Outside our hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, a seemingly ancient woman waited beside the door with her hand outstretched. Every day I put my hand in hers as our eyes met. She never failed to return my smile, my grasp, and my greeting.

    On the last day of our visit, I found myself alone on a busy corner across the street from our hotel. Bicycles and motorbikes rushed in front of me. As I hesitated on the sidewalk, I felt a hand on my elbow and looked down to see the smile of my small beggar friend looking up at me. She nodded her head toward the street, indicating that she would take me across. Together, we moved slowly into the chaos.

    Then we moved on toward the sidewalk, where she pulled my face down to hers, kissed me on both cheeks, and then left, still smiling and waving back to me.

Traveling in poorer nations, I have witnessed a variety of ways to deal with beggars. The most common response of tourists faced with the poverty-stricken is to ignore them and focus their eyes elsewhere. I have seen people push away an outstretched hand in angry annoyance. A few may drop a few coins into the hand in a hurry, hoping that other ragged pursuers won’t immediately appear on the scene.

For many reasons, giving money is not the best response to an outstretched hand. Many world travelers have discovered that the greatest gift they can give is their time and respect. Everyone needs recognition, to be seen as worthy of being known, to feel appreciated and loved. And I believe that everyone is worthy and worth knowing.

1.The woman beggars helped the author go across the busy street because __________.

A．the author gave her material assistance

B．the author treated her kindly and friendly

C．the author would help her as a reward

D．the author was a foreigner

2.From the story, what position of the beggars in the author’s mind might be?

    A．equal                B．superior      C．lower          D．valuable

3.In common cases, people will do the following things to the beggars EXCEPT for ________.

    A．pretending to see nothing

B．handing out some money

    C．refusing them angrily

D．greeting them normally

4.According to the author, the most important things beggars really need are _________.

    A．mercy and pity 　B．money and food

C．smile and greeting  D．attention and respect

5.The purpose of the passage is to _________.

    A．show how poor the beggars are in Vietnam

    B．offer some advice on dealing with begging

    C．express what we should offer the beggars

    D．describe an experience with a beggar       

Why doesn’t the unemployment rate ever reach zero? Economists, who generally believe that supply tends to meet demand, have long thought about this question. Even in good times, i.e. not now, there are people who can’t find work. And even in bad times, i.e. now, there are job openings. With over 14 million people out of work and looking for a job, you would think every available job would be filled. But that’s not the case. Not now and not ever.

　　On Monday, the Nobel Prize committee awarded the prize for economics to the three scholars who have done the most to explain this phenomenon. Two of the winners are Americans, Peter Diamond of MIT and Dale Mortensen of Northwestern. The third winner is Christopher Pissarides, who teaches at the London School of Economics and was born on Cyprus.

　　Like most of economics, what they have found about why the jobless and ready-employers don’t find each other seems obvious. You have to find out there is job opening you are interested in. Employers need to get resumes （简历）. It takes a while for both employers and employees to make the decision that this is what they want. And these guys came up with a frame-work to study the problem of why people stay unemployed longer than they should and what can be done about it.

　　So what would today’s Nobel Prize winners do to solve the current problem of the unemployed? And does the awarding of the prize contribute to the politicians’ lowering joblessness?

　　Speaking from his north London home, Pissarides told The Associated Press the announcement came as “a complete surprise” though his work had already helped shape thinking on both sides of the Atlantic.

　　For example, the New Deal for Young People, a British government policy aimed at getting 18-24-year-olds back on the job market after long periods of unemployment, “is very much based on our work,” he said.

　　“One of the key things we found is that it is important to make sure that people do not stay unemployed too long so they don’t lose their feel for the labor force,” Pissarides told reporters in London. “The ways of dealing with this need not be expensive training – it could be as simple as providing work experience.”

According to the writer, which is true about finding jobs?

　　A. It is always difficult to find a job.

　　B. Everyone can find a job in good times.

　　C. Contrary to popular belief, it is easier to find a job in bad times.

　　D. It is possible to find a job even in times as bad as now.

What is it that leads to their winning the prize?

　　A. They have found the reason for unemployment.

　　B. They have put forward a set of ideas to deal with unemployment.

　　C. They have found out why people don’t want to be employed.

　　D. They have long studied the problem of unemployment.

Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?

　　A. Pissarides thinks his work surprising.

　　B. The work of Pissarides has influenced many economists.

　　C. Some of the winners’ ideas have been put into practice.

　　D. It is probable that unemployed young people in Britain benefit from Pissarides’ work.

According to Pissarides, _________ is effective in dealing with unemployment.

　　A. spending large sums of money on training

　　B. teaching some knowledge of economics

　　C. providing work experience

　　D. keeping people unemployed for some time

Thousands of villages in the developing world have no telephones. They have no money to build telephone systems. A new kind of technology may help change this situation. I t reduces the cost of building and using telephone systems.

Traditional systems use wires to carry electrical signals from one telephone to another. The wires often cost much more than telephones. The new system is based on radio communication. Each telephone sends and receives signals through the air, but not through the wires. This reduces the cost greatly. The radio telephone gets their power from the sun.

Each is connected to a solar equipment that changes the sun’s energy into electricity. A battery stores the electricity until someone needs to make or receive a call. The telephone turns off by itself if the level of power in the battery falls too low. This prevents damage to the system. Each radio telephone is connected to a computer microprocessor. It rewards how many calls are sent and received. It controls the power supply.

The technology needs more study, but its new use of radio equipment sun power and computers may help start telephone ringing in the other parts of the world.

68. The radio telephone gets their power from_____.

A. the sun 　　　B. electricity 　　　C. battery 　　　D. a special equipment

69. Each telephone is connected to_____.

A. a solar equipment 　　　　　　　B. a radio machine

C. a computer microprocessor 　　　D. Both A and C

70. From the passage we can infer that_____.

A. the new telephone system costs less than before

B. we can not use the radio as before

C. the new telephone system will take the place of the old one

D. it will be much easier to radio from now on

71. The main idea of the passage is_____.

A. a simple telephone system has been invented and costs less money

B. thousands of villages will use the new telephone system very soon

C. traditional telephone system will become useless

D. the new system will be too good to use