America is growing older. Fifty years ago, only 4 out of every 100 people in the
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America is growing older. Fifty years ago, only 4 out of every 100 people in the United States were 65 or older. Today, 10 out of every 100 Americans are over 65. The aging of the population will affect American society in many ways — education, medicine, and business. Quietly, the aging of America has made us a very different society — one in which people have a quite different idea of what kind of behavior is suitable at various ages.
A person’s age no longer tells you anything about his/ her social position, marriage or health. There’s no longer a particular year in which one goes to school or goes to work or gets married or starts a family. The social clock that kept us on time and told us when to go to school, get a job, or stop working isn’t as strong as it used to be. It doesn’t surprise us to hear of a 29-year-old university president or a 35-year-old grandmother, or a 70-year-old man who has become a father for the first time. Public ideas are changing.
Many people say, “I am much younger than my mother or my father was at my age.” No one says “Act your age” any more. We’ve stopped looking with surprise at older people who act in youthful ways.
1. It can be learned from the text that the aging of the population in America ________.
A. has made people feel younger B. has changed people’s social position
C. has changed people’s understanding of age D. has slowed down the country’s social development
2. The underlined word “one” refers to ________.
A. a society B. America C. a place D. population
3. “Act your age” means people should ________.
A. be active when they are old B. do the right thing at the right age
C. show respect to their parents young or old D. take more physical exercises suitable to their age
4. If a’ 25-year-old man becomes general manager of a big firm, the writer of the text would most probably consider it _________.
A. normal B. wonderful C. unbelievable D. unreasonable |
答案
| 1-4 CABA |
解析
1. 主旨题。根据第一、二段的最后一句及第三段可判断。
2. 细节题。one是a society的同位语且后面跟了一个定语从句，可以通过分析句子结构得出正确答案。
3. 细节题。全文最后一句话给出了提示。
4. 推理题。可仔细阅读第二段中倒数第二句话。 |
举一反三
The way people hold to the belief that a fun - filled, pain free life equals happiness actually reduces their chances of ever attaining real happiness. If fun and pleasure are equal to happiness then pain must be equal to unhappiness. But in fact, the opposite is true: more often than not things that lead to happiness involve some pain.
As a result, many people avoid the very attempts that are the source of true happiness. They fear the pain inevitably brought by such things as marriage, raising children, professional achievement, religious commitment （预担的义务）, self - improvement.
Ask a bachelor（单身汉） why he resists marriage even though he finds dating to be less and less satisfying. If he is honest he will tell you that he is afraid of making a commitment. For commitment is in fact quite painful. The single life is filled with fun, adventure, excitement. Marriage has such moments, but they are not its most distinguishing features.
Couples with infant children are lucky to get a whole night’s sleep or a three - day vacation. I don’t know any parent who would choose the word fun to describe raising children. But couples who decide not to have children never know the joys of watching a child grow up or of playing with a grandchild.
Understanding and accepting that true happiness has nothing to do with fun is one of the most liberating realizations. It liberates time: now we can devote more hours to activities that can genuinely increase our happiness. It liberates money: buying that new car or those fancy clothes that will do nothing to increase our happiness now seems pointless. And it liberates us from envy: we now understand that all those who are always having so much fun actually may not be happy at all.
小题1:According to the author, a bachelor resists marriage chiefly because ________ .| A．he is reluctant to take on family responsibilities | | B．he believes that life will be more cheerful if he remains single | | C．he finds more fun in dating than in marriage | | D．he fears it will put an end to all his fun adventure and excitement |
小题2:Raising children, in the author’s opinion is ________ .| A．a moral duty | B．a thankless job | | C．a rewarding task | D．a source of inevitable pain |
小题3:From the last paragraph, we learn that envy sometimes stems from ________ .| A．hatred | B．misunderstanding | C．prejudice | D．ignorance |
小题4:To understand what true happiness is one must ________ .| A．have as much fun as possible during one’s lifetime | | B．make every effort to liberate oneself from pain | | C．put up with pain under all circumstances | | D．be able to distinguish happiness from fun |
小题5:What is the author trying to tell us?| A．Happiness often goes hand in hand with pain． | | B．One must know how to attain happiness. | | C．It is important to make commitments. | | D．It is pain that leads to happiness. |
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Increasingly, Americans are becoming their own doctors, by going online to diagnose their symptoms, order home health tests or medical devices, or even self-treat their illnesses with drugs from Internet pharmacies(药店). Some avoid doctors because of the high cost of medical care, especially if they lack health insurance. Or they may stay because they find it embarrassing to discuss their weight, alcohol consumption or couch potato habits. Patients may also fear what they might learn about their health, or they distrust physicians because of negative experiences in the past. But playing doctor can also be a deadly game.
Every day, more than six million Americans turn to the Internet for medical answers – most of them aren’t nearly skeptical enough of what they find. A 2002 survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 72 percent of those surveyed believe all or most of what they read on health websites. They shouldn’t. Look up “headache”, and the chances of finding reliable and complete information, free from a motivation for commercial gain, are only one in ten, reports an April 2005 Brown Medical School study. Of the 169 websites the researchers rated, only 16 scored as “high quality”. Recent studies found faulty facts about all sorts of other disorders, causing one research team to warn that a large amount of incomplete, inaccurate and even dangerous information exists on the Internet.
The problem is most people don’t know the safe way to surf the Web. “They use a search engine like Google, get 18 trillion choices and start clicking. But that’s risky, because almost anybody can put up a site that looks authoritative(权威的), so it’d hard to know if what you’re reading is reasonable or not,” says Dr. Sarah Bass from the National Cancer Institute.
小题1:According to the text, an increasing number of American _____.| A．are suffering from mental disorders | | B．turn to Internet pharmacies for help | | C．like to play deadly games with doctors | | D．are skeptical about surfing medical websites |
小题2:Some Americans stay away from doctors because they _____.| A．find medical devices easy to operate | | B．prefer to be diagnosed online by doctors | | C．are afraid to face the truth of their health | | D．are afraid to misuse their health insurance |
小题3:According to the study of Brown Medical School, ______.| A．more than 6 million Americans distrust doctors | | B．only 1/10 of medical websites aim to make a profit | | C．about 1/10 of the websites surveyed are of high quality | | D．72% of health websites offer incomplete and faulty facts |
小题4:Which of the following is the author’s main argument?| A．It’s cheap to self-treat your own illness. | | B．It’s embarrassing to discuss your bad habits. | | C．It’s reasonable to put up a medical website. | | D．It’s dangerous to be your own doctor. |
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Tom was one of the brightest boys in the year, with supportive parents. But when he was 15 he suddenly stopped trying. He left school at 16 with only two scores for secondary school subjects. One of the reasons that made it cool for him not to care was the power of his peer(同龄人) group.
The lack of right male(男性的) role models in many of their lives — at home and particularly in the school environment(环境) — means that their peers are the only people they have to judge themselves against.
They don’t see men succeeding in society so it doesn’t occur to them that they could make something of themselves. Without male teachers as a role model, the effect of peer actions and street culture(文化) is all-powerful. Boys want to be part of a club. However, schools can provide the environment for change, and provide the right role models for them. Teachers need to be trained to stop that but not in front of a child’s peers. You have to do it one to one, because that is when you see the real child.
It’s pointless sending a child home if he or she has done wrong. They see it as a welcome day off to watch television or play computer games. Instead, schools should have a special unit where a child who has done wrong goes for the day and gets advice about his problems — somewhere he can work away from his peers and go home after the other children.
小题1:Why did Tom give up studying?| A．He disliked his teachers. | | B．His parents no longer supported him. | | C．It’s cool for boys of his age not to care about studies. | | D．There were too many subjects in his secondary school. |
小题2:What seems to have a bad effect on students like Tom?| A．Peer groups. | B．A special unit. | | C．The student judges. | D．The home environment. |
小题3:What should schools do to help the problem schoolboys?| A．Wait for their change patiently. | | B．Train leaders of their peer groups. | | C．Stop the development of street culture. | | D．Give them lessons in a separate area. |
小题4:A teacher’s work is most effective with a schoolboy when he ______.| A．is with the boy alone | | B．teaches the boy a lesson | | C．sends the boy home as punishment | | D．works together with another teacher |
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Why I Don’t Spare “Spare Change”
“Poor but honest. ” “The deserving poor.” These words always come to my mind when I think of “the poor”. But I also think of people who, perhaps through alcohol or drugs, have ruined not only their own lives but also the lives of others in order to give way to their own pleasure. Perhaps alcoholism and drug addiction really are “diseases”, as many people say, but my own feeling－ based, of course, not on any serious study－is that most alcoholics and drug addicts belong to the “undeserving poor”. And that is largely why I don’t give spare change to beggars.
But surely among the street people there are also some who can rightly be called “deserving”. Deserving what? My spare change? Or simply the government’s assistance? It happens that I have been brought up to believe that it is proper to make contributions to charity（慈善机构）, but if I give some change to a beggar, am I making a contribution to charity and thereby helping someone, or, am I perhaps simply encouraging someone not to get help? Or, maybe even worse, am I supporting a cheat?
If one believes in the value of private charity, one can either give to needy people or to charitable organizations. In giving to a beggar one may indeed be helping a person who badly needs help, but one cannot be certain that one is giving to a needy person. In giving to an organization, on the other hand, one can feel that one’s money is likely to be used wisely. True, facing a beggar one may feel that this particular unfortunate person needs help at this moment－a cup of coffee or a sandwich－and the need will not be met unless I put my hand in my pocket right now. But I have come to think that the beggars whom I meet can get along without my spare change, and indeed perhaps they are actually better off for not having money to buy alcohol or drugs.
I know nothing about these beggars, but it’s my impression that they simply prefer begging to working. I am not generalizing about street people. I am talking about the people whom I actually meet. That’s why I do not give “spare change”, and I don’t think I will in the future.
68. What does the author think of beggars who take drugs?
A. They should be given a check-up. B. They really need money to live.
C. They have no pleasure in life. D. They are not worth helping.
69. Why doesn’t the author give money to street people?
A. He doesn’t think they need help. B. He doesn’t have enough money to give.
C. He is not convinced they will use it rightly.
D. He believes they can get help from the government.
70. In the second paragraph, the author presents his idea by_____.
A. asking questions for people to think about B. giving examples to support his argument
C. raising questions and answering them D. expressing his opinions directly
71. Which of the following opinions does the author accept?
A. Drug addiction is a disease. B. Some street people are poor and needy.
C. Most beggars have received enough help.
D. Charitable organizations handle money properly. |
Nowadays, it is possible to travel to distant parts of the globe in several hours. This can result in the traveler ending up in a part of the world where time is different from his or her own “body clock” ,which control our sleep patterns.
If we travel east or west by more than four time zones (hours) then we will usually be affected.
In the past when people traveled by sea, there was enough time for the body to adjust to the local time, but with the advent of modern high speed aircraft the body does not have time to adjust. Therefore, there is the term “jet lag(时差反应)”. It normally takes one day per time zone (hour) for the body to adjust to its new surroundings.
The effects of jet lag are usually tiredness and insomnia (失眠) but can also include: poor concentration, nausea (恶心) ,vomiting (呕吐), constipation (便秘) and general malaise (不舒服). The effects are made worse by alcohol.
Sleeping while flying may help to reduce the symptoms (症状) of jet lag, but long periods of immobility aboard aircraft can make the traveler feel numb(麻木的) in the legs. The following are some other tips of reducing the symptoms of jet lag:
①Avoid traveling when you are already tired and rest before departure.
②Stopovers on long flights may be helpful.
③A relaxed flight is important.
④Sleeping tablets will help you to sleep and be correspondingly alert (相对警惕的) during the next day, but they do not speed up adjustment to the new time zone.
⑤Remember the actual traveling time will usually be at least twice the actual time spent in the air since it will include traveling to and from and hanging around in airports.
⑥Avoid heavy commitments on the first day after arrival.
72. The following are the effects of jet lag EXCEPT _____.
A. tiredness B. coughing C. insomnia D. vomiting
73. The word “immobility” in the fifth paragraph means “_____”.
A. stillness B. movement C. activity D. happiness
74. We can reduce the symptoms of jet lag by _____.
A. drinking some alcohol B. keeping ourselves awake
C. taking some medicine D. sleeping while flying
75. What is the main purpose of the passage?
A. To suggest people travel by sea instead of by air.
B. To tell people the effects of jet lag.
C. To give people some advice about reducing the symptoms of jet lag.
D. To tell people about their body clock. |
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