4、It is impossible not to make a mistake at some point in your life. We may as well accept that something will go wrong and we will be to blame. It is therefore sensible to work out some strategies for apologizing, and the best way to apologise is by letter. This way you can take care over every word you write—which you can’t do if you say sorry to someone in person .

We all say or do something that we wish we hadn’t said or done. You may say something that accidentally hurts someone, or you may provide a service which doesn’t come up to the standards that a client or customer expected.

You may feel that it was a genuine mistake which couldn’t be avoided. Rather than dwell on the mistake, you should quickly try to remedy （补救） the problem. An effective letter of apology is an important part of that process.

For the content of the letter, just remember TABS—Timing, Action, Brevity, Sincerity.

The timing of a letter of apology is vital—it must be sent as soon as possible. Any delay in sending the letter will only compound （使……更坏） the problem. In this case “Better late than never” is not the best motto! The longer you wait before writing a letter of apology, the more it will seem that you have been forced into writing it.

Although it is important to recognize what has gone before, it is also essential to detail the action you plan to take to put right whatever it was you did wrong. Research has shown that some indication that you have thought what future action you plan to take is always well received.

A letter of apology should be brief and the word “sorry” should appear no more than twice. Indicate that you are aware you are using it a second time “once again, I am so sorry for…”or “as I said earlier, I am really sorry about ….”. Finally, the tone of the letter has to be sincere. In fact the combination of all the above factors will help in this respect.

And don’t think that letters are out of date in the email-oriented 21st century. An apology email can be worse than no apology at all!

1. The underlined expression “rather than dwell on the mistake” in the third paragraph means you __________.

A. don’t waste time worrying about it             B. consider the problem

C. forget about what happened                      D. analyze who was at fault

2. What kind of advice does the text suggest about apologizing?

  A. It’s a good idea to send several emails to apologize and show you mean it.

B. It’s a good idea to write a letter of apology as soon as something goes wrong.

  C. Write a long letter apologizing several times to make your point.

  D. Wait to see how they react to your letter before planning to do anything.

3. In the author’s opinion, __________is the most important when writing a letter of apology.

A. brevity                       B. action                      C. timing                      D. sincerity

4. What kind of things do you NOT apologize for?

A. Services that are not as good as they should be.       B. Genuine mistakes made by your friends.

C. Car accidents while traveling around                D. Causing offence or hurt to others.

5. How can timing compound problems?

A. If you write immediately, they will be suspicious.

B. If you leave it for a few days, they will know it was your idea to write.

C. Waiting for a few days before you write will show your sincerity.

D. Waiting too long will make it worse because they won’t believe you mean it.

3、More surprising, perhaps, than the current difficulties of traditional marriage is the fact that marriage itself is alive and thriving. As Skolnick notes, Americans are a marrying people: relative to Europeans, more of us marry and we marry at a younger age. Moreover, after a decline in the early 1970s, the rate of marriage in the United States is now increasing. Even the divorce rate needs to be taken in this pro-marriage context: some 80 percent of divorced individuals remarry. Thus, marriage remains, by far, the preferred way of life for the vast majority of people in our society.

What has changed more than marriage is the nuclear family? Twenty-five years ago, the typical American family consisted of a husband, a wife, and two or three children. Now, there are many marriages in which couples have decided not to have any children. And there are many marriages where at least some of the children are from the wife’s previous marriage, or the husband’s, or both. Sometimes these children spend all of their time with one parent from the former marriage；sometimes they are shared between the two former spouses.

Thus, one can find the very type of family arrangement. There are marriages without children; marriages with children from only the present marriage, marriages with “full-time” children from the present marriage and “part-time” children from former marriages. There are step-fathers, step-mothers, half-brothers and half-sisters. It is not all that unusual for a child to have four parents and eight grandparents! These are enormous changes from the traditional nuclear family. But even so, even in the midst of all this, there remains one constant; most Americans spend most of their adult lives married.

1. By calling Americans marrying people the author means that__________.

A. there are more married couples in the U. S. A. than in Europe

B. more Americans prefer marriage and at a younger age than Europeans

C. most divorced individuals remarry

D. marriage is the most important part of American life

2. From the first paragraph we can know that __________.

A. traditional marriage now runs into difficulty B. marriage rate has been rising since the 1970

C. marriage rate in Europe is rather low           D. Europeans marry when they are quite old

3. Which of the following can be presented as the picture of today’s American families?

A. There are no nuclear families any more.

B. A family usually consists of a husband, a wife and two or three children.

C. A child usually has four grandparents.

D. Many types of family rearrangements have become socially acceptable.

4.“Part-time”children__________.

A. do part-time jobs to earn their living

B. spend all of their time with one parent from the previous marriage

C. are shared between the former spouses

D. are quite unusual even in the U.S.A.

5. Even though great changes have taken place in the structure of American families, _________.

A. the functions of marriage remain unchanged

B. most Americans prefer a second marriage

C. the vast majority of Americans still have faith in marriage

D. nuclear family is alive and thriving

2、There are two factors which determine an individual's intelligence. The first is the sort of brain he is born with. Human brains differ considerably, some being more capable than others. But no matter how good a brain he has to begin with, an individual will have a low order of intelligence unless he has opportunities to learn. So the second factor is what happens to the individual—_________________. If an individual is disabled environmentally, it is likely that his brain will fail to develop and he will never attain the level of intelligence of which he is capable.

The importance of environment in determining an individual's intelligence can be shown by the case history of the twins, Peter and Mark X. Being identical, the twins had identical brains at birth, and their growth processes were the same. When the twins were three months old, their parents died, and they were placed in separate foster homes. Peter was raised by parents of low intelligence in a separate community with poor educational opportunities. Mark was raised in the home of well-to-do parents who had been to college. He was read to as a child, sent to good schools, and given every opportunity to be stimulated （刺激） intellectually. This environmental difference continued until the twins were in their late teens, when they were given tests to measure their intelligence. Mark's I.Q. was 125, twenty-five points higher than the average and fully forty points higher than his identical brother. Given equal opportunities, Peter and Mark X, having identical brains, would have tested at roughly the same level.

1. What is the best title for this passage? （within 10 words）

  ___________________________________________________________________________

2. Which sentence in the passage is the closest in meaning to the following one?

Things being equal, the twins might have equal intelligence quotient.

  ____________________________________________________________________________

3. What conclusion can you draw from the case history of the twins?

___________________________________________________________________________

4. Fill in the blank in the first paragraph with a proper phrase. （within 10 words）

___________________________________________________________________________

5. Translate the underlined sentence in the first paragraph into Chinese.

  ___________________________________________________________________________

33、找出与所给单词划线部分读音相同的选项。语音知识

1champion       A. opinion      B. region       C. occasion      D. conclusion

2. mainly        A. mountainous  B. certain       C. captain       D. sail

3. wisdom       A. sunset        B. insect       C. possession     D. promise

4. volcano       A. location      B. dishonest     C. method       D. protection

5. scholarship    A. champion     B. dutchman    C. technique      D. church

32、-- I was wondering if we could go skiing on the weekend.

-- _______good.
A. Sound        B. Sounded     C. Sounding      D. Sounds

31、I had travelled only two hours one day _____ the winds increased so much that I had to put my tent up ____ the winds became too strong.

A. when; before    B. then; but      C. while; because    D. but; before

30、The biggest problem for most plants, which ________ just get up and run away when threatened, is that animals like to eat them.

A. shan’t        B. can’t               C. needn’t                    D. mustn’t

29、--- There is still a copy of the book in the library. Will you go and borrow        ?

---No, I’d rather buy         in the bookstore.

A .it; one        B. one; one            C. one; it                  D. it; it