Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend. But some women show great interest in colorful beads（珠子）from Uganda made of recycled paper. The beads are sold by a nonprofit organization called BeadforLife.
BeadforLife began as a chance meeting between three American women on a trip to Uganda and a local jewelry maker. Millie Grace Akena was rolling paper beads near her home. She made paper beads as a hobby. But there was no real market in her country.
Torkin Wakefield says she and her daughters Devin and Ginny brought some of the beads back home. Immediately people started admiring the beads. The three Americans started BeadforLife in 2004. Nearly 700 women have taken part.
The group says its beaders earn an average of more than 2,000 dollars a year in the program. This is five times what they earned before. The beads are sold across Uganda and in Boulder, Colorado. They are also sold online and at jewelry shows called bead parties. “Because they have meaning, because these are gifts that help people, when folks in America and beyond buy our beads, they feel a sense of generosity. They feel a direct connection, like they can really take part in getting rid of poverty.” Torkin said.
The jewelry costs between five and thirty dollars. BeadforLife reported sales in its last budget year of more that 3.5 million dollars. It says for every ten-dollar necklace sold, the beader gets two dollars and forty-three cents in money or materials. It says more than 90% of earnings are reinvested in community development projects in Uganda. Torkin Wakefield estimates that BeadforLife has helped more than 8,000 people this way.
So what about Millie Grace Akena, the jewelry maker? Mrs Wakefield says she has gone on to organize a small group of women who work with her, and they sell their beads to a religious group.
【小题1】According to the passage, BeadforLife is an organization that ______.

A．provides poor people worldwide with free education

B．mainly encourages people to learn to earn a living on their own

C．has attracted many businessmen to invest in beading

D．supports community development projects in Uganda

【小题2】When Torkin Wakefield brought the beads to America, ______.

A．she didn’t know people would like them

B．she wanted to make a fortune out of them

C．people showed great interest in them at once

D．she was thinking of how to find investors

【小题3】According to Paragraph 4, the beads are popular because ______.

A．people think buying them is a good way to help the poor

B．they are of good quality and can be kept for a long time

C．they symbolize the most important thing in people’s life

D．they look even more beautiful than diamonds

【小题4】Which of the following can best summarize the main idea of the passage?

A．Mrs Wakefield makes a great contribution to developing countries.

B．BeadforLife makes beads out of recycled paper.

C．BeadforLife uses paper beads to improve people’s lives.

D．Mrs Wakefield’s career takes off thanks to paper beads.

Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend. But some women show great interest in colorful beads（珠子）from Uganda made of recycled paper. The beads are sold by a nonprofit organization called BeadforLife.

BeadforLife began as a chance meeting between three American women on a trip to Uganda and a local jewelry maker. Millie Grace Akena was rolling paper beads near her home. She made paper beads as a hobby. But there was no real market in her country.

Torkin Wakefield says she and her daughters Devin and Ginny brought some of the beads back home. Immediately people started admiring the beads. The three Americans started BeadforLife in 2004. Nearly 700 women have taken part.

The group says its beaders earn an average of more than 2,000 dollars a year in the program. This is five times what they earned before. The beads are sold across Uganda and in Boulder, Colorado. They are also sold online and at jewelry shows called bead parties. “Because they have meaning, because these are gifts that help people, when folks in America and beyond buy our beads, they feel a sense of generosity. They feel a direct connection, like they can really take part in getting rid of poverty.” Torkin said.

The jewelry costs between five and thirty dollars. BeadforLife reported sales in its last budget year of more that 3.5 million dollars. It says for every ten-dollar necklace sold, the beader gets two dollars and forty-three cents in money or materials. It says more than 90% of earnings are reinvested in community development projects in Uganda. Torkin Wakefield estimates that BeadforLife has helped more than 8,000 people this way.

So what about Millie Grace Akena, the jewelry maker? Mrs Wakefield says she has gone on to organize a small group of women who work with her, and they sell their beads to a religious group.

1.According to the passage, BeadforLife is an organization that ______.

A. provides poor people worldwide with free education

B. mainly encourages people to learn to earn a living on their own

C. has attracted many businessmen to invest in beading

D. supports community development projects in Uganda

2.When Torkin Wakefield brought the beads to America, ______.

A. she didn’t know people would like them

B. she wanted to make a fortune out of them

C. people showed great interest in them at once

D. she was thinking of how to find investors

3.According to Paragraph 4, the beads are popular because ______.

A. people think buying them is a good way to help the poor

B. they are of good quality and can be kept for a long time

C. they symbolize the most important thing in people’s life

D. they look even more beautiful than diamonds

4.Which of the following can best summarize the main idea of the passage?

A. Mrs Wakefield makes a great contribution to developing countries.

B. BeadforLife makes beads out of recycled paper.

C. BeadforLife uses paper beads to improve people’s lives.

D. Mrs Wakefield’s career takes off thanks to paper beads.

 

 

阅读下面短文，从短文后各题的A、B、C和D四个选项中，选出适合填入对应空白处的最佳选项。并在答题卡上将该选项涂黑。

There are about fifteen hundred languages in the world．But  1a few of them are very  2．English is one of these．Many, many people use it, not only in England and the USA, but in other parts of the world．About 200 million people speak it as their own language．It is difficult to say how many people are learning it as a  3language．Millions of people are trying to do so.

Is  4easy or difficult to learn English? Different people may have different  5．Have you ever  6the ads of this kind in the newspapers or magazines?

“Learning English in six months, or your  7back…”“Easy and funny? Our records and tapes  8you master your English in a month． 9your first day your  10will be excellent．Just send…”Of course, it never  11quite like this.

The only language that seems easy to learn is the mother tongue．We should  12that we all learned our own language well when we were  13．If we could learn English in the same way, it would not seem so difficult．Imagine  14a small child does．He listens to what people say．He tries what he hears．When he is using a language, talking in it, and  15it all the time, just imagine how much  16that gets.

So it is  17to say that learning English is easy, because a good command （掌握； 精通）of English  18upon a lot of practice．And practice needs great effort and  19much time．Good teachers, records, tapes, books and dictionaries will work． 20they cannot do the student’s work for him.

1.A．not                 B．quite                C．only            D．very

2.A．difficult              B．important        C．necessary       D．easy

3.A．native                B．foreign          C．useful           D．mother

4.A．this                  B．that             C．it              D．which

5.A．questions             B．problems         C．ideas           D．answers

6.A．found                B．watched                                        C．noticed          D．known

7.A．knowledge            B．time             C．money          D．English

8.A．make                 B．help             C．let              D．allow

9.A．From                B．On              C．Since           D．After

10.A．spelling             B．grammar         C．English          D．pronunciation

11.A．happened            B．knew            C．seemed        D．felt

12.A．know              B．remember        C．understand       D．think

13.A．students            B．children          C．babies          D．grown-ups

14.A．what               B．which           C．who               D．whose

15.A．using              B．thinking          C．trying           D．practicing

16.A．time               B．money         C．language         D．practice

17.A．hard               B．easy           C．funny           D．silly

18.A．depends            B．tries           C．has             D．takes

19.A．uses               B．takes          C．gets             D．costs

20.A．And               B．But             C．So             D．So

 

You are careful with your money: you collect all kinds of coupons; look for group-buy deals if you eat out; you don't buy clothes unless in a sale. Does all this make you a wise consumer?
Let's do the math first: you walk into a coffee shop and see two deals for a cup of coffee. The first deal offers 33 percent extra coffee. The second takes 33 percent off the  regular price. What's the better deal? Well, they are about the same, you'd think. And you'd be wrong. The deals appear to be equal, but in fact, they are different. Here's the math: Let's say the standard coffee is 10 yuan and let's divide the amount of coffee into three portions(部分). That makes about 3.3 yuan per portion, The first deal gets you 4 portions for 10 yuan (2.5 yuan per portion) and the second gets you 3 portions of coffee for 6.6 yuan (2.2 yuan per portion) and is therefore a better deal.
In a new study published by the Journal of Marketing, participants were asked the same question, and most of them chose the first deal, the Atlantic website reported. Why? Because getting something extra for free feels better than getting the same for less. The applications of this view into consumer psychology(心理) are huge. Instead of offering direct discounts, shops offer larger sizes or free samples.
According to the study, the reason why these marketing tricks work is that consumers don't really know how much anything should cost, so we rely on parts of our brains that  aren't strictly quantitative.
There are some traps we should be aware of when shopping. First of all, we are heavily influenced by the first number. Suppose you are shopping in Hong Kong. You walk into Hermes, and you see a 100,000 yuan bag. "That's crazy." You shake your head and leave. The next shop is Gucci, a handbag here costs 25,000 yuan. The price is still high, but compared to the 100,000 yuan price tag you just committed to your memory, this is a steal. Stores often use the price difference to set consumers' expectation. zxxk
Another trap we often fall to Is that we are not really sure what things are worth. And so we use clues(暗示) to tell us what we ought to pay for them. US economist Dan Ariely has done an experiment to prove this. According to the Atlantic, Ariely pretended he was giving a lecture on poetry. He told one group of students that the tickets cost money and another group that they would be paid to attend. Then he informed both groups that thelecture was free. The first group was anxious to attend, believing they were getting something of value for free. The second group mostly declined, believing they were being forced to volunteer for the same event without reward.
What's a lecture on poetry by an economist worth? The students had no idea. That's  the point. Do we really know what a shirt is worth ? What about a cup of coffee? What's the worth of a life insurance.policy? Who knows? Most of us don't. As a result, our shopping  brain uses only what is knowable:  visual(祝觉的) clues, invited emotions, comparisons, and  a sense of bargain. We are not stupid. We are just easily influenced.
【小题1】The first paragraph of the passage is intended to      

A．ask a question	B．introduce a topic
C．give some examples	D．describe a phenomenon

【小题2】The writer takes the math for example in Paragraph 2 to show      .          _.

A．consumers usually fall into marketing traps

B．consumers' expectation is difficult to predict

C．consumers' purchasing power is always changing

D．consumers rely on their own judgment when shopping

【小题3】What consumer psychology is mentioned in the passage?

A．The first number has little influence on which item should be bought.

B．Consumers never use visual clues to decide how much should be paid.

C．Getting something extra for free is better than getting the same for less.

D．Consumers never rely on parts of the brains that aren't strictly quantitative.

【小题4】According to the passage, shops use the following tricks to make more profits EXCEPT         .  

A．showing price differences	B．offering larger sizes
C．providing free samples	D．giving direct discounts

【小题5】What can we know from US economist Dan Ariely's experiment?

A．Ariely's free lecture enjoyed popularity among students.

B．The students actually didn't know what the lecture was worth.

C．The second group was willing to be volunteers without reward.

D．The first group was eager to find out the value of Ariely's lecture.