Singles' Day ---- the Chinese opposite of Valentine’s Day has turned into a massive online shopping event. It is a day when single people are supposed to buy themselves presents. But there are sociological reasons behind China's “celebration” of single life. And the imbalance could have big consequences for the country.
There were 34 million more men than women in China in 2011. Part of that is natural – usually there are 105 boys born for every 100 girls. But the Chinese gender ratio (性别比例) at birth is much more obvious. It was 116 boys to 100 girls in 2012. The one child policy is largely to blame. Brought in to limit population expansion, the policy allows only one child per family. But because male children are seen as more valuable, as well as more likely to support their parents in old age, some parents choose to have a son over a daughter. The result is that large numbers of men will likely never get married. In fact, one study has predicted that by 2030, 1 in 5 Chinese men in their 30s will never have married, while another states that 94% of unmarried people in China are men.
Traditionally, China has seen high levels of marriage, usually among the young. Besides, the increased education and career opportunities for women have meant that marriages are happening later. It is also traditional that women often marry men of a higher socioeconomic status than themselves. So women at the top and men at the bottom find themselves alone. One study has even suggested a link between an imbalanced gender ratio and growth in violent crime in the country.
Singles ' Day can’t solve all the problems China’s singles face. Indeed, it is possible that it is causing even more problems, as men resort to increasingly risky lines of work to increase their chances of gaining money and thus a wife. I am worried that as money starts to overcome romance, there is evidence that China ' s marriage market is increasingly materialistic.
In 2012, if 50 girls were born, how many boys were probably born?
| A．50. | B．52. | C．58. | D．60. |
What made women in China get married late?
| A．Their support of the government’s late marriage policy. |
| B．Their higher education level and more work chances. |
| C．That they expect to enjoy their single time when young. |
| D．That there are too many excellent young men to choose from. |
What’s the writer’s attitude to the imbalance gender ratio in China?
| A．Optimistic | B．Concerned |
| C．Indifferent | D．Unknown |
We can learn from the passage that .
| A．Singles' Day is celebrated all over the world. |
| B．by 2030, 1 in 5 Chinese women in their 30s will be out of marriage. |
| C．an imbalanced gender ratio is related to the growth in violent crime. |
| D．Singles' Day will solve all the problems China’s singles face. |
Elizabeth Freeman was born about 1742 to African American parents who were slaves. At the age of six months she was acquired, along with her sister, by John Ashley, a wealthy Massachusetts slaveholders. She became known as “Mumbet” or “Mum Bett.”
For nearly 30 years Mumbet served the Ashley family. One day, Ashley’s wife tried to strike Mumbet’s sister with a spade. Mumbet protected her sister and took the blow instead. Furious, she left the house and refused to come back. When the Ashleys tried to make her return, Mumbet consulted a lawyer, Theodore Sedgewick. With his help, Mumbet sued(起诉) for her freedom.
While serving the Ashleys, Mumbet had listened to many discussions of the new Massachusetts constitution. If the constitution said that all people were free and equal, then she thought it should apply to her. Eventually, Mumbet won her freedom---- the first slave in Massachusetts to do so under the new constitution.
Strangely enough, after the trial, the Ashleys asked Mumbet to come back and work for them as a paid employee. She declined and instead went to work for Segdewick. Mumbet died in 1829, but her legacy lived on in her many descendants(后裔). One of her great-grandchildren was W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the founder of the NAACP, and an important writer and spokesperson for African American civil rights.
Mumbet’s tombstone still stands in the Massachusetts cemetery where she was buried. It reads, in part: “She was born a slave and remained a slave and remained a slave for nearly thirty years. She could neither read nor write, yet in her own sphere she had no superior or equal.”
What is the test mainly about?
A. A story of a famous writer and spokesperson
B. The friendship between a lawyer and a slave
C. The life of a brave African American woman
D. A trial that shocked the whole world
It was Mother’s Day morning last year and I was doing my shopping at our local supermarket with my five-year-old son, Tenyson. As we were leaving, we found that only minutes earlier an elderly woman had fallen over at the entrance and had hit her head on the concrete. Her husband was with her, but there was blood everywhere and the woman was embarrassed and clearly in shock.
Walking towards the scene, Tenyson became very upset about what had happened to the couple. He said to me, “Mum, it’s not much fun falling over in front of everyone.”
At the front of the supermarket a charity(慈善) group had set up a stand selling cooked sausages and flowers to raise funds. Tenyson suggested that we should buy the lady a flower. “It will make her feel better,” he said. I was amazed that he’d come up with such a sweet idea. So we went over to the flower seller and asked her if we could buy a flower for the lady to cheer her up. “Just take it,” she replied. “I can’t take your money for such a wonderful gesture.”
By now paramedics（救援人员）had arrived, and were attending the injured woman. As we walked up to her, my son became intimidated by all the blood and medical equipment. He said he was just too scared to go up to her.
Instead I gave the flower to the woman’s husband and told him, “ My son was very upset for your wife and wanted to give her this flower to make her feel better.”
At that, the old man started crying and said, “Thank you so much, you have a wonderful son. Happy Mother’s Day to you.”
The man then bent down and gave his wife the flower, telling her who it was from. Though badly hurt and shaken, the old lady looked up at Tenyson with love in her eyes and gave him a little smile.
What would be the best title for the passage?
| A．Flower Power |
| B．Mother’s Day |
| C．An Accidental Injury |
| D．An Embarrassing Moment |
One day an old woman was traveling alone in the mountains. Suddenly she saw something shining in the stream. When she came close, she found it was a precious stone. She put the stone into her bag and went on with her trip.
The next day the old woman met a young man, who was also a traveler in the mountains. The young man looked very hungry, so the old woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked carefully, “The stone is beautiful. Would you like to give it to me?”
“Sure. Why not?” the woman said, and handed the stone to him.
The young man left happily with the stone. He knew it was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the woman.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back and hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within your bag.”
The woman opened her bag. It was almost empty. She looked at the young man and smiled, “I have nothing special in my bag, but I do have something precious — the joy of giving!” The young man felt ashamed and left silently.
What does the underlined word “security” in Paragraph 4 probably mean?
| A．Money. | B．Worry. | C．Health. | D．Trouble. |
Sometimes it is difficult to talk to taxi drivers. They must give all their attention to the road as they work out the shortest way to the place where you are going. However, passengers from Wangfujing were in surprise when they took a taxi. The driver just would not stop talking - in English.
Organized by the Cultural and Education Section of the British Embassy, “Dare to Speak” examines if Chinese people will speak English in “real-life” situations.
Matthew Knowles, an acting student from South Carolina at Beijing Film Academy, acted the part as the “driver”. He collected six passengers on Saturday morning, most of whom were female white-collar （白领）workers.
“Of course they were surprised at first, wondering why I’m driving a taxi, and wondering whether this is a real taxi, but then most of them were pretty willing to speak,” he said. Knowles said he was also surprised by his “passengers”. “Apart from my first ‘passenger’, who could speak very little English, all the rest spoke English very well, and it was fun to communicate with them,” he said, adding that some “passengers” were quite talkative.
The “foreign taxi driver” project was just one of the “Dare to Speak” activities, which have been going on since the end of October. Other projects included a foreign store owner near a high school in Beijing, a cook in a Shanghai university canteen. They were testing the willingness of Chinese people, especially students and white-collar workers, to speak to foreigners in English.
Rong Xin, senior manager of IELTS （雅思） with the British Embassy, said they hoped to let IELTS takers in China know that communication is the ultimate goal of IELTS.
“We hope that more and more IELTS takers in China can realize the importance of communicating in English in real life, instead of just getting high test scores,” she said.
The underlined word ultimate is closest in meaning to ________.
| A．most difficult | B．most common |
| C．most famous | D．most important |
With all the wars, fighting and sadness in the world today, it's not only necessary, but also essential to have a good sense of humor just to help us get through each and every day of our lives. Putting a smile on someone's face when you know they are feeling down in the dumps ( 处于沮丧中), as the saying goes, makes me feel good and warms my heart.
How would you feel if you could not joke around with your wife, husband, child, co-worker neighbor, close friend, or even just someone that you are standing in line with at your comer store? I am always saying things that make others smile or laugh, even if I don't know the person I'm joking around with.My Grandma always found humor in everything she did, even if it was the hardest job anyone could imagine.This not only relieves stress in any situation, but also is common courtesy (礼貌) to speak to others that are around you.
I know of a few people that don’t have a funny bone in their bodies, as they say.Everyone around them could be rolling on the floor after hearing a great joke and they would sit there without the slightest smile on their face.They don't get the joke that makes others laugh. I am busting a gut while they just sit there, looking at me as if I were from outer space. How can people not get a really funny joke?
Laughing is essential to keep your stress levels under control. Without humor we would find ourselves with a lot of psychological problems, or on a lot of medications to keep us from going crazy. There is too much sadness in this present world. It drives people crazy. We all need to find a way to bypass the sadness and bring a little light into our lives. So, I believe our best medicine is to get together and tell some jokes and have some fun laughing together.
The phrase “busting a gut" in the third paragraph can be replaced by __________.
| A．explaining carefully | B．speaking loud |
| C．keeping silent | D．laughing hard |