CAREFUL READING
Read the following passages carefully. Decide on the best answer and choose the corresponding letter. 

     The teenage years of an individual is marked by evaluating one’s values, experiencing a shift in outlooks, and a tendency to act rebelliously. It can also be a time when someone becomes excessively vulnerable to negative influences and inclined towards dangerous situations. On the other hand, for parents the period of their children’s adolescence means regular worrying about their safety and formation as a citizen. Thus, a method of ensuring teenagers' security is needed, and curfews are often seen as such a measure, since they have proved their efficiency. At the same time, certain peculiarities exist about establishing curfews for children.
     The first and foremost reason for establishing curfews is children's security. Typical curfews require that teenagers under 17 years stay out of streets starting from 11pm or midnight. This is believed to protect them from crimes committed after nightfall, as well as from violating the law, and there exists serious evidence in favor of this conviction. For example, when New Orleans enabled a dusk-till-dawn curfew in 1994, the rates of juvenile （青少年的）crime were reported to fall more than 20 percent. Even more impressive results were recorded in Dallas, which reported a 30 percent decrease in violent juvenile crime, and a 21 percent decrease in the overall rates of crimes committed by young people.

     On the other hand, curfews can be seen as a preventive measure which infringes on（侵害）the rights of young people, limiting their freedom. This thesis is particularly supported by the fact that curfew violations and the respective charges are among the most often committed juvenile crimes in the United States. In addition, there were reports claiming that police arrested more non-white teenagers for curfew violations. All this can cause a teenager to believe that they have crossed a psychological line dividing them as criminals； thus, such teenagers may start to see themselves as outlaws, which can contribute to committing more serious crimes than a curfew offense.
     What is important for a parent to remember when establishing a curfew for their kids is that a teenager's misjudged perception of certain rules may cause them to react differently, or misbehave in some other way； this is proved by research conducted by the University of Minnesota, according to which teens tend to react angrily against what they see as unfair. Considering this, parents should avoid the authoritarian（独断专行的）style of establishing curfews; instead, they should have a conversation with their teenager that would be aimed at finding best conditions for a curfew that would satisfy both sides. Also, flexible curfews with teens' interests in mind tend to be more effective than rigid agreements.

CAREFUL READING
Read the following passages carefully. Decide on the best answer and choose the corresponding letter.
     One simple solution to the gender pay gap is that if women don't like how much they're being paid by their employers, they should simply quit their jobs and work for themselves.That makes me laugh out loud. Research shows that in 2016 self-employed men earned an average of ₤363 per week, while their female counterparts earned a third less at ₤243.
     The reality is that women in self-employment run into exactly the same problems that those working for someone else's business do. First, numerous self-employed women are in sectors which are traditionally lower paid, like caring and cleaning professions. Then, there is the belief that women tend to ask for less than men, and so they are simply paid less. A 2016 academic study showed that in employment both men and women would treat a female asking for a pay rise differently from a male. Although they might get the raise, the company would tend to hold it against them and see them as difficult or demanding. This instinctive reaction teaches women that they can ask for money but it's going to be difficult experience and they're going to be resented for it.
     For me, however, the greatest reason for the pay gap in self-employment is the motivation behind striking out on your own. For men, the most common reason is because they want to be their own boss, for women it's because they want a better work-life balance. Women have a level of caring responsibilities that traditional employment doesn't allow them to meet. There's also the reality that childcare is expensive, and support for this doesn't kick in for a few years. Women looking at sacrificing their entire salary simply to pay someone else to look after their child might think they're better off working for themselves.
     We're only going to see more of this as caring responsibilities grow. We know that women are hit by double-bind (双重约束) of children and ageing parents, that it's more difficult for them to re-enter the workplace after taking time out for children, and that they're more likely to prioritize flexibility over money.
     You might say that these are choices that women make, and that if they choose to make them then they have to accept they earn less. But what would happen if they didn't make these choices? If no one looked after their children or ageing parents?
     Self-employed women are doing the same juggling (同时做多件事情的) act their employed peers are doing, and they're being punished for it in the same way. The gender pay gap doesn't disappear because you work for yourself—it only widens.

CAREFUL READING
Read the following passages carefully. Decide on the best answer and choose the corresponding letter.

     As those people on board the Mayflower settled on the Atlantic coast in 1620, they did not have to wait for roads to be built to receive passengers and produce from the other parts of the world or to send out their produce in exchange. Safe harbors-Boston, New York, Savannah-open on ready-made highways to the whole world. The spacious holds of ships that brought settlers could send out furs and corn and rice and tobacco. An elegant London-made coach could be delivered directly to George Washington’s dock at Mount Vernon on the Potomac River. 
     The English who settled the thirteen American colonies were not the first Europeans to start colonies in America. Adventurers from Spain and Portugal, France and the Netherlands, along with others, had long been competing for treasures of faraway places. A century before the Puritans came to New England, the bold Hernando Cortés, with only two hundred men, conquered the armed hordes（群） of the Aztec empire. In two years（1519-21）he had made Mexico a colony of Spain. Ten years later, Francisco Pizarro, a Spanish who enjoyed adventures and sword-fighting but could not even write his name, overcame the grand Inca empire and added Peru to the realm of Spanish king. These Spanish conquerors were as ruthless and as courageous as any who could ever set foot on the Americas. They aimed to convert the Indians to Christianity and brought fairs（修道士）to help them. But they were better at robbing than converting. They lived and died for gold and glory. They had no desire to settle down with their families as hardworking farmers. 
     In 1620, when the sober William Bradford and the prudent（谨慎的）John Winthrop came to” New” England, they had another idea. They came not for gold and glory but to build homes for themselves, their children, and their grandchildren. They aimed to make a “city upon a hill” for all the world to admire. Theirs was not a violent adventure of conquest but a long-lasting tale of building. They were a bit kinder to the Indians than the Spanish conquerors had been. One of them, John Eliot, set a friendly example and even translated the Bible into the Algonquian Indian language. The Indians in New England were few in number and had no riches of gold or silver to tempt the newcomers. But they had much to teach the colonists - how to survive in the wilderness, how to hunt, and what would grow. The English colonists planted themselves and put down roots in the New World.

 CAREFUL READING
Read the following passages carefully. Decide on the best answer and blacken the corresponding letter on the ANSWER SHEET.

     I was supposed to have been a nice, church-going Swiss housewife, but I ended up a psychiatrist in the American Southwest for my belief in the power of unconditional love that set me to work with AIDS-infected patients.
     I was destined to work with dying patients, I had no choice when I encountered my first AIDS patient. I felt called to travel some 250,000 miles each year to hold workshops that helped people cope with the most painful aspects of life, death and the transition between the two.
     Later in my life, I was compelled to buy a 300-acre farm in rural Virginia, and I poured all the money I earned from publishing and lectures into making it a reality. I constructed a healing center where I held workshops, allowing me to cut down on my busy travel schedule. I was planning to adopt AIDS-infected babies, who would enjoy however many days remained of their lives in the splendor of the outdoors. After announcing my intention of adopting AIDS-infected babies, I became the most despised(厌恶) person in the whole Shenandoah Valley, and even though I soon abandoned my plans, there was a group of men who did everything in their power short of killing me to get me to leave. They fired bullets through my windows and shot at my animals.
     The simple life on the farm was everything to me. The fields rolled out as far as I could see. Ancient trees offered their silent wisdom.
     Then, on October 6, 1994, my house was set on fire. It burned down to the ground and all my papers were destroyed. Everything I owned turned to ash.
     I was hurrying through the airport in Baltimore, trying to catch a plane home, when I got the news that it was on fire. The friend who told me begged me not to go home, not yet. But my whole life I had been told not to become a doctor, not to talk with dying patients, not to start an AIDS hospice(临终养老院), and each time I had stubbornly(倔强地)done what felt right rather than what was expected.
     That is how I have lived. If I am opinionated and independent, if I am stuck in my ways so what? That is me.

CAREFUL READING

Read the following passages carefully. Decide on the best answer.

     If it were only necessary to decide whether to teach elementary science to everyone on a mass basis or to find the gifted few and take them as far as they can go, our task would be fairly simple. The public school system, however, has no such choice, for the jobs must be carried on at the same time. Because we depend heavily upon science and technology for our progress, we must produce specialists in many fields. Because we live in a democratic nation, whose citizens make the policies for the nation, large numbers of us must be educated to understand, to support, and when necessary, to judge the work of experts. The public school must educate both producers and users of scientific services.
     In education, there should be a good balance among the branches of knowledge that contribute to effective thinking and wise judgment. Such a balance is defeated by too much emphasis on any other field. This question of balance involves not only the relation of the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the arts but also relative emphasis among the natural sciences themselves. 

     Similarly, we must have a balance between current and classical knowledge. The attention of the public is continually drawn to the discovery of new knowledge; it should not be allowed to turn our attention away from the sound, established materials that form the basis of courses for beginners.

SPEED READING
Skim or scan the following passages and then decide on the best answer.
     Arthur Morel was growing up. He was a quick, careless, impulsive boy, a good deal like his father. He hated study, made a great moan if he had to work, and escaped as soon as possible to his sport again.
     In appearance he remained the flower of the family, being well made, graceful, and full of life. His dark brown hair and fresh colouring, and his exquisite dark blue eyes, together with his generous manner and fiery temper (急脾气), made him a favourite. But as he grew older his temper became uncertain. He flew into rages over nothing, seemed unbearably raw and irritable.
     His mother, whom he loved, wearied of him sometimes. He thought only of himself. When he wanted amusement, all that stood in his way he hated, even if it were she. When he was in trouble he moaned to her ceaselessly.
     "Goodness boy!" she said, when he groaned about master who, he said, hated him, "if you don't like it, alter it, and if you can't alter it, put up with it.''
     And his father, whom he had loved and who had worshipped him, he came to detest. As he grew older, Morel fell into a slow ruin. There came over him a look of meanness and of paltriness (微不足道). And when the mean-looking elderly man bullied or ordered the boy about, Arthur was furious. Moreover, Morel's manners got worse and worse, his habits somewhat disgusting.
     "Dirty nuisance!" Arthur would cry, jumping up and going straight out of the house when his father disgusted him. And Morel persisted the more because his children hated it. He seemed to take a kind of satisfaction in disgusting them, and driving them nearly mad, while they were so irritably sensitive at the age of fourteen and fifteen. So that Arthur, who was growing up when his father was degenerate and elderly, hated him worst of all.
     Then, sometimes, the father would seem to feel the contemptuous (藐视的) hatred of his children.
     "There's not a man tries harder for his family!" he would shout. "He does his best for them, and then gets treated like a dog. But I'm not going to stand it, I tell you!"
     As it was, the battle now went on nearly all between father and children, he persisting in his dirty and disgusting ways, just to assert his independence. They hated him.

CAREFUL READING
Read the following passages carefully. Decide on the best answer and blacken the corresponding letter.

     Let us think about what situations people usually see as stressful. I will not touch on health issues，job loss，divorce， and other similar situations. Instead，I want to focus on what I call mood-eaters. By mood-eaters，I mean situations in which we are able to choose our attitude instead of immediately getting stressed.
     According to my observations，many stressful situations are not as serious as they might seem. Here are some common situations that may influence your mood. You texted（发短信）your beloved and she or he did not respond. Your wi-fi connection was down right when you were watching TV series online. Your flight was delayed for an hour. Your boss asked you to stay for two more hours “ just to finish that project off.”
     Of course, these situations can be unpleasant. But what if I told you that you do not need to fight this stress? My choice is not to fight, but to accept and turn the obstacle in my favor. Like in the example with the delayed flight: sure, you might be late, you are nervous, but does it really help the situation if you just sit and wait for the next plane stressfully? When my flights are delayed, I never worry, because I always have some interesting and useful books with me. Or, say, your boss added some additional work to your schedule. This is a nightmare for sure. You have several ways to approach the situation. You can see it as an investment in your reputation; who knows, perhaps your agreement would positively affect your image in your boss' eyes? Or, if the boss abuses you with such requests, this might be your chance to learn how to say “No” in the politest and the most delicate way. You might enjoy working in the completely empty office. You can come up with any other problem-solution scenario.
     Be creative instead of automatically becoming stressed and dissatisfied. What I was trying to tell you is that not any situation we used to call stressful is a stress. To a significant extent, it is your choice how to react to what is going on in your life; it is you who chooses how to behave and what to do. Most people think like this: These situations are bad, so I am going to become upset every time I face one. In reality, all situations are neutral, and only you are responsible for how you feel about them.

CAREFUL READING
Read the following passages carefully. Decide on the best answer and blacken the corresponding letter on the ANSWER SHEET.

     Apart from the numerous benefits and conveniences people around the world can enjoy due to the Internet, there are also multiple drawbacks(缺陷). There is one big problem almost any internet user has encountered at least once in a lifetime-spam(垃圾邮件). Unlike what people might think, spam is not just an annoying but harmless email message. In fact, spam can be a dangerous tool capable of harming its receivers, and should be outlawed.  
     Spam can cause real damage. If you wonder how a mere electronic letter can be harmful, first recall the usual contents of spam letters. Along with commercials and newsletters from electronic shops you have used just once, every email user is also at risk of receiving spam letters advertising pornography (污秽内容), weapons and other questionable content. Although it might be safe in the United States of America, the European Union, and some other western countries, it can be illegal in more religious countries-especially in Islamic states. A citizen of such a country who has received a spam letter with pornography can be thrown in jail for nothing. A person who never looked for such content might be accused of consuming it. This is not to mention child pornography, which is also distributed and advertised through spam messages.
     Having to deal with spam day by day can be stressful. Even though spam messages usually have an"unsubscribe"link, getting off a spammer's list requires a number of actions, such as visiting the website, acknowledging unsubscription, sending confirmation letters,and so on. This might be not a problem in the case of being a target of just several spammers; however, usually Internet users receive dozens of spam messages daily; unsubscribing from each of them is almost impossible. Many AOL users, who are now having hard times dealing with spam, report they are already close to the point when their mailboxes stop working.
     Spam can be harmful in yet another way. Rather often, spam emails contain viruses such as trojans, worms, unblockable ads, and the like. Opening a message with such a program can instantly damage users' computers. Spam is a tool for all kinds of frauds; for example, popular are inheritance frauds when a user receives a personalized and seemingly trustworthy email from a lawyer informing them about inheriting a sum of money, or real estate, and requiring them to send some personal data for a final check.
     Spam often advertises low quality, fake, or misleading products; various self-improvement and plastic surgery services and products are also distributed through spam--no need to say they deal with more harm than use. All these facts speak in favor of the necessity to proclaim spam illegal.

CAREFUL READING

Read the following passages carefully. Decide on the best answer and blacken the corresponding letter on the ANSWER SHEET. 

        Engaging in a hobby like reading a book, making a patchwork quilt or even playing computer games can delay the onset of dementia, a US study suggests. Watching TV, however, does not count—and indeed, spending significant periods of time in front of the box may speed up memory loss, researchers found. Nearly 200 people aged 70 to 89 with mild memory problems were compared with a group who had no impairment. The researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota asked the volunteers about their daily activities within the past year and how mentally active they had been between the age of 50 to 65. Those who had, during middle age, been busy reading, playing games or engaging in craft hobbies like patchworking or knitting were found to have a 40% reduced risk of memory impairment. In later life, those same activities reduced the risk by a rate between 30% and 50%. Those who watched TV for less than 7 hours a day were also 50% less likely to develop memory loss than those who spend longer staring at the screen.

          “This study is exciting because it demonstrates that ageing does not need to be a passive process,” said neuroscientist Dr. Yonas Geda. “By simply engaging in cognitive exercise, you can protect against future memory loss. Of course, the challenge with this type of research is that we are relying on past memories of the subjects(实验对象), therefore we need to confirm these findings with additional research.” Sarah Day, head of public health at the Alzheimer’s Society said, “One million people will develop dementia in the next 10 years so there is a desperate need to find ways to prevent dementia. Exercising and challenging your brain—by learning new skills, doing puzzles such as crosswords, and even learning a new language—can be fun. However, more research, where people are followed up over time, is needed to understand whether these sorts of activities can reduce the risk of dementia.” 

CAREFUL READING

Read the following passages carefully. Decide on the best answer and choose the corresponding letter. 

     A few years ago it was fashionable to speak of a generation gap, a division between young people and their elders. Parents complained that children did not show them proper respect and obedience, while children complained that their parents did not understand them at all. Why did the generation gap suddenly appear? Actually, the generation gap has been around for a long time. Many critics argue that it is built into the fabric of our society.
     One important cause of the generation gap is the opportunity that young people have to choose their own life styles. In more traditional societies, when children grow up, they are expected to live in the same area as their parents, to marry people whom their parents know and approve of, and often to continue the family occupation. In our society, young people often travel great distances for their education, move out of the family home at an early age, marry or live with people whom their parents have never met, and choose occupations different from those of their parents.
     In our upwardly mobile society, parents often expect their children to do better than they did: to find better jobs, to make more money, and to do all the things that they were unable to do. Often, however, the ambitions that parents have for their children are another cause of the division between them. Often, they discover that they have very little in common with each other.
     Finally, the speed at which changes take place in our society is another cause of the gap between the generations. In traditional culture, elderly people are valued for their wisdom, but in our society the knowledge of a lifetime may become obsolete overnight. The young and the old seem to live in two very different worlds, separated by different skills and abilities. 

     No doubt, the generation gap will continue to be a feature of American life for some time to come. Its causes are rooted in the freedoms and opportunities of our society, and in the rapid pace at which society changes.

Word Formation

Complete the following sentence with the proper form of the word in the bracket.

(rich) Overseas students from a wide range of countries provide the opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences，and  the intellectual and social life of the school.

Word Formation

Complete the following sentence with the proper form of the word in the bracket.

(suspicion) The singer was rightly  of meeting me until I reassured him I was not writing about him.

Word Formation

Complete the following sentence with the proper form of the word in the bracket.

(tight) I used my thumbnail to  the screw on my lamp.

Word Formation

Complete the following sentence with the proper form of the word in the bracket.

(experienced) Men appear to shop differently from women simply because they’re men, rather than because they’re  shoppers.

Word Formation

Complete the following sentence with the proper form of the word in the bracket.

(relief) He smoked frequently to his nervous tension.

Word Formation

Complete the following sentence with the proper form of the word in the bracket.

(similar) There is a strong  between a computer virus and a biological virus.

Word Formation

Complete the following sentence with the proper form of the word in the bracket.

(horrify) I was  at the idea of having to give a speech in front of so many people.

Word Formation

Complete the following sentence with the proper form of the word in the bracket.

(complete) In his life, each stage of his development depends on the satisfactory  of the one before.

Word Formation

Complete the following sentence with the proper form of the word in the bracket.

(imply) The new report has far-reaching  for the future of Chinese education.

Word Formation

Complete the following sentence with the proper form of the word in the bracket.

(shock) He’s  at the prevalence of bribery among these officials.