It’s a Friday night. Your girl friends are out at a bar and your boyfriend is playing soccer with his mates. Two text messages later, you’re eating pizza and watching action movies with three guy friends. Perfect.
“Guy friends” have the potential to enrich your life in ways that female friends and boyfriends just can’t. For starters, they provide an insider’s perspective on how men think, feel and behave. When dealing with male relatives, coworkers and even boyfriends, another man’s point of view can be incredibly useful. Three hours spent analyzing a situation in a café with your girlfriends can’t compete with a quick chat to a guy friend.
Many women find that time spent with male friends can be a liberating and somewhat refreshing break from spending time with the girls. Without the judgmental gaze of other females, there is less pressure to dress up and compete for attention.
Traditionally, girl-guy friendships are seen as hard to maintain. Most relationships between males and females that we come across in our day-to-day lives, whether in movies or books, are romantic by nature. These cultural images make girl-guy friendships seem impossible.
Yet in reality, as gender roles loosen and equality becomes a norm in the workplace, it has become much more common for platonic friendships to blossom.
“The belief that men and women can’t be friends comes from another era in which women were at home and men were in the workplace, and the only way they could get together was for romance,” explains psychologist Linda Sapadin to Psychology Today magazine. “Now they work together and share sports interests and socialize together.”
“My boyfriend has met all of my guy friends so he’s quite accepting of me hanging out with them,” says Nellie. “Because we’ve been dating so long, there’s a level of trust where he knows I will make the right decision when choosing who to be friends with.
“He understands that the kind of time that I spend differs between guys and girls. When I’m out with the girls, we’re gossiping or talking about clothes but when I’m spending time with the guys, it’s different. I think their carefree and ‘whatever goes’ attitude can sometimes be exactly what I need.” What is the best title of the passage?
| A．Platonic friendship can be fun and liberating. |
| B．Platonic friendship can take the place of boy-or-girl friendship. |
| C．Man friendship is far more exciting than woman friendship. |
| D．Both man friendship and woman friendship are necessary forgirls. |
In writer’s opinion, girl-guy friendships_________
| A．are hard to maintain in modern society. |
| B．are impossible for most boys and girls. |
| C．are quite reasonable and thought highly of by most people. |
| D．are quite interesting and accepted by more and more and moregirls. |
Why did people think men and women can’t be friends in the past?
| A．Becausemen were at home and women were in the workplace. |
| B．Becauseboth men and women are too shy to make friends. |
| C．Because they were hard to keep in touch and only bymarrying cantheystay in touch with each other. |
| D．Becausewomen were at home and men were in the workplace, and the only way they could get together was for friendship. |
According to what Nellie said, _______
| A．Her boyfriend enjoys she and her guy friend stay together. |
| B．When I’m out with the boys, we’re not gossiping or talking about clothes. |
| C．Sometimes whatmy guy friends giveisjustwhatI need. |
| D．My boyfriend trusts me so heaccepts my decision. |
Want to be a happy married couple? Consider having kids．
A new study found that having children boosts happiness．And the more, literally, the merrier．
But unmarried couples shouldn’t expect to find greater happiness through child-raising．The study, published in the Oct．14 online edition of the Journal of Happiness Studies, suggests that having children has little or no effect on boosting happiness among couples who aren’t hitched(和谐)．
The findings contradict previous research that suggested that having more offspring doesn't lead to greater happiness and might even make people less satisfied with their lives．One theory behind the conclusion is that parents don’t receive many rewards in return for the hard work of raising children．
The new study, however, notes that parents say children are one of the most important things in their lives, if not the most important．
The study found that life satisfaction for married people -- women especially -- goes up the more kids they have．Single, separated and co-habiting people, by contrast, report negative experiences．
“One is tempted to advance that children make people rich under the ‘right conditions’ -- a time in life when people feel that they are ready, or at least willing, to enter parenthood,” Dr．Luis Angeles, of the University of Glasgow in Scotland, said in a news release from the journal’s publisher．“This time can come at very different moments for different individuals, but a likely signal of its approach may well be the act of marriage．”
57．The underlined word “offspring” in the fourth paragraph can be replaced by _____．
A．generation B．children C．mothers D．marriage
58．The best title of this passage should be _______．
A．Children Are the Source of Happiness
B．Are You Happy Married Couple?
C．Married with Children Paves Way to Happiness
D．The Right Conditions of Having Children
59．Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
A．The more children women have, the happier they are．
B．The more children the married women have, the more unsatisfied they become．
C．Raising kids can give any person happiness．
D．Without marriage, one woman had better not raise kids．
60．In the passage, the underlined part ‘right conditions’ refers to _______．
A．a time when the couple are ready and willing to become parents
B．the situation where the family is rich enough to raise a child
C．the situation where the couple are very happy
D．a time when the couple thinks raising children can boost happiness
The surprising experiment I am about to describe proves that air is all aroud you and that it proves down upon you．Air pressure is a wonderful force．When you swim underwater, you can feel water push down your body．The air all around you does the same．However, your body is so used to it that you do not notice this ．The pressure is caused by a layer of air called the atmosphere．This layer surrounds the Earth , extending to about five kilometers above the Earth’s surface．
The following experiment is an easy one that you can do at home．But make sure that you are supervised , because you will need to use matches．Now for the experiment！
What you need
·A hard-boiled egg without the shell
·A bottle with a neck slightly smaller than the egg
·A piece of paper
·A match
Metheod
1) Check that the egg will sit firmly on the neck of the bottle．
2) Tear the paper into strips and put the strips into the bottle．
3) Light the paper by dropping a burning match into the bottle．
4) Quickly sit the egg on the neck of the bottle．
Result
Astonishingly,the egg will be sucked into the bottle．Your friends will be amazed when you show them the experiment．But be careful when you handle matches．
Why it happened
As the paper burns,it needs oxyen and uses up the oxygen(air) in the bottle．The egg acts as a seal in the neck of the bottle,so no more air can get inside ．This reduces the air pressure inside the bottle．The air pressure must equalize,so more air from outside must enter the bottle．The outside air pressure against the egg and then the egg is pushed into the bottle!The proves that air is all around and that it is pressing down on it．
53．When you do the experiment, why need you a person beside you?
A．You couldn’t place the egg on the bottle by yourself．
B．The egg needs to be shelled．
C．You need to use matches．
D．The bottle can’t sit firmly on the desk．
54．The purpose of doing this experiment is to prove ______．
A．air pressure is a wonderful force
B．water can push down your body when you swim underwater
C．the air pressure is not equalized around us
D．the earth is surrounded by a layer of air called the atmosphere
55．How did the egg put into the bottle？
A．The oxygen inside the bottle suckde the egg in．
B．It became solt without the shell．
C．The neck of the bottle was wide enough．
D．The outside air pressure forced it into the bottle．
56．The passage is ______．
A．an experiment report B．a scientific story
C．a research report D．an interesting novel
If you know exactly what you want, the best way to get a job is to get specialized training. A recent report shows that companies like graduates in such fields as business and health care who can go to work immediately with very little on-the-job training.
That’s especially true of booming fields that are challenging for workers. At Cornell's School of Hotel Administration, for example, bachelor's degree graduates get an average of four or five job offers with salaries ranging from the high teens to the low 20s and plenty of chances for rapid advancement. Large companies especially like a background of formal education coupled with work experience. But in the long run, too much specialization does not pay off. Business, which has been flooded with MBAs, no longer considers the degree an automatic stamp of approval. The MBA may open doors and command a higher salary initially, but the impact of a degree washes out after five years.
As further evidence of the erosion of corporate faith in specialized degrees, Michigan State’s Scheetz cites a pattern in corporate hiring practices. Although companies tend to take on specialists as new hires, they often seek out generalists for middle and upper-level management. This sounds like a formal statement that you approve of the liberal-arts(文科) graduate. Time and again labor-market analysts mention a need for talents that liberal-arts majors are assumed to have: writing and communication skills, organizational skills, open-mindedness and adaptability, and the ability to analyze and solve problems. David Birch, manager of the Boston Red Sox, says that he does not hire anybody with an MBA or an engineering degree. “I hire only liberal-arts people because they have a less-than-canned way of doing things,” says Birch.
For a liberal – arts degree, students focus on some basic courses that include literature history, mathematics, economics, science, human behavior and a computer course or two. With these useful and important courses, you can feel free to specialize, “A liberal-arts degree coupled with an MBA or some other technical training is a very good combination in the marketplace,” says Scheetz.
67．The job market is in great need of people with .
A．special training in special fields
B．a bachelor’s degree in education
C．formal schooling and work experience
D．an MBA degree from top universities
68．The underlined sentence in Paragrph 2 means .
A．an MBA degree does not help in future promotion
B．MBA programs will not be as popular as they are now
C．people will not forget the degree the MBA graduates have got
D．most MBA programs fail to provide students with a foundation
69．David Birch says that he only hires liberal – arts people because .
A．they will follow others’ ways of solving problems
B．they can do better in bundling changing situations
C．they are well trained in a variety of specialized fields
D．they have attended special programs in management
70．The author supports the idea that .
A．on – the – job training is less costly in the long run
B．formal schooling is less important than job training
C．specialists are more expensive to hire than generalists
D．generalists will do better than specialists in management
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Why People Get Tattoos
Jack lay, quiet and unmoving, for thirty minutes while a strangerrepeatedly stabbed (刺) him with sharp needles, causing blood to pour
steadily out of his leg. Jack was getting a tattoo. His friend Tony had
recently gotten a tattoo, and Jack was so impressed by it that he
decided to get one too. Peer pressure, media
influence, and personal expression are some of the common reasons for
wearing tattoos today.
The desire to be accepted by one’s friends or peers can have a great influence on what a person does. Sometimes, wearing a tattoo can be a sign that you belong to a certain group. Gangs often use special clothes and tattoos to identify their particular group. Some of these groups wear only brand – name clothes. Others wear tattoos. When a person’s friends are all doing something, that person in more likely to do the same thing.
The media is another big influence behind the popularity of tattoos in North America. A wide variety of media images(人物，图像) show tattoos－people appearing in commercials selling expensive cars, famous sports heroes with tattoos in magazines, fashion models wearing designer clothes that show their bodies tattooed with detailed and colourful patterns. These media images link tattoos to ideas of wealth, success, and status. As a result, many people decide to get a tattoo for its fashion and status value.
Many people decide to wear tattoos in order to express their artistic nature, their beliefs, or their feelings－in other words, to show their individuality(个性). A musician in a rock band may get a tattoo of a guitar on the arm. Some environmentalists may tattoo pictures of endangered animals on their shoulders. A tattoo can be a public sign to show what is important in a person's life.
As you can see, there are many reasons why young North Americans get tattoos. A tattoo can be part of a group's uniform, a sign of fashion. or an expression of individuality. The decision to get a tattoo is most often a result of the influence of friends or media or the desire to express oneself. For Jack, it was a mixture of all three.
63．Jack has got tattoos in order to .
A．show his great bravery B．gain a special experience
C．make himself more healthy D．be different from others
64．According to the passage, media images are linked to .
A．traditional lifestyle B．social position
C．cultural background D．public interest
65．We can infer from the passage that .
A．some people get tattoos out of pressure
B．tattoo is related to religious belief
C．getting tattoos costs a lot of money
D．most people with tattoos are artists
66．Which of the following shows the structure of the passage?
 |
CP: Central Point P: Point Sp: Sub – point (次要点) C: Conclusion
While I was in 9 th grade, I built a circuit (电路装置) for the traffic system of our city. After getting the first prize. I got this valuable advice from my father; “Do whatever interests you, and don’t let the work challenge you, make sure you are challenging that work.”
I have always preferred the projects which are challenging and related to real life problems. I clearly remember building a shipping program several years ago. I divided the whole project into several small sections. When I understood it clearly, used my brainstorming skill on it, and gave some basic ideas. Then I asked my professor for help before jumping into coding (编码). At first, I did not know how to ask questions correctly and always asked the question “How do I do it?” As I kept working and discussed with my professor, I became more comfortable and those “how ”questions soon turned into “what if I do this and that” types of questions.
It took me four days to write the code. The desire to solve the problem kept me sleepless all nights brainstorming in even greater details. Every time I saw my program running smoothly, I exploded with joy. I still remember the last day of my work. I was getting some problem and didn’t know what to do. At that moment, a man came in to clean. He has headphones, and he was dancing while cleaning the room. Seeing this, I burst out laughing. That moment calmed me. I regained energy and interest and started to work again, and soon I fixed the problem.
My success in the project proved that breaking up a large problem into small parts could help find a possible solution. Discussing the problem with others was also very beneficial. Now I have gained the confidence to attempt any kind of project.
59．According to the passage, the writer was interested in .
A．developing traffic systems
B．doing challenging projects
C．winning great prizes
D．writing different codes
60．The writer asked the question “how do I do it” at first because .
A．he had no clear idea about his program
B．he was too shy to express himself
C．he wanted to he understood easily
D．he preferred this kind of question
61．We learn from the passage that the writer’s shipping program .
A．would benefit people a lot
B．was done together with others
C．was difficult and needed patience
D．cost much money and energy
62．What would be the best title of the passage?
A．Do It Yourself
B．No Pains, No Gains
C．Learning with interest
D．Practice Makes Perfect
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