The Linguistic Habits of a New Generation In the year of 1914 a young girl named Monica Baldwin entered a convent ,remaining there until 1941 when she returned to the outer world. During these twenty-eight years wars and revolutions had come and gone in Europe. Her uncle, Stanley Baldwin, had led his country for some time. Technical developments had changed the conditions of everyday life almost beyond recognitions, but all these events had left as a matter of fact untouched the small religious community to which she had belonged. In 1949 Miss Baldwin published her impressions of those bewildering years of her return to a world in which the motorcar had replaced the horse and carriage and where respectable women showed their legs and painted their faces. Yet it was not only these odd sights that surprised her, for she was more puzzled by what she heard. During a railway journey the term "luggage in advance" meant nothing to her, so in desperation she asked the porter to do as he thought best. Reading the newspapers made her feel very stupid, because the writers of reviews and leading articles used words and phrases such as Jazz,prefix = st1 /Hollywood, Cocktail and Isolationism. These and many others were quite incomprehensible to Miss Baldwin, who was really bewildered when friends said: "It's your funeral or Believe it or not." This is a rare and valuable reminder to the rest of us that the English language does not stand still. All language changes over a period of time for reasons which are imperfectly understood. Or rather since speech is really a form of human activity, it is more exact to say that each successive generation behaves linguistically in a slightly different manner from its predecessors(,). In his teens the young man likes to show how up-to-date he is by the use of the latest slang , but as the years go by some of his slang becomes standard usage and in any case he slowly grows less receptive to linguistic novelties(,),so that by the time he reaches his forties he will... By the time a man is forty, he will_. A) be speaking the same language as his parents do B) have changed his way of speaking C) not use the slang he liked to use when young D) be using less new slang in speech and writing
D
Once upon a time there was a monster . He was very ugly and had no friends. No one wanted to talk to him. Even other monsters thought he was ugly. He lived alone and was very unhappy because he was so lonely. "I wish I had a friend." He said to himself every day, "One friend would be enough. Someone to talk to." He wrote a letter to a magazine. The magazine gave people advice. "Dear Editor," he wrote, "I am a ugly monster. How can I find a friend?" "Dear monster," the Editor replied, "Advertise for a friend in this magazine." The monster wrote an advertisement. "Monster wants a friend, male or female. I have two heads, four arms, six legs and three tails. I have one blue eye, one green eye and one brown eye. Smoke comes out of my nose. But I am really a kind monster and will be a good friend to someone. If you would like to meet me, please stand outside Blake's Store at 6 p.m. on Friday, May 7th. Write to Mr. A, Box 45, everybody's Magazine." A few days later he went to the magazine. "Do you have any letters for Box 45?" he asked. The clerk looked in Box 45. "Yes, there is one." She said, and gave it to him. The monster opened the letter, and read, "Dear Monster, I think a person's character is more important than his appearance. I will wait outside Blake's Store on Friday. Please carry a flower so that I will recognize you. Yours sincerely, Miss Alice Thwaite." How did the monster describe him in the advertisement? A) Ugly B) Lonely C) Kind D) Good-looking
C
Q: Fair Way The Westborough High School golf team had taken the official photos with the state prize. The other teams, disappointed, were on the bus heading home. And then Westborough instructor Greg Rota noticed something wrong on one of the score cards. A 9 had been recorded as A 7. They were not the state prize winner; Woburn High had won. "No one would have known," said Woburn's instructor, Bob Doran. For Rota, it wasn't a difficult decision: "The prize wasn't ours to take." Coin Stars "College students are lazy, but they also want to help," says University of Pennsylvania graduate Dana Hork. So she made it easy, placing cups in rooms where students could leave their spare coins, and handing out cups to first-year students to keep in their homes. Her " for Change" effort has collected $40,000 for charities, which were decided upon by students. Never Forgotten A school in Massachusetts received a $9.5 million check from Jacques LeBermuth. But it took officials several days of digging to discover his connection to the school. Records showed the LeBermuth came from Belgium and studied in the school in the 1920s. When his family fell on hard times, he was offered free room and board. LeBermuth became a trader, owned shares of AT&T and lived off the earnings until he died, at age 89. What did Greg Rota probably do in the end? A) Took photos of Doran. B) Had a meeting with Doran. C) Returned the prize to the organizer. D) Apologized to Woburn High School.
A: C
(Q).
Travelling abroad for leisure is becoming more and more popular for Chinese. The UK is high up in the list of places that the Chinese want to visit. There is a sense of mystery about the UK; it's often the images of England's green parks, countryside and Victorian houses that people point to as an alternative to polluted, overcrowded cities such as Beijing and Guangzhou. The capital is viewed as modern and dynamic, while being filled deep with history. When asked what other images are thought of by the UK, the reply is often "the Queen, tea and Oxbridge". So what's stopping them actually coming? Sebastian Wood ,the British ambassador in Beijing, has described the UK as a _ , and while this is perhaps an exaggeration ,Britain does have a reputation as a country that is harder to access. The main problem for Chinese tourists is obvious. Although visa applications are now completed online, visitors are still required to visit one of 12 UK centers across the country for a face-to-face interview and fingerprinting. If you don't live near one of these enters already, you'd have to travel some distance to get there. Another problem is also to be mentioned. If travelers from China visit the UK, they also want to cover as much ground as possible. But the UK is not included in the Schengen visa, which allows access to a host of 26 European countries such as France and Germany. So it makes the former seem a less worth it. There is also the issue of cost: PS47 for a Schengen visa, PS82 for the UK. On top of this, the UK is viewed as stricter in its handing of visas compared with the rest of Europe, fed by urban legends of rejected applications. In the end, the decision comes down to one question: Is Britain worth a visit? What can a visitor do if he gets a Schengen visa? A) He can only visit the UK. B) He can only visit 26 European countries. C) He can visit the UK and France. D) He can travel to any country he likes.
(A).
B