1 . The city of San Francisco is home to some of the nation's largest technology companies, including Twitter and Uber. At the same time, it has one of the largest homeless populations in the country. Homelessness and unemployment for local people continue to rise. But one program is helping connect the two worlds for these poor job seekers. Del Seymour created the program. He was once homeless himself.
Seymour spent years in a neighborhood known as the Tenderloin, an area with an extremely high rate of homelessness and unemployment. However, in recent years, large companies like Twitter and Uber have moved in or near the Tenderloin area. They started importing people from other regions countries to work in the neighborhood.
Seymour started making phone calls to technology companies. He thought it was unfair for the companies to ignore local people, including homeless ones. "You're not going to come in my neighborhood and ignore my people, "he said. “You' re going to include us in your business.”
To everyone's surprise, the companies started answering. As a result, Seymour started Code Tenderloin, an organization that is giving the homeless and other needy people a path to employment, including jobs in technology companies. It offers classes in coding for computer languages. It also gives six-week training classes in job readiness. The class teaches students public speaking, resume building, interviewing and other skills. Code Tenderloin’s students visit technology companies to meet people, ask questions and learn from employees. Although only a small number of students have found full-time technology jobs, many others have got internships(实习) through the program. And many others have found other full-time jobs.
1. What has happened to the Tenderloin in recent years?| A．The rate of homelessness is decreasing. |
| B．People are hired by large companies. |
| C．Twitter sent employees to work for it. |
| D．Large companies located their offices there. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Indifferent | C．Critical | D．Objective |
| A．To help people find jobs. |
| B．To create jobs for himself and local people. |
| C．To help technology companies find suitable workers. |
| D．To teach coding for computer languages. |
| A．A technology company. | B．An organization. |
| C．A learning path. | D．A job. |
2 . A group of Northern Ireland schoolchildren warmed the hearts of Chinese guests on a cold December day when they performed Chinese songs. The children had rehearsed (预演)for six weeks, with the help of Mandarin (汉语)teachers from the University of Ulster's Confucius Institute (阿尔斯特大学孔子学院).
The performance on Friday, inside Belfast's elegant and historic Parliament Buildings, preceded (预备)a welcome dinner ahead of the third UK - China Regional Leaders Meeting on Saturday that was attended by more than 100 leaders from China. As trade relations between China and Northern Ireland grow, Mandarin has become more popular in the province. Friday's performance was given by children from Millburn Primary School and Grosvenor Grammar School, which both offer Mandarin lessons, thanks to the local Confucius Institute that was established in 2012. From its start five years ago, which saw two Mandarin teachers support 169 students, the University of Ulster's Confucius Institute has grown to comprise (由……构成)51 teachers and 19,000 registered students. A quarter of the institutes 161 partner primary and secondary schools have made Mandarin learning compulsory (必修) for certain age groups. And students also gain exposure to Chinese culture, including calligraphy (书法),Chinese character and music.
"Our Confucius Institute was established partly in response to existing demand from schools," said Liu Yan, director of the University of Ulster's Confucius Institute. While preparing to open the institute, her team sent out a survey to 1,241 primary and secondary schools in Northern Ireland. Around 500 responded by saying they would like to offer Mandarin lessons.
The Chinese government launched the Confucius Institute concept in 2004 as a way of promoting the Chinese language and culture abroad. Confucius Institutes are non-profit organizations and are affiliated (附属于)with Western academic institutions, including secondary schools and universities. So far. 516 Confucius Institutes have been established in 142 countries and regions.
1. What is the local people's attitude to the performance?| A．Serious. | B．Uninterested. |
| C．Curious. | D．Cautious. |
| A．40 schools | B．100 schools |
| C．160 schools | D．169 schools |
| A．To compete with local schools, | B．To meet local schools' demand. |
| C．To trade with Irish people. | D．To realize existing purposes. |
| A．To earn more money. | B．To know more people. |
| C．To spread Chinese culture. | D．To teach more students. |
3 . “To educate a girl is to educate a thousand people,” says Maimouna Samaké, a mother of six children (including five girls). “If you put one seed in the ground and rain comes, it will grow to produce many seeds.”
Samaké, one of 2,000 residents, lives in a small village, Sounkala, in one of the world’s poorest countries. Now she has a chance to see this wish come true thanks to Build On, an American non-profit organization that is building a school in her community.
For 17 years, build On has been sending American high school students overseas to create schools in places where literacy (文化) and formal education are usually out of reach. The organization has built about 300 schools in Mali, Malawi, Nepal, Senegal, Nicaragua and Haiti. Its goal is to get young Americans in mostly urban areas to get involved in education. At the same time it can bring literacy to children and adults in poor villages in the developing world.
Sounkala’s current school only has about 70 children; mud floors, poor lighting, few desks and an absence of books mean that the school is not the most ideal learning environment. Therefore they certainly could use Build On’s help.
Samaké hasn’t been to school, but she wants a better future for her five daughters, including Ramatou, 12, and Mariam, 10. “When a woman attends school, she will teach what she learns to her children,” said Ramatou, who wants to become a doctor. “She will also know how to take better care of her family.”
Build On tries to build schools for grades one to three. If things go well over those three years, they return to help build another school for grades four to six, and then set up evening adult literacy classes.
Ramatou and Mariam will not learn inside the walls of build On school since they are already in the sixth grade, but Samaké hopes that they will be able to attend evening classes to continue learning.
1. Which of the following aspects of build On is NOT mentioned in the text?| A．Its history. | B．Its goal. |
| C．Its approach. | D．Its sources of funding. |
| A．in a village in a developed country |
| B．in an urban area in a developing country |
| C．in a rural area in a developing country |
| D．in an earthquake-stricken area in a developed country |
| A．Samaké only has daughters. |
| B．Samaké is well-educated. |
| C．Ramatou is a doctor. |
| D．Mariam is in the sixth grade. |
| A．people’s education conditions in poor areas |
| B．a woman’s dream of going to school |
| C．an organization that helps build schools for people in poor areas |
| D．build On’s great contributions to education |
