A new study from Harvard University revealed that the message parents mean to send to children about the value of sympathy (同情心）is being mistaken by the message they actually send. In fact they value achievement and happiness above all else.
The Making Caring Common Project at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education surveyed 10,000 middle and high school students about which is more important to them—achievement, happiness, or caring about others. Almost 80 percent of students placed achievement or happiness over caring about others. Only 20 percent of students considered caring about others as their top aim.
In the study “The Children We Mean to Raise: The Real Message Adults Are Sending about Values”, the authors refer to a reality gap, an incongruity (不一致) between what adults tell children they should value and the message we grown-ups actually send through our behavior.
Simply talking about sympathy is not enough. While 96 percent of parents say they want to raise caring children, and cite the development of moral character as “very important, if not essential”, 80 percent of the youths surveyed reported that their parents “are more concerned about achievement and happiness than caring about others”. Approximately the same percentage of the students reported that their teachers put their achievement over caring.
As the report shows, simply talking about sympathy is not enough. Children are sensitive creatures, fully capable of telling the true meanings in the blank spaces between well-organised words. If parents really want to let their kids know that they value care and sympathy, the authors suggest, they must make a real effort to help their children learn to care about other people—even when it’s hard, even when it does not make them happy, and yes, even when it is at odds with(与……不一致) their personal success.The first paragraph suggests that parents _____.
| A．don’t intend to valuesuccess |
| B．fail to make students realize the importance of sympathy |
| C．value achievement less |
| D．regard achievement and happiness as the same |
What can be concluded from the study?
| A．About 80% of the students are not caring. |
| B．Kids care more about achievement. |
| C．20% of the students are not ambitious. |
| D．A majority of the kids are kind students. |
What may be the cause for the reality gap?
| A．Children’s desire for getting individual achievement. |
| B．The generation gap between parents and children. |
| C．Children’s failure to understand parents’ well-organised words. |
| D．Parents’ lack of a real effort to guide children. |
The other day I heard a few local musicians talking:
“I hate all the terrible pianos in this town. I hate that rubbish they play on the radio. They can’t even understand a bit of music.”
“I’m never playing in that club again. Too many drunks and nobody listens to us.”
But, one younger musician said, “There are a few clubs that book my band a few nights a month, and I’m trying to find other places to play. I’m also looking to book a few summer festivals this year.”
I’ve heard that you are the average of the five people whom you spend the most time with, or to put it another way, you are who your friends are.
Attitudes are important. Whether they’re positive or negative, they’re rubbing off on you. If you’re around people who complain about lack of work and about other musicians, or blame others, and you play the role of victim , chances are you will start to as well. So it’s time to take a look at the people you call “friends”.
This is an easy exercise: Make a list of the people who you hang out with, and simply stop spending time with the negative people on your list. Set a new standard for yourself and don’t become friends with people who fall below that standard.
Keep successful people around you and your own chances for success will be much better. Ask them how they do it. Ask if they will help you get the work you’re looking for, or maybe give you some advice to help you on your career path.Which of the following would be the best title for this passage?
| A．A friend in need is a friend indeed |
| B．How to make friendship last forever |
| C．You are who your friends are |
| D．Friends are the most important in one’s success |
The underlined sentence “they’re rubbing off on you” in Paragraph 6 means ______.
| A．they’ll push you ahead |
| B．they’ll influence you |
| C．they’ll cover your shortcomings |
| D．they’ll help you achieve your goal |
By taking the exercise mentioned in Paragraph 7, you can ______.
| A．improve a lot in making more friends |
| B．come to the right way of making friends |
| C．develop a better relationship with your friends |
| D．arrange the time with your friends properly |
The passage is mainly written for ______.
| A．musicians |
| B．managers |
| C．negative people |
| D．people wanting to succeed |
When Christopher Columbus landed on the then unnamed Costa Rica in 1502, he saw many Indians wearing gold earrings. So he thought the land must be rich in gold. He named the place Costa Rica, which means “rich coast” in Spanish.
Though little gold was found, Costa Rica today is indeed rich with coffee and bananas. Coffee is the most important product in Costa Rica and most of it is exported to other countries like America and West Germany. Bananas are the country’s second most important export.
Costa Ricans also grow many other crops such as fruits, corn and beans for their own use. Costa Ricans love colors and their houses are painted in bright colors.
Education is very important to the Costa Ricans. Almost every village has a school and education is a must for children between seven and fourteen years of age. Boys and girls go to separate schools. Classes begin in March and end in November. The other three months of the year are harvest time and the children have to help their parents to pick coffee beans.What’s the main idea of the first paragraph?
| A．How Columbus found Costa Rica. |
| B．How Costa Rica got its name. |
| C．What the Costa Ricans wore. |
| D．What language the Costa Ricans spoke. |
The Costa Ricans may NOT paint their houses ______.
| A．pink and red. | B．grey and black |
| C．blue and green. | D．yellow and orange |
From December to February, school children in Costa Rica ______.
| A．have lessons every day |
| B．have their examinations |
| C．help their parents pick coffee beans |
| D．go to separate schools |
This passage is mainly about ______.
| A．Christopher Columbus |
| B．Costa Rica |
| C．some products from Costa Rica |
| D．the education of Costa Rica |
When, after a year of being alone on his island, Robinson Crusoe sees a footprint in the sand, the reader of Robinson Crusoe trembles. Will Crusoe find another human being to end his loneliness? Is the footprint the sign of an enemy? Since 1719, when Daniel Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe, thousands of people who enjoy English novels have thrilled to this great adventure story. But few know how the story came to be written. Robinson Crusoe was the first English novel. Its birth brought together the misadventures of a Scotch “failure” and the untapped imagination of an aging English scribbler.
Near the end of the Seventeenth Century, the hot-tempered Alexander Selkirk was charged with bad conduct while in church. Rather than face this charge, he ran away to sea. Several years later, Selkirk found himself on the ship of an English privateer. The privateer was preying on Spanish shipping. But Selkirk quarreled bitterly with the Captain. So, when the ship came to the island of Juan Femandez in the South Seas, Selkirk asked to be put ashore. When he saw that there were no people on the island, he begged to be taken back on board. But the Captain refused—Selkirk had gone too far. Over four years later, Selkirk was rescued by another ship.
When Selkirk got back to England, the story of his life on the island fired the imagination of Daniel Defoe. Defoe had been earning a living by his pen since he was thirty. He was amazingly hard-working. He wrote a whole newspaper three times a week. He also made part of his living from politics. He supported both political parties. He told each party that it had his sole support.
Alexander Selkirk spent four years on a desert island because .
| A．he sought adventure |
| B．he was hot-tempered |
| C．he was afraid to face charges |
| D．his ship was wrecked |
Daniel Defoe .
| A．made his living as a writer |
| B．got his start as a writer with the writing of Robinson Crusoe |
| C．was very “straight”-he was hardworking and honest |
| D．had little power of imagination, but succeeded with his novel because he worked hard |
This passage is mainly about .
| A．how Alexander Selkirk was able to survive on the island. |
| B．why people enjoy English novels |
| C．what the footprint in the sand meant |
| D．how Robinson Crusoe came to be written |
According to this passage , which of the following statements is not true?
| A．Robinson Crusoe was a successful novel. |
| B．Even if Alexander Selkirk had not lived on the island of Juan Femande, Robinson Crusoe would still have been written. |
| C．Daniel Defoe lived partly by hard work and partly by his “ wits ”. |
| D．With the writing of Robinson Crusoe , the English novel was born. |
The author’s attitude towards Daniel Defoe is .
| A．critical | B．supporting | C．both A and B | D．opposing |
I’m afraid to grow old—we’re all afraid. In fact, the fear of growing old is so great that every aged person is an insult and a threat to the society. They remind us of our own death, that our body won’t always remain smooth and responsive, but will someday betray(背叛) us by aging. The ideal way to age would be to grow slowly invisible, gradually disappearing, without causing worry or discomfort to the young. In some ways that does happen. Sitting in a small park across from a nursing home one day, I noticed that the young mothers and their children gathered on one side, and the old people from the home on the other.
Whenever a youngster would run over to the “wrong” side, chasing a ball or just trying to cover all the available space, the old people would lean forward and smile. But before any communication could be established, the mother would come over, murmuring embarrassed apologies, and take her child back to the “young” side.
Now, it seemed to me that the children didn’t feel any particular fear and the old people didn’t seem to be threatened by the children. The division of space was drawn by the mothers. And the mothers never looked at the old people who lined the other side of the park. These well-dressed young women had a way of sliding their eyes over, around, through the old people; they never looked at them directly. The old people may as well have been invisible; they offended the aesthetic eye of the mothers.
My early experiences were somewhat different; since I grew up in a small town, my children had more of a nineteenth-century flavor. I knew a lot of old people, and considered some of them friends.People are afraid of growing old because it is usually associated with ______.
| A．insult | B．threat | C．death | D．betrayal |
In the author’s opinion, it is a perfect way to ______.
| A．grow old slowly and then die unnoticed |
| B．grow old suddenly and then die |
| C．shut oneself up from others when growing old |
| D．remain young all one’s life and then die suddenly |
It can be inferred that young mothers would try to keep their children away from the old because ______.
| A．they feared their children might hurt the old |
| B．they didn’t like their children to take up the space belonging to the old |
| C．they felt it was wrong to play balls near where the old stayed |
| D．they didn’t want their children to have anything to do with the old |
The author believes the division between the old and the young is _____.
| A．made by people | B．understandable |
| C．formed naturally | D．traditional |
From the passage, we learn that the author ______.
| A．used to have the same experience as the young have today |
| B．has never been afraid of getting old |
| C．was quite free to know and befriend old people in his childhood |
| D．both B and C |
Inland waters may be grouped into two general classes: standing waters and flowing waters. As is often the case, the boundary between these two classes is not sharp and clear. A pond is an example of standing water. But most ponds are fed by springs or brooks and most have an outlet. Thus some current of changing water flows through them. On the other hand, a river is an example of flowing water. In some places, however, a river may have such a slow current that it is very difficult to detect.
Standing inland waters differ in size, in age, and in many abiotic environmental characteristics. They range in size from roadside puddles to the Caspian Sea. Puddles may last for only a few days or weeks; ponds, for a few hundred to a thousand years. In general, lakes are older, though the waters of some tropical “lakes” disappear completely during each dry season. Standing waters vary from very shallow to very deep, from clear to muddy, from fresh to salty.
In flowing waters we roughly distinguish between brooks, creeks, and rivers. The size and age of flowing waters are unimportant. Speed of flow, clearness, oxygen content, and other chemical characteristics are used by scientists in studying flowing-water ecosystems.According to the passage, which of the following characteristics of flowing waters is unimportant?
| A．Clarity. | B．Size. | C．Speed of flow. | D．Oxygen content. |
The word “abiotic” in paragraph 2 can best be replaced by ______.
| A．nonliving | B．living | C．coastal | D．inland |
Which of the following statements is true?
| A．Usually the water in a river flows into a pond. |
| B．Scientists only study flowing-water ecosystems. |
| C．Usually ponds last much longer than puddles. |
| D．The Caspian Sea is considered as an example of flowing water. |
From this passage we may know that the distinction between standing waters and flowing waters ______.
| A．depends on how people name the waters |
| B．is clear |
| C．depends on the seasons |
| D．is hard to make |
This passage mainly tells us that ______.
| A．there are two major classes of inland waters |
| B．lakes and rivers are flowing waters |
| C．age and size of flowing waters are important |
| D．ponds and brooks are standing waters |