Weather is the subject matter of Westerners whenever they met
. Housewives, businessmen, factory workers as well as farmers all talk about the weather. It’s everyday news, whether or not conditions change. Many newspapers carry a regular front page news story in addition to the full reports on as inside-page provided by the weather service. Here are several different types of weather reports taken from the western papers:
No. 1 Regional Forecast
| New Jersey Today: Considerably cloudy with showers likely. High: 75-79. Southwesterly winds at 15-20m.p.h.. Precipitation(降水) probability 70 percent. Tonight: Warm and cloudy, rain likely. Low: 55-63. Southwesterly winds at 15 to 20m.p.h.. Tomorrow: Showers and thunderstorms likely. High: 75-79. Wind S to SW at 15 to 20m.p.h. |
No. 2 Three-day Forecast
| Westchester, Rockland Friday: Mostly fine to partly cloudy. Saturday: Cloudy with some showers. Sunday: Mostly fine. Temperature: Daytime highs will average in the upper 60’s to 70’s while overnight lows will average in the low to 50’s throughout the period. |
No. 3 Weather Stories
Bitter cold, inten sified(加剧) by high winds, gripped(控制) the Upper Midwest today, sheets of ice and snow left by the winter’s first major storm on highways throughout the area.At least six deaths were blamed on the storm. Hundreds of schools closed throughout the Upper Midwest yesterday and thousands of travelers waited out the weather at roadside shelters(避难处). Temperatures dropped well below zero early today from the Northern Plains through the Western Great Lakes under clearing skies. A 25-below-zero reading was forecast. Nearly a foot of snow fell on northern sections of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. And hardest hit were Duluth, Minn. and Superior, Wis., where 12 inches were recorded. Winds went up to 50 miles an hour. |
In a street corner of London, two strangers may begin their talk with “_____”.
| A．Hi, how are you? | B．What are you doing here? Waiting for someone? |
| C．A nice day, isn’t it? | D．Didn’t you listen to the weather report last night? |
The noon temperature of _____ is nearly 70’s at the weekend.
| A．Western Great Lakes | B．Duluth, Minn |
| C．Westchester, Rockland | D．New Jersey |
It seems that _____ has plenty of rain at the present season.
| A．Western Great Lakes | B．Wisconsin | C．Westchester Rockland | D．New Jersey |
Which of the following is most probable according to No.3?
| A．The traffic was terribly affected. |
| B．The Five Great Lakes were covered by heavy snow. |
| C．The temperatures might drop to 50℃. |
| D．Many schools were damaged in the snowstorm. |
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 graying（老龄化）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" anymore. We’ve stopped looking with surprise at older people who act in youthful ways.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 |
The underlined word ‘one’ refers to _______.
| A．a society | B．America | C．a place | D．population |
"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 |
If a 25-year-old man become general manager of a big firm, the writer of the text would most probably consider it _______.
| A．normal | B．wonderful |
| C．unbelievable | D．unreasonable |
It was already dark when an old man came to a small town. He found an inn and wanted to stay there for the night. After he had gone to his room, the owner said to his wife, “Look at his bag, dear. I’m sure there are lots of valuable things in it. I want to steal it when he is asleep.”
“No, no,” said the woman. “He must look for his bag tomorrow morning. Then he’ll take you before the judge.” They thought and at last the woman had an idea. “We have forgetful grass,” said the woman, “Why not put some into his food? If he has the food, he will forget to take his bag away.” “How clever you are!” said the owner, “Don’t forget it when you prepare supper for him.”
The old man had the food with the forgetful grass and went to bed. The next morning, when the owner got up, he found the door was open and the old man had left with his bag. He woke his wife up and said angrily, “What a fool! Your forgetful grass isn’t useful at all.”
“No, no,” said the woman. “I don’t think so. He must forget something.”
“Oh, I’ve remembered!” The owner cried out suddenly, “He forgot…”The old man came to the inn _______.
| A．in the morning | B．in the afternoon |
| C．in the evening | D．at night |
The owner and his wife wanted to _______.
| A．get the man’s bag |
| B．steal the man’s money |
| C．make the man pay them more |
| D．hide the man’s bag |
The owner and his wife put the forgetful grass into the food because _______.
| A．the old man always forgot something |
| B．they wanted to make the food better |
| C．they hoped the old man would leave the bag in the inn |
| D．they wanted to know if the grass was useful |
According to the passage the old man forgot _______.
| A．to take his bag away |
| B．to tell the owner when he left |
| C．to close the door when he went to sleep |
| D．to pay them the inn money |
On the coast of Brazil lies its most famous city Rio de Janeiro. Rio is a beautiful place to visit. It is full of exciting parades, historical architecture and natural beauty.
The most famous time of year in Rio is the spring when the samba schools organize a giant parade of dance, music and costumes. Samba is a type of fast Brazilian music, which is perfect for dancing. The carnival lasts two days and over 20 samba schools perform, a total of 70,000 people in brightly coloured costumes, all dancing and singing! It is a magnificent spectacle and millions of people watch the carnival on television around the world.
Rio de Janeiro is a religious city and it is full of churches. Some, like the former Imperial Church, were built over 400 years ago while others, like the Metropolitan Cathedral, are very modern. The Metropolitan Cathedral was built in 1976 and is so large that 20,000 people can stand inside at one time!
Another important religious site in Rio is the Corcovado hill. On the top of the hill, along with a small church, stands a 30-metre high statue of Jesus with his arms stretched out. From this point you can see every part of the city. Brazilian carnival is_________.
| A．a type of Brazilian music |
| B．a parade of 70,000 people dancing and singing |
| C．a parade of millions of people on television |
| D．the name of a samba school |
The Metropolitan Cathedral___________.
| A．was built 400 years ago | B．is on Corcovado Hill |
| C．is a religious city | D．was built in 1976 |
The Corcovado Hill is famous for__________.
| A．the samba parade |
| B．the beautiful view of the city |
| C．the statue of Jesus |
| D．the small church |
When we see well, we do not think about our eyes very often. It is only when we cannot see perfectly that we realize how important our eyes are.
People who are near-sighted can only see things that are very close to their eyes, and everything else seems blurry (="unclear)." Many people who do a lot of work, such as writing, reading and sewing become near-sighted.
People who are far-sighted suffer from just the opposite problem. They can see things that are far away, but they have difficulty in reading a book unless they hold it at arm’s length. If they want to do much reading, they must get glasses, too.
Other people do not see clearly because their eyes are not exactly the right shape. They have what is called astigmatism (散光). This, too, can be corrected by glasses. Some people’s eyes become cloudy because of cataracts (白内障). Long ago these people often became blind. Now, however, it is possible to operate on the cataracts and remove them.
Having two good eyes is important for judging distances. Each eye sees things from a slightly different angle. To prove this to yourself, look at an object out of one eye; then look at the same object out of your other eye. You will find the object’s relation to the background and other things around it has changed. The difference between these two different eye views helps us to judge how far away an object is. People who have only one eye cannot judge distance as people with two eyes.When things far away seem indistinct(模糊不清) , one is probably____.
| A．near-sighted | B．far-sighted |
| C．astigmatic | D．suffering from cataracts |
The underlined word suffer in the third paragraph probably means_____.
| A．experience | B．imagine |
| C．feel pain | D．are affected with |
Having two eyes instead of one is particularly useful for______.
| A．seeing at night | B．seeing objects far away |
| C．looking over a wide area | D．judging distances |
People who suffer from astigmatism have______.
| A．one eye bigger than the other |
| B．eyes that are not exactly the right shape |
| C．a difficulty that can be corrected by an operation |
| D．an eye difficulty that cannot be corrected by glasses |
Ask someone what they have done to help the environment recently and they will almost certainly mention recycling. Recycling in the home is very important of course. However, being forced to recycle often means we already have more material than we need. We are dealing with the results of that over-consumption in the greenest way possible, but it would be far better if we did not need to bring so much material home in the first place.
The total amount of packaging increased by 12% between 1999 and 2005. It now makes up a third of a typical household’s waste in the UK. In many supermarkets nowadays food items are packaged twice with plastic and cardboard.
Too much packaging is doing serious damage to the environment. The UK, for example, is running out of it for carrying this unnecessary waste. If such packaging is burnt, it gives off greenhouse gases which go on to cause the greenhouse effect. Recycling helps, but the process itself uses energy. The solution is not to produce such items in the first place. Food waste is a serious problem, too. Too many supermarkets encourage customers to buy more than they need. However, a few of them are coming round to the idea that this cannot continue, encouraging customers to reuse their plastic bags, for example.
But this is not just about supermarkets. It is about all of us. We have learned to associate packaging with quality. We have learned to think that something unpackaged is of poor quality. This is especially true of food. But it also applies to a wide range of consumer products, which often have far more packaging than necessary.
There are signs of hope. As more of us recycle, we are beginning to realise just how much unnecessary material is collecting. We need to face the wastefulness of our consumer culture, but we have a mountain to climb.What does the underlined phrase “over-consumption” refer to?
| A．Using too much packaging. |
| B．Recycling too many wastes. |
| C．Making more products than necessary. |
| D．Having more material than is needed. |
The author uses figures in Paragraph 2 to show _______.
| A．the tendency of cutting household waste |
| B．the increase of packaging recycling |
| C．the rapid growth of super markets |
| D．the fact of packaging overuse |
What can be inferred from Paragraph 4?
| A．Unpackaged products are of bad quality. |
| B．Supermarkets care more about packaging. |
| C．It is improper to judge quality by packaging. |
| D．Other products are better packaged than food. |
What can we learn from the last paragraph?
| A．Fighting wastefulness is difficult. |
| B．Needless material is mostly recycled. |
| C．People like collecting recyclable waste. |
| D．The author is proud of their consumer culture. |