When you are surfing the Internet, you can be anyone or anything. Avatars are a key part while people use the Internet to communicate. and express themselves. The first simple 2D avatars
2 . When I first moved to China in 1998, I thought I would impress my class by using some Chinese in my speech about American weddings (婚礼). I told them everyone brings a gift to the wedding for the couple. As soon as I said this, all of the students looked surprised. I knew I had said something wrong. I realized that instead of telling them that everybody brings gifts to the hun li for the couple, I had said people bring gifts for them at the li hun!
I get laughs from some of my students because I often make mistakes and my Chinese sounds strange at times. But I tell them that sometimes their English is really strange too.
One asks, “What are you like to do in your free time?” And the other answers, “I very like basketball.” I find that even good English speakers make such mistakes. The second is by far the most common mistake I have heard among Chinese English speakers. It is a result of first thinking in Chinese and then translating each word in the sentence into English. This, of course, makes some Chinese people’s English sound strange.
“We should get off the car here,” a student told me. My school had asked two students to show me around the city by taxi. In English countries, we “get off” a bike, bus, or train. However, when we leave a car, we say “get out of the car”. Perhaps the student had learned “get off” means xia in Chinese and he thought the phrase (短语) could be followed by any means of transportation. To avoid such mistakes, you should take collocations (搭配) seriously. Only learning vocabulary and grammar is not enough.
Some of my students sound more like a book or machine than a human. Perhaps they have gotten used to depending on books. You can also read English books out loud or use a CD, but you need the real thing. If you have a chance to hear a native speaker from an Englishspeaking country, practice repeating what you hear. They can teach you how to have a conversation.
1. Why did the students feel surprised?A.American weddings are difficult to organize. |
B.The author’s Chinese was as fluent as Chinese. |
C.The author used a completely wrong Chinese word. |
D.Everyone must bring a gift to an American wedding. |
A.Spelling mistakes. | B.Direct translation. |
C.Cultural difference. | D.Wrong pronunciations. |
A.He might be poor at vocabulary. |
B.He might mistake “car” for “taxi”. |
C.He might know very little about the city. |
D.He might pay little attention to collocations. |
A.Common mistakes made by Chinese English learners. |
B.Differences between Chinese and American culture. |
C.Suggestions on improving conversational skills. |
D.His experience of learning English. |
1. What does the man do?
A.An animal keeper. | B.A zoo manager. | C.A park cleaner. |
A.A lion escaped into the zoo. |
B.A lion escaped from the zoo. |
C.A hurricane blew a lion away. |
A.In the zoo. | B.In the police station. | C.In a lady’s garden. |
A.Eating in the bushes. | B.Sleeping in the garden. | C.Playing in the park. |
1. How many people spend their holiday at home now?
A.40%. | B.50%. | C.90%. |
A.In big cities. | B.On the beach. | C.In a foreign country. |
A.Great pleasure of travel. |
B.Changes in spending vacation. |
C.Costs of different travels. |
Today, life as a teenager has changed greatly. The growth from childhood to adulthood is effortless for some, but difficult for others. There are many
Being a teenager means we’re no longer a child
Many adults expect us to act just as they did, but they don’t understand that we
The best part of being a teenager is being able to find things at the click of a button(按钮). With the
1. Where did the truck come up?
A.York Road. | B.Union Street. | C.The bank building. |
A.About 10 miles an hour. | B.About 30 miles an hour. | C.About 45 miles an hour. |
A.A film. | B.A race. | C.An accident. |
7 . Leah Brown aged 36 fell several hundred feet from Oregon’s highest mountain right before the eyes of a group of volunteer rescue workers who rushed to her aid and helped save her life.
The woman was coming down a popular path (小路) on Mt. Hood, about 70 miles east of Portland, on Saturday morning, according to the local police. Mt. Hood is the highest in Oregon, standing at around11.240 feet.
The fall was seen by members of Portland Mountain Rescue (PMR), a volunteer organization focused on helping people in mountainous areas. The group called 911 and rushed to the woman, providing medical care. They helped keep the woman warm for seven hours as the police worked to get her off the mountain safely. Finally, the woman was evacuated (转移) to a parking lot at 9:30 pm and taken to a hospital.
The climber, Leah Brown, said she didn’t know what caused her fall. “I can only guess it was either an ice tool or a crampon (冰爪) that didn’t land and stick like it should have, so I became detached from the mountain,” Brown said. “The thing I’d like to most stress is my appreciation for the members of PMR who evacuated me and took good care of me the whole time,” Brown added. “They saved my life. ”
In a statement after the rescue, PMR warned of the dangerous winter conditions at the mountain. “The short days and lower temperatures mean that the snow tends to be very hard and icy, and the conditions tend to be much steeper. Climbing the mountain in icy conditions is much more difficult,” the group said.
1. What happened to Brown on Saturday morning?A.She lost her way in a forest. | B.She hurt her eye unexpectedly. |
C.She failed to call her family. | D.She fell down on a downhill path. |
A.Different. | B.Hidden. | C.Separated. | D.Tired. |
A.Thankful. | B.Regretful. | C.Surprised. | D.Concerned. |
A.Climbing requires teamwork. | B.Climbing in winter is too risky. |
C.We must remain positive in hard times. | D.We can admire the view on sunny days. |
8 . Walking in the city is very different from walking in the park. A small psychology study suggests urban(城市的) environments can slow your step and possibly increase your mental load. A walk through nature, on the other hand, appears to ease your mind and quicken your pace. The findings show that natural settings may potentially reduce cognitive (认知的)tiredness and improve reaction times straight away. The study, which includes two experiments with two different approaches, was conducted among 65 university students in the lab.
The first of the two experiments in the new study focused on people’s way of walking and cognitive load. During this trial, participants were fitted with sensors and a dozen motion control cameras were set up to watch them repeatedly walk down a 15-metre room at their natural speed. The wall opposite them showed an image of either a nature scene or a city scene. After each walk, participants were asked to rate their feelings of discomfort in the visual environment. On the whole, when walking in city settings, people reported more discomfort and they walked at a slower pace, indicating a higher cognitive load.
The second experiment dug into some of the higher-level cognitive processes that might be at play. In the trial, participants were asked to distinguish between basic visual shapes on the computer while also in the presence of a natural or urban image(the same ones from the first experiment). Measuring reaction times in both natural and urban settings, the team found results to support their idea. In urban environments, participants were slower in distinguishing between simple shapes. The authors think this is because urban environments are more distracting(令人分心的) for our brains and take longer to process, but more research is needed to prove that idea.
1. How were the experiments conducted mainly?A.By comparing. | B.By giving data. |
C.By giving examples. | D.By explaining facts. |
A.It can make us feel relaxed and react quickly. | B.It can activate our thinking and speed up our step. |
C.It can make us less tired and improve our memory. | D.It can make us become more focused and creative. |
A.They had a lower cognitive load. | B.They had to slow down their pace. |
C.They couldn’t concentrate properly. | D.They felt uncomfortable after walking. |
A.Urban environment makes us more concentrated. | B.People’s feelings are decided by their pace of walking. |
C.The result of the experiments is widely appreciated. | D.People tend to get tired more easily walking in the city. |
9 . It happens in every disaster (灾难): For those in need, people often donate (捐赠) things that turn out to be more of a trouble.
Juanita Rilling remembers it happened in 1988 when she was a disaster expert trying to help people suffering from a hurricane (飓风) in Honduras. “One morning I received a call from one of our logistic operators (物流运营商), and he explained to me that there was a plane carrying medical supplies that needed to land,” says Rilling. “But the ground was full, with lots of donations that no one had required. The plane—full of needed supplies—had to find someplace else to go. And it ended up stopping everyone’s plans by about 48 hours, which is important time in a disaster.”
Rilling now runs the Center for International Disaster Information, which is trying to make sure things like that don’t happen again. So when Superstorm Sandy hit, Rilling’s group started a project to encourage money donation. “Even a small donation can make a big difference and can quickly become exactly what people affected by a disaster need most,” Rilling says. But despite this, donators do that over and over. About 60% of the things donated after a disaster couldn’t be used. Often it’s old clothing or food.
Meghan Hara, who deals with kind donations for the American Red Cross, says she knows that some people are careful with giving money. And she doesn’t think that the need to give something concrete (实物) should be completely stopped.
“Part of what people are doing is that they’re helping, and they’re trying to help. What we need to work out is how to effectively deal with that,” Hara says.
1. What caused needed supplies to be put off after the hurricane in 1988?A.Workers on the plane. | B.A weather report. |
C.Useless donations on the ground. | D.The call from the operator. |
A.Clothing. | B.Money. | C.Medicine. | D.Food. |
A.Supportive. | B.Doubtful. | C.Uncaring. | D.Worried. |
A.Studies on natural disasters. |
B.The benefits of helping others. |
C.Tips on choosing useful donations. |
D.The ways of managing people’s donations. |
10 . Television has changed our lives in many ways. Many people now spend more time watching TV than doing anything else. Researchers in the USA has estimated (估计) that when most students leave school they have spent 11000 hours in the classroom and 22000 hours watching television. But what effect does this have?
Benefits (好处) of television:
1. Television helps us to learn more about the world and to know and see many new things. Television can offer present information to us in a more effective way than books. It can also make things more memorable.
2. It entertains (使欢乐) us. It is an enjoyable way to relax. For millions of people around the world, television is a source of companionship and helps them to cope with everyday life.
3. It has increased the popularity of sports and arts.
4. It has made us aware of our global responsibilities. In 2000, for example, 1.5 billion people in 147 countries watched a TV pop concert and helped to collect more than $100 million for people in Africa.
Dangers:
1. Television can make us passive (消极的). We don’t have to think and our brains become lazy.
2. It encourages us to buy things that we don’t need, and can make us unhappy with our own life.
3. It takes time away from activities such as reading, conversation, and games.
4. It gives a false picture of society. A study in 2003 showed that people who watch a lot of TV are more afraid of crime. They also think that there is a lot more crime than there really is.
5. Some critics (批评家) say that television make people violent. A ten-year study in the United States showed that children who watch violent television programmes are more likely to be violent themselves.
1. What’s the proper description of the time American students spend on TV and study?A.They spend twice as much time on TV as in the classroom. |
B.They spend twice as much time in the classroom as on TV. |
C.They spend as much time on TV as in the classroom. |
D.They spend less time on TV than in the classroom. |
A.easy to be remembered | B.remembered forever | C.interesting | D.knowledgeable |
A.People in more than 140 countries watched it on TV. | B.It helped to collect more than $100 million. |
C.It was held in 2000. | D.1.5 million people watched it on TV. |
A.television can make us active | B.television encourages us to buy things that we don’t need. |
C.television gives us a worse picture of society | D.television takes time away from a lot of activities. |