The US government has started a website, Admongo, to help children think critically about the advertising aimed at them. It claims to provide visitors with an “education” through games and other entertainment.
A cartoon man dressed in old time pilot clothing greets visitors to Admongo. "Call me Haiz", he says upon arrival in a rocket ship that opens up with a crazy world inside it. Spacey dance music plays in the background as Haiz tells visitors that they need to learn about advertising.
Its inventors say eight to twelve years old is the age kids develop their critical thinking abilities. Kids of that age are also a big market for advertisers.
The idea behind Admongo is to teach children three things: To identify the advertiser. To know what the advertiser is really saying. And to know what the advertisement is trying to get the child to do.
Children learn these things through a video game. They create their own game character. They can choose different skin colors, hair styles, eye and mouth shapes. Then they begin a trip through ad-land, where there are ads on buses and billboards. The players have to find all the marketing in the neighborhood before they can move on to the next level.
The Admongo game takes players inside a home, to the advertising studio and everywhere else ads can be found. It is a complete exploration of the world of marketing.
One such area is food marketing. The Federal Trade Comission (FTC) says it is a big business. The FTC estimates that food, drink and fast-food restaurants spent more than one and a half billion dollars on advertising to young people in 2010.
The FTC says children are important for three reasons. They buy products. They influence parents and caregivers to buy. And they are the future adult buyers of the products.
A recent study says most advertising aimed at children is for foods of the lowest nutritional value. First Lady Michelle Obama has said she would like to see advertisers marketing healthy foods for children.The best title of the text may be ________.
| A．The guide of Admongo | B．An education website for children |
| C．A popular online video game | D．An advertising website |
The government started the website to _________.
| A．attract the biggest market of buyers. |
| B．sell the products of its company. |
| C．help children know about advertising. |
| D．advertise the video game for children. |
Players in the website game can_________.
| A．choose hair styles for their character. | B．travel to a supermarket. |
| C．eat in a fast-food restaurant. | D．play video games during the trip. |
According to Michelle Obama, lots of food advertised for children are _____.
| A．healthy | B．of high nutrition | C．yummy | D．of low quality |
Which animal has the fastest snapping jaw (颚)? If you're guessing a shark or perhaps a larger animal, you'll have to think smaller. The trapjaw ant, which lives in Central and South America, moves its mouth parts at 35 to 63 meters per second. Another way to think about this is that the ant's jaws close at 125 to 233 kilometers per hour. That's 2, 300 times faster than the blink of an eye.
Scientists were able to measure the amazing jaw speed using highspeed video techniques. Sheila Patek, a biologist, says the key is that the jaws have a springy (有弹性的) system, which is critical in getting explosive (爆发性的) speeds.
Consider a bow and arrow. If you try to throw an arrow with your arm, it won't go very far. If you use a bow, elastic energy stored in the bow is released almost instantly when you release the arrow with your finger or a latch. The combination of the springy bow and latch mechanism is what makes the arrow zoom through the air.
Maybe even more amazing than how fast these ants grab food or even enemies is how they use this same energy to move. As the ant closes its jaws, it uses them to push off the ground—all faster than the eye can see without slow motion video. A snap of the jaw can send an ant up to 8.3 centimeters into the air. That's like someone who is 1.7 meters jumping 13 meters high! Not only can they quickly escape from enemies, but often a group of ants will start jumping all at once. It would be hard for their enemies to grab just one.
People have suspected the ants used their jaws to jump for over a century, but could only prove it with today's modern video equipment.The fast speed of the trapjaw ant's jaw lies in ________.
| A．its light body |
| B．its springy system |
| C．its living environment |
| D．the length of its jaw |
The passage uses “a bow and arrow” as an example to show ________.
| A．how an arrow gets so much energy to fly |
| B．why the trapjaw ants have springy system |
| C．why the trapjaw ants jaws move so fast |
| D．how a bow and arrow works |
Which of the following may amaze the scientists most?
| A．How high the ants can leap by using their jaws. |
| B．How quickly the trapjaw ants can move on the ground. |
| C．How wonderfully the springy system in the trapjaw ants' jaws works. |
| D．How quickly the trapjaw ants can grab food or enemies. |
According to the passage, the trapjaw ants' jaws keep them safe because ________.
| A．they can catch their enemies easily with their jaws |
| B．their jaws make them difficult to recognize |
| C．their jaws help them find food easily |
| D．their jaws help them escape from their enemies |
How to improve our life? Many people think that they have to accept whatever life throws at them. They'll say，“my destiny(命运). I cannot change it. ”
Of course not! You don't have to suffer needlessly. Your life depends on you, not on any other external(外部的) factor.
I know a woman who says she just accepts what life gives her because she has done everything she can to improve it. Guess what her lifestyle is. She wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes back home, relaxes, chats with people, watches TV, and then goes to sleep. Next day, the same routine cycle follows.
Huh! Is this what she calls “doing her best”？ She believes she has tried her best and just accepts for her heart that this is the life that has been intended for her, and that her luck can only change if God wills it. She hasn't realized that we have to do our share of making the effort to live the life of our dreams.
Remember that you harvest what you sow. You have to get off the sofa, get your eyes off the TV screen, get your hands off the phone(unless it contributes to your success), and get your mind and body to work! Don't expect your luck to change, unless you do something about it. If something goes wrong, don't just regard it as a temporary setback; instead, learn your lesson, make the most of the situation, and do something to solve the problem. It's not enough to think positively; you also have to act positively.
If someone's life is in trouble, do you just hope and pray that things will turn out fine? Of course not! You get to do anything you can to save the person. So it is with your own life. It is not enough to hope for the best, but you have to do your best. In other words, don't just stand(or sit) there, do something to improve your life.According to the woman mentioned in Para. 3, her life ________.
| A．doesn't need improving |
| B．couldn't be improved |
| C．will be better some day |
| D．will be worse in the future |
What does the author think of the woman's life?
| A．Passive. | B．Positive. |
| C．Colorful. | D．Boring. |
Which of the following statements is the author's opinion?
| A．Your temporary problem is not discouraging. |
| B．Your luck can be changed by your efforts. |
| C．You can only achieve success when God wills it. |
| D．You should treat yourself in the way you treat friends. |
In Para. 5, the author emphasized the importance of ________.
| A．hope for the best |
| B．intention to succeed |
| C．positive thinking |
| D．positive action |
Early one morning the subinspector at a station at the other end of the town rang me. An elephant was damaging the town. Would I please come and do something about it?
I did not know what I could do, but I got onto a horse and started out. I took my gun, maybe too small to kill an elephant, but I thought the noise might scare him. Various local people stopped me on the way and told me about the elephant's doings.
It was not, of course, a wild elephant, but a tame one. It had been chained up but last night it had broken its chain and escaped. Its owner, had set out to run after it, but had taken the wrong direction. He was now twelve hours' journey away, and in the morning the elephant had suddenly appeared in the town. It had already destroyed somebody's bamboo hut (棚屋), killed a cow and turned over fruitstalls.
I came round the hut and saw a man's dead body sprawling in the mud. He was an Indian, and he could not have been dead many minutes. The people said that the elephant caught him with its trunk, put its foot on his back and grounded him into the earth. This was the rainy season and he was lying on his stomach in the soft mud, the__peacebreaker standing beside, looking innocent.
As I lifted my gun, I hesitated a few seconds. Then I fired. That was a shot that did for him.
You could see the pain of it knock the last strength from his legs. But in falling he seemed for a moment to rise, his trunk reaching skyward like a tree. He trumpeted, for the first and only time. And then down he came, with a crash that shook the ground.Which of the following statements about the author is TRUE?
| A．He was an Indian. |
| B．He knew elephants well. |
| C．He was not a local villager. |
| D．He was the owner of the elephant. |
The elephant made so much trouble because ________.
| A．its owner treated him cruelly |
| B．it got out of control |
| C．it hated the village people |
| D．it was a wild elephant |
The underlined words “the peacebreaker” in Paragraph 4 refer to ________.
| A．the elephant | B．the dead man |
| C．the author | D．the subinspector |
It can be inferred that the author felt ________ when he shot the elephant.
| A．excited | B．sad |
| C．frightened | D．happy |
Suppose a key man in your firm had just met with a terrible accident. The doctor tell you that this man upon whom you depend for directing sales, checking your books or for performing some other important roles, will be laid up for months, You’d have to replace him, wouldn’t you? And probably at a pay about equal to his ?
Then you’d be faced with double paying for one job because stopping the pay of an injured man would simply be out of the question.
You can prevent this kind of unproductive outgo on your payroll by providing your key man with the protection of Travelers Business Accident Insurance!
This insurance provides total medical expense and a weekly income in case a key man is disabled for some time. Should the disability prove everlasting, an income for life is certainty. Why not make out a list of your key men now? Then get together with Travelers Insurance Company, and let us tell you how little it costs to apply this much needed protection to your business.
Write and we'll serve you!The above is most probably________．
| A．a report | B．a letter |
| C．an announcement | D．an advertisement |
What is really true according to the above?
| A．Travelers Insurance Company provides services of accident insurance． |
| B．An important person of the firm has just had an accident． |
| C．Accident Insurance will protect the important person from accident． |
| D．Unfortunately the important person has become disabled． |
Whom might the writing be mainly for?
| A．An important person in a firm． |
| B．An employee of a firm． |
| C．The boss of a company． |
| D．Readers of a newspaper． |
Why would the pay be doubled?
| A．Because two persons are doing one job of the same． |
| B．Because the important job is worth double pay． |
| C．Because it is necessary that the injured person should be paid． |
| D．Because the double pay is for two persons． |
Travelers Insurance Company ________ for a person insured．
| A．will pay for all the cost of treatment and the lifelong income |
| B．will pay the weekly income or even that of lifetime |
| C．won’t get much from the firm |
| D．will provide everlasting pension as well as medical expense |
Nowadays more and more people are trapped in too busy work to relax themselves. We have no time to tell a bed-time story to our children, or enjoy a nice dinner with our family, or take a break to think about how we live the precious life, or even meet friends. All we notice is that the distinctions that used to guide and steady us ------ between Sunday and Monday, public and private, here and there ------ are gone. We have more ways to communicate, but less and less to say. Partly because we’re so busy communicating.
Maybe that’s why more and more people I know, even if they have no religious commitment, seem to be turning to yoga, or meditation, or tai chi. Some friends of mine try to go on long walks every Sunday, or to “forget” their cellphones at home. A series of tests in recent years has shown that after spending time in quiet rural settings, subjects “exhibit greater attentiveness, stronger memory and generally improved cognition. Their brains become both calmer and sharper.” More than that, empathy, as well as deep thought, depends on neural processes that are “inherently slow. ” The very ones our high-speed lives have little time for.
In my own case, I turn to eccentric and often extreme measures to try to keep my sanity and ensure that I have time to do nothing at all. I’ve not yet used a cellphone and I’ve never Tweeted or entered Facebook. I try not to go online till my day’s writing is finished, and I moved from Manhattan to rural Japan.
None of this is a matter of principle or asceticism (苦行主义): it’s just pure selfishness. Nothing makes me feel better-----calmer, clearer and happier----than being in one place, absorbed in a book, a conversation, a piece of music. It’s actually something deeper than mere happiness: it’s joy, which the monk David Steindl-Rast describes as “that kind of happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens.” That is the highest of the highest we have been longing for----The Joy of Quiet.The writer sometimes doesn’t do anything because ________.
| A．he is out of work . |
| B．whatever he does make no sense |
| C．he is worried about his writing. |
| D．he can enjoy himself in his leisure time. |
When the writer uses the word “forget” , his real meaning is _______.
| A．Somebody really forgets his cellphone at home. |
| B．Somebody thinks cellphone is not a suitable means of communication. |
| C．Somebody hates modern techniques such as the cellphone. |
| D．Somebody leaves his cellphone at home on purpose. |
Which of the following is right?
| A．It is better to go back to the ancient times since we are so busy now. |
| B．The writer is unwilling to help others since he is selfish. |
| C．Slowing down to find time and space to think and enjoy oneself is urgent. |
| D．We have more to say because we have more ways to communicate. |
What does the underlined word mean?
| A．difference | B．sameness | C．simplicity | D．complication |
What is the main idea of the article?
| A．The importance of spending time in quiet. |
| B．We can do some sports such as yoga to relax. |
| C．Principle or asceticism is important in one’s life. |
| D．The more we communicate, the more we will be closer. |