Visitors to Britain are sometimes surprised to learn that newspapers there have such a large circulation. The “quality” newspapers are often held up as an example of impartial journalism, but the Daily Mirror and the Daily Express usually impress newspapermen even more because they both sell about four million copies every day. British families generally buy a newspaper every morning and frequently take two or three on Sundays, but the vast circulation figures obtained are not only due to the Englishman’s thirst for news.Because the newspapers are all published nationally, copies can be delivered everywhere at the same time.
Though people abroad often know the names of the national papers, they seldom realize that there is another branch of the British press which sells almost as many copies. Local newspapers have a weekly circulation of 13 million. Almost every town and country area has one. Nearly all of them hold their own finance and many of them are very profitable.
These papers are written almost entirely for readers interested in local events — births, weddings, deaths, council meetings and sports — but the content is naturally influenced by the kind of community they serve. Editors prefer to rely on a small staff of people who all know the district well. A great deal of local news is regularly supplied by clubs and churches in the neighbourhood and it does not get out of date as quickly as national news. If there is no room for it in this week’s edition, an item can sometimes be held until the following week.
The editor must never forget that the success of any newspaper depends on advertising. He is usually anxious to keep the good will of local businessmen for this reason. But if the newspaper is well written and the news items are carefully chosen to attract local readers, the businessmen are grateful for the opportunity to keep their products in the public eye.
Local newspapers do not often comment on problems of national importance and editors rarely hold with taking sides on political questions. But they can often be of service to the community in expressing public feeling on local issues. A newspaper can sometimes persuade the council to take action to provide better shopping facilities, improve transport in the area and preserve local monuments and places of interest.
1. The Daily Mirror impresses newspapermen more because_____.| A．it has a larger circulation than many other famous papers |
| B．it is of better quality than many other papers |
| C．it is sold nationally |
| D．it is delivered everywhere in Britain |
| A．are interested in news | B．are much interested in local events |
| C．want to get news as quickly as possible | D．work in churches and clubs |
| A．the papers are well written | B．the news items are carefully chosen |
| C．the news involves them | D．the papers are popular and can attract readers |
| A．local papers seldom comment on politics |
| B．local papers can sometimes influence policy making |
| C．local papers are more concerned about their own communities |
| D．local papers do not take sides on problems of national importance |
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【推荐1】What is a book nowadays in a world of Kindles and iPads? Traditional publishers are traveling a long and confusing road into the digital future. Here's the conventional wisdom about publishing: People expect e-books to be cheaper than physical books, and that drives down prices. But the story's not that simple. For one thing, digital publishers have the same problem that traditional publishers do:piracy(盗版).
It turns out, though, that some publishers are doing pretty well despite the piracy problem. "We've had an amazing year," says Sourcebooks President Dominique Raccah. "Last year was the best year in the company's history. This year we beat that, which I didn't think was even possible." Raccah adds that her company is doing well because of digital publishing.
It turns out there are some huge advantages-at least for publishers. A big one: The price of an e-book isn't fixed the way it is with physical books. Ten years ago, a publisher would have sent out its books to the bookstore with the price stamped on the cover. After that, it was done - the publisher couldn't put a book on sale to sell more copies.
"The exciting thing about digital books is that we actually get to test and price differently, " Raccah says. That's what American publisher Little, Brown and Company did with Robert Dallek's book An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy. In the middle of November, Little, Brown and Company dropped the price from $ 9. 99 to $ 2. 99 for 24 hours. That sparks sales; it gets people talking about it," says Terry Adams, a publisher with Little, Brown and Company.
If you read the new e-book 40 Years of Queen, you will find it full of links. Links to iTunes, where you can buy the music you've been reading about. That's another huge advantage of e-books:Publishers can sell you things inside your book.
There's still one big problem putting pressure on publishers. "We actually don't have a good gifting tradition yet for e-books," says Raccah. Despite all the advances in reading technology, physical books are still the best Christmas presents.
1. How does Raccah feel about her company's achievement this year?| A．It's really disappointing. | B．It's less than satisfactory. |
| C．It's just what she predicted. | D．It's far beyond her expectations. |
| A．To stress it had its own advantage. |
| B．To show its marketing was not flexible. |
| C．To complain about the changing prices of books. |
| D．To indicate the unpopularity of physical books. |
| A．It was written by John F. Kennedy. |
| B．It caused disagreements among buyers. |
| C．It was sold at a huge discount for one day. |
| D．It was sold at a different price every week. |
| A．Buy items mentioned in the book. |
| B．Find links to other relevant books. |
| C．Get some background information. |
| D．Listen to music in the book for free. |
【推荐2】Photos that you might have found down the back of your sofa are now big business!
In 2005, the American artist Richard Prince’s photograph of a photograph, Untitled (Cowboy), was sold for $ 1,248,000.
Prince is certainly not the only contemporary artist to have worked with so-called “found photographs” — a loose term given to everything from discarded (丢弃的) prints discovered in a junk shop to old advertisements or amateur photographs from a stranger’s family album. The German artist Joachim Schmid, who believes “basically everything is worth looking at”, has gathered discarded photographs, postcards and newspaper images since 1982. In his on-going project, Archiv, he groups photographs of family life according to themes: people with dogs; teams; new cars; dinner with the family; and so on.
Like Schmid, the editors of several self-published art magazines also champion (捍卫，维护) found photographs. One of them, called simply Found, was born one snowy night in Chicago, when Davy Rothbard returned to his car to find under his wiper (雨刷) an angry note intended for someone else: “Why’s your car HERE at HER place?” The note became the starting point for Rothbard’s addictive publication, which features found photographs sent in by readers, such as poster discovered in our drawer.
The whole found-photograph phenomenon has raised some questions. Perhaps one of the most difficult is; can these images really be considered as art? And if so, whose art? Yet found photographs produced by artists, such as Richard Prince, may raise endless possibilities. What was the cowboy in Orince’s Untitled doing? Was he riding his horse hurriedly to meet someone? Or how did Prince create this photograph? It’s anyone’s guess. In addition, as we imagine the back-story to the people in the found photographs artists, like Schmid, have collated (整理), we also turn toward our own photographic albums. Why is memory so important to us? Why do we all seek to freeze in time the faces of our children, our parents, our lovers, and ourselves? Will they mean anything to anyone after we’ve gone?
In the absence of established facts, the vast collections of found photographs give our minds an opportunity to wander freely. That, above all, is why they are so fascinating.
1. The first paragraph of the passage is used to .| A．remind readers of found photographs |
| B．advise reader to start a new kind of business |
| C．ask readers to find photographs behind sofa |
| D．show readers the value of found photographs |
| A．the readers | B．the editors |
| C．the found photographs | D．the self-published magazines |
| A．memory of the past is very important to people |
| B．found photographs allow people to think freely |
| C．the back-story of found photographs is puzzling |
| D．the real value of found photographs is questionable |
| A．critical | B．doubtful |
| C．optimistic | D．satisfied |
【推荐3】Concerns have existed long about what’s gone wrong in modern societies. Many scholars explain growing gaps between the haves and the have-nots as partly a by-product of living in large, urban populations. The bigger the crowd, from this perspective, the greater the distance is between the wealthy and those left wanting.
In The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber and David Wengrow challenge the assumption that bigger societies surely produce a range of inequalities. Using examples from past societies, the pair also rejects the popular idea that social development occurred in stages.
Such stages, according to conventional wisdom, began with humans living in small hunter-gatherer bands where everyone was on equal footing. Then an agricultural revolution (变革) about 12, 000 years ago fueled population growth and the appearance of tribes (部落) and eventually states.
This assumption makes no sense to Graeber and Wengrow. Their research, which extends for 526 pages, paints a more hopeful picture of social life over the last 30, 000 to 40, 000 years. Hunter-gatherers have a long history of changing social systems from one season to the next, the authors write. About a century ago, researchers observed that native populations in North America and elsewhere often operated in small, mobile groups for part of the year and formed large, settled communities the rest of the year. For example, each winter, Canada’s Northwest Coast Kwakiutl hunter-gatherers built wooden structures while in summers, they separated, and fished along the coast in less formal social ranks.
Social flexibility and experimentation, rather than a revolutionary shift, also characterized ancient transitions (转变) to agriculture, Graeber and Wengrow write. Middle Eastern village sites now indicate that the domestication (驯化) of crops occurred on and off from around 12, 000 to 9, 000 years ago. Ancient Fertile Crescent communities regularly gave farming a go while still hunting, gathering, fishing, and trading. Early people were in no rush to treat land as private property or to form political systems headed by kings, the authors conclude.
1. What might The Dawn of Everything mainly deal with?| A．Historic stages. | B．Social inequalities. |
| C．Historic revolution. | D．Social development. |
| A．They progressed in stages. | B．They started with inequality. |
| C．They began with small tribes. | D．They benefited from population growth. |
| A．By listing figures. | B．By offering examples. |
| C．By giving a definition. | D．By making a comparison. |
| A．A fixed political system. | B．Flexibility of society. |
| C．A regular revolutionary shift. | D．Improvement of crops. |
【推荐1】Protected areas around the world are protected from invasive species(入侵物种). However, most of them are still vulnerable(易受伤害的) to invasion, according to research conducted by scientists from China and the UK.
The study, led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was published in the journal Nature Communications. It showed how the majority of protected areas are no more than 10 kilometers away from an area with the presence of invasive species. Tim Blackburn, a co-author of the study and a professor from University College London, said that introducing invasive species is among the worst damage that humans can inflict to the natural environment.
Invasive alien species or IAS can harm an ecosystem by competing with or killing native species and destroying habitats, among many impacts. Aliens are species that are not naturally occurring in particular area and are introduced through humans. Invasion by such species is considered as among the five worst direct drivers of biodiversity loss worldwide. Aliens establish populations at more new areas at an ever-increasing pace.
The researchers discovered that lower than ten percent of protected areas have the 894 surveyed invasive species within them, which suggests that, in general, protected areas are effectively shielded against invasion. However, all of them are still at risk from IAS, because at least one alien species was found within 100 kilometers of 99% of the surveyed protected areas' boundaries.
The research team also discovered that protected regions that contain more invasive animal species experience a more significant influence or presence of humans, otherwise known as the human footprint index. This is caused by factors like large human populations and transport links.
In addition, protected areas that have been established more recently and are more extensive have a more significant number of IAS. The older protected areas are usually in more remote locations, which provide them with better protection from human impacts.
Dr. Li who is a famous biologist said that for now, the majority of protected areas are free from IAS. Still, it may not be true for long. He adds that those areas which are easily accessible to many people count as the most highly vulnerable.
1. Which word is closest to the underlined word “inflict” in meaning in paragraph 2?| A．Imagine. | B．Cause. | C．Practise. | D．Challenge. |
| A．Alien species have a much stronger appetite than native species. |
| B．Native species are not strong enough to compete with aliens. |
| C．Alien species are dangerous to native species and their habitats. |
| D．The number of native species increases more slowly than that of alien species. |
| A．The local weather. | B．Human activity. |
| C．Regional locations. | D．Practical measures. |
| A．Positive. | B．Subjective | C．Uncaring | D．Worried |
【推荐2】According to a large study of activity levels and arthritis (关节炎) pain, there seems to be no link between the amount of exercise people do and whether they develop painful osteoarthritis in their knees. But the research couldn’t rule out that high-impact forms of exercise like running bring on the condition.
Osteoarthritis is more common as people get older and is sometimes called a “wear and tear” condition. Arthritic knees often have obvious damage to their cartilage which covers and protects the ends of bones.
Earlier studies have found conflicting (矛盾的) results on whether exercise can make arthritis more likely. So Lucy Gates at the University of Southampton in the UK and her colleagues joined together the results of six such studies, which over 5,000 people took part in who firstly had no knee pain or other sign of arthritis.
At the beginning, people were asked about how much exercise they did, including playing sports, walking and cycling. They recorded the general time spent exercising each week, and their activities were graded by their metabolic equivalent, or MET (代谢当量) scores, a standard way of dividing activities into different types according to how much they raise a person’s metabolic rate.
At the end of the studies, which lasted from five to twelve years, people were also asked if they had developed knee pain or arthritis. The probability of developing arthritis wasn’t associated with activity levels, either by how much time people spent exercising each week or by their total time and MET scores.
“There’s more work to be done on telling apart risk and different types of activity,” says Gates. “The next step is to figure out how different weight-bearing activities might change things. We can’t say there’s no relationship there,” says team member Thomas Perry at the University of Oxford.
1. What is the finding of the large study?| A．Too much exercise leads to arthritis. |
| B．Arthritis is common among old people. |
| C．Sports-loving persons are in better health. |
| D．Exercise may not be responsible for osteoarthritis. |
| A．Their love for exercise. | B．The goal to treat knee pain. |
| C．The results of earlier studies. | D．Their care for those 5,000 people. |
| A．By studying the cause of pain knees. |
| B．By tracking and recording for a long time. |
| C．By asking people to fill in online questionnaires. |
| D．By grading and recording people’s metabolic rates. |
| A．Education. | B．Jobs. | C．Sports. | D．Arts. |
【推荐3】“Get your hands off me; I have been stolen,” the laptop, a portable computer, shouted. That is a new solution to laptop computer theft: a program that lets owners give their property a voice when it has been taken.
The program allows users to display alerts on the missing computer’s screen and even to set a spoken message. Tracking software for stolen laptops has been on the market for some time, but this is thought to be the first that allows owners to give the thief a piece of their mind.
Owners must report their laptop missing by logging on to a website, which sends a message to the model: a red and yellow “lost or stolen” banner pops up on its screen when it is started. Under the latest version of the software, users can also send a spoken message.
The message can be set to reappear every 30 seconds, no matter how many times the thief closes it. “One customer sent a message saying, ‘You are being tracked. I am right at your door’, said Carrie Hafeman, chief executive of the company which produces the program, Retriever.
In the latest version, people can add a spoken message. For example, the laptop’s speaker will say: “Help, this laptop is reported lost or stolen. If you are not my owner, please report me now.”
The Retriever software package, which costs $29.95 but has a free trial period, has the functions of many security software programs. Owners can remotely switch to an alternative password if they fear that the thief has also got hold of the access details.
If a thief accesses the Internet with the stolen laptop, Retriever will collect information on the Internet service provider in use, so that the police can be alerted to its location.
Thousands of laptops are stolen every year from homes and offices, but with the use of laptops increasing, the number stolen while their owners are out and about has been rising sharply.
Other security software allows users to erase data remotely or lock down the computer.
1. The expression “to give the thief a piece of mind” can be understood as“ ”.| A．to give the thief an alert mind |
| B．to express owners’ anger to the thief |
| C．to remind the thief of his conscience |
| D．to make the thief give up his mind |
| A．record the stealing process |
| B．help recognize the lost laptop |
| C．lock down the computer remotely |
| D．send a spoken message |
| A．change some access details for switching on the laptop |
| B．turn on the laptop by using the original password |
| C．operate the laptop by means of an alternative password |
| D．erase the information kept in the stolen laptop |
| A．With no Retriever, thousands of laptops are stolen every year. |
| B．A new software provides a means to reduce laptop theft. |
| C．Retriever has helped to find thieves and lost computers. |
| D．A new program offers a communication platform with the thief. |
【推荐1】Every Morning, Breanna Roque goes out to the farm to feed the cows. But this isn’t your typical farm; it’s a laboratory, and Roque is a graduate researcher at the University of California, Davis. She’s been spending her time among the cows to see if she can adjust their diets so they burp (打嗝) less. The cows’ special diet includes small parts of a red seaweed. It contains a chemical combination, which prevents the production of CH4 during the cows’ digestion. Less CH4 means less burping. And less burping could mean slowing down climate change globally.
Although agriculture accounts for a smaller percentage of total greenhouse gas production than sectors like transportation and energy, it produces more CH4, which warms the Earth up to 86 times as much as CO2. When cows eat, they burp food back up, producing CH4 as a byproduct. Researchers across the globe have been pursuing the idea that adding substances to feed might help reduce these CH4 -loaded burps. But it wasn’t until 2016 that researchers in Australia found that grass feed of 2 percent seaweed could cut CH4 productions by nearly 99 percent. In 2019, Roque’s team published the results of a similar study: They cut CH4 production 95 percent by adding to a typical U.S. dairy cow diet with just 5 percent seaweed. But questions remained about the seaweed’s effectiveness in actual cow stomachs.
So more researchers headed to the farm. They found that a diet of just 0.5 percent seaweed led to a 26-percent decrease in CH4. A 1-percent seaweed diet produced 67 percent less CH4. Further research is needed to fully understand why this seaweed in particular works best and to see if adding seaweed to cows’ diets will affect the quality of the products coming from the animals. In the future, they’ll run trials to see if seaweed gives cow’s milk an unpleasant taste or leaves steaks smelling of seafood.
Researchers still need to ensure the seaweed combination, which is sensitive to heat and light, will be shelf-stable and remain effective in real-world applications. And even if the seaweed succeeds, CH4 from cattle account for just 5 percent of greenhouse gas production in the U.S., so the overall picture won’t improve much.
Still, last August, researchers at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia, announced they would be trying to find ways to farm the seaweed on a large-enough scale to break into the cattle feed market. Roque says she’s regularly contacted by annoying businessmen who want her help to mass produce the seaweed for global animal consumption. “People reach out to me all the time,” she says. “Unfortunately, I’m an animal biologist and not a sea biologist.”
1. What is the purpose of Roque’s research?| A．To reduce global warming through cow feed. |
| B．To enrich cattle diets with a special seaweed. |
| C．To make food digestible in cows’ stomachs. |
| D．To reduce CH4 in the production of seaweed. |
| A．why CH4 was more harmful than CO2 in climate change |
| B．which seaweed worked best in cutting CH4 production |
| C．whether seaweed would work in practical cow feeding |
| D．what was the right proportion of seaweed in cows’ diets |
| A．how to grow seaweed on farmland economically |
| B．how to bring out the best function of the seaweed |
| C．how to prevent beef and milk from tasting weird |
| D．how to lengthen the store time of seaweed feed |
| A．she regrets not having studied seaweeds |
| B．she is willing to offer more help to them |
| C．she is negative about the cow feed market |
| D．she is not interested in farming seaweed |
【推荐2】Wearing a headset to play a virtual-reality game is fun. As you move your head around, you can see the scene from different angles. You’re in a fake environment that seems so real. But the power of VR may go well beyond entertainment. It just might help people who suffer from long time of pain, a new study finds.
“If VR can reduce some types of pain, it could become a new cure with fewer side effects than drugs,” says Sam Hughes, a psychologist at Imperial College London. “And it would be 1ess expensive.”
Hughes’ group studies bone and muscle pain. One example is sciatica. Sciatica is a form of pain doctors call chronic pain, which is different from the hurt you feel when you hit your knee against a table or put your hand in very hot water. It is fairly long-1ived pain and may even spread from an initial site to other body parts.
The researchers tested the pain-altering effect of virtual reality. Each volunteer accepted some form of temporary pain. The pain came from a special cream applied to the skin. The cream contained capsaicin. It’s the chemical in hot peppers that burns your mouth.
They then showed the volunteers a movie. Each volunteer would see the movie twice-once in 3D, while wearing a VR headset, and once on a normal 2 D screen. The researchers randomly decided for each volunteer whether they watched the 2D or 3D version first. Using the 2D movie as the comparison allowed them to isolate the effect of VR. Watching the movie in VR reduced the pain in the skin area better than did viewing the movie in 2D. VR helped them tolerate more pain in the area of the creamed skin. However, that pain reduction ended a few minutes after removing the VR headsets. The researchers wondered how well VR might reduce other types of pain.
1. What’s one of the advantages of VR to reduce pain?| A．It’s much safer. | B．It’s more convenient. |
| C．It’s much faster. | D．It’s more efficient. |
| A．sudden | B．long-term |
| C．1ight | D．sharp |
| A．To find chemicals in hot peppers. | B．To bring comfort to volunteers. |
| C．To burns the volunteers’ mouth. | D．To cause some temporary pain. |
| A．By giving numbers. | B．By using examples. |
| C．By making a comparison. | D．By presenting research findings. |
【推荐3】Does just thinking about stepping inside a gym make you feel exhausted? If so, here's some good news. One of the world's largest studies on physical activity has found that doing household chores（家务事）can be just as effective as running or working out when it comes to cutting your risk of heart disease and extending your life.
A team of researchers discovered that people enjoyed the same health benefits whether they were going to the gym, walking to work or doing household chores. Indeed, performing 30 minutes of any kind of physical activity five days a week could reduce your risk of dying from any causes by 28% and your rate of heart disease by 20%.
And, again, the positive effects were the same whether someone was working out, walking or doing chores such as mopping the floor or gardening.
“Walking for at least 30 minutes most days of the week has a massive benefit, and high levels of physical activity is associated with even lower risk of illness," lead researcher Scott Lear said about the findings. “By including low and middle-income countries in this study, we were able to determine the benefit of activities such as having an active job or even doing household chores,” Lear said. He noted that 1 in 4 people worldwide do not get 30 minutes of exercise a day, five times a week.
Interestingly enough, the Canadian study found no ceiling on the benefits of exercise and "no risks associated with extremely high levels of physical activity", defined as more than 2,500 minutes, or more than 41 hours per week. Lear said that those who spent more than 750 minutes walking quickly each week lowered their risk of premature death by 36%.
1. What can we infer about the study from paragraph1?| A．Women should do more housework than men. |
| B．Doing housework may help to live long and healthy. |
| C．People with heart disease had better do less housework. |
| D．Doing housework makes people feel less tired than going to gym. |
| A．Sitting long will take the health away. |
| B．The exercises will make life meaningful. |
| C．It's a good idea to walk less than 30 minutes a day. |
| D．High levels of physical activity can reduce disease risk. |
| A．Statistics. | B．Voices. |
| C．Examples. | D．Experiments. |
| A．Exercise Moves for Better Strength and Balance |
| B．Risks From High Levels of Physical Activity |
| C．Household Chores May Be a Secret to Living Longer |
| D．The Two Factors Determine the Benefit of Activities |
【推荐1】Do you know the toys below? They were once among the most popular toys.
1960 – Etch A Sketch
French electrician Andre Cassagnes had the idea of a drawing toy with a joy stick, glass screen, and aluminum (铝) powder. Using that idea, the Ohio Art Co. launched (推出) the Magic Screen in1960, and you could erase the picture with a shake of your hands. You can still find the toy today.
1964 – SuperBall
What happens when you accidentally create a plastic ball that jumps? The toy company, Wham-O Inc., buys your idea and it ends up selling millions. That’s exactly what happened to Norman Stingley, a chemical engineer who came upon SuperBall. At one time, Wham-O had to produce over 170,000 balls a day to keep up with the demand. Unbelievably, the National Football Game named the Super Bowl game (an well-known American football game) after this jumping ball.
1964 – G.I. Joe
In 1964, Hasbro toy company created G.I. Joe, a line of action figures designed to represent the 4 branches of the US Armed Forces – Action Soldier (Army), Action Sailor (Navy), Action Pilot (Air Force), and the Action Marine (Marine Corps). G.I. Joe was imagined as an excellent military unit devoted to defending citizens’ freedom against the evil persons. It has attracted the imagination of boys around the world.
1965 – Operation
An unsteady hand is your downfall (败落的原因) in the game of Operation, which was invented by John Spinello, a student at the University of Illinois. Later, Spinello sold his right to the toy to a well-known toy designer Marvin Glass for a sum of $500. Operation is currently made by Hasbro, with estimated sales of $40 million.
1. Which toy has a relationship with the sports event?| A．Etch A Sketch. | B．SuperBall . |
| C．G.I. Joe. | D．Operation. |
| A．Those fond of arts. | B．Those fond of construction. |
| C．Those fond of brave soldiers. | D．Those fond of kind doctors. |
| A．keep your hand stable | B．have better teamwork |
| C．get Norman Stingley’s guidance | D．have a joy stick and a glass screen |
【推荐2】Ask most people how they define the American Dream and chances are they’ll say, “Success.” The dream of individual opportunity has been home in American since Europeans discovered a “new world” in the Western Hemisphere. Early immigrants like Hector St. Jean de Crevecoeur praised highly the freedom and opportunity to be found in this new land. His glowing descriptions of a classless society where anyone could attain success through honesty and hard work fired the imaginations of many European readers: in Letters from an American Farmer (1782) he wrote. “We are all excited at the spirit of an industry which is unfettered(无拘无束的) and unrestrained, because each person works for himself… We have no princes, for whom we toil(干苦力活), starve, and bleed: we are the most perfect society now existing in the world.” The promise of a land where “the rewards of a man’s industry follow with equal steps the progress of his labor” drew poor immigrants from Europe and fueled national expansion into the western territories.
Our national mythology(神化) is full of illustration of the American success story. There’s Benjamin Franklin, the very model of the self-educated, self-made man, who rose from modest origins to become a well-known scientist, philosopher, and statesman. In the nineteenth century, Horatio Alger, a writer of fiction for young boys, became American’s best-selling author with rags-to-riches tales. The notion of success haunts us: we spend million every year reading about the rich and famous, learning how to “make a fortune in real estate with no money down,” and “dressing for success.” The myth of success has even invaded our personal relationships: today it’s as important to be “successful” in marriage or parenthoods as it is to come out on top in business.
But dreams easily turn into nightmares. Every American who hopes to “make it” also knows the fear of failure, because the myth of success inevitably implies comparison between the haves and the have-nots, the stars and the anonymous crowd. Under pressure of the myth, we become indulged in status symbols: we try to live in the “right” neighborhoods, wear the “right” clothes, eat the “right” foods. These symbols of distinction assure us and others that we believe strongly in the fundamental equality of all, yet strive as hard as we can to separate ourselves from our fellow citizens.
1. By saying “the rewards of a man’s industry follow with equal steps the progress of his labor” (Line 10, Para. 1), the author means .| A．the more diligent one is, the bigger his returns |
| B．laborious work ensures the growth of an industry |
| C．a man’s business should be developed step by step |
| D．a company’s success depends on its employees’ hard work |
| A．succeed in real estate investment |
| B．earned enormous fortunes by chances |
| C．became wealthy after starting life very poor |
| D．became famous despite their modest origins |
| A．business success often contributes to a successful marriage |
| B．Americans wish to succeed in every aspect of life |
| C．good personal relationships lead to business success |
| D．successful business people provide good care for their children |
| A．The American road to success is full of nightmares. |
| B．Status symbols are not a real indicator of a person’s wealth. |
| C．The American Dream is nothing but an empty dream. |
| D．What Americans strive after often contradicts their beliefs. |
【推荐3】What makes you cry? Being moved by a sad movie, waving a loved one off, or getting emotional after splitting up with your partner can all cause tears to roll down our faces. We all have the power to cry, but is that a good thing?
When you think about it, shedding(流) tears from your eyes is a strange thing to do. But it seems to be an automatic(无意识的) reaction when we get sad, upset or even when we're very happy. What causes this reaction differs from person to person. However, the feeling is the same ——your cheeks puff up(鼓起), your eyes tighten and before you know it, tears are streaming down your face. Some of us may sniffle a little while others might cry like a baby —— and some people suggest that it's women who cry more than men.
A study in the UK in 2017 found that women admitted that they cry 72 times a year. This was, on average, more than men. Writing for the BBC, Adam Rutherford says “According to pretty much every study done, women do cry more than men, and this result has been consistent since we've been looking.” But does this mean men don't get as upset or emotional as women, or are they just more embarrassed about showing their true feelings? The debate continues.
One place where we experience emotional and tearful outbursts is in the workplace. This can be somewhere where emotions run high —— someone might be stressed, their workload might be too much, and, as therapist, Joanna Cross said, “crying is often a build-up of frustration and undealt-with situations and it's a bit of a final straw moment.” She describes how someone might start weeping when they're just asked to make a cup of tea because, “actually that's often a backlog(积压) of situations.”
But crying in the office or elsewhere can be beneficial: it can actually make you feel better. Maybe it dissolves or clears the negative or sad feelings you've had. Crying your eyes out shows others how you feel, so perhaps it's a crying shame that more of us, particularly men, don't cry more often.
1. What can we infer from the second paragraph?| A．Babies cry most without good reasons. |
| B．People cry for the same reasons. |
| C．Being happy can cause you to cry a lot. |
| D．It is natural for people to cry actually. |
| A．What causes men to cry less. | B．Why someone cries like a baby. |
| C．Who is easy to get emotional. | D．How embarrassing crying is. |
| A．When one can't tolerate the stress. | B．When one finally finishes his work. |
| C．When one does work at a final moment. | D．When one gets bored at work. |
| A．It is a sign of our strong character. | B．It is a symbol of our emotion. |
| C．It is a kind of pity. | D．It is a way of us hiding our feelings. |
