Facebook means never having to say goodbye. The social media website has earned a reputation for reconnecting old friends. Last week，a guy whom I hadn't seen since my bachelor party five years ago sent me a friend request. I accepted and waited for “Easy E” to send me a greeting of some kind. He had sought me out，after all.
I learned from his profile that he was in a relationship and had a son. However，I'm pretty sure we won't ever write wall-to-wall，let alone email each other. But he'll remain a friend of online until one of us makes a point of removing the other from his official list.
My pool of friends consists of family members，college buddies，coworkers from past and present，and friends of friends. There are 35 in all. If I spent some time uploading old email addresses，I'm confident that I could increase my friend count actually.
A person could make a mission out of reconnecting with childhood friends，former classmates，distant cousins, and those one would like to get to know better. And some people can even handle hundreds of onscreen relationships，keeping up with the daily happenings of their small army of companions. After all，there are worse fates than having too many friends.
Thanks to email，the inability to schedule face-to-face meetings no longer means a friendship must come to a close. But even with email，people will lose touch if one or both parties stop writing back. That’s normal. People move from school to school，job to job，city to city. You never have to feel guilty for breaking away.
Every day，the masterminds of Web 2.0 find new ways of making human communication easier. However，convenience can be a crutch(拐杖)．Some things shouldn't be simplified. When it comes to friendship，there can be no shortcuts.According to Paragraph 1，the website is famous because ________.
| A．it has an interesting name of “Facebook” |
| B．it helps people get in touch with old friends |
| C．it can send people a greeting of some kind |
| D．it reminds people of events in the past |
From the second paragraph we can learn that the writer ________.
| A．would write to the friend quite often |
| B．asked the friend to email him |
| C．did get some information about the friend |
| D．would keep in touch with the friend forever |
Which of the following statements is NOT true?
| A．There are 35 people in the author's list of friends right now. |
| B．The author communicates with all the 35 friends by emails. |
| C．The list of 35 friends doesn't include the old email addresses. |
| D．It is not difficult for the author to increase his friend count. |
What does the author think of the convenience of communicating online?
| A．The technology could not keep true friendship forever. |
| B．The social website of Facebook means nothing at all. |
| C．There will be no ways of making real friends online. |
| D．People will not lose friends with the help of the Facebook. |
At 9:00 Dick Spivak’s bank telephoned and said his payment was late. ‘The check is in the post,’ Dick replied quickly. At 11:45 Dick left for a 12:00 meeting across town. Arriving late, he explained that traffic had been bad. That evening, Dick’s girlfriend wore a new dress. He hated it. ‘It looks just great on you,’ he said.
Three lies in one day! Yet Dick Spivak is just an ordinary man. Each time, he told himself that sometimes the truth causes too many problems. Most of us tell much the same white lies, harmless untruths that help to save trouble. How often do we tell white lies? It depends in part on our age, education, and even where we live. According to one U.S. study, women are more truthful than men, and honesty increases as we get older.
While most people use little white lies to make life easier, the majority of Americans care about honesty in both public and personal life. They say that people today are less honest than they were ten years ago. Although it is believed that things are getting worse, lying seems to be an age-old human problem. The French philosopher (哲学家) Vauvenarges, writing in the eighteenth century, touched on the truth when he wrote, ‘All men are born truthful and die liars (说谎者).’When the writer says ‘Dick Spivak is just an ordinary man’, he means _________.
| A．it is common that people tell white lies |
| B．Dick could do nothing about bad traffic |
| C．it is common that people move their payment to a later time |
| D．Dick found it hard to deal with everyday problems |
According to the text, most Americans _________.
| A．hate white lies | B．believe white lies |
| C．consider others dishonest | D．value honesty |
Vauvenarges’ remark suggests (暗示) that _________.
| A．lying is an age-old human problem |
| B．dishonesty increases as people get older |
| C．people were dishonest in the 18th century |
| D．it is social conditions that make people tell lies |
‘As I stood in front of the grave (墓) of President Richard Nixon, I was thinking about the time 25 years ago when this president helped bring the United States and China closer together. Young people of our two countries should help this relationship grow.’
This remark (评论) was made by a Shanghai student when speaking to his fellow students at the Nixon Library in California, U.S.A. He was one of 80 middle school students from China attending a month-long ‘Youth Summit’. The Summit was to mark the 25th anniversary (周年) of President Nixon’s journey to China, which was the turning point in China-U.S. relations.
The Youth Summit was aimed at increasing understanding and friendship between young students of the two countries through visits and discussions. Seventy-five American students were selected to visit China. They also visited the Nixon Library on July 21 before leaving for Beijing the next day. The head of the Library said he was pleased to see the American and Chinese students talking and laughing together.
One Chinese student said, ‘I didn’t find it particularly difficult to talk with Americans. We have our differences, but we have a lot in common. Dialogue is good for us.’The words ‘Youth Summit’ in the text refer to ________.
| A．visits to the Nixon Library |
| B．the Chinese students’ visit to the U.S. |
| C．a meeting discussing relations between China and the U.S. |
| D．activities to make the ties between the Chinese and American students stronger |
The student from Shanghai thought about the time 25 years ago because it was when Nixon ________.
| A．died |
| B．visited China |
| C．became U.S. president |
| D．started building the library in his name |
The text is mainly about ________.
| A．the China-U.S. relations | B．the Nixon Library |
| C．the youth Summit | D．President Nixon |
Today, roller skating is easy and fun. But a long time ago, it wasn’t easy at all. Before 1750, the idea of skating didn’t exist (存在). That changed because of a man named Joseph Merlin. Merlin’s work was making musical instruments. In his spare time he liked to play the violin. Joseph Merlin was a man of ideas and dreams. People called him a dreamer.
One day Merlin received an invitation to attend a fancy dress ball (化装舞会). He was very pleased and a little excited. As the day of the party came near, Merlin began to think how to make a grand (壮丽的) entrance at the party. He had an idea. He thought he would get a lot of attention if he could skate into the room.
Merlin tried different ways to make himself roll. Finally, he decided to put two wheels under each shoe. These were the first roller skates. Merlin was very proud of his invention and dreamed of arriving at the party on wheels while playing the violin.
On the night of the party Merlin rolled into the room playing his violin. Everyone was greatly surprised to see him. There was just one problem. Merlin had no way to stop his roller skates. He rolled on and on. Suddenly, he ran into a huge mirror that was hanging on the wall. Down fell the mirror, breaking to pieces. Nobody forgot Merlin’s grand entrance for a long time!The text is mainly about __________.
| A．a strange man |
| B．an unusual party |
| C．how roller skating began |
| D．how people enjoyed themselves in the 18th century |
People thought Merlin was a dreamer because he __________.
| A．was full of imagination |
| B．was a gifted (有才华的) musician |
| C．invented the roller skates |
| D．often gave others surprises |
Merlin put wheels under his shoes in order to __________.
| A．show his skill in walking on wheels |
| B．arrive at the party sooner |
| C．test his invention |
| D．impress the party guests |
What is the main point the writer is trying to make in the last paragraph (自然段)?
| A．The roller skates needed further improvement. |
| B．The party guests took Merlin for a fool. |
| C．Merlin succeeded beyond (超出) expectation. |
| D．Merlin got himself into trouble. |
Say (suppose) you are a 17th century construction worker who’s worked long and hard to build a splendid tower for the dead wife of your emperor.
Now say that the emperor orders your fingertips cut off so you can never build another one. Yes, that is the Taj Mahal, one of the most famous buildings in the world. And the tale behind the construction is just as impressive as the building itself.
First, there’s the emperor of northern India, Shah Jehan, also called the King of the World. In 1612, Shah Jehan married Mumtaz Mahal. Madly in love, they had 14 children over the next 20 years. But then sadness came. As Mumtaz was about to give birth to child number 14, she said she had heard her unborn baby cry out. It was a sign of death. And as Mumtaz lay dying, she asked Jehan to build a lasting memorial (纪念物) to celebrate their love.
When the heartbroken Jehan appeared eight days after his wife’s death, his people were shocked to see that his coal-black hair had turned snow-white.
Putting away his sadness, Jehan ordered his wife’s dying wish carried out. More than 20,000 workers labored nearly 22 years to complete the construction. In 1653, Jehan placed Mumtaz’s remains (遗体) in the center under the building.
And then, son number five, Aurangzeb, murdered his brothers and took over the power from his aging father. Jehan lived the rest of his days － eight years, to be exact － imprisoned not far from the Taj Mahal. Jehan was only allowed to climb onto the top of his prison to see the timeless treasure from a distance. But never again would he be allowed to visit it－until he was buried next to his wife.
Today 25,000 people visit the Taj Mahal each day. Though the reason for building the tower was a strange, sad story, those who see its breath-taking beauty are reminded of the happiness that inspired (激发……的灵感) its construction.The first two paragraphs were written to show that ________.
| A．the Taj Mahal is an unusual historic building |
| B．ancient Indian emperors were cruel |
| C．construction workers led a hard life in ancient India |
| D．India has some of the most famous buildings in the world |
The Taj Mahal was first built as ________.
| A．a prison | B．a gift to Mumtaz |
| C．a memorial building | D．a tourist attraction |
We learn from the text that Mumtaz probably died in ________.
| A．1626 | B．1632 | C．1634 | D．1653 |
The underlined word “happiness” in the last sentence refers to ________.
| A．the married happiness of the emperor and his wife |
| B．the great pleasure Jehan once found in exercising his power |
| C．the happiness Jehan felt on completing the Taj Mahal |
| D．the pleasure tourists experience when visiting the Taj Mahal. |
Deserts are found where there is little rainfall or where rain for a whole year falls in only a few weeks time. Then inches of rain may be enough for many plants to survive if the rain is spread throughout the year. If it falls within one or two months and the rest of the year is dry, those plants may die and a desert may form.
Sand begins as tiny pieces of rock that get smaller and smaller as wind and weather wear them down. Sand dunes (沙丘) are formed as winds move the sand across the desert. Bit by bit, the dunes grow over the years, always moving with the winds and changing the shape. Most of them are only a few feet tall, but they can grow to be several hundred feet high.
There is, however, much more to a desert than sand. In the deserts of the Southwestern United States, cliffs (悬崖) and deep valleys were formed from thick mud that once lay beneath a sea more than millions of years ago. Over the centuries, the water dried up. Wind, sand, rain, heat and cold all wore away at the remaining rocks. The faces of the desert mountains are always changing — very, very slowly — as these forces of nature continue to work on the rock.
Most deserts have a surprising variety of life. There are plants, animals and insects that have adapted to life in the desert. During the heat of the day, a visitor may see very few signs of living things, but as the air begins to cool in the evening, the desert comes to life. As the sun begins to rise again in the sky, the desert once again becomes quiet and lonely.Many plants may survive in deserts when ________.
| A．the rain is spread out in a year |
| B．the rain falls only in a few weeks |
| C．there is little rain in a year |
| D．it is dry all the year round |
Sand dunes are formed when ________.
| A．sand piles up gradually |
| B．there is plenty of rain in a year |
| C．the sea has dried up over the years |
| D．pieces of rock get smaller |
The underlined sentence in the third paragraph probably means that in a desert there is ________.
| A．too much sand |
| B．more sand than before |
| C．nothing except sand |
| D．something else besides sand |
It can be learned from the text that in a desert ________.
| A．there is no rainfall throughout the year |
| B．life exists in rough conditions |
| C．all sand dunes are a few feet high |
| D．rocks are worn away only by wind and heat |