Homework and stress are rarely reduced inside the classroom.Meanwhile,outside the classroom,the pressure is on to find scholarships for college. According to Braintrack,a higher education database with worldwide reach,more than 3 billion US dollars (18 billion yuan) in private scholarships are awarded to college students annually.Average awards range from $2,000 to $3,000. The scholarship application process is similar to the college application process: forms to be completed,test scores and transcripts to be sent,essays to be written and often interviews to be prepared for. A few great places to start looking for scholarships are: www.fastweb. com,www.Finaid. org and www.collegexpress.com.Check out the annual scholarship guidebooks Scholarships,Grants & Prizes by Peterson's and the Ultimate Scholarship Book: Billions of Dollars in Scholarships,Grants and Prizes by Gen Tanabe and Kelly Tanabe. Be selective.Thoroughly research the qualifications required by each of the scholarships.Don't waste your time applying for those that are need based if you can't produce the appropriate documents. Research past recipients .Check out the websites of the organizations sponsoring the scholarships.Many post the biographies of past recipients.You don't need to have cured cancer,but if you don't think your resume measures up to the past winners',you might be better served by moving onto the next scholarship on your list.Prepare for the interview. You'll want to dazzle them with your personality,but above all you'll want to be prepareD. Find someone you trust to conduct a similar interview with you - someone who will be honest with you and provide valuable suggestions. Let your personality shine through in your essays.The essays are the best way for students to share who they are,where they've come from,what they've overcome and so on.Tell your story in an interesting and persuasive way.And if you do have an interview,send a thank you note afterward. By Lee Bierer What is the author's main purpose in writing the article? A) To explain where to find scholarships for US colleges. B) To inform readers of the scholarship application process. C) To introduce some typical scholarships offered by US colleges. D) To give tips on applying for US college scholarships.
D
(Question)
Bobby Moresco grew up in New York's Hell's Kitchen, a poor working-class neighborhood on Manhattan's West Side. But Hell's Kitchen lies right next door to Broadway, and the bright lights attracted Bobby from the time he was a teen. Being stage-struck was hardly what a street kid could admit to his partners. Fearing their making fun of him, he told no one, not even his girlfriend, when he started taking acting lessons at age 17. If you were a kid from the neighborhood, you became a cop, construction worker, longshoreman or criminal. Not an actor. Moresco struggled to make that long walk a few blocks east. He studied acting, turned out for all the cattle calls -- and during the decade of the 1970s made a total of $2,000. "I wasn't a good actor, but I had a driving need to do something different with my life," he says. He moved to Hollywood, where he drove a cab and worked as a waiter. " My father said, 'Stop this craziness and get a job; you have a wife and daughter.' "But Moresco kept working at his chosen career. Then in 1983 his younger brother Thomas was murdered in a killing. Moresco moved back to his old neighborhood and started writing as a way to explore the pain of Hell's Kitchen. Half-Deserted Streets, based on his brother's killing, opened at a small Off-Broadway theater in 1988. A Hollywood producer saw it and asked him to work on a screenplay. His reputation grew, and he got enough assignments to move back to Hollywood. By 2003, he was again out of work and out of cash when he got a call from Paul Haggis, a director who had befriended him. Haggis wanted help writing a film about the country after September 11. The two worked on the writing Crash, but every studio in town turned it down. They kept trying. Studio executives, however, thought no one wanted to see hard lives in modern America. Crash slipped into the theaters in May 2005, and quietly became both a hit and a critical success. It was nominated for six Academy Awards and won three -- Best Picture, Best Film Editing and Best Writing... Why Bobby Moresco did not tell anyone that he started taking lessons at age 17? A) He wanted to give his girlfriend a surprise. B) His girlfriend did not allow him to do this. C) He was afraid of being laughed at. D) He had no talent for acting.
(Answer)
C
Question: About this time every year, I get very nostalgic . Walking through my neighborhood on a fall afternoon reminds me of a time not too long ago when sounds of children filled the air, children playing games on a hill, and throwing leaves around in the street below. I was one of those children, carefree and happy. I live on a street that is only one block long. I have lived on the same street for sixteen years. I love my street. One side has six houses on it, and the other has only two houses, with a small hill in the middle and a huge cottonwood tree on one end. When I think of home, I think of my street. Only I see it as it was before. Unfortunately things change. One day, not long ago, I looked around and saw how different everything has become. Life on my street will never be the same because neighbors are quickly grown old, friends are growing up and leaving, and the city is planning to destroy my precious hill and sell the property to contractors. It is hard for me to accept that many of my wonderful neighbors are growing old and won't be around much longer. I have fond memories of the couple across the street, who sat together on their porch swing almost every evening, the widow next door who yelled at my brother and me for being too loud, and the crazy old man in a black suit who drove an old car. In contrast to those people, the people I see today are very old neighbors who have seen better days. The man in the black suit says he wants to die, and another neighbor just sold his house and moved into a nursing home. The lady who used to yell at us is too tired to bother any more, and the couple across the street rarely go out to their front porch these days. It is difficult to watch these precious people as they near the end of their lives because at once I thought they would live forever. The "comings and goings" of the younger generation of my street are now mostly "goings" as friends and peers move on. Once upon a time, my life and the lives of my peers revolved around home. The boundary of our world... The biggest change on the writer's street is _ . A) removing the hill to make way for residential development B) the building of new homes behind his kitchen window C) the fact that there are much fewer people around than in the past D) the change in his childhood friends' attitude towards their neighborhood
Answer:
A