Beijing, June 10 (Xinhua) --- Torrential (倾泻的) rains that troubled southern China for days have killed 66 people and resulted in 12 missing by 6:00 p.m. (Beijing time) on Sunday, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. “Floods caused by heavy rains have affected about 294,800 hectares of crops, completely destroying 53,000 hectares of them,” said an official with the ministry. The floods have torn down 48,000 and damaged 94,000 houses in southern China, and forced about 591,000 people to move from their homes, the official said.
From Wednesday to Saturday, continuous torrential rains, mudslides and floods hit Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Jiangxi and Fujian, affecting more than 8.97 million people. The disasters have caused an overall economic loss of more than 2.9 billion yuan, according to the ministry. The ministry has sent rescue teams to the disaster areas to assist relief work. In Guangdong, heavy rains have killed 18 people and left four missing by 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, according to local authorities. A total of 1.72 million people were affected in the province.
Floods have damaged 49 roads in the seriously affected Meizhou City, of which 29 remained closed to traffic by 7:00 p.m. The number of people who died in floods in Guangxi has reached 13 and one remained missing by Sunday, according to local civil affairs authority. More than 1.97 million people have bee
n affected after the floods caused by continuous heavy rains hit some 40 counties since Wednesday.
According to the local civil affairs bureau, 9,200 houses were knocked down and 75,181 hectares of crops were affected, resulting in 529 million yuan in direct economic losses. There are fewer rainstorms and the rain belt is moving out of Guangxi, but the water levels in major rivers will keep rising in next few days, according to the latest forecast of the region’s meteorological bureau on Sunday afternoon. The underlined phrase “torn down” (para. 1) is closest in meaning to _______.
| A．knocked down | B．placed down | C．set down | D．torn open |
In Meizhou city, 49 roads were damaged and by 7:00 p.m. only _______ roads can be used again after the repair work.
| A．66 | B．29 | C．20 | D．19 |
Which of the following statements is true according to the news?
| A．Hubei is one of the provinces struck by the torrential rains. |
| B．The floods have caused a total loss of nearly 3 billion yuan. |
| C．13 people died in Guangdong province as a result of the floods. |
D．The rain belt will remain in Guangxi in the next fe w days. |
What’s the best title for this n
ews story?
| A．A Disaster. | B．Heavy rains. | C．A Flood. | D．Heavy rains in Southern China. |
What can we learn from the last paragraph?
| A．The rainstorms are becoming stronger. |
| B．The water levels in major rivers are to go down soon. |
| C．The rainstorms are becoming less powerful. |
| D．In the next few days, rainstorms will stay in Guangxi. |
Joe is interested in getting exercise and competing on a team. He reads about the events at the local pool and finds the perfect activity.
Swimming Programs
Summer Swim Team
Join a Summer Swim Team and compete with other swimmers! The program is offered at eight different local pools for youths to 17 years old. The season runs June 21—August 21. Practices are daily (Monday through Friday) throughout the summer. The championship meet(冠军赛) is August 21. Cost: $50.00
Pools & Practice Times
Buckman 2-3 P.M. Montavilla 8-9 A.M.
Creston 7-9 A.M. Peninsula 4-7 P.M.
Dishman 8-9 A.M. Pier noon-1 P.M.
Grant 8-10 A.M. Sellwood 7-9 A.M.
Junior Swim Instructor
Two weeks, 20 hours of instruction, two hours per day for children 11-14 years old. Pre-training for youths interested in becoming swim instructors($45 per child)
Two weeks, 30 hours of instruction, three hours per day for children 11-14 years old. Pre-training in lifeguarding, and customer service ($45 per child)
Junior Swim Instructor & Junior Lifeguard Training Dates
June 28-July 9 August 9-August 20
June 12-July 23 August 23-September 3
June 26-August 6
Special Offer
Anyone who takes part in both junior swim instructor and junior lifeguard programs at the same time need only spend $75 instead of $90 for 50 hours of training.
Register Online
You can now register online! Visit our website at http://www.example.com You can choose an area of town, a specific local center, a program, or search for classes which can meet the needs of students of different ages. Just visit our website, and you’re on your way!If Joe joins the Summer Swim Team, he _____
A. needs to pay $45.00
B. begins training at 6 A.M.
C. has to practice for two months
D. needs to practice for 7 days a weekAnyone who wants to be a junior swim instructor should _____
| A．be 11-14 years old |
| B．pay the instructor by the hour |
| C．do at least 30 hours of training |
| D．be an experienced junior lifeguard |
What’s the main purpose of this text?
| A．To introduce Joe’ s hobbies. |
| B．To introduce a new website. |
| C．To introduce several swimming pools |
| D．To introduce some swimming activities. |
If you’re like most kids, you’ve probably made more than a few paper airplanes in your day. But how many kids can say their paper airplanes have been built life-size and then flown? At least one: 12-year-old Arturo Veldenegro of Tucson, Arizona, who won the Pima Air& Space Museum’s first annual Great Paper Airplane Project Fly-Off in March 2012.
“ The purpose of the competition is to inspire and draw kids’ interest in science and flight,” says Tim Vimmerstedt, director of the museum.
About 150 kids entered the competition. The young designers learned about how airplanes fly and then set to work designing their own planes.
Arturo designed and built his airplane. When hen was finished, he took his plane to the flight area and let it fly, outdistancing the other competitors in all age groups. At last, Arturo’s airplane flew the farthest---more than 75 feet!
As the winner, Arturo got to meet with a team of engineers, which took his design and made a bigger one. The new paper airplane might have been the largest one ever built! Arturo named his large paper airplane Arturo’s Desert Eagle.
Later a helicopter tried to lift the paper airplane over the Arizona desert, but it was unsuccessful. Engineers worked for eight hours to repair it for a second try. This time, the helicopter managed to raise it to 2700 feet and then set the plane free.
Arturo watched as his plane flew through the sky at speeds of up to 98 miles per hour for 10 seconds before falling to pieces.
“I felt happy but sad,” Arturo says, “ It flew really well, but it was sad to see it destroyed.”
But that wasn’t the end of Arturo’s Desert Eagle. The Pima Air & Space Museum collected the pieces of the broken plane and put them on show to inspire other young engineers to reach for the sky. According to the text, the Great Paper Airplane Project Fly-Off competition _______
| A．has been held many times |
| B．can only be entered by kids |
| C．is to choose the largest plane |
| D．is held by a team of designers |
The underlined word ”outdistancing” in Para 4 means ________
| A．looking for | B．believing in | C．throwing away | D．leaving behind |
What do we know about the paper airplane Arturo built?
| A．It flew the highest | B．It flew for 20 minutes |
| C．It flew more than 75 feet | D．it took him eight hours to build |
In the end, Arturo’s Desert Eagle ______
| A．was made into a helicopter |
| B．was produced in many places |
| C．was sold to a team of engineers |
| D．was put on show in the museum |
Ask someone what they have done to help the environment recently and they will almost certainly mention recycling. Recycling in the home is very important of course. However, being forced to recycle often means we already have more material than we need. We are dealing with the results of that over-consumption in the greenest way possible, but it would be far better if we did not need to bring so much material home in the first place.
The total amount of packaging increased by 12% between 1999 and 2005. It now makes up a third of a typical household’s waste in the UK. In many supermarkets nowadays food items are packaged twice with plastic and cardboard.
Too much packaging is doing serious damage to the environment. The UK, for example, is running out of it for carrying this unnecessary waste. If such packaging is burnt, it gives off greenhouse gases which go on to cause the greenhouse effect. Recycling helps, but the process itself uses energy. The solution is not to produce such items in the first place. Food waste is a serious problem, too. Too many supermarkets encourage customers to buy more than they need. However, a few of them are coming round to the idea that this cannot continue, encouraging customers to reuse their plastic bags, for example.
But this is not just about supermarkets. It is about all of us. We have learned to associate packaging with quality. We have learned to think that something unpackaged is of poor quality. This is especially true of food. But it also applies to a wide range of consumer products, which often have far more packaging than necessary.
There are signs of hope. As more of us recycle, we are beginning to realise just how much unnecessary material are collecting. We need to face the wastefulness of our consumer culture, but we have a mountain to climb.What does the underlined phrase “over-consumption” refer to?
| A．Using too much packaging. |
| B．Recycling too many wastes. |
| C．Making more products than necessary. |
| D．Having more material than is needed. |
The author uses figures in Paragraph 2 to show _______.
| A．the tendency of cutting household waste |
| B．the increase of packaging recycling |
| C．the rapid growth of super markets |
| D．the fact of packaging overuse |
According to the text, recycling ______.
| A．helps control the greenhouse effect |
| B．means burning packaging for energy |
| C．is the solution to gas shortage |
| D．leads to a waste of land |
What can be inferred from Paragraph 4?
| A．Unpackaged products are of bad quality. |
| B．Supermarkets care more about packaging. |
| C．It is improper to judge quality by packaging. |
| D．Other products are better packaged than food. |
What can we learn from the last paragraph?
| A．Fighting wastefulness is difficult. |
| B．Needless material is mostly recycled. |
| C．People like collecting recyclable waste. |
| D．The author is proud of their consumer culture. |
Every morning my father buys a newspaper on his way to work. Every evening my mother looks through magazines at home. And every night, I look at the posters with photos of David Beckham and Yao Ming on my bedroom wall before I go to sleep. Can we imagine life without paper or print?
Paper was first created about 2,000 years ago, and has been made from silk, cotton, bamboo, and, since the 19th century, from wood. People learned to write words on paper to make a book. But in those days, books could only be produced one at a time by hand. As a result, they were expensive and rare. And because there weren’t many books, few people learned to read.
Then printing was invented in China. When printing was developed greatly at the beginning of the 11th century, books could be produced more quickly and cheaply. As a result, more people learned to read. After that, knowledge and ideas spread quickly.
Today information can be received online, downloaded from the Internet rather than found in books, and information can be kept on CD-ROMs or machines such as MP3 players.
Computers are already used in classrooms, and newspapers and magazines can already be read online. So will books be replaced by computers one day? No, I don’t think the Yao Ming poster on my bedroom wall will ever be replaced by a computer two metres high!What does the writer do before he goes to sleep’?
| A．He reads books. | B．He reads newspapers |
| C．He looks through magazines | D．He looks at the posters on the wall. |
When was paper first created?
| A．About 2.000 years ago. | B．In the 19th century. |
| C．About 1.000 years ago. | D．In the 11th century. |
Why were books expensive and rare before the invention of printing?
A. People could not read.
B. People could not write words on paper.
C. People could not find silk, cotton or bamboo.
D People could only produce books one at a time by handWhat happened after books became cheaper?
| A．People didn’t want to buy books. |
| B．Printing was invented in China. |
| C．Knowledge and ideas spread quickly. |
| D．The Internet was introduced to people soon |
What is the writer’s opinion about books and computers’?
| A．People won’t need books any more |
| B．Books won’t be replaced by computers. |
| C．People prefer to find information in books. |
| D．Computers have already replaced books. |
When two Bangs meet
Sheldon Cooper is a scientific genius on the popular American TV show, The Big Bang Theory (《生活大爆炸》). He finally met his match last year: Stephen Hawking.
This is not the first time that the scientist has appeared on TV. He has also been on Star Trek (in 1987) and The Simpsons (in 1989). Each time, he played himself.
Hawking, 71, is perhaps the world’s most famous scientist after Albert Einstein. He has spent his whole life studying the beginning and the end of the universe, including the Big Bang (宇宙大爆炸) theory.
The Big Bang theory explains the early development of the universe. According to the theory, about 13.7 billion years ago everything was all squeezed （挤压）together in a tiny, tight little ball, and then the ball exploded. The results of that explosion are what we call the universe.
Hawking has always tried to make science more popular with people. His book: A Brief History of Time was published in 1988. In the book he shares his understanding of the universe in simple language. The book tries to explain many subjects about the universe to common readers, including the Big Bang, black holes and light cones (光锥).
Hawking’s achievements are even greater if you think about his disability. When he was 21, Hawking caught a bad illness that slowly stopped him from moving or talking. Now he sits on a wheelchair with a computer by his side. To communicate, he moves two fingers to control the computer’s mouse. He chooses his words from the screen, which are then spoken by a voice synthesizer (合成器).
Hawking also believes that there might be aliens in space. However, he believes they are probably very dangerous, so we should not look for them. “I imagine they might exist in very big ships ... having used up all the resources from their home planet,” Hawking said in a British documentary（纪录片） named Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking.What does the “two Bangs” in the title refer to?
| A．The director of “The Big Bang Theory” and the founder of it. |
| B．The director and the actor of “The Big Bang Theory”. |
| C．The founder of the “Big Bang” theory and its spreader. |
| D．The scientific genius on TV show and the one alive in real life. |
Acting in The Big Bang Theory is Hawking’s _____ time on TV.
| A．first | B．second | C．third | D．fourth |
According to Paragraph 5, Hawking wrote the book A Brief History of Time especially for _____.
| A．scientists who study the universe |
| B．people who know a lot about the universe |
| C．people who know little about the universe |
| D．people who only know simple language |
The Big Bang theory mainly explains _____.
| A．how the universe started | B．what the universe is like |
| C．how old the universe is | D．how the universe exploded |
According to the passage, which of the following about Hawking is TRUE?
| A．He was born with a disability. |
| B．He uses a computer to communicate. |
| C．He believes aliens are our friends. |
| D．He encourages people to look for aliens. |