I felt like a good mother on that summer morning. I’d______up early, made a picnic lunch,______my three-and five-year-old daughters into the car, drove to my friend’s house, packed her and her______into the car, and drove an hour and a half to the shore where we________ our picnic cloth on the sands by 10 a.m.
Soon the girls began running. About 50 yards from us, a man, maybe______ his late 50s, was fishing. The girls stood next to him and watched with their mouths open______he cast the lines. He smiled at them. They all ran back to us except my three-year-old Drew, who,______ , just seated herself next to the white bucket where the man was______ planning to put the fish he caught.
However, suddenly a______came to my mind. Is it dangerous for Drew to stay there with the stranger? Good moms should also teach daughters that the world is dangerous. Then, I watched them like there was a hidden______in the lifeguard chair filming the man as America’s Most Wanted. Every few minutes, I looked to my five-year-old to make sure she hadn’t been______ out to sea, then back to Drew to make sure there was no______between her and the stranger.
When I looked at Drew again, she had started______with the man. She was probably telling him where we lived and how her father was away on______. He nodded. She kept talking. He nodded again, then they laughed.
A few seconds later, she ran back to us, with a toy fish in her hand. It must have been something______he used for bait( 饵). The three other girls were______, so they didn’t try to______how eager they were to have one.
Just when I was at a loss, there he was: the man, standing right next to us. He was holding three more toy fish. He handed them to each of the girls. By their______ , I realized that he was______ a warm-hearted man, meaning no harm at all.
“Thank you”, I said, realizing that yes, there is evil in this world…but there is also good, and______in strangers, and lessons for mothers to learn that only three-year-olds could teach them.
1.A. settled B. woken C. risen D. turned
2.A. combined B. loaded C. divided D. gathered
3.A. daughters B. sons C. nieces D. nephews
4.A. expanded B. covered C. spread D. increased
5.A. in B. on C. at D. of
6.A. while B. as C. though D. if
7.A. otherwise B. therefore C. instead D. besides
8.A. reasonably B. hardly C. merely D. probably
9.A. arguing B. warning C. greeting D. saying
10.A. recorder B. radio C. camera D. computer
11.A. swept B. left C. dropped D. worn
12.A. treatment B. contact C. agreement D. link
13.A. quarreling B. arguing C. debating D. chatting
14.A. vacation B. business C. leave D. show
15.A. what B. which C. that D. where
16.A. moved B. disappointed C. frightened D. interested
17.A. hide B. tell C. express D. explain
18.A. faces B. fingers C. arms D. tongues
19.A. usually B. specially C. actually D. finally
20.A. care B. devotion C. gratitude D. kindness
The Value of Tears
Tears can ruin make-up, bring conversation to a stop, and give you a runny nose. Tears leave you embarrassed and without energy. Still, crying is a fact of life, and your tears are very useful. Even when you’re not crying, they make a film over the eye’s surface.1.
When tears fall, they reduce stress. But we tend to fight them for all sorts of reasons. “People worry about showing their emotions, afraid that once they lose control they’ll never get it back.”2. After we cry, the feelings that caused the tears often disappear.
Sometimes people become much stressed and can’t cry. Whatever emotion they are feeling—shock, anger, fear, or sadness—is being held back.
But everyone has the need to cry. Psychologist Vera Diamond explains that her treatment often consists of giving people permission to cry. 3.Patients practice crying just to become used to expressing emotions. She suggests safe, private places to cry, like under the bedcovers or in the car. Crying is a way of reducing tension, but people don’t like it when others cry because it makes them tense.4. And they’ll do just about anything to make you stop.
In certain situations, such as at work, tears are not appropriate. It’s good not to cry during a tense business discussion.5.You should also act out the whole situation again and be as noisy and angry as you like. It will help you feel better. “And,” she adds, “Once your tears have taken away the stress, you can begin to think calmly of ways to deal with the problem.”
Tears are a sign of our ability to feel. If you find yourself near someone crying, deal with it. And never be afraid to cry yourself.
A. They too may be holding back a need to cry.
B. They cry for different reasons.
C. She gives crying exercises.
D. It contains a chemical against infection.
E. The fact is that no emotion lasts forever.
F. It forms in response to the stress on the surface of the eye.
G. But once you’re safely behind closed doors, don’t just cry.
What will higher education look like in 2050? That was the question addressed Tuesday night by Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University.
“We’re at the end of the fourth wave of change in higher education,” Crow began, arguing that research universities followed the initial establishment of higher education, public colleges, and land-grant schools in the timeline of America.
In less than a half-century, he said, global market competition will be at its fastest rates of change ever, with several multi-trillion-dollar economies worldwide. According to a recent projection, the nation’s population could reach 435 million, with a large percentage of those residents economically disadvantaged. In addition, climate change will be “meaningfully uncontrollable” in many parts of the world.
The everyday trends seen today, such as declining performance of students at all levels, particularly in math and science, and declining wages and employment among the less educated, will only continue, Crow maintained, and are, to say the least, not contributing to fulfilling the dream of climbing the social ladder mobility, quality of life, sustainable environment, and longer life spans that most Americans share.
“How is it that we can have these great research universities and have negative-trending outcomes?” Crow said in a talk “I hold the universities accountable. … We are part of the problem.”
Among the “things that we do that make the things that we teach less learnable,” Crow said, are the strict separation of disciplines, academic rigidity, and conservatism, the desire of universities to imitate schools at the top of the social ranks, and the lack of the computer system ability that would allow a large number of students to be educated for a small amount of money.
Since 2002, when Crow started being in charge at Arizona State — which he calls the “new American university” — he has led more than three dozen initiatives that aim to make the school “inclusive, scalable, fast, adaptive, challenge-focused, and willing to take risks.”
Among those initiatives were a restructuring of the engineering and life sciences schools to create more linkages between disciplines; the launch of the School of Earth and Space Exploration and the School of Sustainability; the start of a Teachers College to address K-12 performance and increase the status of the Education Department at the university; and broadened access, increasing the freshman class size by 42 percent and the enrollment of students living below the poverty line by 500 percent.
Universities must start, Crow noted, “by becoming self-reflective architects, figuring out what we have and what we actually need instead of what legend tells us we have to be.” Research universities today have “run their course,” he added. “Now is the time for variety.”
During a discussion afterward, Crow clarified and expanded on some of his points. He discussed, for example, the school’s distance-learning program. “Nearly 40 percent of undergraduates are taking at least one course online,” he said, which helps the school to keep costs down while advancing interactive learning technologies.
He said that Arizona State is working to increase the transfer and completion rates of community-college students, of whom only about 15 percent, historically, complete their later degrees. “We’ve built a system that will allow them to track into universities,” particularly where “culturally complex barriers” beyond finances limit even the most gifted students.
1.The fourth wave of change in America’s higher education refers to _______.
A. public colleges B. land-grant schools
C. initial higher education D. research universities
2.Which is NOT part of the American dream most people share?
A. People enjoy a quality life. B. People live longer and longer.
C. The freedom to move around. D. An environment that is sustainable.
3.Which is an initiative adopted by Crow at Arizona State University?
A. Restructuring the teachers College.
B. Launching the School of Life Sciences.
C. Ignoring the linkages between disciplines.
D. Enrolling more students from poor families.
4.With the distance-learning program, Arizona State University is able to ______.
A. enroll 40% of its students online
B. provide an even greater number of courses
C. attract the most gifted students all over the world
D. keep costs down without a loss of quality
With the explosion of consumer choices in recent history, the latest must-haves would surely need to be upgraded more often than every 10 years. In 2002 a computer and basic mobile phone would have been enough for most people, but now? The public need a trendy notebook computer and a smart phone with WiFi connection to feel they are up-to-date. So when will we have enough things? When will we finally be happy? Well, it looks like the things we buy today will barely keep us satisfied for a few months.
In the eyes of some psychologists, far from making us happy, greater consumer choice creates many serious psychological problems. A fundamental principle of the society is that more freedom is better and more choice in the marketplace means more freedom. Therefore more choice leads to more happiness. This is not the case, however.
Imagine you go to a café offering chocolate and vanilla ice cream. You choose the chocolate and eat it happily. But what if the café serves 50 kinds of ice cream? You choose chocolate and then start to worry, “maybe blueberry would have been better, perhaps the half-fat ice cream would have been healthier. Stupid me, all these choices and I didn’t make the best one! ”
In China’s major cities we have now passed the point where more consumer choice is making us happier. We are annoyed by all the options we have, disappointed because our expectations are so high and angered at ourselves when we don’ t make a perfect choice every time.
A newspaper reporter tells a story about traveling on a plane with high-speed Internet access. He thought this was amazing—the newest piece of technology he had heard of. Then the service went down. The man next to him was angry and swore. The reporter thought, “How quickly the world owes him something he knew existed only 10 seconds ago!”
1.What is the text mainly talking about?
A. Hi-tech and consumer needs.
B. Computers and smart phones.
C. Wireless products and WiFi connection.
D. Diverse choices and consumer satisfaction.
2.What may some psychologists think of the consumer demand in the café?
A. The consumer has mental problems.
B. More choice means more freedom.
C. Variety leads to unhappiness.
D. The shop provides too many choices.
3.Why was the man next to the reporter quite annoyed?
A. The net connection was interrupted. B. Someone owed him money.
C. The air hostess offered poor service. D. The pleasure lasted only 10 seconds.
4.What does the underlined word “swore” in the last paragraph probably mean?
A. Fell asleep. B. Said rude words.
C. Made promises. D. Became amazed.
Three boys were enjoying themselves in their hometown of Bovina, Mississippi. However, their lives were turned upside down when they discovered the jawbone of a Mastodon (齿乳象).
Brothers Shawn and Caid Sellers and cousin Michael Mahalitc found the prehistoric bone in a piece of earth that was recently plowed (犁、耕). “I thought it was a log,” Caid said. “I tried to pick it up and it was really heavy and I saw teeth on it.” The bone weighed about 50 pounds. They eventually got the bone to their home and fitted it in their tub (浴盆), but it took their collective strength, might and a golf cart, to carry the large Mastodon bone.
“They didn’t expect to find that,” Michael’s mom said. “Now that they have, I believe that they will be more aware of their surroundings and what they’re digging up when they are digging and playing.”
“We’ve gotten a lot of petrified (石化的) wood and Civil War relics from the area and that’s what I thought it was,” the brothers’ mother said. “This is our first set of teeth we’ve found. So we thought it was their imagination. We were quite surprised to see that it was not their imagination.”
They were exploring near the brothers’ home. Lo and behold (真想不到), they saw what they thought resembled a fossil. It was the curator of paleontology (古生物负责人) of the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, George Phillips, who first identified the bone as a “very mature individual.”
The Mastodon was a mammal who lived during the prehistoric times. They had long tusks and trunks, like elephants. They were clearly different from their modern-day counterparts, as well as woolly mammoths (猛犸).
1.How did they find the jawbone of a Mastodon?
A. With great efforts. B. By chance.
C. Instructed by an expert. D. Through imagination.
2.At first the brothers’ mother thought the jawbone was________.
A. from people who died in the Civil War B. the bone from a very mature individual
C. like a log or something D. the prehistoric bone
3.The discovery of the jawbone of a Mastodon is important mainly because it________.
A. helps people to know more about the Civil War
B. teaches kids to be more aware of their surroundings
C. promotes the research on more prehistoric creatures
D. attracts the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science
4.Which of the following can be the best title for the article?
A. Prehistoric Bones Recently Found in Mississippi
B. Not Petrified Wood Nor Civil War Relics
C. First Identifying Bone as a “Very Mature Individual”
D. Unexpectedly Discovering Mastodon Jawbone
Confucius Institute
The Confucius Institute at the University of Minnesota offers several short classes on Chinese language and culture.
★Class Fees
The cost of classes is $225 ($170 for Chinese Rehab)
★Class Calendar
The Confucius Institute follows the University of Minnesota semester schedule. The Confucius Institute classes start a few weeks after the start of the University semester and last for ten class sessions. Classes are not held on University holidays.
The upcoming class sessions will be:
Spring 2018: February 1- April 7
Summer 2018: June 13- August 25
Tentative class calendar:
The schedule may change due to teacher availability.
MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY |
Beginning I, Section A 6:00 ~ 7:30 p.m. | Beginning I, Section B 6:00 ~ 7:30 p.m. | Beginning II 6:00 ~ 7:30 p.m. | Intermediate II 6:00 ~ 7:00 p.m. |
Chinese Rehab 6:30 ~ 7:00 p.m. | Intermediate I 6:00 ~ 7:30 p.m. | Beginning III 6:00 ~ 7:30 p.m. | Intermediate III 6:00 ~ 7:30 p.m. |
★Class Cancellations
Any class not meeting minimum enrollment by four business days before the class start date will be cancelled and you will be contacted. If we must cancel a class due to insufficient enrollment or any other circumstance beyond our control, we will offer a full refund or issue credit towards another class.
★Contact Information
The Confucius Institute is located within the University International Center on the east bank of the Twin Cities campus. The University International Center is located in the Keeler Apartment building. Enter at the corner of 17th Avenue S.E. and 4th Street through the doors located near the “University International Center” sign.
Office hours
The office is generally open Monday through Friday, from 8:00 a.m. until 4: 30 p.m.
The office is closed daily from12:.00 noon until 1: 00 p. m. and is closed on all University holidays.
Office Address
160 University International Center, 331-17th Ave. S.E., Minneapolis, MN 55414
Phone: 612625-5080
Fax: 612-625-5158
Email: confucius@ umn. edu
1.Chinese Rehab ________________.
A. costs more money
B. is held on Monday
C. lasts one and a half hours
D. has four classes a week
2.To get information about the classes, you can visit the office ___________.
A. on Monday noon
B. at 12:30 a.m., Tuesday
C. on Wednesday evening
D. at 1: 30 p.m., Friday
3.What is True about the classes?
A. The schedule may be changeable.
B. They can be one-to-one instruction.
C. They are held on University holidays.
D. They start at the beginning of the University semester.
