Sidewalks in Chicago were packed during the rush hour. I marched along as quickly as I could. If I didn’t get to the station fast I would miss the early train out of the city. That meant even less time to spend at home with my baby.
On my left was Saint Peter’s Church. I’d passed it on the way to the station many times, but today I stopped. Other commuters (使用月票乘车者) rushed around me. I knew I should follow them since my train wouldn’t wait. But I had the strangest compulsion to go into the church instead. I hesitated for a moment, but the feeling was strong. I went inside.
I sat down in a comer. It seemed like ages since I’d sat down to think. Mary Ellen had been born in October, on the very date of her due date, in fact, October 16. A month before my husband, Rick, had lost his job. I often worked as a designer, but I’d planned on taking time off after the baby was born. With Rick out of work, I didn’t have the choice. One of us had to find a job fast. I was lucky to find the job I had now. Unfortunately, it wasn’t one I could work on at home. Every day I had to take the train into Chicago, a two-hour commute in both directions. I left the house so early and came home so late, so I felt like I barely got to see my baby.
I was grateful that Rick was at home caring for her, but it was not her mother. Every minute away from her I felt like I was abandoning her.
Looking around at the windows, I remembered when Rick and I bad first decided to try for a baby. My friend Renee was almost as excited as I was when I told her about it.
“I’ve got something for you,” she said one afternoon when I her for lunch. She pulled a medal out of her purse.
“Fix this to your clothes every day,” she said. “You’ll have a baby in no time.”
Not long after I learned I was pregnant, I was thrilled at first. But little by little I started to worry: Was my baby okay? What if something happened? The doctor assured me things were going smoothly. My family gave me support. Rick tried to encourage me. I even continued to wear my medal. But no matter what anyone said, I couldn’t shake off my worries.
Now that Mary Ellen was born I had new worries about motherhood. Is this how life was going to be from now on, with every stage of my child’s life bringing new fears and anxieties?
I thought of Renee and her gift of the medal, feeling hopeful. On my way to the door I stopped at the gift counter. I’d missed the early train, so there was time to look around. I went over to a box full of angel cards, thinking of Renee. So many things could happen in the future as Mary Ellen grew up, went to school and went out on her own. So many things to worry about. It would take an army of angels to cover them all.
I saw a familiar face in the box. It almost felt like I was looking at a friend, someone who cared about my baby as much as her father and I did: On the back of the card was a date. “October sixteenth?” I said, not believing my eyes.
“That’s the angel’s birthday,” the woman at the counter told me. I nearly burst out laughing right there. Mary Ellen’s birthday! Maybe I couldn’t be with Mary Ellen every minute. But never again would I worry that she was out of the angers protection, or doubt that she had a special friend.
1.The writer hurried to the station because .
A. there were so many commuters around
B. there was only one train to send her home
C. she was eager to see her baby
D. she tried to get a seat
2.The underlined part “strangest compulsion” in Paragraph 2 may refer to .
A. the pressure from work
B. the guilt about motherhood
C. the lack of patience with the train
D. the worry about Rick’s unemployment
3.When the writer learned that she was going to have a baby, .
A. her husband found a nice job to support the family
B. she quit her job and decided to care for the baby
C. her friend Renee sent her a beautiful medal
D. she was very excited at first but then worried
4.What would be the best title of the passage?
A. Blessed to be born at the right time
B. Endless fears and anxieties
C. A beautiful medal
D. My miserable life
In the United States, when one becomes rich, he wants people to know it. And even if he does not become very rich, he wants people to think that he is. That is what “keeping up with the Joneses” is about. It is the story of someone who tried to look as rich as his neighbors.
The expression was first used in 1913 by a young American called Arthur Momand. He told this story about himself. He began earning $ 125 a week at the age of 23. That was a lot of money in those days. He got married and moved with his wife to a very wealthy neighborhood outside New York City. When he saw that rich people rode horses, Momand went horseback riding every day. When he saw that rich people had servants, Momand and his wife also hired a servant and gave big parties for their new neighbors.
It was like a race, but one could never finish his race because one was always trying to keep up. The race ended for Momand and his wife when they could no longer pay for their new way of life. They moved back to an apartment in New York City.
Momand looked around him and noticed that many people do things just to keep up with rich lifestyle of their neighbors. He saw the funny side of it and started to write a series of short stories. He called it “Keeping up with the Joneses” because “Jones” is a very common name in the United States. “Keeping up with the Joneses” came to mean keeping up with rich lifestyle of the people around you. Momand’s series appeared in different newspapers across the country for over 28 years.
People never seem to get tired of keeping up with the Joneses. And there are “Joneses” in every city of the world. But one must get tired of trying to keep up with the Joneses because no matter what one does, Mr. Jones always seems to be ahead.
1.Some people want to keep up with the Joneses because they .
A. want to be as rich as their neighbours
B. want others to know or to think that they are rich
C. don’t want others to know they are rich
D. want to be happy
2.It can be inferred from the story that rich people like to .
A. live outside New York City B. live in New York City
C. live in apartments D. have many neighbours
3.Arthur used the name “Jones” in his series of short stories because it is .
A. an important name B. a popular name in the United States
C. his neighbour’s name D. not a good name
4.According to the writer, it is to keep up with the Joneses.
A. correct B. interesting
C. impossible D. good
Growing up in one of the poorest communities with most crimes in Los Angeles, US, being raised by a poorly-educated single mother and attending the worst-quality public school, not many people expected much of me, so I chose to expect something of myself.
On my 12th birthday, I bought a poster of Harvard University to hang in my room. Being at Harvard became my dream: I saw myself attending class in Sanders Theater, studying in Widener Library and eating in Annenberg Hall. Driven by this dream, I kept studying hard. I’d begin my day by asking myself these two questions: “What do I want in my life?” and “Are the things I am doing today going to get me closer to that life?”
Asking myself the questions gave me the courage to ask over 50 Harvard, students for advice on my application essays; it gave me the energy to study just one more hour on my SATs when others were asleep; and it gave me the determination to apply for just one more scholarship when already refused many times. Moreover, reminding myself of my goal each day made it easy to say no to the same choices my friends made, because they would never get me closer to my goal. I found that even being poor could not take away my power to decide what I choose to do with my life.
Every day I could feel myself getting closer and closer to my goal as my writing got better, my SAT score increased, and my scholarship offers started coming in. On March 31st, 2011, an email arrived from Harvard. The first word was “Congratulations!”. Tears of joy filled my eyes.
Who you are today is the result of the decisions you made yesterday, and who you will be tomorrow will be the result of the choices you make today. Who do you want to be tomorrow?
1.What does the first paragraph mainly tell us?
A. It describes the author’s early living conditions.
B. It proves that the author once lived an unhappy life.
C. It shows how many people treated the author badly.
D. It shares the author’s dreams with readers.
2.How did the author push himself to get closer to his goal?
A. By hanging a poster of Harvard in his room.
B. By making the same choices with his friends.
C. By asking himself the questions each day.
D. By increasing his scores and getting scholarships.
3.What is the author’s attitude to the hardship?
A. Disappointed. B. Positive.
C. Thankful. D. Sorrowful.
4.What did the author want to tell us most?
A. A famous university, a successful life.
B. The earlier you set yourself a goal, the better.
C. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
D. Your choices determine who you are.
Believe it or not, school uniforms are absolutely not only clothes for students. They stand for the culture or beauty appreciation standard of a country. Let’s take a look at school uniforms in different nations.
School Uniforms in England
Style of English school uniforms is rather classic, simple and elegant. Boys wear conventional western-style clothes, regular leather shoes and must wear neckties. Girls also wear western-style clothes, regular leather shoes and must wear bow-ties. This classic clothing style unconsciously affects English students’ temperament (气质) and also sense of beauty.
School Uniforms in Korea
Do you still remember the classic scenes in My Sassy Girl? If you’ve watched it, you will know how stylish Korean students’ uniforms are. Boys wear nice white shirts and western-style trousers. Girls wear white shirts, lovely skirts of latest design and bow knots.
School Uniforms in Malaysia
Students in Malaysia obey rather strict rules. Girls’ dresses must be long enough to cover the knees. Shirts must cover the elbows. Compared with Thai students, they are much more conservative.
School Uniforms in Japan
For students, school uniforms in Japan are not only symbols for schools, but also symbols for the current fashion trends, even affecting students when choosing a school. Japanese school uniforms for girls originate in sailor suits. So they are also called sailor suits or sailor uniforms. Cartoon elements are used on them. Japanese school uniforms for boys are classic dark-colored clothes with stand-up collars, similar to Chinese tunic suits.
1.What are the English school uniforms like?
A. Fashionable. B. Conservative.
C. Traditional. D. Cute.
2.In which way are Korean and Japanese school uniforms similar?
A. Both of them are fashionable. B. Both of them are eastern-style.
C. Both of them are affected by Chinese. D. Both of them are dark-colored.
3.Who might choose schools based on school uniforms?
A. English Students. B. Korean students.
C. Malaysian students. D. Japanese students.
Last evening, I went to a teahouse with my best friends Susan. Before the tea was serving, we talked to each other happily. When the waiter came to us with the tea, we didn't see him. Unfortunately, Susan raises her hand to comb her hair just when the waiter bent to put the plate on the table. Her hand hit on the cup, and the tea was spattered (溅洒)on her trousers. In my surprise, instead complaining, Susan smiled, “So lucky that it's not on my white shirt, and I can't even clean it.”His words were very inspired. We couldn't foresee what would happen, but looking at it in a positive way could make we always happy.
Millions of people all over the world use the word“OK”. In fact, some people say the word“OK”means all right or acceptable; it expresses agreement or approval.
1. Some people say it came from the Native American Indian tribe known as the Choctaw. The Choctaw word “oken”means the same as the American word“okay”. Experts say early explorers in the American West spoke the Choctaw language in the 19th century.
But many people doubt this. Language expert Allen Walker Read wrote about the word“OK”in reports published in the 1960s. He said the word began being used in the 1830s. 2. Some foreignborn people wrote“all correct”as“oll korrect”， and used the letters OK. Other people say a railroad worker named Obadiah Kelly invented the word long ago. They said he put the first letters of his names—O and K—on each object people gave him to send on the train.
3. The organization supported Martin Van Buren for president in 1840. They called their group the OK Club. The letters were taken from the name of the town where Martin Van Buren was born－Old Kinderhook, New York.
Then there is the expression AOK. It is a spaceage expression. It was used in 1961 during the flight of astronaut Alan Shepard. He was the first American to be launched into space. His flight ended when his spacecraft landed in the ocean, as planned. Shepard reported，“Everything is AOK.”4. One story says it was first used during the early days of the telephone to tell an operator that a message had been received.
There are also funny ways to say okay. 5. These expressions were first used in the 1930s. Today, a character on the American television series, “The Simpsons”， says it another way. He says okelydokely.
A．Some people say okeydokey or okeydoke.
B．Still others say a political organization invented the word.
C．Therefore, it has become popular in that area from then on.
D．But many experts don't agree on what the expression means.
E．Language experts do not agree about where the word came from.
F．It was a short way of writing a different spelling of the words“all correct”．
G．However, some experts say the expression did not begin with the space age.
