One day I came home from school, changed my clothes and got ready for work. I work at a local restaurant in town as a cashier and waiter.

I went to work feeling   36  . And to make matters worse, I was busy that evening. It' s the same thing over and over again.  37 with customers who complain about their food andwhere they are  38 is too big or too small. Little things like that tend to  39 a lot of us  40 but we manage to deal with it.

Three elderly ladies walked in and sat by the windows. It happened to be the very   41  near where I keep the dirty   42 in the boxes. Trying to keep up with all the dirty tables, customers leaving and coming in and   43 running all over the house, it was crazy．  44  these elderly women were watching   45  I was working to make sure every table was clean and ready for the next customers.

When they   46  their meals, I took their plates back to the kitchen. They talked to me for a while about school, how I was doing, what   47  I was in and what I planned to do in the future.

 48 they were leaving, they walked past me and one of them said to me in a  49  and gentle voice, “You are going places.（你前途无量） And that was it.” They left the  50 and I had tears in my eyes, because they gave me  51 to believe in myself．They   52  my spirit from being down and gave me a   53 to keep on working hard.

People used to tell me that I couldn’t have a career in    54  until I had a degree. I'm now a co-anchor (联合主持人) of a student-produced television  55 . And the best thing is: I'm only 17 years old and I am a senior in high school.

Winners Club

You choose to be a winner！

The Winners Club is a bank account specially designed for teenagers. It has been made to help you better manage your money. The Winners Club is a transaction account（交易账户）where you receive a key-card so you can get to your money 24/7—that’s 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!

It’s a club with impressive features for teenagers：

No account keeping fees！

You’re no millionaire so we don’t expect you to pay large fees. In fact, there are no account keeping or transacting fees!

Excellent interest rates!

You want your money to grow. The Winners Club has a good rate of interest which gets even better if you make at least two deposits（储蓄）without talking them out in a month.

Convenient

Teenagers are busy—we get that. You may never need to come to a bank at all. With the Winners Club you can choose to use handy tellers and to bank from home using the phone and the Internet. You can have money directly deposited into your Winners Club account. This could be your pocket money or your pay from your part-time job!

Mega magazine included

Along with your regular report, you will receive a FREE magazine full of good ideas to make even more of your money. There are also fantastic offers and competitions only for Winners Club members.

The Winners Club is a great choice for teenagers. And it is so easy to join. Simply fill in an application form. You will have to get permission from your parent or guardian (so we can organize that cool key-card) but it is easy. We can’t wait to hear from you. It’s the best way to choose to be a winner!

1. The Winners Club is a bank account intended for _________.

A. parents           B. teenagers        C. winners           D. adults

2. Which of the following is TRUE about the Winners Club？

A. Special gifts are ready for parents.

B. The bank opens only on work days.

C. Services are convenient for its members.

D. Fees are necessary for the account keeping.

3.If you want to be a member of the Club, you must _________.

A. be an Internet user            B. be permitted by your parent

C. has a big sum of money           D. be in your twenties

4.What is the purpose of this text?

A. To set up a club.               B. To provide part-time jobs.

C. To organize key-cards.          D. To introduce a new banking service.

The Friday after the American holiday of Thanksgiving is called Black Friday. It’s said that it’s the day that store ledgers(分类账)move into the black and companies become profitable. On that day, retailers slash(砍) prices to get consumers to buy.  It is also a time when many Americans start their Christmas shopping. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee tells us how the economy may affect consumers on that bargain day.

This day should be a shopper’s dream. “It’s just the deals, the sales and everything you can get for a lesser price,” said Sandy Thomas, a shopper. But it’s a nightmare for others. “I think it’s crazy. I’ve done all of my shopping throughout the week so I don’t have to go out on Friday,” she said. It’s called Black Friday, the start of the traditional Christmas shopping season in the United States. Every year it’s the day after the Thanksgiving holiday. Stores open before sunrise and there are deep discounts everywhere you look.

Last year a crowd of bargain-hunters killed a Wal-mart worker in a New York suburb. This year, many stores are increasing security while they slash prices. “This is a huge time for the retail stores,” said Fred Joutz from George Washington University. “This is when they begin making their profits for the year.”

Economics professor Fred Joutz says how Americans spend the weekend after Thanksgiving is a good indication of how consumers feel about the future.

With the unemployment rate above 10 percent, Joutz says Americans are saving more and spending less. Some retailers are attracting consumers by opening on Thanksgiving Day, when shops are traditionally closed.  Other stores open their doors anywhere from midnight to four in the morning.

And shoppers will be lining up in front of the doors in order to be one of the first ones to walk through and get a big discount. Electronics like flat screen TVs are usually the first items to go. Sandy Thomas says it’s an annual family tradition and well worth it. “I just save maybe half of what I would have spent on a regular, you know, shopping trip,” she said.

Economists say U.S. consumers will spend money this Black Friday, but they will spend it more carefully.

1.By saying “This day should be a shopper’s dream”, the writer means ________ .

2.Why are many stores increasing security according to the passage?

3.From the passage we know that_________.

4.We can find this passage in_________.

5.Why American people call it a black day?

Wang Chongrun calls himself a beggar, but says he doesn’t feel ashamed. He raises money not for himself, but for orphans whose parents died of AIDS. “I’ve given all my savings but more money is needed to pay for their medical treatments,” Wang said.

He was a doctor in a local clinic. He could have lived a happy life from his good job, but he didn’t. He raises money not for AIDS orphans by setting up “Caring family” for them in Nanyang, Henan Province in 2004. Wherever he goes, he carries a big bag filled with pictures of children and booklets on AIDS. He wants to make people more aware of AIDS to rid them of their fear.

 Meanwhile he wants to arouse their feelings by showing them pictures of these children. It’s not so easy. Wang keeps turned a way by people because they don’t want to hear about AIDS. He said that his hearts hurt a lot when he saw kids who have no access to treatment.

It’s difficult for him to keep his “Caring Family”, an orphanage because of the lack of financing. He said “I don’t know how long we can continue, but.”

1.What is the best title of the passage? (Please answer within 10 words)

2.Which sentence in the passage can be replaced by the following one? People refuse him.

3.Please fill in the blank in the last paragraph with proper words or phrases to complete the sentence. (Please answer within 10 words).

4.What would you do if your fellow student were an AIDS student? (30 words)

5.Translate the underlined sentence in the second paragraph.

Quiet Virtue: The Conscientious

The everyday signs of conscientiousness (认真尽责)—being punctual, careful in doing work, self-disciplined, and scrupulous (一丝不苟的) in attending to responsibilities—are typical characteristics of the model organizational citizen, the people who keep things running as they should. They follow the rules, help out, and are concerned about the people they work with. It’s the conscientious worker who helps newcomers or updates people who return after an absence, who gets to work on time and never abuses sick leaves, who always gets things done on deadline.

Conscientiousness is a key to success in any field. In studies of job performance, outstanding effectiveness for almost all jobs, from semi-skilled labor to sales and management, depends on conscientiousness. It is particularly important for outstanding performance in jobs at the lower levels of an organization: the secretary whose message taking is perfect, the delivery truck driver who is always on time.

Among sales representatives for a large American car manufacturer, those who were most conscientious had the largest volume of sales. Conscientiousness also offers a buffer (缓冲) against the threat of job loss in today’s constantly changing market, because employees with this quality are among the most valued. For the sales representatives, their level of conscientiousness mattered almost as much as their sales in determining who stayed on.

There is an air around highly conscientious people that makes them seem even better than they actually are. Their reputation for dependability influences managers’ evaluations of their work, giving them higher evaluations than objective measures of their performance would predict.

But conscientiousness in the absence of social skills can lead to problems. Since conscientious people demand so much of themselves, they can hold other people to their own standards, and so be overly judgmental when others don’t show the same high levels of model behavior. Factory workers in Great Britain and the United States who were extremely conscientious, for example, tended to criticize co-workers even about failures that seemed unimportant to those they criticized, which damaged their relationships.

When conscientiousness takes the form of living up to expectations, it can discourage creativity. In creative professions like art or advertising, openness to wild ideas and spontaneity (自发性) are scarce and in demand. Success in such occupations calls for a balance, however; without enough conscientiousness to follow through, people become mere dreamers, with nothing to show for their imaginativeness.