You’re probably aware of the basic trends. The financial rewards to education have increased over the past few decades, but men fail to benefit.

In elementary and high school, male academic performance is lagging. Boys earn three-quarters of the D’s and F’s. By college, men are clearly behind. Only 40 percent of bachelor’s degree go to men, along with 40 percent of master’s degree.

Thanks to their lower skills, men are dropping out of the labor force. In 1954, 96 percent of the American men between the ages of 25 and 54 worked. Today, that number is down to 80 percent. In Friday's jobs report, male labor force participation reached an all-time low.

Millions of men are collecting disability benefits. Even many of those who do have a job are doing poorly. According to Michael Greenstone of the Hamilton Project, annual earnings for average prime-age males have dropped by 28 percent over the past 40 years.

Men still dominate (主宰) the top of the corporate ladder because many women take time off to raise children, but women lead or are gaining nearly everywhere else. Women in their 20s outearn men in their 20s. Twelve out of the 15 fastest-growing professions are dominated by women.

Over the years, many of us have employed a certain theory to explain men's economic decline. It is that the information-age economy rewards qualities that women are more likely to possess.

To succeed today, you have to be able to sit still and focus attention in school at an early age. You have to be emotionally sensitive and aware of context. You have to communicate smoothly. For genetic and cultural reasons, many men are not good at these.

But, in her fascinating new book, The End of Men, Hanna Rosin suggests a different theory. It has to do with adaptability. Women, Rosin argues, are like immigrants (移民) who have moved to a new country. They see a new social context, and they flexibly adapt to new circumstances. Men are like immigrants who have physically moved to a new country but who have kept their minds in the old one. They speak the old language. They follow the old customs. Men are more likely to be rigid; women are more fluid.

This theory has less to do with born qualities and more to do with social position. When there’s big social change, the people who were on the top of the old order are bound to stick to the old ways. The people who were on the bottom are bound to experience a burst of energy. They are going to explore their new surroundings more enthusiastically.

Rosin reports from working-class Alabama. The women she meets are flooding into new jobs and new opportunities — going back to college, pursuing new careers. The men are waiting around for the jobs left and are never coming back. They are strangely immune (免疫的)to new options. In the Auburn-Opelika region, the average female income is 140 percent of the average male income.

Rosin is not saying that women are winners in a global gender (性别) war or that they are doing super simply because men are doing worse. She's just saying women are adapting to today’s economy more flexibly than men. There’s a lot of evidence to support her case.

A study by the National Federation of Independent Business found that small businesses owned by women outperformed male-owned small business during the last recession (衰退). In finance, women who switch firms are more likely to see their performance improve, whereas men are likely to see theirs decline. There's even evidence that women are better able to adjust to divorce. Today, more women than men see their incomes rise by 25 percent after a marital breakup.

Forty years ago, men and women stuck to certain theory, what it meant to be a man or a woman. Young women today, Rosin argues, have abandoned both feminist (女权主义者)and prefeminist preconceptions. Men still stick to the masculinity (大男子主义的)rules, which limit their vision and their movement.

If she's right, then men will have to acknowledge that they are strangers in a strange land.

1.Which of the following statements is TRUE?

A. Male labor force participation has declined by 80% since 1954.

B. More men than women take time off to raise children now.

C. Good communication is one of the qualities that women possess.

D. Men are still taking most top and fastest-growing professions.

2.In Hanna Rosin’s opinion, male performance is falling behind because _______.

A. men are less likely to sit still and focus in school at early age

B. men are more rigid and less able to adapt to new circumstances

C. women are doing better for genetic and cultural reasons

D. it is more and more difficult for men to get bachelor’s degree

3.What is the passage intended to convey?

A. The differences between men and women.

B. The reasons why men do no better than women.

C. The social status of men and women.

D. The reasons why men fail compared with women.

How Super Are Supermarkets?

Buying e week’s groceries is tiring. You want to get it over and done with quickly, so you head for the nearest supermarket, you find everything you need under one roof, and you feel glad that those days of going in and out of different shops in the high street are over. Supermarkets seem to be a big plus. There is a downside, though.

In the UK 90% of all the food people consume is bought at 5 different supermarket chains. This makes these companies extremely powerful, which lets them use their huge buying power to squeeze small suppliers to get the best deal. Milk is a good example. Supermarkets like to use things like milk, which is the top of almost everyone’s shopping list to attract customers. To offer the lowest price possible to the consumer, the supermarkets force dairy farmers to sell milk at less than the cost of production. Supermarkets guarantee their good profits while farmers are left struggling to make ends meet, and the taxpayer pays to support the system without even knowing it.

It would be nice if local grocers supported local agriculture. But for the big supermarkets this just doesn’t make sense. Supermarkets don’t want little farmers thinking they can decide prices. So supermarkets have started a global search for the cheapest possible agricultural produce. In many supermarkets it is difficult to find anything which is produced locally.

UK farmers used to grow a lot of apples. Not anymore. In 1999 36% of apples were imported. By 2015 the figure had risen to 80% and the domestic production of apples had fallen by two thirds. The consumer might just be happy to get a reasonably priced meal made up of foods from Thailand, Spain, Italy and Zambia, but we should also bear in mind the Influence on local producers.

Then there’s packaging. Supermarkets like everything to be packed and wrapped so it can be piled neatly on shelves. Supermarkets produce nearly 10 million tons of waste packaging in the UK every year, of which less 5%is recycled. Some supermarkets make sure that large recycling bins are obvious in their car parks, showing that they are environment-friendly. But that is just an image.

When a new supermarket is planned there are claims about the number of new jobs that will be created. Unfortunately, the number of jobs lost in the area is larger than the number of new positions in the supermarket. On average each new supermarket leads to the loss of 276 jobs.

However, the modern world is all about shopping, and the freedom to buy whatever you what, so it would be impossible to stop people shopping at some particular kind of shop. But some measures do need to be taken when small suppliers lose profits, local producers suffer, sea levels rise and jobs are lost, anyway, we can’t just care about a free car park and special offers.

1.The author mentions “milk” in paragraph 2 to explain how supermarkets ____________.

A. harm small suppliers ‘benefits

B. support local dairy farmer

C.cheat the taxpayers

D.provide customers with the cheapest product

2.According to the passage, supermarkets keep price advantage by_______________.

A. competing against each other

B. reducing product tax

C. purchasing local products

D. importing foreign products

3.What is the author’s attitude towards supermarkets?

A. Doubtful B. Sympathetic

C. Critical D. Cautious

The U. S. Postal Service (USPS) is losing billions of dollars a year. The government company that delivers "small mail" is losing out to email and other types of electronic communication. First-class mail amount fell from a high point of 104 million pieces in 2000 to just 64 million pieces by 2014.

Congress permits the 600.000-empIoyee USPS to hold a monopoly (垄断) over first-class and standard mail. The company pays no federal, state or local taxes; pays no vehicle fees; and is free from many regulations on other businesses. Despite these advantages, the USPS has lost $52 billion since 2007, and will continue losing money without major reforms.

The problem is that Congress is preventing the USPS from reducing costs as its sales decline, and is blocking efforts to end Saturday service and close unneeded post office locations. USPS also has a costly union-dominated workforce that slows the introduction of new ideas or methods down. USPS workers earn significantly higher payment than comparable private-sector workers. The answer is to privatize the USPS and open postal markets to competition. With the rise of the Internet, the argument that mail is a natural monopoly that needs government protection is weaker than ever.

Other countries facing declining letter amounts have made reforms Germany and the Netherlands privatized their national postal companies over a decade ago, and other European countries have followed suit. Britain floated shares of the Royal Mail on its stock exchange in 2013. Some countries, such us Sweden and New Zealand, have not privatized their national postal companies, but they have opened them up to competition.

These reforms have driven efficiency improvements in all of these countries. Additional number of workers have been reduced, productivity has risen and consumers have benefited. Also, note that cost-cutting measures—such as closing tone post offices—are good for both the economy and the environment.

Privatization and competition also encourage new changes. When the USPS monopoly over "extremely urgent" mail was stopped in 1979, we saw an explosion in efficient overnight private delivery by firms such as FedEx.

The government needs to wake up to changing technology, study postal reforms abroad and let businessmen reinvent our out-of-date postal system.

1.What do we know about the USPS?

A. Its great competitor is the delivery firm FedEx.

B. It is an old public service open to competitions.

C. Its employees don't pay federal, state or local taxes.

D. It has complete control of first-class and standard mail.

2.The author mentions some other countries in Paragraph 4 to __________.

A. explain the procedures of reform to the USPS

B. show the advantages of private postal services

C. set some examples for the government to learn from

D. prove the situation is very common around the world

3.The author probably that the USPS __________.

A. needs government’s protection as ever

B. can work together with other businesses

C. must be replaced by international companies

D. should be sold out and become a private service

4.Which of the following shows the development of ideas in this passage?

A. B.

C. D.

I: Introduction CP: Central point P: Point

Sp: Sub-point (次要点) C: Conclusion

Country-dwellers(农村居民) often say the constant noise, heavy traffic and crowds of the city would drive them mad. Well, they might be right, according to the latest research. City residents are more likely to develop mental illnesses than those who live in villages, a study has found.

Researchers from Cardiff university examined the lifestyles of more than 200,000 people in Sweden and found that those who lived in urban areas were more at risk from mental illnesses than people who lived in villages.

The experts don’t know exactly why this is but they suggest that town and city residents are more likely to be ostracized(排挤) by those around them. They are more likely to experience discrimination(歧视) if they do not fit in, which can lead to them feeling anxious and even developing mental illnesses.

Dr Stanley Zammit, who led the research said that people living in towns and cities are more likely to develop other mental illnesses that result in personality changes — a condition known as non-affective psychosis(非情感性精神病).

Earlier this year an official report found that village-dwellers live an average of two years longer than those living in towns and cities. According to figures from the Office of National Statistics in the UK, men who live in villages are likely to live for between 78 and 79 years, while those in towns and cities can expect to survive to an age of 76. Women on average survive to their 81st birthday in towns and cities, but live to between 82 and 83 in villages. The small marked town of Wimborne Minster in rural Dorset was named the healthiest place to live in.

1.What is the passage mainly about?

A. City-dwellers are more likely to develop mental illnesses.

B. City-dwellers live longer than country-dwellers.

C. Country-dwellers are more likely to develop mental illnesses.

D. Country-dwellers live longer than city-dwellers.

2.It can be inferred that ___________.

A. people like living in towns and cities

B. city-dwellers enjoy their peaceful city life

C. village-dwellers get along better with their neighbors than city-dwellers

D. village-dwellers are more likely to be looked down upon by others

3.Non-affective psychosis is a kind of mental illnesses that is linked to ________

A. energy weakening B. temperature rise

C. pressure increase D. character change

4.We can learn from the last paragraph that generally ________ .

A. men living in villages live the longest

B. women living in cities live the longest

C. women living in villages live the longest

D. men living in cities live the longest.

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