I suppose that you ar one of the best students in your grade, _____?

A. don’t you 　 B. do I 　 C. aren’t you 　 D. are you

Early one morning,more than a hundred years ago,an American inventor called Elias Howe finally fell asleep.He had been working all night on the design of a sewing machine but he had run into a very difficult problem: It seemed impossible to get the thread to run smoothly around the needle.

Though he was tired,Howe slept badly.He turned and turned.Then he had a dream.He dreamt that he had been caught by terrible savages whose king wanted to kill him and eat him unless he could build a perfect sewing machine.When he tried to do so,Howe ran into the same problem as before.The thread kept getting caught around the needle.The king flew into the cage and ordered his soldiers to kill Howe.They came up towards him with their spears raised.But suddenly the inventor noticed something.There was a hole in the tip of each spear.The inventor awoke from the dream,realizing that he had just found the answer to the problem.Instead of trying to get the thread to run around the needle,he should make it run through a small hole in the center of the needle.This was the simple idea that finally made Howe design and build the first really practical sewing machine.

Elias Howe was not the only one in finding the answer to his problem in this way.Thomas Edison,the inventor of the electric light,said his best ideas came into him in dreams.So did the great physicist Albert Einstein.Charlotte Bronte also drew in her dreams in writing ?Jane Eyre.?

To know the value of dreams,you have to understand what happens when you are asleep.Even then,a part of your mind is still working.This unconscious(无意识的),but still active part understands your experiences and goes to work on the problems you have had during the day.It stores all sorts of information that you may have forgotten or never have really noticed.It is only when you fall asleep that this part of the brain can send messages to the part you use when you are awake.However,the unconscious part acts in a special way.It uses strange images which the conscious part may not understand at first.This is why dreams are sometimes called “secret messages to ourselves ”.

According to the passage,Elias Howe was_________.

A.the first person we know of who solved problems in his sleep

B.much more hard-working than other inventors

C.the first person to design a sewing machine that really worked

D.the only person at the time who knew the value of dreams

The problem Howe was trying to solve was_________.

A.what kind of thread to use

B.how to design a needle which would not break

C.where to put the needle

D.how to prevent the thread from getting caught around the needle

Thomas Edison is spoken of because_________.

A.he also tried to invent a sewing machine

B.he got some of his ideas from dreams

C.he was one of Howe's best friends

D.he also had difficulty in falling asleep

Dreams are sometimes called “secret messages to ourselves” because _________.

A.strange images are used to communicate ideas

B.images which have no meaning are used

C.we can never understand the real meaning

D.only specially trained people can understand them

If you know exactly what you want, the best way to get a job is to get specialized training. A recent report shows that companies like graduates in such fields as business and health care who can go to work immediately with very little on-the-job training.

That’s especially true of booming fields that are challenging for workers. At Cornell's School of Hotel Administration, for example, bachelor's degree graduates get an average of four or five job offers with salaries ranging from the high to low and plenty of chances for rapid advancement. Large companies especially like a background of formal education coupled with work experience. But in the long run, too much specialization does not pay off. Business, which has been flooded with MBAs, no longer considers the degree an automatic stamp of approval. The MBA may open doors and command a higher salary initially, but the impact of a degree washes out after five years.

As further evidence of the erosion of corporate faith in specialized degrees, Michigan State’s Scheetz cites a pattern in corporate hiring practices. Although companies tend to take on specialists as new hires, they often seek out generalists for middle and upper-level management. This sounds like a formal statement that you approve of the liberal-arts(文科) graduate. Time and again labor-market analysts mention a need for talents that liberal-arts majors are assumed to have: writing and communication skills, organizational skills, open-mindedness and adaptability, and the ability to analyze and solve problems. David Birch, manager of the Boston Red Sox, says that he does not hire anybody with an MBA or an engineering degree. “I hire only liberal-arts people because they have a less-than-canned way of doing things,” says Birch.

For a liberal – arts degree, students focus on some basic courses that include literature history, mathematics, economics, science, human behavior and a computer course or two. With these useful and important courses, you can feel free to specialize, “A liberal-arts degree coupled with an MBA or some other technical training is a very good combination in the marketplace,” says Scheetz.

The job market is in great need of people with          .

A. special training in special fields       B. a bachelor’s degree in education

C. formal schooling and work experience     D. an MBA degree from top universities

The underlined sentence in Paragraph 2 means         .

A. an MBA degree does not help in future promotion

B. MBA programs will not be as popular as they are now

C. people will not forget the degree the MBA graduates have got

D. most MBA programs fail to provide students with a foundation

David Birch says that he only hires liberal – arts people because          .

A. they will follow others’ ways of solving problems

B. they can do better in bundling changing situations

C. they are well trained in a variety of specialized fields

D. they have attended special programs in management

The author supports the idea that          .

A. on – the – job training is less costly in the long run

B. formal schooling is less important than job training

C. specialists are more expensive to hire than generalists

D. generalists will do better than specialists in management

For many parents, raising a teenager is like fighting a long war, but years go by without any clear winner. Like a border conflict between neighboring countries, the parent-teen war is about boundaries: Where is the line between what I control and what you do?

Both sides want peace, but neither feels it has any power to stop the conflict. In part, this is because neither is willing to admit .any responsibility for starting it . From the parents’ point of view, the only cause of their fight is their adolescents’ complete unreasonableness. And of course, the teens see it in exactly the same way , except oppositely . Both feel trapped.

In this article. I’ll describe three no-win situations that commonly arise between teens and parents and then suggest some ways out of the trap. The first no-win situation is quarrels over         unimportant things. Examples include the color of the teen’s hair, the cleanliness of the bedroom, the preferred style of clothing, the child’s failure to eat a good breakfast before school, or his tendency to sleep until noon on the weekends .Second, blaming, the goal of a blaming battle is to make the other admit that his bad attitude is the reason why everything goes wrong. Third, needing to be right, It doesn’t matter what the topic is –politics, the laws of physics, or the proper way to break an egg –the point of these arguments is to prove that you are right and the other person is wrong, for both wish to be considered an authority(权威) --- someone who actually knows something --- and therefore to win respect. Unfortunately, as long as parents and teens continue to think that they know more than the other, they’ll continue to fight these battles forever and never make any real progress.

Why does the author compare the parent—teen war to a border conflict?

A. both can continue for generations.    B. Both are about where to draw the line

C. Neither has any clear winner        D. Neither can be put to an end

What does the underlined part in Paragraph 2 mean?

A. The teens blame their parents for starting the conflict.

B. The teens agree with their parents on the cause of the conflict

C. The teens accuse their parents of misleading them

D. The teens tend to have a full understanding of their parents

Parents and teens want to be right because they want to ________.

A. give orders to the other           B. know more than the other

C. gain respect from the other        D .get the other to behave properly

Growing old is something that nobody can understand until they experience it for themselves．I may not be "old" but I am certainly beginning to  36   it? turned 18 just over a week ago．I am now an adult．

As a child you  37   adults—or "grown-ups" as I used to call them—to always be in control．to know what is right and wrong． 38   as a teenager, I thought that when I reached 18 I would be far more  39   in many aspects of life．But now that I am 18, 1 know that is not true．

It is clear to me now that you do not   40   learning when you are 18．Every day you learn

something  41   , no matter what your age．However, I do understand when you become an adultyou have to  42  more responsibility．

Whereas before I seldom had to clean the dishes, set the table or help out around the house, now I do all of those．I have already  43   myself the nickname "housekeeper"．

I can even drive now, which is pretty   44  , because of the frequency of accidents．But that's not to say that 18 is not   45  to be．Not only can I drink alcohol, but I can also  46 ．In fact, being 18 has made me really interested in politics because it now means that I can change things on  47  Day．More and more of my friends want to become politicians, and it is great to

think that they can change things for the better．

A．dislike             B．feel            C．learn        D．love

A．expect            B．criticize         C．deny           D．know

A．Even             B．But           C．So             D．Since

A．comfortable       B．interested      C．assured         D．contented

A．continue           B．desire           C．stop            D．refuse

A．interested          B．unique        C．valuable         D．new

A．take on            B．put on       C．take up          D．put up

A．honored           B．chosen        C．earned          D．won

A．scary              B．amazing        C．fascinating      D．difficult

A．adventurous        B．tough         C．good        D．annoying

A．elect              B．vote           C．volunteer       D．involve

A．Labor             B．Independence C．Christmas      D．Election