Since many of you are planning to study at a college or university in this country, you may be curious to know what you usually do in a typical week, how you can get along with your fellow students, and so on. These are the questions I want to discuss with you today.
First, let’s talk about what your weekly schedule will look like. No matter what your major may be, you can expect to spend between four and six hours a week for each class attending lectures. Lectures are usually in very large rooms because some courses such as introduction to sociology or economics often have as many as two or three hundred students, especially at large universities. In lectures, it’s very important for you to take notes on what the professor says because the information a lecture is often different from the information in your textbooks. Also, you can expect to have exam questions based on the lectures. So it isn’t enough to just read your textbooks; you have to attend lectures as well. In a typical week you will also have a couple of hours of discussion for every class you take. The discussion section is a small group meeting usually with fewer than thirty students where you can ask questions about the lectures, the reading, and the homework. In large universities, graduate students, called teaching assistants, usually direct discussion sections.
If your major is chemistry, or physics, or another science, you’ll also have to spend several hours a week in the lab, or laboratory, doing experiments. This means that science majors spend more time in the classroom than non science majors do. On the other hand, people who major in subjects like literature or history usually have to read and write more than science majors do.
59. The main purpose of this text is .
A. to help the students to learn about university life
B. to persuade the students to attend lectures
C. to encourage the students to take part in discussions
D. to advise the students to choose proper majors
60. We can learn from the passage that university professors .
A. spend about 5 hours on lectures each week
B. must join the students in the discussion sections
C. prefer to use textbooks in their lectures
D. require the students to read beyond the textbooks
61. A discussion section does NOT include .
A. working under the guidance of university professors
B. talking over what the students have read about the courses
C. discussing the problems related to the students’ homework
D. raising questions about what a professor has said in a lecture
62. According to the author, science majors .
A. have to work harder than non science majors
B. spend less time on their studies than non science majors
C. consider experiments more important than discussions
D. read and write less than non science majors
E
Windows not only let light in to cut down an electricity use for lighting, but the light coming through the window also provides heat. However, windows are not something people typically associate with being a cutting edge technology. Researchers are now working on new technologies that enable a window to quickly change from clear to dark and anywhere in between with a turn of a switch.
“It took us a long time to figure out what a window really is,” says Claes Granqvist, a professor of solid—state physics at Uppsala University in Sweden.“It’s contact with the outside world. You have to have visual contact with the surrounding world to feel well.” So, windows and natural light are important for improving the way people feel when they’re stuck indoors.
Yet, windows are the weak link in a building when it comes to energy and temperature control. In the winter, cold air leaks in. When it’s hot and sunny, sunlight streams in. All of this sunlight carries lots of heat and energy. And all of this extra heat forces people to turn on their air conditioners. Producing cold air, which can feel so refreshing, actually suck up enormous amounts of electricity in buildings around the world.
Windows have been a major focus of energy research for a long time. Over the years, scientists have come up with a variety of strategies for coating, glazing, and layering windows to make them more energy efficient. Smart windows go a step further. They use some technologies involving changes of color.
Electrochromic windows use electricity to change color. For example, a sheet of glass coated with thin layers(层) of tungsten oxide(氧化钨) works a bit like a battery. Tungsten oxide is clear when an electric charge is applied and dark when the charge is removed, that is, when the amount of voltage(电压) is decreased, the window darkens until it’s completely dark after all electricity is taken away. So applying a voltage determines whether the window looks clear or dark.
One important feature that makes a smart window so smart is that it has a sort of “memory”. All it takes is a small shock of voltage to turn the window from one state to the other. Then, it stays that way. Transitions take from 10 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the size of the window. The development of smart windows could mean that massive air conditioning systems may no longer need.“In the future,” Granqvist says,“our buildings may look different.”
67.Which statement does not indicate the importance of windows as described in the first two paragraphs?
A.Windows can change from clear to dark to save energy.
B.Windows help to save energy by letting light in.
C.Windows help to save energy by providing heat.
D.Windows enable people to have contact with the outside world.
68.According to the passage, smart windows are windows_______.
A.that are coated B.that use electricity
C.the color of which can be changedD.that have many layers
69.To make electrochromic windows change color, what is applied to the window glass?
A.Electricity. B.Tungsten oxide. C.A battery. D.A voltage.
70.What will be the benefit if the research on smart windows turns out to be successful?
A.The buildings will look different.
B.Windows can be as large as you want.
C.We may not need air conditioners any more.
D.They are less expensive than traditional windows.
D
Time spent in a bookshop can be most enjoyable, whether you are a book—lover or merely go there to buy a book as a present. You may even have entered the shop just to find shelter from a sudden shower. Whatever the reason, you can soon become totally unaware of your surroundings.
The desire to pick up a book with an attractive dust jacket is irresistible, although this method of selection ought not to be followed, as you might end up with a rather dull book.
You soon become interested in some book or other, and usually it is only much later that you realize you have spent far too much time there and must dash off to keep some forgotten appointment—without buying a book, of course.
This opportunity to escape the realities of everyday life is, I think, the main attraction of a bookshop. There are not many places where it is possible to do this. A music shop is very much like a bookshop. You can wander round such places to your heart’s content. If it is a good shop, no assistant will approach you with the inevitable greeting:“Can I help you, sir?” You needn’t buy anything you don’t want. In a bookshop an assistant should remain in the background until you have finished browsing. Then, and only then, are his services necessary. Of course, you may want to find out where a particular section is, but when he has led you there, the assistant should retire discreetly(谨慎地) and look as if he is not interested in selling a single book.
You have to be careful not to be attracted by the variety of books in a bookshop. It is very easy to enter the shop looking for a book on, say ancient coins and to come out carrying a copy of the latest best-selling novel and perhaps a book about brass—rubbing—something which had only slightly interested you up till then. This volume on the subject, however, happened to be so well illustrated and the part of the text you read proved so interesting that you just had to buy it. This sort of thing can be very dangerous. Apart from running up a huge account, you can waste a great deal of time wandering from section to section.
63.The underlined phrase “dust jacket” means_______.
A.a kind of clothesB.a paper cover of a book
C.a dusty book D.a title of a book
64.You may spend too much time in a bookshop because_______.
A.the dust jackets are very attractive
B.you start reading one of the books
C.it is raining outside
D.you have to make sure you won’t buy a dull book as a present
65.In a good bookshop_______.
A.all the books there are interestingB.the assistant greets you in a warm way
C.your heart is satisfiedD.you feel that you are in a music shop
66.The best title for this passage may be_______.
A.The Attraction of Bookshops B.How to Spend Your Time
C.Bookshops and Their AssistantsD.How to Select Books
C
Researchers have just offered evidence in a study that says obesity appears to spread through social ties, much like a virus. When one person gains weight, their close friends often follow. But the findings might also offer hope.
If friends help make obesity acceptable, then they might also be influential in losing the fat. The researchers note that support groups are already an effective tool in dealing with other socially influenced problems, like alcoholism.
The findings appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine. The researchers used information collected from? 12 000 people. It was collected between 1971 and 2003 as part of the Framingham Heart Study.
The information was highly detailed. There was even contact information for close friends of the people in the study.
The researchers examined more than 40 000 social ties. They found that a person’s chances of becoming severely overweight increased by 57% if a friend had become obese.
A sister or brother of a person who became obese had a 40% increased chance of becoming obese. The risk for a wife or husband was a little less than that.
Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School was a lead investigator in the study. He says there is a direct causal relationship between a person getting fat and being followed in weight gain by a friend.
The study found that the sex of the friends was also an influence. In same—sex friendships, a person had a 71% increased risk of becoming obese. Men had a 44% increased risk of becoming obese after weight gain in a brother. In sisters, it was 67%.
The researchers also considered the effect of where people lived in relation to each other. James Fowler of the University of California,San Diego, was the other lead investigator. He says a friend who lives a few hundred kilometers away has as much influence as one in the same neighborhood. He says the study demonstrates the need to consider that a major part of people’s health is tied to their social connections.
Both investigators say their research shows that obesity is not just a private medical issue, but a public health problem.
59.What does the underlined sentence in Para. 2 mean?
A.Obesity has a negative influence on a close friend.
B.Friends might also play a part in losing weight.
C.One might have a positive influence on one’s friend.
D.Friends usually don’t follow each other to lose weight.
60.Who is mostly likely to gain weight?
A.A man who has a fat brother. B.A husband who has a fat wife.
C.A wife who has a fat husband. D.A woman who a fat female friend.
61.Which of the following statements doesn’t the passage agree with?
A.You are sure to lose weight if you have a skinny friend.
B.If one gains weight, one’s friends are likely to get fat.
C.A person’s health is closely linked with his/her social relationship.
D.Even if the friend lives far away, the influence still remains.
62.The reason why the study involves both family members and friends is that_______
A.researchers fail to find a more different sample
B.researchers have different ideas for family members and friends
C.researchers can meet these people regularly
D.researchers can compare the results
B
The government of Norway is planning to build an unusual storage center on an island in the Arctic Ocean. The place would be large enough to hold about two million seeds. The goal is to represent all crops known to scientists. The British magazine New Scientist published details of the plan last month. The structure will be designed to protect the world’s food supply against nuclear war, climate change and other possible threats. It will be built in a mountain on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen. The mountain is less than one thousand kilometers from the North Pole, the northernmost position on Earth.
An international group called the Global Crop Diversity Trust is working on the project. The director of the group, Cary Fowler, spoke to New Scientist. He said the project would let the world rebuild agriculture if, in his words,“the worst came to the worst.” Norway is expected to start work next year. The project is expected to cost three million dollars. Workers will drill deep in the side of a sandstone mountain. Temperatures in the area never rise above zero degrees Celsius. The seeds will be protected behind concrete walls a meter thick and high—security doors.
The magazine report says the collection will represent the products of ten thousand years of farming. Most of the seeds at first will come from collections at seed banks in Africa, Asia and Latin America. To last a long time, seeds need to be kept in very low temperatures. Workers will not be present all the time. But they plan to replace the air inside the storage space each winter. Winter temperatures on the island are about eighteen degrees below zero Celsius. The cold weather would protect the seeds even if the air could not be replaced.
Mr. Fowler says the proposed structure will be the world’s most secure gene bank. He says the plant seeds would only be used when all other seeds are gone for some reason. Norway first proposed the idea in the 1980s. But security concerns delayed the plan. At that time, the Soviet Union was permitted use of Spitsbergen. New Scientist says the plan won United Nations approval in October at a meeting in Rome of the Food and Agriculture Organization.
55.The project is meant to_______.
A.increase the world’s food production in the future
B.carry out some scientific experiments on plant genes
C.protect crop seeds from dying out in case of possible disasters
D.build an exhibition centre of the world’s plant seeds
56.Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the above passage?
A.The government of Norway will perform the project alone.
B.Seeds to be collected there were produced ten thousand years ago.
C.Spitsbergen is chosen because it is away from the threat of unclear war forever.
D.Temperature is a major consideration when choosing the storage place.
57.We can infer from the text that_______.
A.People will get newlydeveloped seeds from the center every year
B.The storage center will greatly promote the development of world agriculture
C.Norway meant to have built the storage centre more than 20 years ago
D.There haven’t been any seed storage centers in the world before
58.What is probably the best title of the passage?
A.Noah’s Ark(诺亚方舟) of Plant Seeds in Plan. B.The Best Place to Store Seeds.
C.Concerns of World Food Supply. D.A New Way to Feed the World.
第三部分阅读理解（共20小题；每小题2分，满分40分)
阅读下列短文，从每篇短文后所给各题的四个选项(A、B、C和D)中，选出最佳选项。
A
One stormy night many years ago, an elderly man and his wife entered the hall of a small hotel in Philadelphia. Trying to get out of the rain, they came to the front desk hoping to get some shelter for the night.
“Could you possibly give us a room here?” the husband asked.
The clerk, a friendly man with a winning smile, looked at the couple and explained that there were three conventions in town.“All of our rooms are taken,” the clerk said.“But I can’t send a nice couple like you out into the rain at one o’clock in the morning. Would you perhaps be willing to sleep in my room? It’s not exactly a suite, but it will be good enough to make you folks comfortable for the night.”
When the couple declined, the young man pressed on.“Don’t worry about me; I’ll make out just fine.” the clerk told them. So the couple agreed.
As he paid his bill the next morning, the elderly man said to the clerk,“You are the kind of manager who should be the boss of the best hotel in the United States. Maybe someday I’ll build one for you.” The clerk looked at them and smiled. The three of them had a good laugh. As they drove away, the elderly couple agreed that the helpful clerk was indeed exceptional, as finding people who are both friendly and helpful isn’t easy.
Two years passed. The clerk had almost forgotten the incident when he received a letter from the old man. It recalled that stormy night and enclosed a round—trip ticket to New York, asking the young man to pay them a visit.
The old man met him in New York, and led him to the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th street. He then pointed to a great new building there, a pale reddish stone, with turrets and watchtowers thrusting up to the sky.“That,” said the older man,“is the hotel I have just built for you to manage.”“You must be joking,” the young man said.“I can assure you I am not,” said the older man, a sly smile playing around his mouth.
The older man’s name was William Waldorf Astor, and that magnificent structure was the original Waldorf—Astoria Hotel. The young clerk who became its first manager was George C.Boldt. This young clerk never foresaw the turn of events that would lead him to become the manager of one of the world’s most glamorous hotels.
51.The purpose of the author writing this story is to_______.
A.give people a good laughB.cover some facts
C.promote the business of Waldorf—Astoria HotelD.deliver a lesson
52.Which of the statements about the story is NOT true?
A.The story took place at about one a.m..
B.The old couple was too poor to afford a luxurious room.
C.The clerk was willing to help those in need.
D.The clerk received an unexpected invitation from the old man.
53.The underlined word “conventions” in Para.3 can be replaced by_______?
A.rooms B.suites C.meetings D.hotels
54.Which of the following proverbs suits the story the best?
A.Every little thing helps. B.Make hay while the sun shines.
C.Man proposes； God disposes(处理,决定). D.One good turn deserves another.