During the twentieth century, cars, electric lights, space travel and amazing advances in medicine changed people’s lives. So what might this new century bring? There are hundreds of predictions flying around — let’s have a light-hearted look at some of them.
In a recent UK survey, teenagers were asked to make predictions about the year 2020. One of the most common predictions was that school uniforms won’t be around. They also predicted that both girls and boys will wear make-up more often, and
more than 75% of men will wear skirts regularly. My dad is 65 next Saturday — I think I’ll buy him a skirt as a birthday present and tell him he’ll soon be in fashion!
Other predictions involve changing roles of men and women. By 2017, some people say that single men of working age will form more than 10% of all families. It is also predicted that washing powder advertisements will include more men because more of them will do housework. I’ll tell that to my husband when he gets home and see how keen he is to wash the dishes!
Many predictions are about crime and safety problems. Some people think that crime will improve and the world will become a more peaceful place. Others believe that crime is going to worsen and that people will stay at home becoming completely dependent on the Internet for shopping and work. It is also predicted that you will need an electronic card to get into parks as parents demand safe play areas for their children. This is old news for me --- our local government is going to introduce one this summer.
Technology is predicted to play an even more important role in our lives in the future. Some parents might have cameras at home so they can keep an eye on their children while they are out. Quick, kids, turn off the TV and do your homework!
Here’s another prediction. Researchers have concluded that cultural activity may add years to your life. The cinema, theatre and concerts may give us a longer life because they encourage stro
ng feelings. Well, we’re watching Bridget Jones’ Diary this Friday night. Will that help us live longer?
Let’s finish up with my favourite prediction. In the future, elderly people are going to make up a larger proportion of the world’s population than ever before. In Britain, an estimated 100,000 people now in their thirties may live to be 100. And that includes me! I’ll have a big, big party, I promise! The writer’s father ________ .
| A．has just turned sixty-five |
| B．wears skirts |
| C．is very fashionable |
| D．is about to turn sixty-five |
Why might more men do housework in the future?
| A．Washing powder advertisements suggest it. |
| B．Men won’t want to work in offices any more. |
| C．Traditional roles of men and women will change. |
| D．Women will refuse to wash the dishes. |
According to the passage, people might ________ , if crime worsens.
| A．need electronic cards to get into their homes |
| B．stay at home and depend on the Internet |
| C．help to make the world a more peaceful place |
| D．work harder and make more money |
Which of the following is NOT true？
| A．It’s likely that the writer is to live to be 100. |
| B．The writer promises that she is going to hold a big, big party soon. |
| C．Without an electronic card, you can’t get into a park freely in the future. |
| D．The writer holds a positive attitude towards the changes in the new century. |
From the passage, we may infer that the writer is probably ____ .
| A．a professional news reporter. |
| B．a young and attractive sales girl. |
| C．a middle-aged British housewife. |
| D．a responsible government official. |
Why do people run? That is, why do thousands get up early and put their knees and ankles and hearts and lungs through the hell of 10,000 meters on the roads? For those who stick with it and are lucky, they get into another world: a state of physical and mental grace reached when their blood is racing through every vein (血管).
And in Austin, those who long to get better, even when they know it’s impossible, hang on Gilbert’s every word.
Gilbert’s methods are simple. It’s all about form: how the arms move and the feet land. He pushes his students hard. When they feel like they’re about to die, they look at Gilbert’s scars (伤疤) — the burns along his right arm, and then to his right leg, where the flames ate down to the bone. Whatever they feel, how bad, really, could it be?
“He gets people to believe in themselves,” says Lisa Spenner, one of the fanatics, who are crazy about Gilbert. “He treats everyone like they’re amazing.” If Gilbert is their savior, they are his saviors too. “Eventually, I realized I had to help people. When I help people, I feel good,” he says.
Gilbert’s right leg was so badly burnt that the knee was stuck at a 90-degree angle. The doctor said it would take six months to heal. Frustrated, Gilbert got on a bike. The biking led to walking, which finally led to running a year after he had been left to die.
In truth, runners don’t race other runners. They race against themselves to conquer their wills. So Gilbert spent the spring and summer of 2007 trying to do that, racing men faster than he is, knowing it would make him better.
Gilbert’s students, of course, keep rooting for him, though sometimes they wonder, “How much better can he get?” After all, they see him as more than just a runner and a coach. He’s a flesh-and-blood symbol: the daily struggle to show what you’re made of.What’s the purpose of the first paragraph?
| A．To explain to us why people run in the morning. |
| B．To tell us how important it is for people to run. |
| C．To lead to the topic of the passage. |
| D．To tell us that we may be running the wrong way. |
The underlined word “fanatics” in the fourth paragraph can be replaced by
“_____”.
| A．students | B．friends |
| C．fans | D．relatives |
What do we learn about Gilbert after reading the passage?
| A．He used to work as a fireman. |
| B．He has determination and strong will-power. |
| C．He learnt running from a coach. |
| D．He was advised to ride a bike when he was badly burnt. |
If your family is like many in the United States, keeping a lot of bottled water at home, it’s easy to get a cold one right out of the fridge on your way to a soccer game or activity, right?
But all those plastic bottles use a lot of fossil fuels and pollute the environment. In fact, Americans buy more bottled water than any other nation in the world, and add 29 billion water bottles a year to the problem. In order to make all these bottles, manufacturers use 17 million barrels of crude oil (原油). That’s enough oil to keep a million cars going for twelve months.
So why don’t more people drink water straight from the kitchen faucet? Some people drink bottled water because they think it is better for them than water out of the tap, but that’s not true. In the US, local governments make sure water from the faucet is safe.
People love the convenience of bottled water. But maybe if they realized the problems it causes, they would try drinking from a glass at home or carrying water in a refillable steel container instead of plastic.
Unfortunately, for every six water bottles we use, only one makes it to the recycling bin. The rest are sent to landfills. Or, even worse, they end up as trash on the land and in rivers, lakes and the ocean. Plastic bottles take many hundreds of years to break down.
Water is good for you, so keep drinking it. But think about how often you use water bottles, and see if you can make a change. And yes, you can make a difference. Remember this: recycling one plastic bottle can save enough energy to power a 60-watt light bulb for six hours. No matter who you are, you can do something for the environment. Join us and protect the environment.What’s the best title for this passage?
| A．Drinking water: bottled or from the tap? |
| B．How to save more energy? |
| C．Why is it good to drink water out of the tap? |
| D．Stop drinking bottled water from now on. |
According to the passage, why don’t some people drink water straight from the kitchen faucet?
| A．Because they think bottled water is healthier than water out of the tap. |
| B．Because local governments don’t make sure that water from the faucet is safe. |
| C．Because bottled water is much cheaper than water out of the kitchen faucet. |
| D．Because water out of the kitchen faucet is not provided anywhere. |
The author may disagree that _____.
| A．it is very hard for plastic bottles to break down |
| B．if we used one bottle less, more oil would be saved |
| C．bottled water is very convenient to drink |
| D．plastic bottles have been causing less and less pollution |
Although the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have English as an official language, the United States does not have an official language. This is why it’s possible to become a US citizen without speaking English. Canada also has French as an official language, though it is mostly spoken in the province of Quebec. Because many of the English speakers who originally lived in Canada came from the US, there is little difference in American and Canadian English. Similarly, Australian English and New Zealand English have few differences, except Australia was originally settled as a penal colony (罪犯流放地) and New Zealand was not. New Zealanders were more attached to the Received Pronunciation of the upper class in England, so their dialect is considered closer to British English.
British colonialism (殖民主义) has spread English all over the world, and it is still popular in South Africa, India, and Singapore, among other nations. In South Africa, English became an official language, along with Afrikaans and 9 African languages, in the 1996 constitution. However, only 3% of the country’s 30 million people are native English speakers. Twenty percent are descendants (后代) of Dutch farmers who speak Afrikaans, and the rest are native Africans.
India became independent from Britain in 1947. However, today English and Hindi are the official languages. Indian English is characterized by treating mass nouns as count nouns, frequent use of the “isn’t it?” tag, use of more compounds, and a different use of prepositions. In Singapore, Chinese, Malay and Indian languages all influence the form of English spoken. Everyone is taught English in the school system, but there are a few differences from British English as well. Mass nouns are treated as count nouns, “use to” means usually, and no articles are used before occupations.Why can people become a US citizen without speaking English?
| A．They can learn English there. |
| B．Different languages are spoken in the US. |
| C．The US doesn’t have an official language. |
| D．They can speak their own language there. |
What do we know about South Africa?
| A．English is its only official language. |
| B．It has 11 different official languages. |
| C．English is becoming less important there. |
| D．20 percent of its population are native English speakers. |
What can we infer from the last paragraph?
| A．The Indians are good at English grammar. |
| B．People in Singapore often misuse count nouns. |
| C．Singaporean English is similar to Indian English. |
| D．English is a required subject in Singaporean schools. |
What is the text mainly about?
| A．British colonialism. |
| B．The wide use of English. |
| C．English around the world. |
| D．The history of the English language. |
JULY
| MON. |
TUES. |
WED. |
THURS. |
FRI. |
SAT. |
SUN. |
| 132 |
2 29 |
3 31 |
4 40 |
5 46 |
6 38 |
|
| 7 27 |
8 34 |
9 30 |
10 24 |
1139 |
1245 |
1341 |
| 14 23 |
15 31 |
1628 |
1726 |
1838 |
19 49 |
2039 |
| 2126 |
22 35 |
2327 |
24 25 |
25 43 |
2647 |
2742 |
| 2829 |
2927 |
30 34 |
3129 |
Ms. Rossi owns the Roadside Motel(汽车游客旅馆)，which has 50 units.She wishes to keep a handy record of the number of units occupied(占用).To do this she uses a calendar and writes the number of units occupied in a small box in the right-hand square of each date.The following questions are based on the occupancy rate(率) for July.The total number of units occupied during the week of July 14 through July 20 was ______.
| A．234 | B．239 | C．240 | D．244 |
The average(平均) occupancy rate for Thursday was ________.
| A．29 | B．31 | C．27 | D．28 |
Ms. Rossi regards a 90% occupancy rate as excellent.On how many days during the month did the Roadside Motel have a 90% or better rate of occupancy?
| A．6. | B．5. | C．4. | D．1. |
After the Summer Olympics are over, when all the athletics have gone home and the television audience has switched off, another group of athletics and fans will arrive at the host city, and another competition will begin. These are the Paralympics, the games for athletes with a disability. But in Beijing in 2008, for the first time, one of the greatest Paralympics will not be taking part.
She is a British athlete by the name of Tanni Grey-Thormpson. Born with spina bifida (脊椎裂) which left her paralyzed from the waist down. Tanni used a wheelchair from the age of 7. At first, she was not keen on sport, apart from horse-riding, which gave her a sense of freedom. But in her teens, she started taking sports more seriously. She tried swimming, basketball and tennis. Eventually
she found athletics, and never looked back.
Indeed, Tanni’s athletic career took off. In 1984, when she was 15, she pulled off a surprise victory in the 100metres at the Junior National Wheelchair Games.
In 1988, Tanni went to her first Paralympic Games in Seoul. She won bronze in the 400 metres. Even greater success followed at the 1992 Barcelona. Paralympics. Tanni won gold in the 100, 200, 400 and 800 metres relay, setting two world records in the process. In the same year she achieved the first of her six London Wheelchair Marathon victories.
Tanni’s enduring success had been part motivation(动机), part preparation, “The training I do that enables me to be a good sprinter(短跑运动员) enables me to be good at a marathon too. I train 50 weeks of the year and that keeps me prepared for whatever distance I want to race. I am still competing at a very high lever, but as I get older things get harder and I want to retire before I fall apart.”
Indeed Tanni retired finally after the Visa Paralympic World Cup in 2007. Her wish is to coach young athletes for Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
In spite of ups and downs, she never take her fate lying down. In her splendid life, she has won an amazing eleven gold medals, four silvers and one bronze in series of Paralympics--- a top lever athletic career covering two decades. She has won the London Wheelchair Marathon six times, more than any other competitor, and she has set over thirty world records.
What advice does she have for young athletes? “Work hard at your studies, and then train, train and train again.”Which of the following sports did Tanni like before thirteen?
| A．Basketball | B．Swimming. |
| C．Tennis. | D．Horse-riding. |
When did Tanni win her first Olympic gold medal?
| A．In 1984. | B．In 1988. |
| C．In 1992. | D．In 2007. |
The underlined word “that” in the 5th paragraph refers to _______.
| A．fifty weeks’ training |
| B．being a good sprinter |
| C．training almost every day |
| D．part motivation and part preparation |
What’s the right order of the events related to Tanni?
a. She works as a coach.
b. She took up athletics.
c. She won four gold medals in Barcelona.
d. She competed in her first Paralympic Games.
e. She achieved a victory in her first London Wheelchair Marathon.
| A．b,d,c,e,a | B． a,d,b,c,e |
| C．a,d,c,e,b | D．b,d,a,e,c |
What can we learn from Tanni’s success?
| A．Union is strength. | B．Never too late to learn. |
| C．Well begun is half done. | D．No pains, no gains. |