It’s hard not to feel cheated and over-charged when you receive unexpected roaming (漫游) charges while traveling abroad—whether they come from making phone calls or checking e-mails.
Jeff Gardner received an $ 11,000 bill from Verizon after spending four days in Jamaica. Before the trip, Mr. Gardner, who runs a fly-fishing business in Grayling, Michigan, said he called Verizon to find out what it would cost to use his cellphone for calls and his wireless card to check e-mails while in Jamaica. He said he was told that calls would be about $ 2 a minute and that there would be no extra charges for data as he was on an unlimited plan. The latter part turned out to be wrong.
“I don’t mind paying a fair amount for fair service, but $11,000 for four days is ridiculous,” said Mr. Gardner, who used his phone carefully and economically on the trip. He also tried to check and send e-mails using his wireless card, but quickly gave up after the e-mails didn’t go through. Still, his Verizon bill said more than 500,000 kilobytes (千字节) of data was delivered while he was in Jamaica, an amount Mr. Gardner said is 100 times what he normally uses in a month.
As travelers increasingly use smart phones abroad in the same way they do at home—to check e-mails, update Facebook and Twitter and pull up online maps—many are facing costly roaming fees, which providers charge when customers use their phones outside their service area. In fact, roaming charges have gotten so out of hand that the Federal Communications Commission has proposed a plan that would require wireless companies to send their customers a voice or text message when they are approaching their plan’s limit, when they have reached that limit and when they are starting to result in roaming fees.Why did Jeff Gardner call Verizon before his trip to Jamaica?
| A．To hand over his business. |
| B．To check his cellphone bill |
| C．To find out information about Jamaica. |
| D．To find out information about roaming charges. |
What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 2 mean?
| A．Extra charges were made for Jeff Gardner’s data delivery. |
| B．Jeff Gardner’s calls were charged over $2 per minute. |
| C．Jeff Gardner’s plan turned out to be limited. |
| D．Jeff Gardner had difficulty delivering data abroad. |
During the trip, Jeff Gardner______.
| A．was careless with phone use |
| B．delivered no more data than at home |
| C．received quite poor e-mail services |
| D．frequently used his wireless card to send e-mails |
What should wireless companies do according to the Federal Communications Commission?
| A．Make customers know when they’re outside their service area. |
| B．Get customers informed when they’re near the limit of their plan. |
| C．Stop serving customers when they’ve reached their plan’s limit. |
| D．Limit some services to reduce the amount of roaming charges abroad. |
【2015·新课标全国I】D
Conflict is on the menu tonight at the café La Chope. This evening, as on every Thursday night, psychologist Maud Lehanne is leading two of France’s favorite pastimes, coffee drinking and the “talking cure”. Here they are learning to get in touch with their true feelings. It isn’t always easy. They customers - some thirty Parisians who pay just under $2 (plus drinks) per session - care quick to intellectualize (高谈阔论)，slow to open up and connect. “You are forbidden to say ‘one feels,’ or ‘people think’,” Lehane told them. “Say ‘I think,’ ‘Think me’.”
A café society where no intellectualizing is allowed? It couldn’t seem more un-French. But Lehanne’s psychology café is about more than knowing oneself: It’s trying to help the city’s troubled neighborhood cafes. Over the years, Parisian cafes have fallen victim to changes in the French lifestyle - longer working hours, a fast food boom and a younger generation’s desire to spend more time at home. Dozens of new theme cafes appear to change the situation. Cafes focused around psychology, history, and engineering are catching on, filling tables well into the evening.
The city’s psychology cafes, which offer great comfort, are among the most popular places. Middle-aged homemakers, retirees, and the unemployed come to such cafes to talk about love, anger, and dreams with a psychologist. And they come to Lehanne’s group just to learn to say what they feel. “There’s a strong need in Paris for communication,” says Maurice Frisch, a cafe La Chope regular who works as a religious instructor in a nearby church. “People have few real friends. And they need to open up.” Lehanne says she’d like to see psychology cafes all over France. “If people had normal lives, these cafes wouldn’t exist”, she says, “If life weren’t a battle, people wouldn’t need a special place just to speak.” But them, it wouldn’t be France.What are people encouraged to do at the cafe La Chope?
| A．Learn a new subject |
| B．Keep in touch with friends. |
| C．Show off their knowledge. |
| D．Express their true feelings. |
How are cafes affected by French lifestyle changes?
| A．They are less frequently visited. |
| B．They stay open for longer hours. |
| C．They have bigger night crowds. |
| D．They start to serve fast food. |
What are theme cafes expected to do?
| A．Create more jobs. |
| B．Supply better drinks. |
| C．Save the cafe business. |
| D．Serve the neighborhood. |
Why are psychology cafes becoming popular in Paris?
| A．They bring people true friendship. |
| B．They give people spiritual support. |
| C．They help people realize their dreams. |
| D．They offer a platform for business links. |
【2015·新课标全国II】B
Your house may have an effect on your figure. Experts say the way you design your home could play a role in whether you pack on the pounds or keep them off. you can make your environment work for you instead of against you. Here are some ways to turn your home into part of your diet plan.
Open the curtains and turn up the lights. Dark environments are more likely to encourage overeating, for people are often less self-conscious(难为情) when they’re in poorly lit places – and so more likely to eat lots of food. If your home doesn’t have enough window light, get more lamps and flood the place with brightness.
Mind the colors. Research suggests warm colors fuel our appetites. In one study, people who ate meals in a blue room consumed 33 percent less than those in a yellow or red room. Warm colors like yellow make food appear more appetizing, while cold colors make us less hungry. So when it’s time to repaint, go blue.
Don’t forget the clock – or the radio. People who eat slowly tend to consume about 70 fewer calories(卡路里) per meal than those who rush through their meals. Begin keeping track of the time, and try to make dinner last at 30 minutes. And while you’re at it, actually sit down to eat. If you need some help slowing down, turning on relaxing music. It makes you less likely to rush through a meal.
Downsize the dishes. Big serving bowls and plants can easily makes us fat. We eat about 22 percent more when using a 12-inch plate instead of a 10-inch plate. When we choose a large spoon over a smaller one, total intake(摄入) jumps by 14 percent. And we’ll pour about 30 percent more liquid into a short, wide glass than a tall, skinny glass.The text is especially helpful for those who care about ____.
| A．their home comforts |
| B．their body shape |
| C．house buying |
| D．healthy diets |
A home environment in blue can help people ____.
| A．digest food better |
| B．reduce food intake |
| C．burn more calories |
| D．regain their appetites |
What are people advised to do at mealtimes?
| A．Eat quickly. |
| B．Play fast music |
| C．Use smaller spoons |
| D．Turn down the lights |
What can be a suitable title for the text?
| A．Is Your House Making You Fat? |
| B．Ways of Serving Dinner |
| C．Effects of Self-Consciousness |
| D．Is Your Home Environment Relaxing? |
【2015·湖南】B
In its early history, Chicago had floods frequently, especially in the spring, making the streets so muddy that people, horses, and carts got stuck. An old joke that was popular at the time went something like this: A man is stuck up to his waist in a muddy Chicago street. Asked if he needs help, he replies, "No, thanks. I've got a good horse under me."
The city planner decided to build an underground drainage (排水) system, but there simply wasn't enough difference between the height of the ground level and the water level. The only two options were to lower the Chicago River or raise the city.
An engineer named Ellis Chesbrough convinced me the city that it had no choice but to build the pipes above ground and then cover them with dirt. This raised the level of the city's streets by as much as 12 feet.
This of course created a new problem: dirt practically buried the first floors of every building in Chicago. Building owners were faced with a choice: either change the first floors of their buildings into basements, and the second stories into main floors, or hoist the entire buildings to meet the new street level. Small wood-frame buildings could be lifted fairly easily. But what about large, heavy structures like Tremont Hotel, which was a six-story brick building?
That's where George Pullman came in. He had developed some house-moving skills successfully. To lift a big structure like the Tremont Hotel, Pullman would place thousands of jackscrews (螺旋千斤顶) beneath the building's foundation. One man was assigned to operate each section of roughly 10 jackscrews. At Pullman's signal each man turned his jackscrew the same amount at the same time, thereby raising the building slowly and evenly. Astonishingly, the Tremont Hotel stay open during the entire operation, and many of its guests didn't even notice anything was happening. Some people like to say that every problem has a solution. But in Chicago's early history, every engineering solution seemed to create a new problem. Now that Chicago's waste water was draining efficiently into the Chicago River, the city's next step was to clean the polluted river.The author mentions the joke to show ______.
| A．horses were fairly useful in Chicago |
| B．Chicago's streets were extremely muddy |
| C．Chicago was very dangerous in the spring |
| D．the Chicago people were particularly humorous |
The city planners were convinced by Ellis Chesbrough to_______.
| A．get rid of the street dirt |
| B．lower the Chicago River |
| C．fight against heavy floods |
| D．build the pipes above ground |
The underlined word "hoist" in Paragraph 4 means "_______".
| A．change | B．lift |
| C．repair | D．decorate |
What can we conclude about the moving operation of the Tremont Hotel?
| A．It went on smoothly as intended. |
| B．It interrupted the business of the hotel. |
| C．It involved Pullman turning ten jackscrews. |
| D．It separated the building from its foundation. |
The passage is mainly about the early Chicago's ______.
| A．popular life styles and their influences |
| B．environmental disasters and their causes |
| C．engineering problems and their solutions |
| D．successful businessmen and their achievements |
【2015·安徽】C
As Internet users become more dependent on the Internet to store information, are people remember less? If you know your computer will save information, why store it in your own personal memory, your brain? Experts are wondering if the Internet is changing what we remember and how.
In a recent study, Professor Betsy Sparrow conducted some experiments. She and her research team wanted to know the Internet is changing memory. In the first experiment, they gave people 40 unimportant facts to type into a computer. The first group of people understood thatthe computer would save the information. The second group understood that the computer would not save it. Later, the second group remembered the information better. People in the first group knew they could find the information again, so they did not try to remember it.
In another experiment, the researchers gave people facts to remember, and told them where to find the information on the Internet. The information was in a specific computer folder (文件夹). Surprisingly, people later remember the folder location (位置) better than the facts. When people use the Internet, they do not remember the information. Rather, they remember how to find it. This is called "transactive memory (交互记忆)".
According to Sparrow, we are not becoming people with poor memories as a result of the Internet. Instead, computer users are developing stronger transactive memories; that is, people are learning how to organize huge quantities of information so that they are able to access it at a later date. This doesn't mean we are becoming either more or less intelligent, but there is no doubt that the way we use memory is changing.The passage begins with two questions to ______.
| A．introduce the main topic |
| B．show the author's altitude |
| C．describe how to use the Interne. |
| D．explain how to store information |
What can we learn about the first experiment?
| A．Sparrow's team typed the information into a computer. |
| B．The two groups remembered the information equally well. |
| C．The first group did not try to remember the formation. |
| D．The second group did not understand the information. |
In transactive memory, people ______.
| A．keep the information in mind |
| B．change the quantity of information |
| C．organize information like a computer |
| D．remember how to find the information |
What is the effect of the Internet according to Sparrow's research?
| A．Weare using memory differently. |
| B．We arebecoming more intelligent. |
| C．We have poorer memories than before. |
| D．We need a better way to access information. |
【2015·浙江】C
If humans were truly at home under the light of the moon and stars，we would go in darkness happily，the midnight world as visible to us as it is to the vast number of nocturnal(夜间活动的) species on this planet. Instead，we are diurnal creatures, with eyes adapted to living in the sun’s light. This is a basic evolutionary fact, even though most of us don’t think of ourselves as diurnal beings. Yet it’s the only way to explain what we’ve done to the night: We’ve engineered it to receive us by filling itwith light.
The benefits of this kind of engineering come with consequences 一 called light pollution 一 whose effects scientists are only now beginning to study. Light pollution is largely the result of bad lighting design，which allows artificial light to shine outward and upward into the sky.III-designed lighting washes out the darkness of night and completely changes the light levels 一 and light rhythms — to which many forms of life, including, ourselves, have adapted. Wherever human light spills into the natural world, some aspect or life is affected .
In most cities the sky looks as though it has been emptied of stars, leaving behind a vacant haze(霾) that mirrors our fear of the dark. We’ve grown so used to this orange haze that the original glory of an unlit nigh, - dark enough for the planet Venus to throw shadow on Earth, is wholly beyond our experience, beyond memory almost.
We’ve lit up the night as if it were an unoccupied country, when nothing could be further form the truth. Among mammals alone, the number of nocturnal species is astonishing, Light is a powerful biological force, and on many species it acts as a magnet(磁铁). The effect is so powerful that scientists speak of songbirds and seabirds being“captured”by searchlights on land or by the light from gas flares on marine oil platforms. Migrating at night, birds tend to collide with brightly lit tall buildings.
Frogs living near brightly lit highways suffer nocturnal light levels that are as much as a million times righter than normal, throwing nearly every aspect of their behavior out of joint including most other creatures ,we do need darkness .Darkness is as essential to our biological welfare, to our internal clockwork, as light itself.
Living in a glare of our making,we have cut ourselves off from our evolutionary and cultural heritage—the light of the stars and the rhythms of day and night .In a very real sense light pollution causes us to lose sight of our true place in the universe, to forget the scale of our being, which is best measured against the dimensions of a deep night with the Milky Way—the edge of our galaxy arching overhead.According to the passage, human being .
| A．prefer to live in the darkness |
| B．are used to living in the day light |
| C．were curious about the midnight world |
| D．had to stay at home with the light of the moon |
What does “it”(Paragraph 1) most probably refer to?
| A．The night. | B．The moon |
| C．The sky | D．The planet |
The writer mentions birds and frogs to .
| A．provide examples of animal protection |
| B．show how light pollution affects animals |
| C．compare the living habits of both species |
| D．explain why the number of certain species has declined |
It is implied in the last paragraph that .
| A．light pollution dose harm to the eyesight of animals |
| B．light pollution has destroyed some of the world heritages |
| C．human beings cannot go to the outer space |
| D．human beings should reflect on their position in the universe |
What might be the best title for the passage?
| A．The Magic light. |
| B．The Orange Haze. |
| C．The Disappearing Night. |
| D．The Rhythms of Nature. |