江苏省宿迁市2017-2018学年高二下学期英语期末考试试卷（音频暂未更新）

—I didn't push her       ; it was an accident.

—So        you if you come first in the competition.

—No. I have serious        about his ability to do it.

—       .

—Oh, sorry!       . I forgot.

—       I don't think he has a chance.

    On a road trip to California's breathtaking North Coast region, my husband Ken and I, my teenage daughter Lahre, and my nine-year-old son Shawn, stopped to have lunch and stretch our legs a bit.

    As we walked toward the 1 entrance, a man with an untidy beard and dirty hair jumped up from a nearby bench and opened the door for us. An old bike 2 with a sleeping bag and the rest of his 3rested against the bench, it was obvious that he was 4. But regardless of his 5, he greeted us as if we were his best friends, “Today's soup and sandwich special's a great deal.”

    Once inside, my teenager whispered to me, “Mom, he 6.” And Shawn asked questions about him, not quite understanding the 7 of a homeless person. Ken and I explained the best we could, telling the kids to look to the person underneath and within 8 the dirt and smell.

    With the windiest part of our trip just 9 us, the kids needed to take car-sick pills so I went back to the car to fetch them. As I 10 the front door, the “doorman” was opening it for an older couple, who rushed past him and didn't even acknowledge his 11. I let the couple12 first and then said a loud and gracious “thank you” to the doorman.

After going back inside, I asked our waitress, who was bringing the kids their dessert, to 13 one soup and sandwich special to our bill. Both the kids looked at me 14 —as we had already eaten but Ken knew exactly what I was doing.

    By this time, we had to get back on the road to stay on schedule. As we rounded the comer of the very full restaurant, the “doorman” was sitting at a table enjoying his 15. When seeing me, he jumped up and 16 his hand for a handshake. It was then that I17 he had tears in his eyes—tears of gratitude.

    18 we can't choose many things in life, we can choose when to show gratitude, and I was doing just that. Hopefully, when someone opens a door for Lahre and Shawn during their 19 through life, they will remember to say “20“ and have a great soup and sandwich special on the menu, too.

When It's Time to Give Up

    I'm sure you have been told that in order to become successful, you must persevere (坚持), fight, stand up whenever you fall, and march forward until the end. I say those things to people all the time, so why am I telling you now that sometimes it is actually better to quit? The reason is that in certain cases, you could only go forward if you go back.

    Sometimes you will be putting a lot of time and effort in achieving a goal to find out one day that your strategy is totally wrong. You could be achieving the same results in half the time had you been focusing on doing the more important things.

    Let's say your goal was to lose weight. You then set a goal to do 1000 sit-ups a day. After about 1 month of doing this, you realize that you have been disciplined enough to hit your goal of 1000 sit-ups a day, however, you aren't getting any closer to your main goal of losing weight. This is called focusing on a secondary goal, which sometimes is the wrong strategy.

    We sometimes get so focused on a secondary goal that we lose focus on the primary goal. I see this with sales people all the time. Their main goal is to make money but they often find their focus on hitting some new position within the sales department and when that doesn't happen, they feel like a big failure. The goal never was to hit some position; the goal was to make money whether with this company or another company.

    Would it make sense, in this case, for a sales person to quit the job if his goal of making a certain amount of money just wasn't happening? His managers would probably call him a quitter, but his goal is to make money. If he can obtain that goal through a different source, then quitting would actually be the smart thing to do.

    So when is it time to give up? When what you are doing no longer makes sense in respects to achieving your main goal. Sometimes it will make more sense to give up what you are doing and start on a different path towards the same goal.

    Some people will spend their entire lives on a path to a certain goal only to find out in the end that the path they took was the wrong one. There is no shame in giving up on a path you are taking to your goal as long as you always aim to reach your goal. There's no point in staying on a path that will lead you to nowhere.

    One of the newest words on the coffee stage is “shade grown coffee”. Shade grown coffee isn't new. In fact, until only a few years ago, shade grown coffee represented the major coffee beans sold on the world coffee market. The coffee plant is a natural shade lover, growing best in the shade afforded by an overgrowing canopy (树冠) of rain forest plants. That canopy protects the coffee plant from sunlight that reduces its production and kills it.

    Shade grown coffee is, however, more expensive to grow, at least in the short run. Growing coffee in the shade means that coffee growers also have to spend time working on the protectors. It means that less land is left to produce coffee beans. The arrival of technically engineered coffee plants that grow well in the sun represented a major development in coffee industry. Because there was no need to grow shade trees to protect the coffee trees, farmers could use more and more land to grow coffee trees, increasing their productivity and leading to more money for the coffee plantations (种植园) and farmers.

    However, it was not a good idea to move away from shade grown coffee. The sheltering canopy provided more than just shade for the coffee trees. Those plants provided shelter for birds and other animals who feed on pests.

    They help to fix nitrogen in the soil, and nitrogen is a natural fertilizer which makes plants grow more successfully. The increase in land used to grow sun loving coffee trees also had an unexpected effect on the law of supply and demand. The increased production resulted in a huge amount of coffee beans coming to the market, which brought down prices.

Moreover, most experts agree that shade grown coffee is better in taste than coffee grown in full sun. Plants grown in shade take longer to develop. The slower growing time helps to improve the coffee's taste. You can buy a can of shade grown coffee to replace your usual sun coffee. One cup of coffee a day—it's a small price to pay for a better world.

Like many sensitive souls, I never truly felt like a child. I was the oldest child of three and one of my nicknames as a child was "Little Mother" because I got great joy from taking care of my younger siblings (兄弟姊妹). I truly believe that the adults around me thought that I was a child that didn't seem to need physical affection. There was generally a lot of verbal affection but very little hugging pulling me onto their lap, rubbing my back when I couldn't sleep and other forms of physical comfort. I used to have a strong desire for that touch so very much but did not have the confidence to say so. Even though I had truly wonderful parents, family and friends, I remember a distinct hunger for human touch from a very early age.

When my first child was born, I remember never wanting to put him down. Grandparents, friends and even strangers at the grocery store would warn me about "spoiling him by holding him too much," I would smile and nod but ignore this advice, as well-intentioned as it was. I held each of my three children as often as I could, enjoying the quickly-passing experiences of breastfeeding them, snuggling (依偎) their little heads into the crook of my neck and rocking them gently to sleep. There was joy in work of motherhood, the like of which I had never experienced before. There was joy even in the bleary-eyed (睡眼惺松的）nights, in the crying fits of late evening, in the ever-present bouts of illness that rocked this house as it spread person to person. The joy was in the togetherness, the love, the snuggles amidst the struggles of life that did not always have joy outside of these precious moments.

When I was in nursing school, an instructor once told me about the importance of non-contingent touch—touch that isn't secondary to something like an assessment or treatment. She reminded us that not everyone has love in their lives and that love is essential for healing and growth. The easiest way to show love is often with a simple hand on the shoulder, holding hands with a frightened client, sitting next to them on their bed while chatting with them so they can see that you are not hurried and are present in the moment.

    I believe that non-contingent touch is just as important, or maybe even more important, in parenting. We touch our children when helping them bathe, dress and many other ways during our busy days. However, we mustn't forget the importance of hugs, snuggles, pats on the backs, the rubbing of hair throughout the day. Touch is one of the most important languages of love.

    One of the most important surprises of parenthood for me was that the physical time spent with my children satiated not only their need for love but also my own hunger for human touch. In loving them, I was loved. In holding them, I was held. In raising them, I rose up.

    We have become a disconnected society. We often connect more with others via social media、e-mail and text than face-to-face. Our younger generation seems lost in the technological void and they often struggle with even the simplest of in-person communication. We must teach our children the powers of touch, kindness of words and connection with ourselves that cannot happen if we have a blue screen perpetually in front of our face.

    We are powerful beings, we humans. As parents we can provide power for our children with our words and with our touch. May we teach our children the significance of small kind gestures, simple human touch and connecting with humanity on a personal level. May we reach out to another person as often as we reach out for the smartphone in our pockets.

    China is expected to see a record high number of college graduates in 2018 as around 8.2 million students will obtain their degree this year, according to the latest statistics from Ministry of Education. The number of college graduates in China has been rising since 2001, which leads to a more competitive employment market.

    However, besides fierce competition, many graduates admit that they face another big problem-employment discrimination. A research in 2017 shows that around 75.7 percent of new graduates said they were, to some extent, discriminated or suffered from injustice when finding jobs.

    Female college graduates still face great wall of discrimination in the employment market. “Males only”, “Married with children preferred”: These are some of the conditions commonly found in recruitment (招募) advertisements. According to a research by Renmin University of China in 2015, male college graduates do have more interview opportunities than female college graduates despite the similar academic background and work experience.

    Regional discrimination also becomes a barrier for job seekers. Some companies dismiss job seekers from specific regions due to the regional stereotypes (成见), like “Central China's Henan Province is the cradle of liars” and “people from Northeast region are usually rude.”

    Recruitment advertisements sometimes also show favor for local applicants. Non-locals had been denied jobs because their registered residence origin was not the same as the city where they were hunting for a job.

    Apart from “invisible thresholds (门槛)” like gender and region, college graduates in recent years were disappointed to find that personal details like superstitions (迷信) about blood type, zodiac, and facial structure were all part of the decision-making process by some potential employers.

    An applicant's surname can also help or hamper (妨碍) job prospects. A family name that suggests prosperity, like Jin, which means “gold”; while a last name like Pei, which can mean “to lose money”, would likely be negative. Besides, job seekers also found that some employers paid much attention to their appearance rather than the working performance.

    To fight against employment discrimination, both the government and society have made great efforts. In 2007, Employment Promotion Law was passed with the purpose of apposing employment discrimination and promoting justice in job recruitment.

    The Ministry of Education in 2017 issued regulations to ban work discrimination in on-campus job fairs. This year, several cities, bureau of human resources required job fair organizers to set special reception desks so as to deal with job seekers, complaints about discrimination.

    Non-profit organizations were established to oppose work discrimination, while legal aids were also provided to job seekers through social media platforms like Weibo and WeChat.

    BEIJING, March 15 (Xinhua) — Premier Li Keqiang on Sunday called on the Chinese people to read more and promised that the policy of encouraging reading will again be part of next year's government work report.

    “Reading is what I enjoy the most in my spare time. It makes me feel wealthy, and it has been the most rewarding experience in my life,” he told reporters after the conclusion of the annual legislative (立法的) session.

    It is worrisome, however, that the average per capita (人均) amount of reading in China is only one-tenth of that of some other countries in the world, Li said.

    “I hope that our people could foster a love of reading, and our people's amount of reading could rise. It is a very important symbol of further cultural and social progress.”

    Reading can not only unlock potential for innovation, but also enhance civic morality, he said, adding that encouraging reading will be part of next year's government work report again after featuring it for two consecutive (连续的) years.

    This year's government work report, which Li delivered to national lawmakers on March 5, said China will “ensure that more outstanding works of literature and art are created for the people to enjoy, and encourage a love of reading in all people to build a nation of avid readers.”

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