Mama was calling me.I awoke,realizing it must be nearly midnight.Her expression was ___”Mary,”she said,”where’s your homework?”Then I remembered I had not finished my assignment.”Well,your studies come ___!You’d better finish your work,” she said.I____myself out of bed.As I did so,I could not help feeling __.Why me? Those feelings were nothing new,but I did not give ___to them.I didn’t argue with Mama.I just obeyed.
One day my older sister Ann and I walked barefoot(赤脚地)to school because our shoes had been worn out and Mama couldn’t afford to buy us shoes.The headmaster asked us to go home,for he couldn’t have students attending school barefoot.I suggested to Ann that we spend the day in a nearby cornfield___.Just about the time school was over we went home.There was Mama,waiting for us.I ___a story rather than upset her.Then she started crying.It was clear that she knew everything.She told us never to be __ of being poor.”It’s not what you wear but ___you are,”she said,”that matters.”
Mama’s toughness with me.always left me feeling as if I pleased her___ than her other children.However,the ___that I acquired have guided me for many years.I have come to ___the value of Mama’s demands.Still,one question continued to __ me for more than 30 years.Then one day I asked:”Mama,how come you were always so much __ on me than others?”She looked me straight in the eye and said:”I had to be harder on you because you had more gifts.”“I___,Mama.”At last I did.
1.A.severe B.strange C.polite D.rich
2.A.early B.last C.again D.first
3.A.pushed B.pulled C.dragged D.slipped
4.A.cautious B.embarrassed C.annoyed D.stupid
5.A.punishment B.feeling C.work D.voice
6.A.though B.instead C.still D.regardless
7.A.talked about B.heard of C.set down D.made up
8.A.proud B.aware C.ashamed D.fond
9.A.who B.why C.how D.where
10.A.rather B.less C.more D.other
11.A.strengths B.skills C.results D.rights
12.A.add B.judge C.respect D.appreciate
13.A.advise B.corner C.bother D.settle
14.A.tougher B.gentler C.easier D.heavier
15.A.quit B.understand C.promise D.remember
What If We Don’t Get Along?
Teachers want to get along with you and enjoy seeing you learn. But teachers and students sometimes have personality clashes（人格冲突）. 1. If you show your teacher that you want to make the situation better, he or she will probably do everything possible to make that happen. Take these steps if the problem seems difficult to solve:
1. Talk to an adult you trust, such as a parent, guidance counselor, or both.
2. 2. You may not feel immediately comfortable with your teachers, but that may change as you get to know one another.
3. If you’ve given it time, talk with your parents about what to do next. Lots of times, a meeting can be set up to discuss the problem. 3. Everyone’s goal should be to create trust and kindness.
Your relationship with your teachers is often your first chance to develop a “business relationship”. They are different from your family relationships and friendships, which are built on affection and love. 4. But they don’t necessarily need to be good friends or like each other a lot. They simply need to respect one another, be polite, and stay focused on the jobs at hand.
When you act this way, and remember that you’re not the only kid in the class, you are
helping your teacher. 5. Teachers also like it when students follow directions and when they learn and obey the rules of the classroom. For instance, there may be rules about listening when another student is talking, about taking turns, or about raising your hand when you want to say something or ask a question.
A.Give it time.
B.This can happen between any two people.
C.This may clear the air and make things better.
D.Your teacher is likely to notice this and appreciate it.
E.Therefore, those teachers rarely show respect towards their students.
F.A teacher cannot necessarily answer all the questions his students ask.
G.In a business relationship, both parties get something out of the relationship.
At 88, I remain a competitive runner. The finish line of my life is drawing close, and I hope to reach it having given the best of myself along the way. I’ve been training my body to meet the demands of this final stretch. But, I wonder, should I have asked more of my mind?
If I didn’t exercise, I would release the hungry beasts that seek their elderly prey on couches, but not in the gym. The more I sweated, the more likely it was my doctor would continue to say, “Keep doing what you’re doing, and I’ll see you next year.” My mind, on the other hand, seems less willing to give in to discipline. I have tried internet “brain games”, solving algebraic problems flashing past and changing the route of virtual trains to avoid crashes. But these never approach my determination to remain physically fit as I move deeper into old age.
Despite having many friends in their 70s, 80s and 90s, I’ve been far too slow to realize that how we respond to aging is a choice made in the mind, not in the gym. Some of my healthiest friends carry themselves as victims abused by time. Other friends, many whose aching knees and hips are the least of their physical problems, find comfort in their ability to accept old age as just another stage of life to deal with. I would use the word “heroic” to describe the way they cope with aging.
One such friend recently called from a hospital to tell me a sudden brain disease had made him legally blind. He interrupted me as I began telling him how terribly sorry I was, “Bob, it could have been worse. I could have become deaf instead of blind.”
Despite all the time I spend lifting weights and exercising, I realized I lack the strength to have said those words. It suddenly struck me I’ve paid a price for being a “gym rat.” If there is one characteristic common to friends who are aging with a graceful acceptance of life’s attacks, it is contentment. Aging had to be more than what I saw in a mirror.
But rather than undertaking a fundamental change in the way I face aging, I felt the place to begin would be to start small. A recent lunch provided a perfect example.
I’ve always found it extremely difficult to concentrate when I’m in a noisy setting. At this lunch with a friend in an outdoor restaurant, a landscaper began blowing leaves from underneath the bushes surrounding our table. Typically, after such a noisy interruption, I would have snapped, “Let’s wait until he’s finished!” then fallen silent. When the roar eventually faded, my roar would have drained (消耗) the conversation of any warmth. It troubled me that even a passing distraction could so easily take me from enjoying lunch with a good friend to a place that gave me no pleasure at all. I wanted this meal to be different.
My years in gyms had taught me to shake off pains and other distractions, never permitting them to stop my workout or run. I decided to treat the noise this way. I continued talking with my friend, challenging myself to hear the noise, but to hold it at a distance. The discipline so familiar to me in the gym - this time applied to my mind - proved equally effective in the restaurant. It was as though I had taken my brain to a mental fitness center.
Learning to ignore a leaf blower’s roar hardly equips me to find contentment during my passage into ever-deeper old age. But I left the lunch feeling I had at least taken a small first step in changing behavior that stood in the way of that contentment.
Could I employ that same discipline to accept with dignity the inevitable decline awaiting me like the finish line? Hoping that contentment will guide me as I make my way along the path yet to be traveled.
1.The author’s question in Paragraph 1 implies that ________.
A.he has never believed the necessity of mind training
B.he has realized he should mentally prepare for aging
C.he feels regret for not sharpening his thinking skills
D.he feels unsatisfied with the result of the brain games
2.The author uses his friends as examples to ________.
A.stress aging is an unavoidable stage of life to face
B.indicate that people see life from many different angles
C.prove it’s significant to be surrounded with positive friends
D.show it’s important to take health seriously in a sensible way
3.What can we learn from the author’s friend mentioned in Paragraph 4?
A.He fears that his illness will become worse.
B.He takes physical illnesses as they come.
C.He needs to find a way through those hardships.
D.He sees life as a series of disappointments.
4.After that recent lunch, the author realized that ________.
A.distractions were not uncommon in everyday life
B.the restaurant was not an ideal place for eating
C.his roar had spoiled the friendly conversation
D.he had made small changes to adapt to aging
5.What’s the author’s attitude towards exercising in the end?
A.Doubtful. B.Indifferent. C.Positive. D.Ambiguous.
6.Which of the following could be the best title for the passage?
A.Old age curse and blessing B.The secret to aging well
C.Benefits of regular exercise D.Never too old to learn
In the famous musical My Fair Lady, Eliza Doolittle, the poor daughter of a dustman who speaks with a thick Cockney accent, becomes the unwitting (不知晓的) target for a bet between two phonetics scholars. By the end of the musical, Doolittle is able to pronounce all of her words like a member of the British elite, fooling everyone at an embassy ball about her true origins.
It’s hard to imagine a version of My Fair Lady set in the U.S. because, unlike the British, Americans seem either unwilling or unable to honestly acknowledge their own social class. But a new set of scientific studies conducted by Michael Krauss and his colleagues at Yale University show that Americans find it easy to make distinctions about other people’s social class just by listening to them speak.
In one study, the researchers asked 229 people to listen to 27 different speakers who varied in terms of their age, race, gender and social class. The participants heard each speaker say a total of seven different words. Based on just this short audio, participants were able to correctly identify which speakers were college-educated 55 percent of the time-more than what would be expected by chance. A major limitation of this study, however, was that it used college education as a criterion for social class.
Then in another experiment, 302 participants were asked to either listen to or read transcripts (文本) from 90 seconds of recorded speech in which the speakers talked about themselves without explicitly mentioning anything about their social class. Participants were asked to judge what they thought the social classes of the speakers were by using a 10-rung ascending (上升的) ladder of increasing income, education and occupation. They found that participants who heard the audio recordings were more accurate in judging where the speakers fell in terms of their social status.
To show whether these inferences have real-world consequences, Kraus and his colleagues ran another experiment. They recruited 274 participants, all of whom had past hiring experience, to either listen to the audio or read a transcript of the content. The findings showed that participants were able to accurately judge the social class of the candidates and that this effect was stronger for participants who had heard the audio recordings. In addition, participants judged the higher-class candidates as more competent, a better fit for the job and more likely to be hired.
Taken together, this research suggests that despite our discomfort about the topic, Americans are able to easily detect one another’s social class from small snippets of speech. Moreover, we use this information to discriminate against people who seem to be of a lower social class. This research identifies social class as another potential way that employers may discriminate against candidates, perhaps without even realizing it.
1.The author introduces his topic by______.
A.making a comparison
B.justifying an assumption
C.explaining a phenomenon
D.relating the plot of a musical
2.What do the experiments suggest?
A.Participants tend to make objective judgments.
B.The content rather than the speaking style is reliable.
C.One’s social class can be inferred from how they speak.
D.Education and income are the main criteria for social status.
3.According to the passage, judgments about the way people talk_____.
A.disagree with the facts
B.affect hiring decisions
C.favour competent people
D.hardly provide reference
4.What can be learned from the last paragraph?
A.Americans are slow to judge social classes.
B.People in a low social class lose jobs easily.
C.Social-class discrimination is hard to address.
D.Speech can create social-class discrimination.
THE REMARKABLE ROCKS area must-see on Kangaroo Island
accessible by air and ferry from the Australian mainland
Hop on new Kangaroo Island trail
for five-day adventure
It sounds like an amusement park.Or a portion of a zoo reserved for marsupials(有袋动物). But Kangaroo Island(KI), 30 minutes by air from Adelaide in South Australia, is just the opposite. Much of the island remained inaccessible to visitors until this year.Opened to the public in May, the Kangaroo Island Wilderness Trail, a nearly 38-mile, fie-day hike, ushers adventurous trekkers on a botanically distinctive immersion into the islands' south-west side.
Footers can expect to walk roughly four to seven hours a day, passing colorful flower, splendid sugar gum tees and massive native plant life. In this timeless setting, they'll likely sport kangaroos, goanna lizards and spiny echidna. From cliff rims， they'll overlook the Southern Ocean， where sharks lurk and schools of salmon cluster in flower like, protective formations.
The trial includes 4 camping areas,each outfitted with 24 tent platforms :12 for self-guided walkers and 12 for tour operators,who also can arrange options off the trail.
Independent trekkers pay about$124to do the walk; the cost includes the parking at the Flinders Chase visitor center ,and a trail guide and map.
KI is accessible both by air and by ferry ;www.tourkangarooisland. com.au
--Chicago Tribune/TNS
1.According to the passage, Kangaroo Island is special for .
A.camping sites B.kangaroos
C.an amusement park D.natural beauty
2.On the island the visitors can .
A.feed wild animals
B.visit the Remarkable Rocks
C.choose from 12 tent platforms
D.take a boat on the Southern Ocean
听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。
1.What does the speaker ask the runners to do?
A.Stand in line. B.Do a practice run. C.Follow a volunteer.
2.What will be available at the stations every two miles?
A.Medical assistance. B.Reporters. C.Drinks.
3.What is forbidden in this race?
A.Headphones. B.Food. C.Photos.
4.When will the running course be taken down?
A.In the mid-morning. B.At midday. C.In the early afternoon.
