Beauty has always been regarded as something praiseworthy. Almost everyone thinks attractive people are happier and healthier, have better marriages and have more respectable jobs. Personal advisors give them better advice for finding jobs. Even judges are softer on attractive defendants. But in the executive（主管的） circle, beauty can become a liability.
While attractiveness is a positive factor for a man on his way up the executive ladder, it is harmful to a woman.
Handsome male executives were considered having more honesty than plainer men; effort and ability were thought to lead to their success.
Attractive female executives were considered to have less honesty than unattractive ones; their success was connected not with ability but with factors such as luck.
All unattractive women executives were thought to have more honesty and to be more capable than the attractive female executives. Interestingly, though, the rise of the unattractive overnight successes was connected more to personal relationships and less to ability than that of the attractive overnight successes.
Why are attractive women not thought to be able? An attractive woman is considered to be more feminine has an advantage in traditionally female jobs, but an attractive woman in a traditionally manly position appears to lack the "manly"qualifies required.
This is true even in politics, "When the only clue is how he or she looks, people treat men and women differently, " says Anne Bowman, who recently published a study on the effects of attractiveness on political candidates（候选人）. She asked 125 undergraduate students to rank two groups of photographs, one of men and one of women, in order of attractiveness. The students were told the photographs were of candidates for political offices. They were asked to rank them again, in the order they would vote for them.
The results showed that attractive males completely defeated unattractive men, but the women who had ranked most attractive unchangeably received the fewest votes.
The word "liability" most probably means ________.
| A．disadvantage | B．advantage | C．misfortune | D．trouble |
Bowman's experiment shows that when it comes to politics, attractiveness________
| A．turns out to be a disadvantage to men |
| B．is more of a disadvantage than an advantage to women |
| C．has as little effect on men as on women |
| D．affects men and women alike |
It can be inferred from the passage that people's views on beauty are often________.
| A．practical | B．supportive | C．old - fashioned | D．one - sided |
The author writes this passage to ________.
| A．give advice to job - seekers who are attractive |
| B．discuss the disadvantages of being attractive |
| C．demand equal rights for women |
| D．state the importance of appearance |
Watching television makes it easier for toddlers（学走路的孩子）to kick and scream, according to a U.S. study. Children under two should not watch any TV. The longer they sit in front of the box, the worse their behavior becomes.
Just having the TV on in the background, even if the child wasn’t watching it, was also connected to troublemaking behavior although the relationship wasn’t as strong, said the researchers.
“Parents should be smart about TV use,” researcher Jennifer Manganello from the University at Albany, New York, said.
“They should limit the time that children use TV, pay attention to the content of TV programs, and consider how TV is used throughout the home.”
The study looked at 3,128 women from 20 U.S. cities who had a child between 2005 and 2008.
While there was some diversity（差异）of education among the women, one-third hadn’t graduated from high school.
Two-thirds of the mothers said their three-year-old watched more than two hours of TV a day, and the average（平均的）viewing time for children was around three hours. On average, the TV was on for about five additional hours on a common day.
After accounting for factors（因素）such as living in a violent neighborhood, scientists also found watching TV was strongly connected to behavior such as hitting others, having angry moods, being disobedient（不服从的）, and screaming a lot.
The researchers thought that children may see violence on TV, and spend less time on positive development tasks such as reading or playing.
The American Academy of Paediatrics suggests no TV at all for children at two and younger, and two hours a day or less for older kids.what is the main idea of the passage?
| A．Children should choose positive programs. |
| B．Children should keep away from TV. |
| C．Watching TV can make children violent. |
| D．Parents should watch less TV. |
what do we know from Paragraph 2?
| A．Children can watch good programs. |
| B．Children will be affected as long as the TV is on. |
| C．It’s OK that the TV is on if children don’t watch it. |
| D．Children’s troublemaking behavior is mainly caused by watching TV. |
what can be learned about the study between 2005~2008 from the passage?
| A．The TV was on for about three hours. |
| B．The women studied have different jobs. |
| C．The study included men and women. |
| D．Most women allowed their child to watch TV. |
Children who spend much time watching TV will ________.
| A．not be hit by others |
| B．be influenced by others |
| C．become angry easily |
| D．know more about the neighborhood |
Did you ever wonder who invented products like Liquid Paper, Kevlar or paper bags? Most would think a man invented these items. Guess what? Women invented each of these. What? You don’t believe me? Well, read this:
Liquid Paper was invented by Bette Nesmith Graham in 1951 and originally called Mistake Out. Being a typist, Bette was increasingly irritated with being unable to erase her typing mistakes. The messy business left her hands black and the paper dirty. Bette was good at painting and remembered that an artist paints over mistakes. She applied that same principle to typing mistakes and Liquid Paper was born, making Bette into a self-made millionaire.
Kevlar, yes, the Kevlar of the bullet proof vest（防弹衣）—what police officers and soldiers wear, was invented by Stephanie Kwolek. Stephanie worked for the DuPont Company as a research chemist. She was asked to find a high-performance fiber. Originally, this fiber was intended to be used for car tires (轮胎). However, the fiber she developed in 1964 was amazing and is still used in products such as sailboats, skis, shoes, and yes, bullet proof vests. In 1995 Stephanie was named to the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame.
Margaret Knight invented a machine that revolutionized the making of paper bags. Paper bags had been made like envelopes but Margaret developed a machine that would fold and paste（粘）a flat-bottom paper bag, the very same type we still use today. Margaret’s family was poor and she started working at the age of nine. Her first invention at the age of twelve was a safety tool for a loom（织布机）. Later she worked for the Columbia Paper Bag Company. It was there that she worked on improving the making of paper bags. She was issued her patent（专利）in 1870.
So next time you use a new product or an old one, will you wonder who made it? Do some research on the web and answer a few questions like: Who invented it? How was it invented? You may be surprised at some of the stories you uncover.The underlined word “irritated” in Paragraph 2 is the closest in meaning to_________.
| A．annoyed | B．excited | C．delighted | D．nervous |
What do we know about Margaret?
| A．She was a member of the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame. |
| B．Her first invention was made when she was twenty. |
| C．Her invention was designed to produce envelopes. |
| D．She began working when she was very young. |
which of the following best shows the structure of the passage? (①="paragraph" 1, ②="Paragraph" 2,… ⑤="paragraph" 5)
What would be the best title for the passage?
| A．How inventions were made |
| B．Amazing inventions by women |
| C．Women and modern technology |
| D．You can also be an inventor |
It has been more than twenty years since pioneering British computer programmer, Sir Tim Berners Lee, created the World Wide Web. But could he have ever imagined how much the web would change our lives? And would he approve of how some British students are taking advantage of his invention?
Universities and exam boards around the UK are becoming increasingly concerned with the rising number of cases of plagiarism, many of which are facilitated (助长) by the Internet access.
In the UK most school and university students complete coursework throughout the academic year which contributes toward their final mark. In many cases coursework makes up the main part of the qualification. Since coursework is completed in the students’ own time it cannot be monitored by teachers in the same way as an exam.
Derec Stockley, director of examinations in the UK, explains, “Plagiarism affects coursework more than anything else, and in the cases that come to our attention, more and more are linked to the Internet.”
At a university level recent reports suggest that plagiarism has evolved from separate cases of individual cheating to systematic and even commercial operation. Students can now pay for bespoke essays to be written for them by experts.
It is estimated that the market in online plagiarism is now worth 200 million pounds a year. Every month more and more websites offering to write student’s essays for them appear on the Internet.
Barclay Littlewood, owner of Degree Essays UK employs 3,500 specialist writers and charges between 120 pounds and 4,000 pounds per essay. However, Mr. Littlewood refutes the accusation that he is helping students to cheat.What dose the underlined word “plagiarism” in Paragraph 2 mean in the passage?
| A．problems of the Internet | B．cheating |
| C．learning pressure | D．coursework |
Which of the following statements is mentioned by the author?
| A．There will be no problem if online plagiarism is a systematic and commercial operation. |
| B．With the help of online plagiarism, students can write more creative coursework. |
| C．The Internet seems to have contributed much to the problem of online plagiarism. |
| D．Teachers should lay more emphasis on exams than coursework. |
It can be inferred from the text that the author seems to _____.
| A．blame Sir Tim Berners Lee for having created the World Wide Web |
| B．have studied the problem of online plagiarism for nearly 20 years |
| C．be in favour of Littlewood’s defence against the accusation of him |
| D．worry about the quality of students’ coursework influenced by the World Wide Web |
The paragraph following the passage will most probably be about_____.
| A．Mr. Littlewood’s defence against those who accused him of his website |
| B．different people’s opinions on plagiarism |
| C．how students use the website of Mr. Littlewood |
| D．the author’s opinions of Mr. Littlewood |
Scientist Says ‘No’ to Human Cloning
“I’ve never met a human worth cloning,” says cloning expert Mark Westhusin from his lab at Texas A&M University. “It’s a stupid endeavor.”
That’s an interesting choice of adjective, coming from a man who has spent millions of dollars trying to clone a 13-year-old dog named Missy. So far, he and his team have not succeeded, though they have cloned two cows and a cat.
They just might succeed in cloning Missy soon — or perhaps not for another five years.
Westhusin's experience with cloning animals leaves him upset by all this talk of human cloning. In three years of work on the Missy project, using hundreds upon hundreds of dog's eggs, the A&M team has produced only a dozen or so embryos carrying Missy's DNA. None have survived the transfer to a surrogate（代孕的）mother. The wastage of eggs and the many spontaneously aborted(流产，发育不全) fetuses（胎）may be acceptable when you're dealing with cats or bulls, he argues, but not with humans. “Cloning is incredibly inefficient, and also dangerous,” he says.
Even so, dog cloning is a commercial opportunity, with a nice research payoff. Ever since Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1997, Westhusin's phone has been ringing with people calling in hopes of duplicating their cats and dogs, cattle and horses. “A lot of people want to clone pets, especially if the price is right,” says Westhusin. Cost is no obstacle for Missy's mysterious billionaire owner; he's put up $3.7 million so far to fund A&M's research.
Contrary to some media reports, Missy is not dead. The owner wants a twin to carry on Missy's fine qualities after she does die. The prototype（原型；雏形）is, by all accounts, athletic, good-natured and supersmart. Missy's master does not expect an exact copy of her. He knows her clone may not have her temperament（气质、性情）. In a statement of purpose, Missy's owner and the A&M team say they are “both looking forward to studying the ways that her clones differ from Missy.”
Besides cloning a great dog, the project may contribute insight into the old question of nature vs. nurture. It could also lead to the cloning of special rescue dogs and many endangered animals.
However, Westhusin is cautious about his work. He knows that even if he gets a dog pregnant, the offspring, should they survive, will face the problems shown at birth by other cloned animals: abnormalities like immature lungs and heart and weight problems~ “Why would you ever want to clone humans,” Westhusin asks, “when we're not even close to getting it worked out in animals yet?”By “stupid endeavor”, Westhusin means to say that ________.
| A．human cloning is a foolish undertaking |
| B．animal cloning is absolutely impractical |
| C．human cloning should be done selectively |
| D．animal cloning is not worth the effort at all |
What does the first paragraph tell us about Westhusin's dog cloning project?
| A．Its success is already in sight. |
| B．It is progressing smoothly. |
| C．It is doomed to utter failure. |
| D．Its outcome remains uncertain. |
By cloning Missy, Mark Westhusin hopes to ________.
| A．study the possibility of cloning humans |
| B．search for ways to modify its temperament |
| C．find out the differences between Missy and its clones |
| D．examine the reproductive system of the dog species |
We learn from the passage that animal clones are likely to have ________.
| A．a bad temper |
| B．defective（有缺陷的、有毛病的）organs |
| C．immune deficiency |
| D．an abnormal shape |
LOS ANGELES, the US
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff ruled Michael Jackson’s father can receive some medical records related to his superstar son’s death．The judge will review the records first before making them accessible to Joe Jackson’s lawyer，Brian Oxman．Beckloff said the man can only receive records on or after June 25一the day Michael Jackson died．
VANCOUVER，CANADA
World number one Zhou Yang overcame three South Korean players to win the women’s short track speed skating 1,500 meters final at the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games．The l8-year-old made perfect debut(首次亮相)as she set an Olympic record of a winning time of 2 minutes and l6,993 seconds among other seven skaters．
China has never won the women’s l,500 meters in the Olympics before，and this time Zhou’s performance gave China its third gold medal in Vancouver．
BElJING，CHINA
China’s first compulsory,(强制性的)safety regulation on primary school buses，which requires every seat to have a seat belt，will take effect on July l to help ensure safer transportation for the country’s 100 million students．
Each primary school bus must also be equipped with a “black box”，0r a recording monitor，to record speed，travel time and distance．Also，the bus must be staffed by teachers who will ensure student safety．In addition，the new rule states that the color of the school buses should be yellow，and each bus must have at least two emergency exits．
Texas，the US
A software engineer who crashed his plane into a Texas building housing a United States tax agency office，killing himself and at least one worker，apparently left behind an angry anti-government manifesto(宣言) detailing his financial difficulties and tax problems．The pilot took off from an airport in Georgetown．about 48 km from Austin．He flew low over the Austin skyline before plowing into the building．We can learn from the first news that_________．
| A．all Michael Jackson’s medical records can be accessed |
| B．Mitchell Beckloff will not go over the record first |
| C．Joe Jackson’s lawyer will not get any records |
| D．medical records before June 25 won’t be received |
The new school bus safety rules include all the followings EXCEPT_____________.
| A．the color of the bus | B．the equipment of the bus |
| C．the driver’s experience | D．emergency exits |
It seems the software engineer crashed into the US tax office mainly because of___________.
| A．unhappy marriage | B．financial and tax problems |
| C．heavy work pressure | D．mental disease |
We can infer from the news that____________.
| A．Joe Jackson will be the first to receive the medical records |
| B．the tax agency office is somewhere inside the building in Texas |
| C．Zhou Yang once broke the Olympic records in the same event |
| D．the software engineer flew high over skyline before crashing into the building |