To us it seems so natural to put up an umbrella to keep the water off when it rains, But actually the umbrella was not invented as protection against the rain, Its first use was as a shade against the sun!
Nobody knows who first invented it, but the umbrella was used in very ancient times . Probably the first to use it were the Chinese in the 11th century B C.
We know that the umbrella was used in ancient Egypt and Babylon as a sunshade. And there was a strange thing connected with its use: it became a symbol of honor. In the Far East in ancient times, the umbrella was allowed to be used only by those in high office.
In Europe, the Greeks were the first to use the umbrella as a sunshade. And the umbrella was in commonly used in ancient Greece. But it is believed that the first persons in Europe to use the umbrella as protection against the rain were the ancient Romans.
During the Middle Ages, the use of the umbrella practically disappeared. Then it appeared again in Italy in the late sixteenth century. And again it was considered as a symbol of power. By 1680, the umbrella appeared in France and later in England.
By the eighteenth century, the umbrella was used against rain throughout most of Europe.
Umbrellas have hot changed much in style during all this time, though they have become much lighter in weight. It wasn’t until the twentieth century that women’s umbrellas began to be made , in a whole variety of colors.According to this
passage, the umbrella was probably first invented in ancient_______.
| A．China | B．Egypt | C．Greece | D．Rome |
Which of the following statements is not true about the umbrella?
| A．No one exactly knows who the inventor of the umbrella was |
| B．The umbrella was first invented to be used as protection against the sun. |
| C．The umbrella changed much in style in the eighteenth century |
| D．In Europe, the Greeks were the first to use the umbrella as a sunshade. |
A strange feature of the umbrella’s use is that it was used as__________.
| A．protection against rain | B．a shade against the sun |
| C．a symbol of honor and power | D．women’s decoration (装饰) |
In Europe, the umbrella was first used against the rain_______________.
| A．during the Middle Ages | B．by the 18th | C．in Rome | D．in Greece |
This passage talks mainly about_______________.
| A．when and how the umbrella was invented |
| B．why the umbrella was so popular in Europe |
| C．the development of the umbrella |
| D．The history and use of the umbrella |
A
●A 78-year-old grandmother whose education was cut short by the second world war celebrated an A-level with her 50-year-old daughter. Betty Allen and daughter Chris Branton of Sprotbrough, South Yorkshire, opened their results together on TV after completing the UK's only online English A-level course. Mrs Allen received a D and Ms Branton a C
●Actor Holly Grainger, 18, from East Didsbury, Manchester, achieved two As and two Bs. She is a regular face on television screens with roles in Terry Pratchett's Johnny and the Bomb and new legal drama New Street Law. She learned yesterday that she had landed a main part in a new school drama called Waterloo Road
●A teenage hockey star who hopes to play for England in the 2012 Olympic Games won three A-grades. Will Miles, 18, from Formby, Merseyside, who attends Merchant Taylors' school in Crosby, plans to study maths at Manchester University
● Andrew Nowell, a student at Nottingham high school, got five grade As, including one of the top five marks in the country for his design and technology paper. He won the Young Engineers for Britain contest this year with an invention he produced for his Design and Technology A-Level - a "remote control and security interface system". He is off to Cambridge to study engineering .
● Jed McQueen Jones got A grades in chemistry, maths and physics, despite being diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2003 and being hospital for three months. Jed, a pupil at Richard Huish College in Taunton, restarted A-levels in September 2004 and continued chemotherapy(化疗)into that Christmas. He is going to Exeter University on a science scholarship to study physics.
1. How did Betty Allen learn English and complete the course?
A. On TV B. On the Internet C. By herself D. Through her daughter
2. The underlined word “landed” in Paragraph Two means_______.
A. moved down B. arrive at C. catch up D. got successfully
3. Which of the following statements is WRONG according to the passage?
A. She and her daughter were invited to appear online to celebrate.
B. Her daughter did worse than her in the English A-level course.
C. They completed the English A-level course on the internet.
D. Betty Allen’s education was stopped by the Second World War.
4. What really made Andrew Nowell prouder and more successful?
A. getting five grade As.
B. an invention.
C. his study on engineering
D. His job as an engineer
5. The best title of the passage is probably_________
A. Super students and their achievements
B. Super gifts account for great achievements
C. Hard work results in success
D. Star pupils and super students
C
Cyber Cafe computer centers are found in many cities around the world. Now, a few American high schools are opening these centers. For example, high school in the state of Maryland began operating a Cyber Cafe last March. All students at Bethesde-Chevy Chase High School in Bethesda can use the Cyber Cafe. But school officials say I especially helps students who have no computer or cannot use the Internet at home.
The officials say thirteen percent of the students at the school are from poor families. Many student have arrived in the United States from poor families. Many students have arrived in the United States from other countries only recently. Students in the school’s program for learning English speak twenty-three other languages.
The idea for a Cyber Cafe at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School began three years ago. A that time, officials were planning o restore the school building. Parents interested in technology proposed a Cyber Cafe.
They wanted this center even though schools in the area had suffered budget cuts. The community wanted to help. It wanted all students to have the best chances to learn.
Officials in the area supported the idea. So did an organization called the Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School Educational Foundation. The foundation includes parents, teachers, former students, and business, community and other leaders.
Over two years, the foundation collected money for a Cyber Cafe and other new computers. It received more than one hundred seventy thousand dollars. The Café now has sixteen computer, a printer and a device called a scanner . School official Ann Hengerer (HEN-grr-er) says students use the Internet to complete research. They also write homework and required papers on the computers. In addition, they can send and receive electronic mails. That is especially helpful for the many students who have family members in other nations.
The Cyber Cafe also serves a social purpose. Visitors can stop by for a drink of coffee, tee or hot chocolate. On Long Island, in School has six computers in is Cyber Cafe. One student at the school says students can start their homework even before they leave school.
9. What is mainly discussed in the passage?
A.Cyber Cafe computer centers in many cities around the world
B.High school Cyber Cafe
C.Cyber Cafe at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School
D.Cyber Cafe at Walter G. 0’Connell Copiague High School
10. Who can use the Cyber Cafe?
A.Only the students from poor families
B.All the students at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High school
C.Only the students from other countries
D.Only the students who have no computer or cannon use the Internet at home
11. Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?
A.Parents interested in technology proposed a Cyber Cafe.
B.The community wanted all students to have the best chances to learn.
C.Officials in the area supported the idea.
D.The foundation didn’t support the idea until two years later.
12. This passage may be adapted from a column entitled _________.
A. Education Report B. In the News C. Development Report D. Science Report
B
“The first and best of victories is for a man to conquer himself; to be conquered by himself is, of all things, the most shameful,” says Plato. Self-control is at the root of all the advantages. Let a man give in to his impulses and feelings, and from that moment he gives up his moral freedom.
A single angry word has lost many a friend. When Socrates found in himself any temper or anger, he would check it by speaking low in order to control himself. If you are conscious of being angry, keep your mouth shut so that you can hold back rising anger. Many a person has dropped dead in great anger. Fits of anger bring fits of disease “Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.” “Keep cool,” says George Herbert, “for fierceness makes error a fault.”
To be angry with a weak man is to prove that you are not strong your self. “Anger,” says Pythagoras, “bring with folly and ends with regret.” You must measure the strength of a man by the power of the feelings he conquers, not by the power of those which conquer him.
Self-control is man’s last greatest victory.
If a man lacks self-control he seems to lack everything. Without it he can have no patience, no power to govern himself; he can have no self-confidence, for he will always be controlled by his strongest feeling. If he lacks self-control, the very backbone and nerve of character are lacking also.
5. What does the reader learn from the first paragraph ?
A.The greatest victory for a man is to conquer everything except himself.
B.One’s moral freedom is based on the control of himself.
C.To control oneself is the most difficult in one’s life.
D.If a person is too stubborn, he will feel most shameful.
6. What is the correct interpretation of “Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad”?
A.If the gods want to kill you, they make you crazy first.
B.If you always lose your temper, you will soon be finished.
C.If you cannot control yourself, you will become crazy.
D.If you are mad, you will be punished by the gods.
7. If a man lacks self-control, he lacks all of the following EXCEPT _________.
A.the very backbone and nerve of character
B.the patience and power to control himself
C.strong feelings
D.self-confidence
8. The author’s main purpose in writing this article is to ___________.
A.explain that self-control is the key to success
B.teach people how to control everything in order to make a great success
C.distinguish all kinds of self-control and suggest ways for keeping it
D.advise people not to lose temper so as to make and keep more friends
A
Every afternoon hundreds of thousands of youth fill Internet cafes, switch on a game console (游戏机), or otherwise sit down to enter fantasy worlds. I’m talking about video games. These games can be fun and exciting, but we need to look out when this pastime becomes an addiction.
Games are often quite exciting and dramatic, but they generally aren’t very intellectual. We don’t learn as much from them as we would only reading a book. Spending too much time playing them can take away our study time. We need to remember that we are students first. Nothing should ever get in the way of proper studying.
Video games can also be a bad effect on younger children who may be watching. Many video games are violent and the object in most of them is to kill the other player(s). This does not send the right message to the children who need to be told that violence is not acceptable and need to be taught how to deal with situations maturely. Even if we do need to sit down and play a violent video game, we need to make sure that it is not affect the younger people around us.
Playing a computer game in our spare time is not a bad thing. Games can be a great way to relax after studying, to connect to our friends, or just to help our creativity. However, games should not become the focus of our life. We need to make sure that laying games never interferes with our studies and that we aren’t thinking about them all day. If we ever find ourselves playing them too much, we need to break the addiction. If that happens, we need to step away from the computer or television screen and learn to spend our time more productively.
1. The writer mainly tells the readers __________.
A.to play computer games every afternoon
B.not to play computer games too much
C.not to affect other people while playing games
D.to spend more time studying
2. The writer thinks about computer games all of the following except _________.
A. exciting B. dramatic C. intellectual D. violent
3. Computer games may have bad effect on younger children because __________.
A.these children often stay in Internet cafes all day long
B.children often forget to do their lessons
C.computer games are often violent
D.children don’t have enough money to play computer games
4. The writer advises computer game players ________.
A.not to affect younger people around
B.not to play violent games
C.never to enter Internet cafes
D.to teach younger children how to play computer games
D
Electronic waste, or e-waste, refers to electronic products that are no longer usable. This can include TVs, cell phones and computers and other office electronics, electronic toys and videos machines. Today, the average turnover（更换）rate for a computer in the United States is every two years, according to the environmental group, Greenpeace.
The group's Dai Yun says e-waste is a global problem. "The electronic industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. The high speed of growth in this industry means more and more electronic products are being wasted and thrown away. If no one decides to retrieve the old products and process them properly, the electronic waste will sweep over the earth like the huge wave behind me and pollute the Earth seriously."
Greenpeace works out that 20 to 50 million tons of e-waste are produced globally each year. The components（部件）in many electronic products contain harmful chemicals that pollute ground water and the environment.
At present , the U.S. has no federal law for the disposal (处理) of e-waste although a few states have e-waste recycling programs in place, but there is no law. The U.S. exports much of its e-waste to third world countries, such as India and China, where workers took apart computers for valuable parts, hoping to sell them for money. But harmful wastes expert, Dr. Bakul Rao, says that's a dangerous practice. "From now on, the recyclers are not very educated. All they know is they can retrieve copper or gold out of it. So, the easiest way to do that is leach (过滤) it out in an acid or burn it off to retrieve it. So, that's where they don't know how to deal with it, neither do they have any health systems in place. So, their exposure is more."
1. Which of the following is most likely not to be a form of e-waste?
A. A mobile phoneB. A radio
C. An e-bikeD. A table
2. What does the underlined word "retrieve" (paragraph 2) probably mean?
A. look into B. take apart C. get back D. throw away
3. What of the following statements is true according to the passage？
A. The U.S. has strict national laws for dealing with e-waste.
B. Third world countries import e-waste to get valuable parts, which is a safe and easy way to
make money.
C. The way uneducated workers deal with old computers does great harm to the environment as well as to their own health.
D. More and more electronic waste is being wasted and thrown away mainly because of
people's bad habits.
4. What is the purpose of writing the passage?
A. To attract more people's attention to e-waste.
B. To call on people not to throw away e-waste anywhere.
C. To tell people what e-waste is and how to deal with it well.
D. To warn people to break away from the electronic industry.
5. The next paragraph probably concerns_______.
A. how to deal with e-waste properly
B. how to protect ourselves from harm by e-waste
C. How to slow down the development in the electronic industry
D. how to make full use of e-waste