In 1993, researchers at the University of California at Irvine discovered the so – called “Mozart Effect” – that college students who listened to ten minutes of Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D major (D大调) before taking an IQ test scored nine points higher than when they had sat in silence or listened to relaxation tapes. Other studies also have indicated that people gain information better if they hear classical or baroque (a style of art) music while studying.
It is said that Albert Einstein was an average student until he began playing the violin. "Before that, he had a hard time expressing what he knew," says Hazel Cheilek, orchestra director at Fairfax County's Thomas Jefferson High School. “Einstein said he got some of his greatest inspirations while playing the violin. It liberated his brain so that he could imagine." In the early 1700s, England's King George I also felt he would make better decisions if he listened to good music. Reportedly, Handel responded by composing his Water Music suites to be played while the king floated the Thames on his royal boat. Even Plato in ancient Greece believed studying music created a sense of order and harmony necessary for intelligent thought.
The deepest effects take place in young children, while their brains are growing. This year, the same researchers at Irvine’s Center for Neurobiology of Leaming and Memory found that preschoolers who had received eight months of music lessons scored 80 percent higher on certain tasks than other youngsters who received no musical training.
Music students continue to beat their non – arts peers (同龄人) on the SAT, according to the 1999 “Profiles of SAT and Achievement Test Takers” from The College Board. Students with coursework in music appreciation scored 42 points higher on the math section of the test than students with no coursework or experience in the arts.
All of this to say "you are the judge" but listening to Mozart certainly won't hurt you. My point always is that making music is preferable to passive listening and that listening to live music is always preferable to listening to recorded music. Mozart WILL NOT raise your IQ, but it might help you organize your thoughts better before taking a standardized test.
1．When people mention Albert Einstein, King George I and Plato, they believe that the effect of music is_________.
A．positive B．negative C．suspicious D．sensitive
2．So far researchers at the University of California at Irvine have done studies about_________.
A．college students who listen to rock music every day
B．people who hear classical music while studying
C．preschoolers with music lessons
D．music students in SAT
3．Which of the following is an opinion rather than a fact?
A．Handel composed Water Music to be played while the kind floated the Thames on his boat.
B．Mozart might help you organize your thought better before taking a standardized test.
C．Preschoolers with music training scored higher on object – assembly tasks.
D．Music students continue to beat their non – arts peers on the SAT.
4．What is the author’s opinion about music?
A．He thinks that listening to music is better than making music.
B．He has a doubt whether listening to Mozart will hurt the listeners.
C．He is sure that listening to the music of Mozart will raise people’s IQ.
D．He thinks that live concert is better worth listening to than recorded music.
How many coins nave you got in your pocket right now? Three? Two？ A bent one？
With a phonecard you can make up to 200 calls without any change at all.
（1） What do you do with it?
Go to a telephone box marked（you guessed it） “phonecard”.Put in your card, make your call and when you’ve finished, a screen tells you how much is left on your card.
（2） Now appear in a shop near you.
Near each Cardphone place you’ll find a shop where you can buy one. They’re at bus, train and city tube stations（地铁）.
Many universities, hospitals and clubs. Restaurants and gas stations on the highway and shopping centres. At airports and seaports.
（3） No more broken payphones.
Most broken payphones are like that because they’ve been vandalized（故意破坏）. There are no coins in Cardphone to excite thieves’ interest in it. So you’re not probably to find a vandalized one.
Get a phonecard yourself and try it out ,or get a bigger wallet.
The passage is most probably ________ .
| A．a warning |
| B．a note |
| C．an advertisement（广告） |
| D．an announcement |
There are three sections（部分） in the passage. Which section do you think is about why phonecards are good?
| A．Section 1． | B．Section 2． |
| C．Section 3． | D．None. |
Choose the right order or the steps under“How do you use a phonecard”.
a. Put in your phonecard.
b. Look at the screen to find out how many calls you can still make.
c. Go to a telephone box marked “Phonecard”.
d. Make your call.
| A．a, b, c, d | B．c, a, d, b |
| C．a, d, c, b | D．c, d, a, b |
An explosion on Thursday killed one and injured 21 in a busy street in Tongren, Southwest China’s Guizhou Province.
The bomb was hidden in a rubbish bin in the city’s commercial hub（商业中心），where lots of shops and restaurants are concentrated.
The ear-splitting blast was heard around 12∶50 p.m.，said a local newspaper, citing witnesses. The power of the blast shattered（使粉碎）nearby shop windows and ripped the stainless（不生锈的）steel rubbish can to pieces.
One passer-by，identified（确认）only as Zhang，said she was shocked by the noise and saw a lot of pedestrians lying on the ground when she got to the scene.
Thirteen of the injured were taken to a local hospital after the explosion. A doctor there said five were in serious condition but already out of danger after emergency treatment. The others were just slightly hurt.
The cause of the explosion is still under investigation, said an officer with the Tongren police, but refused to speculate as to the cause.
It can be inferred from the passage that ________.
| A．All the injured were taken to a hospital |
| B．8 of the injured were not taken to a hospital |
| C．The rubbish bin with a bomb was in a restaurant |
| D．The rubbish bin with a bomb was in a shop |
Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?
| A．One passer- by, indentified only as Zhang, saw the man throwing a bomb into a bin. |
| B．Some customers in restaurants were injured. |
| C．The writer didn’t get to the scene. |
| D．All customers in shops got hurt. |
In the last paragraph the underlined word“ speculate” probably means ________.
| A．tell | B．guess |
| C．discuss | D．talk |
What of the follwing can be the best title for the passage?
| A．Bomb Hidden in a Rubbish Bin |
| B．The Cause of the Explosion |
| C．A Terrible Thing |
| D．Market Blast Kills 1 ,Injures 21 |
Most British telephone cards are just plain green, but card collecting is becoming a popular hobby in Britain and collectors even have their own magazine, International Telephone Cards. One reason for their interest is that cards from around the world come in a wide variety of different and often very attractive designs. There are 100, 000 different cards in Japan alone, and there you can put your own design onto a blank card simply by using a photograph or a business card.
The first telephone cards, produced in 1976, were Italian. Five years later the first British card appeared, and. now you can buy cards in more than a hundred countries. People usually start collecting cards because they are attractive, small and light , and they do not need much space. It is also a cheap hobby for beginners, although for some people it becomes a serious business. In Paris, for example, there is a market where you can buy only telephone cards, and some French cards cost up to 4, 000 pounds. The first Japanese card has a value of about 28, 000 pounds. Most people only see cards with prices like these in their collectors magazine.
The text is mainly about ________ .
| A．the history of phone cards |
| B．phone card collecting as a hobby |
| C．reason for phone card collecting |
| D．the great variety of phone cards |
When did people in Britain begin to use phone cards?
| A．In 1971. | B．In 1975. |
| C．In 1976. | D．In 1981. |
The main mason for most people to collect phone cards is that ________ .
| A．they find the cards beautiful and easy to keep |
| B．they like to have something from different countries |
| C．they want to make money with cards |
| D．they think the cards are convenient to use |
Language learning begins with listening. Children are greatly different in the amount of listening they do before they start speaking, and later starters are often long listeners. Most children will “obey” spoken instructions some time before they can speak, though the word“obey”is hardly exact as a description of the eager and delighted co- operation（合作） usually shown by the child. Before they can speak, many children will also ask questions by gestures and by making questioning noises.
Any attempt to study the development from the noises babies make to their first spoken words leads to considerable difficulties. It’s agreed that they enjoy making noises, and that during the first few months one or two noises sort themselves out as particular expression like delight, pain, friendliness and so on. But since these can’t be said to show the baby’s intention to communicate, they can hardly be regarded as early forms of language. It is agreed too, that from about three months they play with sounds for enjoyment, and that by six months they are able to add new words to their store. This self - imitation（自我模仿）leads out to deliberate（有意的）imitation of sounds made or words spoken to them by other people. The problem then arises to the point at which one can say that these imitations can be considered as speech.
It is a problem we need to get our teeth into. The meaning of a word depends on what a particular person means by it in a particular situation and it is clear that what a child means by a word will. change as he gains more experience of the world. Thus the use, at seven months, of“ mama” as a greeting for his mother cannot be dismissed as a meaningless sound simply because he also uses it at another time for his father, his dog, or anything else he likes. Playful and meaningless imitation of what other people say continues after the child has begun to speak for himself. I doubt, however , whether anything is gained when parents take advantage of his ability in an attempt to teach new words.
Children who start speaking late ________
| A．may have problems with their listening |
| B．probably do not hear enough language spoken around them |
| C．usually pay close attention to what they hear |
| D．often take a long time in learning to listen properly |
A baby’s first noises are ________ .
| A．an expression of his moods and feelings |
| B．an early form of language |
| C．an imitation of the speech of adults |
| D．a sign that he means to tell you something |
The problem of deciding at what point a baby’s imitation can be considered as speech ________ .
| A．is important because words have different meanings for different people |
| B．is not especially important because the change takes place gradually |
| C．is one that should be ignored（忽略）because children’s use of words is often meaningless |
| D．is one that can never be properly understood because the meaning of words changes with age |
The speaker implies that ________ .
| A．even after they have learnt to speak, children still enjoy imitation |
| B．children who are good at imitating learn new words more quickly |
| C．children no longer imitate people after they begin to speak |
| D．patents can never hope to teach their children new sounds |
More surprising, perhaps, than the current difficulties of traditional marriage is the fact that marriage itself is alive and thriving（旺盛的）. As Skolnich notes, Americans are a marrying people: relative to Europeans, more of us marry and we marry at a younger age. Moreover, after a decline（衰退）in the early 1970s, the rate of marriage in the United States is now increasing. Even the divorce（离婚）rate needs to be taken in this pro- marriage context: some 80 percent of divorced individuals remarry. Thus, marriage remains by far the preferred way of life for the vast majority of the people in our society.
What has changed more than marriage is the nuclear family. Twenty- five years ago, the typical American family consisted of the husband, the wife, and two or three children. Now, there are many marriages in which couples have decided not to have any children, and there are many marriages where at least some of the children are from the wife’s previous marriage, or the husband’s, or both. Sometimes these children spend all of their time with one parent from the former marriage; sometimes they are shared between the two former spouses （配偶）．
Thus, one can find every type of tamely arrangement. There are marriages without children; marriages with children from only the present marriages; marriages with “full - time” children from both the present and former marriages; marriages with“full- time”children from the present marriage and“ part- time”children from former marriages. There are stepfathers, stepmothers, half- brothers and half - sisters. It is not all that unusual for a child to have four parents and eight grandparents! These are enormous changes from the traditional nuclear family. But even so, even in the midst of all this, there remains one constant: most Americans spend most of their adult lives married.By calling Americans a marrying people the writer means that ________.
| A．Americans are more traditional than Europeans |
| B．Americans expect more out of marriage than Europeans |
| C．there are more married couples in the USA than in Europe |
| D．more of Americans, as compared with Europeans, prefer marriage and they accept it at a younger age |
Divorced Americans ________ .
| A．prefer the way they live |
| B．will most likely remarry |
| C．have lost interest in marriage |
| D．are the majority of people in the society |
Which of the following can be presented as the picture of today’s American families？
| A．Which types of family arrangements have become socially acceptable. |
| B．A typical American family consists of only a husband and a wife. |
| C．Americans prefer to have more kids than before. |
| D．There are no nuclear families any more. |