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In department stores and closets all over the world, they are waiting. Their outward appearance seems rather appealing because they come in a variety of styles, textures, and colors. But they are ultimately the biggest deception that exists in the fashion industry today. What are they? They are high heels—a woman's enemy (whether she knows it or not).
High heel shoes are the downfall of modern society. Fashion myths have led women to believe that they are more beautiful or sophisticated for wearing heels, but in reality, heels succeed in posing short as well as long term hardships. Women should fight the high heel industry by refusing to wear or purchase high heel shoes in order to save the world from unnecessary physical and psychological suffering.
For the sake of fairness, it must be noted that there is a positive side to high heels. First, heels are excellent for aerating lawns. Anyone who has ever worn heels on grass knows what I am talking about. A simple trip around the yard in a pair of those babies eliminates all need to call for a lawn care specialist, and provides the perfect-sized holes to give any lawn oxygen without all those messy chunks of dirt lying around.
Second, heels are quite functional for defense against oncoming enemies, who can easily be scared away by threatening them with a pair of these sharp, deadly fashion accessories.
Regardless of such practical uses for heels, the fact remains that wearing high heels is harmful to one's physical health. Talk to any podiatrist, and you will hear that the majority of their business comes from high-heel-wearing women. High heels are known to cause problems such as deformed feet and torn toenails. The risk of severe back problems and twisted or broken ankles is three times higher for a flat shoe wearer. Wearing heels also creates the threat of getting a heel caught in a sidewalk crack or a sewer-grate and being thrown to the ground—possibly breaking a nose, back, or neck. And of course, after wearing heels for a day, any woman knows she can look forward to a night of pain as she tries to comfort her swollen, aching feet.
1. What makes women blind to the deceptive nature of high heels?
A. The multi-functional use of high heels.
B. Their attempt to show off their status.
C. The rich variety of high heel styles.
D. Their wish to improve their appearance.
2. The author's presentation of the positive side of high heels is meant ______.
A. to be ironic
B. to poke fun at women
C. to be fair to the fashion industry
D. to make his point convincing
3. The author uses the expression “those babies”（Line 6. Para.3）to refer high heels ______.
A. to show their fragile characteristics
B. to indicate their feminine features
C. to show women's affection for them
D. to emphasize their small size
4. The author's chief argument against high heels is that ______.
A. they pose a threat to lawns
B. they are injurious to women's health
C. they don't necessarily make women beautiful
D. they are ineffective as a weapon of defense
5. It can be inferred from the passage that women should _______.
A. see through the very nature of fashion myths
B. boycott the products of the fashion industry
C. go to a podiatrist regularly for advice
D. avoid following fashion too closely
Sales of existing homes rose by the largest amount in more than 5 years in September. But analysts cautioned against reading too much into the gain, noting that it reflected conditions before the latest upheaval in financial markets increased the likelihood of a recession in the overall economy.
The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes rose by 5.5 percent from August to September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.18 million units—far better than the depressed results analysts had expected. On an unadjusted basis, sales were up 7.8 percent from September last year.
But even with the gain in sales, prices kept falling. But analysts said that the current financial crisis, which has contributed to the biggest upheavals on Wall Street since the 1930s, was sending consumer confidence down, unemployment up and had greatly increased the prospects that the country was either in or about to enter a full-blown recession. All these factors were expected to add to the headwinds hitting housing in the months ahead.
“In October, mortgage applications sank to six-year lows,” said Sal Guatieri, an economist at BMO Capital Markets. “This suggests house sales, like the rest of the economy, fell off a cliff because of the worsening credit crunch.”
Many analysts are predicting that home prices already down 18 percent nationally from their peak in mid-2006—could decline another 10 percent, as a continued glut of foreclosed homes being poured into the market depresses prices further.
The National Association of Realtors estimated that 35 percent to 40 percent of sales currently are distressed sales—either foreclosed homes or short sales in which the owner is selling the house for less than the value of the mortgage.
Distressed sales are having a big impact in lowering prices in some formerly red-hot sales markets in such regions as the West, where sales prices fell in September by 18.5 percent from a year ago.
Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the Realtors, said there were some glimmers of hope that the bottom of the housing slump may be near. He said a sales turnaround first seen in California was beginning to broaden to other regions of the country including Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, and Rhode Island.
1. Which of the following is true according to Paragraph 1?
A. Sales of existing home consistently increase in recent five years.
B. Analysts warn people against reading too much report about the increasing sale.
C. Increasing existing home sales reflect the bad conditions in financial markets.
D. Increasing existing home sales increase people's preference of the recession.
2. What can be inferred from Sal Guatieri's comments?
A. House sales worsened other sections of the economy.
B. The credit crunch worsened the whole economy.
C. House sales resulted in the worsening credit crunch.
D. Mortgage applications have been falling for 6 years.
3. We can infer from Paragraph 5 that ______.
A. home prices have fallen down 28% compared with what's in mid-2006
B. many foreclosed homes have been abandoned by their former owners
C. home prices might fall down 28% from their peak in mid-2006 in the future
D. more foreclosed homes have been abandoned because of the falling price
4. As for “distressed sales”, which of the following statements is true?
A. It is made up of both the foreclosed homes and short sales.
B. It occupies 35% to 40% of the whole house sales in the history.
C. It prevents people from selling their houses too cheaply.
D. It has little influence on the formerly prosperous housing market.
5. According to Lawrence Yun, the future of the house sales will ______.
A. remain in the same depressing situation
B. become worse because of the financial crisis
C. turn into a good situation in no time
D. be depressing for a short time and then be better
There is, writes Daniele Fanelli in a recent issue of Nature , something rotten in the state of scientific research—an epidemic of false, biased, and falsified findings where “only the most egregious cases of misconduct are discovered and punished.” Fanelli is a leading thinker in an increasingly alarming field of scientific research: one that seeks to find out why it is that so many scientific researches turn out to be wrong.
For a long time the focus has either been on industry funding as a source of bias, particularly in drug research, or on those who deliberately commit fraud, such as the spectacular case of Diederik Stapel, a Dutch social psychologist who was found to have fabricated at least 55 research papers over 20 years. But an increasing number of studies have shown that flawed research is a much wider phenomenon, especially in the biomedical sciences. Indeed, the investigation into Stapel also blamed a “sloppy” research culture that often ignored inconvenient data and misunderstood important statistical methods.
“There's little question that the scientific literature is awash in false findings—findings that if you try to replicate you'll probably never succeed or at least find them to be different from what was initially said,” says Fanelli. “But people don't appreciate that this is not because scientists are manipulating these results, consciously or unconsciously; it's largely because we have a system that favors statistical flukes instead of replicable findings.”
This is why, he says, we need to extend the idea of academic misconduct (currently limited to fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism) to “distorted reporting”—the failure to communicate all the information someone would need to validate your findings. Right now, he says, we're missing all the “unconscious biased, the systemic biases, the practices, mistakes, and problems that hardly ever count as cheating”, even though they have a very important—and probably the largest—effect on creating technically false results in the literature.
One particularly challenging bias is that academic journals tend to publish only positive results. As Isabelle Boutron, a professor of epidemiology at René Descartes University in Paris, points out, studies have shown that peer reviewers are influenced by trial results; one study showed that they not only favored a paper showing a positive effect over a near-identical paper showing no effect, they also gave the positive paper higher scores for its scientific methods. And Boutron has herself found extensive evidence of scientists spinning their findings to claim benefits that their actual results didn't quite support.
“We need a major cultural change,” says Fanelli. “But when you think that, even 20 years ago, these issues were practically never discussed, I think we're making considerable progress.”
1. Which of the following is true about Fanelli's article in Nature ?
A. Some minor academic cheatings are allowed.
B. There are too many scientific research scandals to be reported.
C. The outcomes of scientific research are unreliable.
D. It is inevitable to seek quick success.
2. What does the underlined word “egregious” (Line 4, Paragraph 1) mean?
A. visible
B. productive
C. feasible
D. conspicuous
3. The example of Diederik Stapel is used to ______.
A. prove the severe phenomenon of academic misconduct
B. call for relevant punishment
C. show that it is easy to commit academic fraud in social psychology
D. prove that the professor is unworthy of the title
4. It can be inferred from what Isabelle Boutron has pointed out that ______.
A. the result is more important than the research itself
B. it is false to fish for fame
C. more funds and personnel will go to a research with positive results
D. the research with no result is of no value
5. According to the passage, which of the following statements is true?
A. Academic misconduct is limited on industry funding and academic fraud.
B. Conscious manipulation of scientists is to blame for the increasingly false findings.
C. Positive research findings won't bring about fame for scientists.
D. Fanelli still feels confident about the prospect.
Latino youths need better education for Arizona to take full advantage of the possibilities their exploding population offers. Arizona's fast-growing Latino population offers the state tremendous promise and a challenge. Even more than the aging of the baby boomers, the Latino boom is fundamentally reorienting the state's economic and social structure.
Immigration and natural increase have added 600,000 young Latino residents to the state's population in the past decade. Half of the population younger than 18 in both Phoenix and Tucson is now Latino. Within 20 years, Latinos will make up half of the homegrown entry-level labor pool in the state's two largest labor markets.
What is more, Hispanics are becoming key economic players. Most people don't notice it, but Latinos born in Arizona make up much of their immigrant parents' economic and educational deficits. For example, Second-generation Mexican-Americans secure an average of 12 grades of schooling where their parents obtained less than nine. That means they erase 70 percent of their parents' lag behind third-generation non-Hispanic Whites in a single generation.
All of this hands the state a golden opportunity. At a time when many states will struggle with labor shortages because of modest population growth, Arizona has a priceless chance to build a populous, hardworking and skilled workforce on which to base future prosperity. The problem is that Arizona and its Latino residents may not be able to seize this opportunity. Far too many of Arizona's Latinos drop out of high school or fail to obtain the basic education needed for more advanced study. As a result, educational deficits are holding back many Latinos—and the state as well. To be sure, construction and low-end service jobs continue to absorb tens of thousands of Latino immigrants with little formal education. But over the long term, most of Arizona's Latino citizens remain ill-prepared to prosper in an increasingly demanding knowledge economy.
For the reason, the educational uplift of Arizona's huge Latino population must move to the center of the state's agenda. After all, the education deficits of Arizona's Latino population will severely cramp the fortunes of hardworking people if they go unaddressed and could well undercut the state's ability to compete in the new economy. At the entry level, slower growth rates may create more competition for low-skill jobs, displacing Latinos from a significant means of support. At the higher end, shortages of Latinos educationally ready to move up will make it that much harder for knowledge-based companies staff high-skill positions.
1. The Latino population is changing Arizona's _______.
A. aging problem
B. educational system
C. economic structure
D. financial deficits
2. What can be inferred from the third paragraph?
A. The Latino population in Arizona is made up of Hispanics and Mexican-Americans.
B. The first-generation Latinos are immigrants instead of being born in America.
C. 70 percent of the first-generation Latinos had less schooling than nine years.
D. The educational system used to be in favor of the non-Hispanic Whites.
3. “Educational deficits” (Line 11 Para. 4) most probably means that _______.
A. the state did not put much money into education
B. many Latinos are too poor to obtain education
C. education is not a profitable enterprise
D. many Latinos are not well-educated
4. According to the author, Arizona should give highest priority to _______.
A. controlling the Latino population
B. enhancing the educational level of the Latino population
C. improving the knowledge-based economy
D. building the Latino population into hardworking and skilled workforce
5. It is implied that in the long run most Latinos in Arizona will _______.
A. do low-skill jobs
B. be badly-paid
C. be jobless
D. do high-skill jobs