St James’s Palace has announced that while Miss Middleton will wear a wedding ring．Prince William has chosen not to．
Rings are typically exchanged by couples during their wedding to represent commitment （承诺）to each other．Does it matter if husbands don’t wear a wedding ring?
Prince William’s father wears one, his grandfather doesn’t and their decisions weren’t seen as strange．But reactions to Prince William’s decision show that wedding rings for husbands are now the norm．One young man, who spoke to the BBC, thinks William is setting a bad example, saying: "I think it’s disgraceful （不光彩的）．It’s a tradition．You have to wear a ring really．And for someone of the royal family to do that, it’s not right．"
Broadly speaking, modem husbands tend to wear their wedding rings as a symbol of loyalty and faithfulness．So not wearing one can seem unusual or even dishonest to some, although men haven’t always worn them．
The wearing of wedding rings has been the done thing for centuries among wives but only became common practice among husbands during World War II．Men fighting overseas usually wore them as a reminder of wives and families back home．
Wearing rings is a safety issue（问题） for men in certain manual jobs．But how does William explain his decision? A royal officer has said he "isn’t one for jewelry"．According to the passage, which of the following statements is TRUE?
| A．There is going to be a royal exhibition of jewelry． |
| B．Wearing rings among husbands and wives is tradition at all times． |
| C．All the male members of British royalty don’t wear wedding rings． |
| D．Wearing rings is a safety guarantee for some manual jobs． |
What is the author’s attitude towards Prince William’s decision?
| A．Subjective． | B．Objective． | C．Approving． | D．Disappointed． |
By saying "he isn’t one for jewelry", the royal officers meant that _____．
| A．Prince William is a person who doesn’t like wearing jewelry． |
| B．Prince William isn’t a person who is crazy about collecting jewelry． |
| C．Prince William considers jewelry penniless． |
| D．Prince William doesn’t wear a wedding ring for safety． |
What would be the best title for this passage?
| A．To Wear Wedding Rings or Not |
| B．Complaint about British Royal Disgraceful Behavior] |
| C．The History of Wearing Wedding Rings |
| D．No Ring for Wills |
Planning a visit to the UK? Here we help with ways to cut your costs.
AVOID BIG EVENTS Big sporting events, concerts and exhibitions can increase the cost of accommodation and make it harder to find a room. A standard double room at the Thistle Brighton on the final Friday of the Brighton Comedy Festival(19 Oct.) cost £169. 15 at Booking.com. A week later, the same room cost£ 118.15
If you can be flexible and want to know dates to avoid—or you’re looking for a big event to pass your time—check out sites such as Whatsonwhen.com, which allow you to search for events in the UK by city, date and category.
STAYAWAY FROM THE STATIONIf traveling to your destination by train, you may want to find a good base close to the station, but you could end up paying more for the sake of convenience at the start of your holiday.
Don’t be too choosy about the part of town you stay in. Booking two months in advance, the cheapest room at Travelodge’s Central Euston hotel inLondonfor Saturday 22 September was £95.95. A room just a tube journey away at itsCovent Gardenhotel was £75.75. And at Farringdon, a double room cost just £62.95.
LOOK AFTER YOURSELFReally central hotels in cities such asLondon,EdinburghandCardiffcan cost a fortune, especially at weekends and during big events. As an alternative consider checking into a self-catering flat with its own kitchen. Often these flats are hidden away on the top floors of city centre buildings. A great example is the historic O’Neill Flat onEdinburgh’s Royal Mile, available for £420 for five days in late September, with room for four adults.
GET ON A BIKELondon’s ‘Boris bikes’ have attracted the most attention, but other cities also have similar programmes that let you rent a bicycle and explore at your own pace, saving you on public transport or car parking costs.
Among the smaller cities with their own programmes areNewcastle(casual members pay around £1.50 for two hours) andCardiff(free for up to 30 minutes, or £5 per day).
TheBrightonComedy Festival is mentioned mainly to show big events may __________.
| A．help travelers pass time |
| B．attract lots of travelers to theUK |
| C．allow travelers to make flexible plans |
| D．cause travelers to pay more for accommodation |
“Farringdon” in Paragraph 5 is most probably __________.
| A．an ideal holiday destination |
| B．the tube line toCovent Garden |
| C．a hotel away from the train station |
| D．the name of a travel agency |
The passage shows that the O’Neill Flat __________.
| A．lies on the ground floor |
| B．is located in centralLondon |
| C．provides cooking facilities for tourists |
| D．costs over £100 on average per day in late September |
Cardiff’s program allows a free bike for a maximum period of __________.
| A．half an hour | B．one hour |
| C．one hour and a half | D．two hours |
The main purpose of the passage is __________.
| A．to tell visitors how to book in advance |
| B．to supply visitors with hotel information |
| C．to offer visitors some money-saving tips |
| D．to show visitors the importance of self-help |
Many people think that listening is a passive business. It is just the opposite. Listening well is an active exercise of our attention and hard work. It is because they do not realize this, or because they are not willing to do the work, that most people do not listen well.
Listening well also requires total concentration upon someone else. An essential part of listening well is the rule known as ‘bracketing’. Bracketing includes the temporary giving up or setting aside of your own prejudices and desires, to experience as far as possible someone else’s world from the inside, stepping into his or her shoes. Moreover, since listening well involves bracketing, it also involves a temporary acceptance of the other person. Sensing this acceptance, the speaker will seem quite willing to open up the inner part of his or her mind to the listener. True communication is under way and the energy required for listening well is so great that it can be accomplished only by the will to extend oneself for mutual growth.
Most of the time we lack this energy. Even though we may feel in our business dealings or social relationships that we are listening well, what we are usually doing is listening selectively. Often we have a prepared list in mind and wonder, as we listen, how we can achieve certain desired results to get the conversation over as quickly as possible or redirected in ways more satisfactory to us. Many of us are far more interested in talking than in listening, or we simply refuse to listen to what we don’t want to hear.
It wasn’t until toward the end of my doctor career that I have found the knowledge that one is being truly listened to is frequently therapeutic(有疗效的). In about a quarter of the patients I saw, surprising improvement was shown during the first few months of psychotherapy (心理疗法), before any of the roots of problems had been uncovered or explained. There are several reasons for this phenomenon, but chief among them, I believe, was the patient’s sense that he or she was being truly listened to, often for the first time in years, and for some, perhaps for the first time ever.The phrase “stepping into his or her shoes” in paragraph 2 probably means _____.
| A．preparing a topic list first |
| B．focusing on one’s own mind |
| C．directing the talk to the desired results |
| D．experiencing the speaker’s inside world |
What is mainly discussed in Paragraph 2 ?
| A．How to listen well. | B．What to listen to. |
| C．Benefits of listening. | D．Problems in listening |
According to the author , in communication people tend to ________.
| A．listen actively | B．set aside their prejudices |
| C．listen purposefully | D．open up their inner mind |
According to the author , the patients improved mainly because _______.
| A．they were taken good care of |
| B．they had partners to talk to |
| C．they knew they were truly listened to |
| D．they knew the roots of problems |
What type of writing is the article likely to be ?
| A．Science fiction | B．A news report |
| C．A medical report | D．Popular science |
The view over a valley of a tiny village with thatched (草盖的) roof cottages around a church; a drive through a narrow village street lined with thatched cottages painted pink or white; the sight over the rolling hills of a pretty collection of thatched farm buildings—these are still common sights in parts of England. Most people will agree that the thatched roof is an essential part of the attraction of the English countryside.
Thatching is in fact the oldest of all the building crafts practiced in the British Isles(英伦诸岛). Although thatch has always been used for cottage and farm buildings, it was once used for castles and churches too.
Thatching is a solitary (独立的) craft, which often runs in families. The craft of thatching as it is practiced today has changed very little since the Middle Ages. Over 800 full-time thatchers are employed in England and Wales today, maintaining and renewing the old roofs as well as thatching newer houses. Many property owners choose thatch not only for its beauty but because they know it will keep them cool in summer and warm in winter.
In fact, if we look at developing countries, over half the world lives under thatch, but they all do it in different ways. People in developing countries are often reluctant to go back to traditional materials and would prefer modern buildings. However, they may lack the money to allow them to import the necessary materials. Their temporary mud huts with thatched roofs of wild grasses often only last six months. Thatch which has been done the British way lasts from twenty to sixty years, and is an effective defiance against the heat. Which of the following remains a unique feature against the heat_______.
| A．Narrow streets lined with pink or white houses. |
| B．Rolling hills with pretty farm buildings. |
| C．Cottages with thatched roofs. |
| D．Churches with cottages around them. |
What do we know about thatching as a craft?
| A．It is a collective activity. |
| B．It is practised on farms all over England. |
| C．It is quite different from what it used to be. |
| D．It is in most cases handed down among family members. |
People in developing countries also live under thatch because .
| A．thatched cottages are a big tourist attraction |
| B．thatched roof houses are the cheapest |
| C．thatch is an effective defense against the heat |
| D．they like thatched houses better than other buildings |
We can learn from the passage that .
| A．thatched cottages in England have been passed down from ancient times. |
| B．thatching is a building craft first created by the English people. |
| C．the English people have a special liking for thatched houses. |
| D．most thatched cottage in England are located on hillsides. |
What happens inside the skull of a soccer player who repeatedly heads a soccer ball? That question motivated a challenging new study of the brains of experienced players that has caused discussion and debate among soccer players, and some anxiety among those of us with soccer-playing children.
For the study, researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York selected 34 adults, men and women. All of the volunteers had played soccer since childhood and now competed year-round in adult soccer leagues. Each filled out a detailed questionnaire developed especially for this study to determine how many times they had headed a soccer ball in the previous year, as well as whether they had experienced any known concussions (脑震荡) in the past.
Then the players completed computerized tests of their memory and other learning skills and had their brains scanned, using a complicated new M.R.I. technique which can find structural changes in the brain that can’t be seen during most scans.
According to the data they presented at a Radiological Society of North America meeting last month, the researchers found that the players who had headed the ball more than about 1,100 times in the previous 12 months showed significant loss of white matter in parts of their brains involved with memory, attention and the processing of visual information, compared with players who had headed the ball fewer times.
This pattern of white matter loss is “similar to those seen in traumatic (外伤的) brain injury”, like that after a serious concussion, the researchers reported, even though only one of these players was reported to have ever experienced a concussion.
The players who had headed the ball about 1,100 times or more in the past year were also generally worse at recalling lists of words read to them, forgetting or fumbling the words far more often than players who had headed the ball less.The passage is most probably a______.
| A．news report |
| B．research report |
| C．story for soccer players |
| D．text for doctors |
In which way can we find the structural changes in the brain?
| A．Computerized test. | B．Questionnaire.. |
| C．Scanning. | D．M.R.I. technique. |
From the passage we can conclude that frequent heading may have_____.
| A．significant effect on brain |
| B．little effect on one’s brain |
| C．nothing to do with the brain injury |
| D．one’s memory improved |
The underlined word "fumbling" is closest in meaning to______.
| A．remembering | B．misunderstanding |
| C．recalling | D．missing |
The associates I hired in my bicycle and lawn mower shop like myself were never perfect; however, they were excellent. Working with them as they improved taught me new ways to show forgiveness, understanding, and patience.
One day the placement officer asked me to interview a young man who was having trouble finding a job. He told me that David was a little shy, did not talk much and was afraid to go on with interviews. He requested that I give David an interview just for practice. He plainly told David that I had no positions open at the time and the interview was just for practice.
When David came in for the interview, he hardly said a word. I told him what we did at the bicycle shop and showed him around. I told David to keep showing up because the number one thing an employer wanted in an associate was dependability.
David was very quiet ( he was evaluated as a slow learner in school). Every ten days or so, for weeks after the interview, David walked into the bicycle shop and stood by the front door. He never said a word, just stood by the door.
One day, shortly before Christmas, a large truck came to the shop, packed with 250 new bicycles. It had to be unloaded right away or the driver would leave.
It was raining. Some of my workers (without physical limitations) chose not to brave the weather to get into work, so I was short-handed. It seemed everything was going wrong and on top of it, David came in the front door and just stood there. I looked at him and shouted, “Well, all right! Fill out a time card and help me unload this truck!”
David worked for my bicycle shop for eighteen years. He came to work every day thirty minutes early. He could talk; however, he rarely chose to. He drove my truck and made deliveries. The customers would praise David, saying, “He doesn’t talk, but he really shows you how to operate a lawn mower!”The author gave David an interview to _______
| A．find a person who is reliable |
| B．find a part-time worker in need |
| C．give him some practice |
| D．show sympathy for him |
The author finally hired David because________
| A．there were no other workers in the shop then |
| B．he needed someone who was willing to work then |
| C．David kept showing up |
| D．he realized David was dependable |
We can infer from the last paragraph that_______
| A．some customers just play jokes on David |
| B．David has had his character changed through work |
| C．the author prefers David to be more outgoing源:Z。xx。k.Com] |
| D．the author feels lucky to hire David |
The author’s tone in describing David is full of ______
| A．pity | B．wonder |
| C．disappointment | D．appreciation |
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