Have you got a Facebook account? Are you thinking of getting one? Jamie Simmonds has just signed up. Let’s see how she’s getting along.

My Diary

MONDAY: I’m officially a Facebooker. I find a few people I used to know and I’ve soon got seven friends. I’ve never felt so popular! I wonder if my old university flatmate Steve is on here…What do you know! He is! Maybe Facebook has its uses.

TUESDAY: I’ve received lots of nice welcoming messages on my wall. Later, I meet up with Steve for a drink after not seeing him for five years. We get on really well! Then, he uses his Facebook app for iPhone to suggest me as a friend to some other former classmates. Some of them even come to the pub and it’s just like old times – possibly a bit too much like old times. During the night, photos are uploaded to Facebook.

WEDNESDAY: Disaster! My mum’s on Facebook! Has she seen the photos of me dancing on the table from last night? Has she shown them to dad? Oh. And I have a friend request – mum again!

THURSDAY: There’s a message from my boyfriend, “so, it’s over then, ;is it?” Evidently I haven’t changed my settings to show I’m “in a relationship”, and I haven’t even added him as a friend. Ah, well, I wonder what my ex-boyfriend is doing… Whoops! I accidentally type his name into my status box instead of the search ‘ and now every one can see it on their news feed.’

FRIDAY: Time to update my status:“Work is boring. Can’t wait for the weekend!” Yeah, that about sums it up. Oh, look, I’ve received a comment! Someone must feel the same way. Lots of my friends now“like” this status.

SATURDAY: Good news! I’ve got 100 friends But wait! Someone’s “un-friended” me! I look through my “friend list” to try to work out who it was. Why did they do that? Am I really such a terrible person? I never knew Facebook could be this cruel.

SUNDAY: Wake up. Check my Facebook page. Make coffee. Check my Facebook page again. Get ready to leave. Change my mind and check my Facebook page … again. I am becoming addicted to it! I think it’s time to end it all before it takes over my life. I delete my account. Back to good, old, simple e-mails. Oh, look, I’ve got a message: A friend invited you to join Twitter. . .

In July 2010, Facebook had more than 500 million active users. The average Facebook user has 130 friends. Facebook is translated into more than 70 different languages. The world spends 700 billion minutes a month on Facebook. Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page says he’s a Harvard graduate, even though he actually dropped out to focus on Facebook. The site is valued at between $7.9 and $11 billion.

1. Why did Jamie’s boyfriend ask her whether she had broken up with him?

    A. He had seen photos of Jamie dancing on the table.

    B. She showed in her facebook that she was still not dating anyone.

    C. Her boyfriend was angry that she refused to add him as her friend.

    D. He saw the name of her ex-boyfriend on his news feed.

2.Which of the following is conveyed in this article?

    A. Visiting Facebook website took up a large part of Jamie’s time and energy.

    B. Jamie is enthusiastic about her present job.

    C. Facebook was created by a Harvard graduate, Mark Zuckerberg.

    D. Compared with Facebook, Twitter is a better choice for Jamie.

3.What does the word“un-friend” mean in“Someone’s ‘un-friended’ me!”?

    A.  Being unfriendly to others.

    B.  Having a quarrel with somebody.

    C.  Removing a name from the friend list.

    D.  Ending friendship with somebody.

4.Which of the following is true according to the passage ?

   A. Steve was Jamie’s boyfriend in the university.

   B. People all over the world spend 700 billion minutes a week on Facebook.

   C. Jamie’s mother has seen the photos of her dancing on the table.

   D. Jamie felt enthusiastic about Facebook at first.

5.It can be learned from the passage that the writer’s attitude towards Facebook is ______  .

    A. approval          B. objective           C. negative        D. positive

Students who date (约会）in middle school have significantly worse study skills, are four times more likely to drop out of school and report twice as much alcohol and tobacco use than their single classmates, according to new research from the University of Georgia.
"Romantic relationships are a trademark of adolescence, but very few studies have examined how adolescents differ in the development of these relationships," said Pamela Orpinas, study author and professor in the College of Public Health and head of the Department of Health Promotion and Behavior.
Orpinas followed a group of 624 students over a seven-year period from 6th to 12th grade.
Each year, the group of students completed a survey indicating whether they had dated and reported the frequency of different behaviors, including the use of drugs and alcohol. Their teachers completed questionnaires (调查表）about the students* academic efforts. He found some students never or hardly ever reported dating from middle to high school, and these students had consistently the best study skills according to their teachers. Other students dated infrequently in middle school but increased the frequency of dating in high school.
"At all points in time, teachers rated the students who reported the lowest frequency of dating as having the best study skills and the students with the highest dating as having the worst study skills,” according to the journal article. Study skills refer to behaviors that lead to academic success such as doing work for extra credit，being well organized, finishing homework, working hard and reading assigned chapters.
"Dating a classmate may have the same emotional complications of dating a co-worker," Orpinas said, "when the couple break up. they have to continue to see each other in class and perhaps witness the ex-partner dating someone else. It is reasonable to think this could be linked to depression and divert (转移）attention from studying.”
Dating should not be considered a ceremony of growth in middle school，”Orpinas concluded.
【小题1】When doing his study, Orpinas_____.

My friend got married. His mother carried two bags of cotton from the countryside by bus and train to his city. After arriving at the city, there was still a long way to his house without any bus passing by the house. His mother walked to his home breathlessly for 40 minutes without taking a taxi in order to save money.

My friend felt bitter as well as funny at his mother’s deeds. He pointed to the cashmere and silk quilts and said, “So long as you have money, you can buy anything in the supermarket. There is no need for you to carry so much cotton here in such a long way.”

But his mother insisted and said, “The cotton of this year is light and warmth-keeping. Have a try and you will know!”

Maybe every parent is the same, caring for their children with stubborn love without caring about whether they know or like it.

This early spring, I went to visit my grandmother. We had dry beans stew （炖菜）, eggplant salad bar, sauce radish （酱萝卜条）for our dinner, all of which were dried by my grandmother last autumn and tasted wonderful. I loved the dishes to my heart’s content and could not help praising them again and again.

After a few days, my grandmother, who seldom visited us, came to my home and unpacked her bag, smilingly taking out bags of dried eggplants, dried beans and dried vegetable. She told me that I left so hastily last time that she forgot to give me some of these foods, so she took this chance to bring me what I liked.

I was speechless at that time. Due to my casual complimentary her food, my grandmother, a nearly 70-year-old lady, by taking three buses from the west of the city to the east, came to my home with the food I liked. But she was bus-sick in life and even seldom went strolling in the street.

My pretty girlfriend had a failed marriage in the past. After divorce, her parents shed the deepest protection and care to her by helping her attend to the child and offering financial aids. Her parents’ love made her pull herself together and forgot the man who had hurt her before.

Nonetheless, her father, an honest and upright old man, after hearing his ex-son-in-law got promoted in his company, felt terrifically irritated and went to his company to question his boss why a philandering man with corrupt conducts could get promoted. The whole office fell into a mess immediately and many staff just watched on the sidelines. Some people even whispered lightly, "It is a new era now and the relationship between men and women is very open. No one would care about that anymore!"

The old man stood silently in the office with his hands shivering and eyes tearing.

That night, my girlfriend cried heavily in front of me. I asked her whether it was her father’s stupid deeds that made her feel humiliated. But she said that she felt guilty for her dad and that though the rest of the whole world betrayed her, her old father would still back her up and help her get the justice she deserved, just as when she was young and the neighboring boy grabbed her ball, her father would get it back for her. However, this changed world was no longer the stage for her old father and his deeds became funnily obsolete. No one managed to see the real and ever-lasting love to his daughter behind his seemingly rude behaviors.

Now we have grown up so much so that we could support our family and have our own children. But in our parents’ heart, they are still worried that we do not have sufficient quilts and dried vegetables. They would not feel troubled to bring all these to us regardless of long tough journey. They even would not like us to suffer a bit and try all means to protect us without caring about whether what they do is awkward and stupid or not.

Who in the world would love us so deeply and relentlessly without asking for any repay? Only our parents!

1.What does the author want to tell us?

A. The love from our parents is real and deep though sometimes it doesn't appear so.

B. The love from our parents is awkward sometimes, which is rather annoying.

C. Children should appreciate parents' love because their life is so hard.

D. The world is changing so the love of parents should change too.

2.The underlined world "humiliate" in the eleventh paragraph means ________.

    A. guilty        B. moved       C. happy      D. ashamed     

3.How many examples of older generation’s love are mentioned in the passage?

    A. One         B. Two        C. Three       D. four

4.After the author's girlfriend's former husband got promoted, her father _____.

A. congratulated him

B. made his daughter marry him again

C. had a quarrel with him

D. argued with his boss

5.From the passage we can learn the author's grandmother is ___________.

A. upright and honest        B. loving and troublesome

C. thoughtful and careful       D. generous and active

While surfing television channels over the weekend，a scene from a family classic of last year portraying the now-so-familiar sorry state of retired parents being ill-treated by their children and families caught my attention. I wondered why the description of this relationship had not changed much over the many years! Even though the same movies and soaps accurately capture several other social changes around us — from value systems to new found economic freedom to the importance of technology and the changing approach to consumerism(消费主义) — are these creative efforts far from the truth in telling us that an average retiree is still struggling?

Look around and you will agree that the post-retired lifestyle for an ex-salaried class people is often a pale shadow of their last working years. Even self employed people, who have handed over the responsibility to the next generation, are no exception. Did the average middle class not save enough through his working years?

Socially, we already know that the Indians are taught the benefits of start saving early on in life. Household savings data supports this social behavior — India has the highest rates of savings among various economies and is far ahead of the west. Yet, tragically, a lifetime of savings does not seem to provide enough for a comfortable retirement!

A closer look at the pattern of what we do with our financial savings may tell us a bit more. Over half of households’ financial savings is put into a “safe” deposit, followed by large portions in insurance, pension, provident funds（福利基金） and the rest in physical currency. Less than a tenth goes into “risky” assets(资产) like stocks. While there might be nothing, in particular, worrisome in this investment pool, one has to consider inflation(通货膨胀). The real value of savings, over a few decades, may actually be lower than the starting point.

What had not changed much over the many years according to the passage?

A. Value systems                      B. The poor situation of retirees

C. Economic freedom                  D. Approach to consumerism

Which of the following statements about saving in India is right?

A. the concept of saving has been well received by Indians.

B. the amount of the savings ranks number one across the world.

C. long-standing savings can help the retirees live a care-free life. 

D. saving early can not benefit people at all.

What can be inferred according to the last paragraph?

   A. Half of the financial savings in stocks can be accepted.

   B. The real value of saving must be lowered in a few years.

C. A loss of savings may hardly be avoided.

   D. Inflation can be avoided on condition that you consume instead of saving.

What’s the best title of the text?

   A. Retirees being treated unfairly

   B. Is saving enough

   C. Saving in India

   D. How to deal with saving

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