My mother is a diligent and kind woman. She is very busy from morning till night. As a teacher, she works hard. 1 Both my brother and I love her dearly as she loves us.
My mother has been teaching math at a middle school in my hometown. She goes to work early in the morning and does not return home until late in the afternoon. 2 She treats them with patience and teaches them well. For her excellent quality and very good teaching results, she has been elected as a model teacher several times.
3 Every day, when she comes back home from work, she sets about doing housework, sweeping the living room and bedrooms or cleaning the furniture, and putting everything in good order. She seems to be busy all the time. As she has been very busy working every day, she looks older than her age. But she looks as cheerful and happy as ever. Mother never buys expensive dresses for herself, but she often buys some inexpensive but high quality clothes for us. 4 She just eats a plain meal outside when she is too busy to cook herself. She lives a busy yet simple life, without any complaints.
Often she says to us, “work while you work, and play while you play. That is the way to be happy and gay. If you do not work, you will become lazy and be of no use to society”. What a piece of good advice this is! 5 This advice of hers will always serve as a guide to my behavior. My mother is great indeed, and I always feel proud of her.
A.She enjoys listening to classic music. |
B.As a mother, she takes good care of us and gives us every comfort. |
C.She loves her students and cares for them. |
D.She never goes to expensive restaurants to enjoy meals. |
E. My mother is hard-working and never wastes money.
F. I never forget it and always bear it in my mind.
G. Can you tell us something about your mother?
Sometimes, the simplest ideas are the best. For example, to absorb heat from the sun to heat water, you need large, flat, black surfaces. One way to do that is to build those surfaces specially, on the roofs of buildings. But why go to all that trouble when cities are rub of black surfaces already, in the form of asphalt (柏油) roads?
Ten years ago, this thought came into the mind of Arian de Bondt, a Dutch engineer. He finally persuaded his boss to follow it up. The result is that their building is now heated in winter and cooled in summer by a system that relies on the surface of the road outside.
The heat-collector is a system of connected water pipes. Most of them ran from one side of the street to the other, just under the asphalt road. Some, however, dive deep into the ground.
When the street surface gets hot in summer, water pumped through the pipes picks up this heat and takes it underground through one of the diving pipes. At a depth of 100 metres lies a natural aquifer (蓄水层) into which several heat exchangers (交换器) have been built. The hot water from the street runs through these exchangers, warming the ground-water, before returning to the surface through another pipe. The aquifer is thus used as a heat store.
In winter, the working system is changed slightly. Water is pumped through the heat exchangers to pick up the heat stored during summer. This water goes into the building and is used to warm the place up. After performing that task, it is pumped under the asphalt and its remaining heat keeps the road free of snow and ice.Which of the following is true according to the first two paragraphs?
A.Arian de Bondt got his idea from his boss. |
B.Large, flat, black surfaces need to be built in cities. |
C.The Dutch engineer's system has been widely used. |
D.Heat can also be collected from asphalt roads. |
For what purpose are the diving pipes used?
A.To absorb heat from the sun. | B.To store heat for future use. |
C.To turn solar energy into heat energy. | D.To carry heat down below the surface. |
From the last paragraph we can learn that __
A.some pipes have to be re-arranged in winter |
B.the system can do more than warming up the building |
C.the exchangers will pick up heat from the street surface |
D.less heat may be collected in winter than in summer |
Every artist knows in his heart that he is saying something to the public. Not only does he want to say it well, but he wants it to be something that has not been said before. He hopes that the public will listen and understand ----he wants to teach them, and he wants them to learn from him.
What visional artists like painters want to teach is easy to make out but difficult to explain, because painters translate their experience into shapes and colors, not words. They seem to feel that a certain choice of shapes and colors, out of the countless billions possible, is very interesting for them and worth showing to us. Without their work we should never have noticed these particular shapes and colors, or have felt the delight which they brought to the artists.
Most artists take their shapes and colors from the world of nature and from human bodies in movement and at rest; their choices show that these aspects(方面)of the world are worth looking at, that they contain beautiful sights. Modern artists might say that they only choose subjects that provide an interesting pattern, that there is nothing more in it. Yet even they do not choose totally without thinking about the character of their subjects.
If one painter chooses to paint a decaying(溃烂的) leg and another a lake in moonlight, each of them is directing our attention to a certain aspect of the world . Each painter is telling us something, showing us something, emphasizing(强调) something - all of which means that, consciously or unconsciously, he is trying to teach us.It is hard to explain what a painter is saying because _______.
A.most painters do not express themselves well |
B.a painter uses unusual words and phrases |
C.a painter use shapes and colors instead of words |
D.many painters do not say anything |
Modern artists might say their choice of subjects ______.
A.carries a message to the public | B.only provides interesting patterns |
C.has no pattern or form | D.teaches the public important truths |
The writer says that modern art contains______
A.nothing but meaningless patterns | B.uninteresting aspects of the world |
C.subjects chosen partly for their meaning | D.completely meaningless subjects |
Which of the following is implied(暗示) but NOT directly stated in the passage?
A.A painting is more easily understood than a song |
B.Art is only the arranging of shapes and colors |
C.Every artist tries to say something to the public |
D.One must look beyond shapes and colors to find out what an artist is saying |
Dorothea Shaw is 71 years old and nearly blind, and she chose to live alone far away from people. She lives in Belize — a county the size of Wales with a population only that of Swansea. Her home is at Gales Point, a tiny village which can be reached only by sea or air; after a 10-mile walk into the hills one finally reaches a piece of land and two small houses so hidden in the thick over-grown forest that only a handful of people know Dorothea is there.
She lives happily and totally alone – growing her vegetables, looking after her trees and dogs, cats and chickens. Once a month or so an old friend passes by with her food supplies and letters-usually including a letter from her sister in Scunthorpe and some bits of clothing from friends in Canada. Sometimes a local man will come and cut wood for her and a group of British soldiers will come across her and be greeted with the offer of a cup of coffee.
At night she lies in her tiny sleeping room with the dogs on the floor, the cats on the table near the typewriter and one of the hens settled down in a corner of the bookshelf, and listens for hours to any Spanish, English, German or French broadcasts she can find on her radio. Sometimes she gets lonely but most of the time the animals and the radio are company enough.
But recently the very things that she had tried to get free from so well have begun to catch up with her. The peace of the forest has been destroyed by the noise of earth-moving machines not many miles away. What she once only heard of distantly on the radio is now on her doorstep. Things began to change three years ago. The new main north-south road in Belize was cut through the forest only four or five miles away. “Now more people know I’m here.” She says. “I feel more and more uneasy each day.”Dorothea’s small houses ________.
A.are entirely surrounded by trees |
B.have always been her home |
C.were built for just a few people |
D.are in a county with the same population as Wales |
Dorothea lives in the tiny village because ________.
A.she doesn’t like living near people | B.she is too old to move |
C.machines destroyed her home | D.there’s nowhere else for her to live |
Dorothea doesn’t get lonely since she has _______ with her.
A.her sister | B.some animals | C.friends from Canada | D.a postman |
Dorothea spends a lot of time __________.
A.growing all the food she needs | B.cutting down trees |
C.listening to the radio | D.studying languages |
Millions of people visit Yosemite National Park every year to see the tall waterfalls and mountains. The mountains are a splendid sight when viewed from the valley floor. Lots of stores, hotels, and restaurants are needed to handle the crowds. Also, water, roads, and other service systems are part of the infrastructure(基础设施)that must be maintained.
Unfortunately, these systems are starting to break down. It’s not just in Yosemite but in national parks around the nation.
Yosemite is thirty years old according to Dennis Galvin, a National Park Service worker. The park is not only old but worn out. Two or three times as many visitors come every year. That is too many visitors for the park to deal with.
Four years ago a storm washed out a water pipeline in the Grand Canyon. The National Park service had to send water trucks to provide water for the visitors. Last month pipes almost broke again and roads had to be closed for a while.
Why hasn’t the National Park Service kept up the park repairs? There is a lack of money. The United States has 378 monuments, parks, and wilderness areas. Between three and four billion dollars are needed for repairs.
Yosemite is one national park that does have money for repairs. It has two hundred million dollars but cannot spend it any way it chooses. When the park workers started widening the road, they were forced to stop by the Sierra Club. The club claimed that the road work was damaging the Merced River that runs through the park.
A Sierra Club lawyer, Julia Olson, feels that the infrastructure needs to be moved out of Yosemite. That way less pressure will be put on the already crowded park.According to the text, the mountains in Yosemite look most splendid when they are appreciated from _______.
A.the bottom of the valleys | B.the top of the mountains |
C.the side of the mountains | D.the edge of the valleys |
National parks like Yosemite in the U.S. find it increasingly difficult to meet the need of visitors because ________.
A.the transport management needs improving |
B.they spend too much on their service systems |
C.their service systems frequently go out of order |
D.they need help from environmental organizations |
The main problem of Yosemite National Park is its _______.
A.rundown water pipes | B.overcrowdedness | C.lack of money | D.narrow roads |
According to the text, the Sierra Club is most likely to be ______.
A.an environmental group | B.an information center |
C.a travel service | D.a law firm |
People express their personalities in their clothes, their cars, and their homes. Our diets can also show our personalities because we might choose certain food to tell people something about us.
For example, some people mainly enjoy high quality food, such as caviar (鱼子酱) and lobster (龙虾), and they eat only in expensive restaurants – never in cafeterias or bars. They know about the “better things in life”.
Some people choose not to eat meat. Vegetarians often have more in common than just their diet. Their personalities might be similar too. For instance, vegetarians in the United States and Canada may be creative people, and they might not enjoy competitive sports or jobs. They worry about the health of the world, and they are probably strongly against the war.
Some people eat mostly fast food. One study shows that many fast-food eaters have a lot in common, but they are very different from vegetarians. They are competitive and good at business. They are also usually in a hurry. Many fast-food eaters might not agree with this description of their personalities, but it is a common picture of them.
Some people also believe that people of the same astrological sign(星座)have similar food personalities. Aries (born under the sign of Aries, between March 21 and April 20) usually like spicy foods, with a lot of onions and pepper. People with the sign of Taurus (April 21 to May 22) prefer healthful fruits and vegetables, but they often eat too much. Sagittarius (November 22 to December.22) like traditional food from many different countries.
What is your food personality?Why do some people mainly eat high quality food?
A.They want to show off their wealth. | B.Food can show off their social position. |
C.They want to enjoy better things in life. | D.They are wiser than any other persons. |
A vegetarian may be a person________.
A.who is believed to be a peace – lover | B.who values the importance of success |
C.who cares little about the future of the world | D.who shows his power to make money |
From the passage, we can draw a conclusion that_____________.
A.food is just a mirror of the human history |
B.we can know a person from what he eats |
C.people are particular about the food they eat |
D.what people eat may change their personalities |