British women are happy nowadays to wear mini-skirts up until the age of 40, according to research by Debenhams.

    Just 20 years ago, few women would dare to wear a mini-skirt after the age of 33, the store said. “It shows that women now have an increasing confidence in their bodies and are happy to dress accordingly,” it added in a statement. “If this trend continues, there’s no doubt that, within the next decade, women in their mid 40s and early 50s will rightly regard a mini-skirt as an essential pan of their everyday wardrobe.”

    The figures emerged when the store examined the latest age profile of women buying short, 36-cm skirts over the past six months. Their results show that it has jumped from an average age of 36-years-old at the start of millennium ¹ to 40 today. Figures from 1980 showed that on average women stopped buying minis when they reached 33 years old -- a figure unchanged from the mid-1960s.
    The store noted that experts believe that the popularity of intensive gym culture ², providing women with well toned bodies ³ for longer may be the reason The increasing number of British women living on their own may also be a fac tor.

    The Debenhams’ study showed that a modern woman’s love affair with a mini-skin begins at the age of 14 but that she doesn’t buy her first one until the age of 16 Instead, she flouts school roles by rolling up the waistband of the school uniform to give the impression of wearing a mini skirt.

    Skirts get shorter between the ages of 16 and 19, reducing in size from 46 to 36 cm before reaching their shortest, a mere 32 cm, at the age of 23. Skirt .length increases slightly between the ages of 23 and 27, rising to 37 cm, possibly due to girls being in their first stable relationship, with no desire to attract attention, the store said.

    However, it found short skirt suddenly zoom in popularity between the ages of 27 and 34, as those early relationships break down, and new relationships are formed. The move into longer skins begins irreversibly at 40 years old, when 46-cm skins, still slightly above the knee are the norm. From then on, skirt length increases dramatically, falling below the knee for the very first time since school days at the age of 42.

词汇：

millennium [mɪ"lenɪəm] n. 千禧年

gym [dʒɪm] n. 健身房

注释：

1.这里指公元2000年。

2.gym culture:指英国现在流行的去健身房健身的趋势。

3.well toned bodies:指结实而线条良好的体形。

Which of the following statements about the length of the mini-skirts is true?

A:At the age of 14,girls often wear mini-skirts which are about 46cm in size B:Girls at the age of 19 wear the shortest mini-skirts C:At the age of 23,most girls wear mini-skirts which are 37cm long D:From the age of 23,skirt length increases because girls are in their first stable relationship

Guthrie’s contiguity principle offers practical suggestions for how to break habits.
One application of the threshold method involves the time young children spend on academic activities. Young children have short attention spans, so the length of time they can sustain work on one activity is limited. Most activities are scheduled to last no longer than 30 to 40 minutes. However, at the start of the school year, attention spans quickly wane and behavior problems often result. To apply Guthrie’s theory, a teacher might, at the start of the year, limit activities to 15 to 20 minutes. Over the next few weeks the teacher could gradually increase the time students spend working on a single activity.
The threshold method also can be applied to teaching printing and handwriting. When children first learn to form letters, their movements are awkward and they lack fine motor coordination. The distances between lines on a page are purposely wide so children can fit the letters into the space. If paper with narrow lines is initially introduced, students’ etters would spill over the borders and students might become frustrated. Once students can form letters within the larger borders, they can use paper with smaller borders to help them refine their skills.
The fatigue method can be applied when disciplining disruptive students who build paper airplanes and sail them across the room. The teacher can remove the students from the classroom, give them a large stack of paper, and tell him to start making paper airplanes. After the students have made several airplanes, the activity should lose its attraction and paper will become a cue for not building airplanes.
Some students continually race around the gym when they first enter their physical education class. To employ the fatigue method, the teacher might decide to have these students continue to run a few more laps after the class has begun.
The incompatible response method can be used with students who talk and misbehave in the media center. Reading is incompatible with talking. The media center teacher might ask the students to find interesting books and read them while in the center. Assuming that the students find the books enjoyable, the media center will, over time, become a cue for selecting and reading books rather than for talking with other students.
In a social studies class some students regularly fall asleep. The teacher realized that using the board and overhead projector while lecturing was very boring. Soon the teacher began to incorporate other elements into each lesson, such as experiments, and debates, in an attempt to involve students and raise their interest in the course.
Which of the following is not the example of applying the threshold method

A:Parents introduce spinach in small bites or mixed with a food that the child enjoys over time so that the child will not refuse to eat it. B:Teachers introduce academic content in short blocks of time for young children and gradually increase session length but not to where students become frustrated or bored. C:Paper with wider lines is first used and then paper with narrow lines is introduced step by step to help children learn printing and handwriting. D:A child might be made to throw toys until it is no longer fun by his parents in order to change his behavior of repeatedly throwing toys.

Text 3

A:Parents introduce spinach in small bites or mixed with a food that the child enjoys over time so that the child will not refuse to eat it. B:Teachers introduce academic content in short blocks of time for young children and gradually increase session length but not to where students become frustrated or bored. C:Paper with wider lines is first used and then paper with narrow lines is introduced step by step to help children learn printing and handwriting. D:A child might be made to throw toys until it is no longer fun by his parents in order to change his behavior of repeatedly throwing toys.

int型public成员变量MAX LENGTH，该值保持为常数100，则定义这个变量的语句是( )。

A:publicintMAX_LENGTH=100 B:finalintMAX LENGTH=100 C:publicconstintMAX_LENGTH=100 D:publicfinalintMAX_LENGTH=100

执行下列程序后，输出结果为( )。
public class Test
public static void main (String[] args)
StringBuffer sb ＝ new StringBuffer("北京 2008" );
System. out. println ("length ＝" + sb. length ( ) );

A:length = 8 B:length = 10 C:length = 6 D:length = 20

int型public成员变量MAX LENGTH，该值保持为常数100，则定义这个变量的语句是( )。

A:publicintMAX_LENGTH=100 B:finalintMAX LENGTH=100 C:publicconstintMAX_LENGTH=100 D:publicfinalintMAX_LENGTH=100

执行下列程序后，输出结果为( )。 public class Test { public static void main (String[] args) { StringBuffer sb ＝ new StringBuffer("北京 2008" ); System. out. println ("length ＝" + sb. length ( ) ); } }

A:length = 8 B:length = 10 C:length = 6 D:length = 20