Listening is more important than talking

??今年在长沙举行了一年一度的外国人汉语演讲比赛。这项比赛证明是促进中国和世界其他地区文化交流的好方法。它为世界各地的年轻人提供了更好地了解中国的机会。来自87个国家共计126位选手聚集在湖南省省会参加了从7月6日到8月5日进行的半决赛和决赛。比赛并不是唯一的活动。选手们还有机会参观了中国其他地区的著名景点和历史名胜。??

将上面这段话翻译成英文！

What is the author's main purpose in writing the passage?

A.To create opportunities for criminals to reform. themselves.

B.To appeal for changes in America's criminal justice system.

C.To ensure that people with a criminal record live a decent life.

D.To call people's attention to prisoner's conditions in America.

What does the author think of the post-conviction laws and rules?

A.They help to maintain social stability.

B.Some of them have long been outdated.

C.They are hardly understood by the public.

D.A lot of them have negative effects on society.

  ?

What are the consequences for many Americans with a criminal record?

A.They remain poor for the rest of their lives.

B.They are deprived of all social benefits.

C.They are marginalized in society.

D.They are deserted by their family.

What do we learn from the second paragraph about many criminals in America?

A.They backslide after serving their terms in prison.

B.They are deprived of all social benefits.

C.They receive severe penalties for committing minor offenses.

D.They are convicted regardless of their individual circumstances.

What does the well-known columnist's remark about Martha Stewart suggest?

A.Her past record might stand in her way to a new life.

B.Her business went bankrupt while she was in prison.

C.Her release from prison has drawn little attention.

D.Her prison sentence might have been extended.

Questions 56 to 60 are based on the following passage.

The wallet is heading for extinction. As a day-to-day essential, it will die off with the generation who read print newspapers. The kind of shopping－where you hand over notes and count out change in return—　now happens only in the most minor of our retail encounters，like buying a bar of chocolate or a pint of milk from a comer shop. At the shops where you spend any real money, that money is increasingly abstracted. 　　And this is more and more true, the higher up the scale you go. At the most cutting-edge retail stores—Victoria Beckham on Dover Street, for instance—you don’t go and stand at any kind of cash register when you decide to pay. The staff are equipped with iPads to take your payment while you relax on a sofa.

Which is nothing more or less than excellent service, if you have the money. But across society, the abstraction of the idea of cash makes me uneasy. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned. But earning money isn’t quick or easy for most of us. Isn’t it a bit weird that spending it should happen in half a blink (眨眼) of an eye? Doesn’t a wallet—that time-honoured Friday-night feeling of pleasing, promising fatness—represent something that matters?

But I’ll leave the economics to the experts. What bothers me about the death of the wallet is the change it represents in our physical environment. Everything about the look and feel of a wallet—the way the fastenings and materials wear and tear and loosen with age, the plastic and paper and gold and silver, and handwritten phone numbers and printed cinema tickets—is the very opposite of what our world is becoming. The opposite of a wallet is a smartphone of an iPad. The rounded edges, cool glass, smooth and unknowable as pebble (鹅卵石). Instead of digging through pieces of paper and peering into corners, we move our fingers left and right. No more counting out coins. Show your wallet, if you still have one. It may not be here much longer.

56. What is happening to the wallet?

A) It is disappearing. C) it is becoming costly.

B) It is being fattened. D) It is changing in style.

57. How are business transactions done in big modern stores?

A) Individually. C) In the abstract.

B) Electronically. D) Via a cash register.

58. What makes the author feel uncomfortable nowadays?

A) Saving money is becoming a thing of the past.

B) The pleasing Friday-night feeling is fading.

C) Earning money is getting more difficult.

D) Spending money is so fast and easy.

59. Why does the author choose to write about what’s happening to the wallet?

A) It represents a change in the modern world.

B) It has something to do with everybody’s life.

C) It marks the end of a time-honoured tradition.

D) It is the concern of contemporary economists.

60.What can we infer from the passage about the author?

A)He is resistant to social changes.

B)He is against technological progress.

C)He feels reluctant to part with the traditional wallet.

D)He fells insecure in the ever-changing modern world.

What can we infer from the passage about the author?

A)He is resistant to social changes.

B)He is against technological progress.

C)He feels reluctant to part with the traditional wallet.

D)He fells insecure in the ever-changing modern world.

Why does the author choose to write about what’s happening to the wallet?

A) It represents a change in the modern world.

B) It has something to do with everybody’s life.

C) It marks the end of a time-honoured tradition.

D) It is the concern of contemporary economists.

What makes the author feel uncomfortable nowadays?

A) Saving money is becoming a thing of the past.

B) The pleasing Friday-night feeling is fading.

C) Earning money is getting more difficult.

D) Spending money is so fast and easy.