My mother is a diligent and kind woman. She is very busy from morning till night. As a teacher, she works hard. Both my brother and I love her dearly as she loves us.
My mother has been teaching math at a middle school in my hometown. She goes to work early in the morning and does not return home until late in the afternoon. She treats them with patience and teaches them well. For her excellent quality and very good teaching results, she has been elected as a model teacher several times.
Every day, when she comes back home from work, she sets about doing housework, sweeping the living room and bedrooms or cleaning the furniture, and putting everything in good order. She seems to be busy all the time. As she has been very busy working every day, she looks older than her age. But she looks as cheerful and happy as ever. Mother never buys expensive dresses for herself, but she often buys some inexpensive but high quality clothes for us.
She just eats a plain meal outside when she is too busy to cook herself. She lives a busy yet simple life, without any complaints.
Often she says to us, “work while you work, and play while you play. That is the way to be happy and gay. If you do not work, you will become lazy and be of no use to society”. What a piece of good advice this is! This advice of hers will always serve as a guide to my behavior. My mother is great indeed, and I always feel proud of her.
A.She enjoys listening to classic music. |
B.As a mother, she takes good care of us and gives us every comfort. |
C.She loves her students and cares for them. |
D.She never goes to expensive restaurants to enjoy meals. |
E. My mother is hard-working and never wastes money.
F. I never forget it and always bear it in my mind.
For those who are tired doing the laundry, Samsung has found an answer: a washing machine that can tell you when your laundry is done via a smartphone app(application).
Strange though it may seem - "my wife already does that" was a common response among attendees viewing the device when it was introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week - Samsung is just one of many appliance makers racing to install (安装) a large number of internet-connected features in machines in an effort to make them "smart".
Last year, it was a refrigerator that tweeted. This year, it's Wi-Fi-enabled laundry machines and fridges that can tell you when your groceries are going bad.
The washers and dryers, available starting in the spring, connect to any smartphone through a downloadable application. The phone can then be used as a remote control, so the machines can be turned on and off while their owners is at work or on the bus.
Samsung says it's not just something new - the app connection actually has some practical uses.
"If you started to dry clothes in the morning and forgot to take them out, you can go to your phone and restart your dryer for the time when come home, so your clothes are refreshed and ready to go," said spokesperson Amy Schmidt.
The company also says that with electricity rate(电价)varying depending on the time of day, more control over when the machines are used can help save money.
Perhaps, but what they will probably really accomplish is what all good technologies do -enable laziness. Rather than getting up to check on whether the laundry is done, users will instead monitor it on their phones while watching TV.
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What can be inferred from the common response of the attendees at the CES?
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What can we learn about the new laundry machines?
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We can conclude form Samsung's statements that.
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What is the main idea of the last paragraph?
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San Francisco has its cable cars. Seattle has its Space Needle. And, Longview has its squirrel bridge. The bridge, which has attracted international attention, is now a local landmark.
The Nutty Narrows Bridge was built in 1963 by a local builder, Amos Peters, to give squirrels a way to cross the busy road without getting flattened by passing cars.
The original bridge was built over Olympia Way on the west edge of the library grounds. Before the bridge was built, squirrels had to avoid traffic to and from the Park Plaza office building where office staff put out a nutty feast for the squirrels. Many times, Peters and others who worked in and near Park Plaza witnessed squirrels being run over.
One day Peters found a dead squirrel with a nut still in its mouth, and that day’s coffee break discussion turned into squirrel safety. The group of businessmen cooked up the squirrel bridge idea and formed a committee to ask the blessing of the City Council(市政会).The Council approved, and Councilwoman Bess LaRiviere named the bridge “Nutty Narrows.”
After architects designed the bridge, Amos Peters and Bill Hutch started Construction, They built the 60-foot bridge from aluminum and lengths of fire hose(消防水带). It cost 1,000.
It didn’t take long before reports of squirrels using the bridge started. Squirrels were even seen guiding their young and teaching them the ropes. The story was picked up by the media, and Nutty Narrows became know in newspapers all over the world.
In 1983, after 20 years of use, Peters took down the worn-out bridge. Repairs were made and crosspieces were replaced. The faded sign was repainted and in July 1983, hundreds of animal lovers attended the completion ceremony of the new bridge.
Peters died in 1984, and a ten-foot wooden squirrel sculpture was placed near the bridge in memory of its builder and his devotion to the project. The Nutty Narrows Bridge was built in order to ________.
A.offer squirrels a place to eat nuts |
B.set up a local landmark |
C.help improve traffic |
D.protect squirrels |
What happened over the coffee break discussion?
A.The committee got the Council’s blessing. |
B.The squirrel bridge idea was born |
C.A councilwoman named the bridge |
D.A squirrel was found dead. |
What does the underlined phrase “teaching them the ropes” probably means in the text?
A.passing them a rope |
B.Directing them to store food for winter |
C.Teaching them a lesson |
D.Showing them how to use the bridge. |
Which of the following is true of the squirrel bridge?
A.It was replaced by a longer one. |
B.It was built from wood and metal. |
C.it was rebuilt after years of use. |
D.It was designed by Bill Hutch. |
What can we learn about Amos Peters?
A.He is remembered for his love of animals. |
B.He donated $1,000 to build the bridge. |
C.He was a member of the City Council. |
D.He was awarded a medal for building the bridge. |
One of the greatest contributions to the first Oxford English Dictionary was also one of its most unusual. In 1879, Oxford University in England asked Prof. James Murray to serve as editor for what was to be the most ambitious dictionary in the history of the English language. It would include every English word possible and would give not only the definition but also the history of the word and quotations (引文)showing how it was used.
This was a huge task. So Murrary had to find volunteers from Britain, the United States, and the British colonies to search every newspaper, magazine, and book ever written in English. Hundreds of volunteers responded, including William Chester Minor. Dr. Minor was an American Surgeon who had served in the Civil War and was now living in England. He gave his address as "Broadmoor, Crowthorne, Berkshire," 50 miles from Oxford.
Minor joined the army of volunteers sending words and quotations to Murray. Over the next years, he became one of the staff's most valued contributors.
But he was also a mystery. In spite of many invitations, he would always decline to visit Oxford. So in 1897, Murray finally decided to travel to Crowthorne himself. When he arrived, he found Minor locked in a book-lined cell at the Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally insane.
Murray and Minor became friends, sharing their love of words. Minor continued contributing to the dictionary, sending in more than 10,000 submissions in 20 years. Murray continued to visit Minor regularly, sometimes taking walks with him around the asylum grounds.
In 1910, Minor left Broadmoor for an asylum in his native America. Murray was at the port to wave goodbye to his remarkable friend.
Minor died in 1920, seven years before the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was completed. The 12 volumes defined 414,825 words, and thousands of them were contributions from a very scholarly and devoted asylum patient.
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According to the text, the first Oxford English Dictionary.
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How did Dr. Minor contributed to the dictionary?
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3. |
Why did Dr. Minor refuse to visit Oxford?
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Prof. Murray and Dr. Minor became friends mainly because.
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Which of the following best describe Dr. Minor?
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6. |
What does the text mainly talk about?
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The Pacific island nation of Nauru used to be a beautiful place. Now it is an ecological disaster area. Nauru’s heartbreaking story could have one good consequence — other countries might learn from its mistakes.
For thousands of years, Polynesian people lived the remote island of Nauru, far from western civilization. The first European to arrive was John Fearn in 1798. He was the British captain of the Hunter, a whaling ship. He called the island Pleasant Island.
However, because it was very remote, Nauru had little communication with Europeans at first. The whaling ships and other traders began to visit, bringing guns and alcohol. These elements destroyed the social balance of the twelve family groups on the island. A ten-year civil war started, which reduced the population from 1,400 to 900.
Nauru’s real troubles began in 1899 when a British mining company discovered phosphate (磷酸盐)on the island. In fact, it found that the island of Nauru was nearly all phosphate, which a very important fertilizer for farming. The company began mining the phosphate.
A phosphate mine is not a hole in the ground; it is a strip mine. When a company strip-mines, it removes the top layer of soil. Then it takes away the material it wants. Strip mining totally destroys the land. Gradually, the lovely island of Nauru started to look like the moon.
In 1968, Nauru became one of the richest countries in the world. Every year the government received millions and millions of dollars for its phosphate.
Unfortunately, the leaders invested the money unwisely and lost millions of dollars. In addition, they used millions more dollars for personal expenses. Soon people realized that they had a terrible problem — their phosphate was running out. Ninety percent of their island was destroyed and they had nothing. By 2000, Nauru was financially ruined. Experts say that it would take approximately $433,600,000 and more than 20 years to repair the island. This will probably never happen. What might be the author’s purpose in writing the text?
A.To seek help for Nauru’s problems. |
B.To give a warning to other countries |
C.To show the importance of money |
D.To tell a heartbreaking story of a war. |
What was Nauru like before the Europeans came?
A.Rich and powerful | B.Modern and open |
C.Peaceful and attractive | D.Greedy and aggressive |
The ecological disaster in Nauru resulted from _______.
A.soil pollution | B.phosphate overmining |
C.farming activity | D.whale hunting |
Which of the following was a cause of Nauru’s financial problem?
A.Its leaders misused the money |
B.It spent too much repairing the island |
C.Its phosphate mining cost much money |
D.It lost millions of dollars in the civil war. |
What can we learn about Nauru from the last paragraph?
A.The ecological damage is difficult to repair. |
B.The leaders will take the experts’ words seriously. |
C.The island was abandoned by the Nauruans |
D.The phosphate mines were destroyed |
If you are looking for an animal to take the title of “most violent fish in the sea”, then the tiger puffer (河豚) fish would have to be a strong contestant. Not only is it deadly poisonous --- though that doesn’t stop people trying to eat it --- but it is also able to scare off enemies by inflating itself to become much larger than normal, when it is young it even chews on its own brothers and sisters.
Tiger puffer fish attach their eggs to rocks near the bottom of the sea, often at the mouths of bays. Then the larvae (幼鱼) move to the entries of rivers and lakes once they have grown a little. Then, having put on a lot of weight, they head out to sea. There’s no innocent childhood for the puffer fish, as Shin Oikawa of Kyushu University in Japan and his colleagues found out when they put the larvae of tiger puffer fish in the lab and monitored them for two months. They found that the larvae went through three steps in which their metabolic(新陈代谢) rates increased dramatically when they reached body weights of 0.002g, 0.01g, and 0.1g. When a larva went through one of these steps, its behavior also changed. For instance, once a larva had passed the first level it would have grown its first tooth and could start attacking larvae that had not yet reached that stage. Similarly, any larva that had reached the 0.01g or 0.1g levels would start attacking lighter larvae.
The researchers noted that the baby fish had a “relatively small mouth”, so rather than swallowing their brothers and sisters whole, they would bite pieces out of them. Despite this limitation, the fish caused plenty of deaths --- up to 12 per cent of the deaths that happened in the lab each day.
Those fish that grew fast enough to be able to chew on their fellows had an advantage. The extra food accelerated their growth and development. Tiger puffer fish are likely to be faster and swifter, so they can deal better with enemies.
As the name suggests, puffer fish can inflate to make themselves seem much larger than they really are, thus scaring off enemies. They do this by filling their stomachs, which are extremely elastic(弹性的), with water. If that’s not enough of a threat, the tiger puffer fish --- like most of the other puffer fish in the family --- carries a deadly toxin(毒素). Eat one puffer fish and the poison will paralyze (瘫痪) your muscles, including the muscles responsible for breathing, so death is usually caused by a lack of oxygen. Famously, the fish is a delicacy in Japan, where highly qualified chefs produce dishes that contain the safe level of the poison. Interestingly, the puffer fish does not go to the trouble of producing the poison itself. Instead, it hosts bacteria (细菌) that produce the stuff. It obtains these bacteria from its diet, so the youngest adult fish are not poisonous.All of the following statements account for the violence of puffer fish except that_____.
A.they are very difficult to catch |
B.they can become larger to threaten enemies away |
C.they kill their younger companions as they grow up |
D.they are deadly poisonous |
We can learn from the second paragraph that puffer fish _____.
A.can only grow to a weight of 0.1g |
B.do not change their behavior as they grow up |
C.like to find a safe place to hatch the next generation |
D.begin to grow teeth when they reach the third level |
Where does the poison in the puffer fish’s body come from?
A.Its inner organs. | B.The air it breathes in. |
C.The diet it eats. | D.The bacteria around it. |
Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?
A.Puffer fish can only produce poison when they face danger. |
B.People like eating puffer fish even though they are poisonous. |
C.The larvae are more aggressive than adult puffer fish. |
D.Young puffer fish taste better than adult puffer fish. |