St James’s Palace has announced that while Miss Middleton will wear a wedding ring．Prince William has chosen not to．
Rings are typically exchanged by couples during their wedding to represent commitment （承诺）to each other．Does it matter if husbands don’t wear a wedding ring?
Prince William’s father wears one, his grandfather doesn’t and their decisions weren’t seen as strange．But reactions to Prince William’s decision show that wedding rings for husbands are now the norm．One young man, who spoke to the BBC, thinks William is setting a bad example, saying: "I think it’s disgraceful （不光彩的）．It’s a tradition．You have to wear a ring really．And for someone of the royal family to do that, it’s not right．"
Broadly speaking, modem husbands tend to wear their wedding rings as a symbol of loyalty and faithfulness．So not wearing one can seem unusual or even dishonest to some, although men haven’t always worn them．
The wearing of wedding rings has been the done thing for centuries among wives but only became common practice among husbands during World War II．Men fighting overseas usually wore them as a reminder of wives and families back home．
Wearing rings is a safety issue（问题） for men in certain manual jobs．But how does William explain his decision? A royal officer has said he "isn’t one for jewelry"．According to the passage, which of the following statements is TRUE?
| A．There is going to be a royal exhibition of jewelry． |
| B．Wearing rings among husbands and wives is tradition at all times． |
| C．All the male members of British royalty don’t wear wedding rings． |
| D．Wearing rings is a safety guarantee for some manual jobs． |
What is the author’s attitude towards Prince William’s decision?
| A．Subjective． | B．Objective． | C．Approving． | D．Disappointed． |
By saying "he isn’t one for jewelry", the royal officers meant that _____．
| A．Prince William is a person who doesn’t like wearing jewelry． |
| B．Prince William isn’t a person who is crazy about collecting jewelry． |
| C．Prince William considers jewelry penniless． |
| D．Prince William doesn’t wear a wedding ring for safety． |
What would be the best title for this passage?
| A．To Wear Wedding Rings or Not |
| B．Complaint about British Royal Disgraceful Behavior] |
| C．The History of Wearing Wedding Rings |
| D．No Ring for Wills |
If you've been joining in chat room conversations, or trading e－mails with net pals (网友), you have become one of the millions who write in a special, short form of English.
Throughout the world, every night children and their elders are “talking” online－many of them are talking at the same time.
It's fast: trying talking to six people once. It's convenient: three or four words per exchange. It takes cleverness, concentration and quick fingers.
And it requires very simple language. There's neither time nor space for explanations. Why waste valuable time telling six friends you have to leave for a moment to take care of your little brother when BRB (be right back) will do?
Want to enter a conversation? Just type PMFJI (pardon me for jumping in)．
Interested in whom you're talking to? Type A/S/L, the nearly universal request to know your pal's age, sex and location. You may get 15/M/NY as a reply from your pal.
If something makes you laugh, say you're OTF (on the floor), or LOL (laughing out loud), or join the two into ROTFL (rolling on the floor laughing)．
And when it's time to get back to work or go to bed, you type GTG (got to go) or TTYL (talk to you later)．
People want to write as fast as possible, and they want to get their ideas across as quickly as they can. Capital letters are left in the dust, except when expressing feeling, as it takes more time to hold down the “Shift” key and use capitals. Punctuation (标点) is going too.When people are online, they talk by ________.
| A．using body language |
| B．drawing some strange pictures |
| C．making phone calls |
| D．making use of an especially short form of English |
The underlined sentence in Para. 4 means that ________.
| A．people should use words properly |
| B．people should know what time it is when they are talking |
| C．people online have to express themselves in a simple way |
| D．people should communicate in a funny way |
If you get 17/F/NY as an answer to your A/S/L, it means________.
| A．the people on the other end is 17 from New York and he is fine |
| B．you are talking to a girl who is 17 and lives in New York |
| C．you are talking to 17 girls who are from New York |
| D．the people you are talking to is a 17－foot tall New York girl |
Which of the following is a way to save online time?
| A．People seldom use capital letters or punctuation marks. |
| B．Many people draw pictures. |
| C．People only use the mouse instead of the keyboard. |
| D．People never use the “Shift” key. |
The lights dimmed，the musical hall grew quiet and out walked the conductor (指挥) shiny and white and 4 feet and 3 inches tall.
ASIMO, a robot designed by Honda Motor Co., met its latest challenge Tuesday evening: Conducting the Detroit Symphony (底特律交响乐团), in a performance of “The Impossible Dream” from “Man of La Mancha”．
“Hello, everyone，” ASIMO said to the audience in a childlike voice, then waved to the orchestra. As it conducted, it perfectly mimicked (模仿) the actions of a conductor,
nodding its head at various sections and gesturing with one or both hands. ASIMO took a final bow to excited shouts from the audience. Later, cellist Yo－Yo Ma joined ASIMO onstage to receive an award for his efforts in music education.
Honda spokeswoman Alicia Jones says it is the first time ASIMO has conducted an orchestra, and it may be the first time any robot has conducted a live performance. But ASIMO has its limits. ASIMO's engineers programmed the robot to mimic Charles Burke, the Detroit Symphony's education director, as he conducted the piece in front of a pianist about six months ago. But it can't respond to the musicians.
“It's not a communicative device. It simply is programmed to do a set of gestures，” said Leonard Slatkin, the orchestra's musical director. “If the orchestra decides to go faster, there's nothing the robot can do about it. Hopefully, I keep that under control.”
But several musicians also said ASIMO was more realistic than they expected. “The movements are still a little stiff (僵硬的), but very humanlike, much better than I thought，” Hutchinson said.What's the audience's response to ASIMO's performance?
| A．Disappointed. | B．Moved. |
| C．Excited. | D．Astonished. |
Whose conducting was ASIMO made to copy?
| A．Yo－Yo Ma's. | B．Charles Burke's. |
| C．Leonard Slatkin's. | D．Alicia Jones's. |
We can learn from the passage that ASIMO ________.
| A．was designed and trained by Yo－Yo Ma |
| B．can communicate with the audience freely |
| C．only performs according to the designed programs |
| D．can change its conducting style freely |
What would be the best title for this passage?
| A．Detroit Symphony gives a good performance |
| B．Honda robot conducts Detroit Symphony |
| C．“The Impossible Dream” from Detroit Symphony |
| D．Cooperation between Honda and Detroit Symphony |
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It is also the most neglect (忽视). Common reasons for not eating breakfast include having no time, not feeling hungry, traditional dislike and dieting.
Breakfast simply means “break the fast’’. Your body spends at least 6 to 12 hours each night in a fasting state. In the morning your body needs energy for the day’s work ahead.
A good breakfast should provide 1/3 of your total calorie(卡路里)needs for the day. On average, we eat 400 less calories for breakfast than for dinner. If breakfast doesn’t appeal (吸引) to you in the morning, try eating a lighter dinner earlier in the evening or save half of your dinner for breakfast in the morning.
If you still aren’t hungry in the morning, start with something small like juice or toast or have a nutritious (有营养的) mid-morning snack (小吃) later when you are hungry.
So, you say you are on a diet. Some people fear that eating breakfast will make them hungrier during the day and they will eat more. It is true that eating breakfast is likely to make you feel hungry throughout the day. That is because your body is working correctly. Although you may feel as if you are eating more all day long, in reality you are probably not.
Not eating breakfast can also cause you overeat, since a fall in blood sugar often makes you feel very hungry later. To make matters worse, since your body is in a slow state, it will not be able to burn those extra calories very efficiently (有效). If you feed your body healthy snacks and meals throughout the day, you are less likely to become hungry and stuff (填饱) yourself as soon as you begin to eat.
Since breakfast is the first and most important meal of the day, choosing the right food is important. The best breakfast foods are fruits, juice, lean meat and grain products such as bread, rice, noodles and cereals. What is the meaning of the word “fast” in the phrase “break the fast”?
| A．movement | B．going without food |
| C．quickness | D．certain kind of food |
If you don’t want to have breakfast in the morning, according to the writer’s suggestion, you should________.
| A．see a doctor to have an examination |
| B．have a little supper |
| C．go to a restaurant to enjoy a good meal |
| D．have a good supper |
Eating breakfast, in fact, makes your body_________.
| A．work out of order | B．produce too much energy |
| C．work well | D．feel hungry quicker |
Not eating breakfast will_________.
| A．save a lot of money | B．do harm to your health |
| C．do good to your health | D．help you keep in shape |
In the last paragraph the writer mainly_________.
A. persuades us to have a good breakfast
B. tell us what food isn’t suitable for breakfast
C describes when and how we should have our breakfast
D .tell us what food we should have for breakfast
Doctors have known for a long time that extremely loud noises can cause hearing damage or loss. The noise can be the sound of a jet airplane or machines in factories of loud music or other common sound at home and at work. A person only needs to hear the noise for little more than one second to be affected.
An American scientist has found that using aspirin (阿斯匹林) increase the temporary (暂时的)hearing loss or damage from loud noise. He did an experiment using a number of students at a university who all had normal hearing. He gave them different amounts of aspirin for different periods of time, then he tested their hearing ability. He found that students who were given four grams of aspirin a day for two days suffered much greater temporary hearing loss than those who did not use aspirin. The hearing loss was about two times as great.
The scientist said millions of persons in the U.S. use much larger amounts of aspirin than were used in his experiment. He said these persons face a serious danger of suffering hearing loss from loud noise.Doctors have long known that__________.
| A．one may lose his hearing when he hears a terribly loud noise. |
| B．one may become deaf when he hears a loud noise. |
| C．loud noises can cause damage to the hearing of the young people only |
| D．common sounds at home are not harmful to the ear |
This passage suggests that one’s hearing________.
| A．will be damaged even if he has heard a loud noise for only little more than one second |
| B．will be damaged even if he has heard a loud noise less than one second |
| C．will not be damaged if he has heard a loud noise for only little more than one second |
| D．will not be damaged if he has little more than one second to get ready |
One conclusion you can draw from the passage is that aspirin________.
| A．makes hearing damage from loud noise worse |
| B．should never be taken more than four grams |
| C．can damage one’s hearing when it is given more than four grams daily |
| D．always increases hearing loss by two times |
Millions of Americans are in danger of suffering hearing loss because they__________.
| A．take too much aspirin |
| B．often take air trips |
| C．like listening to loud music |
| D．have too much loud noises at home and at work |
The American scientist did his experiment in order to find ________.
| A．how much aspirin would affect a person’s hearing |
| B．how much aspirin should be given in the treatment of the patients with hearing damage from loud noise |
| C．whether aspirin would increase the temporary hearing damage from loud noises |
| D．whether the people who had hearing damage should use aspirin |
Chinese are very generous when it comes to educating their children. Not caring about the money, parents often send their children to the best schools or even abroad to England, the United States or Australia. They also want their children to take extra-course activities where they will learn a musical instrument or ballet or other classes which will give them a head start in life. The Chinese believe that the more expensive an education is, the better it is. So the parents will spend an unreasonable amount of money on education. Even poor couples will buy a computer for their son or daughter.
However, what most parents fail to see is that the best early education they can give their children is usually very cheap.
Parents can see that their children’s skills vary, skilled in some areas while poor in others. What most parents fail to realize though, is that today’s children lack (缺乏) self-respect and self-confidence.
The problem is that parents are only educating their children on how to take multiple-choice tests and how to study well, but parents aren’t teaching them the most important skills they need to be confident, happy and clever.
Parents can achieve this by teaching practical skills like cooking, sewing and doing housework.
Teaching a child to cook will improve many of the skills that he will need later in life. Cooking demands patience and time. It’s an enjoyable but difficult experiment. A good cook always tries to improve his cooking, so he will learn to work hard and gradually to finish his job successfully. His result, a well-cooked dinner, will give him much satisfaction and a lot of self-confidence.
Some old machines , such as a broken radio or TV set that you give your children to play with will make him curious (好奇) and arouse his interest He will spend hours looking at them, trying to fix them; your child might become an engineer when he grows up. These activities aren’t merely teaching a child to read a book, but rather to think, to use his mind. And that is more important.Parents in China, according to this passage, _________.
A. are too strict with their children
B. are too rich to educate their children
C have some problems in educating their children correctly
D. are too poor to educate their childrenGenerally speaking, children’s skills_______.
| A．come from their parents |
| B．have nothing to do with their education |
| C．may be different |
| D．have something to do with their marks in the exams |
The writer of this passage doesn’t seem to be satisfied with_______.
| A．the parents’ idea of educating their children |
| B．the education system |
| C．children’s skills |
| D．children’s hobbies |
Doing some cooking at home helps children_________.
| A．learn how to serve their parents |
| B．learn how to become strong and fat |
| C．benefit from it and prepare themselves for the future |
| D．make their parents believe that they are clever |
According to the last paragraph, we can conclude that_________.
| A．broken radios and television sets are useful |
| B．one’s curiosity may be useful for his later life |
| C．an engineer must fix many broken radios |
| D．a good student should spend much time repairing radios |