Jack lay, quiet and unmoving for thirty minutes while a stranger repeatedly stabbed (刺) him with sharp needles, causing blood to pour steadily out of his leg. Jack was getting a tattoo (纹身). His friend Tony had recently gotten a tattoo, and Jack was so impressed by it that he decided to get one too. Peer pressure, media influence, and personal expression are some of the common reasons for wearing tattoos today.
The desire to be accepted by one’s friends or peers can have a great influence on what a person does. Sometimes, wearing a tattoo can be a sign that you belong to a certain group. Gangs often use special clothes and tattoos to identify their particular group. Some of these groups wear only brand-name clothes. Others wear tattoos. When a person’s friends are all doing something, that person is more likely to do the same thing.
The media is another big influence behind the popularity of tattoos in North America. A wide variety of media images show tattoos－people appearing in commercials selling expensive cars, famous sports heroes with tattoos in magazines, fashion models wearing designer clothes that show their bodies tattooed with detailed and colourful patterns. These media images link tattoos to ideas of wealth, success, and status. As a result, many people decide to get a tattoo for its fashion and status value.
Many people decide to wear tattoos in order to express their artistic nature, their beliefs, or their feelings－in other words, to show their individuality. A musician in a rock band may get a tattoo of a guitar on the arm. Some environmentalists may tattoo pictures of endangered animals on their shoulders. A tattoo can be a public sign to show what is important in a person's life.
As you can see, there are many reasons why young North Americans get tattoos. A tattoo can be part of a group's uniform, a sign of fashion or an expression of individuality. The decision to get a tattoo is most often a result of the influence of friends or media or the desire to express oneself. For Jack, it was a mixture of all three.
1. Jack has got tattoos in order to .
A. show his great bravery B. gain a special experience
C. make himself more healthy D. be different from others
2. According to the passage, media images are linked to .
A. traditional lifestyle B. social position C. cultural background D. public interest
3. We can infer from the passage that .
A. some people get tattoos out of pressure B. tattoo is related to religious belief
C. getting tattoos costs a lot of money D. most people with tattoos are artists
4 Which of the following shows the structure of the passage?
CP: Central Point P: Point Sp: Sub-point C: Conclusion
Holidays are really important. Many of us will have childhood memories of summer holidays where we were taken away from home to experience new environments and learn in different ways.
But holidays are expensive and, for those on low wages or living on benefits, they are often unobtainable. Even the cheapest holidays require travel and other additional costs that are difficult for many families to meet.
For working parents, the long summer break can be a very difficult problem for childcare. When an annual leave allowance amounts to only five weeks, there is a need to spread this across the year. Couples can find themselves taking leave in turn in order to care for children who are on holiday. For some this makes even an affordable family holiday difficult.
The schools that I visit in Nottingham are full of experienced staff committed to giving our children a caring and inspiring learning environment. The number of children receiving free school meals is quite large in Nottingham and many schools have breakfast clubs to make sure that children get a healthy start to the day. Most schools undertake programs of group or individual educational support. Schools also have an important role in safeguarding children's welfare through the ongoing touch and support with their pupils. During the long summer holidays, much of this is missed.
While teachers are holidaying in the UK, many of their pupils spend the whole six weeks on the street where they live. The lack of free school meals for six weeks can result in pressure on a family budget and an inability to afford the inspiring experiences that help children to continue their learning.
In setting out its plans for a five-term year, Nottingham City Council (委员会)is seeking to reduce the summer holiday down to four and a half weeks, with a more balanced five terms of roughly eight weeks, each followed by a two-week break. We believe this will give real “down time" for school staff and pupils alike but will be short enough not to cause a real break in learning.
We acknowledge that this change may be difficult for some school staff, particularly whose own children are educated in other authorities. However, this must be weighed against the benefits for city children for whom we all have the greatest duty of care.The passage is probably written by .
| A．an experienced teacher | B．a working parent |
| C．an inspired student | D．a city council member |
The underlined word "they" in the second paragraph refers to " ’.
| A．environments | B．holidays | C．wages | D．benefits |
It is suggested in the passage that the summer break be reduced to.
| A．2 weeks | B．4.5 weeks | C．5 weeks | D．6 weeks |
The plans for a shorter summer holiday will help students_____ .
| A．obtain the cheapest holidays without additional costs |
| B．get a chance to spend six weeks a term with teachers in school |
| C．benefit more from the caring and inspiring learning environment |
| D．have more school days to receive free school meals |
It can be inferred from the passage that _______.
| A．working parents can enjoy a five-week break to care for their children |
| B．the suggested plans for a five-term school year can hardly be carried out |
| C．the long summer holiday gives teachers and students real "down time" |
| D．some school staff will say “No” to the plans for a shorter summer holiday |
In the kitchen of my mother’s houses there has always been a wooden stand (木架) with a small notepad (记事本) and a hole for a pencil.
I’m looking for paper on which to note down the name of a book I am recommending to my mother. Over forty years since my earliest memories of the kitchen pad and pencil, five houses later, the current paper and pencil look the same as they always did. Surely it can’t be the same pencil? The pad is more modern, but the wooden stand is definitely the original one.
“I’m just amazed you still have the same stand for holding the pad and pencil after all these years.” I say to her, walking back into the living-room with a sheet of paper and the pencil. “You still use a pencil. Can’t you afford a pen?”
My mother replies a little sharply. “It works perfectly well. I’ve always kept the stand in the kitchen. I never knew when I might want to note down an idea, and I was always in the kitchen in those days.”
Immediately I can picture her, hair wild, blue housecoat covered in flour, a wooden spoon in one hand, the pencil in the other, her mouth moving silently. My mother smiles and says, “One day I was cooking and watching baby Pauline, and I had a brilliant thought, but the stand was empty. One of the children must have taken the paper. So I just picked up the breadboard and wrote it all down on the back. It turned out to be a real breakthrough for solving the mathematical problem I was working on.”
This story—which happened before I was born—reminds me how extraordinary my mother was, and is, as a gifted mathematician. I feel embarrassed that I complain about not having enough child-free time to work. Later, when my mother is in the bathroom, I go into her kitchen and turn over the breadboards. Sure enough, on the back of the smallest one, are some penciled marks I recognize as mathematics. Those symbols have travelled unaffected through fifty years, rooted in the soil of a cheap wooden breadboard, invisible (看不到的) exhibits at every meal.Why has the author’s mother always kept the notepad and pencil in the kitchen?
| A．To leave messages. |
| B．To list her everyday tasks. |
| C．To note down maths problems. |
| D．To write down a flash of inspiration. |
What is the author’s original opinion about the wooden stand?
| A．It has great value for the family. |
| B．It needs to be replaced by a better one. |
| C．It brings her back to her lonely childhood. |
| D．It should be passed on to the next generation. |
The author feels embarrassed for .
| A．blaming her mother wrongly |
| B．giving her mother a lot of trouble |
| C．not making good use of time as her mother did |
| D．not making any breakthrough in her field |
What can be inferred from the last paragraph?
| A．The mother is successful in her career. |
| B．The family members like travelling. |
| C．The author had little time to play when young. |
| D．The marks on the breadboard have disappeared. |
In the author’s mind, her mother is .
| A．strange in behaviour |
| B．keen on her research |
| C．fond of collecting old things |
| D．careless about her appearance |
Are morning people born or made? In my case it was definitely made. In my early 20s, I hardly went to bed before midnight, and I would always get up late the next morning.
But after a while I couldn’t ignore the high relationship between success and rising early. On those rare occasions where I did get up early, I noticed that my productivity (效率) was always higher. So I set out to become a habitual early riser. But whenever my alarm went off, my first thought was always to stop that noise and go back to sleep. Eventually some sleep research showed that my strategy was wrong.
The most common wrong strategy is this: supposing you’re going to get up earlier, you’d better go to bed earlier. It sounds very reasonable, but will usually fail.
There are two main schools (流派) of thought on sleep patterns. One is that you should go to bed and get up at the same time every day. The second school says you should go to bed when you’re tired and get up when you naturally wake up. However, I have found both are wrong if you care about productivity. If you sleep at fixed hours, you’ll sometimes go to bed when you aren’t sleepy enough. You’re wasting time lying in bed awake.
My solution is to combine both methods. I go to bed when I’m sleepy and get up with an alarm clock at a fixed time. So I always get up at the same time (in my case 5 a.m.), but I go to bed at different times every night.
However, going to bed only when I’m sleepy, and getting up at a fixed time every morning are my ways. If you want to become an early riser, you can try your own.According to the passage, the underlined phrase refers to ________.
| A．people who stay up until the next morning |
| B．people who get up early in the morning |
| C．people who feel sleepy in the morning |
| D．people whose productivity is the lowest in the morning |
Why did the author want to become a habitual early riser?
| A．Because he / she wanted to have more sleep time. |
| B．Because he / she wanted to do morning exercise. |
| C．Because he / she wanted to test which school is better. |
| D．Because he / she found that the productivity was higher. |
The author experienced all the following EXCEPT ________.
| A．going to bed after midnight |
| B．asking scholars for advice on sleeping habits |
| C．getting up early occasionally |
| D．pressing off the alarm to go on sleeping |
What’s the author’s sleep pattern?
| A．Going to bed early and getting up early. |
| B．Going to bed late and getting up late. |
| C．Going to bed when sleepy and getting up at a fixed early time. |
| D．Going to bed early and getting up late. |
The passage is mainly about ________.
| A．main schools of thought on sleep patterns |
| B．how to have a good sleep |
| C．wrong strategies for getting up early |
| D．how to become an early riser |
Have you ever picked a job based on the fact that you were good at it but later found it made you feel very uncomfortable over time? When you select your career, there's a whole lot more to it than assessing your skills and matching them with a particular position. If you ignore your personality, it will hurt you long-term regardless of your skills or the job’s pay. There are several areas of your personality that you need to consider to help you find a good job. Here are a few of those main areas;
1) Do you prefer working alone or with other people?
There are isolating jobs that will drive an outgoing person crazy and also interactive jobs that will make a shy person uneasy. Most people are not extremes in either direction but do have a tendency that they prefer. There are also positions that are sometimes a combination of the two, which may be best for someone in the middle who adapts easily to either situation.
2) How do you handle change?
Most jobs these days have some elements of change to them, but some are more than others. If you need stability in your life, you may need a job where the changes don’t happen so often. Other people would be bored of the same daily routine.
3) Do you enjoy working with computers？
I do see this as a kind of personality characteristic. There are people who are happy to spend more than 40 hours a week on a computer, while there are others who need a lot of human interaction throughout the day. Again, these are extremes and you'll likely find a lot of positions somewhere in the middle as well.
4) What type of work environment do you enjoy？
This can range from being in a large building with a lot of people you won’t know immediately to a smaller setting where you'll get to know almost all the people there fairly quickly.
5) How do you like to get paid?
Some people are motivated by the pay they get, while others feel too stressed to be like that. The variety of payment designs in the sales industry is a typical example for this.
Anyway, these are a great starting point for you. I've seen it over and over again with people that they make more money over time when they do something they love. It may take you a little longer, but making a move to do what you have a passion for can change the course of your life for the better.What does the underlined sentence in paragraph one mean?
| A．Before you select your job, you should assess your skills and match them with your position. |
| B．There are more important things than assessing skills and match them with the position when you select jobs. |
| C．Nothing is important than assessing skills and match them with the position when you select job. |
| D．You should ignore your skills when you select job. |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．Isolating usually drive people mad. |
| B．Interactive jobs make people shy easily. |
| C．Extreme people tend to work with others. |
| D．Almost everyone has a tendency in jobs. |
The underlined word “stability” in the passage most probably means?
| A．no movement. | B．no anger. | C．gentleness. | D．enthusiasm. |
In a job search, what quality is not mentioned in the passage?
| A．Outgoing. | B．Motivated. | C．Cooperative. | D．Passionate. |
What could be the best title for this passage?
| A．Lifestyles and Job Pay | B．Jobs and Environment |
| C．Job Skills and Abilities | D．Personalities and Jobs |
The clothes you wear. The food you eat. The color of your bedroom walls. Where you go and how you get there. The people you hang around with. What time you go to bed. What do these things have in common? You’re asking. They’re just a few examples of many hundreds of things that your parents controlled for you when you were a child.
As a kid, you didn’t have a say in everything; your parents made decisions about everything from the cereal you ate in the morning to the pajamas you wore at night. And it’s a good thing, too—kids need this kind of protection on their own.
But finally, kids grow up and become teens. And part of being a teen is developing your own identity—one that is separate from your parents’. But as you change and grow into this new person who makes his own decisions, your parents have a difficult time adjusting (调整).
In most families, it is this adjustment that can cause a lot of fighting between teens and parents. And issues like the type of friends you have or your attitudes to partying can cause bigger arguments, because your parents still always want to protect you and keep you safe, no matter how old you are.
The good news about fighting with your parents get more comfortable with the idea that their teens have a right to certain opinions. It can take several years for parents and teens to adjust to their new roles, though. In the meantime, focus on communicating with your parents.
Sometimes this can feel impossible—like they just don’t see your point of view and never will. But talking and expressing your opinions can help you gain more respect from your parents.
Keep in mind, too, that your parents were teens once and that in most cases, they can relate to what you’re going through.In the first two paragraphs, the writer .
| A．complains that parents control kids too much |
| B．proves that kids have no right to give their opinions |
| C．describes how carefully parents look after kids |
| D．explains that it is necessary for parents to control kids |
A lot of fighting breaks out between teens and parents because .
| A．parents aren’t used to losing control of kids |
| B．teens like to have everything decided |
| C．parents blame teens for not respecting them |
| D．teens are eager to develop their own identity |
In the writer’s opinion, parents control teens in order to .
| A．prevent them from having their own ideas |
| B．protect them from being hurt |
| C．make them respect parents in the family |
| D．make sure that children have a good future |
The underlined word “this” in paragraph 6 may refer to “ ”.
| A．arguing with friends |
| B．fighting with your parents |
| C．communicating with parents |
| D．adjusting to new roles |
What might be the most suitable title for the passage?
| A．What do parents control their children for? |
| B．How parents take care of children? |
| C．How to get rid of your parents’ control? |
| D．Why do I fight with parents so much? |
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