题目内容

阅读理解。

When should people be made to retire? 55? 65? Should there be a compulsory age limit?

Many old people work well into their 70s and 80s, running families, countries or corporations. Other people, however, despite being fit and highly talented, are forced to retire in their fifties or even earlier because of the regulations of a company or the nation. This essay will examine whether people should be allowed to continue working as long as they want or whether they should be encouraged to retire at a particular stage.

Some people think there are several arguments for allowing older people to continue working as long as they are able. First of all, older employees have a large amount of knowledge and experience which can be lost to a business or organization if they are made to retire. A second point is that older employees are often extremely loyal employees and are more willing to carry out company policies than younger less committed staff. However, a more important point is regarding the attitudes in society to old people. To force someone to resign or retire at 60 indicates that the society does not value the input of these people and that their useful life is over. Age is irrelevant to a working life, surely if older employees are told they cannot work after 60, this is age discrimination. That they become old does not necessarily mean they are going to be sick. Old people could be more aware, experienced and committed than some youngsters.

Others, however, think that allowing older people to work indefinitely is not a good policy. Age alone is no guarantee of ability. Old people are only ambitious workaholics who are too selfish and self?centered to believe that a younger person could do better. Actually, many younger employees have more experience or skills than older staff, who may have been stuck in one area or unit for most of their working lives. Having compulsory retirement allows new ideas in an organization. In addition, without age limits, however, many people would continue to work purely because they did not have any other plans or roles. A third point of view is that older people should be rewarded by society for their life's labor by being given generous pensions and the freedom to enjoy their leisure. We now have youngsters who can't find jobs because old people are choosing not to retire. Old people are not retiring because this new generation of “old people” think they will never die due to modern advances in medicine.

With many young people unemployed or frustrated in low?level positions, there are often calls to compulsorily retire older workers. However, this can affect the older individual's freedom and right to work and can deprive (剥夺) society of valuable experience and insights. I feel that giving workers more flexibility and choice over their retirement age will benefit society and the individual.

1.What is the purpose of this passage?

A.To explain the compulsory age limit.

B.To discuss the retirement age.

C.To examine people's working life.

D.To introduce a particular stage.

2.Which of the following is NOT a reason for allowing old people to continue working according to the passage?

A.Their contributions should be valued.

B.Their experience should be made use of.

C.They can help the youngsters.

D.They are loyal employees.

3.It can be inferred in the fourth paragraph that ________.

A.the young people have more creative spirits

B.modern advances in medicine make old people never die

C.pensions and freedom are not given to the old now

D.old people believe that a younger person could do better

4.The passage is arranged as follows:________.

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Sara tried to befriend her old friend Steve's new wife, but Betty never seemed to have anything to say. While Sara felt Betty didn't hold up her end of the conversation, Betty complained to Steve that Sara never gave her a chance to talk. The problem had to do with expectations about pacing and pausing.

Conversation is a turn-taking game. When our habits are similar, there's no problem. But if our habits are different, you may start to talk before I'm finished or fail to take your turn when I'm finished. That's what was happening with Betty and Sara.

It may not be coincidental that Betty, who expected relatively longer pauses between turns, is British, and Sara, who expected relatively shorter pauses, is American. Betty often felt interrupted by Sara. But Betty herself became an interrupter and found herself doing most of the talking when she met a visitor from Finland. And Sara had a hard time cutting in on some speakers from Latin America or Israel.

The general phenomenon, then, is that the small conversation techniques, like pacing and pausing, lead people to draw conclusions not about conversational style but about personality and abilities. These habitual differences are often the basis for dangerous stereotyping (思维定式). And these social phenomena can have very personal consequences. For example, a woman from the southwestern part of the US went to live in an eastern city to take up a job in personnel. When the Personnel Department got together for meetings, she kept searching for the right time to break in – and never found it. Although back home she was considered outgoing and confident, in Washington she was viewed as shy and retiring. When she was evaluated at the end of the year, she was told to take a training course because of her inability to speak up.

That's why slight differences in conversational style – tiny little things like microseconds of pause – can have a great effect on one's life. The result in this case was a judgment of psychological problems – even in the mind of the woman herself, who really wondered what was wrong with her and registered for assertiveness training.

1.What did Sara think of Betty when talking with her?

A. Betty was talkative.

B. Betty was an interrupter.

C. Betty did not take her turn.

D. Betty paid no attention to Sara.

2.According to the passage, who are likely to expect the shortest pauses between turns?

A. Americans. B. Israelis.

C. The British. D. The Finns.

3.We can learn from the passage that _________.

A. communication breakdown results from short pauses and fast pacing

B. women are unfavorably stereotyped in eastern cities of the US

C. one's inability to speak up is culturally determined sometimes

D. one should receive training to build up one's confidence

4.The underlined word "assertiveness" in the last paragraph probably means ________.

A. being willing to speak one's mind

B. being able to increase one's power

C. being ready to make one's own judgment

D. being quick to express one's ideas confidently

完形填空

Whenever Christmas is drawing near, an Iowa radio station has an annual tradition. Listeners send in “wish letters”, and the hosts select some to __________. They've been making Christmas dreams come true for more than 20 years, but they never _________ they would receive a letter from a person who was already dead.

Last week, the hosts of the station invited listener David Schmitz to their _______, but the station didn't tell him who had sent in the _______ for his family. They read the letter to him on the _________:“Hello, my name is Brenda Schmitz. When you receive this letter, I will have already _________ my battle to cancer.”

The big _________ made David's eyes swim in tears.

David heard three wishes from his ________ wife. The first was to his new partner.“Thank you, I love you whoever you are.” And the second: “For my family, a wonderful________, with many scenic spots where they all can enjoy their companionship as a new ________ and make memories that will be with them forever.” ________, she wanted to give a night of food and fun to the hospital ________ that cared for her during her _________ days.

The letter was written by Brenda two months before __________. She prepared it and asked a friend to send it to the station once her husband fell in love _________.

“I began to know Jayne, my present wife, __________. On a cold afternoon, I took my little son, Marx, to the ________ where a group of seagulls were flying over his head. I didn't ________ it until Marx burst into tears, running to Jayne and asking her to be his ________, who was playing there with her two children. Later, she became Marx's new mom and she ________ him as her own son. Brenda will live in our hearts forever.”

1.A.praise B.send C.discuss D.broadcast

2.A.thought B.found C.remembered D.assumed

3.A.office B.hospital C.show D.home

4.A.expectation B.thanks C.wish D.dream

5.A.scene B.occasion C.vacation D.air

6.A.won B.lost C.accepted D.refused

7.A.news B.disaster C.surprise D.enjoyment

8.A.late B.present C.next D.innocent

9.A.trip B.holiday C.concert D.dinner

10.A.relative B.Christmas C.family D.journey

11.A.Clearly B.Lastly C.Surely D.Sincerely

12.A.staff B.doctor C.colleague D.manager

13.A.special B.final C.tough D.busy

14.A.going away B.falling down C.giving up D.passing away

15.A.twice B.again C.ever D.already

16.A.by chance B.by mistake C.by luck D.by choice

17.A.forest B.seaside C.grassland D.mountain

18.A.predict B.imagine C.insist D.realize

19.A.friend B.teacher C.mother D.playmate

20.A.treats B.accepts C.misses D.controls

阅读理解。

Babies don't learn to talk just from hearing sounds. They are lip?readers too. It happens during the stage when a baby's babbling (咿呀声) gradually changes from unclear voices into that first “mama” or “dada”. The baby in order to do like you has to figure out how to shape their lips to make that particular sound they are hearing, according to developmental psychologist David Lewkowicz of Florida Atlantic University, who led the study.

Apparently it doesn't take them too long to absorb the movements that match basic sounds. By their first birthdays, babies start changing back to look you in the eye again. It offers more evidence that quality face?time with babies is very important for speech development more than, say, turning on the latest baby DVD.

But Lewkowicz went a step further. He and his student Amy Hansen?Tift tested nearly 180 babies, groups of them at ages 4,6,8,10 and 12 months. How? They showed videos of a woman speaking in English or Spanish to babies of English speakers. They found that when the speaker used English, the 4?month?olds gazed mostly into her eyes. The 6?month?olds spent equal amounts of time looking at the eyes and the mouth. The 8?and 10?month?olds studied mostly the mouth. At 12 months, attention started changing back toward the speaker's eyes.

But what happened when these babies accustomed to English heard Spanish? The 12?month?olds studied the mouth longer, just like younger babies. They needed the extra information to recognize the unfamiliar sounds. That fits with research into bilingualism (双语) that shows babies' brains adjust themselves to distinguishing the sounds of their native language over other languages in the first year of life.

The continued lip?reading shows the 1?year?olds clearly still are fit for learning. Babies are so hard to study that this is “a fairly heroic data set”, says Duke University cognitive neuroscientist Greg Appelbaum, who found the research so fascinating that he wants to know more.

1.According to the first paragraph, babies________.

A.might get its voice “mama” by lip?reading

B.learn to talk just from hearing the sounds

C.like to figure out how to shape their lips

D.communicate with parents through gestures

2.What is necessary in developing babies' speech according to Lewkowicz?

A.Playing baby DVD nearby.

B.Teaching babies to read English.

C.Speaking with babies face to face.

D.Speaking different languages in front of babies.

3.Which of the following shows the right change of babies' eye gaze according to the text?

4.What would be the best title of the text?

A.Babies Have Different Methods to Talk

B.Babies Try Lip?reading in Learning to Talk

C.Babies Are Suitable to Learn Two Languages

D.Babies Can Easily Accept Foreign Language

阅读七选五.

Everyone can benefit a lot from reading books. The following is about the various benefits of reading books.

1. Whenever you read something, you learn information that you otherwise wouldn't have known. It can be a fact about history or a theory you didn't know existed. If you want to learn new words, reading books is a great way to enlarge your vocabulary.

2. Similar to solving puzzles, reading books allows your mind to practice its processing skills. Going without books for too long will turn your mind into a whirl (混乱).

One of the primary benefits of reading books is its ability to develop your critical thinking skills. _3._ Wherever you are faced with a similar problem in real life, your mind is able to put its mystery?solving skills to a test.

One of the great benefits of reading books is that the information in it can be accessed over and over again. For example, reading a cookbook allows you the luxury of reviewing the procedures whenever you need to. 4. Don't even think about writing the information down because you may lose the paper you wrote down on sooner or later.

These are just some of the wonderful benefits of reading books. 5._ If you can't even go outside, you can download free e?books online and read them on your computer. That way, you can see how advantageous reading can be for yourself.

A.Reading books can put you in a confident mood.

B.You can improve your memory by reading.

C.Reading books provides you with new knowledge.

D.Following a recipe from a cooking show will be difficult.

E.Reading mystery novels, for example, sharpens your mind.

F.Reading keeps your mind in good condition.

G.Why don't you drop into the bookstore or library and pick a book up?

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