AttractionsinWisconsinWisconsi-优题课

As we know, on Saturday, millions of people around the world will celebrate Saint Patrick's Day, which honors Patron Saint (or main religious figure) of Ireland. Communities across the United States will host parades, parties, and other festivities to mark the occasion.
This year, cities like Boston, New York, and Chicago have organized massive events celebrating Saint Patrick's Day. In New York City, hundreds of thousands of people will gather to watch the Saint Patrick’s Day parade—the nation’s largest. It is one of the most watched parades in the world. Last year, almost 2 million spectators and more than 150,000 participants filled the streets. The parade, first held in 1776, is also one of the oldest.
Chicago also throws a big celebration. Every year, the Chicago River, which crosses the city, glows green as event organizers dump about 40 pounds of fluorescence, a powerful dye, into the water.
Boston keeps its parade rolling for three hours or more. It is the nation’s second-largest parade. The city will also salute one of its most famous former residents, President John F. Kennedy, by opening the exhibit "A Journey Home: John F. Kennedy and Ireland," at his official library.
Patron Saint lived in Britain in the early fifth century, when it was still part of the Roman Empire. He was captured and sold into slavery in Ireland when he was only 16．He eventually escaped slavery and turned to a life of religious devotion. He trained to become a minister and set out to spread Christianity throughout Ireland. After 30 years as a religious leader, Patrick died on March 17, 1461．Saint Patrick’s Day is always celebrated on March 17．In Ireland, it is an official holiday.
What’s the best title of the passage?

A．Celebrations across the Country	B．An Official Holiday in US
C．The Largest Parade in the World	D．History of Saint Patrick’s Day

The last paragraph is mainly about _____.

A．the cruel slave trade.	B．Saint Patrick’s contribution.
C．Ireland’s Patron Saint	D．activities during Saint Patrick’s Day

Which of the following is not correct according to the passage?

A．Parade is a most important event to observe Saint Patrick’s Day.

B．Saluting the former president has become a main event on the occasion.

C．Saint Patrick’s Day is a religious holiday.

D．The Saint Patrick’s Day parade has a history of over 230 years.

Should doctors ever lie to benefit their patient---to speed recovery or to cover the coming of death? In medicine as in law, government, and other lines of work, the requirements of honesty often seem dwarfed (变矮小) by greater needs: the need to protect from brutal news or to uphold a promise of secrecy; to advance the public interest.
What should doctors say, for example, to a 46-year-old man coming in for a routine physical check up just before going on vacation with his family who, though he feels in perfect health, is found to have a form of cancer that will cause him to die within six months. Is it best to tell him the truth? If he asks, should the doctor reject that he is ill, or minimize the gravity of the illness? Should they at least hide the truth until after the family vacation?
Doctors face such choices often. At times, they see important reasons to lie for the patient’s own sake; in their eyes, such lies differ sharply from self-serving ones.
Studies show that most doctors sincerely believe that the seriously ill patients do not want to know the truth about their condition, and that informing them risks destroying their hope, so that they may recover more slowly, or deteriorate (恶化) faster, perhaps even commit suicide.
But other studies show that, contrary to the belief of many physicians; a great majority of patients do want to be told the truth, even about serious illness, and feel cheated when they learn that they have been misled. We are also learning that truthful information, humanly conveyed, helps patients cope this illness: help them tolerate pain better, need less medicine, and even recover faster after operation.
There is urgent need to debate this issue openly. Not only in medicine, but in other professions as well, practitioners may find themselves repeatedly in difficulty where serious consequences seem avoidable only through deception (欺骗). Yet the public has every reason to know professional deception, for such practices are peculiarly likely to become deeply rooted, to spread, and to trust. Neither in medicine, nor in law, government, or the social sciences can there be comfort in the old saying, “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.”
What is the passage mainly about?

A．Whether patients should be told the truth of their illness.

B．Whether patients really want to know the truth of their condition.

C．Whether different studies should be carried on.

D．Whether doctors are honest with their patients.

For the case mentioned in paragraph 2, most doctors will _______.

A．tell the patient the truth as soon as possible

B．choose to lie to him about his condition at that moment

C．tell him to shorten the family vacation

D．advise him to cancel the family vacation

Which of the following is TRUE?

A．Sometimes government tells lies because they need to meet the public interest.

B．Doctors believe if they lie, those seriously-ill patients will recover more quickly.

C．Many patients don’t want to know the truth, especially about serious illness.

D．Truthful information helps patients deal with their illness in some cases.

From the passage, we can learn that the author’s attitude to professional deception is _______.

A．supportive

B．indifferent

C．oppositive

D．neutral

Is it time to kick Russia out of the BRICs (金砖四国)？If so, it may end up sounding like a famous ball-point pen maker—BIC. An argument is being made that Goldman Sach’s famous marketing device (策略), the BRICs, should really be the BICs.
“Is Russia really worth the name BRICs?” asks Anders Aslund, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, in an article for Foreign Policy. Aslund, who is also co-author with Andrew Kuchins of “The Russian Balance Sheet”, thinks the Russia of Putin and Medvedev is just not worthy of inclusion alongside Brazil, India and China in the list of future economic powerhouses. He writes:
“The country’s economic performance has fallen to such a weak level that one must ask whether it has any say at all on the global economy, compared with the other members of its group. I have just returned from Moscow, which is always dull around this season. For the last seven years, Russia has taken very few measures to improve its economy. Instead, the state has been living on oil and gas.”
Economically, Aslund has the numbers on his side. The International Monetary Fund figures that the Russian economy will fall by 6.7 percent in 2009, while China will grow 8.5 percent and India 5.4 percent. There is less of a case for Brazil, with a fall of 0.7 percent, but it is still doing far better than Russia.
But the BRICs are not just about economy. As is mentioned above, it is a marketing device to encourage investors (投资者) to focus on the big promising players. From an investment standpoint, it could be argued that Russia is leading the BRICs. Its stock market is up 128 percent this year while around 80 percent is for the other three.
At very least, despite Russia’s economic underperformance, its stock market outperformance does suggest it is indeed one of the group.
According to the passage, which country will enjoy the biggest increase in 2009?

A．China

B．Russia

C．Brazil

D．India

According to Aslund, Russia shouldn’t be a BRIC partly because _______.

A．its economic performance is worse than that of the others

B．its leaders are not good at managing economy

C．it has taken effective measures to improve its economy

D．it will no longer attract investors from other countries

From the passage we know that _______.

A．Anders Aslund is working for the Russian government

B．Russia outperformed the other three countries in stock market

C．most people disagree Russia is included in the BRICs

D．the BRICs would end up being the BICs sooner or later

The author seems to _______.

A．suggest it’s time to kick Russia out of the BRICs

B．feel worried about the economy of the BRICs

C．think Russia is worth being one of the group

D．show disappointment to Russia’s economy

It is normal for parents to question their children’s hairstyle or the clothes they wear. But today teenagers and their parents argue over something else: money.
Children are spending lots of it. Parents used to say to their children,“You’re wearing that?”Now they say,“You paid how much for that?”
Children in the US today spend five times more money than their parents did when they were young.
So what are all these children buying? The list is long: iPods, trainers, cell phones and jeans are typical items that children“have to”buy. And they will do anything to get them. They ask their parent’s over and over until they buy them.
But parents also need to take the blame for spending so much money. They want their children to have the best stuff. They end up competing with other parents over what their children have.
So no wonder children find it hard to learn the importance of saving money rather than spending it all the time.
And it’s hard to save when companies use advertising and clever slogans to encourage young people to buy their products. They even encourage children to keep asking their parents for something until they get it.
Today, you don’t even need to have money in order to buy something. Banks give out credit cards and loans all the time so people are saving less and less. We are used to there being lots of money around. And if you don’t have much you can always borrow some.
But this hasn’t always been the case. When our grandparents were young there was very little money and everyone had to save hard for things they bought. They only bought things they needed, not things they just wanted.
The older generation made the wise expression,“Money doesn’t grow on trees.”This is as true now as it was 50 years ago. They give money a great deal of value. And we all have a lot to learn from them.
The text mainly tells us _______.

A．divisions between teenagers and their parents

B．children’s high consumption of products

C．what is popular among children at the moment

D．how to spend money wisely

Parents are to blame for children’s spending a lot of money because _______.

A．they don’t give children positive guidance in consumption

B．their consumption habits set a bad example to children

C．the always give children too much pocket money

D．they offer to buy the latest fashions for their children

People find it hard to save because of all of the following reasons EXCEPT that _______.

A．banks provide credit cards and loans

B．advertisements draw people’s attention to new products

C．people have more money than in the past and saving is out of date

D．people’s living standard has improved and they can buy what they want

The saying“Money doesn’t grow on trees.”in the last paragraph seems to tell us that _______.

A．the older generation understood how to teach children to save

B．in the past, people attached more importance to saving money

C．money has a great deal of value

D．money is not easily earned and people should be careful spending it

Sydney—A shark savaged a schoolboy’s leg while he was surfing with his father at a beach in Sydney on February 23. It was the third shark attack along the coast of Australia’s largest city in a month.
The 15-year-old boy and his father were in the water off Avalon, on Sydney’s northern beaches, around dawn when he was attacked. The city’s beaches are packed with locals and tourists during the summer months.
“The father heard a scream and turned to see his son trashing (扭动) about in the water,” police said. “Fortunately, the shark swam away and the boy was helped to shore by his father.”
Lifesaving Club spokesman Nick Miller said, “It got him around the top of his left leg and the father came and dragged his out of water.” He said the boy was bleeding heavily when he was brought to the shore. “There was a lot of pain, as you can imagine.” The teenager was airlifted to hospital for treatment for leg injuries.
Police said the bites “cut through to the bone”, but the boy did not appear to have sustained any fractures (骨折). He was in a stable condition now.
Several beaches were closed after the attack. Water police and lifeguards were searching for the shark, while police hoped to identify its species by the shape of the bite marks. But they said it was too early to say what type of shark attacked the boy. “I don’t even know if he saw it,” Miller said.
Many shark species live in the waters off Sydney’s beaches, but attacks on humans are still relatively rare. However, there were two attacks on successive days earlier this month, one on a navy diver in Sydney harbor, not far from the famous Opera House, and the other on a surfer at the city’s world-famous Bondi beach.
Fishermen say shark numbers are on the rise. There is a ban on commercial fishing in the harbor, which has increased fish stocks. Marine experts also claim environmental protection has created a cleaner environment, attracting sharks closer to the shore as they chase fish. Many shark species, including the Great White—the man-eaters made famous in Steven Spielberg’s Jaws—are protected in Australian waters.
What do we know about the city of Sydney from the passage?

A．It is one of the largest cities in Australia.

B．Sydney harbor is not far from the famous Opera House.

C．There are many locals and tourists on its coast all the year round.

D．There are few shark species in the waters off Sydney’s beaches.

The underlined word “savaged” in the first paragraph probably means “_______”.

A．attracted

B．dragged

C．bit

D．packed

About the injury of the boy we know that _______.

A．he was losing much blood when he was dragged out

B．he was very nervous when he was sent to hospital

C．he may be in danger of losing his leg

D．he was injured in the right leg

All the following are the causes of Australia’s sharks increasing EXCEPT that _______.

A．environmental protection has created a cleaner environment

B．a ban on commercial fishing has increased fish numbers

C．many shark species are protected in Australian waters

D．the film Jaws has made the Great White famous