Flowers only bloom(开花) when they are planted in the right soil. That is also true for me.
I first moved to Foxboro, Massachusetts, as a single mother with my baby daughter, Darcy. I was drawn to its New England beauty, friendly people and rich history. It happened that there were a lot of forsythia(连翘) bushes around the house in which I lived just like my childhood home. I joined St. Mark’s Episcopal Church where I taught the Sunday school. At church, I met my second husband, Dean. For more than 25 years, I bloomed in Foxboro, and I had another two children.
Then, when Darcy was a few years out of college, she moved to Alameda, California, to be near friends. I missed her badly. A year later my beloved husband Dean had deadly cancer. He only made it eight months. My heart was broken. Later I moved to Alameda with my children. It was a beautiful Victorian island, and I was grateful to spend more time with Darcy. I even attended a church and made a few friends there. Still, I couldn’t help but miss Foxboro. It had everything and everyone I loved.
One spring day, when I was walking by a school, something yellow caught my eyes. Forsythia bushes! They made me homesick and I kept back my tears. “I miss you, Foxboro,” I whispered. Then I went into a shop and looked at some ceramic(陶瓷的) pots lined up on a shelf. A large white one seemed to catch my attention. “That’ll be perfect in my living room,” I thought.
I turned it over to look at the price. Instead I found these words: “New England Pottery, Foxboro, Massachusetts.” A piece of artwork, from my second hometown, was right here. It was able to spread across the country and so were forsythia bushes. I took it as a sign that I can bloom, right where I am.From the text we learn that the author ____.
| A．gave birth to three children in Foxboro |
| B．planted forsythia bushes around her house |
| C．got to know her second husband at church |
| D．worked as a middle school teacher in Foxboro |
The author moved to Alameda so that she could ____.
| A．have more time together with Darcy |
| B．forget the sorrow at her husband’s death |
| C．visit her children at Alameda College frequently |
| D．enjoy the beautiful scenery on the Victorian island |
When the author saw forsythia bushes at a school she _____.
| A．wanted to buy a ceramic pot to put them in |
| B．thought of her life in Foxboro |
| C．felt they would look great in her living room |
| D．believed they were real art work |
Why does the author compare herself to flowers?
| A．Because she wanted to show she likes flowers. |
| B．Because she can live in any place that is right like flowers. |
| C．Because she moved across the country just like flowers. |
| D．Because girls are like flowers that are blooming. |
Page last updated at 04:08, Friday, Nov. 22, 2013
US jumbo jet leaves tiny airport
ABoeing 747 Dreamlifter cargo (货物) plane has safely taken off from a tiny airport in Kansas after it landed there by mistake.
The huge cargo jet had been heading for McConnell air force base in Wichita, but instead touched down at nearby Colonel James Jabara airport.
No one was injured and no property damage occurred when the plane landed.
There had been questions as to whether the aircraft would be able to depart from the much shorter runway at Jabara.
The Dreamlifter normally needs a runway of 2,780m (9,119ft) to get into the air at maximum weight;
Jabara’s runway is only 1,860m long.
A tug (牵引车) was sent to the airport to turn around the huge cargo plane.
Brad Christopher of the Wichita Airport Authority told the Associated Press news agency that the company operating the aircraft had assured(使确信) us they've run all the engineering calculation and performance and the aircraft is very safe for a normal departure at its present weight and conditions here.
The Dreamlifter, which landed at Jabara on Wednesday evening, is a modified 747-400 passenger aeroplane, which can carry more cargo than any aeroplane in the world, according to Boeing.
The aerospace company uses its fleet of four Dreamlifters to transport large assembled components(组装零件) of its 787 Dreamliner from suppliers around the world to the final location in Washington State.From the passage we can learn that the Dreamlifter landed at Jabara airport ________.
| A．on Nov. 19, 2013 | B．on Nov. 20, 2013 |
| C．on Nov. 21, 2013 | D．on Nov. 22, 2013 |
What does the underlined word “jumbo” mean?
| A．Wonderful. | B．Crashed. | C．Small. | D．Huge. |
We can infer from the passage that the Dreamlifter landed at Jabara with ________.
| A．as much cargo as it could carry |
| B．more cargo than it could carry |
| C．less cargo than it could carry |
| D．heavier cargo than it could carry |
What’s the main idea of the news?
| A．A Boeing 747 Dreamlifter is stuck in a tiny air force base. |
| B．A US huge cargo plane has left a tiny airport after a wrong landing. |
| C．A modified 747-400 passenger aeroplane landed at Jabara by mistake. |
| D．A tug was sent to the Jabara airport to help a stuck Boeing 747 Dreamlifter take off. |
Making email easier is a task that several applications and email customers have tried and failed at SaneBox, like many add-ons, aims to make your digital life easier without forcing you to change your email platform.
To be sure, you can apply various priority (优先处理) classes and groupings using SaneBox. What really makes SaneBox worth checking out is its ability to ensure unimportant and low-priority emails don’t take up even a second of your day.
When you apply SaneBox to your email client (客户端), it spends a good deal of time scanning your entire inbox, including ones you’ve already read. This helps the add-on determine which emails are most important to you. From then on you’ll only see emails that SaneBox determines are must-reads, with all others falling into a “Later” folder which you can read at your spare time.
Each day --- or however often you want it --- SaneBox will produce a report of all the low-priority emails it has collected for you, like a secretary gathering all the odds and ends for a short daily report. If you find an important email has been flagged as low-priority, you can adjust the settings so it never happens again.
SaneBox works with all IMAP, WebDAV and OWA email customers including Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, MS Exchange and others. The program also supports OS X’s Mail customers, though it requires a bit of adjusting POP-only email services are not supported.
You can try out SaneBox for two weeks with no charge and after that point 3 options of subscriptions (订阅) are available, ranging from US$2 to $20 per month.What does the underlined word “add-ons” most probably mean?
| A．Extra programmes. | B．Email-boxes. |
| C．Additional machines. | D．Other email clients. |
The most important function of SaneBox is ________.
| A．to clear your mail box when it is full |
| B．to scan your inbox faster than others |
| C．to classify your emails to your preference |
| D．to gather all the odds and ends for you |
If an important email falls into the wrong collection, you can correct it ________.
| A．by putting it aside |
| B．by changing the settings |
| C．by flagging it as low-priority |
| D．by adding the right information |
What is the main purpose of this passage?
| A．To promote SaneBox. |
| B．To explain how to use SaneBox. |
| C．To compare email clients. |
| D．To introduce new email platforms. |
Sweetest Day in America is always the third Saturday in October. This holiday is much more important in some regions than in others (Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo being the biggest Sweetest Day cities). It is a holiday that is gaining in popularity every year throughout the country.
Sweetest Day is celebrated on the third Saturday in October as a day to make someone happy. It is an occasion which offers all of us an opportunity to remember not only the sick, aged, and orphaned, but also friends, relatives and associates whose helpfulness and kindness we have enjoyed.
Over 60 years ago, a man in Cleveland, believing that the city’s orphans and shut-ins (卧病在床的人) too often felt forgotten and neglected, thought of the idea of showing them that they were remembered. He did this through the distribution of small gifts. With the help of his friends and neighbors, he distributed these small remembrances on a Saturday in October. During the years that followed, other Clevelanders began to participate in the celebration ceremony, which came to be called “Sweetest Day”. In time, the Sweetest Day idea of spreading cheer to the underprivileged was broadened to include everyone, and became an occasion for remembering others with a kind act or a small remembrance. And soon the idea spread to other cities all over the country.
Sweetest Day is not based on any single group’s religious affection or on a family relationship. It is a reminder that a thoughtful word or deed enriches life and gives it meaning.
Because for many people remembering takes the form of gift-giving, Sweetest Day offers us the opportunity to show others that we care, in a practical way.We can learn from the first paragraph that Sweetest Day is ________.
A. sometimes the third Saturday in October
B. hardly celebrated in Detroit
C. of equal importance in every part of the USA.
D. getting increasingly popular in the USASweetest Day was originally intended to remember ________.
| A．the young and disabled | B．friends and relatives |
| C．orphans and shut-ins | D．the sick and aged |
We can infer from the passage that the birthplace of Sweetest Day is ________.
| A．Detroit | B．Cleveland |
| C．Buffalo | D．Washington |
Now on Sweetest Day gifts are given to those ________.
| A．we care | B．we admire |
| C．in need of help | D．in trouble |
Almost every person has a sweet tooth. Even if you love sugar really much it is now time to learn a very important but also very little known truth regarding sugar. Sugar really has no benefits for your health and the only actual benefits from it are that it sweetens your taste buds and satisfies your sweet tooth. Sugar is not a natural substance and is produced through a special industrial process called refining(炼制) the sugar cane. Sugar cane has a lot of health benefits but in the refining process it loses all its vitamins, proteins, minerals and other nutrients which are essential. Therefore, you end up consuming empty calories only. Moreover, your body gets all the sugar it needs from the consumption of regular food such as bread, vegetables, fruits and so on. No added sugar is really needed. However, most people love sugar and simply feel like they need to eat food high in sugar.
The latest researches show that the recommended intake of sugar which is healthy for your body on daily bases for children, men and women is as follows:
·children-- 12 grams, which equals 3 teaspoons;
·men-- 36 grams, which equals 9 teaspoons;
·women-- 20 grams, which equals 5 teaspoons.
The sugar intake when it comes to diabetics(糖尿病人)is a lot different based on the type of diabetes. It is best to consult your doctor in order to find out about your personal requirements for the intake of sugar before you follow the guidelines mentioned earlier.
When we speak about the recommended daily intake of sugar, it does not mean only simple sugars that we consume in the form of desserts and sodas but also sugars that come from complex carbohydrates and also fruit. You should not exclude all of the sugar from your diet but you should make up for all the extra sugar you eat by exercising. It is not really simple to calculate your sugar intake but you can still control it if you try and you can also get a bigger amount of exercise in order to regulate the sugar amount that is being taken in and then digested by your body.The passage mainly talks about__________
| A．the benefits and harm of taking in sugar |
| B．the process of refining the sugar cane |
| C．the causes of different types of diabetes |
| D．the proper intake of sugar for different people |
The underlined phrase “has a sweet tooth” means__________.
| A．has tooth problems | B．prefers sweet food |
| C．has a sweet mouth | D．is always lying |
Which of the following statements is true?
| A．Sugar cane has no benefits to physical health. |
| B．We also take in sugar from fruit and food |
| C．The recommended intake of sugar applies to all. |
| D．Many people know about the proper intake of sugar. |
As for diabetics, __________.
| A．they can never take in any sugar in their diet |
| B．they can take in no more than 20 gram of sugar every day |
| C．they needn’t ask their doctors for advice about their diet |
| D．the sugar intake varies depending on the type of diabetes |
Taking a picture of your tongue with a mobile phone could soon instantly tell you how healthy you are.
Researchers believe the images could reveal important information about a patient’s health—and even give them early warning of serious illness. A team at the University of Missouri is developing a system that can analyze pictures using a 5,000-year-old Chinese principle. It is based on the flow and balance of positive and negative energies in the body, and uses the tongue as a key to the physical health, or “zheng”, of a person. “Within a year, our ultimate goal is to create an application for smartphones that will allow anyone to take a photo of their tongue and learn the status of their zheng.”
The software analyses images based on the tongue’s color and coating to distinguish between tongues showing signs of ‘hot’ or ‘cold’ zheng. Shades of red and yellow are associated with hot zheng, whereas a white coating on the tongue is a sign of cold zheng. “Hot and cold zheng doesn’t refer directly to body temperature,” said Xu, “Rather, it refers to a series of symptoms associated with the state of the body as a whole.”
For the study, 263 gastritis(胃炎) patients and 48 healthy volunteers had their tongues analyzed. The gastritis patients were classified by whether they showed infection by a certain bacteria, known as Helicobacter pylori(幽门螺旋杆菌), as well as the intensity of their gastritis symptoms. In addition, most of the gastritis patients had been previously classified with either hot or cold zheng.
This allowed the researchers to prove the accuracy of the software’s analysis.
“Our software was able to classify people based on their zheng status,” said study co-author Ye Duan, associate professor of computer science at MU.
“As we continue to work on the software we hope to improve its ability,” Duan said. “Eventually everyone will be able to use this tool at home using webcams or smartphone applications”.
“That will allow them to monitor their zheng and get an early warning about possible ailments.”According to Chinese medicine, zheng refers to__________.
| A．the color and coating of one’s tongue |
| B．one’s body temperature |
| C．the physical health of a person |
| D．the possible illness of a person |
The study led by Dong Xu proves__________.
| A．the greatness of Chinese medicine |
| B．the effects of the software |
| C．the software’s great prospect |
| D．the advancement of smart phones |
The underlined word “ailments” can be replaced by__________.
| A．analysis | B．illnesses |
| C．effects | D．applications |
It can be inferred from the passage that__________.
| A．the software still needs improvement |
| B．the software has been in market for a year |
| C．the subjects in the study are all gastritis patients |
| D．the subjects in the study are classified by age |