There used to be a term that was used to describe someone who drove their vehicles down the highway while staring at the scenery. These drivers just drove slowly, taking their own sweet time, as if they had nothing to do and no place in particular to go. Thus, the expression, “Sunday driver”, was born. Consequently, a Sunday driver wasn’t necessarily someone who was driving on a Sunday. A person could be a Sunday driver any day of the week. The expression simply meant that the person was an obstacle to other drivers who were in a hurry.
The expression probably came about because there was a time when people would often decide to go for a relaxing drive on Sunday afternoons. A Sunday drive was a common occurrence years ago and especially on a nice warm sunny day. There were no stores open on Sunday because of the “blue laws”, so you needed to be sure and fill up the gas tank and make any other needed purchases before Sunday arrived.
Some of the states had strict blue laws that even prohibited some activities on Sunday. However, there is still a lot to be said for the slow, gentle life that once existed. It was a time when very few people worked on Sunday except for those professions vital to our well-being such as those in the medical profession. It was a day “set apart” that was used to rest, visit with neighbors and friends, or maybe go to grandma’s house for supper. Today there are many who return to work and children who go back to school overly tired on Monday due to a lack of rest. Perhaps there would be less stress related illnesses if we really kept Sunday as a day of rest. According to the passage, “Sunday driver” refers to the person who ______.
| A．drives his vehicle on Sundays |
| B．drives for fun and relaxation |
| C．enjoys a weekend break |
| D．makes a Sunday purchase |
What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph l mean?
| A．Sunday drivers affected traffic flow |
| B．Sunday drivers drove too slowly |
| C．Sunday drivers increased traffic speed |
| D．Sunday drivers felt hatred for other drivers |
What kind of activity was strictly prohibited on Sunday by the laws?
| A．Visiting with neighbors and friends. |
| B．Going to the hospital to see a doctor. |
| C．Having a family get-together. |
| D．Selling goods or services. |
According to the author, Sunday rest would help people______.
| A．earn a lot more money |
| B．experience less pressure |
| C．keep pace with society |
| D．improve academic performance |
jaguarn. a type of large, yellow-colored cat with black markings found in the southwestern region of the US. and in Central and South America.
jargon 1. n. speech that doesn’t make sense. 2. n. an unknown language that seems strange or impossible to understand. 3. n. a language made up of two or more other languages: His jargon was a mixture of French and English. 4. n. the special vocabulary of a field or profession: Her report on computers was field with jargon.
jaunt 1. n. a trip taken for fun 2. v. to go on a brief pleasant trip: We jaunted to the country last Saturday .
javelin 1. n. a spear most commonly used as a weapon or in hunting 2. n. a light-weight metal or wooden spear that is thrown in track-and-field contests. 3. n. the contest in which a javelin is thrown. 4. v. to strike, as with a javelin
jazz 1. n. a type of music that originated in New Orleans and is characterized by rhythmic beats. 2. n. popular dance music influenced by jazz. 3. n. slang empty talk. 4. adj. of or like jazz: a jazz band, a jazz records
jennet n. a small Spanish horseWhich meaning of the word javelin is used in the sentence below?
At the competition, Jack drew his arm back and threw the javelin 50 yards.
| A．Definition 1 | B．Definition 2 | C．Definition 3 | D．Definition 4 |
Which meaning of the word jargon is used in the sentence below?
Doctors often speak in medical jargon.
| A．Definition 1 | B．definition 2 | C．Definition 3 | D．Definition 4 |
What does the word jazz mean in the following sentence?
Don’t give me that jazz, for I am a practical person.
| A．rhythmic beats | B．a type of music |
| C．meaningless talk | D．a kind of dance |
If you happen to find “On the Road” at a gas station or “Who Moved My Cheese?” in your grocery store, it might not be and accident. You could be the unwitting beneficiary of a “bookcrosser”---- a person who on purpose leaves books in public places hoping they’ll be found by strangers.
The idea o leaving a book for someone else to find and enjoy is not new ---- some people have been leaving just-finished books in airports and on buses since the dawn of the hurry-up-and-wait. Creating a system for book-leavers to find out what happened to those books adds a new way to the practice. Bokcrossing.com, the website that encourages books to be “released into the wild”, has more than 18,000 members since its start last year, and averages 112 new participants daily.
Its members have scattered(分发) more than 42,000 novels, self-help books, memoirs, technical manuals and biographies in 45 countries, leaving them in public restrooms, movie theatres, coffee studios or anywhere that they can imagine. The result: a worldwide living library.
Peri Doslu, a California yoga instructor, has dropped three--- one on top of a telephone booth, one on a rock wall at remote Mono Lake in the eastern Sierra Nevada, and another in one of the studios where she teaches.
“I’m always looking for paces to pass on books,” said Doslu. “To think my book’s going to go off and have this future, and I might even get to know a little bit about it down the road.”If you are an unwitting beneficiary of a bookcrosser, that means_____.
| A．you get a book on how to avoid accidents |
| B．you know where to get a book for free |
| C．you get a book somewhere for free without knowing in advance |
| D．you get a card with which you can borrow books at a gas station or somewhere else |
Bookcrossers are the people who ____.
| A．have lots of books |
| B．have lots of money |
| C．release books in public places on purpose |
| D．like reading books very much |
A bookcrosser may not leave books in _____.
| A．toilets | B．a studio | C．the fields | D．his bed |
Which of the following about Doslu is true?
| A．She dropped her first book on top of a telephone booth. |
| B．She had no idea who took her books away |
| C．She always left books to her students |
| D．She is a bookcrosser traveling around the world |
Tokyo: The world’s oldest man, retired Japanese silkworm breeder Yukichi Chuganji, died in his home at the age of 114, on Monday. Family members found him dead on his mattress. Born on March 23, 1889, Chuganji worked as a silkworm breeder and bank employee after leaving school. He also served as a community welfare(福利) officer. He had been in god health, talking daily with his family members.
Washington: Every American dislikes people who talk on cell phones while driving, even those who do that kind of act. In the State of New Jersey, 84 percent of 968 cell phone owners said in recent telephone survey that they would support a state ban(禁令) on the use of cell phones while driving. However, 42 percent of cell phone owners also said they used the devices “very often” or “sometimes” while driving. Although most agree that the banning is good, only 38 percent believed such a ban would be easy to enforce(实施).
New York: A woman in the US who was being attacked by a dog said she was saved from further harm when her 13-year-old daughter distracted the dog by screaming “You want a piece of me?” and kicked it repeatedly in the head. Jane Howell said she and her daughter, Elizabeth, were taking a walk around the neighborhood on Saturday evening when they came across he big dog, unchained. The main idea of the second news is _____.
| A．most Americans don’t like cell phone |
| B．a ban on the use of cell phones has been made |
| C．few people use cell phones while driving |
| D．using cell phones while driving will be banned because most Americans don’t like it |
The woman in the US ____.
| A．was not harmed by the dog |
| B．raised the dog, which attacked her later |
| C．was protected from being seriously hurt by her daughter |
| D．had escaped when her daughter was kicking the dog |
From the news we can infer ____.
| A．Chuganji was living alone when he died |
| B．the woman’s 13-year-old daughter was very brave |
| C．cell phones are not good devices |
| D．it’s easy to enforce the ban the use of cell phones while driving |
The passport photographs of the future could turn out to be more than just another pretty picture if a new computer technique developed by Israeli scientists catches on.
Researchers at Ben-Gurion University, in Israel, have invented a way to hide information such as a fingerprint or signature in color images. They believe this could improve passport safety or be used to produce product bar codes(条形码) or designs that cannot be seen.
“The papers can be faxed, scanned(扫描) and reprinted without hidden data disappearing,” New Scientist magazine said last week.
Joseph Rosen and a team of scientists worked out the new instrument by creating a mathematical model.
The model turns a fingerprint or signature into a series of numbers which are used to shape the dots that make up a color picture.
“Each dot can be forced out of the usual place slightly without noticeably changing the final appearance of the image,” the magazine said.
Several images that can be hidden in a single picture are scanned into a computer which does the work.
The hidden images or fingerprints cannot be shown until the picture is scanned again.
The computer rebuilds the fingerprint by measuring the displacement of the dots in the picture.
The magazine said that if he model is used for passport checkpoints the picture can be unscrambled(解码) to show the fingerprint or signature and checked against the person holding the passport.
The researchers are now working on a handheld, and instrument which could make unscrambling the hidden information easier. The new passport photos will probably contain all EXCEPT _____.
| A．one’s picture | B．one’s fingerprint |
| C．one’s signature | D．one’s blood type |
The writer probably got the information about the new passport photos from ___.
| A．Israeli scientists | B．a radio or TV | C．a newspaper | D．a magazine |
What is the best title for the passage?
| A．A New Computer Technique by Israeli Scientists |
| B．A New Way t Hide Information |
| C．The New Passport Photo: More Than Meets the Eye |
| D．Safe Passport Photos |
My father had returned from his business visit to London when I came in, rather late, to supper. I could tell at once that he and my mother had been discussing something. In that half-playful, half-serious way I knew so well, he said, "How would you like to go to Eton?"
"You bet," I cried quickly catching the joke. Everyone knew it was the most expensive, the most famous of schools. You had to be entered at birth, if not before. Besides, even at 12 or 13, I understood my father. He disliked any form of showing off. He always knew his proper station in life, which was in the middle of the middle class, our house was medium-sized; he had avoided joining Royal Liverpool Golf Club and went to a smaller one instead; though once he had got a second-hand Rolls-Royce at a remarkably low price, he felt embarrassed driving it, and quickly changed it for an Austin 1100.
This could only be his delightful way of telling me that the whole boarding school idea was to be dropped. Alas! I should also have remembered that he had a liking for being different from everyone else, if it did not conflict(冲突) with his fear of drawing attention to himself.
It seemed that he had happened to be talking to Graham Brown of the London office, a very nice fellow, and Graham had a friend who had just entered his boy at the school, and while he was in that part of the world he thought he might just as well phone them. I remember my eyes stinging(刺痛) and my hands shaking with the puzzlement of my feelings. There was excitement, at the heart of great sadness.
"Oh, he doesn't want to go away," said my mother, "You shouldn't go on like this.” “It's up to him," said my father. "He can make up his own mind."The house the writer's family lived in was ________.
| A．the best they could afford | B．right for their social position |
| C．for showing off | D．rather small |
His father sold his Roils-Royce because ________.
| A．it made him feel uneasy | B．it was too old to work well |
| C．it was too expensive to possess | D．it was too cheap |
The writer's father enjoyed being different as long as ________.
| A．it drew attention to him | B．it didn't bring him in arguments |
| C．it was understood as a joke | D．there was no danger of his showing off |
What was the writer's reaction to the idea of going to Eton?
| A．He was very unhappy. | B．He didn't believe it. |
| C．He was delighted. | D．He had mixed feelings. |
We can know from the passage that ________.
| A．Children who can go to Eton are very famous |
| B．Children can go to Eton if they will |
| C．It is very difficult for a child to get admitted by Eton |
| D．Children don't have the right to decide whether they will go to Eton |