LivetheAmericanDreamWhatisit:W-优题课

One of the latest trend（趋势） in American Childcare is Chinese au pairs. Au Pair in Stamford, for example, has got increasing numbers of request for Chinese au pairs from aero to around 4,000 since 2004. And that’s true all across the country.
“I thought it would be useful for him to learn Chinese at an early age” Joseph Stocke, the managing director of s company, says of his 2-year old son. “I would at least like to give him the chance to use the language in the future,” After only six months of being cared by 25-year-old woman from China, the boy can already understand basic Chinese daily expressions, his dad says.
Li Drake, a Chinese native raising two children in Minnesota with an American husband, had another reason for looking for an au pair from China. She didn’t want her children to miss out on their roots.” Because I am Chinese, my husband and I wanted the children to keep exposed to(接触) the language and culture.” she says.
“Staying with a native speaker is better for children than simply sitting in a classroom,” says Suzanne Flynn, a professor in language education of Children.” But parents must understand that just one year with au pair is unlikely to produce wonders. Complete mastery demands continued learning until the age of 10 or 12.”
The popularity if au pairs from China has been strengthened by the increasing numbers of American parents who want their children who want their children to learn Chinese. It is expected that American demand for au pairs will continue to rise in the next few years.
What does that term” au pair” in the text mean?

A．A mother raising her children on her own

B．A child learning a foreign language at home

C．A professor in language education of children

D．A young foreign woman taking care of children.

Li Drake has her children study Chinese because she wants them ______.

A．to live in China some day

B．to speak the language at home

C．to catch up wit other children

D．to learn about the Chinese culture

What can we infer from the text?

A．Learning Chinese is becoming popular In America,

B．Educated woman do better in looking after children

C．Chinese au pairs need to improve their English Skills.

D．Children can learn a foreign language well in six months.

We are all interested in equality, but while some people try to protect the school and examination system in the name of equality, others, still in the name of equality, want only to destroy it.
Any society which is interested in equality of opportunity and standards of achievement must regularly test its pupils. The standards may be changed — no examination is perfect — but to have no tests or examination would mean the end of equality and of standards. There are groups of people who oppose this view and who do not believe either in examinations or in any controls in schools or on teachers. This would mean that everything would depend on luck since every pupil would depend on the efficiency， the values and the purpose of each teacher.
Without examinations, employers will look for employees from the highly respected schools and from families known to them — a form offavoritismwill replace equality at the moment. The bright child from an ill-respected school can show certificates to prove he or she is suitable for a job, while the lack of certificate indicates the unsuitability of a dull child attending a well-respected school. This defense of excellence and opportunity would disappear if examinations were taken away, and the bright child from a poor family would be a prisoner of his or her school’s reputation, unable to compete for employment with the child from the favored school.
The opponents（反对者） of the examination system suggest that examinations are an evil force because they show differences between pupils. According to these people, there must be no special, different, academic class. They have even suggested that there should be no form of difference in sport or any other area: all jobs or posts should be filled by unsystematic selection. The selection would be made by people who themselves are probably selected by some computer.
The word “favoritism” in paragraph 3 is used to describe the phenomenon that.

A．bright children also need certificates to get satisfying jobs.

B．poor children with certificates are favoured in job markets.

C．children from well-respected schools tend to have good jobs.

D．children attending ordinary schools achieve great success.

What would happen if examinations were taken away according to the author?

A．Schools for bright children would lose their reputation.

B．There would be more opportunities and excellence.

C．Children from poor families would be able to change their schools.

D．Children’s job opportunity would be affected by their school reputation.

The opponents of the examination system will agree that.

A．jobs should not be assigned by systematic se lection

B．computers should be selected to take over many jobs.

C．special classes are necessary to keep the school standards

D．schools with academic subjects should be done aw ay with

The passage mainly focuses on.

A．schools and certificates

B．examination and equality

C．opportunity and employment

D．standards and reputation

Sydney—A shark savaged a schoolboy's leg while he was surfing with his father at a beach in Sydney on February 23．It was the third shark attack along the coast of Australia's largest city in a month．
The 15-year-old boy and his father were in the water off Avalon, on Sydney's northern beaches, around dawn when he was attacked．The city's beaches are packed with locals and tourists during the summer months．
"The father heard a scream and turned to see his son trashing （扭动） about in the water," police said．"Fortunately, the shark swam away and the boy was helped to shore by his father．
Lifesaving Club spokesman Nick Miller: "It got him around the top of his left leg and the father came and dragged him out of water．" He said the boy was bleeding heavily when he was brought to shore．"There was a lot of pain, as you can imagine"．The teenager was airlifted to hospital for treatment for leg injuries．
Police said the bites" cut through to the bone" , but the boy did not appear to have sustained any fractures （骨折）．He was in a stable condition now．
Several beaches were closed after the attack．Water police and lifeguards were searching for the shark, while police hoped to identify its species by the shape of the bite marks．But they said it was too early to say what type of shark attacked the boy．"I don't even know if he saw it," Miller said．
Many shark species live in the waters off Sydney's beaches, but attacks on humans are still relatively rare．However, there were two attacks on successive days earlier this month, one on a navy diver in Sydney harbor, not far from the famous Opera House, and the other on a surfer at the city's world-famous Bondi beach．
Fishermen say shark numbers are on the rise．There is a ban on commercial fishing in the harbor, which has increased fish stocks．Marine experts also claim environmental protection has created a cleaner environment, attracting sharks closer to shore as they chase fish．Many shark species, including the Great White—the man-eater made famous in Steven Spielberg's Jaws—are protected in Australian waters．
The report mainly tells us _______．

A．shark attacks on humans are on the rise

B．sharks attacked humans three times in one month

C．a boy was attacked by a shark at a Sydney beach

D．shark numbers are increasing in the waters off Sydney's beaches

The underlined word" savaged "in the first paragraph probably means _______．

A．attracted	B．dragged
C．bit	D．packed

What do we know about the city of Sydney from the passage?

A．It is one of the largest cities in Australia．

B．Sydney harbor is not far from the famous Opera House．

C．There are many locals and tourists on its coast all year round．

D．There are few shark species in the waters off Sydney's beaches．

All the followings are the causes of Australia's sharks increasing EXCEPT that_______．

A．environmental protection has created a cleaner environment

B．a ban on commercial fishing has increased fish numbers

C．many shark species are protected in Australia waters

D．the film Jaws made the Great White famous

People have wondered for a long time how their personalities and behavior are formed. It is not easy to explain why one person is intelligent and another is not, or why one is cooperative and another is competitive.
Social scientists are of course extremely interested in these types of questions. They want to explain why we possess certain characteristics and exhibit certain behavior. There are no clear answers yet, but two distinct schools of thought on the matter have developed. As one might expect, the two approaches are very different from each other, and there is a great deal of debate between proponents of each theory. The controversy is often conveniently referred to as “nature and nurture”．
Those who support the “nature” side of the conflict believe that our personalities and behavior patterns are largely determined by biological factors. That our environment has little, if anything, to do with our abilities, characteristics and behavior is central to this theory. Taken to an extreme，this theory states that our behavior is predetermined to such a great degree that we are almost completely governed by our instincts(本能)．
Proponents of the “nurture” theory, or, as they are often called, behaviorists, claim that our environment is more important than our biologically based instincts in determining how we will act. A behaviorist, B. F. Skinner, sees humans as beings whose behavior is almost completely shaped by their surroundings. The behaviorists' view of the human being is quite mechanistic. They state that, like machines, humans respond to environmental stimuli (刺激) as the basis of their behavior.
Socially and politically, the consequences of these two theories are far-reaching. In the US，for example, blacks often score below whites on standardized intelligence tests. This leads some “nature” proponents to conclude that blacks are genetically lower in status than whites. Behaviorists, on the contrary, say that the differences in scores are due to the fact that blacks are often robbed of many of the educational and other environmental advantages that whites enjoy, and that, as a result, they do not develop the same responses that whites do.
Neither of these theories can yet fully explain human behavior. In fact, it is quite likely that the key to our behavior lies somewhere between these two extremes and that the controversy will continue for a long time is certain.
This passage is mainly concerned with ________.

A．relation between personality and behavior

B．relation between behavior and environment

C．different accounts of patterns of human behavior

D．different theories of the formation of human behavior

The underlined word “proponents” in Paragraph 2 means ________.

A．creators	B．advisors
C．advocates	D．judges

In Paragraph 5, the author mainly writes about ________.

A．the considerable influence of the two theories

B．differences between the blacks and whites

C．racial discrimination in the United States

D．different responds to intelligence tests

What's the author's purpose in writing the passage?

A．To call our attention to the changes of human behavior.

B．To urge scientists to do more research in social science.

C．To give us a detailed explanation of human behavior.

D．To present an argument in the field of social science.

Mr. Hungerton, her father, really was absolutely centered upon his own silly self. If anything could have driven me from Gladys, it would have been the thought of such a father-in-law. I am convinced that he really believed in his heart that I came round to the Chestnuts three days a week for the pleasure of his company, and very especially to hear his views upon bimetallism (金银双币制).
For an hour or more that evening I listened to his tiring talk about bad money driving out good, and the true standards of exchange.
“Suppose,” he cried, “that all the debts in the world were called up at once, and immediate payment insisted upon,　what under our present conditions would happen then?”
I gave the self-evident answer that I should be a ruined man, upon which he jumped from his chair, scolding me for my thoughtless quickness, which made it impossible for him to discuss any reasonable subject in my presence.
At last I was alone with Gladys, and the moment of Fate had come! She sat with that proud, slim figure of hers outlined against the red curtain. How beautiful she was! Gladys was full of every womanly quality.
I was about to break the long and uneasy silence, when two critical, dark eyes looked round at me, and the proud head was shaken disapprovingly. “I have a feeling that you are going to propose(求婚), Ned. I do wish you wouldn’t; for things are so much nicer as they are.”
I drew my chair a little nearer. “Now, how did you know that I was going to propose?” I asked in wonder.
“Don’t women always know? Do you suppose any woman in the world was ever taken unawares? But．．．oh, Ned, our friendship has been so good and so pleasant! What a pity to spoil it! Don’t you feel how splendid it is that a young man and a young woman should be able to talk face to face as we have talked?”
She had sprung from her chair, as she saw signs that I proposed to announce some of my wants. “You’ve spoiled everything, Ned,” she said. “It’s all so beautiful and natural until this kind of thing comes in! It is such a pity! Why can't you control yourself?”
“But why can’t you love me, Gladys? Is it my appearance, or what?”
“No, it isn’t that.”
“My character?”
She nodded severely.
“What can I do to mend it?”
She looked at me with a wondering distrust which was much more to my mind than her whole-hearted confidence.
“Now tell me what’s wrong with me?”
“I’m in love with somebody else,” said she.
It was my turn to jump out of my chair.
“It’s nobody in particular,” she explained, laughing at the expression of my face: “only an ideal. I’ve never met the kind of man I mean.”
“Tell me about him. What does he look like?”
“Oh, he might look very much like you.”
“How dear of you to say that! Well, what is it that he does that I don’t do? I’ll have a try at it, Gladys, if you will only give me an idea what would please you.”
“Well, it is never a man that I should love, but always the glories he had won; for they would be reflected upon me. Think of Richard Burton! When I read his wife’s life with him I could so understand her love! And Lady Stanley! Did you ever read the wonderful last chapter of that book about her husband? These are the sort of men that a woman could adore with all her soul, and yet be the greater, not the less, on account of her love, honored by all the world as the inspirer of noble deeds.”
“And if I do——”
Her dear hand rested upon my lips. “Not another word, Sir! You should have been at the office for evening duty half an hour ago; only I hadn’t the heart to remind you. Some day, perhaps, when you have won your place in the world, we shall talk it over again.”
Why did the writer often come round to the Chestnuts?

A．To hear Mr. Hungerton’s views upon bimetallism.

B．To find the opportunity of staying with Gladys.

C．To learn Mr. Hungertong’s standards of exchange.

D．To discuss the present economy with Gladys

What can we infer from the passage?

A．It took great patience and courage for the writer to propose to Gladys.

B．Mr. Hungerton tried to stop the writer from proposing to his daughter.

C．It was difficult for Gladys to choose an ideal husband from her friends.

D．It was impossible for the writer to have any chance to marry Gladys.

Which of the following words can best describe Gladys?

A．Careful, choosy and stubborn.

B．Unfriendly, cold and self-centered.

C．Lovely, confident, and idealistic.

D．Simple-minded, active and attractive