1 . For the first time in my life I have been dumped by a friend. I should have seen it coming: the phone calls not returned, the excuses about ‘not feeling very sociable right now’... Yet the letter suggesting that the time had come for us to move on still came as a shock.
Tula and I had been firm friends for nearly ten years. We met at a singing workshop and took on each other immediately. But life changed for both of us: I got married and she responded to her single status by developing a fresh set of social networks. Then she took a long holiday, reviewed her life and decided what to keep and what to throw out. In her letter she described our friendship as a ‘borderline’ case and suggested it should be time we ‘let each other go’.
I’m all for letting go of bad habits and boxes of old school exercise books. But surely close friends are not consumer goods to be discarded or replaced at the first hint of trouble? We are encouraged to believe that friends will be around forever. ‘You’ve got a friend,’ sang Carole King and ‘I'll be there for you’ promised the theme tune of Friends. Such sentiments have sunk deep into the collective unconsciousness, or into mine, at least.
Certainly, the statistics indicate that we need friends more than ever. Government figures predict that the proportion of married men and women aged from 45 to 54 will fall by a quarter in the next two decades. A recent British survey found that two-thirds of eighteen to 35-year-olds in Britain turn to friends before family for help and advice. Yes, the argument goes, in a fast-moving, ever-changing world, friendship is our rock, the one thing we can truly rely on.
But in his book, The Philosophy of Friendship, Mark Vernon suggests otherwise. He cautions that we place unrealistic burdens on friendship, that it's unreasonable to expect friends to fulfill family members’ roles. Worse still, he says, friendships are becoming harder to maintain. ‘There are lots of obstacles in the way we live today. It’s harder to put time and effort into knowing someone. Mobiles, email and so on, all these are secondary ways of communicating. There’s not the depth.’
So, what did I do with Tula’s letter? I re-read it many times, thinking over where I’d gone wrong. And then I wrote back. ‘Yes, you’re right.’ I wrote, ‘things have changed. But aren’t we good enough friends to hang in there?’ Since then we have exchanged a couple of emails. A walk has been suggested. It would be easy not to make the effort and let this friendship go but, as Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, said: ‘Stay is a charming word in a friend’s vocabulary.’ 1think she's right.
1. What can we learn about Tula and the writer from the first two paragraphs?| A．They became close friends ten years after their first meeting. |
| B．Nothing had happened to indicate their friendship might end. |
| C．Tula suggested the end of their friendship with a letter. |
| D．The writer took a long holiday after her marriage. |
| A．trouble in making friends | B．dependence on close friends |
| C．reluctance to end a friendship | D．belief in permanent friendship |
| A．We expect too much of friendship. |
| B．More and more people are choosing to be single. |
| C．Friendship is what we can rely on in today's society. |
| D．Technology makes it easier for us to know others well. |
| A．To prove that efforts to maintain a friendship may not be worthwhile. |
| B．To justify what she has done with the friendship with Tula. |
| C．To emphasize the importance of Little Women in history. |
| D．To illustrate the charming things existing in friendship. |
2 . If you are a recent social science graduate who has had to listen to jokes about unemployment from your computer major classmates, you may have had the last laugh. There are many advantages for the social science major because this high-tech “Information Age” demands people who are flexible and who have good communication skills.
There are many social science majors in large companies who fill important positions. For example, a number of research studies found that social science majors had achieved greater managerial success than those who had technical training or pre-professional courses. Studies show that social science majors are most suited for change, which is the leading feature of the kind of high speed, high-pressure, high-tech world we now live in.
Social science majors are not only experiencing success in their long-term company jobs, but they are also finding jobs more easily. A study showed that many companies had filled a large percentage of their entry-level positions with social science graduates. The study also showed that the most sought-after quality in a person who was looking for a job was communication skills, noted as “very important” by 92 percent of the companies. Social science majors have these skills, often without knowing how important they are. It is probably due to these skills that they have been offered a wide variety of positions.
Finally, although some social science majors may still find it more difficult than their technically trained classmates to land the first job, recent graduates report that they don’t regret their choice of study.
1. Compared with graduates of other subjects, social science graduates _____.| A．are ready to change when situations change |
| B．are better able to deal with difficulties |
| C．are equally good at computer skills |
| D．are likely to give others pressure |
| A．Willingness to take low-paid jobs. | B．Readiness to gain high-tech knowledge. |
| C．Skills in expressing themselves. | D．Part-time work experience. |
| A．keep for some time | B．successfully get |
| C．immediately start | D．lose regretfully |
3 . In 1982, I had responsibility for Stephen Hawking’s third academic book for the Press, Superspace and Supergravity. This was a messy collection of papers from a technical workshop on how to devise a new theory of gravity. While that book was in production, I suggested he try something easier: a popular book about the nature of the Universe, suitable for the general market.
Stephen hesitated over my suggestion. He already had an international reputation as a brilliant theoretical physicist working on rotating black holes and theories of gravity. And he had concerns about financial matters: importantly, it was impossible for him to obtain any form of life insurance to protect his family in the event of his death or becoming totally dependent on nursing care. So, he took precious time out from his research to prepare the rough draft of a book.
At the time, several bestselling physics authors had already published non-technical books on the early Universe and black holes. Stephen decided to write a more personal approach, by explaining his own research in cosmology and quantum theory.
One afternoon, in the 1980s, he invited me to take a look at the first draft, but first he wanted to discuss cash. He told me he had spent considerable time away from his research, and that he expected advances and royalties (定金和版税) to be large. When I pressed him on the market that he foresaw, he insisted that it be on sale, up front, at all airport bookshops in the UK and the US. I told that was a tough call for a university press. Then I thumbed the typescript. To my dismay, the text was far too technical for a general reader.
A few weeks later he showed me a revision, much improved. Eventually, he decided to place it with a mass market publisher rather than a university press. Bantam published A Brief History of Time in March 1988. Sales took off like a rocket, and it ranked as a bestseller for at least five years. The book’s impact on the popularization of science has been incalculable.
1. What suggestion did the writer give to Stephen Hawking?| A．Simplifying Superspace and Supergravity. |
| B．Formulating a new theory of gravity. |
| C．Writing a popular book on the nature of the universe. |
| D．Revising a book based on a new theory. |
| A．Financial returns. |
| B．Other competitors. |
| C．Publishing houses. |
| D．His family’s life insurance. |
| A．praised |
| B．typed |
| C．confirmed |
| D．browsed |
| A．bringing him overnight fame in the scientific world |
| B．keeping up the living standard of his family |
| C．making popular science available to the general public |
| D．creating the rocketing sales of a technical book |
