Photographs are everywhere. They decorate (装饰) the walls of homes and are used in stores for sales of different goods. The news is filled with pictures of fires, floods, and special events. Photos record the beauties of nature. They can also bring things close that are far away. Through photos, people can see wild animals, cities in foreign lands, and even the stars in outer space. Photos also tell stories.
Reporting the news through photos is called photojournalism. At times photojournalists tell their stories through a single picture. At other times, they use a group of pictures to tell a story. Each picture is like a chapter in a book, which can do more than record the facts. It can also be a strong force for social change.
Jacob Riis was among the first photojournalists. He took pictures of parts of New York City where the poor lived. Riis believed that poverty(贫穷) caused crime, and he used photos to help him prove his point. A few years later, the photos of small children working in factories by Lewis Hine shocked the public. Hine’s pictures helped bring about laws to protect such children.
Hundreds of pictures may have to be taken in order to get one or two really good photos. It takes science to have the photo come out clearly and art to make a photo that has a good design and expresses feeling. Photojournalists make an actual record of what they see. A photo, however, can be both a work of art and an actual record. It can record an important event as a beautiful or exciting picture.
As historical and artistic documents(文献) ,photos can become more important over time. Today photojournalists still have their pictures appear in newspapers and magazines. They also publish(发表) them in books and on the Internet.The underlined word “They” in the first paragraph refers to .
| A．beauties | B．photos | C．goods | D．events |
The photos of the small children by Hine show us that photos .
| A．are also works of art | B．are popular ways of reporting news |
| C．often shock the public | D．can serve as a force for social change |
What can we learn from the passage?
| A．News with pictures is encouraging. | B．Photos help people improve |
| C．News photos mean history in a sense. | D．People prefer reading news with pictures. |
The text is mainly about .
| A．telling the story through picture | B．decorating the walls of homes |
| C．publishing historical papers | D．expressing feeling through pictures |
In a new study about the way kids learn math in elementary school, Beilock and Levine found a surprising relationship between what female teachers think and what female students learn: If a female teacher is uncomfortable with her own math skills, then her female students are more likely to believe that boys are better than girls at math.
“If these girls keep getting math-anxious female teachers in later grades, it may create a snowball effect on their math achievement,” Levine told Science News. In other words, girls may end up learning math anxiety from their teachers. The study suggests that if these girls grow up believing that boys are better at math than girls are, then these girls may not do as well as they would have if they were more confident.
The researchers also gave the students tests to tell whether the students believed that a math superstar had to be a boy. Then the researchers turned to the teachers: To find out which teachers were anxious about math, the researchers asked the teachers how they felt at times when they came across math, such as when reading a sales receipt. A teacher who got nervous looking at the numbers on a sales receipt, for example, was probably anxious about math.
Boys, on average, were unaffected by a teacher’s anxiety. On average, girls with math-anxious teachers scored lower on the end-of-the-year math tests than other girls in the study did. Plus, on the test showing whether someone thought a math superstar had to be a boy, 20 girls showed feeling that boys would be better at math — and all of these girls had been taught by female teachers who had math anxiety.
According to surveys done before this one, college students who want to become elementary school teachers have the highest levels of anxiety about math. Plus, nine of every 10 elementary teachers are women, Levine said.Which of the followings is NOT the study mentioned in the passage?
| A．Girls may be bad at math because of their female teachers’ anxiety. |
| B．Most students tend to believe that a math superstar has to be a boy. |
| C．What kind of teachers is more likely to have math anxiety. |
| D．On average boys are also affected by a teacher’s anxiety. |
What can you infer from the second paragraph?
| A．Girls can do as well as boys if they are confident. |
| B．Girls are born much weaker than many boys. |
| C．Boys are stronger and better in math than girls. |
| D．Girls who are bad at math can do other things better. |
According to the last paragraph, Levine’s imply attitude to the math teaching in elementary schools is _______.
| A．hopeful | B．disappointed | C．worried | D．content |
I told my friend Graham that I often cycle the two miles from my house to the town centre but unfortunately there is a big hill on the route. He replied, "You mean fortunately." He explained that I should be glad of the extra exercise that the hill provided.
My attitude to the hill has now changed. I used to grumble as I approached it but now I tell myself the following. This hill will exercise my heart and lungs. It will help me to lose weight and get fit. It will mean that I live longer. This hill is my friend. Finally as I wend my way up the incline I console myself with the thought of all those silly people who pay money to go to a gym and sit on stationery exercise bicycles when I can get the same value for free. I have a smug smile of satisfaction as I reach the top of the hill.
Problems are there to be faced and overcome. Helen Keller was the first deaf and blind person to gain a University degree. Her activism and writing proved inspirational. She wrote, "Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved."
One of the main determinants of success in life is our attitude towards adversity. From time to time we all face hardships, problems, accidents, afflictions and difficulties. Some are of our making but many confront us through no fault of our own. Whilst we cannot choose the adversity we can choose our attitude towards it.
The biographies of great people are littered with examples of how they took these kinds of steps to overcome the difficulties they faced. The common thread is that they did not become defeatist or depressed. They chose their attitude. They chose to be positive. They took on the challenge. They won.Which of the following would be the best title of the passage?
| A．Attitude makes difference |
| B．Well begun is half done. |
| C．The early bird gets the worm. |
| D．Easier said than done. |
From Helen Keller’s example we can infer that__________.
| A．Great people are born to be great and successful |
| B．Life is hard and difficult so we have to give up |
| C．We cannot achieve anything with an easy life |
| D．Practice makes people successful and powerful |
What do you think the author is most likely to suggest if he/she continues to write?
| A．Some examples of our daily life. |
| B．His stories of overcoming difficulties. |
| C．Stories of some unlucky great people. |
| D．Some examples of his friend Graham. |
The underlined word “adversity ” in the fourth paragraph probably NOT refers to ______.
| A．problems | B．difficulties | C．hardships | D．advertisements |
In 1924, Hachiko was brought to Tokyo by his owner, Hidesaburo Ueno, a professor in the agriculture department at the University of Tokyo. During his owner's life Hachiko saw him off from the front door and greeted him at the end of the day at the nearby Shibuya Station. The pair continued their daily routine until May 1925 when Professor Ueno didn't return on the usual train one evening. The professor had suffered a stroke at the university that day. He died and never returned to the station where his friend was waiting. 
Hachiko was given away after his master's death but he routinely escaped, showing up again and again at his old home. After time, Hachiko realized that Professor Ueno no longer lived at the house. So he went to look for his master at the train station where he had accompanied him so many times before. Each day, Hachiko waited for Professor Ueno to return.And each day he didn't see his friend among the crowd at the station.
Hachiko became a permanent figure at the train station, which eventually attracted the attention of many people. Many of the people who frequented the Shibuya train station had seen Hachiko and Professor Ueno togethereach day. Realizing that Hachiko waited for his dead master, their hearts were touched. They brought Hachiko treats and food to nourish him during his wait. This continued for 10 years, with Hachiko appearing only in theevening, precisely when the train was due at the station.
Hachiko: The True Story of the Royal Dogs of Japan is Hachiko's story, as well as an informative look at dog culture in Japan and the history and tradition of the Akita-ken, one of the most ancient,beloved and faithfuldog breeds ever. The underlined word “his friend ” in the first paragraph refers to ______.
| A．Hachiko | B．Ueno | C．Tokyo | D．Shibuya |
Which of the following statements about Hachiko is NOT true?
| A．Hachiko saw his master off from the front door everyday. |
| B．Hachiko appeared every evening in the station for ten years. |
| C．Many people offered Hachiko food during his waiting. |
| D．Hachiko was adopted by others after his master's death. |
The first four paragraphs are developed mainly__________.
| A．by cause and effect | B．by order in space |
| C．by order in time | D．by examples |
We can infer that Hachiko: The True Story of the Royal Dogs of Japan is likely to be ____.
| A．a book | B．a magazine | C．a song | D．a picture |
One day a teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students and write down the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates. That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual. On Monday she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. “Really?” she heard whispered. “I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!” and, “I didn’t know others liked me so much,” were most of the comments.
No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. She never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents. Several years later, one of the students was killed in Vietnam and his teacher attended his funeral. As she stood there, one of the soldiers came up to her. “Were you Mark’s math teacher?” he asked. She nodded: “yes.” Then he said: “Mark talked about you a lot.”
After the funeral, Mark’s mother and father were waiting there, “We want to show you something,” his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket, “They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it.”
The teacher carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times. The teacher knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which she had listed all the good things each of Mark’s classmates had said about him. “Thank you so much for doing that,” Mark’s mother said, “As you can see, Mark treasured it.”
The density of people in society is so thick that we forget that life will end one day. And we don’t know when that one day will be. So please, tell the people you love and care for, that they are special and important.The underlined word individual in paragraph one probably mean___________.
| A．one student | B．one teacher | C．one parent | D．one comment |
From the soldier’s words in the second paragraph we can infer that_________.
| A．Mark disliked his math teacher very much |
| B．That particular class has no influence on Mark |
| C．Mark often mentioned that class to his friends |
| D．Mark loved to learn math very much |
According to the passage which of the following statements is TRUE?
| A．Students did not care others’ comments. |
| B．Mark always had the papers with him. |
| C．Mark lost his wallet in the battle. |
| D．Mark lost the papers in the battle |
Which of the followings can be the best title of the passage?
| A．Tell them, before it is too late. |
| B．Too busy to show your love. |
| C．Love is action instead of words. |
| D．Good words turn away coldness. |
At the heart of the debate over illegal immigration lies one key question: are immigrants good or bad for the economy? The American public overwhelmingly thinks they're bad. Yet the consensus among most economists is that immigration, both legal and illegal, provides a small net boost to the economy. Immigrants provide cheap labor, lower the prices of everything from farm produce to new homes, and leave consumers with a little more money in their pockets. So why is there such a discrepancy between the perception of immigrants' impact on the economy and the reality?
There are a number of familiar theories. Some argue that people are anxious and feel threatened by an inflow of new workers. Others highlight the strain that undocumented immigrants place on public services, like schools, hospitals, and jails. Still others emphasize the role of race, arguing that foreigners add to the nation's fears and insecurities. There's some truth to all these explanations, but they aren't quite sufficient.
To get a better understanding of what's going on, consider the way immigration's impact is felt. Though its overall effect may be positive, its costs and benefits are distributed unevenly. David Card, an economist at UC Berkeley, notes that the ones who profit most directly from immigrants' low-cost labor are businesses and employers – meatpacking plants in Nebraska, for instance, or agricultural businesses in California. Granted, these producers' savings probably translate into lower prices at the grocery store, but how many consumers make that mental connection at the checkout counter? As for the drawbacks of illegal immigration, these, too, are concentrated. Native low-skilled workers suffer most from the competition of foreign labor. According to a study by George Borjas, a Harvard economist, immigration reduced the wages of American high-school dropouts by 9% between 1980-2000.
Among high-skilled, better-educated employees, however, opposition was strongest in states with both high numbers of immigrants and relatively generous social services. What worried them most, in other words, was the fiscal (财政的)burden of immigration. That conclusion was reinforced by another finding: that their opposition appeared to soften when that fiscal burden decreased, as occurred with welfare reform in the 1990s, which curbed immigrants' access to certain benefits.
The irony is that for all the overexcited debate, the net effect(净效应) of immigration is minimal. Even for those most acutely affected – say, low-skilled workers, or California residents – the impact isn't all that dramatic. "The unpleasant voices have tended to dominate our perceptions," says Daniel Tichenor, a political science professor at the University of Oregon. "But when all those factors are put together and the economists calculate the numbers, it ends up being a net positive, but a small one." Too bad most people don't realize it.What can we learn from the first paragraph?
| A．Whether immigrants are good or bad for the economy has been puzzling economists. |
| B．The American economy used to thrive on immigration but now it's a different story. |
| C．The consensus among economists is that immigration should not be encouraged. |
| D．The general public thinks differently from most economists on the impact of immigration. |
In what way does the author think ordinary Americans benefit from immigration?
| A．They can access all kinds of public services. |
| B．They can get consumer goods at lower prices. |
| C．They can mix with people of different cultures. |
| D．They can avoid doing much of the manual labor. |
Which of the following words has the closest meaning to “curb” in paragraph four?
| A．strengthen | B．deny | C．encourage | D．limit |
What is the irony about the debate over immigration?
| A．People care too much about something of small impact. |
| B．Those who are opposed to it turn out to benefit most from it. |
| C．Even economists can't reach a consensus about its impact. |
| D．There is no essential difference between seemingly opposite opinions. |