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外刊时文选读外刊时文选读Text 1Weekly Address: Ensuring Hardworking Americans Retire with Dignity WASHINGTON, DC —In this week’s address, the President reiterated his commitment to middle-class economics, and to ensuring that all hard-working Americans get the secure and dignified retirement they deserve. While most financial advisers prioritize their clients’ futur es, there are some who direct their clients towards bad investments in return for backdoor payments and hidden fees. That’s why earlier this week the President announced that he is calling on the Department of Labor to update rules to protect families from conflicts of interest by requiring financial advisers to put their clients’ best interest before their own profits.The President emphasized his promise to keep fighting for this policy and for others that benefit millions of working and middle class Americans.Hi everybody. In America, we believe that a lifetime of hard work and responsibility should be rewarded with a shot at a secure, dignified retirement. It’s one of the critical components of middle-class life – and this week, I took new steps to protect it.Six years after the crisis that shook a lot of people’s faith in a secure retirement, our economy is steadily growing. Last year was the best year for job growth since the 1990s. All told, over the past five years, the private sector has added nearly 12 million new jobs. And since I took office, the stock market has more than doubled, replenishing the 401(k)s of millions of families.But while we’ve come a long way, we’ve got more work to do to make sure that our recovery reaches more Americans, not just those at the top. That’s what middle-class economics is all about—the idea that this country does best when everyone gets their fair shot, everybody does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.That last part—making sure everyone plays by the same set of rules—is why we passed historic Wall Street Reform and a Credit Card Bill of Rights. It’s why we created a new consumer watchdog agency. And it’s why we’re taking new action to protect hardworking families’ retireme nt security. If you’re working hard and putting away money, you should have the peace of mind that the financial advice you’re getting is sound and that your investments are protected.But right now, there are no rules of the road. Many financial advisers put their clients’ interest first –but some financial advisers get backdoor payments and hidden fees in exchange for steering people into bad investments. All told, bad advice that results from these conflicts of interest costs middle-class and working families about $17 billion every year.This week, I called on the Department of Labor to change that – to update the rules and require that retirement advisers put the best interests of their clients above their own financial interests. Middle-class families cannot afford to lose their hard earned savings after a lifetime of work. They deserve to be treated with fairness and respect. And that’s what this rule would do.While many financial advisers support these basic safeguards to prevent abuse, I know some special interests will fight this with everything they’ve got.But while we welcome differentp erspectives and ideas on how to move forward, what I won’t accept is the notion that there’s nothing we can do to make sure that hard-working, responsible Americans who scrimp and save can retire with security and dignity.We’re going to keep pushing for this rule, because it’s the right thing to do for our workers and for our country. The strength of our economy rests on whether hard-working families can not only share in America’s success, but can also contribute to America’s success.And that’s what I wil l never stop fighting for –an economy where everyone who works hard has the chance to get ahead.Text 2Planet of the phonesThe smartphone is ubiquitous, addictive and transformative THE dawn of the planet of the smartphones came in January 2007, when St eve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, in front of a rapt audience of Apple acolytes, brandished a slab of plastic, metal and silicon not much bigger tha n a Kit Kat. “This will change everything,” he promised. For once there was no hyperbole. Just eight years later Apple’s iPhone exemplifies the early 21st century’s defining technology.Smartphones matter partly because of their ubiquity. They have become the fastest-selling gadgets in history, outstripping the growth of the simple mobile phones that preceded them. They outsell personal computers four to one. T oday about half the adult population owns a smartphone; by 2020, 80% will. Smartphones have also penetrated every aspect of daily life. The average American is buried in one for over two hours every day. Asked which media they would miss most, British teenagers pick mobile devices over TV sets, PCs and games consoles. Nearly 80%of smartphone-owners check messages, news or other services within 15 minutes of getting up. About 10% admit to having used the gadget during sex.The bedroom is just the beginning. Smartphones are more than a convenient route online, rather as cars are more than engines on wheels and clocks are not merely a means to count the hours. Much as the car and the clock did in their time, so today the smartphone is poised to enrich lives, reshape entire industries and transform societies—and in ways that Snapchatting teenagers cannot begin to imagine.Phono sapiensThe transformative power of smartphones comes from their size and connectivity. Size makes them the first truly personal computers. The phone takes the processing power of yesterday’s supercomputers—even the most basic model has access to more number-crunching capacity than NASA had when it put men on the Moon in 1969—and applies it to ordinary human interactions. Because transmitting data is cheap this power is available on the move. Since 2005 the cost of delivering one megabyte wirelessly has dropped from $8 to a few cents. It is still falling. The boring old PC sitting on your desk does not know much about you. But phones travel around with you—they know where you are, what websites you visit, whom you talk to, even how healthy you are.The combination of size and connectivity means that this knowledge can be shared and aggregated, bridging the realms of bits and atoms in ways that are both professional and personal. Uber connects available drivers to nearby fares at cheaper prices; Tinder puts people intouch with potential dates. In future, your phone mightrecommend a career c hange or book a doctor’s appointment to treat your heart murmur before you know anything is amiss.As with all technologies, this future conjures up a host of worries. Some, such as “text neck” (hunching over a smartphone stresses the spine) are surely transient. Others, such as dependency—smartphone users exhibit “nomophobia” when they happen to find themselves empty-handed—are a measure of utility as much as addiction. After all, people also hate to be without their wheels or their watch.The greater fear is over privacy. The smartphone turns the person next to you into a potential publisher of your most private or embarrassing moments. Many app vendors, who know a great deal about you, sell data without proper disclosure; mobile-privacy policies routinely rival “Hamlet” for length. And if leaked documents are correct, GCHQ, Britain’s signals-intelligence agency, has managed to hack a big vendor of SIM cards in order to be able to listen in to people’s calls. If spooks in democracies are doing this sort of thing, you can be sure that those in authoritarian regimes will, too. Smartphones will give dictators unprecedented scope to spy on and corral their unwilling subjects.The naked appYet three benefits weigh against these threats to privacy. For a start, the autocrats will not have it all their own way. Smartphones are the vehicle for bringing billions more people online. The cheapest of them now sell for less than $40, and prices are likely to fall even further. The same phones that allow governments to spy on their citizens also record the brutality of officials and spread information and dissenting opinions. They feed the demand for autonomy and help protest movements tocoalesce. A device that hands so much power to the individual has the potential to challenge authoritarianism.The second benefit is all those personal data which companies are so keen on. Conventional social sciences have been hampered by the limited data sets they could collect. Smartphones are digital census-takers, creating a more detailed view of society than has ever existed before and doing so in real time. Governed by suitable regulations, anonymised personal data can be used, among many other things, to optimise traffic flows, prevent crime and fight epidemics.The third windfall is economic. Some studies find that in developing countries every ten extra mobile phones per 100 people increase the rate of growth of GDP-per-person by more than one percentage point—by, say, drawing people into the banking system. Smartphones will remake entire industries, at unheard-of speed. Uber is a household name, operating in 55 countries, but has yet to celebrate its fifth birthday. WhatsApp was founded in 2009, and already handles 10 billion more messages a day than the SMS global text-messaging system. The phone is a platform, so startups can cheaply create an app to test an idea—and then rapidly go global if people like it. That is why it will unleash creativity on a planetary scale.By their nature, seminal technologies ask hard questions of society, especially as people adapt to them. Smartphones are no different. If citizens aren’t protected from prying eyes, some will suffer and others turn their backs. Societies will have to develop new norms and companies learn how to balance privacy and profit. Governments will have to define what is acceptable. But in eight short years smartphones have changed the world—and they have hardly begun.。

Want to Keep a Secret? Tell Your Mother.May 11, 2013 by Deborah CohenFor centuries, mothers have been the best keepers of the ultimate secrets—those skeletons in the family closet.Women—it is often said—can’t keep their mouths shut. They talk more than men and, according to one study, keep a secret on average for only 32 minutes before breaking the confidence. The search for an explanation behind female chattiness has even led to the discovery of a protein that supposedly explains volubility. Most damningly, or so it has been believed through the ages, women’s loose tongues make them unreliable in matters of state and diplomacy that demand discretion.But when it comes to the most common form of secret—the family secret—those stalwart male secret-keepers tend to go missing. After eight years of researching family secrets, I’ve learned that if you want to bury a secret, tell your mother. It is women who minister to the skeletons in the closet. That’s the shadow side of care-taking, the invisible labor that has to be hidden.Take the most common family secret of all: illegitimacy. Most often it was to their own mothers that unmarried and pregnant girls confided their plight. In poorer families, illegitimate off spring would frequently be absorbed into the mother’s kin network. Grandmothers and, less frequently, aunts posed as mothers.In middle-class families with the resources to hide a daughter’s pregnancy, the girl’s mother took charge of arranging her grandc hild’s adoption. “Last night I slept through the whole of the night! A thing I have not done for a year past,” reported one grandmother to the adoption agency after it placed her 16-month-old grandson.Adoption—both the relinquishment of children and their placement, often in secret and even illegally—was a field of endeavor that women dominated. Celia Ward (a pseudonym), the well-heeled wife of an executive of English Steel, hatched a plan in 1920 to take the youngest female infant the adoption society had available and to proceed to a convalescent home to complete the ruse. “I intend to do everything in my power to introduce the child as my own to everyone (except of course my husband).”Like Ward’s husband, men may have been consulted, but managing stig ma and shame has been women’s metier. Look, for instance, behind the closed doors of the Normansfield Institution, founded by Dr. John Langdon Down, for whom Down’s syndrome is named. In the hundreds of boxes of letters that document how mentally disabled children became disappeared people, hidden from sight for a lifetime, there is hardly a father to be seen.Elizabeth Scott-Sanderson was 1 year old when her mother delivered her to Normansfield in 1921. The youngest of six daughters, Elizabeth suffered a series of fits when she was seven months old, and could hardly hold up her head. The family doctor could find nothing physically wrong with the child, but thought it a hopeless case of mental impairment, and advised immediate institutionalization. When Eli zabeth’s mother wrote the institution, she wasdesperate to find a place for her baby to go.Over the 20 years that followed, Mrs. Scott-Sanderson proved a reasonably attentive correspondent by the standards of the era. She wrote the institution regularly for details about her daughter, and visited her once or twice a year for the first decade she was at Normansfield, and sporadically thereafter. Elizabeth’s father, by contrast, came to see her only twice, and wrote a single letter to the institution about her care.If secret-keeping could be repressive, it could also serve to protect. Mothers tenaciously kept mum—even in the heat of the courtroom. When the notorious cross-dressers Frederick Park and Ernest Boulton were put on trial for the “abominable crime of buggery” in 1871, it was Boulton’s mother, Mary Ann, who came forward to defend her son. She had provided Ernest and his friends with dresses and altered them to fit. Now she appeared in court to insist upon her son’s innocence. Boulton’s father (or so the story went) had been called away on urgent business to the Cape of Good Hope.Before the era of gay liberation, homosexual men were more likely to come out to their mothers than to their fathers. They often assumed that their mothers either already knew or would be more sympathetic, willing to preserve their confidences. “Very good to his mother” was a euphemism for a homosexual.There was nothing innate about women’s proclivity to keep family secrets. Such discretion is no more biological than wom en’s supposed tendency to gab. Secret-keeping has been a pragmatic strategy of collective defense, a means of shielding black sheep as well as the family’s reputation. Here, where security was paramount, women were the gate-keepers and the wall-builders. T here’s a reason why family scandal was called dirty laundry. Like the real-life stuff, mothers washed it at home. (868 words)Do Women Get More Stressed Out by Their Job Than Men Do?May 1, 2013 4:45 am - by Peggy DrexlerA number of studies show that women respond to work stress in very different ways from men—and that their anxiety can affect the entire office. A 2012 study concluded that most employees—male and female—believe that work conflict between two women has more negative implications than conflict between two men or between a man and a woman.Jen could never understand why her job always seemed so much more upsetting than her husband’s. It didn’t even matter what job it was, or what else was going on in their lives. She and Dave both had high-level, high-pressure careers in banking. But while her bad days had her reeling on the couch or shedding long, drawn-out tears over dinner, his were defined by 10-minute outbursts after which he’d settle in before the television for professional sports and a few-too-many glasses of scotch. The end.The scene at Jen and Dave’s isn’t especially unusual. According to a number of recent studies, women and men experience, and respond to, conflicts at work in very different ways. First,women tend to feel conflict more deeply. A survey by the American Psychological Association found that women consistently report higher levels of work stress, tension, and frustration than men. More than men, they are inclined to feel underappreciated and underpaid. An Australian study, meanwhile, found that while women respond to such work-related conflict and stress by working harder, men are more inclined to call in sick or otherwise “check out.”In 2000, research conducted by Shelley Taylor and her colleagues in the health psychology department at the University of California first described this as women’s tendency to have a “tend and befriend” response to conflict and stress versus men’s typical “fight or flight” response. The seminal study introduced the idea that the differences in how the sexes cope with stress aren’t merely emotional but biological as well. Stressed-out women, they wrote in a study published in Psychological Review, are likely to seek social support because female stress activates the hormone oxytocin, which is associated with female reproduction and the desire to form and maintain attachments. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to use substances to cope.Of course, as the number of high-powered, and high-earning, women in the workforce rises, so do women’s collective stress levels. More families than ever before rely on the woman’s income at least in part—o n average, working women contribute to 47 percent of their family’s earnings, compared with 38 percent in 1988, according to research conducted at the University of New Hampshire. But although women are contributing to the family pot more significantly than ever before, their domestic responsibilities are not shrinking; studies show, for example, that working women still do more housework than men. That is one factor Jen pointed out to me: “Dave might be able to park himself in front of the TV and zone out,” she said, “but I have laundry to do.”Chronic stress can have physical implications, of course, especially if trouble at work leads to women clocking in more hours, as it often does. When Leslie, who worked as a buyer for a large department store, began to hear that her supervisor was blaming the season’s poor r eturns exclusively on her, she voluntarily upped her weekly hours from 45 to 60. Nights found her rushing through dinner with her family so that she could hop online to research new brands and competitors’ programs. She barely had time to sleep—not that she could, really. In addition to constant daytime anxiety she had developed a nagging case of insomnia. “I just felt like everything was slipping out from underneath me,” Leslie told me. “Based on rumors, I had already jumped ahead five months in my mind, and was obsessed with the inevitability of having to tell my family and friends I’d been fired. I was working harder, but I was also obsessing more, which gave me absolutely no advantage. And, of course, I was basically ignoring my husband and kids.” Eventu ally, she found a new job. When she told the store she was leaving, they were stunned. “They actually counter-offered and begged me to stay, and I wondered, had I just been making it all up?” she remembered. “Maybe I had. But by that time, I had to get out of there. I no longer associated that job with anything except unbearable levels of stress.”Some studies suggest that work-related anxiety isn’t felt just by the women actually experiencing it but, in some cases, the entire office as well—or, at least, that’s the perception. A 2012 study published in the Academy of Management Perspectives concluded that mostemployees—male and female—believe that work conflict between two women has more negative implications than conflict between two men or between a man and a woman. One such negative implication: a decline in morale throughout the office. Researchers asked participants to read a scenario consisting of a hypothetical story about two managers who worked at a consulting firm and the details of a disagreement they had. In two versions, the protagonists were called Adam and Steve or Adam and Sarah. In the last instance, they were called Sarah and Anne. All other details were the same. Overwhelmingly, the study participants said there would be more negative long-term implications from the Sarah and Anne dispute than from either of the others, with a 15 percent less likelihood that Sarah and Anne would ever be able to repair their rel ationship. This, researchers suggested, was due to the “unfortunate tendency in mainstream society to characterize female interactions as being based on conflict and jealousy, whereas male conflict is more natural and healthy.” The upshot: in real life, su ch bias against female-female conflict may affect hiring and promotions for women if managers worry that putting two women together may spell trouble later on. It may also result in women feeling less able to speak up for themselves, with the fear of being perceived as “catty.”Tara, one of the riding instructors at an upstate New York equestrian center, recalled the argument she got into with another instructor, whom I’ll call Erin. After Tara began to sense Erin’s annoyance with her, she took extra care to get out of the stalls promptly after one of her lessons ended and before Erin’s began. She even cleaned Erin’s horse’s stall when she had extra time, just to show her that she wanted to get along. But when Erin confronted her about some slight one day in front of a group of clients—“I’m not even sure what it was about,” Tara told me later—their boss reprimanded them both. “Then he changed my schedule, and hers too, and eventually I realized that I no longer shared a shift with any women. But since most of the instructors were women, my hours were drastically cut.”In talking with Dave about his office conflicts, Jen began to wonder if her own struggles were real or perceived. Was she causing her own angst? Or did she, like everyone else, just perceive a greater problem than was really there? “Eventually, I realized they were probably a bit of both—real and perceived,” she said. “That I was reading too much into some situations, but that I also had reason to suspect that people might be plotting against me.” She made a decision to keep her personal life out of the office: no gossip or venting, and doing her best to get her work done so that no one had anything to complain about. “I realized that some conflicts might just be a result of someone else having a bad day,” she said. “And that just isn’t my problem unless, of course, I make it my problem.” Dave’s response? “Sounds good, babe.”(?1413 words)。

2020年高中英语时文新闻拓展阅读理解Passage 1 美国正积极研发新冠疫苗The Un ited States is "neck-and-neck" with Chi na in the race to develop an effective coro navirus（新冠病毒）vaccine, Johns Hopkins University health policy and management professor Dr. Marty Makary told "Special Report" Wedn esday. "There are 70 vacc ines in differe nt stages of developme nt," said Makary, a Fox News contributor. "There are seven that are being given in patients right now. We re sort of n eck-a nd-n eck with Chi na -- we've got three, they've got three."Makary added that the Chinese vaccines "are actually in further stages of development. Their drugs are in phase two or three, and it's a real race ...The country that gets there first will have a sig nifica nt adva ntage becausethey will control the supply for the rest of the world and the risk is if we aren't there first, we could get locked out." The professor con cluded that the search for a vacci ne was "moving alon g," but added that "it will probably take a year" before such a treatme nt becomes widely available.Earlier Wedn esday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the gover nmen t's top in fectious-disease expert and a member of Preside nt Trump's coro navirus task force, touted the drug remdesivi瑞德西韦）for its "clear-cut sig ni fica nt positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery, as reflected in new data. Makary said that while the National Institutes of Health study shows only a 31 percent reduction rate in recovery time, it could prove to be significant. "One thing to remember," Makary cautioned about remdesivir, "it's not a silver bullet. "It reduces the severity and probably in creases recovery but also, this is an IV（静脉注射）medicati on, it's not something you can go to the pharmacy tonight and pick up." In the U.S., remdesivir is still awaiting regulatory approval as a coronavirus treatment, but Makary said it is likely to receive emergency authorizati on from the Food and Drug Admi nistrati on "as early as this eve ning ”.1 What does the underlined word heck-and-neck' mean ?A work togetherB be friendsC at the equal levelD be en emies2 What is American'challenge according to Makarysstatement ?4 Which would be the best title for this passage ?A The US is level with China in race for coron avirus vacc ines.B Remdesivir can be the treatme nt for coron avirus vacci nes.C Remdesivir n eed the regulatory approval.D Coron avirus vacci nes should be developed soon.Passage 2 上海迪士尼恢复营业Shan ghai Disn eyla nd to reope n after shutt ing dow nMay 11 could be a very magical day for theme park lovers. As parts of the world start to reopen amid the coron avirus （新冠病毒）pan demic （大 流行病）,many people are look ing to see how bus in esseswill return after closing down. It ' s likely that theme park lovers will be interested to see howDibeey parks alter their practices in response to the outbreak. Shanghai Disneyland announced that it will be reopening tothe public on Mon day. The park closed its doors on Jan. 25 as part of China the coron avirus. Since the n, the outbreak has become a pan demic and Disney parks across theworld have also bee n limited and shut their doors.In a statement, Disney CEO Bob Chapek said: “Wecnow how much our guests have been looking forward to retur ning to Shan ghai Disn eyla nd, and our cast is excited to beg in welco ming them back. As the park reopens with significantly enhanced health and safety measures, our guests will find Shanghai Disn eyla nd as magical and memorable as ever. ”Whe n the park reope ns, guests will be required to purchase admissi on tickets valid for certa in dates only. Also, annual pass holders will have to make reservations prior to arrival. The park will also control guest density （密度）in lines, restaurants, ride vehicles and other facilities. The park will also utilize temperature scree ning and require guests to wear masks in the park, except whe n eati ng.1 What does the underlined word curb” mean in paragraph 1 ?A Use vacci nes to save more people.C Develop effective vacci nes before Chi na does.3 What can we know about remdesivir ?A It can reduce the time to recovery.B C It has bee n used as a coron avirus treatme nt. D B Give patie nts more vacci nes for treatme nt. D Work with China to develop vacci nes. People cantpurchase it easily in drug stores. It has a significant effect in treating coronavirus. curb the'sprA stopB en courageC con trolD treat2 What can we learn form paragraph 1?A Shan ghai Disn eyla nd closed before the pan demic of the coron avirus.B Only Shan ghai Disn eyla nd shut its door duri ng the pan demic.C Shan ghai Disn eyla nd will be reope n because the pan demic is en ded.D China has curbed the spread of the coron avirus.3 What will happen when Shanghai Disneyland reopens A It won 'be as en terta ining as before.B Those who bought ticket can visit it at any time.C Annual pass holders can visit the park freely.D Many measures will be used to enhance safety.Passage 3 纽约顶级厨师的工作困境Chefs from some of New York City ' top restaura nts areleav ing the bus in ess to work for billio naires after losi ng their jobs to the coron avirus 新冠病毒）,the New York Post has lear ned.Out-of-work chefs from restaurantsincluding Jean-Georges,Daniel, Eleven Madison Park, Per Se and Gramercy Taver n are being poached 挖走）by tale nt age nts and eve n real estate brokers房地产经纪人）to work for wealthy families since the coron avirus shutdow ns have weake ned the restaura nt in dustry, sources said. The supply of quality chefs is so abundant that some wealthy people say they ' re gettaagesbld about the latest can didate. “I received a calout of the blue ask ing if we wan ted to hire a top chef who had worked for JeanGeorges, ” one billionaire real estate developer told the NYPost's Side Dish.For unemployed chefs it ' s often the only way for them to make money doing what they love at a time when sit-down dining is prohibited by the state lockdown. “ Iwas laid off six weeks ago. It just wasn' t possible to stay, no matter howmuch the chef wan ted to keep us. I can ' t sta nd not work in g. I miss beir the kitche n, ” said Ian Ten zer-ye29old former sous chef（副厨）at three-star Michelin restaura nt Eleve n Madis on Park, n amed the world ' s best restaura nt in 20drking as a rpvate chef has always bee n a part of the industry I had thought about working in and, at this point in my career, it ' as good choice econo mically and professi on ally,” he added.In deed, chefs who choose to work in private homes sta nd to get a 20 perce nt to 30 perce nt pay raise, as well as other perks （补贴）including better hours, sources said. Sous chefs at top restaurantscan earn between $120,000 and $200,000 a year working full-time for a family, compared to closer to $100,000work ing at a restaura nt. One drawback is that you n ever know what kind of family you ll get, chefSome families are lovely, adve nturous and curious, ” but othheappDsiieeq They can berudesaid one chef whe and “ eve n physically and verbally abusive. I have heard horror stories,unn amed. “ Money can be a very corrupt ing in flue nee. ”1 Which is true about Chefs in New York city ?A Some of famous chefs are leaving the business to work in private homes.B Wealthy families invited chefs to work for them.C Chefs are being poached because billionaires need them.D Top chefs are rare in New York city.2 Which of the following can describe the underlined phrase“out of the blue”?A from the skyB all of a suddenC in the morningD from a friend3 What can we know form paragraph 3 ?A Ian Tenzer was out of work because the chef did'nt need him.B There still many jobs for Ian Tenzer to do.C Ian Tenzer hadn't considered working for private families.D Being a private chef can be economically helpful to Ian Tenzer.4 What would be the best title for this passage ?A Being a private chef can earn more.B Unemployed chefs are being personal cooks.C Chefs from New York City 'ress t oapurantsD Out-of-work chefs from top restaurantsPassage 4 为隔离患者捐赠iPadNo man is an island. But for the coronavirus （新冠病毒）patients in hospitals, they die alone -physically separated from the friends and family who love them. This cruel reality weighs heavily on a group of New York City volunteers whose mission is to actually connect patients with family members unable to be present due to hospital restrictions on visitors. Their solution: to collect used iPads from across the country and don ate them to hospitals in un derserved缺医少药的）com mun ities where the n eed is most serious."It 's a heartbreaksincgene," Nicolas Heller, a 31-year-old documentarian, said of the thousands of people who have died from the disease in isolation, without the comforting words or touch from a loved one. "A lot of these people are dying prematurely, whether they had medical issues or not. It saidH'esllec r,ushing."who is part of iPads to Hospitals, an organization-founded by two medical students, Amy Johnson and Jeff Arace -that is collecting used iPads for patients who do not own smartphones capable of video chatting. The groupexplained how the donated iPads could also benefit hospital staff with limited personal protective equipment, suchas masks and gloves. The tablet computers can allow medical staff to communicate with patients from outside ofthe room, decreasing their risk of exposure to the virus.As of Friday morning, the group said it has received 375 used iPads from donors nationwide and raised more than $22,000 through its GoFundMe page to purchase more devices. So far, 50 of the iPads have been donated to Brooklyn ' s C-OoVnlIyDsite, University Hospital of Brooklyn at SUNY Downstate, whose staff expressed the critical impact the devices can have on patients and also healthcare workers."The lifeblood of what we ' re doing is making use of people 's iPads that are in their drawers desks that they don 't use anymsaoirdeI,"an Kaplan, a film director from Brooklyn. "I 've dhaevery makeand model of iPad ever made in my hands in the last week," said 29-year-old Kaplan. "With the exception of the first model, which doesn ' t have a camera, we can make use .oHf aonwyeivPeard, we are nowhere nearmeeting the demand of every hospital that we speak with”.1 Why do volunteers collect used iPads ?A To make better use of iPads.B To collect and sell them to patients.C To enable patients to contact with their family.D To equip underserved communities.2 What can we know according to paragraph 2 ?A Heller is one of iPads to Hospitals's founders.B Hospital staff can use iPads to contact with their family.C These iPads can be beneficial to medical workers.D These iPads can protect hospital staff from the virus.3 What can we infer from the statement of Ian Kaplan ?A People donated iPads because they wanted to buy new ones.B Every make and model of iPad can be used in hospitals.C Those iPads in his hands are all with cameras.D There is still a lot of iPads needed to meet the demand.4 What is the main idea of this passage ?A Patients in hospitals are physically separated.B Group collects used iPads to connect patients with family.C How was iPads to Hospitals founded by two medical students.D How to collect iPads for hospitals.The wildfires damaging parts of Australia can be seen from space in new satellite images released by NASA. Australia's capital, Can berra, was env eloped in a smoky haze Sun day and air quality at midday was measured at 10 times the usual dangerous limit. The damaging fires have killed at least 24 people in Australia and destroyed almost 2,000 homes. The early and damaging start to Australia 'usmmerwildfires, fed by drought and the coun try's hottest and driest year on record, has also bee n catastrophi c 灭 性的)for the country's wildlife, likely killing nearly 500 million birds, reptiles and mammals in New South Wales alone, Sydney Un iversity ecologist Chris Dickma n told the Sydney Morni ng Herald.Un der such extreme con diti ons, the fires have bee n gen erati ng eno ugh heat to create their own weather systems, in clud ing fire-ge nerated thu nderstorms and fire torn adoes. Thousa nds of firefighters continued to fight the flames that have burned millions of acres in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, an area twice the size of Maryland. In New South Wales, the rural fire service (RFS) said as of Sun day there were 150 fires active in the state, 64 of them uncon trolled.On Saturday, Prime Min ister Scott Morris on announ ced that, for the first time in Australia n history, 3,000 army, n avy and air force reservists 后备军人)will battle aga inst the fires. He also committed $14 millio n to hiri ng fire-fighti ng aircraft from overseas. On Sun day, cooler temperatures and lighter winds brought some relief to threatened communities, a day after thousands were forced to escape as flames reached the suburban areas of Sydney. Thousands of firefighters fought to contain the fires, but many fires continued to bur n out of con trol, threate ning to wipe out rural tow nships and caus ing almost in calculable damage to property and wildlife. 1 What does the underlined phrasefed by” mean ?A get food from some oneB be stre ngthe ned by someth ingC be destroyed by somethi ngD un der con trol of someth ing2 Why were there thunderstorms and tornadoes ?A Because the fires gen erated thu nderstorms and torn adoes.B Because there was rainy weather.C Because the fires gen erated eno ugh heat to create extreme weather.D Because the weather systems is easy to cha nge.3 What can we learn form the last paragraph ?Passage 5澳大利亚森林大火A Many soldiers will fight against the fires as they have done before.B Fires were controlled due to cooler temperatures and lighter winds.C A lot of people moved out of the suburban areas.D Damage to property and wildlife is limited.4 What would be the best title for this passage ?A Australia's destructive wildfiresB Soldiers fought against the firesC Wildlife died form the firesD Australia w'il s dfires was under controlpassage 1 答案:1. C.根据第一段中,The United States is "neck-and-neck" with China in the race to develop an effectivecoronavirusvaccine 中的race一词，及最后一句we resort of neck-and-neck with Chi na -- we've got three, they've got three.可知，美国和中国目前处于同样的疫苗研发阶段，正在比赛哪国先研制出有效的新冠病毒疫苗。

How to design your ideal lifeDanish entrepreneur Martin Bjergegaard says that to succeed and be happy it's not necessary to work extra-long hours that don't allow family time Louise Chunn The Guardian, Saturday 18 May 2013Martin Bjergegaard is an entrepreneur who doesn't behave as you'd imagine an entrepreneur would. Sitting in a noisy outdoor cafe one sunny afternoon, this 37-year-old Dane comes across like any other tourist visiting London. He's fit, relaxed, content; he's not antsy, exhausted, hyper-competitive or any other cliche from the world of internet startups. He doesn't look at his phone once during our hour-long talk.But Bjergegaard is a hugely successful businessman, a co-founder of Rainmaking, which is responsible for eight startups with a total of $50m (£33m) in annual revenue and 100 employees with offices in Copenhagen, London and Munich. It's because of that success – and the preconceptions that the world has about what it takes to reach that level – that he has decided to let us all in on the secret. You don't have to kill yourself –working ever longer hours, with no family time, and constantly pushing yourself – to have a good work-life balance.When Bjergegaard expounds on his work/life philosophy, it's clear that his six-year-old daughter, Mynte, is a large part of the impetus. He is divorced from her mother and has remarried, but is determined to share the pleasures and responsibilities of bringing Mynte up. He is committed to working no more than 40 hours a week and takes eight weeks' annual holiday, travelling the world from Guatemala to Bangladesh, most recently spending eight days in Tenerife with his daughter. Working parenthood Martin Bjergegaard-style is more than lip service. He lives and works in central Copenhagen while his daughter is half an hour outside the city. When she's in his care, he drops her at school, works out at a gym in that area, then works remotely till he picks her up at 1pm. It sounds great –but inconceivable for ordinary folk, employed 9am to 5pm, surely? He disagrees. "These things are possible, but you have to organise yourself and the job you have. It won't happen if you don't try to make it happen. It's a responsibility to design your ideal life and go off and live it and not let anything push you away from that."As a working mother who has been employed by eight companies over the past 26 years, I know it's not always as easy as that if you don't own the company. But the wily parent or carer can often work with colleagues or an empathetic boss to make a position more family-friendly, though it usually won't happen without pushing for it. Bjergegaard's style is to approach the problem head-on, with an armful of reasoning and information. As he says, "Balance is not for sissies.""You could also say that I wrote this book [Winning Without Losing] to prove my dad wrong," he laughs. His father was an entrepreneur too."He was always telling me that I should be prepared for sacrifice, although it was clear that he didn't want to do that himself. I thought of him as the kind of dad who didn't make it to first team, but wanted his own kid to."Then he pauses to reconsider. "That's the way I saw it but maybe it's not actually true. For example, I remember that he pushed me into doing karate. But really what he was saying was, if you agreed to doit and I pay for it, then you have to follow through and do it."That, most parents would agree, is fair enough. "There was probably a lot of that miscommunication between us, plus he is from a previous generation and he felt he was doing me a favour to prepare me for a harsh world. He's 67 now, and actually pretty successful after all that time. We get on better now than ever. " In some ways, I am the opposite of him, but in some ways I'm similar. Yet I still wanted to show him that being successful didn't mean you couldn't have a good life too."His mother's influence was different. "To me, she appeared to be in his shadow, but passive-aggressive. She was taking care of the home, working for him in his business, but blaming him, while he was ignoring her. That dynamic was not good. They got divorced and she died an alcoholic at 56. I know that she loved me, especially as a child, but I didn't see her take responsibility for her happiness. That has influenced me. No one is going to put me in a role I don't want to be in."Bjergegaard launched his first company – a colour photocopying business – when he was only 18, and did his first degree in the evening. This is typical of his approach: "If you already know what you want to do – you should just do it, don't bother with university. But if don't know what you want to do then, yes, you go to college. Otherwise, you're just waiting to get started."After launching several businesses, he felt he wasn't getting it right, so he went to business school and did a master's degree. After that, he was hired by McKinsey, the global management consultancy firm. This provided another major lesson in life and how not to live it."The McKinsey partners were making a lot of money but to me, at 26, they looked like they weren't enjoying it. Then, when I started Rainmaking with some of my best friends, we started to network with a lot of older and richer people, the investors. Some of them are great guys but, in general, they didn't look happier than the average person."This got him reading a lot about happiness. What do we need to be happy? "Above a certain threshold, money doesn't really have an impact. Nor does having children, unless you lose a child. Even disasters have only a temporary effect on your happiness levels – after a few years you will go back to your happiness set point."Yet we are so afraid to have a failure or lose some money – and so often it keeps us away from what we really want to do. Disaster isn't as dangerous as we think it is. In many ways, we have not evolved beyond fear of being eaten by a lion!"That fear, thinks Bjergegaard, stops us from even trying. "When there's something you want to do that you are putting off until later, because you feel that you need to do something else first – it's wrong. You have to take responsibility for now; you can't keep imagining that things will be different in the future."Not everyone is going to run their own business, but many are self-employed, not all happily. Bjergegaard says people need to be more flexible. If working from home is sapping your energy, you should look for cheap shared space or divide your living quarters into work and not-work areas. "If it works, fine – if not, change it. Experiment. Don't live with it."Bjergegaard's 66 strategies range from working within easy distance of where you live so you don't waste hours commuting, to being prepared to take tough decisions fast. Some of them sound scarily alien to normal British corporate practice. Put people first? Learn to meditate? Take tomorrow off?"I don't believe in the rational human being. We are all emotional, but there are good and bad emotions. You want fewer of the bad ones – aggression, ego, fear, anxiety – and more of the good ones – inspiration, passion."Too often, he believes, work is a toxic place and bosses are heartless slave-drivers. As the book states, the macho and the martyr have both gone out of fashion. "To push ourselves and actively reduce our overall effectiveness resulting in feeling bad – well that's just plain stupid."I am on the brink of starting a new career as an entrepreneur, thrilled by the challenge of learning new things, but also nervous that the energy needed to get off the ground will pull me far from the needs of family, and the quiet pleasures of a manageable life. I already find that working can stretch from dawn to bedtime if you don't have an actual "office" to leave behind you, and your brain can fill to bursting with what needs to be done.For these reasons, I find Bjergegaard's mantra of "sane, humane and long-term sustainable" inspiring. Much of it too is based on fending off the stress that bedevils so many people today. "If you work like a maniac you probably won't enjoy it, and it'll make you ill. Even in our company where we don't put that kind of pressure on people, we have two people away with stress."This is a big problem for workplaces and individuals. And once you go down, you'll never be the same again, it will be your weakness."The spectre of competition means that at work, school, everywhere we think we have to work/study/run as fast as we possibly can, all the time. But, says Bjergegaard, much of that is counterproductive. "We get tired, we don't work as well under constant stress. We don't always need to be there anyway – many of my best ideas have come when I'm running, or on holiday."I've been blessed," he adds, "growing up in Denmark. I studied because I liked it, but I was also drinking beer, spending time with friends. When I went to McKinsey I was working beside people, from China, Japan, lots of places, who hadn't had any fun in their lives. I couldn't see that they were more productive than me. Kids learn from many sources; it shouldn't all be school."But in spite of the mix of half-marathons, family time and convivial work relationships, he's not yet perfect. How often does he check his email, I ask him, impressed by his relaxed demeanour throughout the interview.Bjergegaard hangs his head. "You have found one of my weaknesses. Too often. The advice I have tried to follow is to only check them when you can actually reply. Otherwise it just causes stress. We become enslaved to it. Is that really progress? And we use it when we shouldn't – when it would be better to take five minutes to actually talk."But apart from that little failing – and who doesn't fail on over-checking email? – Bjergegaard appears to have the work/life/fun balance looking rather good. I'm signing up as an acolyte.(1780 words)。

Every woman in the boardroom must pull others up behind herA report shows that female appointments to FTSE boards have slowed. It is up to those at the top to bridge the gender gapKarren Brady Thursday 11 April 2013 09.03 BSTMargaret Thatcher used to say, "If you want anything done, ask a woman", but when it comes to applying this at the most senior level of UK business, momentum is lagging. Cranfield School of Management revealed yesterday that in the first half of the 2012 financial year, 44% of board-level appointments at FTSE 100 firms went to women. This slowed to 26% in the second half, and there remains a 33% gap between the current rate of recruitment of women to the boardroom and the recommended level needed to achieve equality. British business continues to fail to tackle the barriers that deter women from fulfilling their potential, with a knock-on impact on our economy and society.However, the Cranfield research does show that the picture isn't uniformly bad. Women are dominating in the middle levels of certain careers, such as law and marketing, yet this does not translate into boardroom representation. Now is the time for more women in business to recognise their own potential and have the confidence to aim high. We cannot wait for our male colleagues to champion our cause. Nor should we be held back by any guilt that being ambitious and successful at work is somehow not acceptable for women. Too many women don't see themselves in senior leadership and so don't push themselves to advance their careers as their male peer group do.It's depressing that ambition and feminism have become almost dirty words for working women. But, there is no reason that they should be and, increasingly, I am struck by how the next generation is challenging conceptions of what it means to be successful at work. I regularly meet young women who, just as I did when I was 23 and took on Birmingham Football Club, are starting their careers with a determination to achieve all they can.My view is that the key to their success is confidence, and possessing the self-belief to challenge stereotypes. In 20 or 30 years' time, it is these women who will be fundamentally transforming British boards. But this also begs the question of what happens in the meantime. The Cranfield research shows that, while there are too few women in senior business roles, those who are successful could do more to help other women up after them. When I attend events for Women in Business, I often see the same faces. If every woman who got to the top brought just two up behind her, the number of women in the boardroom would triple. When I joined West Ham FC, there were no women in the boardroom and now 50% of the board are female. Rather than pulling up the ladder behind me, I created an environment where women could balance both work and family while aiming for the top.Any board executive can forget just how many people helped them get where they are. Those women who have got to the top need actively to ensure there is a pipeline of younger women, whether by networking or mentoring, who in turn are encouraging those below them. Women in the boardroom must not forget how many challenges and difficulties we have overcome, and we should share our coping strategies.It is critical to create opportunities to identify talented women in business, then support them to develop their confidence to aim for the boardroom. We need to look outside the corporatemainstream, at female entrepreneurs and self-employed businesswomen, who can inject different insights and diversity to any board.We also need to look further down the pipeline at the young women who haven't yet started their careers. When it comes to the route to the boardroom, the barriers start early. Those of us who have achieved success must reach out and inspire young people to aim high, through programmes such as LifeSkills, for which I am an ambassador.While the peak of female boardroom recruitment has been encouraging, more is needed to bridge the gender gap successfully and sustainably. We need to address the whole journey to the boardroom. Business leaders can and should do more to help instil women in business with the confidence and aspiration to aim for the boardroom and inspire the next generation before they leave school.(748 words)Why can't western women seem to figure out the corporate world?Many factors hold females back, but top of the list are society's attitudes and poor government and business policies Sadhbh Walshe Thursday 25 April 2013 13.30 BSTWomen are in the news an awful lot lately, and it's mostly not for uplifting reasons. Decades into the feminist revolution we are still trailing behind men on the achievement ladder. We recently learned that despite all our fancy college degrees, we're still not "leaning in" enough to our careers. Now, it turns out, that in addition to this failure to reach our potential, women in the developed world have fallen behind our counterparts in emerging nations, and apparently, we have only ourselves to blame.The accepted narrative seems to be that while women in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) are excelling in college and whizzing up the corporate ladder, we lazy westerners are just plodding along aimlessly, taking "time off' to look after babies, failing to speak up in the board room and refusing to demand our bosses pay us more. This may all be true(ish), and I'm sure women could and should be doing more to help ourselves. But nothing is ever really going to change in a sustainable way for women anywhere, until we stop fixating on simply changing our behavior and attitudes and focus instead on changing the behavior and attitudes of the societies that stifle us.It's kind of heartening and despairing at the same time that women in developing countries are showing us Western ladies how it's done. In India, a country not known for its reverence of the female kind, 11% of CEOs of large companies are women, and the number of female executives at board level is on the rise. Brazilian women are doing even better – 14% of CEOs are female, and they also have a female head of state. Meanwhile, in the "developed" world, female representation on boards and in the tops jobs is either stagnating or in decline. In the US, only 3% of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are women. In Britain, there are only two female CEOs in the FTSE 100and Australia has only 12 women chief executives in its top 200 companies.While some of the success women in developing countries are experiencing can be attributed to their fast growing economies, it's obviously easier to be ambitious and enthusiastic about one's career in an economy that's experiencing 6% growth than in one that is flatlining, it doesn't tell the whole story. The low representation of women on boards or in the top jobs in America andother advanced nations was about the same or slightly worse when their economies were booming. And no matter how ambitious or clever women may be, they will not make it all the way to CEO unless the company they work for and the society they live in facilitates that journey.It would be nice if we could say that women in the BRIC nations don't come up against the same kind of sexism or the patriarchal dividend that favors male advancement that we do, but If anything they have it worse. In a piece for , Sylvia Ann Hewlett, author of Winning the War for Talent in Emerging Markets: Why Women Are the Solution, had the following to say about the unlikely disparity in achievement:"Unlike in the US and western Europe, childcare, for example, does not pose the same career challenge; a robust network of relatives combined with inexpensive domestic help give BRIC/UAE women multiple shoulders to lean on. They are not knocked off track by childbearing. Another important reason: smart companies facing shortages of skilled workers in emerging markets are 'leap-frogging' established practices in the West and designing workplaces and career models conducive to female success. For example, the global business-services firm Genpact offers work-from-home, extended maternity leaves and sabbatical options. These alternatives help the firm maintain one of the lowest turnover rates in India."So there you have it: women in the 21st century in so called advanced democracies are having their ambitions thwarted and their potential stifled by lack of access to flexible work schedules and affordable childcare. This won't come as a surprise to any working woman. We've all seen highly ambitious friends or family members fall off the career ladder soon after their babies were born. In the US, childcare can be prohibitively expensive and so many women are underpaid (and of course universally paid less than men) that it often simply doesn't make economic sense to keep on working when they have small children.As for paid maternity leave, at least in Europe, Canada and Australia, women are entitled to some. But, unbelievably, the United States, alone among industrialized nations, does not provide any paid maternity leave whatsoever. The most American women can hope for is 12 weeks of unpaid, job-guaranteed leave. What a lousy concession to the bearers of the nation's future taxpayers. This isn't just a financial penalty, it's also an emotional one that forces many talented women to drop out of the work force simply because they are not ready to hand their 12-week-old baby over to a stranger for care.What a difference it would make if our governments used some of our taxpayer dollars to provide subsidized childcare for working families and if more companies broke out of their patriarchal mode and set up female friendly environments that allowed women to keep their families up and running and have a career at the same time. The alternative is for us to give up having children, tell our elderly relatives to fend for themselves and to live in squalor because no matter how much many of us lean in we're never going to earn enough to be able to outsource all the care-taking duties that tend to fall on our shoulders.Women could benefit from a change in attitude certainly and to becoming more demanding and self-serving when it comes to their lives and careers. But for anything to truly change, it's society's attitude that needs some serious adjusting.(1020 words)。