1 . Most people agree that honesty is a good thing. But does Mother Nature agree? Animals can’t talk, but can they lie in other ways? Can they lie with their bodies and behavior? Animal experts may not call it lying, but they do agree that many animals, from birds to chimpanzees, behave dishonestly to fool other animals. Why? Dishonesty often helps them survive.
Many kinds of birds are very successful at fooling other animals. For example, a bird called the plover sometimes pretends to be hurt in order to protect its young. When a predator(猎食动物) gets close to its nest, the plover leads the predator away from the nest. How? It pretends to have a broken wing. The predator follows the “hurt” adult, leaving the baby birds safe in the nest.
Another kind of bird, the scrub jay, buries its food so it always has something to eat. Scrub jays are also thieves. They watch where others bury their food and steal it. But clever scrub jays seem to know when a thief is watching them. So they go back later, unbury the food, and bury it again somewhere else.
Birds called cuckoos have found a way to have babies without doing much work. How? They don’t make nests. Instead, they get into other birds’ nests secretly. Then they lay their eggs and fly away. When the baby birds come out, their adoptive parents feed them.
Chimpanzees, or chimps, can also be sneaky. After a fight, the losing chimp will give its hand to the other. When the winning chimp puts out its hand, too, the chimps are friendly again. But an animal expert once saw a losing chimp take the winner’s hand and start fighting again.
Chimps are sneaky in other ways, too. When chimps find food that they love, such as bananas, it is natural for them to cry out. Then other chimps come running. But some clever chimps learn to cry very softly when they find food. That way, other chimps don’t hear them, and they don’t need to share their food.
As children, many of us learn the saying “You can’t fool Mother Nature.” But maybe you can’t trust her, either.
1. A plover protects its young from a predator by ________.| A．getting closer to its young | B．driving away the adult predator |
| C．leaving its young in another nest | D．pretending to be injured |
| A．chimps are ready to attack others |
| B．chimps are sometimes dishonest |
| C．chimps are jealous of the winners |
| D．chimps can be selfish too |
| A．Some chimps lower their cry to keep food away from others. |
| B．The losing chimp won the fight by taking the winner's hand. |
| C．Cuckoos fool their adoptive parents by making no nests. |
| D．Some clever scrub jays often steal their food back. |
| A．Do animals lie? |
| B．Does Mother Nature fool animals? |
| C．How do animals learn to lie? |
| D．How does honesty help animals survive? |
| Holiday News Vacancies (空位) now and in the school holidays at a country hotel in Devon. This comfortable, friendly home-from-home lies near the beautiful quiet countryside, but just a drive away from the sea. The food is simple but good. Children and pets are welcome. Reduced prices for low season. |
| The Snowdonia Center The Snowdonia Center for young mountain climbers has a mountain lesson. The beginners' costs are ￡57 for a week, including food and rooms. Equipment is included except walking shoes, which can be hired at a low cost. You must be in good health and prepared to go through a period of body exercises. This could be the beginning of a lifetime mountain climbing adventure. |
| The World Sea Trip of a Lifetime Our World Sea Trip of 2008 will be unlike any holiday you have ever been on before. Instead of one hotel after another, with all its packing and unpacking waiting and traveling, you just go to bed in one country and wake up in another. On board the ship, you will be well taken care of. Every meal will be first-class and every cabin like your home. During the trip, you can rest on deck (甲板), enjoy yourself in the games rooms and in the evening dance to our musical team and watch our wonderful play. You will visit all the places most people only dream about - from Acapulco and Hawaii to Tokyo and Hong Kong. For a few thousand pounds, all you've ever hoped for can be yours. |
| A．Choose the holiday in Devon. |
| B．Go to the Snowdonia Center. |
| C．Join the World Sea Trip of 2008. |
| D．Visit Acapulco and Hawaii. |
| A．It provides chances of family gathering. |
| B．It providers customers with good food. |
| C．It offers a sport lesson. |
| D．It offers comfortable room. |
| A．You can have free meals on deck every day. |
| B．You can sleep on a ship and tour many places. |
| C．You will have chances to watch and act in a play. |
| D．You have to do your own packing and unpacking. |
| A．food | B．rooms. |
| C．body exercises | D．walking shoes |
The key to their success: 20 tablet computers(平板电脑) dropped off in their Ethiopian village in February by a U.S. group called One Laptop Per Child.
The goal is to find out whether kids using today’s new technology can teach themselves to read in places where no schools or teachers exist. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers analyzing the project data say they’re already amazed. “What I think has already happened is that the kids have already learned more than they would have in one year of kindergarten,” said Matt Keller, who runs the Ethiopia program.
The fastest learner—and the first to turn on one of the tablets—is 8-year-old Kelbesa Negusse. The device’s camera was disabled to save memory, yet within weeks Kelbesa had figured out its workings and made the camera work. He called himself a lion, a marker of accompli
shment in Ethiopia.With his tablet, Kelbasa rearranged the letters HSROE into one of the many English animal names he knows. Then he spelled words on his own. “Seven months ago he didn’t know any English. That’s unbelievable,” said Keller.
The project aims to get kids to a stage called “deep reading,” where they can read to learn. It won’t be in Amharic, Ethiopia’s first language, but in English, which is widely seen as the ticket to higher paying jobs.
1. How does the Ethiopia program benefit the kids in the village?
| A．It trains teachers for them. |
| B．It contributes to their self-study. |
| C．It helps raise their living standards. |
| D．It provides funds for building schools. |
| A．They need more time to analyze data. |
| B．More children are needed for the research. |
| C．He is confident about the future of the project. |
| D．The research should be carried out in kindergartens. |
| A．learn English words quickly. |
| B．draw pictures of animals. |
| C．write letters to researchers. |
| D．make phone calls to his friends. |
| A．To offer Ethiopians higher paying jobs. |
| B．To make Amharic widely used in the world. |
| C．To help Ethiopian kids read to learn in English. |
| D．To assist Ethiopians in learning their first language. |
In Mrs. Totten’s eighth-grade math class at Central Avenue School in Anderson, Indiana, we were learning to add and subtract decimals (小数).
Our teacher typically assigned daily homework, which would be recited in class the following day. On most days, our grades were based on our oral answer to homework questions.
Mrs. Totten usually walked up and down the rows of desks requesting answers from student after student in the order the questions had appeared on our homework sheets. She would start either at the front or the back of the classroom and work toward the other end.
Since I was seated near the middle of about 35 students, it was easy to figure out which questions I might have to answer. This particular time, I had completed my usual two or three problems according to my calculations.
What I failed to expect was that several students were absent, which threw off my estimate. As Mrs. Totten made her way from the beginning of the class，I desperately tried to determine which math problem I would get. I tried to work it out before she got to me, but I had brain freeze and couldn’t function.
When Mrs. Totten reached my desk，she asked what answer I’d got for problem No. 14. “I…I didn’t get anything,” I answered，and my face felt warm.
“Correct,” she said.
It turned out that the correct answer was zero.
What did I learn that day? First, always do all your homework. Second, in real life it isn’t always what you say but how you say it that matters. Third，I would never make it as a mathematician.
If I could choose one school day that taught me the most, it would be that one.
1. What does the underlined part in Paragraph 1 indicate?
| A．It is wise to value one’s time. |
| B．It is important to make an effort |
| C．It is right to stick to one’s belief. |
| D．It is enough to do the necessary. |
| A．recite their homework together |
| B．grade their homework themselves |
| C．answer their homework questions orally |
| D．check the answers to their homework questions |
| A．asked questions in a regular way |
| B．walked up and down when asking questions |
| C．chose two or three questions for the students |
| D．requested her students to finish their usual questions |
| A．the class didn’t begin as usual |
| B．several students didn’t come to school |
| C．he didn’t try hard to make his estimate |
| D．Mrs. Totten didn’t start from the back of the class |
| A．An Unforgettable Teacher |
| B．A Future Mathematician |
| C．An Effective Approach |
| D．A Valuable Lesson |
Researchers in the psychology department at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) have discovered a major difference in the way men and women respond to stress.This difference may explain why men are more likely to suffer from stress related disorders.
Until now, psychological research has maintained that both men and women have the same “fightorflight” reaction to stress. In other words, individuals either react with aggressive behavior, such as verbal or physical conflict (“fight”), or they react by withdrawing from the stressful situation (“flight”). However, the UCLA research team found that men and women have quite different biological and behavioral responses to stress.While men often react to stress in the fightorflight response, women often have another kind of reaction which could be called “tend and befriend.” That is, they often react to stressful conditions by protecting and nurturing their young (“tend”), and by looking for social contact and support from others—especially other females (“befriend”).
Scientists have long known that in the fightorflight reaction to stress, an important role is played by certain hormones(激素) released by the body.The UCLA research team suggests that the female tendorbefriend response is also based on a hormone. This hormone, called oxytocin, has been studied in the context of childbirth, but now it is being studied for its role in the response of both men and women to stress. The principal investigator, Dr. Shelley E. Taylor, explained that “animals and people with high levels of oxytocin are calmer, more relaxed, more social, and less anxious.” While men also secrete(分泌) oxytocin, its effects are reduced by male hormones.
In terms of everyday behavior, the UCLA study found that women are far more likely than men to seek social contact when they are feeling stressed.They may phone relatives or friends, or ask directions if they are lost.
The study also showed how fathers and mothers responded differently when they came home to their family after a stressful day at work.The typical father wanted to be left alone to enjoy some peace and quiet. For a typical mother, coping with a bad day at work meant focusing her attention on her children and their needs.
The differences in responding to stress may explain the fact that women have lower frequency of stressrelated disorders such as high blood pressure or aggressive behavior.The tendandbefriend regulatory(调节的) system may protect women against stress, and this may explain why women on average live longer than men.
1. The UCLA study shows that in response to stress, men are more likely than women to ______.| A．turn to friends for help |
| B．solve a conflict calmly |
| C．find an escape from reality |
| D．seek comfort from children |
| A．Men have the same level of oxytocin as women do. |
| B．Oxytocin used to be studied in both men and women. |
| C．Both animals and people have high levels of oxytocin. |
| D．Oxytocin has more of an effect on women than on men. |
| A．Male hormones help build up the body’s resistance to stress. |
| B．In a family a mother cares more about children than a father does. |
| C．Biological differences lead to different behavioral responses to stress. |
| D．The UCLA study was designed to confirm previous research findings. |
| A．How men and women get over stress |
| B．How men and women suffer from stress |
| C．How researchers overcome stress problems |
| D．How researchers handle stress related disorders |
6 . Low-cost Gifts for Mother’s Day
Gift No. 1
Offer to be your mother’s health friend. Promise to be there for all doctor’s visits whether she has a disease or needs a regular medical check-up. Most mothers always say there is no need, but another set of eyes and ears is always a good idea at a doctor’s visit. The best part? This one is free.
Gift No. 2
Help your mother organize all of her medical records, which include the test results and medical information. Put them all in one place. Be sure to make a list of all of her medicines and what time she takes them. “Having all this information in one place could end up saving your mother’s life,” Dr. Marie Savard said.
Gift No. 3
Enough sleep is connected with general health conditions. “Buy your mother cotton sheets and comfortable pillows to encourage better sleep,” Savard said. “We know that good sleep is very important to our health.”
Gift No. 4
Some gift companies such as Presents for Purpose allow you to pay it forward this Mother’s Day by picking gifts, 10 percent of whose price you pay goes to a charity (慈善机构). Gift givers can choose from a wide variety of useful but inexpensive things — many of which are “green” — and then choose a meaningful charity from a list. When your mother gets the gift she will be told that she has helped the chosen charity.
1. What are you advised to do for your mother at doctor’s visits?| A．To take notes. | B．To be with her. |
| C．To buy medicines. | D．To give her gifts. |
| A．In Gift No. 1. | B．In Gift No. 2. |
| C．In Gift No. 3. | D．In Gift No. 4. |
| A．enjoy good sleep | B．be well-organized |
| C．get extra support | D．give other help |
7 . Avoid Internet Addiction
Admit you have an addition．
Limit your computer time．Make sure not to turn it on too many times a week．Before using your computer，decide on a time limit such as 30 minutes．Set the clock and make sure that you get off the computer when the time is up．
Try using the computer at the library．You won't be as attracted to look at certain websites and they do have a limit on how long you can stay online．
| A．You will be happier if you use the Internet less． |
| B．There is no use avoiding the truth． |
| C．Also，it is a good place to get some good books and magazines to read． |
| D．Get a hobby or an interest． |
| E．Internet addition affects a lot of people． |
| F．Get your family to remind you if you've been on a long time． |
| G．Try to reduce the amount of time by 5minutes each time． |
Although being famous might sound like a dream come true, today's stars, feeling like zoo animals, face pressures that few of us can imagine. They are at the center of much of the world's attention. Paparazzi(狗仔队) camp outside their homes, cameras ready. Tabloids(小报) publish thrilling stories about their personal lives. Just imagine not being able to do anything without being photographed or interrupted for a signature!
According to psychologist Christina Villarreal, celebrities—famous people—worry constantly about their public appearance. Eventually, they start to lose track of who they really are, seeing themselves the way their fans imagine them, not as the people they were before everyone knew their names. “Over time，” Villarreal says, “they feel separated and alone.”
The phenomenon of tracking celebrities has been around for ages. In the 4th century B．C., painters followed Alexander the Great into battle, hoping to picture his victories for his admirers. When Charles Dickens visited America in the 19th century, his soldout readings attracted thousands of fans, leading him to complain(抱怨) about his lack of privacy. Tabloids of the 1920s and 1930s ran articles about filmstars in much the same way that modern tabloids and websites do.
Being a public figure today, however, is a lot more difficult than it used to be. Superstars cannot move about without worrying about photographers with modern cameras. When they say something silly or do something ridiculous, there is always the Internet to spread the news in minutes and keep their “story” alive forever.
If fame is so troublesome, why aren't all celebrities running away from it? The answer is there are still ways to deal with it. Some stars stay calm by surrounding themselves with trusted friends and family or by escaping to remote places away from big cities. They focus not on how famous they are but on what they love to do or whatever made them famous in the first place.
Sometimes a few celebrities can get a little justice. Still, even stars who enjoy full justice often complain about how hard their lives are. They are tired of being famous already.
1. It can be learned from the passage that stars today ________.
| A．are often misunderstood by the public |
| B．can no longer have their privacy protected |
| C．spend too much on their public appearance |
| D．care little about how they have come into fame |
| A．Great heroes of the past were generally admired. |
| B．The problem faced by celebrities has a long history. |
| C．Wellknown actors are usually targets of tabloids. |
| D．Works of popular writers often have a lot of readers. |
| A．Availability of modern media. |
| B．Inadequate social recognition. |
| C．Lack of favorable chances. |
| D．Huge population of fans. |
| A．Sincere. | B．Sceptical. |
| C．Disapproving. | D．Sympathetic. |
9 . When I was about 12, I had an enemy, a girl who liked to point out my shortcomings(缺点). Week by week her list grew: I was very thin, I wasn’t a good student, I talked too much, I was too proud, and so on. I tried to bear all this as long as I could. At last, I became very angry. I ran to my father with tears in my eyes.
He listened to me quietly, then he asked. “Are the things she says true or not? Janet, didn’t you ever wonder what you’re really like ? Well, you now have that girl’s opinion. Go and make a list of everything she said and mark the points that are true. Pay no attention to the other things she said.”
I did as he told me. To my great surprise, I discovered that about half the things were true. Some of them I couldn’t change (like being very thin), but a good number I could—and suddenly I wanted to change. For the first time I go to fairly clear picture of myself.
I brought the list back to Daddy. He refused to take it.“That’s just for you,” he said.“You know better than anyone else the truth about yourself. But you have to learn to listen, not just close your ears in anger and feeling hurt. When something said about you is true, you’ll find it will be of help to you. Our world is full of people who think they know your duty. Don’t shut your ears. Listen to them all, but hear the truth and do what you know is the right thing to do.”
Daddy’s advice has returned to me at many important moments. In my life, I’ve never had a better piece of advice.
1. What did the father do after he had heard his daughter’s complaint?| A．He told her not to pay any attention to what her“enemy” had said. |
| B．He criticized (批评) her and told her to overcome her shortcomings. |
| C．He told her to write down all that her“enemy” had said about her and pay attention only to the things that were true. |
| D．He refused to take the list and have a look at it. |
| A．Week by week she discovered more shortcomings of mine and pointed them out to me. |
| B．She had made a list of my shortcomings and she kept on adding new ones to it so that it was growing longer and longer. |
| C．I was having more and more shortcomings as time went on. |
| D．Week by week, my shortcomings grew more serious. |
| A．Because he believed that what her daughter’s “enemy” said was mostly true. |
| B．Because he had been so angry with his daughter’s shortcomings that he wanted to show this by keeping silent for a while. |
| C．Because he knew that his daughter would not listen to him at that moment. |
| D．Because he wasn’t quite sure which girl was telling the truth. |
| A．Not an Enemy, but the Best Friend |
| B．The Best Advice I’ve Ever Had |
| C．My Father |
| D．My Childhood |
Broadly speaking, the Englishman is a quiet, shy, reserved person who is fully relaxed only among people he knows well. In the presence of strangers or foreigners he often seems restrained, even embarrassed. You have only to witness a city train any morning or evening to see the truth of this. Serious-looking businessmen and women sit reading their newspapers or having a light sleep in a corner, and no one speaks. In fact, to do so would seem most unusual. An Englishman, pretending to be giving advice to overseas visitors, once suggested, “On entering a railway carriage, shake hands with all the passengers.” Needless to say, he was not being serious. There is an unwritten but clearly understood code of behavior which, if broken, makes the person immediately suspected.
In many parts of the world it is quite normal to show openly extremes of enthusiasm, emotion, excitement, etc, often accompanied by appropriate gesture. The Englishman is somewhat different. Of course, an Englishman feels no less deeply than anyone of a different nationality, but he tends to display his feelings far less. This is reflected in his use of language. Imagine a man commenting on the great beauty of a young girl. A more emotional man might describe her state “Oh, she is a goddess”, whereas an Englishman might just say “Oh, she’s all right.” An Englishman who has seen a highly successful and enjoyable film recommends it to a friend by commenting, “It’s not bad you know”, or on seeing some very unusual scenery he might convey (表达) his pleasure by saying, “Nice, yes, very nice.” The overseas visitor must not be disappointed by this apparent lack of interest and involvement. Instead, he must realize that “all right,” “not bad,” and “nice,” very often have the sense of “first-class,” “excellent,” “beautiful”. This unique style of language use is particularly common in England, and is known as restrained statement.
1. According to the passage, the English are different from other nationalities in _______.
| A．habits | B．attitudes | C．character | D．all of the above |
| A．calm and controlled | B．polite and friendly |
| C．nervous and quiet | D．silent and kind |
| A．talk with others as much as possible |
| B．behave just like the English do |
| C．say nothing about yourself |
| D．shake hands with everyone you meet |
| A．not bad | B．correct | C．quite right | D．wonderful |
| A．doesn’t like to show his feelings so much |
| B．has less emotion than people of other nationalities |
| C．finds it easy to express his emotion |
| D．likes to have a joke with strangers |
