I made a promise to myself on the way down to the vacation beach cottage. For two weeks I would try to be a loving husband and father. Totally loving. No ifs, ands or buts.
The idea had come to me as I listened to a talk on my car radio. The speaker was quoting a Biblical passage about husbands and their wives. Then he went on to say, “Love is an act of will. A person can choose to love.” To myself, I had to admit that I had been a selfish husband. Well, for two weeks that would change.
And it did. Right from the moment I kissed Evelyn at the door and said, “That new yellow sweater looks great on you.” “Oh, Tom, you noticed”, sh
e said, surprised and pleased. Maybe a little puzzled. After the long drive, I wanted to sit and read. Evelyn suggested a walk on the beach. I started to refuse, but then I thought, “Evelyn’s been alone here with the kids all week and now she wants to be alone with me.” We walked on the beach while the children flew their kites.
So it went. Two weeks of not calling the Wall Street firm where I am a director; a visit to the shell museum though I usually hate museums. Relaxed and happy, that’s how the whole vacation passed. I made a new promise to keep on remembering to choose love.
There was one thing that went wrong with my experiment, however. Evelyn and I still laugh about it today. On the last night at our cottage, preparing for bed, Evelyn stared at me with the saddest expression.
“What’s the matter?” I asked her.
“Tom,” she said in a voice filled with distress, “ I don’t?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well…that checkup I had several weeks ago…our doctor…did he tell you something about me? Tom, you’ve been so good to me…am I dying?”
It took a moment for it all to be understood. Then I burst out laughing.
“No, honey,” I said, wrapping her in my arms. “You’re not dying; I’m just starting to live.”In the first paragraph, “No ifs, ands or buts” probably means ______.
| A．Unintentionally | B．Independently |
| C．Impressively | D．Unconditionally |
From the story we may infer that Tom drove to the beach cottage ______.
| A．with his family | B．with Evelyn |
| C．alone | D．with his children |
During the two weeks on the beach, Tom showed more love to his wife because ______.
| A．he was determined to be a good husband |
| B．he had made a lot of money in his Wall Street firm |
| C．she looked lovely in her new clothes |
| D．the doctor said his wife was seriously ill |
The author says, “There was one thing that went wrong with my experiment.” What does “one thing” refer to?
| A．He praised her sweater, which puzzled her. |
| B．She insisted on visiting a museum, which he hated. |
| C．He knew something about her illness but didn’t tell her. |
| D．He was so good to her that she thought she must be dying. |
By saying “I’m just starting to live,” Tom means that ______.
| A．he is just beginning to understand the real meaning of life |
| B．he is just beginning to enjoy life as a loving husband |
| C．he lived an unhappy life before and is now starting to change |
| D．he is beginning to feel regret for what he did to his wife before |
Still seeking a destination for your weekend break? There are some places which are probably a mere walk away from your college.
King's Art Centre
A day at the Centre could mean a visit to an exhibition of the work of one of the most interesting contemporary artists on show anywhere. This weekend sees the opening of an exhibition of four local artists.
You could attend a class teaching you how to 'learn from the masters' or get more creative with paint ---- free of charge.
The Centre also runs two life drawing classes for which there is a small fee.
The Botanic Garden
The Garden has over 8,000 plant species; it holds the research and teaching collection of living plants for Cambridge University.
The multi-branched Torch Aloe here is impressive. The African plant produces red flowers above blue-green leaves, and is not one to miss.
Get to the display house to see Dionaea muscipula, a plant more commonly known as the Venus Flytrap that feeds on insects and other small animals.
The Garden is also a place for wildlife-enthusiasts. Look for grass snakes in the lake. A snake called 'Hissing Sid' is regularly seen lying in the heat of the warm sun.
Byron's Pool
Many stories surround Lord Byron's time as a student of Cambridge University. Arriving in 1805, he wrote a letter complaining that it was a place of "mess and drunkenness". However, it seems as though Byron did manage to pass the time pleasantly enough. I'm not just talking about the pet bear he kept in his roans. He spent a great deal of time walking in the village.
It is also said that on occasion Byron swam naked by moonlight in the lake, which is now known as Byron's Pool. A couple of miles past Grantchester in the south Cambridgeshire countryside, the pool is surrounded by beautiful circular paths around the fields. The cries of invisible birds make the trip a lovely experience and on the way home you can drop into the village for afternoon tea. If you don't trust me, then perhaps you’ll take it from Virginia Woolf- ----over a century after Byron, she reportedly took a trip to swim in the same pool.As mentioned in the passage, there is a small charge for_____.
| A．attending the masters' class | B．working with local artists |
| C．seeing an exhibition | D．learning life drawing |
"Torch Aloe" and "Venus Flytrap" are_____.
| A．common insects | B．wildlife-enthusiasts |
| C．rarely-seen snakes | D．impressive plants |
We can infer from the passage that Byron seemed_____.
| A．to fear pet bears | B．to be a heavy drinker |
| C．to like walking | D．to finish university in 1805 |
What is the passage mainly about?
| A．A way to become creative in art. |
| B．Some places for weekend break |
| C．The colourful life in the countryside. |
| D．Unknown stories of Cambridge University. |
As the pace of life continues to increase, we are fast losing the art of relaxation. Once you are in the habit of rushing through life, being on the go from morning till night, it is hard to slow down. But relaxation is essential for a healthy mind and body.
Stress is a natural part of everyday life and there is no way to avoid it. In fact, it is not the bad thing it is often supposed to be. A certain amount of stress is vital to provide motivation and give purpose to life. It is only when the stress gets out of control that it can lead to poor performance and ill health.
The amount of stress a person can withstand depends very much on the individual. Some people are not afraid of stress, and such characters are obviously prime material for managerial responsibilities, others lose heart at the first sign of unusual difficulties. When exposed to stress, in whatever form, we react both chemically and physically. In fact we make choice between "flight or fight" and in more primitive days the choices made the difference between life or death. The crises we meet today are unlikely to be so extreme, but however little the stress, it involves the same response. It is when such a reaction lasts long, through continued exposure to stress, that health becomes endangered. Since we can't remove stress from our lives (it would be unwise to do so even if we could), we need to find ways to deal with it. People are finding less and less time for relaxing themselves because_____.
| A．they do not know how to enjoy themselves |
| B．they do not believe that relaxation is important for health |
| C．they are travelling fast all the time |
| D．they are becoming busier with their work |
According to the writer ,the most important character for a good manager is his _______.
| A．not fearing stress |
| B．knowing the art of relaxation |
| C．high sense of responsibility |
| D．having control over performance |
Which of the following statements is true?
| A．Stress is always harmful to people |
| B．We can find some ways to avoid stress |
| C．It is easy to change the habit of keeping oneself busy with work. |
| D．Different people can withstand different amounts of stress |
In the last sentence of the passage, "do so " refers to ______.
| A．" expose ourselves to stress" |
| B．"find ways to deal with stress" |
| C．" remove stress from our lives" |
| D．"established links between diseases and stress" |
Forty years ago, Finland was a small, country with mediocre public schools. Today, Finland is still small but no one calls Finland’s public schools mediocre any more.
In 2000, the Finns surprised the world when their 15-year-olds scored at the top of a closely watched international exam called the PISA. Finland has stayed near the top ever since, while the U.S. scores around the middle.
Pasi Sahlberg, an official with Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture, is in Seattle this week to share the story of Finland’s success, and what states like Washington can learn from it.
Sahlberg’s message, although he is too polite to put it so bluntly: Stop testing so much, trust teachers more; give less homework; shorten the school day.
On Tuesday, in a room filled with teachers, principals, professors, school-board members and policy makers, Sahlberg joked about the Finns’ reputation for being a quiet, humble people. “When Finland hit the top of the PISA,” he said, “the biggest disbelievers were Finns.”
More seriously, Finland never set out to create the world’s top school system. Instead, he said, the country decided in the 1970s that it wanted to ensure that a student’s success didn’t depend on family background.
“Finland relied on cooperation among teachers and schools, rather than on competition. Rather than judging teachers and schools based on test scores,” he said, “Finland puts trust in its teachers and principals. Teachers develop the curriculum in Finland, and design their own tests. There are no national tests, except one at the end of high school.”
That’s just the start. Along with a shorter school day, Finnish students don’t even start school until they are 7 years old. Many primary schools have a policy against giving homework.
“But Finland,” he said, “ succeeded in part by adopting ideas from the U.S. and other countries. And those countries, he said, can learn from Finland, too.”What might be the author’s purpose of writing the passage?
| A．To introduce a Finnish official. |
| B．To compare the education systems of Finland and the US. |
| C．To share the story of Finland’s success in education. |
| D．To ask the US to improve its education. |
People first learned Finland’s success in education from_____.
| A．its students’ performance in an international exam. |
| B．its international exchange prorrams. |
| C．lectures given by Pasi Sahlberg. |
| D．its small-sized public schools. |
Which of the following can contribute to Finland’s success in education?
a. Giving students fewer tests.
b. Giving teachers more trust.
c. Evaluating students’ family backgrounds.
d. Creating the world’s top school system.
e. Starting school late.
| A．a,b,c | B．c,d,e | C．a,b,e | D．b,c,d |
What Pasi Sahlerg said in Paragraph 7 suggested that ______.
| A．children should start school as early as possible. |
| B．competition among teachers might be harmful to education. |
| C．the US education system is still the most advanced. |
| D．it’s necessary to set up a national curriculum. |
Steve Flaig of Grand Rapids, Michigan, knew he’d been adopted as a baby, and when he turned 18, in 2003, he decided he’d try to track down his birth mother. The agency from which he’d been adopted gave him his mother’s name: Christine Tallady. But online searches didn’t turn up any results, and Flaig let it go.
In 2007, though, he searched for the name again online. This time, the search results included a home address near the Lowe’s store where Flaig, then 22, worked as a deliveryman.When he mentioned the coincidence to his boss, his boss said, “ You mean Chris Tallady, who works here?”
Flaig and Tallady, 45, a cashier, had said hi to each other a few times at thestore, but they’d never really talked. He hadn’t even known her name. Flaig thought, “ There’s no possible way she’s my mother.”
For a few months, Flaig avoided Tallady. “ I wasn’t sure how to approach her,” he told a local reporter. Finally, an adoption agency employee volunteered to call Tallady for him.
When Tallady realized that the nice guy she’d been waving at was her son, she blubbered. “ I wasn’t ready to be a mother at that time.” She’d given him up for adoption in 1985, when she was 23. However, she’d always hoped to meet her birth son one day. Later that day, mother and son talked for almost three hours at a nearbybar.
Married with two other children, Tallady said, “I have a complete family now.”What did Steve Flaig do in the Lowe’s store in 2007?
| A．He worked as a deliveryman. |
| B．He was as a cashier. |
| C．He was the boss of the shop. |
| D．He was a local reporter. |
The underlined word “blubbered” in Paragraph 5 probably means______.
| A．shouted aloud | B．read aloud |
| C．said while crying | D．sang happily |
What would be the best title for the passage?
| A．Remarkable Reunion. | B．An Adopted Son. |
| C．A Boss Helped Flaig | D．A Cashier’s Experience |
In the summer of 1978 an English farmer was driving his tractor through a field of wheat when he discovered that some of his wheat was lying flat on the ground. The flattened wheat formed a circle about six meters across. Around this circle were four smaller circles of flattened wheat. The five circles were in a formation（结构） like five dots. During the following years, farmers in England found the strange circles in their fields more and more often.
The circles are called “crop circles” because they appear in the fields of grain ― usually wheat or corn. The grain in the circles lies flat on the ground but is never broken; it continues to grow, and farmers can later harvest it. Farmers always discover the crop circles in the morning, so the circles probably form at night. They appear only in the months from May to September.
At first, people thought that the circles were a hoax. Probably young people were making them as a joke, or farmers were making them to attract tourists. To prove that the circles were a hoax, people tried to make circles exactly like the ones that farmers had found. They couldn’t do it. They couldn’t enter a field of grain without leaving tracks, and they couldn’t flatten the grain without breaking it.
Many people believe that beings from outer space are making the circles to communicate with us from far away and that the crop circles are messages from them.
Scientists who have studied the crop circles suggested several possibilities. Some scientists say that a downward rush of wind leads to the formation of the circles — the same downward lash of air that sometimes causes an airplane to crash. Other scientists say that forces within the earth cause the circles to appear. There is one problem with all these scientific explanations: crop circles often appear in formations, like the five-dot formation. It is hard to believe that any natural force could form those.In the summer of 1978, an English farmer discovered in his field that ______.
| A．some of his wheat had fallen onto the ground |
| B．some of his wheat had been damaged |
| C．his grain was growing up in circles |
| D．his grain was moved into several circles |
The underlined word "hoax" in Paragraph 3 is probably ______.
| A．a research on the force of winds |
| B．an attempt made to fool people |
| C．an experiment for the protection of crops |
| D．a special way to plant crops |
Which of the following may prove that the crop circles are not made by man?
| A．The farmers couldn’t step out of the field. |
| B．The farmers couldn’t leave without footprints. |
| C．The farmers couldn’t make the circles round. |
| D．The farmers couldn’t keep the wheat straight up. |
One explanation given by scientists for the crop circles is that they are made by _____.
| A．air movement | B．airplane crashes |
| C．unknown flying objects | D．new farming techniques |
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