Women have jumped ahead of men for the first time in using the Internet to do their holiday shopping, according to a study published last week in the US.
For years men have been more likely to shop on the Internet than women, but during the
2007 holiday season 58 percent of those shopping online were women, "it shows how popular
the Internet is becoming," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life
Project group, which carried out the study. Rainie said it was only a matter of time before
women shoppers caught up with men. This is because women traditionally make decisions about
spending.
Users were more likely to shop online to save time. Internet users between the ages 18 and
29 were responsible for some of the surprising increase in the online gift-buying population this
time around. However, three-quarters of the US Internet users did not buy holiday gifts online
in 2007. They worried about credit card security (安全), or just compared online prices with
off-line prices, then dashed off to the shops to get the best deals.
"But even if shoppers don't buy online, websites are becoming promotion (^g)tools for
stores," said Dan Hess, vice president of ComScore Networks Inc. Hess said that actually most
stores' websites can make customers fully believe the security of their credit card numbers.
And most are able to ensure that gifts arrive on time. " It' s all about making the shopping
experience more efficient, more reliable and more comfortable. " Hess said.
45. Which of the following statements is true?
A. There were fewer women online shoppers than men in 2007.
B. Most of the Internet users between the ages of18 and 29 are women.
C. People in the US were more likely to buy gifts online.
D. More women shopped online than men in 2007.
46. We can infer from the passage that____.
A. men usually decide how to spend money in the family
B. women usually decide what to buy in the family
C. the Internet is used in all the shops
D. shopping online will be more popular in years
47. According to Dan Hess, shopping online ____.
A. is unsafe B. is convenient C. is a waste of money D. is cheaper
48. Which of the following is the best title?
A. Women turn to online shopping. B. Men stop online shopping.
C. More young people shop online. D. Shopping off-line provides better service.
You may know the English letters A, B and C. But do you know there are people called ABC? You may like eating bananas. But did you know there is a “banana person”? How strange! Are these people from “another Earth”? No. They are just Chinese people like you and me.
ABC means American-Born Chinese. An ABC is a Chinese, but was born in the United States. Sometimes, people call an ABC a “banana person”. A banana is yellow outside and white inside. So, when a person is a banana, he or she is white inside—thinking like a Westerner and yellow outside—looking like a Chinese.
Do you know why? Usually, ABCs know little about China or the Chinese language. Some of them don’t speak Chinese.
But if ABCs cannot speak Chinese, can we still call them Chinese people? Yes, of course. They are Chinese. They are overseas (海外) Chinese. These people may be citizens(公民) of another country like the US, Canada or Singapore. But they have Chinese blood. Their parents, grandparents or even great-grandparents were from China. They all have black eyes and black hair.
But they are not Chinese citizens. They are not the people of the People’s Republic of China. For example, we all know the famous scientist C.N. Yang(杨振宁). He got the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1957. The Chinese love him, but he is an American citizen.What’s the author’s purpose in writing this passage?
A.He wants to tell us something about “ABC”. |
B.He wants to show that Chinese are well respected in America. |
C.He wants to tell us some knowledge about the English language. |
D.He wants to introduce the American culture to us. |
Chinese in Western countries are called “banana persons” because ____.
A.their bodies are white inside but yellow outside |
B.they think like Westerners but look like Chinese |
C.they were born in China but go to study in America |
D.they like to eat bananas |
C.N. Yang is mentioned here to show that ____.
A. American Chinese are great. B. we love American Chinese
C. The Chinese can win Nobel Prizes D. American Chinese are not Chinese citizens
Two thieves came to a house to steal something. They dug a hole in the wall of the house.
There lived many mice in the house. The woman in the moonlight saw a mouse crawl(爬行) into the house. “Look! In comes one,” she said to the man in the house. The thief was so frightened that he hurriedly crawled out of the house and said to the one waiting outside, “She found me when I was just in.” But the thief outside didn’t believe him, so he said, “Let us try to crawl into the house together.” At that time two mice happened to crawl into the house, too. The woman saw the mice and shouted, “In come two, catch them!” The two thieves were terribly frightened. The man in the house said, “You saw them come in but where are they? I will catch them tonight.” The two thieves started running away at once.
The two thieves wanted to make it clear whether they had been found or not the night before. The next day they acted as men selling sweet potatoes and came before the house. The man and the woman were ploughing in their fields. The rope broke and the woman came home for a rope. She saw two men selling sweet potatoes and wanted to buy some. She picked out two which looked like mice. At the time the man couldn’t wait for her any longer in the fields and he ran back from the fields to hurry her up. The woman showed the sweet potatoes to the man and said, “How they look like the two of last night.” The man said, “I asked you to fetch a rope, why don’t you hurry for it?” The two thieves ran away very quickly without their sweet potatoes.The two thieves failed to steal anything from the house because _____.
A.they were found out |
B.they were frightened by what they had heard in the house |
C.they didn’t work together well with each other |
D.mice stopped them from doing so |
From the last paragraph, we know that _____.
A.the two thieves were famous selling sweet potatoes |
B.the woman recognized the two thieves |
C.the woman pretended to know nothing about the two thieves and made fun of them |
D.the two thieves didn’t know that they were not found at all |
When the woman said, “How they look like the two of last night,” _____.
A.she referred to the two thieves | B.she meant nothing |
C.she said it on purpose | D.she referred to the mice |
The best title for the passage may be ____.
A.Two Clever Thieves | B.Terrible Mice |
C.Hit the Mark by a Fluke | D.A Clever Couple |
The people below are all looking for books to help themselves. After the description of these people, there is information about six books A---F. Decide which book would be most suitable for the person mentioned in questions 61---65 and mark the correct letter (A---F) on your answer sheet. There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use.
_____ Jim bought a home computer earlier this year and he’s become very enthusiastic about it, spending hours each evening ‘playing’ with it as his wife says. Unfortunately, he’s
getting a bit forgetful about things he’s promised to do!
___ Freda prefers action to reading or watching TV. She is planning to redecorate the
living room and she isn’t expecting any help from others!
____ Susan Laughton is taking ‘A’ Levels in English, History and Art next year and if she passes, she’s hoping to become a teacher.
____Tony is very interested in animals and at the moment he wants to be a vet (a doctor for animals) when he grows up.
___ Jessica loves flowers, though, as her family lives in a second floor flat, there’s no
garden for her to grow anything in.
A: Book One
By Rachel Lawson
Over 100 color photographs, $ 22.00
Written to accompany an exciting new 13-part ITV television series, Nature Watch, this book describes the people who spend their lives working with the birds, animals and plants in various parts of the world. Their enthusiasm is brought to life with their own outstanding color photographs. Hints on nature watching for the amateur are found throughout.
B: Book Two
By Bob Dillard
150 color photographs and 490 color pictures, $ 16.50
Just the book for the job! With over 600 color photographs and pictures it covers the most popular DIY tasks around the home---painting, wall coverings, finishing furniture and woodwork, and putting up shelves. Full of handy tips and clear instructions
C: Book Three
By Will Smith, $ 7.5
Week to a page. A truly delightful family science magazine, each issue brings to light new software to make time before the screen interesting. This pocket diary provides a wide range of information for the enthusiast. Try it for 3 weeks for just 6.6. You can save 0.9.
D: Book Four
By Martin Ferguson
Color throughout, Paperback $ 9.5
Another title in the popular and practical Learn to Paint series, this beautifully illustrated book show you how to paint animals, birds, fish and butterflies in the studio and in the field. Every issue contains plenty of usable samples and provides a free photography page.
E: Book Five
By Cynthia Wildman
12 double-page color paintings 170 line drawings, $ 17.8
A fresh and useful approach to indoor gardening. A month-by-month guide to jobs to do, plants to look for, planning ahead and enjoying seasonal variations — to give year-round color in the home. Illustrated by original paintings for each month.
F: Book Six
By Conrad Ellis & Richard Hopkins, Paperback $ 9.8
A guide to success in written work, study and examinations for students in all subjects at colleges, and universities. Topics covered include: grammar, punctuation, and spelling; sentence and paragraph structure; research and library work; charts and diagrams; essays, reports, and exams; letters and application forms; listening and note-taking; talking and reading skills.
Imagine that the genome (基因组) is a book. The book consists of 23 chapters with thousands of stories made up of paragraphs, words and letters on different levels. There are one billion words in the book, which makes it longer than 5,000 volumes the size of this book, or as long as 800 Bibles. If I read the genome out to you at the rate of one word per second for eight hours a day, it would take me a century. If I wrote out the human genome, one letter per millimeter, my text would be as long as the River Danube. This is an enormous document. A huge volume, a cook book of great length, and it all fits inside the extremely small nucleus (核) of a tiny cell that fits easily upon the head of a pin.
The idea of the genome as a book is not, strictly speaking, even a metaphor (比喻), It is true to a great extent. A book is a piece of digital information, written in one-directional form and defined by a code that translates a small alphabet of letters into a large dictionary of meanings through the order of their groupings. So is a genome. The only complication is that all English books read from left to right, while some parts of the genome read from left to right, and some from right to left, though never both at the same time.
While English books are written in words of different lengths using twenty-six letters. Genomes are written entirely in three-letter words, using only four letters, And instead of being written on flat pages, they are written on long chains of DNA molecules (分子), The genome is a very clever book, because in the right conditions it can both photocopy itself and read itself.How do human genomes read according to the passage?
A.Only from left to right. | B.Only from right to left. |
C.From both directions at the same time | D.From one direction at a time |
We can learn from the passage that the human genome ______.
A.is as long as the River Danube |
B.can be easily placed on the head of a pin |
C.is coded with and alphabet of four letters |
D.is smart enough to read and take photos of itself |
It can be concluded that the passage is mainly written for ______.
A.specialists in the field | B.general readers |
C.natural scientists | D.readers with academic background |
The real purpose of the author’s comparison of the genome to a book is ______.
A.to focus on the differences between the two |
B.to lay emphasis on the similarities between the two |
C.to simplify the concept of the human genome |
D.to give an exact description of the human genome |
The “Bystander Apathy Effect” was first studied by researchers in New York after neighbors ignored—and in some cases turned up the volume on their TVs—the cries of a woman as she was murdered (over a half-hour period). With regard to helping those in difficulty generally, they found that:
(1) women are helped more than men;
(2) men help more than women;
(3) attractive women are helped more than unattractive women.
Other factors relate to the number of people in the area, whether the person is thought to be in trouble through their own fault, and whether a person sees himself as being able to help.
According to Adrian Furnham, Professor of University College, London, there are three reasons why we tend to stand by doing nothing:
(1) “Shifting of responsibility”-the more people there are, the less likely help is to be given. Each person excuses himself by thinking someone else will help, so that the more “other people’ there are, the greater the total shifting of responsibility.
(2) “'Fear of making a mistake'’-situations are often not clear. People think that those involved in an accident may know each other or it may be a joke, so a fear of embarrassment makes them keep themselves to themselves.
(3) “Fear of the consequences if attention is turned on you, and the person is violent.”
Laurie Taylor, Professor of Sociology at London University, says: “In the experiments I’ve seen on intervention (介入), much depends on the neighborhood or setting. There is a silence on public transport which is hard to break. We are embarrassed to draw attention to something that is happening, while in a football match, people get involved, and a fight would easily follow. ”
Psychotherapist Alan Dupuy identifies the importance of the individual: “The British as a whole have some difficulty intervening, but there are exceptional individuals in every group who are prepared to intervene, regardless of their own safety: These would be people with a strong moral code or religious ideals.”Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?
A.Pretty women are more likely to be helped. |
B.People on a bus are more likely to stop a crime. |
C.Religious people are more likely to look on. |
D.Criminals are more likely to harm women. |
Which factor is NOT related with intervention according to the passage?
A.Sex. | B.Nationality. | C.Profession. | D.Setting. |
Which phenomenon can be described as the “Bystander Apathy Effect”?
A.When one is in trouble, people think it’s his own fault. |
B.In a football match, people get involved in a fight. |
C.Seeing a murder, people feel sorry that it should have happened. |
D.On hearing a cry for help, people keep themselves to themselves. |
The author wrote this article ______.
A.to explain why bystanders behave as they do |
B.to urge people to stand out when in need |
C.to criticize the selfishness of bystanders |
D.to analyze the weakness of human nature |