1 . Every April I am troubled by the same concern that spring might not occur this year. The landscape looks dull, with hills, sky and forest appearing grey. My spirits ebb, as they did during an April snowfall when I first came to Maine. “Just wait,” a neighbour advised. “You’ll wake up one morning and spring will just be here.”
And look, on 3 May that year I awoke to a green so amazing as to be almost electric, as if spring were simply a matter of flipping a switch. Hills, sky and forest revealed their purples, blues and greens. Leaves had unfolded and daffodils were fighting their way heavenward.
Then there was the old apple tree. It sits on an undeveloped lot in my neighbourhood. It belongs to no one and therefore to everyone. The tree’s dark twisted branches stretch out in unpruned (未经修剪的) abandon. Each spring it blossoms so freely that the air becomes filled with the scent of apple.
Until last year, I thought I was the only one aware of this tree. And then one day, in a bit of spring madness, I set out to remove a few disorderly branches. No sooner had I arrived under the tree than neighbours opened their windows and stepped onto their porches(门廊; 走廊). These were people I barely knew and seldom spoke to, but it was as if I had come uninvited into their personal gardens.
My mobile-home neighbour was the first to speak. “You’re not cutting it down, are you?” she asked anxiously. Another neighbour frowned as I cut off a branch. “Don’t kill it, now,” he warned. Soon half the neighbourhood had joined me under the apple tree. It struck me that I had lived there for five years and only now was learning these people’s names, what they did for a living and how they passed the winter. It was as if the old apple tree was gathering us under its branches for the purpose of both acquaintanceship and shared wonder. I couldn’t help recalling Robert Frost’s words:
The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods
One thaw led to another. Just the other day I saw one of my neighbours at the local store. He remarked how this recent winter had been especially long and complained of not having seen or spoken at length to anyone in our neighbourhood. And then, he looked at me and said, “We need to prune that apple tree again.”
1. By saying that “my spirits ebb” in paragraph 1, the author means that _______ .| A．he feels relieved | B．he is tired |
| C．he is surprised | D．he feels blue |
| A．be appealing only to the author |
| B．have been abandoned by its original owner |
| C．be regarded as a delight in the neighbourhood |
| D．have been neglected by everyone in the community |
| A．They wanted to get to know the author. |
| B．They were concerned about the safety of the tree. |
| C．They wanted to prevent the author from pruning the tree. |
| D．They were surprised that someone unknown was pruning the tree. |
| A．when spring would arrive | B．how to pass the long winter |
| C．the pruning of the apple tree | D．the neighbourhood gathering |
2 . Public distrust of scientists stems in part from the blurring of boundaries between science and technology, between discovery and manufacture. Most governments, perhaps all governments, justify public expenditure on scientific research in terms of the economic benefits the scientific enterprise has brought in the past and will bring in the future. Politicians remind their voters of the splendid machines “our scientists” have invented, the new drugs to relieve old disorders, and the new surgical equipment and techniques by which previously unmanageable conditions may now be treated and lives saved. At the same time, the politicians demand of scientists that they tailor their research to “economics needs”, and that they award a higher priority to research proposals that are “near the market” and can be translated into the greatest return on investment in the shortest time. Dependent, as they are, on politicians for much of their funding, scientists have little choice but to comply. Like the rest of us, they are members of a society that rates the creation of wealth as the greatest possible good. Many have reservations, but keep them to themselves in what they perceive as a climate hostile to the pursuit of understanding for its own sake and the idea of an inquiring, creative spirit.
In such circumstances no one should be too hard on people who are suspicious of conflicts of interest. When we learn that the distinguished professor assuring us of the safety of a particular product holds a consultancy with the company making it, we cannot be blamed for wondering whether his fee might conceivably cloud his professional judgment. Even if the professor holds no consultancy with any firm, some people may still distrust him because of his association with those who do, or at least wonder about the source of some of his research funding.
This attitude can have damaging effects. It questions the integrity of individuals working in a profession that prizes intellectual honesty as the supreme virtue, and plays into the hands of those who would like to discredit scientists by representing them as corruptible. This makes it easier to dismiss all scientific pronouncements, but especially those made by the scientists who present themselves as “experts”. The scientist most likely to understand the safety of a nuclear reactor, for example, is a nuclear engineer, and a nuclear engineer is most likely to be employed by the nuclear industry. If a nuclear engineer declares that a reactor is unsafe, we believe him, because clearly it is not to his advantage to lie about it. If he tells us it is safe, on the other hand, we distrust him, because he may well be protecting the employer who pays his salary.
1. What is the chief concern of most governments when it comes to scientific research?| A．The decline of public expenditure. | B．Quick economic returns. |
| C．The budget for a research project. | D．Support from the voters. |
| A．They realize they work in an environment hostile to the free pursuit of knowledge. |
| B．They know it takes incredible patience to win support from the public. |
| C．They think compliance with government policy is in the interests of the public. |
| D．They are accustomed to keeping their opinions secrets to themselves. |
| A．some of them do not give priority to intellectual honesty |
| B．sometimes they hide the source of their research funding |
| C．they could be influenced by their association with the project concerned |
| D．their pronouncements often turn out to be short-sighted and absurd |
| A．Scientists themselves may doubt the value of their research findings. |
| B．It may wear out the enthusiasm of scientists for independent research. |
| C．It makes things more trivial for scientists to seek research funds. |
| D．People will not believe scientists even when they tell the truth. |
请结合生活实际，谈一下你对乔布斯过说的这句话“Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish”的理解。
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8 . Proper arrangement of classroom space is important to encouraging interaction. Most of us have noticed how important physical setting is to efficiency and comfort in our work.
We are in the twenty-first century now, but step into almost any college classroom and you step back in time at least a hundred years. Desks are normally in straight rows, so students can clearly see the teacher but not all their classmates.
With a little imagination and effort, unless desks are fixed to the floor, the teacher can correct this situation and create space that encourages interchange among students. In small or standard-sized classes, chairs, desks, and tables can be arranged in a variety of ways: circles, U-shapes or semicircles.
| A．It’s impossible for students to make up small groups in large lecture halls. |
| B．In courses that regularly use a small group format, students might be asked to stay in the same small groups throughout the course. |
| C．The assumption behind such an arrangement is obvious: Everything of importance comes from the teacher. |
| D．College classroom space should be designed to encourage the activity of critical thinking. |
| E．Large classes, particularly those held in lecture halls, unfortunately, allow much less flexibility. |
| F．The primary, goal should be: for everyone to be able to see everyone else. |
9 . Increasingly, over the past few decades, people, especially young people, have become aware of the need to change their eating habits, because much of the food they eat, particularly processed food, is not good for health. Consequently, there has been a growing interest in natural foods. Foods which do not contain chemical additives and which have not been affected by chemical fertilizers, are widely used in farming today.
Natural foods, for example, are vegetables, fruit and grain which have been grown in soil that is rich in organic-matter. In simple terms, this means that the soil has been nourished by unused vegetable matter, which provides it with essential vitamins and minerals. This in itself is a natural process compared with the use ofchemicals and fertilizers, the main purpose of which is to increase the amount — but not the quality — of foods grown in commercial farming areas.
Natural foods also include animals which have been allowed to feed and movefreely in healthy pastures (牧场). Compare this with what happens in the massproduction of poultry (家禽): there are battery farms, for example, where thousands of chickens live crowded together in one building and are fed on food which is little better than rubbish. Chickens kept in this way are not only tasteless as food, they also lay eggs which lack important vitamins.
There are other aspects of healthy eating which are now receiving increasing attention from experts on diet. Take, for example, the question of sugar. This is actually a non-essential food! Although a natural alternative, such as honey, can be used to sweeten food if it is necessary, we can in fact do without it. It is not that sugar is harmful in itself. But it does seem to be addictive: the quantity we use has grown steadily over the last two centuries and in Britain today each personconsumes an average of 200 pounds a year! Yet all it does is to provide us with energy, in the form of calories. There are no vitamins in it, no minerals and no fiber.
It is significant that nowadays fiber is considered to be an important part of a healthy diet. In white bread, for example, the fiber has been removed. But it is present in unrefined flour and of course in vegetables. It is interesting to note that in countries where the national diet contains large quantities of unrefined flour and vegetables, certain diseases are comparatively rare. Hence the emphasis is placed on the eating of whole meal bread and more vegetables by modern experts on “healthyeating.”
1. People have become more interested in natural foods because__________.| A．they are more health conscious |
| B．they want to taste all kinds of foods |
| C．natural foods are more delicious than processed foods |
| D．they want to return to nature |
| A．has had chemicals and fertilizer added to it |
| B．contains vegetable matter that has not been consumed |
| C．has been nourished by fertilizer |
| D．contains no vitamins or minerals |
| A．people need sugar to give them energy |
| B．sugar is beneficial to health |
| C．the habit of eating sugar has grown over the past two hundred years |
| D．sugar only sweetens food, but provides us with nothing useful |
| A．Peopled Growing Interest in Natural Foods |
| B．Natural Foods and Health Diet |
| C．Harmful Effects of Sugar |
| D．The Importance of Fiber in Foods |
Four Hotels That Will Make Your Life Easier By John Brandon For the business traveler who’s all about efficiency: check out these hotels that will get you in and out with minimum trouble. When you’re pressed for time on a business trip, nothing can infuriate you more than a slow hotel check-in process. On your next trip, try these hotels that offer a speedier check-in process. Yotel New York The self-service kiosks （一体机）at this high-tech New York hotel are open 24x7 and work just like the ones you’d see at an airport. There are just five-steps to register and obtain your card key. There’s even a robotic luggage bellboy. You tap in the number of bags you’re carrying and sizes, then wait for a robot arm to swing down and store your luggage in a locker (say, for a day trip). This also speeds up the check-in process if the first thing you need to do, like me, is head to a series of meetings. Marriott Detroit Airport Another option for business travelers in a hurry: Marriott is rolling out its mobile check-in app to 325 hotels this year, including the Marriott Detroit Airport hotel. (I’ve tested the app itself but not for a real visit quite yet.) here is the basic idea: you download the iPhone or Android app. The night before, you can “check-in” virtually. When you arrive, you get an alert that the room is ready and your key, which is already tied to your reservation, is waiting for you at the desk. Hyatt Regency Minneapolis I happened to stay at this hotel recently and liked how fast the kiosk check-in works. Like the Yotel, the kiosk asks you to insert your credit card, similar to an airport terminal. The whole process took about three minutes. When I left, I was equally impressed with the fast check-out. An agent meets you in the lobby with an iPad and asks for an email to use for a receipt. The big advantage is you never have to wait in line. Radisson LaCrosse The Radisson is trying to make the kiosk process even faster. At a few select hotels like the Radisson Lacrosse in Wisconsin, you use a mobile app to register and then receive a barcode （条形码）by email or text. When you get to the kiosk, you can scan the barcode to get your key without any other steps required. It’s super fast. You can find this new check-in system at the Radisson hotels in Salt Lake City, Seattle, and Phoenix as well. |
| A．To annoy. | B．To remind. | C．To amuse. | D．To impress: |
| A．Yotel New York and Marriott Detroit Airport. |
| B．Marriott Detroit Airport and Radisson LaCrosse. |
| C．Marriott Detroit Airport and Hyatt Regency Minneapolis. |
| D．Hyatt Regency Minneapolis and Radisson LaCrosse. |
| A．Yotel New York. | B．Marriott Detroit Airport. ’ |
| C．Radisson LaCrosse. | D．Hyatt Regency Minneapolis. |
