Charles Dickens is often thought of as one of the greatest British writers. February 7 marked the 200th anniversary of his birthday. Yet for many, his language is old-fashioned and his stories often improbable. So why do so many people know and read Dickens today?
One reason is the British government’s insistence that every child studies a Dickens novel at school. Alongside William Shakespeare, Dickens is on every English literature school reading list.
His stories, though often long by today’s standards, are great moral tales. They are filled with colorful characters.
Earlier this month, a ceremony was held in Portsmouth, where Dickens was born. Prince Charles said at the ceremony, “Dickens used his creative genius to campaign passionately for social justice… His characterization (人物刻画) is as fresh today as on the day it was written.”
His books stand out from many other writers because of his insight into human nature. Dickens, like Shakespeare, tells us truths about human behavior. They are as true in the 21st century as they were to his readers in the 19th century.
Readers have returned to Dickens’ books again and again over the years to see what he has to say about their own times.
No surprise then that it was Dickens whom Britons turned to during the economic crisis in the last couple of years. Dickens helped them make sense of a world that was rapidly falling apart. The BBC adapted one of his less well-known novels, Little Dorrit, into a popular television drama that introduced many Brits to the novel for the first time. A dark story about greed and money, it was the perfect illustration of bad times.
As long as Dickens’s novels have something to say to modern audiences, it seems likely that he will remain one of Britain’s best-loved writers.
1. In the article, the author intends to tell us ______.
A. why Dickens’ novels still appeal to readers in modern times
B. that Dickens’ works are no longer popular among young people
C. why the British government puts Dickens on school reading lists
D. that Dickens and Shakespeare’s works are required for study at school
2.In Britain, people still read Dickens because of ______.
a) romance in his books
b) moral value in his books
c) his colorful characters
d) his insight into human nature
e) government education requirement
f) his prediction of the current economic crisis
A. abdf B. bcde C. bdef D. abed
3.We can infer from the article that ______.
A. it’s better to read Dickens in time of difficulty
B. Dickens was a great social observer of his time
C. human nature seems worse during bad times
D. Dickens’s novels are short and easy to read
4.Which of the following statements is TRUE?
A. Little Dorrit is one of Dickens’ best-known novels.
B. Dickens’ novels are of greater value during economic crisis.
C. Dickens’ works have gained more popularity than Shakespeare’s
D. Dickens’ novels are still of realistic significance to today’s world.
下面这幅图展现了我国大学热门专业的变迁。请根据你对这幅图的理解用英语写一篇短
文。
Popular University Majors in China Maths Civil Engineering Physics International Finance Computer science Automation Engineering
In the early 1980s In the 1990s Around 2000 In 2014 |
你的短文应包含以下内容：
1.简要描述上图中热门专业的变迁（30词左右)；
2.分析变迁的原因（1-2个)；
3.介绍你未来的专业选择并说明原因（1-2个)。
注意：
1.可参照图片中文字及下面文章开头所给提示作必要发挥。
2.词数150左右。开头部分已写好，不计入词数。
3.作文中不得提及考生所在学校和本人姓名。
Over the past 30 years, China has witnessed great changes in popular university majors.
Escape from FoMO
Here’s a test you might enjoy: rate these situations on a number scale, ranging from 1 for mild discomfort to 7 for unbearable distress.
Situation 1: you’re visiting New York City and realize there’s no way you’ll be able to get to all the exhibits, see all the recommended plays or take in even part of the“musts”. How do you feel now? Something like 5?
Situation 2: you’re at dinner with friends, and you’ve all agreed to make it a strictly phone-free evening. But your smart phone won’t stop beeping Twitter and text alerts. Something is obviously up in your social network, but you can’t check. Even 7 wouldn’t match the stress you’re feeling now.
Welcome to FoMO (Fear of Missing Out), the latest mental disorder caused by social media connections sharing updates that leaves individuals feeling that they are missing out on something more exciting, important, or interesting going on somewhere else. It is an outcome of technological advancement and booming social information. According to a recent study, 56 percent of those who use social networks suffer this.
It is not uncommon that at night when you’ve sworn again to put the phone aside or turn off the computer, you cast one last glance at the screen on your way to bed in case you miss some titbit (趣闻)supplied by mere acquaintances or even strangers’ requesting your “friendship”.
We all know the studies showing that end-of-life regrets centre on what we didn’t do, rather than on what we did. If so, constantly watching others doing things that we are not is rich ground for a future of looking back in sorrow. Attractive online images—so charming from afar—make FoMO more destructive. Technology has become the major construct through which we define intimacy (亲密).You may look on in wonder as someone taps out an endless text message instead of actually talking to the person they’re with. Being connected to everyone, all the time, is a new human experience; we’re just not equipped to cope with it yet.
Researchers say our dependence on technology can be reduced if we manage to separate ourselves, even for short periods of time, from our gadgets. However, the problem can only be settled when we grasp that our brains and our humanity—not our technologies—enable this addiction. We cannot seek solutions without honestly asking ourselves why we are so afraid of missing out. Researchers find FoMO occurs mostly in people with unfulfilled psychological needs in fields such as love, respect and security. FoMO levels are highest in young people, in particular young men.
What, then, can we do about something so damaging to our quality of life? The best way to cope with FoMO is to recognize that, at our fast-paced life, we are sometimes bound to miss out. Instead of trying to maximize our benefits, we seek a merely “good enough” result. If you still doubt that“good enough” is the best cure for FoMO, the words of the American essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson might strike the right chord,“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.”
Escape from FoMO
An old man in a faded yellow shirt sat in a windowless room on a raised concrete form. The only source of heat came from somewhere beneath the plastic mattress and the rough blanket the blank-faced police woman had handed him after taking his thumb prints. He heard voices and metallic clang as the cell door swung open.
At the front desk a tired looking policeman handed the old man back his belongings, his worn-out cap and the Seiko watch that had stopped working the day his beloved Evelyn left. The policeman dramatically held the blue plastic bag at an arm’s length to the old man who took it and made sure its contents were undamaged: the goat meat, palm oil, leaves and spices. He ignored the confused expression on the officer’s face and signed the document declaring he had been returned the possessions they had taken off him the night before.
No one spoke to him as he walked slowly towards the exit.
“Mr. Easy-nwa?” He stopped and prayed to the God who now took care of Evelyn to please take him far away from this unhappy place of expressionless faces, clipped accents and people who did not even attempt to pronounce his name right.
“Ezenwa,” He said and looked at a woman with tangerine lips, her name tag said Jessica Harlow, Social Services. “A bit far from home”，she said as she drove fast and with confidence the way Evelyn used to. He wondered if she meant the 50 miles from Liverpool or the 50,000 miles from Enugu，a city in Nigeria. He did not bother replying as this woman had plenty to say about the weather, bad drivers, her daughter’s school play...
At last she drew up outside the block of flats where he lived.
“Got here in the end”，said she seriously, “Really Mr. Easy-nwa, if you keep getting lost, we will have to consider moving you into a home”.
“No need, I was not lost，”he answered.
He carefully rolled up the sleeves of the oversize bomber jacket he wore and turned on the tap to wash his hands, relieved the pipes were not frozen. In a clean pan he placed the chopped pieces of goat meat. The herbs and spices that had taken him three months to track down, the uziza seeds had taken him into the heart of Granby Market in Liverpool, his uchanwu leaves down a shady back alley in Manchester, and yesterday, among other food items, the finest goat meat from a Sierra Leonean Butcher in Birmingham. That had taken some time, so much he missed the last train and when the police found him shivering outside the locked up station, so cold he couldn’t answer loudly enough the pink-faced big copper who yelled in his face, “What’s your name sir?” spraying his face with spittle (吐沫）as he did so, leaving them with no choice but to search an exhausted, frozen old black man and finding him in possession of mysterious condiments (调味品）including a bag of dried bitter-leaf which could of course be mistaken for anything that resulted in him getting read his rights and charged with ...possession?
He lifted the lid of the bubbling soup, the room was filled with the rich and spicy scent of his culinary (烹饪的）effort. He served two bowls, taking the chipped one and placing the other opposite where Evelyn would have sat. He would tell her about his adventure, it was their anniversary and this was the perfect pepper soup to celebrate.
Ken Onyia, UK (Nigeria) Commonwealth Sport Short Story Prize
1.Why was Mr. Ezenwa taken to the prison for a night?
A. He was too weak to move.
B. He couldn’t find his way back home.
C. He then had nowhere else to go.
D. He was suspected of possessing drugs.
2.When Mr. Ezenwa was to leave the prison,
A. his thumb print was taken immediately
B. the policeman was confused about what he had
C. a social worker was assigned to drive him back home
D. the policeman was so kind as not to damage his belongings
3.What did Mr. Ezenwa do for his wedding anniversary?
A. He collected all sorts of valuables as presents.
B. He cooked native food as a surprise for his wife.
C. He prepared a special Nigerian pepper soup carefully.
D. He travelled a lot, attempting to get his wife back.
4.What words can be used to describe Mr. Ezenwa?
A. Hopeless and pessimistic.
B. Mysterious and troublesome.
C. Affectionate and persistent.
D. Energetic and sympathetic.
5.What theme does the author want to express through the story?
A. Racial prejudice.
B. Hard life of the elderly.
C. Struggle for freedom.
D. Preservation of tradition.
For centuries, medical pioneers have refined a variety of methods and medicines to treat sickness, injury, and disability, enabling people to live longer and healthier lives.
“A salamander (a small lizard-like animal) can grow back its leg. Why can't a human do the same?” asked Peruvian-born surgeon Dr. Anthony Atala in a recent interview. The question, a reference to work aiming to grow new limbs for wounded soldiers, captures the inventive spirit of regenerative medicine. This innovative field seeks to provide patients with replacement body parts.
These parts are not made of steel; they are the real things --- living cells, tissue, and even organs.
Regenerative medicine is still mostly experimental, with clinical applications limited to procedures such as growing sheets of skin on burns and wounds. One of its most significant advances took place in 1999，when a research group at North Carolina’s Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine conducted a successful organ replacement with a laboratory-grown bladder. Since then, the team, led by Dr. Atala, has continued to generate a variety of other tissues and organs 一 from kidneys to ears.
The field of regenerative medicine builds on work conducted in the early twentieth century with the first successful transplants of donated human soft tissue and bone. However, donor organs are not always the best option. First of all, they are in short supply, and many people die while waiting for an available organ; in the United States alone, more than 100,000 people are waiting for organ transplants. Secondly, a patient’s body may ultimately reject the transplanted donor organ. An advantage of regenerative medicine is that the tissues are grown from a patient’s own cells and will not be rejected by the body’s immune system.
Today, several labs are working to create bioartificial body parts. Scientists at Columbia and Yale Universities have grown a jawbone and a lung. At the University of Minnesota, Doris Taylor has created a beating bioartificial rat heart. Dr. Atala’s medical team has reported long-term success with bioengineered bladders implanted into young patients with spina bifida (a birth defect that involves the incomplete development of the spinal cord). And at the University of Michigan, H. David Humes has created an artificial kidney.
So far, the kidney procedure has only been used successfully with sheep, but there is hope that one day similar kidney will be implantable in a human patient. The continuing research of scientists such as these may eventually make donor organs unnecessary and, as a result, significantly increase individuals’ chances of survival.
1. In the latest field of regenerative medicine, what are replacement parts made of?
A. Donated cells, tissues and organs.
B. Rejected cells, tissues and organs.
C. Cells, tissues and organs of one’s own.
D. Cells, tissues and organs made of steel.
2. What have scientists experimented successfully on for a bioartificial kidney?
A. Patients. B. Rats. C. Sheep. D. Soldiers.
3.Why is generative medicine considered innovative?
A. It will provide patients with replacement soft tissues.
B. It will strengthen the human body’s immune system.
C. It will shorten the time patients waiting for a donated organ.
D. It will make patients live longer with bioartificial organs.
4. What is the writer’s attitude towards regenerative medicine?
A. Positive. B. Negative.
C. Doubtful. D. Reserved.
The other morning on the subway I sat next to an attractive young blonde woman who was reading something on her iPad. She was very well-dressed, carrying a Prada bag with tastefully applied make-up indeed, she had an unmistakable air of wealth, material success and even authority. I suspected she worked as a highly-paid Wall Street lawyer or stockbroker or something of that sort. So, I was curious to see what she was so focused on. The Wall Street Journal perhaps? The Economist?
Quite the contrary; rather, she was concentrating on a romance novel. Then I realized that I have known many women who love romance novels—smart, attractive, successful, “liberated,” modem females who nonetheless find some kind of deep satisfaction and thrill from those hyper-romantic, artificial and extremely unrealistic tales of handsome, manly heroes falling in love with virginal women, enduring a series of adventures, then no doubt having a happy ending.
These romance stories are to literature what hot dogs are to fine food. Yet, the genre(体裁) remains enormously popular. Consider some of these surprising statistics from the good folks at the Romance Writers of America (RWA):
*More than 9,000 romance titles were released last year, with sales of about $1.44 billion (more than triple the revenues generated by classic literary fiction).
*More than 90 percent of the market are women (okay, that’s not at all surprising).
* Readers are typically women between the ages 30 and 54 who are themselves involved in a romantic relationship (betraying the stereotype that only lonely women long for these tales of love and adventure).
*Almost 40 percent of romance book consumers have an annual income of between $50,000 and $99,900 (placing them firmly in the middle class).
I had thought that romance novels accounted for a very small share of the literary market, so I was quite surprised that this part has such enormous popularity. But I must wonder why so many women—forty years after the women’s liberation movement continue to indulge in the fanciful tales?
I’m not sure if it represents a kind of “rejection” of the women’s liberation movement, but clearly something is missing in the lives of contemporary ladies. A romance author named Donna Hatch who focuses on the Regency period (early 19th century Britain) explained the appeal of such books this way: “Regency men were civilized and treated women with courtesy. When a lady entered the room, gentlemen stood, doffed their hats, offered an arm, bowed, and a hundred other little things I wish men still did today. But they were also very athletic; they hunted, raced, boxed, rode horses. They were manly. Strong. Noble. Honorable. And that is why I love them!”
Mrs. Hatch may have expressed the secret desires and attitudes of untold millions of her peers---that is, in the early 21st century, have women grown tired of the burdens and expectations that the “freedoms” they have gained give them? Is this a rejection of modem feminism? Do women long for days of old when men were masculine gentlemen and women were feminine and protected as precious treasures and regarded as possessions?
Perhaps most women (even the ones who get lost in romance novels) do not want to go all the way back but it is obvious, .
1.What is the function of the opening paragraph?
A. To summarize the whole passage.
B. To prove the author’s argument.
C. To lead in the main topic of the passage.
D. To raise problems that will be solved later.
2.What does the underlined sentence in the third paragraph imply?
A. Romance novels are satisfying and thrilling.
B. Romance novels are not of much “nutrition”.
C. Romance novels are as popular as hot dogs.
D. Romance novels are an essential part of contemporary life.
3.In the author’s opinion, what is missing in the lives of contemporary women?
A. Authority. B. Dignity.
C. Liberty. D. Care.
4.Which sentence can be put in the blank in the last paragraph?
A. they prefer tales of innocent romance to classics
B. they are unhappy with how the world has turned out
C. true love described in romance novels does exist in reality
D. romance novels provide them with an access to society
