People should be warned against using mobile phones outdoors in stormy weather because they may “be struck by lightning”, according to doctors.
Three experts have described how a teenage girl was struck by lightning while using her phone in a large London park. The girl, aged 15, recovered, but a year later, was still wheelchair-bound and found to be suffering complex physical and emotional problems.
The girl also had a perforate eardrum（打孔耳膜）on the side where she had been holding the mobile phone. She was having general recovery in Northwick Park Hospital, Middlesex.Swinda Esprit, a senior house officer, said that while the brain and muscle damage was similar to that of many lightning victims—who can experience heart attacks on being struck— the ear problems were not.
She said that the damages were particularly relevant for people who might be involved in less serious lightning incidents, who might otherwise recover, but would never get their full hearing back if struck while on the phone.
“We were shocked by the damage, which is why we wanted to draw attention to it,” Dr Esprit said. “A year on and she still was suffering these difficult hearing.”
They added that three other cases had been reported in newspapers in China, South Korea, and Malaysia. In the Malaysian case, a sales executive was killed by lightning while talking on his phone during a thunderstorm near Kuala Lumpur
“All these events resulted in death,” the doctors wrote. “This rare phenomenon is a public health issue, and education is necessary to stress the risk.”
The Australian Lightning Protection Standard recommends that metallic objects, including cordless or mobile phones, should not be carried outdoors during thunderstorms. However, “the United States National Weather Service says on its website that both are safe to use “because there is no direct path between you and the lightening”.
Paul Taylor, of “the Met Office”, said the ear injuries were a consequence of mobile phones being metal, and not related to radio waves.
Mr. Taylor said that mobile phones should be treated as another piece of metal, similar to carrying coins or wearing rings, and people need to be warned against the possible danger.What do we know about the teenage girl?
| A．She was struck by lightning at school. |
| B．She completely recovered from being struck. |
| C．She still suffered from mental problems. |
| D．She had to press her ear all day |
It can be inferred that damage done by lightening while using mobile phones ______.
| A．is mainly in the brain and muscle of the victims |
| B．can be healed quickly except for heart attacks |
| C．is less serious because the victims can usually recover |
| D．is more serious than that when one is not using a mobile phone |
Why did doctors stress the risk about using phones outside in lightening?
| A．Because more people are faced with it. |
| B．Because some deaths have been caused. |
| C．Because lightning is harmful for the brain. |
| D．Because a teenage girl got killed. |
We can infer from the last three paragraphs that ______.
| A．both cordless and mobile phones are safe to use outside in lightning |
| B．there is no direct connection between lightning and ear injuries at all |
| C．opinions differ as to whether it is safe to use mobiles phones in lightning |
| D．ear injuries are the result of carrying coins or wearing rings in lightning |
The purpose in writing this passage is ______.
| A．to draw attention to the risk of using mobile phones in lightening |
| B．to focus on various damages done to lightning victims |
| C．to tell us the news that a teenage girl was struck by lightning |
| D．to stress the danger of making phone calls in lightning |
Rabbits are easy to raise. They are clean and quiet. They don’t need a lot of room. And it costs a small amount of money to feed them, but you can get a big return.
One male and two females will produce as many as fifty more rabbits in a year. That is enough to provide enough meat for a family. Rabbit meat is high in protein and low in fat.
You don’t have to be a farmer to raise rabbits. You can raise them in the city.
Rabbit houses are easy to make with wood and wire. They don’t have to be very big. But each rabbit must have its own little room in the house. This is very important. Each room should be about 75 centimeters wide, 60 centimeters high and one meter deep.
Fencing is used for the sides and floor of the rabbit house. The holes in the wire fencing should be about one centimeter square. Waste from the animals will drop through the holes. This keeps the rabbit house clean and dry.
Rabbits need a lot of fresh air and sunlight. Cover the sides of the rabbit house only to protect it from rain.
Rabbits eat mostly grass and leaves. Hang feeding containers on the outside of the house to let the rabbits eat whenever they want. They simply pull the grass and leaves through the holes in the fence.
Each room should have fresh water. The water containers should be heavy so the rabbit cannot turn them over. Or you can tie the containers to the fence.
One month after mating(交配), female rabbits give birth to about eight babies. In two months, a baby rabbit should weigh about two kilograms. This is big enough to make a meal for a small family.
Rabbits are also valuable for their fur. It takes time, skill and money to prepare the fur and skin for use. If you have only a few rabbits, it probably would be best to let a tanner(制革工) prepare the fur for you. Skill is also needed to remove the fur from the rabbit.
But rabbits do not have to be dead to be valuable. Many people enjoy keeping rabbits as friendly pets. And rabbit waste makes an excellent fertilizer(肥料). It can be mixed directly into the soil to improve the growth of vegetables, trees, and flowering plants.The text is written mainly_______.
| A．to explain why rabbits are clean and quiet | B．to let people know more about rabbits |
| C．to tell readers how to raise rabbits | D．to introduce a small friendly animal pet |
What is important if you raise rabbits?
| A．Holes are needed for waste to drop through. |
| B．Each rabbit must be given a separate room. |
| C．Each room must have clean water every day. |
| D．Feeding containers are hung on the fence. |
Why should the holes in the wire fence be about one centimeter square?
| A．Because the holes let in sunlight. |
| B．Because rabbits like these holes. |
| C．Because rabbits get food from them. |
| D．Because waste of rabbits drops through the holes. |
What does the underlined sentence in the last paragraph mean?
| A．You don’t have to kill rabbits to make more money. |
| B．Rabbits cannot be sold to make money when they are alive. |
| C．Rabbits are more valuable when they are alive. |
| D．Rabbits have to be killed to be more valuable. |
On the whole, it’s not something we parents shout about, but one in four of us does it. Hiring private tutors for our children is now widespread.
“It’s expensive, but worth it,” says Ashan Sabri, whose daughter Zarreen, is having tuition in biology and chemistry in preparation for A-levels this summer. “My husband and I tried to tutor her at home, but we found all our knowledge was out of date and we were only confusing Zarreen. We also tried a group revision course but all the children were sitting in a room for different kinds of exams. On the whole, we think one-to-one tuition works best.”
The real reason is: does tutoring do any good?
“It’s not the magic bullet,” says Professor Judith Ireson, author of a 2005 Institute of Education report on the subject. “It’s still up to the child to do the learning. If he or she isn’t interested, sending them to a private tutor won’t do any good. However, we did find that students who had private tuition in mathematics during the two years before GCSE achieved on average just under half a grade higher than students who did not have a tutor.”
In which case, surely it’s time to break open the champagne? Not necessarily, says Elaine Tyrrell, head of The Rowans School, Wimbledon, a preparation school which regularly gets children into the best private schools.
“While we recommend private tutoring for a few children whose first language isn’t English, we don’t encourage it for the others. With the level of education they get here, children really ought to be able to pass the entrance exams without any extra teaching. And our worry is that they might just get used to getting help from last-minute tutoring, but, once they actually get to that school, they won’t be able to cope.”
But Mylene Curtis, owner of Fleet Tutors, one of the biggest tutoring agencies in the country, holds a different view.
“In some respects, the hurdles children have to leap in order to get into these schools are set at a higher level than the reality,” says Curtis. “We often find that, once a child has got into a school, the standard of work isn’t as high as was feared. The trick is to do well enough in the exam to win a place.”What does Ashan Sabri think of the group revision course?
| A．It’s expensive but worthwhile because it works the best. |
| B．It confuses students because the knowledge taught in it is out of date. |
| C．It isn’t effective because it doesn’t focus on specific exams. |
| D．It is effective because it doesn’t focus on specific exams. |
What do the underlined words “magic bullet” in Paragraph 4 mean?
| A．Something that cannot help to solve problems at all. |
| B．Something that solves a difficult problem in an easy way. |
| C．Something that seems useful but has no use at all. |
| D．Something that encourages interest in study. |
According to Elaine Tyrrell, private tutoring is _______.
| A．effective in language learning but not for exams |
| B．effective for foreign students but not for local students |
| C．unnecessary in most cases and may harm the further study of students |
| D．unnecessary in secondary school but helpful to further study |
What can be inferred from the last two paragraphs?
| A．Fleet Tutors and the Rowans School are competitors. |
| B．Entrance exams to schools are too difficult for most students. |
| C．Further study isn’t as difficult as was first thought. |
| D．Private tuition is worth the financial investment. |
What attitude does the author hold towards home tutoring?
| A．Critical | B．Objective | C．Supportive | D．Uninterested |
When many of us take a vacation, more than anything, we seek to relax. We spend long, lazy days on a beach chair or in a hammock(吊床). But too often, we return home, tired.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
In fact active vacations are often the most relaxing of all. We don’t expect you to take up jogging(慢跑), or climbing. Rather, we ask the sedentary(久坐的) vacations among you to spend two to four hours a day doing things, such as walking in the city street, going to a zoo or biking along the ocean.
These kinds of activities aren’t just good for your physical health. They improve your mental health, even your spiritual health. Here are some fresh ideas to make your vacations as pleasurable as they are active and healthy.
A walk at dawn or dusk helps keep you young. Try to make this a daily habit of life when you’re away from home, and you will guarantee yourself both physical and spiritual refreshment.
Don’t allow yourself to spend all your time sitting in front of water. Whether it is the ocean, a swimming pool, or a tree-lined lake, make sure you get into the water for swimming or games, or even walking. Merely standing in waist-high water is a good workout, thanks to the action of the water. And you’ll feel so much more active!
Many of us spend a large chunk of our vacation on the road, either getting to and from our destinations, or using the car for sightseeing. But no matter how beautiful the scenery is, great, memorable vacations don’t happen in a car seat. Frequently get out and stretch, walk, picnic, shop, visit, and have fun. It’s important for your health and energy, and it makes traveling a lot more active and interesting The idea in the text is mainly to _______.
| A．suggest ways to make vacations relaxing |
| B．suggest places for relaxing vacations |
| C．explain the reasons for having vacations |
| D．explain the relationship between vacations and health |
Which of the following can be considered as a form of exercise?
| A．Sitting by a lake. | B．Standing in water. |
| C．Staying in a car. | D．Enjoying beautiful scenery. |
In the last paragraph, the author seems to advise us to _______.
| A．have vacations frequently | B．get out of the car frequently |
| C．go on vacations on foot | D．stay in a car seat |
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| A．Airport Terminal Services | B．www. Workatats. com |
| C．865-524-9881 | D．tlgknoxvilletn@thelittlegym. com. |
As a driver in Local Delivery, John has to _______.
| A．work hard to earn money | B．have printing skills |
| C．have interest in the position | D．be offered paid training |
Mr Smith can find a job as a mechanic at _______.
| A．Washington DC Location. | B．Baltimore Location |
| C．a fast paced company | D．Dillard |
What is a must when one hopes to be a member of Dillard’s team?
| A．He must be able to work in the evening and on weekends. |
| B．He must have experience. |
| C．He must have a good knowledge of shoe fashion and sales. |
| D．He must like top brands of shoes. |
Is it time to kick Russia out of the BRICs （金砖四国）? If so, it may end up sounding like a famous ball-point pen maker-BIC. An argument is being made that Goldman Sach’s famous marketing device（策略）,the BRICs, should really be the BICs.
“Is Russia really worth the name BRICs?” asks Anders Aslund, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, in an article for Foreigh Policy. Aslund, who is also co-author with Andrew Kuchins of “The Russian Balance Sheet”, thinks the Russia of Putin and Medvedev is just not worthy of inclusion alongside Brazil, India and China in the list of future economic powerhouses. He writes:
“The country’s economic performance has fallen to such a weak level that one must ask whether it has any say at all on the global economy, compared with the other members of its group. I have just returned from Moscow, which is always dull around this season. For the last seven years, Russia has taken very few measures to improve its economy. Instead, the state has been living on oil and gas. ”
Economically, Aslund has the numbers on his side. The International Monetary Fund figures that the Russian economy will fall by 6.7 percent in 2009, while China will grow 8.5 percent and India 5.4 percent. There is less of a case for Brazil, with a fall of 0.7 percent, but it is still doing
far better than Russia.
But the BRICs are not just about economy. As is mentioned above, it is a marketing device to encourage investors to focus on the big promising players. From an investment standpoint, it could be argued that Russia is leading the BRICs. Its stock（股票）market is up 128 percent this year while around 80 percent is for the other three.
At very least, however, Russia’s economic underperformance and stock market outperfoumance does suggest it is indeed one of the group. According to the passage, which country will enjoy the biggest increase in 2009?
| A．China. | B．Russia. | C．Brazil. | D．India. |
According to Aslund, Russia shouldn’t be a BRIC partly because_______.
| A．Russia’s economic performance is far worse than the other three |
| B．Russia’s leaders are not good at managing economy |
| C．Russia has taken effective measures to improve its economy |
| D．Russia will no longer attract investors from other countries |
From the passage we know that ________.
| A．Anders Aslund is working for the Russian government |
| B．Russia outperfoumed the other three countries in stock market |
| C．most people disagree Russia is included in BRICs |
| D．the BRICs would end up being the BICs sooner or later |
The author seems to ________.
| A．suggest it’s time to kick Russia out of the BRICs? |
| B．feel worried about the economy of the BRICs |
| C．think Russia is worth being one of the group |
| D．show disappointment to Russia’s economy |