Dear MSN,
I live in San Diego. I’m single and would like to meet people near me. Can I do this on the Internet?
Searching in San Diego
Dear Searching,
On the Internet, you could easily go looking for love in all the wrong places, but here are lots of great ways to meet singles near you.
The Web is a good place to start. MSN also has international sites for Europe, Australia and South America.
There are several California-based MSN web communities where you can meet like-minded people near you as well as city-specific chat rooms for real-time interaction (互动). Hope for some clever friends. What about a little more excitement in your online interactions? Try the “Gaming Zone!”
I also tried MSN Search, looked under the “Personal” heading and found “Relationships”. Clicked on that, then found “Ads & Personals”, by “Region” and found San Diego specific personal from there. Try it!
Also, give “IRC” (Internet Relay Chat) and “Usenet Newsgroups” a shot. Many a net romance has started and then developed in these off-the-Web communities. If you’d rather make friends F2F (face to face), the Web has some helpful dating and redating tips. Searching has written this letter with the purpose of ______________.
| A．getting help from MSN with his computer |
| B．winning the heart of a love from the web. |
| C．meeting single people online |
| D．looking for love in all the wrong places |
According to the second letter, MSN has several advantages such as _______________.
| A．shooting IRC and Usenet Newsgroups |
| B．giving you time and places to chat with others |
| C．satisfying you with whatever kind of help you want |
| D．supplying you with many methods to make friends |
From the second letter we can infer that MSN treats an ordinary reader so kindly and warmly because _______________.
| A．it is its duty to help those who have trouble with their computers |
| B．it needs to attract as many readers as possible so as to make greater benefit |
| C．it likes to see more net romances to share their happiness |
| D．all people need it and it needs all people |
When the lazy days of summer arrive and the schedule is filled with swimming，camp，and family vacations，it can be a challenge to find time for learning. But kids’ reading skills don’t have to grow cold once school’s out. Here are some ways to make reading a natural part of their summer fun：
Explore your library. Visit your local library to borrow books and magazines that your kids haven’t seen before. Many libraries have summer reading programs, book clubs, and reading contests(比赛) for even the youngest borrowers. With a new library card，a child will feel extra grownup by borrowing books.
Read on the road. Going on a long car trip？Make sure there are some books at the back seat. When you stop driving，read the books aloud. Get some audio books in libraries and listen to them together during driving time.
Make your own books. Pick one of your family’s favorite parts of summer—whether it’s baseball，ice cream, or the pool—and have your child draw pictures of it or cut out pictures from magazines. Stick(粘贴) the pictures onto paper to make a booklet(小册子)and write text for it. When you’re done，read the book together. Reread it whenever you like!
Keep in touch. Kids don’t have to go away to write about summer vacation. Even if your family stays home，they can send postcards to tell friends and relatives about their adventures(冒险经历). Ask a relative to be your child’s pen pal and encourage them to write each week.
Keep up the reading habits. Even if everything else changes during the summer，keep up the reading habits around your house. Read with your kids every day—whether it’s just before bedtime or under a shady tree on a lazy afternoon. And don’t forget to take a book to the beach！Just brush the sand off the pages — it’s no sweat! The purpose of the passage is to________.
| A．encourage parents to read |
| B．give advice on raising kids |
| C．raise a good summer reader |
| D．suggest places for vacations |
If you drive on a long trip in summer，you can________.
| A．visit the local library and join book clubs |
| B．borrow some audio books to listen to |
| C．keep in touch with friends by sending postcards |
| D．read your own picture books with your son |
By saying “Just brush the sand off the pages—it’s no sweat”，the author means________.
| A．taking away the sand on the book is very difficult |
| B．a special book is needed when you’re reading on the beach |
| C．one can remove the sand on the book with a brush easily |
| D．there’s no trouble reading even on the beach |
Who are the possible readers of the passage?
| A．Parents. | B．Students. | C．Teachers. | D．Editors. |
Which statement(阐述) is true according to the text?
| A．During summer vocation, kids’ reading skills must grow cold. |
| B．Kids have to go away to write about summer vacation. |
| C．With a library card，a child will feel extra grownup by borrowing books. |
| D．Because everything else changes during the summer，it is hard to keep up the reading habits. |
Friendships can be difficult — because often people aren't as honest and open as they should be. Sometimes, people finally get hurt.
Most problems with friendships come up because people are just too selfish to care about the things that their friends need. They care about their own needs much more, which makes it hard for friendships to work. However, being selfish is part of human nature. A person is put together in order to take care of themselves and their own needs, not necessarily those needs of other people. Even though being selfish is something that all humans are born with, it is something that everyone should be against.
The best thing to remember when you are a friend to anyone is that you need to treat your friends the same way that you'd like to be treated(对待). This is wonderful advice for a friendship, because it is really the only way to make sure that you are giving your friends everything you would want to be given in a friendship. Whenever you have a question about how you should treat a friend, it is easy to find an answer simply by asking yourself what you would like your friend to do for you, if he or she was in your shoes.
Even if you're always thinking about how you'd like to be treated, and your friends are too, there are problems that come up from time to time in each friendship, and it is important to understand how to deal with these problems so that you can build stronger and healthier friendships. Problems like friends getting boyfriends or girlfriends and not spending enough time with their friends, or even friends finding new friends and leaving old friends behind are problems that will probably come up with one or more of your friendships. It is important to know how to deal with these friend problems so that you can keep your friends and make new ones. No one wants to have a broken friendship. This passage mainly talks about ________.
| A．the importance of friendship |
| B．the advantages(益处) of friendship |
| C．the problems of friendship |
| D．the disadvantages(劣势) of friendship |
According to the writer, problems with friendship may appear when ________.
| A．one is honest | B．one is selfish | C．one is open | D．one is kind |
According to the passage, the first and most important thing to be other people's friend is ________.
| A．to treat your friend as you like to be |
| B．to give your friends whatever you have |
| C．not to hurt your friends' feelings |
| D．not to think of your own need any more |
What's the purpose of understanding how to deal with friendship problems?
| A．To have a comfortable life. |
| B．To build stronger and healthier friendships. |
| C．To be treated the way you want. |
| D．To get a boyfriend or girlfriend more quickly. |
My parents have certainly had their troubles, and as their child I’ll never know how they made it to 38 years of marriage. They loved each other, but they didn’t seem to like each other very much. Dad was too fond of his beer, and he talked down to Mom a lot. When she tried to stand up to him, a fight would unavoidably follow.
It was my dad’s disease that began to change things. The year 1998 was the beginning of a remarkable transformation for my family. My father, Jim Dineen, the always healthy, weightlifting, never-missed-a-day-of-work kind of dad, discovered he had kidney (肾)disease.
The decision to go ahead with a transplant for my father was a long and tough one, mostly because he had liver damage too. One physician’s assistant told him, “According to your file, you’re supposed to be dead.” And for a while, doctors mistakenly thought that he would need not just a kidney transplant, but a liver transplant too. Dad’s future hung in midpoint.
When the donor testing process finally began in the spring of 2003, numerous people, including me, my uncle Tom, and my mom, came back as matches of varying degree. But Mom was the one who insisted on going further. She decided to donate a kidney to my father. She said she was not scared, and it was the right thing to do. We all stepped back in amazement.
At last a date was chosen – November 11, 2003. All of a sudden, the only thing that seemed to matter Dad was telling the world what a wonderful thing Mom was doing for him. A month before the surgery, he sent her birthday flowers with a note that read, “I love you and I love your kidney! Thank you!”
Financially, the disease was upsetting to them. So my sister and I were humbled and surprised when, shortly before his surgery day, Dad handed us a diamond jewelry that we were to give to Mom after the operation. He’d accumulated his spare dollars to buy it.
At the hospital on the day of the transplant, all our relatives and friends gathered in the waiting room and became involved in a mean euchre (尤克牌游戏) tournament. My family has always handled things with a lot of laughter, and even though we were all tense, everybody was taking bets on how long this “change of conduct” would last in my parents.
We would inform Dad that if he chose to act like a real pain on any particular day after the operation, he wasn’t allowed to blame it on PMS just because he’d now have a female kidney.
The surgeries went well, and not long afterward, my sister and I were allowed to go in to visit. Dad was in a great deal of pain but again, all he could talk about was Mom. Was she okay? How was she feeling? Then the nurses let us do something unconventional. As they were wheeling Mom out of recovery room, they rolled her into a separate position to visit Dad. It was strange to see both my parents hooked up to IVs and machines and trying to talk to each other through tears. The nurses allowed us to present the diamond jewelry to Mom so that Dad could watch her open it. Everyone was crying, even the nurses.
As I stood with digital camera in hand, I tried to keep the presence of mind to document the moment. My dad was having a hard time fighting back emotion, and suddenly my parents unexpectedly reached out to hold each other’s hands.
In my nearly 35 years of existence, I’d never seen my parents do that, and I was spellbound. I snapped a picture and later rushed home to make sure I’d captured that enormous, life-defining moment. After so many years of disagreement, it was apparent to me that they finally understood how much each loved the other. 65—70 From the first paragraph we can learn that ____________.
| A．Dad was fond of drinking | B．My parents got along well |
| C．Dad often beat Mom | D．Mom never obeyed Dad |
The underlined part “Dad’s future hung in midpoint” in Para.3 suggests that ____________.
| A．Dad was bound to die |
| B．Dad came to a serious moment in his life |
| C．Dad’s future was decided by doctors |
| D．Dad faced a tough decision in his life |
Before the surgery, which of the following words can best describe the feeling of the families?
| A．Worried and negative. | B．Anxious and helpless. |
| C．Nervous but optimistic. | D．Relaxed and positive. |
Which of the following is TRUE according the passage?
| A．Dad bought a diamond jewelry to Mom for their wedding anniversary. |
| B．Dad asked the nurse to visit Mom soon after the operation. |
| C．Despite a lot of pain, Dad was eager to know Mom’s condition soon after the operation. |
| D．On the day of the transplant, the families involved in a euchre tournament to relax themselves. |
What’s in the writer’s photo?
| A．Everyone was crying, even the nurses. |
| B．His parents were trying to talk to each other. |
| C．Dad watched Mom opening the gift. |
| D．His parents were holding each other’s hands. |
What’s the best title for the passage?
| A．Dad’s disease | B．Mom’s decision | C．The Gift of Life | D．The photo of hands |
Write a winning story!
You could win ￡1,000 in this year’s Fiction Prize and have your story printed in Keep Writing magazine. Ten other lucky people will win a cheque for ￡100.
Once again, we need people who can write good stories. The judges, who include Mary Littlejohn, the novelist, Michael Brown, the television reporter, and Susan Hitchins, the editor of Keep Writing, are looking for interesting and original stories. Detective fiction was extremely popular last year, although the competition winner produced a love story. You can write down about whatever you want but here’s some advice to start your thinking:
Write about what you know
This is the advice which every writer should pay attention to and, last year, nearly everyone who wrote for us did exactly that. Love, family, problems with friends ---- these were the main subjects of the stories. However, you need to turn ordinary situations into something interesting that people will want to read about. Make the reader want to continue reading by writing about ordinary things in a new and surprising way.
Get your facts right
It’s no good giving a description of a town or explaining how a jet engine works if you get it wrong. So avoid writing anything unless you’re certain about it.
Hold the reader’s attention
Make the beginning interesting and the ending a surprise. There is nothing worse than a poor ending. Develop the story carefully and try to think of something unusual happening at the end.
Think about the characters
Try to bring the people in your story alive for the reader by using well-chosen words to make them seem real.
Your story must be your own work, between 2,000 and 2,5000 words and typed, double-spaced, on one side only of each sheet of paper.
Even if you’re in danger of missing the closing date, we are unable to accept stories by fax or email. You must include the application form with your story. Unfortunately your story cannot be returned, nor can we discuss our decisions.
You should not have had any fiction printed in any magazine or book in this country ---- a change in the rules by popular request ---- and the story must not have happened in print or in recorded form, for example on radio or TV, anywhere in the world.
Your fee of ￡5 will go to the Writers’ Association. Make your cheque payable to Keep Writing and send it with the application form and your story to:
Keep Writing
75 Broad Street Birmingham
B12 4TG
The closing date is 30 July and we will inform the winner within one month of this date. Please note that if you win, you must agree to have your story printed in our magazine.How should writers deal with ordinary situations while writing?
| A．They should make them appealing to readers. |
| B．They should copy others’ ideas. |
| C．They should change some facts to make them interesting. |
| D．They should describe them as they are. |
What shouldn’t a writer do?
| A．Making the contents interesting. | B．Getting the facts right. |
| C．Meeting the deadline. | D．Making the end ordinary. |
Writers should present their works in the following ways except that ____________.
| A．they should write originally |
| B．they can type their stories as they like |
| C．they should follow some rules |
| D．they should hand in their stories in time |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．Late stories can be faxed if necessary. |
| B．Entry needs no fee. |
| C．Winners can have their stories printed in other magazines. |
| D．All stories should be presented by mail. |
When you meet someone for the first time, you will form an impression in your mind of that person in the first moment. Your reactions to other people, however, are really just barometers (晴雨表) for how you perceive(理解) yourself. Your reactions to others say more about you than they do about others. You cannot really love or hate something about another unless it reflects something you love or hate yourself. We are usually drawn to those who are most like us and tend to dislike those who display those aspects of ourselves that we dislike.
Therefore, you can allow others to be the mirror to illuminate (阐明;照亮) more clearly your own feelings of self-worth. Conversely（相反地）, you can view the people you judge negatively as mirrors to show you what you are not accepting about yourself.
To survive together peacefully with others, you will need to learn tolerance. A big challenge is to shift your perspective from judgment of others to a lifelong exploration of yourself. Your task is to assess all the decisions, judgments you make onto others and to begin to view them as clues to how you can heal yourself and become whole.
Several days ago I had a business lunch with a man who displayed objectionable table manners. My first reaction was to judge him as rude and his table manners as annoying. When I noticed that I was judging him, I stopped and asked myself what I was feeling. I discovered that I was embarrassed to be seen with someone who was chewing with his mouth open and loudly blowing his nose. I was astonished to find how much I cared about how the other people in the restaurant perceived me.
Remember that your judgment of someone will not serve as a protective shield against you becoming like him. My judging my lunch partner as rude does not prevent me from ever looking or acting like him. In the same way, extending tolerance to him would not cause me to suddenly begin chewing my food with my mouth open.
When you approach life in this manner, those with whom you have the greatest dissatisfactions as well as those you admire and love can be seen as mirrors, guiding you to discover parts of yourself that you reject and to embrace your greatest quality. We can know from the passage that the author advises people to _____________.
| A．avoid inappropriate manners. |
| B．learn tolerance towards others. |
| C．pay attention to others’ needs and feelings. |
| D．judge others favorably in any case. |
The underlined word “objectionable” in Paragraph 4 has the closest meaning to ____________.
| A．discouraging | B．satisfying | C．unpleasant | D．acceptable |
According to the passage, the following statements are all true except _____________.
| A．You can’t really love or hate others if they are similar to you. |
| B．We are easily attracted by someone who is similar to us. |
| C．Our first judgment of a person mostly comes from our personal opinion. |
| D．The moment we see a stranger, our mind forms an impression of that person. |
Throughout the entire story, the last paragraph serves as a(n) ______________.
| A．explanation | B．example | C．background | D．conclusion |
It can be implied from the text that ___________.
| A．the writer’s first reaction to the man was to judge him as offensive |
| B．we will need to learn tolerance to coexist with others |
| C．we shouldn’t focus on judging others but should constantly reflect on our own |
| D．the writer didn’t care about other people’s view of him |
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