3 . Aesha Ash is a ballet dancer who began The Swan Dreams Project in 2011. It is a program designed to bring ballet to girls of color in her community. Aesha Ash is one of the few women of color to ever grace the stages of the School of American Ballet in New York City. She wants to expose her community to more positive images of women of color through the use of ballet. She wants to show the world that beauty and grace are not defined by status or race.

Aesha grew up in the inner city of Rochester, New York, where crime, gun violence and poverty were among the biggest threats to the community. For her, that’s normal. That’s just life in the neighborhood, but what she remembers most is the dance studio. She started dancing at the age of five. A teacher mentioned to her mother that she had some promise in ballet, and that it would be difficult for her, as a woman of color, to enter the ballet world. But the hardship she faced was the very thing that pushed her to pursue a career in ballet.

And there’s so much negative stereotypes (刻板印象) and misunderstanding of who they are in the media. Through the use of imagery and her career as a ballet dancer, she challenges stereotypes that exist for women of color, particularly those from inner-city communities.

“It’s important that our girls see that side of themselves because for many kids it’s hard to be what you can’t see. I hadn’t seen a black ballet dancer before I decided that was what I wanted to be. It was really important for me to be in my environment displaying that because this is where I’m from. It was always beyond ballet,” Aesha Ash stated.

1. Why did Aesha start The Swan Dreams Project?

A．To promote the images of females of color by ballet.

B．To expose her community to a world of women of color.

C．To grace the stages of the School of American Ballet.

D．To show the world that beauty and grace are defined by status.

2. Which of the following best describes the community she grew up in?

A．Comfortable.

B．Ancient.

C．Peaceful.

D．Unsafe.

3. What can’t we know from the passage?

A．Aesha had a gift for ballet according to her teacher.

B．The hardship Aesha faced was the color of her skin.

C．Acsha wanted to be a ballet dancer because of a woman dancer of color.

D．It is not easy to change the stereotypes that exist for women of color.

4. What is the main idea of the text?

A．A teacher provides chances for girls of color.	B．A woman brings ballet to the girls of color.
C．Ballet changes the life of a woman of color.	D．A woman has changed the negative stereotypes.

6 . According to a new US study, couples who expect their children to look after them in old age should hope they have daughters because daughters are twice as loving as sons generally.

The research by Angelina Grigoryeva, from Princeton University, found that, while women provide as much care for their elderly parents as they can manage, men do as little as they can get away with and often leave it to female family members.

Her analysis of the family networks of 26, 000 old Americans concluded that gender （性别）is one of the most important things that decide whether or not people will actively care for their elderly parents.

In a paper presented at the annual conference of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco, she concludes that simply having a sister makes men likely provide less care. Using data from the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study, a study which has been recording those people over 50s for the last decade, she analyzed that women provide an average of 12. 3 hours a month of care for elderly parents while men offer only 5. 6 hours.

“Sons reduce their relative caregiving efforts when they have a sister, while daughters increase theirs when they have a brother.”

“This suggests that sons pass on parent caregiving responsibilities to their sisters.”

In the UK, the 2011 Census showed that there are now around 6.5 million people with caring responsibilities, a figure which has risen by a tenth in a decade.

But many are doing so at the risk of their health. The census showed that those who provide 50 hours or more of care a week while trying to hold down a fulltime job are three times more likely to be struggling with ill health than their working counterparts who are not carers.

1. According to the passage, what’s the key factor to decide if people will actively care for the old?

A．Education.

B．Gender.

C．Career.

D．Income.

2. The US study finds that ________.

A．having a sister makes men less likely to look after their parents

B．sons are twice as likely as daughters to care for parents in old age

C．sons are unwilling to leave caregiving responsibilities to their sisters

D．sons and daughters seem to give equal care to their parents

3. What does the author stress in the last paragraph?

A．People should give up their jobs to care for the elderly.

B．Many care providers work longer hours than others.

C．Many care providers have potential health problems.

D．People shouldn’t pass on caring responsibilities to others.

4. The author develops the text by ________.

A．explaining social networks of careers

B．describing people’s experiences

C．analyzing various researches and data

D．comparing different gender

7 . One of my earliest memories was watching my mom talking on our old phone. I was fascinated that she could talk to someone who wasn't actually in the room with her.    1    I was wondering how she managed to talk with someone she couldn't see.

    2    Later, we had mobile phones that could be carried around the room. Then came computers and smart phones. These days I can send an e-mail around the world in a second. My daughter's smart phone has a hundred apps and a dozen social media accounts. She stores all of her information in a mysterious place known as "the cloud", where she can take it out at any time. It seems that we are more connected in this world than ever before.

    3    Few take time to talk face to face. Instead of looking into eyes of our beloved ones, we stare at our screens. It seems as if the most connected generation is also the loneliest.

Don't let technology take our time and ruin our life. Make the time to meet and to communicate with each other. Take a walk on the beach with a friend. Have a long conversation with the phones off and the hearts on.    4    

Remember that we are here to love each other, help each other and make this world a better place.    5    But when it can't, turn it off.

A．That was a long time ago.

B．Connect offline as well as online.

C．We should communicate with each other with phones off.

D．Smart phones have both advantages and disadvantages.

E．When your technology can help to do these things, then use it.

F．However, what bothers me is that we rarely associate with each other nowadays.

G．When she left the room, I slowly walked over to the phone and stared at it for a while.

8 . Imagine this: You’re at the movies seeing the latest box-office hit. The leading actor chases down the film’s bad guy before winning over the beautiful leading lady. What does he do next? He sucks on a cigarette.

What’s wrong with this picture? Doesn’t the beautiful woman see her hero’s yellow teeth? Doesn’t she smell his smoky breath? And wouldn’t the good guy have trouble chasing, since smoking causes a person to cough?

But you don’t see any of that when someone smokes cigarettes in the movies. And there is a lot of smoking in movies. Actors light up in more than 50 percent of youth-rated (G, PG, PG-13) movies, according to the American Legacy Foundation, which aims to put an end to smoking among young people. That means that Hollywood is showing 14 billion images of smoking to young people every year.

All that exposure to on-screen smoking can influence teens to smoke. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) argues that 44 percent of teens who begin smoking do so because they’ve seen smoking in movies. The CDC reports that teens are two to three times more likely to start smoking after seeing repeated smoking scenes in movies than teens who are lightly exposed to smoking in movies.

Several organizations are working to remove smoking in youth-rated movies. And adults are not the only ones who care about this issue. Many teens are actively involved. Livia Clandorf, 16, of Chatham, New York, is a member of Reality Check, an organization that educates teens about what it considers to be the manipulative(巧妙处理的) practices of tobacco companies. Livia participated in an event called a “movie stomp(跺脚)”. Reality Check rents out a movie theater and screens a youth-rated film that shows smoking, they stomp their feet and show disapproval by shouting “boo”.

1. What purpose does Paragraph 1 serve in the passage?

A．To provide background information of a movie.

B．To attract readers’ attention to the topic.

C．To describe a plot in a movie.

D．To offer some basic knowledge of cigarette.

2. What is the picture you are asked to imagine like according to the author?

A．It’s touching.	B．It’s beautiful.
C．It’s frightening.	D．It’s unreasonable.

3. What can be inferred from the CDC’s words?

A．Over 50 percent of teens smoke.	B．Teens should watch more movies.
C．Many movies cause teens to smoke.	D．Teens are less likely to smoke than adults.

4. When will participants in a “movie stomp” stomp their feet?

A．When they are active.	B．When they are excited.
C．When they feel like smoking.	D．When they see smoking scenes.

9 . Counterfeit (假的) medicines are a widespread problem in developing countries. Like other counterfeits, they look like real products. But counterfeit drugs may contain too little or none of the active ingredients of the real thing.

People do not get the medicine they need. And in some cases, counterfeits cause death. Twenty children in Bangladesh died last year after being given acetaminophen (对乙酰氨基酚). The medications contained ingredients that looked, smelled and tasted like the real thing. The medicine was produced by a local drug company that used a dangerous substitute to save money.

The problem of counterfeit medicines is especially serious in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The WHO estimates that up to thirty percent of medicines on sale in many of those countries are counterfeit. The problem is less widespread among industrialized countries. The WHO says counterfeits make up less than one percent of the illegal drug market in countries like the United States, Canada, Japan and New Zealand.

But the agency also says as much as fifty percent of the medicine sold on the Internet is counterfeit.

Much is being done to fight counterfeit drugs. Several companies are developing ways to make counterfeits easier to identify. And there are existing methods, like a machine that can quickly identify chemicals in pills to confirm if the pills are real. Other ideas include things like special tracking codes for drug packages. People could send a text message with the code and get a message back, which proves that what they bought is listed in a database. Some drug makers and other companies put three-dimensional images called holograms (全息图) on their products as a security device.

1. Last year twenty children in Bangladesh died because of _________.

A．unreal drugs

B．online medicines

C．acetaminophen

D．unclean water

2. We can draw a conclusion from the passage that___________ .

A．it is very cheap and convenient to buy medicines online

B．we had better not buy medicines online

C．more and more people will buy products online

D．medicine companies don’t pay much attention to counterfeit drugs

3. What is the main idea of the last paragraph?

A．It reveals (揭露) the reasons why counterfeit drugs are widespread.

B．Special tracking codes for drug packages are used to identify counterfeits.

C．It shows the danger of counterfeit drugs.

D．Some measures are being taken to fight counterfeit drugs.

4. Which of the following country may have serious problems of counterfeit medicines?

A．Canada.	B．India.
C．New Zealand.	D．Japan.