The Pacific island nation of Nauru used to be a beautiful place. Now it is an ecological disaster area. Nauru’s heartbreaking story could have one good consequence — other countries might learn from its mistakes.
For thousands of years, Polynesian people lived the remote island of Nauru, far from western civilization. The first European to arrive was John Fearn in 1798. He was the British captain of the Hunter, a whaling ship. He called the island Pleasant Island.
However, because it was very remote, Nauru had little communication with Europeans at first. The whaling ships and other traders began to visit, bringing guns and alcohol. These elements destroyed the social balance of the twelve family groups on the island. A ten-year civil war started, which reduced the population from 1,400 to 900.
Nauru’s real troubles began in 1899 when a British mining company discovered phosphate (磷酸盐)on the island. In fact, it found that the island of Nauru was nearly all phosphate, which a very important fertilizer for farming. The company began mining the phosphate.
A phosphate mine is not a hole in the ground; it is a strip mine. When a company strip-mines, it removes the top layer of soil. Then it takes away the material it wants. Strip mining totally destroys the land. Gradually, the lovely island of Nauru started to look like the moon.
In 1968, Nauru became one of the richest countries in the world. Every year the government received millions and millions of dollars for its phosphate.
Unfortunately, the leaders invested the money unwisely and lost millions of dollars. In addition, they used millions more dollars for personal expenses. Soon people realized that they had a terrible problem — their phosphate was running out. Ninety percent of their island was destroyed and they had nothing. By 2000, Nauru was financially ruined. Experts say that it would take approximately $433,600,000 and more than 20 years to repair the island. This will probably never happen. What might be the author’s purpose in writing the text?
| A．To seek help for Nauru’s problems. |
| B．To give a warning to other countries |
| C．To show the importance of money |
| D．To tell a heartbreaking story of a war. |
What was Nauru like before the Europeans came?
| A．Rich and powerful | B．Modern and open |
| C．Peaceful and attractive | D．Greedy and aggressive |
The ecological disaster in Nauru resulted from _______.
| A．soil pollution | B．phosphate overmining |
| C．farming activity | D．whale hunting |
Which of the following was a cause of Nauru’s financial problem?
| A．Its leaders misused the money |
| B．It spent too much repairing the island |
| C．Its phosphate mining cost much money |
| D．It lost millions of dollars in the civil war. |
What can we learn about Nauru from the last paragraph?
| A．The ecological damage is difficult to repair. |
| B．The leaders will take the experts’ words seriously. |
| C．The island was abandoned by the Nauruans |
| D．The phosphate mines were destroyed |
How should one invest a sum of money in inflation (通货膨胀)? Left in a bank it will hardly keep its value, however high the interest rate. Only a brave man, or a very rich one, dares to buy and sell on the Stock Market. Today it seems that one of the best ways to protect your savings, and even increase your wealth is to buy beautiful objects from the past. Here I am going to offer some advice on collecting antique clocks, which I personally consider are among the most interesting of antiques.
I sometimes wonder what a being from another planet might report back about our way of life. "The planet Earth is ruled by a mysterious creature that sits or stands in a room and makes a strange ticking sound. It has a face with twelve black marks and two hands. Men can do nothing without its permission, and it fastens its young round people's wrists so that everywhere men go they are still under its control. This creature is the real master of Earth and men are its slaves."
Whether or not we are slaves of time today depends on our culture and personality, but it is believed that many years ago kings kept special slaves to tell the time. Certain men were very clever at measuring the time according to the beating of their own hearts. They were made to stand in a fixed place and every hour or so would shout time. So it seems that the first clocks were human beings.
However, men quickly found more convenient and reliable ways of telling the time. They learned to use the shadows cast by the sun. They marked the hours on candles, used sand in hour- glasses, and invented water-clocks. Indeed, any serious student of antique should spend as much time as possible visiting palaces, stately homes and museums to see some of the finest examples of clocks from the past.
Antique clocks could be very expensive, but one of the joys of collecting clocks is that it is still possible to find quite cheap ones for your own home. After all, if you are going to be ruled by time, why not invest in an antique clock and perhaps make a future profit?According to the passage, collecting antique clocks ________.
| A．can hardly keep the value of your savings |
| B．will cost much of your savings |
| C．may increase your wealth |
| D．needs your bravery |
By quoting (引用) the remark of a being from another planet, the author intends to ________.
| A．suggest human beings are controlled by a clock |
| B．describe why clocks can rule the planet Earth |
| C．tell readers what clocks look like |
| D．compare clocks to human beings |
Which of the following is NOT mentioned as a way to measure the time?
| A．Counting the beating of one's own heart. |
| B．Making use of candles, sand and water. |
| C．Observing shadows cast by the sun. |
| D．Keeping slaves busy day and night. |
The purpose of the passage is ________.
| A．to introduce the culture of antique clocks |
| B．to offer some advice on collecting antique clocks |
| C．to compare different ways to make a future profit |
| D．to explain convenient and reliable ways of telling time |
Everyone is at it, even my neighbors. I thought I might be the only person left in the world who hadn’t done an eBay deal. So, I decided to try my hand at online auction (网上拍卖).
Buying for beginners: Sign up on www. ebay. co. uk. Most items（e.g. tables, computers, and books）ready for auction will come with a picture and a short description; others may be marked with “ Buy It Now ” and have a fixed price. You can buy these right away.
If the item is being auctioned, you offer the highest price you are prepared to pay and eBay bids（出价）for you. The bid will be increased little by little until it goes beyond your highest bid, then you are emailed and asked if you would like to bid again. Auctions last up to 10 days and when they finish you get an email telling you whether you have won the item.
How to pay: Sellers decide how they would like to be paid and you need to check this before placing a bid as you might not want to post a check or postal orders. The easiest way is through PayPal, an online payment system that takes the money away from your credit card (信用卡).
Selling made simple: If you plan to sell on eBay, it helps to include a picture of the item. I followed my friends’ advice and put up the items I wanted to sell for a 10-day auction, starting on a Thursday. This way buyers had two weekends to bid.
The big things in life: It’s easy to post a small item, but furniture is a big part of eBay and this has to be collected or sent by delivery men. Check the ways of delivery before you bid. What is the passage mainly about?
| A．How to make payment online. |
| B．Ways of using delivery online. |
| C．Advantages of an online-auction system. |
| D．How to use an online-auction system. |
After bidding for an item, a buyer __________.
| A．will get what he wants in ten days |
| B．should make payment immediately |
| C．has chances to make higher bids |
| D．may check its picture and description |
The easiest way of making payment mentioned in the passage is __________.
| A．through an online payment system |
| B．through a local banking system |
| C．by sending the money to the seller |
| D．by paying the deliveryman directly |
Brownie and Spotty were neighbor dogs who met every day to play together. Like pairs of dogs you can find in any neighborhood, these two loved each other and played together so often that they had worn a path through the grass of the field between their houses.
One evening, Brownie’s family noticed that Brownie hadn’t returned home. They went looking for him with no success. Brownie didn’t show up the next day, and, although they made their efforts to find him, by the next week he was still missing, Curiously, Spotty showed up at Brownie’s house alone, barking and jumping. Busy with their own lives, they paid no attention to the nervous little neighbor dog.
Finally, one morning Spotty refused to take “no” for an answer. Ted, Brownie’s owner, was continuously disturbed by the angry, determined little dog. Spotty followed Ted about, barking all the time, then rushing toward a nearby empty lot and back, as if to say, “Follow me! It’s urgent!”
Eventually, Ted followed Spotty across the empty lot as Spotty stopped to race back and barked encouragingly. The little dog led the man to a deserted spot a half mile from the house. There Ted found his beloved Brownie alive, one of his legs crushed in a steel trap (圈套). Frightened, Ted now wished he had taken Spotty’s earlier appeals seriously.
Then Ted noticed something. Spotty had done something else besides leading Brownie’s human owner to his trapped friend. In a circle around the injured dog, Ted found some food remains of every meal. Brownie had been fed that week! Spotty had been visiting Brownie regularly, in the hope of keeping his friend alive. Spotty had actually stayed with Brownie to protect him from hunger and other dangers, and keep his spirits up.
Brownie’s leg was carefully treated and he soon got well again. For many years thereafter the two families watched the faithful friends chasing each other down that well-worn path between their houses.At the very beginning, Ted paid little attention to Spotty because __________.
| A．he was not free at the moment |
| B．he was sure Brownie would be OK |
| C．he didn’t like Spotty at all |
| D．his missing dog made him sad |
After Ted was brought where Brownie was trapped, he ___________.
| A．managed to free his dog at once |
| B．was very thankful to Spotty |
| C．regretted not following Spotty earlier |
| D．was angry with the trap-maker |
The BEST title for this passage might be____________?
| A．Dogs in Love | B．A Friend in Need |
| C．Human and dogs | D．Dogs Are Communicative |
We can infer from the passage that ___________.
| A．humans and animals depend on each other for comfort |
| B．It’s not right to hunt for animals in any neighborhood |
| C．Ted has to take better care of his beloved dog later on |
| D．Brownie would have died without Spotty’s timely help |
Imagine, one day, getting out of bed in Beijing and being at your office in Shanghai in only a couple of hours, and then, after a full day of work, going back home to Beijing and having dinner there.
Sounds unusual, doesn't it? But it's not that unrealistic, with the development of China’s high—speed railway system. And that’s not all. China has an even greater high-speed railway plan—to connect the country with Southeast Asia, and eventually Eastern Europe.
China is negotiating to extend its own high·-speed railway network to up to 17 countries in 10 to 15 years, eventually reaching London and Singapore.
China has proposed three such projects. The first would possibly connect Kunming with Singapore via Vietnam and Malaysia. Another could start in Urumqi and go through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and possibly to Germany. The third would start in the northeast and go north through Russia and then into Western Europe.
If China’s plan for the high-speed railway goes forward, people could zip over from London to Berlin in under two days.
The new system would still follow China’s high-speed railway standard. And the trains would be able to go 346 kilometers an hour, almost as fast as some airplanes.
China’s bullet train(高速客车),the one connecting Wuhan to Guangzhou, already has the World’s fastest average speed. It covers 1,069 kilometers in about three hours.
Of course, there are some technical challenges to overcome. There are so many issues that need to be settled, such as safety, rail gauge(轨距),maintenance of railway tracks. So, it’s important to pay attention to every detail.
But the key issue is really money. China is already spending hundreds of billions of yuan on domestic railway expansion.
China prefers that the other countries pay in natural resources rather than with capital investment. Resources from those countries could stream into China to sustain development.
It’ll be a win-win project. For other countries, the railway network will definitely create more opportunities for business, tourism and so on, not to mention the better communication among those countries.
For China, such a project would not only connect it with the rest of Asia and bring some much-needed resources, but would also help develop China’s far west. We foresee that in the coming decades, millions of people will migrate to the western regions, where the land is empty and resources unused. With high-speed trains, people will set up factories and business centers in the west once and for all. And they’11 trade with Central Asian and Eastern European countries.China’s new high-speed railway plan will be a win-win project because.
| A．China will get much-needed resources and develop its western regions |
| B．China and the countries involved will benefit from the project in various ways |
| C．China will develop its railway system and communication with other countries |
| D．the foreign countries involved will develop their railway transportation, business and tourism |
According to the passage, the greatest challenge to the new high-speed railway plan is.
| A．technical issues |
| B．safety of the system |
| C．financial problems |
| D．maintenance of railway tracks |
Which of the following words best describes the author’s attitude towards China’s high-speed railway plan?
| A．Critical. | B．Reserved. | C．Doubtful | D．Positive. |
Which of the following might be the best title for the passage?
| A．New Railway Standards |
| B．Big Railway Dreams |
| C．High-speed Bullet Trains |
| D．International Railway Network |
TODAY, Friday, November 12
JAZZ with the Mike Thomas Jazz Band at the Derby Arms. Upper Richmond Road West, Sheen, Admission(门票) free.
DISCO. Satin Sounds Disco. Free at the Lord Napier, Mortlake High St., from 8 pm. Tel. 682-1158.
JAZZ. Lysis at the Bull’s Head, Barnes. Admission 60p.
TOMRROW, Saturday, November 13
MUSIC HALL at the Star and Garter, Lower Richmond Road, Putney, provided by the Aba Daba Music Hall company. Good food and entertainment at a fair price. Tel. 789-6749.
FAMILY night out? Join the sing-along at the Black Horse, Sheen Road, Richmond.
JAZZ. The John Bennet Big Band at the Bull’s Head, Barnes. Admission 80p.
THE DERBY ARMS, Upper Richmond Road West, give you Joe on the electric accordion(手风琴). Tel. 789-4536.
SUNDAY, November 14
DISCO. Satin Sounds Disco, free at The Lord Napier, Mortlake High Street, from 8 pm.
FOLK MUSIC at the Derby Arms. The Short Stuff and residents the Norman Chop Trio.
Non-members 70p. Tel. 688-4626.
HEAVY music with Tony Simon at the Bull, Upper Richmond Road West, East Sheen.
TEE DERBY ARMS, Upper Richmond Road West, give you Joe on the electric accordion.We can listen to the Norman Chop Trio _________.
| A．at the Bull on Saturday |
| B．at the Black Horse on Saturday |
| C．at the Derby Arms on Sunday |
| D．at the Bull’s Head on Sunday |
Which telephone number will you ring if you want to enjoy good food and entertainment?
| A．682-1158. | B．789-6749. | C．789-4536. | D．688-4626. |
The underlined word “fair” in the passage means _________.
| A．reasonable | B．low | C．high | D．equal |
If this passage is from a newspaper, which section can it be probably taken from?
| A．Politics. | B．Economics. | C．Advertisement. | D．Sports. |