In order to increase their job chances after college, Chinese students are turning to a special practice--Eiffel Tower nose jobs . The latest trend in plastic surgery promises to create a nose that is similar to the curve of the Eiffel Tower. Surgeon Wang Xuming said: "We are influenced by the beauty of the Eiffel Tower. We are not content to just add something to the nose; we reconstruct it." The surgery costs about US$ 10,000 and involves the enlarging of the nose using tissue from the forehead. Hundreds of posters advertising the procedure are put up all over Chongqing city, where surgeon Xuming runs his private practice. They show a western-looking woman with an almost-too-perfect nose, against an outline of the Eiffel Tower. Interestingly, many young women in China are eager to achieve a western appearance, as they believe it will give them an advantage in the highly competitive job market. "Some students face a lot of employment pressure after graduation. If their facial features are good, they'll have more chances of finding a job," said surgeon Xuming. "We've had students getting the Eiffel Tower nose; it's helped them a lot." Apparently, Chinese employers are quite particular about appearances and prefer attractive candidates. Some of them even go as far as putting height and weight requirements in their employment ads. Plastic surgeons across the country are reporting an increase in the number of students choosing beauty "improvement". According to a Mr. Li, hospital manager at surgeon Xuming's clinic, most of their customers are female and the bill is taken care of by the family. "They usually come in with their mothers, and tend to be from well-off backgrounds." he said. Personally, I don't think it so important to "improve" our appearance as long as we are skilled at our jobs. We can't decide how we look, but we can decide how well we live and work. Which of the following will the author probably agree with? A) Chinese employers only care about their employees' appearance. B) Chinese students are content with the shape of their noses. C) A western face looks prettier than a Chinese one. D) Skills at work speak louder than appearance.
D
When you learn reading, nlath, and other subjects taught in school from your parents or teaehers who come to your house, it's called homeschooling. A kid may be the only one, or he may be taught with brothers, sisters, or kids from the neighborhood. Parents choose to homeschool their children for many different reasons. Sometimes a kid is sick and can't go to regular school. But more often, kids are homeschooled beeause their parents feel they can give their children a better education than the local school can. Patents also may choose homeschooling because they want their children's education to include religious instruction, which isn't offered at puhlie schools. If you don't like school, homeschooling might seem like the perfect solution. But it's better for everyone if homeschooling isn't chosen just as an escape from school or prohlems there. Finding solutions to the problem should be the first step. Kids who are homeschooled may benefit from the one-on-one attention. For example, if you don't understand something in math, the whole class won't he moving on without you. You might be the whole class! It's also possible that you might learn more than you would in a regular classroom, because if you really good at something, you can keep learning more at your own pace. Kids who are homeschooled also may get out in their communities more than other kids. They may get to experience hands-on education at museums, libraries, businesses and other community resources. They also might volunteer or take part in "service learning" where they take on local projects. No matter where a child goes to school, the key to learning is listening to the teacher and asking for help when you need it. A homeschooled child might feel more comfortable with his teacher (a parent), but the child still needs to pay attention and cooperate. Just like in a traditional school, teachers and students need to work together to achieve goals in the classroom. What does the author think of homeschooling? A) It shouldn't be encouraged at all. B) It is not a good way to get educated. C) It can offer kids what suits their needs. D) It is only good for the kids who can't go to school.
C
Q: A WOMAN walks into a small stall and eats a cheap bowl of instant noodles, paying 1,500 won. Then she moves into a Starbucks coffee shop, where she drinks a cup of mocha, paying 4,300 won. Surprised? This is the typical behaviour of South Korean young women. They are called "denjang girls". The term "denjang girls" referred to female shoppers who would eat cheaply and then _ to be seen drinking a cup of expensive coffee. Now it has grown to a new army of women in their 20s who look smart, rich but are actually buying luxuries they probably can't afford. Internet users created the term when debating the popularity of Starbucks coffee among South Korean women. In prefix = st1 /South Korea, the coffee costs, on average, over a dollar more than inJapanand theUS. Despite the higher price, Starbucks sales inSouth Koreaincreased from 72.1 billion won in 2004 to 91.2 billion won in 2005. Ahn Ji-Yoon, a student at Yonsei University in Seoul, says she can spend two hours surfing the web for discounts on skin cream and dinner. Yet she would think nothing of spending US$550 on a Gucci bag. Girls like Ahn live by extremes - hunting for bargain items while spending heavily on "necessary luxuries". The purpose of the writer is to _ . A) criticize the manners of "denjang girls" B) call on female shoppers to act like "denjang girls" C) warn "denjang girls" not to waste money on expensive coffee. D) introduce new female shoppers "denjang girls" inSouth Korea.
A: D
(Q).
Human beings have used tools for a very long time. In some parts of the world you can still find tools that people used more than two million years ago. They made these tools by hitting one stone against another. In this way, they broke off pieces from one of the stones. These chips of stone were usually sharp on one side. People used them for cutting meat and skin from dead animals, and also for making other tools out of wood. Human beings needed to use tools because they did not have sharp teeth like other meat eating animals, such as lions and tigers. Tools helped people to get food more easily. Working with tools also helped to develop human intelligence. The human brain grew bigger, and human beings began to invent more and more tools and machines. The stone chip was one of the first tools that people used, and perhaps it is the most important. Some scientists say that it was the key to success of mankind. Since 1960 a new kind of tool has appeared. This is the silicon chip . It is smaller than a finger nail, but it can store lots of information. It is an electronic brain. Every year these chips get cleverer, but their size gets smaller, and their cost gets less. They are used in watches, calculators and intelligent machines that we can use in many ways. In the future we will not need to work with tools in the old way. Machines will do everything for us. People will have plenty of spare time. But what will they do with it? Human beings used stone chips for more than two million years, but human life changed very little in that time. We have used silicon chips for only a few years, but life is changing faster every day. What will life be like twenty years from now? What will the world be like two million years from now? At the end of the passage the author seems to suggest that life in future is _ . A) out of order B) less colorful C) hard to predict D) full of meanings
(A).
C