I don’t really care how many claws the animal in a comic book (漫画书) has. I’m not overly concerned whether the bird is colored green or grey. In fact I don’t think comic book “collector” really applies to me at all. I’m probably more of a comic book “appreciator”. My interest has always been in what can be accomplished with the medium of “visual story - telling”. In the respect, comic books are the best thing going. And there are some great comics out there.
I’m not sure exactly where this interest of mine came from. I do know that as a child, comic books allowed me to improve my reading – skills. The Mighty Thor made me develop an interest in Norse legends; Challengers of the Unknown got me interested in science fiction. The combination of words and pictures was a perfect springboard (起点) for my childhood imagination.
So just how does one learn to appreciate comic book art? There is a classic example. Writer Scott Macloud was philosophical (达观的) about what makes a comic book stand out in his best – selling book Understanding Comics. The book, first published in 1994, has been translated into 13 languages and is practically useful for students studying graphic illustration (图示说明).
On the Internet there are some cool comic book sites to be found. More than a few are mainly about superheroes and the like. But there are some choice sites that I would describe as “literary (文学的),” in that you can find some great resources that discuss the comic book as an art form. Among them there is a great article and interview at www.rcharvey.com discussing the influence of several artists and writers in the field.
Check it out. Spend two dollars on a comic book and read it with your children. You may find yourself enjoying what you see and read. You may even find yourself wanting more.
And wanting to read more is a good thing!
53．According to Para. 1 the author is concerned about .
A．the color of the characters in a comic book
B．how many comic books he has collected
C．what he can learn from a visual story
D．whether a story is true to life
54．What do we know about Scott Macloud’s best – selling book?
A．There are many classic examples if comic books in it.
B．It is helpful 1 for students studying science fiction.
C．It suggests what good comic books are like.
D．It is mainly intended for parents.
55．In the passage, the author encourages people to .
A．follow the example of superheroes from comic books
B．join in the discussion at www.rcharvey.com
C．consider comic books to be literary.
D．buy and read more comic books
56．What is the best title for the passage?
A．Children’s favorite books
B．Well – known comic books
C．Comic books – cooler than you think
D．How to become a good comic book writer
（BBC）The "father of the personal computer" who kick-started the careers of Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen has died at the age of 68．Dr Henry Edward Roberts was the inventor of the Altair 8800, a machine that led to the home computer age．
Gates and Allen contacted Dr Roberts after seeing the machine on the front cover of a magazine and offered to write software for it．The program was known as Altair-Basic, the foundation of Microsoft's business．"Ed was willing to take a chance on us - two young guys interested in computers , and we have always been thankful to him," the Microsoft founders said in a statement.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak told technology website CNET that Dr Roberts had
taken " a critically important step that led to everything we have today"．
Dr Roberts was the founder of Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), originally set up to sell electronics parts to model rocket hobbyists．The company went on to sell electronic calculator parts, but was soon overshadowed by bigger firms．
In the mid-1970's, with the firm struggling with debt, Dr Roberts began to develop a computer kit(配套零件) for hobbyists．The result was the Altair 8800．The $395 kit (around £1,000 today) was featured on the cover of Popular Electronics in 1975, resulting in a flood of orders．
Among those interested in the machine were Paul Allen and Bill Gates．The pair contacted Dr Roberts, offering to write software that would help people program the machine．The pair finally moved to Albuquerque - the home of MITS - where they founded Micro-Soft, to develop their software．
Dr Roberts sold his company in 1977．He died in hospital on 1 April after a long period of pneumonia (肺炎
) ．Why did Dr Roberts probably decide to sell his company?
| A．Because he was in heavy debt in the mid-1980's． |
| B．Because he wanted to take a chance on Gates and Allen. |
| C．Because he wanted to develop a computer kit for hobbyists. |
| D．Because he had difficulty competing with big companies． |
What do we know about MITS?
| A．It was set up by Steve Wozniak. |
| B．It sold electronics parts to big firms. |
| C．It is located in Albuquerque. |
| D．It is a technology website. |
We can learn that Popular Electronics is likely to be ____.
| A．a newspaper | B．a magazine |
| C．a Website | D．an organization |
What is the best title of thi
s passage?
| A．The story of the Altair 8800 |
| B．The founder of MITS |
| C．Father of the personal computer died |
| D．The story of Dr Roberts |
Funny English Errors and Insights
Laugh..．And Learn!
Welcome tothe website for Funny English Errors and Insights (2010), a new book of unconscious humour published by the National Library of Australia．
Funny English Er
rors and Insights will be launched at the National Library in Canberra on 29th, October 2010.
In the meantime, explore this website for other collections of real-life English language mistakes,including funny answers to exam questions, media misprints, and silly signs.
See Funny English Errors: The B List for more than a hundred examples of funny English gaffes（失言）．For more funny English errors, read author Troy Simpson's blog．For still more examples, join this website to download a free PDF version of English As She Is Taught, which lists our top 250 funny English language mistakes from that classic howlers book.
Join this website FREE, and you can also:
Enter member-only competitions
Contribute your comments
Download free e-Cards
Be the first to know about our much-anticipated book, Funny English Errors and Insights (2010)．.．
Features
Follows in the tradition of the runaway best-seller Howlers books of the 1920s and 1930s
Includes quotes(引文) that have never been published before in this way
Includes more than 30 carefully selected funny photos
Topics include English, science, history, geography, religion, mathematics, and more
A perfect gift for students, teachers, parents, grandparents, public speakers, doctors, lawyers, journalists, clergy and religious, and anyone with a sense of humour! The word launched in the second paragraph is closest to the meaning:
| A．sent up for the first time． | B．written for the first time． |
| C．for sale for the first time． | D．printed for the first time． |
On the website, you can do the following things except．
| A．read some funny news |
| B．know something about this book previously |
| C．find a lot of examples about English errors |
| D．express your opinions freely |
About this book, you know that．
| A．it only includes English, science, history |
| B．it is quite different from Howlers books |
| C．all the quotes in it are familiar with us |
| D．it is intended for people all walks of life |
The text is aimed at introducing
| A．a popular website | B．some selected funny photos |
| C．a new book | D．some funny English errors |
Maggiano is an award-winning teacher in the Social Studies Department at West Springfield High School in Virginia．He has taught in public and private schools for 25 years．In a piece on his blog called “The Classroom Post,” he calls for more males to enter the profession(职业).
Men Teach, a non-profit organization that encourages men to enter teaching, reports that in 2008, 18.8% of all elementary and middle school teachers were men．At the high school level during the same year, men comprised（构成） 44% of the work force.
Why are there so few men in teaching? Men Teach says low pay and lack of prestige（声望）, as well as a perception in our culture that teaching is for women．As a result, there is no organized effort across the country to attract men into the teaching profession.
A study in 2008 by the National Education Association showed that the number of male teachers hit a record 40-year low．Males comprised 24.5 percent of public schoolteachers．States with high percentages: Kansas (33.6 percent), Oregon (31.6 percent), Alaska (30.9 percent) and Indiana (30.5percent).States with the lowest percentage : Arkansas (16.2 percent), Virginia (17.4 percent), Mississippi (17.5 percent), Louisiana (18 percent), South Carolina (18.5 percent) and Georgia (19.7 percent)．
There is no definitive(确定) research that male students--or female students, for that matter-- learn better from a particular sex.
But as Maggiano put it, “Kids today, both boys and girls, must have the same opportunity to learn from outstanding, devoted men that I did．However, I have heard little discussion about this problem coming from our national leaders．What worries Maggiano is that_______．
| A．nobody will take his place when he retires | |
| B．male teachers are not so excellent | |
C．men are not interested in teaching |
D．there is not enough teachers in the schools |
According to the text , we can infer that______．
| A．the number of male teachers hit a record 40-year low in 2008 |
| B．it is not certain that students will learn better from male teachers |
| C．male teachers get a higher pay |
| D．organized efforts have been made to call on men into the teaching profession |
In which state are male teachers most badly needed?
| A．Alaska | B．Virginia | C．Georgia | D．Arkansas |
What does the last paragraph suggest?
| A．The government doesn’t pay much attention to the shortage．of male teachers in the school. |
| B．Students find it easy to learn from male teachers. |
| C．I’m glad to hear the discussion about the shortage of male teachers in the school. |
D．The shortage of ma le teachers in the school has no effect on students． |
After more than a year of bitter political debate, President Obama sat down in the White House East Room on March 23 and signed the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law with a pen，and then another pen，and another．Obama used 22 pens to sign the $938 billion health care bill．
The practice of using different pens to sign important 
legislation（法规）dates at least as far back as Franklin Roosevelt．The reason is fairly simple．The pen used to sign historic legislation itself becomes a historical artifact．The more pens a President uses, the more thank-you gifts he can offer to those who helped create that piece of history．The White House often give pens to supporters of the newly signed legislation．When Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, he reportedly used more than 75 pens and gave one of the first ones to Martin Luther King Jr．And in 1996, President Clinton gave the four pens he used to sign the Line-Item Veto bill to those most likely to appreciate the bill's consequence.
Once they're given away, some pens end up in museums; others are displayed proudly in recipients'(接受者) offices or homes．But they sometimes appear again, like in the 2008 presidential campaign（竞选活动）, when John Macain promised to use the same pen given to him by President Reagan to cut pork from the federal budget．
Not every President goes for the multipen signature, however．President George W．Bush preferred signing bills with only one pen and then offering several unused "gift" pens as souvenirs．We can learn from paragraph 1 that the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act．
| A．has been passed easily | B．was put forward one year ago |
| C．becomes law in the USA | D．is unimportant |
How are the pens dealt with after being used by President Obama?
| A．Supporters of the newly signed legislation are likely to get some of them. |
| B．Obama will keep them. |
| C．They will be just set aside |
| D．They will be sold to the public at a high price． |
What can we learn about John Macain?
A．He was ever President in the USA.
B．He took part in the 2008 presidential campaign.
C．He never used the pen given by Reagan.
D．He was only concerned about his own business．What does this passage mainly tell us ?
A．Obama signed the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act．
B．It is a practice to use multiple pens to sign important legislation in the USA．
C．Pens are necessary in the signature.
D．All the presidents like the multipen signature.
Have you ever wanted to travel back through time and see what life was like at the dawn（起始） of man? Well, museums can make history come alive. And one museum in particular can take you on an exciting journey from the beginning of human culture to the present day.
It is the British Museum. Being one of the largest museums in the world, it is home to over 7 million objects from all the world’s continents. While most of us may not have the opportunity to visit London, we can catch a glimpse of the treasures it holds in Beijing. More than 100 cultural relics will be on display in the Palace Museum. Named “Britain and the World”, a range of pencil sketches (素描), watercolor paintings, sculptures and many other objects have traveled to China.
There will be several Chinese objects on show. But “they were obtained by the British Museum before 1830 mainly by trade,” said Ma Jige, deputy director of the Exhibition Department of the Palace Museum.
In fact, there are more than 23,000 Chinese relics in the British Museum, including national treasures like gems (宝石), artwork and ancient bronze ware objects.
The museum is famed for its exquisite Chinese paintings. Picture of Lady Officials (《女史箴图》) by Gu Kaizhi, a top painter of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (AD 317-420), is there. The British Museum also holds 13,700 Buddhist records from the Dunhuang Grottoes in Gansu Province. From the passage we can learn that ________.
| A．the British Museum will be moved to Beijing |
| B．pictures of some objects belonging to the British Museum will be taken to Beijing |
| C．pictures of the British Museum will be on show in Beijing |
| D．some objects of the British Museum will be on show in Beijing |
The Chinese objects on show were mainly _______ by the British Museum.
| A．stolen |
B．bought |
C．borrowed |
D．robbed |
How many Chinese relics are there in the British Museum?
| A．About 100. |
B．About 1,830. |
C．About 13,700. |
D． Over 23,000. |