We all know what it is like to be unable to turn your head because of a cold in the muscles (肌肉) of your neck, or because an unexpected twist（扭曲）has made your neck ache. The slightest move makes you jump with pain. Nothing could be worse than a pain in the neck.
That is why we use the phrase to describe some people who give you the same feeling. We have all met such people.
One is the man who always seems to be clapping his hands—often at the wrong time—during a performance in the theater. He keeps you from hearing the actors.
Even worse are those who can never arrive before the curtain goes up and the play begins. They come hurrying down to your row of seats. You are comfortably settled down, with your hat and heavy coat in your lap. You must stand up to let them pass. You are proud of yourself-control after they have settled into their seats…Well, what now…God, one of them is up again. He forgot to go to the men’s room, and once more you have to stand up, hanging on to your hat and coat to let him pass. Now, that is “a pain in the neck”.
Another, well—known to us all, is the person sitting behind you in the movies. His mouth is full of popcorn (爆米花); he is chewing（嚼）loudly, or talking between bites to friends next to him. None of them remain still. Up and down, back and forth, they go—for another bag of popcorn, or something to drink.
Then, there is the man sitting next to you at lunch, smoking. He wants you to enjoy it too, and blows smoke across your food into your mouth.
We must not forget the man who comes into a bus or subway and sits down next to you, just as close as you will let him. You are reading the newspaper and he gets closer so that he can read the paper with you. He may even turn the paper to the next page before you are ready for it.
We also call such a person a “rubber neck”, always getting close to where it does not belong, like neighbors who watch all your visitors. They enjoy learning about your personal business. People have a strong dislike for “rubber necks”. They hate being watched secretly.Where can you find this passage?
| A．In a medicine dictionary. | B．in a kids’ story book. |
| C．In a social science book. | D．In a science textbook. |
According to the passage, how do you feel when late comers walk back and forth in front of you in a cinema?
| A．disturbed. | B．bored. | C．ignored. | D．relaxed. |
A “rubber neck” often __________________ .
| A．says bad words behind people. | B．quarrels face to face with neighbors. |
| C．bargains with salespeople over the price | D．asks about other people’s business |
Which of the following persons CANNOT be described as a “pain in the neck”?
| A．Someone who often claps at the wrong time during a performance. |
| B．Someone who feels ache in his neck due to a cold in the muscles. |
| C．Someone who sits next to you smoking, which you never enjoy. |
| D．Someone who keeps eating or talking all through the movies. |
What is the main purpose of the author?
| A．To tell people what might be bad manners in public. |
| B．To criticize (批评) the people who might be a “pain in the neck” |
| C．To show anger to those who are described as a “pain in the neck”. |
| D．To tell people how to stop the pain in the neck. |
A growing number of American homes are keeping African pygmy hedgehogs(刺猬) as pets. Hers are some questions and answers about the small animals whose backs and sides are covered with about 6,000 quills. Their quills are short, but hard and sharp.
Where do they come from?
The breed is a hybrid (杂种) of the four-toed hedgehog or African white-bellied hedgehog and the Algerian hedgehog. Its natural habitat is central, eastern and southern Africa. It now breaks the law to bring them into the United States.
An adult African pygmy hedgehog is 6 to 11 inches long and weighs 1 to 2 pounds. A relaxed one is generally oval (椭圆的) , with a very short tail and short limbs that keep the body close to the ground . When threatened or frightened, it rolls into a ball and forces its quills out in all directions. Female hedgehogs are a bit larger than the male ones. The face and the underside are covered with soft and white fur.
What do they eat?
In the wild, the hedgehog feeds mainly on insects. It also eats earthworms, snails and slugs, as well as small snakes and frogs. Pet owners feed cat food to hedgehogs that are kept at home by them.
How many babies can a mother hedgehog give birth to one time?
After hedgehogs get pregnant, it just takes about 35 days for them to give birth. Hedgehogs are born in babies of 2 to 10, each having white quills that do not injure the mother during birth. The US Department of Agriculture requires anyone breeding at least three hedgehogs to get a license.Paragraph 1 shows that keeping African pygmy hedgehogs as pets__ __.
| A．is very exciting but dangerous for pet owners |
| B．is becoming more and more popular in the US |
| C．is causing more and more troubles for pet owners |
| D．is the most popular with people in the United States |
What do we know about African pygmy hedgehogs?
| A．They usually live in eastern and northern Africa. |
| B．They like rolling away when threatened or frightened. |
| C．They are usually 6 inches long when they are born. |
| D．They are a new breed by two kinds of hedge-hogs. |
Which of the following can be used as the second subtitle?
| A．What do they look like? |
| B．How much do they weigh? |
| C．How long are their bodies? |
| D．How do they protect themselves? |
When African pygmy hedgehogs are born, they probably__ __.
| A．often influence their mother’s life |
| B．have very soft white quills |
| C．can look for insects within days |
| D．often become food of small snakes |
I was born into a family of five children. As the youngest child, I didn’t have many new clothes. Though my parents worked very hard, we could hardly make ends meet. The only time we would receive new clothes was at Christmas.
The family across the street lived a much better life. They just had two daughters and they were often seen wearing new dresses. The younger girl named Anna was of my age. One afternoon, she walked on the street wearing a beautiful white dress. She looked like an angel in that dress. I, together with many little girls, followed her. We just couldn’t keep our eyes off her dress. We all wished we would have such a dress one day!
That day, after coming back, I told my mom that I wanted a dress like that. My mom frowned(皱眉) she thought such a beautiful dress like that must cost an arm and a leg, but my mom kept that in mind. She worked five days a week at that time, but when Christmas was getting close, she worked even on every Saturday.
However, several days before Christmas, I changed my mind. It was Anna’s birthday that day and I was invited to her home with some other girls. After that party, I asked if I could try on her white dress. “Of course,” she said, “and you can take it if you like it.” I couldn’t believe my ears. How could she give such a beautiful dress to someone else? After trying it on, I knew why.
The dress looked beautiful, but it was uncomfortable to wear. As a matter of fact, my back was quite itchy(痒的) after I put it on. From that day on, I stopped admiring what others had. They may not be as good aswe think.When the writer was a little girl, she .
| A．couldn’t get whatever she liked |
| B．couldn’t see her parents at all |
| C．didn’t like new clothes |
| D．didn’t like Christmas that much |
When the other girls saw Anna’s dress, they thought it .
| A．too little | B．very cheap |
| C．very beautiful | D．very comfortable |
The writer’s mother started working on very Saturday because she .
| A．wanted to buy a new dress for herself |
| B．had to buy all her children expensive gifts |
| C．prepared herself for the busiest Christmas. |
| D．wanted to buy the dress the writer wanted |
From the passage, we learn that .
| A．there are always kind-hearted people around us |
| B．what others have may not be as good as we think |
| C．we should give what we no longer need to others |
| D．we can get what we want if we try hard enough |
We take it for granted that with memory we can remember most of things which happened in our life. But it is difficult to imagine what life would be like without memory. The meanings of thousands of everyday perceptions(感知), the basis for the decisions we make, and the roots of our habits and skills are to be found in our past experiences, which are brought into the present by memory.
Memory can be defined as the ability to keep information available for later use. It not only includes “remembering” things like arithmetic(算术) or historical facts, but also involves any change in the way an animal typically behaves. Memory is involved when a rat gives up eating grain because he has sniffed something suspicious in the grain pile.
Memory exists not only in humans and animals but also in some physical objects and machines. Computers, for example, contain devices for storing data for later use. It is interesting to compare the memory storage capacity(容量) of a computer with that of a human being. The instant access memory of a large computer may hold up to 100,000 “words”—strings of alphabetic or numerical characters—ready for instant use. An average U.S. teenager probably recognizes the meaning of about 1000,000 words of English. However, this is but a part of the total amount of information that the teenager has stored. Consider, for example, the number of faces and places that the teenager can recognize on sight.
The use of words is the basis of the advanced problem solving intelligence of human beings. A large part of a person’s memory is in terms of words and combinations of words. But while language greatly expands the number and the kind of things a person can remember, it also requires a huge memory capacity. It may well be this capacity that distinguishes humans, setting them apart from other animals.Which of the following is true about memory?
| A．It helps us perceive things happening around us every day. |
| B．It is based on the decisions we made in the past. |
| C．It is rooted in our past habits and skills. |
| D．It connects our past experiences with the present. |
According to the passage, memory is helpful in one’s life in the following aspects EXCEPT that________________.
| A．it involves a change in one’s behavior |
| B．it keeps information for later use |
| C．it warns people not to do things repeatedly |
| D．it enables one to remember events that happened in the past |
What is the major characteristic of man’s memory capacity according to the author?
| A．It can be expanded by language. |
| B．It can remember all the combined words. |
| C．It may keep all the information in the past. |
| D．It may change what has been stored in it. |
Human beings make themselves different from other animals by________.
| A．having the ability to perceive danger |
| B．having a far greater memory capacity |
| C．having the ability to recognize faces and places on sight |
| D．having the ability to draw on past experiences |
Generally speaking, government regulations normally ban anything from smoking in public places to parking in certain zones. But officials in the Brazilian town of Biritiba Mirim, 70km (45miles) east of Sao Paulo, have gone far beyond that. They plan to prohibit residents from dying early because the local cemetery(墓地) has reached full capacity.
There’s no more room to bury the dead, they can’t be cremated(火化) and laws forbid a new cemetery. So the mayor has proposed a strange solution: outlaw death. Mayor Roberto Pereira says the bill is meant as a protest against federal regulations that prohibit new or expanded cemeteries in preservation areas. “They have not taken local demands into consideration”, he claims.
A 2003 decree(法令) by Brazil’s National Environment Council forbids burial grounds in protected areas. Mr. Pereira wants to build a new cemetery, but the project has been stopped because 98% of Biritiba Mirim is considered as a preservation area.
Biritiba Mirim, a town of 28,000 inhabitants, not only wants to prohibit residents from passing away. The bill also calls on people to take care of their health in order to avoid death. “I haven’t got a job, nor am I healthy. And now they say I can’t die. That’s ridiculous,” Amarido do Prado, an unemployed resident said.
The city council is expected to vote on the regulation next week. “Of course the bill is laughable, illegal, and will never be approved,” said Gilson Soares de Campos, an assistant of the mayor. “But can you think of a better resolution to persuade the government to change the environmental decree that is prohibiting us from building a new cemetery?” The bill states that “offenders will be held responsible for their acts.” However, it does not say what the punishment will be.What is the bill to be proposed by the officials in Biritiba Mirim?
| A．Ban on building a new cemetery. |
| B．Ban on parking in certain zones. |
| C．Forbidding buried grounds in preservation. |
| D．Prohibiting residents from dying early. |
What can we infer from the phrase “have gone far beyond that” in the first paragraph?
| A．The officials in Biritiba Mirim have made these regulations. |
| B．The officials in Biritiba Mirim have been to many places around the world. |
| C．The bill to be proposed by officials in Biritiba Mirim is much too unexpected. |
| D．The officials in Biritiba Mirim have built too many cemeteries in their town. |
What’s the attitude of the mayor of Biritiba Mirim towards the federal regulations?
| A．He remains silent about them. |
| B．He gives strong backing to them. |
| C．He objects to them. |
| D．He asks the residents for advice on them. |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the text?
| A．The mayor of the town wants to build a new cemetery against federal regulation. |
| B．The residents of the town sing high praise for the bill. |
| C．No better resolution of the problems has been thought out. |
| D．The government is going to change the environmental decree. |
A survey suggests that people who have dropped out from high school just earn an average of $9,000 less per year than graduates. Now a new study removes a common belief why they quit. It’s much more basic than flunking out(不及格).
Society tends to think of high school dropouts as kids who just can’t cut it. They are lazy, and perhaps not too bright. So researchers were surprised when they asked more than 450 kids who quit school about why they left.
“The vast majority actually had passing grades and they were confident that they could have graduated from high school.” John Bridgeland, the executive researcher said. About one million teens leave school each year. Only about half of African-American and Hispanic(美籍西班牙的)students will receive a diploma(证书), and actually all dropouts come to regret their decision. So, if failing grades don’t explain why these kids quit, what does? Again, John Bridgeland: “The most dependable finding was that they were bored.” “They found classes uninteresting; they weren’t inspired or motivated. They didn’t see any direct connection between what they were learning in the classroom to their own lives, or to their career aspirations.”
The study found that most teens who do drop out wait until they turn sixteen, which happens to be the age at which most states allow students to quit. In the U.S., only one state, New Mexico, has a law requiring teenagers to stay in high school until they graduate. Only four states: California, Tennessee, Texas and Utah, plus the District of Columbia, require school attendance until age 18, no exceptions. Jeffrey Grin, another researcher, says raising the compulsory attendance age may be one way to keep more kids in school.
“As these dropouts look back, they realize they’ve made a mistake. And anything that sort of gives these people an extra push to stick it out and see it through to the end, is probably helpful measure.”
New Hampshire may be the next state to raise its school attendance age to 18. But critics say that forcing the students unwilling to continue their studies to stay in school misses the point—the need for reform. It’s been called for to reinvent high school education to make it more challenging and relevant, and to ensure that kids who do stick it out receive a diploma that actually means something.According to researchers’ study, most high school students drop out of school because____________.
| A．they have failing grades |
| B．they are lazy and not intelligent |
| C．they are discriminated against |
| D．they take no interest in classes |
According to the passage, which state has a law requiring school attendance until they graduate?
| A．New Hampshire. |
| B．Utah. |
| C．New Mexico. |
| D．The District of Columbia. |
In the last paragraph, the writer is trying to__________.
| A．suggest raising the compulsory attendance age |
| B．analyze the reason why students quit school |
| C．raise awareness of reforming high school dropouts |
| D．wish to make laws to guarantee no dropouts |
From the passage, we can infer the following EXCEPT that __________.
| A．the grades of most dropouts at school were acceptable |
| B．dropouts’ salary is not as satisfying as graduates’ |
| C．classes don’t appeal to dropouts |
| D．about 500,000 high school dropouts are black and Spanish |