In the past, young people inprefix = st1 /Japanwere expected to take on responsibilities to support their parents and grandparents. Now they expect to be supported well into young adulthood. The "New breed", born since the 1960s, have never known anything but richness. Youth are seen as resistant to entering society as mature adults, to becoming social citizens. Once the great objective of reconstruction after the Second World War was accomplished, a new generation lost the motivating power that had untied the nation together. Japan's birth rate has been falling rapidly, partly because of the recession , and the job and financial insecurity that it has caused. In 1999, the figure was 1. 38 children per woman, the lowest ever recorded. At the same time, youth crime, although still especially low by western standards, rose to its highest level since record-keeping began 32 years ago. Likewise, the percentage of students dropping out before graduating, at 2. 5% also very low by western standards, has been rising. Entrepreneurial ( ) role models are few and far between. Bill Gates is often mentioned, but a foreign model can only have so much influence. The problem is that Japanese culture discourages people from revealing details of personal life, including such ordeal as starting a company. In the past, successful companies such as Honda or Hitachiprovided role models of a sort. But today they have been faded by the downturn, and few others have risen to take their place. Young people also quite often feel isolated from their fathers, who worked too hard at their jobs to establish much of a relationship with their children. "The one thing they're sure of is that they don't want to be like their fathers. And the girls don't want to be with boys who are like their fathers, so the boys are sure not to be," says Professor Morishma. Today, entrepreneurial models are rarely found in Japan _ . A) because of the discouragement of Japanese culture B) because of the worshipping of western models C) because of the lack of experience of starting a company D) because the "new breed" don't want to work hard
A
Life is difficult. It is a great truth because once we truly understand and accept it, then life is no longer difficult. Most do not fully see this truth. Instead they complain about their problems and difficulties as if life should be easy. It seems to them that difficulties stand for a special kind of suffering especially forced on them or else on their families, their class, or even their nation. What makes life difficult is that the process of facing and solving problems is a painful one. Problems, depending on their nature, cause sadness, or loneliness or regret or anger or fear. These are uncomfortable feelings, often as painful as any kind of physical pain. And since life causes a lot of problems, life is always difficult and is full of pain as well as joy. Yet, it is in this whole process of solving problems that life has its meaning. Problems are the serious test that tells us success from failure. When we want to encourage the growth of human spirit, we encourage the human ability to solve problems, just as in school we set problems for our children to solve. It is through the pain of meeting and working out problems that we learn. As Benjamin Franklin said, "Those things that hurt, instruct ." It is for this reason that wise people learn not to fear but to welcome the pain of problems. Which sentence best express the central point of the passage? A) Problems and difficulties represent a special kind of suffering. B) We become stronger by facing and solving problems of life. C) Life is difficult because our problems bring us pain. D) People like to complain about their problems.
B
Q: We are surrounded by mixed messages about mistakes: we're told we earn by making them, but we work hard to avoid them. So the result is that most of us know that we are going to make mistakes, but deep down, we feel we shouldn't. Experiments with schoolchildren who did well on a given test show that those who were praised for being smart and then offered a more challenging or less challenging task afterward usually chose the easier one. On the other hand, children praised for trying hard-rather than being smart-far more often selected the more difficult task. If we try hard to avoid mistakes, we aren't open to getting the information we need in order to do better. In a writing study, experiments showed that those who are so scared to make mistakes perform worse in writing tasks than those who aren't as worried about being perfect. They fear receiving any kind of negative feedback, so they don't learn where they went wrong and how to get better. We don't just learn more when we're open to mistakes, we learn deeper. Research tells us that if we're only concerned about getting the right answer, we don't always learn the underlying concepts that help us truly understand whatever we're trying to figure out. Mistakes need to be seen not as a failure to learn, but as a guide to what still needs to be learned. As Thomas Edison said, "I am not discouraged, because every abandoned wrong attempt is another step forward. " Furthermore, we often make mistakes because we try new things-we wander away from accepted paths. Teflon, penicillin-these are examples of great discoveries made by mistake. Take a page from Albert Einstein, who said, "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. " What's the main idea of the passage? A) We can never avoid making mistakes when we work. B) Success can't be achieved without making mistakes. C) Mistakes should be treated with a correct attitude. D) Try every means to avoid mistakes in our daily life.
A: C
*Question*
New Orleans, Louisiana, was established as part of the French Empire in 1718. Its location on the east bank of the Mississippi River gave it control of the American hinerland and it became strategically important to many nations. It was transferred from France to Spain, returned to France, and finally sold by Napoleon to the United States in 1803. The city was the site of a famous battle fought in 1815 between the British, who hoped to control it, and the Americans under General Andrew Jackson. The riverbed of the Mississippi is constantly silting and the river is now actually higher than the city. Levees hold back the river and giant pumps are used to move water from the city into the river. Although New Orleans has been a part of the United States for almost two centuries, its population takes great pride in its French heritage. Louisiana still retains parts of the Code Napoleon which, for many years, was its only law. New Orleans is carefree city and it boasts its hot, spicy Creole seafood and its native Dixieland Jazz. The Jackson Square neighborhood maintains its French colonial homes and in other sections are pre-Civil War mansions. Visitors are surprised to find that behind this interesting surface of yesteryear is a busy industrial and port city. Grain and coal come from the Midwest and foreign goods are unloaded here. New Orleans is no longer a sleepy Southern town----but it's still fun to visit. According to the passage, the Code Napoleon was _ . A) an agreement to sell Louisiana B) a body of laws C) a city plan D) a military code for the army
**Answer**
B