"Jin's new collection of short stories...shows he could teach some native-born writers a few things about the beauty of spare prose（散文）and the power of a few well-chosen words."
-- USA Today
"Amusing...Realistic...Rarely has China seemed less exotic and more accessible...The stories have the air of fable（寓言）."
--Los Angeles Times
"A vivid picture...of Chinese society in the era just after the Cultural Revolution."
-- Chicago Tribune
"Brilliant...delightful...Ha Jin's customs, ideas and landscapes might be of an Eastern persuasion, but his writing communicates universally. Without being didactic or condescending, these stories often resemble modern fables…”
--Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
"Beautifully understated short stories of life in modern China. Some of them are likely to break your heart."
--People
"A short story collection that offers readers...a dozen ways to enter the changing landscape of modern China...No one has ever captured the collision between the Communist society and the western culture quite like Ha Jin."
--Baton Rouge Magazine"Ha Jin", is probably a _____.
| A．name of a place in China |
| B．name of a writer of ancient China |
| C．name of a writer of modern times |
| D．name of a book |
"Los Angeles Times", "USA Today" and "Star Tribune (Minneapolis)" are the names of_____.
| A．newspapers and magazines |
| B．different places in America |
| C．different organizations that sell books. |
| D．book critics. |
Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．The "People" doesn't like the stories because they will break people's heart. |
| B．The "USA Today" suggests that Ha Jin should work as a school teacher. |
| C．Ha Jin's book has many beautiful paintings. |
| D．Ha Jin's book has successfully described a modern China to western readers. |
All the statements can be used to help to_____.
| A．attract more tourists to China |
| B．attract more students to a university |
| C．sell more books of Ha Jin |
| D．sell more copies of Los Angeles Times |
Choosing the Right Resolution (决定)
Millions of Americans began 2014 with the same resolution they started 2013 with, a goal of losing weight. However, setting weight loss as a goal is a mistake.
To reach our goal of losing weight --- the output, we need to control what we eat --- the input ( 输入). That is, we tend to care about the output but not to control the input. This is a bad way to construce goals. The alternative is to focus your resolution on the input. Instead of resolving to lose weight, try an actionable resolution: “I’ll stop having desert for lunch,” or “I’ll walk every day for 20 minutes.” Creating a goal that focuses on a well-specified input will likely be more effective than concentrating on the outcome.
Recently a new science behind incentives (激励) , including in education, has been discussed. For example, researcher Roland Fryer wanted to see what works best in motivating children to do better in school. In some cases, he gave students incentives based on input, like reading certain books, while in others, the incentives were based on output, like results on exams. His main finding was that incentives increased achievement when based on input but had no effect on output. Fryer’s conclusion was that the intensives for inputs might be more effective because do not knoe how to do better on exam, aside from general rules like “study harder.” Reading certain books, on the other hand, is a well-set task over which they have much more control.
As long as you have direct control over your goal, you have a much higher chance of success. And it’s easier to start again if you fail, because you know exactly what you need to do.
If you want to cut down on your spending, a good goal would be making morning coffee at home instead of going to a cafe, for example. This is a well-specified action-based goal for which you can measure your success easily. Spending less money isn’t a goal because it’s too general. Similarly, if you want to spend more time with your family, don’t stop with this general wish. Think about an actionable habit that you could adopt and stick to, like a family movie night every Wednesday.
In the long run, these new goals could become a habit.The writer thinks that setting weight loss as a goal is a mistake because _______ .
| A．it is hard to achieve for most Americans |
| B．it is focused too much on the result |
| C．it is dependent on too many things |
| D．it is based on actionable decisions |
In Roland Fryer’s research, some students did better than the others because ______ .
| A．they obeyed all the general rules |
| B．they paid more attention to exams |
| C．they were motivated by their classmates |
| D．they were rewarded for reading some books |
According to the writer, which of the following statements is a good goal?
| A．“I’ll give up desert.” | B．“I’ll study harder.” |
| C．“I’ll cut down my expense” | D．“I’ll spend more time with my family” |
The writer strongly believes that we should ________ .
| A．develop good habits and focus on the outcome |
| B．be optimistic about final goals and stick to them |
| C．pick specific actions that can be turned into good habits |
| D．set ambitious goals that can balance the input ang output |
However wealthy we may be, we can never find enough hours in the day to do everything we want. Economics deals with this problem through the concept of opportunity cost, which simply refers to whether someone's time or money could be better spent on something else.
Every hour of our time has a value. For every hour we work at one job we could quite easily be doing another, or be sleeping or watching a film. Each of these options has a different opportunity cost—namely, what they cost us in missed opportunities.
Say you intend to watch a football match but the tickets are expensive and it will take you a couple of hours to get to and from the stadium. Why not, you might reason, watch the game from home and use the leftover money and time to have dinner with friends? This—the alternative use of your cash and time—is the opportunity cost.
For economists, every decision is made by knowledge of what one must forgo—in terms of money and enjoyment—in order to take it up. By knowing precisely what you are receiving and what you are missing out on, you ought to be able to make better-informed, more reasonable decisions. Consider that most famous economic rule of all: there's no such thing as a free lunch. Even if someone offers to take you out to lunch for free, the time you will spend in the restaurant still costs you something in terms of forgone opportunities.
Some people find the idea of opportunity cost extremely discouraging: imagine spending your entire life calculating whether your time would be better spent elsewhere doing something more profitable or enjoyable. Yet, in a sense it's human nature to do precisely that—we assess the advantages and disadvantages of decisions all the time.
In the business world, a popular phrase is "value for money." People want their cash to go as far as possible. However, another is fast obtaining an advantage: "value for time." The biggest restriction on our resources is the number of hours we can devote to something, so we look to maximize the return we get on our investment of time. By readmg this passage you are giving over a bit of your time which could be spent doing other activities, such as sleeping and eating. In return, however, this passage will help you to think like an economist, closely considering the opportunity cost of each of your decisions.According to the passage, the concept of "opportunity cost" is applied to .
| A．making more money | B．taking more opportunities |
| C．reducing missed opportunities | D．weighing the choice of opportunities |
Hie "leftover ... time" in Paragraph 3 probably refers to the time .
| A．spared for watching the match at home |
| B．taken to have dinner with friends |
| C．spent on the way to and from the match |
| D．saved from not going to watch the match |
What are forgone opportunities?
| A．Opportunities you forget in decision-making. |
| B．Opportunities you give up for better ones. |
| C．Opportunities you miss accidentally. |
| D．Opportunities you make up for. |
“I like your smile, but unlike you put your shoes on my face”. A charming way of saying “Keep off the grass”. But could you figure it out? Or this: “Wash Clothing Store” for laundry.
They are both typical Chinglish, a combination of English vocabulary and Chinese grammar. Expressions such as “people mountain people sea”， means extremely crowded, and “give you some color to see”， meaning a punishment, are widely known and recognized.
Chinglish has been attracting global attention in recent years as China grows rapidly in stature on the world stage, attracting both fans and detractors.
The Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages Programme and English First China Company, a language trainer known as EF Education, jointly launched a campaign to root out poor grammar and misused vocabulary in downtown Beijing. They argue Chinglish is an embarrassment that we should let it die out at all costs.
“It is meaningful, to allow the capital show its most beautiful historical and cultural heritage to the world.” Michael Lu, vicepresident of EF Education said, “since the launching of the campaign, foreign teachers and students had been very keen to volunteer participation.” He believed signs were very important in public services. “The signs in some old buildings confused foreign visitors.”
Chinglish, although the target of much criticism, has also won supporters who regard it as an interesting way for foreigners to learn how Chinese people think and express themselves.
“Many Chinglish logos carry Chinese elements and they will enrich the English language，” 32yearold Oliver Radtke said. He had even published a book “Chinglish: Found in Translation，” on the subject. About 50 000 copies of the book have been sold since it was published in 2007.
Some Chinese university experts also side with Chinglish. “English has absorbed elements from other languages such as French and Spanish in its growth, and the emergence of Chinglish again testifies to the language's vitality and inclusiveness，” said Shi Anbin, an associate professor of Tsinghua University.How did Chinglish come into being?
| A．Chinese people misunderstood the meaning of the new words. |
| B．Chinese people combined English vocabulary with Chinese grammar. |
| C．Chinese people based their English on the native English speakers. |
| D．Chinese people make wide use of English vocabulary with bad spelling. |
What Shi Anbin said means ________.
| A．there are many French and Spanish words in English |
| B．English is the language with vitality and inclusiveness |
| C．Chinglish enriches English and shouldn't be got rid of |
| D．Chinglish has greater effect on English than French and Spanish |
According to Oliver Radtke, Chinglish ________.
| A．shows how Chinese people think |
| B．does damage to the English language |
| C．shows the great humor of Chinese people |
| D．should be sold to all over the world |
Grownups are often surprised by how well they remember something they learned as children but have never practiced ever since. A man who has not had a chance to go swimming for years can still swim as well as ever when he gets back in the water. He can get on a bicycle after many years and still ride away. He can play catch and hit a ball as well as his son. A mother who has not thought about the words for years can teach her daughter the poem that begins “Twinkle, twinkle, little star” or remember the story of Cinderella or Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
One explanation is the law of overlearning, which can be stated as follows: Once we have learned something, additional learning trials increase the length of time we will remember it.
In childhood we usually continue to practice such skills as swimming, bicycle riding, and playing baseball long after we have learned them. We continue to listen to and remind ourselves of words such as “Twinkle, twinkle, little star” and childhood tales such as Cinderella and Goldilocks. We not only learn but overlearn.
The multiplication tables (乘法口诀表) are an exception to the general rule that we forget rather quickly the things that we learn in school, because they are another of the things we overlearn in childhood.
The law of overlearning explains why cramming (突击学习) for an examination, though it may result in a passing grade, is not a satisfactory way to learn a college course. By cramming, a student may learn the subject well enough to get by on the examination, but he is likely soon to forget almost everything he learned. A little overlearning, on the other hand, is really necessary for one's future development.What is the main idea of Paragraph 1?
| A．People remember well what they learned in childhood. |
| B．Children have a better memory than grownups. |
| C．Poem reading is a good way to learn words. |
| D．Stories for children are easy to remember. |
The author explains the law of overlearning by________.
| A．presenting research findings |
| B．setting down general rules |
| C．making a comparison |
| D．using examples |
According to the author, being able to use multiplication tables is ________.
| A．a result of overlearning |
| B．a special case of cramming |
| C．a skill to deal with math problems |
| D．a basic step towards advanced studies |
What is the author's opinion on cramming?
| A．It leads to failure in college exams. |
| B．It's helpful only in a limited way. |
| C．It's possible to result in poor memory. |
| D．It increases students' learning interest. |
“Reconstituted” families are more and more common in the UK.
Steve and Debbie got married in 2001 and had two children，Lily and Alex.Unfortunately，Steve and Debbie’s marriage didn’t work out and they got divorced in 2006.The children live with Debbie.In 2008，Debbie remarried.Her new husband，Martin，has three children from his previous marriage and they visit Debbie，Martin，Lily and Alex at weekends.In addition，Debbie is pregnant with her third child.She’s expecting a boy who will be a halfbrother to Lily and Alex and also to Martin’s three other children.
Confused？Debbie’s family arrangements might have seemed strange 30 years ago but nowadays this kind of “reconstituted” family is increasingly common in the UK.Almost half of all marriages in Britain end in divorce and over 40% of marriages are remarriages.More than 10% of all British children live with one birth parent and a stepparent—a parent who isn’t their biological mother or father.The traditional “nuclear” family of two parents and their children is not so traditional any more.
What does all of this mean for parents in these “reconstituted” families？“There are difficulties and challenges，” says Debbie.“Different families have different routines and it can be difficult for children to move between their two families.Birthdays and holidays can be tricky.Where do the children go？Who should they spend their time with？Also，when my children are naughty it can be difficult for Martin to tell_them_off.Things that might be simple in a traditional family can be a bit more complicated.”
And how about the children？Martin’s eldest child，Ella，is 12.“I like my two families，” she says.“I live with my mum but visit my dad quite often and I’m happy that my mum and dad get along OK.They’re not married any more but it’s good that they can still be friends.” Of course divorce and separation are never easy but many families in the UK are finding ways to make family life work in new ways.Why did Steve and Debbie get separated?
| A．They couldn’t support the children. |
| B．They couldn’t get along well. |
| C．They were both out of work. |
| D．They had serious economic problems. |
We can learn from the text that a “nuclear” family ________.
| A．has two birth parents and their children |
| B．has two birth parents and only one child |
| C．is traditional but complicated |
| D．doesn’t have any children |
What do the underlined words “tell them off” in Paragraph 4 most probably mean?
| A．make them annoyed | B．send them to school |
| C．let out their secrets | D．talk angrily to them |
What’s the text mainly about?
| A．The difference between “marriage” and “remarriage”． |
| B．More and more people get divorced in the UK. |
| C．“Reconstituted” families are becoming more and more in the UK. |
| D．The marriage situation is becoming severe. |
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