1 . The Winter Olympics is also called the White Olympics. At this time, many colorful stamps are published to mark the great Games. The first stamps marking the opening came out on January 25, 1932 in the United States for the 3rd White Olympics. From then on, publishing stamps during the White Olympics became a rule. During the 4th Winter Olympic Games a group of stamps were published in Germany in November 1936. The five rings of Olympics were drawn on the front of the sportswear. It was the first time that the rings appeared on the stamps of the White Olympics. In the 1950’s, the stamps of this kind became more colorful.
When the White Olympics came, the host countries (东道国) as well as the non-host countries published stamps to mark those Games. China also published four stamps in February 1980, when the Chinese sports men began to take part in the White Olympics. Japan is the only Asian country that has ever held the White Olympics. Altogether 14,500 million stamps were sold to raise money for this sports meet. Different kinds of sports were drawn on these small stamps. People can enjoy the beauty of the wonderful movements of some sportsmen.
1. The White Olympics and the Winter Olympics _______.A.are the same thing | B.are different games |
C.are not held in winter | D.are held in summer |
A.after the year 1936 | B.after the 3rd White Olympics |
C.before the 3rd White Olympics | D.before the year 1932 |
A.every two years | B.every three years |
C.every four years | D.every five years |
A.Only the host countries can publish stamps to mark those Games. |
B.Only the non-host countries can publish stamps to mark those Games. |
C.All the countries can publish stamps to mark those Games. |
D.Japan can’t publish stamps to mark those Games. |
A.Basketball. | B.Table tennis. | C.Football. | D.Skating. |
2 . How long can human beings live? Most scientists who study old age think that the human body is
Even though we can’t live forever, we are living a
When does old age begin then? Sixty-five may be out-of-date as the
People are living longer because more people
On the whole, our population is getting older. The
As our society grows old, we need the
A.designed | B.selected | C.improved | D.discovered |
A.completely | B.generally | C.apparently | D.extremely |
A.rapidly | B.harmlessly | C.endlessly | D.separately |
A.eventually | B.hopelessly | C.automatically | D.desperately |
A.busier | B.longer | C.richer | D.happier |
A.finishing | B.guiding | C.waiting | D.dividing |
A.stress | B.damage | C.decline | D.failure |
A.survive | B.enjoy | C.remember | D.value |
A.problems | B.fears | C.worries | D.diseases |
A.poor | B.young | C.sick | D.quiet |
A.changes | B.recovery | C.safety | D.increases |
A.dreams | B.chances | C.strengths | D.choices |
A.mind | B.appearance | C.voice | D.movement |
A.protection | B.suggestions | C.contributions | D.permission |
A.sound | B.appear | C.turn | D.stay |
3 . As Internet users become more dependent on the Internet to store information, are people remember less? If you know your computer will save information, why store it in your own personal memory, your brain? Experts are wondering if the Internet is changing what we remember and how.
In a recent study, Professor Betsy Sparrow conducted some experiments. She and her research team wanted to know the Internet is changing memory. In the first experiment, they gave people 40 unimportant facts to type into a computer. The first group of people understood that the computer would save the information. The second group understood that the computer would not save it. Later, the second group remembered the information better. People in the first group knew they could find the information again, so they did not try to remember it.
In another experiment, the researchers gave people facts to remember, and told them where to find the information on the Internet. The information was in a specific computer folder (文件夹). Surprisingly, people later remember the folder location (位置) better than the facts. When people use the Internet, they do not remember the information. Rather, they remember how to find it. This is called “transactive memory (交互记忆)”
According to Sparrow, we are not becoming people with poor memories as a result of the Internet. Instead, computer users are developing stronger transactive memories; that is, people are learning how to organize huge quantities of information so that they are able to access it at a later date. This doesn’t mean we are becoming either more or less intelligent, but there is no doubt that the way we use memory is changing.
1. The passage begins with two questions to ________.A.introduce the main topic | B.show the author’s attitude |
C.describe how to use the Internet | D.explain how to store information |
A.Sparrow’s team typed the information into a computer. |
B.The two groups remembered the information equally well. |
C.The first group did not try to remember the formation. |
D.The second group did not understand the information. |
A.keep the information in mind |
B.change the quantity of information |
C.organize information like a computer |
D.remember how to find the information |
A.We are using memory differently. |
B.We are becoming more intelligent. |
C.We have poorer memories than before. |
D.We need a better way to access information. |
4 . Choose Your One-Day-Tours!
Tour A - Bath &Stonehenge including entrance fees to the ancient Roman bathrooms and Stonehenge -£37 until 26 March and £39 thereafter. Visit the city with over 2,000 years of history and Bath Abbey, the Royal Crescent and the Costume Museum, Stonehenge is one of the world’s most famous prehistoric monuments dating back over 5,000 years.
Tour B - Oxford & Stratford including entrance fees to the University St Mary’s Church Tower and Anne Hathaway’s -£32 until 12 March and £36 thereafter. Oxford: Includes a guided tour of England’s oldest university city and colleges. Look over the “city of dreaming spires(尖顶)” from St Mary‘s Church Tower. Stratford: Includes a guided tour exploring much of the Shakespeare wonder.
Tour C - Windsor Castle &Hampton Court: including entrance fees to Hampton Court Palace -£34 until 11 March and £37 thereafter. Includes a guided tour of Windsor and Hampton Court, Henry VILL’s favorite palace. Free time to visit Windsor Castle(entrance fees not included).With 500 years of history, Hampton Court was once the home of four Kings and one Queen. Now this former royal palace is open to the public as a major tourist attraction. Visit the palace and its various historic gardens, which include the famous maze(迷宫) where it is easy to get lost!
Tour D –Cambridge including entrance fees to the Tower of Saint Mary the Great -£33 until 18 March and £37 thereafter. Includes a guided tour of Cambridge, the famous university town, and the gardens of the 18th century.
1. Which tour will you choose if you want to see England’s oldest university city?A.Tour A | B.Tour B |
C.Tour C | D.Tour D |
A.Windsor Castle & Hampton Court | B.Oxford & Stratford |
C.Bath & Stonehenge | D.Cambridge |
A.It used to be the home of royal families | B.It used to be a well-known maze |
C.It is the oldest palace in Britain | D.It is a world-famous castle |
5 . This Way to Dreamland Daydreaming means people think about something pleasant, especially when this makes them forget what they should be doing. Daydreamers have a bad reputation for being unaware of what’s happening around them. They can seem forgetful and clumsy.
But daydreamers are also responsible for some of the greatest ideas and achievements in human history.
Feeling safe and relaxed will help you to slip into daydreams.
It’s also important to know how to avoid daydreams for those times when you really need to concentrate. “Mindfulness”, being focused, is a tool that some people use to avoid falling asleep.
A.Having interesting things to think about also helps. |
B.They stare off into space and wander by themselves. |
C.Without wandering minds, we wouldn’t have relativity , Coke or Post-it notes. |
D.At one time, daydreaming was thought to be a cause of some mental illnesses. |
E.It involves slow, steady breathing for self-control that helps people stay calm and attentive. |
F.Daydreams are often very simple and direct, quite unlike sleep dreams, which may be hard to understand. |
G.Therefore, it’s a good idea to keep a notebook or voice recorder nearby when you’re in the daydream zone. |
Email is a form of communication that is changing, for the worse, the way we write and use language, say some communication researchers. It is also changing the way we interact(交流) and build relationship. These are a few of the recently recognized features of email, say experts, which should cause individuals and organizations to rethink the way they use email.
“Email has increased the spread of careless writing habits,” says Naomi Baron, a professor of linguistics(语言学) at an American university. She says the poor spelling, grammar, punctuation and sentence structure of emails reflect(反映) a growing unconcern about the way we write.
Baron argues that we shouldn’t forgive and forget the poor writing often shown in email. “The more we use email and its tasteless writing, the more it becomes the normal way of writing,” the professor says.
Others say that despite its poor writing, email has finished what several generations of English teachers couldn’t: it has made writing fashionable again.
“Email is a critical new communication technology.” says Ian Lancashire, a professor of English at Toronto University. “It fills the gap between spoken language and the formal methods of writing that existed before email. It is the purest form of written speech.”
Lancashire says email has the mysterious ability to get people who are usually scared by writing to get their thoughts flowing easily onto a blank screen. He says this is because of email’s close similarity to speech. “It’s like a circle of four or five people around a campfire,” he says.
Still, he accepts that this new-found freedom to express themselves often gets people into trouble. Emails sent in a day almost exceed(超过) the number of letters mailed in a year. But more people are recognizing the content of a typical email message is not often exact.
1. From what Baron says in the third paragraph we can see that ________.A.careless people use email more than careful people |
B.email requires people to change their native language |
C.professors in universities don’t need to use email |
D.people communicate by email full of mistakes |
A.The poor writing. | B.Email. |
C.The good writing. | D.A new communication technology. |
A.it can be useful all over the world |
B.it is the fastest way to communicate |
C.we can express ourselves in a free way |
D.we can save a lot of paper |
A.people should stop using email to communicate |
B.experts hold different opinions about email writing |
C.Americans only use email to communicate |
D.email makes people lose interest in English |
7 . For the rest of March, a disease will sweep across the US. It will keep kids home from school.
The disease, known as “March Madness”, refers to the yearly 65team US men's college basketball tournament (锦标赛).
Nearly 20 million Americans will find themselves prisoners of basketball festival madness. The fun comes partly from guessing the winners for every game. Friends compete against friends.
Bigname schools are usually favored to advance into the tournament. But each year there are dark horses from littleknown universities.
This adds to the madness. Watching a team from a school with 3,000 students beat a team from a school with 30,000, for many Americans, is an exciting experience. Two years ago, the littleknown George Mason University was one of the final four teams.
College basketball players are not paid, so the game is more about making a name for their university and themselves.
A.Husbands against wives. |
B.The players will go all out for the games. |
C.But that doesn't mean money isn't involved. |
D.College students will ignore piles of homework. |
E.People are willing to spend more money on watching it. |
F.It begins on March 15 and lasts through the beginning of April. |
G.Many people had never even heard of the university before the tournament. |
8 . Here are some top tips for world travelers.
Travel light.
Transport sense.Don’t let go of your bags on the train.
Keep clean. It’s a good idea to wear dark clothes because they hide the dirt while white clothes attract it! Make sure you have plenty of clean underclothes and deodorant (除臭剂).
A.Be polite. |
B.Keep your documents safe. |
C.You should carry a spare bag. |
D.You don’t want to smell bad! |
E.Keep them with you at all times. |
F.Make sure your bag isn’t too heavy. |
G.It’s a good idea to wear similar clothes to the local people. |
9 . Make Up Your Mind to Succeed
Kind-hearted parents have unknowingly left their children defenseless against failure. The generation born between 1980 and 2001 grew up playing sports where scores and performance were played down because “everyone’s a winner.” And their report cards sounded more positive (正面的) than ever before. As a result, Stanford University professor Carol Dweck, PhD, calls them “the overpraised generation.”
Dweck has been studying how people deal with failure for 40 years. Her research has led her to find out two clearly different mind-sets that have a great effect on how we react to it. Here’s how they work:
A fixed mind-set is grounded in the belief that talent is genetic - you’re a born artist, point guard, or numbers person. The fixed mind-set believes it’s sure to succeed without much effort and regards failure as personal shame. When things get difficult, it is quick to blame, lie, and even stay away from future difficulties.
On the other hand, a growth mind-set believes that no talent is entirely heaven-sent and that effort and learning make everything possible. Because the ego (自尊) isn’t on the line as much, the growth mind-set sees failure as a chance rather than shame. When faced with a difficulty, it is quick to rethink, change and try again. In fact, it enjoys this experience.
We are all born with growth mind-sets. (Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to live in the world.) But parents, teachers, and instructors often push us into fixed mind-sets by encouraging certain actions and misdirecting praise. Dweck's book, Mind-set: The New Psychology of Success, and online instructional program explain this in depth. But she says there are many little things you can start doing today to make sure that your children, grandchildren and even you are never defeated by failure.
1. What does the author think about the generation born between 1980 and 2001?________________.A.They don’t do well at school. |
B.They are often misunderstood. |
C.They are eager to win in sports. |
D.They are given too much praise. |
A.doesn’t want to work hard |
B.cares a lot about personal safety |
C.cannot share his ideas with others |
D.can succeed with the help of teachers |
A.Admitting failure is shameful. |
B.Talent comes with one’s birth. |
C.Scores should be highly valued. |
D.Getting over difficulties is enjoyable. |
A.Encourage them to learn from failures. |
B.Prevent them from making mistakes. |
C.Guide them in doing little things. |
D.Help them grow with praise. |
There was a park near my home. But I didn’t go there very often. Many people said there was nothing special. One afternoon I went into the park and found it was really small. I walked quickly because there wasn’t much to see. I walked for some time and found myself standing in front of two paths.
The left one was wide and clean. There were lots of flowers on both sides of the path. Though the flowers weren’t very beautiful, they made me feel good. I decided to take this path. But wait! I looked at the right one. The path didn’t look nice.
Many people told me that there was nothing much to see in the park. Now I’d like to tell them that if they had followed the right way, they would have felt differently. But when I told them about what I had seen in the park, they just smiled at me without saying a word. I knew they didn’t believe me. They couldn’t even remember that path because it was so small.
A.There is nothing that I want to see. |
B.It looked like it had not been cleaned for months. |
C.After a while a strange feeling made me follow the dirty path. |
D.“ Which way should I go?” I asked myself. I looked at one way, then the other. |
E.I told them what happened. |
F.My trip to the park that day made me understand something about life. |
G.There were trees, flowers and chairs. I thought it was the nicest part of the park. |