To be punctual is important for us because people rather expect us to be on time for appointments. But it seems not easy to be on time every time. Here are some useful methods to help you be punctual. Plan your route. If your destination is unfamiliar, go online the night before to map out your route and see how long it's going to take. Then you will know when you have to leave the house. Do as much as possible the night before. Make your mornings less stressful by doing what you can the night before to make your time enough. Get your clothes ready. Set the breakfast table. Make your lunch if you need to take it. Make a time table. You need to make a time table if you have lots of things to do in a day. For example, the time you get up, the time you leave the house, and the time you wait for the bus. You also need to estimate how long it takes. Give yourself a gift of being early. If you plan to get to your destination 15 minutes early, you'll probably never be late again. Being early seems a waste of time. But you can do something you love. Read the newspaper, read your favorite blogs and even call a friend. It really can be a gift. What don't you need to do to make your mornings less stressful? A) Get your clothes ready. B) Set the breakfast table. C) Make a time table. D) Make your lunch.
C
Charles Dickens was one of the most beloved storytellers in the English language. His novels made him famous in his own time, and continue as classics in ours. Dickens began his literary career with almost no formal education. He was born in Landport, on Feb. 7, 1812, the second of eight children. When he was 12, his father was sent to debtor's prison. Dickens was forced to quit school and work in a London blacking factory. He would rework that terrible experience into his fiction for the rest of his life. "He was a social reformer," says actor Simon Callow, author of a new biography called Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World. "He knew what poverty was. He knew what it was to be rejected, to be cast aside, to live in squalor ." And so Dickens wrote with great sympathy for the suffering of innocent and vulnerable children - characters like David Copperfield, Little Dorrit and the orphan, Oliver Twist: With his slice of bread in his hand, and his little brown parish cap on his head, Oliver was now led away from the wretched home, where one kind word or look never lighted the gloom of his infant days. Yet he burst into an agony of childish grief as the cottage gate closed after him. Wretched as were the little companions in,misery he was now leaving behind him, they were the only friends he had ever had. His first book Sketches by Boz came out in 1836. With the appearance of Oliver Twist in London periodicals in 1837, the 25-year-old Dickens became the most popular writer in England. But his first love was theater, and he considered becoming an actor. "When he was actually writing, he became his characters," says Peter Ackroyd, author of Dickens: Public Life and Private Passion. "He would get up from his desk, go over to the mirror and mouth the words - do the expressions, grimaces , whatever, and then laugh, chuckle to himself, then go back to his desk and write it down." Dickens created 989 named characters, which increased his popularity.... What did Dickens intend to do by telling his stories? A) To amuse his readers and change society. B) To analyze the nature of society he was m. C) To make an attack on the upper class of the time. D) To get rid of his depression and sense of hopelessness.
A
Q: About ten men in every hundred suffer from color blindness in some way. Women are luckier, only about one in two hundred is affected in this matter. Perhaps, after all, it is safer to be driven by a woman! There are different forms of color blindness. In some cases a man can not see deep red. He may think that red, orange and yellow are all shades of green. Sometimes a person cannot tell the difference between blue and green. In rare cases an unlucky man may see everything in shades of green - a strange world indeed. Color blindness in human beings is a strange thing to explain. In a single eye there are millions of very small things called "cones". These help us to see in a bright light and to tell difference between colors. There are also millions of "rods" but these are used for seeing when it is nearly dark. They show us shape but no color. Some insects have favorite colors. Mosquitoes like blue but do not like yellow. A red light will not attract insects, but a blue lamp will. In a similar way human beings also have favorite colors. Yet we are lucky. With the aid of the cones in our eyes we can see many beautiful colors by day, and with the aid of the rods we can see shapes at night. One day we may even learn more about the invisible colors around. Why do some people say it is safer to be driven by women? A) Women are more careful. B) There are few color-blind women. C) Women are fonder of driving than men. D) Women are weaker but quicker in thinking
A: B
Soon, you' re going to have to move out!" cried my neighbor upon seeing the largest tomato plant known to mankind, or at least known in my neighborhood. One tiny 9-inch plant, bought for $1. 25 in the spring, has already taken over much of my rose bed, covering much of other plants, and is well on its way to the front door. Roses require a good deal of care, and if it weren't for the pleasure they give, it wouldn' t be worth the work. As it is, I have a garden full of sweet-smelling roses for most of the year. Bushes must be pruned in early spring, leaving ugly woody branches until the new growth appears a few weeks later. It was the space available in the garden that led me into planting just one little tomato plant. A big mistake. Soil conditions made just perfect for roses turn out to be even more perfect for tomatoes. The daily watering coupled with full sun and regular fertilizing have turned the little plant into a tall bush. The cage I placed around it as the plant grew has long disappeared under the thick leaves. Now the task I face in harvesting the fruit is twofold. First, I have to find the red ones among the leaves, which means I almost have to stand on my head, and once found I have to reach down and under, pick the tomatoes and withdraw my full fist without dropping the prize so dearly won. I found two full-blown white roses completely hidden as I picked tomatoes in June. But they were weak and the leaves already yellow for lack of light. Here I am faced with a painful small decision: To tear up a wonderful and productive tomato plant that offers up between ten and twenty ripe sweet tomatoes each day or say goodbye to several expensive and treasured roses. Like Scarlett in Gone With the Wind, I' ll think about that tomorrow. This year the writer' s roses were. A) removed from the rose bed B) largely hidden under the tomato plant C) mostly damaged by too much sunlight D) picked along with the tomatoes
B