From the health point of view we are living in an amazing age.We are free from many of the most dangerous diseases.A large number of once deadly illnesses can now be cured by modem medicine.It is almost certain that one day medicines will be found for the most stubborn remaining diseases, The expectation of life has increased greatly.But though the possibility of living a long and happy life is greater than ever before, every day we witness the unbelievable killing of men, women and children on the roads.Man vs the motor-cart,It is a never-ending battle which man is losing.Thousands of people over the world are killed each year and we are quietly sitting back and letting it happen.
It has been rightly said that when a man is sitting behind a steering wheel (方向盘), his car becomes the extension of his personality. There is no doubt that the motor-car often brings out a man's very worst qualities. People who are normally quiet and pleasant may become crazy when they are behind a steering-wheel .They are ill-mannered and aggressive, willful as two-year-olds and completely selfish.All their hidden angers and disappointments seem to be brought to die surface by the act of driving.
The surprising thing is that society smiles so gently on the motorist and seems to forgive his behaviour. Everything is done for his convenience.Cities are allowed to become almost uninhabitable(不宜居住的) because of heavy traffic; towns are made ugly by huge car parks; the countryside is ruined by road networks; and the deaths become nothing more than a number every year, to be easily forgotten.
It is high time that a world rule was created to reduce this senseless waste of human life.With regard to driving, the laws of some countries are unbelievably lax(不严格)and even the strictest are not strict enough.A rule which was universally accepted could only have an obviously beneficial effect on the accident rate.Here are a few examples of some of the things that might be done.The driving test should be standardized and made far more difficult than it is; all the drivers should be made to take a test every three years or so; the age at which young people are allowed to drive any vehicle should be raised to at least 21; all vehicles should be put through strict tests for safety each year.Even the smallest amount of alcohol in the blood can damage a person's driving ability.Present drinking and driving laws should be revised much stricter.Speed limits should be required on all roads.Governments should lay down safety directions for car factories, as has been done in the USA.All advertising stressing power and performance should be banned.These measures may not sound good enough.But surely nothing should be considered as too severe if it results in reducing the number of deaths.After all, the world is for human beings, not motor-cars.What is the main idea of this passage?
| A.Traffic accidents are mainly caused by motorists. |
| B.Thousands of people are killed each year. |
| C.The laws of some countries about driving are too lax. |
| D.Only stricter traffic laws can prevent accidents. |
What does the author think of society towards motorists?
| A.Society laughs at the motorists. |
| B.Huge car parks are built in the cities and towns. |
| C.Victims of accidents are nothing. |
| D.Society easily forgives their rude driving. |
What does the author mean by saying " his car becomes the extension of his personality" in paragraph 2?
| A.Driving can show his hidden qualities. |
| B.Driving can show the other part of his personality. |
| C.Driving can bring out his character. |
| D.Driving can represent his manners. |
Which of the followings is NOT mentioned as a way against traffic accidents?
| A.Build more highways. |
| B.Stricter driving tests. |
| C.Test drivers every three years. |
| D.Raise age limit and make safety specifications. |
The author's attitude towards the traffic situation is ______.
| A.positive | B.unsatisfied | C.promising | D.unclear |
Do you know of anyone who uses the truth to deceive (欺骗)? When someone tells you something that is true, but leaves out important information that should be included, he can give you a false picture.
For example, some might say, “I just won a hundred dollars on the lottery (彩票). It was great. I took that dollar ticket back to the store and turned it in for one hundred dollars!”
This guy’s a winner, right? Maybe, maybe not. We then discover that he bought $200 worth of tickets, an
d only one was a winner. He’s really a big loser!
He didn’t say anything that was false, but he left out important information on purpose. That’s called a half-truth. Half-truths are not lies, but they are just as dishonest.
Some politicians often use this trick. Let’s say that during Governor Smith’s last term, her state lost one million jobs and gained three million jobs. Then she seeks another term. One of her opponents(对手) says, “During Governor Smith’s term, the state lost one million jobs!” That’s true. However, and honest statement would have been, “During Governor Smith’s term, the state had a net gain of two million jobs.”
Advertisers(广告商) will sometimes use half-truths. It’s against the law to make false statements so they try to mislead you with the truth. An advertisement might say, “Nine out of ten doctors advised their patients to take Yucky Pills to cure toothache.” It fails to mention that they only asked ten doctors and nine of them work for the Yucky Company.
This kind of deception happens too often. It’s a sad fact of life: Lies are lies, and sometimes the truth can lie as well.How much did the lottery winner lose?
| A.One hundred dollars. | B.Two hundred dollars. |
| C.Three hundred dollars. | D.Four hundred dollars. |
We may infer (推断) that the author believes people should _______.
| A.buy lottery tickets | B.make use of half-truths |
| C.not trust anything without careful thoughts | D.not trust the Yucky Company |
What do the underline words “net gain” in Paragraph 5 mean?
| A.big advantage. | B.large share. | C.total loss. | D.final increase. |
What can we know from the example of the Yucky Pill advertisement?
| A.False statements are easy to see through. | B.Half-truths are often used to mislead people. |
| C.Doctors like to act in advertisements. | D.Advertisements are based on facts. |
Modern inventions have speeded up people’s loves amazingly. Motor-cars cover a hundred miles in little more than an hour, aircraft cross the world inside a day, while computers operate at lightning speed. Indeed, this love of speed seems never-ending. Every year motor-cars are produced which go even faster and each new computer boasts (吹嘘) of saving precious seconds in handling tasks.
All this saves time, but at a price. When we lose or gain half a day in speeding across the world in an airplane, our bodies tell us so. We get the uncomfortable feeling known as jet-lag; our bodies feel that they have been left behind on another time zone. Again, spending too long at computers results in painful wrists and fingers. Mobile phones also have their dangers, according to some scientists; too much use may transmit harmful radiation into our brains, a consequence we do not like to think about.
However, what do we do with the time we have saved? Certainly not relax, or so it seems. We are so accustomed to constant activity that we find it difficult to sit and do nothing or even just one thing at a time. Perhaps the days are long gone when we might listen quietly to a story on the radio, letting imagination take us into another world.
There was a time when some people’s lives were devoted simply to the cultivation of the land or the care of cattle. No multi-tasking there; their lives went on at a much gentler pace, and in a familiar pattern. There is much that we might envy about a way of life like this. Yet before we do so, we must think of the hard tasks our ancestor faced: they farmed with bare hands, often lived close to hunger, and had to fashion tools from wood and stone. Modern machinery has freed people from that primitive existence.The new products become more and more time-saving because.
| A.our love of speed seems never-ending | B.time is limited. |
| C.the prices are increasingly high. | D.the manufactures boast a lot. |
What does “the days” in Paragraph 3 refer to?
| A.Imaginary life | B.Simple life in the past. |
| C.Times of inventions | D.Time for constant activity. |
What does the passage mainly discuss?
| A.The present and past times. | B.Machinery and human beings. |
| C.Modern technology and its influence. | D.Imaginations and inventions. |
When you arrive at the Shanghai Expo site, the first thing you will see is a huge red building in the ancient Chinese dougong(斗拱) architectural(建筑的) style. Built according to the concept of “Oriental Crown”, the China Pavilion(展厅) is the largest national pavilion at the Expo.
Themed “Search of the East”, the pavilion is divided into three sections. Footprint of the East on the top floor shows the change of Chinese cities; a Journey of Wisdom on the second floor, China’s four great inventions—the compass, paper, printing and gunpowder are displayed; and Blossoming(盛开的) City on the ground floor shows the scenery of future cities.
Take a lift, and you’ll be taken to the 8,500-square-meter top floor. There, in a film by Lu Chuan, you’ll see how Chinese cities have changed, especially over the past 30 years. The 10-minute movie is shown in a 600-seat theater.
The painting Along the River During Qingming Festival, is considered a national treasure. It describes life in Bianjing, which is today’s Kaifeng in Henan province. More than 1,000 years ago, it was the largest city in the world. Multimedia technology makes more than 1,500 characters of the painting walk and move along a 100-meter-long wall.
Four families are chosen from Zhejiang province to show their daily lives. Films of the families and furniture from the households are exhibited. At the pavilion, you’ll get insight into the daily lives of these families at different periods. The designers believe these will mirror the great changes Zhejiang has seen
since China’s reform and opening-up policy in the late 1970s.Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the article?
| A.Visitors can see the China Pavilion built in a modern style. |
| B.The theme of the China Pavilion is “Oriental Crown”. |
| C.Visitors can get to the top floor of the China Pavilion by lift. |
| D.The China Pavilion is designed by famous film director Lu Chuan. |
If a visitor wants to enjoy the scenery of future cities, he will go to ______.
| A.the top floor | B.the second floor | C.the ground floor | D.a 600-seat theater |
The painting Along the River During Qingming Festival in the China Pavilion is attractive and special because ______.
| A.it shows what life was like in Beijing, the capital of China. |
| B.it shows the development of Chinese cities. |
| C.it describes what happened in history. |
| D.Visitors can see more than 1,500 characters of the painting walking along a 100-meter-long wall with the help of multimedia technology. |
What’s the main idea of the article?
| A.A brief introduction to the China Pavilion. | B.The theme of the China Pavilion. |
| C.The films of the China Pavilion. | D.The structure of the China Pavilion. |
Margaret, married with two small children, has been working for the last seven years as a night cleaner, cleaning offices in a big building.
She trained as a nurse, but had to give it up when her elder child became seriously ill. “I would have liked to go back to it, but the shifts(工作班次)are all wrong for me, as I have to be home to get the children up and off to school.”
So she works as a cleaner instead, from 9 p.m. till 6 a.m. five nights a week for just £90, before tax and insurance. “It’s better than it was last year, but I still think that people who work ‘unsocial hours’ should get a bit extra.”
The hours she’s chosen to work mean that she sees plenty of the children, but very little of her husband. However, she doesn’t think that puts any pressure on their relationship.
Her work isn’t physically very hard, but it’s not exactly pleasant, either. “I do get angry with people who leave their offices like a place for raising pigs. If they realized people like me have to do it, perhaps they’d be a bit more careful.”
The fact that she’s working all night doesn’t worry Margaret at all. Unlike some dark buildings at night, the building where she works is fully lit, and the women work in groups of three. “Since I’ve got to be here, I try to enjoy myself—and I usually do, because of the other girls. We all have a good laugh, so the time never drags.”
Another challenge Margaret has to face is the reaction of other people when she tells them what she does for a living. “They think you’re a cleaner because you don’t know how to read and write,” said Margaret. “I used to think what my parents would say if they knew what I’d been doing, but I don’t think that way any more. I don’t dislike the work though I can’t say I’m mad about it.”Margaret quit her job as a nurse because _______.
| A.she wanted to earn more money to support her family |
| B.she had suffered a lot of mental pressure |
| C.she felt tired of taking care of patients |
| D.she needed the right time to look after her children |
Margaret gets angry with people who work in the office because _______.
| A.they never clean their offices | B.they look down upon cleaners |
| C.they always make a mess in their offices | D.they never do their work carefully |
When at work, Margaret feels _______.
| A.light-hearted because of her fellow workers | B.happy because the building is fully lit |
| C.tired because of the heavy workload | D.bored because time passes slowly |
The underlined part in the last paragraph implies that Margaret’s parents would _______.
| A.help care for her children | B.regret what they had said |
| C.show sympathy for her | D.feel disappointed in her |
Last year, Jack Bleed cut through the bone of his ring finger while working. The 31-year-old resident of North Little Rock, Arkansas, waited for about six hours at a nearby medical center while the medical staff there called all over town — even as far away as Dallas and Memphis — to find a hand surgeon to reattach his finger. Finally, a willing doctor was located in Louisville, Kentucky. But even though Bleed had insurance(保险), he would have to hire a private plane to get himself there, at a cost of $4,300. In the end, he charged the cost to two credit cards, and his finger was saved. His insurance company eventually covered the cost of the plane, but his experience makes people aware of the fact that trauma(外伤) care in the United States is not only geographically limited, but in many places, non-existent.
Only eight states — New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Illinois, New Mexico, California, Oregon, and Washington — have local, fully functional trauma systems. The remaining states have partial systems, and 12 — including Arkansas — have no trauma system at all.
Although the President has signed a bill of $12 million for the purpose of supporting trauma care systems nationwide, many in Congress(国会) are unwilling to spend government money for a service they think should be paid for by states, says Wayne Meredith, medical director for trauma programs at the American College of Surgeons. Meanwhile, many states have also failed to find the dollars to support trauma systems. To make matters worse, many people without insurance depend heavily on the emergency care services, placing a huge financial burden on the medical centers that serve them.
For the same reason, doctors, too, often go unpaid. They are unwilling to perform emergency care, worsening critical shortages of neurosurgeons, orthopedists, and hand surgeons — the very types of specialists Bleed needed at short notice.
Supporting a trauma care system doesn’t take much. A half-penny sales tax in Miami-Dade County makes its outstanding system work. In Arkansas alone, says Wayne Meredith, a well-funded trauma system would possibly prevent 200 to 600 deaths each year. If trauma care systems were to work well across the nation, experts say, many thousands of lives each year could be saved. “You don’t get much better return on your investment than that,” Meredith says.In Paragraph 1, the writer uses Bleed’s case to ______.
| A.make a comparison | B.describe a person |
| C.introduce a topic | D.tell a story |
Many people in Congress argue that trauma care systems should be supported by ______.
| A.the President | B.each state |
| C.insurance companies | D.the US government |
The example of Miami-Dade County shows that ______.
| A.its tax policy is admirable | B.running a trauma system is profitable |
| C.a trauma system is not expensive | D.sales tax is not heavy in small counties |
Why are the present trauma care systems in some states not satisfactory?
| A.They are shared by all the states. | B.They are short of financial support. |
| C.The doctors are not well trained. | D.The hospitals can’t provide low-cost services. |