There are many famous museums throughout the world where people can enjoy art, Washington, D.C. has the National Gallery of Art(美术馆); Paris has the Louvre; London, the British Museum. Florida International University(FIU) in Miami also shows art for people to see. And it does so without a building, or even a wall for its drawings and paintings.
FIU has opened what it says is the first computer art museum in the United States. You don't have to visit the University to see the art. You just need a computer linked to a telephone.
You can call the telephone number of a University computer and connect your own computer to it. All of the art is stored in the school computer. It is computer art, produced electronically (采用电子手段) by artists on their own computers. In only a few minutes, your computer can receive and copy all the pictures and drawings.、
Robert Shostak is director of the new computer museum. He says he started the museum because computer artists had no place to show their works.
A computer artist could only record his pictures electronically and send the records, or floppy discs(软盘), to others to see on their computers. He could also put his pictures on paper. But to print good pictures on paper, the computer artist needed an expensive laser(激光) printer.
Robert Shostak says the electronic museum is mostly for art or computer students at schools and universities. Many of the pictures in the museum are made by students. Mr Shostak said the FIU museum will make computer art more fun for computer artists because more people can see it. He says artists enjoy their work much more if they have an audience. And the great number of home computers in America could mean a huge audience for the electronic museum.The main purpose of this text is to give information about ______.
A. famous museums throughout the world.
B. a computer art museum in Miami, U.S.A.
C. art exhibitions in Florida Intentional University
D. latest development in computer artTo see the art in FIU museum, your special needs include ______.
| A．floppy discs |
| B．a computer and a printer |
| C．pictures and drawings on paper |
| D．a computer connected to the museum by telephone line |
What are stored in this museum?
| A．Paintings drawn by means of computer. |
| B．Different styles of paintings. |
| C．Drawings done by art students of FIU. |
| D．Old paintings. |
The museum was started when ______.
| A．Robert Shostak wanted to do something for computer scientists |
| B．Robert Shostak wanted to help computer artists |
| C．art students needed a place to show their works |
| D．computer scientists wanted to do something about art |
The words "an audience" in the last paragraph here refer to ______.
| A．art students |
| B．owners of computers |
| C．exhibits in the museum |
| D．those who can enjoy art |
Nutrition influences not only students' grades at school but their growth and development. Improper nutrition is one of the causes of childhood obesity. What can you do to help your child avoid childhood obesity?
My first piece of advice is to look in your fridge. What are you buying at the grocery store? Think about it: if you don't buy junk food or snacks, your kids won't eat them at home. Now if you're like me — both of your kids are at school, you'll know you can't police them every second of the day. This is the time when you'll need to talk to your children about their food choices. If you don't know the right food choices, there are so many free resources on-line to guide you.
Try new things. I was very surprised to find out my 4-year-old daughter likes balsamic vinegar — she calls it the "black sauce". She likes to have it with tomatoes and cucumbers. You just never know what your kids might like.
Don't get stressed if you can't always prepare something healthy. You may sometimes leave the house and forget to take something out for dinner, or you are running late and there's no time to cook before you have to take one of the kids somewhere. However, you can still make healthy choices while dining out. Many of the fast food restaurants offer fruit and milk instead of soda. I like to buy organic frozen pizzas from the organic market — for a quick dinner solution(解决办法). All the ingredients are natural. What I do is to serve the pizza with something raw: lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, or fruit to try to give the kids something healthy with that meal.
In closing, take baby steps. Don't try to change your family's eating habits in one go, or you'll go nuts.This passage is written mainly to us
| A．explain why today’s kids are overweight |
| B．tell us the importance of healthy eating |
| C．give parents some healthy eating tips |
| D．teach parents what to cook at home |
The writer believes it is very important for parents to
| A．make sure their fridge is full of food. |
| B．teach their children how to eat healthily |
| C．check their children’s grades at school |
| D．provide their children with their favorite food |
Paragraph 4 tells parents they should .
| A．never take their kids to a fast food restaurant |
| B．eat out in a nice restaurant with their kids at times |
| C．choose healthy food while eating out with their kids |
| D．cook healthy food for their kids however busy they are |
According to the passage, it does NOT seem to be a good idea to .
| A．tell children what to eat at school |
| B．find free resources on healthy eating online |
| C．put balsamic vinegar on tomatoes or cucumbers |
| D．try to change a family’s eating habits in a very short time |
The success of Pickwick Papers made Dickens very popular. He suddenly found himself at twenty-four the most famous novelist of his day. Busy as his social life was, he worked on two novels at the same time－Oliver Twist and Pickwick Papers. He was particularly proud of Pickwick, which was a huge success and was regarded as a comedy (喜剧)masterpiece(杰作). “If I were to live a hundred years and write novels in each, I should never be so proud of any of them as I am proud of Pickwick Papers,” he said.
It has been said of Dickens that he grasped（抓住）the imagination of his readers because his imagination grasped himself. The people in his works were so real that they could make him laugh or cry. When writing Oliver Twist he said that he could not rest until Fagin, the wrongdoer(做坏事的人), had been hanged.
Dickens’ marriage to Catherine Hagarth, with whom he had nine children, ended unhappily in 1858. He started to travel about giving readings of his works. His interest in theater gave his novels the qualities that made them suitable for reading aloud on the stage. A tiring travel to the United States affected his health. On June 9, 1870, when he was working on a new novel, he died, as he had wished. He said he wanted to die working. Dickens became a famous novelist .
| A．because his social work |
| B．with the success of Pickwick Papers |
| C．because he was writing two novels at the same time |
| D．when he began to give readings of his works |
According to this passage, we know that Dickens.
| A．was only interested in writing novels |
| B．didn’t like Oliver Twist |
| C．wished to live one hundred years and write three novels in each |
| D．didn’t think he could write a better novel than Pick wick Papers in his life |
Fagin must be .
| A．a person in real life |
| B．a character in Oliver Twist |
| C．a character in Pickwick Papers |
| D．one of Dickens’ works |
Which of the following is TRUE?
| A．Dickens had a happy marriage to Catherine Hagarth |
| B．Dickens was a successful actor |
| C．Dickens’ death had little to do with his hard work |
| D．Dickens had wished to die in the course of his work |
A messy desk can actually lead people towards clearer thinking, say researchers from Germany．
The researchers found in a series of linked studies - using a messy desk and a messy shop front - that people actually thought more clearly when all around was chaos, as they sought to simplify the tasks at hand.
Visual and mental clutter（阻塞） forces human beings to focus and think more clearly.
Famous thinkers and writers such as Albert Einstein and Roald Dahl have been notorious（声名狼藉的） for their untidy desks.
“Messy desks may not be as detrimental（有害的） as they appear to be, as the problem-solving approaches they seem to cause can improve work efficiency or increase employees' creativity in problem solving,” say the authors.
“Business and government managers often promote 'clean desk' policies to avoid disorganized offices and messy desks, for the purpose of boosting work efficiency and productivity,” writes lead researcher Jia Liu of the University of Groningen in a paper published in the Journal of Consumer Research.
“This practice is based on the conventional wisdom that a disorganized and messy environment can clutter one's mind and complicate one's judgments.”
“However, not all evidence supports this conventional link between a messy environment and a messy mind.”
The scientists tested people's response in various 'messy' environments - including a messy shop front, a disorganized desk, and even a work environment where a language task 'reminded' people of messiness.
The authors found in the series of six studies people tended towards simplicity in their thinking.
“They categorized （分类） products in a simpler manner, were willing to pay more for a T-shirt that shows a simple-looking picture, and sought less variety in their choices.” said the researchers. The purpose of the first two paragraphs is to show that _____．
| A．A messy desk cannot contribute to clearer thinking |
| B．People thought more clearly about a messy desk and a shop front |
| C．People will feel confused when all around are chaos |
| D．People manage to simplify the tasks in messy environments |
Why does the author take Albert Einstein as an example?
| A．to support the idea that clearer thinking comes from messy environment． |
| B．to tell the fact that Einstein was known for his untidy desks． |
| C．to stop us from learning from Albert Einstein． |
| D．to call on us to develop a good habit． |
How do people look at messy environment according to the conventional wisdom?
| A．Messy environment will create clearer thinking． |
| B．Messy environment will simplify one' s judgment． |
| C．Messy environment can promote work efficiency． |
| D．Messy environment can block one' s mind． |
What does the last paragraph imply?
| A．People believe messy environment creates clearer thinking． |
| B．People sought more simplicity in the choices． |
| C．People were not willing to choose those complicated products． |
| D．Not all the people accept messy environment and complicated things |
We can slow down aging. That is the message Dr. Shen Ziyin wants to give the world. And the Chinese doctor claims that he has found an answer to the problems of aging. His solution is a herbal medicine（草药）to slow the process of aging.
Dr. Shen Ziyin has been trained in Western medicine. At the same time he studied traditional Chinese medicine. And, he has been working for the past forty years to put together the best of both and find a cure for aging. He has taken a hint from the ancient Chinese medicine system called “Shen”.
According to Shen, it is the kidney（肾脏）which adjusts the functioning of the body as well as its aging process. It is responsible for the level of activity that the human bodies go through. Studies conducted by Dr. Shen show that herbal medicine based on the Shen system slows the aging process, says a report in the Telegraph newspaper. We notice that when people grow old, they have reduced strength, loss of hair, backache, weakness, wrinkles and so on. This happens because when people grow old, their bodies produce T-cells. These T-cells contain a particular substance（物质）called Fas. Fas makes the cells in the body destruct themselves.
So the only way to slow down aging is to slow the production of T-cells in the body. This can happen if people eat low calorie food. Then the body is not active enough to produce extra T-cells. But, is going hungry all the time a good price to pay for staying young? This is where Dr. Shen’s herbal medicine comes in. But how effective it will be, only time can tell. How did Dr. Shen find the solution to the problem of aging?
| A．By studying Western medicine. |
| B．By learning traditional Chinese medicine. |
| C．By combining both Western and Chinese medicine. |
| D．By doing research on both Western and Chinese people. |
What plays the most important role in keeping people young according to Shen?
| A．Medical treatment. |
| B．People’s good kidney |
| C．Positive life attitude. |
| D．Level of people’s activity. |
The reason why people become old is that_____.
| A．their bodies produce T-cells |
| B．they become weaker and weaker |
| C．they have reduced strength, loss of hair |
| D．their bodies are unable to fight diseases |
We can probably learn from the passage that______.
| A．producing more low calorie food allows people to keep young |
| B．the more Chinese herbal medicine people drink, the better for health |
| C．people should try to quicken the production of T-cells in the body |
| D．it remains unknown how effective Dr. Shen’s herbal medicine is |
All parents know that one of their most important tasks is to prepare their children for an independent life, but any parent can tell you that it’s hard to let go of your children. That balance between keeping your children safe and allowing them to learn from their own mistakes can be heartbreaking. Years of experience means that parents often do know best, but on the other hand, the young, being less bound by tradition, are often more creative, more able to find new solutions to old problems. Revolutions are led by the young.
Good teachers make the growth of critical (批判性的) thinking easier in their students, only to find that this can lead to a questioning of the teachers’ basic beliefs. Schools encourage parents to become involved, but are often embarrassed when parents have reservations about some of the educational methods being used. Governments encourage unimportant groups to empower themselves in order to participate fully in the development process. And they are often surprised when the new leaders of these groups turn around and attack the policies of that same government. The rebellions (叛逆的)young and the newly unimportant groups are important in social development. They are not necessarily representatives of those they want to represent or not realistic in their demands, but their voices must be heard.
Good parents know that just forbidding particular behaviors does not prevent their children from finding ways to engage in these forbidden activities. Indeed, sometimes the forbidden fruit is more inviting, just because it is not accepted by authority. Parents must work with their children to educate them on the facts, know as much as possible about the lives of their children, provide a good example, encourage more wholesome activities but also support their children when they don’t follow what is expected of them. But the most important point is that they also need to learn how to let go.By saying “Revolutions are led by the young”, the author indicates that young people are more_____.
| A．creative | B．realistic |
| C．conventional | D．heartbreaking |
From the second paragraph we know .
| A．teachers’ basic beliefs should be questioned by students |
| B．schools encourage parents to question their education methods |
| C．the government is satisfied with the new leaders’ attack on the policies |
| D．the voice of the rebellious young should be heard by the government |
In order to educate children well, parents should .
| A．forbid particular behaviors in their daily life |
| B．know them well and set a good example to them |
| C．educate them with facts and expect much of them |
| D．know as much as possible as their children |
From the passage we can learn that the author prefers .
| A．free parenting | B．traditional parenting |
| C．smart parenting | D．critical parenting |
What is the best title of the passage?
| A．Letting Go – for Children’s Independent Life |
| B．Parents’ Tasks – in Children’s Development |
| C．Way of Growth – for the Young Groups |
| D．Teaching Methods – for Teachers and Schools |