Limit the use of private cars, improve public transport and encourage the use of bicycles to control traffic congestion(拥挤) during the 2008 Olympics, experts from foreign countries advised Beijing on Friday.
Professor Nigel Wilson, of the civil and environmental engineering department of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he was "supportive to the limiting of private cars during the Olympic Games", saying that in foreign countries, the method is also adopted during big events, but he was unsure about the approach.
The government planned to keep an average of more than one million cars off the roads to improve traffic flow during the Olympics, said Liu Xiaoming, deputy director of the Beijing Traffic Committee, at the China Planning Network First Urban Transportation Congress.
Sharing Wilson's view, Dr. Yoshitsugu Hayashi, dean of the Graduate School of Environmental Studies of Nagoya University, believed the reduction in car use should be achieved not by banning, but through incentives.
"Drivers who don't use their private cars could be given points," he said, "and the points could be exchanged for goods from online shopping."
Wetzel stressed limiting the use of company cars. "Governmental officials should also be encouraged to use public transportation or ride bicycles," he said, adding that he himself is a bicycle-rider in London.
Matthew Martimo, director of Traffic Engineering with Citilabs, said the bicycle was China's advantage. "Limiting private cars is an idea worth trying but it is just a temporary solution," he said. "The real cause of congestion is high density of people in Beijing and many have cars."
Beijing, with a population of 15 million, is home to more than three million automobiles, and the number is rising by 1,000 a day.
Professor Wilson said the Olympic Games was a great opportunity for Beijing to think about traffic problems and develop transportation, adding that the city had already been making public transport more efficient. Beijing has promised to stretch its 114-kilometer city railway to 200 kilometers before the opening of the Olympic Games.
“We are looking forward to borrowing Beijing's experiences and drawing from its lessons in preparation for the 2012 Olympics,” said Wetzel.
51. The underlined word incentives in paragraph 4 means_______.
A. something that encourages people to try B. online shopping
C. points could be exchanged for goods D. award
52.It can be seen from the passage that ______.
A. the government planned to forbid over 1 million cars to run on the roads during the Olympics.
B. banning private cars is the best way to solve traffic congestion in Beijing
C. Beijing now has 200 kilometers of city railway
D. the use of company cars will not be limited
53. Why did Wetzel stress “ he himself is a bicycle-rider in London”?
A. To limit the use of company cars.
B. To encourage governmental officials to use public transportation or ride bicycles.
C. To show that riding bicycles is good for health.
D. To show that he loves riding bicycles.
54. Which of the following may be the reason for the traffic congestion in Beijing?
A. The 2008 Beijing Olympic games.
B. The number of cars in Beijing is rising by 1,000 a day.
C. The large population in Beijing and the large number of cars.
D. Public transport in Beijing is not efficient.
55. The purpose of the passage is ________.
A. to limit the use of private cars, improve public transport
B. to encourage the use of bicycles to control traffic congestion during the 2008 Olympics
C. to borrow Beijing's experiences and draw from its lessons in preparation for the 2012 Olympics
D. to tell the advice given by foreign experts on traffic congestion during 2008 Beijing Olympics
The Western has been the favorite type for American adventure story since the nineteenth century. While the American West was being settled, newspapers and "dime novels" could depend on stories of the frontier settlements and tell tales about living in the untamed wilderness to sell. The public back East was eager to read about the West, even if the stories were more fiction than fact.
In 1902, Owen Wister published his novel The Virginian, which was one of the first novels to treat the Western as a serious literary form; the novel still sold well and had inspired several movies and a television series. In 1905, Bertha H. Bower and Zane Grey published their first novels, and the popular Western novels had continued to flourish from that day on, with current novels by Luke Short, Max Brand, and Louis L’ Amour carrying on the tradition.
The first Western movie appeared even earlier than these serious Western novels. Before the turn of the century, an associate of Edison’s had filmed Cripple Creek Barroom Scene, a few seconds of film showing the inside of a saloon, to help publicize the invention of the movie camera. In 1903 the Edison’ company filmed the first "full-length" Western — The Great Train Robbery. The film lasts less than fifteen minutes, but a story is told its entirety. In the movie, bandits (强盗) rob a train and its passengers, killing the engineer, and find themselves tracked down by a posse. Audiences loved the movie. Some theaters were actually opened for the single purpose of showing The Great Train Robbery and only later realized that they could do equally well showing other movies. The film was so successful that other companies, and finally even the Edison company itself, began producing copies and other versions of The Great Train Robbery. Ironically, in" an era when the West was still very real —-Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma were all territories rather than states in 1903 — The Great Train Robbery was filmed in New Jersey.
9. The purpose of this passage is to________.
A. discuss the making of the movie The Great Train Robbery
B. discuss the early Western novels
C. discuss the art of movie making
D. trace the development of the Western as an American adventure story tradition
10. We can conclude from this passage that________.
A. people lost interest in the West after 1903
B. Owen Wister was an ex-cowboy
C. New Jersey was still "untamed wilderness" in 1903
D. films were fairly uncommon at the time The Great Train Robbery was made
11. The passage suggests that________.
A. Edison’s invention of the movie camera happened;by accident
B. movie houses didn’t make much-money in the early days
C. Easterners were fascinated by the " wild West"
D. The Great Train Robbery was poorly received by the public because it lacked a plot
12. As used in this passage, the word “literary” means________.
A. humorous B. financial C. appropriate to literature D. amateur
Bill Javis took over our village’s news-agency at a time of life when most of us only wanted to relax. He just thought he would like something but not too much to do, and the news-agency was ready-made. The business produced little enough for him, but Bill was a man who only wanted the simplicity and order and regularity of the job. He had been a long-serving sailor, and all his life had done everything by the clock.
Every day he opened his shop at 6:00 a. m. to catch the early trade; the papers arrived on his doorstep before that. Many of Bill’s customers were city workers, and the shop was convenient for the station. Business was tailing off by 10 o’clock, so at eleven sharp Bill closed for lunch. It was hard luck on anybody who wanted a paper or magazine in the afternoon, for most likely Bill would be down on the river bank, fishing, and his neatest competitor was five kilometers away. Sometimes in the afternoon-, the evening paper landed on the doorway, and at 4 o’ clock Bill reopened his shop. The evening rush lasted till seven, and it was worthwhile.
He lived in a flat above the ship, alone. Except in the very bad weather, you always knew where to find him in the afternoon, as I have said. Once, on a sunny afternoon, I walked home along the river bank from a shopping trip to the village. By my watch it was three minutes past four, so I was astonished to see Bill sitting there on his little chair with a line in the, water. He had no luck, I could, see, but he was making no effort to move. “What’s wrong, Bill?” I called out from the path.
For answer, he put a hand in his jacket and took out a big, golden object. For a moment I had no idea what it could be, and then it suddenly went off with a noise like a fire engine. Stopping the bell, Bill held the thing up and called back, "Ten to four, you see, and this is dead right. "
I had never known anyone carrying a brass alarm clock round with him before.
5. Bill Javis became a news-agent when ________.
A. he need the money. B. he decided to take things easy
C. he was quite an old man D. he gave up clock-repairing
6. Bill opened the shop so early in the day because ________.
A. he liked to do as much as possible before he went to work
B. the shop had to be open when the morning papers came
C. he was never sure of time
D. it was then that he did a lot of business
7. On that sunny afternoon, the writer was surprised when he saw Bill because ________.
A. he thought it was late for Bill to be still fishing
B. he thought Bill was ill, since he was not moving at all
C. Bill had not caught anything, and that seemed strange
D. Bill stayed in his flat
8. From the information given in the passage, who or what do you think was wrong?
A. The bell was; it must have gone off at the wrong time.
B. Bill was; he had dropped off to sleep.
C. The writer’s watch was fast.
D. Bill’s clock was wrong; it was old.
America is growing older. Fifty years ago, only 4 out of every 100 people in the United States were 65 or older. Today, 10 out of every 100 Americans are over 65. The aging of the population will affect American society in many ways — education, medicine, and business. Quietly, the aging of America has made us a very different society — one in which people have a quite different idea of what kind of behavior is suitable at various ages.
A person’s age no longer tells you anything about his/ her social position, marriage or health. There’s no longer a particular year in which one goes to school or goes to work or gets married or starts a family. The social clock that kept us on time and told us when to go to school, get a job, or stop working isn’t as strong as it used to be. It doesn’t surprise us to hear of a 29-year-old university president or a 35-year-old grandmother, or a 70-year-old man who has become a father for the first time. Public ideas are changing.
Many people say, “I am much younger than my mother or my father was at my age.” No one says “Act your age” any more. We’ve stopped looking with surprise at older people who act in youthful ways.
1. It can be learned from the text that the aging of the population in America ________.
A. has made people feel younger B. has changed people’s social position
C. has changed people’s understanding of age D. has slowed down the country’s social development
2. The underlined word “one” refers to ________.
A. a society B. AmericaC. a place D. population
3. “Act your age” means people should ________.
A. be active when they are old B. do the right thing at the right age
C. show respect to their parents young or old D. take more physical exercises suitable to their age
4. If a’ 25-year-old man becomes general manager of a big firm, the writer of the text would most probably consider it _________.
A. normal B. wonderful C. unbelievable D. unreasonable
When several different people look at the same person, it’s not unusual for each of them to see different things; when you alone observe one behavior or one person at two different times, you may see different things. The following are but some of the factors that lead to these changing perceptions(感知认可)
(1) Each person’s perceptions of others are formed by his or her own cultural conditioning education, and personal experiences.
(2) Sometimes perceptions differ because of what we choose to observe and how we deal with what we’ve observed. It is not necessarily true that person’s perception is based on observations of a particular person. Your observations may be totally controlled by what others have told you about this person; or you may focus (聚集) primarily on the situation or role relationship. Most people do not use the same yardstick (标准)to measure their parents, their friends, and strangers.
(3) Sometimes we see only what we want to see or don’t see what may be obvious to others because of our own needs, desires, or temporary emotional states. This is a process known as selective perception. Selective perception is obviously more difficult when contradictory (矛盾的) information is particularly obvious, but it can be done. We can ignore (忽视) the stimulus He’s basically a good boy so what I saw was not shoplifting.
We can reduce the importance of the contradictory information — All kids (孩子) get into mischief (顽皮). Taking a book from the bookstore isn’t such a big deal. "We can change the meaning of the contradictory information." It wasn’t shoplifting because he was going to pay for it later. (from www.nmet113.com)
9. The first factor given by the author that affects our perception is ________.
A. the abilities of one’s auditory (听觉的) and visual (视觉的) sensors
B. cultural background and personal experiences
C. experiences one learns from others
D. critical measures taken by other people
10. While observing a particular person, ________.
A. one is likely to take all aspects (方面) to consideration
B. one pays more attention to his/her advantages
C. children often differ from grown-ups in perception
D. one tends to choose certain cues (提示) to look for
11. Observation of the same person by two people at the same time may differ because________.
A. their measuring yardsticks are not the same
B. either of them may be slow to catch information
C. the time for observation is not long enough
D. each of them uses different language to express his/her impressions
12. The word "stimulus" in paragraph 4 refers to________.
A. something attractive B. selective perception
C. contradictory information D. shoplifting
13. The worst thing in selective perception is that________.
A. perceived information runs against your desire
B. facts can be totally ignored or distorted (扭曲)
C. importance of the contradictory information can be overrated (估计过高)
D. the same information may not be dealt with in the same way
Biomass energy (生物能).often forgotten as a promising alternative (替代物) to oil, received its day in the sun with the gathering of the Bio-Energy World Congress and Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, late in April, 1990. Nearly 1, 700 scientists, businessmen, and policy-makers, one-quarter from the foreign nations, gathered for a week to discuss various means of squeezing usable energy out of trees, crops, manure, seaweed, algae, and urban waste. Biomass in the United States contributes 2. 5 percent of the total supply, but this amount can be doubled by 2000 and then doubled again by the year 2010.
Eight percent of Sweden’s energy supply, for example, is presently coming from wood bark and pulp remainings, Sweden intends to raise this percentage by more intensive harvesting of waste food lying around in forests, and through the planting of so-called energy forests of fast-growing trees such as willow and birch.
Brazil is frequently pointed to as a nation with a major successful investment (投资)in energy coming from grains: it presently runs 330,000 automobiles on a water and alcohol (酒精) mixture, replacing 10 percent of its previous oil supply. Brazilian representatives (代表) at the conference said they wish to double this in five years, with a final goal of total replacement. Most of the cars are built at the factory to use the mixture, while older models are changed through low-cost government programs.
4. In Line 2, the phrase received its day in the sun most probably means ________.
A. came to the public mind B. had its turn in the sunlight
C. was regarded as a solar energy D. came from the energy of the sun
5. Which of the following statements is supported by the passage?
A. 1, 700 scientists attended the conference.
B. A quarter of American businessmen were present at the conference.
C. Foreign policy-makers accounted for a quarter.
D. Three-quarters of the representatives were from the U. S.
6. Of the total supply in 2010, biomass in the U. S. will be________.
A. 5% B.20% C.10% D.15%
7. Which of the following is not regarded as biomass energy?
A. Willow and seaweed. B. Wood and grains.
C. Water and alcohol mixture. D. Crops and oil mixture.
8. A suitable title for this passage would be ________.
A. An Energy Conference B. Approval of Biomass Energy
C. Bio-Energy for Automobiles D. Keys to Energy Crisis