More Chinese are seeking out the surgeon...

After graduation I returned home to my small town in Indiana. I didn’t have a job yet. Mr. Hobbs, a friend of my father’s, owned a small shirt factory in town. Within the past five years it had grown from twenty to eighty workers. Mr. Hobbs was worried that his plant was getting too big and inefficient, so he asked me to come in on a short-term basis as a consultant.

I went to the plant and spent about a week looking around and making notes. I was really a mazed at what I saw.

Most curious of all, there was no quality control at all. No one inspected the final product of the factory. As a result some of the shirts that were put in boxes for shipment were missing one or two buttons, the collar, and even a sleeve sometimes!

The working conditions were poor. The tables where the workers sat were very high and uncomfortable. Except for a half hour at lunchtime, there were no breaks in the day to relieve the boring work. There was no music. The walls of the workrooms were a dull gray color. I was amazed that the workers hadn’t gone on strike.

Furthermore, the work flow was irregular. There was one especially absent-minded young man in the assembly（组装）line who sewed on buttons. After a while I recognized him as "Big Jim", who used to sit behind me in math class in high school. He was very slow and all the shifts were held up at his position. Workers beyond him in line on his shift had to wait with nothing to do; therefore, a great deal of time and efficiency were lost as Big Jim daydreamed while he worked. All week I wondered why he wasn’t fired.

After I made observations for a week, Mr. Hobbs asked me for an oral report of my findings.

1.The shirts from Mr. Hobbs’ factory can be described as ____.

2.Why did Mr. Hobbs ask the writer to the factory?

3.Which is not likely to happen in the factory?

4.Big Jim may get fired mainly because ____.

Australian Flag Designs by Readers of the Sun-Herald

We received dozens of responses after inviting readers to send in their designs for a new flag. The designs we received include:

James Anthony, Drummoyne

James reduces the Union Jack down in size and changes its shape to become a reminder of the British tradition rather than canceling it altogether. At the same time he suggests enlarging the stars of the Southern Cross. His design attempts to use the best of both worlds in a newly designed flag.

As he says, “the British part of the Australian Flag is too big and the Australian bits are too small. When you make the stars bigger the Australian flag can look impressive.”

Joe Bollen, Turranmurra

Joe’s flag has the main elements of a risen sun, white horizon(地平线), red earth at the base and the Southern Cross. He intends to make the risen sun a special Australian symbol on the flag. He believes it represents life. The Southern Cross shows that we live in the Southern Hemisphere. (半球)

Maria Ieraci, Sydney

Maria deleted the Union Jack but otherwise kept the flag as is with the Southern Cross and Federation Star. She says, ‘There is only one correct way to change the Australian flag” and that is “to drop the Union Jack ---- when Australia becomes a Republic”, which she hopes will be before 2010.

Ron Bennett, Sydney

Ron recommends using the Aboriginal colors but replacing their image of the sun with the map of Australia. He says, “Australia is unique being an island continent with an instantly recognizable outline at that” and “this will leave no doubt as to which country the flag belongs.”

1.Which of the four designs can remind you of the past of the country?

2.The Southern Cross in some of the designs represents _________.

3.What does the Union Jack refer to?

A few weeks after my first wife, Georgia, was called to heaven, I was cooking dinner for my son and myself. For a   16 , I had decided on frozen peas. As I was cutting open the bag, it   17  from my hand and crashed to the floor. The peas, like marbles,   18  everywhere. I tried to use a broom,   19  with each swipe they just rolled across the kitchen．

For the next week, every time I was in the   20 , I found a pea---in a corner, or behind a table leg. They kept   21 . Eight months later I pulled out the refrigerator to clean behind it, and   22  12 frozen peas hidden underneath．

At the time I found those few remaining   23 , I was in a new relationship with a wonderful   24  I’d met in a support group. After we married, I was reminded 25  those peas under the refrigerator, and realized that my   26  had been like that bag of frozen peas. It had shattered（破碎. My wife had died; I was in a new city with a busy job, and with a son having trouble   27  his new surroundings and the  28  of his mother. I was a bag of spilled frozen peas; my life had come apart and scattered．

When life gets you   29 , when everything you know comes apart, and when you think you’ll never  30 , remember that it’s just a bag of scattered frozen peas. The peas can be  31 , and life will move on. You’ll find all the peas   32 , including the ones that are hardest to find. And when you’ve got them   33  you’ll start to feel whole again．

The life you know can break apart at any time. But you’ll have to   34 , and how fast you collect your peas depends on you. Will you keep scattering them around with a broom,  35  will you pick them up one by one and put your life back together?

--- You must find one exam after another very tiring.

--- __________. In fact, they offered me good chances to apply what I had learned

Without my glasses, I couldn’t _______ whether that figure on the blackboard was a three or an eight.