I will be the first to say that I am not materialistic. My friends regard me as a goody-goody; my parents say I am conservative and modest when it comes to clothes. None of my skirts or shorts end above my knees.
So why, why did I feel so invited? My family and I were in Target, and there it was, waiting. A skirt, specifically designed not to cover anything. It looked like something that one of those modern schoolgirls would wear.
I checked my purse. The skirt cost $10. I had the money. I could buy it. I imagined walking into school and my friends’ jaws (下巴) dropping. Guys would ask me out, and I would be happy. I could buy it, no, — I should buy it.
I showed my mother. She was surprised but said it was my decision. My sister looked on enviously.
I went into the dressing room to try it on. So sure was I that this skirt would change me, somehow make me not what I am but what I wished to be. I slid my jeans off and put it on. I looked in the mirror. There I was — a terrible girl in a Superman T-shirt and sneakers. My glasses fogged up as I started to cry.
The skirt did not change me. Though it fit well and might make me look good in the eyes of today’s world, it was not me. I am not a girl who wears cool clothes to fit in.
I took the thing off and slid back into the comfort of modesty. My mom knocked on the door. “Emily, are you okay?”
I wiped away my tears. “I’m fine.” I looked in the mirror again and saw a slim girl with funny glasses. I saw myself.In the author’s eyes the skirt that interested her was ______.
| A．not modern | B．very short |
| C．too expensive | D．poorly designed |
The author thought if she went to school in this skirt her schoolmates would be ______.
| A．shocked | B．hurt | C．confused | D．happier |
The underlined sentence in the 3rd paragraph indicates the author ______.
| A．hesitated about buying the skirt |
| B．made up her mind to buy the skirt |
| C．was able to afford to buy the skirt |
| D．worried about others’ opinion on the skirt |
The author cried because ______.
| A．she found that she looked ugly in the skirt |
| B．she was aware the skirt didn’t fit her well |
| C．she realized it’s a wrong decision to make a change |
| D．she was disappointed the skirt failed to change her |
People are overweight for many reasons, the most important one of which is that they eat the wrong foods, get the wrong types of calories per meal, and they also eat meals at the wrong time each day. Food is more powerful than any weight loss pill, because the food that you eat can either make you thin or fat. This is true because your body is like an engine, and it only needs certain foods at certain intervals(间隔)each day. Low-calorie Diets Do Not Work The reason people cannot lose weight by starving themselves is that their metabolism(新陈代谢)will detect any major drop in calories and it will then adjust(调整)itself by burning fewer calories each day. That is the reason why you can eat 1,000 calories per day and not lose any weight, while your friends can eat 2,500 calories per day and not gain any weight.Low-fat Diets Do Not Work Many people in today’s society are buying mostly low- fat or non-fat food at the grocery store. Everybody knows how much fat is inside the food they buy. However, people are getting fatter than ever before by doing this. They are not losing weight by changing to this low fat lifestyle. Losing weight has nothing to do with these things. One of the most important things you can do to control your weight is to eat the proper foods, such as fruit and vegetables, eat them at the right time, and exercise every day. If people make this a habit, they will lose weight.What is the main reason why people are overweight?
| A．They eat the wrong foods at the wrong time. |
B．They eat food with lots of calories. |
C．They don’t take any weight loss pills. |
D．They burn many calories every day. |
The article is written in order to _______.
| A．tell readers not to buy low-fat or non-fat food |
B．tell readers how to lose weight |
C．tell readers about an important scientific discovery |
D．call on people to lose weight and stay healthy |
To realize the aim of your weight loss plan, you should ________.
a. do exercise every dayb. eat meals at the right timec. eat fruits and vegetablesd. eat low-fat or sweet foode. eat the proper foods at each meal
| A．a, b, c, d | B．a, b, d, e | C．a, c, d, e | D．a, b, c, e |
You will spend hours at the gym training your body, but do you ever think about training your brain? Here are four ways to keep your brain mentally (脑力上地) active and healthy.
Play games
Your brain is a muscle just like the ones in the rest of your body. If you don’t use it, you will lose it. For example, doing a crossword puzzle (纵横填字游戏) once a day is a good way to give the brain the exercise it needs. This kind of puzzle is good at training different areas of the brain. But remember that when doing this puzzle, you should gradually increase the complexity (复杂度); otherwise, it will become repetitive (重复乏味的) and stop being mentally challenging.
Talk aloud
Although it might sound strange to you, talking aloud is a great way to boost your memory. A good exercise to try is counting to 99 in threes as fast as you can.
Be a team leader
If you find you can do your work very easily, you should find a new task. It is important that your job should be mentally challenging. Complex jobs are often more challenging and make the brain work a little harder.
Learn a language
A study found that, compared with those who could speak only one language, the people who could speak two languages had a slower rate of cognitive (认知能力) decrease. Learning a new language is very challenging and it makes sure that different areas of the brain have their lights on. What is the main idea of this passage?
| A．Why you should train your brain. |
| B．How to be a good team leader. |
| C．Training the brain is more important than training the body. |
| D．How to make your brain healthy and work actively. |
Which word can replace the word "boost" in the third paragraph?
| A．Change. | B．Promote. | C．Decrease. | D．Lose. |
We should gradually increase the complexity when doing crossword puzzles because ______.
| A．if we don’t use our brain, we will lose it |
| B．we should make our brain face different challenges |
| C．our brain is a muscle like other parts in our bodies |
| D．these puzzles can work on different areas of the brain |
Which group of people have a slower rate of cognitive decrease?
| A．Those who don’t often do crossword puzzles. |
| B．Those who don’t often count to 99 in threes. |
| C．Those who do their work very easily. |
| D．Those who can speak more than one language. |
I come from a city on the United States’east coast. It’s a ten-hour flight for me to get home from Shanghai. When I got off the plane, I took photos of the blue sky and white clouds along the way. After two weeks, I returned to Shanghai. Much to my surprise, the blue sky in Shanghai that I liked before was not as blue as that in the US. I couldn’t help wondering what had happened.
A few days later, I went to tour Waitan (a famous tourist attraction in Shanghai) by the Huangpu River with some of my friends. There we saw five Ferrari sports cars by the side of the road. The red and yellow cars looked so nice that everyone was looking at them. However, when I turned my head, I noticed the sky over Waitan, I was shocked to find that the buildings in the Lujiazui area on the other side of Huangpu River could hardly be seen. It was then that I realized that Ferrari cars could be bought with money, but a blue sky couldn’t.
Shanghai is an important economic (经济的) and trade center in China. It has made great contributions (贡献) to the whole nation’s economic development. However, we need to protect the environment during economic growth. Pollution is poisoning our air and our rivers. Without clean air and rivers, how will people be able to survive?The author mentioned the Ferrari sports cars in order to _______.
| A．tell us that Shanghai is a developed city |
| B．ask us to stop driving sports cars |
| C．tell us how much people like cars |
| D．focus our attention on air pollution |
What can we learn about the author?
| A．He comes from Shanghai. |
| B．He likes to visit different places. |
| C．He wants to buy a Ferrari sports car. |
| D．He is socially responsible (责任). |
Who might be interested in this passage?
| A．Those who love Ferrari sports cars. |
| B．Those who care about the environment. |
| C．Those who want to travel in Shanghai. |
| D．Those who like to take photos. |
What is the best title for this passage?
| A．Money Can Buy Ferraris, But Not a Blue Sky |
| B．Where People Should Live |
| C．Different Opinions on Cars |
| D．Different Places Have Different Skies |
“In wilderness(荒野) is the preservation of the world.” This is a famous saying from a writer regarded as one of the fathers of environmentalism. The frequency with which it is borrowed mirrors a heated debate on environmental protection: whether to place wilderness at the heart of what is to be preserved.
As John Sauven of Greenpeace UK points out, there is a strong appeal in images of the wild, the untouched; more than anything else, they speak of the nature that many people value most dearly. The urge to leave the subject of such images untouched is strong, and the danger exploitation(开发) brings to such landscapes(景观) is real. Some of these wildernesses also perform functions that humans need—the rainforests, for example, store carbon in vast quantities. To Mr. Sauven, these “ecosystem services” far outweigh the gains from exploitation.
Lee Lane, a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute, takes the opposing view. He acknowledges that wildernesses do provide useful services, such as water conservation. But that is not, he argues, a reason to avoid all human presence, or indeed commercial and industrial exploitation. There are ever more people on the Earth, and they reasonably and rightfully want to have better lives, rather than merely struggle for survival. While the ways of using resources have improved, there is still a growing need for raw materials, and some wildernesses contain them in abundance. If they can be tapped without reducing the services those wildernesses provide, the argument goes, there is no further reason not to do so. Being untouched is not, in itself, a characteristic worth valuing above all others.
I look forward to seeing these views taken further, and to their being challenged by the other participants. One challenge that suggests itself to me is that both cases need to take on the question of spiritual value a little more directly. And there is a practical question as to whether wildernesses can be exploited without harm.
This is a topic that calls for not only free expression of feelings, but also the guidance of reason. What position wilderness should enjoy in the preservation of the world obviously deserves much more serious thinking.John Sauven holds that________________.
| A．many people value nature too much |
| B．exploitation of wildernesses is harmful |
| C．wildernesses provide humans with necessities |
| D．the urge to develop the ecosystem services is strong |
What is the main idea of Para. 3?
| A．The exploitation is necessary for the poor people. |
| B．Wildernesses cannot guarantee better use of raw materials. |
| C．Useful services of wildernesses are not the reason for no exploitation. |
| D．All the characteristics concerning the exploitation should be treated equally. |
What is the author’s attitude towards this debate?
| A．Objective. | B．Disapproving. | C．Sceptical. | D．Optimistic. |
Which of the following shows the structure of the passage?
A． |
B． |
C． |
D． |
CP: Central Point P: Point Sp: Sub-point(次要点) C: Conclusion
Global Positioning Systems are now a part of everyday driving in many countries. These satellite-based systems provide turn-by-turn directions to help people get to where they want to go. But, they can also cause a lot of problems, send you to the wrong place or leave you completely lost. Many times, the driver is to blame. Sometimes a GPS error is responsible. Most often, says Barry Brown, it is a combination of the two.
We spoke to Mr. Brown by Skype. He told us about an incident involving a friend who had flown to an airport in the eastern United States. There he borrowed a GPS-equipped car to use during his stay. Barry Brown: “And they just plugged in an address and then set off to their destination. And, then it wasn’t until they were driving for thirty minutes that they realized they actually put in a destination back on the West Coast where they lived. They actually put their home address in. So again, the GPS is kind of 'garbage in garbage out'.”
Mister Brown says this is a common human error. But, he says, what makes the problem worse has to do with some of the shortcomings, or failures, of GPS equipment. Barry Brown: “One problem with a lot of the GPS units is they have a very small screen and they just tell you the next turn. Because they just give you the next turn, sometimes that means that it is not really giving you the overview that you would need to know that it’s going to the wrong place.”
Barry Brown formerly served as a professor with the University of California, San Diego. While there, he worked on a project with Eric Laurier from the University of Edinburgh. The two men studied the effects of GPS devices on driving by placing cameras in people’s cars. They wrote a paper based on their research. It is called “The Normal, Natural Troubles of Driving with GPS.” It lists several areas where GPS systems can cause confusion for drivers. These include maps that are outdated, incorrect or difficult to understand. They also include timing issues related to when GPS commands are given.
Barry Brown says to make GPS systems better we need a better understanding of how drivers, passengers and GPS systems work together.In Paragraph 2, Mr. Brown mentioned his friend in the conversation to _____________.
| A．build up his own reputation |
| B．laugh at his stupid friend |
| C．prove the GPS system is only garbage |
| D．describe an example of human error |
With which of the following statement would Barry Brown most likely agree?
| A．GPS units are to blame for the most GPS service failures. |
| B．We should introduce higher standard for the driving license. |
| C．Cameras are urgently needed to help improve GPS systems. |
| D．Drivers, GPS systems and passengers should unite to improve GPS systems. |
What is Mr. Brown’s attitude towards GPS?
| A．Unconcerned | B．Prejudiced | C．Objective | D．Critical |
What would be the best title for the text?
| A．driving with GPS can be difficult |
| B．driving confusions can be caused by small screen |
| C．driving without GPS should be much more convenient |
| D．GPS equipment in driving: to be deserted or improved? |