“To be or not to be.” Outside the Bible, these six words are the most famous in all the literature of the world. They were spoken by Hamlet when he was thinking aloud, and they are the most famous words in Shakespeare because Hamlet was speaking not only for himself but also for every thinking man and woman. To be or not to be, to live or not to live, to live richly and abundantly, or to live dully and meanly. A philosopher once wanted to know whether he was alive or not, which is a good question for everyone to put to himself occasionally. He answered it by saying: “I think, therefore I am.”
But the best definition of existence I ever saw was one written by another philosopher who said: “To be is to be in relations.” If this is true, then the more relations a living thing has, the more it is alive. To live abundantly means simply to increase the range and intensity(强烈) of our relations. Unfortunately we are so constituted that we get to love our routine. But other than our regular occupation, how much are we alive? If you are interested only in your regular occupation, you are alive only to that extent. So far as other things are concerned --- poetry and prose(散文), music, pictures, sports, unselfish friendships, politics, international affairs ---you are dead.
On the contrary, it is true that every time you acquire a new interest --- even more, a new accomplishment(成就) --- you increase your power of life. No one who is deeply interested in different kinds of subjects can remain unhappy. The real pessimist is the person who has lost interest.
Bacon said that a man dies as often as he loses a friend. But we gain new life by contacts with new friends, and new ideas and thoughts, too. Where your thoughts are, there will be your life too. If your thoughts are limited only to your business, only to your physical welfare, only to your narrow circle of the town in which you live, then you live a narrow restricted(有限的, 受约束的) life. But if you are interested in what is going on in China, then you are living in China. If you’re interested in the characters of a good novel, then you are living with those highly interesting people. If you listen intently to fine music, you are away from your immediate surroundings and living in a world of passion and imagination.
To be or not to be --- to live intensely and richly, or merely to exist, which depends on ourselves. Let us widen and intensify our relations. While we live, let us live!What does the author mainly want to do by this passage?
A.Argue against an idea. |
B.Explain some famous sayings. |
C.Introduce some famous sayings. |
D.Put forward an idea. |
What does the underlined word most probably mean?
A.Somebody who always lives in a world of passion and imagination. |
B.Somebody who is always interested in making new friends. |
C.Somebody who always expects the worst to happen. |
D.Somebody who likes to live a rich and abundant life. |
Which of the following behavior is probably NOT encouraged by the author?
A.Thinking more than your own business. |
B.Caring only about your physical welfare. |
C.Reading good novels. |
D.Listening to fine music. |
What is the main idea of the passage?
A.To be is to be in relations. |
B.I think, therefore I am. |
C.To be or not to be, that is a question. |
D.A man dies as often as he loses a friend. |
Ellen and Bill County are both teachers. They met in college and became good friends because of their shared love for children. Two years after the couple got married, Ellen saw a huge change in the life of one of her students, a 9-year-old girl. Three years ago both of the little girl’s parents had died and there was no one to take care of her. She was taken away to live in a government office. But finally she was taken in and adopted by a family and became their daughter. Ellen said that she noticed the difference in the child’s life after she was placed in a permanent home and thought that maybe she and her husband could help a child in a similar way.
They decided to become temporary parents and to take a child into their home on the weekends when the real parents could not take care of him or her. The pair planned to have their own children in a few years, but decided that this would be a way to give to the community in the meantime.
The couple quickly grew to love one of the children they looked after. When he became legally available, Billy became the first child they took in permanently. Six months after adopting Billy, Ellen was told by her doctor that she was unable to have children naturally. Ellen says she knew then that adoption was the way she was meant to have a family.
Since adopting Billy, now 17, Ellen and Bill have adopted five more children --- Rose,16; Albert, 11; Joshua, 5 and in June 2003, they added biological brother and sister Tyler and Rylee to the County family.
The County family has been recognized for their work on adoption, and have received many awards for their efforts. Last June, the family was even interviewed on the television show, “Adoption Stories”.
Ellen says she would like to encourage other families to adopt children. She adds that the best part of being a mother of six is: “Giving Josh a bath, putting a band-aid on a cut knee or just the everyday mom things, that makes motherhood such an honor and a privilege.”What is the passage mainly about?
A.How a couple first met at college | B.Where you can adopt a child |
C.The benefits of adoption to the community | D.How adoption created a happy family |
Why did Ellen and Bill first decide to adopt a childe?
A.Because they had always loved children very much |
B.Because they saw the benefits of adoption for a child |
C.Because they were not able to have children of their own |
D.Because they wanted to receive awards for their community work |
Which of the children are related to each other by blood?
A.Rylee and Tyler | B.Billy and Tyler |
C.Albert and Joshua | D.Rose and Albert |
What can be inferred from this passage?
A.Ellen had thought of adopting a child before getting married. |
B.Only kids under 16 can be adopted by a family |
C.A loving family is important to a child’s happiness |
D.Adopting a child always makes the family become famous |
The right to pursue happiness is issued to us all with our birth, but no one seems quite sure what it is.
A holy man in India may think that happiness is in himself. It is in needing nothing from outside himself. If wanting nothing, he lacks nothing. We westerners, however, are taught that the more we have from outside ourselves, the happier we will be, and then we are made to want. We are even told it is our duty to want. Advertising, one of our major industries, exists not to satisfy these desires but to create them---and to create them faster than any man’s money in his pocket can satisfy them. Here, obviously someone is trying to buy the dream of happiness and spending millions upon millions every year in the attempt. Clearly the happiness-market is not running out of customers.
I doubt the holy man’s idea of happiness, and I doubt the dreams of the happiness-market, too. Whatever happiness may be, I believe, it is neither in having nothing nor in having more, but in changing --- in changing the world and mankind into pure states.
To change is to make efforts to deal with difficulties. As Yeats, a great Irish poet once put it, happiness we get for a lifetime depends on how high we choose our difficulties.
It is easy to understand. We even demand difficulty for the fun in our games. We demand it because without difficulty there can be no game. And a game is a way of making something hard for the fun of it. The rules of the game are man-made difficulties. When the player ruins the fun, he always does so by refusing to play by the roles. It is easier to win at chess if you are free, at your pleasure, to cast away all the rules, but the fun is in winning within the rules.
The same is true to happiness. The buyers and sellers at the happiness-market seem to have lost their sense of the pleasure of difficulty. Heaven knows what they are playing, but it seems a dull game. And the Indian holy man seems dull to us, I suppose, because he seems to be refusing to play anything at all.
The western weakness may be in the dreams that happiness can be bought while eastern weakness may be in the idea that there is such a thing as perfect happiness in man himself. Both of them forget a basic fact: no difficulty, no happiness.Who shares the same idea of happiness with the author?
A.The Indian holy man | B.The great Irish poet Yeats |
C.Advertisers | D.The buyers and sellers at the happiness-market |
What does “happiness-market” mean in the second paragraph?
A.It means a place in which people can buy things happily |
B.It means a market which lacks happy customers |
C.It means a pure state for the world and mankind |
D.It means a market where people try to buy happiness with money. |
According to the passage, which of the following is Right?
A.The Indian holy man is much happier than westerner. |
B.The westerners understand happiness better than the Indian holy man. |
C.There is no fun without playing by the rules |
D.Both the eastern weakness and western weakness are the same. |
Friendships are some of the most important relationships that we will ever have in our lives. But how to build a solid friendship? Here are five tips for you.
Tip 1. _____
True friendships can only be built in honesty. This is more than just telling the truth. Being real and open about who you are and your thoughts and feelings are a part of building a solid friendship. If your “friends” don’t even really know you, who are they really friends with?
Tip 2. Shared Experiences
As you build your friendship, you will share many experiences together. Some of these may be great adventures or hard times that the two of you go through together. These shared experiences are things that you will laugh about, talk about, and cry about no matter how much time passes.
Tip 3. Sacrificial(牺牲精神的)love
Love is the basis(基础)of all solid relationships. I am not referring to the emotion(情感) of love, but to the action of love. Love is what will cause a friend to get out of bed in the middle of the night to help another. Love is what will put aside someone’s own wants to make sure that their friend is alright.
Tip 4. Understanding
When a friendship is solid, it will be based on each other’s understanding. You may not agree with everything that a friend says or does, but you will be able to put yourself into his or her shoes to begin to understand. Offering understanding to a friend is very important, as it allows them to feel that they have someone in their corner that they can talk to and who will offer advice and suggestions, without having to worry that if they don’t always follow it, the friendship will be lost.
Tip 5. Acceptance
A solid friendship is one in which two people accept one another, faults and all, for just who they are. There is no having to build up false excuses, or hide away the “dark secrets” from one another. We accept each other as whole, complete, and totally unique people.What’s the best title of Tip 1?
A.Introduction of yourself. | B.Telling the truth |
C.Honesty | D.True friendships |
Which tip can remind us of an English proverb “Love me, love my dog”?
A.Tip 2. | B.Tip 3. | C.Tip 4. | D.Tip 5. |
What’s the meaning of the underlined part “put yourself into his or her shoes” in Tip 4?
A.Exchange your shoes with his or hers. | B.Try on his or her shoes. |
C.Put yourself in his or her position. | D.Force yourself. |
What’s the best title of the whole passage?
A.A solid friendship | B.The most important relationships |
C.Five tips for you | D.Tips on how to build a solid friendship |
China’s government has been trying all measures to reduce pollution in the past few years. Now people can enjoy a fresh environment everywhere. The following two graphs are adopted from the column of “City Information” on the webpage of Beijing Review.
Graph 1: Olympic Cities Air Quality Report
City |
Date |
API |
Major Pollutant |
Air Quality Degree |
Quality Condition |
Beijing |
Sep. 8 |
37 |
N/A |
Ⅰ |
Very good |
Qinhuangdao |
Sep. 8 |
52 |
PM10 |
Ⅱ |
Good |
Qingdao |
Sep. 8 |
68 |
PM10 |
Ⅱ |
Good |
Shanghai |
Sep. 8 |
67 |
PM10 |
Ⅱ |
Good |
Shenyang |
Sep. 8 |
88 |
PM10 |
Ⅱ |
Good |
Tianjin |
Sep. 8 |
54 |
PM10 |
Ⅱ |
Good |
Graph 2: Chinese National Standard
API Values |
Levels of health concern |
Colors |
When the API is in this range: |
...air quality co![]() |
...as symbolized by this color: |
0 to 50 |
Very good |
Blue |
51 to 100 |
Good |
Green |
101 to 150 |
Slight pollution |
Yellow |
151 to 200 |
Moderate pollution |
Orange |
201 to 250 |
Medium pollution |
Red |
251 to 300 |
High pollution |
Purple |
301 to 500 |
Hazardous |
Brown |
Notes:
**API stands for Air Pollution Index(指数).
**Particulate matter (PM10) is a major component of air pollution that threatens both our health and our environment. It consists of very small liquid and solid particles floating in the air.
**Sulfur dioxide(SO2) acts as an acid.Inhalation(吸入) results in labored breathing, coughing, or a sore throat and may cause permanent lung damage.According to Graph 1, which of the following cities has the worst air pollution?
A.Qinhuangdao. | B.Tianjin. |
C.Qingdao | D.Shenyang. . |
If your city is symbolized by either red or purple, the pollution in your city is.
A.Moderate or high. | B.Moderate or slight. |
C.Medium or high. | D.Medium or slight. |
Which of the following statements is TURE?
A.With API value below 150 the air is free from being polluted. |
B.The colors from purple to Yellow indicate the air quality is becoming much worse. |
C.When there are floating solid particles and dust in the air, it is dangerous pollution. |
D.On September 8th the color-symbol of Beijing City’s air quality is ‘Blue’. |
When more citizens are beginning to have labored breathing soon after they are in the open air, it suggests that.
A.there is a large amount of sulfur dioxide in the air |
B.it is so cold that they may have caught a cold |
C.they are starting to cough or have a fever |
D.they must be infected with permanent lung disease |
Most laws in the United States and Canada are similar to laws in other countries. For example, it is against the law everywhere to murder a person, and it is illegal to steal money. Everyone knows these laws, but foreign students or tourists in a new country may not know some of the local laws. For instance, a legal action in Peru may be against the law in Korea, and an illegal activity in an Asian city may be perfectly legal in a European city. On the other hand, laws may be the same in various countries but vary in different cities or states of the same nation.
In many cities in the United States, for instance, it is not legal to “jaywalk.” This law may seem strange to visitors. Sometimes they cross a street, and a police officer gives them a ticket. Then they need to pay a fine of $10 to $25. They soon learn to cross a street only in a crosswalk or at a corner. It’s against the law to cross in the middle of the street.
Most people know that states in the United States have different laws about the legal drinking age; this age varies, but in most states no one under twenty-one can buy alcohol, even beer or wine. Also, in most U.S. cities, it is illegal to drink alcohol in public. Of course, liquor is legal in restaurants and bars, but it’s against the law to drink a can of beer, for instance, on a public street. Some people put the can in a paper bag and drink; nobody can see the beer, but it still isn’t legal. In addition, it is illegal to have an open liquor bottle inside a car. We can learn from Paragraph 1 that ______.
A.it is legal to steal money in some countries |
B.Peru and Korea have completely different laws |
C.there may be different local laws in a country |
D.an Asian city and a European city can’t have the same law |
The word “jaywalk” underlined in the second paragraph most probably means ______.
A.to talk with others while crossing a street |
B.to have a drink while crossing a street |
C.to cross in the middle of the street |
D.to cross a street at a corner |
Which of the following is legal in the United States?
A.Selling a can of beer to teenagers. |
B.Having a bottle of wine in a Chinese restaurant. |
C.Having an open bottle of beer inside a car. |
D.Drinking a can of beer in a street without being seen. |