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Women Staying in Mini-Skirts for Longer

    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。

According to the passage,British women are happy to wear mini-skirts up until an older agebecause of the following reasons EXCEPT:

A:Women are more and more confident in their bodies B:Women nowadays pay much more attention to body building,and this provides them withwell toned bodies to wear mini-skirts C:The Climate of Great Britainare getting warmer in recent years,thus women can wear minisfor a longer time D:More and more women are now living on their own

Pop Music in Africa

    Young musicians in African countries are creating a new kind of pop music. The tunes and the rhythms of their music combine African traditions with various forms of music popular today, such as hip-hop, rap, rock, jazz, or reggae. The result is music that may sound familiar to listeners anywhere in the world, but at the same time is distinctly African. It is different also in another way: Many of the songs are very serious and they deal with important social or political issues inAfricatoday.

    Eric Wainaina is one of these African musicians. He grew up inNairobi,Kenya, in a family of musicians. As a teenager, he listened to pop music from theUnited States, and later he moved toBostonto study at the Berklee College of Music. Now he has produced a CD inKenya. Eric"s most popular song, "Land of ‘A Little Something’” is aboutKenya"s problem of bribery, or paying others for illegal favors. He wants people to listen to his songs and think about how to makeKenyaa better place to live.

    Another musician who writes serious songs is Witness Mwaijaga fromTanzania. Her own experiences have helped her understand the suffering of many African women. At the age of fifteen she lost her home, but she was luckier than other homeless young people. She could make a living by writing songs and singing on the street. By the time she was eighteen years old, she had become a star. Her songs are written in rap or hip-hop style about the problems that she sees inTanzania, especially AIDS and the lack of rights for women 1.

    Baaba Maal, fromSenegal, also feels that pop music must go beyond entertainment. He says that inSenegal, storytellers have always been important people. In the past, they were the ones who kept the history of their people alive. Baaba believes that songwriters now have a similar responsibility. They must write about the world around them and help people understand how it could be better. The words of his songs are important, in fact. They speak of peace and cooperation among Africans, as well as the rights of women, love for one" s family, and saving the environment 2.

    One ofSouth Africa"s most popular musicians is Brenda Fassie. She is sometimes compared to Madonna, the American pop star, because she likes to shock people in her shows. But she also likes to make people think. She became famous in the 1980s for her simple pop songs against apartheid. Now that apartheid has ended, her songs are about other issues in South African culture and life. To sing about these, she uses local African languages and a new pop style called kwaito.

    In recent years, people outside ofAfricahave also begun to listen to these young musicians. Through music, the younger generation of Africans are connecting with the rest of the world and, at the same time, influencing the rest of the world. 

 

词汇： 

reggae /"regei/ n. 瑞格舞（西印度群岛的舞曲）

bribery ["braɪbərɪ] n. 行贿，贿赂

apartheid [əˈpɑ:tˌhaɪt, -ˌheɪt] n. 种族隔离

 

注释：

1. Her songs are written in rap or hip-hop style about the problems that she sees in Tanzania,especially AIDS and the lack of rights for women.她用嘻哈和说唱的风格写歌，歌曲的内容是坦桑尼亚的各种问题，特别是艾滋和女性权利的缺失。

2. They speak of peace and cooperation among Africans, as well as the rights of women, love forone"s family, and saving the environment.他倡导在非洲要和平与协作，同时也包括妇女权利、热爱家庭和保护环境。

Witness Mwaijaga writes about the problems of women partly because____.

A:she has had a difficult life herself B:there are many problems in Tanzania C:she has had an easy life herself D:there are no other women smgers

Text 2

The modern cult of beauty is a success in so far as more women retain their youthful appearance to a greater age than in the past. "Old ladies" are already becoming rare. In a few years, we may well believe, they will be extinct. White hair and wrinkles, a bent back and hollow cheeks will come to be regarded as medievally old-fashioned. The crone of the future will be golden, curly and cherry-lipped, and slender. This desirable consummation will be due in part to skin foods and injections of paraffin-wax, facial surgery, mud baths, and paint, in part to improved health, due in its turn to a more rational mode of life. Ugliness is one of the symptoms of disease, beauty of health. In so far as the campaign for beauty is also a campaign for more health, it is admirable and, up to a point, genuinely successful.
Beauty that is merely the artificial shadow of these symptoms of health is intrinsically of poorer quality than the genuine article. Still, it is a sufficiently good imitation to be sometimes mistakeable for the real thing. The apparatus for mimicking the symptoms of health is now within the reach of every moderately prosperous person; the knowledge of the way in which real health can be achieved is growing, and will in time, no doubt, be universally acted upon. When that happy moment comes, will every woman be beautiful—as beautiful, at any rate, as the natural shape of her features, with or without surgical and chemical aid, permits
The answer is emphatically: No. For real beauty is as much an affair of the inner as of the outer self. The beauty of a porcelain jar is a matter of shape, of color, of surface texture. The jar may be empty or tenanted by spiders, full of honey or stinking slime—it makes no difference to its beauty or ugliness. But a woman is alive, and her beauty is therefore not skin deep. The surface of the human vessel is affected by the nature of its spiritual contents. I have seen women who, by the standards of a connoisseur of porcelain, were ravishingly lovely. Their shape, their colour, their surface texture were perfect. And yet they were not beautiful. For the lovely vase was either empty or filled with some corruption. Spiritual emptiness or ugliness shows through. And conversely, there is an interior light that can transfigure forms that the pure aesthetician would regard as imperfect or downright ugly.
There are numerous forms of psychological ugliness. There is an ugliness of stupidity, for example, of unawareness (distressingly common among pretty women). An ugliness also of greed, of lasciviousness, of avarice. All the deadly sins, indeed, have their own peculiar negation of beauty. On the pretty faces of those especially who are trying to have a continuous "good time", one sees very often a kind of bored sullenness that ruin all their charm. I remember in particular two young American girls I once met in North Africa. Form the porcelain specialist’s point of view, they were extremely beautiful. But a sullen boredom was so deeply stamped into their fresh faces, their gait and gestures expressed so weary a listlessness, that it was unbearable to look at them. These exquisite creatures were positively repulsive.
The two American girls offer an example of what the author calls ______.

A:unawareness B:greed C:deadly sins D:stupidity

Why does the author say that beauty and women are twins（　）

A:Women try to maintain their beauty by dressing up. B:Women like to show off their beauty. C:Women are born to be beauties. D:Women are proud of their beauty.

People who disagree with women's opinions believe ______.

A:women can't do what men can B:men can earn money more easily than women C:men's responsibilities are different from women's D:men have to work much harder than women

The women who disagree say that ______.

A:if women are given equal pay, their opportunities will be greater. B:women are no longer interested in taking care of their homes C:women want more freedom in deciding the kind of life they live D:women need opportunites to go out of the house more often

Life Expectancy in the Last Hundred Years

A hundred years ago, life expectancy in developed countries was about 47 in the early 21st century, men in the United States and the United Kingdom can expect to live to about 74. Women to about 80, and these (51) are rising all the time. What has brought (52) these changes When we look at the life (53) of people 100 years ago, we need to look at the greatest (54) of the time. In the early 20th century, these were the acute and often (55) infectious diseases such as smallpox. Many children died Very young from these diseases and others, and the weak and elderly were always at risk.
In the (56) world these diseases are far (57) today, and in some cases have almost disappeared. A number of (58) have led to this: improvements in sanitation and hygiene, the discovery and use of antibiotics, which (59) bacterial diseases much less dangerous, and vaccinations (60) common diseases. (61) , people’s general health has improved with improvements in our general environment: cleaner air, better means of preserving food, better and warmer housing, and better understanding of nutrition.
Genetically, we should all be able to live to about 85 but (62) people do live longer today, there are still some big killers around that are preventing US from consistently reaching that age. The problems that affect people today are the more chronic illnesses, such as heart disease and strokes, and those (63) by viruses, such as influenza and AIDS. Of course, cancer is a huge killer as well. In most cases these diseases affect (64) people, but there are worrying trends in the developed world with problems such as obesity (65) more heart disease and illnesses such as diabetes at younger ages.
The killers today can be classed as "lifestyle diseases", which means that it may be possible to halt their progress.

A:more deadly B:deadly C:less deadly D:fatal

Nice Name But She’s So Deadly 1　More than a million people in the United States were told to leave their homes over the weekend as Hurricane (飓风) Dennis headed to the Gulf coast, after killing at least 15 people in the Caribbean Sea. 2　If you read the news often enough=, you may notice that all hurricanes are given names. Why is that Remember, there can be more than one hurricane operating at one time. Without naming them, we could get confused about which storm we’re talking about. 3　For hundreds of years, hurricanes in the Caribbean were named after the particular religious day on which they occurred. One Australian meteorologist (气象学家) began giving women’s names to tropical storms at the end of the 19th century. In 1953, the US National Weather Service, which is responsible for tracking hurricanes and issuing warnings, began using female names for storms. By i979, both women and men’s names were being used. One name for each letter of the alphabet (字母表) is selected, except for Q, U and Z. 4　So who decides which names are used’ each year The World Meteorological Organization uses six lists in rotation, so each list is reused every six years. 5　Here’s a list of the 2005 Atlantic hurricanes, according to the US National Hurricane Centre: Arlene, Bret, Cindy, Dennis, Emily, Franklin, Gert, Harvey, Irene, Jose, Katrina, Lee, Maria, Nate, Ophelia, Philippe, Rita, Stan, Tammy, Vince, Wilma. 23 Paragraph 1______________.　　　　　　 24 Paragraph 2______________.　　　　　　　 25 Paragraph 3______________.　　　　　　　 26 Paragraph 4______________.　　 　　　　　

A:Reason for naming hurricanes B:Warning of an approaching hurricane C:Deadly women D:History of naming hurricanes E:Organization responsible for naming hurricanes F:Ways to track hurricanes

Nice Name But She’s So Deadly 1　More than a million people in the United States were told to leave their homes over the weekend as Hurricane (飓风) Dennis headed to the Gulf coast, after killing at least 15 people in the Caribbean Sea. 2　If you read the news often enough=, you may notice that all hurricanes are given names. Why is that Remember, there can be more than one hurricane operating at one time. Without naming them, we could get confused about which storm we’re talking about. 3　For hundreds of years, hurricanes in the Caribbean were named after the particular religious day on which they occurred. One Australian meteorologist (气象学家) began giving women’s names to tropical storms at the end of the 19th century. In 1953, the US National Weather Service, which is responsible for tracking hurricanes and issuing warnings, began using female names for storms. By i979, both women and men’s names were being used. One name for each letter of the alphabet (字母表) is selected, except for Q, U and Z. 4　So who decides which names are used’ each year The World Meteorological Organization uses six lists in rotation, so each list is reused every six years. 5　Here’s a list of the 2005 Atlantic hurricanes, according to the US National Hurricane Centre: Arlene, Bret, Cindy, Dennis, Emily, Franklin, Gert, Harvey, Irene, Jose, Katrina, Lee, Maria, Nate, Ophelia, Philippe, Rita, Stan, Tammy, Vince, Wilma. 23 Paragraph 1______________.　　　　　　 24 Paragraph 2______________.　　　　　　　 25 Paragraph 3______________.　　　　　　　 26 Paragraph 4______________.　　 　　　　　

A:Reason for naming hurricanes B:Warning of an approaching hurricane C:Deadly women D:History of naming hurricanes E:Organization responsible for naming hurricanes F:Ways to track hurricanes

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