Thanksgiving is an important festival in North America. We interviewed several students from the US and Canada. Here is what they have told us about their Thanksgiving experiences.
Josie from New York, USA
“In America, Thanksgiving is celebrated every year at the end of November. It is to remember the first group of people from Europe to live in America. When they first arrived, they found the environment strange. But they learned to survive after some native American friends showed them how to grow and find food. Thanksgiving is meant to be a traditional celebration.”
Todd from California, USA
“Thanksgiving is the first day of Christmas shopping. That means we have four weeks to buy Christmas presents for our families and friends. For me and my friends, the most important part of the festival is the big football game on TV. The match is watched by millions of people all over America. Thanksgiving is seen as an exciting day for football!”
Ian from Saskatoon, Canada
In Canada, Thanksgiving is held on the 2nd Monday in October. On the Sunday before Thanksgiving Day, many people go to church. Thanks is given for all the good things that happened to them during the year. I always give thanks for the nice big turkey I’m going to have at the family dinner! Like all festivals, Thanksgiving is about food!
Katie from Maritimes, Canada
On Thanksgiving Day, we have dinner with all our cousins, aunts and uncles. It is always very busy. Sometimes we have two Thanksgiving dinners because we go to both our grandparents’ houses. The dinner is usually attended by more than twenty people at each house! My mother and my aunts do all the cooking but the washing-up is done by me and my cousins. And that’s not an easy job! But I don’t mind because Thanksgiving is meant to be a time to give thanks.People in the USA and Canada ____________.
| A．all have the same opinion of Thanksgiving |
| B．have different opinions of Thanksgiving |
| C．feel that Thanksgiving is about food |
| D．have no interest in Thanksgiving |
Which of the people interviewed feels that Thanksgiving is all about football?
| A．Ian | B．Josie | C．Todd | D．Katie |
Where does the person who thinks that Thanksgiving is a traditional celebration come from?
| A．New York | B．California | C．Saskatoon | D．Maritimes |
For what reasons do people give thanks at Thanksgiving?
| A．All the good things that have happened |
| B．Presents, a big turkey |
| C．Grandparents, food |
| D．Football, traditions |
There once was a master who went to India．In those times, we didn't have the communications or airplanes or many kinds of transportation that we do now．So the master went to India on foot．He had never been to India before; perhaps he came from Persia．And when he got there, he saw a lot of fruit．In India they have plenty of fruit to sell, but much of it is expensive because they can't grow much due to the water situation．So he saw one basket, a big basket of some very red, long fruit．And it was the cheapest in the shop, not expensive at all．
So he went up and asked, "How much per kilo?" And the shopkeeper said, "Two rupees（卢比）．" Two rupees in India is nothing; it's like dirt．So he bought a whole kilogram of the fruit and started eating it．But after he ate some of it: Oh, my God! His eyes watered, his mouth watered and burned, his eyes were burning, his head was burning and his face became red．As he coughed and choked and gasped for breath, he jumped up and down, saying, "Ah! Ah! Ah!"But he still continued to eat the fruit! Some people who were looking at him shook their heads and said, "You're crazy, man．Those are chilies（辣椒）! You can't eat so many; they're not good for you! People use them as a condiment（作料）, but only a little bit to put into food for taste．You can't just eat them by the handful like that; they're not fruit!" So the stupid master said, "No, I can't stop! I paid money for them, and now I'll eat them．It's my money!"
And you think that master was stupid, right? Similarly, we sometimes do a lot of things like that．We invest money, time or effort in a relationship, business or job．And even though it's been a long time, bitter experience tells us it won't work, and we know there's no more hope that things will change in the future — this we definitely know by intuition（直觉）— we still continue just because we've invested money, time, effort and love into it．Just like the man who ate the chilies and suffered so much but couldn't stop because he didn't want to waste the money he'd paid．【改编】 Why did the master go to India on foot?
| A．Because he likes doing sports. |
| B．Because there aren't any kinds of transportation that we do now. |
| C．The price of transportation is very expensive. |
| D．Because the master had lots of time. |
【改编】 What can we infer about the master according to the passage?
| A．His eyes watered because the fruit he ate was delicious. |
| B．He came from Persia on his own． |
| C．He has been to India before. |
| D．He likes chilies very much. |
【改编】 What does passage want to tell us?
| A．To tell us we have to give up sometimes. |
| B．To share us a funny story about a silly master. |
| C．To show us a wise master. |
| D．To offer some information about buying fruits. |
Have you winterized your horse yet? Even though global warming may have made our climate more mild, many animals are still hibernating(冬眠). It’s too bad that humans can’t hibernate. In fact, as a species, we almost did.
Apparently, at times in the past, peasants in France liked a semi-state of human hibernation. So writes Graham Robb, a British scholar who has studied the sleeping habits of the French peasants. As soon as the weather turned cold people all over France shut themselves away and practiced the forgotten art of doing nothing at all for months on end.
In line with this, Jeff Warren, a producer at CBC Radio’s The Current, tells us that the way we sleep has changed fundamentally since the invention of artificial(人造的) lighting and the electric bulb.
When historians began studying texts of the Middle Ages, they noticed something referred to as “first sleep”, which was not clarified, though. Now scientists are telling us our ancestors most likely slept in separate periods. The business of eight hours’ uninterrupted sleep is a modern invention.
In the past, without the artificial light of the city to bathe in, humans went to sleep when it became dark and then woke themselves around midnight. The late night period was known as ”The Watch” It was when people actually kept watch against wild animals, although many of them simply moved around or visited family and neighbours.
According to some sleep researchers, a short period of insomnia(失眠) at midnight is not a disorder. It is normal. Humans can experience another state of consciousness around their sleeping, which occurs in the brief period before we fall asleep or wake ourselves in the morning. This period can be an extraordinarily creative time for some people. The impressive inventor, Thomas Edison, used this state to hit upon many of his new ideas.
Playing with your sleep rhythms can be adventurous, as anxiety may set in. Medical science doesn’t help much in this case. It offers us medicines for a full night’s continuous sleep, which sounds natural; however, according to Warren’s theory，it is really the opposite of what we need. The example of the French peasants shows the fact that________.
| A．people might become lazy as a result of too much sleep |
| B．there were signs of hibernation in human sleeping habits |
| C．people tended to sleep more peacefully in cold weather |
| D．winter was a season for people to sleep for months on end |
The late night was called “The Watch” because it was a time for people______.
| A．to set traps to catch animals |
| B．to wake up their family and neighbours |
| C．to remind others of the time |
| D．to guard against possible dangers |
What does the author advise people to do?
| A．Sleep in the way animals do. |
| B．Consult a doctor if they can’t sleep. |
| C．Follow their natural sleep rhythm. |
| D．Keep to the eight-hour sleep pattern. |
What is the author’s purpose in writing the passage?
| A．To give a prescription for insomnia. |
| B．To urge people to sleep less. |
| C．To analyze the sleep pattern of modern people. |
| D．To throw new light on human sleep. |
This brief book is aimed at high school students, but speaks to anyone learning at any stage of life.
Its formal, serious style closely matches its content, a school-masterly book on schooling. The author, W. H. Armstrong, starts with the basics: reading and writing. In his opinion, reading doesn’t just mean recognizing each word on the page; it means taking in the information, digesting it and incorporating it into oneself just as one digests a sandwich and makes it a part of him. The goal is to bring the information back to life, not just to treat it as dead facts on paper from dead trees. Reading and writing cannot be completely separated from each other; in fact, the aim of reading is to express the information you have got from the text. I’ve seen it again and again ：some-one who can’t express an idea after reading a text is just as ineffective as someone who hasn’t read it at all.
Only a third of the book remains after that discussion, which Armstrong devotes to specific tips for studying languages, math, science and history. He generally handles these topics thoroughly(透彻地) and equally, except for some weakness in the science and math sections and a bit too much passion(激情) regarding history to his students, that was a hundred times more than my history teachers ever got across. To my disappointment, in this part of the book he ignores the arts. As a matter of fact, they demand all the concentration and study that math and science do, though the study differs slightly in kind. Although it’s commonly believed that the arts can only be naturally acquired, actually, learning the arts is no more natural than learning French or mathematics.
My other comment is that the text aged. The first edition apparently dates to the 1960s—none of the references(参考文献)seem newer than the late 1950s. As a result, the discussion misses the entire computer age.
These are small points, though, and don’t affect the main discussion. I recommend it to any student and any teacher, including the self-taught student. According to Armstrong, the goal of reading is to________.
| A．gain knowledge and expand one’s view |
| B．understand the meaning between the lines |
| C．experts ideas based on what one has read |
| D．gets information and keeps it alive in memory |
The author of the passage insists that learning the arts_________.
| A．requires great efforts |
| B．demands real passion |
| C．is less natural than learning maths |
| D．is as natural as learning a language |
What is a shortcoming of Armstrong’s work according to the author?
| A．Some ideas are slightly contradictory. |
| B．There is too much discussion on studying science. |
| C．The style is too serious. |
| D．It lacks new information. |
This passage can be classified as________.
| A．an advertisement |
| B．a book review |
| C．a feature story |
| D．A news report |
They wear the latest fashions with the most up-to-date accessories (配饰). Yet these are girls in their teens or twenties but women in their sixties and seventies. A generation which would once only wear old-fashioned clothes is now favoring the same high street looks worn by those half their age.
Professor Julia Twigg, a social policy expert, said, “Women over 75 are now shopping for clothes more frequently than they did when they were young in the 1960s. In the 1960s buying a coat for a woman was a serious matter. It was an expensive item that they would purchase only every three or four years — now you can pick one up at the supermarket whenever you wish to. Fashion is a lot cheaper and people get tired of things more quickly. ”
Professor Twigg analyzed family expending（支出）data and found that while the percentage of spending on clothes and shoes by women had stayed around the same—and 5 or 6 per cent of spending—the amount of clothes bought had risen sharply.
The professor said, “Clothes are now 70 per cent cheaper than they were in the 1960s because of the huge expansion of production in the Far East. In the 1960s Leeds was the heart of the British fashion industry and that was where most of the clothes came from, but now almost all of our clothes are sourced elsewhere. Everyone is buying more clothes but in general we are not spending more money on them. ”
Fashion designer Angela Barnard, who runs her own fashion business in London, said older women were much more affected by celebrity(名流) style than in previous years.
She said, “When people see stars such as Judi Dench and Helen Mirren looking attractive and fashionable in their sixties, they want to follow them. Older women are much more aware of celebrities. There’s also the boom in TV programmes showing people how they can change their look, and many of my older customers do yoga to stay in shape well in their fifties. When I started my business a few years ago, my older customers tended to be very rich, but now they are what I would call ordinary women. My own mother is 61 and she wears the latest fashions in a way she would never have done ten years ago. ”Professor Twigg found that, compared with the 1960s, _______.
| A．the price of clothes has generally fallen by 70% |
| B．the spending on clothes has increased by 5% or 6% |
| C．people spend 30% less than they did on clothes |
| D．the amount of clothes bought has risen by 5% or 6% |
What can we learn about old women in terms of fashion？
| A．They are often ignored by fashion designers. |
| B．They are now more easily influenced by stars. |
| C．They are regarded as pioneers in the latest fashion. |
| D．They are more interested in clothes because of their old age. |
It can be concluded that old women tend to wear the latest fashions today mainly because
| A．they get tired of things more quickly |
| B．TV shows teach them how to change their look |
| C．they are in much better shape now |
| D．clothes are much cheaper than before |
Which is the best possible title of the passage?
| A．Age Is No Barrier for Fashion Fans |
| B．The More Fashionable, the Less Expensive |
| C．Unexpected Changes in Fashion |
| D．Boom of the British Fashion Industry |
For many parents, raising a teenager is like fighting a long war, but years go by without any clear winner. Like a border conflict between neighboring countries, the parent-teen war is about boundaries: Where is the line between what I control and what you do?
Both sides want peace, but neither feels it has any power to stop the conflict. In part, this is because neither is willing to admit any responsibility for starting it. From the parents’ point of view, the only cause of their fight is their adolescents’ complete unreasonableness. And of course. the teens see it in exactly the same way, except oppositely. Both feel trapped
In this article. I’ll describe three no-win situations that commonly arise between teens and parents and then suggest some ways out of the trap. The first no-win situation is quarrels over unimportant things. Examples include the color of the teen’s hair, the cleanliness of the bedroom, the preferred style of clothing, the child’s failure to eat a good breakfast before school, or his tendency to sleep until noon on the weekends. Second, blaming. The goal of a blaming battle is to make the other admit that his bad attitude is the reason why everything goes wrong. Third, needing to be right, It doesn’t matter what the topic is –politics. The taws of physics, or the proper way to break an egg –the point of these arguments is to prove that you are right and the other person is wrong. for both wish to be considered an authority—someone who actually knows something —and therefore to command respect. Unfortunately, as long as long as parents and teens continue to assume that they know more than the other, they’ll continue to fight these battles forever and never make any real progressWhy does the author compare the parent-teen war to a border conflict?
| A．Both can continue for generations. |
| B．Both are about where to draw the line |
| C．Neither has any clear winner |
| D．Neither can be put to an end |
What does the underlined part in Paragraph 2 mean?
| A．The teens blame their parents for starting the conflict. |
| B．The teens agree with their parents on the cause of the conflict |
| C．The teens cause their parents of misleading them |
| D．The teens tend to have a full understanding of their parents |
Parents and teens want to be right because they want to ________.
| A．give orders to the other |
| B．know more than the other |
| C．gain respect from the other |
| D．get the other to behave properly |
What will the author most probably discuss in the paragraph that follows?
| A．Causes for the parent –teen conflicts |
| B．Examples of the parent –teen war. |
| C．Solutions for the parent –teen problems |
| D．Future of the parent-teen relationship |
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