(C)
From good reading we can derive pleasure, companionship, experience, and instruction. A good book may absorb our attention so completely that for the time being we forget our surroundings and even our identity. Reading good books is one of the greatest pleasures in life. It increases our contentment when we are cheerful, and lessens our troubles when we are sad. Whatever may be our main purpose in reading, our contact with good books should never fail to give us enjoyment and satisfaction.
With a good book in our hands we need never be lonely. Whether the characters portrayed are taken from real life or are purely imaginary, they may become our companions and friends. In the pages of books we can walk with the wise and the good of all lands and all times. The people we meet in books may delight us either because they resemble human friends whom we hold dear or because they present unfamiliar types whom we are glad to welcome as new acquaintances. Our human friends sometimes may bore us, but the friends we make in books need never weary us with their company. By turning the page we can dismiss them without any fear of hurting their feelings. When human friends desert us, good books are always ready to give us friendship, sympathy, and encouragement. One of the most valuable gifts bestowed by books is experience. Few of us can travel far from home or have a wide range of experiences, but all of us can lead varied lives through the pages of books. Whether we wish to escape from the seemingly dull realities of everyday life or whether we long to visit some far-off place, a book will help us when nothing else can. To travel by book we need no bank account to pay our way; no airship or ocean liner or stream-lined train to transport us; no passport to enter the land of our heart's desire. Through books we may get the thrill of hazardous adventure without danger. We can climb lofty mountains, brave the perils of an Antarctic winter, or cross the scorching sands of the desert, all without hardship. In books we may visit the studios of Hollywood; we may mingle with the gay throngs of the Paris boulevards; we may join the picturesque peasants in an Alpine village or the kindly natives on a South Sea island. Indeed, through books the whole world is ours for the asking. The possibilities of our literary experiences are almost unlimited. The beauties of nature, the enjoyment of music, the treasures of art, the triumphs of architecture, the marvels of engineering, are all open to the wonder and enjoyment of those who read.
1. Why is it that we sometimes forget our surroundings and even our identity while reading?
A. No one has come to disturb you.
B. Everything is so quiet and calm around you.
C. The book you are reading is so interesting and attractive.
D. Your book is overdue; you are finishing it at a very fast speed.
2. How would you account for the fact that people like their acquaintances in books even more?
A. They resemble human friends exactly. B. They are unfamiliar types we like.
C. They never desert us. D. They never hurt our feelings.
3. Which of the following is true?
A. Your wish to visit some far-off place can be realized through the pages of the books.
B. To escape from the dull realities of everyday life you should take up reading.
C. Books can always help you to live a colourful life.
D. You may obtain valuable experience from reading good books.
4. The word “weary” means ______.
A. “to attract someone’s attention” B. “to distract someone’s attention”
C. “to make someone very tired” D. “to make someone interested”
5. “... the whole world is ours for the asking” implies that ____________.
A. in books the world is more accessible to us
B. we can ask to go anywhere in the world
C. we can make a claim to everything in this world
D. we can make a round-the-world trip free of charge
If you are planning to start a career in the field of education,science,or culture,then an internship(实习) at UNESCO will be ideal for you.
Who can apply ?
You have completed your full-time university studies;or
You are studying in a graduate program for a master's degree.
Applicants in technical assignments must have reached the last year of their studies in a technical institution.
What are the requirements ?
You must be at least 20 years old.
You should have a good command (掌握) of either English or French.
You must have an excellent knowledge of office-related software.
You should be able to work well in a team and adapt to an international working environment.
You should possess strong interpersonal and communication skills.
What do you need to prepare ?
Visa:You should obtain the necessary visas.
Travel:You must arrange and finance your travel to and from the location where you will do your internship.
Medical insurance:You must show proof of a comprehensive health insurance valid(有效的)in the target country for the entire period of the internship.UNESCO will provide limited insurance coverage up to USD30,000 for the internship period.
Medical certificate:You must provide a medical certificate indicating you are fit to work.
Motivation letter:You should have your motivation letter ready before filling out the application form.
Your application will be accessed by UNESCO managers and will stay in our database for six months.We do not respond to every candidate.If selected,you will be contacted by a manager.If you do not receive any update within six months,it means that your application has not been successful.
21. According to this passage,applicants are required to_________.
A. |
hold a master's degree in science |
B. |
have international work experience |
C. |
be fluent in either English or French |
D. |
present a letter from a technical institution |
22. What will UNESCO provide for the internship period?
A. |
Limited medical insurance coverage. |
B. |
Training in communication skills. |
C. |
A medical certificate for work. |
D. |
Financial support for travel. |
23. What should applicants do before filling out the application form?
A. |
Contact UNESCO managers. |
B. |
Get access to the database. |
C. |
Keep a motivation letter at hand. |
D. |
Work in a team for six months. |
Understand the Economic Concept of a Budget Line
The term "budget line" has several related meanings, including a couple that are self﹣evident and a third that is not.
The Budget Line as an Informal Consumer Understanding
The budget line is an elementary concept that most consumers understand intuitively without a need for graphs and equations it's the household budget, for example.
Taken informally, the budget line describes the boundary of affordability for a given budget and specific goods.
Given a limited amount of money, a consumer can only spend that same amount buying goods. If the consumer has X amount of money and wants to buy two goods A and B, she can only purchase goods totaling X. If the consumer needs an amount of A costing 0.75 X, she can then spend only 0.25 X, the amount remaining, on her purchase of B.
This seems almost too obvious to bother writing or reading about. As it turns out, however, this same concept one that most consumers make many times each day with reflecting on it is the basis of the more formal budget line concept in economics, which is explained below.
Lines in a Budget
Before turning to the economics definition of "budget line", consider another concept: the line﹣item budget. This is effectively a map of future expenditures, with all the constituent expenditures individually noted and quantified. There's nothing very complicated about this: in this usage, a budget line is one of the lines in the budget, with the service or good to be purchased named and the cost quantified.
The Budget Line as an Economics Concept
One of the interesting ways the study of economics relates to human behavior generally is that a lot of economic theory is the formalization of the kind of simple concept outlined above a consumer's informal understanding of the amount she has to spend and what that amount will buy.
In the process of formalization, the concept can be expressed as a mathematical equation that can be applied generally.
A Simple Budget Line Graph
To understand this, think of a graph where the vertical lines quantify how many movie tickets you can buy and where the horizontal lines do the same for crime novels. You like going to the movies and reading crime novels and you have $150 to spend. In the example below, assume that each movie costs $10 and each crime novel costs $15. The more formal economics term for these two items is budget set.
If movies cost $10 each, then the maximum number of movies you can see with the money available is 15. To note this you make a dot at the number 15 (for total movie tickets) at the extreme left﹣hand side of the chart. This same dot appears at the extreme left above "0" on the horizontal axis because you have no money left for books the number of books available in this example is 0.
You can also graph the other extreme all crime novels and no movies. Since crime novels in the example cost $15 and you have $150 available, if you spend all the available money crime novels, you can buy 10. So you put a dot on the horizontal axis at the number 10.
You'll place the dot at the bottom of the vertical axis because in this instance you have $0 available for movie tickets.
If you now draw a line from the highest, leftmost dot to the lowest, rightmost dot you'll have created a budget line. Any combination of movies and crime novels that falls below the budget line is affordable. Any combination above it is not.
(1)Which sentence about the budget line is NOT TRUE?
A. |
It is a limitation of affordability for a given budget and specific goods. |
B. |
Most costumers will be confused with this concept because of its complex. |
C. |
It is the effectively a map of future expenditures. |
D. |
It can be expressed as a mathematical equation. |
(2)What is the purpose of the passage?
A. |
To tell us any concept can be expressed as a mathematical equation. |
B. |
To help us figure out the meaning Budget Line. |
C. |
To tell us we should budget before we buy goods. |
D. |
To give an instruction of drawing a budget Line. |
(3)Assume that each movie costs $10 and each crime novel costs $15, you have $150. Which is RIGHT according to this passage?
A. |
The maximum number of movies you can see is 10. |
B. |
The maximum number of crime novels you can buy is 15. |
C. |
You can buy 7 crime novels and see 5 movies. |
D. |
You can buy 7 crime novels and see 4 movies. |
(4)What is the best title of this passage?
A. |
Do we really know the economic concept of a budget line? |
B. |
The Budget Line as an Economics Concept |
C. |
The Budget Line as an Informal Consumer Understanding |
D. |
The Complex Concept Budget Line |
Moving a Giant
The logistics of excavating (挖掘) and relocating a town's century﹣old, living sequoia (红杉) tree. Inhabitants of Boise, Idaho, watched with trepidation earlier this year as the city's oldest, tallest resident moved two blocks. The 105﹣year﹣old sequoia tree serves as a local landmark, not only for its longevity but also because renowned naturalist and Sierra Club cofounder John Muir provided the original seedling. So, when Saint Luke's Health System found that the 10﹣story﹣tall conifer (针叶树) stood in the way ofits planned hospital expansion, officials called tree﹣moving firm Environmental Design.
The Texas﹣based company has developed and patented scooping and lifting technology to move missive trees. Weighing in at more than 800,000 pounds, the Boise sequoia is its largest undertaking yet. "I(had) lost enough sleep over this," says David Cox, the company's Western region vice president and that was before the hospital mentioned the tree's distinguished origin. Before the heavy lifting began, the team assessed the root system and dug a five﹣foot﹣deep cylinder, measuring 40 feet in diameter, around the trunk to protect all essential roots. After encapsulating the root ball in wire mesh, the movers allowed the tree to adapt to its new situation for seven months before relocating it. The illustration details what followed.﹣﹣Leslie Nemo
1. Mark A. Merit and his team at Environmental Design installed underneath the root ball a platform of seven﹣inch﹣diameter, 44﹣foot﹣long steelbars and, just below the rods, a first set of uninflated airbags (shown in gray). The team also dug a shallow ramp.
2. In roughly 15 minutes, the movers inflated the airbags to about three feet in diameter to raise the root ball to the surface of the hole.
3. By underinflating the front bags, the team allowed the platform carrying the tree to roll up the ramp and out of the hole while staying level. A trailer hauled the tree along as team members removed the airbags from the back of the platform and replaced them in the front. They repeated the process until the tree arrived at the edge of its new home.
4. There a second set of partially inflated bags (shown in white) waited inside the hole. Soil surrounding the sequoia in its original location was relocated as well, because trees are more likely to survive a transplant when they move with their original soil.
5. Using the first set of airbags, the movers rolled the platform into the new hole.
6. The bags waiting there were then inflated further to take the weight of the sequoia while the transportation bags were deflated and removed from under the tree.
7. The white bags were then deflated in about half an hour to lower the sequoia's root ball to the bottom of its hole. The bags were removed, but the metal bars were left with the tree because they rust and degrade over a number of years.
8. For the next five years the local park service will monitor and maintain the tree in its new home.
(1)Which of the following words can be used to replace the words underlined "stood in the way of"?
A. |
Resisted. |
B. |
Balanced. |
C. |
Blocked. |
D. |
Promoted. |
(2)What is the reason for the relocation of Sequoia trees?
A. |
Because the Scooping and lifting technology should be put into use. |
B. |
Because it blocks local hospital expansion plans. |
C. |
Because it corresponds to government's plan of Environmental Design. |
D. |
Because sequoia trees are over a hundred years old. |
(3)How will the migrated sequoia trees be dealt with?
A. |
They will be given new soil in the new living environment. |
B. |
Metal rods used to move sequoia trees will not be left on the trees. |
C. |
They will be kept in transport bags all the time. |
D. |
They will be managed by specialists in the next five years. |
Bitcoin and other so﹣called cryptocurrenciest (加密货币) have been all over the news lately. Apparently, the idea of money that's not tied to a specific bank or a specific country is appealing to many. But it's worth remembering that the banking system that we now all live with is just that: A modern invention. Not so long ago, money was almost always created and used locally, and bartering was common. (In fact, it still is common among many online local networks, like the Buy Nothing Project.).
In the past, money's makeup varied from place to place, depending on what was considered valuable there. So while some of the world's first coins were made from a naturally occurring hybrid of gold and silver called electrum (金银矿), objects other than coins have served as currency, including beads, ivory, livestock, and cowrie shells. In West Africa, bracelets of bronze or copper were used as cash, especially if the transaction was associated with the slave trade there. Throughout the colonial period, tobacco was used to replace coins or paper bills in Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina, even though it was used elsewhere in the colonies and extensively throughout Europe and the U. K.
Today, on an island in the Pacific, a specific type of shell still serves as currency and some people there are even hoarding (储存) it, just like Bitcoin moguls, convinced that one day, it will make them wealthy beyond imagination. On Malaita, the most﹣populated island that's part of the Solomon Islands, shells are accepted at most places in exchange for goods.
"How much tuna (金枪鱼) you can get for your shells depends on their color and shape," Mary Bruno, a shop owner from the small town of Auki, on Malaita, told Vice. "One strip of darker shells might get you about two cans of smaller tuna, but the red ones are worth more. For the red ones, one strip might get enough tuna to feed a big family for a long time."
Just like a mintthat creates coins, there's only one place on the island where the shells, which are polished and strung together to form 3﹣foot﹣long ropes, are made. The strips of red, white, and black shells all come from Langa Langa Lagoon, where artificial islands were long﹣ago built by locals to escape from the island﹣dwelling cannibals. Once marooned (困住) out on their islands, locals needed a currency to use among themselves, and so the shell currency was born.
Using shells for money was common throughout the Pacific islands as late as the early 1900s, but Malaita is unique in that they are still used today. And just like cryptocurencies, there are those who think the islanders are smart to invest in this type of money, which is reported to have risen in value over the last three decades. It might seem strange to hoard a bunch of processed, strung﹣together shells, but what is a pile of dollars? Just a specially printed piece of paper and hemp that we've assigned value to and probably less durable over time than those shells.
(1)According to the passage, which of the following is TRUE?
A. |
Money was created and was widely used in the world. |
B. |
Tobacco was used as coins or paper bills in American in the past. |
C. |
The ingredients of world's first coins may be the combination of gold and silver. |
D. |
Using shells for money has been out of date in the world. |
(2)The word "mint" in paragraph 5 is closest in the meaning to " ".
A. |
a kind of money that can exchange |
B. |
the leaves of a mint plant used fresh or candied |
C. |
a place to produce and polish shells |
D. |
a factory that produces currency |
(3)What's opinion of the author towards shells for money?
A. |
Reasonable. |
B. |
Imaginary. |
C. |
Convenient. |
D. |
Inventive |
(4)Which of the following might be the best title of the passage?
A. |
The History of Biteoin |
B. |
Shells Still Money |
C. |
The Currency Is of Great Use |
D. |
Some Shells |
There are classes for the mothers of babies, but there's no helping with your mum and dad growing old.
Old people's wards are hell for old people. Geriatric wards are bedlam and bonkers. A toothless woman screaming when left alone, a cry that reaches the high hospital ceiling. A woman effing and blinding ﹣ the polite curtain will not protect her from the indignity of a happy change. A woman who lives the same moment in repeat, dressed up for going home in a bright red, over the dressing grown, asking for the key to her house, saying over and over: "Am I going home today?"
And though my mum, by the time she was released, knew that her life was charmed compared with the lives of the world's refugees. It seems to me as if the plight (困境) of old people, while not as horrible as the plight of refugees, shares some of the horror. Just as we live in a society that hasn't caught up with technology, the kind of moral choices it gives people, we also live in a world that hasn't kept up with its ageing population. We have the advances in medical science and technology that have kept people alive longer, but not the advances in how to treat our ageing population. Society is lagging behind the old, failing and falling.
There are certain small but piercing similarities between the treatment of the old and the treatment of refugees. The old are often displaced from their homes, moved out against their will; decisions are often made for them that they have no say over. Often, they are treated as fools or halfwits, crowded together in one place, given clothes that don't belong to them, treated as a fallen tribe, incapable of any individuality. Nobody imagined my mother was a secretary of the Scottish peace movement, a primary teacher, a lifelong socialist, a witty woman. Out of hospital, my 85﹣year﹣old mum said: "going into hospital at my age puts years on you. God save from old people's wards. You never think of yourself as old. You look across the ward and think, am I like that?"
(1)The treatment of the old is compared of that of the refugees in order to .
A. |
prove they have a lot in common |
B. |
show the terrible status of the old |
C. |
display their similarities and differences |
D. |
indicate that old people have to leave their home |
(2)What can be inferred from the passage?
A. |
Refugees lead a better life than old male patients. |
B. |
Old people are ill﹣treated due to their loss of individuality. |
C. |
The author's mom is capable of teaching and being a socialist in the meanwhile. |
D. |
The treatment of the ageing population doesn't develop as science advances. |
(3)The author's mom felt that life in the hospital .
A. |
made her much older. |
B. |
created her a mature woman. |
C. |
enable her to look back at life. |
D. |
let her full of gratitude to children. |
(4)The passage mainly discussed .
A. |
the life of refugees and old people. |
B. |
social responsibility to old women. |
C. |
improper treatment of old people. |
D. |
preparing for ageing parents. |