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People often say that money talks. They mean that a person with a lot of money can say how he or she wants things done. But it is not easy to earn enough money to gain
this kind of power.
Ask anyone in business. They will tell you that it is a jungle out there. The expression probably began because a jungle is filled with wild animals and unknown dangers that threaten people.
People in business have to be careful if they are to survive the jungle out there. They must not be led into making bogus investments. Bogus means something that is not real.
Nobody is sure how the word got started. But it began to appear in American newspapers in the 1800s. A newspaper in Boston, Massachusetts, said the word came from a criminal whose name was Borghese. Borghese wrote checks to people although he did not have enough money in the bank. After he wrote the checks, he would disappear. So, people who were paid with his checks received nothing. The newspaper said Americans shortened and changed the criminal’s name Borghese to Bogus.
People trying to earn money must be also aware of the risk of being ripped off. A writer for a magazine said he first saw the expression used in 1971. It was on a sign that a student carried during a protest demonstration at a university. The message on the sign was that the student felt cheated.
To be successful, a 
person in business works hard and tries to get down to brass tacks. This expression means to get to the bottom or the most important part of something. For example, a salesman may talk about his product without saying the price. You get down to brass tacks when you say, “it sounds good, but how much does it cost?”
Word expert Charles Funk thinks the expression comes from sailors on ships. They clean the bottom of a boat. When they have removed all the dirt, they are down to the copper pieces that hold the ship together. So, if we get down to brass tacks, we can prevent rip-offs and bogus ways of earning money in that jungle out there. And, some good luck will help, too.
1.Why do people say money talks?
A. Because the rich tend to decide a thing.
B. Because money can tell us something.
C. Because it is hard to earn much money.
D. Because everyone loves to have money.
2.My uncle is in a jungle out there, which means .
A. he will fight against wild animals
B. he is interested to go through a jungle
C. he will face many difficulties soon
D. he is a success in his own business
3.When you ask how much it cost, it means .
A. you declare you won’t be cheated
B. you get down to the real issues
C. you care nothing about the quality
D. you are always caring about money
4.It can be inferred from the passage that .
A. many English words have their interesting stories
B. brass is a necessary piece of equipment of a ship
C. many businessmen have been cheated in life
D. Charles Funk has created many interesting words
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I bought a Paul Smith shirt three months ago. For those who don’t know, Paul Smith is an English designer brand.
His shirts cost about 1,000 yuan and upwards. I paid 50 yuan for my colorful shirt from a street vendor in Beijing.
Of course my shirt was a knockoff, a cheap copy of the brand. After a few washes, little balls formed on the surface of the thin material.
Do I care? Not at all. You get what you pay for.
I have to admit I hate shopping. I don’t care enough about spending money on clothes. I have other priorities.
In You Are What You Wear, US writer Jennifer Baumgartner says people’s clothes tell a story about their personality.
She writes: “The clothes you choose to wear provide important information about you as a person: your approximate education level, your income, social status and even your level of self-esteem (自信).” When I started work as an undercover crime reporter, I had to shop for jeans and a hoodie (连帽衫) in order to fit in with a rough and ready (世故的) social group.
I bought the hoodie in a charity shop. My daughters were shocked. They thought I looked bad, but I knew my disguise was perfect.
Elizabeth L. Cline thinks she knows best when it comes to cheap clothes in her book Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion. She expresses sadness that clothing has been turned into a good that is thrown away after being used once or twice.
She looks down her nose at cheap fashion and longs for the good old days when department stores sold quality clothes at high prices.
I don’t agree. At least people now can choose what to wear without breaking the bank.
1.The underlined sentence in the article meant that .
A. I don’t mind spending money on clothes
B. there’s not much point spending money on clothes
C. it is too much trouble to spend money on clothes
D. I never spend money on clothes
2.From the text we can infer that the author’s disguise .
A. immediately won the admiration of his daughters
B. turned out unsuited to his plan
C. proved that clothes can’t show a person’
s true personality
D. had something to do with his income
3.The author mentions Elizabeth L. Cline’s book to .
A. express his anger at the poor quality of clothes
B. show his disagreement with her idea
C. show his dislike for how people treat their clothes
D. support her attitude toward spending money on clothes
4.Which of the following might be the best title for the story?
A. The variety of clothes B. You are what you wear
C. High cost of cheap fashion D. You get what you pay for
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It’s five minutes before the exam and you are in a state of panic. You just have to pass it, but how? You didn’t even open the book the night before and you hear a voice in your head saying “Cheat, cheat ...” So what are you going to do, ignore it and fail or go for it? It’s a tough decision many students must make.
Most young people believe that cheating is wrong. However, they have cheated at least once in their high school years. So, why do they do it? Are they too lazy to study? Perhaps, it’s not as simple as that. According to some experts, one main reason why students cheat is that they see their friends get away with it. It’s an easy way out. They avoid embarrassment and their parents’ anger for not doing well in an exam. Another reason is that students think it’s OK to cheat if the subject isn’t important for their future career. What’s more, most students have to put up with the pressure of getting into university. They need to get good marks to carry on with their studies. This means that there will always be students who will do anything for a better mark.
It has never been easier to cheat than it is today. With all the technology available, students needn’t cheat by looking over their shoulders anymore. They use mobile phones to send answers to each other during a test. There is also the Internet. With hundreds of websites, students don’t have to worry because they can find lots of material which they can copy and use in projects. There are even tips on the art of cheating in exams.
Obviously, if you get caught cheating, you fail the exam or the subject. But it doesn’t really matter whether you get caught or not. What’s important is that it’s wrong. You mustn’t cheat because cheating is a lie. It deceives (欺骗) people into thinking you know more than you actually do. How can you be proud of something you have achieved through cheating? In the end, it’s not about deceiving your teachers and your parents, but about fooling yourself that you can do something you really can’t.
1.The tough decision that many students have to make before an exam is .
A. whether to cheat or not B. what to do if they fail
C. how to cheat D. how to keep calm
2.According to the experts, why do some students cheat?
A. The subjects are important for their future. B. They are too lazy to study.
C. Cheating can help them please their parents. D. Their friends ask them to cheat.
3.The worst thing about cheating is that .
A. you cheat others and yourself
B. you can get caught and fail
C. you give others a bad impression
D. your teacher will inform your parents
4.Which sentence best summarizes the whole text?
A. Cheating can be explained but not excused.
B. Technology has made cheating easier.
C. Students cheat to get into university.
D. Cheating is a social and psychological problem.
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Matt Haimovitz is 42 and a renowned cellist (大提琴手) in the world. He rushed into the classical music scene at the age of 12 after Itzhak Perlman, the famed violinist, heard him play.
But nothing in his family history explains where Haimovitz got his extraordinary talent. And that’s typical, Ellen Winner, a professor says.
“People are fascinated by these children because they don’t understand where their talent came from. You will see parents who say, ‘I wasn’t like this, and my husband wasn’t like this.’ It seems to sometimes just come out of the blue,” Winner says.
It’s not clear whether a prodigy’s （天才）brain is any different from the brains of other children, in part because there have been no study comparing the brains of prodigies to those of average people.
“But I believe that anything that shows up so early, without training, has got to be either a genetic or some other biological basis,” Winner says. “If a child suddenly at the age of 3 goes to the piano and picks out a tune and does it beautifully, that has to be because that child has a different brain.”
Children who are extremely gifted tend to be socially different, too, Winner says. “They feel like they can’t find other kids like themselves, so they feel strange, maybe even like a freak, and feel like they don’t have anybody to connect with. On the other hand, they also long to connect with other kids, and they can’t find other kids like themselves.”
As Haimovitz got older, he became frustrated. He wanted to play other kinds of music but felt constricted by the image and the expectations of the boy prodigy who played classical music and filled concert halls.
“When you start that early, you suddenly start to grow up in public, and I wanted to experiment,” Haimovitz says.
So he took his cello into punk rock clubs and coffee houses. He played Bach, Haydn and Hendrix. “My teacher was Leonard Rose, and we never played any 20th-century music. He didn’t like it. But once I was exposed to James Marshall “Jimi” Hendrix, Miles Dewey Davis El and others, I couldn’t really turn back. I wanted to know more,” he says.
1.According to some parents, prodigies’ extraordinary talent .
A. comes unexpectedly B. is inherited from parents
C. results from hard work D. is trained in early times
2.Winner seems to agree to the fact that ____.
A. average people have their particular brains
B. biology is the base of a different brain
C. a prodigy’s brain is superior to those of others
D. genes play an important role in a prodigy
3.According to the text, gifted children are .
A. lonely B. easy-going C. innocent D. social
4.The last paragraph is mainly about how Haimovitz was trying to .
A. build up his friendship B. play different kinds of music
C. set up the image of a prodigy D. perform classical music creatively
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As a professor I have grown accustomed to the opinion regarding American education. We are repeatedly told that American schools are failing, that colleges are not teaching, and that the students of today are not as good as the students of the past.
There are, of course, problems with the education system. Because of economic inequality some schools are significantly better than others and the ideas of equality of education and equality of opportunity are cruel jokes. However, the mere fact that there are some serious problems does not mean that all the dire claims are true.
One stock (陈腐的) claim is that America has fallen behind the world in education in terms of performance on various tests. While the fact that America is behind other countries is a point of concern, there are at least three points worth considering here. The first is the above-mentioned economic inequality which will tend to result in poorer performance when taking the average for America. The second is that many countries have put considerable effort into improving their education systems and hence it is worth considering that America’s decline is also due to the improvement of others. The third is the matter of the measures— do they, in fact, present an accurate picture of the situation? I am not claiming that the data is bad. I am merely raising a reasonable concern about how accurate our picture of education is at this time.
Another stock claim is that American students are doing badly on standardized tests. While there is clearly value in assessment, it is reasonable to consider whether or not such tests are a proper and adequate measure of education. It is also worth considering whether the puzzle with these tests is itself causing damage to education. That is, as teachers teach for the test and students learn for the test, it might be the case that what is being taught is not what should be taught and what is being learned is not what should be learned.
1.According to the professor, many people’s attitude towards American colleges is .
A. negative B. positive C. approving D. indifferent
2.What does the underlined word “dire” in the second paragraph mean?
A. Exact or precise. B. Extremely serious or terrible.
C. Fair or objective. D. Long and boring.
3.Judging by the text ,the claims are centered on .
A. what should be taught in the American classroom
B. fair judgment of American education
C. American students’ performance on tests
D. an accurate picture of American colleges
4.The passage is written mainly to .
A. defend American education
B. show dissatisfaction with American education
C. explain why American students do badly on tests
D. offer advice on American education reform
end at the airport in Portland, Oregon, I noticed a man coming toward me carrying two light bags. He stopped right next to me to 
this kind of power.
s true personality