There are people in Italy who can’t stand soccer. Not all Canadians love hockey. A similar situation exists in America, where there are those individuals you may be one of them who frown when somebody mentions baseball. Baseball to them means boring hours watching grown men in funny tight outfits standing around in a field staring away while very little of anything happens. They tell you it’s a game better suited to the 19th century, slow, quiet, and gentlemanly. These are the same people you may be one of them who love football because there’s the sport that values “the hit”.
By contrast, baseball seems abstract, cool, silent, still.
On TV the game is divided into a dozen perspectives, replays, close-ups. The geometry(几何学) of the game, however, is essential to understanding it. You will view the game from one point as a painter does his subject; you may, of course, project yourself into the game. It is in this projection that the game affords so much space and time for involvement. The TV won’t do it for you.
Take, for example, the third baseman. You sit behind the third base and you watch him watching home plate. His legs are apart, knees flexed(弯曲). His arms hang loose. He does a lot of this. The skeptic(怀疑论者) still cannot think of any other sports so still, so passive. But watch what happens every time the pitcher throws: the third baseman goes up on his toes, flexes his arms or brings the glove to a point in front of him, takes a step right or left, backward or forward, perhaps he glances across the field to check his first baseman’s position. Suppose the pitch is a ball. “Nothing happened,” you say. “I could have had my eyes closed.”
The skeptic and the innocent must play the game. And this involvement in the stands is no more intellectual than listening to music is. Watch the third baseman. Smooth the dirt in front of you with one foot; smooth the pocket in your glove; watch the eyes of the batter, the speed of the bat, the sound of ball on wood. If football is a symphony of movement and theatre, baseball is chamber music, a spacious interlocking(连锁) of notes, chorus（和声）and responses.The passage is mainly concerned with .
| A．the attraction of baseball |
| B．the superiority of football |
| C．the different tastes of people for sports |
| D．the different characteristics of sports |
Those who don’t like baseball may complain that .
| A．it is only to the taste of the old |
| B．it is not exciting enough |
| C．it involves fewer players than football |
| D．it is pretentious and looks funny |
The author admits that .
| A．baseball may seem boring when watched on TV |
| B．football is more attracting than baseball |
| C．baseball is more interesting than football |
| D．baseball is too peaceful for the young |
By stating “I could have had my eyes closed”, the author means (4th paragraph last sentence) .
| A．The consequence was so bad that he could not bear to see it |
| B．The third baseman is so good at baseball that he could finish the game with eyes closed all the time and do his work well |
| C．Even if the third baseman closed his eyes a moment ago, it could make no difference to the result |
| D．The third baseman would rather sleep than play the game |
Once Dr.Mellinkoff invited me to join him at the hospital to discuss interesting cases with his students．The case at hand was a Guatemalan man, aged 34, who had a fever and many other medical problems．His condition was not improving, and there was not much hope he would live．
Dr.Mellinkoff asked to see the patient．He introduced himself in Spanish and, in a very gentle voice, asked how he felt．The patient smiled and said everything was all right．Then the doctor asked if he was able to eat．The patient said that he had no desire to eat．
"Are you getting food you like?"
The patient said nothing．
"Do you get the kind of food you have at home?"
The answer was no．
The doctor put his hand on the man’s shoulder and his voice was very soft．
"If; you had food that you liked, would you eat it?"
"Yes, yes," the patient said．
The change in the patient’s appearance couldn’t have been more obvious．Nothing was said, but it was easy to tell that a message had been sent and! had also been received．
Later, the doctor asked why the Guatemalan man wasn’t getting food he could eat．One of the students said, "We all know how difficult it is to get the kitchen to make special meals．"
"Suppose," the doctor replied, "you felt a certain medicine was absolutely necessary but that our hospital didn’t carry it, would you accept defeat or would you insist the hospital meet your request?"
"I would probably insist," the student said．
"Very well," the doctor said．"You might want to try the same method in the kitchen．It won’t be easy, but I can help you．Meanwhile, let’s get some food inside this man as fast as possible, and stay with it．Or he’ll be killed by hunger．By the way, there must be someone among you who can speak Spanish．If we want to make real progress, we need to be able to talk with him．"
Three weeks later, Doctor Mellinkoff told me that the Guatemalan man had left the hospital under his own power．It takes more than medicine to help sick people; you also have to talk to them and make them comfortable．The patient had no desire to eat because .
| A．he was not hungry | B．he was seriously ill |
| C．he was given special meals | D．he was not satisfied with the food |
According to the passage, we can conclude that .
| A．the patient’s native language was Spanish |
| B．the patient’s illness was caused by hunger |
| C．Dr. Mellinkoff performed an operation on the patient |
| D．the hospital failed to provide the right medicine for the patient |
Which of the following words can be used to describe Dr. Mellinkoff?
| A．Cold. | B．Considerate. | C．Curious. | D．Careless. |
What do you think Dr. Mellinkoff wanted to tell his students in this case?
| A．Doctors should be good at foreign languages. |
| B．Doctors should know their patients’ real problems. |
| C．Doctors should try to improve their medical skills. |
| D．Doctors should have a good relationship with their patients. |
I’m a teacher. But there are days, like today, when I wonder why. The results of an English quiz taken by my fifth-graders were depressing. Despite my best efforts, the world of pronouns remains a mystery to them. How I wish there were a way to make the study of our language as exciting as a computer game, so the glazed (目光呆滞) looks would not appear in their eyes at the mention of the word “grammar.” I remember my husband’s words: “Why don’t you quit? You’d probably make more money by doing something else, and you wouldn’t have papers to grade every night.”
Tonight I have a stack of papers to grade, which I promised my students I would return tomorrow. But a friend, whom I haven’t seen in a year, is visiting from Belgium, and I told her I would keep this evening free.
Sitting in traffic behind a distant stoplight, it’s hard not to replay the day. A voice reports the body of a local youngster, missing for weeks, has been identified.
This missing child has had a deep effect on my students. They wondered, “If it happened to her, could it happen to me?”
My children had found the answer themselves. They got out their pencils, markers and made cards. Cards were written with words of compassion and love for a mother and father they didn’t know. Cards were filled with red hearts, golden crosses, flowers and angels. Their cards, intended to comfort others, comforted the children themselves by leading them past the anxiety, back into the world of security (安全) that should be theirs.
And then I remember why I’m still teaching. It’s the children. They’re more important than a lifetime filled with quiet evenings and more valuable than a pocket filled with money. My classroom, a child-filled world of discovery, of kindness and of caring is the real world.
It’s time to call my friend. I have promises to keep. She’ll understand. After all, she’s a teacher.The writer wonders why she is a teacher because _____.
| A．her students often play games in class |
| B．teaching is not a well-paid job |
| C．her students feel bored with grammar |
| D．she feels frustrated at teaching |
The students’ attitude to the missing child’s parents might be that of _____.
| A．doubt | B．unconcern | C．sympathy | D．tolerance |
What is the most important according to the writer?
| A．A pocket filled with money. |
| B．The kind and caring children. |
| C．A lifetime filled with quiet evenings. |
| D．The freedom to control her own time. |
What promise will the writer keep?
| A．To grade papers that night. | B．To help a student with homework. |
| C．To accept her husband’s advice. | D．To meet her old friend. |
Begin doing the work you love as soon as possible, even if you don’t get paid for it, or if you can only work at it part-time. Albert Einstein was unable to get a job as a physics professor. He could have said to himself, “Well, I just don’t have the work relative to physics. I should give up on it and settle for something else.” Instead, he wrote the two most famous papers when he was employed as a patent clerk. After their publication, there was not a major university in the world that would not have been glad to have him on their staff.
If you want to work as an artist and you are making a living as a waiter, don’t think of yourself as a waiter who hopes one day to become an artist. That puts the work you love somewhere off in the distant future. Rather, think of yourself as an artist, supporting yourself by waiter tables—and paint, or draw as much as you can. It is possible to earn a living wage as a waiter working 24 hours a week. That leaves plenty of time to devote to training or developing your craft（手艺）in the off hours.
While seeking the work you love, it helps to expand your awareness into the universe of all possibilities. You don’t want to be limited to the ideas of what you should do or what you have done before. Having opened to all possibilities, you can make a final decision and select the work you love as your own.
Doing the work you love requires that you be equally comfortable with the imaginative and the practical. It requires the ability to dream big dreams and the ability to face and master all the little details that make dreams come true.According to the passage, perhaps Einstein once said to himself, “_______.”
| A．Well, I just don’t have the work relative to physics. I should give up on it and settle for something else |
| B．The job is just what I want, I should work very hard at it |
| C．I have to support myself by working as a patent clerk now, but I won’t give physics up |
| D．I must wait until I find my favorite job |
If a person works 24 hours a week, he can________.
| A．have enough spare time for his hobbies |
| B．have no time left to make his dream come true |
| C．do nothing else |
| D．make a good living |
Which of the following is not implied in the last paragraph?
| A．Sometimes the imaginative is different from the practical. |
| B．We have to take care of a lot of details before we make our dreams come true. |
| C．We shall do practical things rather than dream. |
| D．We shall dream big dreams and practice as well. |
According to the passage, the author encourages us to ________.
| A．start work quickly | B．select job carefully and patiently |
| C．dream often | D．make up our minds quickly |
No one knows for certain why people dream, but some dreams misht be connected to the mental processes that help us learn. In a recent study, scientists found a connection between nap-time (午睡时间) dreams and better memory in people who were learning a new skill.
“I was astonished by this finding,” Robert Stickgold told Science News. He is a cognitive neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School who worked on the study of-how the brain and nervous system work, and cognitive studies look at how people learn and reason. So a cognitive neuroscientist may study the brain processes that help people learn.
In the study, 99 college students between the ages of 18 and 30 each spent an hour on a computer, trying to get through a virtual maze (虚拟迷宫). The maze was difficult, and the study participants had to start in a different place each time they tried - making it even more difficult. They were also told to find a particular picture of a tree and remember where it was.
For the first 90 minutes of a five-hour break, half of the particularity stayed awake and half were told to take a short nap. Participants who stayed awake were asked to describe their thoughts. Participants who took a nap were asked about their dreams before sleep and after steep - and they were awakened within a minute of sleep to describe their dreams.
About a dozen of the 50 people who slept said their dreams were connected to the maze. Some dreamed about the music that had been playing when they were working; others said they dreamed about seeing people in the maze. When these people tried the computer maze again, they were generally able to find the tree faster than before their naps. However, people who had other dreams, or people who didn’t take a nap, didn’t show the same improvement.
Stickgold suggests the dream itself doesn’t help a person learn - it’s the other way around.It is a cognitive scientists job to study__ .
| A．how people dream and learn |
| B．the structure of the nervous system |
| C．whether someone is reasonable |
| D．the process of understanding |
The purpose of the study attended by 99 college students is to .
| A．find the hidden tree in the maze |
| B．test the design of a difficult virtual maze |
| C．train people’s memory |
| D．see how dreams and learning are connected |
The better performance in working out the maze is connected with .
| A．how people dream | B．what people dream |
| C．when people dream | D．where people dream |
The writer will probably continue to talk about in the 6th paragraph.
| A．how learning process caused the dream |
| B．how a dream helps a person learn |
| C．how dreams and learning influence each other |
| D．how to improve people’s memory |
Exited about landing your first job after graduation? Good, work hard and get learning. Don’t forget to listen to young professional’s advice about the “real world” you’re stepping into.
1. Keep up with current events.
In school, it’s easy to live in a cocoon, where you focus on studies and social life. But in the working world, not knowing who Alan Greenspan is or why North Korea is in the news so often can lead to potentially embarrassing conversations.
2. Consider living with parents, even if you have a job.
Think it over before you rule it out. Not only can you save a lot of money by living at home, but your parents may provide emotional support that you may need. They can help pave the way for you to move once you are settled into your new life.
3. Don’t compare yourself to other people your age.
Young adults are good at putting up impressive appearance, but you don’t really know what their lives are like. Those who seem to have the perfect job may spend part of the day making coffee and picking up boss’s dry-cleaning.
4. Pay attention to small jobs as well as big ones.
Don’t stress if, in your first job or internship(实习期), you get a lot more face time with the copy machine than with clients. You may wonder why you spent so much time studying in school only to do such tasks. But you may also be learning more about your new professional than you realize.
5. Know when it’s time to move on.
Give a new job a chance, perhaps a year, before you make up your mind to leave, especially if it’s your first job out of school. When you’re sure that the job isn’t for you, figure out what you want to do and how to do it. Zhang Yue, 26, spent three years working as an accountant in Shanghai before becoming a financial planner. He loves his new job and spent 10 months searching for it: “To find something you really want to do takes time.” By mentioning Alan Greenspan, the author wants to show ____.
| A．how he succeeded |
| B．why he is important to the world nowadays |
| C．it is necessary to know key figures |
| D．he has a strong effect on the world |
Which of the following is TRUE?
| A．Comparing yourself to other people your age will make you harmed. |
| B．If you don’t have impressive appearance, you can’t pick up boss’ dry-cleaning. |
| C．What you have learned in school may come to nothing in your first job. |
| D．Even a small job can do good. |
The last sentence means “____”.
| A．It’s easy to find a new job once you have experience |
| B．If you hope to do something, you need suffer too much |
| C．You needn’t be worried, even though you are trying to find a good job |
| D．It will take you time to find a job that suits you well |
The aim to write the passage is to ____.
| A．show how and why to get a satisfying job after graduation |
| B．give some advice about how to behave when you work |
| C．encourage people to ask for help from parents |
| D．expect people to fit in with the working conditions as soon as possibl |
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