As people slowly learn to cure diseases, control floods, prevent hunger, and stop wars, fewer people die every year. As a result, the population of the world is becoming larger. In 1925 there were about 2 billion people in the world; today there are over 6 billion.
When the number rises, extra mouths must be fed. New lands must be brought under development, or land already farmed must be made to produce more crops. In some areas the land is so over-developed that it will be difficult to make it provide more crops. In some areas the population is so large that the land is divided into too tiny units to make improvement possible with farming methods. If a large part of this farming population went into industrial work, the land might be farmed much more productively (多产地) with modern methods.
There is now a race for science, technology, and industry to keep the output of food rising faster than the number of people to be fed. New types of crops, which will grow well in bad weather, are being developed, so there are now farms beyond the Arctic Circle in Siberia and North America. Irrigation (灌溉) and dry-farming methods bring poor lands under the plough. Dams hold back the waters of great rivers, which can provide water for the fields in all seasons and provide electric power for new industries. Industrial chemistry provides fertilizer to suit different soils. Every year, some new methods are made to increase or to protect the food of the world.
1. The author says that the world population is increasing because _____.
A. there are many rich valleys and large fields
B. farmers are producing more crops than before
C. people are living longer due to better living conditions
D. new lands are being made into farmlands
2. The author says that in areas with large populations, land might be more productively farmed if _____.
A. the land was divided into smaller pieces
B. people moved into the countryside
C. industrial methods were used in farming
D. the units of land were much larger
3. We are told that there are now farms beyond the Arctic Circle. This has been made possible by _____.
A. growing new types of crops
B. irrigation and dry-farming means
C. providing fertilizers
D. destroying pests and diseases
4. Why is the land divided into tiny units in some areas?
A. There are too many people living there.
B. It saves more natural resources there.
C. It prevents crops from serious diseases there.
D. Farmers can grow various kinds of crops there.
5. Why do some people use dams to hold back waters from great rivers?
A. To develop a new kind of dry-farming methods.
B. To prevent crops from floods.
C. To provide water and electricity in all seasons.
D. To water poor lands in bad weather.
I’m a teacher. But there are days, like today, when I wonder why. The results of an English quiz taken by my fifth-graders were depressing. Despite my best efforts, the world of pronouns remains a mystery to them. How I wish there were a way to make the study of our language as exciting as a computer game, so the glazed (目光呆滞) looks would not appear in their eyes at the mention of the word “grammar.” I remember my husband’s words: “Why don’t you quit? You’d probably make more money by doing something else, and you wouldn’t have papers to grade every night.”
Tonight I have a stack of papers to grade, which I promised my students I would return tomorrow. But a friend, whom I haven’t seen in a year, is visiting from Belgium, and I told her I would keep this evening free.
Sitting in traffic behind a distant stoplight, it’s hard not to replay the day. A voice reports the body of a local youngster, missing for weeks, has been identified.
This missing child has had a deep effect on my students. They wondered, “If it happened to her, could it happen to me?”
My children had found the answer themselves. They got out their pencils, markers and made cards. Cards were written with words of compassion and love for a mother and father they didn’t know. Cards were filled with red hearts, golden crosses, flowers and angels. Their cards, intended to comfort others, comforted the children themselves by leading them past the anxiety, back into the world of security (安全) that should be theirs.
And then I remember why I’m still teaching. It’s the children. They’re more important than a lifetime filled with quiet evenings and more valuable than a pocket filled with money. My classroom, a child-filled world of discovery, of kindness and of caring is the real world.
It’s time to call my friend. I have promises to keep. She’ll understand. After all, she’s a teacher.The writer wonders why she is a teacher because _____.
| A．her students often play games in class |
| B．teaching is not a well-paid job |
| C．her students feel bored with grammar |
| D．she feels frustrated at teaching |
The students’ attitude to the missing child’s parents might be that of _____.
| A．doubt | B．unconcern | C．sympathy | D．tolerance |
What is the most important according to the writer?
| A．A pocket filled with money. |
| B．The kind and caring children. |
| C．A lifetime filled with quiet evenings. |
| D．The freedom to control her own time. |
What promise will the writer keep?
| A．To grade papers that night. | B．To help a student with homework. |
| C．To accept her husband’s advice. | D．To meet her old friend. |
Begin doing the work you love as soon as possible, even if you don’t get paid for it, or if you can only work at it part-time. Albert Einstein was unable to get a job as a physics professor. He could have said to himself, “Well, I just don’t have the work relative to physics. I should give up on it and settle for something else.” Instead, he wrote the two most famous papers when he was employed as a patent clerk. After their publication, there was not a major university in the world that would not have been glad to have him on their staff.
If you want to work as an artist and you are making a living as a waiter, don’t think of yourself as a waiter who hopes one day to become an artist. That puts the work you love somewhere off in the distant future. Rather, think of yourself as an artist, supporting yourself by waiter tables—and paint, or draw as much as you can. It is possible to earn a living wage as a waiter working 24 hours a week. That leaves plenty of time to devote to training or developing your craft（手艺）in the off hours.
While seeking the work you love, it helps to expand your awareness into the universe of all possibilities. You don’t want to be limited to the ideas of what you should do or what you have done before. Having opened to all possibilities, you can make a final decision and select the work you love as your own.
Doing the work you love requires that you be equally comfortable with the imaginative and the practical. It requires the ability to dream big dreams and the ability to face and master all the little details that make dreams come true.According to the passage, perhaps Einstein once said to himself, “_______.”
| A．Well, I just don’t have the work relative to physics. I should give up on it and settle for something else |
| B．The job is just what I want, I should work very hard at it |
| C．I have to support myself by working as a patent clerk now, but I won’t give physics up |
| D．I must wait until I find my favorite job |
If a person works 24 hours a week, he can________.
| A．have enough spare time for his hobbies |
| B．have no time left to make his dream come true |
| C．do nothing else |
| D．make a good living |
Which of the following is not implied in the last paragraph?
| A．Sometimes the imaginative is different from the practical. |
| B．We have to take care of a lot of details before we make our dreams come true. |
| C．We shall do practical things rather than dream. |
| D．We shall dream big dreams and practice as well. |
According to the passage, the author encourages us to ________.
| A．start work quickly | B．select job carefully and patiently |
| C．dream often | D．make up our minds quickly |
No one knows for certain why people dream, but some dreams misht be connected to the mental processes that help us learn. In a recent study, scientists found a connection between nap-time (午睡时间) dreams and better memory in people who were learning a new skill.
“I was astonished by this finding,” Robert Stickgold told Science News. He is a cognitive neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School who worked on the study of-how the brain and nervous system work, and cognitive studies look at how people learn and reason. So a cognitive neuroscientist may study the brain processes that help people learn.
In the study, 99 college students between the ages of 18 and 30 each spent an hour on a computer, trying to get through a virtual maze (虚拟迷宫). The maze was difficult, and the study participants had to start in a different place each time they tried - making it even more difficult. They were also told to find a particular picture of a tree and remember where it was.
For the first 90 minutes of a five-hour break, half of the particularity stayed awake and half were told to take a short nap. Participants who stayed awake were asked to describe their thoughts. Participants who took a nap were asked about their dreams before sleep and after steep - and they were awakened within a minute of sleep to describe their dreams.
About a dozen of the 50 people who slept said their dreams were connected to the maze. Some dreamed about the music that had been playing when they were working; others said they dreamed about seeing people in the maze. When these people tried the computer maze again, they were generally able to find the tree faster than before their naps. However, people who had other dreams, or people who didn’t take a nap, didn’t show the same improvement.
Stickgold suggests the dream itself doesn’t help a person learn - it’s the other way around.It is a cognitive scientists job to study__.
| A．how people dream and learn |
| B．the structure of the nervous system |
| C．whether someone is reasonable |
| D．the process of understanding |
The purpose of the study attended by 99 college students is to .
| A．find the hidden tree in the maze |
| B．test the design of a difficult virtual maze |
| C．train people’s memory |
| D．see how dreams and learning are connected |
The better performance in working out the maze is connected with .
| A．how people dream | B．what people dream |
| C．when people dream | D．where people dream |
The writer will probably continue to talk about in the 6th paragraph.
| A．how learning process caused the dream |
| B．how a dream helps a person learn |
| C．how dreams and learning influence each other |
| D．how to improve people’s memory |
Exited about landing your first job after graduation? Good, work hard and get learning. Don’t forget to listen to young professional’s advice about the “real world” you’re stepping into.
1. Keep up with current events.
In school, it’s easy to live in a cocoon, where you focus on studies and social life. But in the working world, not knowing who Alan Greenspan is or why North Korea is in the news so often can lead to potentially embarrassing conversations.
2. Consider living with parents, even if you have a job.
Think it over before you rule it out. Not only can you save a lot of money by living at home, but your parents may provide emotional support that you may need. They can help pave the way for you to move once you are settled into your new life.
3. Don’t compare yourself to other people your age.
Young adults are good at putting up impressive appearance, but you don’t really know what their lives are like. Those who seem to have the perfect job may spend part of the day making coffee and picking up boss’s dry-cleaning.
4. Pay attention to small jobs as well as big ones.
Don’t stress if, in your first job or internship(实习期), you get a lot more face time with the copy machine than with clients. You may wonder why you spent so much time studying in school only to do such tasks. But you may also be learning more about your new professional than you realize.
5. Know when it’s time to move on.
Give a new job a chance, perhaps a year, before you make up your mind to leave, especially if it’s your first job out of school. When you’re sure that the job isn’t for you, figure out what you want to do and how to do it. Zhang Yue, 26, spent three years working as an accountant in Shanghai before becoming a financial planner. He loves his new job and spent 10 months searching for it: “To find something you really want to do takes time.” By mentioning Alan Greenspan, the author wants to show ____.
| A．how he succeeded |
| B．why he is important to the world nowadays |
| C．it is necessary to know key figures |
| D．he has a strong effect on the world |
Which of the following is TRUE?
| A．Comparing yourself to other people your age will make you harmed. |
| B．If you don’t have impressive appearance, you can’t pick up boss’ dry-cleaning. |
| C．What you have learned in school may come to nothing in your first job. |
| D．Even a small job can do good. |
The last sentence means “____”.
| A．It’s easy to find a new job once you have experience |
| B．If you hope to do something, you need suffer too much |
| C．You needn’t be worried, even though you are trying to find a good job |
| D．It will take you time to find a job that suits you well |
The aim to write the passage is to ____.
| A．show how and why to get a satisfying job after graduation |
| B．give some advice about how to behave when you work |
| C．encourage people to ask for help from parents |
| D．expect people to fit in with the working conditions as soon as possibl |
Ideas about polite behavior are different from one culture to another．Some societies, such as America and Australia, for example, are mobile and very open．People here change jobs and move house quite often．As a result, they have a lot of relationships that often last only a short time, and they need to get to know people quickly．So it’s normal to have friendly conversations with people that they have just met, and you can talk about things that other cultures would regard as personal．
On the other hand there are more crowded and less mobile societies where long – term relationships are more important．A Malaysian or Mexican business person, for example, will want to get to know you very well before he or she feels happy to start business．But when you do get to know each other, the relationship becomes much deeper than it would in a mobile society．
To Americans, both Europeans and Asians seem cool and formal at first．On the other hand, as a passenger from a less mobile society puts it, it’s no fun spending several hours next to a stranger who wants to tell you all about his or her life and asks you all sorts of questions that you don’t want to answer．
Cross-cultural differences aren’t just a problem for travelers, but also for the flights that carry them．All flights want to provide the best service, but ideas about good service are different from place to place．This can be seen most clearly in the way that problems are dealt with．
Some societies have ‘universalistic’ cultures．These societies strongly respect rules, and they treat every person and situation in basically the same way．
‘Particularistic’ societies, on the other hand, also have rules, but they are less important than the society’s unwritten ideas about what is right or wrong for a particular situation or a particular person．So the normal rules are changed to fit the needs of the situation or the importance of the person．
This difference can cause problems．A traveler from a particularistic society, India, is checking in for a flight in Germany, a country which has a universalistic culture．The Indian traveler has two much luggage, but he explains that he has been away from home for a long time and the suitcases are full of presents for his family．He expects that the check – in official will understand his problem and will change the rules for him．The check – in official explains that if he was allowed to have too much luggage, it wouldn’t be fair to the other passengers．But the traveler thinks this is unfair, because the other passengers don’t have his problem．Often moving from one place to another makes people like Americans and Australians _____．
| A．like traveling better | B．easy to communicate with |
| C．difficult to make real friends | D．have a long–term relationship with their neighbors |
People like Malaysians prefer to associate with those _________．
| A．who will tell them everything of their own |
| B．who want to do business with them |
| C．they know quite well |
| D．who are good at talking |
A person from a less mobile society will feel it _______ when a stranger keeps talking to him or her, and asking him or her questions．
| A．boring | B．friendly | C．normal | D．rough |
The writer of the passage thinks that the Indian and the German have different ideas about rules because of different _______．
| A．interests | B．habits and customs | C．cultures | D．ways of life |