Even Americans would () that no one can master time.
A.tell
B.force
C.admit
D.let
A.tell
B.force
C.admit
D.let
【C4】______ , we Americans seem to be 【C5】______ to the idea of buying our way to happiness. We shall all have 【C6】______ it to Heaven when we 【C7】______ enough.
And at the same time the 【C8】______ of American commercialism are hugely dedicated to making us deliberately 【C9】______ .
Advertising is one of our major 【C10】______ , and advertising exists not to 【C11】______ desires but to create them--and to create them faster than any man's 【C12】______ can satisfy them. We are taught that to 【C13】______ is to be happy, and then we are 【C14】______ to want. We are even told it is our 【C15】______ to want. It was only a few years ago, to 【C16】______ a single example, that car dealers across the country were flying banners that 【C17】______ "You Auto Buy Now". They were calling 【C18】______ Americans, as an act approaching patriotism, to buy at once, 【C19】______ money they did not have, automobiles they did not really need, and which they would be required to grow tired of by the time the next year's 【C20】______ were released.
【C1】
A.pursue
B.persist
C.preserve
D.prevail
Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage.
Americans have always been ambivalent in their attitudes toward education. On the one hand, free and universal public education was seen as necessary in a democracy, for how else would citizens learn how to govern themselves in a responsible way? On the other hand, America was always a country that offered financial opportunities for which education was not needed: on the road from rags to riches, schooling-beyond the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic-was an unnecessary detour.
Even today, it is still possible for people to achieve financial success without much education, but the number of situations in which this is possible is decreasing. In today's more complex world, the opportunities for financial success is closely related to the need for education, especially higher education.
Our society is rapidly becoming one whose chief product is information, and dealing with this information requires more and more specialized education. In other words, we grow up learning more and more about fewer and fewer subjects.
In the future, this trend is likely to continue. Tomorrow's world will be even more complex than today's world, and, to manage this complexity, even more specialized education will be needed.
26. The topic treated in this passage is _____.
A) education in general
B) Americans' attitudes
C) higher education
D) American education
27. Americans' attitudes toward education have always been _____.
A) certain B) contradictory
C) ambitious D) unclear
28. Today, financial success is closely related to the need for _____.
A) higher education B) public education
C) responsible citizens D) learning the basics
29. It can be inferred from the third paragraph that _____.
A) information is our only product
B) education in the future will be specialized
C) we are entering an age of information
D) we are living in an age of information
30. Which of the following is the best title for the passage?
A) The History of American Education.
B) The Need for Specialized Education.
C) The Future of the American Educational System.
D) Attitudes toward American Education.
Many people in the United States worry about not looking young and attractive. For many people, looking good also means being thin. Other people worry about their health. Many doctors say being overweight is not healthy. But are Americans really fat?
Almost 30 million Americans weigh at least 20 percent more than their ideal weight. In fact, the United States is the most overweight country in the world. "The stored fat of adult Americans weighs 2. 3 trillion pounds," says University of Massachusetts anthropologist(人类学家) George Armelagos. He says burning off that stored energy would produce enough power for 900,000 cars to go 12,000 miles.
Losing weight is hard work, but most people want to find a fast and easy way to take off fat. Bookstores sell lots of diet books. These books tell readers how to lose weight. Each year, dozens of new books like these are written. Each one boasts to help people to get rid of fat.
Which of the following is NOT mentioned as a way of losing weight?
A.To eat less fats and sugars.
B.To take much exercise.
C.To have surgery.
D.To work hard.
In1950, the U.S. spent .7 billion on health care. In 2002, the cost will be billion. Anyone can see this trend is unsustainable. Yet few seem willing to try to reverse it. Some scholars conclude that a government with finite resources should simply stop paying for medical care that sustains life beyond a certain age-----say 83 or so. Former Colorado governor Richard Lamm has been quoted as saying that the old and infirm“have a duty todie and get out of the way”,so that younger, healthier people can realize their potential.
I would not go that far. Energetic people now routinely work through their 60s and beyond, and remain dazzlingly productive. At 78,Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone jokingly claims to be 53.Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is in her 70s,and former surgeon general C.Everett Koop chairs an Internet start-up in his 80s.These leaders are living proof that prevention works and that we can manage the health problems that come naturally with age. As a mere 68-year-old,I wish to age as productively as they have.
Yet there are limits to what a society can spend in this pursuit. Ask a physician, I know the most costly and dramatic measures may be ineffective and painful. I also know that people in Japan and Sweden, countries that spend far less on medical care, have achieved longer, healthier lives than we have. As a nation, we may be overfunding the quest for unlikely cures while underfunding research on humbler therapies that could improve people's lives.
第56题:What is implied in the first sentence?
A. Americans are better prepared for death than other people.
B. Americans enjoy a higher life quality than ever before.
C. Americans are over-confident of their medical technology.
D. Americans take a vain pride in their long life expectancy.
There are two ideas—one, living within your means, and the idea that living on debt is a great equalizer(平衡装置). They both have validity because it is important that someone live within their means over their lifetime. When people are young and they are earning money, but they have very little savings, they almost have to borrow in order to own a house or own a car. But as they grow older, they should develop the habit of saving, so that by the time they reach the end of their earning life, they have savings to live on in retirement, and live within their means.
"Buy now, pay later" worked very well for us in the 1990s, but one suspects it won't work forever. The only thing that concerns me is that Americans are so contented, so optimistic, so unconcerned about any bumps in the road that many American households, not all of them, but many American households are very heavily extended in personal credit, a lot of credit card debt. People are paying very high prices for houses and borrowing heavily against those prices; and if we do run into a bump in the road, a recession, there are going to be a lot of households, not all of them, but many households that Ml be severely squeezed. That means we're more vulnerable to serious financial distress than Japan is. Japan has been in financial distress for ten years, but one reason it's been able to weather that is that the households had been very conservative, had a lot of savings, were very liquid, and were able to weather difficult times. And many American households would now be less able to do that because they are so heavily in debt.
We know from the passage that credit cards
A.make Americans get deeper and deeper in debt
B.are likely to be abandoned by more Americans
C.will soon become a symbol of American life
D.will help solve potential financial problems
A.Chinese - Americans
B.American Indians
C.Japanese - Americans
D.black Americans
Now, health advocates say, an ill-conceived redesign-has taken one of the more successful public-health campaigns—the Food Guide Pyramid—and rendered it confusing to the point of uselessness. Some of these critics worry that America's Department of Agriculture caved to pressure from parts of the food industry anxious to protect theft products.
The Food Guide Pyramid was a graphic which emphasizes that a healthy diet is built on a base of gains, vegetables and fruits, followed by ever-decreasing amounts of dairy products, meat, sweets and oils. The agriculture department launched the pyramid in 1992 to replace its previous program, which was centered on the idea of four basic food groups. The "Basic Four" campaign showed a plate divided into quarters, and seemed to imply that meat and dairy products should make up haft of a healthy diet, with grains, fruits and vegetables making up the other half. It was replaced only over the strenuous objections of the meat and dairy industries.
The old pyramid was undoubtedly imperfect. It failed to distinguish between a doughnut and a whole-grain roll, or a hamburger and a skinless chicken breast, and it did not make clear exactly how much of each foodstuff to eat. It did, however, manage to convey the basic idea of proper proportions in an easily understandable way. The new pyramid, called "My Pyramid", abandons the effort to provide this information. Instead, it has been simplified to a mere logo. The food groups are replaced with unlabelled, multi-colored vertical stripes which, in some versions, rise out of a cartoon jumble of foods that look like the aftermath of a riot at a grocery store. Anyone who wants to see how this translates into a healthy diet is invited to go to a website, put in their age, sex and activity level, and get a custom-designed pyramid, complete with healthy food choices and suggested portion sizes. This is free for those who are motivated, but might prove too much effort for those who most need such information.
Admittedly, the designers of the new pyramid had a tough job to do. They were supposed to condense the advice in the 84-page United States' Dietary Guidelines into a simple, meaningful graphic suitable for printing on the back of a cereal box. And they had to do this in the face of pressure from dozens of special interest groups—from the country's Potato Board, which thought potatoes would look nice in the picture, to the Almond Board of California, which felt the same way about almonds. Even the National Watermelon Promotion Board and the California Avocado Commission were eager to see their products recognized.
Nevertheless, many health advocates believe the new graphic is a missed opportunity. Although officials insist industry pressure had nothing to do with the eventual design, some critics suspect that political influence was at work. On the other hand, it is not clear how much good even the best graphic could do. Surveys found that 80% of Americans recognized the old Food Guide Pyramid—a big success in the world of public-health campaigns. Yet only 16% followed its advice.
Trying to get Americans to eat a healthy diet is a frustrating business can be easily proved by the fact that
A.public-health campaigns cannot compete with tempting flavors.
B.snack-food and fast-food industries are flourishing in the US.
C.most food in America are profoundly rich in fat and sugar.
D.fat people account for a large proportion of American population.
Why do the two "explanations" (Line 1, Para. 3 )worry Asian Americans? ()
A.They are afraid that they would again be isolated from American society in general
B.People would think that Asian students rely on their parents for success
C.Asian Americans would be a threat to other minorities
D.American academic achievements have taken on too strong an Asian character
W: Sometimes. You know the life of a social worker is not all wonderful and working to help people in their daily life. I have to spend a lot of time pushing paper, and writing reports too. But when I do get out, yeah, I see a lot of foreigners. And sometimes they come in because life in America has just beaten them down and they can't cope financially or emotionally.
M: Really? I would think that they had a good support network in place, especially university students.
W: They do have a network, and a variety of support groups, but these can't meet all of the students' needs. They can't help with paying bills, dealing with American neighbors and customs, fitting in, getting a driver's license, etc. They try, but very often the student has to figure out a lot of this stuff by himself. And if he or she is shy, they don't have the courage to ask other people, even other people from their nationality.
M: So what are some of the things that overseas students struggle with?
W: This might interest you, but they struggle with the food, especially Chinese. You know, they come here knowing that Americans love Chinese food so much. They think that there will be good restaurants with Chinese food that they love. But they get here and they are extremely surprised. Americans enjoy totally different flavors.
M: So what do they do?
W: If they're brave and curious, they look around and test all the restaurants. There is usually at least one restaurant in every town that has almost quality food.
Questions 23 to 25 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
23. In which aspect does the woman help people in her work?
24. Why do people come to the woman for help?
25. How did Chinese students expect the American-made Chinese food before they came to the U.S?
(20)
A.Writing reports for them.
B.Teaching them foreign languages.
C.Helping them deal with daily existence.
D.Introducing work for them.