单选题 Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay on the importance of being a civilized tourist. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.

单选题It is not unusual today for old people to spoil their grandchildren with toys and sweets and to 29 to their aggressive demands. It is natural that old people adore (爱) their grandchildren, but is not normal that this adoration should go so far as to create little emperors and empresses. Such adoration has a 30 effect on the children's personalities and moral standards. A survey of 152 such families found that 88 percent of grandparents admitted that they tended to yield to their grandchildren's every request, especially if the children had resorted to tears. It seems that when children are told off by their parents or teachers, their elder relatives interfere protecting and comforting the children. When the children are 31 to do some family chores (杂务), 59 percent of the old people said they would invariably (总是) do it for them. Some grandparents would even go to 32 to sweep floors and wash windows for their grandchildren. It has become usual that when little boys and girls get good 33 in examinations, their grandparents reward them. As a result, the children have come to take these favours for granted (认为……是理所当然) and have become less 34 towards others. Parents and teachers have all appealed to old people to be 35 for the sake of future generations. The problems of these spoiled children can be 36 . First, parents and grandparents should understand that their 37 is to train the children to become both self-controlled and self-dependent. Second, they should allow the children to be more independent. And third, young parents should 38 with the old instead of leaving the grandparents entirely responsible to raise the children. A. beneficial I. quarrel B. considerate J. required C. cooperate K. school D. information L. sensible E. marks M. solved F. negative N. task G. participated O. yield H. precisely

单选题 The quality of patience goes a long way toward your goal of creating a more peaceful and loving self. The more patient you are, the more accepting you will be of what life is, rather than insisting that life be exactly as you would like it to be. Without patience, life is extremely frustrating. You are easily annoyed, bothered, and irritated. Patience adds a dimension of ease and acceptance to your life. It's essential for inner peace. Becoming more patient involves opening your heart to the present moment, even if you don't like it. If you are stuck in a traffic jam, late for an appointment, being patient would mean keeping yourself from building a mental snowball before your thinking get out of hand and gently reminding yourself to relax. It might also be a good time to breathe as well as an opportunity to remind yourself that, in the bigger scheme of things, being late is 'small stuff'. Patience is a quality of heart that can be greatly enhanced with deliberate practice. An effective way that I have found to deepen my own patience is to create actual practice periods—periods of time that I set up in my mind to practice the art of patience. Life itself becomes a classroom, and the curriculum is patience. You can start with as little as five minutes and build up your capacity for patience over time. What you'll discover is truly amazing. Your intention to be patient, especially if you know it's only for a short while, immediately strengthens your capacity for patience. Patience is one of those special qualities where success feeds on itself. Once you reach little milestone (里程碑)—five minutes of successful patience—you'll begin to see that you do indeed have the capacity to be patient, even for longer periods of time. Over time, you may even become a patient person. Being patient will help you to keep your perspective. You'll see even a difficult situation, say your present challenge, isn't 'life or death' but simply a minor obstacle that must be dealt with. Without patience, the same scenario can become a major emergency complete with yelling, frustration, hurt feelings, and high blood pressure.

单选题 How Much Can an Extra Hour's Sleep Change You? A. The average Briton gets six-and-a-half hours' sleep a night, according to the Sleep Council. Michael Mosley took part in an unusual experiment to see if this is enough. It has been known for some time that the amount of sleep people get has, on average, declined over the years. This has happened for a whole range of reasons, not least because we live in a culture where people are encouraged to think of sleep as a luxury—something you can easily cut back on. After all, that's what caffeine is for—to jolt you back into life. But while the average amount of sleep we are getting has fallen, rates of obesity and diabetes have soared. Could the two be connected? B. We wanted to see what the effect would be of increasing average sleep by just one hour. So we asked seven volunteers, who normally sleep anywhere between six and nine hours, to be studied at the University of Surrey's Sleep Research Centre. The volunteers were randomly allocated to two groups. One group was asked to sleep for six-and-a-half hours a night, the other got seven-and-a-half hours. After a week the researchers took blood tests and the volunteers were asked to switch sleep patterns. The group that had been sleeping six-and-a-half hours got an extra hour, the other group slept an hour less. C. While we were waiting to see what effect this would have, I went to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford to learn more about what actually happens when we sleep. In the Sleep Centre, they fitted me up with a portable electro-encephalograph, a device that measures brain wave activity. Then, feeling slightly ridiculous, I went home and had my seven-and-a-half hours of sleep. D. The following day ! went to discuss what had happened inside my head during the night with Dr. Katharina Wulff. The first thing she pointed out was that I had very rapidly fallen into a state of deep sleep. Deep sleep sounds restful, but during it our brains are actually working hard. One of the main things the brain is doing is moving memories from short-term storage into long-term storage, allowing us more short-term memory space for the next day. If you don't get adequate deep sleep then these memories will be lost. E. You might think: 'I'll cut back during the week and then make up for it at the weekend.' Unfortunately it doesn't work like that, because memories need to be consolidated within 24 hours of being formed. Since deep sleep is so important for consolidating memories it is a good idea if you are revising or perhaps taking an exam to make sure that you're getting a reasonable night's sleep. In one study, people who failed to do so did 40% worse than their contemporaries. Deep sleep only lasts for a few hours. F. My electrode results showed that during the night my brain went through multiple phases of another kind of activity, called REM sleep. 'This is the phase when you are usually paralyzed—so you can't move,' Wulff explained. 'But the eye muscles are not paralyzed, and that's why it's called rapid eye movement sleep.' During REM sleep an extraordinary thing happens. One of the stress-related chemicals in the brain, noradrenalin, is switched off. It's the only time, day or night, this happens. It allows us to remain calm while our brains reprocess all the experiences of the day, helping us come to terms with particularly emotional events. We get more REM sleep in the last half of the night. Which means that if you are woken unexpectedly, your brain may not have dealt with all your emotions—which could leave you stressed and anxious. Drinking alcohol late at night is not a good idea as it reduces your REM sleep while it's being processed in your body. G. Back at the University of Surrey our sleep volunteers had finished their second week of the experiment. What we wanted to see was the effect switching from six-and-a-half hours to seven-and-a-half hours, or vice versa, would have on our volunteers. H. Computer tests revealed that most of them struggled with mental agility tasks when they had less sleep, but the most interesting results came from the blood tests that were run. Dr. Simon Archer and his team at Surrey University were particularly interested in looking at the genes that were switched on or off in our volunteers by changes in the amount that we had made them sleep. 'We found that overall there were around 500 genes that were affected,' Archer explained. 'Some which were going up, and some which were going down.' What they discovered is that when the volunteers cut back from seven-and-a-half to six-and-a-half hours' sleep a night, genes that are associated with processes like inflammation, immune response and response to stress became more active. The team also saw increases in the activity of genes associated with diabetes and risk of cancer. The reverse happened when the volunteers added an hour of sleep. I. So the clear message from this experiment was that if you are getting less than seven hours' sleep a night and can alter your sleep habits, even just a little bit, it could make you healthier. 'Have a lie-in, it will do you good'—that's the kind of health message that doesn't come along very often.

单选题 从明朝开始，小说作为一种文学形式全面展现出它的社会功能和文学价值。明朝和清朝早期的小说代表了中国古典小说的最高峰(pinnacle)，实现了展示新的文化价值观和知识分子情怀(intellectual concerns)的新突破。这一时期最成功的文学作品是四大名著，即《三国演义》《水浒传》《西游记》和《红楼梦》。从明清时期开始，四大名著就直接或间接地通过戏剧和其他流行文化形式广为中国人所知。

单选题Over the last two years, in the PC business Michael Dell has been beaten like a rented mule. His company continues to lose market 25 particularly in the U.S. Industry analysts would say that Dell has done a poor job of bringing out 26 and attractive products. Apple Mac sales keep rising. HP, Sony, and Lenovo have 27 new product lines which have had warm 28 . Dell's core business is being hit by three things. The first is that the company was fairly late at 29 into retail outlets (零售店) overseas. It 30 on its direct sales model for too long. The second problem is that the recession has 31 Dell's sales. Dell's final problem is that it cannot find the right people to run the company. It 32 dumped most of the senior management that it hired just over a year ago. It takes time for new people to get up to speed. Word has gotten out that Dell plans to launch its own high-end smartphone. Dell does not do well what it is supposed to do well. It has become a second rate PC company. It proposes to partially offset that by entering a business which is controlled by Apple and RIM, the maker of the Blackberry. Because smartphone margins are high, Nokia, the world largest cellphone company, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson are also 33 into the market. The traffic jam is going to be 34 . So Dell can't win in the handset business. What it ought to do is to try to improve its PC business. A. receptions E. targeting I. comprehensive M. expanding B. depended F. innovative J. recently N. consequently C. share G. launched K. rushing O. cut D. extraordinary H. declined L. expressions

单选题 Caring for Elderly Parents Catches Many Unprepared A．Last July, Julie Baldocchi's mother had a massive stroke and was paralyzed. Baldocchi suddenly had to become a family caregiver, something that she wasn't prepared for. 'I was flying by the seat of my pants,' says Baldocchi, an employment specialist in San Francisco. Both of her parents are 83, and she knew her father couldn't handle her mother's care. The hospital recommended putting her mother in a nursing home. Baldocchi wasn't willing to do that. But moving her back into her parents' home created other problems. Baldocchi, 48, is married and lives about a mile away from her parents. She has a full-time job and has back problems that make it difficult for her to lift her mother. 'I couldn't do it all,' she says. 'But I didn't even know how to find help.' B．With help from the Family Caregiver Alliance, she eventually hired a live-in caregiver. 'But even if you plan intellectually and legally, you're never ready for the emotional impact,' Baldocchi says. In the first two months after her mother's stroke, she lost about 30 pounds as stress mounted. More than 42 million Americans provide family caregiving for an adult who needs help with daily activities, according to a 2009 survey by the AARP. An additional 61.6 million provided at least some care during the year. And many are unprepared. C．While many parents lack an advance care directive, it's the most basic and important step they can take. The directive includes several parts, including: a durable power of attomey, which gives someone legal authority to make financial decisions on another's behalf; a health care proxy, which is similar to the power of attorney, except it allows someone to make decisions regarding medical treatment; and a living will that outlines instructions for end-of-life care. (For example, parents can say if they want to be kept alive by artificial measures.) 'It's invaluable for the kids, because it's hard to make those decisions for a parent,' says Jennifer Cona, an elder-law attorney at Genser Dubow Genser Cona in Melville, N.Y. An advance care directive is the first line of defense if a situation arises, says Kathleen Kelly, executive director of the Family Caregiver Alliance, which supports and educates caregivers. Without an advance directive, the family will have to petition the court to be appointed the parent's legal guardian, says AgingCare.com. D．It's important for families to talk about Iong-term care so the adult children know their parents' preferences, wishes and goals, says Lynn Feinberg, a caregiving expert at AARP. But it's not an easy conversation. Elderly parents are sometimes suspicious of their children's financial motives, says Susan John, a financial planner at Financial Focus in Wolfeboro, N.H. One client asked John to hold a family meeting because they needed an intermediary to talk about financial issues, she says. And when there are many siblings, the family decisions can become a three-ring circus with much acrimony, says Ann-Margaret Carrozza, an elder-law attorney in Glen Cove, N.Y. Families who need information and help sorting out disagreements can call on elder-law attorneys, financial planners, geriatric care managers and caregiver support groups. In February, AARP said it will offer its members a new caregiving support service through financial services firm Genworth. E．Many families are unprepared for quick decisions, especially when they find out that Medicare doesn't pay for long-term care, Feinberg says. The median cost of a year in a private room at a nursing home in 2011 was $77,745, according to Genworth. And only those who have spent most of their assets can qualify for Medicaid to pay for the nursing home. F．Assisted living is another option. Residents can have their own apartment to maintain some independence. But the facilities generally provide personal care services, such as meals, housekeeping and assistance with activities. Still, it's not cheap: The national median cost in 2011 was $39,135, according to Genworth. Assisted living isn't covered by Medicaid. G．If they have a choice, at least 90% of elderly parents prefer to stay at home as long as they can, according to AARP research. But if the parents can no longer safely live at home, it can be hard for children to move them into an adult care facility. There may be another option. Sometimes the home can be modified so a parent can stay there. For example, Baldocchi put in a chair lift for her mother. She also arranged for a home caregiver. H．Family caregivers take over many responsibilities. One might manage a parent's finances, while another sibling will take the parent to doctors' appointments and shopping. Those who move in with a parent take on a significant and sustained burden of care. Jan Walker moved into her mother's home in Leesburg, Fla. After her mother, who is 83, had fallen, she wasn't able to get around as well. Walker, 55, has three brothers. But she is the only daughter, is divorced and has no children. 'I always knew that this was the role that I would have, and I guess my mind was prepared for it,' says Walker, who now is a full time caregiver and works from home as a tutorial instructor for a digital scrapbooking website. 'When you get into the trenches, it's literally baptism by fire,' she says. 'New things come up. It's not just about advance planning for finances or medical care. It's everything,' she says. I．Caregivers need to also watch their own health. 'There is such a thing as caregiver burnout,' Cona says. Among female caregivers 50 and older, 20% reported symptoms of depression, according to a 2010 study on working caregivers by MetLife. 'It's a hard job,' Walker says. 'But most worthwhile things are hard. She was always there for me when I needed a helping hand. It's only natural that I be here for her now.'

单选题 It is easier to negotiate initial salary requirement because once you are inside, the organizational constraints (约束) influence wage increases. One thing, however, is certain: your chances of getting the raise you feel you deserve are less if you don't at least ask for it. Men tend to ask for more, and they get more, and this holds true with other resources, not just pay increases. Consider Beth's story: I did not get what I wanted when I did not ask for it. We had cubicle (小隔间) offices and window offices. I sat in the cubicles with several male colleagues. One by one they were moved into window offices, while I remained in the cubicles. Several males who were hired after me also went to offices. One in particular told me he was next in line for an office and that it .had been part of his negotiations for the job. I guess they thought me content to stay in the cubicles since I did not voice my opinion either way. It would be nice if we all received automatic pay increases equal to our merit, but 'nice' isn't a quality attributed to most organizations. If you feel you deserve a significant raise in pay, you'll probably have to ask for it. Performance is your best bargaining chip (筹码) when you are seeking a raise. You must be able to demonstrate that you deserve a raise. Timing is also a good bargaining chip. If you can give your boss something he or she needs (a new client or a sizable contract, for example) just before merit pay decisions are being made, you are more likely to get the raise you want. Use information as a bargaining chip too. Find out what you are worth on the open market. What will someone else pay for your services? Go into the negotiations prepared to place your chips on the table at the appropriate time and prepared to use communication style to guide the direction of the interaction.

单选题 Is language, like food, a basic human need without which a child at a critical period of life can be starved and damaged? Judging from the drastic experiment of Frederick in the thirteenth century, it may be. Hoping to discover what language a child would speak if he heard no mother tongue, he told the nurses to keep silent. All the infants died before the first year. But clearly there was more than lack of language here. What was missing was good mothering. Without good mothering, in the first year of life especially, the capacity to survive is seriously affected. Today no such severe lack exists as that ordered by Frederick. Nevertheless, some children are still backward in speaking. Most often the reason for this is that the mother is insensitive to the signals of the infant, whose brain is programmed to learn language rapidly. If these sensitive periods are neglected, the ideal time for acquiring skills passes and they might never be learned so easily again. A bird learns to sing and to fly rapidly at right time, but the process is slow and hard once the critical stage has passed. Experts suggest that speech stages are reached in a fixed sequence and at a constant age, but there are cases where speech has started late in a child who eventually turns out to be of high IQ. At twelve weeks a baby smiles and utters vowel-like sounds; at twelve months he can speak simple words and understand simple commands; at eighteen months he has a vocabulary of three to fifty words. At three he knows about 1,000 words which he can put into sentences, and at four his language differs from that of his parents in style rather than grammar. Recent evidence suggests that an infant is born with the capacity to speak. What is special about man's brain, compared with that of the monkey, is the complex system which enables a child to connect the sight and feel of, say, a teddy-bear with the sound pattern 'teddy-bear'. And even more incredible is the young brain's ability to pick out an order in language from the mixture of sound around him, to analyze, to combine and recombine the parts of a language in new ways. But speech has to be induced, and this depends on interaction between the mother and the child, where the mother recognizes the signals in the child's babbling, grasping and smiling, and responds to them. Insensitivity of the mother to these signals dulls the interaction because the child gets discouraged and sends out only the obvious signals. Sensitivity to the child's non-verbal signals is essential to the growth and development of language.

单选题 在清明节的饮食方面，各地有不同的节令食品。由于寒食节(Cold Food Festival)与清明节合二为一的关系，一些地方还保留着清明节吃冷食的习惯。在山东，即墨吃鸡蛋和冷饽饽。据说吃了眼睛明亮。晋南人过清明时，习惯用白面蒸大馍，中间夹有核桃、枣儿、豆子，外面盘成龙形，龙身中间扎一个鸡蛋，名为“子福”。要蒸一个很大的总“子福”，象征全家团圆幸福。上坟时，将总“子福”献给祖灵，扫墓完毕后全家分食之。

单选题 有人说，阅读决定着一个民族思维的深度和广度，对文化传承、国家发展有着重要的意义。已有专家指出，如果仅仅满足于“浅阅读”，对于国家和人民将是灾难性的。这就是为什么在高科技浪潮中，很多网络发达的国家反而更强调传统式阅读。近年来，很多国家都把提倡阅读、提升阅读能力列为教育改革的重点，通过实施这些措施努力唤起“深阅读”。