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Outside her cottage, old Mrs. Taylor was hanging out laundry on a wire line, unaware that some children were hiding in a nearby tree watching her every move. They were determined to find out if she really was a witch.（女巫）
They watched nervously as she took a broomstick(长柄扫帚）to sweep the dirt from her stone steps. But much to their disappointment, she didn’t get on the broomstick and fly off. The old lady only looked up when her hen began to make sounds loudly —signaling that she had laid an egg in the nest on the top of the haystack.(干草堆).
The old lady put aside her broomstick and walked to the haystack, followed by Michael, a black cat she had rescued from a fox trap. With only three legs, it was hard for Michael to keep up with his mistress. The cat was proof for the children that only a witch would own a black cat with three legs! Crawling further along the branches, they could clearly see the haystack.
Mrs. Taylor was standing on a wooden box with the new-laid egg in one hand. Placing the egg in her pocket, she readied herself to climb down. Then, without warning, the box broke under her and she crashed to the ground. The children were in horror.
“Should we go and help her?” asked Mia.
“What if it’s a trick?” replied Patrick. “She probably knows we’re here. Witches know things like that!”
After thinking for a while, Julia said“Anyway, we should go and check whether she is all right.”
Approaching prudently, they could see a wound on the old lady’s forehead. She had knocked her head on a stone and was unconscious.
“Go and get Dad,” Mia yelled to her brothers. “Tell him about the accident.”
The boys didn’t need another excuse to leave. They ran as fast as they could for help, hoping that Mrs. Taylor would not regain consciousness and turn the girls into frogs.
Later, in the hospital, the old lady smiled her thanks. “I was so lucky that you lovely children happened to be passing when 1 fell. I must have yelled quite loudly.”
The children exchanged guilty glances, but were very pleased that she was not a witch after all!
1.Mrs. Taylor stopped sweeping when_______.
A. her doorstep became very clean
B. she heard the hen making sounds loudly
C. she noticed the children in the tree
D. her cat Michael managed to get her attention
2.Why was Patrick not willing to help Mrs. Taylor when she fell ？
A. He thought that she could be cheating them.
B. He was afraid of the three-legged black cat.
C. He did not think that she was hurt in the fall.
D. He knew he and the others shouldn’t have been in her tree.
3.Which of the definitions is closest in meaning to the underlined word “prudently” ?
A. Slowly. B. Hurriedly.
C. Carefully. D. Quietly.
4.Which of these old sayings best summaries the lesson from story?
A. Make hey while the sun shines.
B. Never judge a book by its cover.
C. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
D. People in glasshouses shouldn’t throw stones.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
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Remembering names is an important social skill. Here are some ways to master it.
Recite and repeat in conversation.
When you hear a person's name, repeat it. Immediately say it to yourself several times without moving your lips. You could also repeat the name in a way that does not sound forced or artificial.
Ask the other person to recite and repeat.
You can let other people help you remember their names. After you've been introduced to someone, ask that person to spell the name and pronounce it correctly for you. Most people will be pleased by the effort you're making to learn their names.
Admit you don't know.
Admitting that you can’t remember someone’s name can actually make people relaxed. Most of them will feel sympathy if you say, "I'm working to remember names better. Yours is right on the tip of my tongue. What is it again?"
Use associations.
Link each person you meet with one thing you find interesting or unusual. For example, you could make a mental note: "Vicki Cheng…… tall, black hair." To reinforce(加强) your associations, write them on a small card as soon as possible.
Limit the number of new names you learn at one time.
When meeting a group of people, concentrate on remembering just two or three names. Free yourself from remembering everyone. Few of the people in mass introductions expect you to remember their names. Another way is to limit yourself to learning just first names. Last names can come later.
Go early.
Consider going early to conferences, parties and classes. Sometimes just a few people show up on time. That's fewer names for you to remember. And as more people arrive, you can hear them being introduced to others—an automatic review for you.
1.If you can't remember someone's name, you may .
A. tell him the truth B. tell him a white lie
C. ask him for pity D. ask others to help you
2.When you meet a group of people, it is better to remember .
A. all their names
B. a couple of names first
C. just their last names
D. as many names as possible
3.What does the text mainly tell us?
A. Tips on an important social skill.
B. Importance of attending parties.
C. How to make use of associations.
D. How to recite and repeat names.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
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The rising costs of health care have become a problem for many countries in the world. To deal with this problem, it is recommended that a big part of the government’s health budget（预算)be used for health education and disease prevention instead of treatment. Actually, many kinds of diseases are preventable in many ways and preventing a disease is usually much cheaper than treating it. For example, people could avoid catching a cold if they dressed warmly when the weather starts getting cold. But many people get sick because they fail to do so, and have to spend money seeing a doctor.
Daily habits like eating more healthy food would have kept millions of families from becoming bankrupt if the patients had taken measures for early prevention. For example, keeping a balanced diet, such as not consuming too much animal fat and insuring a steady intake of vegetables and fruits, seems to be quite important.
One very effective and costless way of prevention is regular exercise, which is necessary for a healthy mind and body. Regular exercise, such as running, walking, and playing sports is a good way to make people feel better or reduce stress.
In addition, health education plays a key role in improving people’s health. By giving people more information about health, countries could help people understand the importance of disease prevention and ways to achieve it. For example, knowing one’s family medical history is an effective way to help keep healthy. Information about health problems among close relatives will make them aware of what they should do to prevent certain diseases through lifestyle changes, which will work before it is too late.
Hinderer, stressing disease prevention does not mean medical treatment is unimportant. After all, prevention and treatment are just two different means toward the same effect. In conclusion, we could save money on health care and treat patients more successfully if our country spends more money on health prevention and education.
1.What’s the best title of the passage?
A. Prevention or Education?
B. Prevention or Treatment?
C. Health or Illness?
D. Exercise or Illness?
2.Which of the following can replace the underlined word “bankrupt”?
A. Unable to be cured.
B. Unable to pay one’s debts.
C. Stronger than ever before.
D. More successful than ever before.
3.We learn from the passage that .
A. dressing warmly can prevent diseases
B. a balanced diet is cheaper than regular exercise
C. It’s better to have more health education.
D. the government’s health budget should be increased
4.Which of the following shows the structure of the passage?
CP(Central Point) P(Point) S(Sub—point次要点) C(Conclusion)
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
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Bringing up children is hard work, and you are often to blame for any bad behavior of your children. If so, Judith Rich Harris has good news for you. Parents, she argues, have no important long -term effects on the development of the personality of their children. Far more important are their playground friends and neighborhood. Ms. Harris takes to hitting the assumption, which has dominated(支配) developmental psychology for almost half a century.
Ms. Harris's attack on the developmental psychologists’ "nurture" argument looks likely to reinforce(加强） doubts that the profession was already having. If parents matter, why is it that two adopted children, brought up in the same home, are no more similar in personality than two adopted children brought up in separate homes? Or that a pair of identical twins, brought up in the same home, are no more alike than a pair of identical twins brought up in different homes?
Difficult as it is to track the clear effects of parental upbringing, it may be harder to measure the exact influence of the peer(同龄人) group in childhood and adolescence. Ms. Harris points to how children from immigrant homes soon learn not to speak at school in the way their parents speak. But acquiring a language is surely a skill, rather than a characteristic of the sort developmental psychologists hunt for. Certainly it is different from growing up tensely or relaxed, or from learning to be honest or hard -working or generous. Easy though it may be to prove that parents have little impact on those qualities, it will be hard to prove that peers have vastly more.
Moreover, mum and dad surely cannot be ignored completely. Young adults may, as Ms. Harris argues, be keen to appear like their peers. But even in those early years, parents have the power to open doors: they may choose the peers with whom their young associate, and pick that influential neighborhood. Moreover, most people suspect that they come to resemble their parents more in middle age. So the balance of influences is probably complicated. Even if it turns out that the genes they pass on and the friends their children play with matter as much as affection, discipline and good example, parents are not completely off the hook
1.According to Ms. Harris,______.
A．parents are to blame for any bad behavior of their children
B．children's personality is largely shaped by their friends and neighbors
C．nature rather than nurture has a significant effect on children' s personality development
D．parents will affect greatly the children's life in the long run
2.The developmental psychologists think .
A. children are more influenced by their peers
B. identical twins raised in the same home are different in personality
C. twins raised in two separate families are different in personality
D. upbringing has a less significant effect on children’s personality development
3.According to Paragraph 3, we know that .
A. it is easier for children to gain a language at home
B. it is harder to follow the effects of parental upbringing
C. immigrant children avoid speaking the same way as their parents at school
D. it is proved that peers have a greater effect on children’s qualities
4.What does the author mean by saying parents are not completely off the look at the end of the passage？
A. Parents should control the situation.
B. Parents should give their way to children.
C. Parents should spend more time on children.
D. Parents should take on their responsibility.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析