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Passage 1Shortages of flu vaccine are nothing new in America, but this year’s is a big lie. Until last week, it appeared that 100 million Americans would have access to flu shots this fall. Then British authorities, concerned about quality-control problems at a production plant in Liverpool, barred all further shipments by the Chiron Corp. Overnight, the U.S. vaccine supply dwindled by nearly half. Why is such a basic health service so easily knocked out? Mainly because private companies have had little incentive to pursue it. Profit margins are narrow, demand is fickle and, because each year’s flu virus is different, any leftover vaccine goes to waste. Experts are hoping that this year’s fiasco will speed the pace of innovation. In fact, many experts are hoping the shortage will serve as an awareness campaign—encouraging the people who really need a flu shot to get one.Passage 2Broadly speaking, the Englishman is a quiet, shy, reserved person who is fully relaxed only among people he knows well. In the presence of strangers or foreigner she often seems inhibited, even embarrassed. You have only to witness a city train any morning or evening to see the truth of this. Serious-looking businessmen and women sit reading their newspapers or having a light sleep in a corner; no one speaks. In fact, to do so would seem most unusual. An Englishman, pretending to be giving advice to overseas visitors, once suggested, “On entering a railway carriage shake hands with all the passengers.” Needless to say, he was not being serious. There is an unwritten but clearly understood code of behavior which, if broken, makes the person immediately suspect.Passage 3The principal lines of development of machinery have been an increase in the speed of operation to obtain high rates of production, improvement in accuracy to obtain quality and economy in the product, and minimization of operating costs. These three requirements have led to the evolution of complex control systems. The most successful production machinery is that in which the mechanical design of the machine is closely integrated with the control system, whether the latter is mechanical or electrical in nature. A modern conveyor for the manufacture of automobile engines is a good example of the mechanization of a complex series of manufacturing processes. Developments are in hand to automate production machines, further, using computers to store and process the vast amount of data required for manufacturing a variety of components with a small number of versatile machine tools. One aim is a completely automated machine shop for batch production.

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Sleep is a funny thing. We’re taught that we should get seven or eight hours a night, but a lot of us get by just fine on less, and some of us actually sleep too much. A study out of the University of Buffalo last month reported that people who routinely sleep more than eight hours a day and are still tired are nearly three times as likely to die of stroke—probably as a result of an underlying disorder that keeps them from snoozing soundly.Doctors have their own special sleep problems. Residents are famously sleep deprived. When I was training to become a neurosurgeon, it was not unusual to work 40 hours in a row without rest. Most of us took it in stride, confident we could still deliver the highest quality of medical care. Maybe we shouldn’t have been so sure of ourselves. An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association points out that in the morning after 24 hours of sleeplessness, a person’s motor performance is comparable to that of someone who is legally intoxicated. Curiously, surgeons who believe that operating under the influence is grounds for dismissal often don’t think twice about operating without enough sleep.“I could tell you horror stories,” says Jays Agrawal, president of the American Medical Student Association, which runs a website where residents can post anonymous anecdotes. Some are terrifying. “I was operating after being up for over 36 hours,” one writes. “I literally fell asleep standing up and nearly face planted into the wound.”“Practically every surgical resident I know has fallen asleep at the wheel driving home from work,” writes another. “I know of three who have hit parked cars... Another hit a ‘Jersey barrier’ on the New Jersey Turnpike, going 65 m.p.h.” “Your own patients have become the enemy,” writes a third, because they are “the one thing that stands between you and a few hours of sleep.”Agrawal’s organization is supporting the Patient and Physician Safety and Protection Act of 2001, introduced last November by Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan. Its key provisions, modeled on New York State’s regulations, include an 80-hour workweek and a 24-hour work-shift limit. Most doctors, however, resist such interference. Dr. Charles Binkley, a senior surgery resident at the University of Michigan, agrees that something needs to be done but believes “doctors should be bound by their conscience, not by the government.”The U.S. controls the hours of pilots and truck drivers. But until such a system is a place for doctors, patients are on their own. If you’re worried about the people treating you or a loved one, you should feel free to ask how many hours of sleep they have had and if more-rested staffers are available. Doctors, for their part, have to give up their pose of infallibility and get the rest they need.1. We can learn from the first paragraph that ______.2. Speaking of the sleep problems doctors’ face, the author implies that______.3. Paragraphs 3 and 4 are written to______.4. By “doctors should be bound by their conscience, not by the government” (line 6, paragraph 5), Dr. Charles Binkley means that______.5. To which of the following is the author likely to agree?

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Death comes quickly in the mountains. Each winter holiday makers are caught unawares as they happily ski away from the fixed runs, little realizing that a small avalanche can send them crashing in a bone-breaking fall down the slope and leave them buried under tons of crisp white snow. There are lots of theories about how to avoid disaster when hit by an avalanche. Practice is normally less cheerful.The snow in the Salzburg of Austria where a recent disaster took place was typical avalanche material. For several days before the incident I had skied locally. Early winter snow was wearing thin and covered with ice. On top of that new, warmer flakes were gently falling to produce a dangerous carpet. To the skier who enjoys unmarked slopes it is tempting stuff, deep new power snow on a hard base—the skiing that dreams are made of and sometimes nightmares.Snow falls in sections like a cake. Different sections have different densities because of the temperatures at the time of the fall and in the weeks afterwards. Problems come when any particular section is too thick and not sticking to the section beneath. The snow of the past few weeks had been falling in rather higher temperatures than those of December and early January. The result of these conditions is that even a slight increase in the temperatures sends a thin stream of water between the new snow and the old. Then the new snow simply slides off the mountain.Such slides are not unexpected. Local citizens know the slopes which tend to avalanche and the weather in which such slides are likely. Traps are set to catch the snow or prevent it slipping; bombs are placed and exploded from time to time to set off small avalanches before a big one has time to build up; and above all, skiers are warned not to ski in danger areas.In spite of this, avalanches happen in unexpected areas and, of course, skiers ignore the warnings. The one comfort to recreational skiers, however, is that avalanche incidents on the marked ski slopes are quite rare. No ski resort wants the image of being a death trap.1. Each winter holiday makers in the mountains come face to face with death because ______.2. According to the writer, skiing conditions in the Salzburg area of Austria before the accident happened were ______.3. In areas where avalanches are known to happen ______.4. Although accidents do happen, skiers will be reasonably safe if ______.

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In 1885 Owen Wister (1850-1938) recorded that “it won’t be a century before the west is simply the true America, with thought, type, and life of its own” and he wanted “to be the hand that once, for all, chronicled and laid bare the virtues and the ices of this extraordinary phase of American social progress.” He never became that self-envisioned Tolstoi of the old West, but in 1902 The Virginian was published. It won instant success and sky-rocketed its author to fame. It is still the most popular “western” novel ever published and the master design for the fiction of the Wild West.The Virginian established a literary form, a formula popularly known as “horse opera”, whose conventions, cliches, and values have reappeared in novels and short stories, in movies and television serials, ever since. The romantic cowboy is the hero and gentleman, one of those “good men in the humbler walks of life”, who seems through shams, defends justice and a lady’s honor, shoots it out with the villain and conquers evil. Because of The Virginian, Wister created a character who is the original type for the western folk hero. He represents the embodiment of certain American ideals—a man who is equal to all occasions who shows independence of action, a man who keeps his word who is a broad-gauge fellow living among narrow-gauge fold”. But the literary device and cowboy code which Wister established dictated that the hero must kill the head man. This necessity for sanctioning murder and romanticizing of the cowboy as a gentleman prohibited. The Virginian and the genre it created from becoming serious fiction, or even an authentic product of the western experience. Instead of achieving his ambition, therefore, Wister gave us a sort of American folk epic, the cowboy story.1. Owen Wister believed ______.2. Stylistically, The Virginian is noted for the fact that it ______.3. The popularity which was accorded The Virginian indicates that Wister ______.4. The author of the article believes that ______.

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Thousands of years ago man used handy rocks for his surgical operations. Later he used sharp bone or horn, metal knives and more recently, rubber and plastic. And that was where we stuck, in surgical instrument terms, for many years. In the 1960s a new tool was developed, one which was, first of all, to be of great practical use to the armed forces and industry, but which was also, in time, to revolutionize the art and science of surgery.The tool is the laser and it is being used by more and more surgeons all over the world, for a very large number of different complaints. The word laser means: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Light. As we all know, light is hot; any source of light—from the sun itself down to a humble match burning—will give warmth. But light is usually spread out over a wide area. The light in a laser beam, however, is concentrated. This means that a light with no more power than that produced by an ordinary electric light bulb becomes intensely strong as it is concentrated to a pinpoint-sized beam.Experiments with these pinpoint beams showed researchers that different energy sources produce beams that have a particular effect on certain living cells. It is new possible for eye surgeons to operate on the back of the human eye without harming the front of the eye, simply by passing a laser beam right through: the eyeball. No knives no stitches, no unwanted damage—a true surgical wonder.Operations which once left patients exhausted and in need of long periods of recovery time now leave them feeling relaxed and comfortable. So much more difficult operations can now he tried.The rapid development of laser techniques in the past ten years has made it clear that the future is likely to be very exciting. Perhaps some cancers will be treated with laser in a way that makes surgery not only safer but more effective. Altogether, tomorrow may see more and more information coming to light on the diseases which can he treated medically.1. After the development of the laser in the 1960s, we find that ______.2. The laser beam is so strong because ______.3. Surgeons can now carry out operations which ______.4. The rapid development of laser techniques has meant that ______.

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Critics of early schooling cite research that questions whether 4-year-old children are ready to take on formal learning. Educators find that(1)toddlers are more likely to succeed during their school careers.(2)their younger counterparts are more likely to(3). Kindergarten children who turn five during the(4)half of the year seem to be at a disadvantage when it(5)physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development. Additionally, children who are nearly six when they enter kindergarten(6)to receive better grades and score higher on achievement(7)throughout their schooling experience(8)do those who begin kindergarten having just turned five. Being bright and verbally skillful and being ready for school do not seem to be the(9)thing. It is easy to confuse the superficial poise and sophistication of many of today’s children(10)inner maturity. Indeed, evidence suggests that early schooling boomerangs. Youngsters(11)parents push them to attain academic success in preschool are less creative, have(12)anxiety about tests, and, by the end of kindergarten, fail to maintain their initial academic advantage(13)their less-pressured peers.Many psychologists and educators remain skeptical of approaches that place 4-year-olds in a formal educational setting. They question(14)environmental enrichment can significantly alter the built-in developmental timetable of a child reared in a non-disadvantaged home. They do not deny, however, the(15)of day-care centers and nursery schools that provide a homelike environment and allow children(16)freedom to play, develop at their own(17), and evolve their social skills. But they point out that many of the things children once did in first grade are now(18)of them in kindergarten, and they worry lest more and more will now be asked of 4-year-olds. These psychologists and educators believe we are driving young children too(19)and thereby depriving them of their(20).

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The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1868, prohibits state governments from denying citizens the “equal protection of the laws”. Although precisely what the framers of the amendment meant by this equal protection clause remains unclear, all interpreters agree that the framers’ immediate objective was to provide a constitutional warrant for the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which guaranteed the citizenship of all persons born in the United States and subject to United States jurisdiction. This declaration, which was echoed in the text of the Fourteenth Amendment, was designed primarily to counter the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dred Scott V Sanford that Black people in the United States could be denied citizenship. The act was vetoed by President Andrew Johnson, who argued that the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, did not provide Congress with authority to extend citizenship and equal protection the freed slaves. Although Congress promptly overrode Johnson’s veto, supporters of the act sought to ensure its constitutional foundations with the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment.The broad language of the amendment strongly suggests that its framers were proposing to write into the Constitution not a laundry list of specific civil rights but a principle of equal citizenship that forbids organized society from treating any individual as a member of an inferior class. Yet for the first eight decades of the amendment’s existence, the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the amendment betrayed this ideal of equality. In the Civil Rights Cases of 1883, for example, the Court invented the “state action” limitation, which asserts that “private” decisions by owners of public accommodations and other commercial businesses to segregate their facilities are insulated from the reach of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. After the Second World War, a judicial climate more hospitable to equal protection claims culminated in the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown V. Broad of Education that racially segregated schools violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.1. According to this passage, which of the following is correct?2. According to the passage, which of the following most accurately indicates the sequence of the events listed below?I. Civil Rights Act of 1866 II. Dred Scott V. SanfordIII. Fourteenth Amendment IV. Veto by President Johnson3. According to the passage, the original proponents of the Fourteenth Amendment were primarily concerned with ______.4. The author implies that the Fourteenth Amendment might not have been enacted if ______.5. The passage suggests that the principal effect of the state action limitation was to ______.

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The earliest controversies about the relationship between photography and art centered on whether photography’s fidelity to appearances and dependence on a machine allowed it to be a fine art, as distinct from merely a practical art. Throughout the nineteenth century, the defense of photography was identical with the struggle to establish it as a fine art. Against the charge that photography was a soulless, mechanical copying of reality; photographers asserted that it was instead a privileged way of seeing, a revolt against commonplace vision, and no less worthy an art than painting.Ironically, now that photography is securely established as a fine art, many photographers find it pretentious or irrelevant to label it as such. Serious photographers variously claim to be finding, recording, impartially observing, witnessing events, exploring themselves—anything but making works of art. In the nineteen century, photography’s association with the real world placed it in an ambivalent relation to art; late in the twentieth century, an ambivalent relation exists because of the Modernist heritage in art. That important photographers are no longer willing to debate whether photography is or is not a fine art, except to proclaim that their own work is not involved with art, shows the extent to which they simply take for granted the concept of art imposed by the triumph of Modernism: the better the art, the more subversive it is of the traditional aims of art.Photographers’ disclaimers of any interest in making art tell us more about the harried status of the contemporary notion of art than about whether photography is or not art. For example those photographers who suppose that, by taking pictures, they are getting away from the pretensions of art as exemplified by painting remind us of those Abstract Expressionist painters who imagined they were getting away from the intellectual austerity of classical Modernist painting by concentrating on the physical act of painting.Photography, however, has developed all the anxieties and self-consciousness of a classic Modernist art. Many professionals privately have begun to worry that the promotion of photography as an activity subversive of the traditional pretensions of art has gone so far that the public will forget that photography is a distinctive and exalted activity—in short, an art.1. In the passage, the author is primarily concerned with ______.2. According to the author, the nineteenth-century defenders of photography mentioned in the passage stressed that photography was ______.3. Which of the following adjectives best describes “the concept of art imposed by the triumph of Modernism” as the author represents it in the last sentence of the second paragraph?4. According to the passage, which of the following best explains the reaction of serious contemporary photographers to the question of whether photography is an art?5. The author introduce Abstract Expressionist painters in order to ______.

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Why would any woman in her right mind choose to walk on the balls of her feet with her heels propped up by spikes? The historical answer is that high heels reflect aristocratic tastes—specifically, the tastes of the seventeenth-century French court, which first popularized them in Europe. Not only did heels keep the wearer’s feet relatively mud free, they also created a physical elevation to match the social elevation of the stylish, exaggerated the strutting gait of the noble classes, and they suggested, by their very precariousness, that their owners could afford not to worry about falling on their faces. Indeed, as Bernard Rudofsky points out, seventeenth-century wearers of high heels, men and women, frequently had to be transported in sedan chairs because they could not manage cobblestones on foot. Some “heels” in that era were actually full-soled platforms, and to walk on these things at all, one needed the constant elbow support of two servants.The helplessness associated with the raised-heel style encouraged the notion that heeled persons were above having to care for themselves. In view of this, it is not surprising that even today it is women, almost exclusively, who wear heels. High heels are the cobbler’s contribution to what I have called the pedestal ploy. They link physical incapacity with the notion of woman as a “higher being”—too high to get along on her own.Women have taken to high heels, of course, because they feel, correctly, that they increase their attractiveness to men. Part of that increased attractiveness has to do with male fantasies of female fragility. As fashion iconoclast Elizabeth Hawes puts it, “The idea is that he, in his heavy shoes, should feel stronger and more capable than she on her fragile stilts. Never mind the realities.” Another part of it may be biological. In his discussion of rump display among mammals, Dale Guthrie notes that the “lines of the buttocks, thigh, calf and ankle have a native sexual stimulation, but this can be increased with high-heeled shoes; the curves are exaggerated when the heel is lifted.” Heels also exaggerate the lateral motion of buttocks. The ultimate function of high heels, therefore, may be to fuel the male belief that women are both impotent and seductive.1. The passage is mainly about ______.2. From historical point of view, high heels ______.3. Women on high heels suggest that ______.4. The most important reason for women’s preference to high heels is that ______.5. The men’s attitudes towards women’s wearing high heels are that ______.

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With the US economy slowing down, layoffs are everywhere. No industry is spared. If you end up having to start over, in addition to starting your job search, there are several things you should take care of to make your transition a smooth one.First and foremost, clear up any misunderstanding about how and why you left your last job with your ex-boss. Whether you left voluntarily, were fired or were laid off due to budget cutbacks, make sure you both have the same explanation. Agree on job titles accordingly. Also ask for a reference if you think your ex-boss will offer one and you trust that he or she will speak honestly about your performance.You should have a source of emergency cash that you can use in the interim. Don’t panic and liquidate your stocks and bonds just yet, be optimistic in your prospects while also be more frugal than usual. You should save money on not having to dry clean work clothes so often and eating less take-out lunches. Save money by not eating out at restaurants and watch videos rather than going to the movies every weekend. Mark a note of your job-hunting expenses, such as career counselor’ consulting fees and resume printing costs, and save the receipts. By next year’s tax-filing time, you could get deductions on your job-search expense (unless you left a job willingly or was a college graduate looking for your first job).Most companies terminate your medical insurance coverage as soon as you stop working for them. But it doesn’t mean you have to forgo medical coverage altogether. There is something called Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) in the United States that legally protects an ex-employee’s right to stay in the company’s health care plan. However, the company will stop paying your premiums, and you will have to pay out of your pocket the expenses. This is still a good option compared to no health insurance at all.Another important thing to take care of when you change jobs is your 401(k) account. A 401(k) is the retirement fund that most companies offer. It’s named after section 401(k) in the Internal Revenue Service’s policy documents. You put aside a percentage of your paycheck each pay period, and the money accumulated will be managed by the 401(k) fund manager your employer has hired and is invested in the stock market. You cannot withdraw money from this account until you reach this age, or you will incur penalties. When you leave a job, the money can sometimes be kept with your ex-employer for a while. It’s always a good idea to compare your new employer’s 401(k) plan with your old one. Every company offers different types of investment options, form overseas stocks to high-tech stocks and everything in between. If you don’t want to transfer the account to your new employer, you need to go to the human resources department and ask for forms that help you make the transition.Don’t forget to ask for job leads from your ex-coworker. Even if you are leaving for a job in another industry, you never know what people they happen to know that can help with your job search. Keep in touch with the friends you have make at your old job. Remember to anchor yourself to people, not institutions, and you will find that any transition is made easier.1. According to paragraph 1, in the United States, ______.2. The word “interim” most probably means ______.3. What’s the point of saving the receipts of job-searching expense?4. COBRA ensures an ex-employee stay in the health care plan ______.5. Which statement is true according to this passage?

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Passage 1Many human diseases are caused by the absence or inappropriate presence of a protein. The protein could then be administered to patients in order to compensate for its absence. Today, gene therapy is the ultimate method of protein delivery, in which the delivered gene enters the body’s cells and turns them into small “factories” that produce a therapeutic protein for a specific disease over a prolonged period. As gene therapy has moved from the laboratory into the clinic, several issues have emerged as central to the development of this technology: gene identification, gene expression and gene delivery. A number of disease-related genes with direct clinical value have already been identified, and this number is growing as the field rapidly advances. Genes with broader clinical application are also being utilized to make ceils express immune activating agents locally at the disease site or to become susceptible to further drug treatment or to immune response recognition.Passage 2It is the now well-known IBM brand that formed part of the computer science revolution. IBM released the IBM 704 and later the IBM 709 computers, which were widely used during the exploration period of such devices. During the late 1950s, the computer science discipline was very much in its developmental stages, and such issues were commonplace. Time has seen significant improvements in the usability and effectiveness of computer science technology. Modern society has been a significant shift from computers being used solely by experts or professionals to more and more widespread user base. By the 1990s, computers became accepted as being the norm within everyday life. During this time data entry was a primary component of the use of computers, many preferring to streamline their business practices through the use of a computer. This also gave the additional benefit of removing the need of large amounts of documentation and file records which consumed much-needed physical space within offices.Passage 3Every organization is an emotional place. It is an emotional place because it is a human invention, serving human purposes and dependent on human beings to function. And human beings are emotional animals: subject anger, fear, surprise, disgust, happiness or joy, ease and unease. Recently, there have been attempts to develop the idea of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence emphasizes the impact reason can make on emotion. The claim made for this perspective is that it represents “an ability to perceive, to process, to understand, and to manage emotions in self and others.” Proponents of emotional intelligence maintain that there are distinct individual abilities and skills that relate to the explicit management of emotion. In addition, emotional intelligence develops over time and can be enhanced by training. Therefore, learning to perceive emotion in others and manage these emotions successfully is an important tool in every manager’s guide book.

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Once upon a time there lived a beautiful young woman and a handsome young man. They were very poor, but as they were deeply in love, they wanted to get married. The young people’s parents shook their heads. “You can’t get married yet,” they said. “Wait till you get a good job with good prospects.” So the young people waited until they found good jobs with good prospects and they were able to get married. They were still poor, of course. They didn’t have a house to live in or any furniture, but that didn’t matter. The young man had a good job with good prospects, so large organizations lent him the money he needed to buy a house, some furniture, ail the latest electrical appliances and a car. The couple lived happily ever after paying off debts for the rest of their lives. And so ends another modern romantic fable.We live in a materialistic society and are trained form our earliest years to be acquisitive. Our possessions, “mine” and “yours” are clearly labeled from early childhood. When we grow old enough to earn a living, it does not surprise us to discover that success is measured in terms of money you earn. We spend the whole of our lives keeping up with the Joneses. If we buy a new television set, a Jones is bound to buy a bigger and better one. If we buy a new car, we can be sure that Jones will get one better and get two new cars: one for his wife and one for himself. The most amusing thing about this game is that the Joneses and all the neighbors who are struggling frantically to keep up with the mare spending borrowed money kindly provided, at a Suitable rate of interest, of course, by friendly banks, insurance companies, etc.It is not only in affluent societies that people are obsessed with the idea of making more money. Consumer goods are desirable everywhere and modern industry deliberately sets, out to create new markets. Gone are the days when industrial goods were made to last forever. The wheel of industry must be kept turning. “Built-in obsolescence” provides the means: good are made to be discarded. Cars get tinnier and tinnier. You no sooner acquire this year’s model than you are thinking about its replacement.This materialistic outlook has seriously influenced education. Fewer and fewer young people these days acquire knowledge only for its own sake. Every course of studies must lead somewhere: i.e. to a bigger wage packet. The demand for skilled personnel far exceeds the supply and big companies compete with each other to recruit students before they have completed their studies. Tempting salaries and “fringe benefits” are offered to them. Recruiting tactics of this kind have led to the “brain drain”, the process by which highly skilled people offer their services to the highest bidder. The wealthier nations deprive their poorer neighbors of their most able citizens. While Mammon is worshipped as never before, the rich get richer and poor, poorer.1. From the first paragraph, we can infer that ______.2. The expression “keep up with the Joneses” might mean ______.3. According to the author ______.4. What’s the best title for the passage?5. We can infer that more people past acquired knowledge ______.6. “Brain drain” means ______.7. We can infer that brain drain ______.

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Of all figures from America’s past, Abraham Lincoln is dearest to the hearts of the American people. In fact, the admiration they have for him borders on worship. Writers note that the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC is not unlike the temples that ancient Greeks built in honor of their goods, and that annual ceremonies of celebrating Lincoln’s birthday in schools and public places have sometimes had characteristics of religious services. Certainly Lincoln is America’s ideal of a great leader. He had many of the quality of leadership that Americans admire.First of all, Lincoln’s career fits popular American belief that every child can dream of becoming president. Americans admire the person—the one who, with neither money nor family influence, fights his or her way to the top. Lincoln was born of poor parents. His mother died when he was young. He had little opportunity for schooling. His early study was done alone at night by the light of a fireplace. He did hard manual labor through the day—splitting rails for fences, taking care of livestock, working on riverboat—or in store. But as he grew older he studied law in his spare time and became a lawyer. He was a good speaker and student of political philosophy. His ability finally made a name for him and eventually he became president of the United States.Lincoln is also admired because of his leadership during the difficult period of the Civil War. He dared to do what he thought was right at a time when his beliefs were unpopular with many people. He, in a sense, represents the spirit of union among the states. Before the Civil war, the economy of the South depended on an agricultural system which made use of slave labor. When reformers in the northern states, put pressure on Congress not to permit to secede or withdraw, from the United States, they argued that the question of slavery was a matter for the individual states to decide rather than the federal government, and they did not want to accept its decision. The national government said that no state had the right to secede, and the Civil War was the result. If the south had won the war, what is the Unites States might well have been divided into several countries. Lincoln worked hard to preserve the union, and the northern states were victorious.Furthermore, Lincoln had many personal qualities that made him dear to the hearts of his country man. He had infinite patience and tolerance for those who disagreed with him. As president, he appointed men to high government positions whom he considered most capable, even though some of them openly scorned him. He was generous to his opponents. There are many stories about his thoughtful treatment of southern leaders. When the war was over, he showed the South no hatred. Since generosity toward a defeated opponent is admired by Americans, Lincoln fitted the national idea of what is right.Shortly after the Civil War ended, Lincoln, was shot while attending a play in Washington Theater. He died within a few hours. The uncontrolled emotional reaction of the nation to his death was almost unbelievable and demonstrated the deep esteem in which he was held. Newspapers were edged with black; religious leaders gave praise of Lincoln instead of their prepared sermons. His funeral procession in Washington was miles long. Lincoln’s body was taken by train back to his former home in Springfield, Illinois, but in all the major cities through which the train passed, the coffin was paraded through streets lined with sorrowful thousands. In the small towns through which the train passed bells rang in honor of the dead president. Citizens lit torches along the railroad track to show their last respects.The circumstances of his death set Lincoln apart from other American leaders. Had Lincoln lived, it might well be that his postwar policies would have brought criticisms upon him that would have tarnished his popularity. Instead, an assassin’s bullet erased in the minds of Americans any faults he had and emphasized his virtues.1. What are the aspects that made Lincoln ideal of a great leader?2. Lincoln’s beliefs used to be ______.3. From the last paragraph it could be inferred that ______.4. From the second paragraph we learn that ______.5. Lincoln came from a city named ______.6. How many personal qualities are mentioned in paragraph 4?7. The word “assassin” means ______.

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Since the first settlers from England had arrived in Virginia in the seventeenth century, independence for the United States was a long time coming. But even if England had not given the colonies cause for rebellion, there would probably have been a separation from the mother country, for the roots of American independence lay in the character of the American colonists. Any people who would willingly forsake the comforts and safety of the Old World to wrest a home from the wilderness in the raw New World would never take kindly to a rein on their liberties. And England assuredly did stir the colonists to rebellion by its Writs of Assistance, Stamp Act, and tax on tea. Further, many of the colonists had never seen England, either being descendants of English settlers or coming from families rooted in other nations; thus, the ties to England were tenuous at best.As with any explosive situation, however, it took a single act to ignite the powder keg. The light for the fuse was supplied “when England’s taxed tea was thrown overboard from ships in Boston Harbor in December of 1773 in what is called the Boston Tea Party. England demanded payment, and its Boston Port Act proposed to close the harbor until the tea was paid for. “With this, all thirteen colonies flared. They saw, clearly, that Boston’s fate could be their own, and that Boston’s fight was their fight. Alone, no colony could prevail against England. Together, they had a fight chance. The movement to unite began at an unofficial session of the Virginia House of Burgesses on May 27, 1774. By September of this same year the First Continental Congress met and forced the nucleus of a union. The delegates agreed to boycott British goods. Before the Second Continental Congress could hold its first meeting on May 10, 1775, the American Revolution had begun. With the shots exchanged between the colonists and the British at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, the nation exploded into war. By June the Americans had an army with George Washington as its commander in chief. By spring of 1776 all thirteen colonies delegates to Congress felt keenly the mandate of the people. The Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in June and formed a committee to draw up a Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson was appointed by the committee to draft the Declaration. The Declaration as we know it today was unanimously adopted on July 4, and was signed on August 2, 1776.The Declaration of Independence contained five of the most earthshaking words ever written, “…all men are created equal.” Not since the signing of…England’s Magna Carta in 1215 had such an astonishing idea found its way into the public consciousness. The document has often been confused with a declaration of war, which it definitely was not, since was had existed before July 4, 1776. It was primarily a statement of the reasons to the world of the colonists for wishing independence from England: As the world took heed, the phrase “…all men are created equal” stuck in men’s minds and could not be dislodged. The fervor for freedom flamed in France where that nation’s first great revolution began in 1789, fought under the banner of “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.” Later, President Abraham Lincoln was to say, “I have often inquired of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the motherland; but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time.”1. According to the first paragraph, the separation from England was ______.2. Which of the following is NOT TRUE?3. The word “boycott” in the second paragraph most probably means ______.4. What can you learn from the last paragraph?5. We can infer that ______.6. The word “document” in line 3 of the last paragraph refers to ______.7. The word “motherland” refers to ______.

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