ride down the Thames River to have a picnic with three little girls who were friends of the family. To keep them entertained on the ride, he told them a story in which Alice, the middle child, was the main character. They enjoyed the story very much.
Charles later wrote the story down under the name Alice’s Adventures Under Ground and gave it to Alice as a Christmas present. Later, he gave a copy to his friend George MacDonald. George read it to his children and they loved it. George suggested to Charles that he make a book from his story. Charles then wrote more parts to the story until it was around 35,000 words. It was first printed in 1866, with art work by John Tenniel, under the name Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The book was an immediate success. One of its first fans was Queen Victoria. She immediately requested a collection of all of Lewis Carroll’s works. She was surprised to find that they included many works on math. In fact, Charles Dodgson was a highly respected mathematician. This can be seen in many puzzles and plays on reasoning that appear in his books and poems.
Since the story was first printed, it has kept selling up to the present day. It has been translated into over fifty languages and has had several movies based on it.The passage is mainly about _________.
| A．Charles’ family life |
| B．the birth of a book and its lasting influences |
| C．a magical world called Wonderland |
| D．a girl’s adventurous experiences |
Who first had the idea of making a book from the story “Alice Adventures Under Ground”?
| A．Alice | B．Charles | C．George | D．John |
Which of the following is the right order of the passage?
a. Charles gave his story to Alice as a Christmas present.
b. Charles had a picnic with three little girls on the Thames.
c. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was first printed in 1866.
d. More parts were added to the story by Charles.
e. The book won a large number of fans.
| A．c-b-a-d-e | B．c-a-b-e-d | C．b-a-d-c-e | D．b-a-c-e-d |