Long bus rides are like television shows. They have a beginning, a middle, and an end — with commercials thrown in every three or four minutes. The commercials are unavoidable. They happen whether you want them or not. Every couple of minutes a billboard glides by (滑过) outside the bus window. Only if you sleep, which is equal to turning the television set off, are you spared the unending cry of “You Need It! Buy It Now!”?
The beginning of the ride is comfortable and somewhat exciting, even if you’ve traveled that way before. Usually some things have changed — new houses, new buildings, someti
mes even a new road. The bus driver has a style of driving and it’s fun to try to figure it out the first hour or so. If the driver is particularly careless or daring, the ride can be as thrilling as a horror story. Will the driver pass the truck in time? Will the driver move into the right or the left-hand lane? After a while, of course, the excitement dies down. Sleeping for a while helps pass the middle hours of the ride. Food always makes bus rides more interesting, but you’ve got to be careful of what kind of food you eat. Too much salty food can make you very thirsty between stops.
The end of the ride is somewhat like the beginning. You know it will soon be over and there’s a kind of expectation and excitement in that. The seat, of course, has become harder as the hours have passed. By now you’ve sat with your legs crossed, with your hands in your lap, with your hands on the arm rests — even with your hands crossed behind your head. The end comes just at the right time. There just no more ways to sit.The long bus rides and TV shows are alike, because .
| A．they both can offer people with thrilling stories |
| B．they both are boring |
| C．they both have a beginning, a middle, and an end, with commercials in between |
| D．they both force people to sit for a long time |
During the whole bus ride, what come to the passengers’ eyes most frequently?
| A．Some salty food on the bus. | B．The programs on TV. |
| C．Advertisements on the road. | D．Trucks on the road. |
In order to pass the middle hours of the ride, you can .
| A．read the billboards | B．have something to eat |
| C．watch TV shows | D．sleep |
The purpose of the passage is to .
| A．show how much bus rides differ from TV shows |
| B．teach us how to deal with each period of a long bus ride |
| C．persuade readers to take a long bus ride |
| D．give the author’s opinion on long bus rides |
As a senior, my future is always on my mind. To be exact, thoughts of the future have kept me up countless nights and made me worry enough to do poorly on more than one test. Because of this, words of wisdom are a source of comfort. Steve Jobs gave a speech to Stanford’s graduating class in 2005 and his words resound repeatedly in my mind whenever I think about my future.
It wasn’t always like that, though. It started when I became a junior, when college came into view. It’s the first big step to making your life your own. So when Jobs discussed his life as a student, some fears were eased. He, too, felt the need to attend college to make something of himself. He faced what many are extremely afraid of: uncertainty. His lack of understanding caused him to stop attending college and focus on what he felt was important. His story had a happy ending, of course, since he certainly turned out well.
This doesn’t mean that students shouldn’t attend college, but rather that they shouldn’t worry so much. You’ll get where you need to go, even if your path is a bit more winding（蜿蜒的）than you’d like.
Jobs talked about the hardships in his work. His love of his work helped him carry on and he got where he was meant to be, which restates the point: don’t panic.
One particular part of his speech stayed with me. Steve Jobs quoted（引用）the saying “Stay hungry, stay foolish” and it has become my motto. Staying foolish is realizing that you are still a fool, no matter how much you’ve learned or experienced. There is always more to explore. Staying hungry is wanting to find those things about which you are still uneducated.
Steve Jobs’s level of success is attainable, and I aim to prove that. With the will power to go into the world living every day like it’s my last and allowing the future to take care of itself, I will do great things. In the last moments of my life, I’ll be proud of what I have done and hope to have all the wisdom a person could wish for.The author felt worried when _________.
| A．he had to take tests at school |
| B．he thought about his future |
| C．he had lots of sleepless nights |
| D．he searched for words of wisdom |
It is suggested in Paragraphs 1 and 2 that _________.
| A．Steve Jobs didn’t attend college |
| B．Steve Jobs failed because of his decision |
| C．the author is a college student |
| D．the author cares much about his future |
What did the author gain from Jobs’s speech?
| A．Courage to drop out of school. |
| B．Confidence in defeating Jobs. |
| C．Interest in computer industry. |
| D．Bravery to face uncertainties. |
What did NOT Steve Jobs encourage students to do in his speech?
| A．Have the desire to learn more. |
| B．Be content with what they know. |
| C．Stay calm in the face of hardships. |
| D．Be modest so as to learn more. |
The passage is mainly about _________.
| A．the wisdom drawn from a speech |
| B．the most impressive quote in life |
| C．a memorable meeting with Jobs |
| D．an experience of a speech |
When I was a kid, I used to spend hours listening to Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew Pinsky on their Sunday night radio show Loveline. I listened so often that I began to use one of their well-known phrases—“good times”—in my daily conversations. Scientists have a name for this phenomenon: behavioral mimicry.
You’ve probably experienced this before: after spending enough time with another person, you might start to pick up on his or her behavior or speech habits. You might even start to develop your friend’s habits without realizing it. There is a large body of literature concerning this sort of phenomenon, and it regularly happens for everything from body postures to accents to drink patterns. For example, one study found that young adults were more likely to drink their drink directly after their same-sex drinking partners, than for the two individuals to drink at their own paces.
And the effect isn’t limited to real-life face-to-face activities. Another study found that the same you-drink-then-I-drink pattern held even when watching a movie! In other words, people were more likely to take a drink of their drinks in a theater after watching the actors on the screen enjoy a drink. At least I don’t feel so strange anymore, having picked up on Adam Carolla’s “good times”.
New research published today in the journal PLOS ONE indicates that the same sort of behavioral mimicry is responsible for social eating, at least among university-age women of normal weight. That’s right: the young women were more likely to adjust their eating according to the eating pace of their same-sex dining companion.
As with most experiments, these results raise a whole new set of questions. Still, the finding that behavioral mimicry may at least partly account for eating behavior is important, and has real effects on health. The researchers note that “as long as people don’t fully recognize such important influences on intake, it will be difficult to make healthy food choices and keep a healthy diet, especially when people are exposed to the eating behavior of others”.The author takes his own example of using “good times” to _________.
| A．express his love for radio shows |
| B．prove the popularity of the show |
| C．show the influence of the hosts’ words |
| D．introduce the topic of the passage |
The underlined word “mimicry” in Paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to _________.
| A．copying |
| B．adjusting |
| C．recognition |
| D．observation |
Which of the following is NOT an example of behavioral mimicry?
| A．A boy eats his popcorn after watching the actor eat. |
| B．A boy buys a Nike shirt when he finds his desk-mate has one. |
| C．A girl unconsciously sits straight just as others do. |
| D．A girl takes on the Yorkshire accent after a month’s stay. |
It can be inferred from the last paragraph that _________.
| A．behavioral mimicry is beneficial to our health |
| B．behavioral mimicry decides our eating behavior |
| C．there are doubts on the research results |
| D．there are people always exposed to bad eating habits |
What is probably the author’s purpose of writing this passage?
| A．To draw readers’ attention to popular radio shows. |
| B．To introduce behavioral mimicry and its influence. |
| C．To appeal to readers not to fall into others’ habits. |
| D．To advocate healthy food choices among readers. |
The writer Margaret Mitchell is best known for writing Gone with the Wind, first published in 1936. Her book and the movie based on it, tell a story of love and survival during the American Civil War. Visitors to the Margaret Mitchell House in Atlanta, Georgia, can go where she lived when she started composing the story and learn more about her life.
Our first stop at the Margaret Mitchell House is an exhibit area telling about the writer’s life. She was born in Atlanta in 1900. She started writing stories when she was a child. She started working as a reporter for the Atlanta Journal newspaper in 1922. One photograph of Ms. Mitchell, called Peggy, shows her talking to a group of young college boys. She was only about one and a half meters tall. The young men tower over her, but she seems very happy and sure of herself. The tour guide explains: “Now in this picture Peggy is interviewing some boys from Georgia Tech, asking them such questions as ‘Would you really marry a woman who works?’ And today it’d be ‘Would you marry one who doesn’t?’ ”
The Margaret Mitchell House is a building that once contained several apartments. Now we enter the first floor apartment where Ms. Mitchell lived with her husband, John Marsh. They made fun of the small apartment by calling it “The Dump ” .
Around 1926, Margaret Mitchell had stopped working as a reporter and was at home healing after an injury. Her husband brought her books to read from the library. She read so many books that he bought her a typewriter and said it was time for her to write her own book. Our guide says Gone with the Wind became a huge success. Margaret Mitchell received the Pulitzer Prize for the book. In 1939 the film version was released. It won ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture.The book Gone with the Wind was _________.
| A．first published on a newspaper |
| B．awarded ten Academy Awards |
| C．written in “The Dump” |
| D．adapted from a movie |
The underlined phrase “tower over” in Paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to_________.
| A．be very pleased with |
| B．show great respect for |
| C．be much taller than |
| D．show little interest in |
Why did Ms. Mitchell stop working as a reporter according to the passage?
| A．Because she was rich enough. |
| B．Because she was injured then. |
| C．Because her husband didn’t like it. |
| D．Because she wanted to write books. |
We can know about Margaret Mitchell from the passage that _________.
| A．her height made her marriage unhappy |
| B．her interest in writing continued as an adult |
| C．writing stopped her working as a reporter |
| D．her life was full of hardship and sadness |
Which is the best title for the passage?
| A．A Trip to Know Margaret Mitchell. |
| B． Gone with the Wind: A Huge Success. |
| C．An Introduction of the Margaret Mitchell House. |
| D．Margaret Mitchell: A Great Female Writer. |
Water, which covers about 74 percent of the earth’s surface, is man’s most precious resource. Without it we cannot live. Clean water keeps us alive; polluted water means disease and death.Keeping our water pure is by no means an easy task but it is something that must be done.
Hong Kong once prided herself on being the “Fragrant Harbour”. However, these days, it is not certain if Hong Kong’s harbour could still be called “fragrant”. For, like many other places, Hong Kong has not been spared water pollution. A visit to Tolo and Victoria Harbour, or any of the beaches in Hong Kong is enough to make one aware of the ugly truth that Hong Kong waters are indeed polluted.
The great threat to our water is bacteria pollution. Another great source of water pollution is poisonous chemicals. These substances, which are found in industrial waste and agricultural pesticides, make up unseen dangers that enter biological food chains.
Pollution control is a continuing problem for the government. It is believed that the most effective form of control is legislation（立法）. Most importantly, the present laws on pollution should be given more force. On the other hand, no amount of legislation can effectively control pollution unless those concerned are properly educated about the danger posed by pollution.
While a great majority of Hong Kong citizens and residents seem to be greatly concerned about ways to control water pollution, it is discouraging to note that there are, in our midst, some people who remain apathetic（无动于衷）about the problem. In a recent radio programme conducted on what people in the streets thought about the water pollution problem, one apparently unconcerned person said, “What do I care about water pollution? I don’t drink polluted water. As long as the water I drink is not polluted, I’m not bothered. Water pollution is too big a problem and let’s leave it to the government.”
If all residents in Hong Kong will take such an indifferent attitude, all the government’s attempts to control pollution, let alone the anti-pollution legislation, will prove useless. The best form of pollution control each citizen can employ is to be aware of his surroundings. We hope that someday, the problem of water pollution in Hong Kong will cease to alarm us. By the underlined sentences, the writer wants to show that ______.
| A．we should not use polluted water |
| B．it is our responsibility to keep our water clean and safe |
| C．clean water is vitally important to the survival of human beings |
| D．water is abundant but very expensive |
What can you infer from the second paragraph?
| A．Hong Kong indeed deserves the name. |
| B．Hong Kong never deserves such a name. |
| C．Hong Kong can’t avoid the damage of pollution. |
| D．Hong Kong has failed to live up to such reputation. |
The writer quotes the words in the programme to show us that a block to the solution of the problem is _________.
| A．people’s lack of education |
| B．people’s I-don’t-care attitude |
| C．people’s wait-and-see attitude |
| D．people’s over-dependence on the government |
In the final analysis, the best approach to the problem of water pollution is ________.
| A．legislation |
| B．rapid development of modern science |
| C．mass education |
| D．everybody taking care of his own surroundings |
It’s 10:30 p.m., and 11-year-old Brandon Blanco is sound asleep at home. Suddenly, a loud noise wakes him up. Naturally, Brandon reaches for his cell phone. He blinks twice, and the message on the screen becomes clear: “R U awake?”
But the late-night text does not annoy Brandon. He gets frequent messages and calls, even after bedtime. And he can’t imagine life without them. “If I didn’t have a cell phone, I wouldn’t be able to talk to my friends or family as often,” he told the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Brandon’s use of technology doesn’t stop there. He also has a computer, a TV and three video-game consoles（控制台）in his room. With so many devices, it is no surprise that when he is not at school, he spends nearly every waking minute using one or more of these devices. Brandon is hardly alone. According to a recent study by TFK, kids aged 8 to 18 are spending more time than ever before using electronic devices. How much time? More than seven and a half hours a day on average, the study found. That’s about an hour more than just five years ago.
The jump is the result of a huge explosion in mobile devices, says Victoria Rideout, the lead author of the study. “These devices have opened up many more opportunities for young people to use media, whether it’s on the bus, on the way to school or waiting in line at the pizza parlor,” says Rideout.
Often, kids multitask, or use more than one device at a time. “If you’ve got a chance to do something on your computer and take a phone call and have the TV on in the background, why not?” Media expert Cheryl Olson says. Most experts agree technology has much to offer kids. But some worry the kids could be missing out on other activities like playing outside or hanging out with friends. “It’s a matter of balance,” says Olson.
Multitasking while doing homework is another concern. Some kids listen to music, watch TV or use the phone while doing their homework. “It’s important to make sure that you can stop and concentrate on one thing deeply,” says Rideout.
With new and exciting devices hitting stores every year, keeping technology use in check is more important than ever. “Kids should try,” adds Rideout. “But parents might have to step in sometimes.”It can be learned from the text that _________.
| A．many teenagers lack friends in their middle school |
| B．kids have too many electronic devices to choose from |
| C．Brandon feels annoyed about his late-night message |
| D．Olson is against teenagers’ using mobile phones |
Which of the following is an example of multitasking?
| A．Watching TV when using the computer. |
| B．Talking on the phone when lying on the sofa. |
| C．Playing video games after having lunch. |
| D．Listening to loud music while relaxing. |
The underlined phrase “in check” in the last paragraph can be replaced by _________.
| A．in order | B．in store | C．in control | D．in sight |
According to the text, Victoria Rideout would probably agree that kids should ______.
| A．do homework while watching TV |
| B．have less homework |
| C．spend more time on homework |
| D．do homework in a place without disturbance |