Central Power and Light

Graduating from high school? Looking for a job? We have a bright future for you!

We’re Central Power and Light. For more than fifty years, we have been providing the energy you need every day. We keep you warm in winter and cool in summer. Without us, your CD Players, televisions, radios and computers wouldn't work. In fact, without us, you might have trouble reading these words because we are responsible for things as basic as the lights in your homes and classrooms.

We’re quite a business. However, as important as electric and gas power are to our customers we’re more than just a public-service company. We’re also a good neighbor, working hard to help keep our environment as clean as we possibly can while still keeping our carbon footprint low.

It takes many people with a wide variety of skills and interests to keep a company like ours in business. That’s why we have more than one hundred job openings in several areas. Do any of these sound right for you?

mechanic trainee
word processor
safety inspector trainee
driver
security guard
customer service representative
accountant

We are always looking for new talent, and we offer a host of benefits.

competitive salaries
pension plan
insurance
company social events
medical coverage
pleasant working conditions
continuing training classes
convenient location

If you would like to talk with one of our employment consultants, we invite you to our job fair being held the week of May 3 — May 7. Just drop in. You will be glad.

1. Who is the text intended for?

A．Power company workers.	B．High school seniors.
C．The general public.	D．High school teachers.

2. What might an interested reader do after reading the text?

A．Talk to a friend.	B．Visit a school headmaster.
C．Attend a job fair.	D．Consult his or her parents.

3. What can we learn about the company mentioned above?

A．It has a history of over a century.

B．Its business ranges from light to gas.

C．It pays much attention to ecosystem.

D．It holds a large job fair monthly.

It is believed that human story begins in Africa and ends about 200,000 years later with their seven billion descendants (后代) spread across the Earth, living in peace or at war, their faces lit by campfires and computer screens.

In between is an exciting tale of survival, movement, isolation, and conquest, most of it occurring before recorded history. Who were those first modern people in Africa? What routes did they take when they left their home continent 60,000 years ago to expand into Europe and Asia? When and how did humans reach the Americas? For decades, the only proof was found in a small number of scattered bones and artifacts that our ancestors left behind on their journeys. In the past 20 years, however, DNA technologies have allowed scientists to find a record of ancient human migrations in the DNA of living people.

“Every drop of human blood contains a history book written in the language of our genes,” says population geneticist Spencer Wells. The human genetic code, or genome, is 99.9 percent identical throughout the world. But while the bulk of our DNA is the same, what’s left is responsible for our individual differences — in eye color or disease risk, for example. On very rare occasions, a small change, called a mutation, can occur, which is then passed down to all of that person’s descendants. Generations later, finding that same mutation in two people's DNA indicates that they share the same ancestor. By comparing mutations in many different populations, scientists can trace their ancestral connections.

These ancient mutations are easiest to track in two places: in DNA that is passed from mother to child (called mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA for short), and in DNA that travels from father to son (known as the Y chromosome, the part of DNA that determines a child will be a boy). By comparing the mtDNA and Y chromosomes (染色体) of people from various populations, geneticists can get a rough idea of where and when those groups separated in the great migrations around the planet.

4. The best title for this reading could be ________.

A．Exploring human history	B．Finding DNA differences
C．Making a biology experiment	D．Discovering ancestry in DNA

5. What can we infer from the quote of Spencer Wells in Paragraph 3?

A．A drop of blood contains genetic information that can tell a person’s ancestral history.

B．The organization of information in a history book is similar to the organization of DNA within a gene.

C．Every drop of blood contains enough DNA information to fill many history books.

D．Although people speak different languages, all human blood contains the same language.

6. The underlined word “bulk” in Paragraph 3 most probably means ________.

A．the large size	B．the main part
C．the weight or shape	D．the quantity

7. Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the reading?

A．The earliest people are said to originate from Africa and spread across the world.

B．Scientists have found ways to determine whether people share the same ancestor.

C．Human DNA remains the same as what is passed down from their ancestors.

D．Comparing mtDNA and Y chromosomes can help identify human migrations.

The 90-minute long game involves two goals, black and white checkered balls, goalkeeper, and no hand use. This sport, of course, is soccer or football, as the majority of the rest of the world says. It’s confusing that some countries call this sport “football” while Americans and Canadians say “soccer”, but apparently the British are mostly to blame.

The name confusion is actually thanks to British universities in the early 1800s who tried standardizing various sports games that had different rules and regulations to differentiate between them, according to a paper by Stefan Szymanski, a professor of sports economics at the University of Michigan.

Rugby, formerly known as “rugby football” or “rugger”, is a translation of “football” where you can use your hands. Soccer, originally “association football” or “asoccer”, is the traditional translation of “football” where people don’t use their hands. People in England started shortening the names by dropping the “association” part of the phrase as well as the “a” in “asoccer”, per Szymanski’s paper. If your head hurts from thinking about this, prepare to have your mind blown by these things you probably never thought about — until just now.

Now comes the complexity: in 1869, Rutgers and Princeton colleges held the first traditional, recorded, football game using a unique combination of rules from both rugby and soccer, creating what we know as “American football” and what other countries refer to as “gridiron”. Thanks to the popularity of American football, soccer players in America keep to “soccer” to help differentiate themselves, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

If the name “soccer” stuck in Britain, and if Americans came up with a better one for American football, there would be much less confusion. So why did the “football” short kind of “association football” become more popular than “soccer” in England anyway? Originally, American influence on Britain during World War II made “soccer” the popular term in England before the 1980s, The Atlantic reports. Once the sport became more popular in the United States around that time, the British stopped using “soccer”. Szymanski’s paper claims it could be thanks to American and British news organizations pushing either term in each country.

8. What caused the name confusion in the early 1800s?

A．Game time.	B．Sports rules.
C．Ball popularity.	D．News organizations.

9. What does the underlined sentence mean in Paragraph 3?

A．The name confusion is becoming stronger.

B．You cannot use your hands while playing games.

C．The names make it more difficult for people to understand.

D．Making the best of the head in the sports is extremely vital.

10. In which of the following do the two belong to the same one?

A．“Rugby” and “Soccer”.	B．“Rugger” and “American football”.
C．“American football” and “Gridiron”.	D．“Gridiron” and “Association football”.

11. What does the author imply in the last paragraph?

A．The name confusion would become less.

B．The British disliked soccer during World War II.

C．American soccer was more popular than English football.

D．History and culture had a great effect on the name.

In an effort to fight the “throw-away culture” and promote reuse and repair, the city of Berlin has taken the unique step of opening its own secondhand department store.

This isn’t your grandma’s thrift shop (旧货商店). It resells perfectly good items that would otherwise be thrown away. A pun on the German words for “department store” and “conserving house”, B-Wa(h)renhaus sells a wide variety of products. Far from simply selling old items, the electronic goods have been fixed by expert technicians and come with a year’s guarantee. And, to reach more secondhand shoppers, the store was set up right in the middle of the famous Karstadt department store.

With the success of its initial six-month trial run, the city plans to open four more similar operations in other parts of Berlin. By 2030, it hopes to have at least one location in each of Berlin’s 12 districts. Since 2008, city policies and educational campaigns have reduced average annual household waste by about 25 pounds per resident. It also recycles about 49% of its mineral construction waste. Currently, the city estimates that 8% of abandoned electronic goods and 6% of huge items thrown away can actually be reused. The goal is to expand the market for these items beyond the usual bargain hunters and eco-conscious consumers.

“Three years ago, we started collecting all kinds of used goods,” city spokesperson Dorothee Winden said. “There are lots of things that are well-preserved and functioning but aren’t being used anymore. The goal is to give these things a new life with somebody who can use them.” The store also includes an education center to encourage more sustainable lifestyles — and also gave an award to a project that recycles school uniforms, so that parents don’t have to buy new ones every year.

12. Why has Berlin opened its own secondhand department store?

A．To attract more shoppers.	B．To promote recycling.
C．To foster traditional culture.	D．To expand secondhand market.

13. In which aspect is B-Wa(h)renhaus different from the traditional thrift store?

A．The variety of the goods.	B．The location of the store.
C．The quality of the products.	D．The operation of the store.

14. What can we infer from Paragraph 3?

A．Berlin currently has 4 second-hand stores in construction.

B．Berlin has been successful in cutting its waste since 2008.

C．It is not easy to make the goal to expand the market a reality.

D．It is estimated that Berlin will be a zero-waste city by 2030.

15. What is the author’s main purpose in writing the text?

A．To introduce Berlin’s new reuse shop operation.

B．To raise people’s awareness of reasonable shopping.

C．To persuade people to become eco-friendly shoppers.

D．To encourage more people to donate to secondhand shops.