In any family with more than one child, chidren seem to naturally compete for their parents’ love and attention. Parents say they love every child equally. But is that true?
Susan, founder of a consulting firm in Chicago, interviewed 216 women and found that even though none of her questions asked directly about a parent favoring one child over another, about two-thirds of the women said there was a favored child. And they also remembered their experience when they were young. One of the women said, “My mother always liked my brother better, and he got to go to summer camp in 1968 and I didn’t.”
Plumez, who interviewed parents with both biological children and adoptive children for an adoption book in 2008, found that what matters most is whether your temperaments(性情) are pleasing. “In some cases, parents would say they felt closer to their adopted children,” she says, “Some parents like the children with characters similar to theirs. Two people who are shy and withdrawn might get along well, unless the shy parent doesn’t like that aspect of themselves and they try to push the naturally withdrawn child to be more extroverted.”
It could be a result of gender, birth order or how easy or difficult a child’s temperament may be, but a parent’s different treatment has far-reaching effects. Students have found that less-favored children may suffer emotionally, with decreased self-esteem and behavioral problems in childhood. Favoritism is a reason for the next generation not to like each other.
Experts say it is not realistic to say everyone should be treated equally, because no two people are the same and they relate differently to others.
“It does not mean that parent loves or likes one child more. It has to do with which one of them is independent,” says psychologist Laurie Kramer of the University of Illinois.The study carried out by Susan shows that ______.
| A．showing favoritism is common in many families |
| B．most mothers like their sons better than their daughters |
| C．only two-thirds of the women interviewed have more than a child |
| D．it is a favoritism that leads to absence of harmony in most families |
The underlined word “extroverted” in the third paragraph means _______.
| A．independent | B．outgoing | C．clever | D．brave |
What can we infer from the passage?
| A．Favoritism is not beneficial to the development of children |
| B．Parents’ favoritism to a certain child can’t be avoided in families |
| C．Parents may be favoring one of their children and don’t realize it |
| D．People are very much shaped by how they were treated by their parents |
What is the best title for the passage?
| A．Parents’ favoritism can affect children deeply |
| B．Why do parents show favoritism to children? |
| C．Parents should give attention to all their children |
| D．Building a harmonious family is important to children |
C
If you are a male and you are reading this, congratulations: you are a survivor. According to statistics, you are more than twice as likely to die of skin cancer than a woman, and nine times more likely to die of AIDS. Assuming you make it to the end of your natural term, about 78 years for men in Australia, you will die on average five years before a woman.
There are many reasons for this, typically, men take more risks than women and are more likely to drink and smoke but perhaps more importantly, men don’t go to the doctor.
“Men aren’t seeing doctors as often as they should,” says Dr. Gullotta, “This is particularly so for the over-40s, when diseases tend to strike.”
Gullotta says a healthy man should visit the doctor every year or two. For those over 45, it should be at least once a year.
Two months ago, Gullotta saw a 50-year-old man who had delayed doing anything about his smoker’s cough for a year.
“When I finally saw him it had already spread and he has since died from lung cancer,” he says, “Earlier detection and treatment may not have cured him, but it would have prolonged his life.”
According to a recent survey, 95% of women aged between 15 and early 40s see a doctor once a year, compared to 70% of men in the same age group.
“A lot of men think they are invincible(不可战胜的),” Gullotta says. “They only come in when a friend drops dead on the golf course and they think, “Geez, if it could happen to him, __________.”
Then there is the ostrich approach, “some men are scared of what might be there and would rather not know,” says Dr. Ross Cartmill.
“Most men get their cars serviced more regularly than they service their bodies,” Cartmill says. He believes most diseases that commonly affect men could be addressed by preventive check-ups.
“Regular check-ups for men would inevitably place strain(紧张) on the public purse,” Cartmill says. “But prevention is cheaper in the long run than having to treat the diseases. Besides, the ultimate cost is far greater: it is called premature death.”
65..Why does the author congratulate his male readers at the beginning of the passage?
A. They are more likely to survive serious diseases today.
B. Their average life span has been considerably extended.
C. They have lived long enough to read this article.
D. They are sure to enjoy a longer and happier life.
66. What is the most important reason why men die five years earlier on average than women according to the author?
A. men drink and smoke much more than women
B. men don’t seek medical care as often as women
C. men aren’t as cautious as women in face of danger
D. men are more likely to suffer from fatal diseases
67. Which of the following best completes the sentence “Geez, if it could happen to him, _______”?
A. it could happen to me, too B. I should avoid playing golf
C. I should consider myself lucky D. it would be a big misfortune
68. What does Dr. Ross Cartmill mean by “the ostrich approach”?
A. a casual attitude towards one’s health conditions
B. a new therapy for certain psychological problems
C. refusal to get medical treatment for fear of the pain involved
D. unwillingness to find out about one’s disease because of fear
B
Students’ Insurance
What Is Covered under Contents?
Under the “Contents” section your possessions---which you do not have to be listed---will be protected on “new for old” basis where items will be replaced as new---regardless of their age or condition.
“Contents” include books, radios, audio and video players, TVs, jewellery, home computers, furniture, household goods, other electrical equipment and sports equipment. They will be insured as follows:
Theft
Fire, Lighting, Explosion
Malicious(恶意)Damage
Storm, Flood and other natural disasters
But new-for-old cover does not include clothing and linen.
Where Does Cover Apply?
Anywhere in Australia whether in:
Your Living Place While at College
Your Parents’ Home or Any Temporary Residence(临时住处)---where you are staying when away from College
Your College or Students’ Union Building
College Storage during Vacations
Plus The Following Benefits Included Free
Loss or Damage to:
Gas, water and electricity meters and telephones---up to$300
TVs and videos rented in your name
Library books---up to $300
Daily things bought---up to $500 as to cover described under “Contents”
College or Landlord’s Possessions in your rooms by Fire or Theft (if you are legally responsible---up to $2,000)
Personal Money: from your room---up to $60
PLUS fraudulent(欺诈)use of your Credit Card---up to $1,000
61. If you lose an old video player, the insurance company will _____.
A. replace it with a new one B. pay you up to $30 in insurance
C. pay you nothing for it is old D. replace it with a used one
62. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?
A. Your household goods will not be insured due to natural disasters.
B. Your computer is insured when you are away from college.
C. You can be paid $2,000 for fraudulent use of your Credit Card.
D. Your rented car is completely insured if it is damaged.
63. All of the following are included in the insurance project except _____.
A. audio and video players, TV B. jewellery, library books
C. clothing, linen and cars D. furniture, home computers
64. It can be inferred from the passage that _____.
A. if you lose a radio you can get another one
B. if you have your possessions stolen outside Australia they are not insured
C. if a fire breaks out in your room you can get everything back
D. if your jewellery is stolen you will be paid as much as $300
第三部分：阅读理解（共13小题；每小题2分，满分26分）
请认真阅读下列短文，从短文后各题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题纸上将该项涂黑。
A
America is a mobile society. Friendships between Americans can be close and real, yet disappear soon if situations change. Neither side feels hurt by this. Both may exchange Christmas greetings for a year or two, perhaps a few letters for a while — then no more. If the same two people meet again by chance, even years later, they pick up the friendship. This can be quite difficult for us Chinese to understand, because friendships between us flower more slowly but then may become lifelong feelings, extending (延伸) sometimes deeply into both families.
Americans are ready to receive us foreigners at their homes, share their holidays, and their home life. They will enjoy welcoming us and be pleased if we accept their hospitality (好客) easily.
Another difficult point for us Chinese to understand Americans is that although they include us warmly in their personal everyday lives, they don’t show their politeness to us if it requires a great deal of time. This is usually the opposite of the practice in our country where we may be generous with our time. Sometimes, we, as hosts, will appear at airports even in the middle of the night to meet a friend. We may take days off to act as guides to our foreign friends. The Americans, however, express their welcome usually at homes, but truly can not manage the time to do a great deal with a visitor outside their daily routine. They will probably expect us to get ourselves from the airport to our own hotel by bus. And they expect that we will phone them from there. Once we arrive at their homes, the welcome will be full, warm and real. We will find ourselves treated hospitably.
For the Americans, it is often considered more friendly to invite a friend to their homes than to go to restaurants, except for purely business matters. So accept their hospitality at home!
56. The writer of this passage must be ______.
A. an American B. a Chinese C. a professor D. a student
57. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?
A. Friendships between Americans usually extend deeply into their families.
B. Friendships between Americans usually last for all their lives.
C. Americans always show their warmth even if they are very busy.
D. Americans will continue their friendships again even after a long break.
58. From the last two paragraphs we can learn that when we arrive in America to visit an American friend, we will probably be ______.
A. warmly welcomed at the airport B. offered a ride to his home
C. treated hospitably at his home D. treated to dinner in a restaurant
59. The underlined words “generous with our time” in Paragraph 3 probably mean ______.
A. strict with time B. serious with time C. careful with time D. willing to spend time
60. A suitable title for this passage would probably be “______”.
A. Friendships between Chinese B. Friendships between Americans
C. Americans’ hospitality D. Americans’ and Chinese’s views of friendships
D 
It was Sunday morning. All the summer world was bright and fresh, and full of life. There was cheer on every face and a spring in every step. Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He stopped by the fence in front of the house where he lived with his aunt Polly. He looked at it, and all joy left him. The fence was long and high. He put the brush into the whitewash and moved it along the top of the fence. He repeated the operation. He felt he could not continue and sat down. He knew that his friends would arrive soon with all kinds of interesting plans for the day. They would walk past him and laugh. They would make jokes about his having to work on a beautiful summer Saturday. The thought burned him like fire. He put his hand into his pockets and took out all that he owned. Perhaps he could find some way to pay someone to do the whitewashing for him. But there was nothing of value in his pockets—nothing that could buy even half an hour of freedom. So he put the bits of toys back into his pockets and gave up the idea. At this dark and hopeless moment, a wonderful idea came to him. It filled his mind with a great, bright light. Calmly he picked up the brush and started again to whitewash. While Tom was working, Ben Rogers appeared. Ben was eating an apple as he walked along the street. As he walked along, he was making noises like the sound of a riverboat. First he shouted loudly, like a boat captain. Then he said “Ding-Dong-Dong”, “Ding-Dong-Dong” again and again, like the bell of a riverboat. And he made other strange noises. When he came close to Tom, he stopped.Tom went on whitewashing. He did not look at Ben. Ben stared a moment and then said: "Hello! I’m going swimming, but you can’t go, can you?” No answer. Tom moved his brush carefully along the fence and looked at the result with the eye of an artist. Ben came nearer. Tom's mouth watered for the apple, but he kept on working. Ben said, "Hello, old fellow, you’ve got to work, hey?" Tom turned suddenly and said, "Why, it's you, Ben! I wasn't noticing." "Say — I'm going swimming. Don't you wish you could? But of course you’d rather work — wouldn't you? Of course you would." Tom looked at the boy a bit, and said "What do you call work?" "Why, isn't that work?" Tom went back to his whitewashing, and answered casually, "Well, maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. All I know is, it suits Tom Sawyer." "Oh come, now, you don't mean to say that you like it?" The brush continued to move. "Like it? Well, I don't see why I shouldn’t like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?" Ben stopped eating his apple. Tom moved his brush back and forth, stepped back to look at the result, added a touch here and there, and stepped back again. Ben watched every move and got more and more interested. Soon he said, "Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little." Tom thought for a moment, was about to agree; but he changed his mind: "No — no — it won’t do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly wants this fence to be perfect. It has got to be done very carefully. I don’t think there is one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it well enough." "No — is that so? Oh come, now —let me just try. Only just a little." "Ben, I'd like to, but if it isn’t done right, I’m afraid Aunt Polly— " "Oh, I'll be careful. Now let me try. Say -- I'll give you the core（核心）of my apple." "Well, here — No, Ben, now don't. I'm afraid —" "I'll give you all of it." Tom gave up the brush with unwillingness on his face, but joy in his heart. And while Ben worked at the fence in the hot sun, Tom sat under a tree, eating the apple, and planning how to get more help. There were enough boys. Each one came to laugh, but remained to whitewash. By the time Ben was tired, Tom sold the next chance to Billy for a kite; and when Billy was tired, Johnny bought in for a dead rat — and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, Tom had won many treasures And he had not worked. He had had a nice idle time all the time, with plenty of company -- and the fence had been whitewashed three times. If he hadn't run out of whitewash, Tom would have owned everything belonging to his friends. He had discovered a great law of human action, namely, that in order to make a man or a boy want a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to get. 68．Tom was about to agree to let Ben whitewash when he changed his mind because ______ . A. Tom wanted to do the whitewashing by himself B. Tom was unwilling to let Ben do the whitewashing C. Tom was afraid Ben would do the whitewashing better D. Tom didn’t want to let Ben do the whitewashing before he made him give up his apple first 69．The underlined word “casually” is most similar to “______” in meaning. A. carelessly B. delightedly C. seriously D. angrily 70．We can learn from the passage that ______ . A. Tom was interested in whitewashing the fence. B. Tom had a lot of friends who are ready to help others. C. Tom was unwilling to whitewash the fence, but he managed to let other boys do it for him D. Tom was good at whitewashing the fence, so he looked at the result of his work with the eye of an artist.
C
Imagine a world in which there was suddenly no emotion--a world in which human beings could feel no love or happiness, no terror or hate. Try to imagine the consequences of such a transformation. People might not be able to stay alive: knowing neither joy nor pleasure, anxiety nor fear, they would be as likely to repeat acts that hurt them as acts that were beneficial. They could not learn: they could not benefit from experience because this emotionless world would lack rewards and punishments. Society would soon disappear: people would be as likely to harm one another as to provide help and support. Human relationships would not exist: in a world without friends or enemies, there could be no marriage, affection among companions, or bonds (关系) among members of groups. Society's economic underpinnings (支柱) would be destroyed: since earning $10 million would be no more pleasant than earning $10, there would be no incentive to work. In fact, there would be no incentives(刺激,动力) of any kind, for as we will see, incentives imply a capacity to enjoy them.
In such a world, the chances that the human species would survive are next to zero, because emotions are the basic instrument of our survival and adaptation. Emotions structure the world for us in important ways. As individuals, we categorize objects on the basis of our emotions. True, we consider the length, shape, size, or texture, but an object's physical aspects are less important than what it has done or can do to us--hurt us, surprise us, anger us or make us joyful. We also use categorizations colored by emotions in our families, communities, and overall society. Out of our emotional experiences with objects and events comes a social feeling of agreement that certain things and actions are "good" and others are "bad”, and we apply these categories to every aspect of our social life--from what foods we eat and what clothes we wear to how we keep promises and which people our group will accept. In fact, society uses our emotional reactions and attitudes, such as loyalty morality, pride shame, guilt, fear and greed, in order to maintain itself. It gives high rewards to individuals who perform important tasks such as surgery, makes heroes out of individuals for unusual or dangerous achievements such as flying fighter planes in a war, and uses the legal penal (刑法的) system to make people afraid to engage in antisocial acts.
64. Which of the following is Right according to the first paragraph?
A. People would not be able to tell the texture of objects.
B. People would not know what was beneficial and what was harmful to them.
C. $10 million is equal to $10 in a world without emotions.
D. There would be full of lies, arguments and violence.
65. It can be inferred from the passage that the economic foundation of society is dependent on _______.
A. the ability to make money B. the capacity to work
C. the stimulus to work D. the categorizations of our emotional experiences
66. Why are the emotional aspects of an object more important than its physical aspects?
A. They help society use its members for profit.
B. They encourage us to perform important tasks.
C. They help to perfect the legal and penal system.
D. They help us adapt our behavior to the world surrounding us.
67. What is the text mainly about?
A. People could only live in a world with emotions.
B. People would always do bad things in the emotionless world.
C. Emotions are very important in the world.
D. Emotions structure the world for us in important ways.
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