Women are on their way to holding more than half of all American jobs. The latest government report shows that their share of nonfarm jobs nearly reached fifty percent in September.
Not only have more and more women entered the labor market over the years, but the depression has been harder on men. In October the unemployment rate for men was almost eleven percent compared to eight percent for women.
Industries that traditionally use lots of men have suffered deep cuts. For example, manufacturing and building lost more jobs last month. But health care and temporary employment services have had job growth. Both of those industries employ high percentages of women.
Thirty years ago, women earned sixty-two cents for every dollar that men earned. Now, for those who usually work full time, women earn about eighty percent of what men earn. And women hold fifty-one percent of good-paying management and professional jobs.
Yet a study released Thursday said men still hold about nine out of every ten top positions at the four hundred large companies in California. The results have remained largely unchanged in live years of studies from the University of California, Davis.
Also, a new research paper in the journal Sex Roles looks at the experiences of women who are the main earners in their family. Rebecca Meisenbach at the University of Missouri in Columbia interviewed fifteen women. She found they all valued their independence and many enjoyed having the power of control, though not all wanted it.
But they also felt pressure, worry and guilt. Partly that was because of cultural expectations that working women will still take care of the children. Also, men who are not the main earners may feel threatened.
The job market continues to suffer the effects of last year’s financial crash. Now, a judgment has been reached in the first case involving charges of criminal wrongdoing on Wall Street.
Last week, the government lost its case against two managers at Bear Stearns, the first investment bank to fail last year. A jury found Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin not guilty of lying to investors.
The hedge funds they supervised lost their value in two thousand seven. But jurors said there was no clear evidence that they meant to mislead investors.
The Justice Department continues to investigate other companies.
【小题1】Why is the unemployment rate for men higher.

Retirement Age
Retirement is the point where a person stops employment completely．The " standard" retirement age varies from country to country, but it is generally between 50 and 70, according to the latest statistics, 2011．However, for a long time, people have got into an argument about whether the age of retirement should be increased or reduced in their own countries．
There are several arguments for allowing older people to continue working as long as they are able．Many people think that older employees have a large amount of knowledge and experience which can be lost to a business or organization if they are made to retire．Besides, older employees are often extremely faithful employees to and are more willing to implement company policies than the young．A more important point is regarding the attitudes in society to old people．To force someone to resign or retire at 60 or 65 indicates that the society does not value the input of these people and that effectively their useful life is over．
Allowing old people to work indefinitely （无限地）, however, is not always a good policy．Some people took the strong view that age alone is no guarantee of ability．Many young employees have more experience or skills than older staff, who may have been stuck in one area for most of their working lives．Having compulsory retirement allows new ideas in an organization．On the other hand, older people should be rewarded by society for their life' s labor by being given generous pensions and the freedom to enjoy leisure．They can have time to do whatever they like, that is, they can have their own plans or roles and achieve their retirement goals．
With many young people unemployed or frustrated in low-level positions, there are often calls to compulsorily retire older workers．However, this can affect the older individual' s freedom—and right—to work．In my opinion, giving workers more choices over their retirement age will benefit society and the individual．
【小题1】According to the passage, older people should go on with work because ____.

Welcome every morning with a smile. Let your first hour set the theme of success and positive action that is certain to echo through your entire day. Today will never happen again. Don’t waste it with a false start or no start at all. You were not born to fail.

Starting the day right can give good momentum (动力) for the rest of the day. Having a power morning is a key factor for a fruitful day. Here are some tips on getting the most out of the morning.

Wake up early. In theory, there’s no difference in waking up early or late as long as you get the proper amount of sleep. However, there is a psychological advantage when you wake up earlier than the average person and then you’ll have more time to do preparation before engaging in the real world.

Exercise. Good health is always a benefit with exercise, but studies have also shown that morning exercise helps you to sleep better at nights.

Eat breakfast. It’s the most important meal of the day. According to the Mayo Clinic, we should choose three from the following four: fruits and vegetables, grains, dairy, and protein. Did you know that you can actually gain weight when you skip breakfast?

Take a shower. When you shower, do you do it in the morning or at night? I used to shower in the evenings, but I found that morning showers helped me to be more alert.

Prioritize (优先) your To-Do list. Leo coined the acronym MIT to mean “most important tasks.” Our to-do list might be never ending, but put on top of the list a couple of urgent tasks that will define the day to be a successful one.

Check your emails. Only once. Getting a lot of emails can be very distractive. You actually are more productive when you check them only a few times at fixed time of the day. I only do them 2-3 times a day—once in the morning, once at lunch, and one more as it gets toward the end of the day.

1.The purpose for the author to write this passage is to       .

2.If you don’t have breakfast, you may       .

3.The underlined word “coined” in Paragraph 6 means       .

4.The author advises you to check your emails only once because       .

My father was a foreman of a sugar-cane plantation in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. My first job was to drive the oxen（牛） that ploughed the cane fields. I would walk behind an ox, guiding him with a broomstick. For $ 1 a day, I worked eight hours straight, with no food breaks.

It was very tedious work, but it prepared me for life and taught me many lasting lessons. Because the plantation owners were always watching us, I had to be on time every day and work as hard as I could. I’ve never been late for any job since. I also learned about being respectful and faithful to the people you work for. More important, I earned my pay; it never entered my mind to say I was sick just because I didn’t want to work.

I was only six years old, but I was doing a man’s job. Our family needed every dollar we could make because my father never earned more than $ 18 a week. Our home was a three-room wood shack with a dirty floor and no toilet. Nothing made me prouder than bringing home money to help my mother, father, two brothers and three sisters. This gave me self-esteem(自尊心), one of the most important things a person can have.

When I was seven, I got work at a golf course near our house. My job was to stand down the fairway and spot the balls as they landed, so the golfers could find them. Losing a ball meant you were fired, so I never missed one. Some nights I would lie in bed and dreamt of making thousands of dollars by playing golf and being able to buy a bicycle.

The more I dreamed, the more I thought. Why not? I made my first golf club out of guava limb(番石榴树枝) and a piece of pipe. Then I hammered an empty tin can into the shape of a ball. And finally I dug two small holes in the ground and hit the ball back and forth. I practiced with the same devotion and intensity. I learned working in the field — except now I was driving golf balls with club, not oxen with a broomstick.

1.The word “tedious” in Paragraph 2 most probably means _______.

   A. difficult        B. boring            C. interesting   D. unusual

2.The writer learned that_______ from his first job.

   A. he should work for those who he liked most

   B. he should work longer than what he was expected

   C. he should never fail to say hello to his owner

   D. he should be respectful and faithful to the people he worked for

3._______ gave the writer self-esteem.

   A. Having a family of eight people

   B. Owning his own golf course

   C. Bringing money back home to help the family

   D. Helping his father with the work on the plantation

4.Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?

   A. He wanted to be a successful golfer.

   B. He wanted to run a golf course near his house.

   C. He was satisfied with the job he got on a plantation.

   D. He wanted to make money by guiding oxen with a broomstick.

I have this old clock that belonged to my mom. My dad gave it to me years ago after mom passed away.
I have mixed feelings about having the clock. I love it because it was my mom’s, but it also holds some bad memories.
You see, it chimes. It counts out the hour and rings once on the half hour. Or at least it used to. Now you never know what number it will ring.
When my mother was at home dying from cancer, she asked for the clock to be unplugged. Hearing the hours count down really angered and frightened her.
Mom passed away. I decided I wanted to get the clock fixed so I could remember the good hours we had with her.
I took it to a local clock shop the other day.
“I know this has no particular value as a clock, but it was my mom’s and I need to get it fixed,” I said to the shop owner.
I went on to describe the problem.
“We get a lot of these in,” he told me. “Here’s what I do. We remove the clock works (机件) and replace it with a battery-operated movement (机芯) that chimes electronically,” he told me.
“You can’t fix this?”
“No, we don’t have the time nor the parts.”
I thanked him and went home. I called a few other places and was told the same thing.
“How incredibly sad,” I told the last one disappointedly.
How incredibly sad that we have become a society that replaces craftsmanship with convenience and easy fixes. We copy the original instead of creating something new. We duplicate (复制); we don’t originate (发明).
Sadly, the same goes for our attitude to life itself.
Each of us is an original, one of a kind. But we find it so much easier to copy another style than to develop our own.
We are wannabes (崇拜别人的人) rather than hey-world-look-at-mes.
We fail to see the real value in who we are, so we spend our lives trying to be someone else.
【小题1】 Why did the author decide to get the clock fixed?