It doesn't matter when or how much a person sleeps, but everyone needs some rest to stay alive. That's what all doctors thought, until they heard about Al Herpin. Al Herpin, it was said, never slept. Could this be true ? The doctors decided to see this strange man themselves.
Al Herpin was 90 years old when the doctors came to his home in New Jersey. They thought for sure that he got some sleep of some kind. So they stayed with him and watched every movement he made. But they were surprised. Though they watched him hour after hour and day after day. They never saw Herpin sleeping. In fact, he did not even own a bed. He never needed one.
The only rest that Herpin sometimes got was sitting in a comfortable chair and reading newspapers. The doctors were puzzled by this strange continuous sleeplessness. They found only one answer that might explain his condition. Herpin remembered some talk about his mother having been injured several days before he was born. But that was all. Was this the real reason ? No one could be sure. Herpin died at the age of 94. The main idea of this passage is that _______.
| A．large numbers of people do not need sleep |
| B．a person was found who actually didn't need any sleep |
| C．everyone needs some sleep to stay alive |
| D．people can live longer by trying not to sleep |
The doctors came to visit Herpin, expecting to _______.
| A．cure him of his sleeplessness |
| B．find that his sleeplessness was not really true |
| C．find a way to free people from the need of sleeping |
| D．find out why some old people didn't need any asleep |
After watching him closely, the doctors came to believe that Al Herpin _______.
| A．was too old to need any sleep | B．often slept in a chair |
| C．needed no sleep at all | D．needed some kind of sleep |
One reason that might explain Herpin's sleeplessness was _______.
| A．that he hadn't got a bed |
| B．that he had gradually got tired of the sleeping habit |
| C．his mother's injury before he was born |
| D．his magnificent physical condition |
Write a winning story!
You could win ￡1,000 in this year’s Fiction Prize and have your story printed in Keep Writing magazine. Ten other lucky people will win a cheque for ￡100.
Once again, we need people who can write good stories. The judges, who include Mary Littlejohn, the novelist, Michael Brown, the television reporter, and Susan Hitchins, the editor of Keep Writing, are looking for interesting and original stories. Detective fiction was extremely popular last year, although the competition winner produced a love story. You can write down about whatever you want but here’s some advice to start your thinking:
Write about what you know
This is the advice which every writer should pay attention to and, last year, nearly everyone who wrote for us did exactly that. Love, family, problems with friends ---- these were the main subjects of the stories. However, you need to turn ordinary situations into something interesting that people will want to read about. Make the reader want to continue reading by writing about ordinary things in a new and surprising way.
Get your facts right
It’s no good giving a description of a town or explaining how a jet engine works if you get it wrong. So avoid writing anything unless you’re certain about it.
Hold the reader’s attention
Make the beginning interesting and the ending a surprise. There is nothing worse than a poor ending. Develop the story carefully and try to think of something unusual happening at the end.
Think about the characters
Try to bring the people in your story alive for the reader by using well-chosen words to make them seem real.
Your story must be your own work, between 2,000 and 2,5000 words and typed, double-spaced, on one side only of each sheet of paper.
Even if you’re in danger of missing the closing date, we are unable to accept stories by fax or email. You must include the application form with your story. Unfortunately your story cannot be returned, nor can we discuss our decisions.
You should not have had any fiction printed in any magazine or book in this country ---- a change in the rules by popular request ---- and the story must not have happened in print or in recorded form, for example on radio or TV, anywhere in the world.
Your fee of ￡5 will go to the Writers’ Association. Make your cheque payable to Keep Writing and send it with the application form and your story to:
Keep Writing
75 Broad Street Birmingham
B12 4TG
The closing date is 30 July and we will inform the winner within one month of this date. Please note that if you win, you must agree to have your story printed in our magazine.How should writers deal with ordinary situations while writing?
| A．They should make them appealing to readers. |
| B．They should copy others’ ideas. |
| C．They should change some facts to make them interesting. |
| D．They should describe them as they are. |
What shouldn’t a writer do?
| A．Making the contents interesting. |
| B．Getting the facts right. |
| C．Meeting the deadline. |
| D．Making the end ordinary. |
Writers should present their works in the following ways except that ____________.
| A．they should write originally |
| B．they can type their stories as they like |
| C．they should follow some rules |
| D．they should hand in their stories in time |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．Late stories can be faxed if necessary. |
| B．Entry needs no fee. |
| C．Winners can have their stories printed in other magazines. |
| D．All stories should be presented by mail. |
The evidence for harmony may not be obvious in some families. But it seems that four out of five young people now get on with their parents, which is the opposite of the popularly-held image of unhappy teenagers locked in their room after endless family quarrels.
An important new study into teenage attitudes surprisingly shows that their family life is more harmonious than it has ever been in the past. “We were surprised by just how positive today’s young people seem to be about their families,” said one member of the research team. “They’re expected to be rebellious (叛逆的) and selfish but actually they have other things on their minds; they want a car and material goods, and they worry about whether school is serving them well. There’s more negotiation and discussion between parents and children, and children expect to take part in the family decision-making process. They don’t want to rock the boat.”
So it seems that this generation of parents is much more likely than parents of 30 years ago to treat their children as friends. “My parents are happy to discuss things with me and willing to listen to me,” says 17-year-old Daniel Lazall, “I always tell them when I’m going out clubbing. As long as they know what I’m doing, they’re fine with it.” Susan Crome, who is now 21, agrees. “Looking back on the last 10 years, there was a lot of what you could call negotiation. For example, as long as I’d done all my homework, I could go out on a Saturday night. But I think my grandparents were a lot stricter with my parents than that.”
Maybe this positive view of family life should not be unexpected. It is possible that the idea of teenage rebellion is not rooted in real facts. A researcher comments, “Our surprise that teenagers say they get along well with their parents comes because of a brief period in our social history when teenagers were regarded as different beings. But that idea of rebelling and breaking away from their parents really only happened during that one time in the 1960s when everyone rebelled. The normal situation throughout history has been a smooth change from helping out with the family business to taking it over.”What is the popularly- held image of teenagers?
| A．They worry about their school life. |
| B．They live in harmony with their parents. |
| C．They have to be locked in to avoid making troubles. |
| D．They quarrel a lot with their parents. |
The study shows that teenagers don’t want to ______.
| A．share family responsibility |
| B．cause trouble in their families |
| C．go boating with their family |
| D．make family decisions |
According to the author, teenage rebellion _______．
| A．may be a false belief |
| B．is common nowadays |
| C．is based on real facts |
| D．resulted from changes in families |
What is the passage mainly about?
| A．Negotiation in family. | B．Education in family. |
| C．Harmony in family. | D．Teenage trouble in family. |
People in South Korea who feel they can no longer bear the stress of everyday life now can choose to stay in a prison to relax and think deeply.
In a society where pressure to do well in school and find highly-paid jobs is intense, a former lawyer came up with an extreme relaxation idea. Kwon Yong-seok created the “Prison Inside Me”—a stress-reduction center with a punishment theme. People come here to cut themselves off from the outside world and pay to be kept in 60-square-foot (5.6-square-meter) cells (囚室).
Located on the outskirts of Hongcheon, about 58 miles (93 km) northeast of Seoul, “Prison Inside Me” came to life after Mr. Kwon voluntarily asked to spend time behind bars for “healing reasons,” but his request was turned down. “I didn’t know how to stop working back then,” he said. “I felt like I was being swept away against my will, and it seemed I couldn’t control my own life.” So, Kwon and his wife Roh Ji-hyang decided to take matters into their own hands, and designed and built a prison-like spiritual center. The construction was completed in June last year and cost about 2 billion won ($19 million).
The facility includes 28 cells, furnished with only a toilet, a sink and a small table, where guests can spend time alone, thinking about life and enjoying private thinking periods. Moreover, guests can also join group thinking periods in the hall, where they are given instructions on how to free themselves from what Mr. Kwon calls the “inner prison” to find inner peace.
According to the Wall Street Journal, hundreds of stressed South Koreans are checking in at the stress-reduction facility to think about their lives and regain control of it. A two-night stay at “Prison Inside Me” costs 150,000 won ($146).
Mr. Kwon and his wife explained that at the beginning they had a different plan for the “relaxation center,” and imagined a longer stay for their guests, but, given that people weren’t able to take more time off, they had to reduce the length of stays to just two days.
Park Woo-sub, a guest at “Prison Inside Me,” said the experience helped him a lot. “This is my third time in prison. Being kept in a prison makes me hard to breathe, but it also offers time to focus only on me and spend some quiet time with myself.”
Others said the experience would have been more helpful if the conditions had been poorer, like in a real prison.Paragraph 3 mainly tells us ______.
| A．where “Prison Inside Me” is located |
| B．what people can do in “Prison Inside Me” |
| C．how “Prison Inside Me” came into being |
| D．when “Prison Inside Me” was completed |
Which of the statements is true?
| A．people in South Korea prefer living under great pressure |
| B．Mr. Kwon had intended to let guests stay at “Prison Inside Me” for over two days |
| C．most people in South Korea can not afford to stay at “Prison Inside Me” |
| D．the 28 cells are well furnished, but with no toilets in them |
We can know from the passage that ______.
| A．many people have been kept in such a prison at least three times |
| B．it is not a good idea for people to focus only on themselves |
| C．people find it not difficult to breathe though the prison is small |
| D．some still felt a bit unsatisfied as the conditions weren’t poor enough |
Who should go to the “Prison Inside Me”?
| A．A successful businessman |
| B．A criminal at large |
| C．A primary student |
| D．A depressed man |
What is the main idea of the passage?
| A．Many South Koreans voluntarily go to “prison” to reduce stress. |
| B．Many South Koreans can hardly bear the stress of daily life. |
| C．South Koreans should spend more time alone thinking about life. |
| D．South Koreans have found the best way to deal with everyday pressure. |
Most people agree that honesty is a good thing. But does Mother Nature agree? Animals can’t talk, but can they lie in other ways? Can they lie with their bodies and behavior?
Animal experts may not call it lying, but they do agree that many animals, from birds to chimpanzees, behave dishonestly to fool other animals. Why? Dishonesty often helps them survive.
Many kinds of birds are very successful at fooling other animals. For example, a bird called the plover sometimes pretends to be hurt in order to protect its young. When a predator (猎食动物) gets close to its nest, the plover leads the predator away from the nest. How? It pretends to have a broken wing. The predator follows the “hurt” adult, leaving the baby birds safe in the nest.
Another kind of bird, the scrub jay, buries its food so it always has something to eat. Scrub jays are also thieves. They watch where others bury their food and steal it. But clever scrub jays seem to know when a thief is watching them. So they go back later, unbury the food, and bury it again somewhere else.
Birds called cuckoos have found a way to have babies without doing much work. How? They don’t make nests. Instead, they get into other birds’ nests secretly. Then they lay their eggs and fly away. When the baby birds come out, their adoptive parents feed them.
Chimpanzees, or chimps, can also be sneaky. After a fight, the losing chimp will give its hand to the other. When the winning chimp puts out its hand, too, the chimps are friendly again. But an animal expert once saw a losing chimp take the winner’s hand and start fighting again.
Chimps are sneaky in other ways, too. When chimps find food that they love, such as
bananas, it is natural for them to cry out. Then other chimps come running. But some clever chimps learn to cry very softly when they find food. That way, other chimps don’t hear them, and they don’t need to share their food.
As children, many of us learn the saying "You can't fool Mother Nature." But maybe you can't trust her, either.A plover protects its young from a predator by _________
| A．getting closer to its young |
| B．driving away the adult predator |
| C．leaving its young in another nest |
| D．pretending to be injured |
By "Chimpanzees, or chimps, can also be sneaky" , the author means _______.
| A．chimps are ready to attack others |
| B．chimps are sometimes dishonest |
| C．chimps are jealous of the winners |
| D．chimps can be selfish too |
Which of the following is true according to the passage?
| A．Some chimps lower their cry to keep food away from others. |
| B．The losing chimp won the fight by taking the winner's hand. |
| C．Cuckoos fool their adoptive parents by making no nests. |
| D．Some clever scrub jays often steal their food back. |
Which of the following might be the best title of the passage?
| A．Do animals lie? |
| B．Does Mother Nature fool animals? |
| C．How do animals learn to lie? |
| D．How does honesty help animals survive? |
The Brown Bear
My wife Laura and I were on the beach, with three of our children, taking pictures of shore birds near our home in Alaska when we spotted a bear. The bear was thin and small, moving aimlessly.
Just a few minutes later, I heard my daughter shouting, “Dad! The bear is right behind us!” An aggressive bear would usually rush forward to frighten away its enemy but would suddenly stop at the last minute. This one was silent and its ears pinned back---- the sign of an animal that is going in for the kill. And it was a cold April day. The bear behaved abnormally, probably because of hunger.
I held my camera tripod (三脚架) in both hands to form a barrier as the bear rushed into me. Its huge head was level with my chest and shoulders, and the tripod stuck across its mouth. It bit down and I found myself supporting its weight. I knew I would not be able to hold it for long.
Even so, this was a fight I had to win: I was all that stood between the bear and my family, who would stand little chance of running faster than a brown bear.
The bear hit at the camera, cutting it off the tripod. I raised my left arm to protect my face; the beast held tightly on the tripod and pressed it into my side. My arm could not move, and I sensed that my bones were going to break. www..com
Drawing back my free hand, I struck the bear as hard as I could for five to six times. The bear opened its mouth and I grasped its fur, trying to push it away. I was actually wrestling (扭打) with the bear at this point. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the fight ended. The bear moved back toward the forest, before returning for another attack----- The first time I felt panic.
Apparently satisfied that we caused no further threat, the bear moved off, destroying a fence as it went. My arm was injured, but the outcome for us could hardly have been better. I’m proud that my family remained clear-headed when panic could have led to a very different outcome.The brown bear approached the family in order to _________.
| A．catch shore birds | B．start an attack |
| C．protect the children | D．set up a barrier for itself |
The bear finally went away after it _________.
| A．felt safe | B．got injured |
| C．found some food | D．took away the camera |
The writer and his family survived mainly due to their _________.
| A．pride | B．patience |
| C．calmness | D．cautiousness |