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How to Make a Budget (预算)
Most likely, you aren’t the family breadwinner. But doing a small job or getting a weekly allowance (零花钱) would put some money in your pocket. For kids and grown-ups alike, money is easy to spend. If you aren’t careful, it can be going in no time.
Being responsible with your money is an important skill to learn --- and the sooner you start the better. Whether you are tracking your spending or saving for something special, creating a budget can help you deal with your expenses and plan for the future. All you need are paper and a pencil --- and some self-control.
Sample Monthly Budget
Monthly Income
Amount
Monthly Expenses
Amount
Allowance
$20.00
Snacks
$26.00
Money earned
selling drinks
$25.00
Music
downloads
$12.00
Money earned
babysitting
$12.50
Movies
$18.00
Money earned
delivering newspapers
$30.00
Video rentals
$10.00
Total:
$87.50
Total:
$66.00
First, take a look at our sample monthly budget. Then, use a separate sheet of paper to plan your own. In the first two columns (栏), list your sources (来源) of income and how much you expect to earn from them. In the third and fourth columns, list what you expect to spend your money on and the amount.
The left-hand total should be more than or equal to the right-hand total. If it is, you have an effective budget.
Budgets are not complex, but sticking to them can be tough. When planning your budget, be realistic about your expenses. If you know that you drop $18 at a movie, don’t write $12 in that space simply because you wish you were spending less.
If you are eyeing a big purchase, such as a $150 skateboard, spend less and save more until you have the total amount. No matter how attractive it may be, avoid spending your savings. One day, you will thank yourself!
1.Who is the passage written for?
A. Children. B. Parents. C. Breadwinners. D. Bank managers.
2.The purpose of making a budget is to help people _________.
A. learn to be realistic B. increase their saving
C. manage their money well D. test their power-control
3.What should people do when planning a budget?
A. Fill in the expenses as they really are.
B. Avoid spending money on expensive things.
C. Set aside a fixed amount of money as savings.
D. List income and expenses on two pieces of paper.
4.Which of the following budgets is effective?
难度: 简单查看答案及解析
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I was 9 years old when I found out my father was ill. It was 1994, but I can remember my mother’s words as if it were yesterday: “Kerrel, I don’t want you to take food from your father, because he has AIDS. Be very careful when you are around him.”
AIDS wasn’t something we talked about in my country when I was growing up. From then on, I knew that this would be a family secret. My parents were not together anymore, and my dad lived alone. For a while, he could take care of himself. But when I was 12, his condition worsened. My father’s other children lived far away, so it fell to me to look after him.
We couldn’t afford all the necessary medication for him, and because Dad was unable to work, I had no money for school supplies and often couldn’t even buy food for dinner. I would sit in class feeling completely lost, the teacher’s words muffled as I tried to figure out how I was going to manage.
I did not share my burden (负担) with anyone. I had seen how people reacted to AIDS. Kids laughed at classmates who had parents with the disease. And even adults could be cruel. When my father was moved to the hospital, the nurses would leave his food on the bedside table even though he was too weak to feed himself.I had known that he was going to die, but after so many years of keeping his condition a secret. I was completely unprepared when he reached his final days. Sad and hopeless, I called a woman at the non-profit National AIDS Support. That day, she kept me on the phone for hours. I was so lucky to find someone who cared. She saved my life.
I was 15 when my father died. He took his secret away with him, having never spoken about AIDS to anyone, even me. He didn’t want to call attention to AIDS. I do.
1.What does Kerrel tell us about her father?
A. He had stayed in the hospital since he fell ill.
B. He depended on the nurses in his final days.
C. He worked hard to pay for his medication.
D. He told no one about his disease.
2.What can we learn from the underlined sentence?
A. Kerrel couldn’t understand her teacher.
B. Kerrel had special difficulty in hearing.
C. Kerrel was too troubled to focus on the lesson.
D. Kerrel was too tired to bear her teacher’s words.
3.Why did Kerrel keep her father’s disease a secret?
A. She was afraid of being looked down upon.
B. She thought it was shameful to have AIDS.
C. She found no one willing to listen to her.
D. She wanted to obey her mother.
4.Why did Kerrel write the passage?
A. To tell people about the sufferings of her father.
B. To show how little people knew about AIDS.
C. To draw people’s attention to AIDS.
D. To remember her father.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
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Why I Don’t Spare “Spare Change”
“Poor but honest.” “The deserving (值得帮助的) poor.” These words always come to my mind when I think of “the poor.” But I also think of people who, perhaps through alcohol (酒) or drugs, have ruined not only their own lives but also the lives of others in order to give way to their own pleasure. Perhaps alcoholism and drug addiction (上瘾) really are “diseases,” as many people say, but my own feeling --- based. Of course, not on any serious study --- is that most alcoholics and drug addicts belong to the “undeserving poor.” And that is largely why I don’t give spare change to beggars.
But surely among the street people there are also some who can rightly be called “deserving.” Deserving what? My spare change? Or simply the government’s assistance? It happens that I have been brought up to believe that it is proper to make contributions to charity (慈善机构), but if I give some change to a beggar, am I making a contribution to charity and thereby helping someone, or, am I perhaps simply encouraging someone not to get help? Or, maybe even worse, am I supporting a cheat?
If one believes in the value of private charity, one can either give to needy people or to charitable organizations. In giving to a beggar one may indeed be helping a person who badly needs help, but one cannot be certain that one is giving to a needy person. In giving to an organization, on the other hand, one can feel that one’s money is likely to be used wisely. True, facing a beggar one may feel that this particular unfortunate person needs help at this moment --- a cup of coffee or a sandwich --- and the need will not be met unless I put my hand in my pocket right now. But I have come to think that the beggars whom I meet can get along without my spare change, and indeed perhaps they are actually better off for not having money to buy alcohol or drugs.
I know nothing about these beggars, but it’s my impression that they simply prefer begging to working. I am not generalizing about street people. I am talking about the about whom I actually meet. That’s why I do not give “spare change,” and I don’t think I will in the future.
1.What does the author think of beggars who take drugs?
A. They should be given a check-up.
B. They really need money to live.
C. They have no pleasure in life.
D. They are not worth helping.
2.Why doesn’t the author give money to street people?
A. He doesn’t think they need help.
B. He doesn’t have enough money to give.
C. He is not convinced they will use it rightly.
D. He believes they can get help from the government.
3.In the second paragraph, the author presents his idea by _______.
A. asking questions for people to think about
B. giving examples to support his argument
C. raising questions and answering them
D. expressing his opinions directly
4.Which of the following opinions does the author accept?
A. Drug addiction is a disease.
B. Some street people are poor and needy.
C. Most beggars have received enough help.
D. Charitable organizations handle money properly.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
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While parents, particularly mothers, have always been attached to their infants (婴儿), societal conditions frequently made this attachment difficult to maintain (保持). First of all, the high infant death rate in the premodern times meant that such attachments often ended in hopelessness. Perhaps to prevent the sadness that infant death caused, a number of societal practices developed which worked against early attachment of mother and child.
One of these premodern attachment-discouraging practices was to leave infants unnamed until they had survived into the second year. Another practice that discouraged maternal (母亲的) attachment was tightly wrapping (包裹) infants. Wrapping effectively prevented the close physical interactions like stroking (抚摸) and kissing that are so much a part of modern mothers’ and fathers’ affection for their infants.
A third practice which had the same distancing effect was wet-nursing. Breast-feeding (母乳哺育) was not popular among the well-to-do in the early modern times; infants were often fed by wet nurses hired for the purpose. In some places, such as nineteenth-century France, city infants were sent to wet nurses in the country. Often a wet nurse would feed her own child first, leaving little for the city infant --- who, in many case, died. In Rouen, the death rate for children sent to a wet nurse was 35 percent.
1.Babies were unnamed until they were two so that ________.
A. an old social custom could be kept up
B. maternal attachment could be maintained
C. they could have better chances to survive
D. their parents would not be too sad if they died
2.Why were babies wrapped?
A. To protect them from the cold.
B. To distance their mothers from them.
C. To make them feel more comfortable.
D. To make it easy for their mothers to hold them.
3.Wet nurses were women who _________.
A. babysat city infants
B. fed babies of other families
C. sent their babies to the country
D. failed to look after their babies
4.Which is the best title for the passage?
A. Societal Conditions in Premodern Times
B. Practices of Reducing Maternal Attachment
C. Poor Health Service and High Infant Death Rate
D. Differences between Modern and Premodern Parents
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
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A study published in September suggests there is a surprising way to get people to avoid unhealthy foods: change their memories. Scientist Elizabeth Loftus of the University of California at Irvine asked volunteers to answer some questions on their personalities (个性) and food experiences. “One week later,” Loftus says, “we told those people we’d fed their answers into our smart computer and it came up with an account of their early childhood experiences.” Some accounts included one key additional detail (细节). “You got sick after eating strawberry ice-cream.” The researchers then changed this detail into a manufactured (人为促成的) memory through leading questions --- Who were you with? How did you feel? By the end of the study, up to 41% of those given a false memory believed strawberry ice-cream once made them sick, and many said they’d avoid eating it.
When Loftus published her findings, she started getting calls from people begging her to make them remember hating chocolate or French fries. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. False memories appear to work only for foods you don’t eat on a regular basis. But most important, it is likely that false memories can be implanted (灌输) only in people who are unaware of the mental control. And lying to a patient is immoral, even if a doctor believes it’s for the patient’s benefit.
Loftus says there’s nothing to stop parents from trying it with their overweight children. “I say, wake up --- parents have been lying about Father Christmas for years, and nobody seems to mind. If they can prevent diseases caused by fatness and all the other problems that come with that, you might think that’s more moral lie. Decide that for yourself.”
一个人的饮食习惯的能改变？一个善意的谎言是怎样做到的？
1.Why did Loftus ask the volunteers to answer some questions?
A. To improve her computer program.
B. To find out their attitudes towards food.
C. To find out details she can make use of.
D. To predict what food they’ll like in the future.
2.What did Loftus find out from her research?
A. People believe what the computer tells them.
B. People can be led to believe in something false.
C. People tend to forget their childhood experiences.
D. People are not always aware of their personalities.
3.According to the study, people may stop having a certain food if they _______.
A. learn it is harmful for health
B. lie to themselves that they don’t want it
C. are willing to let doctors control their minds
D. think they once had a bad experience of eating it
4.What is the biggest concern with the method?
A. Whether it is moral. B. Who it is best for.
C. When it is effective. D. How it should be used.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
