Laws that would have ensured pupils from five to sixteen received a full financial education got lost in the “wash up". An application is calling on the next government to bring it back.
At school the children are taught to add up and subtract（减法） but, extraordinarily, are not routinely shown how to open a bank account-let alone how to manage their finances in an increasingly complex and demanding world.
Today the parenting website Mumsnet and the consumer campaigner Martin Lewis have joined forces to launch an online application to make financial education a compulsory element of the school curriculum in England. Children from five to sixteen should be taught about everything from pocket money to pensions, they say. And that was exactly the plan preserved in the children,schools and families bill that was shelved by the government in the so-called ¨wash-up" earlier this month-the rush to legislation before parliament was dismissed. Consumer and parent groups believe financial education has always been one of the most frustrating omissions of the curriculum.
As the Personal Finance Education Group (Pfeg) points out, the good habits of young children do not last long. Over 75% of seven to ll-year-olds are savers but by the time they get t0 17, over half of them are in debt to family and friends. By this age, 26% see a credit or overdraft（透支）as a way of extending their spending power. Pfeg predicts that these young people will “find it much harder to avoid the serious unexpected dangers that have been fallen many of their parents' generation unless they receive good quality financial education while at school".
The UK has been in the worst financial recession（衰退）for generations. It does seem odd that-unless parents step in-young people are left in the dark until they are cruelly introduced to the world of debt when they turn up at university. In a recent poll of over 8,000 people, 97% supported financial education in schools, while 3% said it was a job for parents.
1.The passage is mainly about
A. how to manage school lessons
B. how to deal with the financial crisis
C. teaching young people about money
D. teaching students how to study effectively
2.It can be inferred from the first two paragraphs that
A. the author complains about the school education
B. pupils should not be taught to add up and subtract
C. students have been taught to manage their finances
D. laws on financial education have been effectively carried out
3.The website and the consumer campaigner joined to
A. instruct the pupils to donate their pocket money
B. promote the connection of schools and families
C. ask the government to dismiss the parliament
D. appeal for the curriculum of financial education
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
Tayka Hotel de Sal
Where: Tahua, Bolivia
How much: About $ 95 a night
Why it's cool: You've stayed at hotels made of brick or wood, but salt? That's something few can claim. Tayka Hotel de Sal is made totally of salt-including the beds (though you'll sleep on regular mattresses and blankets). The hotel sits on the Salar de Uyuni, a prehistoric dried-up lake which is the world's biggest salt flat. Builders use the salt from the 4,633-square-mile flat to make the bricks, and glue them together with a paste (糊) of wet salt that hardens when it dries.
When rain starts to dissolve the hotel, the owners just mix up more salt paste to strengthen the bricks.
Green Magic Nature Resort
Where: Vythiri, India
How much: About $ 240 a night
Why it's cool: Taking a pulley(滑轮)-operated lift 86 feet to your treetop room is just the start of your adventure. As you look out of your open window-there is no glass! -you watch monkeys and birds in the rain forest canopy(罩篷). Later you might test your fear of heights by crossing the handmade rope bridge to the main part of the hotel, or just sit on your bamboo bed and read. You don't even have to come down for breakfast-the hotel will send it up on the pulley-drawn
“elevator" .
Dog Bark Park Inn B&B
Where: Cottonwood, Idaho
How much: $ 92 a night
Why it's cool: This doghouse isn't just for the family pet. Sweet Willy is a 30-foot-tall dog with guest rooms in his belly. Climb the wooden stairs beside his hind leg to enter the door in his side. You can relax in the main bedroom, go up a few steps of the loft(阁楼) in Willy's head, or hang out inside his nose.
Although you have a full private bathroom in your quarters, there is also a toilet in the 12-foot-tall fire hydrant(消防栓) outside.
Gamirasu Cave Hotel
Where: Ayvali, Turkey
How much: Between $ 130 and $ 450 a night
Why it's cool: This is caveman cool! Experience what it was like 5,000 years ago,when people lived in these mountain caves formed by volcanic ash. But your stay will be much more modern. Bathrooms and electricity provide what you expect from a modern hotel, and the white volcanic ash, called tufa, keeps the rooms cool in summer. (Don't worry-there is heat in winter. )
1.What do we know about Tayka Hotel de Sal?
A. It is located on a prehistoric lake.
B. It should be protected against the rain.
C. Everything in the hotel is made of salt.
D. You have to cross a rope bridge to the hotel.
2.How are the hotels similar?
A. Expensive. B. Comfortable.
C. Natural. D. Unique.
3.What do the underlined words “Sweet Willy" refer to?
A. The name of the hotel.
B. The name of the hotel owner.
C. The building of Dog Bark Park Inn B&B.
D. The name of a pet dog of the hotel owner.
4.Which of the hotels gives you a feeling of living in the far past?
A. Tayka Hotel de Sal.
B. Green Magic Nature Resort.
C. Dog Bark Park Inn B&B.
D. Gamirasu Cave Hotel.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
It is a familiar scene these days: employees taking newly laid-off co-workers out for a drink for comfort. But which side deserves sympathy more, the jobless or the still employed? On March 6, researchers at a conference at the University of Cambridge heard data suggesting it's the latter.
Brendan Burchell, a Cambridge sociologist, presented his analysis based on various surveys conducted across Europe. The data suggest that employed people who feel insecure in their jobs show similar levels of anxiety and depression as those who are unemployed. Although a newly jobless person's mental health may“bottom out" after about six months, and then even begin to improve, the mental state of people who are continuously worried about losing their job “just continues to get worse and worse", Burchell says.
Evolutionary psychologists support this theory by arguing that human beings feel more stress during times of insecurity because they sense an immediate but invisible threat. Patients have been known to experience higher levels of anxiety,for example, while waiting for examination results than knowing what they are suffering from-even if the result is cancer. It's better to get the bad news and start doing something about it rather than wait with anxiety. When the uncertainty continues, people stay in a nonstop “fight or flight" response, which leads to damaging stress.
But not every employee in insecure industries has such a discouraging view,Burchell says. In general, women get on better. While reporting higher levels of anxiety than men when directly questioned, women scored lower in stress on the GHQ 12, even when they had a job they felt insecure about losing. As Burchell explains, “For women, most studies show that any job-it doesn't matter
whether it is secure or insecure-gives psychological improvement over unemployment. " Burchell supposes that the difference in men is that they tend to feel pressure not only to be employed, but also to be the primary breadwinner, and that more of a man's self-worth depends on his job.
1.Why do researchers think the still employed deserve sympathy more?
A. They have to do more work since then.
B. They have no chance to find better jobs.
C. They have to work with inexperienced workers.
D. They constantly worry about losing their jobs.
2.What is most likely to cause a “fight or flight" response?
A. Not having a paid job.
B. Fierce competition for jobs.
C. Not knowing what will happen.
D. Pressure to work longer hours.
3.What will the writer talk about following the last paragraph?
A. Advice on preparing a job interview.
B. Advice to those in insecure industries.
C. Some knowledge of psychology.
D. Difference in men and women.
4. What could be the best title for the text?
A. Is it less stressful to get laid off than stay on?
B. Should greater sympathy be given to the jobless?
C. Do employees bear more stress than ever before?
D. Do men or women show higher levels of anxiety?
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
Most of the time, the ground feels solid beneath our feet. That's comforting. But it's also misleading because there's actually a lot going on underground. Masses of land (called plates) slip, slide, and bump against each other, slowly changing the shape of continents and oceans over millions and billions of years.
Scientists know that Earth formed about 4. 5 billion years ago. They also know that our planet was hot at first. As it cooled, its outermost layer, called the crust （地壳), eventually formed moving plates. Exactly when this shift happened, however, is an open question.
Now, an international group of researchers has an answer. They've found new evidence suggesting that Earth's crust started shifting at least 3.8 billion years ago. The new estimate is l. 3 billion years earlier than previous ones.
Not long before 3. 8 billion years ago, lots of small planets were hitting Earth, keeping its crust in a hot, melting state. After the hard crust formed, much of it sank at various times into the planet's hot insides. There, it melted before returning to the surface.
In some places, however, the crust never sank. One of the oldest such places is in Greenland, in an area called the Isua supracrustal (上地壳) belt. The rocky crust there is between 3. 7 and 3. 8 billion years old. The belt was once part of the seafloor, but now it is exposed to air.
The researchers recently took a close look at the Isua supracrustal belt. They noticed long, parallel cracks（裂缝）in the rock that have been filled in with a type of volcanic rock.
To explain this structure, the scientists propose that tension in the crust caused the seafloor to crack open long ago. Hot, liquid rock oozed from deep inside Earth to fill the cracks. Finally, the whole area cooled, forming what we see today.
That explanation, plus chemical clues inside the rock, suggests that the Isua supracrustal belt was once part of plate under the ocean, beginning around 3.8 billion years ago.
“It's a fantastic case of solving a jigsaw puzzle（拼图）,”says one of the researchers. He notes that the puzzle was “a very difficult one because these rocks are all very old and have been badly ruined".
1.The underlined phrase “oozed from" in Paragraph 7 is closest in meaning to________.
A. filled up gradually
B. washed away quickly
C. flew out of slowly
D. broke through suddenly
2.What can we infer from the text?
A. The shapes of continents and oceans changed slowly.
B. The Earth's crust started shifting l.3 billion years ago.
C. The crust began to shift when the Earth was hot.
D. The hit from small planets made the Earth cool.
3.What do scientists know about the past of the Isua supracrustal belt?
A. It was once covered by hot, liquid rock.
B. It remained under the deep sea.
C. It stayed hot and sinking.
D. It kept moving slowly.
4.The text is mainly about________.
A. why the Earth cooled
B. how the Isua supracrustal belt formed
C. whether the ground beneath our feet is still
D. when Earth's crust began shifting
难度: 困难查看答案及解析
根据短文内容，从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。选项中有项为多余选项。
Lots of people stress out about talking in front of the class or getting laughed at if they make a mistake in front of an audience. 1. The “stress hormones"that your body produces at times like these can actually help you focus.
But when worry and stress about performing get to be too much, these hormones give people that “red alert（紧急状态）”feeling-the one that causes you to feel cold or sweaty, or get butterflies in your stomach. 2.Be prepared. 3. Rehearse（排练）as much as you can and practice in front of others at every opportunity. Most of all, think positively. Tell yourself “I'll be OK" or “ I can do this" even if you are not 100% sure of it Look after yourself. Before big performances it's easy to let taking care of yourself slip as you spend too much time on rehearsals and practice. 4. Exercise can also help you feel good, and along with sleep and nutrition, is an excellent way of keeping those stress hormones from getting out of control.
Find out what the experts do. You can find books, DVDs, and online information about how to give your best when you perform, depending on what type of performance you're preparing for. 5. Or ask the cast of your school play or your drama or music teacher how they beat stage fright. And if your parents or grandparents ever performed, they may have their own secrets to share.
A. Confidence helps beat stress hormones.
B. The following tips can help you avoid that feeling.
C. You're less likely to freeze up if you're well prepared.
D. You can do this whether you're performing alone or as part of a group.
E. Check out stories about Olympic gymnasts or your favorite star to get their tips.
F. Feeling nervous before a performance is part of your body's way of helping you do your best.
G. You'll look and feel your best if you get enough sleep and eat healthy meals before your performance.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
完形填空阅读下面短文，从短文后各题所给的四个选项（A.B.C和D）中，选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
The cultures of the East and the West really distinguish from each other a lot. This is because the culture systems are two separate systems .
The origin of the eastern culture is mainly from two countries: China and India. Both of the two cultures are gestated（孕育）by .In China, the mother river is the Yellow River, the Indian one is the Hindu River. These two cultures were for several thousand years and formed their own styles. Then in Tang Dynasty of China, the Chinese culture went overseas to Japan, into the Japanese society and the Japanese culture nowadays. Though a bit different from the Chinese one, it to the same system.
When the two mother rivers gave birth to the eastern culture, another famous culture was on the Mesopotamian Plain（米索不达米亚平原） the Mesopotamian Civilization. This civilization later on developed into the cultures of the Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. And these two are well-known as the of the European culture. the Chinese culture, the European one also waters. When the colonists of England in America, their culture went with them over the Atlantic Ocean. So the American culture doesn't from the European one a lot.
At the same time, the of the language systems adds to the cultural differences. In the East, most languages belong to the pictographic（象形文字的） languages while the Western languages are based on the Latin system, for example, the one I'm using to write this paper.
Other factors like human race difference as well. However, the far distance and the steep areas between the East and West, the two cultures seldom until recent centuries. they grew up totally in their own ways with almost no interference from the other.
1.A. above all B. on the whole C. in all D. in no case
2.A. mountains B. plains C. lakes D. rivers
3.A. or B. for C. while D. when
4.A. developed B. improved C. created D. protected
5.A. suddenly B. quietly C. gradually D. naturally
6.A. mixed B. changed C. made D. forced
7.A. expanded B. interrupted C. ended D. shaped
8.A. comes B. belongs C. brings D. adds
9.A. brought up B. carried out C. given out D. picked up
10.A. result B. sign C. base D. content
11.A. Through B. Except C. With D. Like
12.A. affected B. spread C. crossed D. formed
13.A. joined up B. settled down C. broke down D. went up
14.A. come B. suffer C. result D. differ
15.A. distinction B. contact C. appearance D. feature
16.A. properly B. hardly C. simply D. mostly
17.A. last B. count C. reduce D. change
18.A. in terms of B. due to C. as to D. in case of
19.A. transform B. display C. communicate D. distinguish
20.A. Therefore B. Meanwhile C. Furthermore D. However
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
阅读下面材料，在空白处填入适当的内容（1个单词）或括号内单词的正确形式。
Once a group of 50 people was attending a seminar. Halfway through his talk, the speaker stopped and decided 1. (create)a group activity. He went around the hall and gave each person a balloon. Each one was asked to write his or her name on the balloon 2. (use)a marker pen. Then all the balloons3. (collect) and put in another room.
The speaker then led the group to the room full of balloons and asked them to find the balloon that had their name 4. (write) on, within five minutes.
Everyone was 5. (hurried) searching for their name, bumping into each other, pushing each other around. It was chaos. At the end of the five minutes no one could find 6. (them) own balloon.
Now each person was asked to randomly collect 7. balloon and give it to the person whose name was written on it. Within two minutes everyone 8. (have) their own balloon. When everyone quieted down, the speaker began to talk, saying that this is exactly what was happening in our 9. (live).
Everyone is hurriedly looking for happiness, and not knowing where it is.
Our happiness sometimes lies in the happiness of other people. Give them their happiness 10. you will get your own happiness.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
短文改错
假定英语课上老师要求同桌之间交换修改作文，请你修改你同桌写的以下作
文。文中共有10处语言错误，每句中最多有两处。每处错误仅涉及一个单词的增加、删除或修改。
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（八），并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线(＼)划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1.每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；
2．只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。
Dear John,
I am very sorry to tell you that I unable to go to your party this Sunday. It is very kind for you to invite me to your house. I really look forward to go to your party and sharing your happy experiences abroad. Much to my regret l would be absent from your party because the final exam is just in the corner. What's worst, I have caught a bad cold lately and I am really not me. Anyway, we will have much more chances to get together. I am true sorry. I hope you will forgive me but accept my sincere apology.
I am looking forward to your reply.
Yours．
Li Hua
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
书面表达
假如你是美国的Mike，你的朋友张平打算到国外留学，他写信询问你什么样的中国学生最受国外高校青睐。请你根据下列要点给对方写一封回信：
1．语言能力是基础；
2．适应能力很重要；
3．兴趣爱好被看重；
4．要有社会责任感。
注意：词数100左右。
Dear Zhang Ping．
Yours，
Mike
难度: 中等查看答案及解析