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In today’s China, exchanges between Chinese and English-speakers are increasingly frequent. English skills are important to Chinese if China wishes to play a stronger role on the world stage. However, the general English level of the Chinese people is on the decline.
China’s ranking in the 2015 EF English Proficiency Index dropped 10 drops. It was ranked 47th out of 70 countries rated, and is now similar to several Latin American countries. The report triggered widespread discussion in China：in an increasingly international nation, why is the peoples’ level of English getting worse?
A decline in the English level of the Chinese people is no accident. With China’s exam-based education system, worsening English is unavoidable. English education in China is too focused on grammar and ignored oral practice. This results in students often being too scared to speak, for fear of making a mistake. Exam-based courses lead to the problem that students merely learn for the test, not learn the language.
In Latin America, nations do not have a rigorous exam system for English, but focus on promoting the language itself. Such programs that promote English include Chile’s “English Opens Doors,” program, Panama’s “Panama Bilingual Education Program,” and Mexico’s “10 Million People Plan.” Brazil, which also has a government program, is ranked first in the region for English.
The Chinese government should first think about how to reduce the amount of pressure on students taking exams in order to promote change in the current system of rote English education. This is the most important step.
Everyone has been recently focused on overseas returnees. The number of Chinese studying abroad has rapidly multiplied in past years. At the same time, the number of overseas returnees is increasing as well. The job market is also increasingly competitive for them and it is often more difficult for returnees to find a suitable job than it is for domestic graduates.
Difficulties and pressure in the job market for overseas returnees discourages a number of Chinese from studying abroad. As a result, the number of Chinese with high-level English, carefully perfected abroad, has been reduced. This could be a major reason for why English is getting worse overall in China.
While China’s overall level of English has declined, it has not affected China’s huge emphasis on English education and training. China remains one of the nations that is most committed to the study of English.
1.What does the writer want to do with this article?
A. To advise the Chinese government to reform its exam-based education.
B. To analyze the reasons why China’s general English level is on the decline.
C. To report the phenomenon that there is a decline in English level of Chinese people.
D. To compare the different ways of learning English between China and Latin America.
2.Which statement is FALSE according to the passage?
A. Nations in Latin America has carried out some programs to promote the English language itself.
B. China has a rigorous exam system focusing on English grammar while ignoring oral practice.
C. The major reason why there is a decline of Chinese people’s English level is that the Chinese government no longer lays emphasis on English education and training.
D. In China, due to the competitive job job market these days, it’s often easier for domestic graduates to find a suitable job than overseas returnees.
3.What measure can help improve English level of Chinese people?
A. Stopping testing English in the educational examination system.
B. Reducing the amount of pressure on students studying English.
C. Encouraging more students to study in Latin American countries.
D. Focusing more on expressive abilities and less on grammatical exams.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
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When my friend went to Europe last summer, instead of snapping photographs of the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower or Stonehenge, she brought back 32 rolls of ... Cathedral(大教堂的) ceilings. Ceilings. For the 10 years I’ve known her I had never suspected that she was this passionate about stained glass.
Still one of the best things about such pictures — despite their obvious narrow appeal — is that they can’t help but tell us a great deal about the people who took them.
So I shouldn’t have been surprised when I got the roll of film back from my 5-year-old son’s first camping trip. I opened the envelope, naively expecting to see pictures of the nightly campfire, the sun setting over the forest, and possibly even a deer or two.
Instead, I saw an off-center picture of tennis shoes. Not even his tennis shoes, mind you, but a pair someone had lost and left in the cabin. Mystery shoes. And that’s not all.
As I went through the stack, I found that my son had also taken a picture of his sleeping bag, a penny he found in the gravel next to the car, a leaf, an orange sock, a close-up of his father’s ear, a burned hot dog, his thumb, a piece of gum, and many other similar things.
There was barely one sign of nature in the whole stack. I couldn’t help thinking that if he’d wanted pictures of assorted junk, it would’ve been cheaper had he spent the weekend in our back-yard.
AT LEAST that is what I thought until I showed the photographs to my ceiling-snapping friend, the mother of three teenagers, who said simply, “There’s nothing wrong with these.”
But of course, this is just the type of answer you’d expect from someone who photographs ceiling.
Then she told me about the time her daughter went to Yosemite Valley and returned with rolls of photographs of the hotel, restaurant, and gift shop. She also told me about the time her son took his camera to a Major League Baseball game and returned with 24 pictures of cloud formations.
I had a feeling she was just trying to make me feel better.
Then again, to a 5-year-old boy, finding a penny is more exciting than seeing a squirrel. And why would he waste good film on something like, say, some endangered water buffaloes, when he could take a picture of cool tennis shoes? Or his shiny new green sleeping bag?
Face it: Things like beautiful sunsets and campfires can’t compare to a bag of extra-large marshmallow.
So I did what any good mother would do: I marked the date on the back of the pictures and slid them into our family vacation photo album — right after the five pages of ice sculptures I took last year on our cruise to the Bahamas.
1.Who might have taken a picture of the back seat of the family car in his or her trip mentioned in this passage?
A. The author’s friend.
B. The author’s son.
C. The author.
D. The author’s friend’s daughter.
2.The author changed her mind on her son’s picture taking because______ .
A. her friend persuaded her to do so
B. her son’s pictures finally struck her
C. she realized the truth by herself inspired by the surrounding examples
D. it suddenly occurred to her that she herself had also taken unique pictures before
3.What can we infer from this passage?
A. Different people perceive the world from different angles, which may vary according to their age, gender, life experiences and so on.
B. The author’s friend is a better mum in terms of educating children.
C. The author will educate her son to take pictures of nature instead of some boring things.
D. The author will take vacation pictures of different kind from her past ones.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
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Mrs. Packletide intended to shoot a tiger. Not that the desire to kill had suddenly come to her, or that she felt she would leave India safer with one wild beast less. It was because Loona Bimberton had recently taken a plane to the forest and killed a tiger, and the newspapers showed photographs of Loona Bimberton with a tiger-skin on. In a world supposed to be moved by hunger and by love, Mrs. Packletide’s movements were largely governed by dislike of Loona Bimberton.
Circumstances proved favorable. Mrs. Packletide had offered a thousand rupees (印度卢比) for the opportunity of shooting a tiger without risk or effort, and it happened that an old tiger was frequently coming to a neighboring village at night. He was so old that he couldn’t kill animals in the wild and just satisfied his appetite to the smaller household animals. The villagers were eager to earn the thousand rupees; children were posted night and day in the jungle to watch the tiger, and the cheap goats were left about to keep him from going elsewhere. The one great fear was that he should die of old age before the day of Mrs. Packletide’s shoot.
The great night arrived. A platform had been built in a tree, on which sat Mrs. Packletide and her paid companion, Miss Mebbin. A goat with a loud bleat (咩咩叫) was tied down at the correct distance. With an accurate gun, they waited for the coming of the tiger.
“I suppose we are in some danger?” said Miss Mebbin.
She was not actually nervous about the wild beast, but she was unwilling to perform a bit more service than she had been paid for.
“It’s a very old tiger. It couldn’t spring up here even if it wanted to.” said Mrs. Packletide.
Their conversation was cut short by the appearance of the old tiger. He saw the goat, and lay on the earth for a short rest before attacking.
The gun fired very loudly, and the great yellow beast jumped to one side and then rolled over in the stillness of death. In a moment a crowd of excited villagers appeared on the scene, and their shouting carried the glad news to the village.
It was Miss Mebbin who found that the goat was dying from a bullet-wound, while no wound could be found on the tiger. Evidently the wrong animal had been hit, and the tiger had died of heart-failure, caused by the sudden loud noise of the gun. Mrs. Packletide was annoyed at the discovery; but anyway, she owned a dead tiger, and the villagers, anxious for their thousand rupees, gladly accepted the fiction that she had shot the tiger. And Miss Mebbin was a paid companion. Therefore Mrs. Packletide faced the cameras with a light heart, and her pictures appeared on the newspapers of England and America. As for Loona Bimberton, she refused to look at a newspaper for weeks, and was in a depressed emotion for quite some time.
Mrs. Packletide’s tiger-skin was inspected and admired by the neighbors, and Mrs. Packletide went to the Costume Ball in the character of Diana (狩猎女神).
“How amused everyone would be if they knew what really happened,” said Miss Mebbin a few days after the ball.
“What do you mean?” asked Mrs. Packletide quickly.
“How you shot the goat and frightened the tiger to death,” said Miss Mebbin, with her unpleasant laugh.
“No one would believe it,” said Mrs. Packletide, her face changing color rapidly.
“Loona Bimberton would,” said Miss Mebbin.
Mrs. Packletide’s face settled on greenish white. “You surely wouldn’t give me away?” she asked.
“I’ve seen a weekend cottage near Dorking,” said Miss Mebbin, “six hundred and eighty. Quite a bargain, only I don’t happen to have the money.”
Miss Mebbin possessed the pretty weekend cottage. Mrs. Packletide lost interest in animal-hunting.
“The extra expenses are so heavy,” she said to inquiring friends.
1.Mrs. Packletide planned to shoot a tiger because she ________.
A. would leave India safer
B. hated the wild animal
C. admired her good friend
D. disliked a certain person
2.What did Mrs. Packletide want the villagers to arrange for her?
A. A platform in a tree. B. A paid companion.
C. An accurate gun. D. A safe shooting.
3.What was the result of Mrs. Packletide’s shooting?
A. The old tiger was shot to death.
B. Neither the tiger nor the goat was shot.
C. The old tiger missed being shot.
D. Both the goat and the tiger were shot.
4.What is the message conveyed in the story?
A. Life is hard for one to predict.
B. Everything comes for a reason.
C. It’s unwise to keep bad company.
D. False pride costs more than expected.
难度: 简单查看答案及解析
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Self-esteem is all about how much people value themselves, and how worthwhile they feel. Self-esteem is important because feeling good about yourself can affect how you behave. A person who has high self-esteem will make friends easily, is more in control of his or her behavior, and will enjoy life more.
Some teens struggle with their self-esteem when they begin puberty(青春期) because the body goes through many changes. These changes, combined with a natural desire to feel accepted, mean it can be tempting for people to compare themselves with others. They may compare themselves with the people around them or with actors they see on TV or in magazines.
It’s not just development that affects self-esteem, though. Many other factors can affect a person’s body image too.
Family life can sometimes influence self-esteem. Some parents spend more time criticizing their kids and the way they look than praising them, which can reduce kids’ ability to develop good self-esteem.
Sometimes, classmates and peers may also make negative comments and laugh at the way they look . Sometimes racial and ethnic prejudice is the source of such comments. Although these often come from ignorance, sometimes they can affect someone’s body image and self-esteem.
Some people think they need to change how they look or act to feel good about themselves. But actually all you need to do is change the way you see your body and how you think about yourself.
The first thing to do is recognizethat your body is your own, no matter what shape, size, or color it comes in. If you’re very worried about your weight or size, check with your doctor to verify that things are OK. But it’s no one’s business but your own what your body is like—ultimately, you have to be happy with yourself.
Next, identify which aspects of your appearance you can realistically change and which you can’t. If there are things about yourself that you want to change and can, do this by making goals for yourself. For example, if you want to get fit, make a plan to exercise every day and eat nutritious foods.
When you hear negative comments coming from within yourself, tell yourself to stop. Try building your self-esteem by giving yourself three compliments(赞扬) every day. By focusing on the good things you do and the positive aspects of your life, you can change how you feel about yourself.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析