Ed Viesturs grew up in Rockford, Illinois, where the tallest thing on the horizon was the water tower. But on Thursday, Viesturs became the only American to climb to the top of the world's 14 highest mountains.
His last hike was up Mount Annapurna, in Asia's snowcapped Himalayas. At 26,545 feet, its peak is the 10th highest in the world. It is the mountain that inspired him to start climbing.
"It tends to be the trickiest, the most dangerous," said Viesturs. "There's no simple way to climb it. There are threatening avalanches (雪崩) and ice falls that protect the mountain."
In high school, Viesturs read French climber Maurice Herzog's tale of climbing the icy Annapurna. Herzog's story was of frostbite (冻伤) and difficulty and near-death experiences. Viesturs was hooked right away.
Viesturs got his start on Washington's Mount Rainier in 1977, guiding hikes in the summer. Fifteen years ago, he set out to walk up to the world's highest peaks. Finally, he's done.
The pioneering climber talks about mountains as if they were living creatures that should be treated with respect. "You have to use all of your senses, all of your abilities to see if the mountain will let you climb it," said Viesturs. "If we have the patience and the respect, and if we're here at the right time, under the right circumstances, they allow us to go up, and allow us to come down."
What's next for a man who can't stop climbing? "I'm going to hug my wife and kids and kind of kick back and enjoy the summer," says Viesturs. But for a man who's climbed the world's 14 tallest mountains, he will probably soon set off on yet another adventure. What record has Ed Viesturs set?
| A．He has succeeded in climbing to the world’s 14th highest mountain. |
| B．He has been to the top of the world’s 14 highest mountains. |
| C．He has become the first to climb to the height of 26,545feet. |
| D．He has become the first man to climb to the top of 14 highest mountains in the world. |
The underlined word “hooked” in Paragraph 4 can be replaced by “______”.
| A．frightened | B．discouraged | C．interested | D．upset |
The author used Viestures’ words in Paragraph 6 to support a view that ______.
| A．mountain climbing is a dangerous sport |
| B．mountains should be regarded as living creatures |
| C．mountain climbing needs more skills than physical energy |
| D．those who like mountain climbing won’t stop climbing |
What’s the next probably plan of Viestures?
| A．Stopping climbing and staying with his family. |
| B．Climbing to the top of the world’s 14 tallest mountains again. |
| C．Climbing another one of the highest mountains. |
| D．Writing down the experiences about his adventure. |
Millions of Americans return from long-distance trips by air, but their luggage doesn’t always come home with them. Airline identification tags（标签） can come loose, and the bags go who-knows-where. And passengers leave all kinds of things on planes.
The airlines collect the items and, for 90 days, attempt to find their owners. They don’t keep them, since they’re not in the warehouse business. And by law, they cannot sell the bags, because the airlines might be tempted to deliberately misplace luggage.
So once insurance companies have paid for lost bags and their contents, and they no longer belong to passengers, a unique store in the little town of Scottsboro, Alabama, buys them. The “Unclaimed Baggage Center,” is so popular that the building, which is set up like a department store, is the number-one tourist attraction in all of Alabama. More than one million visitors stop in each year and take one of the store’s shopping carts on a hunt for treasures.
Each day, clerks bring out 7,000 new items, and veteran（老练的）shoppers rush to paw over them. You can find everything from precious jewels to hockey sticks, best-selling novels, leather jackets, tape recorders, surfboards, even half -used tubes of toothpaste.
The store’s own laundry washes or cleans all the clothes found in luggage, then sells them. The Unclaimed Baggage Center has found guns, illegal drugs and even a live rattlesnake.
The store has a little museum where some of its most unusual acquisitions（获得物） have been preserved. They include highland bagpipes, a burial mask from an Egyptian pharaoh's tomb, and a medieval suit of armor.
Statistics indicate that less than one-half of one percent of luggage checked on U.S. carriers is permanently lost and available to the store. Paragraph1 shows that many passengers lose their luggage because______.
| A．they are forgetful |
| B．they are in a hurry |
| C．there is no lost and found office in many airports |
| D．the owners of some luggage can’t be identified |
The reason why the airlines cannot sell the bags is that ______.
| A．they have to find the owners |
| B．they are likely to make a profit on the bags on purpose |
| C．some bags are expensive |
| D．they have to keep the bags as long as possible |
The Unclaimed Baggage Center is very popular because______.
| A．there's a large variety of goods. |
| B．all thethings there are very cheap. |
| C．visitors may purchase something undervalued. |
| D．Visitors will enjoy some amusing activities there. |
What can we infer from the passage?
| A．A little museum will keep all the precious unclaimed baggage. |
| B．The percentage of passengers who lose their baggage for ever is small. |
| C．The things in the Unclaimed Baggage Center are articles for daily use. |
| D．People are not allowed to buy the illegal things in the store. |
What is the main purpose of the passage?
| A．To introduce how the unclaimed baggage in the airports is handled in America. |
| B．To introduce an attractive place to tourists. |
| C．To remind passengers of taking care of their baggage. |
| D．To advise the airlines to find the owners of the unclaimed baggage. |
TOKYO, Japan (AP) – Japan is very serious about robotics (机器人技术). If the droids are going to fit in, they probably need to learn the Japanese custom of serving tea. Fortunately, researchers at the University of Tokyo are exploring just that. In a show this week, a humanoid（有人类特点的）with camera eyes made by Kawada Industries Inc. poured tea from a bottle into a cup. Then another robot on wheels delivered the cup of tea in an experimental room that has sensors embedded in the floor and sofa as well as cameras on the ceiling, to simulate（模仿）life with robot technology.
“A human being may be faster, but you’d have to say ‘Thank you,’” said University of Tokyo professor Tomomasa Sato. “That’s the best part about a robot. You don’t have to feel bad about asking it to do things.”
Sato believes Japan, a rapidly aging society where more than a fifth of the population is 65 or older, will lead the world in designing robots to care for the elderly, sick and bedridden（卧床不起的）.
Already, monitoring technologies, such as sensors that automatically turn on lights when people enter a room, are becoming widespread in Japan.
The walking, child–size Asimo from Honda Motor Co. greets people at showrooms. NEC Corp. has developed a smaller companion robot–on–wheels called Papero. A seal robot available since 2004 can entertain the elderly and others in need of fuzzy companionship.
Sato says his experimental room is raising awareness about privacy questions that may arise when electronic devices（设备）monitor a person’s movements down to the smallest detail.
On the bright side, the tea – pouring humanoid has been programmed to do the dishes.What is the best title of this passage?
| A．“Thank You” Will Never Be Needed in Japan |
| B．Monitoring Technologies Are Widespread in Japan |
| C．Robot Is Designed to Care for the Elderly. |
| D．Robot Technologies Are Widespread in Japanese Daily Life. |
The underlined word “embedded” in the first paragraph probably means .
| A．fixed | B．established |
| C．settled | D．rooted |
According to Professor Sato, .
| A．the robot serves tea much faster than a human being |
| B．the robot does anything like human beings |
| C．tea – serving robot helps to form laziness of the aging society |
| D．tea – serving robot doesn’t need any reward for the service |
Which of the following statements is NOT true?
| A．A robot can imitate people to complete complicated tasks. |
| B．A robot has been programmed to clean the dishes. |
| C．All the problems in the aging society can be solved by robots. |
| D．The number of aging people is increasing rapidly in Japan. |
We can infer from the passage that .
| A．people are afraid of being monitored by robots. |
| B．the technology of robots has been highlighted in Japan. |
| C．robots can completely take the place of human beings. |
| D．people’s privacy should be strictly protected |
Growing up, I wanted to be just like my mom. She was kind. People always seemed to feel comfortable in her presence. For years, she was a volunteer in our community. I loved going to the local nursing home with her where she taught a ceramic class.
On one summer day, Mama told me to get changed and meet her at the car.
I had planned to spend the day at the lake with friends. Why did she have to ruin everything? I imagined the cool lake water. Irritated使烦燥，I climbed into the car and slammed the door shut. We sat in silence. I was too upset to make conversation.
“Tasha, would you like to know where we are going?” Mama asked calmly.
“No,” I said.
“We are going to volunteer at a children’s shelter today. I have been there before and I think it would benefit you,” she explained.
When we reached the shelter, Mama rang the doorbell. Moments later, we were greeted by a woman. She led us to the front room where all of the children were playing. I noticed a baby whose body was scarred with iron marks. I was told it was because she wouldn’t stop crying. The majority of the children had noticeable physical scars. Others hid their emotional wounds.
As I took in my surroundings, I felt a gentle tug猛拉，牵引on my shirt. I looked down to see a little girl looking up at me. “Hi. You want to play dolls with me?” she asked. I looked over at Mama for reinforcement. She smiled and nodded. I turned back and said, “Sure.” Her tiny hand reached up and held mine, as if to comfort me.
My mom taught me a valuable lesson that summer. I returned to the shelter with her several times. During those visits, some of the children shared their troubled pasts with me and I learned to be grateful for what I had. Today as I try to instill (逐渐灌输) these values in my own child, I reflect back to that experience. It was a time that I will never forget.The author admired her mom for ________.
| A．her kindness to others |
| B．her excellent teaching |
| C．her quality of honesty |
| D．her positive attitude to life |
According to Paragraph 3, when she was asked to go out with her mom, the author was ________.
| A．excited | B．angry |
| C．surprised | D．worried |
From the passage we learn most children in the shelter ________.
| A．were often punished by staff |
| B．weren’t allowed to go outside |
| C．were once treated badly |
| D．all suffered from mental illness |
The underlined word “reinforcement” in the passage is closest in meaning to “________”.
| A．truth | B．help |
| C．comfort | D．support |
What lesson did the author learn from her experience?
| A．To value what you take for granted. |
| B．To play with children is fun. |
| C．To love others is to love yourself. |
| D．To do as what your parents do. |
Daniel Defoe (about 1660—1731) was an important novelist in the English literature. When he was young, he served as a soldier and had been to Spain, Italy, France and Germany. At the same time, he went in for politics. He cared much about the development of capitalism(资本主义). He had written a lot of articles against it and he was put into prison twice for that. It was not until that he was nearly sixty that he began to write the famous novel “Robinson Crusoe”, which was published in May, 1709. It spread so rapidly that the story was known to every household very soon.
“Robinson Crusoe” can be divided into three parts. The first part is about Crusoe’s three voyages, the second part about his hunting, hiding in caves farming and his hard struggles against nature on a small island, the third about the things which happened after his return from the island. The second part is the body of the novel, in which Robinson’s characters are clearly shown. Defoe wrote his novel in a simple style and his language is easy to understand. His novel writing set a milestone of the modern English novel. In his later part of life, He was in poor health and lived very poorly. He died on April 24, 1731.Deniel Defoe was _______ and the writer of _______.
| A．an Englishman, “A Tale of Two Cities” |
| B．an American, “A Million Pound Note” |
| C．a French, “The Lost Necklace” |
| D．an English, “Robinson Crusoe” |
How old was he when he began to write his famous novel Robinson Crusoe?
| A．He was in his sixties. |
| B．He was in his fifties. |
| C．He was over 60. |
| D．He was sixty. |
Robinson Crusoe can be divided into ______ parts and the first is about _______.
| A．three, his journeys by sea |
| B．three, his characters |
| C．two, his lonely life |
| D．four, his fame |
“Every household” in this passage means ________.
| A．all members of a family |
| B．all people |
| C．every building |
| D．persons living in the same house |
What was Defoe’s contribution(贡献) to the English literature?
| A．He wrote a very interesting story. |
| B．He made people happy while reading his story. |
| C．He set a milestone of the modern English novel. |
| D．He was active in politics and was against capitalism. |
Organic food, once considered something that only health fanatics desired, is now a regular feature at most supermarkets. And that has created a bit of a dilemma. On the one hand, you have a conventionally grown apple. On the other, you have one that’s organic. Both apples are firm, shiny and red. Both provide vitamins and fiber, and both are free of fat, sodium and cholesterol.
Conventionally grown food generally costs less, but is organic food a better choice? The advantages claimed for such foods over conventionally grown and sold food products are now being debated on a large scale. Supporters of organic foods ― a term whose meaning varies greatly ―are frequently telling the world that such products are safer and more nutritious than others.
The growing interest of consumers in the safety and nutritional quality of daily foods is a welcome development. However, much of this interest has been aroused by sweeping claims that the conventional food supply is unsafe or inadequate in meeting nutritional needs.
Almost daily, the public is surrounded by claims for “no-aging” diets, new vitamins and other wonder foods. There are numerous unsubstantiated(没证实的) reports that natural vitamins are superior to man-made ones, that fertilized eggs are nutritionally superior to unfertilized eggs, that untreated grains are better than those treated with insect spray and the like.
Although most of these claims are not supported by scientific evidence, large amounts of written material about the benefits of organic foods makes it difficult for people to separate fact from fiction. As a result, claims that eating a diet consisting of organically grown foods prevents or cures disease or provides other benefits to health have become widely advertised and form the basis for people’s opinion.
One thing that most organically grown food products seem to have in common is that they cost more than conventionally grown foods. But in many cases consumers are misled if they believe organic foods can maintain health and provide better nutritional quality than conventionally grown foods. So there is real cause for concern if consumers, particularly those with limited incomes, distrust the conventional food supply and buy only expensive organic foods instead.According to Paragraph 2, which of the following statements about organic food is true?
| A．It hasn’t been used until recent years. |
| B．It has no agreed definition. |
| C．It is popular among producers. |
| D．It is accepted by most nutritionists. |
In Paragraph 4, treated grains are examples of ________.
| A．healthier food | B．organic food |
| C．conventionally grown food | D．expensive food |
It can be inferred from the passage that ________.
| A．most doctors believe organic foods prevent disease or provide other benefits to health |
| B．organic foods are actually less nutritious than conventionally grown foods |
| C．people cannot separate fact from fiction because of the TV advertisements |
| D．organic foods cost more but are not necessarily better than conventionally grown foods |
According to the passage, many consumers are attracted by organic foods because they _____.
| A．want to try something new |
| B．have carefully researched the products |
| C．value food safety and nutrition |
| D．expect to save some money |
What is the author’s attitude towards the claims of organic foods?
| A．Doubtful. | B．Enthusiastic. |
| C．Supportive. | D．Uninterested. |