We have all experienced days when everything goes wrong. A day may begin well enough, but suddenly everything seems to get out of control. Sometimes a single unimportant event may cause a number of things to happen. Let us suppose that you are preparing a meal and keeping an eye on the baby at the same time. The telephone rings and this causes your troubles to begin. While you are on the phone, the baby pulls the tablecloth off the table, destroying your half-prepared meal. You hang up hurriedly and attend to your baby. Meanwhile, the meal gets burnt. As if this is not enough to bring you to tears, your husband arrives home, unexpectedly bringing three guests to dinner.
Things can also go wrong on the road. During rush hour one evening two cars collided and the drivers began to argue. The woman driver behind the two cars happened to be a learner. She got into a panic and stopped her car. This forced the driver following her to stop suddenly. This driver’s wife was sitting beside him holding a large cake, and as she was thrown forward, the cake went right through the window and landed on the road. A truck driver seeing a cake flying through the air slammed on the brakes. The truck was carrying empty beer bottles and hundreds of them slid off the back of the truck onto the road, causing a terrible traffic jam. It took the police an hour to get the traffic on the move again. In the meantime, the truck driver had to sweep up hundreds of broken bottles. Only two dogs were enjoying themselves, for they were happily having what was left of the cake.If you want to answer the phone without any trouble, you’d better ___________ .
| A．pull out the telephone line when you are with your baby |
| B．put your baby on the bed and keep an eye on him / her |
| C．not hurry to answer the phone |
| D．make sure your baby is not near the table |
Who is responsible for the accidents that happened on the road?
| A．The two drivers who were arguing. |
| B．It wasn’t mentioned in the passage. |
| C．The woman driver. |
| D．The truck driver. |
From this story we learn that ________.
| A．there are many road accidents every day |
| B．the accidents mentioned in the passage are very strange |
| C．no one knows why this kind of accident happens |
| D．the accidents mentioned in the passage are very common |
The writer’s purpose in writing this passage is to ___________.
| A．remind us not to answer the phone when we are busy |
| B．tell us driving is dangerous every day |
| C．remind us not to be nervous when we meet an accident |
| D．remind us not to carry a cake when we are sitting in a car |
The main idea of this passage is that ________.
| A．troubles always come in groups |
| B．accidents may happen anywhere at anytime |
| C．a telephone call may cause great trouble |
| D．anyone may have trouble on their way home |
Picture the scene: You come home after work feeling too exhausted to cook –only to find a delicious meal worthy of a Michelin-starred restaurant waiting for you. It sounds like a fantasy, but it could be about to come true thanks to a robot chef developed by British scientists.
Those scientists have come up with a set of robotic arms so smart that they are capable of cooking meals all by themselves. The device will be sold from as early as 2017 as part of a purpose-built high-tech kitchen.
Scientists at Moley Robotics spent almost 18 years developing the hands. According to its creators, the arms can chop, stir, whisk and baste well enough to recreate almost anything you would care to eat, whether it is a simple home-cooked supper, or a complicated creation designed by a world-class chef. The hands move a little slowly, hovering strangely above the work surface whenever they are not busy, but they imitate human movements closely enough that they can do things such as wiping a spoon on the edge of a pan to prevent drips.
Mr Oleynik, who is leading the project, said, “All the things which are possible with the hand are possible here. There is no limitation. A lot of people want to go to Michelin-starred restaurants, but they are quite expensive and may be quite far from the home. This is an opportunity for people to enjoy very good food, and for a reasonable price. ”
The only cuisine that is off the robot’s menu at the moment is sushi, which requires extremely steady pressure and nimble fingers to make, but the team plan to conquer that as well by the time it goes on sale.People go to Michelin-starred restaurants in order to______.
| A．appreciate car tires. | B．enjoy delicious meals |
| C．see the new robot chefs | D．escape from work |
What does the underlined word “they” in Paragraph 2 refer to?
| A．British scientists | B．The robot chef’s arms |
| C．Cooks at restaurants | D．Household wives |
Which kind of food CAN’T the robot chef cook at present?
| A．Bread | B．Beef | C．Sushi | D．Sandwich |
What can we infer from the passage?
| A．Hands of a robot chef can perform exactly like a cook. |
| B．Robot chefs are available at shopping malls. |
| C．Michelin-starred restaurants are suitable for many people. |
| D．It is uncertain when the robot can cook all kinds of food. |
The pounding（重击声）was driving Edward crazy. A new neighbor had just moved into the apartment below him. The newcomer was deaf, or seemed to be, because he played his stereoloud enough for the whole building to hear.
On the first day he heard the stereo rocking over, Edward marched downstairs and politely told the newcomer that his stereo was too loud. He asked the new tenant to turn the volume down and keep it down as long as he lived in the building. The tenant appeared surprised and embarrassed, and said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was that loud.”
So, Edward returned upstairs, feeling good, because he had taken a stand and politely let the newcomer know that loud music was not going to be tolerated. The next day all was quiet, and Edward continued to be pleased with himself. The following day, Edward thought it must be Fourth of July, because a marching band was playing on his street. In fact, it was the new neighbor who was playing his music loud again.
Edward was not one to repeat himself, feeling that each time you repeated yourself, you diminished the value of your words. So, he did what he always did with rude neighbors－grinand bear it. Eventually, they would move away. What else are you going to do?
In Los Angles a year ago, a woman had complained to her upstairs neighbor that he was playing his drums too loud and too often. The drummer repeatedly ignored her. One day the woman walked upstairs and shot the drummer in the head and his girlfriend in the chest. The woman was sentenced to prison for 20 years.
The dead drummer won’t bother anyone with his drums, but the woman might be wishing now that she had learned to grin and bear it. If she were still living in her apartment, she could always move. When you’re in prison, you don’t have that option.The man living below where Edward lived was .
| A．a deaf man | B．the owner of the house |
| C．a tenant | D．an old neighbor |
What did Edward always do with rude neighbors?
| A．Grinning and bearing it. |
| B．Persuading them to stop repeatedly. |
| C．Shouting them to dead. |
| D．Moving away from the rude neighbors. |
The woman killed her neighbor because .
| A．he ignored her advice repeatedly |
| B．she could not stand his playing the guitar too loud |
| C．she could not put up with him any longer |
| D．he played the drums too often |
The author writes the last paragraph to prove that .
| A．being in prison means the loss of freedom |
| B．grinning and bearing it is the best policy |
| C．Edward should follow the example of the woman |
| D．the woman was right to kill her neighbor |
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Buy a Starbucks Card handy to create an account.
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Personalized Gold CardWhich of the following is a way you can apply for membership?
| A．To enter a Starcode from specially marked Starbucks® products. |
| B．To buy a Starbucks Card over the phone. |
| C．To update the Starbucks® App from the official website. |
| D．To buy a drink at a Starbucks on weekends. |
With the Starbucks®App, you can ________.
| A．change the prices | B．earn a Star |
| C．pay for rewards | D．view current offers |
With a Starbucks Card of Green level, you will get ________.
| A．a free cake | B．personalized Green Card |
| C．free in-store refills | D．all purchases 15% off |
Modern festival-goers who worry about ending up with a dead mobile phone battery(电池) after days stuck in a muddy field with no electric plug power points may now have a solution——power boots(靴子).
Mobile phone company European Telco Orange has introduced a phone charging(充电) prototype—— a set of thermoelectric gumboots or Wellington boots with a “power generation sole” that changes heat from the wearer’s feet into electrical power to charge battery-powered hand-helds.
The boot was designed by Dave Pain, managing director at GotWind, a renewable energy company. Pain said the boot uses the Seebeck effect, in which a circuit made of two dissimilar metals conducts electricity if the two places where they connect are held at different temperatures. “In the sole of the Wellington boot there’s a thermocouple and if you apply heat to one side of the thermocouple and cold to the other side it produces an electrical charge,” Pain said. “That electrical charge we then pass through to a battery which you’ll find in the heel of the boot for storage of the electrical power for later use to charge your mobile phone.” These thermocouples are connected electrically, forming an array of multiple thermocouples (thermopile). They are then sandwiched between two thin ceramic wafers. When the heat from the foot is applied on the top side of the ceramic wafer and cold is applied on the opposite side, from the cold of the ground, electricity is made.
But the prototype boot does have one drawback. You have to walk for 12 hours in the boots to make one hour’s worth of charge.The passage is probably taken from _____________ of a website.
| A．the business book | B．the sports book |
| C．the science book | D．the health book |
What’s the main idea of the third paragraph?
| A．How the boot works to make electricity. |
| B．How long the boot can be used. |
| C．Who invented the power boot. |
| D．The weakness of the boot. |
Which of the following can replace the underlined word “drawback” in the last paragraph?
| A．Benefit. | B．Disadvantage. |
| C．Patience. | D．Function. |
The invention seems to be good news to those___________.
| A．who like traveling in the wild |
| B．who work at home |
| C．who study at school |
| D．who work at an office |
“Keep your eyes on the ball.” That is good advice when you are on the playing field, and good advice for everyday life. “Keep your mind on what’s important,” is the way I’d put it. But people are funny. They think too much about the details.
I had a secretary once. She was very hardworking. I ran a school and people used to call up to enroll(登记) for courses. Berry used to get angry at the phone. “If they keep on ringing, I’ll never get my typing done!” she’d shout.
People just don’t see the big picture. One evening, after leaving work, I was sitting next to a man on the train. I was feeling tired. My eyes fell on the paper he had spread out in front of him. You know how you feel to read over someone’s shoulder?
I read the page and leaned back. I guessed I was waiting for him to turn it. After a while, I realized—he wasn’t turning the page. He just kept on reading.
Now if you knew the page he was reading, you’d know that there weren’t many words on the page to read anyway. The layout（版面） was mostly pictures. So I turned to the man and said,” You know, you really read very slowly.”
“What do you mean?” he asked. “Well,” I told him, “I read the page in about a minute, and you have taken about ten. And you are still reading. You know,” I went on “If you learned to read faster, you could get more reading done.” He remained silent for a minute or two. “If I read too fast, my paper wouldn’t last me to my station.”The writer wasn’t satisfied with his secretary because ___.
| A．she didn’t put first thing first |
| B．she was too busy |
| C．she was easy to get angry |
| D．she couldn’t finish her work on time |
The man read newspaper in order to___.
| A． take in information | B． enjoy pictures |
| C． save time | D． kill time |
The writer thinks that people seem to need a sense of ___.
| A．what to read first | B．how to read fast |
| C．what is important | D．what is funny |