Shopping is not as simple as you may think! There are all sorts of tricks at play each time we reach out for that particular brand of product on the shelf． Colouring, for example, varies according to what the producers are trying to sell．Health foods are packaged （包装） in greens, yellows or browns because we think of these as healthy colours．Ice cream packets are often blue and expensive goods, like chocolates, are gold or silver．
When some kind of pain killer was brought out recently, researchers found that the colours turned the customers off because they made the product look weak and ineffective．
Eventually, it came on the market in a dark blue and white package—blue because we think of it as safe, and white as calm． The size of a product can attract a shopper．But quite often a bottle doesn’t contain as much as it appears to．
It is believed that the better-known companies spend, on average, 70 per cent of the total cost of the product itself on packaging!
The most successful producers know that it’s not enough to have a good product．The founder of Pears soap, who for 25 years has used pretty little girls to promote （推销） their goods, came to the conclusion: “Any fool can make soap, but it takes a genius to sell it．”Which of the following may trick a shopper into buying a product according to the text?
| A．The cost of its package． | B．The price of the product． |
| C．The colour of its package． | D．The brand name of the product． |
The underlined part “the colours turned the customers off”（in Par A．3 ） means that the colours _____．
A．attracted the customers strongly B．had weak effects on the customers
C．tricked the customers into shopping D．caused the customers to lose interestWhich of the following is the key to the success in product sales?
| A．The way to promote goods． | B．The discovery of a genius． |
| C．The team to produce a good product． | D．The brand name used by successful producers． |
Which of the following would be the best title for this text?
| A．Choice of Good Products | B．Disadvantages of Products |
| C．Effect of Packaging on Shopping | D．Brand Names and Shopping Tricks |
Cast your mind back to the past twenty years and hardly did anyone have their own email account. The Internet had just taken off in 1991 and people were only using office and PCbased email exchanges.
In the mid 1990s external email providers appeared. The most famous of these was Hotmail, the first free email provider and webbased email service. Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith launched Hotmail on July 4, 1996. And Microsoft took note of and bought Hotmail for $400 million on December 30, 1997, a nice birthday present for Bhatia who turned 29 that day. It was relaunched as MSN Hotmail and in 2007 was relaunched again as Windows Live Hotmail.
Fast forward the present day and most of us have at least a personal webbased email account. It seems impossible to live without them. One of the biggest advantages of email is the fact that communication has become so much easier, especially with those across different time zones. Email takes seconds to send a message whereas letters, as we used to communicate by, could take weeks. Of course there was the fax, that beeping invention from the 1980s, but it wasn’t as secure as email and you never knew if the person on the other end had picked up your fax or if it had got lost somewhere in the office.
In conclusion, one of the best inventions from the 1990s has to be email. But sometimes people are too closely connected to their email and have a compulsion to check it several times a day. At work, people have become lazy and instead of going to speak to the person sitting next to them, they send an email，causing an in box to pile up with more time spent reading email and responding rather than working. Clearly, an invention that saved time because of its quick and speedy connection can now also cause us to waste a lot of time.The earliest web-based email came into being probably _______.
| A．in 1991 | B．in 1996 | C．in 1997 | D．in 2007 |
The author mentions “fax” in the third paragraph in order to tell us that _______.
| A．it is exactly as good as email |
| B．it is much better than email |
| C．it is less convenient than email |
| D．it is easier and faster than email |
The underlined word “compulsion” in Paragraph 4 probably means “_______”.
| A．strong desire | B．common sense | C．special curiosity | D．general idea |
Which is the main idea of the last paragraph?
| A．We should check email boxes frequently. |
| B．Lazy people like sending an email. |
| C．Email brings us great convenience. |
| D．Good inventions also cause problems. |
The UK has a well-respected higher education system and some of the top universities and research institutions in the world. But to those who are new to it all, sometimes it can be confusing.
October is usually the busiest month in the college calendar. Universities have something called Freshers’ Week for their newcomers. It’s a great opportunity to make new friends, join lots of clubs and settle into university life.
However, having just left the comfort of home and all your friends behind, the prospect (前景) of meeting lots of strangers in big halls can be nerve-wracking (令人焦虑不安的). Where do you start? Who should you make friends with? Which clubs should you join?
Luckily, there will be thousands of others in the same boat as you worrying about starting their university social life on the right foot. So just take it all in slowly. Don’t rush into anything that you’ll regret for the next three years.
Here are some top advice from past students on how to survive Freshers’ Week：
● Learn rules. Make sure you know British social etiquette (礼节). Have a few wine glasses and snacks handy for your housemates and friends.
● Be kind. Sometimes cups of tea or even slices of toast can give you a head start in making friends.
● Be sociable. The more active you are, the more likely you’ll be to meet new people than if you’re someone who never leaves his room.
● Bring a doorstop. Keep your door open when you’re in and that sends positive messages to your neighbors that you’re friendly.
So with a bit of clever planning and effort, Freshers’ Week can give you a great start to your university life and soon you’ll be passing on your experience to next year’s freshers.We can learn from the passage that ______.
| A．Freshers’ Week usually comes in September in UK |
| B．all the students are required to join certain clubs in UK |
| C．many freshers are worried about how to fit university life |
| D．most of the students in the UK spend three years in universities |
Why does the author suggest having wine glasses and snacks handy?
| A．To pass the busy university life. |
| B．To help make friends with other freshers. |
| C．To show yourself a drinker as others. |
| D．To enjoy the time in a happy way. |
The main purpose of the passage is to _______.
| A．tell the newcomers how to make a new start in universities |
| B．introduce something about higher education system of the UK |
| C．inform the freshers of British social etiquette |
| D．advise the freshmen how to behave well in the beginning |
This is a true story of how my car got stuck in water and how a stranger helped me during the worst rain storm.
Last Sunday, the sky was grey when I woke up. The weather report said rain was coming, but I couldn’t stay home just because of rain.
Around 8:00 am I had a doctor’s appointment. It wasn’t raining then. At 9:00 I left the doctor’s office to drive to work, and it was raining hard. I just had to go about 5-6 miles down one main road to get to a nearby school, where I could stay until the rain ended. Unfortunately, the road in front of the school was flooded, and my car stopped in the middle.
“Who is going to save me?” I wondered. I shut off the engine and turned on my flashers (车灯). I called 911. They were not helpful. I called my husband, even though he couldn’t come and help me. I was also very close to a police station. But I never saw even one police car. I decided to get out of the car, since it was still pouring.
My best decision of the day had been to wear rain boots. I took my umbrella and quickly got out and ran across the street to a shelter.
Before long, a tow truck(拖车) happened to pass by the street. The driver kindly offered to help me. At that moment, I really needed car pulled out quickly, so I trusted the stranger. He pulled my car and drove me home. After he had dropped my car off, he also helped me check the engine. He said the engine was most likely flooded, but fortunately there was no water inside the car.
Although many years have passed, I still remember that stormy day and the warm-hearted stranger clearly.How was the weather when the author got up?
| A．Rainy. | B．Cloudy. | C．Windy. | D．Sunny. |
Which of the following is the correct order about the things that the author did?
① Drove to work. ② Drove to the doctor’s office.
③ Ran to a shelter.④ Called 911 for help.
| A．②①④③ | B．②③①④ | C．①②④③ | D．①③②④ |
What did the author do after her car had got stuck in the water?
| A．She turned off her flashers. |
| B．She tried to restart the engine. |
| C．She went to the police station nearby. |
| D．She got out of her car. |
How did the stranger help the author?
| A．He lent his car to her. |
| B．He pulled her car out of the water. |
| C．He drove her to school. |
| D．He helped her fix her engine. |
What if we could replace oil with a fuel which produced no pollution and which everybody had equal access to? The good news is that we can. In fact, we are swimming in it--- literally.
Hydrogen is one of the building blocks of the universe. Our own sun is basically a big, dense cloud of the stuff. And hydrogen can be used to create electricity for power, heat and light.
The problem is that hydrogen is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It does not exist as a material on its own, but is always part of something else. So it has to be separated before it can be used.
Most commercial hydrogen in use now is created from natural gas. As oil will start to run out in around the year 2030, it makes sense to produce as much hydrogen as possible as soon as we can. But natural gas supplies will also begin to run out soon after. Another source is needed.
Researchers are now using electricity to make water into hydrogen. Companies are working on the problem in their own areas. The first commercial hydrogen “fuel cells” for computers and mobile phones have already come on to the market. Auto companies have also invested over US $2 billion in the production of hydrogen fuelled cars.
The nations of a hydrogen fuelled planet would not fight over energy recourses. There would be a great reduction in pollution. The only by-product of creating hydrogen is pure drinking water--- something that is very scarce in many parts of the world. But that is not where the good news ends. Once the costs of producing hydrogen have been brought down, it will possibly provide power for a third of the Earth’s population that has no electricity.
And electricity creates wealth. In South Africa over the last decade there has been a large programme of electrification. Thanks to the programme, people do not have to spend their days looking firewood to burn for heat. And with electric light, they can work long into the night.
Some scientists see radical changes in the way the human race co-operates. Hydrogen creates electricity, and is also created by it. With dual use fuel cells, everyone who consumes energy could also produce it. Late at night, a man drives home in London and connects his car into the “world-wide hydrogen web,” which it supplies with electricity. A few hours later, a man in Beijing uses that electricity to power the hydrogen cell in his car. Hydrogen could be the first democratic energy source.
Like all dreams of the future, it seems very far away. But the threat of war and terrorism in the Middle East has made governments and businesses more aware of the need to end oil dependency and spend more time and money on hydrogen resource. So maybe the threat of war is not a completely bad thing for the future of the human race. What does the underlined word “it” in the last but one paragraph refer to?
| A．wealth | B．hydrogen | C．electricity | D．fuel |
What is the problem with using hydrogen as energy?
| A．It has by-products. |
| B．It has to be separated from other materials. |
| C．It will make energy too cheap. |
| D．It is too far away from us. |
Why does the author give the example in the last but one paragraph ?
| A．To tell us that we produce energy while using hydrogen power. |
| B．To tell us that hydrogen power does not produce pollution. |
| C．To show hydrogen power can stop war. |
| D．To show hydrogen power is cheap. |
What is the author’s attitude about the future?
| A．skeptical | B．negative | C．indifferent | D．positive |
What is the passage mainly about?
| A．war and energy | B．the future of hydrogen as an energy resource |
| C．the disadvantages of oil | D．How to end war |
Why are people interested in eating raw foods or whole foods? One reason is that eating these types of food reduces the risk of acid accumulation in your body.
Raw and whole foods are usually digested more efficiently than cooked and refined foods. When we cook foods, we destroy the natural enzymes (酶) that are part of the food in its raw form. These enzymes were intended by nature to help us digest the food. When we consume food without these natural enzymes, our bodies either digest the food improperly or allow too many nutrients to be absorbed into the bloodstream. In both instances, the result is obesity. When too many nutrients are absorbed at once, the body grows fat. Improperly digested food moves slowly through the digestive tract, where it becomes increasingly acidic. To protect its vital organs from this acidic waste, the body changes the acid into fat and stores it safely away from the organs.
Processed foods contain chemical elements, which might confuse the appetite mechanism that tells us when we’ve had enough to eat; as a result, people often overeat. Processed foods also upset the digestive cycle. The body will either identify these foods as allergens and then store them safely away from the organs as fat, or the remains of undigested food will become acidic and enter the bloodstream as acid waste, which will stick to the blood vessel walls and block the passage of vital oxygen and nutrients heading for the body’s cells. The body’s metabolism (新陈代谢)becomes inactive, and the result is weight gain and obesity.
The accumulation of acid in the digestive tract makes digestion increasingly inefficient. When that happens, even healthy foods can become acidic and the food allergies will become more common.
To stop this vicious(恶性的)circle in its tracks, people need to consume food and supplements that will neutralize (使…中和) the acid already accumulated in body. Eating the right types of raw and whole foods can help. It’s also important to restore your enzyme balance. You need to identify and avoid the foods that cause acid accumulation and consume the foods that increase enzyme production. If you truly want to change and help your body heal itself, you need to take an active approach.What is the main purpose of this passage?
| A．To advocate eating more raw and whole foods. |
| B．To tell the differences between raw and processed foods. |
| C．To inform people of the harm of processed foods. |
| D．To warn people of the problem of obesity. |
It can be inferred from Para. 2 that ________.
| A．it is essential for people to protect their vital organs |
| B．foods with natural enzymes help people keep fit |
| C．we’d better be cautious about raw and whole foods |
| D．giving up cooked and refined foods is a new lifestyle |
Processed foods are unhealthy because they __________.
| A．destroy body’s cells | B．are difficult to digest |
| C．may lead to obesity | D．stop body’s metabolism |
What is likely to be talked about following the last paragraph?
| A．Active approaches to avoid acid. |
| B．Different causes of acid accumulation. |
| C．Correct ways to cook raw foods. |
| D．Suitable types of raw and whole foods. |
What can we learn from the text?
| A．Processed foods are good for our appetite mechanism. |
| B．Eating the right types of raw and whole foods does good to our body. |
| C．The accumulation of acid in the digestive tract makes digestion more effective. |
| D．Processed foods also comfort the digestive tract. |