题型：阅读表达 题类：常考题 难易度：困难
天津市滨海新区2019-2020学年高一上学期英语期末考试试卷
Over the past twenty years, American country music has become more and more popular. Song writers are no longer writing about the modern values of the USA—money, success or expensive things to buy. Instead, they are writing once more about things that are common for everyone: feeling alone in the modern world, the value of having good friends and so on.
In the 1950s, American music was about other things, for example, love—getting or losing a boyfriend or girlfriend. Money was also thought to be important.
Then in the 1960s, song writers turned to other subjects. During these years many young students were angry with society, so songs were often full of anger. Political leaders were not well thought of.
Today country music has returned. It has become big business and brings in between 200 and 400 million dollars a year. Once, the home of American country music was Nashville, Tennessee. Now, however, the music has reached all parts of the States, from Los Angeles in the west to New York in the east. Singers do not just come from the States but from all over the world. There are many famous singers from Britain, Canada and Australia. A lot of them appear on television too.
The first country singers sang while playing the guitar. It was easy for them to carry a guitar on their travels. Now, however, a lot of electrical equipment is needed for large theatres.
Country music today still remains very popular.
Age has its privileges in America, and one of the most important of them is the senior citizen discount. Eligibility(资格) is determined not by one's need but by the date on one's birth certificate. The discounts have become a routine part of many businesses—as common as color televisions in motel rooms and free coffee on airliners.
People with gray hair often are given the discounts without even asking for them; yet, millions of Americans above age 60 are healthy and solvent (有支付能力的). Businesses that would never dare offer discounts to college students or anyone under 30 freely offer them to older Americans. The practice is acceptable because of the widespread belief that ＂elderly＂ means ＂needy＂. Perhaps that once was true, but today elderly Americans as a group have a lower poverty rate than the rest of the population. To be sure, there is economic diversity within the elderly, and many older Americans are poor. But most of them aren't.
It is impossible to determine the impact of the discounts on individual companies. For many firms, they are a stimulus to revenue. But in other cases, the discounts are given at the expense, directly or indirectly, of younger Americans. Moreover, they are a direct irritant(刺激物) in what some politicians and scholars see as a coming conflict between the generations.
Generational tensions are being fueled by continuing debate over Social Security benefits, which mostly involve a transfer of resources from the young to the old. Employment is another sore point. Supported by laws and court decisions, more and more older Americans are declining the retirement dinner in favor of staying on the job—thereby lessening employment and promotion opportunities for younger workers.
Far from a kind of charity they once were, senior citizen discounts have become a privilege to a group with millions of members who don't need them.
It no longer makes sense to treat the elderly as a single group whose economic needs deserve priority over those of others. Senior citizen discounts only enhance the myth that older people can't take care of themselves and need special treatment; and they threaten the creation of a new myth, that the elderly are ungrateful and taking for themselves at the expense of children and other age groups. Senior citizen discounts are the essence of the very thing older Americans are fighting against—discrimination by age.
Outline | Details |
Introduction | Age determines whether an American can be given a discount, which is a common{#blank#}1{#/blank#}in American business life today. |
Origin of senior citizen discount | Since the senior citizens are often treated as people who are in {#blank#}2{#/blank#} they are given such priority. |
{#blank#}3{#/blank#}situation | ●The situation has changed a lot where the majority of the elderly are not poor at all. ●Younger Americans were at a(n){#blank#}4{#/blank#} directly or indirectly due to the discounts given to the elderly, thus leading to conflicts between generations. ●The number of older Americans {#blank#}5{#/blank#}to work rather than retire is on the increase, which means {#blank#}6{#/blank#}opportunities for young workers. ●It is no longer a kind of charity because millions of senior citizens don't need the priority{#blank#}7{#/blank#} . |
Conclusion | ●It's unwise to offer discount priority to the elderly. ●It will mislead people to think they are unable to{#blank#}8{#/blank#} to themselves. ●People may think that they are ungrateful and they're hurting the{#blank#}9{#/blank#} of other age groups. ●Actually senior citizen discounts, to some extent,{#blank#}10{#/blank#} against their age. |
If there is one word to describe the progress made in the last 100 years, it's connectedness. From the telephone to the radio to the TV to the Internet, we have found ways to bring us all closer together, enabling，constant worldly access.
I don't think I need to highlight the benefits of all this. But the downsides are also beginning to show. Beyond the current talk about privacy and data collection, there is perhaps an even more detrimental side-effect here: We now live in a world where we're connected to everything except ourselves. According to Pascal, we fear the silence of existence, and we dread boredom and instead choose aimless distraction and use the noise of the world to block out the discomfort of dealing with ourselves.
However, we ignore the fact that never facing ourselves is why we feel lonely an anxious in spite of being so intimately connected to everything else around us.
Fortunately, there is a solution. The only way to avoid being ruined by this is to face it. It's to let the boredom take you where it wants so you can deal with whatever it is that is really going on with your sense of self. That's when you'll hear yourself think, and learn to engage the parts of you that are masked by distraction.
The beauty of this is that, once you cross that initial barrier, you realize that being alone isn't so bad. Boredom can provide its own stimulation.
When you surround yourself with moments of solitude and stillness, you become intimately familiar with your environment in a way that forced stimulation doesn't allow. The world becomes richer, the layers start to peel back, and you see things for what they really are, in all their wholeness, in all their contradictions, and in all their unfamiliarity.
You learn that there are things you are capable of paying attention to than just what makes the most noise on the surface. Just because a quiet room doesn't scream with excitement like the idea of immersing yourself in a movie or a TV show doesn't mean there isn't depth to explore there.
Sometimes, the direction that this solitude leads you in can be unpleasant, especially when it comes to introspection (内省)—your thoughts and your feelings, your doubts and your hopes—but in the long term, it's far more pleasant than running away from it all without even realizing what you are.
Being alone and connecting inwardly is a skill nobody ever teaches us. That's ironic because it's more important than most of the ones they do.
Solitude may not be the solution to everything, but it certainly is a start.
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The Cost of Connectedness |
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Introduction |
●{#blank#}1{#/blank#} the development of IT has brought us all closer together than ever before, we {#blank#}2{#/blank#}to connect ourselves while connected to everything. |
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The disadvantages of connectedness |
● We are afraid of a{#blank#}3{#/blank#} state of existence and the boredom it brings. ●We feel so uncomfortable when dealing with ourselves that we {#blank#}4{#/blank#} from it all and choose to be aimlessly distracted by the noise of the world. ●We often ignore the fact that never facing ourselves is to {#blank#}5{#/blank#} for our feeling lonely and anxious. |
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The {#blank#}6{#/blank#} to the problem |
●You can deal with whatever is going on with your sense of self. ●You'll hear yourself, think, and learn to engage what is masked by distraction. ●Being alone isn't so bad. {#blank#}7{#/blank#}, you'll be stimulated by boredom. ●The world becoming richer and ,the layers starting to peel back, you'll have {#blank#}8{#/blank#} views about what you see. ●You'll find yourself capable of being attentive to some things and {#blank#}9{#/blank#} in depth beyond noise and scream. |
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Conclusion |
●Solitude is the first step you should take to save yourself from being ruined by {#blank#}10{#/blank#} and anxiety. |
试题篮
) 并在其下面写出该加的词。删除：把多余的词用斜线(\)划掉。修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。注意：每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。