One of our biggest fears nowadays is that our kids might some day get lost in a “sea of technology” rather than experiencing the natural world. TV and computer games are leading to a serious disconnect between kids and the great outdoors, which will change the wild places of the world, its creatures and human health for the worse, unless adults get working on child’s play.
Without having a nature experience, kids, can turn out just fine, but they are missing out a huge enrichment of their lives. That contributes to everything from their physical health and mental health, to stress levels, creativity and cognitive (认知的) skills. Experts predict modern kids will have poorer health than their parents---and they say a lack of outside play is surely part of it; research suggests that kids do better academically in schools with a nature component(成份) and that play in nature develop leadership by the smartest, not by the toughest. Even a tiny outdoor experience can create wonder in a child. The three-year-old turning over his first rock realizes he is not alone in the world. A clump of trees on the roadside can be the whole universe in his eyes. We really need to value that more.
Kids are not to blame. They are overprotected and frightened. It is dangerous out there from time to time, but much stress from computers is replacing breaking an arm as a childhood process of passage.
Everyone, from developers, to schools and outdoorsy citizens, should help regain for our kids some of the freedom and joy of exploring, taking friendship in fields and woods that strengthen love, respect and need for landscape. As parents, we should devote some of our energies to taking our kids into nature. This could yet be our greatest cause.According to the passage, children without experiencing nature will______
| A．keep a high sense of wonder |
| B．be over-protected by their parents |
| C．be less healthy both physically and mentally |
| D．change wild places and creatures for the better |
According to the author, children’s breaking an arm is_____
| A．the fault on the part of their parents |
| B．the natural experience in their growing up |
| C．the result of their own carelessness in play |
| D．the effect of their repetitive stress from computers |
In writing this passage, the author mainly intends to______
| A．blame children for getting lost in computer games |
| B．encourage children to protect parks from encroachment |
| C．show his concern about children’s lack of experience in nature |
| D．inspire children to keep the sense of wonder about things around |
Back those photos up
The images were striking. Homes on the East Coast were washed away by Super storm Sandy. People were in tears, picking up faded photographs, among their only remaining possessions.
If that doesn’t move you to get serious about safekeeping your lifetime of memories, what will? The digital age offers tools never imaginable before—including one-click access to a lifetime of family photos.
Here is a brochure on how to back up (存) your photos and save them online, where they can live forever and be accessible in good times and bad.
Scanning
The first step for those old photos is to scan them and save them to a digital format. Most printers come with scanners these days, so that’s an easy but extremely time-consuming step.
Storing the photos
With your scans in place, import the photos into your computer, and back them up.
You could make multiple copies of the disks and spread them to loved ones. Or you could choose external(外接的) hard drives or USB thumb drive, and add your photo and video collection from your computer.
Online backup
If you need lots of space, look at a pure online backup service, Caronite.
Caronite backs up 300 million files daily. Once you sign up, it starts to pick up everything you have on your hard drive. But photo collection on your computer’s main hard drive charges for $59 a year.
Cloud Storage
For folks who don’t need automatic backup, but instead want to take a more active approach, Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft’s Sky Drive let you store files online by yourself, share and instantly access them. All offer free options—2GB of free storage for Dropbox, 5GB for Google and 7GB for Sky Drive. But if you want more, you need to pay.
Bottom Line
The hard drive or flash drive is the cheapest and easiest. But drives can fail. Online services are more expensive, but more secure. With more of us switching back and forth between our computers, such services are the best way to get access to our data from wherever we are.Why does the author mention Super storm Sandy?
| A．To tell the background of the scanning photos. |
| B．To describe a severe natural disaster. |
| C．To attract the readers’ interest in the backups. |
| D．To win the readers’ sympathy. |
What can we know from the passage?
| A．Scanning photos take little time but costs a lot. |
| B．Caronite charges for backing up photos from hard drive. |
| C．Google Drive offers unlimited free photo storage on line. |
| D．The hard drive or flash drive is the cheapest and safest. |
Which of the following allows storing files automatically?
| A．Dropbox. | B．SkyDrive. | C．Caronite. | D．Flash drive. |
The main purpose of the passage is to _____.
| A．introduce some of the storage services |
| B．tell real stories about storage services |
| C．describe the functions of storage services |
| D．argue about the advantage of storage services |
In the United States, when one becomes rich, he wants people to know it. And even if he does not become very rich, he wants people to think that he is. That is what "keeping up with the Joneses" is about. It is the story of someone who tried to look as rich as his neighbors.
The expression was first used in 1913 by a young American called Arthur Momand. He told this story about himself. He began earning $ 125 a week at the age of 23. That was a lot of money in those days. He got married and moved with his wife to a very wealthy neighborhoodoutside New York City.. When he saw that rich people rode horses, Momand went horseback riding every day. When he saw that rich people had servants, Momand and his wife also hired a servant and gave big parties for their new neighbors.
It was like a race, but one could never finish this race because one was always trying to keep up. The race ended for Momand and his wife when they could no longer pay for their new way of life. They had to move back to an apartment in New York City. Momand looked around him and noticed that many people do things just to keep up with rich lifestyle of their neighbors. He saw the funny side of it and started to write a series of short stories. He called it "Keeping up with the Joneses” because "Jones" is a very common name in the United States. "Keeping up with the Joneses" came to mean keeping up with rich lifestyle of the people around you. Momand's series appeared in different newspapers across the country for over 28 years.
People never seem to get tired of keeping up with the Joneses. And there are "Joneses" in every city of the world. But one must get tired of trying to keep up with the Joneses because no matter what one does, Mr. Jones always seems to be ahead.Some people want to keep up with the Joneses because they ______.
| A．want to be as rich as their neighbors |
| B．want others to know or to think that they are rich |
| C．don't want others to know they are rich |
| D．want to be happy |
It can be inferred from the story that rich people like to ________.
| A．live outside New York City |
| B．live in New York City |
| C．live in apartments |
| D．live with many neighbors |
What's the author's attitude to keeping up with the Joneses?
| A．Negative. | B．Positive. | C．Supportive. | D．Objective. |
Millions of people die of hunger in southern Africa every year, but when Zambia was offered thousands of tons of free maize by the US, the government politely said no.
“We don’t know whether the food is safe,” said Zambia’s commerce, Trade and Industry Minister Dipak Patel.
His worries are shared by countries around the world that are in two minds about America’s genetically modified（GM,转基因的）crops．Just last week, EU（欧盟）member nations were discussing whether or not to import GM sweet corn from the US．
Ever since people started farming, they have tried to crossbreed（杂交）plants to make them stronger or better tasting. At one time, only related plants could be crossed with each other．
But when GM techniques were developed in the 1970s, scientists were able to put a single gene from a living creature into an unrelated creature.
This means they can make crops more productive and resistant to disease by adding genes from other species．They can also create food with special characteristics, such as “golden rice”, which is enriched with vitamin A. But many people believe GM foods are a health risk.
At the moment, the official argument is that GM foods “are not likely to present risks for human health”. But there are still many questions to be answered as the foods are produced in different ways.
Some experts believe the genetic material added to plants can transfer to humans and give damage to our bodies. Further harm could be caused by the genes from GM plants crossbreeding with naturally produced crops．
People in China are also getting worried about GM foods. More than 70 percent of the
country’s soybean oil is produced from imported GM soybeans. Meanwhile, an investigation last November found that 12 of 60 famous foods sold across the country were GM products. The government has begun to introduce a marking system for GM goods so that people can choose whether or not to eat them. Which is the best title for the passage?
| A．Harmful GM foods | B．Advantages of GM foods |
| C．GM foods, a health risk? | D．the Techniques of GM foods |
Why has Zambia refused the American free maize?
| A．they decide to follow EU member’s advice |
| B．they are concerned about the safety of GM foods |
| C．they care little about the problem of starvation |
| D．they are too proud to accept free offer |
It has been proved that _________.
| A．GM foods are harmful to people’s health |
| B．GM food is no better than naturally produced foods |
| C．only related plans could be crossed with each other |
| D．GM techniques can increase the production of crops |
Which of the following statement is TRUE?
| A．GM foods are a health risk. |
| B．Only Zambia worries about the safety of GM foods . |
| C．China’s government hasn’t taken any action about GM foods. |
| D．Some experts believe human bodies can absorb genetic material from GM foods. |
What’s the author’s attitude towards GM foods?
| A．Supportive. | B．Neutral. | C．Doubtful. | D．Critical. |
When times get tough, we all look for ways to cut back. When we’re hungry, we eat at home instead of going out. We take buses instead of taxis. And we wear our old designer jeans just a few months longer. With college expenses at all-time highs, high school students are eager to do anything to cut the cost of a university education.
One cost-cutting proposal is to allow college students to get a bachelor’s degree in three years instead of four. Educational institutions have been actively exploring ways to make the learning process more efficient. But there’s a question: Would the quality of undergraduate(本科生)education suffer? Few US universities have formally approved a “three-year degree” model.
I doubt that mainstream North American colleges will carry out a three-year curriculum(课程) any time soon. For one thing, most universities already allow highly qualified students to graduate early by testing out of certain classes and obtaining a number of college credits(学分). In addition, at famous universities, the committee who determine which courses are required and which courses are electives are unlikely to suddenly “throw out” one quarter of the required credits. Professors will resist “diluting(稀释)” the quality of the education they offer.
In my opinion, a quality four-year education is always superior to a quality three-year education. A college education requires sufficient time for a student to become skilled in their major and do coursework in fields outside their major. It is not a good idea to water down education, any more than it’s not a good idea to water down medicine. If we want to help students find their way through university, we should help them understand early on what knowledge and skills they need to have upon graduation. We should allow students to test out of as many courses as possible. We should give them a chance to earn money as interns(实习生)in meaningful part-time jobs that relate to their university studies, such as the five-year co-op program at Northeastern University. The first paragraph serves as a(n)________．
| A．explanation | B．definition | C．introduction | D．comment |
We can learn from the passage that ________.
| A．most American universities are against the “three-year degree” model |
| B．many famous US universities are considering adopting the “three-year degree” model |
| C．professors are willing to accept the “three-year degree” model |
| D．the “three-year degree” model can make college learning more efficient |
In most US universities，________.
| A．college students are offered the co-op program |
| B．electives’ credits make up one quarter of the required credits |
| C．all students are required to finish four-year education before graduation |
| D．some excellent students can graduate ahead of time |
We can infer that________.
| A．the author is a college professor |
| B．the author thinks the cost of a university education is too high for people to afford |
| C．the author considers the university education quality very important |
| D．the author pays special attention to the all-round development of college students |
Which of the following can be the best title?
| A．It’s time to shorten the learning process |
| B．Best learning takes place over time |
| C．University education should be watered down |
| D．College education calls for reform |
In the US and Britain, the slogan around colleges was “Save water. Shower with a friend.” Now, Wuhan University has come up with another system for the campus bathhouse. It charges students for the amount of time in a shower. Before entering the bathhouse, students pay for the amount of time they want in the shower with cash or their student ID card. The clock starts ticking the minute the tape is turned on. It pauses when a button is pressed for soap. An integrated circuit (IC) card reader at each tap shows the time. No money, no water. The benefits of the new system can be seen with the old system, which charged 1 Yuan for each person regardless of time in the shower. The university used about 320 tons of water daily under the old system, but only 160 tons now.
Many students use the new system but opinions on it are divided. Some students say it is bad because bathing had become a sort of race. Many people using it for the first time are not sure how long they need to shower. Some might be embarrassed if their time is up and they’re still covered in soap. They have to ask the bathhouse worker to help them buy extra time.
“It’s a flaw in the system that you can not buy extra time on the ID card,” said Ren, a freshman in Wuhan University. The university is also considering some students’ suggestions that they be allowed to pay after they’ve finished the shower. Not surprisingly, some are complaining about losing the hour shower. But many students say the move helps them develop a water-saving sense.
Without the time limits, most students tended to shower for 30 to an hour in the bathhouse.
Some even used the hot water to wash their clothes. “In my experience, 10—20 minutes is enough,” said Dai Zhihua, a third-year student who usually takes 8 minutes.
A similar system has been installed in other universities. Shanghai Normal University introduced it at its Fengxiang Campus in September. The bathing fee there is 0.2 Yuan per minute. One male student responded by setting a record with a two-minute shower.According to the passage, which of the following is NOT true?
| A．Students buy the time of their showers. |
| B．The clock times the student’s bathing except when the bather pauses for soap. |
| C．If money runs out, there will be no water. |
| D．Having finished bathing, the student has to pay for it. |
The underline word “flaw” (Paragraph 3) most probably means __________.
| A．fault | B．advantage | C．pity | D．perfection |
Since the new system has performed, __________ of water can be saved.
| A．a quarter | B．one third | C．one half | D．two thirds |
It can be inferred from the passage that __________.
| A．the new operation can raise students’ environmental awareness |
| B．the new operation can solve the water crisis |
| C．a similar operation has been set in other universities |
| D．the university has saved a lot of water by using the new system |
In which column can you find this passage?
| A．Culture. | B．Society. | C．Campus Life. | D．Lifestyle. |