Christopher Thomas, 27, was a writer by night and a teacher by day when he noticed he was always tired and was losing weight fast. Diagnosed with diabetes(糖尿病), Thomas would need to inject himself with insulin(胰岛素) three times a day for the rest of his life or risk nerve damage, blindness, and even death. And if that weren't bad enough, he had no health insurance.
After a month of feeling upset, Thomas decided he'd better find a way to fight back. He left Canton, Michigan for New York, got a job waiting tables, nicknamed himself the Diabetic Rockstar, and created diabeticrockstar.com, a free online community for diabetics and their loved ones—a place where over 1,100 people share personal stories, information, and resources.
Jason Swencki’s son, Kody, was diagnosed with type diabetes at six. Father and son visit the online children's forums(论坛) together most evenings. "Kody gets so excited, writing to kids from all over," says Swencki, one of the site's volunteers. "They know what he's going through, so he doesn't feel alone."
Kody is anything but alone: Diabetes is now the seventh leading cause of death in the United States, with 24 million diagnosed cases. And more people are being diagnosed at younger ages.
These days, Thomas's main focus is his charity（慈善机构）, Fight It, which provides medicines and supplies to people—225 to date—who can't afford a diabetic's huge expenses. Fight-it.org has raised about $23,000—in products and in cash. In May, Thomas will hold the first annual Diabetic Rockstar Festival in the Caribbean.
Even with a staff of 22 volunteers, Thomas often devotes up to 50 hours a week to his cause, while still doing his full-time job waiting tables. "Of the diabetes charities out there, most are putting money into finding a cure," says Bentley Gubar, one of Rockstar's original members. "But Christopher is the only person I know saying people need help now."
1.Which of the following is true of Christopher Thomas?
A. He needs to go to the doctor every day.
B. He studies the leading cause of diabetes
C. He has a positive attitude to this disease.
D. He encourages diabetics by writing articles.
2. Diabeitcrockstar.com was created for _________.
A. diabetics to communicate B. volunteers to find jobs
C. children to amuse themselves D. rock stars to share resources.
3.According to the text, Kody ______.
A. feel lonely because of his illness B. benefits from diabeticrockstar.com
C. helps create the online kid’s forums D. writes children’s stories online
4.What can we learn about Fight It?
A. It helps the diabetics in financial difficulties.
B. It organizes parties for volunteer once a year.
C. It offers less expensive medicine to diabetics.
D. It owns a well-known medical website.
5.The last paragraph suggests that Thomas ______.
A. works full-time in a diabetes charity B. employs 22 people for his website
C. helps diabetics in his own way D. ties to find a cure for diabetes
Women who want to succeed at work should resist the temptation to act like men, scientists have said. Studies show that ambitious women are often less likely to get ahead than those who show more female characteristics. However, if they try to adapt, promotion comes their way. The findings, which will let assertive (过分自信的) women down, suggest that the best way for a woman to succeed in a man’s world is to act like a lady.
Past research has shown that women with self-confidence and other characteristics linked with successful management can be put aside at work in favor of gentle types. It is thought that while such characteristics are highly praised in men, ambitious women are penalized for not being feminine enough. Instead of being seen as strong managers, ambitious women are in an unfavorable situation.
In one US study, researchers explored personal details from university students applying for a summer job at a bank. A women applicant who attempted to apply for special wages to pay her transport or living costs was three and a half times less likely to get a job offer than a similar male. In fact, this kind of woman was the least likely to get taken on.
The latest study set out to explore what women who are naturally assertive could do to get ahead in the workplace. Eighty young men and women completed surveys about their personality while studying in college. Around eight years later, the researchers got back in touch with them to find out how their careers were going. Some had been promoted five times, others just once or twice. The results showed that ambitious women who stick to their decisions had been promoted less than more feminine groups. But the ambitious women who made a conscious effort to not appear to be threatening by “self-controlling” their behavior had done better than those who had carried on ignoring others’ views.
1. What does the underlined word “penalized” mean in the second paragraph?
A. Treated badly B. Asked to leave
C. Looked down upon D. Made sb. have a disadvantage
2.According to the passage, if an ambitious woman and a similar man both ask the company for an extra payment, ______.
A. the woman is less likely to be accepted
B. the woman will work harder if she gets the payment
C. the man can make a good impression on the boss
D. they can be both accepted if they use proper words
3.The ambitious women in the latest study ______.
A. had been promoted only once or twice
B. tried hard to be as successful as gentle types
C. were more accepted at work after they controlled their behavior
D. filled in the surveys after they graduated from college
4.What can we learn from the passage?
A. Successful management is highly praised in women.
B. Some women will be disappointed by the massage.
C. Men acting like a lady are likely to be promoted at work.
D. The latest study was aimed at how to become a successful boss.
5.What’s the main idea of the passage?
A. How assertive women can control their behavior.
B. Feminists can do better by controlling their behavior.
C. Acting like a man won’t get women promoted at work.
D. How the ambitious women can avoid acting like men.
2010 was the year the Earth struck back.
Earthquakes, heat waves, floods, volcanoes, super typhoons, blizzards(暴风雪), landslides(滑坡)and droughts
killed at least a quarter million people in 2010---the deadliest year in more than a generation. More people were killed worldwide by natural disasters this year than have been killed in terrorism attacks in the past 40 years combined.
“It just seemed like it was back-to-back (接二连三) and it came waves,” said Craig Fugate, who heads the US Federal Emergency Management Agency. It handled a record number of disasters in 2010.
“The term ' 100-year event ' really lost its meaning this year.”
And we have ourselves to blame most of the time, scientists and disaster experts say.
Even though many disasters seem accidental, the hand of man made this a particularly deadly, costly, extreme and strange year for everything from wild weather to earthquakes.
Poor construction and development practices make earthquake more deadly than they need be. More people live in poverty in vulnerable building (危房) in crowded cities. That means that when the ground shakes the river breaches(攻破), or the tropical cyclone (旋风) hits, more people die.
The January earthquake that killed well more than 220000 people in Haita is a perfect example. Port-au-Prince has nearly three times as many people, many of them living in poverty, and more poorly built shanties (棚户区) than it did 25 years ago. So had the same quake hit in 1985 instead of 2010, total deaths would have probably been in the 80 000 range, said Richard Olson, director of disaster risk reduction at Florida International University.
Climate scientists say Earth's climate also is changing thanks to man-made global warning, bringing extreme weather, such as heat waves and flooding.
The excessive (过多的) amount of extreme weather of 2010 is a clear sign of man-made global warning that climate scientists have long warned about. They calculate that the killer Russian heat wave ---setting a national record of 111 degrees --- would happen once every 100000 years without global warning.
Preliminary (之前的) data show that 18 counties broke their records for the hottest day ever.
White House science adviser John Holdren said we should get used to climate disasters or do something about global warning. "The science is clear that we can expect more and more of these kinds of damaging events unless and until society's emissions of heat-trapping (吸热的)gases and particles are sharply reduce."
1. What does the second paragraph mainly tell us?
A．How the Earth struck back in 2010. B. Why the Earth struck back.
C．How terrorism attacks struck. D. What natural disaster mean to us.
2.What does the underlined word "it" refer to in the third paragraph?
A． Earthquake. B. The Earth. C. 2010 D. Natural disaster.
3.What do the fifth, sixth and seventh paragraphs mainly tell us?
A. The reason why there were so mainly disasters in 2010.
B. The way that natural disasters happened.
C. The way that man built buildings.
D. The way that people lived.
4.What is the way to cut back on the number of natural disasters?
A. To build stronger houses.
B．To develop less.
C. To reduce the emissions of heat-trapping gases and particles greatly.
D. To forecast the happening of natural disasters correctly.
5.Why did the writer give the example of the earthquake that happened in Haiti?
A. To show more people's living in vulnerable building can cause more people to die in an earthquake.
B. To show Haiti is a poor country.
C．To show Port-au-Prince is too crowded.
D．To show man's forecast ability of an earthquake reduced.
“Most experiences of absent-mindedness ,forgetting where you left something or wondering why you just entered a room , are caused by a simple lack of attention, ” says Schacter. “You’re supposed to remember something, but you haven’t encoded（编码） it deeply.”
Encoding, Schacter explains, is a special way of paying attention to an event that has a major impression on recalling it later. Failure to encode properly can create troublesome situations. If you put your mobile phone in a pocket, for example, and don’t pay attention to what you did because you’re involved in a conversation, you’ll probably forget that the phone is in the jacket now hanging in your cupboard. “Your memory itself isn’t failing you, ” says Schacter, “Rather, you didn’t give your memory system the information it needed.” http://wx.jtyjy.com/
Lack of interest can also lead to absent -mindedness. “A man who can recite sports statistics from 30 years ago, ” says Zelinski, “ may not remember to drop a letter in the mailbox.”Women have slightly better memories than men, possibly because they pay more attention to their environment, and memory depends on just that.
“Visual cues（ 视觉提示 ）can help prevent absent--mindedness, ”says Schacter, “But be sure the cue is clear and available. ”If you want to remember to take a medicine with lunch, put the pill bottle on the kitchen table—don’t leave it in the medicine box and write yourself a note that you keep in a pocket.
Another common experience of absent - mindedness: walking into a room and wondering why you’re there. Most likely, you were thinking about something else. “Everyone does this from time to time, ”says Zelinski. “The best thing to do is to return to where you were before entering the room, and you’ll likely remember.”
1.The writer of the passage thinks that encoding properly is very important because ________.
A. it enables us to recall something from our memory
B. it slows down the process of losing our memory
C. it helps us understand our memory system better
D. it helps us to get back to where we were
2.One possible reason why women have a little better memories than men is that________.
A. they rely more on the environment
B. they have a wider range of interests
C. they have an unusual power of focusing their attention
D. they are more interested in what’s happening around them
3.Why can a note in the pocket hardly serve as a reminder? ________.
A. It will easily get lost
B. It is out of your sight
C. It’s not clear enough for you to read
D. It might get mixed up with other things
4.From the last paragraph we can learn that________.
A. repetition might help improve our memory
B. memory depends to a certain extent on the environment
C. we’d better return to where we were if we forget things
D. we should think about something else while doing one thing
5.The passage is mainly about ________.
A. the memory system of persons
B. a way of encoding and recalling
C. the causes of absent-mindedness
D. the impression of the environment on memory
It was a cold and cloudy afternoon. I was on the bus with my children, aged four and two, heading home when it started to rain. I realized this would mean a wet walk home 1. the bus stop.
Home was only two blocks away 2. it was not a pleasant walk with one small boy fast asleep in the pram (手推婴儿车), the other one in a raincoat and no umbrella for myself. A pick-up truck passed us on the road and, a few minutes later, I saw it 3. (pull) back and the driver looking directly at us.
A young man put the window down. “Hey, here’s an umbrella for you --- please take it.” He called out.
I stood there 4. (astonish), barely believing that the man, 5. existence was unknown to me only moments ago, could be so 6. (thought). “Come on, give this to your mummy,” he said to my older son. I gratefully accepted the offer, 7. (thank) him and watched the truck disappear down the road.
This man might have needed the umbrella for 8. later during the day but preferred to give it to me. It was a lesson to me 9. it’s possible to give without expecting anything 10. return.
Several factors make a good newspaper story. First， 1 ，it must be new. But since TV can react to events so quickly, this is often a problem for 2 . They usually respond 3 it in one of three ways.
One by providing 4 detail, comment or background information.
One by finding a new 5 on the day’s major stories.
One by printing completely different stories which 6 doesn’t broadcast.
What else? Well—it also has to be 7 . People don’t want to read about 8 , everyday life. Because of this, many stories 9 some kind of conflict or danger. This is one reason why so much news seems to be 10 news, “ Plane lands safely—no-one hurt ”doesn’t sell newspapers. “Plane 11 —200 feared dead !” does .
Next, there’s human interest. People are interested in other 12 —particularly in the rich, famous and powerful. Stories about the private lives of pop singers, actors, models, politicians, 13 , all appear regularly in certain newspapers .
Finally, for many editors, 14 is an important factor, too. They prefer stories about people, places and events which their readers know. That’s 15 the stories in Tokyo’s newspapers are often very different from the stories printed in Paris, Cairo, New York or Buenos Aires.
1.A .gradually B. extremely C. obviously D. precisely
2.A. newspapers B. publications C. reporters D. broadcasters
3.A. with B. on C. of D. to
4.A. extra B. available C. reliable D. memorable
5.A. direction B. look C. angle D. section
6.A. TV B. internet C. newspaper D. radio
7.A. conventional B. dramatic C. professional D. sensitive
8. A. common B. usual C. ordinary D. special
9.A. urge B. neglect C. increase D. involve
10.A. good B. bad C. exciting D. informative
11.A. crashes B. bumps C. strikes D. drops
12. A. places B. people C. things D. news
13. A. in addition B. in any case C. for example D. after all
14.A. personality B. similarity C. tolerance D. familiarity
15. A. that B. why C. because D. what
