There's a great article in the New York Times this week about the tradition of buying a coffee for a stranger at the same time that you buy your own. They call it caffè sospeso, the name for "suspended (暂留的) coffee" in its birthplace. In some cafes, folks in need may claim a suspended coffee and drink it without cost.
No doubt the free coffee will be welcomed by people who love coffee but for one reason or another don't have the money to buy one. But I also like the opportunity it offers customers to become philanthropists (慈善家). Every time they order a coffee, they can give one to somebody in need.
This is a tradition that began some 100 years ago in Naples, Italy. In Naples, as reported by the Times, people love this kind of giving:
"To me, the philosophy of the suspended coffee is that you are happy today, and you give a coffee to the world, as a present." — Luigi Solito
"It's a simple act of generosity: an act in which donors and recipients (接受者) never meet each other. The donor doesn't show off and the recipient doesn't have to show gratitude." —Laura Cozzolino
"Coffee consumptions started earlier than the unification (统一) of Italy by more than 200 years, so the traditions around it are very ancient. In Naples, coffee is a world in itself, both culturally and socially." — Andrea Illy
The practice of buying suspended coffees has grown in popularity — with websites popping up and hundreds of cafes from Canada to Brazil to Hungary to the US offering the service.
1.Who are suspended coffees intended for?
A. Cafe goers.
B. People who can't afford a coffee.
B. Philanthropists.
D. Coffee lovers who live in Naples.
2.How can someone get a suspended coffee?
A. He can ask for one in any cafe.
B. He can apply for one on websites.
C. He can buy one in a cafe offering the service.
D. He can drink one in a cafe that has prepaid coffees.
3.What does Laura Cozzolino think of buying suspended coffees?
A. She thinks it is a great way of charity.
B. She thinks it is a cheap gift to strangers.
C. She thinks it is an ancient Italian custom.
D. She thinks it is spreading widely in the world.
4.The underlined words in Paragraph 1 are words of ______.
A. French B. Old English
C. Italian D. American English
假设你是李津，为响应国家厉行节约的号召，请你以“为资源、为环保，厉行节约”为主题，向某英语报社编辑写一封信，表达你对此主题的看法，提出你的建议。
内容主要包括：
1．节约与资源的关系——节省资源造福子孙等；
2．节约与环保的关系——减少浪费改善环境等；
3．举例说明中学生该如何厉行节约；
4．倡导社会保持节约的优良传统。
注意：
1．词数不少于100；
2．开头和结尾已经写出，不计入总词数；
3．可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Dear Editor,
I’m writing to share my opinions about trying to save both for natural resources and the environment.
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
Best wishes!
Yours sincerely,
Li Jin
The high school grades of Tom Monaghan, who was born in 1937, were so low that he graduated at the bottom of his class. The local university turned down his application, but he managed to enter the University of Michigan. A few weeks later, he dropped out because he lacked money for school fees. In 1960, Monaghan agreed to buy a pizza store with his brother, who gave up a year later.
For the first year, Monaghan worked all the time but hardly made any money. He soon found himself deep in debt. He began making the business simpler, selling only three sizes of pizza, instead of five. This change helped Monaghan make a profit, which allowed him to expand his three stores under a new name, Domino’s.
However, during the following years Monaghan experienced a series of setbacks. In 1967, a fire destroyed his store in Ypsilanti, Michigan, which served as the company’s offices. Most of the damage was not covered by insurance. In an effort to recover his losses, Monaghan continued to expand his franchise, but was unable to keep up with the growth. Without Monaghan’s guidance, many of the new stores closed down. By 1970, Monaghan was $1.5 million in debt and facing lawsuits from nearly 150 debtors. In the following financial settlement, Monaghan lost 51 percent of his company to the bank.
But Monaghan concentrated on building the 49 percent of the business he still owned. Slowly, he began to work his way out of his financial difficulties. He defended himself in court since he could not afford a lawyer. He sold his furniture and his car. In about a year, he managed to pay off all his debts.
These hard times taught him a valuable lesson in how to run a business. By 1978, two hundred Domino’s stores had opened. Five years later, the number of stores was over a thousand; by 1989, the chain had more than five thousand stores. The company had more than six thousand pizza delivery stores when Monaghan sold it for $1 billion in 1998.
1.What seemed to be the reason why the local university turned down Monaghan’s application? (No more than 10 words)
____________________________________________________________________________
2.How did Monaghan expand his three stores under a new name, Domino’s according to the second paragraph? (No more than 15 words)
____________________________________________________________________________
3.What does the underlined word “setbacks” mean in the third paragraph? (Only one word)
____________________________________________________________________________
4.How did Monaghan finally succeed after he lost 51 percent of his company?
(No more than 15 words)
____________________________________________________________________________
5.What do you think of Monaghan? Give your reasons. (No more than 20 words)
____________________________________________________________________________
I’ve just got to talk about this problem I’m having with my postman. It all began a year ago, after the birth of his first child. Not wanting to appear rude, I asked him about the baby. The next week, not wanting him to think I had asked out of mere politeness the week before, I asked all about the baby again. Now I can’t break the habit. I freeze whenever I see him coming. The words “How’s the baby?” come out on their own. It holds me up. It holds him up. So why can’t I stop it? The answer is that I want him to like me. Come to think of it, I want everyone to like me.
My sister had the same problem with the caretaker of her block of flats: “All he ever does is complain; he talks at me rather than to me, never listens to a word I say, and yet for some reason I’m always really nice to him. I’m worried in case I have a difficulty one day, and he won’t lift a finger to help.”
What about at work? Richard Lawton, a management trainer, warns: “Those managers who are actually liked by most of their staff are always those to whom being liked is not the primary goal. The qualities that make managers popular are being honest with staff, treating them as human beings and observing common politeness like saying hello in the morning.” To explain the point, Richard mentions the story of the company chairman who desperately wanted to be liked and who, after making one of his managers fired, said with moist (湿润的) eyes that he was so, so sorry the man was leaving. The employee replied: “If you were that sorry, I wouldn’t be leaving.” The lesson being, therefore, that if you try too hard to be liked, people won’t like you.
The experts say it all starts in childhood. “If children feel they can only get love from their parents by being good,” says Zelda West-Meads, a marriage guidance consultant, “they develop low self-confidence and become compulsive givers.” But is there anything wrong in being a giver, the world not being exactly short of takers? Anne Cousins believes there is. “There is a point at which giving becomes unhealthy,” she says. “It comes when you do things for others but feel bad about it.”
I am now trying hard to say to people “I feel uncomfortable about saying this, but…” and tell myself “Refusal of a request does not mean rejection of a person” and I find I can say almost anything to almost anyone.
1.Why does the author ask the postman about his baby?
A．He is interested in the baby.
B．He wants to create a good impression.
C．He wants to be always polite to him.
D．It’s a way to start a chat with great politeness.
2.What could we find out about the author’s sister and the caretaker?
A．She doesn’t want to risk displeasing him.
B．She doesn’t pay attention to him.
C．He often refuses to help her.
D．He is impatient of her overreaction.
3.Managers are more likely to be popular if they ______.
A．help the staff with their problems
B．make sure the staff do not lose their jobs
C．encourage the staff to be polite to each other
D．do not make too much effort to be liked
4.The underlined words, “compulsive givers”, in the fourth paragraph refer to the people who ______.
A．are willing to help others
B．couldn’t bear to turn down requests
C．are unconfident of denying demands
D．are less selfish than takers
5.What is the author’s intention of writing this passage?
A．To show how to let others like you more.
B．To prove how to create a harmonious atmosphere.
C．To encourage people to have more self-confidence.
D．To suggest ways of dealing with difficult people.
When it came to role models, Diana Ortiz said her mother, Marcia Dominguez, was the “hero”. Ms. Dominguez came to the United States from Cuba in 1979. She went to college and got a job as a social worker --- all the while raising three children in America mostly on her own.
“It was always school first,” Diana said, “My mom had us in a straight line. If we got out of line, she corrected us. She was a perfect woman. She was beautiful, she had the education and she had everything --- but the illness took over. When I was 11, it frightened me to see how quickly my mother’s health was ruined by cancer. A week before I turned 14, my mother died at age 50. I had tried to prepare myself, but on the first morning I woke up without my mother, the sense of loss was painful.”
Diana had not seen her father for five years, who refused to provide for her. Diana then entered the city’s foster care system. She has spent about four years in foster homes.
Despite Diana’s hard teenage years, the values her mother had planted in her mind inspired her to go after higher education. Since August 2010, she has been a fulltime student majoring in law. A public organization offers her tuition but she has part-time jobs to help people like her and earn more life experience. Her goal is a job in the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
For now, Diana works 20 hours a week as a cashier at Marshalls, earning $7.25 an hour. In November, she moved into her own public housing studio apartment on the Lower East Side. She pays $236 a month in rent. Although she is out of foster care, Diana has been speaking at workshops for foster youths. She emphasizes that nothing should get in the way of their success, not the trials of their lives or what they may have lost.
“I tell the young who have the similar experience like me, ‘Why are you going to let what happened to you affect you in the long run?’ ” Diana said. “ ‘Why are you going to sit there and feel sorry for yourself? You’re wasting precious time.’ It is a message my mother would approve of. My mom taught me that everything is not given to you. You have to go out and get it.”
1.Which of the following words can be used to describe Ms. Dominguez?
A．Learned, independent and strict.
B．Positive, simple and graceful.
C．Hardworking, dependent and tough.
D．Kind, determined and lonely.
2.What did Ms. Dominguez find most important for her children?
A．Staying in a straight line for coherence.
B．Making punctual self-correction.
C．Struggling to run after perfection.
D．Receiving excellent education.
3.How did Diana grow up after her mother passed away?
A．She was provided for by a law institute.
B．She depended on foster care system.
C．She relied upon the people like her.
D．She supported herself by doing part-time work.
4.What made Diana go on with her education despite there are so many difficulties?
A．The sense of loss from her mother’s death.
B．The eagerness to achieve success.
C．The deep influence of her mother’s values.
D．The wish to win prizes to please her mother.
5.With provided tuition, Diana still works after school because she knows ______.
A．success comes with her own struggle and efforts
B．rich experience helps her find better jobs
C．her tuition will be increased sharply
D．nobody is perfect in the world
Is it okay to keep exercising when you have a cold? What about the flu? With winter viruses going around, it’s important to know how to alter your training if you do catch a germ or two.
“The guidelines are pretty easy,” says Dr Lorenzo Masci from the Alphington Sports Medicine Clinic. “Anything above the neck --- so if you’ve got a cold for example, a runny nose or a sore throat --- then you should probably cut down your exercise by half and do 50 percent of what you normally do.”
“If you’ve got anything below the neck, like muscle pain, joint pain or fever, you shouldn’t really exercise at all until those general symptoms settle down,” Lorenzo says. He points out that a cough would also fall into this more serious category. “For example, if anyone comes in with a fever and a runny nose, I’d tell them to stop exercising until the fever and the muscle ache settles. Then they can start their training again at 50 percent once all those symptoms settle, even if they’ve got a bit of a runny nose or a sore throat.”
“The reason we tell people to stop exercising is because if you exercise when you’re unwell it can make the illness worse and prolong it.” There is a second reason Lorenzo advises his patients to stop exercising when they have “below the neck” symptoms. In the event you have an illness which affects your heart, exercise can sometimes actually lead to death.
Lorenzo advises to take zinc (锌) and vitamin C as a way of preventing colds. But he admits that this is controversial --- some studies have shown that these supplements can improve immune function while other studies have cast doubt on the issue. The good news is that if you exercise regularly, you’re likely to improve your immune function. “If you exercise too much, it can predispose (使倾向于) you to coughs and sniffles,” he points out. This is often the case for excellent athletes who train every day, such as triathletes (铁人三项运动员). “But what we do know is that if you exercise at a moderate level, your immune system improves such that you’re probably at a lower risk of developing coughs and colds.”
1.How many guidelines does Dr Lorenzo mainly suggest on doing exercises when people catch a cold?
A．One. B．Two. C．Three. D．Four.
2.How should people do exercises with a fever or a cough?
A．They should probably reduce their training time by 50%.
B．They should stop exercising until they recover.
C．They should start exercising at 50% after their runny nose settles.
D．They should do half of what they normally do.
3.What is the worst result if people don’t stop exercising when they are unwell?
A．Worsening the illness.
B．Prolonging the illness.
C．Affecting the heart.
D．Bringing about threat to life.
4.What can be proved from the last paragraph?
A．Zinc and Vitamin C can help to prevent colds.
B．The more exercises we do, the stronger our immune function will be.
C．Doing exercises regularly can help us prevent colds.
D．Excellent athletes seldom get coughs or sniffles.
5.What is this passage mainly about?
A．Relationship between exercises and flu.
B．How to do exercises.
C．How to cope with flu.
D．When to do exercises.
