Freshmen, eager to get home for the Chinese New Year, queue up at the railway station for hours．Days later, they squeeze into a crowded train and dream of the home-cooked meals and love they'll enjoy once they arrive home．This, they say, makes all the trouble of getting home worthwhile.

However, many freshmen come to find that home is not exactly how they remembered it．Living away from their parents has exposed them to a new life of freedom – one that within hours of arriving some begin to miss．Household chores（家务活）and complaining parents are just a few of the things that can ruin students' winter fantasies．“My parents still treat me like I was in senior high,” Song Ying, a 19-year-old freshman at Shandong University, complained．“I get an earful from them every day.”

During her first term away from her Hubei home, Song missed everything – from her parents cooking to the city bus．She cried and ached to sleep in her own bed．So, upon finishing her exams, she fled home, thinking everything would be just as it used to be．But she was wrong．Now, she spends entire days at a friend's home to “avoid all the restrictions”．She logs online to update friends' profile on SNS, skips meals and sleeps in – just like she did on campus.

Things have been even tenser at home for Luo Ruiqi, a 19-year-old freshman at Beijing Jiaotong University．Instead of moving to a friend's house, though, he has decided to challenge his parents' rules for his right to be an adult at home．When they complained about the amount of time he spent in the toilet, Luo said he decided “enough is enough” and lost his temper．He feels guilty about his attitude, but he still argues that he is grown up enough to live by his own rules．“I just want to live my own way of living, wherever I am,” said Luo．

Recent graduates like Wang Kai know what Song and Luo are going through．But Wang, who graduated in 2008 and now works in Beijing, says students should value the time spent with their family and “just try to be nicer.” Wang says he acted the same way when he first returned home from college, but now, living 1,500 km away from his hometown in Hunan, he regrets his behavior．He realizes that his parents meant well．And, looking back, he says that “the way of living that we got used to on campus is not that healthy anyway”.

Parents, meanwhile, are more understanding than you might think．“Living on their own in a strange place can be hard –we've been there before,” said Luo's father．“We want to make sure that they are healthy and happy．Sometimes maybe we just worry too much.” As for the tension that's arisen between father and son, Luo senior laughed and said, “It's not a problem at all – he's my son; we work things out, always.”

1．Having read the passage, we can infer that home is now a(n) ___________for most freshmen.

         A．birdcage                       B．paradise

         C．temporary station in life         D．open house

2．Why are things even tenser at home for Luo Ruiqi during the Chinese New Year?

         A．He has to spend entire days at a friend's home to “avoid all the restrictions”.

         B．He has decided to go against his parents for his right to be an adult at home.

         C．He feels guilty about his attitude towards his parents.

         D．He has wasted much money his parents gave to him.

3．According to the text, there exists a main problem between parents and children that_______.

         A．parents want to bring their children under control as before.

         B．children look down upon what their parents always do.

         C．their way of life is apparently different now.

         D．they are always misunderstanding each other.

4．Who the text implies is mainly responsible for the bad parent-child relationship?

         A．parents         B．social changes               C．professors           D．freshmen

5．What does the underlined part in the 2nd paragraph probably mean?

         A．learn a lot                B．receive much punishment

         C．get a scolding             D．have a narrow escape

 

 

 

PART THREE READING COMPREHENSION

Directions: Read the following three passages. Each passage is followed by several questions or un­finished statements. For each of them there are 4 choices marked with A、B、C and D, Choose the one that fits best according to the information given in the passage.

For new countries joining the European Union, and older ones getting used to their dark red passport, becoming “Europeans” is a bit like marrying a large and strange family.

Europeans have a lot in common but it is their differences, not their similarities, that attract the attention of sociologies and market researchers, and are more interesting

   35% of Germans live alone, but only 9% of Spaniards. Perhaps this explains why Spaniards lead Europe in the habit of going out for a drink.

  The British attend more adult evening classes than anyone else in Europe, and the Belgians least. So it can’t just be the dark evenings. There are no figures on how many Britons go for a drink afterwards. If there were, they might be up at the top with Spain.

  The British think black cats are lucky. Every other European country regards them unlucky.

  The French are the most athletic Europeans. Next come the Dutch. But the Belgians, just over the border, play fewest sports.

  The Germans spend twice as much on heating as the Spaniards. Well, of course they do, it’s colder.

  Dutch husbands do the household shopping a lot more often than Italians or Spaniards.

  The French are the champion public transport commuters(经常往返者)of Europe. If you hate commuting, go and live in the Netherlands, where journeys to work are shorter than anywhere else.

  The amount of direct eye-contact between strangers is three times greater among Spaniards than it is among the British or Swedes. So, sharing a lift is a torture for both the British and the Swedish.

There are exceptions to all these rules. Deal with them in the spirit of my 8-year-old daughter. “If you don’t understand each other’s language, just laugh a lot and eat and point at things.”

1.We can know from this passage that______________.

A.sociologist are most interested in the idea of European Union

B.most European countries are not willing to join the European Union

C.Europeans have more differences than similarities

D.trade opportunities exit in the cultural differences in the European Union

2.If you work and live in Belgium, you will______________.

A. have to change your living places often B. not get used to its cold weather

C. seldom sees people playing sports     D. be invited to go for a drink frequently

3. The underlined sentence means that the British and Swedish _________________.

A. care about their safety most                  B. like to appear gentle and smart

C. hate to look at each other face to face          D. enjoy a richer life than others

4.Which of the following statements is TRUE about Spain?

A.Spaniards hate direct eye-contact between strangers.

B.Spaniards like to go for a drink after dark.

C.Spaniards spend twice as much on heating as the Germans.

D.In Spain, husbands do more household shopping than those in Italy.

5.In the last paragraph, the author wants to express his idea that ______________.

A.his daughter knows well how to understand foreigners in unfamiliar situations

B.Europeans actually share the same culture even if they have different languages

C.being a European, you will have no living trouble at all in the European Union

D.there are differences between European countries, but don’t take them too seriously

 

The kitchen is often the busiest room in a household, so it’s important to make sure it      well.

    A．smoothes B．functions    C．pays D．measures

 

Divorce is bad for environment

US researchers raised a new theory on Monday: divorce is bad for the environment.

The global trend toward higher divorce rates has created more households with fewer People，

scientists at Michigan State University reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of

Sciences．

More households means more houses，fuel and water are Heeded for them，the researchers  wrote．“Globally，the number of households is increasing much faster than the number ofpeople，”said co-author “Jack” Liu in a telephone interview. “Even in regions with declining populationn, we see substantial increase in the number of households. Divorce is the main reason for reducingthe number of people in a household,” he said.

The average divorced person’s household is about 40 to 50 percent smaller than the average married person’s household, Liu said. But whether there are three or six people in a house ,the amount of fuel needed to heat them is about the same. In the United States, divorced households used 74 billion kilowatt—hours of electricity and 2.850 trillion liters of water in 2005, half of which could have been saved if households had stayed the same size as when they were married.

In the United States and 11 other countries between 1998 and 2002, if divorced households had combined to have the same average household size as married households, there could have been 7.4 million fewer households.

The number of divorced households in those countries ranged from 40,000 in Costa Rica to

almost 16 million in the United States around 2000. The number of rooms per person in divorced households was 33 percent to 95 percent greater than in married households.

“If you really want to get divorced, maybe you can remarry with somebody else, or live together with somebody else you like”, Liu said.

1. In America when the number of households is_________, the number of people in a house is__________.

A. increasing, decreasing               B. decreasing, increasing

C. increasing, increasing                   D. decreasing, decreasing

2. What does the word “substantial” in the third paragraph mean?

A. Great        B. Little           C. Sudden                D. Timely

3. How much electricity would have been saved without so many people getting divorced in America in 2005?

A. 7.4 million kilowatt-hours                 B. 16 million kilowatt-hours

C. 37 billion kilowatt-hours             D. about 30 billion kilowatt-hours

4. The last paragraph is the writer’s_________for people.

A. advice            B. encouragement         C. demand          D. order

 

______Bree is a middle-aged lady. She doesn’t like the contemporary styles but prefers clothes of older fashion.

______ Margaret is an office clerk and doesn’t earn a high salary. She wants to buy some ordinary but up-to-date clothes at an acceptable price.

______ . Alice, a young housewife, is now planning a family party. She would like to buy something in preparation for the dinner.

_____ Peter is a sales manager in an international company. He is a fan of fashion and favors French designs.

______ . Richard is a young engineer working at a hi-tech company. He would like to visit some places specializing in men’s clothes.

Abraham & Strauss, more familiarly known as A & S, is a busy store which carries reasonably — priced ready — to make adults and children wear fashions. It is the centerpiece of the largest mall in Manhattan.

Barney’s New York is a favorite among the young professional New Yorkers. It specializes in excellent, but expensive designer clothes. A branch for men is located in the glittering World Financial Center.

Berdorf Goodman is luxurious, very elegant. It carries top-quality contemporary fashions at high prices, specializing in European designers.

Lord & Taylor is famous for its classic and much more conservative fashions for men and women. The store places an emphasis on US designers. You need a strong pair of legs, comfortable shoes and lots of spare time to wander around.

John Lewis has a gorgeous selection of fabrics and haberdashery(男子服饰). Its china, glass and household items make John Lewis, and its well-known partner, Peter Johns, equally popular with Londoners.

The king of London department stores, by tradition, is Harrods. The spectacular food hall has splendid displays of fish, cheese, fruit and vegetables; other specialties include fashions for all ages, china and glass, and household items.