【题目】Personal money-management website Mint.com suggests recently that responsible parents should give their kids credit cards—possibly starting as young as middle school. The website says a credit card will help children master responsible spending habits and give parents the chance to teach them some valuable lessons.

It’s absolutely true that kids should learn about how a credit card works and how to use it responsibly. But the idea that they need a card of their own to practise this is questionable.

Yes, credit cards are a teaching tool, but it’s the time you spend educating them about money management that does the teaching, not the piece of plastic. Sit down with your child—here we are referring to teens and walk them through your credit card statements. Point out important things like the due date, late fee warning, and APR (年贷款利率).

If you have good credit, adding a child as an authorized user onto one of your credit cards also provides teachable moments. Allow kids to use the card to make specific purchases and require their participation in payment.

Since the card is still in your name, you can take them off it at any point and cut off their access if they're not able to handle the responsibility.

Another option is to set them up with an account at a local bank that offers free use of a debit card (借记卡). Unlike credit card, the debit card has no overdraft (透支) function.

Children can only use the card to pay for things and the money is taken directly from their bank account. If the account is empty, the worst that will happen is the card being declined at a cash register.

【1】Why does Mint.com advise parents to give middle school kids credit cards?

A. To leave their kids financially independent.

B. To help their kids form good spending habits.

C. To teach their kids' how to save pocket money.

D. To strengthen the relationship with their kids.

【2】The author considers a credit card as a teaching tool because ______.

A. it motivates teens to ask their parents for less financial support

B. it helps teenagers to know some basic knowledge of credit cards

C. it contains detailed financial information on the card surface

D. it offers parents the chance to teach kids to manage money

【3】What is the purpose of adding kids as credit card authorized users?

A. To avoid extremely high overdraft fees.

B. To encourage them to share household expenses.

C. To teach them to be responsible credit card users.

D. To help them pay close attention to their bank account.

【4】What is most likely to be discussed in the paragraph that follows?

A. Further information about the debit card.

B. The overdraft functions of a debit card.

C. More disadvantages of credit cards.

D. The kids' attitude towards a credit card.

【题目】For the last couple of weeks, I had been stuck in front of my computer working on a project that was very important to me. My every waking hour was consumed by the project and although I imagined that I would feel happy after completing parts of the project, I was confused to find that instead, I was feeling rather depressed. I tried a range of methods to help cheer myself up. I had a relaxing bath, cooked a delicious meal to enjoy with my family and even watched a lighthearted movie, but______It was only when I turned to meditation(沉思)for a solution that the answer came to me: turn to nature!

The very next day, I grabbed my camera and a bottle of water and set off to spend a few hours walking in a nature reserve, even though it was pouring with rain. Within a couple of minutes I felt alive again. To be honest, I felt like a young school girl again and had to stop myself from hopping along the path singing, "I'm singing in the rain", a song I used to sing when I was a child. I think as adults we often try too hard to control our inner children and as a result we restrain(限制) our own spirits, which only leads to depression and stress.

Interestingly, it has been shown that people who spend 40 minutes walking in a nature reserve have a drop in their blood pressure levels, but this does not happen when they spend a similar amount of time walking in a busy city centre.

If you feel a little low in spirit and know that you have spent too much time indoors, relax completely, remove your shoes and let your inner child come out and play.

1The author walked in a nature reserve in the rain in order to__________.

A. take photos

B. cheer herself up

C. hop along the path

D. find a solution to the project

2The underlined part "to no avail" in Paragraph 1 probably means " __________".

A. uninteresting B. unrelated

C. unsuccessful D. unexpected

3In the author's opinion, __________.

A. a bath can make people relaxed

B. adults should express their inner feelings freely

C. walking in a busy city centre harms people's health

D. depression is usually caused by hard work

4The last paragraph mainly serves as a(n) __________.

A. suggestion B. explanation

C. introduction D. reminder

【题目】Why do people feel so rushed? Part of this is a perception (认知) problem. Generally, people in rich countries have more free time than they used to. This is particularly true in Europe, but even in America free time has been inching up. Women's paid work has risen a lot over this period,but their time in unpaid work,like cooking and cleaning, has fallen even more significantly, thanks in part to dishwashers, washing machines and microwaves, and also to the fact that men shift themselves a little more around the house than they used to.

The problem, then, is less how much time people have than how they see it. Ever since a clock was first used at a workplace to record labor hours in the 18th century, time has been understood in relation to money. Once hours are financially quantified (量化), people worry more about wasting, but tend to save or use them more profitably. When economies grow and incomes rise, everyone's time becomes more valuable. And the more valuable something becomes, the rarer it seems.

Once seeing their time in terms of money, people often grow stingy with the former to maximize the latter. Workers who are paid by the hour volunteer less of their time and tend to feel more upset when they are not working.

The relationship between time, money and anxiety is something Gary Becker noticed in America's post-war boom years. "If anything, time is used more carefully today than a century ago," he noted in 1965. He found that when people are paid more to work, they tend to work longer hours, because working becomes a more profitable use of time. So the rising value of work time puts pressure on all time. Leisure time starts to seem more stressful, as people are forced to use it wisely or not at all.

【1】 Women's time in unpaid work has fallen partly because ______.

A. men's ability to support a family has been improved

B. men's involvement in housework has increased

C. women's leisure time was taken up by heavy housework

D. women become more skilled at household equipment

【2】 From the second paragraph, we learn that ______.

A. labor hours were recorded with a clock

B. people haven't realized the value of time

C. more work hours bring in more money

D. The rise of incomes makes time less valuable

【3】The underlined phrase grow stingy with can probably be replaced by "______".

A. refuses to delay B. intend to kill

C. try to accumulate D. hesitate to spend

【4】According to Gary Becker, what causes people feel anxious about time?

A. The wrong way of time being spent.

B. People's willingness to work hard.

C. The increasing value of work time.

D. More and more leisure time.

【题目】Elizabeth Freeman was born about 1742 to African American parents who were slaves. At the age of six months she was acquired, along with her sister, by John Ashley, a wealthy Massachusetts slaveholders. She became known as Mumbet or Mum Bett.

For nearly 30 years Mumbet served the Ashley family. One day, Ashleys wife tried to strike Mumbets sister with a spade. Mumbet protected her sister and took the blow instead. Furious(狂怒的), she left the house and refused to come back. When the Ashleys tried to make her return, Mumbet consulted a lawyer, Theodore Sedgewick. With his help, Mumbet sued(起诉) for her freedom.

While serving the Ashleys, Mumbet had listened to many discussions of the new Massachusetts constitution. If the constitution said that all people were free and equal, then she thought it should apply to her. Eventually, Mumbet won her freedom---- the first slave in Massachusetts to do so under the new constitution.

Strangely enough, after the trial, the Ashleys asked Mumbet to come back and work for them as a paid employee. She declined and instead went to work for Segdewick. Mumbet died in 1829, but her legacy lived on in her many descendants(后裔). One of her great-grandchildren was W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the founder of the NAACP, and an important writer and spokesperson for African American civil rights.

Mumbets tombstone still stands in the Massachusetts cemetery where she was buried. It reads, in part: She was born a slave and remained a slave and remained a slave for nearly thirty years. She could neither read nor write, yet in her own sphere she had no superior or equal.

1What do we know about Mumbet according to Paragraph 1?

A. She was born a slave

B. She was a slaveholder

C. She had a famous sister

D. She was born into a rich family

2What did Mumbet learn from discussions about the new consititution?

A. She should always obey her owners’ orders

B. How to apply for a job

C. How to be a good servant

D. She should be as free and equal as whites

3What did Mumbet do after the trial?

A. She chose to work for a lawyer

B. She found the NAACP

C. She continued to serve the Ashleys

D. She went to live with her grandchildren

4What is the test mainly about?

A. A story of a famous writer and spokesperson

B. The friendship between a lawyer and a slave

C. A trial that shocked the whole world

D. The life of a brave African American woman

【题目】Severely disabled people may soon be able to use their noses to write, drive a wheelchair or surf the Internet, thanks to a device (装置) developed by doctors in Israel.

The device will be used by breathing in and out through the nose, according to a study. Healthy people who tested the device quickly learned to play computer games and write sentences by sniffing. Encouraged by the results, the researchers decided to test their device on people who are paralyzed (瘫痪) but whose intelligence remains normal. Ten paralyzed who tested the device quickly learned to use their noses to write words, open a webpage, copy words and put them into a search engine.

With their success in helping severely disabled people to communicate * the researchers decided to make use of the new technology to design an electric wheelchair to be driven by sniffs.

Ten healthy people easily mastered sniff—driving a wheelchair through a maze (迷宫), and a 30-year-old man who had been paralyzed from the neck down for six years was as good a sniff-driver as the healthy participants at his second attempt. In other words, a paralyzed person could use the sniff controller to drive an electric wheelchair.

At the moment, sniff-controlled technology is still in the stage of development, and the Weizmann Institute has already applied for a patent on the device. "Ill be very happy if it can help us to make money, but the real problem is that I hope someone will develop it, because this would help a lot of people," said Sobel, one of the lead researchers of the study.

【1】What’s the purpose of the passage?

A. To introduce a new invention.

B. To equip the disabled with life skills.

C. To show the nose's special functions.

D. To instruct doctors to apply for a patent.

【2】In the test, the paralyzed people with normal intelligence can use their nose to ______.

A. type long sentences quickly

B. play computer games easily

C. enter a website without much difficulty

D. communicate with others successfully

【3】With the help of the sniffing device, a 30-year-old disabled man ______.

A. spent six years learning how to drive a wheelchair

B. failed to drive through the maze at his first attempt

C. took the wheelchair controlled by healthy participants

D. managed to drive an electric wheelchair by sniffing

【4】From the last paragraph, we can infer that the sniff-controlled technology ______.

A. will be applied to other fields of research

B. needs further developing to serve more people

C. has become an important patented invention

D. shows the wisdom and talents of Israel doctors

【题目】Whenever someone begins to talk to me about how horrible it is to eat meat and suggests that a nice piece of tofu would be just as good, I just smile and show them those nice pointy teeth we all have in the corners of our mouths. They are called canines (犬牙), and they are there only for the purpose of eating meat.

When it comes to satisfying this kind of desire, soy (豆类) food can never match a well-prepared tri-tip (also know as triangle beef steak ). Just the thought of the beef, burning on the grill (烤架) with the smell of wood smoke gets the mouth watering and brings back memories of summer barbecues. When the knife cuts through the tri- tip, exposing the red meat bursting with juices, it's more than just cooking. It's a cultural event, showing we are at the top of the food chain, like no other food can.

Nutritionally speaking, the tri-tip is one of the better cuts of beef. It is lower in fat than many other cuts, and the proteins (蛋白质) you get from eating meat are more complete than those that come from vegetables, making meat a better choice for building and keeping up your muscle tissue healthy.

According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, one thing to be aware of with soy products in general is that while they are high in iron, a necessary mineral for the body, they also contain something that blocks the body's absorption of iron. We can cook them in various ways to make them tasty. Anyway, the tri-tip goes a lot better with ice-cold beer than a large piece of bean-curd cheese would, no matter how you cook it.

I guess I should say at least

e good thing about tofu. If you cook it just right, you can make it taste a little like the tri-tip, but only a little.

【1】What's the author's attitude towards eating meat?

A. Uncaring. B. Approving.

C. Ambiguous. D. Cautious.

【2】From the second paragraph, we learn that a well-prepared tri-tip ______.

A. can be delicious and unforgettable

B. can be served only for barbecues

C. should be eaten with soy food

D. should be cooked longer on the grill

【3】 Compared with tofu, the tri-tip is ______.

A. more nutritious but poorer in proteins

B. higher in iron and other useful minerals

C. more beneficial for muscle development

D. harder for eaters to take in its iron

【4】The best title of the passage is ______.

A. The tri-tip, your right choice

B. Differences between tri-tip and tofu

C. Tofu, a nutritious soy food

D. Best food partner Tri-tip and tofu

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