单选题Questions on the Origins of Christmas A. The traditions we associate with Christmas have evolved over the centuries. Here are answers to five questions about these traditions, from the date we choose to celebrate to the origin of Santa. 1. Why do we celebrate on December 25th? B. The Bible makes no mention of Jesus being born on December 25th and, as more than one historian has pointed out, why would shepherds be tending to their flock in the midge of winter? So why is that the day we celebrate? Well, either Christian holidays miraculously fall on the same days as Pagan ones or the Christians have been crafty in converting pagan populations to religion by placing important Christian holidays on the same days as pagan ones. And people had been celebrating on December 25th (and the surrounding weeks)for centuries by the time Jesus showed up. C. The Winter Solstice, falling on or around December 21st, was and is celebrated around the world as the beginning of the end of winter. It is the shortest day and longest night and its passing signifies that spring is on the way. In Scandinavian countries, they celebrated the solstice with a holiday called Yule last from the 21st until January and burned a Yule log the whole time. D. In Rome, Saturnalia—a celebration of Saturn, the God of agriculture—lasted the entire end of the year and was marked by mass intoxication. In the middle of this, the Romans celebrated the birth of another God, Mithra (a child God), whose holiday celebrated the children of Rome. E. When the Christianity became the official religion of Rome, there was no Christmas. It was not until the 4th century that Pope Julius I declared the birth of Jesus to be a holiday and picked December 25th as the celebration day. By the middle ages, most people celebrated the holiday we know as Christmas. 2. How did Americans come to love the holiday? F. The American Christmas is, like most American holidays, a mishmash of Old World customs mixed with American inventions. While Christmas was celebrated in America from the time of the Jamestown settlement, our modern idea of the holiday didn't take root until the 19th century. The History Channel credits Washington Irving with getting the ball rolling. In 1819 he published The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, gent. , an account of a Christmas celebration in which a rich family invites poor folk into their house to celebrate the holiday. G. The problem was that many of the activities described in Irving's work, such as crowning a Lord of Misrule, were entirely fictional. Nonetheless, Irving began to steer Christmas celebrations away from drunken debauchery(放荡) and towards wholesome, charitable fun. Throughout the rest of the 19th century, Christmas gained popularity and Americans adopted old customs or invented new ones, such as Christmas trees, greeting cards, giving gifts and eating a whole roasted pig. 3. Who popularized Christmas trees? H. Since time immortal, humans have been fascinated with the color green mid plants that stay green through winter. Many ancient societies—from Romans to Vikings—would decorate their Homes and temples with evergreens in the winter as a symbol of the returning growing season. I. But the Christmas tree didn't get going until some intrepid(无畏的)German dragged home and decorated a tree in the 16th century. Legend has it that Martin Luther himself added lighted candles to his family's tree, starting the trend (and leading to countless fires through the years). J. In America, the Christmas tree didn't catch on until 1846 when the British royals, Queen Victoria and the German Prince Albert, were shown with a Christmas tree in a newspaper. Fashionable people in America mimicked the Royals and the tree thing spread outside of German enclaves(被围领土)in America. Ornaments, courtesy of Germany, and electric lights, courtesy of Thomas Edison's assistants, were added over the years and we haven't changed much since. 4. What's the deal with Santa Claus? K. The jolly, red-suited man who sneaks into your home every year to leave you girls hasn't always been so jolly. The real Saint Nick was a Turkish monk who lived in the 3rd century. According to legend, he was a rich man thanks to an inheritance from his parents, but he gave it all away in the form of gifts to the less-fortunate. He eventually became the most popular saint in Europe and, through his alter ego, Santa Claus, remains so to this day. L. But how did a long-dead Turkish monk become a big, fat, reindeer-riding pole dweller? The Dutch got the ball rolling by celebrating the saint-called Sinter Klaas—in New York in the late-18th century. Our old friend, Washington Irving, included the legend of Saint Nick in his seminal History of New-York as well, but at the turn of the 18th century, Saint Nick was still a rather obscure figure in America. M. On December 23, 1823, though, a man named Clement Clarke Moore published a poem he had written for his daughters called 'An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas,' better known now as 'T'was the Night Before Christmas.' Nobody knows how much of the poem Moore invented, but we do know that it was the spark that eventually lit the Santa fire. Many of the things we associate with Santa—a sleigh, reindeer. Christmas Eve visits—came from Moore's poem. N. From 1863 to1886, Thomas Nast's illustrations of Santa Claus appeared in Harper's Weekly—including a scene with Santa giving gifts to Union soldiers. Not much has changed since the second half of the 19th century: Santa still gets pulled in a sleigh by flying reindeer, he still wears the big red suit and he still sneaks down chimneys to drop off presents. 5. Who invented Rudolph? O. Santa did get one more friend in 1939. Robert May, a copywriter for the Montgomery Ward department store chain, wrote a little story about a 9th reindeer with a disturbing red nose for a booklet to give customers during the holiday season. Ten years later, May's brother would put the story to music, writing the lyrics and melody.

单选题 For a century and a half the piano has been one of the most popular solo instruments for Western music. Unlike string and wind instruments, the piano is completely self-sufficient, as it is able to play both the melody and its accompanying harmony at the same time. For this reason, it became the favorite household instrument of the nineteenth century. The ancestry of the piano can be traced to the early keyboard instruments of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries—the spinet, the dulcimer, and the virginal. In the seventeenth century the organ, the clavichord, and the harpsichord became the chief instruments of the keyboard group, a supremacy they maintained until the piano supplanted them at the end of the eighteenth century. The clavichord's tone was metallic and never powerful; nevertheless, because of the variety of tone possible to it, many composers found the clavichord a sympathetic instrument for intimate chamber music. The harpsichord with its bright, vigorous tone was the favorite instrument for supporting the bass of the small orchestra of the period and for concert use, but the character of the tone could not be varied save by mechanical or structural devices. The piano was perfected in the early eighteenth century by a harpsichord maker in Italy (though musicologists point out several previous instances of the instrument). This instrument was called a piano eforte (soft and loud), to indicate its dynamic versatility; its strings were struck by a recoiling hammer with a felt-padded head. The wires were much heavier in the earlier instruments. A series of mechanical improvements continuing well into the nineteenth century, including the introduction of pedals to sustain tone or to soften it, the perfection of a metal frame, and steel wire of the finest quality, finally produced an instrument capable of myriad tonal effects from the most delicate harmonies to an almost orchestral fullness of sound, from a liquid, singing tone to a sharp, percussive brilliance.

单选题There are a great many books, web sites, and training 24 today more or less dedicated to the idea that being bored is a major sin, for which the only 25 is to find ways to be busy and productive every waking moment. People who follow this 26 are constantly on-the-go—and feelings of boredom quickly smothered with yet more activities. At work, at home, at play, each 27 must be filled with things to ward off the slightest possibility of being bored. As a society, we're over-stimulated to the point of mania, like hyper-excited children in those few moments at a party before it all goes wrong and everyone starts crying. I suspect the rise in ADHD isn't only 28 to eating strange chemicals in the diet; we're training ourselves to require continual distraction, reducing our attention-span to less than a few seconds before we're bored again. It used to be only teenagers who 29 . 'I'm so bored!' Now almost everyone acts as if not having something truly exciting to do every moment is either the first sign of senility or—much wore—positive proof that they, and their 30 are gone, past it, over the hill, on the way towards oblivion. Yet boredom is, in reality, crucial to any ability to be truly productive, let 31 effective. If you're fiat-out busy and engaged all the time, you may feel important, but the reality is 32 . It's those who are constantly 33 with activities that are most likely to be headed towards a nasty let-down. A. alone B. careers C. courses D. cure E. different F. dissatisfied G. distracted H. due I. felt J. idea K. moment L. sighed M. thanks N. time O. way

单选题 Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay commenting on the remark 'Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you react to it.' You can give examples to illustrate your point and then explain how you will react to your life. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.

单选题Directions:Forthispart,youareallowed30minutestowriteanessaybasedonthepicturebelow.Youshouldstartyouressaywithabriefdescriptionofthepictureandthendiscusstheimportanceandbenefitsofdoingexercise.Youshouldgivesoundargumentstosupportyourviewsandwriteatleast150wordsbutnomorethan200words.

单选题 西安，是中国陕西省的省会，历经了许多朝代的沉浮。它曾断断续续地作为13个朝代的首都达1200多年之久。西安的历史古迹使得游客想起这座城市的昔日辉煌。西安悠久辉煌的历史丰富了中国古代史的发展，进一步推动了中华文明的前进。今天，西安已是全国主要的旅游胜地之一，每年接待海内外旅游者约200万人次。在西安，遍布城内外的历史古迹和自然风景数不胜数，如驰名中外的兵马俑(Terra Cotta Warriors)、明代城墙、乾陵(Qian Mausoleum)等等。

单选题 The recession of 2008-09 was remarkable in rich countries for its intensity, the subsequent recovery for its weakness. The labour market has also broken the rules, as new research from the OECD, a think-tank of mainly rich countries, shows in its annual Employment Outlook. Young people always suffer in recessions. Employers stop hiring them; and they often get rid of new recruits because they are easier to sack. But in previous episodes, such as the recessions of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, older workers were also booted out. This time is different. During the financial crisis in 2008, and since, they have done better than other age groups. Why have older employees done so well? In some southern European countries they benefit from job protection not afforded to younger workers, but that did not really help them in past recessions. What has changed, says Stefano Scarpetta, head of the OECD's employment directorate, is that firms now bear the full costs of getting rid of older staff. In the past early-retirement schemes provided by governments (in the mistaken belief that these would help young people) made it cheaper to push grey-haired workers out of the door. These have largely stopped. Job losses among older workers have also been more than offset by falls in inactivity, reflecting forces that were already apparent before the crisis. Older workers are healthier than they used to be and work is less physically demanding. They are also more attractive to employers than prior generations. Today's 55- to 64-year-olds are the advance squad of the post-war baby-boomers who benefited from better education than their predecessors. Older workers now have a sharper incentive to stay in employment because of the impact of the crisis on wealth. In Britain, for example, workers who rely on private pensions have been adversely affected by lower returns on their investments and by poor annuity (年金) rates when they convert their savings into regular income. Many will argue that older workers have done better at the expense of the young. That view is wrongheaded. First, it is a falsehood that a job gained for one person is a job lost for another; there is no fixed 'lump of labor'. And second, as the report shows, young and old people are by and large not substitutes in the workplace. They do different types of work in different types of occupation: younger people gravitate to IT firms, for example, whereas older folk tend to be employed in more traditional industries. There are plenty of things that should be done to help the young jobless, but moving older workers out of the workplace is not one of them.