Diana Jacobs thought her family had a workable plan to pay for college for her 21-year-old twin sons: a combination of savings, income, scholarships, and a modest amount of borrowing. Then her husband lost his job, and the plan fell apart.
“I have two kids in college, and I want to say ‘come home,’ but at the same time I want to provide them with a good education,” says Jacobs.
The Jacobs family did work out a solution: They asked and received more aid from the schools, and each son increased his borrowing to the maximum amount through the federal loan (貸款) program. They will each graduate with $20,000 of debt, but at least they will be able to finish school.
With unemployment rising, financial aid administrators(管理者) expect to hear more families like the Jacobs. More students are applying for aid, and more families expect to need student loans. College administrators are concerned that they will not have enough aid money to go around.
At the same time, tuition（學(xué)費(fèi)）continues to rise. A report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education found that college tuition and fees increased 439% from 1982 to 2007, while average family income rose just 147%. Student borrowing has more than doubled in the last decade,
“If we go on this way for another 25years, we won’t have an affordable system of higher education,” says Patrick M. Callan, president of the center. “The middle class families have been financing it through debt. They will send kids to college whatever it takes, even if that means a huge amount of debt.”
Financial aid administrators have been having a hard time as many companies decide that student loans are not profitable enough and have stopped making them. The good news, however, is that federal loans account for about three quarters of student borrowing, and the government says that money will flow uninterrupted.
【小題1】How did the Jacobs manage to solve their problem?

Once upon a time there was a crook（騙子）who only thought about how to get money. What he hated most was when people were polite to each other, saying things like “please”, “thank you”, and “don’t mention it”.

The crook thought all those kinds of words were a waste, so he spent a lot of time inventing a machine which could steal words. With this machine, he planned to steal “please”, “thank you”, “don’t mention it”, and similar words people used to be polite. After he stole these words, he intended to take them apart and sell the letters to book publishers. After he started up his machine, people would open their mouths, intending to say kind and polite things, but nothing came out. All those words ended up inside the big machine.

The crook was happy with his success, but he didn’t count on (料想到)a couple of very special little girls. Those girls were deaf, and had to communicate with sign language. Because the machine couldn’t steal gestures, these girls continued being kind and polite. Soon they realized what had been happening to everyone else, and they found out about the crook and his plan. The girls followed him and found the machine busy separating all the words into letters. They approached the machine and started being polite to each other.

Try as it might, the machine couldn’t steal those words, and it started to suffer a power overload(超載). Finally, it exploded, sending all the letters it had gathered flying into the sky. These letters started coming down, like rain, and most ended up in the sea. After that, everyone could be polite again.

Seeing all those letters fall into the sea, those little girls had an idea. A little while later they opened a factory, making alphabetic spaghetti soup!

1.What the crook hated most was ______.

A．his machine        B．money            C．language          D．politeness

2.The crook spent a lot of time inventing a machine to ______.

A．publish books                          B．steal words

C．write letters                           D．make alphabetic soup

3.Why did the machine have no effect on the two girls?

A．Because they were kind and polite.

B．Because they were very clever.

C．Because the machine couldn’t steal gestures.

D．Because there was something wrong with the machine.

While you may be doing everything right, ignoring just one or two steps in the process may keep you from getting a job, especially in this fierce market. Here is a checklist that covers some of the major links in the job-search chain.
THE RESUME --- Make sure it is up-to-date and tailored to the types of jobs you are seeking for. Have someone else look at your resume. If you cannot afford a career coach, give your resume to friends or family members to scrutinize. Have copies of your resume printed so that you are ready to hand them out at interviews.
COVERING LETTERS---Maybe you’ ve set up a few basic styles in advance, but that’s not enough. Each covering letter should be designed to suit the job for which you are applying.
THE WARDROBE(衣櫥)---Check your wardrobe to ensure that you have the appropriate professional dress, including shoes, ready for interview.
NETWORKING---Don’t isolate yourself from others for days. Network through e-mail messages, phone calls, appointments and meetings keep you in touch with the outside world and prevent you from becoming depressed.
APPLICATION---A glance at huge online job sites isn’t usually the best way to find a job. You are more likely to succeed through the people you know via networking.
THE FOLLOW—UP---It is quite common to apply for job and never hear back from the company. Take measures, such as following up with a phone call a week or so after you apply. If you know someone at the company, check whether that person will put in a good word for you.
INTERVIEWS----If you’ ve  got plenty of interviews but no return calls or job offers, take a look at your interviewing skills. This is one area where investing in a career coach may pay off. But if you can’t afford one, try to find a job group or service that conducts free mock(模擬) interviews.
SUPPORT SYSTEMS---Finally, recognize that looking for job is rather difficult. Even at the best of times, a job hunt is often about rejection, and that can be hard to endure. Staying in touch with family, friends, professional networks and fellow job seekers can help you to maintain a positive attitude and a sense of perspective.
【小題1】It is implied in the text that__________.

“Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity，” said the American talk show host Oprah Winfrey. I’ ve never watched her show, but when a self-made billionaire gives life advice it’ s probably worth listening to.
Her point is that blind luck is very rare. You may have to be lucky to find a good job these days but that does not mean you should sit at home waiting for the opportunity to come to you. If you’ re a Chinese，you may already be familiar with the tale of a farmer waiting by a tree stump (樹(shù)樁) for a rabbit to run out and break its neck.
A book by the UK psychologist Richard Wiseman, called The Luck Factor, argues we can all make ourselves luckier. It’ s not about going to a temple to burn some incense (香) in hopes that the gods will give you good fortune; it’ s practical advice you can follow each day.
Wiseman conducted an experiment as part of his studies. First he divided volunteers into two groups：those who said they were lucky in life and those who said they were not. He gave everyone a newspaper and asked them to look through it to count how many photographs it had inside. On average, the unlucky people took about two minutes to count the photographs while the lucky people took just seconds. Why? On the second page of the newspaper, a command, “Stop counting. There are 43 photographs in this newspaper，” was written in big letters. The unlucky people mostly did not  spot the message.
It’s easy to compare this situation to a young person looking for jobs in a local paper. They might search so hard for one type of position that they miss an even better opportunity. People who are “l(fā)ucky”， in fact, keep an open mind and don’t go through the same routine every day.
I first came to China in 2002 when it was considered a rather strange thing to do. Like many foreigners，my plan was to teach English for one year. Seven years later, and still here, I’ ve had many great opportunities such as writing for newspapers and magazines. I did not dream these would have been possible. I’ ve also never been sick, had an accident, got into a fight or had problems with the police. Coincidence(巧合)? After reading about Professor Wiseman’ s studies I think not.
As Wiseman advises, I usually trust my own judgment. Your friends and parents may give you advice based on rational (理性)thinking, but it’s important to consider how you feel about each choice you make. Your feeling acts as a warning for a potential （潛在）problem.
Finally, try to turn bad luck into good. Even if you do fall down and break a leg, the time spent at home can be used wisely to study English.
【小題1】Which of the following proverbs most agrees with the writer’ s point?

Not many years ago, a wealthy and rather strange old man named Johnson lived alone in a village in the south of England. He had made a lot of money in trading with foreign countries. When he was seventy-five, he gave 12,000 to the village school to buy land and equipment for a children’s playground.

    As a result of his kindness many people came to visit him. Among them was a newspaperman. During their talk，Johnson said that he was seventy-five and expected to live to be a hundred. The newspaperman asked him how he managed to be healthy at seventy—five. Johnson had a sense of humor. He liked whisky and drank some each day. “I have an injection(注射)in my neck each evening.” he told the newspaperman, thinking of his evening glass of whisky. The newspaperman did not understand what Johnson meant. In his newspaper he reported that Johnson was seventy-five and had a daily injection in his neck. Within a week Johnson received thousands of letters from all over Britain asking him for the secret of his daily injection.    

1.Johnson became a rich man through _________.    

A.  doing business.     B.  making whisky.    

C.  cheating.           D.  buying and selling land.    

2.The gift of money to the school suggests that Johnson __________.    

A. had no children.             B. was a strange man.    

C. was very fond of children.   D. wanted people to know how rich he was.    

3.Many people wrote to Johnson to find out  __________.    

A. what kind of whisky he had.     B. how to live longer.    

C. how to become wealthy.        D. in which part of the neck to have an injection.    

4.The newspaperman ____________.    

A. should have reported what Johnson had told him.    

B. shouldn‘t have asked Johnson what injection he had.    

C. was eager to live a long life.    

D. should have found out what Johnson really meant.    

5.When Johnson said he had an injection in his neck each evening he really meant that ______.    

A. he liked drinking a glass of whisky in the evening    

B. he needed an injection in the neck.    

C. a daily injection in the evening would make him sleep well.    

D. there was something wrong with his neck