In American English we have an expression: “A dog is a man’s best friend.”An organization called Reading Education Assistance Dogs, or R.E.A.D, has been using dogs to help children learn to read since 1999.The idea is that sharing a book with a kind listener increases the confidence of the students. It can also increase their love of reading.Izzy is a cute therapy dog and a regular visitor to Public School 57 in East Harlem, New York.Students meet him in the library, pick out a book and sit down on the carpet. Izzy clings to them and gets ready to hear a story.Mike said, “I love reading to Izzy because he listens to me, and he doesn’t make fun of me when I make a mistake.”The kids’ teacher McElroy says she sees a great difference in Mike and his classmates. The difference is not just in their reading levels. She also sees their increased love and excitement of reading.“Not only do the kids have time to practice reading, what we are really seeing is that they are excited to read, and they are motivated to practice even when Izzy is not here. And as a classroom teacher, you know, there is very little that I can do to convince a kid to go home and practice reading, where 20 minutes a week with Izzy is all that they need.”1.How do dogs help children learn to read according to the passage?A) By picking out right books for them.B) By playing reading games with them.C) By reminding them to read on time.D) By just being a listener beside them.2.Why does Mike love reading to Izzy the dog?A) Because it is very cute and lively.B) Because it does not laugh at his mistake.C) Because it acts funny while he is reading.D) Because it does not make so much noise.3.What change does the teacher see in the children?A) They become very eager to read loudly to dogs.B) They are willing to share their books with others.C) They can read for more than 20 minutes a week.D) They love to read even when dogs are not there.

While most people choose mates who are like them in many ways, new research exposes a big and important exception: When it comes to spending habits, we tend to marry our opposites.Spendthrifts tend to marry tightwads, and tightwads tend to marry spendthrifts, says this New York Times feature based on researchers' examination of several surveys and a randomized (随机的) poll on the topic. While the reasons aren't clear, it could be that one partner sees in the other something he or she needs. If you're a spendthrift picking a mate, you might unconsciously be looking for help controlling bad spending habits. If you're a tightwad, you might feel a need to loosen up and have a little fun.Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California at San Diego, and the University of Michigan found the spending habits of "spendthrifts" (Para.2)?A. They are careful about spending money.B. They spend money in a wasteful manner.C. They are happy to spend money for others.D. They only want to spend money for themselves.

Let's be honest：If you like to take lots of vacation，the United States is not the place to work.Besides a handful of national holidays，the typical American worker gets two or three precious weeks off out of a whole year to relax and see the world—much less than what people in many other countries receive.Only 57% of the US workers use up all of the days they're entitled (授权) to，compared with 89% of workers in France, a recent research found. So what's going on here？A big reason for the difference is that paid time off is supported by law in many parts of the world.Germany is among more than two dozen industrialized countries—from Australia to Slovenia to Japan—that require employers to offer four weeks or more of paid vacation to their workers，according to a 2009 study by the human resources consulting company Mercer.Finland, Brazil and France are the champions, guaranteeing six weeks of time off. But employers in the United States have no duty under federal law to offer any paid vacation, so about a quarter of all American workers don't have access to it，government figures show.That makes the US the only advanced nation in the world that doesn't guarantee its workers annual leave，according to a report titled “No­Vacation Nation” by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal policy group. But the fear of layoffs(下岗) and the ever­faster pace of work mean many Americans don't want to be absent from the office—anxious that they might look like they're not willing to work hard.Or they worry they won't be able to deal with the backlog (积压未办之事)of work waiting for them after a vacation. Working more makes Americans happier than Europeans, according to a study published recently in the Journal of Happiness Studies.That may be because Americans believe more than Europeans do that hard work is associated with success, wrote Adam Okulicz­Kozaryn，the study's author and an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Dallas.“Americans increase their happiness by working, and Europeans increase their happiness through vacation，” he found. 【小题1】Which of the following countries has the longest paid vacation? A．America. B．Germany. C．Australia. D．France. 【小题2】What does the underlined word “it”in Paragraph 3 refer to? A．Federal law. B．Paid vacation. C．Annual leave. D．Long vacation. 【小题3】Why are many Americans unwilling to be absent from the office? a．They enjoy their work very much. b．They are afraid of being fired. c．They are not protected by law. d．They are worried about falling behind. A．a，b B．a，d C．c，d D．b，d 【小题4】What does the study in the Journal of Happiness Studies find? A．Americans get more happiness from work than Europeans. B．Americans believe happiness is the most important thing. C．Europeans believe more hard work leads to success. D．Europeans do not like taking long vacations. 【小题5】What is the text mainly about? A．Why American workers have fewer vacations. B．The reasons why American workers dislike work. C．How workers in different countries take vacations. D．Why American workers are happier than Europeans.

六级写作试题写作(第1套)Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes towrite an essay that begins with the sentence "Withthe increasing application of Al technology, thereis a growing concern that it may negativelyimpact human creativity." You can makecomments, cite examples or use your personalexperience to develop your essay. You should writeat least underline(150) words but no more than underline(200) words.

What should be the most important standard of choosing a distance learning college?A. Courses.B. Tuition.C. Accreditation.D. Degrees.

When I asked my advisor in college what I should do with my life，he looked at my transcripts （成绩单），which showed lots of language classes，some literature classes，advanced mathematics，and Indian history.He shrugged his shoulders and said， "Maybe law school？" It sounded like I was going nowhere.At that moment，I remembered what a high school teacher had told me： "You're a born writer." Consequently，I （1） ____ that this was what I should do. I got a job where I thought I'd be given a chance to start out on my writing career.A local company was building an online tool to teach mathematics，and they needed help with everything from programming to writing.I started out programming，and since I had taken plenty of courses in mathematics and computer science，it was easy to （2） ____ the management that I was able to do this.It was not long before I asked them to give me a chance to write the maths lessons. The result turned out to be，well， （3） ____ . "Why did you start the lesson this way？" my boss asked. "This doesn't work at all!" I tried again and looked forward to receiving （4） ____ feed-back. "I'm not sure this is really what you're good at，" he said the second time. I was crushed，and my boss put me back on programming. （5） ____ ，I kept writing outside normal office hours.I （6） ____ fiction with other aspiring writers in evening workshops.I read as much as I could and studied how other writers wrote.After a long while，I persuaded my boss to give me another （7） ____ ，and this time he started approving the lessons I had written.In a few years，I moved to another company，where I worked as the （8） ____ editor，training and supervising a team of writers and editors. （9） ____ ，I used to believe success would come easy seeing that I was "a born writer." But now I have come to understand that people's careers and lives almost never work this way.There are always unexpected obstacles，and success is never quite what you （10） ____ it to be. This is why perseverance is （11） ____ .As individuals，we need perseverance to achieve our goals，even if sometimes it appears that the obstacles are going to make us so （12） ____ that we will never reach the goals we've set for ourselves.The British inventor James Dyson，who had made more than 5，000 prototypes （原型） of his bagless vacuum cleaner before coming up with a viable model，once said that competitive running taught him how to persevere. "It seems as though you can't carry on，but if you just （13） ____ the pain barrier，you'll see the end and be okay." And as members of a community，we need the same kind of perseverance in times of （14） ____ .Addressing problems such as climate change may require us to make （15） ____ ，like eating less meat to cut carbon dioxide emissions，but the goal，once achieved，will certainly be worth it. （1） A.agreed B.determined C.guessed D.proved （2） A.approve mand C.convince D.warn （3） A.astonishing B.disappointing C.encouraging D.frightening （4） A.appropriate B.favorable C.honest D.immediate （5） A.Hence B.However C.Otherwise D.Therefore （6） A.connected B.exchanged C.provided D.replaced （7） A.option B.reason C.respect D.shot （8） A.acting B.consulting C.founding D.managing （9） A.Looking around B.Looking back C.Going forward D.Moving backward （10） A.design B.discover C.imagine D.remember （11） A.critical B.fantastic C.initial D.strict （12） A.confident B.flexible C.miserable D.secure （13） A.get through B.give in C.pick up D.set aside （14） A.justice B.peace C.success D.trouble （15） A.advances B.payments C.sacrifices D.sufferings

Passage OneA. Dogs have a natural instinct to guide the blind.B. Horses have a natural instinct to return home.C. Guide dogs sometimes may not obey their masters.D. Racing horses are less smart than the other horses.

[听力文本资源]W: Hey! Are these pictures of you when you were a kid?M: Yeah. That’s me in front of my uncle’s house. When I was a kid, we used to spend two weeks there every summer.W: Wow, I bet that was fun!M: Yeah. We always had a great time. Every day we used to get up early and walk along the beach. I had a great shell collection. In fact, I think it’s still up in the upper floor!W: Hey, I used to collect shells, too. Oh, this is a big picture. There are so many people in it. Are those people all your family members?M: Yes, this is the picture taken two weeks ago. All my family members are together. Have a guess, how many people are there?W: There must be over 100.M: 150!W: What a great family! How many generations are there?M: Five generations from the aged to babies.W: It’s rare to see a family as big as yours.M: Yes, it’s been a long time for all of us to gather together. Although my two cousins and I grew up together, we haven’t seen each other for many years.W: Wow, you must have a really fun childhood.M: You know what I remember most about growing up?W: What?M: Visiting my grandparent’s house. You know, on holidays. My granddad had a horse. He taught my cousins and I how to ride. The three of us always fought over for being the first one to ride it in the day! I used to really enjoy spending time with my cousins at my grandparents’ house.W: Ah, memories![听力文本资源]1. [听力文本资源] What did the man do every summer when he was young? [听力文本资源]A) He took pictures with his family.B) He went to his uncle’s house. C) He collected shells for his uncle.D) He went to gather with his family.2. [听力文本资源] What did the man use to have fun in? [听力文本资源]A) Cleaning the upper floor.B) Walking along the river.C) Collecting shells. D) Taking pictures.3. [听力文本资源] How many family members are there in the big picture? [听力文本资源]A) 100.B) 150. C) 155.D) 105.4. [听力文本资源] What impressed the man most at his grandparent’s house with his cousins? [听力文本资源]A) Riding grandfather’s horse. B) Taking care of babies.C) Collecting seashells.D) Feeding and bathing horses.

Inequality Is Not Inevitable[A] A dangerous trend has developed over this past third of a century. A country that experienced shared growth after World War II began to tear apart, so much so that when the Great Recession hit in late 2007, one could no longer ignore the division that had come to define the American economic landscape. How did this "shining city on a hill" become the advanced country with the greatest level of inequality? [B] Over the past year and a half, The Great Divide, a series in The New York Times, has presented a wide range of examples that undermine the notion that there are any truly fundamental laws of capitalism. The dynamics of the imperial capitalism of the 19th century needn't apply in the democracies of the 21st. We don't need to have this much inequality in America.[C] Our current brand of capitalism is a fake capitalism. For proof of this go back to our response to the Great Recession, where we socialized losses, even as we privatized gains. Perfect competition should drive profits to zero, at least theoretically, but we have monopolies making persistently high profits. C.E.O.s enjoy incomes that are on average 295 times that of the typical worker, a much higher ratio than in the past, without any evidence of a proportionate increase in productivity.[D] If it is not the cruel laws of economics that have led to America's great divide, what is it? The straightforward answer: our policies and our politics. People get tired of hearing about Scandinavian success stories, but the fact of the matter is that Sweden, Finland and Norway have all succeeded in having about as much or faster growth in per capita (人均的) incomes than the United States and with far greater equality.[E] So why has America chosen these inequality-enhancing policies? Part of the answer is that as World War Ⅱ faded into memory, so too did the solidarity it had created. As America triumphed in the Cold War, there didn't seem to be a real competitor to our economic model. Without this international competition, we no longer had to show that our system could deliver for most of our citizens.[F] Ideology and interests combined viciously. Some drew the wrong lesson from the collapse of the Soviet system in 1991. The pendulum swung from much too much government there to much too little here. Corporate interests argued for getting rid of regulations, even when those regulations had done so much to protect and improve our environment, our safety, our health and the economy itself.[G] But this ideology was hypocritical (虚伪的). The bankers, among the strongest advocates of laissez-faire (自由放任的) economics, were only too willing to accept hundreds of billions of dollars from the government in the aid programs that have been a recurring feature of the global economy since the beginning of the Thatcher-Reagan era of "free" markets and deregulation.[H] The American political system is overrun by money. Economic inequality translates into political inequality, and political inequality yields increasing economic inequality. So corporate welfare increases as we reduce welfare for the poor. Congress maintains subsidies for rich farmers as we cut back on nutritional support for the needy. Drug companies have been given hundreds of billions of dollars as we limit Medicaid benefits. The banks that brought on the global financial crisis got billions while a tiny bit went to the homeowners and victims of the same banks' predatory (掠夺性的) lending practices. This last decision was particularly foolish. There were alternatives to throwing money at the banks and hoping it would circulate through increased lending.[I] Our divisions are deep. Economic and geographic segregation has immunized those at the top from the problems of those down below. Like the kings of ancient times, they have come to perceive their privileged positions essentially as a natural right.[J] Our economy, our democracy and our society have paid for these gross inequalities. The true test of an economy is not how much wealth its princes can accumulate in tax havens (庇护所), but how well off the typical citizen is. But average incomes are lower than they were a quarter-century ago. Growth has gone to the very, very top, whose share has almost increased four times since 1980. Money that was meant to have trickled (流淌) down has instead evaporated in the agreeable climate of Cayman Islands.[K] With almost a quarter of American children younger than 5 living in poverty, and with America doing so little for its poor, the deprivations of one generation are being visited upon the next. Of course, no country has ever come close to providing complete equality of opportunity. But why is America one of the advanced countries where the life prospects of the young are most sharply determined by the income and education of their parents? [L] Among the most bitter stories in The Great Divide were those that portrayed the frustrations of the young, who long to enter our shrinking middle class. Soaring tuitions and declining incomes have resulted in larger debt burdens. Those with only a high school diploma have seen their incomes decline by 13 percent over the past 35 years.[M] Where justice is concerned, there is also a huge divide. In the eyes of the rest of the world and a significant part of its own population, mass imprisonment has come to define America—a country, it bears repeating, with about 5 percent of the world's population but around a fourth of the world's prisoners.[N] Justice has become a commodity, affordable to only a few. While Wall Street executives used their expensive lawyers to ensure that their ranks were not held accountable for the misdeeds that the crisis in 2008 so graphically revealed, the banks abused our legal system to foreclose (取消赎回权) on mortgages and eject tenants, some of whom did not even owe money.[O] More than a half-century ago, America led the way in advocating for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948. Today, access to health care is among the most universally accepted rights, at least in the advanced countries. America, despite the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, is the exception. In the relief that many felt when the Supreme Court did not overturn the Affordable Care Act, the implications of the decision for Medicaid were not fully appreciated. Obamacare's objective—to ensure that all Americans have access to health care—has been blocked: 24 states have not implemented the expanded Medicaid program, which was the means by which Obamacare was supposed to deliver on its promise to some of the poorest.[P] We need not just a new war on poverty but a war to protect the middle class. Solutions to these problems do not have to be novel. Far from it. Making markets act like markets would be a good place to start. We must end the rent-seeking society we have gravitated toward, in which the wealthy obtain profits by manipulating the system.[Q] The problem of inequality is not so much a matter of technical economics. It's really a problem of practical politics. Inequality is not just about the top marginal tax rate but also about our children's access to food and the right to justice for all. If we spent more on education, health and infrastructure (基础设施), we would strengthen our economy, now and in the future.In theory, free competition is supposed to reduce the margin of profits to the minimum. The United States is now characterized by a great division between the rich and the poor. America lacked the incentive to care for the majority of its citizens as it found no rival for its economic model. The wealthy top have come to take privileges for granted. Many examples show the basic laws of imperial capitalism no longer apply in present-day America. The author suggests a return to the true spirit of the market. A quarter of the world's prisoner population is in America. Government regulation in America went from one extreme to the other in the past two decades. Justice has become so expensive that only a small number of people like corporate executives can afford it. No country in the world so far has been able to provide completely equal opportunities for all.

大P住PEF C√_U/Z5 Throughout the world of adventure and sport, no group generates as much anger and hatred as road cyclists do. Over the last six months,I've conducted an informal survey of friends and family, asking them"What do you think of road cyclists?"It turned out that road cyclists piss people off. At the heart of the problem is that road cyclists are often perceived as arrogant, elitist, self- righteous, and acting as if they were above the law. Two weeks ago, we posted a video of a car crashing into two road cyclists, then leaving the scene without stopping. Comments predictably directed anger at the driver, but there were also plenty who pointed out that the riders ran stop signs prior to being hit. Even when road cyclist are victims, they find a way to attract criticism. Lest you think I'm staking out an anti-cyclist Section B Reading Comp. on 1/5 11. According to the author's informal survey, road cyclists _ people. A) annoy B) surprise C) sadden D) delight