A 7.0 magnitude（级）earthquake killed more than 230,000 people in Haiti. Then an 8.8 magnitude quake killed more than 900 people in Chile. And few weeks later, a 6.0 magnitude quake struck rural eastern Turkey, killing at least 57 people.
The earthquakes kept coming hard and fast. 1 It’s not. The problem is what’s happening above ground, not underground, experts say.
2 They’re rapidly putting up buildings that can’t stand up to earth quakes, scientists believe.
And news reports and better earthquake monitoring make it seem as if earth quakes are increasing all the time.
On average, there are 134 earthquakes a year that have a magnitude between 6.0 and 6.9. So far this year there have been 40 earthquakes—more than in most years for that time period. But that’s because the 8.8 quake in Chile caused a large number of strong aftershocks.
Also, it’s not the number of quakes, but their destructive effects that gain attention. The death is largely due to building standards, 3 Paul Earle, a US seismologist, called for better building standards in the world’s big cities.
Of the 130 cities worldwide with populations of more than I million, more than half are likely to be hit by earthquakes. 4 “If you have a problem feeding yourself, you’re not really going to worry about earthquakes,” said Paul.
The earthquakes made everyone start to think 5 “People are paying attention to the violent planet we’re always lived on. Come back an another six moths if there has been no earthquakes, most people will have forgotten it again,” said US disaster researcher Dennis Mileti.
| A．But it won’t last. B．More people are moving into big cities. C．Earthquakes don’t kill people, buildings do. D．There have been more deaths overt the past decade from earthquakes. E．Many people began to wonder if something terrible is happening underground. F．While it seems as if the are more earthquakes occurring, there really aren’t. G．But developing nations with growing populations don’t pay attention to earthquake preparedness. |
Sooner or later, most students are to take some form of English examinations. Often the more successful students are better prepared. However, sometimes students who do well have better test taking skills. These abilities really have nothing to do with understanding English better. They are skills that make taking the test easier, and therefore provide better results.
Here are some very important—and often ignored—guidelines to taking a test successfully.
Do not insist on completing each question before going to the next. This is extremely important. Remember one question may only be worth one point! You will become nervous when you fail to find out its answer, making you lose your concentration and leading to worse results. However, answering the questions you are sure you know results in your being more relaxed and feeling more confident.
Go through the test a second time working out the answers to more difficult questions. Sometimes questions asked are answered in later questions asking for different things.
Usually(but not always) a strong first impulse(冲动) means we know the answer and we don’t really have to think about it too much. Going back to think about it usually makes you unsure and often causes a mistake. This is very common, so be very careful!
If you don’t know the answer, write something. If you are answering a 4 possibility multiple choice question you will still have a 25% chance of being correct!
Taking a test is as much for you as is for your teacher, so never cheat. If you cheat, you don’t help yourself in the long run.In the first paragraph, the writer stresses the importance of ______.
| A．better preparations for exams. |
| B．better understanding of English. |
| C．better skills at taking exams. |
| D．better results of taking exams. |
When taking an exam, you are advised ______.
| A．to first answer the questions which are easier to you. |
| B．to depend on your first impulse to answer the questions. |
| C．to search the test paper for all the answers to the questions. |
| D．to give up the questions whose answers you don’t know. |
It is common that many students______.
| A．pay much attention to their testing skills. |
| B．often give up a difficult test halfway. |
| C．often get higher results by cheating. |
| D．don’t believe in their first impulse. |
What would be the best title of the passage?
| A．Effective Studying Methods. |
| B．Effective Test Taking Skills. |
| C．Getting Better Exam Results. |
| D．Being Successful Students. |
Michelle Obama, Kate Moss and Samantha Cameron are three of the most stylish women on the planet but it seems they have their daughters rather than their style know how to thank for that. New research has shown that women with daughters tend to be more stylish than mothers of sons; a fact partly because of the style advice their daughters offer as they get older.
78 percent of women over the age of 50 say they would be more than happy to let their daughters choose a complete outfit for them. However, just five percent of women say they would turn to their sons for style advice, while 28 percent believe that mothers of boys are less fashionable than women with girls.
“Women who don’t have daughters become less interested in style as they grow older but having a daughter may keep alive her interest in looking great,” comments psychologist Honey Langcaster - James. “And, because of their close relationship, they also have a source of support and encouragement when it comes to their style decisions.”
More than a quarter of women believe that Mums who have sons are less fashion - conscious than Mums with daughters. The most common reasons for this are that daughters are more critical (爱挑剔的), offer good advice and inspiration, and add an element of competition to look the best while sons don’t seem to care and aren’t as strict as daughters.
Interestingly, although mothers tend to rely on their daughters’ style tips, their confidence isn’t reciprocated, with 40 percent of women between the ages of 19 and 34 saying they wouldn’t allow their mothers to shop for them as what their mothers would choose for them would not be as good as they expected.
And although they might not appreciate the fashion advice, the research, which was conducted by online retailer Gray & Osbourn, showed that daughters do still need their mothers with 71 percent saying they chat to their female parent every day.
“Overall, the research shows just how important relationships are between mothers and daughters,” added Langcaster - James, “and just how much women appreciate an honest and trustworthy opinion.” The opening paragraph is mainly to show ________.
| A．girls influence their mothers’ style decisions |
| B．women with children are often less stylish |
| C．mothers like to follow their children’s advice |
| D．boys are actually better advisors than girls |
It can be inferred from the passage that girls ________.
| A．show more interest in science than boys |
| B．care more about what their mothers wear |
| C．can help a lot to solve family problems |
| D．are good at encouraging other people |
By saying “their confidence isn’t reciprocated”, the author means that ______.
| A．some women would not like to follow their mother’s style advice |
| B．some women aren’t sure what to wear when attending a party |
| C．some women don’t like to choose clothes for their mothers |
| D．some women often show no confidence in themselves |
What does the author mainly tell us in the passage?
| A．It confuses many parents how to talk with their kids. |
| B．Daughters prefer to talk with their mums instead of dads. |
| C．It is important for parents to respect their children’s choice. |
| D．Mothers of girls are more fashionable than those of boys. |
The financial crisis is reminding Americans of a lesson they first learned in childhood: Share and share alike. They are sharing or swapping tools and books, cars and handbags, time and talent.
The renewed desire to share shows up in a variety of examples: A car-sharing service has had a 70 percent membership increase since the crisis occurred. Some companies encouraged his employees to take vanpooling. Governments are putting bikes on the street for public use. How-to-swap Web sites are increasing quickly.
The economy reflects the way Americans have cut back, especially on daily items: Department store sales dropped 1.3 percent in June. People are not buying cars, and as a result, auto sales dropped 27.7 percent last month. They are not paying others to do what they can do themselves — Home Depot reports increased attendance at in-store do-it-yourself clinics. And although paint sales are down in general, according to Sherwin-Williams, individual consumers are still buying.
When Tom Burdett needed to cut some tiles at his home outside Annapolis, he refused to buy expensive tools. So he asked his neighbors and friends for help. Sure enough, someone had just what he needed. And when that friend needed help fixing a satellite dish, Burdett volunteered to help.
The sharing mind-set is not new to the American culture, but many Americans give it up when the nation changed from an agricultural society to an industrial one, said Rosemary Hornak, a psychology professor at Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C. They moved farther from their families and did not have time to connect with new neighbors because they worked so much, she said.
Neighborhood conversations tell more of the story as the movement grows organically (持续地) in communities across the Washington region and the nation. On one street in Arlington, for example, neighbors are collecting their separate money for mulch (覆盖料) and dividing it among themselves.What is the text mainly about?
| A．Introducing a new way of life. |
| B．Sharing in the financial crisis. |
| C．How to reduce the living expense. |
| D．How to handle the financial crisis. |
Why do people in modern times give up the sharing mind-set?
| A．Because they don’t need it at all. |
| B．Because they aren’t interested in it. |
| C．Because they are busy with work. |
| D．Because they hate being disturbed. |
The underlined phrase “cut back” in Para. 3 probably means ________.
| A．shared | B．helped |
| C．abandoned | D．reduced |
It can be inferred from the passage that _________________________.
| A．more and more Americans solve problems in their daily life by helping each other . |
| B．if the prices of service goes down, individual consumers won’t do something themselves. |
| C．the sharing-mind set is a strange to many Americans. |
| D．when the crisis ends, Americans will abandon the sharing-mind set. |
Some people like modern art, while others say that is rubbish. But a cleaner who works in the Tate Gallery in London isn’t able to tell the difference. The woman, whose name isn’t known, mistook a work of art by the German painter Gustav Metzger for a bag of rubbish, and threw it out with other bags. The plastic bad, which contained pieces of paper and cardboard, was later recovered outside the gallery, but the artist thought that it was too damaged to be put on show again. 78-year-old Mr Metzger explained that the exhibit, which he said was a copy of a similar work he had created in 1960, was meant to show that all art is temporary and “finite”(有限的).
Embarrassed officials at the museum said that they had had to call a meeting with cleaners to explain which things should not be touched. They would not say whether Mr Metzger would be paid any compensation for the incident. However, to make absolutely sure the same thing would not happen again, they decided to cover Mr Metzger’s work every evening with a colored cloth. In this way the cleaners arriving after the gallery had closed to the general public would realize they should not touch it.
This is not the first time that museum cleaners have had trouble distinguishing exhibits from rubbish. In 2001, in another London gallery, a cleaner threw away a work by the well-known British artist Damien Hirst. It was an arrangement of empty beer bottles, coffee cups, and overflowing ashtrays, which were meant to indicate the chaos in the life of an artist.
However, cleaners don’t always throw things away—sometimes they clean them! This was the case with a dirty asking what the bath was doing in the gallery, the cleaners simply scrubbed it clean.What’s the best title of the passage?
| A．Cleaners mistake modern art for rubbish |
| B．Modern art shouldn’t be cleaned |
| C．What makes a great work of art |
| D．Cleaners don’t always throw things away |
Which of the following is not true?
| A．People have different opinions on modern art |
| B．Mr Metzger would be paid much compensation |
| C．A work of Damien Hirst was thrown away by a cleaner in 2001 |
| D．Some modern work is about artists’ chaos of their life |
The last paragraph is written to show that____________.
| A．cleaners often make exhibits as clean as possible |
| B．cleaners can’t always differ exhibits from rubbish |
| C．exhibits are usually difficult to clean |
| D．exhibits are not always so beautiful |
If you want to know how crazy people can be about their pets, you might remember that Helmsley left $12 million to her little Maltese dog when she died last year.
The dog's name is Trouble. And apparently Trouble is still alive. Of course, I would hang on, too, if someone left me $12 million. Look! Top-shelf dog food, soft pillows everywhere, drivers walking me in nice leafy parks. I would live to be 110 in dog years.
The dog's story is still fresh in my mind the other night when I leave a steak house after a superb meal. Then I notice a woman carrying a small bag out of the door behind me.
Once outside, she walks over to where a man is holding a tiny dog and it's a baby. The dog looks like a Maltese, too, barking and annoying, with a cute haircut,
And now I am treated to an absolute astonishing sight. Because now the woman reaches into the bag and begins pulling out little pieces of meat, which she puts on a plastic spoon and feeds to the dog.
This is no cheap steak house. It's actually, way out of my league --I'm there only because it's a special occasion. I can tell you this: if I walked out of the place with any leftover steak, it sure wouldn't go to a dog. Not at those prices.
So now the woman is Spoon-feeding the dog and the man is just standing there, holding this dog and looking as if this is the most normal thing in the world. And the dog is calmly chewing these pieces of steak as if he's a little king. And this dog is in no hurry. He's having a great time.
A few minutes go by, and now the dog finishes all of his steak. At this point, I hear the woman say to the man "Think he's still hungry?" And she glances behind her at the restaurant, as if she might go back in there to get more steak for the dog.
Watching all this, I'm afraid I'm going to shout, "Are you out of your mind? Feeding all that pricey steak to that little dog? Did you see what our American life is like today? We're all going to be eating dog food if this keeps up!"Why would the author live to be 110 in dog years?
| A．Because he is always in poor health and falls ill. |
| B．Because a Maltese dog lives longer than a human being. |
| C．Because his grandparents left him a large sum of money. |
| D．Because he thinks the dog is treated extremely well. |
What is the story mainly about?
| A．An American family's happy life. |
| B．A Maltese dog getting $12 million from its owner. |
| C．A New Yorker spending $ 8 billion for a few banks. |
| D．A pet dog being fed with expensive food. |
The underlined sentence "It's actually way out of my league. " (in Para. 6) means __
| A．the restaurant is too expensive for the author |
| B．the author hates the dog being taken there |
| C．the superb restaurant is about to be out of service |
| D．the dog doesn't belong to the author's group |
Seeing the dog is being treated to expensive steak, the author becomes extremely ____
| A．indifferent | B．annoyed |
| C．concerned | D．envious |