If you've ever seen a James Bond movie，you'll know that the hero gets around in a smart Aston Martin car. Even if you know full well that you could never afford such an expensive vehicle, you don't forget the name, or the car.
Why? You have been affected by product placement.
Companies pay a film to place their products in the movie. Product placement took off in the West in the 1980s and is now catching on in China. Two Hunan Satellite TV dramas are recent examples：Ugly Wudi and Let's Go Watch the Meteor Shower (《一起去看流星雨》).
Shampoo, mobile phones, cars and fitness centers–anything can be product-placed. Advertisers value the mass appeal of the movies, knowing that a successful film can showcase their goods to hundreds of thousands of viewers. But when product placement takes over, artistic considerations can take a back seat.
Cai Zhiyong has been product-placing for years. The Beijing-based advertiser admits there is a conflict between art and business. He explains the way one ad works. In If You are the One (《非诚勿扰》), the actress Shu Qi plays a flight attendant. The movie contains product placement for airline companies.
Cash-strapped filmmakers often have to give less consideration to the quality of their work because they need money from advertisers. In the original story for Meteor Shower, the heroine's mother owned an ice cream shop. But no ice cream company wanted to sponsor (赞助) the film. For this reason, the story was changed. In the film the man drinks 20 cups of milk tea instead of eating ice cream.
So you may see the power of business over the movies, since the script (剧本) was perhaps written so that a product could be placed-whether it was ice cream or milk tea.James Bond movies are mentioned in the first paragraph to show_________.
| A．how popular James Bond is | B．how great the Aston Martin car is |
| C．how to make a movie more artistic | D．how effectively product placement works |
Product placement can have a bad effect on the_________ of a movie.
| A．atmosphere | B．mass appeal | C．box-office success | D．artistic value |
What does the underlined word "cash-strapped" in Paragraph 6 probably mean?
| A．Short of money. | B．Wasting a lot of money. |
| C．having enough money. | D．Trying to save money. |
We can learn from the example of Meteor Shower that__________.
| A．business has a big say in the movie |
| B．the original story was not suitable for a movie |
| C．filmmakers are only concerned about making money |
| D．milk tea is more popular than ice cream |
In the USA Forbes magazine has published its annual list of the richest people in the world. Bill Gates of Microsoft is the richest man again for the eleventh successive year with a fortune of fortyfour billion dollars.
There are a record 691 dollar billionaires according to Forbes magazine. Between them they have a fortune of two point two trillion dollars. The highest concentration of the ultrarich is in New York followed by Moscow and San Fransisco and then London and Los Angeles. But in total the very wealthy live in fortyseven different countries with Iceland Kazakstan Ukraine and Poland entering the list for the first time this year.
Laksmi Mittal,an Indian born steel tycoon （巨头）enjoyed the biggest increase in personal fortune. His net worth has quadrupled （变成四倍）to thirteen billion dollars making him the world’s third richest man. Ingvar Kamprad founder of the Swedish furniture chain Ikea also saw a big increase in wealth taking him to the sixth place. Developing countries make more of a showing than in past years — there are for example three Russians and four Indians in the top sixty richest people, though surprisingly perhaps none from China excluding Hong Kong. Asian wealth is probably underrepresented as its usually spread among families whereas Forbes looks at individuals. Relatively few women feature in the list — among them is JK Rowling,author of the Harry Potter novels ranked 620th with a fortune of 519 million dollars. New entrants to the list include the founders of the Internet search group Google Sergie Brin and Larry Page each worth more than seven billion dollars after their company’s recent stock market debut. The richest Italian is the prime minister Silvio Berlusconi ranked number 25 in the global wealth league. Which of the following persons has the largest fortune according to this year’s Forbes magazine?
| A．Laksmi Mittal. | B．Ingvar Kamprad. |
| C．JK Rowling. | D．Silvio Berlusconi. |
There are about _____ persons with a fortune between 100 million dollars and 519 million dollars in the world.
| A．300 | B．180 | C．70 | D．150 |
Which of the following statements is NOT true?
| A．No Chinese has entered the top sixty richest people in the world. |
| B．Russia is a developing country. |
| C．This is the first time that Sergie Brin and Larry Page has been included in the list. |
| D．There are more billionaires（亿万富翁） in New York than any other city in the world. |
We can infer from the passage that ______.
| A．There are more billionaires in London than in Moscow. |
| B．Ukraine is a very rich country in the world. |
| C．JK Rowling’s novels have sold very well. |
| D．The IT industry is a profitmaking industry. |
Modern man has cleared the forests for farmland and for wood,and has also carelessly burned them. More than that,though,he has also interfered （干涉） with the invisible bonds between the living things in the forests. There are many examples of this kind of destruction. The harmfulness of man’s interference can be seen in what happened many years ago in the forest of the Kaibab plateau （凯亚巴布高原） of northern Arizona. Man tried to improve on the natural web of forest life and destroyed it instead.
The Kaibab had a storybook forest of largesized pine,Douglas fir,white fir,blue and Engelmann spruce. In 1882 a visitor noted,"We,who ... have wandered through its forests and parks,have come to regard it as the most enchanting region it has ever been our privilege （特权） to visit."This was also the living place of the Rocky Mountain mule deer. Indians hunted there every autumn to gather meat and skins. The forest also had mountain lions,timber wolves and bobcats that kept the deer from multiplying too rapidly.
Then,in 1906,President Theodore Roosevelt made the Kaibab a national game preserve. Deer hunting was forbidden. Government hunters started killing off the deer’s enemies. In 25 years’ time,6,250 mountain lions,wolves and bobcats were killed. Before the program,there were about 4,000 deer in the Kaibab,by 1924,there were about 100,000.
The deer ate every leaf and twig they could reach. But there was not nearly enough food. Hunting of deer was permitted again. This caused a slight decrease in the deer herd （鹿群），but a far greater loss resulted from starvation （饥饿） and disease. Some 60 percent of the deer herd died in two winters. By 1930 the herd had dropped to 20,000 animals. By 1942 it was down to 8,000.The destruction of the environment of the Kaibab resulted from .
| A．turning the forest into cultivated land |
| B．interfering with natural cycle of forest life |
| C．forest fires caused by man’s carelessness |
| D．cutting the trees for building materials |
"Engelmann spruce"（Para. 2） is most likely the name of .
| A．a tree | B．an animal | C．a mountain | D．a game |
The number of the deer in the Kaibab had increased enormously in years’ time.
| A．25 | B．6 | C．18 | D．12 |
Years later,large numbers of deer in the Kaibab died mainly because of .
| A．the cold | B．the organized kill |
| C．the shortage of food | D．the poor management |
Long bus rides are like television shows. They have a beginning,a middle,and an endwith commercials （商业广告） thrown in every three or four minutes. The commercials are unavoidable. They happen whether you want them or not. Every couple of minutes a billboard glides by outside the bus window. "Buy Super Clean Toothpaste.""Drink Good Wet Root Beer.""Fill up with Pacific Gas."Only if you sleep,which is equal to turning the television set off,are you spared the unending cry of "You Need It! Buy It Now!"
The beginning of the ride is comfortable and somewhat exciting,even if you’ve traveled that way before. Usually some things have changednew houses,new buildings,sometimes even a new road. The bus driver has a style of driving and it’s fun to try to figure it out the first hour or so. If the driver is particularly reckless （鲁莽的） or daring,the ride can be as thrilling （惊心动魄的） as a suspense story. Will the driver pass the truck in time? Will the driver move into the rightor the lefthand lane? After a while,of course,the excitement dies down. Sleeping for a while helps pass the middle hours of the ride. Food always makes bus rides more interesting. But you’ve got to be careful of what kind of food you eat. Too much salty food can make you very thirsty between stops.
The end of the ride is somewhat like the beginning. You know it will soon be over and there’s a kind of expectation and excitement in that. The seat of course,has become harder as the hours have passed. By now you’ve sat with your legs crossed,with your hands in your lap,with your hands on the armrestseven with your hands crossed behind your head. The end comes just at no more ways to sit.According to the passage,what do the passengers usually see when they are on a long bus trip?
| A．Buses on the road. | B．Films on television. |
| C．Advertisements on the billboards. | D．Gas stations. |
What is the purpose of this passage?
| A．To give the writer’s opinion about long bus trips. |
| B．To persuade you to take a long bus trip. |
| C．To explain how bus trips and television shows differ. |
| D．To describe the billboards along the road. |
The writer of this passage would probably favor .
| A．bus drivers who aren’t reckless | B．driving alone |
| C．a television set on the bus | D．no billboards along the road |
The writer feels long bus rides are like TV shows because .
| A．the commercials both on TV shows and on billboards along the road are fun |
| B．they both have a beginning,a middle,and an end,with commercials in between |
| C．the drivers are always reckless on TV shows just as they are on buses |
| D．both traveling and watching TV are not exciting. |
The writer thinks that the end of the ride is somewhat like the beginning because both are .
| A．exciting | B．comfortable | C．tiring | D．boring |
Disposing(处理) of waste has been a problem since humans started producing it. As more and more people choose to live close together in cities, the waste-disposal problem becomes increasingly difficult.
During the eighteenth century, it was usual for several neighboring towns to get together to select a faraway spot as a dumpsite. Residents or trash haulers(垃圾托运者) would transport household rubbish, rotted wood, and old possessions to the site. Periodically(定期的) some of the trash was burned and the rest was buried. The unpleasant sights and smells caused no problem because nobody lived close by.
Factories, mills, and other industrial sites also had waste to be disposed of. Those located on rivers often just dumped the unwanted remains into the water. Others built huge burners with chimneys to deal with the problem.
Several facts make these choices unacceptable to modern society. The first problem is space. Dumps, which are now called landfills, are most needed in heavily populated areas. Such areas rarely have empty land suitable for this purpose. Property is either too expensive or too close to residential(住宅区的)neighborhoods. Long-distance trash hauling has been a common practice, but once farm areas are refusing to accept rubbish from elsewhere, cheap land within trucking distance of major city areas is almost nonexistent.
Awareness of pollution dangers has resulted in more strict rules of waste disposal. Pollution of rivers, ground water, land and air is a price people can no longer pay to get rid of waste. The amount of waste, however, continues to grow.
Recycling efforts have become commonplace, and many towns require their people to take part. Even the most efficient recycling programs, however, can hope to deal with only about 50 percent of a city's reusable waste.The most suitable title for this passage would be ______.
| A．Places for Disposing Waste | B．Waste Pollution Dangers |
| C．Ways of Getting Rid of Waste | D．Waste Disposal Problem |
During the 18th century, people disposed their waste in many ways EXCEPT for ______.
| A．burying it | B．recycling it |
| C．burning it | D．throwing it into rivers |
What can be inferred from the fourth paragraph?
| A．Farm areas accept waste from the city in modern society. |
| B．There is cheap land to bury waste in modem society. |
| C．It is difficult to find space to bury waste in modem society. |
| D．Ways to deal with waste in modem society stay the same. |
The main purpose of writing this article is to ________.
| A．draw people's attention to waste management |
| B．warn people of the pollution dangers we are facing |
| C．call on people to take part in recycling programs |
| D．tell people a better way to get rid of the waste |
Sheep, like turkeys and ostriches, are not considered the cleverest animals. British scientists said last Wednesday human may have underestimated(低估) the woolly creatures. They could be much smarter than we think.
Researchers at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, southern. England, have shown that animals have a good memory system and are extremely good at recognizing faces--which they think is a sure sign of intelligence.
Behavioral scientist Keith Kendrick and his friends trained 20 sheep to recognize and distinguish(区别) 25 pairs of sheep faces and used electrodes(电极) to measure their brain activity, which showed they could remember 50 faces for up to two years.
"If they can do that with faces, the fact is that they have to have reasonable intelligence, otherwise, what is the point of having a system for remembering anything else," Kendrick said in an interview.
So hours of seemingly mindless eating grass may not be so mindless after all.
Kendrick believes sheep got their reputation as dumb animals because they live in large groups and do not appear to have much ind
ividuality and are frightened of just about everything.
All animals, including humans, once they are frightened don't tend to show signs of intelligent action," he explained.
In research reported in the science journal Nature, Kendrick and his team showed that sheep, like humans, have a specialized system in the brain, which allows them to distinguish between many different faces that look extremely similar.
"The most important findings of the study is that they are able, both from a behavioral point of view and from looking at the way the brain is organized, to remember a large number of faces of individuals for a very long time," said Kendrick. "It is a very strange system. They are showing similar abilities in many ways to humans. " From the first paragraph we can find that ______.
| A．people used to think sheep are smarter than the other animals |
| B．people used to raise sheep in a wrong way |
| C．people don't consider sheep as clever animals |
| D．people have done a lot of research on sheep |
From what Kendrick said in the interview we learn that ________.
| A．scientists have learned a lot about sheep's intelligence |
| B．scientists have learned little about sheep's intelligence |
| C．scientists can't do anything more about sheep's memory |
| D．scientists don't have to research animals' memory |
As is shown in the passage _________.
| A．sheep are among the weak animals |
| B．it is not right for people to raise sheep in groups |
| C．when sheep eat grass in the fields their minds may be active |
| D．if people feel frightened, they may become more brave |
When scientists found that sheep show similar abilities in many ways to humans they may think it _____.
| A．worrying | B．moving | C．frightening | D．interesting |