C
True End of an Era
SURPRISE, surprise---David Beckham is in the news again! Sure, the England football star was never one to shy away from the headlines. But this time it seems people are talking as much about what Beckham is not doing as what he is.
Beckham won’t be playing for England at the 2010 World Cup in South AfricA． An injury he picked up while playing for AC Milan will likely rule the 34-year-old out for four months. It could be a sad end to the career of a player who has given his all to England since his debut (首次登场) in 1996. But rather than feeling sorry for the loss, some people are finally calling for us to move on from the Beckham obsession (着迷).
“The romantic wish of him seizing the day and inspiring England to glory was poppycock (胡扯),” according to an editorial in the Guardian. It argued that Beckham is past his best and would only have played a minor role at the World Cup anyway. But you might not have guessed it from the reaction of the rest of England.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown sent Beckham a “get well soon” message, and a Scottish poet even wrote a poem about the injury, comparing Beckham to the Greek hero Achilles.
But is it possible to forget about Beckham? Over his career Beckham has embodied (体现) everything the English like to think is good about their country. Beckham was never the most naturally gifted of footballers, but he reached the top through hard work and determination. He never gave up, even when things looked hopeless. And even as a superstar, he never forgot where he came from.
For this, the English took him to their hearts. Not a day goes by without seeing Beckham’s name in the newspapers, but the reality is his fantastic career is coming to the enD．Of course, it is sad that he’ll miss the World Cup, but this is a chance for England to find a new hero.
As a global icon(偶像) we will certainly miss him playing for England in South Africa this summer. But I think it’s time we finally give Beckham a break from the headlines.
Choose the best answer:
66．Which of the following may not be a result of Beckham’s injury?
A．Not being able to take part in the 2010 World Cup in South AfricA．
B．Not being able to play for England for four months.
C．People forgetting him.
D．This injury perhaps ending his career.
67．______ gave Beckham a negative evaluation.
A．Gordon Brown B．An editorial in the Guardian
C．A Scottish poet D．Most British people
68．Which is not the reason for it being hard for people to forget Beckham?
A．He has embodied British good characteristics and traits (特征).
B．He is one of the most naturally gifted footballers.
C．He is determined to achieve his goals.
D．He always remembers his country.
C
Justin Bieber may have millions of fans worldwide, but Russia’s bears don’t appear to admire the pop singer’s music --- which proved fortunate for one lucky fisherman.
Igor Vorozhbitsyn had his life saved by a Justin Bieber ringtone, when his mobile phone went off during a dangerous attack by a brown bear.
The 42-year-old was attacked as he was walking to a favourite fishing spot in northern Russia’s Yakutia Republic and firmly believed that he was going to be killed.
Wildlife experts believe the ringtone must have frightened the bear into stopping its attack.
‘Sometimes a sharp shock can stop an angry bear in its attack and that ringtone would be a very unexpected sound for a bear,’ explained one.
Mr Vorozhbitsyn suffered from cuts and severe wounds and was rescued when he was found by other fishermen after using the phone to call for help.
Mr Vorozhbitsyn ---now recovering from his wounds---explained: ‘I had parked my car and was walking towards the spot I’d marked out when there was a tremendous impact on my back and the bear was on top of me.’
‘I couldn’t believe my luck when the phone went off and it run away.’
‘I know that sort of ringtone isn’t to everyone’s taste but my granddaughter loaded it onto my phone for a joke,’ he added.
Adult brown bears can weigh as much as 600kg and have been known to kill wolves and even Siberian tigers.
Finally, this is a proof that Justin Bieber is unbearableIgor Vorozhbitsyn was attacked when____.
| A．he was fishing at his favourite fishing spot. |
| B．he was walking towards his favourite fishing spot. |
| C．he was phoning his granddaughter. |
| D．he was driving to his favourite fishing spot. |
The bear stopped attacking because___.
| A．Justin Bieber came to rescue Igor Vorozhbitsyn. |
| B．Justin Bieber sang to it. |
| C．Justin Bieber’s ringtone was a sudden fright to it. |
| D．Igor Vorozhbitsyn’s mobile phone was a sudden fright to it. |
What is the writer’s attitude towards Justin Bieber?
| A．positive | B．negative | C．neutral (中立的) | D．not mentioned |
What does the last paragraph imply?
| A．Justin Bieber’s music is popular all over the world. |
| B．Justin Bieber’s music is life-saving. |
| C．Justin Bieber’s music is threatening. |
| D．Even bears cannot stand Justin Bieber’s music. |
B
American researchers found females are the more talkative sex because of a special “language protein” in the brain.
The study, conducted by neuroscientists(神经学家) and psychologist from the University of Maryland, concluded that women talked more because they had more of the Foxp2 protein. The research, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, found that higher levels were found among humans that were women but in rats that were males. Their findings came after it was previously claimed that ladies speak about 20,000 words a day – over 13,000 more than men. “This study is one of the first to report a sex difference in the expression of a language-associated protein in humans or animals,” said Prof Margaret McCarthy, who led the study. In their study, the researchers attempted to determine what might make male rats more vocal than their female friends.
They separated four-day-old rats from their mothers and then counted the number of times they cried out in the “ultrasonic（超声波的） range”, the frequencies higher than humans can hear, over five minutes. While both sexes called out hundreds of cries, the males called out twice as often, they found. But when the pups were returned to their mother’s cage, she fussed over her sons first. Tests conducted on the parts of the brain known to be associated with vocal calls showed the male pups have up to twice as much Foxp2 protein as the females. The researchers then increased the production in the brains of female pups and reduced it in males. This led to the female rats crying out more often and their mothers showing more interest to them. In contrast, males became less “talkative”.
The researchers then tested samples from ten children, aged between three and five, which showed that females had up to 30 per cent more of the Foxp2 protein than males, in a brain area key to language in humans.
“Based on our observations, we assume higher levels of Foxp2 in girls and higher levels of Foxp2 in male rats is an indication that Foxp2 protein levels are associated with the more communicative sex,” said Prof McCarthy.
“Our results imply Foxp2 as a component (成分)of the neurobiological basis of sex differences in vocal communication in mammals.”From the second paragraph, we can learn that ________.
| A．women always speak more words than men |
| B．men and male rats have low levels of language protein |
| C．women and male rats have similar levels of Foxp2 |
| D．McCarthy isn’t the first to find females more talkative |
The underlined phrase “fussed over” in the third paragraph probably means______.
| A．paid attention to | B．related to |
| C．put pressure on | D．counted on |
The researchers carried out the experiments on rats in order to _______.
| A．test which part of the brain is key to language in rats and humans |
| B．prove the levels of Foxp2 protein in humans and rats are different |
| C．determine the reason why female rats are more talkative than male rats |
| D．discover the association between Foxp2 protein and vocal communication |
Which of the following can be the best title for the passage?
| A．Tests on humans and rats |
| B．Why women are the talkative sex |
| C．Sex differences in Foxp2 protein |
| D．Foxp2 protein determines oral ability |
Do you remember the night when you took advantage of my 17-year-old neighbor who had to drive to pick up his sister from her dance lessons? Do you know how we all felt when he hit another car and killed the two people in the other car? He died the next morning too. His sister walked home from her dance lesson, and passed police cars and a crowd of people gathering on the sidewalk just two blocks away from the dance studio. She didn’t realize her brother was in the midst of it all. She never saw him again. And it’s all your fault.
I wish you’d walk out of my life forever. I don’t want anything to do with you. Look at all the pain you’ve caused. Sure, you’ve made people happy too from time to time. But the damage you’ve caused in the lives of millions is inexcusable. Stop luring (引诱) in the people I love. Stop hurting me, please.
Sincerely,
AnonymousWhat is author’s purpose in writing to alcohol?
| A．To introduce Mr. Alcohol to the readers |
| B．To describe the harm alcohol did to his family. |
| C．To show how much alcohol can hurt people. |
| D．To show the great fun alcohol can bring to people’s life. |
What did alcohol do to the author’s father?
| A．It made him crash into two other cars and took his life. |
| B．It made him drink too much and he had to get his stomach pumped. |
| C．It made him kill two other people when driving. |
| D．It made him get into a car accident and badly injure himself. |
The underlined phrase “were intrigued by” is closest in meaning to ________.
| A．were familiar with |
| B．were interested in |
| C．were disappointed with |
| D．were satisfied with |
What is the tone of the article?
| A．Critical | B．Doubtful |
| C．Unconcerned | D．Humorous |
Is gun play good or bad for children? For many years I emphasized its harmlessness. When concerned parents expressed doubt about letting their children have toy guns, because they didn’t want to encourage them in the slightest degree to become criminals, I would explain how little connection there was. In the course of growing up, children have a natural tendency to bring their aggressiveness more and more under control if their parents encourage this. One- to two-year-olds, when they are angry with another child, may bite the child’s arm without hesitation. But by 3 or 4 they have already learned that aggression is not right. However, they may pretend to shoot their mother or father, but smiling to assure them that the gun and the aggressive behaviour aren’t to be taken seriously.
In the 6- to 12-year-old period, children will play an earnest game of war, but it has lots of rules. There may be arguments, but real fights are relatively rare. At this age children don’t shoot at their mother or father, even in fun. It’s not that the parents have turned stricter; the children’s own conscience has. In adolescence aggressive feelings become much stronger, but well brought-up children can turn them into athletics and other competition or into kidding their friends.
In other words, I’d explain that playing at war is a natural step in the disciplining of the aggression of young children; that a cautious parent doesn’t really need to worry about producing a criminal.
But nowadays I’d give parents much more encouragement to guide their child away from violence. A number of incidents have convinced me of the importance of this.
One of the first things that made me change my mind, several years ago, was an observation that an experienced nursery school teacher told me about. Her children were hitting each other much more than previously, without reason. When she talked to them, they would protest, “But that’s what the Three Stooges do.” (This was a children’s TV program full of violence which immediately became very popular.)
What further shocked me into reconsidering my view was the assassination(暗杀）of the former President, and the fact that some schoolchildren cheered about this. (I didn’t so much blame the children as I blamed the kind of parents who will say about a President they dislike, “I’d shoot him if I got the chance!”）
These incidents made me think of other evidences that Americans often tolerate lawlessness and violence. We were hard on the Indians and the later waves of immigrants. At times we denied justice to groups with different religions or political views. And now a great percentage of our adult as well as our child population has been endlessly fascinated with dramas of Western violence and with cruel crime stories, in movies and on television. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we Americans on the average have more aggressiveness inside us than the people of other nations. I think rather that the aggressiveness we have is less controlled, from childhood on.
To me it seems very clear that in order to have a more stable and civilized national life we must bring up the next generation of Americans with a greater respect for law and for other people’s rights than in the past. There are many ways in which we could and should teach these attitudes. One simple opportunity we could seize in the first half of childhood is to show our disapproval of lawlessness and violence in television programs and in children’s gun play.
I also believe that the survival of the world now depends on a much greater awareness of the need to avoid war and to actively seek peaceful agreements. There are enough nuclear arms to completely destroy all civilization. This terrifying situation demands a much greater stability and self-control on the part of national leaders and citizens than they have ever shown in the past. We owe it to our children to prepare them deliberately for this awesome responsibility.The underlined word “this” in Paragraph 1 refers to______.
| A．controlling their aggressiveness |
| B．playing with toy guns |
| C．aggressive behavior |
| D．the course of growing up |
Based on the author’s view about the relationship between children’s aggressiveness and their age, which of the following is true?
| A．A 2-year old boy knows that it is not correct to behave aggressively. |
| B．The older children become, the less aggressive they will be. |
| C．6- to 12-year-olds enjoy war games but develop them into argument and serious fights. |
| D．Adolescents’ aggressiveness is often displayed in the form of competition. |
What conclusion does the author intend to draw from the story told by the nursery school teacher?
| A．Watching violence can lower a child’s standard of behaviour. |
| B．Violent TV programs should be banned in nursery schools. |
| C．Children are generally lawless or violent nowadays. I |
| D．It is acceptable to let children have toy guns |
What does Paragraph 7 mainly talk about?
| A．Examples showing that Americans are more aggressive than other nations. |
| B．Evidences proving that America has a long history of lawlessness and violence. |
| C．The idea that children are less able to put their aggressiveness under control. |
| D．More reasons why the author changed his view on the main issue of the article. |
What is a must if people intend to enjoy stability and civilized national life?
| A．To show disapproval of gun play in television programs. |
| B．To make people aware that there are already enough nuclear arms. |
| C．To elect national leaders with greater stability and self-control. |
| D．To bring up children who show more respect for the law and others’ rights. |
Which of the following serves best as the title of the article?
| A．How Does Age Influence Aggressiveness? |
| B．Are American Children Becoming More Aggressive? |
| C．Should Children Play With Guns? |
| D．What Should Parents Teach Their Children |
International teams have spent nearly half a year looking for evidence of the missing Malaysian Airlines plane, a search that includes the hunt for the aircraft’s so-called black box, which holds flight data that would likely explain what caused MH370 to move away from its course. But many aviation experts wonder why, in our increasingly networked world, divers are searching the Indian Ocean for a metal box when technology already exists that would enable planes to stream black box data to the ground in the event of an emergency.
Black boxes have been on planes since the late 1950s, and now every commercial aircraft has two: a flight data recorder and a voice recorder. (Although they are referred to as black boxes, they are typically orange in color, making them easier to spot in waters.) Black box recorders are mainly used to investigate the cause of in-flight accidents.
While black boxes are built to survive a crash and long-term submersion(浸没）in water, it can be a real challenge to find the device if a plane has gone down in the ocean. While each box contains a beacon(无线电信标台), the unit only has enough battery power to transmit a signal for 30 days. After the crash of Air France Flight 447 in the Atlantic Ocean in June 2009, it took divers two years to find the black box.
Pierre Jeanniot, a Canadian engineer who helped perfect black box technology about 40 years ago, feels that the device, in its current form, is “obsolete”. He started to question its effectiveness more than a decade ago, after seeing the broken pieces of the black boxes in the 2001 attacks on the World Trade towers in New York. Jeanniot is now on the advisory board of a Toronto-based firm that has built a live-streamed black box system. When a plane experiences an irregular event, the system can send streaming data off the aircraft to one of the satellites and then down to ground-based servers, where the message is interpreted and sent to the airline. It seems necessary that the loss of MH370 and other similar cases wake more people up to the fact that the tools being used at this stage are inadequate for dealing with emergency situations, Jeanniot says. He also estimates that if this technology had been on board the missing Malaysian Airlines flight and live-streaming for the estimated seven hours after the flight first experienced a problem, it would have cost about $3,000.
While there is widespread approval of a live-streamed black box system, most airlines see its cost prohibitive. The airline industry is an industry with small profits, and is reluctant to add costs that will further cut the bottom line.
However, given how much time, money and effort has been spent on the luckless search for MH370, s black box, the cost of operating a live-streaming version seems like a trifle(区区小数)In this passage, the underlined word “obsolete” probably means .
| A．out of date | B．out of use |
| C．on the move | D．on the increase |
Which fact is mentioned to support aviation experts’ doubt about the effectiveness of the black box?
| A．MH370’s black box holds flight data that might explain what happened to the aircraft. |
| B．The recorders are actually orange in color though referred to as black boxes. |
| C．The beacon in the black box has limited battery power to send out a signal for 30 days. |
| D．It’s necessary for people to wake up to the weaknesses of the black box |
What’s airlines’ attitude towards the live-streamed black box system?
| A．They approve of the system since it may save time, money and effort. |
| B．They consider using the system as the bottom line of costs. |
| C．They are reluctant to start the system because it still needs improving. |
| D．They are unwilling to equip planes with the system as it cuts their profits. |
From the passage, we can learn that__________.
| A．it takes divers one or two years to find the black box after a crash |
| B．the new system does not live stream black box data for the whole flight |
| C．Jeanniot changed his view on black box technology when working for a Canadian firm |
| D．operating a live-streamed black box system costs only three thousand dollars |