王迈迈英语

Text 3
　　Fiercely independent, 90 year-old Vincenzia Rinaldi wouldn’t consider a home health aide or nursing home. So Louis Critelli, her nephew had to coax the widowed homemaker into assisted living, the nation’s growing long-term care option for the elderly. For $1,100 a month, Rinaldi became the reluctant resident of an efficiency unit where she could still simmer her much-loved tomato sauce and where caregivers would make sure she took her pills.
　　Instead, 30 months later, she died. Not because she was old. But because aides at her new home, Loretto Utica Center, one of the modern, hotel-style facilities that have sprouted across the country over the past decade, mistakenly gave her another resident’s prescription medication. That error led to her death, state inspectors concluded.
　　Neither the state nor Loretto told her nephew about the cause of death. Critelli, thinking his aunt had been properly cared for, only learned of the finding years later from USA TODAY. "When they find something blatant like that, you’d think they’d tell the family," the shaken nephew told a reporter after a long pause.
　　A USA TODAY investigation shows that Rinaldi’s death represents the tragic extreme in a pattern of mistakes and violations that lead to scores of injuries and occasional deaths among the estimated 1 million elderly residents of assisted living facilities. The centers are the state-regulated, largely private-pay residences that help seniors with medication and other activities of daily life.
　　In a wide-ranging analysis, USA TODAY reviewed two years of inspection records within 2000-02 for more than 5,300 assisted living facilities in seven states: Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, New York and Texas. The precise time period varied slightly from state to state. The analysis covered a broad range — from mom-and-pop facilities with just a few residents to corporate-run centers with scores of beds and many levels of care. It is the first time such data have been gathered and analyzed across so many states. The review included less-detailed data from five other states and focused on broad quality-of-care categories to compensate for variations in regulations from state to state.
　　As affluent and middle-class Americans cope with the infirmities of age, many turn to assisted living as an alternative to a nursing home industry that has been periodically plagued by abuse or neglect scandals. Even though assisted living facilities generally don’t provide 24-hour skilled medical care, they increasingly serve seniors who only a decade ago might have been in nursing homes.

31. The first paragraph implies that ___________.
A. life in the nursing homes is largely regulated by caregivers.
B. old people are very much unsatisfied with life cared by a home health aide.
C. Rinaldi knew better than to live in an efficiency unit with caregivers.
D. the nation’s long-term care options for the elderly are limited. 

32. Critelli’s response to the real cause of her aunt’s death was __________
A. disbelief
B. indignation
C. disapproval
D. intensity 

33. The author mentioned Rinaldi’s death in the text in order to ________________.
A. show sympathy for Critelli’s misfortune
B. reveal problems in assisted living facilities
C. demonstrate inefficiency of caretakers
D. exhibit the reliability of USA Today 

34. It can be inferred from the text that _______________.
A. assisted living facilities are mostly state-owned residences
B. USA Today conducted the first inspection of assisted living facilities in USA
C. data collected and reviewed are not detailed and regulated enough
D. previous analyses of inspection records covered limited areas 

35. We learn from the text that _______________.
A. nursing home industry will ultimately disappear from the society
B. 24 hour skilled medical care will come into being in the near future
C. assisted living is the first choice for many seniors with a good income
D. serious problems have always accompanied the assisted living units

Text 4
　　You could benefit from flipping through the pages of I Can’t Believe You Asked That, a book by author Phillip Milano that’s subtitled, A No-Holds-Barred Q&A About Race, Sex, Religion, and Other Terrifying Topics.
　　For the past seven years, Milano — who describes himself as "a straight, white middle-class married guy raised in an affluent suburb of Chicago" — has operated yforum.com, a Web site that was created to get us talking. Through the posting of probing, provocative and sometimes simply inane questions and the answers they generate, people are encouraged to have a no-holds-barred exchange on topics across racial, ethnic and cultural lines. More often than not, the questions grow out of our biases and fears and the stereotypes that fuel misunderstanding among us.
　　As with the Web site, Milano hopes his book will be a social and cultural elixir. "The time is right for a new ’culture of curiosity’ to begin to unfold, with people finally breaking down the last barrier to improve race and cultural relations" by actually talking to each other about their differences, Milano said in an e-mail message to me. Milano wisely used the Internet to spark these conversations. In seven years, it has generated 50,000 postings — many of them questions that people find hard to ask in a face-to-face exchange with the subjects of their inquiries.
　　But in his book, which was published earlier this month, Milano gives readers an opportunity to read the questions and a mix of answers that made it onto his Web site. "I am curious about what people who have been blind from birth ’see’ in their dreams," a 13-year-old boy wanted to know. "Why do so many mentally disabled people have such poor-looking haircuts and ’nerdy’ clothes?" a woman asked. "How do African-Americans perceive God?" a white teenager wanted to know. "Do they pray to a white God or a black God?"
　　Like I said, these questions can generate a range of emotions and reactions. But the point of Milano’s Web site, and his book, is not to get people mad, but to inform us "about the lives and experiences" of others. Though many of the answers that people offered to the questions posed in his book are conflicting, these responses are balanced by the comments of experts whose responses to the queries also appear in the book.
　　Getting people to openly say what they are thinking about things that give rise to stereotypes and bigotry has never been easy. Most of us save those conversations for gatherings of people who look or think like us. 

36. The purpose of the website is to ______________.
A. give people a chance to speak out
B. prepare materials for a book
C. get people exchanging ideas freely
D. solve the social and cultural problems 

37. The “last barrier” (para. 3) mentioned in Melano’s e-mail refers to ________________.
A. the old culture of curiosity
B. lack of direct communication
C. racial and cultural relations
D. the differences between people 

38. The quotations in paragraph 4 are intended to ________________.
A. illustrate the questions posted on the website
B. justify the stereotypes existing in people’s minds
C. indicate different concerns of different groups of people
D. show the possible emotions and reactions of the readers 

39. The author’s positive attitude towards Milano’s work is shown in _________
A. his confirmation of Milano’s hope about his book
B. his explanation of the purpose of Milano’s website
C. his description of various emotions and responses
D. his quotation of the comments made by the experts 

40. What is the main idea of this passage ?
A. A website narrows the gap between different cultures.
B. A final barrier breaks down after continuous efforts.
C. A man devotes himself to understanding among people.
D. A book of tough questions helps confront stereotypes.