On October 3, 1863, __________________ and the U.S. Congress declared the last Thursday of November to be Thanksgiving day

Last September, the U.S. government announced that its birthrate fell to "another record low". Morally speaking, theres nothing wrong with this. Its【C1】______. in a way. All over the world, birthrates tend to fall a-long with economic development. The thing about an increasingly childless economy is that it has major implications for【C2】______. It is confirmed by a new data from a Gallup survey【C3】______on the average daily spending of families. Even after you control for income, age, education, and【C4】______status, families with young kids spend more every day. What are parents spending on? Not just books, toys, and games. The Department of Agriculture【C5】______surveys the many ways we spend on our kids, to the tune of about $14,000 a year. The【C6】______majority of money goes to the【C7】______: housing, food, transportation, and education. Housing is kind of funny, because young children tend not to have their housing units,【C8】______the parents are extremely well-off and the children are terribly misbehaved. The survey estimates the housing portion of spending by trying to【C9】______a few factors: the cost of an extra bedroom, the cost of moving into safer【C10】______with better schools, and the cost of buying homes with larger yards. It is【C11】______that on economic growth, some of the most discussed variables on editorial pages and cable news are policy choices like tax rates or international events. But buried【C12】______these headlines is the glacier of demographics, the steady and unyielding force of human numbers to【C13】______the economy. The【C14】______in U.S. birthrates in recent years has almost certainly had a negative effect on consumer spending (and,【C15】______, lower birthrates are probably an outcome of the recession). In particular, childless couples dont need space for more kids so theyre less【C16】______to buy homes in the suburbs,【C17】______demand for housing that badly needs to sell more homes. In other words,【C18】______families and less household formation【C19】______the U.S. economy of housing and transportation spending, which has historically accounted for half of family【C20】______.

【C1】

A．interesting

B．natural

C．beneficial

D．doubtful

When I visited the Netherlands last year, my first impression was that it was all too good to be true: a country where everyone is satisfied! So, ___46___ that young people everywhere are gifted social critics, I sought out some university students and ___47__ what issues young people were ___48___ . I was stunned to learn that the main problem students there see is with employment. IN a country that’s made good work conditions a(n) ___49___ , this came as a real surprise. Even more stunning was the fact that it wasn’t unemployment ___50___ these students were worried about --- it was a shortage of highly paid management positions ___51___ to fresh university graduates. As the students expressed their resentment toward the older generation for “ ___52___ all the good jobs” and their bitterness over the thought of struggling to ___53___ on an entry – level salary, I couldn’t help ___54___ my own early employment experiences. I had graduated with honors form. a good school, but my first job was doing door – to – door market research for a salary that just barely allowed me to get by. For some reason I never doubted that I’d ultimately ___55___ a better job. I simply accepted that a young person who was just starting out would have to struggle a bit at first. (216 words)

46. A. thinking B. to see C. knowing D. found

47. A. inquired after B. inquired of C. inquired into D. inquired

48. A. worrying B. concerned about C. concerned with D. cared about

49. A. priority B. choice C. must D. importance

50. A. which B. whom C. the D. that

51. A. preferred B. limited C. supplied D. available

52. A. taking on B. taking up C. taking over D. taking to

53. A. earn B. make ends meet C. survive with D. live with

54. A. calling back B. memorizing C. looking back on D. recalling on

55. A. end up with B. end with C. end in D. end on

1 The banners are packed, the tickets booked. The glitter and white overalls have been bought, the gas masks just fit and the mobile phones are ready. All that remains is to get to the parties.

2 This week will see a feast of pan-European protests. It started on Bastille Day, last Saturday, with the French unions and immigrants on the streets and the first demonstrations in Britain and Germany about climate change. It will continue tomorrow and Thursday with environmental and peace rallies against President Bush. But the big one is in Genoa, on Friday and Saturday, where the G8 leaders will meet behind the lines of 18,000 heavily armed police.

3 Unlike Prague, Gothenburg, Cologne or Nice, Genoa is expected to be Europe's Seattle, the coming together of the disparate strands of resistance to corporate globalisation.

4 Neither the protesters nor the authorities know what will happen, but some things are predictable. Yes, there will be violence and yes, the mass media will focus on it. What should seriously concern the G8 is not so much the violence, the numbers in the streets or even that they themselves look like idiots hiding behind the barricades, but that the deep roots of a genuine new version of internationalism are growing.

5 For the first time in a generation, the international political and economic condition is in the dock. Moreover, the protesters are unlikely to go away, their confidence is growing rather than waning, their agendas are merging, the protests are spreading and drawing in all ages and concerns.

6 No single analysis has drawn all the strands of the debate together. In the meantime, the global protest "movement" is developing its own language, texts, agendas, myths, heroes and villains. Just as the G8 leaders, world bodies and businesses talk increasingly from the same script, so the protesters' once disparate political and social analyses are converging. The long-term project of governments and world bodies to globalise capital and development is being mirrored by the globalisation of protest.

7 But what happens next? Governments and world bodies are unsure which way to turn. However well they are policed, major protests reinforce the impression of indifferent elites, repression of debate, overreaction to dissent, injustice and unaccountable power.

8 Their options—apart from actually embracing the broad agenda being put to them—are to retreat behind even higher barricades, repress dissent further, abandon global meetings altogether or, more likely, meet only in places able to physically resist the masses.

9 Brussels is considering building a super fortress for international meetings. Genoa may be the last of the European super-protests.

According to the context, the word "parties" at the end of the first paragraph refers to ______.

A．the meeting of the G8 leaders.

B．the protests on Bastille Day.

C．the coming pan-European protests.

D．the big protest to be held in Genoa.

What can NOT be inferred from the last but one paragraph?

A．The author forgot to add the white icing.

B．The author was a considerate person.

C．The author missed his father so much.

D．The author might be qualified for a professional cook.

Did Sarah Josepha Hale write “Mary’s Little Lamb,” the eternal nursery rhyme(儿歌)about girl named Mary with a stubborn lamb? This is still disputed, but it’s clear that the woman 26 reputed for writing it was one of America’s most fascinating 27 characters. In honor of the poem publication on May 24,1830, here’s more about the 28 supposed author’s life.Hale wasn’t just a writer, she was also a 29 fierce social advocate, and she was particularly 30 obsessed with an ideal New England, which she associated with abundant Thanksgivinx xg meals that she claimed had “a deep moral influence,” she began a nationwide 31 campaign to have a national holiday declared that would bring families together while celebrating the 32 traditional festivals. In 1863, after 17 years of advocacy including letters to five presidents, Hale got it. President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, issued a 33 proclamation setting aside the last Thursday in November for the holiday.The true authorship of “Mary’s Little Lamb” is disputed. According to New England Historical Society, Hale wrote only one part of the poem, but claimed authorship. Regardless of the author, it seems that the poem was 34 inspired by a real event. When young Mary Sawyer was followed to school by a lamb in 1816, it caused some problems. A bystander named John Roulstone wrote a poem about the event, then, at some point, Hale herself seems to have helped write it. However, if a 1916 piece by her great-niece is to be trusted, Hale claimed for the 35 rest of her life that “Some other people pretended that someone else wrote the poem”.

A)campaign

B)career

C)characters

D)features

E)fierce

F)inspired

G)latter

H)obsessed

I)proclamation

J)rectified

K)reputed

L)rest

M)supposed

N)traditional

O)versatile

We made this album for audience and critics, and “aters”were the last thing on our_________ .

A． brain

B． list

C． image

D． mind