The composing career (作曲生涯) of Albert Roussel got off to a changeable start, and received one of its biggest successes from a lie.
Roussel became an orphan (孤儿) at the age of eight and went to live with his grandfather. He built on the music he had learned from his mother, entertaining himself by reading through the family music collection and playing operatic selections and popular songs on the piano. Three years later Roussel’s grandfather died, and his mother's sister took him in. Her husband arranged for young Albert to take piano lessons. Summer vacations at a Belgian seaside added a second love to his life — the sea. He studied to be a soldier in the navy, but still made time to study music.
In the French Navy, he and two friends found time to play the music of Beethoven and other composers. Roussel also began composing. At the Church of the Trinity in Cherbourg on Christmas Day 1892, he had his first public appearance as a composer. That success encouraged Roussel to write a wedding march, and one of his fellow naval officers offered to show it to a famous conductor, Edouard Colonne. When Roussel’s friend returned with the manuscript (手稿), he reported that Colonne had advised Roussel to give up his naval career and devote his life to music.
Not long afterward, at the age of 2S, Roussel did just that. He applied the qualities that he had developed in the navy to his composing and became a major force in twentieth century French music. As for Edouard Colonne’s inspiring advice that Roussel should devote his life to music, Roussel's naval friend later admitted that he had made it up and that he had never even shown Roussel’s manuscript to the conductor.What information can we get from the second paragraph?
| A．Albert’s grandfather died when Albert was eight years old. |
| B．Albert's aunt arranged for him to take piano lessons. |
| C．Albert gave up studying music after he studied to be a soldier in the navy. |
| D．Albert came to love the sea after summer vacations at the seaside. |
From the third paragraph we know that ______.
| A．in the French Navy, Roussel and two friend began composing |
| B．Roussel’s first public appearance at the church was successful |
| C．Roussel's naval friend showed the wedding march to Edouard |
| D．Edouard Colonne advised Roussel to devote his life to music |
Which of the following is true according to the text?
| A．The composing career of Roussel started stably. |
| B．Roussel learned basic music knowledge from his aunt. |
| C．A white lie helped Roussel achieve success. |
| D．Roussel was cheated and hurt by his naval friend. |
Who told a lie according to the text?
| A．Roussel’s grandfather. | B．Albert’s naval friend. | C．Roussel's aunt. | D．Edouard Colonne. |
Below is a web page from http:// ww.parents.com/
Kid of the Year Photo Competition
Enter your kid’s photo today and win! We’re giving away 52 weekly $250 prizes from Readers’ Choice votes. PLUS our editors will select one entry to win our grand prize of $7,000.
Official Competition Rules
No purchase necessary to enter or win.
The Kid of the Year Photo Competition entry period begins at 12:00 a.m.
January 23, 2011, and ends January 21, 2012 (“Entry Period”). Entries must arrive by 9:00 p.m. on January 21, 2012 (“Entry Deadline”). Entries will not be acknowledged or returned. SPONSOR(赞助商): Meredith Corporation, 1716 Locust Street, Des Moines, Iowa. ENTRY: There will be two methods of entry. Share My Entry:
Visit http://www.parents.com/photos/photo-contests-1/kid-of-the-year/ and click the button to enter. Facebook Entry:
Visit http://Facebook.com/ParentsMagazine and click the Kid of 2011 tab(选项卡).
Then complete the registration form and follow the instructions to upload one album of up to six photos of your child aged three months to eight years. You may provide one description and one album title that will be applied to all photos. Photos, without any brand names or trademarks, must be taken by participants, non-professional, unpublished and may not have won any prize or award. Photos must be .jpeg or .bmp image formats (格式) and cannot be over 3 MB
This promotion is in no way sponsored, supported or run by, or associated with Facebook. You are
providing your information to Parents Magazine and not to Facebook. The information you provide will
only be used to run the promotion and register for Parents.com.
LIMIT: One entry per family, per child, per week. One weekly prize per child. For entries of more
than one child in a family, the entry process must be completed separately for each child. No group entries.We can learn from the passage that _________.
| A．you should buy something first before you enter the contest |
| B．your entry will not be returned even if you don’t win the contest |
| C．you should send your entry before 9:00 p.m. on January 21, 2011 |
| D．the editors of the contest will decide who will win the 20,000 dollars in prizes |
Linda, a mother with seven-year-old twins, wants to enter the competition. She must _________.
| A．provide a description and an album title for the kid’s photos |
| B．go to Meredith Corporation to fill out the registration forms |
| C．complete the entry process separately for each of her kids |
| D．provide the information to Facebook if she chooses Facebook Entry |
To enter the competition, photos must __________.
| A．be taken by non-professional participants |
| B．have won some prize or award |
| C．contain brand names or trademarks |
| D．contain parents’ personal information |
The purpose of the passage is __________.
| A．to advertise the website Facebook. Com |
| B．to attract photographers’ interest in a photo contest |
| C．to introduce two methods of entering a photo contest |
| D．to encourage parents with children to enter a photo contest |
Psychiatrists(精神病专家)who work with older parents say that maturity(成熟) can be an advantage in child raising—older parents are more thoughtful, use less physical discipline and spend more time with their children. But raising kids takes money and energy. Many older parents find themselves balancing their limited financial resources, decreasing energy and failing health against the growing demands of an active child. Dying and leaving young children is probably the older parents’ biggest, and often unspoken fear. “Having late-life children often means parents, particularly fathers, end up retiring much later. For many, retirement becomes an unobtainable dream.” says Brandy Gabrielle, an economics professor.
Henry Metcalf, a 54-year-old journalist, knows it takes money to raise kids. But he’s also worried that his energy will give out first. Sure, he can still ride bikes with his athletic fifth grader, but he's learned that young at heart doesn't mean young. Lately he’s been taking afternoon naps to keep up his energy. “My body is aging,” says Metcalf. “You can't get away from that.”
Often, older parents hear the ticking of another kind of biological clock. Therapists (治疗专家)who work with middle-aged and older parents say fears about aging are nothing to laugh at. “They worry they’ll be mistaken for grandparents, or that they’ll need help getting up out of those little chairs in nursery school,” says Joann Gals, a New York psychologist. But at the core(核心)of those little fears there is often a much bigger one: “that they won't be alive long enough to support and protect their children,” she says.
Many late-life parents, though, say their children came at just the right time. After marrying late and undergoing years of pregnancy treatment, Marilyn Nolen and her husband, Randy, had twins. “We both wanted children,” says Marilyn, who was 55 when she gave birth. The twins have given the couple what they desired for years — a sense of family. Kids of older dads are often smarter, happier and more sociable because their fathers are more involved in their lives. “The dads are older, more mature,” says Dr. Silber, “and more ready to focus on parenting.” The reason why psychiatrists regard maturity as an advantage in child raising is that _____.
| A．older parents are usually more experienced in bringing up their children. |
| B．older parents can better balance their resources against children's demands. |
| C．older parents are often better prepared financially. |
| D．older parents tend to devote more love and patience to their children. |
According to Brandy Gabrielle, what can we know about old parents?
| A．They support and protect their children at the cost of their lives. |
| B．They can get retired earlier to educate their children. |
| C．They have to go on working beyond their retirement age. |
| D．They attach more importance to work rather than child raising. |
What’s the author’s attitude toward the older parents?
| A．Encouraging | B．Doubtful. | C．Objective. | D．Worried. |
What do we learn about Marilyn and Randy Nolen?
| A．They thought it was too late to have children in their fifties. |
| B．When they reached middle age, they thought of having children. |
| C．They believed that children born of older parents would be smarter. |
| D．Not until they had the twins did they feel they had formed a family. |
Who’s in control of your life? Who’s pulling your strings(绳子)? For the majority of us, it’s other people—society, colleagues, friends, family or our religious community. We learned this way of operating when we were very young, of course. We were brainwashed. We discovered that feeling important and feeling accepted was a nice experience and so we learned to do everything we could to make other people like us. As Oscar Wilde puts it, “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry(模仿), their passions a quotation.”
So when people tell us how wonderful we are, it makes us feel good. We long for this good feeling like a drug—we are addicted to it and seek it out wherever we can. Therefore, we are so eager for the approval of others that we live unhappy and limited lives, failing to do the things we really want to. Just as drug addicts and alcoholics live worsened lives to keep getting their fix(一剂毒品), we worsen our own existence to get our own constant fix of approval.
But, just as with any drug, there is a price to pay. The price of the approval drug is freedom—the freedom to be ourselves. The truth is that we cannot control what other people think. People have their own agenda(议程), and they come with their own baggage and, in the end, they’re more interested in themselves than in you. Furthermore, if we try to live by the opinions of others, we will build our life on sinking sand. Everyone has a different way of thinking, and people change their opinions all the time. The person who tries to please everyone will only end up getting exhausted and probably pleasing no one in the process.
So how can we take back control? I think there’s only one way—make a conscious decision to stop caring what other people think. We should guide ourselves by means of a set of values—not values imposed from the outside by others, but innate values which come from within. If we are driven by these values and not by the changing opinions and value systems of others, we will live a more authentic(真实的), effective, purposeful and happy life.What Oscar Wilde says implies that _____.
| A．most people have a variety of thoughts. |
| B．we have thoughts similar to those of others. |
| C．other people’s thoughts are more important . |
| D．most people’s thoughts are controlled by others. |
What does the author try to argue in the third paragraph?
| A．We may lose ourselves to please others. |
| B．The price of taking the drug is freedom. |
| C．We need to pay for what we want to get. |
| D．Changing opinions may cost us our freedom. |
It can be concluded from the passage that _____.
| A．it’s better to do what we like |
| B．we shouldn’t care what others think |
| C．we shouldn’t change our own opinions |
| D．it’s important to accept others’ opinions |
The author tries to persuade the readers to accept his arguments mainly by _____.
| A．discussing questions |
| B．making suggestions |
| C．analyzing causes and effects |
| D．providing examples and facts |
Australians have been warned that they face a life or death decision over their water—drink recycled sewage (污水) or die.
With the drought (干旱) continuing, the country is set to be forced to use purified (净化的) waste water for drinking, even though there is great opposition to the measure.
Queensland has become the first state to introduce the policy after a warning from its premier.
“I think in the end, because of the drought, all of Australia is going to end up drinking recycled purified water,” said Peter Beattie.
“These are difficult decisions, but you either drink water or you die. There's no choice. It's liquid gold; it's a matter of life and death.”
Beattie said Australia's second largest state would become the first to use recycled water for drinking.
Water is recycled in Britain and parts of northern Europe along with the US and Israel.
But Australians have never liked the idea.
To try to change the way Australians think, Prime Minister John Howard and Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull have adhered to Queensland's move.
“I am very strongly for recycling and Mr. Beattie is right and I agree with him completely,” Howard said.
“Australian cities, all now facing water shortages because of the worst drought on record, must start to use recycled water.” added Turnbull, “All of our big cities have to widen the range of water sources to include sources which are not dependent on rainfall.”What is the text mainly about?
| A．Australians face the choice of life and death. |
| B．Premier Beattie is worried about his people’s health. |
| C．We should avoid drinking recycled water to keep healthy. |
| D．Continuing drought forces Australians to drink recycled sewage. |
The underlined phrase “adhered to” in Paragraph 9 probably means _____.
| A．supported | B．gone against | C．disliked | D．doubted |
What can we learn from the last paragraph?
| A．Australians have never like drinking purified waste water. |
| B．Australians should develop more water sources to live through the hard time |
| C．Australians can’t depend upon rainwater, which is not suitable for drinking. |
| D．Australian government has no ability to solve the problem of water shortage |
It can be inferred from what Premier Peter Beattie said that _____.
| A．he gives orders to drink purified waste water. |
| B．it is painful for him to see his people drink recycled sewage. |
| C．if the decision is made, people won’t survive the drought. |
| D．it’s up to you to either make a life or death decision. |
There are hundreds of national parks and wildlife areas in Africa that you can travel to. Here are the top four travel destinations in Africa:
Tanzania----Serengeti National Park
During the annual migration(迁徙), when the wildebeests(羚羊) and zebras pack up and leave their living areas to find fresher ones, the Serengeti is an astonishing place to be. It's a very good travel spot in Africa at other times of the year too, but the migration has been ranked by many as one of the wonders of the natural world.
Kenya----Masai Mara National Park
If you want to see the big cats, this wildlife park is the best of the best. Lion, leopard and cheetah abound and they are relatively easy to spot because of the grassland vegetation which means you get good views for miles around. Another big plus is the fact that going off road is allowed and it is a big advantage because the animals will rarely oblige you and stay next to the major roads.
South Africa-Kruger National Park
For the variety of species no other places in Africa can come close to the Kruger Park. And because it is so large it has a number of different ecosystems that you can pass through in your search for animals and birds. It is one of the best managed parks in Africa and the accommodation is well-equipped, too.
Zambia-South Luangwa National Park
South Luangwa is a diamond in the rough, just waiting for enough exposure to bring it to its rightful place in the crown of prime Africa trips. It has been regarded as one of the best places in Africa to see the special leopard and it is the birthplace of the walking travel. If you want to see more kinds of wild animals, you should go to _____.
| A．Serengeti National Park. |
| B．Masai Mara National Park. |
| C．Krunger National Park. |
| D．South Luangwa National Park. |
In which parks can visitors see leopards?
| A．Serengeti National Park and Krunger National Park. |
| B．Masai Mara National Park and South Luangwa National Park. |
| C．Krunger National Park and South Luangwa National Park. |
| D．Serengeti National Park and South Luangwa National Park. |
If you want to see wildlife on foot, you should go to _____.
| A．Serengeti National Park. |
| B．Masai Mara National Park. |
| C．Krunger National Park. |
| D．South Luangwa National Park. |
he writer's purpose in writing the text is to ________.
| A．tell us something about natural animals. |
| B．persuade more people to protect wild animals. |
| C．introduce to us some top natural parks in Africa. |
| D．discuss some problems in African travel industry. |