In the past, people who graduated from college felt proud of their academic (学业的) achievements and felt confident that their degree would help them to find a good job.
However, in the past five years the job market has changed greatly. This year’s college graduates are facing one of the worst job markets. For example, Ryan Stewart, a graduate of San Jose State University, got a degree in religious studies, but no job prospects. He points out that many people already working are getting laid off and don’t have jobs, so it’s even harder for new college graduates to find jobs.
Five years ago, the future looked bright for the class of 2006. There were many high-tech job chances. Graduates received many job offers, and they were able to get jobs with high salaries and benefits such as insurance (保险) and paid vacations. However, "Times have changed and it's a new market," according to an officer of the San Jose State Career Center.
The officer says students who do find jobs started preparing two years ago. They worked during summer vacations, they have had several short-time jobs, and they’ve majored in one of the few fields that are still hot, like chemical engineering, accounting, or nursing, where average starting salaries have actually increased over last year. Other popular fields (like information system management, computer science, and political science) have seen big declines (下降) in starting salaries.
Ryan Stewart (he had hoped to become a teacher) may go back to school in order to become a college teacher. He thinks college teaching could be a good career even in a bad economy.
In conclusion, these days a degree may not be a ticket to instant wealth for some students. For now, they can only hope the value of their degree will increase over time.The underlined word in the second paragraph probably means _____.
| A．skills | B．interests | C．chances | D．ideas |
Which of the following majors has the best job offers?
| A．teaching | B．accounting |
| C．political science | D．computer science |
Ryan Stewart will have to ____________.
| A．go back to school | B．get a job teaching |
| C．change his major | D．become a religious leader |
The underlined sentence in the last paragraph means ____________.
| A．the best way to get rich is not to get a college degree |
| B．most students with degrees will not be able to find jobs |
| C．having a college degree does not mean that one has money for travelling |
| D．a college degree does not mean that one will find a well-paid job |
The main idea of the passage is that _________.
| A．a lot of graduates are losing their jobs |
| B．Ryan Stewart has been able to find a job |
| C．salaries in some fields have increased in the past year |
| D．the job market has changed greatly over the past five years |
Growing up in Philadelphia, Lieberman started cooking with his stay-at-home dad when he was seven. His food-loving family had two kitchens, and he quickly learned what was the best way to bake his cakes. Lieberman improved his kitchen skills greatly during a year abroad before college, learning from a cook in Italy and studying local specialties（地方特色菜）in Germany, Spain and France. At Yale, he was known for throwing dinner parties, single-handedly frying and baking while mixing drinks for dozens of friends. Just for fun, he and some friends decided to tape a show named Campus Cuisine about his cooking. Lieberman was a real college student showing his classmates how to do things like making drinks out of dining-hall fruit. That helped the show become very popular among the students. They would stop Lieberman after classes to ask for his advice on cooking. Tapes of the show were passed around, with which his name went beyond the school and finally to the Food Network.
Food Network producer Flay hopes the young cook will find a place on the network television. He says Lieberman’s charisma is key. “Food TV isn’t about food anymore,” says Flay. “It’s about your personality and finding a way to keep people’s eyeballs on your show.”
But Lieberman isn’t putting all his eggs in one basket. After taping the first season of the new show, Lieberman was back in his own small kitchen preparing sandwiches. An airline company was looking for some one to come up with a tasteful, inexpensive and easy-to-make menu to serve on its flights, Lieberman got the job.
1. We can learn from the text that Lieberman’s family ____.
A. have relatives in Europe B own a restaurant.
C. love cooking at home D. often hold parties
2. The Food Network got to know Lieberman ____.
A. through his taped show B. from his teachers
C. at one of his parties D. on a television program
3. What does the word “charisma” underlined in the text refer to?
A. Lieberman’s fine cooking skill. B. A way to show one’s achievement.
C. Lieberman’s after-class interest. D. A natural ability to attract others.
4. Why did the airline company give Lieberman the job?
A. He could prepare meals in a small kitchen.
B. He could cook cheap, delicious and simple meals.
C. He was good at using eggs to make sandwiches.
D. He was famous for his shows on Food TV.
5. What can we learn about Lieberman from the text?
A. he is friendly and active. B. He is clever but lonely.
C. He enjoys traveling around. D. He often changes his menus.
Once again, I was in a new school. So was a girl in my class named Lisa. That’s where the similarities ended.
I was tall and she was small. My thick black hair had been recently cut short into an untidy style. Her natural blonde hair flowed to her waist and looked great. I was 12 and one of the oldest in the class while she was 11 and the youngest. I was awkward and shy. She wasn’t. I couldn’t stand her, considering her my enemy. But she liked me and wanted to be friends.
One day, she invited me over and I said yes—I was too shocked to answer any other way. My family had moved six times in six years, and I had never managed to develop any friendships. But this girl who wore the latest fashions wanted me to go home with her after school..
She lived in a fun part of town that had two pizza places, an all-right bookstore, a movie theater and a park. As we walked from the school bus stop through her neighborhood, I tried to guess which house might be hers. Was it the white one with the perfect lawn or the three –story house with a front porch? I got very surprised when she led me into an old apartment building. She lived on the fourth floor in a two-room place with her mother, her stepfather, her two brothers and her sister.
When we got into the room she shared with her sister, she took out a big case of Barbies, which was my next surprise. I had never played with them. We sat on the floor, laughing as we made up crazy stories about the Barbies. We found out that we both wanted to be writers when we were older and both had wild imaginations. We had a great day that afternoon.
Lisa was loved by the whole neighborhood. The bookstore owners lent her fashion magazines; the movie theater gave her free tickets…. Soon I was included in her magic world. We slept over at each other’s houses and spent every free moment together.
Lisa, my first real friend since childhood, helped me get through the rough years of early adolescence and taught me an amazing and very surprising thing about making friends: your worst enemy can turn out to be your best friend.
1．The writer and Lisa were similar in the way that .
A．they were both tall B．they had the same hair styles
C．they were both new students D．they were of the same age
2．One day Lisa invited the writer .
A．to go to the movie B．to go to walk in a park
C．to go to her home D．to go to a pizza place
3．In the passage the writer described Lisa as a girl who was .
A．friendly and lovely B．rich and happy
C．quiet and lonely D．awkward and shy
4．Which of the following did the writer learn from Lisa?
A．How to make up stories. B．How to deal with enemies.
C．How to live a better life. D．How to make friends.
第三部分阅读理解(共20小题；每小题2分，满分40分)
请认真阅读下列短文，从短文后各题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
The Kingdome in Seattle was destroyed on March 26，2000．It was taken down to make room for a new stadium．The blast(爆破)from the falling building caused the earth to shake as if an earthquake had happened．
Scientists placed more than 200 earthquake recorders in the earth to measure the movement．They found which parts of the city shook the most．This information helped them know which parts of the city would be damaged in a real earthquake at an early time．
A real earthquake happened on February 28, 2001 in Seattle．The Nisqually earthquake was 6.8 on the Richter scale(里氏)．It damaged the same parts of Seattle that scientists had predicted from the pulling down of the Kingdome．It was a plate quake．It started deep in the earth, 37 miles below the surface on the Juan de Fuca Plate．Sometimes，huge plates under the earth cause earthquakes when the plates move against each other suddenly．
Scientists have learned that deep earthquakes have very few aftershocks．The Nisqually earthquake had only 4 ones．Another earthquake in California that was close to the surface had over 120 aftershocks．Scientists do not know why the deep earthquakes have fewer aftershocks．
Scientists plan to blast in the ground near Seattle with the purpose of testing the plate．The shockwaves from the blast will jump off the plate and give them all idea of where the plate is and how it is moving．This will give them more information in case another real earthquake hits the area．
1．What will happen after a deep earthquake according to the scientists?
A．There will be very few aftershocks
B．There will be many aftershocks．
C．There will be little damage．
D．The Richter scale of the quakes will be 6.8 or more．
2．According to the passage， have the most aftershocks．
A．deep earthquakes
B．shockwave earthquakes
C．earthquakes more than 6.8 Richter scale
D．earthquakes close to the surface
3．By studying the blast in the ground near Seattle, scientists hope to
A．destroy the Kingdome
B．find out how many plates there are in the ground there
C．learn where the plate is and how it is moving
D．know which places are likely to have the most damage
Treasure hunts (寻宝) have excited people' s imagination for hundreds of years both in real life and in books such as Robert Louis Stevenson' s Treasure Island. Kit Williams, a modern writer, had the idea of combining the real excitement of a treasure hunt with clues (线索) found in a book when he wrote a children' story, Masquerade, in 1979. The book was about a hare, and a month before it came out Williams buried a gold hare in a park in Bedfordshire. The book contained a large number of clues to help readers find the hare, but Williams put in a lot of "red herrings", or false clues, to mislead them.
Ken Roberts, the man who found the hare, had been looking for it for nearly two years. Al- though he had been searching in the wrong area most of the time, he found it by logic (逻辑), not by luck. His success came from the fact that he had gained an important clue at the start. He had realized that the words: "One of Six to Eight" under the first picture in the book connected the hare in some way to Katherine of Aragon, the first of Henry VIII's six wives. Even here, however, Williams had succeeded in misleading him. Ken knew that Katherine of Aragon had died at Kimbolton in Cambridgeshire in 1536 and thought that Williams had buried the hare there. He had been digging there for over a year before a new idea occurred to him. He found out that Kit Williams had spent his childhood near Ampthill, in Bedfordshire, and thought that he must have buried the hare in a place he knew well, but he still could not see the connection with Katherine of Aragon, until one day he came across two stone crosses(十字架) in Ampthill Park and learnt that they had been built in her honor in 1773.
Even then his search had not come to an end. It was only after he had spent several nights digging around the cross that he decided to write to Kit Williams to find out if he was wasting his time there. Williams encouraged him to continue, and on February 24th 1982, he found the treasure. It was worth ₤3000 in the beginning, but the excitement it had caused since its burial made it much more valuable.
1. The underlined word "them" (paragraph 1 ) refers to________.
A. red herrings B. treasure hunts
C. Henry VIII's six wives D. readers of Masquerade
2. What is the most important clue in the story to help Ken Roberts find the hare?
A. Two stone crosses in Ampthill. B. Stevenson's Treasure Island.
C. Katherine of Aragon. D. Williams' hometown.
3. The stone crosses in Ampthill were built________.
A. to tell about what happened in 1773 B. to show respect for Henry VIII' s first wife
C. to serve as a roadsign in Ampthill Park D. to inform people where the gold hare was
4. Which of the following describes Roberts' logic in searching for the hare?
a. Henry VIII' s six wives
b. Katherine's burial place at Kimbolton
c. Williams' childhood in Ampthill
d. Katherine of Aragon
e. stone crosses in Ampthill Park
A. a -b- c- e- d B. d- b- c- e- a
C. a- d- b- c- eD. b- a- e- c- d
Laptop (便携式)computers are popular all over the world. People use them on trains and airplanes in airports and hotels. These laptops connect people to their workplace. In the United States today. laptops also connect students to their classrooms.
Westlake Coolege in Virginia will start a laptop computer program that allows students to do schoolwork anywhere they want. Within five years, each of the 1,500 students at the college will receive a laptop. The laptops are part of a $10 million computer program at Westlake, a 110-year-old college. The students with laptops will also have access to the Internet .In addition, they will be able to use e-mail to “speak”with their teachers, their classmates, and their families. However. the most important part of the laptop program is that students will be able to use computers without going to computer labs. They can work with it at home ,in a fast –food restaurant or under the trees—anywhere at all!
Because of the many changes in computer technology, laptop use in higher education, such as colleges and universities is workable. As laptops become more powerful, they become more similar to desktop computers. In addition, the portable computers can connect students to not only the Internet but also libraries and other resources. State higher-education officials are studying how laptops can help students. State officials also are testing laptop programs at other universities, too.
At Westlake College, more than 60 percent of the staff use computers.The laptops will allow all teachers to use computers in their lessons. As one Westlake teacher said ,“Here we are in the middle of Virginia and we’re giving students a window on the world… They can see everything and do everything.”
1. Why is the word“speak”in the second paragraph in quotation marks(引号)?
A. They don’t really talk B. They use the computer language.
C. laptops have speakers(扬声器). D .None of the above reasons is correct.
2. Which of the following is true about Westlake College?
A.All teachers use computers. B.1,500 students have laptops.
C. It is an old college in America. D. Students there can do everything.
3. The underlined word “ a window on the world” in the last paragraph means that students can_________.
A.attend lectures on information technology B. travel around the world
C. get information from around the world D. have free laptops
4. What can we infer from the passage?
A. The program is successful B. The program is not workable.
C. The program is too expensive. D. We don’t know the result yet.