There are many older people in the world and there will be many more. A little-known fact is that over 60 percent of the older people live in developing countries. According to the World Health Organization, by 2020 there will be 1 billion, with over 700 million living in developing countries.
It is a surprising fact that the population aging is particularly rapid in developing countries. For example, it took France 115 years for the rate of older people to double from 7 percent to 14 percent. It is estimated to take China a mere 27 years to achieve this same increase.
What are the implications of these increased numbers of older folk? One of the biggest worries for governments is that the longer people live, the more likelihood there is for diseases and for disability. Attention is being paid to the need to keep people as healthy as possible, including during old age, to lessen the financial burden on the state.
Another significant problem is the need for the younger generations to understand and value the older people in their society. In some African countries, certainly in Asia, older people are respected and regarded as the ones with special knowledge. Yet traditions are fading away daily, which does not make sure the continued high regard of older people. As society changes, attitudes will change.
Much needs to be done to get rid of age discrimination in employment. Life-long learning programs need to be provided to enable older people to be active members in a country’s development.
Social security policies need to be established to provide adequate income protection for older people. Both public and private schemes are vital in order to build a suitable safety net.The rate of older people________.
A. is bigger in developed countries than in developing countries
B. B. is one-seventh of the population in developing countries
C. C. will increase much faster in China than in France
D. D. will be sixty percent in developing countries by 2020
2.According to passage, which of the following are governments most worried
About______.
A. The diseases and disability of older people.
B. The longer life and good health of people.
C. The loss of taxes on older people.
D. The increasing respect for older people. It is stated directly in the passage that older people should ________.
A.be treated differently in different cultures |
B.enjoy a similar lifestyle |
C.be ignored as society changes |
D.be valued by the younger generations |
Which of the following measure is NOT mentioned to solve the population aging problem?
A.Getting rid of age discrimination in employment. |
B.Supplying life-long learning programs to older people. |
C.Making sure adequate income protection for older people. |
D.Providing free health care for sick older people. |
The author concludes in the last paragraph that ________.
A.governments have spent lots of time in solving the aging problem |
B.population aging is a hard problem, but it needs to be solved urgently |
C.people are too busy to solve the population aging problem |
D.much time and effort will be lost in solving the aging problem |
Remembering your dreams will require some efforts on your part. But what your dreams can offer and tell you about yourself will be well worthit. Here are some tips to help recall your dreams:
1. Before going to bed, keep a clear mind. Tell yourself that “I will remember my dreams when I wake up”. This is actually a proven and effective way to recall your dreams.
2. Have a regular bedtime and wake-up time. Make this your routine. Going to bed and waking up at a regular time every day could aid in dream recollection.
3. Avoid alcohol consumption and taking medicine before going to bed. These things may prevent you from remembering your dreams.
4. Keep a pencil and a notebook next to your bed so that they will be within reach as soon as you wake up. Having a small lamp by your bedside is also a good idea, so you wake up in the middle of the night and can record your dreams immediately.
5. Do not get out of bed immediately. Upon waking from a dream, lie still in your bed, keeping your eyes closed and moving as little as possible. Let your mind wander among the images of what you have just dreamed.
6. Write down as many details in your dreams as you can, no matter how seemingly unimportant they may be. Do not judge the content or worry if they make sense.
7. Sometimes it may help to draw pictures. A picture is worth a thousand words, as the saying goes. Even if you are not an artist, a simple drawing can help to recall details of your dreams. This passage tells you ______ .
A.some useful tips to recall your dreams | B.the way to recall your dreams |
C.the reason to remember dreams | D.many details in your dreams |
Which of the following ways may NOT be useful for recalling dreams?
A.Avoiding taking alcohol and medicine. | B.Not getting out of bed immediately. |
C.Drinking a cup of hot milk. | D.Writing down as many details as possible. |
What does the underlined “it” in the first paragraph mean? ______
A.Remembering your dreams. |
B.Some tips to help recall your dreams. |
C.Your making efforts to remember your dreams. |
D.What your dreams can offer and tell you about yourself. |
The author uses the saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” to_______.
A.show that a picture is better than words |
B.say a picture is equal to thousands of words |
C.prove that it’s more important to draw pictures than to speak |
D.indicate drawing pictures really helps to recall dreams |
The government of Norway is planning to build an unusual storage center on an island in the Arctic Ocean. The place would be large enough to hold about two million seeds. The goal is to present all crops known to scientists. The British magazine New Scientist published details of the plan last month. The structure will be designed to protect the world’s food supply against nuclear war, climate change and other possible threats. It will be built in a mountain on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen. The mountain is less than one thousand kilometers from the North Pole, the northernmost position on earth.
An international group called the Global Crop Diversity Trust is working on the project. The director of the group, Cary Fowler, spoke to New Scientist. He said the project would let the world rebuild agriculture if, in his word, “the worst came to the worst”. Norway is expected to start work next year. The project is expected to cost three million dollars. Workers will drill(钻孔) deep in the side of a sandstone mountain. Temperatures in the area never rise above 0ºC. The seeds will be protected behind walls a meter thick and high-security door.
The magazine report says the collection will represent the products of ten thousand years of farming. Most of the seeds at first will e from collections at seed banks in Africa, Asia and Latin America. To last a long time, seeds need to be kept in very low temperatures. Workers will not be present all the time. But they plan to replace the air inside the storage space each winter. Winter temperatures on the island are about eighteen degrees below 0ºC. The cold weather would protect the seeds even if the air could not be replaced.
Mr. Fowler says the proposed structure will be the world’s safest gene bank. He says the plant seeds would only be used when all other seeds are gone for some reason. Norway first put forward the idea in the 1980s. But safety concerns delayed the plan. At that time, the Soviet Union was meeting in Rome of the Food and Agriculture Organization.The project is meant to ______.
A.increase the world’s food output in the future |
B.carry out some scientific experiments on plant genes |
C.build an exhibition centre of the world’s plant seeds |
D.protect crop seeds from dying out in case of possible disasters |
Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the above passage?
A.The government of Norway will perform the project alone. |
B.Seeds to be collected there were produced ten thousands years ago. |
C.Spitsbergen is chosen because it is free of the nuclear war forever. |
D.Temperature is a major consideration when choosing the storage place. |
We can infer from the text that _______.
A.Norway had meant to build the storage centre about 20 years before. |
B.The storage center will greatly promote world agriculture |
C.People will get newly-developed seeds from the center every year. |
D.There haven’t been any seed storage centres in the world before. |
What is probably the best title
of the passage?
A.The Best Place to Store Seeds |
B.Noah’s Ark(诺亚方舟)of Plant Seeds in Plan |
C.Concerns of World Food Supply |
D.A New Way to Feed the World |
Among various programmes, TV talk shows have covered every inch of space on daytime television. And anyone who watches them regularly knows that each one is different in style. But no two shows are more opposite in content, while at the same time standing out above the rest, than the Jerry Springer and the Oprah Winfrey shows.
Jerry Springer could easily be considered the king of “rubbish talk”. The contents on his show are as surprising as they can be. For example, the show takes the ever-mon talk show titles of love, sex, cheating, and hate, to a different level. Clearly, the Jerry Springer show is about the dark side of society, yet people are willing to eat up the troubles of other people’s lives.
Like Jerry Springer, Oprah Winfrey takes TV talk show to its top. But Oprah goes in the opposite direction. The show is mainly about the improvement of society and different quality of life. Contents are from teaching your children lessons, managing your work week, to getting to know your neighbors.
pared to Oprah, the Jerry Springer show looks like poisonous waste being poured into society. Jerry ends every show with a “final word”. He makes a small speech about the entire idea of the show. Hopefully, this is the part where most people will learn something very valuable.
Clean as it is, the Oprah show is not for everyone. The show’s main viewers are middleclass Americans. Most of these people have the time, money, and ability to deal with life’s tough problems. Jerry Springer, on the other hand, has more of a connection with the young adults of society. These are 18-to-21-year-olds whose main troubles in life include love, relationship, sex, money and drug. They are the ones who see some value and lessons to be learned through the show’s exploitation.
pared with other TV talk shows, both the Jerry Springer and the Oprah Winfrey are ____.
A.more interesting | B.more formal |
C.more detailed | D.unusually popular |
Which of the following is likely to be a topic of the Oprah Winfrey show?
A.Family ine planning. | B.Nation hatred. |
C.A new type of robot. | D.Street accident. |
We can learn from the passage that the two talk shows_____.
A.have bee the only ones of its kind |
B.attract different people |
C.appear at different times of the day |
D.exploit the weaknesses in human nature |
Today just as technology changed the face of industry, farms have experienced an “agricultural revolution”. On the farm of today, machines provide almost all the power.
One of the most important benefits will be the farm puter. A few forward-looking farmers are already using puters to help them run their farms more efficiently. The puters help them keep more accurate records so they can make better decisions on what crops to plant, how much livestock(家畜) to buy, when to sell their products, and how much profit they can expect. Many puter panies have been developing special puter programs just for farmers. Programs are being written for pig producers, grain farmers, potato farmers, and dairy farmers. In the future, farmers will be able to purchase puter programs made to their needs. Because of the growing importance of puters on the farm, students at agricultural colleges are required to take puter classes in addition to their normal agricultural courses. There can be no doubt that farmers will rely on puters even more in the future. While the old-time farm depended on horse power, and modern farms depend on machine power, farms of the future will depend on puter power.
Another technological advance which is still in the experimental stage is the robot, a real “mechanized hired hand” that will be able to move and, in some ways, think like a human being. Agricultural engineers believe that puter-aided robots will make shocking changes in farming before the end of the century. Unlike farmers of the present, farmers of the future will find that many day-to-day t
asks will be done for them. Scientists are now developing robots that will be able to shear(修剪) sheep, drive tractors, and harvest fruit. Even plex jobs will be done by robots. For example, in order to milk their cows, farmers must first drive them into the barn, then connect them to the milking machines, watch the machines, and disconnect them when they are finished. In the future, this will all be done by robots. In addition, when the milking is pleted, the robots will automatically check to make sure that the milk is pure. The plete change of the farm is far in the future, but engineers expect that some robots will be used before long.
Which sentence carried the main idea of the whole passage?
A.The first sentence of the third paragraph. |
B.The first sentence of the second paragraph. |
C.The first sentence of the first paragraph. |
D.The last sentence of the second paragraph. |
According to the passage, puters can not help farmers decide _______.
A.how much money they can earn from their products |
B.whether to plant a certain kind of crop |
C.what livestock to raise |
D.when to sell their products |
Which of the following statements is true?
A.Farmers in the future will depend totally on puters. |
B.Farmers mainly use machines on their farms at present. |
C.Both puters and robots have been in use on today’s farms. |
D.Students at agricultural colleges must take puter classes because they can do |
Nothing without the help of puters on today’s farms.What is the best title for the whole passage?
A.puter, Farmers’ Best Friend | B.Farmers in The Future |
C.The Agricultural Revolution | D.puters and Robots |
“It was all his own idea, ” says Pat Peters, the 38-year-old wife of Palo Alto, California high school football coach Bob Peters, 39. Bob had just drawn up a “motherhood contract” --a document stating that for 70 days this summer he would take over the care and feeding of the couple’s four children, plus all household chores. Although he didn’t even know how to make coffee when he signed, he was quite confident.(He thought the experience would make a nice book.)
After 40 of the 70 days, he was ready to give up. “I was beaten down, pletely humbled(挫败的),” admits Peters. Three weeks later he spoke to the local press, stating, “Not only is motherhood a difficult task, not only is it never-ending, it is an impossible job for any normal human being.”
Bob and Pat were high school sweethearts. After they were married in 1960, she worked as a secretary to help put him through university. Since then Bob has been the football and wrestling coach at Palo Alto’s Cubberley High while Pat raised the kids. Then two years ago Pat went back to work as a secretary at Cubberley. “I had been around children so much,” she sighs, “I couldn’t talk to a grown-up.” She continued to run the household, however----until Bob signed the contract, therefore, she decided to relax and enjoy it.
Although Peters had consulted(咨询) with his school’s home economics teachers and the head of the cafeteria, his meals were sometimes a disaster. “I tried to slip the butter I’d forgotten under the eggs after they were frying, ” he says. For the last three weeks, the family ate out a lot—sometimes having Macdonald’s hamburgers for lunch and dinner.
As for housekeeping, a home economics teacher had told Bob that a room always looks clean if the bed is made. “I found an easier way-I shut the doors, ” he says. Soon the kids were wearing the same clothes for a week. “I made them wear their shirts inside out, and when we went to pick up Pat at work they turned them right side out so they would look clean.”
Now that Bob has publicly admitted he was wrong, he is routinely sharing the child-raising and household tasks with Pat. The tentative(暂时的) title of his book about the summer is taken from something he shouted at the kids one day.
The couple signed the contract because _______.
A.Pat plained a lot about her doing the housework all by herself |
B.Bob loved taking care of children and wanted his wife to have a good rest |
C.they agreed that husband and wife should share household tasks |
D.Bob thought it easy to take care of the family and wanted the experience for a book |
It was agreed that if Bob failed to keep to the contract, he would have to _______.
A.pay a certain amount of money |
B.admit publicly he was wrong about motherhood |
C.say sorry to his wife |
D.do all the housework for years |
What can we learn about Pat Peters?
A.She was hard-working and selfless. |
B.She was pretty and kind-hearted. |
C.She was tired of the child-raising and household tasks. |
D.She did not love Bob any longer. |
Which of the following can best end the news story?
A.“Wait till your mother gets home!” |
B.“My experience of being a mother.” |
C.“I’m proud of you all, my dear!” |
D.“Motherhood: an impossible job for anyone.” |