When I spent Christmas away from home in Europe for the first time, I was only 14 and it was absolutely horrific. I am now married and live in the US. So there is little possibility for me to go home for Christmas. Now I am able to get through Christmas with some moments of joy:
First, you are advised to search you area for stores that carry items from your home country or town. Buy food, candles and some other things that mean something to you.
Hold on to the traditions from your home that you think are important even if other people think they are stupid. But keep in mind to be open for new traditions from wherever you might be, because those traditions are as important to those people around you as yours are to you. For me that includes celebrating Christmas on the 24th.
Call, write Christmas cards, buy gifts and mail them to loved ones, just as if you were there. If you try to pretend as if the holiday doesn’t exist, you are just going to make it worse.
Introduce your traditions to your loved ones, especially your kids. It will only enrich their celebration of the holiday to have some unique traditions in their home. Little by little it will become their tradition and it’s fun for them to try something new.
Find clubs, churches or organizations that are from your home country. Chances are that they will have some celebration with some of your traditions which you can join in.
Food is one of the most important factors in any kind of tradition. Find the recipe of that cake your grandmother used and make it your tradition to bake that particular cake.
Call up your parents and get them to send you some of your favorite childhood ornaments (装饰品) for your tree.
Embrace new traditions, talk to your family about which ones you want to make your own and stick with them.
If you are far away from home, Christmas can never be the same as you experienced it before, but it is important to remember these traditions while appreciating the new ones. Keep an open mind and find a compromise between old and new traditons.The author spent his 14th Christmas ___________.
| A．unpleasantly in the US | B．joyfully in the US |
| C．unpleasantly in Europe | D．joyfully in Europe |
Why does the author advise people to hunt in some special stores?
| A．Because people can buy some discounted goods there. |
| B．Because people can feel less homesick there. |
| C．Because it’s an old Christmas tradition. |
| D．Because they offer goods from the hometown of the people. |
Which of the following statements does the author agree with?
| A．It’s great for children to have some unique traditions. |
| B．People should join in all kinds of clubs to celebrate Christmas. |
| C．People should give up traditions which are stupid in other people’s eyes. |
| D．It is popular to celebrate Christmas on the 24th around the world. |
The author suggests giving a call to parents on Christmas mainly to __________.
| A．express love to them | B．follow the tradition |
| C．ask for some ornaments | D．set an example for children |
Thanks to a young waiter, I recently found a friend of 20 years was once a yo-yo virtuoso（大师）.
“Oh, stop it!” Jackie said when I started laughing during our dinner. “I was, too. And I knew how to ‘Walk the Dog.’”
“Wow, really?” said our waiter, Jumario Simmons, flashing a big smile at us.
“Don’t encourage her,” I said.
“What else could you do?” he asked.
“I did ‘Round the World,’” Jackie said, now ignoring me completely. “That was cradle（婴儿时期的）thing, too.”
I’d asked Jumario what he did when he wasn’t waiting on tables. The 24-year-old waiter was so smart that I knew there had to be more to his story. It turns out that he won a regional yo-yo competition last year. He also gives free lessons to kids. “It gives them something to do,” Jumario said. “Keeps them off the streets.”
One of the great things about eating out is the table talk with strangers, which reminds us that everyone has a life and a name. But the other day I heard that some restaurants are ending this talk between diners and servers. I listened to the reporter describe how their improvements are allowing customers to text orders from their tables to speed up service.
The reporter got my attention with this sentence “Five minutes after typing ‘I’m at table 3’, a meal arrives at the table.” But there wasn’t a “please” with this order, which should have been a request. If you’ve ever waited on tables, you know that the last thing you need is yet another way for a customer to be unpleasant.
Most servers are often mediating（调解）between customers’ requests for substitutions and overworked cooks’ accusations of treason（背叛）. Except at high-end restaurants, servers also have to walk back and forth like mothers of preschoolers so that we might consider them worthy of a large enough tip to lift their pay to minimum wage.
Texting a server from a table a few feet away is equal to moving our fingers and shouting, “Hey, you!” It was rude in 1957, and it’s rude now. You won’t ever find me texting a waiter or waitress.What do we know from the text?
| A．The waiter knows Jackie well. |
| B．The waiter is good at playing yo-yo. |
| C．Jackie plays yo-yo in her spare time. |
| D．The author has a great interest in playing yo-yo. |
Some restaurants allow diners to text a server from a table to ________.
| A．improve their service |
| B．reduce the cost of service |
| C．show respect for diners |
| D．stop talks between diners and servers |
What’s the last but one paragraph mainly about?
| A．The pay of servers. |
| B．The work of servers. |
| C．The customers’ request. |
| D．The work of mothers of preschoolers. |
From the passage, the author’s attitude towards texting a server from a table is ________.
| A．indifferent | B．positive |
| C．curious | D．negative |
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Academic Earth
It has linked to over 750 online courses and 8,500 individual online lectures, giving students of all ages access to college courses they may otherwise never experience. Whether learning existing coursework, or learning for the sake of learning, anyone has the freedom to learn at their own pace from world-famous experts, without being charged more. Learn more at http://academicearth.com
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It offers courses in bioengineering, Japanese, legal studies and public health. Since they are recordings of actual lectures, they lack lecture notes and extra materials. However, each course has audio recordings of lectures via iTunes or video recordings of lectures via YouTube. Learn more at https://ucberkeley.comLearners who choose Skillfeed need to ________.
| A．equip themselves with the ability to use the computer |
| B．pay some fee if they want to continue after a month |
| C．have some knowledge of the design of website |
| D．learn to upload their own high-quality video |
We can learn from the passage that Academic Earth ________.
| A．charges learners nothing for any course |
| B．has many lectures given by 8,500 lecturers |
| C．provides college courses mainly to young men |
| D．offers college courses at the learners’ convenience |
If you want to improve your skill of Japanese language, you can visit ________.
| A．https://skillfeed.com |
| B．https://ucberkeley.com |
| C．https://udemy.com |
| D．https://iTunesU.com |
Money has always complicated our social lives. A question in October from a woman wondering whether she should attend her neighbors’ holiday parties broke my heart: “I am not able to do the same in return, and I just feel like a freeloader to do so，” she wrote. “I’m not even in a position this year to take an appropriate thankyou gift with me.” I told her to go, of course.
Meanwhile, hosts worried about the costs of entertaining — the hosts who write to me, anyway. On the other hand, the hosts that guests write to me about have taken some extreme measures to reduce the cost of their hospitality. These range from a dinner party where a relative of the host explained how expensive the steaks were and “rather pointedly suggested” that the letter writer “make a financial contribution” to the cost of dinner, to some Cape Cod homeowners who invited a couple to spend a weekend with them — as long as they brought their own food, bottled water, and toilet paper.
Weddings and other special events always create extra sources of stress, worsened by the fact that people rarely want to talk honestly about their money situations. One couple chose to have only a civil wedding ceremony for financial reasons and wondered how to tell people this without going into too much detail. A sixtysomething couple needed to cut back on Christmas gifts to their children but weren’t sure how to tell them about it. People who had been laid off wondered how to notify friends, respond to inquiries about their job search, and compete with former colleagues for positions.
If you are searching for the answers to them, write to me—an advice columnist.
The underlined word “freeloader” in the 1st paragraph showed the woman’s ________．
| A．disapproval | B．happiness |
| C．confusion | D．agreement |
What bothered the hosts mentioned in Paragraph 2 most in their social lives?
| A．Steaks. | B．Entertainment. |
| C．Cost. | D．Thankyou gifts. |
What would you be expected to do if you were invited to spend a weekend with some Cape Cod homeowners?
| A．Ask someone for advice. |
| B．Get your food and water ready. |
| C．Bring a bottle of wine with you. |
| D．Make a financial contribution to the cost. |
What makes the social life even worse?
| A．Weddings and other social events. |
| B．Being laid off and notifying friends. |
| C．Cutting back the costs for lack of money. |
| D．Telling others about their financial troubles. |
Would you eat a ready meal from the fridge rather than cook from scratch? Have you been doing Internet shopping rather than going to the stores? What can’t you be bothered to do?
A study into how lazy British people are has found more than half of adults are so idle that they’d catch the lift rather than climb two flights of stairs.
Just over 2，000 people were quizzed by independent researchers at Nuffield Health, Britain’s largest health charity. The results were startling.
About one in six people surveyed said if their remote control was broken, they would continue watching the same channel rather than get up.
More than one third of those questioned said they would not run to catch a bus. Worryingly, of the 654 respondents with children, 64% said they were often too tired to play with them.
This led the report to conclude that it’s no wonder that one in six children in the UK are classified as obese before they start school. Dr Sarah Dauncey, medical director of Nuffield Health, said, “People need to get fitter, not just for their own sake, but for the sake of their families, friends and evidently their pets too. If we don’t start to take control of this problem, a whole generation will become too unfit to perform even the simple tasks.”
And Scotland’s largest city, Glasgow, was shamed as the most indolent city in the UK, with 75% surveyed admitting they do not get enough exercise, followed closely by Birmingham and Southampton, both with 67%.
The results pose serious challenges for the National Health Service, where obesityrelated illnesses such as heart disease and cancer have been on a steady increase for the past 40 years and are costing billions of pounds every year.
What do lazy British people probably choose to do?
| A．Go to stores. | B．Catch the lift. |
| C．Cook from scratch. | D．Climb flights of stairs. |
How many people surveyed don’t play with children because of tiredness?
| A．About 419. | B．About 333. |
| C．About 654. | D．About 1280. |
What is the potential result of more and more people, including children, getting obese?
| A．People will not get enough exercise. |
| B．People will not have enough money. |
| C．People will not be able to do the easy job. |
| D．People will not cure themselves of heart disease. |
What is the author’s attitude towards the finding of the study?
| A．Indifferent. | B．Doubtful. |
| C．Negative. | D．Supportive. |
Wilma Subra had no intention of becoming a public speaker. After graduating from college with degrees in chemistry and microbiology, she went to work at Gulf South Research Institute in Louisiana.
As part of her job, she conducted field research on toxic (poisonous) substances in the environment, often in minority communities located near large industrial polluters. She found many families were being exposed to high, sometimes deadly levels of chemicals and other toxic substances. But she was not allowed to make her information public.
Frustrated by these restrictions, Subra left her job in 1981, created her own company and has devoted the past two decades to helping people fight back against giant industrial polluters. She works with families and community groups to conduct environmental tests, interpret test results, and organize for change.
Because of her efforts, dozens of toxic sites across the country have been cleaned up. And one chemical industry spokesperson calls her “a_top_gun” for the environmental movement.
How has Subra achieved all this? Partly through her scientific training.Partly through her commitment to environmental justice. But just as important is her ability to communicate with people through public speaking. “Public speaking，” she says, “is the primary vehicle I use for reaching people.”
If you had asked Subra before 1981 “Do you see yourself as a major public speaker？”， she would have laughed at the idea. Yet today she gives more than one hundred presentations a year. Along the way, she’s lectured at Harvard, testified before Congress, and addressed audiences in 40 states, as well as in Mexico, Canada, and Japan.What did Wilma Subra study for her job before 1981?
| A．Chemistry and microbiology. |
| B．Families affected by toxic chemicals. |
| C．Toxic substances in the environment. |
| D．Minority communities near industrial polluters. |
Why did Wilma Subra quit her job in 1981?
| A．She wanted to create her own company. |
| B．She preferred freedom to restrictions. |
| C．She hoped to work with families and communities. |
| D．She was forbidden to inform the public of toxic pollution. |
Wilma Subra is called “a top gun” in the 4th paragraph for ________．
| A．her scientific training |
| B．her efforts to fight against pollution |
| C．her help in closing down dozens of toxic sites |
| D．her strong belief in environmental justice |
What does Wilma Subra think of “public speaking”？
| A．She values it. | B．She laughs at it. |
| C．She is against it. | D．She has no idea of it. |
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