Passage Four
My kids tell me that I am "so 20th century", which troubles me. A person likes to feel that he is "with it", as we used to say in the 20th century.
So I have been thinking how I might change myself into a true 21st-century man. Clearly, in my advanced state of age I would be foolish to attempt some wild leap into the contemporary fashion. And anyway, my distinctive taste attracts much favourable comment.
But if my clothing is too characteristic to change, perhaps I should do something about my lifestyle. So last week I took myself to the NEC for the Smart Home Show which is "the exhibition dedicated to all the latest trends in smart home technology".
It was a shock. How could I have lived for half a century without a fingerprint-operated front door ("Never lock yourself out of your home again!") Or vacuum cleaners that suck dust straight into a dustbin, via a system of pipes in y
A. The plasma TV fireplace.
B. The automatic garden sprinkler.
C. Mirrors that turn into TV screens.
D. Heated towel-racks that turn into TVs.
Passage Four
My kids tell me that I am "so 20th century", which troubles me. A person likes to feel that he is "with it", as we used to say in the 20th century.
So I have been thinking how I might change myself into a true 21st-century man. Clearly, in my advanced state of age I would be foolish to attempt some wild leap into the contemporary fashion. And anyway, my distinctive taste attracts much favourable comment.
But if my clothing is too characteristic to change, perhaps I should do something about my lifestyle. So last week I took myself to the NEC for the Smart Home Show which is "the exhibition dedicated to all the latest trends in smart home technology".
It was a shock. How could I have lived for half a century without a fingerprint-operated front door ("Never lock yourself out of your home again!") Or vacuum cleaners that suck dust straight into a dustbin, via a system of pipes in y
A. move to a new house
B. change the way he lived
C. improve his dressing style
D. talk in the most trendy fashion
Passage Four
"Family" is of course an elastic word. But when British people say that their society is based on family life, they are thinking of "family" in its narrow, peculiarly European sense of mother, father and children living together alone in their own house as an economic and social unit. Thus, every British marriage indicates the beginning of a new and independent family-hence the tremendous importance of marriage in British life.
For both the man and the woman, marriage means leaving one’s parents and starting one’s own life. The man’s first duty will then be to his wife, and the wife’s to her husband. He will be entirely responsible for her financial support, and she for the running of the new home. Their children will be their common responsibility and theirs alone. Neither the wife’s parents nor the husband’s, nor their brothers or sisters, aunts or uncles, have any right to int
A. Different families have different ways of life.
B. Different definitions could be given to the word.
C. Different nations have different families.
D. Different times produce different families.
If you choose lobster from a menu, then wherever you are in the world, the odds are that your dinner may have come from Arichat in Nova Scotia. The lobster, trapped off the Canadian coast, would have been driven to Louisville, Kentucky, where, cocooned in gel packs and styrofoam, it went for a wild ride on the carousels of the UPS superhub, where 17,000 high-speed conveyor belts, carrying more than 8m packages a week, whisk your living lobster to a plane and on onto tables across the globe.
John McPhee’s new book is about supply lines: how a lobster shares a conveyor belt with Bentley spare parts and jockey underwear. It is about boats, trains and trucks, but mostly it is about the people who drive, tend and love the machines. Don Ainsworth owns an 18-wheeler with "a tractor of such dark sapphire that only bright sunlight could bring forth its colour." To wash his truck Mr. Ainsworth uses
I expect this course to open my eyes to story material, to unleash my too dormant imagination, to develop that quality utterly lacking in my nature—a sense of form. I do not expect to acquire much technique. I expect to be able to seize upon the significant, reject the trivial. I hope to acquire a greater love for humanity in all its forms.
I have long wondered just what my strength was as a writer. I am often filled with tremendous enthusiasm for a subject, yet my writing about it will seem a sorry attempt. Above all, I possess a driving sincerity—that prime virtue of any creative worker. I write only what I believe to be the absolute truth—even if I must ruin the theme in so doing. In this respect I feel far superior to those glib people in my classes who often garner better grades than I do. They are so often pitiful frauds-artificial-insincere. They have a line that works. They do no
Passage Four
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Roger lived in the city of London, and his hair was always cut by the same old man. He always cut Roger’s hair as Roger liked it, and while he was doing it, the two men talked about football. One day, when Roger was sitting in his chair, and his hair was being cut as usual, the old man said to him, "Roger, I’m going to be seventy years old next month and I feel tired, so I’m going to sell my shop to a young man. He liked to cut hair for people." Roger was sorry to hear that, because he enjoyed talking to the old man, and he was also worried that his hair would not be cut as well by the new young man as it had been for so many years by his old friend. He went to the shop again the next month, and the new young man was there. He cut Roger’s hair, bu A. A B. B C. C D. D [单项选择]Passage Four
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