Mr and Mrs Smith had always spent their summer holidays in New Jersey in the past, staying in a small inn(旅店) at the foot of a hill. One year, however, Mr. Smith made a lot of money in his business, so they decided to go to London and stay at a really good hotel while they went touring around that famous city.
They flew to London and arrived at their hotel late one evening. They expected that they would have to go to bed hungry, because in that small inn in New Jersey, no meals were served after seven. They were therefore surprised when the man who received them in the hall asked whether they would take dinner there that night.
“Are you still serving dinner?” asked Mr Smith.
“Yes, certainly, sir,” answered the man. “We serve it until half past nine.”
“What are the times of meals then?” asked Mr Smith.
“Well, sir,” answered the man, “We serve breakfast from seven to half past eleven in the morning, lunch from twelve to three in the afternoon, tea from four to five, and dinner from six to half past nine.”
“But that hardly leaves any time for us to see the sights of London!” said Mrs Smith.Mr and Mrs Smith _________ in the past.
| A．had often stayed in a big hotel in New Jersey |
| B．had traveled to many places |
| C．had often stayed in a small inn |
| D．had made a lot of money |
They decided to go to a really good hotel because _________.
| A．it was famous |
| B．it was difficult to find a cheap hotel |
| C．it was near many interesting places |
| D．they now had enough money |
When they arrived at the hotel, they found _________.
| A．no meals were served after seven |
| B．dinner was still being served |
| C．their plane had arrived too late |
| D．they had to go to bed hungry |
When the man told them the times of meals at the hotel, Mrs Smith felt _________.
| A．disappointed | B．excited | C．delighted | D．satisfied |
Mrs. Smith _________.
| A．thought she would have plenty of time to see the sights |
| B．was afraid they would have no time to tour around London |
| C．thought the hotel was not as good as the small inn |
| D．thought the hotel was much better than the small inn for its good meals |
Welcome to the Ambassador Hotel. To make your stay as enjoyable as possible, we hope you can make full use of our facilities（设备）.
Dining Room
Breakfast is served in the dining room from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. The room staff will bring a breakfast tray to your room at any time after 7 a.m. Please fill out a card and hang it outside your door when you go to bed.
Lunch: 12:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Dinner: 7:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Room Service
This operates 24 hours a day; phone the Reception Desk, and your message will be passed on to the room staff.
Telephones
To make a phone call, dial 0 for Reception and ask to be connected. We apologize for delays in putting calls through when the staffs are very busy. There are also public telephone boxes near the Reception Desk. Early calls should be booked with Reception.
Laundry
We have a laundry in the hotel, and will wash, iron and return your clothes within 24 hours. Ask the room staff to collect them.
Bar
The hotel bar is open from 12 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 1 a.m.You would see this notice ___________.
| A．in a hotel bar |
| B．in a hotel dining room |
| C．in a bedroom of a large hotel |
| D．in the entrance of a small family hotel |
What time can you have breakfast in the dinning room?
| A．6:50 a.m. | B．7:00 a.m. | C．7:30 a.m. | D．8:30 a.m. |
What should you do when you come back to the hotel to make an important call and see a lot of people around the Reception Desk?
| A．Go to your room and phone from there. |
| B．Ask at the Reception Desk. |
| C．Go to the public telephone boxes. |
| D．Go out again and look for a private phone. |
What should you do if you want to have your trousers washed?
| A．Ask the room staff to collect them to the laundry. |
| B．Go to the hotel bar. |
| C．Hang a message outside your door. |
| D．Ask the room staff to clean them for you. |
Every year in late spring at Wild Friends, the wildlife health center, workers receive baby animals, including songbirds and rabbits. This is the busiest time when workers care for and raise all the little ones before sending them back into the wild.
There are many reasons for these little animals' coming to the center. First of all, street cats or dogs catch, injure or take away little birds from their nests. Sometimes people catch baby animals and keep them at home, giving them food that they are not used to. It would make them sick. Most people don't realize that it's against law to get live animals out of their nests.
As for songbirds, people often find them on the ground in their yards, thinking they have no other choice but to leave them on the ground to die. This is because many people wrongly believe that once a bird is touched by a person, its mother will not accept this child bird. But that's not true.
If a little bird falls out of the nest, you should check whether it is injured. If not, you should put the bird back in the nest. If the bird is injured, call your local wildlife center quickly.
As for the progress of protecting wild animals, people at Wild Friends devote all their energy to this work. Over the last weeks, they have been able to send many of the birds and rabbits that came here earlier this spring back to nature.Which is the busiest season for workers at Wild Friends?
| A．Spring | B．Summer. | C．Autumn. | D．Winter. |
Which of the following will probably injure young birds?
| A．Giving them food they don't like. | B．Letting them play with children. |
| C．Leaving them on the ground. | D．Bringing them to the center. |
If a young healthy bird is lying on the ground, you should ________.
| A．wait for its mother | B．help it go back home |
| C．touch it with your hands | D．call workers at Wild Friends |
Life on Mars could become a reality and it could happen in your lifetime.
A welcoming planet
Scientists say Earth’s neighbor Mars, a bright red planet about half Earth’s size, is the most likely to support human life. Mars even has frozen water on its surface.
Since the late 1990s, NASA has been exploring Mars using remote-controlled vehicles（装置）. Most recently Curiosity, a car-size vehicle, traveled through space on an unpiloted spacecraft(航天器) and landed on Mars in August 2012. Directed by NASA scientists , the vehicles move on the surface, taking pictures , collecting and analyzing soil, and looking for signs of life.
But what about human explorers? Plans are already in the works to send astronauts to Mars as soon as the mid-2030s.
_____________________________________
But before you start packing your bags, let’s consider the challenges. For starters, Mars is far away. Just getting there could take up to 10 months.
Scientists already know that time away from Earth’s gravity harms the human body. Bones and muscles get weaker. The body produces less blood. What damage would months and months of living in space do?
And then there is the matter of water, oxygen, food and fuel. Scientists will have to find solutions to these problems, or the first humans on Mars won’t survive very long in their new home.
Tiny Dangers
There’s another tinier risk. It’s so tiny that you can’t even see it: germs.
Some scientists believe that our germs could pollute the whole planet of Mars. Potentially killing Martian life before we have the chance to discover it. Worse, there is a small but terrifying chance that any microscopic life already there might be harmful to us .
Worse still, if any of those Martian germs(火星细菌) were brought back to Earth, the result could be disastrous. Animals, plants, and people could be wiped out.
Worth the $$$?
A more practical concern is the cost. The price could approach $ 1 trillion(万亿). How can we justify spending that much when so many problems—poverty, disease—could use the cash here on Earth?Which of the following is TRUE according to the “A welcoming planet” part?
| A．Mars is a little bigger than Earth. |
| B．There are flowing rivers on Mars. |
| C．People haven’t been to Mars so far. |
| D．Scientists have discovered signs of life on Mars. |
Which of the following can best fill in the blank in the passage?
| A．Living in space. | B．Limited resources. |
| C．Extreme conditions. | D．Interesting challenges. |
By “Tiny dangers” the author means ________________.
| A．there is no serious danger |
| B．people won’t be in any danger |
| C．it’s difficult for people to realize the danger |
| D．the danger may be caused by very small things |
Which may cause the biggest danger?
| A．Martian germs may be different from those on Earth. |
| B．Martian germs may be brought back to Earth. |
| C．People may carry germs to Mars. |
| D．There may be germs on Mars. |
Which section of a newspaper is the passage most probably taken from?
| A．People | B．History | C．Science | D．Business |
President Barack Obama rode a bicycle at the White House Science Fair on April 22. But it wasn’t an ordinary bike. As he pedaled, the President stayed in place, while the energy from his pedaling powered a water filtration (过滤) system. He was testing an invention created by a team of 14 students from Northeast High School, in Oakland Park, Florida.
Payton Karr, 16, and Kiona Elliot, 18, attended the fair as representatives of the project.“We were hoping President Obama would ride the bike, but we didn’t actually expect him to,” Payton told TFK. “ It really meant a lot.” Kiona agreed. “It was pretty awesome to see the invention, which was invented by a group of 14 high school students and one teacher, along with the help of community members, got the interest of the leader of our nation,” she said.
The project was an idea that came about after one of the Northeast students, Kalie Hoke, visited Haiti after the terrible 2010 earthquake and saw how difficult it was to find clean water. The students invented a portable(便携的), bicycle-powered emergency water filtration system, which can provide 20-30 people with drinking water in a 15-hour period. The teens hope their invention will one day be used by relief organizations like the Red Cross. “ They can take it to places after natural disasters so that water can be clean for the people there,” said Payton.
Payton and Kiona were among the 100 students from more than 40 states invited to the third annual White House Science Fair, in Washington, D.C., which is also attended by leaders in science and education. President Obama started the event in 2010 to stimulate students interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths).“Well, if you’re a young person and you produce the best experiment or design, you ought to be recognized for that achievement,” Obama said when he first announced the fair.
President Obama praised the projects during a speech to attendees after the fair. “The science fair projects of today could become the products and businesses of tomorrow,” he said. “If you’re inventing things in the third grade, what are you going to do by the time you get to college?”What is special about the bicycle President Obama rode?
| A．It can move very fast. |
| B．It is extremely beautiful. |
| C．It is used to make water clean. |
| D．It is made of eco-friendly materials. |
The representatives of the bicycle-powered water filtration system_________.
| A．were both community members |
| B．graduated from a famous university |
| C．finished the project with the help of their parents |
| D．were surprised that their invention interested Obama |
The bicycle-powered water filtration system was designed ________________.
| A．at the request of the Red Cross |
| B．for city families to get pure water |
| C．during the terrible 2010 earthquake in Haiti |
| D．to provide people in disaster areas with clean water |
The underlined word “stimulate” in Paragraph 4 can be replaced by _________.
| A．help | B．inspire | C．change | D．entertain |
We can know from the last sentence in the passage that President Obama _____.
| A．wanted the youth to have big dreams |
| B．encouraged the youth to go to college |
| C．worried the young inventors would do nothing in college |
| D．believed the young inventors would have a promising future |
The relationship between humans and animals has always been complex. Some cultures have developed entire belief systems around favored animals. Even in cultures with less formal belief systems, connections between people and animals still lead to commonly accepted opinions about animals.
These belief systems usually develop around the animals that interact (互动) with humans most frequently. Therefore, it should not be surprising that so many stories surround the most common of animals: rats. Rats live side by side with humans all over the world and regularly interact with people. Human-rat coexistence may be common all around the world, but different cultures respond to that closeness in different ways.
In the United States and Europe, one typical attitude is that the rat is a pest. This could be due to the common belief that rats spread disease. Actually, they don’t, at least not directly, but many people don’t know that. The Pied Piper of Hamlin, a well-known children’s story, is one example of how rats have been described in Western literature: in that story, rats cause such a problem that a town has to hire a piper to call them all away.
In many Latin American countries, the rat is described in a very different way. The story of the tooth fairy (a fairy believed by children to leave money while they sleep in exchange for a tooth that has come out) is common all over the world, but in Latin America, the “fairy” is a rat! Rats do have very strong teeth, which could explain the association. Clearly, this shows another attitude toward rats that is much more positive.
Yet another attitude toward the rat can be seen in the Chinese Zodiac (生肖). The Rat is one of the animals of the Zodiac. Like the other zodiac animals, the Rat is neither entirely good nor entirely bad. It’s described as clever and friendly, but also tricky and not entirely honest. That may be the most accurate description of the rat so far. Whether you like rats or not, it’s hard to deny their reputation for cleverness.
As many people are discovering these days, rats can even make excellent pets, so long as you remember to close the cage carefully!What does the passage mainly talk about?
| A．A trend of keeping rats as pets. |
| B．How different cultures look at rats. |
| C．How humans get along with animals. |
| D．Favored animals in different cultures. |
The rats in The Pied Piper of Hamlin appear______.
| A．unpleasant | B．honest | C．smart | D．unusual |
The tooth fairy in Latin America mentioned in Paragraph4 is to show______.
| A．the tooth fairy is lovely |
| B．rats look very frightening |
| C．rats are welcome in Latin American countries |
| D．the story of the tooth fairy is common all over the world |
According to the author, rats______.
| A．don’t spread disease |
| B．should be treated as pests |
| C．are fairly described in the Chinese Zodiac |
| D．are kept as pets by more and more people |
The passage is probably taken from a ______.
| A．travel guide | B．news report | C．nature magazine | D．history textbook |