Shopping for clothes is not the same experience for a man as it is for a woman. A man goes shopping because he needs something. His purpose is settled and decided in advance. He knows what he wants, and his objective is to find it and buy it; the price is a secondary consideration. All men simply walk into a shop and ask the assistant for what they want. If the shop has it in stock, the salesman promptly produces it, and the business of trying it on goes forward at once. All being well, the deal can be and often is completed in less than five minutes, with hardly any chat and to everyone's satisfaction. For a man, slight problems may begin when the shop does not have what he wants, or does not have exactly what he wants. In that case the salesman, as the name implies, tries to sell the customer something else, he offers the nearest he can to the article required. No good salesman brings out such a substitute without least consideration; he does so with skill and polish(完美): “I know this jacket is not the style you want, sir, but would you like to try it for size. It happens to be the color you mentioned." Few men have patience with this treatment, and the usual response is: “This is the right color and may be the right size but I should be wasting my time and yours by trying it on.

Now how does a woman go about buying clothes? In almost every respect she does so in the opposite way. Her shopping is not often based on need. She has never fully made up her mind what she wants, and she is only “having a look round". She is always open to persuasion: indeed she sets great store by what the saleswoman tells her, even by what companions tell her. She will try on any number of things. Uppermost in her mind is the thought of finding something that everyone thinks suits her. Contrary to a lot of jokes, most women have an excellent sense of value when they buy clothes. They are always on the lookout for the unexpected bargain. Faced with a roomful of dresses, a woman may easily spend an hour going from one rail to another, to and fro often retracing her steps, before selecting the dresses she wants to try on. It is a tiresome process, but apparently an enjoyable one. Most dress shops provide chairs for the waiting husbands.

1.According to the passage, a man’s shopping is based on _______.

A.his money         B.his hobbies        C.his need          D.his friends

2.Why does a lady welcome suggestions from anyone while buying a dress?

A.Because she wants to buy a dress that every one thinks suits her.

B.Because she doesn’t know how to buy a dress.

C.Because she doesn’t know whether to buy it or not.

D.Because she wants to show herself off in public.

3.What does a man do when he can not get exactly what he wants? 

A.He buys a similar thing of the colour he wants.

B.He usually does not buy anything.

C.At least two of his requirements must be met before he buys.

D.So long as the style is right, he buys the thing.

4.The passage mainly talks about the ______ between men shoppers and women shoppers for clothes.

A.similarities         B.differences        C.varieties          D.intentions

 

I had an experience some years ago, which taught me something about the ways in which people make a bad situation worse by blaming themselves.One January, I had to hold two funerals on successive days for two elderly women in my community.Both had died “full of years”, as the Bible would say.Their homes happened to be near each other, so I paid condolence (吊唁) calls on the two families on the same afternoon.

At the first home, the son of the deceased (已故的) woman said to me, “If only I had sent my mother to Florida and gotten her out of this cold and snow, she would be alive today.It’s my fault that she died.” At the second home, the son of the other deceased woman said, “If only I hadn’t insisted on my mother’s going to Florida, she would be alive today.That long airplane ride, the sudden change of climate, was more than she could take.It’s my fault that she’s dead.”

You see that any time there is a death, the survivors will feel guilty.Because the course of action they took turned out badly, they believe that the opposite course — keeping Mother at home, putting off the operation — would have turned out better.After all, how could it have turned out any worse?

There seem to be two elements involved in our willingness to feel guilty.The first is our pressing need to believe that the world makes sense, that there is a cause for every effect and a reason for everything that happens.That leads us to find patterns and connections both where they really exist and where they exist only in our minds.

The second element is the view that we are the cause of what happens, especially the bad things that happen.It seems to be a short step from believing that every event has a cause to believing that every disaster is our fault.The roots of this feeling may lie in our childhood.

A baby comes to think that the world exists to meet his needs, and that he makes everything happen in it.He wakes up in the morning and summons the rest of the world to its tasks.He cries, and someone comes to attend to him.When he is hungry, people feed him, and when he is wet, people change him.Very often, we do not completely outgrow that childish view that our wishes cause things to happen.

1.The author had to hold the two women’s funerals probably because __________________.

A.he wanted to comfort the two families

B.he was an official from the community

C.he had great pity for the deceased

D.he was priest of the local church

2.People feel guilty for the deaths of their loved ones because _______________________.

A.they couldn’t find a better way to express their sorrow

B.they believe that they were responsible

C.they had neglected the natural course of events

D.they didn’t know things often turn out in the opposite direction

3.According to the passage, the underlined part in paragraph 4 probably means that ______.

A.everything in the world is predetermined

B.the world can be interpreted in different ways

C.there’s an explanation for everything in the world

D.we have to be sensible in order to understand the world

4.What’s the main idea of the passage?

A.Life and death is an unsolved mystery.

B.Every story should have a happy ending.

C.Never feel guilty all the time because not every disaster is our fault.

D.In general, the survivors will feel guilty about the people who passed away .

 

根据短文内容,从短文后的七个选项中选出能填人空白处的最佳选项。选项中有两项为多余选项。

Leap Year

Leap year is a year that has 366 days instead of the usual 365.It normally occurs every four years, always on an even-numbered year.The extra day is added to our shortest month.That is the second month of the year, which in non-leap years has 28 days, two fewer that any other month.   1.  

Leap year is also called the bissextile year.   2.     In our calendar system there is a need for a leap year because the solar year (the time it takes the earth to go around the sun once) is actually slightly more than 365 days long.That extra day—Feb.29 every four years—helps correct the difference between our calendar and the solar calendar.

Leap year was first made part of the calendar by the ancient Roman leader Julius Caesar.His astronomers had calculated the length of the solar year to be 365 days and six hours.So Caesar declared that an extra day be added to the calendar.   3. 

Caesar's adjustment, however, was not entirely accurate because his astronomers' year exceeded the true solar year by eleven minutes and fourteen seconds.By 1582, a difference of ten days had developed between the calendar year and the true solar year.To correct this error, Pope Gregory XIII ruled that every fourth year would continue to be a leap year except for century years that could not be divided evenly by 400.By this system, century years such as 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not leap years, but the year 2000 was a leap year.  4. 

Persons born on Feb.29 celebrate their growing up a little differently from the rest of us.  5.     But if they go strictly by the calendar, they have only one-fourth as many birthday celebrations as most people.

    A.This is done every four years.

    B.This is its formal, or scientific title.

    C.This may seem complicated, but it works.

    D.They acknowledge that they get older each year.

E.The leap year was introduced in the Julian calendar in 46 BC.

    F.When you see Feb.29 on a calendar, you know that year is a leap year.

    G.In a leap year, the extra day is added to the second month, giving it 29 instead of the usual 28 days

 

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