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每日阅读汇总贴http://forum.chasedream.com/GMAT_RC/thread-562296-1-1.html
逻辑姊妹篇：http://forum.chasedream.com/GMAT_CR/thread-580862-1-1.html
速度【4-5】
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Nicknames for Los Angeles
A nickname is a shortened form of a person's name. A nickname can also be a descriptive name for a person, place or thing. Many American cities have nicknames. These can help establish an identity, spread pride among citizens and build unity. Nicknames can also be funny.
Los Angeles, California is the second largest city in population, after New York City. Los Angeles has several nicknames. One is simply the city's initials, L.A. It is also called the City of Angels because Los Angeles means "the angels" in Spanish.
Los Angeles often has warm, sunny weather. So another nickname is City of Flowers and Sunshine. New York is called The Big Apple. So Los Angeles is sometimes called The Big Orange because of the fruit that grows in that city's warm climate.
The American motion picture and television industries are based in Los Angeles. So it is not surprising that it is called The Entertainment Capital of the World. Many films are made in the area of Los Angeles called Hollywood. Millions of people visit the area. No trip to Los Angeles is complete without seeing the word "Hollywood" spelled out in huge letters on a hillside.
Many movie stars live in Los Angeles. The city is sometimes called Tinseltown. This nickname comes from the shiny, bright and often unreal nature of Hollywood and the movie industry. (字数231)
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Another nickname for Los Angeles is La-La Land, using the first letters of Los and Angeles. This means a place that is fun and not serious, and maybe even out of touch with reality.
The city of Los Angeles is part of Los Angeles County. There are many smaller cities in the county. Beverly Hills, with its rich people, is one of them. So is Pasadena, with its Rose Parade each New Year's Day. So are the coastal cities of Santa Monica and Malibu, where people like to ride surfboards on the Pacific Ocean waves.
A good place for watching unusual-looking people is Venice, an area on the west side of Los Angeles. A system of waterways designed after the Italian city of Venice has been built there.
Many people love Los Angeles for its warm sunny weather, beautiful mountains and beaches, and movie stars. That includes Randy Newman, who sings about his hometown.
Nicknames for Cleveland and Detroit
Many American cities have interesting nicknames. Nicknames can help establish the identity of a city. They can also spread pride among its citizens. But nicknames sometimes can make fun of something.
Cleveland, Ohio is a city in America's Midwest. One of its earliest nicknames was Forest City. No one knows for sure who gave it this name in the eighteen thirties. But Cleveland probably had a lot of trees. This nickname became popular among local businesses in the eighteen fifties. Today, some businesses in the Cleveland area still use Forest City in their names. (字数253)
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Cleveland sits next to Lake Erie, one of North America's Great Lakes. It was once a major manufacturing city. Ships used the lake for transporting goods. In the nineteen fifties, businesses called Cleveland, the Best Location in the Nation.
However, many factories closed or moved away. Cleveland had severe financial problems in the nineteen sixties and seventies. In nineteen sixty-nine, the city became famous, but not in a good way. Cleveland's Cuyahoga River caught on fire because of industrial wastes on the surface of the river. So in the nineteen seventies, the national media began calling the city The Mistake on the Lake.
Since then, Cleveland has sought to improve its image. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum opened in Cleveland in nineteen ninety-five. So the city is proud of its latest nickname, The Rock and Roll Capital of the World.
Another city in the Midwest is Detroit, Michigan. Henry Ford started the Ford Motor Company in Detroit in nineteen hundred three. Five years later, he made the first "Model T" automobile. Within ten years, Detroit was being called The Motor City. It is still the center of the automobile industry in America.
Another popular nickname for Detroit is Motown. Berry Gordy, Junior started the Motown Record Corporation in Detroit in nineteen fifty-nine. African-American singers recording for the company were extremely popular in the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies. Their records were so successful that Detroit was also called Hitsville, USA. (字数244)
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Dallas All-Boys School Lets Young Men Shine
Most publicly-supported schools in the United States are co-ed, but there are some exceptions. In Dallas, Texas, an all-girls school, which opened in 2004, has consistently graduated stellar students.
Now, the district hopes its new all-boys school - the Barack Obama Leadership Academy - will do the same for boys when the school year resumes later this month.
Nakia Douglas, principal of the academy, has been giving many tours of the new school to incoming students and their parents.
Douglas was appointed, in part, because he used to be the kind of student this school wants.
"I was born and raised in south Dallas by a single parent," he says. "I was that child that I would work if I knew the teacher believed in me. But at the same time, I had a hunger and desire for more. A lot of our young men have that hunger and desire and ability now."
Research by the U.S. Department of Education shows boys get worse grades and drop out more than girls. Studies have also found that boys mature more slowly than girls, and learn in different ways.
Combine that research with the age-old argument that boys are distracted by girls enough to interrupt learning, and Dallas school officials decided on this boys school approach. After all, they said, it worked for girls, why not for boys?
Kendell Keeter's daughter just graduated from the Dallas School District's only all girls' school.
"Our thought was to also give our son an opportunity that would best prepare him for college in the same manner she was prepared," he says, "and I can't imagine any other option that would have prepared her better so that's what we're looking forward to here."
It's what a lot of these parents, like Madeline Hayes, say they are looking for, too. (字数310)
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"This is something, as cheesy as it sounds, but what I've always dreamed about, that there will be a boy's school that doesn't charge $25,000 a year, but would give the same academics, the same level of interaction and leadership."
Obama Academy, like the other magnet schools in Dallas - and other Texas cities - is not for everyone.
To be accepted, students must get good grades and pass a battery of academic tests. For now, the school teaches grades six through nine.
In addition of offering standard courses like English, history and math, there'll also be Latin, Mandarin, Spanish and aviation classes. College prep courses, along with weekday and weekend leadership sessions, enhance the curriculum.
"Our young men grow together. But all of our young men we call 'brother.' So it may be Brother Malyk Davis or Brother Sam Keeter," says Douglas. "The young men understand they are their brother's keeper. And so the young men are really learning to be responsible not only for themselves but also for their brothers here at the campus."
Madeline Hayes's son, Kelvin, 12, wants it all as he enters 7th grade.
"I've always wanted a higher academic purpose, always wanted somebody to challenge me when I make mistakes. I can learn from them," says Kelvin. "Then classes like science, computers, robotics, I enjoy them, especially robotics, building new technology. Because when I grow up I want to be an engineer."
When Malyk Davis, 14, grows up, he wants to cook. He's already been mentored by a professional chef and will study culinary arts at Obama. But the suburban resident admits he's still unsure about the boys-only aspect of the school. Safety is also a concern, considering the bad things he's heard about Oak Cliff, the neighborhood where the school is located. (字数299)
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"But once I began to look at the options that they were having, I think I'm really going to enjoy this," he says. "It's going to be a long and tough road, but as long as I'm graduating in 2015, that's all that matters to me."
Unlike Dallas's other select magnet schools, which require high entrance scores, 10-to-15 percent of the seats at Obama Academy are reserved for boys who don't meet all of its academic requirements.
According to Douglas, the slots will go to deserving students whose character and desire qualify them for entrance into the unique program. (字数99)
【越障4-5】
The reluctant rescuer
Aug 8th 2011, 16:16 by P.W. | LONDON
ONCE again, as the euro area appeared to teeter at the edge of an abyss, a sharp tug from the central bank has restored a margin of safety, albeit a slim one. In May 2010, as markets were panicking about Greece, it was the decision by the European Central Bank (ECB) based in Frankfurt to start buying Greek government bonds in the markets that calmed nerves as much as the euro-area governments’ decision to create a new bail-out fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF). This week, the ECB has pulled off the same trick by deciding to purchase Italian and Spanish government bonds at an emergency weekend conference-call meeting of its 23-strong governing council.
The move was prompted by market pressures building on the much bigger economies of Italy and Spain, as yields on their debt threatened to reach unsustainably high levels. The jitters were all the more remarkable given that an emergency summit of European leaders on July 21st to agree upon a second rescue for Greece had also sought to reduce the risk of sovereign-debt worries spreading to other vulnerable countries by expanding the role of the EFSF, allowing it to intervene in secondary markets as well as to extend lines of credit to such economies.
The trouble is that the bail-out fund will not be able to do this until its new remit is ratified by the 17 euro-area governments this autumn. Even an emergency return by leaders from their (wrecked) summer holidays would not help unless parliaments were recalled, too; and that might stoke even greater alarm. In any case, the package due to be ratified failed to boost the size of the fund beyond the already agreed target of an effective lending capacity of ?40 billion ($620 billion). That is enough to finance the rescues of Ireland and Portugal and the second bail-out of Greece, but would be insufficient to deal with Italy, let alone Italy and Spain.
The ECB, by contrast, can act now. And, potentially, it has unlimited firepower since it can pay for any purchases by creating money. Certainly, the mere threat to intervene in Italian and Spanish markets was sufficient to cause a sharp fall in yields as the markets opened on Monday August 8th.
But the ECB is a reluctant rescuer. Indeed until this month it had not made any bond purchases since March, leaving their total book value around ?5 billion. It made some last week, but disappointed markets because they were confined to Irish and Portuguese bonds; and even these were opposed by some members of the governing council, notably Jens Weidmann, the president of the German Bundesbank. The ECB’s decision to purchase Italian and Spanish government bonds was reactive rather than pre-emptive and followed immense pressure from political leaders
The ECB has its reasons for treading cautiously. Its foray into Greek bond purchases has left it nursing big losses if they were valued at market prices. But even more than potential damage to its balance sheet, the central bank’s really big worry is about its credibility, since the purchases drag it into what is in effect fiscal rather than monetary territory.
That reluctance suggests that the bond-buying rescue will do no more than contain the latest outbreak of nerves. If Europe is to get on top of its sovereign-debt crisis, it must build a much more secure fiscal underpinning to its shaky monetary union. And that will involve winning support from voters in the creditor countries, notably Germany, who fear precisely that outcome. That is the real job that awaits European leaders when they return from their summer vacations. |
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发表于 2011-8-18 22:14:06
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发表于 2011-8-18 23:12:45
比较正弱着呢。