67. Which of the following can best explain the underlined sentence in Paragraph 2?

A. Enthusiasm can give you courage and strength in difficult times.

B. If you don’t have enthusiasm, you can achieve nothing.

C. Enthusiastic people never consider money and fame

D. Enthusiastic people can gain great fame and honor

66. By writing the passage the writer intends to ________.

A. tell people to follow other’s opinions

B. warn people to stay away from their peers

C. tell it is hard to walk away from pressure

D. persuade people to do the right thing regardless of peer pressure

E

Years ago, when I started looking for my first job, wise advisers urged, “Barbara, be enthusiastic! Enthusiasm will take you further than any amount of experience.” How right they were! Enthusiastic people can turn a boring drive into an adventure, extra work into opportunity and strangers into friends.

“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is the paste that helps you hang in there when the going gets tough. It is the inner voice that whispers, “I can do it!” when others shout, “No, you can’t!” It took years and years for the early work of Barbara McClintock, a geneticist(遗传学家)who won the 1983 Nobel Prize in medicine, to be generally accepted. Yet she didn’t let up on her experiments. Work was such a deep pleasure for her that she never thought of stopping.

We are all born with wide-eyed, enthusiastic wonder and it is this childlike wonder that gives enthusiastic people such a youthful air, whatever their age. At 90, cellist Pablo Casals would start his day by playing Bach(巴赫). As the music flowed through his fingers, his bent shoulders would straighten and joy would reappear in his eyes. As author and poet Samuel once wrote, “Years wrinkle(使生皱纹)the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.”

Enthusiastic people also love what they do, regardless of money, title or power. Patricia Mallrath, retired director of the Missouri Repertory Theater in Kansas City, was once asked where she got her enthusiasm. She replied, “My father, a lawyer, long ago told me, I never made a penny until I stopped working for money.”

If we cannot do what we love as a full-time career, we can do it as a hobby. Elizabeth Layton of Wellsville, Kan, was 68 before she began to draw. This activity ended her depression(抑郁)that had troubled her for at least 30 years, and the quality of her work led one critic to say, “I am persuaded to call Layton a genius.”

We can’t afford to waste tears on “might-have-beens”. We need to turn the tears into sweat as we go after “what-can-be.” We need to live each moment whole-heartedly, with all our senses-finding pleasure in the sweet smell of a backyard garden, the simple picture of a six-year-old, and the beauty of a rainbow.

65. The writer will NOT agree that ________.

A. only children change their correct answers to incorrect ones because of peer pressure

B. peers have an effect on one another

C. Peer pressure can be got rid of

D. Peers will believe in themselves if there are other peers who agree with them

64. The underlined word “shoplift” in Paragraph 3 probably means “________”.

A. do some shopping　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 B. carry goods for shops 　

C. steal in shops　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 D. take the lift upstairs in shops

63. What is the best title for this passage? 　

A. Peers have a good effect　　　　　　　　　　　　　 B. Children give in to peer pressure

C. Peer pressure is hard to resist　　　　　　　　　 D. Peer pressure

62. The passage mainly discusses________.

A. unequal treatment of boys and girls in developing countries

B. the potential earning power of well-educated women

C. the major contributions of educated women to society

D. the economic and social benefits of educating women

D

A peer is a person who is about the same age as you. Peers affect your life, whether you know it or not, just by spending time with you. 　

Peers can have a good effect on one another. Maybe another student in your science class taught you an easy way to remember the planets in solar system. Maybe you got others excited about your new favorite book and now everyone’s reading it. 　

However, sometimes peers affect one another in another way. For example, one kid in school might try to get another to cut class with him, your soccer friend might try to persuade you to be mean to another player and never pass her the ball, or a kid in the neighborhood might want you to shoplift with him. Some kids give in to peer pressure because they want to be liked, to fit in, or because they worry that other kids may make fun of them if they don’t go along with the group. Others may go along because they are curious to try something new that others are doing. The idea that “everyone’s doing it” may influence some kids to leave their better judgments or their common senses behind. 　

Peer pressure can be extremely strong and hard to get rid of. Experiments have shown how peer pressure can influence someone to change her/ his mind from what she/ he knows for sure is a correct answer to the incorrect answer－just because everyone else gives the incorrect answer! That holds true for people of any age in peer pressure situations. 　

It can be hard to walk away from peer pressure, but it can be done. Paying attention to your own feelings and beliefs about what is right and wrong can help you know the right thing to do. Inner strength and self-confidence can help you stand firm, walk away and resist doing something when you know better.

61. What does the author say about women’ s education?

A. It deserves greater attention than other social issues.

B. It is now given attention before anything else in many developing countries.

C. It will bring in greater returns than other known investments.

D. It has aroused the interest of a growing number of economists.

60. The author believes that a bad circle can turn into a good circle when ________.

A. women care more about education

B. girls can gain equal access to education

C. a family has fewer but healthier children

D. parents can afford their daughters’ education

59. By saying “the prophecy becomes self-fulfilling...” in Paragraph 2, the author means that ________.

A. girls will turn out to be less valuable than boys

B. girls will be capable of realizing their own dreams

C. girls will eventually find their goals in life beyond reach

D. girls will be increasingly discontented with their life at home

58. This article is quite probably ________.

A. a piece of news 　　　　　　　　　　　 B. a special science report

C. an introduction to a book 　　　　 D. a scientific fiction 　

C

Educating girls quite possibly brings in a higher rate of return than any other investment available in the developing world. Women education may be an unusual field for economists,　 but increasing women’s contribution to development is actually as much an economic as a social issue. And economics provides guideposts that point to an explanation for why so many girls are deprived(被剥夺) of an education. 　

Parents in low-income countries fail to invest in their daughters because they do not expect them to make an economic contribution to the family: girls grow up only to marry into somebody else’s family and bear children. Girls are thus seen as less valuable than boys and are kept at home to do housework while their brothers are sent to school-the prophecy (预言) becomes self-fulfilling, trapping women in a bad circle of neglect. 　

An educated mother, on the other hand, has greater earning abilities outside the home and faces an entirely different set of choices. She is likely to have fewer but healthier children and can insist on the development of all her children, ensuring that her daughters are given a fair chance. The education of her daughters then makes it much more likely that the next generation of girls, as well as of boys, will be educated and healthy. The bad circle is thus transformed into a good one. 　

Few will question that educating women has great social benefits. But it has enormous economic advantages as well. Most obviously, there is the direct effect of education on the wages of female workers. Wages rise by 10 to 20 percent for each additional year of schooling. Such big returns are impressive by the standard of other available investments, but they are just the beginning. Educating women also has a significant effect on health practices, including family planning.