Divorces in Japan have more than doubled, according to health ministry statistics. One in three Japanese marriages now ends in divorce.
Atsuko Okano was in one of those failed marriages. Three years ago, she found herself alone in her 30s, with children to raise and a future full of question marks and social shame. But she also saw an opening, and became an advisor helping people like herself.
“My husband was cheating on me,” she recalled. ‘I did everything to bring him back to me but it didn’t work, so I dumped him.” Such frankness is a major characteristic of Japan’s recently divorced.
Divorced people – particularly woman – have long been looked down upon in Japan, where self-sacrifice and family stability are regarded as ideals. In the past, bored housewives remained bored. The security of the family unit was the most important thing. Now, young Japanese are increasingly choosing satisfaction in life over the demands of tradition, and more woman are financially independent. As a result, Japanese divorce rates are flying. Experts attribute this to the erosion of a long-standing double standard that granted divorced men respectability, but branded(gave somebody a bad name) divorced women as damaged goods.
Over the past decade, growing numbers of highly educated and successful professional women have challenged that assumption(something taken for granted) by turning their backs on unhappy marriages and paying no attention to the taboo（禁忌）of divorce. The majority of divorce behavior now is started by women.This passage mainly talks about the fact that nowadays Japanese women _________.
| A．are granted respectability after they get divorced |
| B．are becoming brave enough to challenge the taboo of divorce |
| C．still consider the security of the family unit to be very important |
| D．are becoming more financially independent |
It can be inferred from Paragraph 2 that Atsuko Okano __________.
| A．had some children to raise |
| B．was very confident with her future |
| C．was not greatly respected by Japanese society |
| D．might have found a job to help divorced people |
The underlined word “dumped” in paragraph 3 probably means _________.
| A．looked down upon |
| B．had a quarrel with |
| C．hated |
| D．divorced |
Which of the following is NOT mentioned as the reason for rising rate of Japanese divorces?
| A．Self-sacrifice and family stability are not much appreciated in Japan as before. |
| B．More women can support themselves financially. |
| C．Divorced men and women can quickly find their new partners |
| D．Young Japanese care more about satisfaction in life than their elders did. |
You wake up in the morning, the day is beautiful and the plans for the day are what you have been looking forward to for a long time. Then the telephone rings, you say hello, and the drama starts. The person on the other end has a depressing tone in his voice as he starts to tell you how terrible his morning is and that there is nothing to look forward to. You are still in a wonderful mood? Impossible!
Communicating with negative people can wash out your happiness. It may not change what you think, but communicating long enough with them will make you feel depressed for a moment or a long time.
Life brings ups and downs, but some people are stuck in the wrong idea that life has no happiness to offer. They only feel glad when they make others feel bad. No wonder they can hardly win others’ pity or respect.
When you communicate with positive people, your spirit stays happy and therefore more positive things are attracted. When the dagger（匕首） of a negative person is put in you, you feel the heavy feeling that all in all, brings you down.
Sometimes we have no choice but to communicate with negative people. This could be a co-worker, or a relative. In this case, say what needs to be said as little as possible. Sometimes it feels good to let out your anger back to the negative person, but all this is to lower you to that same negative level and they won’t feel ashamed of themselves about that.
Negativity often affects happiness without even being realized. The negative words of another at the start of the day can cling to（附着） you throughout the rest of your day, which makes you feel bad and steals your happiness. Life is too short to feel negative. Stay positive and avoid negativity as much as possible.The purpose of the first paragraph is to __________.
| A．make a comparison | B．offer an evidence |
| C．introduce a topic | D．describe a daily scene |
How can negative people have effect on us?
| A．By changing our ways of thinking |
| B．By telling us the nature of life |
| C．By influencing our emotion |
| D．By comparing their attitudes to life with ours |
According to the passage, to reduce negative people’s influence on us, we are advised to __________.
| A．show our dissatisfaction to negative people |
| B．communicate with negative people as little as possible |
| C．change negative people’s attitudes to life |
| D．make negative people feel ashamed of themselves |
Recordings of angry bees are enough to send big, tough African elephants running away, a new study says. Beehives (蜂窝)—either recorded or real—may even prevent elephants from damaging farmer’s crops.
In 2002, scientist Lucy King and her team found that elephants avoid certain trees with bees living in them. Today, Lucy wants to see if African honeybees might discourage elephants from eating crops. But before she asked farmer to go to the trouble of setting up beehives on their farms, she needed to find out if the bees would scare elephants away.
Lucy found a wild beehive inside a tree in northern Kenya and set up a recorder. Then she threw a stone into the beehive, which burst into life. Lucy and her assistant hid in their car until the angry bees had calmed down. Next，Lucy searched out elephant families in Samburu National Reserve in northern Kenya and put a speaker in a tree close to each family.
From a distance, Lucy switched on the pre-recorded sound of angry bees while at the same time recording the elephants with a video camera. Half the elephant groups left the area within ten seconds. Out of a total of 17 groups, only one group ignored the sound of the angry bees. Lucy reported that all the young elephants immediately ran to their mothers to hide under them. When Lucy played the sound of a waterfall (瀑布) instead of the angry bees to many of the same elephant families, the animals were undisturbed. Even after four minutes, most of the groups stayed in one place.
Lucy is now studying whether the elephants will continue to avoid the sound of angry bees after hearing it several times. She hasn’t tested enough groups yet to know, but her initial (最初的) results were promising enough to begin trials with farmers. She has now begun placing speakers in the fields to see if elephants are frightened away.We know from the passage that elephants may be frightened of .
| A．loud noises | B．some crops |
| C．video cameras | D．angry bees |
As mentioned in the passage, Lucy .
| A．works by herself in Africa |
| B．needs to test more elephant groups |
| C．has stopped elephants eating crops |
| D．has got farmers to set up beehives on their farms |
Why did Lucy throw a stone into a wild beehive?
| A．To record the sound of bees. |
| B．To make a video of elephants. |
| C．To see if elephants would run away. |
| D．To find out more about the behavior of bees. |
Which of the following is true according to the passage?
| A．Young elephants ignore African honeybees. |
| B．Waterfalls can make elephants stay in one place. |
| C．Elephants do not go near trees with bees living in them. |
| D．Farmers do not allow Lucy to conduct tests in their fields. |
阅读下列应用文及相关信息，并按照要求匹配信息。请在答题卡上将对应题号的相应选项字母涂黑。
请先阅读几所大学所提供的健康医疗教育项目：
| A. |
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Argosy University Our postgraduate degree level education provides the knowledge and tools to create successful and meaningful careers. |
| B. |
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Kaplan University Our university offers comprehensive training in health care to prepare you for a career in the health sciences, corrections, or private security. |
| C. |
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Everest College Through our online degree program, you can gain the necessary skills to join the health care industry. It is designed to prepare you for a career in the health sciences. |
| D. |
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Sanford-Brown College SBC is dedicated to providing innovative programs that enable students the opportunity to gain professional skills by practicing in our health care center before they work. |
| E. |
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Rasmussen College The Healthcare Management Bachelor of Science degree at our College will give students the education and practical experience they need to work as administrators. |
| F. |
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Brown Mackie University The Health & nursing programs are designed to provide students with the education needed to enter health and nursing careers. |
下面是几位需要医学教育的学生，请为他们选择适合他们就读的大学： My family immigrated when I was still studying my healthcare courses in a local medical college. So I had to give up my bachelor degree and moved with them. Now I hope to find a college that offers the degree education on the Internet and realize my dream of being a doctor.
When I looked after my mother in the hospital ten years ago, I was moved by what the nurses did. They devoted themselves into helping every patient get through the hard time. Since then, I have been determined to take up nursing career, and now, the time is coming.
When studying in the university, my professor often told me that it was impossible for me to get every problem solved just with the knowledge in textbooks. It makes me realize I should look for a health care center where I can learn practical skills and gain more experience.
After graduating from a medical college and get my bachelor degree five years ago, I became a doctor in a big local health care center. However, I find modern medical research developing fairly rapidly, so I hope to start my postgraduate degree study in a university and serve the people here better.
Being a retired doctor, my father always hopes that I can continue his career. I know a doctor can help lots of people, but in fact, my favorite job is managing, no matter in a company, an institution or an organization. So maybe learning how to manage a hospital can satisfy both of us.
Stage fright or performance anxiety is the anxiety, or fear which may occur in an individual by the requirement to perform in front of an audience. It is most commonly seen in school situations, like stand-up projects and class speeches. It has numerous forms: heart beating fast, trembling hands and legs, sweaty hands, dry mouth etc.
In fact, most of the fear occurs before you step on stage. Once you’re up there, it usually goes away. Thus, it is a phenomenon that you must learn to control. Try to think of stage fright in a positive way. It heightens your energy, adds color to your cheeks. With these good side effects you will actually look healthier and more physically attractive.
Many of the top performers in the world get stage fright so you are in good company. Stage fright may come and go or decrease, but it usually does not disappear permanently. You must concentrate on getting the feeling out and present what you have prepared calmly.
Remember “Nobody” ever died from stage fright. But, according to surveys, many people would rather die than give a speech. If that applies to you, and you are an unlucky guy who is with stage fright the whole time, try out some of the strategies(策略) as follows to help get yourself under control. Realize that you may never overcome stage fright, but you can learn to control it, and use it to your advantage.
Strategies are as follows when the program begins:
1) If legs are trembling, lean on table or shift legs or move.
2) Don’t hold notes. The audience can see them shake. Use three-by-five cards instead.
3) Use eye contact. Look at the friendliest faces in the audience.
Remember nervousness doesn’t show one-tenth as much as it feels. Before each presentation, make a short list of the items you think will make you feel better. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different combinations. You never know which ones will work best until you try. Use these steps to control stage fright so it doesn’t control you. Once you are used to stage fright, you will find you on the road to a great speech-maker.Someone may be most likely to suffer from stage fright when he/she is ______.
| A．attending an English class |
| B．standing in a classroom |
| C．watching a performance |
| D．talking in front of people |
By thinking of stage fright in a positive way, one could ______.
| A．learn to control stage fright |
| B．get rid of stage fright |
| C．calm down before stepping on stage |
| D．become more physically attractive |
Which of the following is true?
| A．Top performers usually suffer from stage fright. |
| B．Stage fright may stay with a person for a life time. |
| C．Nobody would rather die than give a speech. |
| D．No one can overcome or control stage fright. |
The author advises people with stage fright to ______.
| A．show one-tenth of their nervousness |
| B．experiment with different kinds of stage fright |
| C．refer to the strategies whenever they feel the need |
| D．use one of the strategies each time |
The passage mainly talks about ______.
| A．how to deal with stage fright |
| B．what stage fright is like |
| C．when stage fright occurs |
| D．why people have stage fright |
How far would you be willing to go to satisfy your need to know? Far enough to find out your possibility of dying from a terrible disease? These days that’s more than an academic question, as Tracy Smith reports in our Cover Story.
There are now more than a thousand genetic tests, for everything from baldness to breast cancer, and the list is growing. Question is, do you really want to know what might eventually kill you? For instance, Nobel Prize-winning scientist James Watson, one of the first people to map their entire genetic makeup, is said to have asked not to be told if he were at a higher risk for Alzheimer’（老年痴呆症）.
“If I tell you that you have an increased risk of getting a terrible disease, that could weigh on your mind and make you anxious, through which you see the rest of your life as you wait for that disease to hit you. It could really mess you up.” said Dr. Robert Green, a Harvard geneticist.
“Every ache and pain,” Smith suggested, could be understood as “the beginning of the end.” “That’s right. If you ever worried you were at risk for Alzheimer’s disease, then every time you can’t find your car in the parking lot, you think the disease has started.”
Dr. Green has been thinking about this issue for years. He led a study of people who wanted to know if they were at a higher genetic risk for Alzheimer’s. It was thought that people who got bad news would, for lack of a better medical term, freak out. But Green and his team found that there was “no significant difference” between how people handled good news and possibly the worst news of their lives. In fact, most people think they can handle it. People who ask for the information usually can handle the information, good or bad, said Green.The first paragraph is meant to__________.
| A．ask some questions |
| B．introduce the topic |
| C．satisfy readers’ curiosity |
| D．describe an academic fact |
Which of the following is true of James Watson？
| A．He is strongly in favor of the present genetic tests. |
| B．He is more likely to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. |
| C．He believes genetic mapping can help cure any disease. |
| D．He doesn’t want to know his chance of getting a disease. |
According to Paragraphs 3 and 4, if a person is at a higher genetic risk, it is__________.
| A．advisable not to let him know |
| B．impossible to hide his disease |
| C．better to inform him immediately |
| D．necessary to remove his anxiety |
The underlined part “freak out” in Paragraph 5 is closest in meaning to“_________”.
| A．break down | B．drop out |
| C．leave off | D．turn away |
The study led by Dr. Green indicates that people__________.
| A．prefer to hear good news |
| B．tend to find out the truth |
| C．can accept some bad news |
| D．have the right to be informed |
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