What I Regret
At lunchtime, Jimmy, Patrick, Devon, and I began our regular routine of our lunches. I glanced across the busy cafeteria and saw the _________ student, Joel. He was holding his plate and waiting in lines.
Patrick _________ him too. “Why’s the new kid dressed like the headmaster?” he asked. Devon and Jimmy laughed.
“Joel’s cool. He’s in my English and history classes,” I said. However, I kept the _________ that Joel and I had become friends when we worked on a project together. We _________ that we were both enthusiastic readers — something I would never admit to Patrick, Jimmy, and Devon.
I saw that Joel was _________ toward us. “Don’t do it,” I thought, but in seconds he was at our table. My friends raised their eyebrows. Jimmy, Devon and Patrick piled their backpacks on the table and chairs so that there was no _________ left for another person to sit down. Patrick said, “I don’t think we have room.”
This _________ situation froze the air. I could _________ Joel looking at me, but I stared at my _________ as if it contained precious pearls of wisdom instead of rice and beans. After a long, uncomfortable pause, Joel ____________. I ____________ have spoken up for him, but I couldn’t walk away from my three friends, could I?
Joel didn’t speak to me after that ____________ He was soon ____________ around with another group of kids. A few months later, I saw an announcement about Joel being chosen to be president of the class book club. I was ____________ for Joel’s achievements, but I realized I had made a big mistake____________ I said nothing at the lunch table that day. Why was I so ____________ that my friends might find out that I like to read?
As I stared at the announcement, I knew I needed to ____________ to Joel even if he did not want to become my friend again. I was certain that my three friends would not ____________. I was also certain that I ____________ losing them as well. However, I knew that I would lose myself if I did nothing.
As the dismissal bell rang, I gathered up my books, took (a) deep ____________, and went to find Joel.
1.A.good B.new C.lucky D.top
2.A.noticed B.helped C.examined D.called
3.A.words B.ideas C.truth D.promise
4.A.forgot B.argued C.discussed D.discovered
5.A.nodding B.flying C.walking D.driving
6.A.book B.food C.time D.space
7.A.awkward B.dangerous C.pleasant D.comfortable
8.A.taste B.smell C.hear D.feel
9.A.face B.lunch C.backpack D.table
10.A.left B.laughed C.started D.stopped
11.A.need B.should C.would D.must
12.A.greeting B.change C.meeting D.lesson
13.A.turning B.looking C.showing D.hanging
14.A.happy B.sorry C.thankful D.anxious
15.A.if B.until C.when D.where
16.A.confused B.surprised C.excited D.afraid
17.A.adapt B.apologize C.smile D.refer
18.A.refuse B.agree C.mind D.choose
19.A.risked B.permitted C.tried D.suggested
20.A.delight B.silence C.breath D.thought
Letters last forever!
When was the last time you actually wrote a letter? People now mail fewer letters. The trend in mailing less correspondence is likely to continue.
1. Maybe widespread use of e-mail and cheaper long-distance calling make letter writing less appealing. Using newer forms of communication is certainly easier than writing a letter. 2..
Consider how we use the newer forms of communication. Both phone calls and e-mail are quick ways to keep in touch with our friends. 3. However, reading our letters again and again can help us feel close to the people who sent them.
Although letters take longer to write, they are certainly a more memorable way to communicate. 4. Once the ideas are organized, the words need to be written down on paper. The effort to put ideas on a page frequently deepens our thinking. The person who receives our letter gains insights about our beliefs, rather than simply receiving a short response to an e-mail.
Although phone calls and e-mails are important forms of communication, I believe that we should all take the time to master the skill of writing a good letter. True, writing a letter does take more time, but that is the benefit of a letter. By taking more time to compose our thoughts, we become more thoughtful. 5.. We create a meaningful memory that the recipient can return to again and again.
A.Chances are, it has been awhile.
B.In doing so, we create more than just a note.
C.They often save handwritten letters for many years.
D.For example, much thought is involved in composing a letter.
E.There are probably many reasons why people mail fewer letters today.
F.I think that the drawback with phone calls is that we can’t save and print them.
G.However, I think that replacing handwritten letters with e-mails or phone calls is a poor choice.
It is fashionable today to criticize Big Business, and there is one issue on which the many critics agree: CEO pay. We hear that CEOs are paid too much (or too much relative to workers) , or that they control others’ pay, or that their pay is insufficiently related to positive outcomes. But the more likely truth is CEO pay is largely caused by intense competition.
It is true that CEO pay has gone up---top ones may make 300 times the pay of typical workers on average, and since the mid-1970s, CEO pay for large publicly traded American corporations has, by varying estimates, gone up by about 500%. The typical CEO of a top American corporation-from the 350 largest such companies-now makes about $18.9 million a year.
While individual cases of overpayment definitely exist, in general, the determinants of CEO pay are not so mysterious and not so trapped in corruption (腐败). In fact, overall CEO compensation for the top companies rises pretty much in line with the value of those companies on the stock market.
The best model for understanding the growth of CEO pay, though, is that of limited CEO talent in a world where business opportunities for the top firms are growing rapidly. The efforts of Americans highest-earning 1 % have been one of the more dynamic elements of the global economy.
It’s not popular to say, but one reason their pay has gone up so much is that CEOs really have upped their game relative to many other workers in the U. S. economy.
Today’s CEO, at least for major American firms, must have many more skills than simply being able to “run the company.” CEOs must have a good sense of financial markets and maybe even how the company should trade in them. They also need better public relations skills than their predecessors, as the costs of even a minor slipup can cause a bad consequence. Then there’s the fact that large American companies are much more globalized than ever before, with supply chains spread across a larger number of countries. To lead in that system requires knowledge that is fairly incredible.
There is yet another trend: virtually all major American companies are becoming tech companies, one way or another. An agribusiness company, for instance, may focus on R&D in highly IT- intensive areas such as genome sequencing (基因组序列). Similarly, it is hard to do a good job running the Walt Disney Company just by picking good movie scripts and courting stars ； you also need to build a firm capable of creating significant CGI (计算机生成图像) products for cartoon movies at the highest levels of technical sophistication and with many frontier innovations along the way.
On top of all of this, major CEOs still have to do the job they have always done- which includes motivating employees, serving as an internal role model, helping to define and extend a corporate culture, understanding the internal accounting, and presenting budgets and business plans to the board. Good CEOs are some of the world’s most powerful creators and have some of the very deepest skills of understanding.
1.Which of the following has contributed to CEO pay rise?
A.The growth in the number of cooperation
B.The general pay rise with a better economy
C.Increased business opportunities for top firms
D.Close cooperation among leading economics
2.Compared with their predecessors, today’s CEOs are required to ________.
A.foster a stronger sense of teamwork
B.finance more research and development
C.establish closer ties with tech companies
D.operate more globalized companies
3.The meaning of the underlined word “slipup” (line 5, paragraph 4) is close to ________.
A.operation B.success
C.mistake D.promotion
4.The most suitable title for this text would be ________.
A.CEOs Are Not Overpaid B.CEO Pay: Past and Present
C.CEOs’ Challenges of Today D.CEO Traits: Not Easy to Define
That robots, automation, and software can replace people might seem obvious to anyone who’s worked in automotive manufacturing. But MIT business scholars Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee’s claim is more troubling and controversial. They believe that rapid technological change has been destroying jobs faster than it is creating them.
They believe that technology increases productivity and makes societies wealthier, but it became clear to them that the same technologies making many jobs safer, easier, and more productive were also reducing the demand for many types of human workers. Technologies like the Web, artificial intelligence, and big data are automating many routine tasks. Countless traditional white-collar jobs, such as many in the post office and in customer service, have disappeared.
As evidence, Brynjolfsson and McAfee point to a chart on which separate lines represent productivity and total employment in the United States. For years after World War II, the two lines closely tracked each other, with increases in jobs corresponding to increases in productivity. Then, beginning in 2000, the lines diverge; productivity continues to rise steadily, but employment suddenly shrinks. By 2011, a significant gap appears between the two lines, showing economic growth with no parallel increase in job creation.
United States Productivity and Employment
But are these new technologies really responsible for a decade of lackluster (无生气) job growth? David Autor, an economist at MIT who has studied the connections between jobs and technology, doubts that technology could account for such a sudden change in total employment. Moreover, he also doubts that productivity has, in fact, risen steadily in the United States in the past decade. If he’s right, it raises the possibility that poor job growth could be simply a result of a depressed economy. The sudden slowdown in job creation “is a big puzzle,” he says, “but there’s not a lot of evidence that it’s linked to computers.” “To be sure, computer technologies are changing the types of jobs available, but that is very different from saying technology is affecting the total number of jobs,” he adds. “Jobs can change a lot without there being huge changes in employment rates.”
Lawrence Katz, a Harvard economist, says that while technological changes can be painful for workers whose skills no longer match the needs of employers, no historical pattern shows these shifts leading to a net decrease in jobs over an extended period. Still, Katz doesn’t dismiss the notion that there is something different about today’s digital technologies. Though he expects the historical pattern to hold, it is “genuinely a question,” he says. “If technology disrupts enough, who knows what will happen?”
1.Which period on the chart strongly supports McAfee’s claim?
A. 1947—1967. B. 1985—1987.
C. 1997—2000. D. 2011—2013.
2.According to David Autor, the change in job growth ________.
A. is not necessarily caused by technology
B. results from a weakening economy
C. has no connection with productivity
D. affects the current types of jobs
3.What is Lawrence Katz’s attitude towards the topic?
A. Optimistic. B. Defensive.
C. Objective. D. Disapproving.
4.The main purpose of the passage is to ________.
A. show the relation between productivity and job creation
B. discuss the effect of technological advances on employment
C. argue against the wide use of artificial intelligence
D. explain the impact of technologies on productivity
Yasmeen’s Mehndi
Mrs. Cross, Yasmeen’s social study teacher, announced, “Boys and girls, you have been learning about world customs. Be ready to share one of your family’s customs, tomorrow.”
After school, Yasmeen dragged her backpack along, thinking about the day’s homework. “I’m the only Indian student in my class,” she thought, “what will everyone think about my family’s customs?”
At home, Yasmeen was upset. She opened the kitchen door and saw her mother busily crushing henna leaves.
“Ready for the party tonight?” Mother smiled.
Yasmeen shrugged (耸肩). Normally, she’d be excited when her aunts, uncles and cousins came to celebrate the end of the ninth month of the Islamic year. This holy month is observed with prayers and fasting(斋戒)during daylight hours.
Later, Yasmeen explored the house, trying to get an idea for her homework. She found her father’s Koran (古兰经). She turned over the worn pages of her father’s holy book. Maybe I’ll take this to school, she thought. But the Koran isn’t a custom.
Maybe I’ll wear my salwar kameez (沙丽) to school. Wrong! Everybody might laugh at me. Tears filled Yasmeen’s eyes as she tried to figure out what to share.
Yasmeen walked into the kitchen again and watched Mother mix henna powder into a smooth paste, to be used to paint at the party.
That night all the girls in their beautiful salwar kameez gathered around the sofa to have their hands painted with Mehndi.
It was Yasmeen’s turn. Mother drew tiny flower patterns on her hands. Seconds later, “That’s it,” Yasmeen shouted out, “Mehndi!”
“On special Muslim holidays,” Yasmeen explained the next day at school, “it’s an Indian tradition to paint women’s hands with Mehndi designs.” Yasmeen proudly displayed the design on her hands. She also held up a bowl of crushed henna leaves for the class to see and then described how her mother prepared henna paste.
“Could you paint me a Mehndi design?” All her classmates held out their hands.
Yasmeen’s eyes moistened. She had always thought that Mehndi was only something valued in her own country, but now she was far too glad to see this ancient art on hands admired by people from different cultures.
1.Yasmeen was upset at home, because ________.
A.she couldn’t make friends with her classmates
B.she was not invited to the party
C.she had too much homework
D.she didn’t know what to share in her class
2.Yasmeen and her family held the party to ________.
A.celebrate their traditional festival B.get together for a big dinner
C.remember the first day of year D.read her fathers Koran
3.________ is NOT a custom on this special Muslim holiday.
A.Painting a Mehndi design on hands B.Eating a bowl of henna leaves
C.Fasting during daylight hours D.Wearing salwar kameez
4.The author wants to tell us that ________.
A.painting can help people communicate
B.people from different cultures love painting
C.cultural relics can be valued by other cultures
D.different countries celebrate the same festival
Climbing Without Ropes
The popular image of the mountain climber is of a person carefully climbing a steep cliff with a network of safety ropes, but it is not the only kind. Many climbers now enjoy bouldering. It’s more accessible and better for the environment.
What is bouldering? Bouldering is a sport that involves climbing on, over, and around boulders up to approximately twenty feet above the ground. Participants employ no safety ropes. | ||
Why boulder? improve your climbing skills by focusing on basics places to climb, such as climbing walls at gyms and parks, easy to find less time commitment to bouldering than to mountain climbing intellectual and physical enjoyment as one solves problems |
| Bouldering Terms crimp: a very small handhold foothold: a place where one may place a foot to aid in climbing boulder jug: a very large handhold that is easy to use problem: The path up a boulder is referred to as the “problem” that one must solve. The “solution” is the sequence of moves one makes up and over a boulder. |
Here is an example of a climber addressing a bouldering problem.
Figure 1: The climber has two routes she could take, one to the left and one to the right. The left one appears easier because it has a jug within easy reach, but look what happens if she chooses that direction. She gets stuck on the rock and has to go back down. Sometimes that is even difficult than going up.
Figure 2: The climber takes the one to the right this time. using a foothold and placing her right hand in a crimp, she is able to life herself up and locate other handholds. After only a few moves, she is able to throw her leg over the top of the boulder and pull herself up.
1.According to the passage, bouldering ________.
A.is an indoor sport B.has no safety protection
C.needs maps and equipment D.is a steep cliff climbing
2.Bouldering becomes popular because ________.
A.it challenges the limits B.it costs less
C.it builds minds and bodies D.it is a team game
3.According to the example, the right route is ________.
A.a shortcut B.a dead end
C.tough but to the top D.lined with jugs
