1 . Twelve-year-old Catherine has a lot of friends—632, actually, if you count up her online friends. And she spends a lot of time with them.
But is it possible that Catherine’s online friendships could be making her lonely? That’s what some experts believe. Connecting online is a great way to stay in touch, they say. However, some experts worry that many kids are so busy connecting online that they might be missing out on true friendships.
Could this be true? During your parents’ childhoods, connecting with friends usually meant spending time with them in the flesh. Kids played Scrabble around a table, not words with friends on their phones. When friends missed each other, they picked up the telephone. Friends might even write letters to each other.
Today, most communication takes place online. A typical teen sends 2,000 texts a month and spends more than 44 hours per week in front of a screen. Much of this time is spent on social media platform.
In fact, in many ways, online communication can make friendships stronger. “There’s definitely a positive influence. Kids can stay in constant contact, which means they can share more of their feelings with each other,” says Katie Davis, co-author of The App Generation.
Other experts, however, warn that too much online communication can get in the way of forming deep friendships. “If we are constantly checking in with our virtual world, we will have little time for our real-world friendships,” says Larry Rosen, a professor at California State University. Rosen also worries that today’s kids might mistake the “friends” on the social media for true friends in life. However, in tough times, you don’t need anyone to like your picture or share your blogs. You need someone who will keep your secrets and hold your hand. You would like to talk face to face.
1. What is the purpose of the first paragraph?A.To tell about true friends. | B.To start a discussion. |
C.To encourage online friendships. | D.To summarize(总结) the text. |
A.In any case. | B.In public. | C.In person. | D.In advance. |
A.Unconcerned. | B.Positive. | C.Worried. | D.Confused. |
A.Teenagers need to focus on real-world friendships. | B.It’s easier to develop friendships in real life. |
C.It’s wise to turn to friends online. | D.Social media help people stay closely connected. |
2 . Most college students think that there are only two choices after graduation—finding a job or entering graduate school. An opportunity that is often missed is volunteering with an organized volunteer program.
Volunteering provides a year of intention (计划) in a community where recent graduates can learn about the world they are entering, about themselves as individuals (个体) and about their role in this world. It provides intentional time to understand the purpose that drives one as an individual in life. Taking a year off after graduation to volunteer allows students to slow down and really understand where they want their future to lie. Not only this, but students will also be helping others, getting work experience, living in a community and giving back to society.
Volunteering often leads to a job opportunity. A volunteer might stay and work with the organization, shifting from a volunteer position to a paid position. For example, an individual doing volunteer teaching with an organization might be offered a teaching position at their school. Even if the volunteer position does not lead to a paid position, the volunteer should keep in touch with their organization. One reason is that the organization can write letters of recommendation (推荐) for the volunteer’s job applications. What’s more, volunteer experience on a resume could catch the attention of schoolmates from the organization or program who work at a place of employment (雇用). A shared volunteer experience with the manager might help one find a job!
Volunteers have fun together and like helping others a lot. They share a common mission and vision (使命和愿景), continue personal and professional development, and get new ideas about the world around them. They get to know the community, practice their social responsibility, and build their skill set and network with others. Even if volunteers are not paid, they receive these and many other benefits through their service.
1. What is Paragraph 2 mainly about?A.Why students should volunteer during college. |
B.What the value of volunteering after graduation is. |
C.Whether recent graduates should have a yearly plan. |
D.How to find a volunteer program that works for you. |
A.To receive a job offer. | B.To find old schoolmates. |
C.To apply for a new program. | D.To get support when seeking jobs. |
A.Sharing your future plans. |
B.Showing your social responsibility. |
C.Letting others know more about you. |
D.Catching the attention of your schoolmates. |
A.To explain what volunteering is. |
B.To offer new volunteer opportunities. |
C.To encourage recent graduates to volunteer. |
D.To discuss whether to volunteer without pay. |
3 . Forcing waiters and waitresses to survive on tips from customers rather than normal wages is a pointless, offensive, and unique American custom that, in the past several years, a handful of progressive restaurant owners have attempted to abolish. Danny Meyer, CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, is about to join their ranks and has announced that he plans to gradually stop tipping at the company’s thirteen restaurants.
What, exactly, is wrong with tipping? As Brian Palmer has explained, more or less it’s everything. To start with, leaving a waiter’s pay in the hands of customers has a feeling of classism (阶级歧视) . And in theory, handing restaurant customers the power to tip is at least supposed to motivate better service. This fails in practice because humans turn out to be pretty casual about their tipping behavior. Research has shown that the amount diners tip has very little to do with their level of satisfaction. All of this doesn’t encourage waiters and waitresses to do anything but turn over as many tables as possible.
Tipping is also very unfair to kitchen staff. The law allows restaurants to divide tips between front-of-the-house workers like waiters, hosts, hostesses, and bartenders, but not cooks. This creates a system in which the people serving the food in a restaurant can earn more than the people preparing it.
One of the most fascinating parts of Meyer’s move is that, unlike some restaurant owners who have taken an anti-tipping stand, he won’t simply add a standard extra charge to diners’ bills. Rather, Union Square Hospitality Group means to raise menu prices enough to fully cover the cost of a meal. If Meyer manages to move away from tipping at all without hurting his profits, it would almost certainly set the stage for others to follow suit.
1. Which of the following can replace the underlined word “ abolish ” (in para. 1)?A.end up with | B.do away with | C.get used to | D.make use of |
A.Tipping may disturb the restaurants’ management. |
B.Tipping will guarantee diners high quality service. |
C.Tipping can arouse the staff’s enthusiasm for work. |
D.Tipping will bring customers a sense of satisfaction. |
A.Brian Palmer is in charge of it now. |
B.Its cooks earn much more than its servers. |
C.Restaurant tipping has been totally banned there. |
D.Diners will be charged more for the dishes there. |
A.Restaurants’ getting rid of tipping. | B.Difficulties restaurants are faced with. |
C.The popularity of no-tipping restaurants. | D.tips on running restaurants successfully. |
Publicsquare dancing is now very popular with the elderly people in China. In fact, many Chinese ladies, mostly women in their fifties or sixties,
Square dancing is no doubt
5 . The concept of showing movies outdoors isn’t novel. However, it let an auto-parts salesman such as Hollingshead find a way to give a car-loving society one more activity they could do in their cars.
He first imagined the drive-in as the answer to a problem. “His mother was rather fat for indoor theater seats,” says Jim Kopp of the United Drive-in Theatre Owners Association. “So he seated her in a car and put a 1928 projector (放映机) on top of the car, and tied two bed sheets to trees in his yard.”
Hollingshead experimented for a few years before he created a ramp (坡道) system for cars to park at different heights so everyone could see the screen. He opened the gates to his theater in 1933. A few others followed.
“Drive-ins started to take off in the 1950s,” Kopp says. “They offered family entertainment. People could sit in their cars and bring their babies... Drive-ins offered more comfort than indoor theaters.” The indoor theaters were easier about scheduling, and could show one film five or six times a day instead of only at night.
D. Vogel, owner of the Benjies Drive-In near Baltimore, Md, says the price of land is the real reason many drive-ins disappeared. “People would build on the outer areas of town, and the town would grow,” he says. “Many drive-ins were mom-and-pop businesses that few sons and daughers chose to continue running. The results were a decreasing (减少的) number of drive-ins throughout the country.” Today about 400 drive-ins remain in the United States and another 100 drive-ins exist mainly in Canada and Australia.
“The digital cinema will be both a threat and an opportunity for drive-in owners,” says Patrick Corcoran, the association’s director of media and research. “Digital will allow them to get new movies sooner than they do. But the digital cinemas will be expensive to manage, and some people may not be able to do it.”
Kopp of course bets on the drive-ins’ survival. He and his wife bought an outdoor theatre. He says they have invested about $300,000 to modernize the technology. Today the theatre can hold 265 cars and show movies on a 60-foot-by-80-foot screen.
1. Why did Hollingshead let his mother watch the movie in a car?A.It was too noisy in the theater. |
B.His mother loved staying in a car. |
C.There would be more space for his mother. |
D.It was difficult for his mother to see clearly in a theater. |
A.They can sell more tickets than indoor theaters. |
B.They give people more freedom to do things. |
C.They take less space than indoor theaters. |
D.They are much cheaper than indoor theaters. |
A.The appearance of digital cinemas. |
B.The decreasing number of first runs. |
C.The competition from indoor theaters. |
D.The high price of land that drive-ins took. |
A.Positive. | B.Concerned. |
C.Critical. | D.Doubtful. |
Are you interested
There are
At present, Nov. 11 is a shopping carnival. “Double 11” with the purpose of the online promotion
When shopping day meets Singles Day, what will people do? Perhaps, this special day makes no difference to those who are in their forties or older ages,
7 . Journalists are the major group of people who make their living from writing. Many young people who see themselves as future novelists choose journalism as a way of earning a living while developing their writing skills. Although writing for newspapers and writing for books require different qualities, the aspiration(志向)to be a great writer is not one to be discouraged in a would-be journalist.
Most people want their work to be recognized by others. This helps to give it value. Some people also want themselves to be recognized, so that they have status (地位) in the eyes of society. It is not a bad motive to wish to be famous, but this must never become your main reason for being a journalist. You will not be a good journalist if you care more for impressing your audience than for serving their needs.
Knowing the power of the printed or spoken word or image, some people enter journalism for the power it will give them to influence people. There is a strong belief that journalists control the mass media but the best journalists recognize their role as servants of the people. There is a difference between the desire to influence events for your own sake (为了你自己), and the desire to do it for other people. You should never use journalism for selfish ends, but you can use it to improve the lives of other people.
Curiosity is a natural part of most people’s characters and an important ingredient for any journalist. Lots of young men and women enter the profession with the desire to know more about the world without needing to specialize in limited fields of study. Most journalists tend to know a little bit about a lot of things, rather than a lot about one subject. Knowledge has many uses. It can simply help to make you a fuller and more interesting person. It can also give you power over people, especially people who do not have that particular knowledge. Always bear in mind that power can be used in a positive way to improve people’s lives.
1. What can we know from the first paragraph?A.Journalists are most likely to become great writers. |
B.Writing for newspapers is similar to writing for novels. |
C.Most of the journalists make a living by writing books. |
D.Journalism can be used as a means to improve writing. |
A.To gain high position. | B.To get great power. |
C.To earn much wealth. | D.To learn rich knowledge. |
A.Being specialized in a certain field. |
B.Having a wide range of knowledge. |
C.Being good at making friends with others. |
D.Being able to speak a foreign language well. |
A.The development of journalism. |
B.The challenges journalists face now. |
C.How to become a qualified journalist. |
D.Why people choose a career in journalism. |
8 . The world itself is becoming much smaller by using modern traffic and modern communication means. Life today is much easier than it was hundreds of years ago, but it has brought new problems. One of the biggest problems is pollution. To pollute means to make things dirty. Pollution comes in many ways. We see it, smell it, drink it and even hear it.
Man has been polluting the earth. The more people, the more pollution. Many years ago, the problem was not so serious because there were not so many people. When the land was used up or the river was dirty in one place, man moved to another place. But this is no longer true. Man is now slowly polluting the whole world.
Air pollution is still the most serious. It’s bad for all living things in the world, but it is not the only one kind of pollution. Water pollution kills our fish and pollutes our drinking water. Noise pollution makes us angry more easily.
Many countries are making rules to fight pollution. They stop people from burning coal in houses and factories in the city, and from putting dirty smoke into the air.
Pollution by SO2 is now the most dangerous kind of air pollution. It is caused by heavy traffic. We are sure that if there are fewer people driving, there will be less air pollution.
The earth is our home. We must take care of it. That means keeping the land, water and air clean. And we must take care of the rise in pollution at the same time.
1. Hundreds of years ago, life was ________ it is today.A.much easier than | B.as easy as |
C.much harder than | D.as hard as |
A.rubbish | B.noise pollution |
C.air pollution | D.water pollution |
A.it makes much noise | B.it makes us angry more easily |
C.it makes our rivers and lakes dirty | D.it’s bad for all living things in the world |
A.stopping people from burning coal. |
B.stopping people from pouring dirty water into the ocean. |
C.stopping people from moving to other places. |
D.stopping people from putting dirty smoke in the air. |
A.Many countries are making rules to fight pollution. |
B.The pollution of the earth grows as fast as the world population does. |
C.The problem of pollution is not so serious because there are not so many people living on the earth. |
D.If people could go to work by bus or bike instead of car or motorbike, it would be helpful in fighting against the problem of SO2. |
9 . Children should spend at least one hour playing and spending time in nature each day, according to the Wildlife Trusts (野生生物基金会). It is an organization which speaks for 2300 nature protection areas.
The children showed a great increase in personal health.
A.However, parents aren’t giving kids that time |
B.Parents care much about their kids, nature time |
C.The calling comes from a study by University College London |
D.81 percent said they had better relationships with their teachers |
E.The students are asked to study in University College London for one day |
F.It is now calling on the government to include nature time into daily school life |
G.And they also showed a sense of connection with the natural world and high levels of enjoyment |
10 . Twenty-five years ago, most young Britons wanted a career in law, to be a doctor, or, if they were creative enough, to take up singing. But today, things stand differently.
According to a survey by Tesco Mobile, a UK company, the “dream job” of young people aged between 16 and 25 in the UK is a video blogger (写博客的人), or “vlogger (视频博主)”.The survey, carried out among 1,002 people, found that as many as 40 percent of them put vloggers as their number one choice on a list of ideal careers.
This change is undoubtedly as a result of the Internet and social media.They have made it so much easier to reach the audience of the world, without having to enter a career in show business in the traditional way.
In the past, the biggest stars were trained by the Hollywood studios; now, anyone with a computer camera can become a star. Vloggers are the big stars of today because they are normal people interacting (交流) with their fans about everyday life.
However, what people see is only the bright side of being a vlogger and they fail to notice the fact that only those who are successful earn fame (名声) and fortune. For every success there are hundreds of others who never get off the starting line. There are the dreams that come true and the dreams that remain dreams forever.
Although being vloggers is popular, some young people choose to follow careers that don’t necessarily earn them fame, but allow them to make good use of the Internet to share their hobbies.Young Israeli David Leshaw, for example, runs a business called the Finishers Club.It’s an online platform for runners to keep a record of their races.His job allows him to express his enthusiasm, and is always a learning experience.And that’s enough for him.
1. Why do more and more young Britons choose to be vloggers?A.Vloggers can earn little fame and money on the Internet. |
B.There is too much competition in the traditional show business. |
C.The Internet makes it convenient to become vloggers. |
D.Anyone with a computer will surely become a star. |
A.Only a few vloggers can be successful. | B.A vlogger can not earn fame or fortune. |
C.Being a vlogger is not a good career. | D.Dreams will come true one day. |
A.Learn from others. | B.Become an online hit. |
C.Hold running races. | D.Mix jobs with hobbies. |
A.Most young Britons choose to be vloggers as their jobs. |
B.The Internet is influencing young Britons’ career choice. |
C.The Internet is taking the place of traditional studios. |
D.Young Britons can not find jobs without the Internet. |