Who says Americans worship the almighty (全能的) dollar? It's not true. Having enough free time is more important to most Americans than being rich, according to a new survey.
Only 13 percent of more than 2,400 people questioned in the telephone survey ranked being wealthy as most important to them, while 67 percent ranked free time as their top priority (优先考虑的事), higher than having a successful career, getting married, and having children. "Everyone wants free time to do the things they want to do, young, middle-aged or old," said Richard Morin, of the Pew Social ~ Demographic Trends Project, which conducted the survey. "So our desire to play unites us."
The survey also showed that people who were educated in university valued career success over wealth, so did middle-aged people. Not surprisingly, those who didn't have money, ranked wealth very highly. This included minorities, first generation Americans and less educated people. The survey also revealed that a disproportionate (不成比例的) number of people under the age of 30 and retired people in the group made $ 20,000 or less a year. But the emphasis on wealth lessens with age, with younger people putting value on it but hardly any seniors. "It just diminishes (减弱) with time as the reality sets in that you would never be rich," Morin said. "But also, as for old people the reality sets in that you don't have to be rich to lead a very comfortable and fulfilling life. "
While wealth was not at the top of people's list of priorities, 43 percent still said it was somewhat important.The survey showed that the majority of American people ranked ______ as the most important.
| A．wealth | B．a successful career | C．marriage | D．free time |
Who cares least for wealth, according to the passage?
| A．Young people | B．First generation Americans |
| C．Old people | D．Less-educated people |
According to the survey, what did middle-aged people regard as more important?
| A．success in career | B．education level | C．wealth | D．comfort |
What is the belief of old people according to the third paragraph?
| A．Wealth is as important to the old as health. |
| B．One needs to put money away for his retired life. |
| C．One doesn't have to be rich to live a satisfying life. |
| D．One would never get rich until he retires. |
I was in my third year of teaching creative writing at a high school in New York, when one of my students, 15-year-old Mikey, gave me a note from his mother. It explained his absence from class the day before.
I had seen Mikey himself writing the note at his desk. Most parental-excuse notes I received were penned by my students. If I were to deal with them, I’d be busy 24 hours a day.
The forged excuse notes made a large pile(堆), with writing that ranged from imaginative to crazy. The writers of those notes didn’t realize that honest excuse notes were usually dull: “Peter was late because the alarm clock didn’t go off.”
Isn’t it remarkable, I thought, how the students complained and said it was hard to put 200 words together on any subject? But when they produced excuse notes, they were brilliant.
So one day I typed out a dozen excuse notes and gave them to my classes. I said, “They’re supposed to be written by parents, but actually they are not. True, Mikey?” The students looked at me nervously.
“Now, this will be the first class to study the art of the excuse note—the first class, ever, to practice writing them. You’re so lucky to have a teacher like me who has taken your best writing and turned it into a subject worth studying.”
Everyone smiled as I went on, “You used your imaginations. So try more now. Today I’d like you to write ‘An Excuse Note from Adam to God’ or ‘An Excuse Note from Eve to God’. ” Heads went down. Pens raced across paper. For the first time ever I saw students so careful in their writing that they had to be asked to go to lunch by their friends.
The next day everyone had excuse notes. Heated discussions followed. The headmaster entered the classroom and walked up and down, looking at papers, and then said, “I’d like you to see me in my office.”
When I stepped into his office, he came to shake my hand and said, “I just want to tell you that that lesson, that task, whatever the hell you were doing, was great. Those kids were writing on the college level. Thank you.”What did the author do with the students found dishonest?
| A．He reported them to the headmaster. |
| B．He lectured them hard on honesty. |
| C．He had them take notes before lunch. |
| D．He helped improve their writing skills. |
The author had the students practice writing excuse notes so that the students could learn ______.
| A．the importance of being honest |
| B．how to write excuse notes skillfully |
| C．the pleasure of creative writing |
| D．how to be creative in writing |
The underlined word “forged” in the second paragraph means“______”.
| A．dull | B．copied | C．dishonest | D．parental |
What did the headmaster think of the author’s way of teaching?
| A．Excellent. | B．Difficult. | C．Incorrect. | D．Reasonable. |
Earlier this year I traveled to Turkana in Kenya. I was there to take pictures of the “broken food system”.
As a special visitor, I was greeted with songs and dances. The locals used to sing and dance all the time but now Turkana is silent and has been for some years. No one is singing or dancing any more because they have no food, nothing to celebrate. Many of them are surviving on a little corn a day and water, which they can get just every two days.
I met Tede Lokapelo, a local farmer who described the experience of a six-year drought(干旱). Tede used to have 200 goats, but now he has only seven left. He told me that this drought has taught him a hard lesson: It is too difficult to keep animals. He lives on animals. His traditional way of life has been completely destroyed now. Without the food aid(援助) they got, Tede is certain that they would starve because there are no other ways to feed themselves left.
Sadly, the same can be heard in almost any developing country around the world. Almost one billion people go to bed hungry each night. The food system is broken. In Turkana, not enough rain has fallen since 2005. They measure(测量) rainfall not in days or weeks but in minutes. More and more people are being forced to rely on food aid, but people like Tede don’t want food aid. They want to work and develop their country. It’s our responsibility(责任) to change the situation so that they can support themselves.
Drought is impossible to avoid but famine(饥荒) is manmade, and unless enough money is provided to develop a basic infrastructure(基础设施) for people in the area, thousands more lives are sure to be lost. Why do people in Turkana no longer sing or dance any more?
| A．Because they have no time. |
| B．Because they are tired of them. |
| C．Because they are always hungry. |
| D．Because they have other interesting things to do. |
During the drought Tede had experienced, ______of his goats were killed.
| A．200 | B．193 | C．7 | D．6 |
Which of the following is NOT true about Tede Lokapelo?
| A．He was a farmer in Kenya. |
| B．He has never received any food aid. |
| C．His traditional way of life ha s been changed. |
| D．He found it hard to raise animals after the drought. |
What’s the author’s purpose in writing the text?
| A．To show drought is serious in the world. |
| B．To tell readers the serious situation of food shortage(短缺). |
| C．To ask more people to give food aid to people in Kenya. |
| D．To make it clear what is the right way to help people suffering from drought. |
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 |
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