The American dream is most ______ during the periods of productivity and wealth generated
A.plausible
B.patriotic
C.primitive
D.partial
A.plausible
B.patriotic
C.primitive
D.partial
"Maybe young couples can no longer afford to buy a ready-made house as their parents did," says 40-year-old building instructor Pat Hennin. "But they can still have a home. Like their pioneer ancestors, they can build it themselves, and at less than half the cost of a ready-made house."
The owner-builders came from every occupational group, although surprisingly few are professional building workers. Many take the plunge with little or no experience. "I learned how to build my house from reading books." says John Brown, who built a six-room home for $25,000 in
High Falls, New Jersey. "If you have patience and the carpentry skill to make a bookcase, you can build a house."
An astonishing 50 percent of these owner-builders hammer every nail, lay every pipe, and wire every switch with their own hands. The rest contract for some parts of the task. But even those who just act as contractors and finish the insides of their homes can save from 30 percent to 45 percent of what a ready-made home would cost.
One survey revealed that 60 percent of owner-builders also design their homes. Many others buy commercial house plans for less than $100 or use plans available from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
What is the main subject of the passage?
A.The cost of having a house built.
B.The American dream of owning a house.
C.A description of owner-builder in America.
D.A comparison between young couples and their parents.
A.American Dream
B.America Dream
C.American Hope
D.American Wish
In the author's view the American dream was ______.
A.the American standard of living
B.a sheer imagination
C.something unrealistic
D.an illusion people could never attain
"To me he is not dead at all. Hardly a day goes by that I don't think of him or speak of him. Once, just before he died, when he was sick with the flu, I took him a sack full of oranges. The joy I felt in giving that simple gift is never decreased by time. He said he like oranges, too."
What is the main topic of the passage?
A.Alice Walker's reflections on Langston Hughes
B.The influence of Alice Walker on the writing of Langston Hughes
C.Langston Hughes book about Alice Walker
D.A comparison of the children of Alice Walker and that of Langston Hughes
The Amish are often _ 33_by other Americans to be relics of the past who live a simple,inflexible life dedicated to inconvenient out-dated customs. They are seen as abandoning both modern
34_and the American dream of success and progress. But most people have no quarrel with the Amish for doing things the old-fashioned way. Their conscientious objection was tolerated in wartime,for after all,they are good farmers who __ 35_the virtues of work and thrift.
A) accessing F) perceived K) survived
B) conveniences G) practice L) terminals
C) destined H) process M) undergone
D)expanding I)progress N) universal
E) industrialized J) respective O) vanished
A.to have left
B.to leave
C.to have been left
D.to be left
Like the landing on the moon, the construction of a canal across the narrow Isthmus of Panama was a dream long before it became reality. As early as 1534, Charles I of Spain proposed a canal at Panama, but it would take nearly 400 years for builders to catch up with his imagination.
When the canal finally was proposed required all the creativity the twentieth century could muster. It was the largest public work ever attempted. Its engineers had to control a wild river, cut the continental divide, construct the largest dam and man made lake known to that date and swing the largest locks ever constructed from the biggest cement structures then poured. Along the way, two of the world's most devastating diseases had to be wiped out in one of their greatest strongholds. And all of this was to be done without the airplane or the automobile: Kitty Hawk rose into the head-lines in 1903 the same year the U. S. signed a treaty with Panama——and there was no road across the isthmus until the World War Ⅱ.
If Panama has had an unusual role in bygone dreams, it most certainly has a startling relationship to the hard facts of geography. The country is farther east than most people imagine——the canal and about half of Panama actually lie east of Miami. Because of the country's shallow "S" shape and east-west orientation, it has places where the sun rises in the Pacific and sets in the Atlantic. More significantly, Panama is squeezed into the narrowest portion of Central. At the canal, just 43 miles of land separate Atlantic and Pacific shores. Perhaps even more important, Panama offers the lowest point in the North American continental divide—— originally 312 feet above sea level at the canal's Culebra Cut. By comparison, the lowest pass in the United States is nearly 5,000 feet.
In scope and difficulty, the canals construction was most closely alike to that of the ______. ()
A.Suez Canal
B.trans-Siberian Railroad
C.Taj Mahal
D.pyramids of Egypt
Sitting in a dark theater, watching the images on the screen, they enter another world that is real to them. They become involved in the lives of the characters in the movie, and for two hours, they forget all about their own problems. They are in a dream world where things often appear to be more romantic (浪漫的) and beautiful than in real life.
The biggest "dream factories" are in Hollywood, the capital of the film industry. Each year, Hollywood studios make hundreds of movies that are shown all over the world. American movies are popular because they tell stories and they are well-made. They provide the public with heroes who do things the average person would like to do but often can't. People have to cope with many problems and much trouble in real life, so they feel encouraged when they see the" good guys "win in the movies.
The Americans go to the movies mainly because they want______.
A.to enjoy a good story
B.to experience an exciting life
C.to see the actors and actresses
D.to escape their daily life