56．What does the underlined sentence in the second paragraph refer to?

A．None of the parents like the author stuck to traditional manners．

B．Most of the children are in favor of out-of-date manners．

C．A majority of the parents like the author fall behind the times．

D．A large quantity of parents prefer to pass the good manners to their children．

55. Which city has dropped most on the list in North America?

A. New York.　 B. Los Angeles.　　　　　　 C. San Francisco.　 D. Toronto.

E

One of my longest-running battles with my kids is about manners specifically，about whether it's necessary to send hand-written thank-you notes for gifts．I say yes，and my children have continued throughout their teens to write the notes．But they grumble that I'm out of step with the times．

If a new BabyCenter poll is any guide, I'm not alone．A surprisingly large number of parents still insist that their children practice such old-fashioned manners as putting pen-to-paper to say thank you，treating adults with respect and addressing adults as “Mr．, Mrs．or Miss．”A majority of the 1,000 parents surveyed also said they insist at dinner that children keep napkins in their laps，ask to be excused from the table and refrain from talking with a full mouth．

Among the reasons cited most often by parents，BabyCenter says，is that “the world is a more free-wheeling place，and they want to give their kids a stronger moral compass to guide them．”This thinking was affirmed by 64%of those surveyed．And 58%say they see so many badly behaved kids around them that they're determined to raise their children differently．

This poses a particular challenge for parents who work outside the home and must find a sitter, nanny or other child-care provider who will insist on the manners they consider most important．

Pediatrician(儿科医生)Perri Klass wrote recently in the New York Times about her annoyance at a rude，demanding child who was among her longtime patients．Although she veiled her injunctions to the mother in euphemisms(委婉语)，talking to her about “setting limits，”Dr．Klass wrote，“I do pass judgment on kids with bad manners and so does every pediatrician I know．”Rude kids make her wonder whether there is something wrong with the family，among other things，she says．“The whole ‘manners’ concept might seem a bit odd，”she says，“until you recast(重新界定)it as ‘social skills’ a hot-button child-development issue，as I wrote in a recent column．”

Readers，what manners do you insist upon for your children? Has other kids' bad behavior led you to toughen your standards? Do the strict rules embraced by parents in the BabyCenter survey seem right，or too formal?

54. Which city is the third most expensive on the list?

A. Tokyo.　　　　 B. Hong Kong.　　　　　　　 C. Moscow.　　　　　　　　　 D. Sydney.

53. London has become the second most expensive city because of ______.

A. the high cost of clothing　　　　　　 B. the stronger pound against the dollar

C. its expensive transportation　　　　 D. the high prices of fast food meals

52. What do the underlined words “a steal” in Paragraph 3 mean?

A. an act of stealing　　　　　　　　　　　 B. something delicious

C. something very cheap　　　　　　　　 D. an act of buying

51．Suppose you are driving your friend to the airport and the car radio is on, what can't you　hear if you wear a headphone?

A．The radio music and the car engine noise.

B．The noise of the planes passing overhead and what your friend says.

C．The radio music and what your friend says.

D．The nose of the car and the planes passing overhead.

D

If you boss asks you to work in Moscow this year, he’d better offer you more money to do so - or even double that depending on where you live now. That’s because Moscow has just been found to be the world’s most expensive city for the second year in a row by Mercer Human Resources Consulting.

Using the cost of living in New York as a base, Mercer determined Moscow is 34.4 percent more expensive including the cost of housing, transportation, food, clothing, household goods and entertainment(娱乐).

A two-bedroom flat in Moscow now costs $4,000 a month; a CD $24.83, and an international newspaper $6.30, according to Mercer. By comparison, a fast food meal with a hamburger(汉堡包)is a steal at $4.80.

London takes the No.2 place, up from No.5 a year ago, thanks to higher cost of housing and a stronger British pound relative to the dollar. Mercer estimates(估算)London is 26 percent more expensive than New York these days. Following London closely are Seoul and Tokyo, both of which are 22 percent more expensive than New York, while No.5 Hong Kong is 19 percent more costly.

Among North American cities, New York and Los Angeles are the most expensive and are the only two listed in the top 50 of the world’s most expensive cities. But both have fallen since last year’s study - New York came in 15^th, down from 10^th place, while Los Angeles fell to 42^nd from 29^th place a year ago. San Francisco came in a distant third at No. 54, down 20 places from a year earlier.

Toronto, meanwhile, is Canada’s most expensive city but fell 35 places to take 82^nd place worldwide. In Australia, Sydney is the priciest place to live in and No. 21 worldwide.

50．Which of the following gives a general idea of how the above device works?

A．By producing low-frequency sound waves and rebroadcast them.

B．By producing new sound waves to suck away the unwanted sound waves.

C．By changing all background low-frequency noise into an irregular pattern.

D．By sucking away all the low-frequency sound waves turned upside down.

49．What is the best way to keep out the unwanted noise?

A．To wear an earplug.　　　　　　 　　　　 　　 B．To wear a headphone.

C．To wear a microphone.　　　　　 　　　 　 D．To wear electronics.

48. What is the purpose of writing this text? ________

A. To remember those who lost their lives in the sea.

B. To show the writer’s anger to the sea.

C. To encourage other fishermen to struggle.

D. To tell readers a sad story.

C

A New Headphone

The answer to a very great noise may not be blocking it out with earplugs but taking that noise and bearing it as its own game.

Earplugs have been the simple but effective way to stop noise affecting your mind, but their shortcoming is that they also block out sounds you may want or need to hear, such as music or someone talking to you.

The answer to this problem is “ active noise cancellation(抵消)” headphones that are made up of a microphone and electronics(电子装置)that take all background low-frequency(低频率)noise, turn the sound waves upside down and rebroadcast them into your ears.

The result is that all the unwanted noises around are blocked out.

In effect, one set of electronically produced around wave has sucked away the unwanted sound waves of noise.

Stand next to a busy road wearing the noise cancellation headphones and the traffic noise disappears. Sit in an airplane and the engine noise dies away. In a noisy office, the noise of office equipment, people and air-conditioning is gone. You can still , however, hear music or people talking because that sound does not have a regular pattern and so the device(装置)does not block it.

47. What does “a friend” in the last paragraph refer to? ________

A. A family member of fishermen.

B. A person that fishermen went fishing with.

C. The fishermen’s country.

D. The sea