Facebook means never having to say goodbye. The social media website has earned a reputation for reconnecting old friends. Last week, a guy whom I hadn’t seen since my bachelor party five years ago sent me a friend request. I accepted and waited for “Easy E” to send me a greeting of some kind. He had sought me out, after all.
I learned from his profile that he was in a relationship and had a son. However, I’m pretty sure we won’t ever write wall-to-wall, let alone e-mail each other. But he’ll remain a friend of online until one of us makes a point of removing the other from his official list.
My pool of friends consists of family members, college buddies, co-workers from past and present, and friends of friends. There are 35 in all. If I spent some time uploading old e-mail addresses, I’m confident that I could increase my friend count actually.
A person could make a mission out of reconnecting with childhood friends, former classmates, distant cousins, and those one would like to get to know better. And some people can even handle hundreds of on-screen relationships, keeping up with the daily happenings of their small army of companions. After all, there are worse fates than having too many friends.
Thanks to e-mail, the inability to schedule face-to-face meetings no longer means a friendship must come to a close. But even with e-mail, people will lose touch if one or both parties stop writing back. That’s normal. People move from school to school, job to job, city to city. You never have to feel guilty for breaking away.
Every day, the masterminds of Web 2.0 find new ways of making human communication easier. However, convenience can be a walking stick. Some things shouldn’t be simplified. When it comes to friendship, there can be no shortcuts.According to Paragraph 1, the website is famous because .
| A．it has an interesting name of “Facebook” |
| B．it can send people a greeting of some kind |
| C．it helps people get in touch with old friends |
| D．it reminds people of events in the past |
From the second paragraph we can learn that the writer .
| A．would write to the friend quite often |
| B．did get some information about the friend |
| C．asked the friend to e-mail him |
| D．would keep in touch with the friend forever |
Which of the following statements is NOT true?
| A．The author communicates with all the 35 friends by e-mails. |
| B．There are 35 people in the author’s list of friends right now. |
| C．The list of 35 friends doesn’t include the old e-mail addresses. |
| D．It is not difficult for the author to increase his friend count. |
What does the writer mean by saying “However, convenience can be a walking stick”？
| A．The masterminds of Web 2.0 also sell walking sticks online. |
| B．Taking a walking stick is a new way of making friends online. |
| C．Convenience is dangerous for human communication. |
| D．Convenience is not really good for human communication. |
More than half a century ago, there were 4, 000 drivein movie theaters in the United States, and watching a movie from your car was a popular way to spend an evening. But with the number of driveins reduced to just a few hundred, outdoor movie has been popping up across the nation. Going to an openair theater has become a modern summer pastime for an increasing number of movie fans.
In recent years, outdoor movie screenings have come up in parks, vacant lots and shopping malls around the nation. On average, about 1,000 people attend each movie night. It attracts a lot of young professionals, young workers and residents nearby. For some, the outdoor movies bring back the memories of the drivein theaters of their youths. But for the majorities, they think it is comparable to the atmosphere of driveins, as they can bring friends, food, good wine, and watch the movie together.
The returning of Americans' love affair with outdoor movies makes Stephen Bastas ever busier. His sevenmember crew sets up screens in various locations mostly in the Washington area every day throughout the summer. They are doing pretty well and they hope to continue the trend. And it looks like they are going to. That's because many fans say there is nothing like watching a movie on a breezy summer evening under the stars.In the first paragraph, the author tries to tell us ________.
| A．outdoor movies attracts more movielovers |
| B．summer brings back more drivein movie fans |
| C．drivein movie theaters have already disappeared |
| D．watching a movie from your car is becoming more popular |
Most people choose to go to an outdoor movie mainly because they can ________.
| A．have snacks before the movie |
| B．cheer up with young friends |
| C．bring back good old days |
| D．enjoy the casual atmosphere |
From the text, we can learn that Stephen Bastas is most probably ________.
| A．a movie maker |
| B．an outdoor movie fan |
| C．a movie director |
| D．an openair theater operator |
How does stephen Bastas feel about the future of outdoor movies？________.
| A．Optimistic | B．Amazed |
| C．Worried | D．Disappointed |
Password (密码) strength has been a topic about the Internet lately. I have seen lots of clever methods for generating and remembering strong passwords. Some are better than others, but in my opinion, none are adequate. Here's the problem: It doesn't matter how strong your passwords are if you use the same one on multiple sites. All it takes is for a site to get hacked(侵入), like Gawker media, or even Sony did, and now your superstrong password has been stolen, and every site on which you used that password has been accessed.
So, the bottom line is that no matter how strong your passwords are, and no matter what clever tricks you use to help you remember them, if you surf internet often, the only truly secure password system is what you need.
Enter LastPass. It's not the only password manager out there, but I like it the best. You create ONE strong password that you have to memorize and use it to access your LastPass database. The LastPass database is stored online, on LastPass's servers. LastPass recognizes the site you're on and automatically logs you in (after, optionally, asking you to reenter your master password). LastPass also has automatic form fill and automatic password generation. This means that you can have a different, unique, very strong password for every site you log into, but you only have to remember one master password. It's the best of both worlds.
One argument against LastPass is that if their database is attacked, then all of your sites are in danger, and that's true, but given that their entire line of work is keeping that information safe, I'm willing to take that chance. The alternative is rolling dice(掷骰子) or picking phrases to create passwords, writing all of them down on a piece of paper or something, and then having to manually type them in when I go to a site. A terrible mess.
There is a free version of LastPass, with some additional features unlocked if you pay a $12 a year subscription.
Joshua BardwellThe writer thinks using the same password everywhere is ________.
| A．dangerous | B．convenient |
| C．appropriate | D．adequate |
When using Lastpass, users have to remember ________.
| A．all passwords used |
| B．the last password |
| C．unique password each time |
| D．the master password only |
Critics are against Lastpass because ________.
| A．they have better ways to create password |
| B．they think rolling dice is more convenient |
| C．they have no faith in Lastpass database's safety |
| D．Gawker media and Lastpass were hacked once |
Joshua Bardwell writes the passage to ________.
| A．share his experience |
| B．introduce a product of good quality |
| C．advertise his product |
| D．teach how to use a new product |
The Great Barn Adventure
One morning when I was 11, I explored the town's abandoned round grain barn(谷仓). I found a chained sliding door that was wide enough for me to pass through.
Inside, there was a heavy smell of dead mice in the dark. After my eyes adjusted, I noticed a shaft (升降机井) that rose all the way to the top of the barn. On one side was a oneman elevator with a long rope and roller.
I stepped onto the platform and gave the rope a drag and the elevator began sliding up the shaft, but stopped halfway. After a brief panic attack, I noticed holes in the wall at regular intervals, forming a ladder. For reasons known only to an 11yearold, I decided it would be better to go up than down. So, with shaking hands, I began climbing the wall.
After what seemed like forever, I reached the top of the shaft. I stood up, dusted myself off and found…absolutely nothing of interest. It was just an empty room with a ladder leading up to the roof. I climbed all the way up here for this? Then I noticed a fire extinguisher(灭火器)，which I'd always wanted to shoot off. So this was the chance of a lifetime. I tried it, and, much to my surprise, the thing worked! It shot out a thick cloud of powder that instantly filled the room. I couldn't breathe. I was going to choke to death, and they'd probably never even find my body.
Luckily, I remembered the ladder to the roof. I climbed up, popped the straw roof and saw a bright blue sky.
I suddenly realized the dust and powder pouring out of the top could draw attention. So when the dust had settled, I climbed down and slipped out of the chained door. I'm not sure if I was more excited about being alive or about not being caught, but I ran all the way back home. When the author got inside the barn, he ________.
| A．noticed a man on the elevator |
| B．opened the chained sliding door |
| C．saw many dead mice in the dark |
| D．found a shaft leading to the top |
Which of the following is the right order of the author's adventure?
a. The elevator stopped halfway.
b. He entered the round grain barn.
c. He climbed to the top of the shaft.
d. He found a fire extinguisher and shot it off.
| A．b－a－c－d | B．a－c－b－d |
| C．c－a－d－b | D．b－c－a－d |
After getting out of the chained door, the author might feel ________.
| A．inspired | B．relieved |
| C．surprised | D．disappointed |
I lost my sight when I was four years old by falling off a box car in a goods yard in Atlantic City and landing on my head. Now I can dimly remember the brightness of sunshine and what color red is. It would be wonderful to see again, but a calamity(大灾难) can do strange things to people. It occurred to me the other day that I might not have come to love life as I do if I hadn't been blind. I believe in life now. I am not so sure that I would have believed in it so deeply, otherwise. I don't mean that I would prefer to go without my eyes. I simply mean that the loss of them made me appreciate the more what I had left.
Life, I believe, asks a continuous series of adjustments to reality. In spite of the fact the adjustment is never easy, I had my parents and teachers to help. The hardest lesson I had to learn was to believe in myself. If I hadn't been able to do that, I would have collapsed and become a chair rocker on the front porch for the rest of my life. When I say belief in myself I am not talking about simply the kind of self confidence that helps me down an unfamiliar staircase alone. That is part of it. But I mean something bigger than that: an assurance that I am, despite imperfections, a real, positive person; that there is a special place where I can make myself fit.
It took me years to discover and strengthen this assurance. It had to start with the most elementary things. Once a man gave me an indoor baseball. I thought he was laughing at me and I was hurt. “I can't use this.” I said. “Take it with you，” he urged me, “and roll it around.” The words stuck in my head. “Roll it around！” By rolling the ball I could hear where it went. This gave me an idea how to achieve a goal I had thought impossible: playing baseball.
All my life I have set ahead of me a series of goals and then tried to reach them, one at a time. I had to learn my limitations. It was no good to try for something that I knew at the start was wildly out of reach because that only invited the bitterness of failure. I would fail sometimes anyway but on the average I made progress.We can learn from the beginning of the passage that ________.
| A．the author lost his sight because of a car crash |
| B．the author wouldn't love life if the calamity didn't happen |
| C．the calamity made the author appreciate what he had |
| D．the calamity strengthened the author's desire to see |
What's the most difficult thing for the author?
| A．How to adjust himself to reality |
| B．Building up assurance that he can find his place in life |
| C．Learning to manage his life alone |
| D．To find a special work that suits the author |
For the author, the baseball and encouragement offered by the man ________.
| A．hurt the author's feeling |
| B．made the author puzzled |
| C．directly led to the change of the author's career |
| D．inspired the author |
According to the passage, the author ________.
| A．set goals for himself but only invited failure most of the time |
| B．thought that nothing was impossible for him |
| C．was discouraged from trying something out of reach for fear of failure |
| D．suggested not trying something beyond one's ability at the beginning |
In her new book, “The Smartest Kids in the World”， Amanda Ripley, an investigative journalist, tells the story of Tom, a highschool student from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, who decides to spend his senior year in Wroclaw, Poland. Poland is a surprising educational success story: in the past decade, the country raised students' test scores from significantly below average to well above it. Polish kids have now outscored American kids in math and science, even though Poland spends, on average, less than half as much per student as the United States does. One of the most striking differences between the high school Tom attended in Gettysburg and the one he ends up at in Wroclaw is that the latter has no football team or teams of any kind.
That American high schools spend more time and money on sports than on math is an old complaint. In December, when the latest Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results are announced, it's safe to predict that American highschool students will once again show their limited skills in math and reading, outscored not just by students in Poland but also by students in places like China, Finland, Singapore, and Japan. Meanwhile, they will have played some very exciting football games, which will have been breathlessly written up in their hometown papers.
Why does this situation continue? Well, for one thing, kids like it. And for another, according to Ripley, parents seem to like the arrangement, too. She describes a tour she took of a school in Washington D．C., which costs thirty thousand dollars a year. The tour leader a mother with three children in the school was asked about the school's flaws (瑕疵). When she said that the math program was weak, none of the parents taking the tour reacted. When she said that the football program was weak, the parents suddenly became concerned. “Really？” one of them asked worriedly, “What do you mean？”
One of the ironies of the situation is that sports show what is possible. American kids' performance on the field shows just how well they can do when expectations are high. It's too bad that their_test_scores_show_the_same_thing._Tom decides to spend his senior year in Poland because ________.
| A．he intends to improve his scores |
| B．Polish kids are better at learning |
| C．sports are not supported at schools in Gettysburg |
| D．he wants to be the smartest kid in the world |
According to Paragraph 2, we know that ________.
| A．PISA plays a very important role in America |
| B．little time is spent on sports in Japanese schools |
| C．American students do better in both math and sports |
| D．too much importance is placed on sports in America |
The underlined sentence in the last paragraph means ________.
| A．low expectations result in American students' poor PISA performance |
| B．high expectations push up American students' academic performance |
| C．American students' academic performance worries their parents a lot |
| D．lacking practice contributes to American students' average performance |
The purpose of this article is to ________.
| A．compare Polish schools with those in America |
| B．call on American schools to learn from the Polish model |
| C．draw public attention to a weakness in American school tradition |
| D．explain what is wrong with American schools and provide solutions |