Top lists are lecturing people on everything from “100 places to visit” to “100 books to read ”.
Aren't you just tired of being told what to do with your time?
Now you have a list to end all lists!
Take a look at the following two examples from the list of “101 things not to do”:
Swim with Dolphins（海豚）？
Swimming with dolphins is one of the world’s most profitable tourist activities. However, every dolphin will welcome having their busy, tiring day interrupted by tourists screaming and pushing around them in the water. Worse yet, when dolphins get too near to the boats loaded with tourists, they could get caught up in ropes and killed by propellers(螺旋桨).
Here’s a little secret. Dolphins look like smiling at you, but actually they’re just opening their mouths.
Go to See the Mona Lisa?
There must be something about the mysterious(神秘的)smile. The 6 million people who visit the lady in the Louvre every year can’t all be wrong, after all. But they can be quite annoying, standing in front of you, holding up their cameras to prevent you from seeing anything. In fact, it is hard for you to see the painting clearly because you have to stay away from it for security reasons. After queuing for hours, many tourists can remain in front of the painting only for 15 seconds at most.
If the mysterious lady in the picture knew her fate, she wouldn’t just be smiling, she’d be laughing.
So, still long to see the Mona Lisa? If you want to find out more about the list, read 101 Things NOT to Do Before You Die. Visit www.not2dobeforeidie.co.uk and buy the book at a 20％ discount.According to the passage, swimming with dolphins________.
| A．is the world’s most popular tourist activity |
| B．gives fun to both tourists and dolphins |
| C．will make tourists busy and tired |
| D．can cause danger to dolphins |
What does the author think about going to see the Mona Lisa?
| A．It is wrong to go and see the mysterious smile. |
| B．It is not as satisfying as expected. |
| C．Fifteen seconds in front of the painting is enough. |
| D．Queuing for hours is worthwhile. |
The list of “101 things not to do” is made most probably because its author_______.
| A．thinks it boring to do the things suggested by other lists |
| B．believes other lists are not humorous enough |
| C．intends to persuade people to read more lists |
| D．wants to provide a list different from other lists |
What is the main purpose of the passage?
| A．To advertise a book |
| B．To introduce a website |
| C．To comment on popular lists |
| D．To recommend tourist activities. |
Of all the reasons, cloning for medical purposes has the most potential to benefit large numbers of people. How might cloning be used in medicine?
Much of what researchers learn about human disease comes from studying animal models such as mice. Often, animal models are genetically engineered to carry disease-causing mutations (变异) in their genes. Creating these transgenic animals is a time-intensive process that requires trial-and-error and several generations of breeding. Cloning technologies might reduce the time needed to make a transgenic animal model, and the result would be a population of genetically identical animals for study.
Stem cells are the body's building blocks, responsible for developing, maintaining and repairing the body throughout life. As a result, they might be used to repair damaged or diseased organs and tissues. Researchers are currently looking toward cloning as a way to create genetically defined human stem cells for research and medical purposes. To see how this is done, see Creating Stem Cells for Research, a component of the Stem Cells in the Spotlight module.
Farm animals such as cows, sheep and goats are currently being genetically engineered to produce drugs or proteins that are useful in medicine. Just like creating animal models of disease, cloning might be a faster way to produce large herds of genetically engineered animals. Find out more about this research in the feature article Pharming for Farmaceuticals.
Have you seen Jurassic Park? In this feature film, scientists use DNA preserved for tens of millions of years to clone dinosaurs. They find trouble, however, when they realize that the cloned creatures are smarter and fiercer than expected.
In reality? Probably not. It's not likely that dinosaur DNA could survive undamaged for such a long time. However, scientists have tried to clone species that became extinct more recently, using DNA from well-preserved tissue samples.
To clone or not to clone: that is the question. The prospect of cloning humans is highly controversial and raises a number of ethical, legal and social challenges that need to be considered. Of all the reason of cloning, which do people think is the most benefit to people?
| A．Medicine purpose. | B．protecting endangered animal |
| C．Cloning for some families. | D．Purifying human beings |
By the passage we can infer that the side effect people would research human disease using animal models is __________.
| A．the sample is not the same with human |
| B．the sample has less function than human |
| C．the sample often carries disease in the genes |
| D．the results can't adapt to human |
What function do stem cells play in body?
| A．Breeding. | B．Repairing. | C．Replacing. | D．Reproducing. |
According to the passage, which statement of the following is not right?
| A．Cloning animals have achieved now. |
| B．By cloning people can cure some deadly diseases. |
| C．Dinosaurs in the future film are smarter. |
| D．Cloning can bring human only happiness. |
The title of this passage probably is __________.
| A．Why clone? | B．The benefit of cloning. |
| C．Cloned animals. | D．Cloning in the future. |
Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago in 1954 to a Mexican American family. As the only girl in a family of seven children, she often felt like she had "seven fathers" because her six brothers, as well as her father, tried to control her. Feeling shy and unimportant, she retreated (躲避) into books. Despite her love of reading, she did not do well in elementary school because she was too shy to participate.
In high school, with the encouragement of one particular teacher, Cisneros improved her grades and worked for the school literary magazine. Her father encouraged her to go to college because he thought it would be a good way for her to find a husband. Cisneros did attend college, but instead of searching for a husband, she found a teacher who helped her join the famous graduate writing program at the University of Iowa. At the university's Writers' Workshop, however, she felt lonely—a Mexican American from a poor neighborhood among students from wealthy families. The feeling of being so different helped Cisneros find her "Creative voice".
"It was not until this moment when I considered myself truly different that my writing acquired a voice. I knew I was a Mexican woman, but I didn't think it had anything to do with why I felt so much imbalance in my life, but it had everything to do with it! That's when I decided I would write about something my classmates couldn't write about. "
Cisneros published her first work, The House on Mango Street, when she was twenty-nine. The book tells about a young Mexican American girl growing up in a Spanish-speaking area in Chicago, much like the neighborhoods in which Cisneros lived as a child. The book won an award in 1985 and has been used in classes from high school through graduate school level. Since then, Cisneros has published several books of poetry, a children's book, and a short-story collection. Which of the following is TRUE about Cisneros in her childhood?
| A．She had seven brothers. |
| B．She felt herself a nobody. |
| C．She was too shy to go to school. |
| D．She did not have any good teachers. |
The graduate program gave Cisneros a chance to __________.
| A．work for a school magazine |
| B．run away from her family |
| C．make a lot of friends |
| D．develop her writing style |
According to Cisneros, what played the decisive role in her success?
| A．Her early years in college. |
| B．Her training in the Workshop. |
| C．Her feeling of being different. |
| D．Her childhood experience. |
What do we learn about The House on Mango Street?
| A．It is quite popular among students. |
| B．It is the only book ever written by Cisneros. |
| C．It wasn't successful as it was written in Spanish. |
| D．It won an award when Cisneros was twenty-nine. |
The word "sport" first meant something that people did in their free time. Later it often meant hunting wild animals and birds. About a hundred years ago the word was first used for organized games. This is the usual meaning of the word today. People spend a lot of their time playing football, basketball, tennis and many other sports. Such people play because they want to. A few people pay for the sport they play. These people are called professional sportsmen. They may be sportsmen for only a few years, but during that time the best ones can earn a lot of money. For example, a professional footballer in England earns more than 30, 000 dollars a year. The stars earn a lot more. International golf and tennis champions can make more than 500，000 dollars a year. Of course, only a few sportsmen can earn as much money as that.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about sportsmen and money is that the stars can earn more money from advertising than from sports. An advertisement for sports equipment does not simply say "Buy our things". It says "Buy the same shirt and shoes as...". Famous sportsmen can even advertise things like watches and food. They allow the companies to use their names or a photograph of them and they paid for this. Sport is no longer just something for people's spare time. From the passage we can learn that __________.
| A．people spend too much money on sports |
| B．the development of sports is slower than any other activity |
| C．most people enjoy sports because they can earn money |
| D．nowadays sport is not merely a pastime for people |
Nowadays, the word "sport" means __________.
| A．what people do in their spare time |
| B．hunting wild animals and birds |
| C．organized games |
| D．something people are paid to do |
People play sports for __________.
| A．fun | B．different purposes |
| C．money | D．keeping fit |
What surprises people most is that __________.
| A．the stars get more money from advertising |
| B．the word "sport" meant hunting animals |
| C．professional sportsmen are paid for what they do |
| D．only a few sportsmen can earn $500, 000 a year |
I always felt sorry for the people in wheelchair. Some people, old and weak, cannot get around by themselves. Others seem perfectly healthy, dressed in business suits. But whenever I saw someone in a wheelchair, I only saw a disability, not a person.
Then I fainted at Euro Disney due to low blood pressure. This was the first time I had ever fainted, and my parents said that I must rest for a while after First Aid. I agreed to take it easy but, as I stepped toward the door, I saw my dad pushing a wheelchair in my direction! Feeling the color burn my cheeks, I asked him to wheel that thing right back to where he found it.
I could not believe this was happening to me. Wheelchairs were fine for other people but not for me, as my father wheeled me out into the main street, people immediately began to treat me differently.
Little kids ran in front of me, forcing my father to stop the wheel chair suddenly. Bitterness set in as I was thrown back and forth. "Stupid kids—they have perfectly good legs. Why can't they watch where they are going?" I thought. People stared down at me, pity in their eyes. Then they would look away, maybe because they thought the sooner they forgot me the better.
"I'm just like you!" I wanted to scream. "The only difference is you've got legs, and I have wheels."
People in wheelchairs are not stupid. They see every look and hear each word. Looking out at the faces, I finally understood: I was once just like them. I treated people in wheelchairs exactly the way they did not want to be treated. I realized it is some of us with two healthy legs who are truly disabled. The author once __________ when she was healthy.
| A．laughed at disabled people |
| B．looked down upon disabled people |
| C．imagined herself sitting in a wheelchair |
| D．saw some healthy people moving around in wheelchairs |
Facing the wheelchair for the first time, the author __________.
| A．felt curious about it |
| B．got ready to move around in it right away |
| C．refused to accept it right away |
| D．thought it was ready for his father |
The experience of the author tells us that "__________".
| A．life is the best teacher |
| B．people often eat their bitter fruit |
| C．life is so changeable that nobody can foretell |
| D．one should not do to others what he would not like others do to him |
Which is the best title for this passage?
| A．How to Get Used to Wheelchairs |
| B．The Wheels Are as Good as Two Legs |
| C．People with Two Legs Are Truly Healthy |
| D．The Difference between Healthy People and the Disabled |
Wilderness
"In wilderness (荒野) is the preservation of the world." This is a famous saying from a writer regarded as one of the fathers of environmentalism. The frequency with which it is borrowed mirrors a heated debate on environmental protection: whether to place wilderness at the heart of what is to be preserved.
As John Sauven of Greenpeace UK points out, there is a strong appeal in images of the wild, the untouched; more than anything else, they speak of the nature that many people value most dearly. The urge to leave the subject of such images untouched is strong, and the danger exploitation (开发) brings to such landscapes (景观) is real. Some of these wildernesses also perform functions that humans need—the rainforests, for example, store carbon in vast quantities. To Mr. Sauven, these "ecosystem services" far outweigh the gains from exploitation.
Lee Lane, a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute, takes the opposing view. He acknowledges that wildernesses do provide useful services, such as water conservation. But that is not, he argues, a reason to avoid all human presence, or indeed commercial and industrial exploitation. There are ever more people on the Earth, and they reasonably and rightfully want to have better lives, rather than merely struggle for survival. While the ways of using resources have improved, there is still a growing need for raw materials, and some wildernesses contain them in abundance. If they can be tapped without reducing the services those wildernesses provide, the argument goes, there is no further reason not to do so. Being untouched is not, in itself, a characteristic worth valuing above all others.
I look forward to seeing these views taken further, and to their being challenged by the other participants. One challenge that suggests itself to me is that both cases need to take on the question of spiritual value a little more directly. And there is a practical question as to whether wildernesses can be exploited without harm.
This is a topic that calls for not only free expression of feelings, but also the guidance of reason. What position wilderness should enjoy in the preservation of the world obviously deserves much more serious thinking. John Sauven holds that __________.
| A．many people value nature too much |
| B．exploitation of wildernesses is harmful |
| C．wildernesses provide humans with necessities |
| D．the urge to develop the ecosystem services is strong |
What is the main idea of Para.3?
| A．The exploitation is necessary for the poor people. |
| B．Wildernesses cannot guarantee better use of raw materials. |
| C．Useful services of wildernesses are not the reason for no exploitation. |
| D．All the characteristics concerning the exploitation should be treated equally. |
What is the author's attitude towards this debate?
| A．Objective. | B．Disapproving. | C．Sceptical. | D．Optimistic. |
Which of the following shows the structure of the passage?
CP: Central Point P: Point Sp: Sub-point (次要点)
C: Conclusion