To Whom It May Concern, My husband Jim and I got married in 1965. For the first ten years of our marriage, I was very happy to stay home and raise our three children. Then about four years ago, our youngest child went to school, and I thought I might go back to work. Jim was very supportive and helped me to make my decision. He started to do all the things I used to do around the house, and said he thought I could be a great success in business. After several weeks of job hunting, I found my present job, which is working for a small public relation firm. At first, my husband was proud of me and would tell his friends, "My clever little wife can run that company she's working for." But, as his joking words were becoming reality, Jim stopped talking to me about my job. I have received several promotions and pay increases, and I am now making more money than he is. I can buy my own clothes and a new car. Because of our combined incomes, Jim can do things that we had always dreamed of doing, but we don't do these things because he is unhappy. We fought about little things, and Jim is very critical of me in front of our friends. For the first time in our marriage, I think there is a possibility that our marriage may come to an end. I love Jim very much, and I don't want him to feel inferior , but I also love my job. I think I can be a good wife and a working woman, but I don't know how. Can you give me some advice? Will I have to choose one or the other or can I keep both my husband and my new career? Please help. Yours, Mary What shows her husband was supportive? A) He helped look after babies. B) He told her his experience. C) He worked much harder. D) He encouraged her a lot.
D
The predictability of our death rates is something that has long puzzled social scientists. After all, there is no natural reason why 2,500 people should accidentally shoot themselves each year or why 7,000 should drown or 55,000 die in their cars. No one establishes a quota for each type of death. It just happens that they follow a consistent pattern year after year. A few years ago a Canadian psychologist named Gerald Wilde became interested in this phenomenon. He noticed that mortality rates for violent and accidental deaths throughout the Western world have remained strangely static throughout the whole of the century, despite all the technological advances and increases in safety standards that have happened in that time. Wilde developed an interesting theory called "risk homeostasis". According to this theory, people naturally live with a certain level of risk. When something is made safer, people will get around the measure in some way to get back to the original level of danger. If, for instance, they are required to wear seat belts, they will feel safer and thus will drive a little faster and a little more recklessly, thereby statistically canceling out the benefits that the seat belt offers. Other studies have shown that where a crossing is made safer, the accident rate invariably falls there but rises elsewhere along the same stretch of road as if making up for the drop. It appears, then, that we have an inborn need for danger. In all events, it is becoming clearer and clearer to scientists that the factors influencing our lifespan are far more subtle and complex than had been previously thought. It now appears that if you wish to live a long life, it isn't simply a matter of paying attention to certain precautions such as eating the right foods, not smoking, and driving with care. You must also have the right attitude. Scientists at the Duke University Medical Center made a 15-year study of 500 persons personalities and found, somewhat to their surprise, that people with a suspicious or... Which of the following may contribute to a longer life span? A) Showing adequate trust instead of suspicion of others B) Eating the food low in fat and driving with great care C) Cultivating an optimistic personality and never losing heart D) Looking on the bright side and developing a balanced level of risk
C
Q: One determined student stepped off the traditional job for blind people in China, and now challenges a new life at university in Britain. Being a message therapist is a perfect job for many people with a visual disability, but for Zheng Jianwei, it was far from enough. The 30-year-old former massage therapist gave up his hospital job in 2009to prepare for admission to graduate school. He took IELTS , the language-fluency test necessary for university admission in the UK, in 2012 and scored 6.5 points. He was the first blind examinee to take the IELTS in the Southeast Chinese region. After about four year's struggles, Zheng successfully gain an offer from the University of Essex in the United Kingdom and became a graduate student. However,Zheng's path to graduate school was not easy. "I can't take China's national entrance exam for graduate school, which doesn't provide study material for blind students," he says. He then turned to search for graduate school overseas. However, English became his nightmare. Zheng studied in special schools for visually challenged students since primary school, but foreign language was never a main subject. Before giving up his job and learning English again in 2009, Zheng only knew the alphabet, a few words and some basic expressions. "Learning English again in my late 20s is not easy," he says. It took him three years of intensive study to gain entrance to a graduate school overseas. Because of the lack of study material, Zheng needs to spend hours and days looking for textbooks for the visually disabled and copying them, while it may take only five minutes for a sighted person to order a plain English textbook from Amazon. In his parents' eyes, Zheng has been a sensible, independent and decisive man from a young age. Zheng made all the major decisions by himself, including studying abroad and choosing majors. "We just follow his decisions, " the mother says. It can be learned from the passage that the blind students in China _ . A) can't take the national entrance exam to college B) can find less study material than normal students C) can never learn a foreign language well D) can't afford the English textbooks for an entrance exam
A: B
Mayday is a rock band from Taiwan that was formed in the late 1990s with five members, namely ,Ashin (vocalist), Monster and Stone (guitars), Masa (bass) and Guan You (drums). Formerly making music under the name of So Band, they officially came to be known as Mayday in 1997, with the name originating from Masa's online nickname. Mayday's songs are written mostly in Min Nan (Taiwanese dialect) and Mandarin . They are popular for capturing the zeitgeist of Taiwanese youth in the 1990s which was an era of dreams, growing up, loneliness, love and disaffection. Mayday has made no secret of its admiration of the Beatles whom they cite(...)as influencing their ideals of rock music.The eighth track of their fifth album has a track called John Lennon where the band espouses its dreams to become the "Beatles of the Chinese World"and one day, to become better than them. Other diverse musical influences include the Irish band U2, the British band Oasis, the Japanese pop music artists Mr. Children, Sting as well as the Chinese rocker Wu Bai and China Blue. In lyrics on recent albums, Ashin has alluded( )to several cultural icons notably the Chinese mythical monkey-god Sun Wu-Kong, Mickey Mouse, Superman, Neil Armstrong and Che Guevara. Ashin has also cited movies and novels as inspiration for his songs including "Viva Love"which was inspired by avant-garde Taiwanese director Tsai Ming Liang's 1994 movie, Vive L'Amour and the song "Armour" which was influenced by a Chinese drama Crystal Boys and Haruki Murakami's novel, Kafka On the Shore. Mayday has had a history of _ years up to now. A) less than 12 B) more than 18 C) around 13 D) around 10
C