Shopping for clothes is not the same experience for a man as it is for a woman. A man goes shopping because he needs something. His purpose is settled and decided in advance. He knows what he wants, and his objective is to find it and buy it; the price is a secondary consideration. All men simply walk into a shop and ask the assistant for what they want. If the shop has it in stock, the salesman promptly produces it, and the business of trying it on follows at once. All being well, the deal can be and often is completed in less than five minutes, with hardly any chat and to everyone's satisfaction.

　　For a man, slight problems may begin when the shop does not have what he wants, or does not have exactly what he wants. In that case the salesman, as the name implies, tries to sell the customer something else, he offers the nearest he can to the article required. No good salesman brings out such a substitute impolitely; he does so with skill: “I know this jacket is not the style you want, sir, but would you like to try it for size? It happens to be the color you mentioned.” Few men have patience with this treatment, and the usual response is: “This is the right color and may be the right size, but I should be wasting my time and yours by trying it on.”

　　Now how does a woman go about buying clothes? In almost every respect she does so in the opposite way. Her shopping is not often based on need. She has never fully made up her mind what she wants, and she is only “having a look round”. She is always open to persuasion; indeed she sets great store by what the saleswoman tells her, even by what companions tell her. She will try on any number of things. Uppermost in her mind is the thought of finding something that everyone thinks suits her. Contrary to a lot of jokes, most women have an excellent sense of value when they buy clothes. They are always on the lockout for the unexpected bargain. Faced with a roomful of dresses, a woman may easily spend an hour going from one rail to another, to and fro, often retracing her steps, before selecting the dresses she wants to try on. It is a laborious process, but apparently an enjoyable one. Most dress shops provide chairs for the waiting husbands.

1. The passage mainly talks about ________.

　　A. differences between men and women shoppers

　　B. A man goes shopping because he needs something

　　C. How women go about buying clothes.

　　D. Women are better at shopping than men

2. The underlined sentence “the price is a secondary consideration” in the first paragraph means when a man is shopping ________.

　　A. he buys good quality things, so long as they are not too dear

　　B. he buys whatever he likes without considering its value

　　C. he does not mind how much he has to pay for the right things

　　D. he often buy things without giving the matter proper thought.

3. What does a man do when he can not get exactly what he wants?

　　A. He buys a similar thing because of the color he wants.

　　B. He usually does not buy anything.

　　C. At least two of his requirements must be met before he buys.

　　D. So long as the style is right, he buys the thing.

4. What is the most obvious difference between men and women shoppers?

　　A. Men do not try clothes on in a shop while women do.

　　B. Women bargain for their clothes, but men do not.

　　C. The time they take over buying clothes.

　　D. Men go shopping based on need, but women never.

Fear may be felt in the heart as well as in the head，according to a study that has found a link between the cycles of a beating heart and the chance of someone feeling fear.
　　Tests on healthy volunteers found that they were more likely to feel a sense of fear at the moment when their hearts are contracting(收缩)and pumping blood around their bodies，compared with the point when the heartbeat is relaxed. Scientists say the results suggest that the heart is able to influence how the brain responds to a fearful event，depending on which point it is at in its regular cycle of contraction and relaxation.
　　Sarah Garfinkel at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School said：“Our study shows for the first time that the way in which we deal with fear is different depending on when we see fearful pictures in relation to our heart.”
　　The study tested 20 healthy volunteers on their reactions to fear as they were shown pictures of fearful faces. Dr Garfinkel said，“The study showed that fearful faces are better noticed when the heart is pumping than when it is relaxed. Thus our hearts can also affect what we see and what we don't see—and guide whether we see fear.”
　　To further understand this relationship，the scientists also used a brain scanner(扫描仪)to show how the brain influences the way the heart changes a person's feeling of fear.
　　“We have found an important mechanism by which the heart and brain ‘speak’ to each other to change our feelings and reduce fear，” Dr Garfinkel said.
　　“We hope that by increasing our understanding about how fear is dealt with and ways that it could be reduced, we may be able to develop more successful treatments for anxiety disorders，and also for those who may be suffering from serious stress disorder.”
5．What is the finding of the study?
　　A. One's heart affects how he feels fear.
　　B. Fear is a result of one's relaxed heartbeat.
　　C. Fear has something to do with one's health.
　　D. One's fast heartbeats are likely to cause fear.
6．The study was carried out by analyzing   ________.
　　A. volunteers' heartbeats when they saw terrible pictures
　　B. the time volunteers saw fearful pictures and their health conditions
　　C. volunteers' reactions to horrible pictures and data from their brain scans
　　D. different pictures shown to volunteers and their heart－brain communication
7．Which of the following is closest in meaning to “mechanism” in Paragraph 6?
　　A. Order.   B. System.
　　C. Machine.  D. Treatment.
8．This study may contribute to    ________．
　　A. treating anxiety and stress better
　　B. explaining the cycle of fear and anxiety
　　C. finding the key to the heart－brain communication
　　D. understanding different fears in our hearts and heads

F. Scott Fitzgerald, born on September 24,1896, an American novelist, was once a student of St. Paul Academy, the Newman School and attended Princeton University for a short while. In 1917 he joined the army and was posted in Alabama, where he met his future wife Zelda Sayre. Then he had to make some money to impress her.

 His life with her was full of great happiness, as he wrote in his diary:" My own happiness in the past often got such joy that I could share it even with the person dearest to me but had to walk it away in quiet streets and take down parts of it in my diary."

 This side of paradise, his first novel, was published in 1920. Encouraged by its success, Fitzgerald began to devote more time to his writing. Then he continued with the novel the Beautiful and Damned (1922), a collection of short stories Thales of the Jazz Age (1922), and a play The Vegetable (1923). But his greatest success was the novel The Great Gatsby, published in 1925, which quick brought him praise from the literary world. Yet it failed to give him the needed financial security. Then, in 1926, he published another collection of short stories All the Sad Young Men.

    However, Fitzgerald's problems with his wife Zelda had an effect on his writing. During the 1920s he tried to reorder his life, but failed. By 1930, his wife had her first breakdown and went to a Swiss clinic. During this period he completed novels Tender Is the Night in 1934 and The love of the last Tycoon in 1940. While his wife was in hospital in the United States, he got totally addicted to alcohol. Sheila Graham, his dear friend, helped him fight his alcoholism.

9. How many novels written by Fitzgerald are mentioned in the passage?

A. 5                    B. 6                    C. 7                     D.8

10. Which of the following is the correct order to describe Fitzgerald's life according to the passage?
a. He became addicted to drinking.
b. He studied at St. Paul Academy.
c. He published his first novel This Side of Paradise.
d. The Great Gatsby won high praise.
e. He failed to reorder his life.
f. He joined the army and met Zelda

A. f-c-e-a-b-d             B. b-e-a-f-c-d            C. f-d-e-c-b-a         D. b-f-c-d-e-a

11. We can infer from the passage that Fitzgerald

A. had made some money when he met Zelda in Alabama.
B. was well educated and well off before he served in the army
C. would have completed more works if his wife hadn't broken down
D. helped his friend get rid of drinking while his wife was in hospital

12. The passage is probably followed by a concluding paragraph about  

  A. Zelda's personal life
B. Zelda's illness and treatment
C. Fitzgerald's friendship with Graham
D. Fitzgerald's contributions to the literary world

While I was in my 4th month of pregnancy (妊娠期) with my second child, we were preparing for a trip to Louisiana, where Marshall’s family live, to celebrate Jane’s 2nd birthday. Two days before we were to leave, we got the shocking news that I was going to lose the baby. Not knowing when this would happen, we decided to continue with our trip.

Since Marshall’s family lives on a 600-acre cattle farm, you often find that you have a lot of time to yourself to think when you are there. That is precisely what I did not want to do at this time. I told Marshall that I needed to get a good book to get lost in while I was there. I told him I heard the Harry Potter books were good, so he went out and got the first one for me.

During that trip, I totally got lost in the book, which was of great help during a time when I needed a distraction to forget about the sadness. In the book, I noticed the name “Seamus”. I vaguely remembered it was pronounced “Shamus” and I liked the sound of that. I mentioned it to Marshall and he liked it too. Toward the end of the trip, I had just 5 chapters left and I knew I was about to finish the first book, which I was pretty excited about.

Soon after we put Jane down to bed, I had started labor (分娩), so I was unable to read. The labor lasted 5 and 1/2 hours, but Marshall stayed there with me, sitting beside me and reading aloud the last 5 chapters of Harry Potter. I can never fully explain how much that helped me through the experience. And ever since then, Marshall and I both have been fans of the Harry Potter books. We remember how they helped us get through that time of our lives.

We were sad to have lost the baby, but the name Seamus started our journey toward adoption. And we gave this name to our adopted son. Though our Seamus doesn’t have a drop of Irish blood in him, the name fits him perfectly.

13. Why did the writer want a good book during the trip?

A．Because the trip to Louisiana would take a long time

B．Because she didn’t want to think of losing her baby

C．Because she had nothing else to do except reading

D．Because a good book could help her enjoy her trip

14. According to the story, we can know that the Harry Potter books _________________.

A．made the family’s trip more exciting           B．include five books all together

C．have someone called Seamus in them          D．can help people deal with their problems

15. Which of the following is TRUE about the couple?

A．They planned their trip after getting the shocking news       

B．They thought the cattle farm was too large to do anything on

C．They felt excited when they almost finished the trip          

D．They liked reading Harry Porter very much after the trip

Tips for Cooking on a Tight Schedule

From my experience, there are three main reasons why people don’t cook more often: ability, money, and time   16  .Money is a topic I’ll save for another day. So today I want to give you some wisdom about how to make the most of the time you spent in the kitchen .Here are three tips for great cooking on a tight schedule:

1. Think ahead .The moments when I think cooking is a pain are when I’m already hungry and there’s

nothing ready to eat .So think ahead of the coming week .When will you have time to cook ?Do you

have the right materials already ?  17  .

2. Make your time worth it .When you do find time to cook a meal , make the most of it and save yourself

time later on .Are you making one loaf of bread ?   18  .It takes around the same amount of time to

make more of something .So save yourself the effort for future meal .

3. 19   This may surprise you , but one of the best tools for making cooking worth your time is

experimentation .It gives you the chance to hit upon new ideas and recipes that can work well with your appetite and schedule. The more you learn and the more you try, the more ability you have to take

control of your food and your schedule.

Hopefully that gives you a good start. 20   And don’t let a busy schedule discourage you from making some great changes in the way you eat and live!

A. Try new things.

B. Ability is easily improved.

C. Make three or four instead.

D. Understand your food better.

E. Cooking is a burden for many people.

F. Let cooking and living simply be a joy rather than a burden.

G. A little time planning ahead can save a lot of work later on.