题目内容

House Sitting

In many countries of the world people do what is called house sitting. It means that if owners of the house are going away, they want someone to come into their home and look after the house and maybe pets while they are away.

In Australia, many people travel. After people retire, they might buy a van and travel all over the country. 1.

So if someone wants to travel or go away for some reason, they might want someone in their home to care for it and keep the gardens tidy. House sitters might have to care for pets. Also, quite a few people have swimming pools in their back yard and they need cleaning. 2.I feel it is a great way of seeing the country, because you go and stay in a new city, get to meet new people, and have time to go sightseeing in a new area.

3. There are websites where you find the advertisements by people who want to travel, and by replying to the advertisement, you can make arrangements to go and look after their home.

There are some requirements to be a house sitter. You must be a trusted person, so that the home owner knows you will not steal anything. You must be able to go when the house owner wants you to go, so you need lots of free time.4. You need to be good with pets, able to care for cats and dogs, or other pets they may have.

Some house sitting jobs are just for a few days or a couple of weeks while the house owner have a short holiday. Sometimes it is for much longer. We have had one house sit for six months, while the home owner travelled to Europe.

5. Then you can travel to many different countries and stay there. One of the important things to get are references from the home owners where you have stayed. A reference is a written letter to say that you are trustworthy and have looked after their home well. You can show these letters to prospective house sitting jobs and they know you will do a good job.

A. I have done house sitting many times.

B. Thousands of people do this all the time.

C. It is also possible to do house sitting in other countries.

D. Generally you have many opportunities to get a house sitting job.

E. You must take a little care over what your description says about you.

F. This is an international house sitting service for all city and country areas.

G. You must have a good car, so you can travel to different parts of the country.

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This summer, Monika Lutz’s life took an unusual turn. Instead of heading off to college, the high school graduate packed her bags for a Bengali jungle. Lutz, like a growing number of other young Americans, is taking a year off. Gap(间隔) years are quite common in Britain and Australia, but they are just beginning to catch on in the U.S. Lutz, who grew up in Boulder, Colo., has put together a 14-month schedule that includes helping deliver solar power to some communities in India and interning (实习) for a fashion designer in Shanghai---experiences that are worlds away from the lecture halls and university dormitories that await other students. “I could not be happier,” she says.

Why are students attracted to the gap-year concept? According to new survey data from Karl Haigler and Rae Nelson, education-policy experts and co-authors of The Gap-Year Advantage, the most common reason for this is to avoid burnout. “I felt like I was focused on college as a means to an end,” says Kelsi Morgan, an incoming Middlebury College freshman who spent last year interning for a judge in Tulsa, Okla., and teaching English at an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. The hope is that after a year out of the classroom, students will enter college more energized, focused and mature. That can be an advantage for colleges too. Robert Clagett, dean of admissions at Middlebury, did some research a few years ago and found that a single gap semester was the strongest predictor of academic success at his school.

Most experts recommend securing a spot in college before taking a gap year and warn against using the time off to lengthen your resume. “Most admissions folks can see right through that,” says Jim Jump, the academic dean of St. Christopher’s School in Richmond, Va. But for students like Lutz, who, after getting rejected from five Ivies, decided to take time off, a gap year can help focus interests. Lutz now plans to apply mostly to non-Ivies that have strong marketing programs. “This experience has really opened my eyes to the opportunities the world has to offer,” she says.

But at least one education expert doesn’t want schools spreading the gap-year message. In a study that followed 11,000 members of the high school class of 1992 for eight years after graduation, Stefanie DeLuca, a sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University, found that, all things being equal, those who delayed college by a year were 64% less likely to complete a bachelor’s degree than those who didn’t. DeLuca did not say whether these students voluntarily started college late, but at the very least, her work indicates that taking a gap year doesn’t guarantee success. “I’m not going to say that time off does not have benefits,” says DeLuca. “But I think we should not be so enthusiastic.”

1.The students take gap years mainly because ______.

A. they want to be more unusual

B. they want to refresh themselves

C. some experts advise them to do so

D. their parents think it good for them

2.According to Lutz, the gap year has made her more ______.

A. energetic B. relaxed

C. practical D. enthusiastic

3.Stefanie DeLuca probably agrees that ______.

A. students should think twice before taking gap years

B. taking gap years enables students to achieve success

C. schools should encourage their students to take gap years

D. taking gap years increases students’ chances of getting a good job

4.What’s the author’s attitude towards gap years?

A. Sceptical. B. Positive.

C. Disapproving. D. Objective.

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

Weighing the Options

Making decisions when shopping is often a tough call.Even if you’re satisfied with the first dress you try on, would you go on looking for alternatives, comparing styles and prices, until you literally dropped dead?

Psychology researchers have studied how people make decisions and concluded there are two basic styles.“Maximizers” like to take their time and weigh a wide range of options—sometimes every possible one—before choosing.“Satisficers” would rather be fast than thorough.

1. So even if they see what would seem to meet their requirements, they can’t make a decision until after they’ve examined every option to make sure that they’re making the best possible choice.Researchers followed 548 job-seeking college seniors at 11 schools from October through their graduation in June.They found that the maximizers landed better jobs.2.

“The maximizer is kicking himself because he can’t examine every option and at some point had to just pick something,” they say.“Maximizers make best decisions and end up feeling bad about them.3.

Satisficers also have high standards, but they are happier than maximizers.Maximizers tend to be more depressed and to report a lower satisfaction with life, his research found.

Faced with so many choices in our lives, we need to learn how not to waste time and energy on our decision-making.

4. For instance, if you’re picking a restaurant for a lunch meeting, first deciding on a certain part of town or type of cuisine can narrow your options.

Once you’ve arrived at a decision, stick with it.5. To limit the number of options you can consider, you can set a time limit for decision-making.Say you are buying a new bag, you could spend an amount of time studying features, price and value—but if you give yourself only five minutes to make a decision, and there are only these bags you can consider, you’ll save time.You’ll be happier with your decision, too.

A.Maximizers are people who want the best.

B.First of all, decrease your range of options.

C.Comparing is often a must when you make a decision.

D.Just accept that no decision is ever completely perfect.

E.Satisficers make good decisions and end up feeling good.

F.The other is to make decisions more accurately at the beginning.

G.Their starting salaries were 20 percent higher but they felt worse about their jobs.

Google has kicked off Google Science Fair (GSF) 2014, its annual online competition for

bright, creative and ambitious teenagers who want to change the world with science. While the project is led by Google, it also has the backing of the Lego Group and world-famous publications National Geographic and Scientific American. The competition is open for students aged 13 to 18, who can sign-up now, form a team and begin working on a submission.

The winner will be rewarded with a ten-day exploration to the Galapagos Islands aboard the National Geographic Endeavor, as well as a VIP tour of ‘Spaceport America’ in New Mexico. Google is also throwing in a $50,000 scholarship and $10,000 for the winner’s school to purchase cutting-edge science lab equipment.

Google suggests that each project should be “an in-depth investigation of a science question or engineering problem” but otherwise, it’s up to students to pick and develop an idea that follows the competition rules.

Completed projects need to be submitted by May 12, 2014 at 11:59 PDT. Google will announce the regional competitors in June, ahead of global finalists in August and the competition winners in September.

Interested? Here are the rules.

If you want to enter the competition as an individual (个人), you should register first. Complete requested information about yourself and your project in the registration section before creating your project. You may edit this later. Click the box stating that you have read, accept, and agree to be bound by these Official Rules and Terms.

Upon completion of registration you may begin working on your project. The project must follow the technical, creative, and legal entry requirements set out in these Official Rules and the Googlesciencefair.com Site. You will be required to complete all sections of the Project Site.

You may begin working on your project after completing the registration process, however, you may not submit it for judging until you have requested and received parental consent (允许). Once you have done this, your parent or guardian will receive an email from Google with instructions on how they can give their consent for you to participate. The project will not be judged unless this consent is received.

1.From the first paragraph, we can learn that ________.

A. GSF is a science competition

B. teenagers should form a team

C. every teenager can take part in it

D. GSF is organized by Google alone

2.What is mainly discussed in the last paragraph?

A. Parental consent.

B. Submission time.

C. Registration process.

D. Project requirements.

3.If you plan to enter GSF alone, you ________.

A. should create your project first

B. you needn’t follow the official rules

C. you should provide some personal information

D. your should start your project before registration

4.The main purpose of the passage is to ________.

A. offer tips on how to enter GSF

B. provide information about GSF

C. persuade teenagers to enter GSF

D. show teenagers the importance of GSF

Picking a university is a tense period of asking yourself which institution is most relevant. That’s why university rankings play such a vital role in students searching for their next academic direction. Rankings are also an inescapable part of the reputation and brand image of universities. “No university website is complete without the claim to be in the top 100 for something or other,” reported the BBC. The reason is simple: Rankings help them to attract students, staff and research investment.

Currently there are numbers of university rankings, and each has its own list of criteria. But the main categories are the same: academic reputation, graduates' performance and faculty resources.

However, experts point out the ranking process isn't entirely reliable. Mark Kantrowitz, a US financial aid researcher, said university rankings were mostly just for show. He wrote in The New York Times. “It may give your parents better bragging rights, but that's about it.”

Moreover, it’s not difficult to see the limitations of university rankings. Many rankings focus on the number of times research work is cited (引用) by other researchers. It helps British and US universities to dominate global rankings because English is the favored language of academia, John O’Leary, a member of the QS academic advisory board, told The Gunrdian. Also, rankings such as QS mainly focus on the qualities of the university rather than its students. “Any university ranking is likely to help students make better decisions about where to study, but the need to balance them with other more human factors is also important,” said Phil Moss, an education and admissions consultant. “Advice from graduates or current students can be as valuable in providing a genuine insight into the experience or quality of a particular degree program. It can also add an element that rankings can never convey -- the actual emotion of a university experience.”

1.Why do universities consider rankings important?

A. Rankings make them more appealing.

B. Rankings are students’ only reference.

C. Rankings can increase their academic level.

D. Rankings help them complete their websites.

2.What does the underlined “It” in paragraph 4 refer to?

A. Academic research work.

B. The number of researches.

C. The way of ranking universities.

D. The limitation of university ranking.

3.According to John O’Leary, what helps British and US universities rank well?

A. The wide use of English in academia.

B. Their outstanding qualities.

C. Their graduates’ excellent performance.

D. The academia’s favor to them.

4.Besides ranking, what does Phil Moss suggest you should refer to if you're picking a university?

A. Investment in education.

B. Guidance from professors.

C. Information on websites.

D. Suggestions from students.

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