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Where does this conversation most probably take place?M: Excuse me, I’d like to send some flowers to my mother.
W: Let’ s see. These fresh carnations are nice. In the woods. In a garden. In a supermarket. In a florist shop.
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Who do you think the man is talking to?M: Could you please tell me if the Shanghai flight will be arriving on time?
W: Yes, Sir. It should be arriving in about five minutes. A taxi driver. A bus conductor. A clerk at the airport. A clerk at the station.
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Why is the woman so happy?W: I am happy I started carrying the credit card that the bank gave us.
M: Why is that, Kate? Did you use it to buy something?
W: I surely did. On my way home I stopped at the store to buy some beef for dinner because I didn’ t have any cash with me.
M: And they permitted you to pay with the card?
W: Yes. They didn’t even ask me to give the ID.
M: You have to be careful. If you lose them and someone finds them, the bank will charge you for what you buy.
W: How much has the bank allowed us to spend with the card?
M: Fifteen hundred dollars. The bank encourages us to use the card, but they will also require us to pay them back.
W: You are right, Henry. I’ll remember that. But the card surely makes it easy to spend money. She started carrying a credit card. She got an ID card of her own. She’ s got some money belonging to her. She met something interesting.
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What does the woman try to do in the conversation?W: Are you all ready for Christmas?
M: Are you kidding? I haven’ t even started. I’ ve done zero shopping.
W: Well, you’ d better get going: Christmas is only a week away.
M: I have to tell you that I’ m one of those people who really get stressed out by the Christmas rush.
W: Oh, I’m not. I love the holidays. I love the crowds, the shopping, the holidays, the music, the food, the parties, and all the presents.
M: That’ s just the beginning. My wife always spends too much money on Christmas. The average Christmas expense for US families is about $ 550. But somehow I always spend about twice that much. It takes me till April to pay off all our Christmas bills.
W: But didn’t you use to love Christmas when you were a kid?
M: I guess so. I don’ t remember.
W: I know you did. You were the most excited kid in the whole class I remember. Maybe Christmas is for kids, but you can still enjoy it through the eyes of your children.
M: Well, kids enjoy it because they don’t have to do all the shopping and pay all the bills.
W: Maybe that’ s true. But you know as well as I do, that Christmas is more than shopping and trees. It’ s about what’ s in your heart and how you can make others happy.
M: You’ re right. You’ re absolutely right. I’ m going to try harder to be nice to people and try to keep the true spirit of Christmas in my heart.
W: I’m glad to hear it. To make the man feel happy. To persuade the man to shop with his kids. To convince the man Christmas is worth spending. To prevent the man from spending too much shopping.
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Why does the man choose to take an evening course?W: Hello, Parkson College. May I help you?
M: Yes. I’ m looking for information on courses in computer programming. I would need it for the fall semester.
W: Do you want a day or evening course?
M: Well, it would have to be an evening course since I work during the day.
W: Aha. Have you taken any courses in data processing?
M: No.
W: Oh. Well, data processing is a course you have to take before you can take computer programming.
M: Oh, I see. Well, when is it given? I hope it’ s not on Thursdays.
W: Well, there’ s a class that meets on Monday evenings at seven.
M: Just once a week?
W: Yes, but that’ s almost three hours from seven to nine forty-five.
M: Oh. Well, that’ s all right. I could manage that. How many weeks does the course last?
W: Twelve weeks. You start the first week in September, and finish, oh, just before Christmas. December 21st.
M: And how much is the course?
W: That’ s three hundred dollars including the necessary computer time.
M: Okay. Where do I go to register?
W: Registration is on the second and third of September, between 6 and 9 in Frost Hall.
M: Is that the round building behind the parking lot?
W: Yes, it is the one.
M: Oh, I know how to get there. Is there anything that I should bring with me?
W: No, just check your book.
M: Well, thank you very much.
W: You are welcome. Bye!
M: Bye! He prefers the smaller evening classes. He has to work during the day. He has signed up for a day course. He finds the evening course cheaper.
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What is the main purpose of the research?W: Excuse me, could I ask you some questions?
M: Of course.
W: I work for an advertising agency, and I’ m doing some research. It’ s a new magazine for people like you.
M: People like me? What do you mean?
W: Well, people between 25 and 35 years old.
M: OK.
W: Right. Em, what do you do at the weekend?
M: Well, on Fridays my wife always goes to her exercise class. Then she visits friends.
W: Don’ t you go out?
M: Not on Fridays. I never go out on Fridays. I stay at home and watch television.
W: And on Saturdays?
M: On Saturdays, my wife and I always go sailing together.
W: Really?
M: Em, we love it. We never miss it. And then in the evening we go out.
W: Where?
M: Different places. We sometimes go and see friends. We sometimes go to the cinema or a restaurant. But we always go out on Saturday evenings.
W: I see. And now on Sunday, what happens on Sundays?
M: Nothing special. We often go for a walk, and I always cook a big Sunday lunch.
W: Oh! How often do you do the cooking?
M: Em, twice a week, three times a week.
W: Thank you very much. All I need now are your personal details: your name, yours job, and so on. What’ s your surname?
M: Robinson. To investigate what people do at the weekend. To make preparations for a new publication. To learn how couples spend their weekends. To know how housework is shared.
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【C1】______The Daily Mirror and the Daily Express both sell about four million copies every day. Apart from the national papers, there is,【C2】______Local newspapers have a weekly circulation of 13 million. Almost every town and country area has one. Nearly all of them hold their own financially and many of them are very profitable.
These papers are written almost entirely for readers interested in local events, birth, deaths, council meetings and sports.【C3】______Editors prefer to rely on a small staff of people who all know the district well. A great deal of local news is regularly supplied by clubs and churches in the neighborhood and it does not get out of date as quickly as national news. If there is no room for it in this week’ s edition, an item can sometimes be held over until the following week.
The editor must never forget that the success of any newspaper depends on advertising. 【C4】______But if the newspaper is well written and the news items have been carefully chosen to attract local readers, the businessmen are grateful for the opportunity to keep their products in the public eyes.
Local newspapers do not often comment on problems of national importance and editors rarely hold with taking sides on political questions.【C5】______A newspaper can sometimes persuade the council to take action to provide better shopping facilities, improve transport in the area, and soon.
[A]Newspapers in Britain usually have great profits.
[B]So local businesses are very interested in advertising in local papers.
[C]The content is naturally influenced by the kind of community they serve.
[D]For this reason,he is keen to keep the good will of local businessmen.
[E]However, another branch of the British press which sells almost as many as copies.
[F]But they can often be of service to the community in expressing public feelings on local issues.
[G]Visitors to Britain are sometimes surprised to learn that newspapers there have such a large circulation.
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With the world’ s population estimated to grow from six to nine billion by 2050, researchers, businesses and governments are already dealing with the impact, this increase will have on everything from food and water to infrastructure and jobs. Underling all this【C6】______will be the demand for energy, which is expected to double over the next 40 years.
Finding the resources to meet this demand in a【C7】______, sustainable way is the cornerstone of our nation’ s energy security, and will be one of the major【C8】______of the 21st century. Alternative forms of energy-bio-fuels, wind and solar, to name a few are【C9】______being funded and developed, and will play a growing【C10】______in the world’ s energy supply. But experts say that even when【C11】______, alternative energy sources will likely meet only about 30% of the world’ s energy needs by 2050.
For example, even with【C12】______investments, such as the $ 93 million for wind energy development【C13】______in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, important alternative energy sources such as wind and bio-fuels【C14】______only about 1 % of the market today.
Energy and sustainability experts say the answer to our future energy needs will likely come from a lot of【C15】______both traditional and alternative.
[A]consist[B]solutions[C]certainly
[D]stable[E]comprise[F]competitions
[G]exactly[H]growth[I]included
[J]role[K]progress[L]marvelous
[M]challenges[N]combined[O]significant
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Elizabeth Freeman was born about 1742 to African American parents who were slaves. At the age of six months she was acquired, along with her sister, by John Ashley, a wealthy Massachusetts slaveholders. She became known as “Mumbet“ or “Mum Bett“.
For nearly 30 years Mumbet served the Ashley family. One day, Ashley’ s wife tried to strike Mumbet’s sister with a spade. Mumbet protected her sister and took the blow instead. Furious, she left the house and refused to come back. When the Ashleys tried to make her return, Mumbet consulted a lawyer, Theodore Sedgewick. With his help, Mumbet sued for her freedom.
While serving the Ashleys, Mumbet had listened to many discussions of the new Massachusetts constitution. If the constitution said that all people were free and equal, then she thought it should apply to her. Eventually, Mumbet won her freedom—the first slave in Massachusetts to do so under the new constitution.
Strangely enough, after the trial, the Ashleys asked Mumbet to come back and work for them as a paid employee. She declined and instead went to work for Sedgewick. Mumbet died in 1829, but her legacy lived on in her many descendants. One of her great-grandchildren was W. E. B. Du Bbis, one of the founders of the NAACP, and an important writer and spokesperson for African American civil rights.
Mumbet’ s tombstone still stands in the Massachusetts cemetery where she was buried. It reads, in part: “ She was born a slave and remained a slave for nearly thirty years. She could neither read nor write, yet in her own sphere she had no superior or equal. “
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“ We are not about to enter the Information Age, but instead are rather well into it. “ Present predictions are that by 1990, about thirty million jobs in the United States, or about thirty percent of the job market, will be computer-related. In 1980, only twenty-one percent of all American high schools owned one or two computers for student use. In the fall of 1985, a new study showed that half of United States secondary schools have fifteen or more computers for student use. And now educational experts , administrators, and even the general public are demanding that all students become “ computer-literate“. By the year 2000 knowledge of computers will be necessary in over eighty percent of all occupations. Soon those people not educated in computer use will be compared to those who are print-illiterate today.
What is “computer literacy“? The term itself seems to imply some degree of “knowing“ about computers, but knowing what? The present opinion seems to be that this should include a general knowledge, of what computers are, plus a little of their history and something of how they operate.
Therefore, it is important that educators everywhere take a careful look not only at what is being done, but also at what should be done in the field of computer education. Today most adults are able to use a motor car without the slightest knowledge of how the internal combustion engine works. We effectively use all types of electrical equipment without being able to tell their histories or to explain how they work.
Business people for years have made good use of typewriters and adding machines, yet few have ever known how to repair them. Why, then, attempt to teach computers by teaching how or why they work?
Rather, we first must fix our mind on teaching the effective use of the computer as the tool is.
“ Knowing how to use a computer is what’ s going to be important. We don’ t talk about ’ automobile literacy’. We just get in our cars and drive them. “
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Greg Logan:
These were the trials for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Korea. Until this dive, I had been ahead. But now, something else was more significant than winning. I might have endangered other divers’ lives if I have spilled blood in the pool. For what I knew—that few others knew—was that I was HIV-positive. AIDS forced me to stop diving: I had to quit diving professionally after the Olympics.
Margaret Chan:
It is reported that almost three million people in developing countries are now receiving drugs for HIV. This is an increase of almost one million people from two thousand and six. Still, the hope was to reach three million by two thousand and five. But antiviral therapy, or ART, alone will not solve the problem. For every two persons we manage to provide them with ART, another five persons get infected. So again, we cannot underestimate the power of prevention.
Paula Green:
The disease robs the body of its natural defenses against infections. Almost seventy-five percent of people receiving HIV drugs are in Africa. The drugs help patients live longer without developing AIDS. An estimated nine million seven hundred thousand people in low and middle income countries were in need of HIV treatment last year. However, by the end of the year, just over thirty percent of them were getting it.
Raymond Chow:
Price reductions can be a main method to let more people with HIV, including more pregnant women, receive the drugs. Also, delivery systems should be redesigned to better serve individual countries and smaller health centers. And treatments should be simpler than in the past.
William Wang:
Huge barriers still remain in dealing with the AIDS epidemic. Getting patients to stay on their therapy is difficult. There are still large numbers of people who do not get tested for HIV. And there are many others who get tested too late and die within months. What’ s more, there is not enough joint treatment of HIV and the related infections that most often kill AIDS patients. And still another problem is the shortage of health care workers in the developing world.
Now match the name of each person(36 - 40)to the appropriate statement.
Note: there are two extra statements.
Statements
[A]Some HIV-positive patients don’t cooperate with doctors.
[B]AID patient’ s blood may be dangerous to other people’ s lives.
[C]People are scared of AIDS.
[D]Treatment is more urgent than prevention.
[E]Many people can’t get HIV drugs because of poverty.
[F]More people get HIV treatment, but even more get infected.
[G]HIV drugs should be cheaper.
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You have made an appointment with Prof. Zhang, but failed to keep it. Write a letter to your teacher. Your letter should include:
1)apologize for your failure to keep the appointment:
2)explain your reason to your teacher:
3)express your wish to make another appointment:
You should write about 100 words. Do not sign your own name at the end of your letter. Use “Wang Lin“ instead.
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Read the text below. Write an essay in about 120 words, in which you should summarize the key points of the text and make comments on them. Try to use your own words.
In the 1960s, medical researchers Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe developed a checklist of stressful events. They appreciated the tricky point that any major change can be stressful. Negative events like “ serious illness of a family member“ were high on the list, but so were some positive life-changing events, like marriage. When you take the Holmes-Rahe test you must remember that the score does not reflect how you deal with stress—it only shows how much you have to deal with. And we now know that the way you handle these events dramatically affects your chances of staying healthy.
By the early 1970s, hundreds of similar studies had followed Holmes and Rahe. And millions of Americans who work and live under stress worried over the reports. Somehow, the research got boiled down to a memorable message. Women’ s magazines ran headlines like “ Stress causes illness! “ If you want to stay physically and mentally healthy, the articles said, avoid stressful events.
But such simplistic advice is impossible to follow. Even if stressful events are dangerous, many— like the death of a loved one—are impossible to avoid. Moreover, any warning to avoid all stressful e-vents is a prescription for staying away from opportunities as well as trouble. Since any change can be stressful, a person who wanted to be completely free of stress would never marry, have a child, take a new job or move.
The notion that all stress makes you sick also ignores a lot of what we know about people. It assumes we’ re all vulnerable and passive in the face of adversity. But what about human initiative and creativity? Many come through periods of stress with more physical and mental vigor than they had before. We also know that a long time without change or challenge can lead to boredom, and physical and metal strain.
