With the popularity of 3D movies over the past several years , there was no doubt that the technology would make its way into our homes, The question is: Is it really a technology that is going to stay with us , thus deserving an upgrade(升级) at this time?
Many families have recently bought a new TV set, and the idea of changing it just to take advantage of a technology in its infancy(初期)will put many people off the idea. Then there are the additional costs that come along with a 3Dset from needing to get a Blu-ray player that can process the signal to purchasing enough glasses for the entire family to be able to watch a program at the same time.
Another issue is that the glasses are expensive as well as complicated, and have also been known to cause headaches, none of which makes for a pleasant experience.
While manufacturers are working towards glasses-free technology, it just isn’t here yet, and it could be several years before it is commercially successful. That is one of main things that will keep 3D completely in the “fashion” zone for the time being . If the television manufacturers are willing to hold onto the idea until glasses-free choices are available—and they can reach a higher installed(安装)user base—this might very well catch on. Everyone needs to remember, however, that these are businesses, and they are in it to make money. If 3D isn’t selling at the rate they are comfortable with, then they will dump it and move on to the next thing.
Many homes are filled with products that didn’t catch on rapidly and companies ended up leaving them with no support. Do you have an HD DVD player? Remember how the MiniDisc was supposed to replace the CD? For now, it’s easy to see how 3D televisions could join this list of technologies.
There is one upside to the 3D television problem: They have beautiful 2D images. Even if 3D goes away, you still have a great –looking screen and beautiful images. If you are in the market for a new TV and you can afford to drop the couple extra hundred dollars to buy one, you can view it as guaranteeing your purchase in case the technology proves to be effective.We know from the text that 3D TV .
| A.is easy to operate |
| B.has been fully developed |
| C.has many products attached to it |
| D.has already replaced normal TV sets |
What’s the main idea of paragraph 4?
| A.3D is fashionable and expensive. |
| B.It’s hard for 3D to be commercially successful. |
| C.Television manufacturers’ only purpose is to make money. |
| D.It’s impossible to create glasses-free technology at the moment. |
The examples of the HD DVD player and CD are to show .
| A.they are not necessary |
| B.they are bound to be replaced |
| C.3D TV might not be here to stay |
| D.3D technology needs improving |
The underlined word “upside” in the last paragraph probably means .
| A.solution | B.exception | C.character | D.benefit |
What’s the author’s opinion on 3D TV?
A.He is critical of it.
B. He thinks highly of it.
C.It is more effective than expected.
D. It has more beautiful images than 2D.
Your genetic makeup plays a big part in determining your size and weight. If both your parents are tall, there is a good chance you’ll be tall. But if your parents are smaller than average, you may want to rethink that professional basketball career!
The same goes for your body type. Have you ever heard someone say a person is “big boned?” It’s a way of saying the person has a large frame, or skeleton(骨骼). Big bones usually weigh more than small bones. That’s why it’s possible for two kids with the same height, but different weight, to both the right weight.
Being overweight can run in someone’s family, but it may not be because of their genes. Poor eating and exercise habits also run in families and these may be the reasons the members of a family are overweight. And even though some kids gain weight more easily than others, when they eat right and exercise, most kids can have a healthy weight that’s right for them. It’s true- the way you live can change the way you look.
How much your weight is a balance between the calories you eat and the calories you use. If you eat more calories than your body needs to use, you will gain too much weight. If you spend you free time watching TV, your body won’t use as many calories as it would if you played basketball, skated, or went for a walk. But if you eat more and exercise less, you may become overweight. On the other hand, if you eat less and exercise more, you may lose weight. Which one can be used as the best title of this passage?
| A.What Makes Me the Weight I Have? |
| B.How Can I Lose More Weight? |
| C.What Makes Me the Height I Have? |
| D.Is the Way You Live Important? |
_______ might be the most important in determining your size and weight.
| A.Your father and mother |
| B.Your genetic structure |
| C.Your diet and habit |
| D.Doing exercise in the morning |
If two kids are of the same height _______.
| A.they must have large frames. |
| B.they must be of the same size |
| C.they must be of the same weight |
| D.their weight might be different |
Which one of the following is TRUE according to the third paragraph?
| A.Eating right and exercise normally can keep you healthy. |
| B.The members of a rich family must be overweight. |
| C.The way you live has nothing to do with the way you look. |
| D.the members of a poor family can’t be overweight. |
______ can help you to get your weight right.
| A.Watching TV in your spare time. |
| B.Eating more and doing less exercise |
| C.Eating less and doing more exercises |
| D.Sleeping more in your spare time |
Parents and kids today dress alike, listen to the same music, and are friends. Is this a good thing? Sometimes, when Mr. Ballmer and his 16-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, listen to rock music together and talk about interests both enjoy, such as pop culture, he remembers his more distant relationship with his parents when he was a teenager.
“I would never have said to my mom, ‘Hey, the new Weezer album is really great. How do you like it?’”says Ballmer. “There was just a complete gap in taste.”
Music was not gulf. From clothing and hairstyles to activities and expectations, earlier generations of parents and children often appeared to move in separate orbits.
Today, the generation gap has not disappeared, but it is getting narrow in many families. Conversation on subjects such as sex and drugs would not have taken place a generation ago. Now they are comfortable and common. And parent-child activities, from shopping to sports, involve a feeling of trust and friendship that can continue into adulthood.
No wonder greeting cards today carry the message, “To my mother, my best friend.”
But family experts warn that the new equality can also result in less respect for parents.
“There’s still a lot of strictness and authority on the part of parents out there, but there is a change happening,”says Kerrie, a psychology professor at Lebanon Valley College. “In the middle of that change, there is a lot of confusion among parents.”
Family researchers offer a variety of reasons for these evolving roles and attitudes. They see the 1960s as a turning point. Great cultural changes led to more open communication and a more democratic process that encourage everyone to have a say.
“My parents were on the ‘before’ side of that change, but today’s parents, the 40-year-olds, were on the ‘after’ side,”explains Mr. Ballmer. “It’s not something easily accomplished by parents these days, because life is more difficult to understand or deal with, but sharing interests does make it more fun to be a parent now.”The underlined word gulf in Para.3 most probably means _______.
A. interest B. distance C. difference D . separation Which of the following shows that the generation gap is disappearing?
| A.Parents help their children develop interests in more activities. |
| B.Parents put more trust in their children’s abilities. |
| C.Parents and children talk more about sex and drugs. |
| D.Parents share more interests with their children. |
The change in today’s parent-child relationship is _______.
| A.more confusion among parents |
| B.new equality between parents and children |
| C.less respective for parents from children |
| D.more strictness and authority on the part of parents |
By saying“today’s parents, the 40-year-olds, were on the ‘after’ side,” the author means that today’s parents _______.
| A.follow the trend of the change |
| B.can set a limit to the change |
| C.fail to take the change seriously |
| D.have little difficulty adjusting to the change. |
The purpose of the passage is to _______.
| A.describe the difficulties today’s parents have met with |
| B.discuss the development of the parent-child relationship |
| C.suggest the ways to handle the parent-child relation ship |
| D.compare today’s parent-child relationship with that in the past |
“A good book for children should simply be a good book in its own right,”says Mollie Hunter. Born and brought up near Edinburgh, Mollie has devoted her talents to writing primarily for young people. She firmly believes that there is and should always be a wider audience for any good book whatever its main market is. In Mollie’s opinion it is necessary to make full use of language and she enjoys telling a story, which is what every writer should be doing, “If you aren’t telling a story, you’re a very dead writer indeed.”she says. With the chief function of a writer being to entertain, Mollie is indeed an entertainer. “I have this great love of not only the meaning of language but of the music of language,”she says. “This love goes back to early childhood. I’ve told stories all my life. I had a school teacher who used to ask us what we would like to be when we grew up and, because my family always had dogs, and I was very good at handling them. I said I wanted to work with dogs, and the teacher always said‘Nonsense, Mollie; dear, you’ll be a writer.’So finally I thought that this woman must have something, since she was a good teacher and I decided when I was nine that I would be a writer.”
This childhood intention is described in her novel, A Sound of Chariots, which although written in the third person is clearly autobiographical (自传体的)and gives a picture both of Mollie’s ambition and her struggle towards its achievement. Thoughts of her childhood inevitably(不可避免的)brought thoughts of the time when her home was still a village with buttercup meadows and strawberry fields-sadly now covered with modern houses. “I was once taken back to see it and I felt that somebody had lain dirty hands all over my childhood. I’ll never go back,”she said.“Never.”“When I set one of my books in Scotland,”she said,“I can recall my romantic feelings as a child playing in those fields, or watching the village blacksmith at work. And that’s important, because children now know so much so early that romance can’t exist for them, as it did for us.” What does Mollie Hunter feel about the nature of a good book?
| A.It should not aim at a narrow audience. |
| B.It should be attractive to young readers. |
| C.It should be based on original ideas. |
| D.It should not include too much conversation. |
In Mollie Hunter’s opinion, which of the following is one sign of poor writer?
| A.Being poor in life experience |
| B.Being short of writing skill. |
| C.The weakness of description |
| D.The absence of a story. |
What do we learn about Mollie Hunter as a young child?
| A.She didn’t expect to become a writer. |
| B.She didn’t enjoy writing stories. |
| C.She didn’t have any particular ambition. |
| D.She didn’t respect her teacher’s view. |
In comparison with children of earlier years, Mollie feels that children now are _____.
| A.more intelligent |
| B.better informed |
| C.less eager to learn |
| D.less interested in reality |
What’s the writer’s purpose in this text?
| A.To share her enjoyment of Mollie Hunter’s book. |
| B.To introduce Mollie Hunter’s work to a wider audience. |
| C.To provide information for Mollie Hunter’s existing readers. |
| D.To describe Mollie Hunter’s most successful books. |
There were smiling children all the way. Charily they knew at what time the train passed their homes and they made it their business to stand along the railway, wave to complete strangers and cheer them up as they rushed towards Penang. Often whole families stood outside their homes and waved and smiled as if those on the trains were their favorite relatives. This is the simple village people of Malaysia. I was moved.
I had always traveled to Malaysia by plane or car, so this was the first time I was on a train. I did not particularly relish the long train journey and had brought along a dozen magazines to read and reread. I looked about the train. There was not one familiar face. I sighed and sat down to read my Economics.
It was not long before the train was across the Causeway and in Malaysia. Johore Baru was just another city like Singapore, so I was tired of looking at the crowds of people as they hurried past. As we went beyond the city, I watched the straight rows of rubber trees and miles and miles of green. Then the first village came into sight, Immediately I came alive; I decided to wave hack.
From then on my journey became interesting. I threw my magazines into the waste basket and decided to join in Malaysian life. Then everything came alive. The mountains seemed to speak to me. Even the trees were smiling. I stared at everything as if I was looking at it for the first time.
The day passed fast and I even forgot to have my lunch until I felt hungry. I looked at my watch and was surprised that it was 3:00 pm. Soon the train pulled up at Butterworth. I looked at the people all around me. They all looked beautiful. When my uncle arrived with a smile, I threw my arms around him to give him a warm hug (拥抱). I had never done this before. He seemed surprised and then his weather-beaten face warmed up with a huge smile. We walked arm in arm to his car.
I looked forward to the return journey.The author expected the train trip to be
| A.adventurous |
| B.pleasant |
| C.exciting |
| D.dull |
What did the author remember most fondly of her train trip?
| A.The friendly country people. |
| B.The mountains along the way. |
| C.The crowds of people in the streets. |
| D.The simple lunch served on the train. |
Which of the following words can best take the place of the word“relish”in the second paragraph?
| A.choose |
| B.enjoy |
| C.prepare for |
| D.carry on |
Where was the writer going?
| A.Johore Baru. |
| B.The Causeway. |
| C.Butterworth. |
| D.Singapore. |
What can we learn from the story?
| A.Comfort in traveling by train. |
| B.Pleasure of living in the country. |
| C.Reading gives people delight. |
| D.Smiles brighten people up. |
Science can't explain the power of pets, but many studies have shown that the company of pets can help lower blood pressure (血压) and raise chances of recovering from a heart attack, reduce loneliness and spread all-round good cheer.
Any owner will tall you how much joy a pet brings. For some, an animal provides more comfort than a husband/wife. A 2002 study by Karen Allen of the State University of New York measured stress (紧张) levels and blood pressure in people - half of them pet owners –while they performed 5 minutes of mental arithmetic (算术) or held a hand in ice water. Subjects completed the tasks alone, with a husband/wife, a close friend or with a pet. People with pets did
It best .Those tested with their animal friends had smaller change in blood pressure and returned
Most quickly to baseline heart rates .With pets in the room ,people also made fewer math mistakes
Than when doing in front of other companions. It seems people feel more released (放松)around
Pets, says Allen, who thinks it may be because pets don’t judge.
A study reported last fall suggests that having a pet dog not only raises your spirits but may also have an effect on your eating habits. Researchers at Northwesterm Memorial Hospital spent a
Year studying 36 fat people and were put on a diet-and-exercise programs; a separate group of
56 fat people without pets were put on a diet program. On average,people lost about 11 pounds,
Or 5% of their body weight .Their dogs did even better,losing an average of 12 pounds,more then
15%of their body weight .Dog owners didn’t lose any more weight than those without dogs but ,say
Researchers,got more exercise overall –mostly with their dogs –and found it worth doing.What does the text mainly discuss?
| A.What pets bring to their owners |
| B.How pets help people calm down |
| C.people’s opinions of keeping pets |
| D.Pet’s value in medical research |
We learn from the text that a person with heart disease has a better chance of getting well if
____________
| A.he has a pet companion |
| B.he has less stress of work |
| C.he often dose mental arithmetic |
| D.he is taken care of by his family |
According to Allen, why did the people do better with pets around when facing stressful tasks?
| A.They have lower blood pressure. |
| B.They become more patient. |
| C.They are less nervous. |
| D.They are in higher spirits. |
The research mentioned in the last paragraph reports that
| A.people with dogs did more exercise |
| B.dogs lost the same weight as people did |
| C.dogs liked exercise much more than people did |
| D.people without dogs found the program unhelpful |