Joe Simpson and Simon Yates were the fir...

Tips for Cooking on a Tight Schedule

From my experience, there are three main reasons why people don’t cook more often: ability, money, and time 1..Money is a topic I’ll save for another day .So today I want to give you some wisdom about how to make the most of the time you spent in the kitchen .Here are three tips for great cooking on a tight schedule:

1. Think ahead .The moments when I think cooking is a pain are when I’m already hungry and there’s nothing ready to eat. So think ahead of the coming week .When will you have time to cook? Do you have the right materials already ? 2..

2. Make your time worth it .When you do find time to cook a meal, make the most of it and save yourself time later on Are you making one loaf of bread? 3.. It takes around the same amount of time to make more of something. So save yourself the effort for future meal.

3. 4. This may surprise you , but one of the best tools for making cooking worth your time is experimentation. It gives you the chance to hit upon new ideas and recipes that can work well with your appetite and schedule. The more you learn and the more you try, the more ability you have to take control of your food and your schedule.

Hopefully that gives you a good start . 5. And don’t let a busy schedule discourage you from making some great changes in the way you eat and live!

A.A little time planning ahead can save a lot of work later on.

B.Try new things.

C.Make three or four instead.

D.Understand your food better.

E.Ability is easily improved.

F.Cooking is a burden for many people.

G.Let cooking and living simply be a joy rather than a burden.

    From my earlier memory of Mother, it seemed quite natural to think of her as different, nor of everyday things as Father was. In those days he was a young-looking man. He did not hesitate to make friends with children as soon as they were able to talk to him and laugh at his stories. Mother was older than he was. She must have been a woman of nearly forty, but she seemed even older. She changed little for a long time, showing no indication of growing old at all until, towards the end of her life, she suddenly became an old lady.

I was always inquisitive about Mother’s age. She never had birthdays like other people, nor did anyone else in our family. No candles were ever lit or cakes made or presents given in our house. To my friends in the street who talked delightfully about their birthday parties, I would repeat my mother’s words that such celebrations were only foolish.

“Nothing but deception,” she would say. “As though life can be marked by birthdays. It’s deeds, not years, that matter.”

Although I often repeated her words and even prided myself on not having birthdays, I once could not help asking Mother when she was born.

“I was born. I’m alive as you can see, so what more do you want to know?” she replied, so sharply that I never asked her about her age again.

In so many other ways Mother was different. Whereas all the rest of the women I knew in the neighboring houses took pride in their housewifely abilities, their new furniture, the neat appearance of their homes, Mother regarded all those things as of little importance. Our house always looked as if we had just moved in or were about to move out.

1.How did Father impress the author?

A.He liked writing stories. B.He talked a lot.

C.He was a very young man. D.He was popular with children.

2.Before the end of her life, Mother ______.

A.looked quite young B.looked like an old lady

C.looked younger than she was D.looked like a 40-year-old woman

3.What does the underlined word “inquisitive” (in Paragraph 2) probably mean?

A.Certain B.Curious.

C.Cautious. D.Confident.

4.What do we learn about Mother?

A.She was lazy. B.She was strict.

C.She was proud. D.She was special.

One of the latest trends(趋势) in American Childcare is Chinese au pairs. Au Pair in Stamford, Conn, 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 a 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.

1.What does the 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.

2.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 with other children D.to learn about the Chinese culture

3.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.

    Since the first Earth Day in 1970, Americans have gotten a lot “greener” toward the environment. “We didn’t know at that time there even was an environment, let alone that there was a problem with it,” says Bruce Anderson, president of Earth Day USA.

But what began as nothing important in public affairs has grown into a social movement .Business people, political leaders, university professors, and especially millions of grass-roots Americans are taking part in the movement. “The understanding has increased many， many times,” says Gaylord Nelson, the former governor from Wisconsin, who thought up the first. According to US government reports, emissions (排放)from cars and trucks have dropped from 10.3 million tons a year to 5.5 tons .The number of cities producing CO beyond the standard has been reduced from 40 to 9. Although serious problems still remain and need to be dealt with, the world is a safer and healthier place. A kind of “Green thinking” has become part of practices.

Great improvement has been achieved. In 1988 there were only 600 recycling programs; today in 1995 there are about 6,600. Advanced lights, motors, and building designs have helped save a lot of energy and therefore prevented pollution.

Twenty –five years ago, there were hardly any education programs for environment. Today, it’s hard to find a public school, university, or law school that does not have such a kind of program. “Until we do that, nothing else will change!” say Bruce Anderson.

1.According to Anderson, before 1970, Americans had little idea about ___.

A.the social movement B.recycling techniques

C.environmental problems D.the importance of Earth Day

2.Where does the support for environmental protection mainly come from?

A.The grass –roots level. B.The business circle.

C.Government officials. D.University professors.

3.What have Americans achieved in environmental protection?

A.They have cut car emissions to the lowest.

B.They have settled their environmental problems.

C.They have lowered their CO levels in forty cities.

D.They have reduced pollution through effective measures.

4.What is especially important for environmental protection according to the last paragraph?

A.Education. B.Planning

C.Green living D.CO reduction

    Arriving in Sydney on his own from India, my husband, Rashid, stayed in a hotel for a short time while looking for a house for me and our children.

During the first week of his stay, he went out one day to do some shopping. He came back in the late afternoon to discover that his suitcase was gone. He was extremely worried as the suitcase had all his important papers, including his passport.

He reported the case to the police and then sat there, lost and lonely in a strange city, thinking of the terrible troubles of getting all the paperwork organized again from a distant country while trying to settle down in a new one.

Late in the evening, the phone rang. It was a stranger. He was trying to pronounce my husband’s name and was asking him a lot of questions. Then he said they had found a pile of papers in their trash can(垃圾桶) that had been left out on the footpath.

My husband rushed to their home to find a kind family holding all his papers and documents. Their young daughter had gone to the trash can and found a pile of unfamiliar papers. Her parents had carefully sorted them out, although they had found mainly foreign addresses on most of the documents. At last they had seen a half-written letter in the pile in which my husband had given his new telephone number to a friend.

That family not only restored the important documents to us that day but also restored our faith and trust in people. We still remember their kindness and often send a warm wish their way.

1.What did Rashid plan to do after his arrival in Sydney?

A.Go shopping B.Find a house

C.Join his family D.Take a vacation

2.The girl’s parents got Rashid’s phone number from_________.

A.a friend of his family B.a Sydney policeman

C.a letter in his papers D.a stranger in Sydney

3.What does the underlined word “restored” in the last paragraph mean?

A.Showed B.Sent out

C.Delivered D.Gave back

4.Which of the following can be the best title for the text?

A.From India to Australia. B.Living in a New Country

C.Turning Trash to Treasure. D.In Search of New Friends.