An American in Beijing lives his Chinese dream
Gao Tianrui walks along streets in Beijing’s Xicheng district as 1. public security volunteer.2. (wear) his bright red armband (红袖章) and speaking fluent Mandarin, 62-year-old Gao Tianrui could 3. (take) for any regular Chinese man. But on 4. (close) inspection, things are not quite 5. they seem: Gao’s real name is Terry Crossman and he is from the United States. He is now a member of “Xicheng Dama”, that is, volunteers, usually women in late middle-age,6. walk along the streets of downtown Beijing’s Xicheng district. Terry said that, at first, he saw the group as busybodies, but 7. (gradual) he saw that it was a good thing for retired seniors 8. (help) others.
He is often seen giving tourists 9. (direction), getting water for a baby and even helping a neighbor sell yogurt. “I like helping others,” he said, “I live in the hutong and my neighbors and I usually help each other ... This is where I live, where my friends are and where I call home.” Crossman 10. (become) interested in Chinese culture as a teenager when he read Tao Te Ching by Laozi.
Madison Williams was studying in her bedroom when the door burst open. Her mother, Leigh, hurried into her daughter’s room, making a(n)______: “Can you help?”
Madison and her mother ran to a neighbor’s yard, where they found a ______ woman and other adults ______ a septic tank (化粪池) opening a few inches above the lawn. A boy, aged only two, had ______ an eight-foot-deep tank.
Madison quickly ______ the situation. She knew she was the only one who could ______ through the small hole. Without ______, she told the adults to lower her in. Leigh and others held her waist and ______. Madison shook her arms and shoulders until she got through the ______ into the dark and smelly tank. In the process, she ______ one hand severely. Rather than tend to her injury, Madison scanned the ______ of the water, hoping to feel the boy. Every once in a while, she could see his little ______ in the water but failed to catch his foot. Minutes ticked by before she saw the ______ of his foot again. Madison shot her good hand out and grasped the foot ______. Then both of them were lifted out.
But the boy wasn’t out of ______. He had been short of oxygen so long that he wasn’t ______. He was placed on his side, and an adult ______ him hard on the back until the boy coughed up fluids. Then they were rushed to the hospital.
It took Madison longer to ______ than the boy, who returned home soon. She,______, stayed there for her injury. “Madison’s a hero,” the boy’s mother says, “What other teenage girls will ______ to go into a septic tank?”
1.A. order B. request C. comment D. plan
2.A. worried B. disappointed C. delighted D. puzzled
3.A. watching B. digging C. surrounding D. blocking
4.A. broken up B. run across C. taken over D. slipped into
5.A. created B. examined C. controlled D. disturbed
6.A. fit B. look C. fly D. walk
7.A. comment B. argument C. hesitation D. application
8.A. hands B. legs C. shoes D. clothes
9.A. crowd B. bush C. yard D. opening
10.A. lost B. injured C. treated D. held
11.A. depth B. color C. surface D. taste
12.A. toes B. hat C. fingers D. hair
13.A. smell B. outline C. shadow D. picture
14.A. clearly B. strangely C. carefully D. tightly
15.A. trouble B. shape C. work D. sympathy
16.A. talking B. laughing C. crying D. breathing
17.A. pushed B. hit C. tapped D. supported
18.A. wake B. recover C. succeed D. adjust
19.A. therefore B. moreover C. however D. otherwise
20.A. fear B. long C. pretend D. volunteer
We all have to make decisions all the time, and we have an abundance of choices, ranging from tiny issues to vital ones. Unfortunately, people often find it hard to make decisions. 1. If you would like to improve your skill of decision making, here are four suggestions for you.
Don’t expect to have it all.
2. You can’t order every delicious dish on the menu. And there will be paths not taken, careers not chosen, to name a few. You can imagine some “what if” situations if you must, but do not let them take up too much space in your brain.
3.
It’s often good to think through your decisions. But don’t overdo it. Research can reach a point where returns begin to reduce, which makes it confusing more than clarifying. Many good decisions can be made based as much on intuition (直觉) as on careful assessment of endless data.
Don’t delay making decisions.
Yes, there is a time to put off making a decision. Perhaps you need more information.4. Or it's likely that you wait for a less stressful time. Just don’t wait so long that the decision is made by your own indecisiveness.
Don’t be hard on yourself.
You decide to go on a voyage. You choose an expensive liner. Everything should work out just right. Only you didn’t expect a bug that ran around on the ship, making you and your family sick for five days.5. But please remember it is unavoidable sometimes.
A. Don’t spend too much time thinking.
B. It is an important source of information.
C. Don’t count on emotion to make decisions.
D. Maybe you wish to consult with your advisor.
E. You may regret making such a stupid decision.
F. That means the skill of good decision-making counts a lot.
G. Decisions force us to close the door on other possibilities.
Imagine a cat that does not need someone to clean up after it keeps an older person company and helps them remember to take their medicine. That is the shared dream of the toy maker Hasbro and scientists at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. The researchers received a $ 3-million-dollar award from the National Science Foundation for a special project. They want to find ways to add artificial intelligence, or A.I., to Hasbro’s “Joy for All” robotic
The cat has already been for sale for two years. Though priced over 1000 dollars, it sold quite well. It was meant to act as a “companion” for older people. Now the project is aimed at developing additional abilities for the cat. Researchers at Brown’s Humanity-Centered Robotics Initiative are working to decide which activities older adults may need the most. They hope to make the cat perform a small number of activities very well. Such activities include finding lost objects and reminding the person to take medicine or visit their doctor. They also want to keep the cost down to just a few hundred dollars.
It is an idea that has appealed to Jeanne Elliott. Her 93-year-old mother Mary Derr lives with her in South Kingstown. Derr has dementia (痴呆). The Joy for All cat that Elliott bought this year has become a true companion for Derr. The cat stays with Derr and keeps her calm while Elliott is at work. Elliott said a robotic cat that helps her mother to remember to take her medicine and be careful when she walks would be greater.
The researchers are trying to learn how the improved cats will complete helpful activities and how they will communicate. They say that they do not want a talking cat, however. Instead they are trying to design a cat that can move its head in a special way to successfully communicate its message. In the end, they hope to create an exchange between the human and the cat in which the human feels the cat needs them. By doing so, the researchers hope they can even help prevent feelings of loneliness and sadness among elderly people.
1.What’s the purpose of the project?
A. To relieve the pain of the elderly.
B. To promote the sales of a medicine.
C. To invent a robotic cat for the elderly.
D. To help make the robotic cat smarter.
2.Compared with the old model, the new robotic cat will be .
A. smaller B. cheaper
C. more talkative D. more expensive
3.What does Paragraph 3 intend to tell us?
A. The cat gives much help to the elderly.
B. The more functions of the cat, the better.
C. There is no cure for dementia at present.
D. Mary Derr would have died without the cat.
4.What can we infer from the last paragraph?
A. A talking cat is quite popular among the elderly.
B. Feelings of sadness among the elderly are unavoidable.
C. Each family can afford such a cat in the future.
D. The feeling of being needed is vital to the elderly.
It’s 3 o’clock and you’ve been hard at work. As you sit at your desk, a strong desire for chocolate overcomes you. You try to busy yourself to make it go away. But it doesn’t. Here is another situation. Perhaps you are not feeling well. The only thing you want to eat is a big bowl of chicken soup, like your mom used to make when you were sick as a child. Food cravings are a strong desire for a specific type of food. And they are normal.
Scientists at the website How Stuff Works compare hunger and cravings this way. Hunger is a fairly simple connection between the stomach and the brain. They even call it simply “stomach hunger.” When our stomachs burn up all of the food we have eaten, a hormone (荷尔蒙) sends a message to one part of the brain for more food, which regulates our most basic body functions such as thirst, hunger and sleep. The brain then produces a chemical to start the appetite and you eat. Hunger is a function of survival.
A craving is more complex. It activates (使活跃) brain areas related to emotion, memory and reward. These are the same areas of the brain activated during drug-craving studies. So, some scientists call food cravings “mind hunger.” People often crave foods that are high in fat and sugar. Foods that are high in fat or high in sugar produce chemicals in the brain. These chemicals give us feelings of pleasure.
In a 2007 study, researchers at Cambridge University found that “dieting or restricted eating generally increases the possibility of food craving.” So, the more you deny yourself a food that you want, the more you may crave it. However, fasting is a bit different. They found that eating no food at all for a short period of time lessened food cravings.
So, the next time you crave something very specific, know that your brain may be more to blame than your stomach.
1.What is the function of the first paragraph?
A. To remind readers of their own special food.
B. To deepen the understanding of hunger.
C. To report the discovery of craving study.
D. To lead to the topic of the whole passage.
2.What do we learn about food craving?
A. It shows food is linked to feelings.
B. It ensures a person survives hunger.
C. It means the stomach functions well.
D. It proves the brain decides your appetite.
3.What’s the likely result of dieting?
A. The decrease of chemicals. B. The increase of food desire.
C. The refusal of fat and sugar. D. The disappearance of appetite.
4.What does the passage mainly discuss?
A. The functions of brain areas. B. What hunger is all about.
C. The findings of food craving. D. What dieting may bring us.
Quietly sitting there reading, I found myself suddenly listening to the train guard’s announcements. Train travelers will surely agree that when the guard makes an announcement, whether it’s the recorded message or the guard’s message, few people listen to it, because it’s often quite dull or hard to understand. This one was different. I noticed that other passengers appeared to be listening, too. Not only that, everyone was smiling!
Why was so much attention being paid to this message? As best I can recall, the guard said something along these lines, “Good Morning Ladies, Gentlemen and Children, this is the 7:35 a.m. from Penrith to Central and you’ll be pleased to know that we are right on time. And what a lovely morning it is in Sydney today. The sun is shining, birds are singing, and all’s right with the world. I trust you have a great day wherever you’re going. Thanks for catching my train this morning and I hope to see you again soon.”
Quite a few people (obviously previous strangers) started talking to one another about the guard’s excellent message and how good it had made everyone feel. I started thinking about this, and then I found the young guard and said “Were you the guard on the 7:35 a.m. from Penrith?” The guard seemed a bit stunned at first, replying, “Yes, yyyyes.” “Well, I really appreciate your announcement. Thank you for your extremely good message, which gave me and the other passengers such a good start to the day. Please keep doing it.” I said.
There are two messages for me in what happened that day. Firstly, when people are happy in their work it shows in what they do and say. Secondly, the story attaches much importance to the benefits that accumulate from thanking people for something they’ve done, particularly when it’s not expected. Can you imagine the conversation that guard would have when he got home?
1.Why do few train travelers listen to the announcements?
A. The messages are unattractive.
B. The guard’s voice is not clear.
C. They usually feel sleepy.
D. They are absorbed in books.
2.What does the underlined word “stunned” in Paragraph 3 mean?
A. Patient. B. Cautious.
C. Surprised. D. Excited.
3.What might the guard talk about with his family when he got home?
A. The beautiful weather.
B. The recorded message.
C. The train from Penrith.
D. The unexpected appreciation.
4.Which of the following can be the best title for the text?
A. An Intelligent Guard. B. A Boring Train Story.
C. A Different Train Announcement. D. A Lovely Morning in Sydney.
