When should people be made to retire? 55? 65? Should there be a compulsory age limit?
Many old people work well into their 70s and 80s, running families, countries or corporations. Other people,however, despite being fit and highly talented, are forced to retire in their fifties or even earlier because of the regulations of a company or the nation. This essay will examine whether people should be allowed to continue working as long as they want or whether they should be encouraged to retire at a particular stage.
Some people think there are several arguments for allowing older people to continue working as long as they are able. First of all, older employees have an immense amount of knowledge and experience which can be lost to a business or organization if they are made to retire. A second point is that older employees are often extremely loyal employees and are more willing to carry out company policies than younger less committed staff. However, a more important point is regarding the attitudes in society to old people. To force someone to resign or retire at 60 indicates that the society does not value the input of these people and that effectively their useful life is over. Age is irrelevant to a working life, surely if older employees are told they cannot work after 60, this is age discrimination. That they become old does not necessarily mean they are going to be sick. Old people could be more aware, experienced and committed than some youngsters.
Others, however, think that allowing older people to work indefinitely is not a good policy. Age alone is no guarantee of ability. Old people are only ambitious workaholics who are too selfish and self-centered to believe that a younger person could do better. Actually, many younger employees have more experience or skills than older staff, who may have been stuck in one area or unit for most of their working lives. Having compulsory retirement allows new ideas in an organization. In addition, without age limits, however, many people would continue to work purely because they did not have any other plans or roles. A third point of view is that older people should be rewarded by society for their life’s labor by being given generous pensions and the freedom to enjoy their leisure. We now have youngsters who can’t find jobs because old people are choosing not to retire. Old people are not retiring because this new generation of “old people” think they will never die due to modern advances in medicine.
With many young people unemployed or frustrated in low-level positions, there are often calls to compulsorily retire older workers. However, this can affect the older individual’s freedom and right to work and can deprive(剥夺) society of valuable experience and insights. I feel that giving workers more flexibility and choice over their retirement age will benefit society and the individual.What is the purpose of this passage?
A.To explain the compulsory age limit. |
B.To discuss the retirement age. |
C.To examine people’s working life. |
D.To introduce a particular stage. |
Which of the following is NOT a reason for allowing old people to continue working according to the passage?
A.Their contribution should be valued. |
B.Their experience should be made use of. |
C.They can help the youngsters. |
D.They are loyal employees. |
It can be inferred in the fourth passage that ______.
A.The young people have more creative spirits |
B.Modern advances in medicine make old people never die |
C.Pensions and freedom are not given to the old now |
D.Old people believe that a younger person could do better |
The passage is arranged as follows:
If Confucius(孔子)were still alive today and could celebrate his September 28 birthday with a big cake, there would be a lot of candles. He’d need a fan or a strong wind to help him put them out.
While many people in China will remember Confucius on his special day, few people in the United States will give him a passing thought. It’s nothing personal. Most Americans don’t even remember the birthdays of their own national heroes.
But this doesn’t mean that Americans don’t care about Confucius. In many ways he has become a bridge that foreigners must cross if they want to reach a deeper understanding of China.
In the past two decades, the Chinese studies programs have gained huge popularity in Western universities. More recently, the Chinese government has set up Confucius Institutes in more than 80 countries. These schools teach both Chinese language and culture. The main courses of Chinese culture usually included Chinese art, history and philosophy(哲学).Some social scientists suggest that Westerners should take advantages of the ancient Chinese wisdom to make up for the drawbacks of Westerners philosophy. Students in the United States, at the same time, are racing to learn Chinese. So they will be ready for life in a world where China is an equal power with the United States. Businessmen who hope to make money in China are reading books about Confucius to understand their Chinese customers.
So the old thinker’s ideas are still alive and well.
Today China attracts the West more than ever, and it will need more teachers to introduce Confucius and Chinese culture to the West.
As for the old thinker, he will not soon be forgotten by people in the West, even if his birthday is. The opening paragraph is mainly intended to ________
A.provide some key facts about Confucius |
B.attract the readers’ interest in the subject |
C.show great respect for the ancient thinker |
D.prove the popularity of modern birthday celebrations |
We can learn from Paragraph 4 that American students______
A.have a great interest in studying Chinese |
B.take an active part in Chinese competitions |
C.try to get high scores in Chinese exams |
D.fight for a chance to learn Chinese |
What is the best title for the passage?
A.Forgotten Wisdom in America |
B.Huge Fans of the Chinese Language |
C.Chinese Culture for Westerners |
D.Old Thinker with a Big Future |
The passage is likely to appear in ___________.
A.a biography |
B.a history paper |
C.a newspaper |
D.a philosophy textbook |
Mini Book Excerpts(节选)
Biography
When Salinger learned that a car park was to be built on the land, the middle-aged writer was shocked and quickly bought the neighboring area to protect it… The townspeople never forgot the rescue and came to help their most famous neighbor.
J. D. Salinger:A Life by Kenneth Slawenski(Random House,$27)Mystery(疑案小说)
“You’re a smart boy. Benny’s death was no accident, and you’re the only who saw it happen. Do you think the murderer should get away with it?”The boy was starting stubbornly at his lap again.
A thought suddenly occurred to Annika,“Did you …You recognized the man in the car, didn’t you?”
The boy hesitated, twisting his fingers,“Maybe,”he said quietly.
Red Wolf by Liza Marklund(Atria Books, $25. 99)
Short Stories
She wants to say to him what she has learned, none of it in class. Some women are born stupid, and some women are too smart for their own good. Some women are born to give, and some women only know how to take. Some women learn who they want to be from their mothers, some who they don’t want to be. Some mothers suffer so their daughters won’t. Some mothers love so their daughters won’t.
You Are Free by Danzy Senna (Riverhead Books,$15)
Humor
Do your kids like to have fun? Come to Fun Times! Do you like to watch your kids having fun? Bring them to Fun Times! Fun Times! “amusement cycling”is the most fun you can have, legally, in the United States right now. Why spend thousands of dollars flying to Disney World when you can spend less than half to that within a day’s drive lf most cities?
Happy And Other Bad Thoughts by Larry Doyle(Ecco,$14. 99)If the readers want to know about the title of Salinger, they should buy the book published by
.
A.Ecco | B.Atria Books |
C.Riverhead Books | D.Random House |
The book Happy And Other Bad Thoughts is intended for.
A.young children | B.Disney World workers |
C.middle school teachers | D.parents with young children |
Which book describes women with characters of their own?
A. Happy And Other Bad Thoughts
B. J. D. Salinger: A Life
C. You Are Free
D. Red Wolf After finishing the book Red Wolf, the readers would learn that .
A.the boy helped arrest the murderer |
B.Benny died of an accident |
C.the murderer got away with the crime |
D.Annika carried out the crime |
I left university with a good degree in English Literature, but no sense of what I wanted to do. Over the next six years, I was treading water, just trying to earn an income. I tried journalism, but I didn’t think I was any good, then finance, which I hated. Finally, I got a job as a rights assistant at a famous publisher. I loved working with books, although the job that I did was dull.
I had enough savings to take a year off work, and I decided to try to satisfy a deep-down wish to write a novel. Attending a Novel Writing MA course gave me the structure I needed to write my first 55,000 words.
It takes confidence to make a new start — there’s a dark period in-between where you’re neither one thing nor the other. You’re out for dinner and people ask what you do, and you’re too ashamed to say, “Well, I’m writing a novel, but I’m not quite sure if I’m going to get there.” My confidence dived. Believing my novel could not be published, I put it aside.
Then I met an agent(代理商)who said I should send my novel out to agents. So, I did and, to my surprise, got some wonderful feedback. I felt a little hope that I might actually become a published writer and, after signing with an agent, I finished the second half of the novel.
The next problem was finding a publisher. After two-and-a-half years of no income, just waiting and wondering, a publisher offered me a book deal—that publisher turned out to be the one I once worked for.
It feels like an unbelievable stroke of luck—of fate, really. When you set out to do something different, there’s no end in sight, so to find myself in a position where I now have my own name on a contract(合同)of the publisher — to be a published writer — is unbelievably rewarding(有回报的).What does the underlined part in Paragraph 1 mean?
A.I was waiting for good fortune. |
B.I was trying to find an admirable job. |
C.I was being aimless about a suitable job. |
D.I was doing several jobs for more pay at a time. |
The author decided to write a novel ______ .
A.to finish the writing course |
B.to realize her own dream |
C.to satisfy readers’ wish |
D.to earn more money |
How did the writer feel halfway with the novel?
A.Disturbed. | B.Ashamed. | C.Confident. | D.Uncertain. |
What does the author mainly want to tell readers in the last paragraph?
A.It pays to stick to one’s goal. |
B.Hard work can lead to success. |
C.She feels like being unexpectedly lucky. |
D.There is no end in sight when starting to do something. |
Environmentalists said our planet was doomed to die. Now one man says they are wrong.
"Everyone knows the planet is in bad shape," thundered a magazine article last year. Species are being driven to die out at record rates, and the rivers are so poisonous that fish are floating on the surface, dead.
But there's a growing belief that what everyone takes for granted is wrong: things are actually getting better. A new book is about to overturn our most basic assumptions about the world's environment. Rivers, seas, rain and the atmosphere are all getting cleaner. The total amount of forests in the world is not declining. The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg, professor of statistics at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, is an attack on the misleading claims of environmental groups, and the "bad news" culture that makes people believe everything is getting worse.
Now the attacks are increasingly coming from left-wing environmentalists such as Lomborg, a former member of Greenpeace. The accusation is that, although the environment is improving, green groups — with profits of hundreds of mil-lions of pounds a year — are using scare tactics(谋略)to gain donations. Lomborg's book doesn't deny global warming — probably the biggest environmental threat — but destroys almost every other environmental claim with many official statistics.
The Worldwatch Institute claims that "deforestation(沙漠化) has been accelerating over the last 30 years". But Lomborg says that is simply rubbish. Since the dawn of agriculture the world has lost about 20 per cent of its forest cover, but in recent decades the forest area's depleting has come to a stop. According to UN figures, the area of forests has remained almost steady, at about 30 per cent of total land area, since the 1940s. Forests in countries such as the US, the UK and Canada have actually been expanding over the past 40 years. Despite all the warnings the Amazon rainforest has only shrunk by about 15 per cent.
Nor are all our species dying out. Some campaigners claim that 50 per cent of all species will have died out within 50 years. But other studies show only 0.08 per cent of species are dying out each year. Conservation efforts have been successful. Whales are no longer threatened and the bald eagle is off the endangered list.
Environmental groups claim that many of the improvements are the results of the success of their campaigns. Stephen Tindale, director of Greenpeace UK, said, "There are important examples, such as acid rain and ozone, where things aren't as bad as predicted, and that's because behavior has changed."In his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, what is Lomborg's main argument?
A.Our planet is in bad shape. |
B.The world's environment is improving. |
C.The total amount of forests in the world is not declining. |
D.Conservation efforts have been successful. |
What is Lomborg's main accusation of environmentalists?
A.They scared people into making donations. |
B.They overturned our basic assumptions about the world's environment. |
C.They changed their behavior toward the environment. |
D.They only told people bad news about the environment. |
The underlined word "depleting" in Paragraph 5 is closest in meaning to "____".
A.reducing | B.limiting | C.expanding | D.accelerating |
According to the passage, which of the following statements is true?
A.The total area of forests in the world has increased significantly. |
B.The effects of global warming are not as bad as first expected. |
C.It appears that the bald eagle will now survive. |
D.In the last 50 years the number of whales has increased. |
More Chinese are seeking out the surgeon’s knife to improve their looks.Yet the tragic death of the former Super Girl Wang Bei has made people aware of the risks of cosmetic surgery, which is becoming increasingly popular. Wang Bei,24,is said to have gone under the knife in Wuhan,to jump-start her stage-show career. It seems that the ambitious singer has finally achieved the fame and influence after her death.
For years Miss Lu expected a plastic surgery to make her jaw fashionable narrow and her face smaller. She finally decided against it after hearing of the death of Wang Bei. "Wang Bei’s death rang the warning bell for me,"Miss Lu said in her blog." It was frightening and I gave up the plan. "
A common thread of online discussion is why someone considered beautiful was so dissatisfied with her looks. Some netizens said Wang was a victim of society’s impractical standard of beauty:double eyelids,and the pointed chin typical of Western actresses. Others said her death indicated the limits to which people would go to achieve fame and fortune.
Last year 15 billion yuan was spent on cosmetic surgery and the figure is expected to rise 20% annually. The International Society of Plastic Surgery ranks China first in Asia in terms of the number of cosmetic surgeries in 2009. Worldwide, China is third, after Brazil, while the United States is first.
Nowadays,people are living longer and better. But the effect of aging off their appearance affects their mood and confidence. Many older women want to look young and beautiful. Young people, on the other hand, see cosmetic surgery as the key to wealth and love. "They want to improve their appearance to find better opportunities at work and in marriage,"says a famous plastic surgeon. "We’re living in a highly competitive society. People regard appearance as a weapon in life battle. Those who are young and naturally good-looking tell me,‘I don’t care how much I spend. Just make me look more beautiful.’ "
Advice from a surgeon and psychologist:
1.Choose regular, qualified hospitals with a good reputation.
2.Try to find an expert surgeon who will not suggest several operations over time.
3.Don’t expect too much from changing your appearance. Safety should be the first.
4.Have a realistic understanding of the risks of the surgery (death,injury and failure)and make a balanced decision.What’s the influence of Wang Bei’s death on the public?
A.People will feel alarmed at cosmetic surgery. |
B.Young people will have no interest in beauty. |
C.Doctors will be afraid to perform operations. |
D.No one will dream of becoming a Super Girl. |
It is mentioned in the passage that________.
A.Miss Lu’s face is narrow and small |
B.Wang Bei is a victim of the Internet |
C.all Westerners have the pointed chin |
D.the US ranks first in cosmetic surgery |
What’s the main idea of the 5th paragraph?
A.People are living 1onger and better nowadays. |
B.People are living in a highly competitive society. |
C.Social competition leads females to seek beauty. |
D.Cosmetic surgery is the key to wealth and love. |
According to a surgeon and psychologist,it is better to________.
A.change your appearance sooner |
B.make a reasonable decision |
C.do several operations over time |
D.try some different hospitals |