How old is “old”? The answer has changed over the years. Two hundred years ago，you were old at 35.At the beginning of the 20 th century，the average life span（平均寿命）was 45. In 1950，70-year-olds were really old.Today，a healthy 70-year-old is still thought young.
So，how old is old? The answer is one you’ve heard many times，from all kinds of people.“You are as old（or young）as you feel.”Your age simply tells you how many years you have lived.Your body tells you how well you’ve lived.
“Nobody grows old by living a number of years.” wrote a writer.“People grow old when they don’t have their ideas.”
People shouldn’t have the wrong ideas about aging.Sometimes，older minds can be as bright as young minds.Alice Brophy once said，“It makes me unhappy when people say，‘You look young for your age。’ What does that mean?You know you can die old at 30 and live young at 80. ” In 1950, the average life span was .
| A．35 | B．45 | C．50 | D．70 |
People grow old when according to a writer.
| A．they don’t have their ideas. | B．they live many years. |
| C．They can’t live longer. | D．they have their ideas. |
The meaning of the underlined word “aging” is “ ”
| A．growing old | B．staying young |
| C．keeping healthy | D．feeling unhappy |
Which question is NOT answered in the passage?
| A．Can older people be as bright as young people? |
| B．What’s the wrong ideas about aging? |
| C．How old is “old”? |
| D．what is the average life span today? |
The passage is mainly about __________ .
| A．the average life span | B．aging |
| C．the 20th century | D．older people and young people |
Babies are born yogis. Once we were all able to pull our toes up by our ears and laugh about it. Then we aged, got injured, and began carrying stress in our shoulders and back. In short, we lost our balance.
Yoga (瑜伽) is an ancient practice that helps create a sense of union in body, mind, and spirit. It brings us balance. I was seriously out of balance when I started practicing yoga in 1999. I had plantar fascitis (足底筋膜炎) in both feet, and my doctor had warned me against all the things I loved to do: walking, hiking, and playing tennis. I was desperate for exercise. Yoga became my salvation (拯救) and even enhanced my other fitness activities. I practice yoga at least twice a week, but I consider yoga to be part of my daily life because after a while you no longer just practice yoga—you love it.
Yoga becomes part of your physical life. Your body grows stronger, more toned, and more flexible as you move from one pose to the other. I spent a week in Mexico at a yoga retreat (静修), and it was the first vacation on which I lost weight. “Rather than building muscle, yoga builds muscle tone,” says Shakta Kaur Khalsa, author of the K. I. S. S. Guide to Yoga. “Because yoga helps maintain a balanced metabolism (新陈代谢), it also helps to regulate weight. Additionally, yoga stretches muscles lengthwise, causing fat to be removed around the cells.” I do yoga poses throughout the day. After hours at my computer, I stretch my stiff shoulders and arms. When I need a boost of energy, I do energizing poses. When I am feeling exhausted at the end of the day, I do restorative poses.
Yoga becomes part of your mental life. Yoga teaches you to focus on breathing while you hold the poses. This attention to breath is calming; it dissolves stress and anxiety. I use yogic breathing on the tennis courts, in the dentist’s chair, and in traffic jams. You should always leave a yoga practice feeling energized, not tired. If you feel tired after yoga, it means you spent the time “fighting” yourself, trying to force yourself into poses. In yoga, you “surrender” to the pose by letting go of the tension.
Yoga becomes part of your spiritual life. Yoga is practiced by people from all religions; it is not restricted to any religious group. Yoga teaches “right” living in how we deal with ourselves and others. As I work on a difficult pose, I learn patience, forgiveness, and the value of gentleness. Yoga advocates proper eating, but you don’t have to be a vegetarian to practice yoga.According to the third paragraph, yoga can help people .
| A．grow taller |
| B．lose weight |
| C．become flexible in thinking |
| D．make more friends |
What would be the best title for this passage?
| A．What’s Yoga? | B．How I Do Yoga Poses |
| C．The Benefits of Yoga | D．The Varieties of Yoga |
If this passage continues, what will the writer most probably write about in the next paragraph?
| A．Yoga as a means to keep fit. |
| B．Different yoga poses. |
| C．Popularity of yoga all over the world. |
| D．Encouraging people to do yoga. |
While working in Southeast Asia in the mid 1990’s, I became a branch manager in a factory. At the beginning, I used human relations principles, such as putting myself into the others place to help gain trust. After a few months, I was told that the factory team members liked and trusted me.
Then the owner, seeing how everyone thought well of me, believed that I could become an instrument of change to carry out his several unpopular programs. The factory members resisted and eventually saw me as a puppet controlled by the owner. The more I insisted that they ‘follow orders’ the more they found ways to weaken the new changes.
Finally, I was replaced by a manager who knew enough to please both masters. Even though the owner did not like the fact that his new changes were not immediately applied, the new manager gained his power by the support received from his team together with an intention to find a way. What I learned was that your team must always see you as supportive of their needs, even to the extent that the owner may not be pleased that you are unable to follow their wishes. At the end of the day, if your people do not follow you then you are no longer in charge and will be replaced.
At first I blamed my boss for putting me in such a position. Then in honest reflection, I began to realize that he had probably hoped that I would have found some middle ground. What I could have done was to first obtain their advice about why they did not wish to follow the new policy changes, and then I should have used my influence with both the owner and team members to find a better way.
Though, in fact it is a painful lesson for me, it has served me well along my career path!What can we learn from the passage?
| A．Obeying is the best quality. |
| B．Giving is always a pleasure. |
| C．Appreciating others will benefit a lot. |
| D．Dealing with relationship is important. |
The underlined word “puppet” has the similar meaning to .
| A．instrument | B．assistant |
| C．wretch | D．winner |
Which is the right order according to the passage?
a. He was removed from his position.
b. He got on poorly with the coworkers.
c. He carried out the orders of the owner.
d. He became a branch manager.
f. He was believed in not only by coworkers but leaders.
| A．a, b, d, c, f | B．f, d, c, b, a |
| C．d, f, c, b, a | D．d, c, f, b, a |
From the third paragraph we can infer that .
| A．the new manager carried out the programs at once |
| B．the new manager got on badly with workers |
| C．workers need to be recognized and supported |
| D．you should make full use of your power |
Although I started learning English during my college years, when I entered the States, I only understood two English words “Yes” and “No”. We learned many grammar rules but we could not make the language connections to the real English world. Language frustration worries almost all first generation immigrants. For example, I got a letter from a Chinese-American who has lived in the States for a long time and has a good IT job saying “My 11-year-old girl writes quite well, but as her parents, we could not even read her article.”In addition, my Chinese-American professor friend has difficulty reading a novel. Improving our English skills has become a long journey for all of us. Honestly, if I have a chance, I really want to reach out to everyone in the world who has had a similar experience: learning a second language in adulthood. I wish I could encourage them to speak out about the culture shock, frustration they felt about the differences between West and East.
I have mainly focused on my English writing since 2008 after I found “Literacy Volunteers”, an organization that specially focuses on helping immigrants improve their English. I decided to challenge myself, writing a story like an American. I saw many wonderful Americans there. As soon as I met my teacher Alice, I asked her to be my private language tutor and have taken Tims English class. Every week Alice and I have worked on my English essays sentence by sentence.
To observe the culture differences between West and East, occasionally, I posted a few of my English essays online. I mentioned previously about American culture; when people read the same article or even face the same situation, American and Chinese act very differently. In my viewpoint, these differences make America the strongest country in the world. I know you have the right to express your own opinions, but accusing others without proof is not acceptable.The underlined word “frustration” in the first paragraph means .
| A．failure and setbacks | B．words and problems |
| C．understanding and progress | D．slang and idioms |
In the passage, “Literacy Volunteers” is .
| A．only intended to help the Chinese-Americans |
| B．an organization which is set up to make a profit |
| C．of great use to people like the author |
| D．a school showing how to enjoy literature |
From the last paragraph we can learn that .
| A．Americans and Chinese are of the same idea about something |
| B．culture shock only exists between Chinese and Americans |
| C．accusing others freely can be acceptable in America |
| D．culture differences have great influence on the people |
The purpose of the passage is .
| A．to show how hard a Chinese-American lives in America |
| B．to share her experience of improving her English |
| C．to imply grammar rules are not important |
| D．to warn Chinese-Americans of English |
If the world were a village of 1,000 people it would include:
•584 Asians •124 Africans
•95 Eastern and Western Europeans •84 Latin Americans
•55 former Soviets (including Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, and other national groups)
•52 North Americans •6 Australians and New Zealanders
The people of the village would speak:
•165 Mandarin •86 English
•83 Hindu/Urdu •64 Spanish
•58 Russian •37 Arabic
The above list covers the mother tongues of only half the village.
One-third of the people in the village are children, and only 60 are over the age of 65. Just under half of the married women in the village have access to modern equipment.
This year 28 babies will be born. Ten people will die, 3 of them for lack of food, 1 from cancer. Two of the deaths will be of babies born within the year. With the 28 births and 10 deaths, the population of the village next year will be 1,018.
In this village of 1,000 persons, 200 people receive 75 per cent of the income; another 200 receive only 2 per cent of the income.
About one-third have access to clean, safe drinking water.
Of the 670 adults in the village, half cannot read nor write.
The village has a total yearly budget, public and private, of over $3 million—$3,000 per person if it is distributed evenly. Of the total 3 million:
$181,000 goes to weapons and warfare
$159,000 to education
$132,000 to health care
These weapons are under the control of just 100 of the people. The other 900 are watching them with deep anxiety, wondering whether they can learn to get along together. Which of the following problems is NOT mentioned in the text?
| A．Environment. | B．Marriage. |
| C．Poverty. | D．Education. |
The underlined part “have access to”means .
| A．use | B．buy | C．produce | D．try |
Which of the following is true about Mandarin according to the text?
| A．Nearly one-third of Asian people speak Mandarin in the village. |
| B．About 8. 25 per cent of the people speak Mandarin in the village. |
| C．About 16. 5 per cent of the people speak Mandarin in the village. |
| D．Nearly all the Mandarin-speaking people are from Asia in the village. |
The last sentence in the text implies that most of the people long for .
| A．a peaceful world | B．good education |
| C．better health care | D．a life without anxiety |
A small piece of fish each day may keep the heart doctor away. That’s the finding of a study of Dutchmen in which deaths from heart disease were more than 50 percent lower among those who consumed (吃) at least an ounce of salt water fish per day compared to those who never ate fish.
The Dutch research is one of three human studies that give strong scientific support to the long-held belief that eating fish can provide health benefits, particularly to the heart.
Heart disease is the number-one killer in the United States, with more than 550,000 deaths occurring from heart attacks each year. But previous research has shown that the level of heart disease is lower in cultures that consume more fish than Americans do. There are fewer heart disease deaths, for example, among the Eskimos of Greenland, who consume about 14 ounces of fish a day, and among the Japanese, whose daily fish consumption averages more than 3 ounces.
For 20 years, the Dutch study followed 852 middle-aged men, 20 percent of whom ate no fish. At the start of the study, average fish consumption was about two-thirds of an ounce each day, with more men eating lean fish than fatty fish.
During the next two decades, 78 of the men died from heart disease. The fewest deaths were among the group who regularly ate fish, even at levels far lower than those of the Japanese or Eskimos. This relationship was true regardless of other factors such as age, high blood pressure, or blood cholesterol (胆固醇) levels.The passage is mainly about ________.
| A．the effect of fish eating on people’s health |
| B．the high incidence of heart disease in some countries |
| C．the daily fish consumption of people in different culture |
| D．the changes in people’s diet |
We can infer from the passage that there are fewer heart disease deaths ________.
| A．in the countries of the yellow-skin race |
| B．in the countries with good production of fish |
| C．in the countries with high consumption of fish |
| D．in highly-developed countries |
The underlined part “This relationship” may refer to the connection between ________ and the level of heart disease.
| A．the amount of fish eaten |
| B．the kind of fish eaten |
| C．regular fish-eating |
| D．people of different areas |
In which section of a newspaper can we read this passage?
| A．Ads. | B．Movies. |
| C．Briefs. | D．Health and Diet. |
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