In 1970, my five brothers, my sister and I lived in the housing projects of Toronto with our parents. My father was a factory worker, and my mother stayed at home. Each year my father would dress up as Santa Claus and go through the streets of the projects sharing joy and candies with the children there. He loved it as much as they did!
But around the Christmas in 1970, my father was out of his job and money was tight. In fact, there was no money for Christmas and my parents weren’t sure what they’d provide for us.
That Christmas Eve, however, as usual, my father left the house dressed as Santa Claus. He knew that even though our Christmas would be hard, he could not disappoint the other kids in the neighborhood.
As my father left the house and went down the walkway, Santa Claus was walking up, with a great sack full of gifts for us! He said nothing, only smiled a sweet smile at my father, and wished him a Merry Christmas. The happy man handed Dad the sack and walked away down the block.
We never knew who the man was and who showed us great kindness on a snowy Christmas night. We do know, however, that without him we would have had nothing under the tree. His kindness gave my parents hope and showed us in a very real way the true meaning of Christmas.
Our family has never forgotten this kind stranger. Each year we tell the story of the mysterious Santa Claus and try to repay his gifts by giving gifts to others in need.The author’s father ________.
| A．was once the richest man in his hometown |
| B．was working in a government office |
| C．had to support a family of 9 people |
| D．looked like Santa Claus most |
What happened in 1970?
| A．The author’s mother lost her job. |
| B．They had a little money left for Christmas. |
| C．They had the worst Christmas in their lives. |
| D．The author’s father was out of work. |
The author’s family knew ________.
| A．who the mysterious Santa Claus was |
| B．why the mysterious Santa Claus helped them |
| C．how they could repay the mysterious Santa Claus |
| D．they could find the mysterious Santa Claus one day |
It can be inferred（推断）that ________.
| A．the mysterious Santa Claus was one of their relatives |
| B．the mysterious Santa Claus was a rich man in the area |
| C．the sack from the mysterious Santa Claus was very expensive |
| D．the author’s family were all thankful to the mysterious Santa Claus |
Starting a bank a child’s play? Absolutely, if you ask some enterprising youngsters in India, who have not only managed to establish one, but also, unlike many of the large International banks, run it successfully since 2001. What’s even more impressive is that the young bankers and their 90,004---clients are all homeless!
The Children’s Development Khazana (treasure) opened its first branch in 2001 at a homeless shelter in New Deli as a way to help the street children protect their hard-earned money from thieves. Since then, the idea has caught on like wildfire.
Today, Khazana has 12 branches all across New Deli, with a total of Rupees 12lakh (about 22,000USD) in deposits. Not only that, there are now 77 affiliated branches in other parts of Asia, ranging from Nepal, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to the island of Sri Lanka, and even Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia. While no deposit or balance is too small for the bank, they do have strict regulations about where the money is earned from. Funds obtained by begging or selling drugs are not welcomed at this bank !
Also, unlike the real banks, all employees are volunteers, which means that they go to school or a paying job during the day and work at the bank in the evening. To ensure that everybody gets a chance to participate in running the branch, two volunteer managers are elected from the clients base every six months.
Karan, the current manager is just 14-year-old. During the day he earns a living by helping out the cleaning crew at wedding banquets and other big parties. In the evening, he handles the deposits（存款）and withdrawals（取款）in the bank. After the bank closes, he along with an adult volunteer from the shelter head over to a regular bank and deposit the funds collected into Khazana’s interest-bearing bank account and though it started with one single purpose. The Children’s Development Khazana is today a well-developed bank, one kids can not only deposit money which earns them 5% interest, but also, request loans for family emergencies, to start a business or even to pay for school.The initial aim of starting the Children’s Development Khazana is to______.
| A．provide for jobs for homeless children |
| B．help homeless families with emergencies |
| C．sponsor homeless children to go to school |
| D．safeguard homeless children’s hard-earned money |
The children’s Development Khazana is different from regular banks in that_______.
| A．all its workers are street children |
| B．it pays its customers no interest |
| C．customers can be made its managers |
| D．it opens in the evening six month a year |
According to the passage, the Children’s Development Khazana________.
| A．welcomes all money, however small it is |
| B．offers more and better service than before |
| C．is run by a 14-year-old boy, Karan alone |
| D．has more than 70 branches across India |
People from East Asia tend to have more difficulty than those from Europe in distinguishing facial expressions---and a new report published online in Current Biology explains why.
Rachael Jack, University of Glasgow researcher, said that rather than scanning evenly across a face as Westerners do, Easterners fix their attention on the eyes.
“We show that Easterners and Westerners look at different face features to read facial expressions,” Jack said. “Westerners look at the eyes and the mouth in equal measure, whereas Easterners favor the eyes and neglect the mouth.”
According to Jack and her colleagues, the discovery shows that human communication of emotion is more complex than previously believed. As a result, facial expressions that had been considered universally recognizable cannot be used reliably to convey emotion in cross-cultural situations.
The researchers studied cultural differences in the recognition of facial expressions by recording the facial movements of 13 Western Caucasian and 13 Eastern Asian people while they observed pictures of expressive faces and put them into categories: happy, sad, surprised, fearful, disgusted, angry, or neutral. They compared how accurately participants read those facial expressions using their particular eye movement strategies.
It turned out that Easterners focused much greater attention on the eyes and made significantly more errors than did Westerners. “The cultural difference in eye movements that they show is probably a reflection of cultural difference in facial expressions,” Jack said. “Our data suggest that whereas Westerners use the whole face to convey emotion, Easterners use the eyes more and mouth less.”
In short, the data show that facial expressions are not universal signals of human emotion. From here on, examining how cultural factors have diversified these basic social skills will help our understanding of human emotion. Otherwise, when it comes to communicating emotions across cultures, Easterners and Westerners will find themselves lost in translation.The discovery shows that Westerners______.
| A．pay equal attention to the eyes and the mouth |
| B．consider facial expressions universally reliable |
| C．observe the eyes and the mouth in different ways |
| D．have more difficulty in recognizing facial expression |
What were the people asked to do in the study?
| A．To make a face at each other |
| B．To get their faces impressive |
| C．To classify some face pictures |
| D．To observe the researchers’ faces |
What does the underlined word “they” in paragraph 6 refer to?
| A．The participants in the study |
| B．The researchers of the study |
| C．The errors made during the study |
| D．The data collected from the study |
In comparison with the Westerners, Easterners are likely to______.
| A．do translation more successfully |
| B．study the mouth frequently |
| C．examine the eyes more attentively |
| D．read facial expressions more correctly |
Last July, my 12-year-old car died on California’s Santa Ana Freeway. It was hour before sunset, and I was 25 miles from home. I couldn't reach anyone to pick me up, so I decided to take a bus. Not knowing the routes, I figured I’d just head east. A bus pulled up, and I asked the driver how far she was going. “Four more lights,” she said. There was another bus I could take from there. This clearly was going to be a long night. She dropped me off at the end of her route and told me which bus to look for. After waiting 30 minutes, I began to think about a very expensive taxi ride home. Then a bus pulled up. There was no lighted number above its windshield. It was out of service. But the door opened, and I was surprised to find that it was the same driver. “I just can’t leave you here,” she said. “This isn’t the nicest place. I will give you a ride home.” “You will drive me home in the bus?” I asked, perplexed. “No, I’ll take you in my car,” she said. “It’s a long way,” I protested. “Come on,” she said. “I have nothing else to do.” As we drove from the station in her car,, she began telling me a story. A few days earlier, her brother had run out of gas. A good Samaritan（乐善好施者）picked him up, took him to a service station and then back to his car. “I’m just passing the favor along,” she said. When I offered her money as a thank you, she wouldn’t hear of it . “That wouldn’t make it a favor,” she said. “Just do something nice to somebody. Pass it along.”Why did the writer say that he would have a long night?
| A．He wondered how long he had to wait for the next bus. |
| B．No driver would give him a ride. |
| C．He didn’t know the routes. |
| D．He perhaps would have to take a taxi. |
Why did the writer change his mind after waiting for 30 minutes at the end of the route?
| A．No bus would come at the time. |
| B．A taxi ride would be more comfortable. |
| C．He became impatient and a bit worried. |
| D．He knew the driver would never return |
The bus driver drove the writer home later because______.
| A．she happened to go in the same direction |
| B．she wanted to do something good for other people |
| C．her brother told her to do so |
| D．she wanted to earn more money |
The bus driver hoped that the writer_____.
| A．would do as she did | B．would keep her in memory |
| C．would give the money to others | D．would do her a favor |
To American visitors, Iceland is a very interesting country, partly because it is different in so many ways from he or she is used to seeing at home. There are quite a few things that are not done, or that do not exist on the island---quite a few “No’s”.
There is no pollution, for instance, No dogs are permitted in Reykjavik, the capital. There is no television on Thursdays or during the entire month of July, and only three hours of black-and-white TV the rest of the time. There is no hard liquor on Wednesdays and no beer at any time. There is no handguns; only one jail of thirty-five cells（狱室）in the entire land---an admirable figure, even for a small country of 313,376 people.
There is no army, air force or navy. There is no tipping for anything. There are no large stores open on Saturdays or Sundays. Since Iceland is situated just under the Arctic Circle, there is no darkness in summer and no daylight in winter. But thanks to Culf Stream, the climate is rather mild, with temperatures ranging from 34 degrees to 52 degrees in July.
The rules on television liquor and guns are the result of government decisions. But the absence of pollution is due in great part to the fact that Iceland gets its power from the enormous geyser and the thousands of hot springs that come out of the ground. They provide all the energy needed by the country. In fact, Iceland uses only 3 percent of all its available power.
Iceland has been described as a democratic independent country where more fish are caught and more books published per person than anywhere else in the world. The Icelanders have always felt a particular love for literature. They composed their first books in the ninth and tenth centuries AD. These works were poems and tales about the kings, heroes, and heroines of Iceland and Norway. At first, the stories were memoried and passed from generation to generation. They were finally written down between1140 and 1220. The Icelanders have never stopped writing ever since. “Rather shoeless than bookless,” they proudly say.American visitors enjoy visiting Iceland probably because_______.
| A．no dogs are permitted in the capital | B．the police do not carry handguns |
| C．the climate is rather mild | D．it is very different from Americans |
The following statements are true EXCEPT________.
| A．there are no soldiers in Iceland | B．the Icelanders don’t drink beer |
| C．there is no tip of any kind | D．there are no crimes in Iceland |
There is no pollution in Iceland mainly because_______.
| A．Iceland uses only 3 percent of all its available power |
| B．the Icelanders use hot water from the ground below as their energy |
| C．it is located just under the Arctic Circle |
| D．it is a democratic independent country |
“Rather shoeless than bookless” means_______.
| A．they prefer not to have shoe or books |
| B．they would rather have shoes on than write books |
| C．they prefer travelling to reading |
| D．they regard books more important than shoes. |
Culture helps human societies survive in changing natural environment．For example, the end of the last Ice Age, beginning about 15,000 years ago, brought a big challenge to which humans had to adapt．Before this time, large parts of the northern hemisphere were covered in great sheets of ice that contained much of the earth' s water．In North America, large animals that wandered the vast tundra （冰原） provided people with food and materials for clothing and simple shelters．When the earth became warm, large Ice Age animals disappeared, and many land areas were covered by rising sea levels from melting ice．But people survived, they developed new technologies and learned how to survive on new plant and animal species． Finally some people settled into permanent villages, durable houses and farms．
Cultural adaptation has made humans one of the most successful species on the planet． Through history, major developments in technology, medicine, and nutrition have allowed people to reproduce and survive in ever-increasing numbers．The global population has risen from 8 million during the Ice Age to about 6 billion today．
However, the successes of culture adaptation can also create problems in the long run．Over the last 200 years, people have begun to use large quantities of natural resources and energy and to produce a great amount of material and chemical wastes．The global population now consumes some important natural resources—such as petroleum, wood, and minerals—faster than nature can produce them．Many scientists believe that in the process of burning fuels and producing wastes, people may be changing the global climate in unpredictable and possibly harmful ways．Thus, the adaptive success of the present-day global culture of production and trade may be temporary．What is the first paragraph mainly talking about?
| A．How the human beings survived in the Ice Age． |
| B．What the situation was like during the Ice Age． |
| C．What caused the Ice Age to come to an end． |
| D．Why the Ice Age was very important． |
To deal with the problems, human beings should ______according to the passage．
| A．stop developing any longer |
| B．reduce the overuse of natural resources |
| C．stop the global warming and using natural resources |
| D．save more animals in case they all die out |
Which of the following is the problem caused by cultural adaptation according to the passage?
| A．A very developed culture came into being． |
| B．New technologies have been developed． |
| C．Natural resources have been used up． |
| D．Human activities have done damage to the balance of nature． |
Which of the following can be the best tide of the passage?
| A．Natural Environment Should Be Protected． |
| B．The Success of Cultural Adaptation Is Not Permanent． |
| C．The Global Population Is Increasing Since Ice Age． |
| D．Human Beings Are Capable of Surviving on Earth. |
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