At one time, people used to travel to foreign countries because they thought the building, the food, the national dress there would be different from home. Nowadays, however, one large city is very like another. They all have their Hilton or Sheraton Hotels which look like Hilton or Sheraton Hotels everywhere. They all have their McDonald’s, their KFCs, their Pizza Huts. Office buildings look the same everywhere, and most city centers are full of office buildings. And, of course, people are driving the same brands of Japanese or European cars, usually wearing the same kinds of clothing and watching the same American movies and TV shows. Airports are the same everywhere and the world’s airlines are all flying the same aircraft, Boeings or Airbuses.
What, therefore, is the purpose of foreign travel for people who are not on business? What do tourists hope to experience in a foreign country that they cannot experience at home? Why do they travel to foreign countries at all? The answer could be that people are very interested in the past. It is a nation’s history that is its main attraction. Most of today’s tourists travel overseas to find out what foreign countries and cultures used to be like, not what they are like today. The words “cultural tourism” are now part of the language of tourism, and it is the museums and works of art in many countries that are their main attractions.
If they are lucky many countries also usually have at least a few beautiful places for tourists to visit.
Finally there is perhaps a nation’s greatest attraction: its people. A nation is not just its historical buildings, its works of art or beautiful places, and it is also the people who live in it. This is why a country such as Thailand attracts millions of people every year. They come mainly because of the friendliness of the Thai people, and it is why the Pacific Islands are also so popular. There may not be much to see or do in Fiji, but there are lots of friendly, smiling people to make visitors feel welcome.The passage is mainly about __________.
| A．the importance of tourism | B．different foreign cultures |
| C．how to plan an overseas trip | D．why people travel to foreign countries |
The writer thinks that large cities in foreign countries __________.
| A．are similar to one another | B．share the same aircraft |
| C．do not have good hotels | D．do not offer a warm service to foreigners |
The writer believes that many tourists are interested in foreign ________.
| A．hotels | B．history | C．cars | D．programs |
The emperor penguin is the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species and lives in Antarctica. The male and female are similar in size, reaching 122 cm in heig
ht and weighing anywhere from 22 to 45 kg. The back and head are black, contrasting sharply with the pale-yellow breast and bright-yellow ears. Like all penguins, it is flightless, with a streamlined body and their wings stiffen and flatten into flippers(鳍状肢) for a marine habitat.
Its diet consists primarily of fish, but can also include animals with hard shells. In hunting, the species can remain underwater up to 18 minutes, diving to a depth of 535 m. Its unusually structured hemoglobin(血红蛋白)a
llows it to function at low oxygen levels.
The emperor penguin is perhaps best known for the journeys adults make each year in order to mate and to feed their babies. The only penguin species that breeds(繁殖) during the Antarctic winter, it goes on a long journey of 50-120 km over the ice to breeding areas which may include thousands of individuals. The female lays a single egg, which is incubated(孵化)by the male while the female returns to the sea to feed; parents take turns searching for food at sea and caring for their chick. They both care for the chick until it is able to enter the water to find food on its own. During the process of incubation, the male can lose up to 1/3 to 1/2 of his body weight. One of the coolest things about the male is that if the chick comes out its egg before the female returns, the male can actually produce a special liquid to feed the chick. He can only do this for a short time. If the female doesn’t return, he must leave the chick to go on with his own life. The emperor penguin can typically live for 20 years in the wild, although observat
ions suggest that some individual may live to 50 years of age.We can learn from paragraph 1 that ____.
| A．the emperor penguin is the world’s largest kind of penguin |
| B．the emperor penguin has pale-yellow ears |
| C．the male and female emperor penguins are of different sizes |
| D．the emperor penguin lives in the most northern area on the Earth |
The emperor penguin can stay underwater for a long time mainly because of its ____.
| A．strong wings | B．streamlined body | C．structured hemoglobin | D．special diet |
The emperor penguin differs fr
om other penguin species in that ____.
| A．it gives birth in the Antarctic winter | B．it feeds mainly on fish |
| C．the male won’t search for food on his own | D．it can only live for a short time |
According to the passage, ____.
| A．the egg of the emperor penguin is mainly incubated by the female |
| B．many emperor penguins will stay together to breed |
| C．the male emperor penguin will give up his own life to feed the chick |
| D．the female emperor penguin will leave the chick forever once it lays an egg |
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You can call us at (212) 868-8488 to place your orders. If you want to fax or mail us your order, you do not need to fill out a separate form. Just place products in your shopping list online and continue through checkout(结账台) until you are reminded to print out the order sheet for fax or mail orders. 
Then write your credit ca
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International Orders
We do accept international orders. We will ship all international orders by air mail unless you specifically request otherwise. Your shipping costs are calculated by USPS(美国邮政管理局) service; just add the products in the shopping cart, fill out the address, and you will see the shipping costs. Air mail will take 7-21 business days. International Priority will take 1-4 business days. All international orders must be paid using a credit card. Checks and money orders are not accepted. Please note that International USPS packages may have no guarantee for delivery time and tracking.If a customer wants to order by mail, he needs to ____.
| A．fill out two different forms | B．get a form from ChinaSprout |
| C．provide his credit card number online | D．print out the online order sheet and fill it in |
According to the passage, which of the following is TRUE?
| A．Customers are not allowed to cancel their order. |
| B．Foreigners will receive their products in two weeks. |
| C．ChinaSprout promises to ship any order in one day. |
| D．ChinaSprout will send the order confirmation in two days. |
Customers in foreign countr
ies will receive ____.
| A．their orders usually by ship | B．their products mainly by air |
| C．their order confirmations by fax |
D．their shipping information by phone |
After a very busy afternoon, as I walked into my hous
e, I heard the phone ringing. It was my friend Lydia, upset over an argument with her husband. My usual approach is to offer advice, but this time, extremely tired from chores, I simply pulled off my coat, sat down in a chair and listened to my friend's f
rustration and sadness. Without the disturbance of judgment or the desire to comfort her, I stayed totally quiet while she talked. Eventually Lydia's depression eased and we said our goodbyes. The next day she phoned to thank me. "I'm so grateful for the way you helped me through this," she said.
At first I was surprised. After all, I had done nothing except be there for her. But after I had my own venting(发泄的) experience with another friend later that evening, I realized that my focused silence had some value. In fact, most relationship experts agree that talk is cheap; it's listening that's rare and valuable. It allows you not only to hear what the other person is saying, but also to have a clear understanding of her thoughts and feelings. And for the speaker, that level of understanding translates into concern and respect.
Unfortunately, listening isn't as easy as it sounds. Thanks to schedules filled with family and work, multitasking has become the barrier(障碍) to listening. My tiredness may have been the only thing stopping me from folding laundry or checking my e-mail while Lydia talked that afternoon.
Another barrier to listening is our listening system: Most of us take in only about half of what's being said during a conversation, according to the International Listening Association. Research shows that we speak at 125 to 150 words per minute, yet think at 500 words a minute. Therefore, because we think much more quickly than we speak, it is easy for us to lose our concentration when listening to speakers.
While it can be hard to focus at times, it's a skill worth developing. With a little practice — employing some techniques— you can become a better listener. In Paragraph 2, the author mainly talks abou
t ____.
| A．the importance of listening | B．the importance of venting anger |
| C．her own listening experience | D．her own venting experience |
The author uses the result of the research in Paragraph 4 to mainly show that ____.
| A．we think much more quickly than we speak |
| B．we can only understand about half of what we hear |
| C．there is not much thinking time available while we are listening |
D．we lose our concentration easily while we are listen ing |
What will be discussed following the passage?
| A．Why listening is valuable. | B．What we should do while listening |
| C．How to become a good listener | D．How to stop drifting off while listening. |
At Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, the lights are controlled by sensors that measure sunlight. They dim immediately when it’s sunny and brighten when a passing cloud blocks the sun.
A wall of windows at a University of Pennsylvania engineering building has built-in blinds (百叶窗) controlled by a computer program that follows the sun’s path. Buildings are getting smarter and the next generation of building materials is expected to do even more.
Windows could catch the sun’s energy to heat water. Sensors that measure the carbon dioxide breathed out by people in a room could determine whether the air conditioning needs to be turned up.
Many new materials and technology have been designed in the last 15 years. They are now being used in a wave o
f buildings designed to save as much energy as possible. They include old ideas, like “green roofs”, where a belt of plants on a roof helps the building keep heat in winter and stay cool in summer, and new ideas, like special coating for windows that lets light in, but keeps heat out.
As technologies such as sensors become cheaper, their uses spread.
The elevators (电梯) at Seven World Trade Center, which is under construction in New York, use a system that groups people traveling to nearby floors into the same elevator, thus saving elevator stops. People who work in the building will enter it by swiping (刷) ID cards that will tell the elevators their floor, readouts will then tell them which elevator to use. The building also has windows with a coating that blocks heat while letting in light.
M
ore new building materials and technology are in development. A Philadelphia building firm is now working on “smart wrap” that uses tiny solar collectors to catch the sun’s energy and transmitters (传输器) as wide as a human hair to move it. They are expected to change the face of the construction industry in the next ten years or so.________ will be developed and used in the construction industry.
| A．“Green roofs” that cool or heat buildings |
| B．“Smart wrap” that catches the sun’s energy |
C．Sunlight-measurin g sensors that control lights |
| D．Window coating that lets light in, but keeps heat out |
The elevators at Seven World Trade Center are special because they can ________.
A．se nd people to floors with fewer stops |
B．teach people how to use their ID cards |
| C．make people stay very cool in summer | D．help people go traveling in the building |
The underlined word “it” in the last paragraph refers to ________.
| A．a human hair | B．smart wrap | C．the sun’s energy | D．a transmitter |
What might be the most suitable title for the text?
| A．Buildings Are Becoming Smarter | B．Buildings Are Getting More Sunlight |
| C．Buildings Are Lacking in Much Energy | D．Buildings Are Using Cheaper Materials |
Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend. But some women show great interest in colorful beads（珠子）from Uganda made of recycled paper. The beads are sold by a nonprofit organization called BeadforLife.
BeadforLife began as a chance meeting between three American women on a trip to Uganda and a local jewelry maker. Millie Grace Akena was rolling paper beads near her home. She made paper beads as a hobby. But there was no real market in her country. 
Torkin Wakefield says she and her daughters Devin and Ginny brought some of the beads back home. Immediately people started admiring the beads. The three Americans started BeadforLife in 2004. Nearly 700 women have taken part.
The group says its beaders earn an average of more than 2,000 dollars a year in the program. This is five times what they earned before. The beads are sold across Uganda and in Boulder, Colorado. They are also sold online and at jewelry shows called bead parties. “Because they have meaning, because these are gifts that help people, when folks in America and beyond buy our beads, they feel a sense of generosity. They feel a direct connection, like they can really take part in getting rid of poverty.” Torkin said.
The jewelry costs between five and thirty dollars. BeadforLife reported sales in its last budget year of more that 3.5 million dollars. It says for every ten-dollar necklace sold, the beader gets two dollars and forty-three cents in money or materials. It says more than 90% of earnings are reinvested in community development projects in Uganda. Torkin Wakefield estimates that BeadforLi
fe has helped more than 8,000 people this way.
So what about Millie Grace Akena, the jewelry maker? Mrs Wakefield says she has gone on to organize a small group of women who work with her, and they sell their beads to a religious group. According to the passage, BeadforLife is an organization that ______.
| A．provides poor people worldwide with free education |
| B．mainly encourages people to learn to earn a living on their own |
| C．has attracted many businessmen to invest in beading |
| D．supports community development projects in Uganda |
When Torkin Wakefield brought the beads to America, ______.
| A．she didn’t know people would like them |
| B．she wanted to make a fortune out of them |
| C．people showed great interest in them at once |
| D．she was thinking of how to find investors |
According to Paragraph 4, the beads are popular because ______.
| A．people think buying them is a good way to help the poor |
| B．they are of good quality and can be kept for a long time |
| C．they symbolize the most important thing in people’s life |
| D．they look even more beautiful than diamonds |
Which of the following can best summarize the main idea of the passage?
A．Mrs Wakefield makes a great contribution to developing count ries. |
| B．BeadforLife makes beads out of recycled paper. |
| C．BeadforLife uses paper beads to improve people’s lives. |
| D．Mrs Wakefield’s career takes off thanks to paper beads. |