Thirty years ago not many people would have dreamed of doing the repairs and decorations in their own homes. In those days labor was fairly cheap and most people would have thought it worthwhile to employ a professional painter and decorator, unless of course they were either very hand up or were in the trade themselves. Today, however, it is quite a different story. Men and women in all walks of life turn their hands to all sorts of jobs round the house including painting, papering, putting up shelves and wall units, and tiling walls and floors. Some people with no professional training of any kind have even successfully built their own houses. These jobs have been made easier today by the introduction of prepared materials, which require the minimum amount of skill to use. In every high street throughout Britain nowadays there is at least one "Do-It-Yourself" shop containing a vast range of timber, tiles, paints, wallpapers and floor coverings besides tools of every description including power drills and many accessories. "Do-It-Yourself" is a booming business; all these shops do a roaring trade and look like continuing to do so. Probably the main reason for the craze is the high cost of present-day labor and the shortage of building firms willing to do small jobs. Why did people employ professional workers to decorate homes thirty years ago? A) Because they could not do it themselves. B) Because professional workers were very cheap. C) Because they had no time. D) Because professional workers could do much better.
B
(Question)
Tattoos and body piercings have moved up on the trend list in recent years. Around Western schools lots of teens are sporting new holes and "flesh ink" . As with all other subjects, the Chinese will surely have to deal with this situation with respect to their children. To get a better view of what has happened in the West, 1et's sit down and hear what they say. Tiara from Indiana: I personally think body piercing is sickening. If there were supposed to be holes in your body,you would have been born with them. I do,however,think that ear piercing is not wrong. There is a difference between ear piercing and belly button piercing. Ear piercing is not nearly as dangerous. I would be sick if someone stuck a needle in my belly button. Lee from Illinois: Hi! I live in Illinois. I am 23. I have 12 tattoos and three piercings. I love my tattoos and consider myself an art collector. You would be surprised at who has given me the thumbs up on my art work. People on the street stop me to look at the tattoo on my leg. Most of them don't know what it is. They just think the work itself is great. Subotai from California: I'm not forbidden of self-expression,but when I see high school students getting these piercings, I really wonder. In some cases, the drive is deeper and darker than mere fashion. A friend of mine tried piercing her own tongue with a safety pin. It got infected and she had a tongue the size of a cow's. Jackson from Ohio: I don't think it is wrong, but when people do it all over the place like their face and everything--I think that's ridiculous. People who get the big "dragons that cover the whole body--I don't think that's necessary." When I see naked chicks on guys, I think, "You have no respect for women." The best title for this passage is probably _ . A) Body Art or Causing Damage B) Doing Damage to the Young People's Bodies C) Young People's Different Curiosities D) The Latest Fashion
(Answer)
A
Ques: Generations of children grew up reading comic books secretly, hiding out from parents and teachers who saw them as a waste of time and a risk to young minds. Comics are now gaining a new respectability at school. That is thanks to an increasingly popular and creative program, often aimed at struggling readers, that encourages children to plot, write and draw comic books, in many cases using themes from their own lives. The Comic Book Project was started in 2001 by Michael Bitz at an elementary school in Queens. Since its creation, the program, which is mainly conducted after school, has spread to more than 850 schools across the country. It has gotten a big push from the craze among teenagers for comic book clubs and for Manga, a wildly popular variety of comic from Japan. The point is not to drop a comic book on a child's desk and say "read this". Rather, the workshops give groups of students the opportunity to work together on stories and characters that they then revise, publish and share with others in their communities. Teachers are finding it easier to teach writing and grammar with material that students are fully invested in . And it turns out that comic books have other built-in advantages. The pairing of visual and written plotlines that they rely on appear to be especially helpful to struggling readers. No one is suggesting that comic books should take the place of traditional books or for standard reading and composition lessons. Teachers who would once have dismissed comics out of hand are learning to use a style that clearly has a powerful hold on young minds. They are using what works. The main purpose of the Comic Book Project is to _ . A) develop the cooperation among teenagers B) make sure that students live a rich and color1ful life after school C) help students who have some difficulty in reading D) popularize a new method of teaching
Ans: D
Ques: If you were given a chance to choose your favorite life metaphor , what would it be? Do you agree with Forrest Gump's mother that life is "a box of chocolates" because "you never know what you're going to get"? Or do you prefer the phrase from the 1930's song that "life is just a bowl of cherries "? Though simply stated, each conveys a very different view. A "box" implies mystery, because we don't know what is in a closed box. Meanwhile, a "bowl" of cherries is completely in view. For many centuries, the metaphor of life that probably burst into most people's mind was the one suggested by Shakespeare: "All of life is a stage..." On that stage, we take seven roles. More recently, psychologist Erik Erikson took up the idea of life as a stage. Erikson regarded development as a "powerful unfolding" in which we are driven from one stage to the next as our bodies, minds, and social roles develop. Stage metaphors fit with many of our common-sense ideas about change, but the problem with the stage metaphor is that it isn't particularly accurate. None of the studies that try to clarify the universality of adult life stages actually studied people as they developed over time. All of them were based on performances of their samples at one point in time. People's actual lives don't fit into these stage metaphors. They don't automatically transform when people reach a certain age. Instead, people's real lives are messy, unpredictable, and full of surprises. Today, I'd like to focus on an even longer study, an 80-year study which is the subject of a recent book by Howard Friedman and Leslie Martin. Their final chapter summarizes the "many changes of healthy and unhealthy pathways" that their participants took over the course of their lives. As I too discovered in my research, the pathway provides a perfect metaphor of human development. We don't all go down the same road marked with the same signposts based on age. People travel through diverse routes as they track the years of adulthood. Friedman and Martin use health... When a person is facing difficulties bravely, which metaphor can best describe him? A) "Not Easy Street" B) "Happy Trails to You" C) "Catastrophe Lane" D) "The Road to Resilience"
Ans:
D