Three months after the government stopped issuing（发放）or renewing permits for Internet cafes because of security（安全）concerns, some café owners are having financial concerns of their own.
The permits were stopped suddenly three months ago by the government until new safeguards could be put in place to prevent misuse of the information superhighway, but for café owners it’s a business breakdown with no fix in sight.
“I heard in a request to open up an Internet café and received the conditions,” said the businessman Obeidallah. “I rented a place in the Sharafiah district at SR45,000 and prepared the place with equipment that cost me more than SR100,000. When I went to the local government after finishing everything, I was surprised to find that they’d stopped issuing permits for Internet cafes.”
Having an Internet café without Internet is much like having a coffee shop without coffee. “I’m avoiding closing the place, but it’s been more than three months with the situation ongoing as it is.” Obeidallah said. “Who will bear the losses caused by the permit issue?”
The decision took many café owners by surprise. “I asked to open an Internet café, and I was handed a list of all the things that were needed to follow through, such as a sign for the place, filling out forms,” said Hassan Al-Harbi.
“I did all that was asked and rented a place. And after the Haj vacation I went to the local government and they surprised me, saying that there are new rules that forbid the issuing of any more Internet café permits and that one can’t even renew his permit. I’ve lost more than SR80, 000,” Al-harbi added.
As for government, officials say a method to deal with it is on the way, but security concerns come before profit（盈利）.
67．The government stopped issuing or renewing permits for Internet cafes ______.
A. to prevent misuse of new safeguards in Internet cafes
B. to make café owners earn less profit from their business
C. to stop the use of the information superhighway on Internet
D. to make sure of the proper use of the information superhighway
68．The government’s decision led to the fact that many café owners _______.
A. suffered heavy financial losses B. asked to open up Internet cafes
C. continued to operate Internet cafes D. asked the government for payment
69．The underlined phrase in the last paragraph “on the way” means _____.
A. to be studied B. to be put into practice
C. to be changed D. to be improved
70．The café owners found the government’s decision ______.
A. surprising and unacceptable B. understandable and acceptable
C. reasonable but surprising D. surprising but acceptable
According to figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the U.K. has about 7.7 million families with dependent children, of which 3.7 million have just one child, compared to 3 million with two and 1.1 million with three children or more. The number of families today with just one dependent child is now 47 percent and will likely rise to more than 50 percent in a decade. As the ONS confirms, “It appears that families are getting smaller.”
One obvious reason for this could be that women are putting off having children until they have established careers when they are bound to be less fertile. But it could just as well be a matter of choice. Parents must consider the rising cost of living, combined with economic uncertainty and an increasingly difficult job market. And this trend may continue growing as having an only child becomes more normal, which seems to be the mood on the mothers’ online forum Mumsnet, where one member announced that she “just wanted to start a positive thread about how fab it is to have an only child”.
She had received 231 replies, overwhelmingly in the same upbeat spirit. Parents of only children insist there are plenty of benefits. Nicola Kelly, a writer and lecturer who grew up as an only child and is now a married mother of one, says her 15-year-old son seems more grown-up in many ways than his contemporaries.
Not all products of single-child families are as keen to repeat the experience. In a moving recent account journalist Janice Turner wrote about her own keenness to “squeeze out two sons just 22 months apart” as a reaction to her only-child upbringing.
She was placed on a pedestal by her doting parents, whom she punished with a “brattish, wilful” rejection of everything they stood for. Desperate for a close friend she was repeatedly shattered by rejection and refers to her childhood as being “misery”.
Writer and clinician Dr. Dorothy Rowe, a member of the British Psychological Society, says that we all interpret events in our own individual way and there are some children who no matter what their circumstances feel slighted, while other children see the advantages of their situation.
However, the one part of life that is unlikely to get any easier for only children is when they grow up and find themselves looking after their own parents as they become older.The passage is written with the purpose of ________.
| A．illustrating the strength and weakness of having an only child |
| B．analyzing the reasons why having an only child becomes popular |
| C．presenting us with different opinions about having an only child |
| D．guiding people to look at the same issue from different perspectives |
What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 4 mean?
| A．Nearly half of families intend to have just one child. |
| B．All people don’t stand for the idea of having an only child. |
| C．Some people fail to recognize the advantage of having an only child. |
| D．People brought up in an only child family resist downsizing the family. |
From what Dr. Dorothy Rowe said, we know that ________.
| A．journalist Janice Turner experienced a miserable childhood |
| B．she has a positive attitude towards Janice Turner’s reaction |
| C．it’s necessary for us to look at the event from our own angle |
| D．some are unable to make an objective assessment of their conditions |
What can be inferred from the passage?
| A．It’s normal to see the imperfection in character in only children. |
| B．Mumsnet is an online forum which promotes having an only child. |
| C．Economic development plays a determining role in the family size. |
| D．Only children will have difficulty in attending to their parents. |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．The voyage through the wormhole is a considerable challenge. |
| B．A team of crime-fighters uncovers a criminal plot in Big Hero. |
| C．President Coin pushes Katniss to protest Peeta. |
| D．Penguins have to wrestle with problems in District 13. |
The similarity that exists in the four films is that ________.
| A．each of them is a branch of film series |
| B．all of them are concerned with positive energy |
| C．they all have the best actors and actresses in the world |
| D．the four films all have something to do with exploration |
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
A consumercomplaint or customer complaint isan expression of dissatisfaction on a consumer’s behalf to a responsible party. It can also be described in a positive sense as a report from a consumer providing documentation about problems with a product or service.
So what are the common reasons for customer complaints? The most common complaints about retail(零售) storesfall into several aspects. First, they have to circle the filled parking lot endlessly, which is a waste of time and a test for their patience. They also can’t stand clutteredshelves, over-loaded racks, out-of-stock items and long check-out lines. Worst of all, sometimes some salespeople are rude, turning their mood into a bad one.
In fact, some modern business consultants urge businesses to view customer complaints as a gift but not a trouble.Some retailers, however,ignore complaints or deal with them dishonestly, which can cause a chain of events like bad reputation, leave theirbusiness with fewer and fewer customers. The resulting “snowball effect” can be disastrous to retailers.In the most severe cases, it can even cause companies to shut down.
Increasing competition is forcing companies to take more effective measures to satisfycustomers and better their customer service.During peak shopping hours, some moonlighting(业余兼职的) local police have been employed as parking attendants bysome retailers to solve the parking problems. Some hire flag wavers to direct customers to parking spaces that are empty. This guidance can avoid confrontation between those eyeing the same parking space.Retailers can relieve the headache by redesigning store layouts, pre-stocking sales items, hiring the cashiers with much experience, and having sales representatives on hand to answer questions.Most importantly, salespeople should be trained to deal with angry customerswith politeness.Try their best to resolve the problem if they can.
Quickly and properly solving customer complaints can help retailers smooth over issues and their business can grow and prosper.
How many times a day do you check your email? When you wake up? Before bed? A dozen times in between? The technology that was supposed to simplify our lives has become the vital time-suck: the average teen spends more than seven hours a day using technological devices, plus an additional hour just text-messaging friends.
The advantage of technological devices is connectedness: email lets us respond on the go, and we are in touch with more people during more hours of the day than at any other time in history. But is it possible we’re more lonely than ever, too? That’s what MIT professor Sherry Turkle observes in her new book, Alone Together, a fascinating portrait of our changing relationship with technology. Turkle details the ways technology has redefined our comprehension of closeness and loneliness—and warns us of the danger of accepting such virtual(虚拟的) relationships in place of lasting emotional connections.
For Turkle, the biggest worry is the effect all these shallow connections have on our development. Is technology offering us the lives we want to live? “We’re texting people at a distance,” says Turkle, “We’re using lifeless objects to convince ourselves that even when we’re alone, we feel together. And then when we’re with each other, we put ourselves in situations where we are alone—constantly on our mobile devices. It’s what I call a perfect storm of confusion about what’s important in our human connections.”
What can’t be denied is that technology, whatever its faults, makes life a whole lot easier. It allows us to communicate with more people in less time and makes conversation simple. But it can also be seductive(具有诱惑性的), providing more stimulation than our natural lives. There are usually some unhealthy videos online which remove teenagers’ attention from their schoolwork. Besides, some online activities make people addicted, which occupied their daily life and affected their ability to form real-world relationships.“Technology can be more immediately satisfying than the labor of building an intimate relationship,” said one highschool student, “Every time I text, I start to have some happy feelings.”
But are any of those feelings equal to the kind we feel when engaged in real, face-to-face communication? Online, you can neglect others’ feelings. In a text message, you can avoid eye contact. A number of studies have found that this generation of teens is less sympathetic than ever. That doesn’t spell disaster, says Turkle—but，From the first paragraph we can infer that_________.
| A．email checking helps people wake up early |
| B．technological device production has been simplified |
| C．using technological devices costs teens much time |
| D．people communicate mainly by text-messaging now |
Turkle’s new book mainly discussed________.
| A．ways to draw a fascinating portrait |
| B．how technology influences human relationships |
| C．the dangers of accepting emotional connections |
| D．the advantages of technology |
What worries Turkle most is that more and more people are_________.
| A．starting to accept emotional connections in place of virtual connections |
| B．convincing themselves by using fewer lifeless objects in connections |
| C．dropping the use of technological devices for connection with each other |
| D．being affected by the shallow connections through the mobile devices |
Which of the following is True according to the passage?
| A．Others’ feelings can be ignored in online communication. |
| B．No stimulation is provided in natural life connections. |
| C．People always send text messages to avoid eye contact. |
| D．It may be a disaster that teens are less sympathetic than ever. |
What is the main purpose of the passage?
| A．To instruct people how to do with emails. |
| B．To stress the importance of technology. |
| C．To promote a wider use of technological devices. |
| D．To lead us to consider what’s important in human connections. |
The snow cap of Mount Kilimanjaro, famous in literature and beloved by tourists, initially formed some 11,000 years ago, but will be gone in two decades, according to researchers who say the ice fields on Africa’s highest mountain shrank by 80 percent in the past century.
Lonnie G. Thompson,one professor from Ohio State University, said measurements using modern navigation satellites show that the oldest ice layers on the famous mountain were deposited during an extremely wet period starting about 11,700 years ago.The mountain appears in literature, most notably Ernest Hemingway’s “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and some ancient beliefs in Africa hold the mountain to be a sacred place.
But a temperature rise in recent years is destroying the 150-foot-high blocks of ice that gave Kilimanjaro its unique white cap.“The ice will be gone by about 2030,” said Thompson. The disappearing ice already has reduced the amount of water in some Tanzanian rivers and the government fears that when Kilimanjaro is bald of snow the tourists will stop coming.
“Kilimanjaro is the number one foreign currency earner for the government of Tanzania,” said Thompson. “It has its own international airport and some 20,000 tourists every year. The question is how many will come if there are no ice fields on the mountain.”
Africa was not alone in the global drought. Thompson said other records show that civilizations during this period collapsed in India, the Middle East and South America.
Researchers put markers on the ice field blocks in 1962 and Thompson said measurements using satellites show the summit of the ice has been lowered by about 56 feet in 40 years. The margin of the ice also has moved back more than six feet in the past two years, much smaller than before.
“That’s more than two meter’s worth of ice lost from a wall 164 feet (50 meters) high,” said Thompson. “That’s an enormous amount of ice.”The snow cap of Mount Kilimanjaro ________.
| A．will disappear in two centuries |
| B．first developed some 11,000 years ago |
| C．resulted in a temperature rise in recent years |
| D．has decreased to 80 percent over the past century |
According to Thompson, the disappearing of the snow may mainly influence________.
| A．the local water supply |
| B．the local tourism |
| C．the weather in the surrounding areas |
| D．the government foreign currency exchange |
The underlined word “margin”inParagraph6 means__________.
| A．center | B．Top | C．edge | D．back |
The writer’s tone in this article is___________.
| A．concerned | B．casual |
| C．doubtful | D．angry |
Which of the following can be the best title for this passage?
| A．Risks of Visiting Mount Kilimanjaro |
| B．ASacred Place— Kilimanjaro |
| C．Africa’s Highest Mountain |
| D．Kilimanjaro Snow Cap May Melt Soon |