Several different stories are told about the origin of Saint Valentine’s Day. One legend(story) dates as far back as the days of Roman Empire. According to the story. Claudius, the Emperor of Rome, wanted to increase the size of the army. He knew that it would be easier to get young men who were not married to join the army; therefore, he made a rule that no young men could marry until he had served in the army for a number of years.
A priest(man working in church) named Valentine broke the rule and secretly married a great number of young people. Finally, Claudius found out about Valentine and put the priest in prison, where he remained until his death on February 14.
After his death, Valentine was made a saint(perfect man in public opinion) and the day of his death was named Saint Valentine’s Day----which is a time for people to send one another their greeting of many kinds.
February 14, Valentine’s Day, is sweetheart’s day, on which people in love with each other express their tender emotions(soft feelings).
People sometimes put their
love message in a heart shaped box of chocolate or a bunch of flowers tied with red ribbons(silk). Words of letters may be written on the flower covered card, or something else. Whatever the form may be, the message is almost the same “Will you be my Valentine?”
46. According to the rule_______.
A. no young men could get married unless they were old enough.
B. Young men could get married if they had served the army for a number of years.
no one could get married without the emperor’s permission
young men could get married only in the army.
47.The passage mainly tells us about_______.
A. How Valentine died B. The emperor of Rome
C. How Valentine’s Day is celebrated D. The origin of Valentine’s Day
48. February 14 is chosen as Valentine’s Day because_______.
A. people want to remember Valentine
lovers express their tender emotions on this day
people send one another greeting of many kinds on this day
people want to fix a date for lovers to express their emotion
49. Valentine was put in prison for ________.
A. he helped the couples who were not supposed to get married B. he got married C. he fell in love with more than one woman.
D. he broke the emperor’s rule on purpose
50. When a boy asks a neighbor girl to be his Valentine, he is probably asking her to _________.
A. spend the festival with him B. be his date
C. forgive him D. not to break his heart
It is not unusual for people to speak two or three languages; they’re known as bilinguals or trilinguals. Speakers of more than three languages are known as polyglots. And when we refer to people who speak many languages, perhaps a dozen or more, we use the term hyper-polyglot.
The most famous hyper-polyglot was Giuseppe Mezzofanti, a 19th century Italian cardinal, who was said to speak 72 languages. This claim sounds absurd. If you assume each language had 20,000 words, Mezzofanti would have to learn a word a minute, six hours a day, for eleven years—an impossible task. But Mezzofanti was tested by critics, and they were all impressed.
Did Mezzofanti have an extraordinary brain? Or are hyper-polyglots just ordinary people with ordinary brains who manage to do something extraordinary through hard work?
U.S. linguist Stephen Drashen believes that outstanding language learners just work harder at it and then they acquire unusually strong language ability. As an example, he mentions a Hungarian woman who worked as an interpreter during the 20th century. When she was 86, she could speak 16 languages and was still working on learning new languages. She said she learned them mostly on her own, reading fiction or working through dictionaries or textbooks.
Some researchers argue to the contrary. They believe that there is such a thing as a talent for learning languages. In the 1930s, a German scientist examined parts of the preserved brain of a hyper-polyglot named Emil Krebs, who could speak 60 languages fluently. The scientist found that the area of Krebs’s brain called Broca’s area, which is associated with language, looked different from the Broca’s area in the brains of men who speak only one language. However, we still don’t know if Krebs was born with a brain ready to learn dozens of languages or if his brain adapted to the demands he put on it.
Although it is still not clear whether the ability to learn many languages is in born, there’s no doubt that just about all of us can acquire skills in a second, third, or even fourth language by putting our mind to it. What does the underlined sentence imply?
| A．Mezzofanti could remember 360 words a day. |
| B．Mezzofanti had a special way to learn languages. |
| C．Mezzofanti’s achievement was ridiculous. |
| D．Mezzofanti language ability was astonishing. |
The Hungarian woman became a hyper-polyglot mainly because of her __.
| A．good memory | B．unique brain | C．hard work | D．learning methods |
The German scientist’s findings showed that Krebs ___.
| A．had an unusual brain |
| B．was born with great talent |
| C．had worked hard at languages |
| D．expected too much of himself |
The author seems to agree that ___.
| A．it is not hard to learn foreign languages |
| B．hard work plays a part in language learning |
| C．there is no such thing as a talent for languages |
| D．hyper-polyglots have an inborn talent for language |
Two traveling angels (天使) stopped to spend the night in the home of a wealthy family. The family was rude and refused to let the angels stay in the guest room. Instead the angels were given a space in the cold basement. As they made their bed on the hard floor，the older angel saw a hole in the wall and repaired it. When the younger angel asked why, the older angel replied: “Things aren’t always what they seem.”
The next night the pair came to rest at the house of a very poor, but very hospitable(好客的)farmer and his wife. After sharing what little food they had，the couple let the angels sleep in their bed where they could have a good night’s rest. When the sun came up the next morning，the angels found the farmer and his wife in tears. Their only cow, whose milk had been their only income, lay dead in the field.
The younger angel was very angry and asked the older angel, “How could this happen?” “Why did you not watch out for the cow? The first man had everything, yet you watched over his house,” she accused. “The second family had little but was willing to share everything, and you did not help.”
“Things aren’t always what they seem,” the older angel replied. “When we stayed in the basement，I noticed there was gold stored in that hole in the wall. Since the owner was so greedy and unwilling to share his good fortune，I asked God if I could seal(封口) the wall so he wouldn’t find it. Then last night as we slept in the farmer’s bed，the angel of death(死神) came for his wife. I asked God if the angel could take the cow instead. Things aren’t always what they seem.”The underlined part “the pair” in the second paragraph two refers to .
| A．the poor couple | B．the rich couple | C．the angels | D．the guests |
The younger angel was very angry because .
| A．the older angel killed the farmer’s cow |
| B．the older angel treated the two families unfairly |
| C．the wealthy man gave them a bad place to live |
| D．the angel of death took the cow away |
Why did the older angel let the farmer’s cow die?
| A．Because God wanted the older angel to take the cow. |
| B．Because she wanted to teach the younger angel a lesson. |
| C．Because she was sympathetic to the rich. |
| D．Because she wanted to save the farmer’s wife. |
The story tries to tell the reader that .
| A．sometimes things are not what they seem |
| B．angels are always ready to help the poor |
| C．angels are always ready to help the rich |
| D．the young should always learn from the old |
All too often, a choice that seems sustainable(可持续的)turns out on closer examination to be problematic. Probably the best example is the rush to produce ethanol(乙醇) for fuel from corn. Corn is a renewable resource —you can harvest it and grow more, almost limitlessly. So replacing gas with corn ethanol seems like a great idea.
One might get a bit more energy out of the ethanol than that used to make it, which could still make ethanol more sustainable than gas generally, but that’s not the end of the problem. Using corn to make ethanol means less corn is left to feed animals and people, which drives up the cost of food. That result leads to turning the fallow land –including, in some cases, rain forest in places such as Brazil—into farmland, which in turn gives off lots of carbon dioxide (CO) into the air. Finally, over many years, the energy benefit from burning ethanol would make up for the forest loss. But by then, climate change would have progressed so far that it might not help.
You cannot really declare any practice “sustainable” until you have done a complete life-cycle analysis of its environmental(环境的) costs. Even then, technology and public keep developing, and that development can lead to unforeseen and undesired results. The admirable goal of living sustainably requires plenty of thought on an ongoing basis.What might directly cause the loss of the forest according to the text?
| A．The growing demand for energy to make ethanol |
| B．The increasing carbon dioxide in the air |
| C．The greater need for farmland |
| D．The big change in weather. |
The underlined word “it” in the second paragraph refers to “ ”
| A．the energy benefit | B．the forest loss |
| C．climate change | D．burning ethanol |
The author thinks that replacing gas with corn ethanol is .
| A．impractical | B．acceptable | C．admirable | D．useless |
What does the author mainly discuss in the text?
| A．Technology | B．Sustainability |
| C．Ethanol energy | D．Environmental protection |
Nowadays more and more people are trapped in too busy work to relax themselves. We have no time to tell a bed-time story to our children, or enjoy a nice dinner with our family, or take a break to think about how we live the precious life, or even meet friends. All we notice is that the distinctions that used to guide and steady us —between Sunday and Monday, public and private, here and there—are gone. We have more ways to communicate, but less and less to say. Partly because we’re so busy communicating.
Maybe that’s why more and more people I know, even if they have no religious belief, seem to be turning to yoga, or meditation, or tai chi. Some friends of mine try to go on long walks every Sunday, or to “forget” their cell phones at home. A series of tests in recent years has shown that their brains become both calmer and sharper after spending time in quiet rural settings.
In my own case, I often turn to extreme measures to try to keep my sanity and ensure that I have time to do nothing at all. I’ve not yet used a cell phone and I’ve never Tweeted or entered Face book. I try not to go online till my day’s writing is finished, and I moved from Manhattan to rural Japan.
None of this is a matter of principle or asceticism (苦行主义): it’s just pure selfishness. Nothing makes me feel better-----calmer, clearer and happier----than being in one place, absorbed in a book, a conversation, a piece of music. It’s actually something deeper than mere happiness: it’s joy, which David Steindl-Rast describes as “that kind of happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens.” That is the highest of the highest we have been longing for—The Joy of Quiet. The writer sometimes doesn’t do anything because ________.
| A．he is out of work |
| B．whatever he does makes no sense |
| C．he can enjoy himself in his leisure time |
| D．he is worried about his writing |
What does the writer mean when using the word “forget” (in the 2nd paragraph)?
| A．Trapped in busy work, they are really forgetful. |
| B．They think cell phone is not a suitable means of communication. |
| C．They leave their cell phones at home on purpose. |
| D．They hate modern techniques such as the cell phone. |
Which of the following is right?
| A．The writer is unwilling to help others since he is selfish. |
| B．Slowing down to find deep-down joy is necessary. |
| C．It is better to go back to the ancient times since we are so busy now. |
| D．We have more to say because we have more ways to communicate. |
What is the main idea of the article?
| A．The importance of spending time in quiet. |
| B．We can do some sports such as yoga to relax. |
| C．To feel better, we should do nothing at all. |
| D．The more we communicate, the better we will feel. |
On a freezing-cold February morning in Indiana, Jhaqueil Reagan,18, left home to walk to a job interview—ten miles away, over snow-covered roads.
Reagan had been looking for work for months. His mother had died two years earlier, and he was the only caretaker of his younger brother, Cole, 16, and sister, Jazzlyn, seven. He was desperate for a regular salary after cutting lawns(草坪) and doing other temporaryjobs.
Three hours into his hard trip, Reagan had covered only three miles. He paused outside a Cajun restaurant called Papa Roux to ask for directions from owner Art Bouvier, who was clearing ice and snow from the parking lot. “I told him to get on the bus,” says Bouvier. “He thanked me and went on his way.”
Fifteen minutes later, Bouvier pulled up in his car beside Reagan as he walked along. “You’ve really got to be on the bus,” he told Reagan. “I don’t have money for the bus,” Reagan replied. Bouvier offered him a lift. On the way, he asked the boy about his job search.
“I thought, This is the kind of kid I want working for me,” says Bouvier. He got the teen’s phone number and dropped him off for his interview.
Later that day, Bouvier wrote about Reagan on Facebook. “He doesn’t know it yet, but he starts on Monday,” Bouvier wrote. “It’s been a while since I’ve met someone so young with a work ethic(伦理) like that!” A few hours later, Bouvier called to offer Reagan a job. Shocked, the teen accepted on the spot. A television reporter caught wind of the story and interviewed the pair on camera that night.
Today, Reagan is washing dishes, filling orders, and greeting Papa Roux customers for $8.50 an hour. The publicity(宣传) has brought in so many new customers that Bouvier plans to open a second restaurant by the end of the year.Why did Jhaqueil Reagan have to find a job ?
| A．Because he had to make enough money to support his family. |
| B．Because his parents had died two years earlier. |
| C．Because he wanted to change his job. |
| D．Because he was desperate for a good job. |
Which of the following can be used to replace the underlined part in the sixth paragraph ?
| A．reported | B．delivered | C．heard | D．told |
Which of the following words best describes Bouvier?
| A．honest | B．warm-hearted | C．modest | D．independent |
What’s the best title of the passage ?
| A．A Young Man Who Had an Interview | B．A Young Man Who Found a Job |
| C．A Boss Who Offered a Job | D．A Boss Who Took a Chance |