单选题. Questions 6 to 10 are based on Part Two of the interview.6.

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单选题《复合题被拆开情况》　　1 In the town there were two mutes, and they were always together. Early every morning they would come out from the house where they lived and walk arm in arm down the street to work. The

单选题《复合题被拆开情况》 My professor brother and I have an argument about head and heart, about whether he overvalues IQ while I lean more toward EQ. We typically have this debate about people—can you be friends w

单选题. SECTION A MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS PASSAGE ONE (1)At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house. I have thus surveyed the country on every side within a dozen miles of where I live. In imagination I have bought all the farms in succession, for all were to be bought, and I knew their price. I walked over each farmer's premises, tasted his wild apples, discoursed on husbandry with him, took his farm at his price, at any price, mortgaging it to him in my mind; even put a higher price on it—took everything but a deed of it—took his word for his deed, for I dearly love to talk—cultivated it, and him too to some extent, I trust, and withdrew when I had enjoyed it long enough, leaving him to carry it on. This experience entitled me to be regarded as a sort of real-estate broker by my friends. Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the landscape radiated from me accordingly. What is a house but a sedes, a seat? —better if a country seat. I discovered many a site for a house not likely to be soon improved, which some might have thought too far from the village, but to my eyes the village was too far from it. Well, there I might live, I said; and there I did live, for an hour, a summer and a winter life; saw how I could let the years run off, buffet the winter through, and see the spring come in. The future inhabitants of this region, wherever they may place their houses, may be sure that they have been anticipated. An afternoon sufficed to lay out the land into orchard, wood-lot, and pasture, and to decide what fine oaks or pines should be left to stand before the door, and whence each blasted tree could be seen to the best advantage; and then I let it lie, fallow, perchance, for a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone. (2)My imagination carried me so far that I even had the refusal of several farms—the refusal was all I wanted—but I never got my fingers burned by actual possession. The nearest that I came to actual possession was when I bought the Hollowell place, and had begun to sort my seeds, and collected materials with which to make a wheelbarrow to carry it on or off with; but before the owner gave me a deed of it, his wife—every man has such a wife—changed her mind and wished to keep it, and he offered me ten dollars to release him. Now, to speak the truth, I had but ten cents in the world, and it surpassed my arithmetic to tell, if I was that man who bad ten cents, or who had a farm, or ten dollars, or all together. However, I let him keep the ten dollars and the farm too, for I had carried it far enough; or rather, to be generous, I sold him the farm for just what I gave for it, and, as he was not a rich man, made him a present of ten dollars, and still had my ten cents, and seeds, and materials for a wheelbarrow left. I found thus that I had been a rich man without any damage to my poverty. But I retained the landscape, and I have since annually carried off what it yielded without a wheelbarrow. With respect to landscapes, "I am monarch of all I survey. My right there is none to dispute." (3)I have frequently seen a poet withdraw, having enjoyed the most valuable part of a farm, while the crusty farmer supposed that he had got a few wild apples only. Why, the owner does not know it for many years when a poet has put his farm in rhyme, the most admirable kind of invisible fence, has fairly impounded it, milked it, skimmed it, and got all the cream, and left the farmer only the skimmed milk. (4)The real attractions of the Hollowell farm, to me, were: its complete retirement, being, about two miles from the village, half a mile from the nearest neighbor, and separated from the highway by a broad field; its bounding on the river, which the owner said protected it by its fogs from frosts in the spring, though that was nothing to me; the gray color and ruinous state of the house and barn, and the dilapidated fences, which put such an interval between me and the last occupant; the hollow and lichen-covered apple trees, gnawed by rabbits, showing what kind of neighbors I should have; but above all, the recollection I had of it from my earliest voyages up the river, when the house was concealed behind a dense grove of red maples, through which I heard the house-dog bark. I was in haste to buy it, before the proprietor finished getting out some rocks, cutting down the hollow apple trees, and grubbing up some young birches which had sprung up in the pasture, or, in short, had made any more of his improvements. To enjoy these advantages I was ready to carry it on; like Atlas, to take the world on my shoulders—I never heard what compensation he received for that—and do all those things which had no other motive or excuse but that I might pay for it and be unmolested in my possession of it; for I knew all the while that it would yield the most abundant crop of the kind I wanted, if I could only afford to let it alone. But it turned out as I have said. (5)All that I could say, then, with respect to farming on a large scale—I have always cultivated a garden—was, that I had had my seeds ready. Many think that seeds improve with age. I have no doubt that time discriminates between the good and the bad; and when at last I shall plant, I shall be less likely to be disappointed. But I would say to my fellows, once for all, as long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail. (6)Old Cato, whose "De Re Rustica" is my "Cultivator", says—and the only translation I have seen makes sheer nonsense of the passage—"When you think of getting a farm turn it thus in your mind, not to buy greedily; nor spare your pains to look at it, and do not think it enough to go round it once. The oftener you go there the more it will please you, if it is good." I think I shall not buy greedily, but go round and round it as long as I live, and be buried in it first, that it may please me the more at last. PASSAGE TWO (1)Procrastination comes in many disguises. We might resolve to tackle a task, but find endless reasons to defer it. We might prioritize things we can readily tick off our to-do list—answering emails, say—while leaving the big, complex stuff untouched for another day. We can look and feel busy, while artfully avoiding the tasks that really matter. And when we look at those rolling, long-untouched items at the bottom of our to-do list, we can't help but feel a little disappointed in ourselves. (2)The problem is our brains are programmed to procrastinate. In general, we all tend to struggle with tasks that promise future upside in return for efforts we take now. That's because it's easier for our brains to process concrete rather than abstract things, and the immediate hassle is very tangible compared with those unknowable, uncertain future benefits. So the short-term effort easily dominates the long-term upside in our minds—an example of something that behavioral scientists call present bias. (3)How can you become less myopic about your elusive tasks? It's all about rebalancing the cost-benefit analysis: make the benefits of action feel bigger, and the costs of action feel smaller. The reward for doing a pestering task needs to feel larger than the immediate pain of tackling it. (4)To make the benefits of action feel bigger and more real: (5)Visualize how great it will be to get it done. Researchers have discovered that people are more likely to save for their future retirement if they're shown digitally aged photographs of themselves. Why? Because it makes their future self feel more real—making the future benefits of saving also feel more weighty. When we apply a lo-fi version of this technique to any task we've been avoiding, by taking a moment to paint ourselves a vivid mental picture of the benefits of getting it done, it can sometimes be just enough to get us unstuck. So if there's a call you're avoiding or an email you're putting off, give your brain a helping hand by imagining the virtuous sense of satisfaction you'll have once it's done—and perhaps also the look of relief on someone's face as they get from you what they needed. (6)Pre-commit, publicly. Telling people that we're going to get something done can powerfully amplify the appeal of actually taking action, because our brain's reward system is so highly responsive to our social standing. Research has found that it matters greatly to us whether we're respected by others—even by strangers. Most of us don't want to look foolish or lazy to other people. So by daring to say "I'll send you the report by the end of the day" we add social benefits to following through on our promise—which can be just enough to nudge us to bite the bullet. (7)Confront the downside of inaction. Research has found that we're strangely averse to properly evaluating the status quo. While we might weigh the pros and cons of doing something new, we far less often consider the pros and cons of not doing that thing. Known as omission bias, this often leads us to ignore some obvious benefits of getting stuff done. Suppose you're repeatedly putting off the preparation you need to do for an upcoming meeting. You're tempted by more exciting tasks, so you tell yourself you can do it tomorrow (or the day after). But force yourself to think about the downside of putting it off, and you realize that tomorrow will be too late to get hold of the input you really need from colleagues. If you get moving now, you have half a chance of reaching them in time—so finally, your gears creak into action. (8)To make the costs of action feel smaller: (9)Identify the first step. Sometimes we're just daunted by the task we're avoiding. We might have "learnt French" on our to-do list, but who can slot that into the average afternoon? The trick here is to break down big, amorphous tasks into baby steps that you don't feel as effortful. Even better: identify the very smallest first step, something that's so easy that even your present-biased brain can see that the benefits outweigh the costs of effort. So instead of "learn French" you might decide to "email Nicole to ask advice on learning French." Achieve that small goal, and you'll feel more motivated to take the next small step than if you'd continued to beat yourself up about your lack of language skills. (10)Tie the first step to a treat. We can make the cost of effort feel even smaller if we link that small step to something we're actually looking forward to doing. In other words, tie the task that we're avoiding to something that we're not avoiding. For example, you might allow yourself to read lowbrow magazines or books when you're at the gym, because the guilty pleasure helps dilute your brain's perception of the short-term "cost" of exercising. Likewise, you might muster the self-discipline to complete a slippery task if you promise yourself you'll do it in a nice café with a favorite drink in hand. (11)Remove the hidden blockage. Sometimes we find ourselves returning to a task repeatedly, still unwilling to take the first step. We hear a little voice in our head saying, "Yeah, good idea, but...no." At this point, we need to ask that voice some questions, to figure out what's really making it unappealing to take action. This doesn't necessarily require psychotherapy. Patiently ask yourself a few "why" questions—" why does it feel tough to do this?" and "why's that?" —and the blockage can surface quite quickly. Often, the issue is that a perfectly noble competing commitment is undermining your motivation. For example, suppose you were finding it hard to stick to an early morning goal-setting routine. A few "whys" might highlight that the challenge stems from your equally strong desire to eat breakfast with your family. Once you've made that conflict more explicit, it's far more likely you'll find a way to overcome it—perhaps by setting your dally goals the night before, or on your commute into work. (12)So the next time you find yourself mystified by your inability to get important tasks done, be kind to yourself. Recognize that your brain needs help if it's going to be less short-sighted. Try taking at least one step to make the benefits of action loom larger, and one to make the costs of action feel smaller. Your languishing to-do list will thank you. PASSAGE THREE (1)You do not need to play in a band to be part of the burgeoning "gig economy". Nearly everyone has skills or assets they can exploit in their spare time to boost their income—or save money by using one of a new wave of technology-driven services. (2)The market for everything from renting out a spare room or parking space for cash to selling hobby crafts or skills over the Internet is expanding rapidly. Now worth ￡500 million a year, it is expected to grow to ￡9 billion by 2025. Here is how you can participate. PROFIT FROM PROPERTY (3)If you have a spare room in your home, a drive that sits empty or even a garden shed with space not crammed with debris, then there are opportunities to make these dead spaces earn money by finding people who need a room or storage. (4)You can find lodgers through an online marketplace such as gumtree or other online services such as Weroom, mondaytofriday, SpareRoom and EasyRoommate. For those who do not fancy a full-time lodger, then there is the holidaymaker market—with Airbnb and Wimdu among the main options for renting out a room part-time. (5)Homes can also be rented out for film and photography shoots, earning owners between ￡700 and ￡3,000 a day. Location agencies include Shootfactory, Lavish Locations and Amazing Space. Growing demand for space from companies wanting to organize meetings or bonding sessions with fellow workers, who perhaps normally work from home, is another potential gig. (6)A property can prove a valuable asset when offsetting the cost of a holiday. By swapping with other homeowners you can get a free holiday almost anywhere in the world—or earn rental for a home while away. Among the best known of the home-swapping websites are Home Base Holidays, HomeLink, homeforexchange, HomeExchange and Love Home Swap. (7)To rent out your home instead of swapping, consider onefinestay, which does all the hard graft—from preparing your property to rent with toiletries and bed linen, to cleaning once the guests have gone. (8)It is possible to make even the smallest spaces earn their keep by renting out a loft, cupboard, cellar or garden shed to someone needing to store items. (9)Garages and driveways can also be great money-spinners if rented out to drivers wanting an affordable and convenient place to park. According to parking website JustPark, it is possible to earn ～800 a year on average for a driveway, although in-demand spots near railway stations or music and sports venues can generate ￡3,000 a year. CASH IN ON CARS (10)The average cost of driving a car in London works out at ￡20 an hour, according to car sharing network Zipcar. Its sums take into account the fact a car tends to sit on a drive (or road) for 96 per cent of its lifetime and includes unavoidable bills such as road tax, maintenance, depreciation and insurance. (11)Drivers only actually use their vehicles for 182 hours a year. By giving up car ownership altogether and joining a service such as Zipcar, you can pay as you go, paying ￡5 to ￡10 an hour (plus a membership fee of ￡6 a month or ￡59.50 a year). You have to be disciplined though, as bringing a motor back late incurs a ￡35 fee. (12)If you prefer to be an owner but want to cut costs, think about hiring out your car to a service such as RideLink. Similar in concept to Zipcar, its fleet is made up of vehicles belonging to thousands of car owners. The difference is that owners set their own prices and renters can often find better value deals than from mainstream hire firms. Car sharing is another boom area where drivers cut journey costs by offering passengers lifts in return for a payment towards fuel costs. (13)Because drivers do not make a profit on such arrangements, it should not impact on motor cover—but check with your insurer first. Mat Gazely knows a thing or two about the gig economy, working for Zopa, one of the biggest players in the peer-to-peer lending market. Such lending allows individuals with spare cash to lend it directly to other people at rates far more attractive than they would receive by depositing cash in a bank or building society savings account. TIME IS MONEY (14)Those who have some free time can use their bike to generate extra income. In London, for example, restaurant delivery service Deliveroo employs scores of cyclists and scooter owners to pick up orders from outlets that do not offer their own takeaway service. The pay is ￡6 an hour plus ￡1 per delivery. New arrival, London-based Pedals, also recruits cyclists for delivery jobs posted online that they can pick to fit in with their normal journeys. (15)An alternative is community delivery service Nimber. It connects people wanting items delivered with so-called "bringers"—those who can carry a package while on the move. This means you can earn cash, negotiated online with the sender, by delivering, for example, on a daily commute to work. (16)Over-18s with a mobile phone and handyman skills can consider TaskRabbit, a peer-to-peer website that puts odd-jobbers in touch with those who need tasks done. Once a request for a task is posted, hourly rates are listed for the "taskers" considered most qualified for your job and the buyer chooses. (17)For those with professional skills, such as web design, legal or marketing nous, there is People Per Hour. The website advertises a variety of freelance roles—with job-seekers negotiating directly with the buyer. Those who have an artistic bent and enjoy making things can expand beyond craft fairs by using Etsy, an online marketplace for all things handmade. (18)The instant gratification provided by the gig sector is allowing thousands of participants to convert time into money—but it can be tricky for those whose gig experience takes off to know their responsibilities in terms of financial management, insurance and tax. (19)One key area to watch when joining the gig economy is insurance, especially when renting out areas of your home and property. Brian Brown, at insurance analyst Defaqto, says: "It is likely many kinds of claim will not be paid if an insurer didn't know about a change in circumstance." (20)"For instance, if you allow someone to use your drive your insurer might exclude certain things, such as damage to fencing or from the leaking of fuel from their vehicle on to your drive." He also says renting out rooms through Airbnb will most likely mean that any theft or accidental damage claim will be excluded. (21)Humphrey Bowles, of Belong Safe—a provider of insurance with its eyes set on the gig sector—says: "The solutions so far sit with a homesharing website's 'guarantees'. Many hosts may believe they have insurance when they sign up because of the guarantees mentioned and use of phrases such as ' peace of mind'. But in the terms and conditions for Airbnb, for example, it includes wording such as 'Airbnb strongly encourages you to purchase separate insurance that will cover you and your property for losses caused by guests' and 'the entire risk...remains with you'." (22)Belong Safe, Bowles believes, can alleviate such concerns, allowing hosts to buy cover by the day, when a guest is staying, and covers all risks. Underwritten by insurer Hiscox, it costs from 78 pence a day outside London and up to ￡4 a day in London. One drawback is that the excess is a hefty ￡1,000. (23)Mortgage lenders may also get a bit twitchy with homeowners if they find out they have been letting a room without telling them. In theory, they can call in the loan. David Hollingworth, mortgage broker at London and Country in Bath, says: "With lodgers, a lender will want to receive a 'consent', so the lodger understands they have no rights if the property is repossessed." (24)With short-term lets such as Airbnb, it is more of a grey area. He says: "This is something most lenders haven't caught up with yet. Homeowners will find some will be more amenable than others."1. It can be inferred from Para. 1 that ______. (PASSAGE ONE)

单选题《复合题被拆开情况》 1The Term "CYBERSPACE" was coined by William Gibson, a science-fiction writer. He first used it in a short story in 1982, and expanded on it a couple of years later in a novel, "Neuromancer

单选题. Questions 1 to 5 are based on Part One of the interview.1.

单选题《复合题被拆开情况》　　1 Jewish communities spread rapidly throughout the Mediterranean world from the first century A. D., but it was not until the 11th century that Jewish people in any significant number bega

单选题It’s 7 pm on a balmy Saturday night in June, and I have just ordered my first beer in I Cervejaria, a restaurant in Zambujeira do Mar, one of the prettiest villages on Portugal’s south-west coast. The place is empty, but this doesn’t surprise me at all. I have spent two weeks in this area, driving along empty roads, playing with my son on empty beaches, and staying in B&Bs where we are the only guests. (2)No doubt the restaurant, run by two brothers for the past 28 years, is buzzing in July and August, when Portuguese holidaymakers descend on the Alentejo coast. But for the other 10 months of the year, the trickle of diners who come to feast on fantastically fresh seafood reflects the general pace of life in the Alentejo: sleepy, bordering on comatose. (3)One of the poorest, least-developed, least-populated regions in western Europe, the Alentejo has been dubbed both the Provence and the Tuscany of Portugal. Neither is accurate. Its scenery is not as pretty and, apart from in the capital Evora, its food isn’t as sophisticated. The charms of this land of wheat fields, cork oak forests, wildflower meadows and tiny white-washed villages, are more subtle than in France or Italy’s poster regions. (4)To travel here is to step back in time 40 or 50 years. Life rolls along at a treacly pace: there’s an unnerving stillness to the landscape. But that stillness ends abruptly at the Atlantic Ocean, where there is drama in spade. Protected by the South West Alentejo and Costa Vicentina national park, the 100 km of coastline from Porto Covo in the Alentejo to Burgau in the Algarve is the most stunning in Europe. And yet few people seem to know about it Walkers come to admire the views from the Fisherman’s Way, surfers to ride the best waves in Europe, but day after day we had spectacular beaches to ourselves. (5)The lack of awareness is partly a matter of accessibility(these beaches are a good two hours’ drive from either Faro or Lisbon airports)and partly to do with a lack of beach side accommodation. There are some gorgeous, independent guesthouses in this area, but they are hidden in valleys or at the end of dirt tracks. (6)Our base was a beautiful 600-acre estate of uncultivated land covered in rock-rose, eucalyptus and wild flowers 13 km inland from Zambujeira. Our one-bedroom home, Azenha, was once home to the miller who tended the now-restored watermill next to it. A kilometre away from the main house, pool and restaurant, it is gloriously isolated. (7)Stepping out of the house in the morning to greet our neighbours — wild horses on one side, donkeys on the other — with nothing but birdsong filling the air, I felt a sense of adventure you normally only get with wild camping. (8)"When people first arrive, they feel a little anxious wondering what they are going to do the whole time," Sarah Gredley, the English owner of the estate, told me. "But it doesn’t usually take them long to realize that the whole point of being here is to slow down, to enjoy nature." (9)We followed her advice, walking down to the stream in search of terrapins and otters, or through clusters of cork oak trees. On some days, we tramped uphill to the windmill, now a romantic house for two, for panoramic views across the estate and beyond. (10)When we ventured out, we were always drawn back to the coast — the gentle sands and shallow bay of Farol beach. At the end of the day, we would head, sandy-footed, to the nearest restaurant, knowing that at every one there would be a cabinet full of fresh seafood to choose from — bass, salmon, lobster, prawns, crabs, goose barnacles, clams... We never ate the same thing twice. (11)A kilometre or so from I Cervejaria, on Zambujeira’s idyllic natural harbour is O Sacas, originally built to feed the fishermen but now popular with everyone. After eating platefuls of seafood on the terrace, we wandered down to the harbour where two fishermen, in wetsuits, were setting out by boat across the clear turquoise water to collect goose barnacles. Other than them, the place was deserted — just another empty beauty spot where I wondered for the hundredth time that week how this pristine stretch of coast has remained so undiscovered.

单选题《复合题被拆开情况》　　1 PICASSO THE PAINTER WE ALL KNOW. Picasso the sculptor? Not so much. But that all changes with "Picasso Sculpture", a once-in-a-lifetime show now at the Museum of Modern Art in New York C

单选题《复合题被拆开情况》 1There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At hig

单选题《复合题被拆开情况》PASSAGE THREE1 It was delightful to be in such a place, after long weeks of daily and nightly familiarity with miners’ cabins—with all which this implies of dirt floor, never-made beds, tin

单选题. Questions 1 to 5 are based on the first interview.1.

单选题《复合题被拆开情况》PASSAGE TWO1 I’d been living in Los Angeles just under a year when, in the spring of 1983, I answered an ad in the Hollywood Reporter for a receptionist and got the job. The pay wasn’t much,

单选题. SECTION A MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS In this section there are four passages followed by fourteen multiple choice questions. For each multiple choice question, there are four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that you think is the best answer and mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET TWO. PASSAGE ONE The period of adolescence, i,e., the person between childhood and adulthood, may be long or short, depending on social expectations and on society's definition as to what constitutes maturity and adulthood. In primitive societies adolescence is frequently a relatively short period of time, while in industrial societies with patterns of prolonged education coupled with laws against child labor, the period of adolescence is much longer and may include most of the second decade of one's life. Furthermore, the length of the adolescent period and the definition of adulthood status may change in a given society as social and economic conditions change. Examples of this type of change are the disappearance of the frontier in the latter part of the nineteenth century in the United States, and more universally, the industrialization of an agricultural society. In modern society, ceremonies for adolescence have lost their formal recognition and symbolic significance and there no longer is agreement as to what constitutes initiation ceremonies. Social ones have been replaced by a sequence of steps that lead to increased recognition and social status. For example, grade school graduation, high school graduation and college graduation constitute such a sequence, and while each step implies certain behavioral changes and social recognition, the significance of each depends on the socio-economic status and the educational ambition of the individual. Ceremonies for adolescence have also been replaced by legal definitions of status roles, rights, privileges and responsibilities. It is during the nine years from the twelfth birthday to the twenty-first that the protective and restrictive aspects of childhood and minor status are removed and adult privileges and responsibilities are granted. The twelve-year-old is no longer considered a child and has to pay full fare for train, airplane, theater and movie tickets. Basically, the individual at this age loses childhood privileges without gaining significant adult rights. At the age of sixteen the adolescent is granted certain adult rights which increase his social status by providing him with more freedom and choices. He now can obtain a driver's license; he can leave public schools; and he can work without the restrictions of child labor laws. At the age of eighteen the law provides adult responsibilities as well as rights; the young man can now be a soldier, but he also can marry without parental permission. At the age of twenty-one the individual obtains his full legal rights as an adult. He now can write; he can buy liquor; he can enter into financial contracts; and he is entitled to run for public office. No additional basic rights are acquired as a function of age after majority status has been attained. None of these legal provisions determine at what point adulthood has been reached but they do point to the prolonged period of adolescence.PASSAGE TWO The trade and investment relationship between the European Union and the United States is the most important in the world. Despite the emergence of competitors, Europe and America are the dynamo of the global economy. This economic relationship is a foundation of our political partnership, which we all know has been through a difficult patch. The identity of interest between Europe and America is less obvious than during the cold war. But while the trans-Atlantic relationship is becoming more complex, that does not make it less important. As European commissioner for trade, I do not agree that European and American values are fundamentally diverging, or that our interests no longer coincide. We still share a belief in democracy and individual freedoms, and in creating opportunity and economic openness. We face the same security challenges. We look ahead to shared global problems: poverty, migration, resource crises, climate change. We need commitment and vision to redefine our relationship. I want to see a stronger and more balanced partnership—one in which Europe is more united, more willing to take its role in global leadership and one where the United States is more inclined to share leadership with Europe. We need to find ways to complement each other, not compete in the political arena. We will not achieve either side of this equation without the other. Europe needs to build stronger foreign policies and to be ready to act on the world stage. But equally, the body language we see from America has a huge impact on how Europeans view the partnership. Our common interest requires a strong Europe, not a weak and divided one. I hope that the United States will reinforce its historical support for European integration. I am fortunate now to take over an area of policy in which Europe is highly effective: trade. Our top trade priority on both sides of the Atlantic must be to put our weight behind the multilateral Doha development agenda. Concluding this negotiation in a way that lives up to its ambition will bring enormous benefits. Collectively, we took a major step in reaching the framework agreement in Geneva last July, following the lead taken by the E.U. on agriculture export subsidies. We now look to the United States and others to follow that lead, and we need to accelerate work in other areas—on industrial tariffs and services—to achieve a balanced result. The Doha round of talks differs from any other in its focus on development. Europe and the United States must ensure that poorer countries are fully engaged and derive benefits. But the issues we need to tackle to stimulate growth and innovation in trans-Atlantic trade are not those on the Doha agenda. Our markets are relatively open and highly developed. We need to concentrate on removing regulatory and structural barriers that inhibit activity. This is about cutting international red tape. Our regulatory systems and cultures are different, but that is where real gains can be made. As E.U. trade commissioner I want to develop an ambitious but practical trans-Atlantic agenda. I am not inclined to set rhetorical targets or launch lofty initiatives. I want a set of achievable goals. Work on trans-Atlantic deregulation will also contribute to the central goal of the new European Commission: promoting growth and jobs in Europe. I am not naive. I am not turning a blind eye to the inevitable disputes in trans-Atlantic trade. They are relatively small as a proportion of total trade, but they make the headlines. They reflect the huge volume of our trade and investment flows. That is good. They also reflect our readiness to settle disputes in the World Trade Organization. That is also good. The WTO is the best example of effective multilateralism that the world has so far invented. I hope we will work together to uphold it. If multilateralism is to be worthwhile, it has to be effective—and that goes for every part of the relationship between Europe and America.PASSAGE THREE We know that he was baptized on April 26, 1564, so that somewhere between April 20 and April 23, four hundred years ago, was born an Englishman who possessed what was probably the greatest brain ever encased in a human skull. William Shakespeare's work has been performed without interruption for some three hundred and fifty years everywhere in the world. Scholars and students in every land know his name and study his work as naturally as they study their holy books—the Gospels, the Torah, the Koran, and the others. For centuries clergymen have spoken Shakespeare's words from their pulpits; lawyers have used his sentences in addressing juries; doctors, botanists, agronomists, bankers, seamen, musicians, and, of course, actors, painters, poets, editors, and novelists have used words of Shakespeare for knowledge, for pleasure, for experience, for ideas and for inspiration. It is hard to exaggerate the debt that mankind owes. Shakespeare's greatness lies in the fact that there is nothing within the range of human thought that he did not touch. Somewhere in his writings, you will find a full-length portrait of yourself, of your father, of your mother, and indeed of every one of your descendants yet unborn. The most singular fact connected with William Shakespeare is that there is no direct mention in his works of any of his contemporaries. It was as though he knew he was writing for the audiences of 1964 as well as for the audiences of each of those three hundred and fifty years since his plays were produced. On his way to the Globe Theater he could see the high masts of the Golden Hind in which Sir Francis Drake had circumnavigated the globe. He lived in the time of the destruction of the Spanish Armada, the era in which Elizabeth I opened the door to Britain's age of Gloriana, and he must have heard of Christendom's great victory at Lepanto against the Turks which forever insured that Europe would be Christian. Shakespeare's era was as momentous as our own. Galileo was born in 1564, the same year in which Shakespeare was born, and only a few years before John Calvin laid the foundation for a great new fellowship in Christianity. And yet Shakespeare in the midst of these great events, only seventy years after the discovery of America, did not mention an explorer or a general or a monarch or a philosopher. The magic of Shakespeare is that, like Socrates, he was looking for the ethical questions, not for answers. That is why there are as many biographies of a purely invented man Hamlet, as there are of Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, or Franklin D. Roosevelt. We are not sure of many things in this life except that the past has its uses and we know from the history of human experience that certain values will endure as long as there is breath of life on this planet. Among them are the ethics of the Hebrews who wrote the Decalogue, the Psalms, and the Gospels of the Holy Bible, and the marble of the Greeks, the laws of Romans, and the works of William Shakespeare. There are other values which may last through all the ages of man—Britain's Magna Carta, France's Rights of Man, and America's Constitution. We hope so, but we are not yet sure. We are sure of Shakespeare. Ben Johnson was a harsh critic of Shakespeare during his lifetime. They were contemporaries and competitors. Johnson, a great dramatist, did not like it when his play Cataline had a short run and was replaced by Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, which had a long run. Yet when Shakespeare died, Johnson was moved to a eulogy which he called "Will Shakespeare": Triumph my Britain Thou has one to show To whom all scenes of Europe Homage owe. He was not of an age, but for all time.PASSAGE FOUR Many things make people think artists are weird—the odd hours, the nonconformity, the clove cigarettes. But the weirdest may be this: artists' only job is to explore emotions, and yet they choose to focus on the ones that feel lousy. Art today can give you anomie, no problem. Bittersweetness? You got it. Tristesse? What size you want that in? But great art, as defined by those in the great-art-defining business, is almost never about simple, unironic happiness. This wasn't always so. The earliest forms of art, like painting and music, are those best suited for expressing joy. But somewhere in the 19th century, more artists began seeing happiness as insipid, phony or, worst of all, boring—in Tolstoy's words, "All happy families are alike." We went from Wordsworth's daffodils to Baudelaire's flowers of evil. In the 20th century, classical music became more atonal, visual art more unsettling. Artists who focused on making their audiences feel good, from Usher to Thomas Kinkade, were labeled "pop". Sure, there have been exceptions (say, Matisse's The Dance), but it would not be a stretch to say that for the past century or so, serious art has been at war with happiness. In 1824, Beethoven completed the Ode to Joy. In 1962, novelist Anthony Burgess used it in A Clockwork Orange as the favorite piece of his ultra-violent antihero. If someone titles an art movie Happiness, it is a good bet that it will be—as the 1998 Todd Solondz film was—about deeply unhappy people, including a telephone pervert and a pedophile. You could argue that art became more skeptical of happiness because modem times have seen such misery. But it's not as if earlier times didn't know perpetual war, disaster and the massacre of innocents. The reason, in fact, may be just the opposite: there is too much happiness in the world today. After all, what is the one modem form of expression almost completely dedicated to depicting happiness? Advertising. The rise of anti-happy art almost exactly tracks the emergence of mass media, and with it, a commercial culture in which happiness is not just an ideal but an ideology. People in earlier eras were surrounded by reminders of misery. They worked gruelingly, lived with few protections and died young. In the West, before mass communication and literacy, the most powerful mass medium was the church, which reminded worshippers that their souls were in peril and that they would someday be meat for worms. On top of all this, they did not exactly need their art to be a bummer too. Today the messages your average Westerner is bombarded with are not religious but commercial, and relentlessly happy. Fast-food eaters, news anchors, text messengers, are all smiling, smiling, smiling, except for that guy who keeps losing loans to Ditech. Our magazines feature beaming celebrities and happy families in perfect homes. (Tolstoy clearly never edited a shelter mag.) And since these messages have an agenda—to pry our wallets from our pockets—they make the very idea of happiness seem bogus. "Celebrate!" commanded the ads for the arthritis drug Celebrex, before we found out it could increase the risk of heart attacks. It gets exhausting, this constant goad to joy. If you're not smiling—after we made all those wonderful pills and cell-phone plans!—what's wrong with you? Not to smile is un-American. You can pick out the Americans in a crowd of tourists by their reflexive grins. The U.S. enshrined in its founding document the right to the pursuit of happiness. So we pursued it and—at least as commerce defines it—we caught it. Now, like the dog that chased and finally caught the car, we don't know what the hell to do with it. We feel vaguely dissatisfied though we have what we should want, vaguely guilty for wanting it, vaguely angry because it didn't come as advertised. People tsk-tsked over last month's study in which women reported being happier watching TV than playing with their kids. But why shouldn't they? This is how the market defines happiness. Happiness is feeling good. Kids, those who exist outside ads, make you feel bad—exhausted, frustrated, bored and poor. Then they move away and break your heart. What we forget—what our economy depends on us forgetting—is that happiness is more than pleasure sans pain. The things that bring the greatest joy carry the greatest potential for loss and disappointment. Today, surrounded by promises of easy happiness, we need someone to tell us that it is O.K. not to be happy, that sadness makes happiness deeper. As the wine-connoisseur movie Sideways tells us, it is the kiss of decay and mortality that makes grape juice into Pinot Noir. We need art to tell us: remember that you will die, that everything ends, and that happiness comes not in denying this but in living with it. It's a message even more bitter than a clove cigarette, yet, somehow, a breath of fresh air.1. The length of adolescence is decided by all of the following EXCEPT ______.(PASSAGE ONE)

单选题[此试题无题干]

单选题《复合题被拆开情况》 1I can still remember the faces when I suggested a method of dealing with what most teachers of English considered one of their pet horrors, extended reading. The room was full of tired tea

单选题. Questions 6 to 10 are based on Part Two of the interview.6.

单选题The Term "CYBERSPACE" was coined by William Gibson, a science-fiction writer. He first used it in a short story in 1982, and expanded on it a couple of years later in a novel, "Neuromancer" , whose main character, Henry Dorsett Case, is a troubled computer hacker and drug addict. In the book Mr Gibson describes cyberspace as "a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators" and "a graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. " (2)His literary creation turned out to be remarkably prescient(有先见之明的). Cyberspace has become symbolic of the computing devices, networks, fibre-optic cables, wireless links and other infrastructure that bring the internet to billions of people around the world. The myriad connections forged by these technologies have brought tremendous benefits to everyone who uses the web to tap into humanity’s collective store of knowledge every day. (3)But there is a darker side to this extraordinary invention. Data breaches are becoming ever bigger and more common. Last year over 800m records were lost, mainly through such attacks. Among the most prominent recent victims has been Target, whose chief executive, Gregg Steinhafel, stood down from his job in May, a few months after the giant American retailer revealed that online intruders had stolen millions of digital records about its customers, including credit- and debit-card details. Other well-known firms such as Adobe, a tech company, and eBay, an online marketplace, have also been hit. (4)The potential damage, though, extends well beyond such commercial incursions. Wider concerns have been raised by the revelations about the mass surveillance carried out by Western intelligence agencies made by Edward Snowden, a contractor to America’s National Security Agency(NSA), as well as by the growing numbers of cyber-warriors being recruited by countries that see cyberspace as a new domain of warfare. America’s President, Barack Obama, said in a White House press release earlier this year that cyber-threats "pose one of the gravest national-security dangers" the country is facing. (5)Securing cyberspace is hard because the architecture of the internet was designed to promote connectivity, not security. Its founders focused on getting it to work and did not worry much about threats because the network was affiliated with America’s military. As hackers turned up, layers of security, from antivirus programs to firewalls, were added to try to keep them at bay. Gartner, a research firm, reckons that last year organizations around the globe spent $ 67 billion on information security. (6)On the whole, these defenses have worked reasonably well. For all the talk about the risk of a "cyber 9/11" , the internet has proved remarkably resilient. Hundreds of millions of people turn on their computers every day and bank online, shop at virtual stores, swap gossip and photos with their friends on social networks and send all kinds of sensitive data over the web without ill effect. Companies and governments are shifting ever more services online. (7)But the task is becoming harder. Cyber-security, which involves protecting both data and people, is facing multiple threats, notably cybercrime and online industrial espionage, both of which are growing rapidly. A recent estimate by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies(CSIS), puts the annual global cost of digital crime and intellectual-property theft at $ 445 billion—a sum roughly equivalent to the GDP of a smallish rich European country such as Austria. (8)To add to the worries, there is also the risk of cyber-sabotage. Terrorists or agents of hostile powers could mount attacks on companies and systems that control vital parts of an economy, including power stations, electrical grids and communications networks. Such attacks are hard to pull off, but not impossible. One precedent is the destruction in 2010 of centrifuges(离心机)at a nuclear facility in Iran by a computer program known as Stuxnet. (9)But such events are rare. The biggest day-to-day threats faced by companies and government agencies come from crooks and spooks hoping to steal financial data and trade secrets. For example, smarter, better-organized hackers are making life tougher for the cyber-defenders, but even so a number of things can be done to keep everyone safer than they are now. (10)One is to ensure that organizations get the basics of cyber-security right. All too often breaches are caused by simple blunders, such as failing to separate systems containing sensitive data from those that do not need access to them. Companies also need to get better at anticipating where attacks may be coming from and at adapting their defenses swiftly in response to new threats. Technology can help, as can industry initiatives that allow firms to share intelligence about risks with each other. (11)There is also a need to provide incentives to improve cyber-security, be they carrots or sticks. One idea is to encourage internet-service providers, or the companies that manage internet connections, to shoulder more responsibility for identifying and helping to clean up computers infected with malicious software. Another is to find ways to ensure that software developers produce code with fewer flaws in it so that hackers have fewer security holes to exploit. (12)An additional reason for getting tech companies to give a higher priority to security is that cyberspace is about to undergo another massive change. Over the next few years billions of new devices, from cars to household appliances and medical equipment, will be fitted with tiny computers that connect them to the web and make them more useful. Dubbed "the internet of things" , this is already making it possible, for example, to control home appliances using smartphone apps and to monitor medical devices remotely. (13)But unless these systems have adequate security protection, the internet of things could easily become the internet of new things to be hacked. Plenty of people are eager to take advantage of any weaknesses they may spot. Hacking used to be about geeky college kids tapping away in their bedrooms to annoy their elders. It has grown up with a vengeance.

单选题. SECTION A MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS PASSAGE ONE (1)People who live in Taylorstown have made their choices: scenery over shopping, deer over drive-throughs The historic enclave, although not untouched by the building boom that exploded in Loudoun County before so dramatically going bust, remains largely rural, with all the benefits and inconveniences that entails (2)"It's far from everything," Tara Linhardt, president of the Taylorstown Community Association, said with a smile. The bluegrass musician has lived in Taylorstown since she was a child in the 1970s. Clearly, she views its remoteness as an asset. (3)Taylorstown wasn't always out of the way. In the 19th century, it was one of the busiest and most heavily populated areas of Loudoun, thanks to milling, mining and agriculture. Its population dwindled, however, when mining and milling became history. Taylorstown now is unincorporated, with the county divvying up its residents among the surrounding jurisdictions of Lovettsville, Waterford, Lucketts and Leesburg. Officialdom aside, the locals consider themselves residents of Taylorstown if they live within about a three-mile radius of an old store at the junction of Taylorstown and Loyalty roads. (4)The store, shuttered in 1998, is a passionate cause in Taylorstown. A nonprofit group with grassroots backing is spearheading its reopening as a "very green" business and recently installed a new system. But the day that the store will again be able to sell bread and local produce "won't come anytime soon," said Anne Larson, an artist and long-time Taylorstown resident. (5)1t's a matter of money, of course, and the store's boosters are pursuing grants. Meanwhile, the store hosts occasional community gatherings, such as craft fairs and lectures on topics of area interest such as Lyme disease. Lyme disease, carried by deer ticks, is perhaps Taylorstown's No. 1 problem. "Deer are so comfortable here," Linhardt said, "that most people have had it twice." (6)Richard Brown, a Quaker, founded Taylorstown in the 1730s when he built a mill on the banks of Catoctin Creek near where the store is now. Although Brown's mill is long gone, the surrounding area has been designated a historic district and has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1976. It is the site of two of the oldest stone houses in the county, Hunting Hill and Foxton Cottage, as well as a mill later built by town namesake Thomas Taylor. (7)The three-mile radius that extends from the store now encompasses about 1,500 households, said Tami Carlow, vice president of the Taylorstown Community Association. These households sit on land that is alternately rolling and open or steep and wooded. (8)A good number of the oldest structures got their start as "patent houses," explained historian and Taylorstown resident Rich Gillespie. In colonial times, construction of a 16-by-20-foot cabin was a requirement for obtaining a patent or land grant. (9)Taylorstown owes much of its pastoral beauty to its still-abundant farms. On a summer day along Loyalty Road—named in honor of Taylorstown's Unionist sympathies during the Civil War—fields are dense with green corn or punctuated by round bales of hay waiting to be collected. Placidly grazing cattle and horses are everywhere. (10)These days, Taylorstown's farms come in both the working and gentleman's varieties, and Ken Loewinger's 175-acre Glenwood is both. Loewinger runs a small horse-boarding operation, but he also works full time in Washington as a real estate lawyer. (11)"I couldn't afford to have this in Great Falls," Loewinger said, gesturing toward a rambling red bam, rolling pastures and a large stone house that grew out of a 1750s log cabin, possibly a patent house. (12)The D.C.-born Loewinger initially worried about whether the country would be a good fit. Loudoun County didn't even have a synagogue when he and his wife, Margaret Krol, moved to Taylorstown in 1991. They attended religious services in a bingo parlor. Now, the county has two synagogues, Loewinger said, and he has found the country to be "a richer environment than the city." (13)Luda and John Eichelberger would agree. The husband-and-wife volcanologists moved into a log house a five-minute walk from the Taylorstown Store late last year. Eichelberger, who works at the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston met his Russian wife while doing fieldwork on the Kamchatka Peninsula. (14)A profession that involves close observation of remote mountains requires a love of the outdoors, and in Taylorstown the Eichelbergers indulge that love with running and biking. One of their favorite trails loops along Catoctin Creek, where deer browse nonchalantly beneath pawpaw trees and a great blue heron feels at home enough to stand on a boulder and do its dead-on impression of a statue. (15)Luda Eichelberger, who volunteers at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History, said she has "never Lived so close with animals." The frogs are her particular favorite. They "sing like birds," she said. (16)Five years ago, Leslie McElroy and Richard Jones relocated from a less-distant locale—elsewhere in the Wasbington suburbs—but they profess equal enthusiasm about life on their 10-acre Taylorstown farm. Like Eichelberger, McElroy works for the Geological Survey in Reston; Jones, an estimator for a commercial construction company, commutes 120 miles round trip to Prince George's County. The two have spent much of their free time during the past three years adding 1,600 square feet to their 800-square-foot house. (17)The project is about done—"finally," McElroy said. With its completion, she and Jones, who own five horses, plan to make better use of the bridle trails that honeycomb their area. They also will have more time to harness Kallai, their 2,000-pound Percheron mare, to a cart and wheel along neighboring roads. That kind of outing isn't possible in many places that are within driving distance of the District. (18)"This is the last little bit of truly rural, affordable Loudoun County," McElroy said. PASSAGE TWO (1)We keep an eye out for wonders, my daughter and I, every morning as we walk down our farm lane to meet the school bus. And wherever we find them, they reflect the magic of water: a spider web drooping with dew like a necklace. A rain-colored heron rising from the creek bank. One astonishing morning, we had a visitation of frogs. Dozens of them hurtled up from the grass ahead of our feet, launching themselves, white-bellied, in bouncing arcs, as if we'd been caught in a downpour of amphibians. It seemed to mark the dawning of some new watery age. On another day we met a snapping turtle in his olive drab armor. Normally this is a pond-locked creature, but some ambition had moved him onto our gravel lane, using the rainy week as a passport from our farm to somewhere else. (2)The little, nameless creek tumbling through our hollow holds us in bondage. Before we came to southern Appalachia, we lived for years in Arizona, where a permanent brook of that size would merit a nature preserve. In the Grand Canyon State, every license plate reminded us that water changes the face of the land, splitting open rock desert like a peach, leaving mile-deep gashes of infinite hue. Cities there function like space stations, importing every ounce of fresh water from distant rivers. But such is the human inclination to take water as a birthright that public fountains still may bubble in Arizona's town squares and farmers there raise thirsty crops. Retirees from rainier climates irrigate green lawns that impersonate the grasslands they left behind. The truth encroaches on all the fantasies, though, when desert residents wait months between rains, watching cacti tighten their belts and roadrunners skirmish over precious beads from a dripping garden faucet. Water is life. It's the salty stock of our origins, the pounding circulatory system of the world. It makes up two-thirds of our bodies, just like the map of the world; our vital fluids are saline, like the ocean. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. (3)Even while we take Mother Water for granted, humans understand in our bones that she is the boss. We stake our civilizations on the coasts and mighty rivers. Our deepest dread is the threat of having too little moisture—or too much. We've lately raised the Earth's average temperature by 0.74℃, a number that sounds inconsequential. But these words do not: flood, drought, hurricane, rising sea levels, bursting levees. Water is the visible face of climate and, therefore, climate change. Shifting rain patterns flood some regions and dry up others as nature demonstrates a grave physics lesson: Hot air holds more water molecules than cold. (4)The results are in plain sight along beaten coasts from Louisiana to the Philippines as super-warmed air above the ocean brews superstorms, the likes of which we have never known. In arid places the same physics amplify evaporation and drought, visible in the dust-dry farms of the Murray-Darling River Basin in Australia. On top of the Himalaya, glaciers whose melt water sustains vast populations are dwindling. The snapping turtle I met on my lane may have been looking for higher ground. Last summer brought us a string of floods that left tomatoes spoilt on the vine and our farmers needing disaster relief for the third consecutive year. The past decade has brought us more extreme storms than ever before, of the kind that dump many inches in a day, laying down crops and utility poles and great sodden oaks whose roots cannot find purchase in the saturated ground. The word "disaster" seems to mock us. After enough repetitions of shocking weather, we can't remain indefinitely shocked. (5)How can the world shift beneath our feet? All we know is founded on its rhythms: Water will flow from the snowcapped mountains, rain and sun will arrive in their proper seasons. Humans first formed our tongues around language, surely, for the purpose of explaining these constants to our children. What should we tell them now? That "reliable" has been rained out, or died of thirst? When the Earth seems to raise its own voice to the pitch of a gale, have we the ears to listen? (6)A world away from my damp hollow, the Bajo Piura Valley is a great bowl of the driest Holocene sands I've ever gotten in my shoes. Stretching from coastal, northwestern Peru into southern Ecuador, the 14,OOO-square-mile Piura Desert is home to many endemic forms of thorny life. Profiles of this eco-region describe it as dry to drier, and Bajo Piura on its southern edge is what anyone would call driest. Between January and March it might get close to an inch of rain, depending on the whims of El , my driver explained as we bumped over the dry bed of the Piura, "but in some years, nothing at all." For hours we passed through white-crusted fields and then into eye-burning valleys beyond the limits of endurance for anything but sparse stands of the deep-rooted Prosopis pallida, arguably nature's most arid-adapted tree. And remarkably, some scattered families of Homo sapiens. (7)They are economic refugees, looking for land that costs nothing. In Bajo Piura they find it, although living there has other costs, and fragile drylands pay their own price too, as people 'exacerbate desertification by cutting anything living for firewood. What brought me there, as a journalist, was an innovative reforestation project. Peruvian conservationists, partnered with the NGO Heifer International, were guiding the population into herding goats, which eat the protein-rich pods of the native mesquite and disperse its seeds over the desert. In the shade of a stick shelter, a young mother set her dented pot on a dung-fed fire and showed how she curdles goat's milk into white cheese. But milking goats is hard to work into her schedule when she, and every other woman she knows, must walk about eight hours a day to collect water. PASSAGE THREE (1) Vargas had been in Hatch, New Mexico, only six months, since March, and already he owned his own business to compete with Netflix, delivering DVDs and video games to ranchers and people who lived within 20 miles of town. He had worked out a deal with Senora Gaspar, who owned the video store, to pay him 90 percent of the delivery fee, and if he took out more than 50 videos in a week, a premium on the extras. (2) had a lightweight motorized bicycle, which made it feasible. Gas prices were high, and delivery and pickup saved customers money. Also, it was convenient—they didn't have to wait till they had an errand in town. Most of the customers were Mexican families who worked the land for Anglos, or Anglos who owned cattle or pecan groves. organized his schedule to avoid random trips. It was a lot of riding, but he liked the terrain—the low hills, the bare mountains, pale blue in the day and shadowed in the evenings, the vast sky. He liked seeing the fields of onions and chiles, the pecan trees, the alfalfa growing, the cattle grazing. He saw hawks, antelope, badgers, and deer, and learned their habits. (3)In a few weeks he knew most of his customers—the Gallegos family out on Castaneda Road, who grew green chiles, the Brubakers farther on, the widow woman, Senora Obregon, who still ran the Bar SW ranch. The Michaels family was a mile east, the Garcias were on the other side of Interstate 25—they owned the bakery—and Tom Martinez lived in the trailer a mile past. Many of the families grew chiles—that's what Hatch was famous for—and marketed them to the co-op in Albuquerque or along the town highway, pickled or fresh, in jellies or as ristras. Everyone knew , too, the chico loco on his moped. (4)The more people knew him, of course, the more people knew about his business. He was strong, had a good smile, and was a natural salesman. He talked to the Mexican families in Spanish, asked where their relatives came from, who was left in Hermosillo or Juarez or Oaxaca. He talked to the Anglos to improve his English and to show he was a serious businessman. He expected great things of himself one day. (5) English was passable, because he'd worked almost a year in Deming before he came to Hatch. He'd washed dishes at Sí from six to two, and at four he mopped floors at the elementary school. In between he spent his off hours at the Broken Spoke, where he met people, even some women, like Brenda, who was a hairdresser, then unemployed. At eleven one night was walking home to his trailer, and Brenda stopped in her Trans Am with the muffler dragging. She gave him a ride, and one thing led to another. After a month, Brenda wanted to get married—she was pregnant, she said—and said why not. Two weeks after the wedding, he found out there was no baby, and Brenda ran off to California with a wine salesman. (6)To pay off Brenda's debts, used his meager savings and took a third job unloading freight at the train yard, though he still wasn't making enough money, or sleeping enough, either. One evening, after Ultimo was threatened with eviction from Brenda's apartment, his boss at the school found him dozing at a teacher's desk, and he was finished in Deming. He walked north with his thumb out, but no one picked him up. In two days, 46 miles later, with nothing but the clothes he wore and a blanket he'd brought from home, he staggered past Las Uvas Dairy and a few broken-down houses and into Hatch, where he saw a HELP WANTED sign in the window of the Frontera Mercado. He went in and got a job stocking groceries. (7)Hatch was in the fertile cottonwood corridor along the banks of the Rio Grande River, with the interstate to the east and open country in every other direction—ranches, pasture, rangeland. The days were getting warmer by then, and he slept in the brush along the river, shaved and washed himself there, and ate for breakfast whatever he had scavenged from the mercado the day before. If he wasn't working, he spent sunny mornings in the park and rainy ones in the library. Then Gaspar hired him to work the morning shift at the video store, checking in rentals, cleaning, replenishing the stock of candy bars and popcorn. He established a more efficient check-in, organized a better window display, and built a new sign from construction waste: Gaspar's Movies. (8) "What delivery?" Gaspar asked. (9) "Our delivery," Ultimo said. "I have bought a moped from Tom Martínez." (10)Some of his customers ordered movies for the company gave them. Obregón, 55 years old, had lost her husband and wanted someone to talk to. She reminded of his grandmother in Mexico, and he often made the ranch his last stop of the evening so he had time to sit on her porch and listen to her stories. Her husband had been killed two winters before, when, as he was feeding the cattle in a blizzard, a 1,500-pound bull slipped on a patch of ice and crushed him. They'd lost 100 head in that storm. Her children were in Wichita, Denver, and Salt Lake City, two sons and a daughter, and none of them wanted anything to do with the ranch. When he visited, Obregón dressed well, as if presence meant something, and she offered him steak and potatoes, and always leftovers to take with him afterward.1. According to the passage, the rural land of Taylorstown ______PASSAGE ONE