People hold the belief that a fun-filled, pain free life equals happiness actually reduces their chances of ever attaining real happiness. If fun and pleasure are equal to happiness then pain must be equal to unhappiness. But in fact, the opposite is true: more often things that lead to happiness involve some pain.
As a result, many people don’t like the very attempts that are the source of true happiness. They fear the pain brought by such things as marriage, raising children, professional achievement, commitment(承担的义务)，self-improvement.
Ask a bachelor why he resists marriage even though he finds dating to be less and less satisfying. If he is honest, he will tell you that he is afraid of making a commitment, for commitment is in fact quite painful. The single life is filled with fun, adventure, excitement. Marriage has such moments, but they are not its most obvious features.
Couples with infant children are lucky to get a whole night’s sleep or a three-day vacation. I don’t know any parent who would choose the word “fun” to describe raising children. But couples who decide not to have children never know the joys of watching a child grow up or of playing with a grandchild.
Understanding and accepting true happiness is one of the most liberating realizations because true happiness has nothing to do with fun. It liberates(解放) time: now we can devote more hours to activities that can genuinely increase our happiness. It liberates money: buying that new car or those fancy clothes that will do nothing to increase our happiness now seems pointless. And it liberates us from envy: we now understand that all those who are always having so much fun actully may not be happy at all.According to the author, a bachelor resists marriage chiefly because____
| A．he is unwilling to take family responsibilities |
| B．he believes that life will be more cheerful if he remains single |
| C．he finds more fun in dating than in marriage |
| D．he fears it will put an end to all his fun, adventure and excitement |
The underlined word bachelor means_________
| A．a married man | B．a college student |
| C．a single man | D．an academic degree |
From the last paragraph, we learn that envy sometimes results from______
| A．hatred | B．misunderstanding | C．prejudice | D．ignorance |
To understand what true happiness, one must________
| A．have as much fun as possible during one’s lifetime. |
| B．make every effort to liberate oneself from pain |
| C．put up with pain under all circumstances |
| D．be able to distinguish happiness from fun |
What is the author trying to tell us?
| A．Happiness often goes hand in hand with pain. |
| B．One must know how to attain happiness. |
| C．It is important to make commitments. |
| D．It is pain that leads to happiness. |
A newspaper in Helsinki,Finland,recently published a cartoon of a baby with a mobile phone,telling his parents that his diaper(尿布) needed changing.But it's hardly a joke.Helsinki is home to Nokia,the mobilephone maker.It's one of the most “mobile”cities in the world.About 92 percent of its households have at least one mobile phone.And the kids start young.
“A relatively normal age to get a mobile phone is now 7,”says Jan Virkki,marketing manager for a mobile phone company.Among the second graders at the Kulosaari Elementary School,the most popular object of desire this year is not a Barbie or a Gameboy.It is a Nokia mobile phone with a picture of their own choice on the screen.
“One of the first things we discuss when school starts is the rules for mobile phones,”says Tiia Korppi,a teacher.Among the rules:You have to put it away out of sight.You cannot turn it on.You cannot send text messages to your friends,or play amusing tunes(令人发笑的曲调)in class,or call your parents or call for a pizza during history.
1.The author uses the newspaper cartoon to show that ________ .
A.he is good at telling jokes
B.he cares much for children
C.mobile phones are toys for newborn babies
D.mobile phones are widely used in Finland
2.The passage is mainly about__________
A.different uses of mobile phones
B.a successful mobilephone maker
C.effect of mobile phones on children
D.school rules for the use of mobile phones
Tristan da Cunha, a 38squaremile island, is the farthest inhabited island in the world, according to the Guinness Book of Records. It is 1,510 miles southwest
of its nearest neighbor, St.Helena, and 1,950 miles west of Africa. Discovered
by the Portuguese admiral（葡萄牙海军上将）of the same name in 1506, and settled
in 1810, the island belongs to Great Britain and has a population of a few hund
red.
Coming in a close second—and often wrongly mentioned as the most distant land—is Easter Island, which lies 1,260 miles east of its nearest neighbor, Pitcair
n Island, and 2,300 miles west of South America.
The mountainous 64-square-mile island was settled around the 5th century, supposedly by people who were lost at sea. They had no connection with the outside world for more than a thousand years, giving them plenty of time to build more than 1,000 huge stone figures, called moai, for which the island is most famous.
On Easter Sunday, 1722, however, settlers from Holland moved in and gave the island its name. Today, 2,000 people live on the Chilean territory (智利领土).They share one street, a small airport, and a few hours of television per day.
1.It can be learned from the text that the island of Tristan da Cunha_______.
A.was named after its discoverer
B.got its name from Holland settlers
C.was named by the British government
D.got its name from the Guinness Book of Records
2.Which of the following is most famous for moai?
A. Tristan da Cunha. B. Pitcairn Island. C. Easter Island. D. St. Helena.
3. Which country does Easter Island belong to?
A. Britain. B. Holland. C. Portugal. D. Chile.
There are three separate sources of danger in supplying energy by nuclear power(原子能).
First, the radioactive material must travel from its place of production to the power station. Although the power stations themselves are strongly built, the containers used for the transport of the materials are not. Normally, only two methods of transport are in use, namely road or rail. Unfortunately, both of these may have an effect on the general public, since they are sure to pass near, or even through, heavily populated areas.
Second, there is the problem of waste. All nuclear power stations produce wastes that in most cases will remain radioactive for thousands of years. It is impossible to make these wastes nonradioactive, and so they must be stored in one of the inconvenient ways that scientists have invented. For example, they may be buried under the ground, or dropped into deserted mines, or sunk in the sea. However, these methods do not solve the problem, since an earthquake could easily break the containers.
Third, there may occur the danger of a leak(泄漏) or an explosion at the power station. As with the other two dangers, this is not very likely, so it does not provide a serious objection to the nuclear program. However, it can happen.Separately, these three types of dangers are not a great cause for worry. Taken together, though, the probability of disaster(灾难) is extremely high.
1.Which of the following is FALSE?
A.It is possible that a leak or an explosion occurs at a power station.
B.It is unusual for radioactive materials to be transported across land.
C.The containers are likely to be broken by an earthquake.
D.Nuclear wastes remain dangerous in most cases for many years.
2.The author thinks that the ways to store nuclear wastes are ________.
A.easy B.impossible C.reasonable D.ineffective
3.What do we learn from the last paragraph?
A.The power station is a safe place.
B.The dangers of nuclear energy can be prevented.
C.The general public are strongly against the nuclear program.
By itself, none of the three dangers is very likely to cause much worry.
4.What is this passage about?
A.Uses of nuclear power. B.Dangers from nuclear power.
C.Public anger at nuclear power. D.Accidents caused by nuclear power.
When a group of children politely stop a conversation with you, saying，“We have to go to work now.” you're left feeling surprised and certainly uneasy. After all, this is the 1990s and the idea of children working is just unthinkable. That is , until you are told that they are all pupils of stage schools, and that the “work” they go off to is to go on the stage in a theatre.
Stage schools often act as agencies (代理机构) to supply children for stage and television work. More worthy of the name “stage school” are those few places where children attend full time, with a training for the theatre and a general education.
A visit to such schools will leave you in no doubt that the children enjoy themselves. After all, what lively children wouldn't settle for spending only hal
f the day doing ordinary school work, and acting, singing or dancing their way through the other half of the day?
Then of course there are times for the children to make a name and make a little money in some big shows. Some stage schools give their children too much professional work at such a young age. But the law is very tight on the amount they can do. Those under 13 are limited to 40 days in the year; those over 13 do 80 days.
The schools themselves admit that not all children will be successful in the profession for which they are being trained. So what happens to those who don't make it? While all the leading schools say they place great importance on children getting good study results, the facts seem to suggest this is not always the case.
1.People would stop feeling uneasy when realising that the children they're talking to ________.
A. attend a stage school
B. are going to the theatre
C. have got some work to do
D. love singing and dancing
2.In the writer's opinion, a good stage school should ________ .
A. produce star performers
B. help pupils improve their study skills
C. train pupils in language and performing arts
D. provide a general education and stage training
3.“Professional work” as used in the text means ________ .
A. ordinary school work
B. moneymaking performances
C. stage training at school
D. acting, singing or dancing after class
4.Which of the following best describes how the writer feels about stage schools?
A. He thinks highly of what they have to offer.
B. He favours an early start in the training of performing arts.
C. He feels uncomfortable about children putting on night shows.
D. He doubts the standard of ordinary education they have reached.
If you dream of going someplace warm to escape the cold winter weather,a trip to a recently discovered planet would certainly warm you right up.The planet,named
OGLE-TR-56b,has temperatures of more than 3,000°F.“This is the hottest planet we know about,”says Dr Dimitar Sasselov,a scientist who led the discovery team.“It is hot enough to have an iron fog and to rain hot iron droplets(细沫).”
The new planet is 30 times farther away than any planet discovered by scientists
before.It is in the Milky Way(银河)but it is not in our solar(太阳的)system.The new planet moves around a star much like our sun,however scientists discovered the planet by using a new planetsearching method called transit technique.They were able to catch sight of the planet when it moved in front of its star,causing the star's light to dim(变暗).Scientists compare the method to discovering the shadow of a bee flying in front of a searchlight 200 miles away.“We believe the door has been opened wide to go and discover planets like the Earth,”says Sasselov.
1.We can infer from the passage that_________.
A.there is iron on the new planet
B.we could go to the new planet in winter
C.the star could block our view of the new planet
D.scientists are studying the weather
2.The “transit technique”can_____________.
A.help dim the light of a star
B.help scientists with a searchlight
C.help discover a bee on a planet
D.help find a planet moving before its star
3.Which is the best title for the passage?
A.New Planet searching Technique
B.New Distant Discovery
C.Space Searching
D.Dream Planet