Think back to this time last year. What was on your mind? Most likely, you were thinking about finals or the holidays, although in this city I've noticed that thinking about the holiday is a fancy way of saying how much stuff will I get. Now reflect on your thoughts for this holiday season. Most people are still thinking about the holidays, but I say that with a grain of salt. Everybody with a functioning brain and the ability to communicate knows that this holioday season comes with a pretty large price tag: the debt of all the hardships, both domestic and foreign, that we've faced over the past 12months. Let's face it: some of us will get everything we want over the holidays. But there are others whose parents have lost their jobs or who have lost jobs themselves because of the current economic situation. As much as we try to ignore it, there is still economic unrest in the blue and gold suburb. In this situation, we have three options. One: We ignore the situation, like we seem to do for every bad thing that happens around us, because by God, it's the American Way! Two: We recognize that our economy is shot, feel bad about it and spend our time wishing for the good old days. Three: We recognize that our economy is shot, but instead of moping, reflect on every good thing that we have going for us. Now, which option sounds best to you? I spent a week this summer working in and around New York City with the city's homeless population. Or so I thought. Although a lot of the people I served were in fact homeless, a significant number of them had a job or a home or both. The truth of the importance of this situation is that they and thousands of others across the country can't afford even the most basic things of life, even while working two jobs. Yet no one that I met complained about their hardships. Instead, they took whatever I happened to give them(which was, more often than enough, not enough) and were genuinely grateful for what they had. Wrap your heads around that statement for a second. These people... 64. According to the passage when people think about holidays they care much for    _   . A) where to spend their holidays B) how to spend their holidays C) what they can get for their holidays D) who they should go to visit
C

A month after Hurricane Katrina,I returned home in New Orleans.There lay my house,reduced to waist-high rains,smelly and dirty.Before the trip,I'd had my car fixed.When the office employee of the garage was writing up the bill.she noticed my Louisiana license plate."You from New Orleans?"she asked.I said l was, "No charge."She said,and firmly shook her head when I reached for my wallet.The next day I went for a haircut,and the same thing happened. As my wife was studying in Florid,we decided to move there and tried to find a rental house that we could afford while also paying off a mortgage on our ruined house.We looked at many places,but none was satisfactory.We'd begun to accept that we'd have to live in extremely reduced circumstances for a while,when I got a very curious e-mail from a James Kennedy in California.He'd read some pieces I'd written about our sufferings forState,an online magazine and wanted to give us("noconditions attached")a new house across the lake from New Orleans.It sounded too good to be true,but I replied,thanking him for his exceptional generosity,that we had no plans to go back.Then a poet of the University of Florida offered to let his house to me while he went to England on his one-year-paid leave.The rent was rather reasonable.Imentioned the poet's offer to James Kennedy,and the next day he sent a check covering our entire rent for eight months. Throughout this painful experience,the kindness of strangers backs my faith in humanity.It's almostworthlosing you worldly possessions to be reminded that people really want to be kind when given a channel. What do you know about James Kennedy? A) He was a friend of the writer. B) He offered the writer a house in California. C) He worked for an online magazine. D) He was concerned about the writer's sufferings.
D

Remember, from the moment they are born, our children have the ability to know when they are hungry - and they cry to let us know too! Of course, they also cry to let us know they are wet, hurt, or bored, but we soon learn to tell the difference and try to meet each need somehow. When we begin to feed them solid foods, they let us know when they have had enough by turning away from the spoon - or refusing the food back at us! Why is it that once children are old enough to sit at the table their parents are often heard bargaining with them or threatening them to finish all their dinner? When we make our children eat up the plate that we filled, we don't pay attention to their born ability to know how much, and what, their bodies need. Instead, we should allow them to use their own hunger feelings to determine how much they need, while we provide a balance of nutritious and "fun" foods. When we teach them about moderation and set a great example by living an active, healthy lifestyle, they will be less likely to develop weight problems later in life. Think of your slim friend who eats whatever she wants -but will refuse ice cream if she has had enough to eat! "Eat all your dinner if you want dessert" translates to "you must overeat so I will reward you by letting you overeat some more!" By using sweets as a reward for good behavior, kids begin to believe sweets are really special and they may want them even more. Instead, by making dessert just another (small) part of an enjoyable meal, kids learn to "save room for dessert" instead of becoming a member of the "clean plate club." Children are born to know   _  . A) how to stay away from poison B) how much they should take when hungry C) meat is worse than vegetables D) sugar is better than fat
B

If you know exactly what you want, the best way to get a job is to get specialized training. A recent survey shows that companies like graduates in such fields as business and health care who can go to work immediately with very little on-the-job training. That's especially true of booming fields that are challenging for workers. At Cornell's School of Hotel Administration, for example, bachelor's degree graduates get an average of four or five job offers with salaries ranging from the high teens to the low 20s and plenty of chances for rapid advancement. Large companies, especially, like a background of formal education coupled with work experience. But in the long run, too much specialization doesn't pay off. Business, which has been flooded with MBAs, no longer considers the degree an automatic stamp of approval. The MBA may open doors and command a higher salary initially, but . As further evidence of companies gradually losing faith in specialized degrees, Michigan State's Scheetz mentions a pattern in hiring practices. Although companies tend to take on specialists as new hires, they often seek out generalists for middle and upper-level management.  "They want someone who isn't constrained by details to look at the big picture," says  Scheetz. This sounds like a formal statement that you approve of the liberal-arts  graduates. Time and again labor-market analysts mention a need for talents that liberal-arts majors are assumed to have: writing and communication skills, organizational skills, open-mindedness and adaptability, and the ability to analyze and solve problems. David Birch, manager of the Boston Red Sox, claims he does not hire anybody with an MBA or an engineering degree, "I hire only liberal-arts people because they have a less-than-canned way of doing things," says Birch. For a liberal-arts degree, students focus on some basic courses that include literature, history, mathematics, economics, science, human behavior--plus a computer course or two. With these useful and important courses, you... David Birch claims that he only hires liberal-arts people because they    _    . A) are more capable of handling changing situations B) can stick to established ways of solving problems C) are thoroughly trained in a variety of specialized fields D) have attended special programs in management
