CHICAGO ---Call it a reward, or just “bribery(贿赂)”.
Whichever it is, many parents today readily admit to buying off their children, who get goodies(好东西) for anything from behaving in a restaurant to sleeping all night in their own beds.
That’s what worries parenting experts.
“I think that reward systems have a time and a place and work really well in certain situations,” says Marcy Safyer, director of the Adelphi University Institute for Parenting.
“But what often gets lost for people is being able to figure out how to communicate to their kids that doing the thing is rewarding enough,” Safyer says.
Parents and experts alike agree that the dynamic(动力) is partly a reflection of the world we live in. It’s unrealistic to think a parent wouldn’t reward their children with material things sometimes, says Robin Lanzi, a clinical psychologist and mother of four who’s the research director at the Center on Health and Education at Georgetown University.
“But you want to make sure that they match the behavior, so it’s not something huge for something small,” Lanzi says.
She recalls hearing about a father who offered his child a Nintendo Wii game system for scoring a couple goals in a soccer game.
Elizabeth Powell, a mother of two young daughters in Austin, Texas, knows what she means.
“You want to raise them in a way that they’re respectful and appreciate things,” Powell says of her children. “But sometimes, you wonder now if kids appreciate even a new pair of shoes. ”
【小题1】Parenting experts are worried that ____ .
| A.today’s children are fed up with material things |
| B.parents are rewarding their kids improperly |
| C.today’s children are more and more demanding(苛求的) |
| D.there is lack of communication between parents and children |
| A.reward systems are quite limited in developing abilities |
| B.reward systems work well regardless of(不管) time and place |
| C.reward systems are still not made full use of to develop abilities |
| D.reward systems are often used at the wrong time and place |
| A.She holds a different opinion from other parenting experts. |
| B.She thinks children can’t behave well without being rewarded. |
| C.She holds a similar belief to Safyer and gives further explanation. |
| D.She doesn’t believe in rewarding children for good behavior. |
_____.
| A.over-rewarding his child |
| B.giving his child proper reward |
| C.respecting and appreciating his child |
| D.giving something small for something huge |
Diamonds may be forever. But what’s a girl to do when she gets dumped (失恋) or divorced (离婚) and those rings, necklace and love gifts lose their emotional (情感) sense?
Help is just a click away on new Web sites that provide an outlet for selling jewelry(珠宝) from past relationships, sharing break-up stories and helping broken hearts heal (愈合).
“You go through a divorce. What do you do with that ring? Maybe you have a child you can pass it on to. Maybe you don’t. It just sits there, ” said Megahn Perry, who with her stepmother (继母) Marie Perry runs www.exboyfriendjewelry.com.
Three months after its start with the slogan(口号) “You Don’t Want It. He Can’t Have It Back,” the web site has 3,000 registered users and more than 600 postings of rings, bracelets and earrings for sale—all with a personal tale attached.
As one woman posting a diamond ring for $3,500 wrote:
“Beautiful ring came with a wrong man. Decided to sell to regain the money that I spent finishing payments on the ring that my ex didn’t.”
The idea was born when Megahn Perry, a Los Angeles actress and writer, was looking for a safe place to sell a wedding set after a divorce and realized others might have former boyfriends’ jewelry with memories(记忆) that make them too painful to wear.
The local pawn shop(当铺) proved an unattractive choice. So she teamed up with her stepmother Marie, researched the market and found a gap in it.
【小题1】 The passage is mainly about _____.
| A.how a web site is set up | B.how sad the love stories are |
| C.How much a website can make | D.How many people like the web site |
| A.Less than three months. | B.At least three months. |
| C.Less than one month. | D.Not known. |
| A.About 600. | B.About 3,000. | C.About 3,500. | D.Not know. |
| A.Megahn herself alone. | B.Megahn and her best friend. |
| C.Megahn and her stepmother. | D.Megahn and her exboyfriend. |
| A.Gulf between two people. | B.Misunderstandings among each other. |
| C.Differences from a pawn shop. | D.A market worth developing. |
B
A sign is another kind of language. Here are some of them that you see on the roads.
Number one is a sign with the number thirty on it. When drivers see this sign, they must not go at more than thirty kilometers an hour. We see this sign when we are getting near a town. Number two is a sign that we’re near a crossing. We must drive carefully. Number three is a sign that there is a bend in the road. Again, we must drive slowly and carefully. It is not safe to go round a bend very fast. Number four is a sign that there is another road coming in from the right. There is a junction at this place. Number five is a sign that there is a hill and number six is a sign that the road gets narrow. Drivers must go slowly and carefully. Number seven has the word “SCHOOL” on it. This is a sign that there is a school at the side of the street or the road. Perhaps there are children going to or leaving school. So drivers must look carefully and go slowly. Number eight is a sign with the letter “P” on it. The letter “P” means “Parking”. At some places, there’re the signs “No parking” or “No waiting”. If a driver leaves his c
61. At the places where you see Sign 1, ________.
A. you are already out of a town
B. you still have thirty kilometers to go
C. there must be a town thirty kilometers away
D. there must be many houses and buildings not far away
62. There stands Sign 2 near a place where________.
A. two roads cross B. people can cross the road
C. the roads get narrow D. there are no traffic lights
63. You have to drive not only slowly but also carefully when you find________.
A. each of the eight signs B. either of Signs 2 and 3
C. all of Signs 3, 5, 6 and 7 D. any of Signs 3, 5, 6 and 7
64. A driver can leave his car________.
A. near Sign 8 at any time
B. near a sign with “No parkin
C. near a sign with “No waiting” if there’re no police there
D. near a sign with “P” on it in the daytime
65. People put these signs on the roads to________.
A. show drivers the way B. stop cars going too fast
C. make driving even safer D. learn another kind of language
I realized that I was getting cold, and felt it was probably time to go back to the apartment, so I put my collar up against the wind and began to walk back up the cold street. I managed to get some food from a vendor(小贩), and walked on.
About twenty-five minutes later I knew that something was wrong. It was getting very, very cold, there were no streetlights, and the hill I was hoping to see on my right was nowhere in sight. There was almost no light except for mysterious red crosses shining from the tops of churches, and I was beginning to get worried. To cut a long story short, I had walked the wrong way from a crossroads, and had wandered miles in the wrong direction. My head was aching from the cold, and I couldn’t think straight. Turing around, I started back, and a long time later was outside the house I had set off from. It was at about that time I realized that I had a gate key but no house key. How happy I was when I found that the front door was open—my only piece of good luck that day. My apartment was of course locked, my head felt like it was about to explode, and my hands and feet were freezing.
I tried turning the handle. No luck. I tried another key from England. I wanted to avoid waking the family downstairs, so despite the fear of an early death from cold, I couldn’t break the door down. What would my hosts think? I pulled an ATM card from my pocket and forced it alongside the inside of the lock. I didn’t think it would work, but after fifteen minutes of trying, I heard a click. Another couple of minutes later the door was open. Relieved, I took off my clothes in the dark and got into bed.
【小题1】The purpose of the passage is mainly to .
| A.tell us how difficult it is living abroad |
| B.show us how terrible the weather was |
| C.tell us an unusual experience abroad |
| D.show us how afraid the author was |
| A.He didn’t see the house. |
| B.A vendor reminded him. |
| C.The street name reminded him. |
| D.He didn’t see the hill. |
| A.The front door was closed. |
| B.The house had many locks. |
| C.The author woke the hosts. |
| D.The author came from England. |
| A.careful | B.careless | C.excited | D.annoying |