For eighty four days old Santiago had not caught a single fish. At first a young boy, Manolin, had shared his bad fortune, but after the fortieth luckless day the boy’s father told his son to go in another boat. From that time on, Santiago worked alone. The boy loved the old fisherman and always helped him with money and food. Usually, they would talk about the fish they had taken in luckier times or about American baseball after supper, while at night, alone in his cottage, Santiago dreamed of lions on the beaches of Africa, where he had gone years before. He no longer dreamed of his dead wife.
On the eighty-fifth day, Santiago set off to fish before dawn. Two of his baits(饵) were fresh tunas(金枪鱼) the boy had given him, as well as sardines(沙丁鱼) to cover his hooks. Then he set his lines which went straight down into deep dark water.
As the sun rose he saw other boats in toward shore. A bird showed him where dolphins were chasing some flying fish. This time Santiago saw tuna jumping in the sunlight. A small one took the hook on his line. Pulling the fish aboard, the old man thought it a good fortune.
Toward noon a marlin, a common fish in the sea, started eating the bait which was one hundred meters down. Gently the old man played the fish, a big one, as he knew from the weight on the line. At last he struck to settle the hook. The fish did not come out of the surface. Instead, it began to pull the boat to the northwest. The old man followed it. Although he was alone and no longer strong, he had his skill and knew many tricks. He waited patiently for the fish to be tired.
It was cold after the sunset. When something took one of his remaining baits, he cut the line with his knife. Once the marlin leaned suddenly, pulling Santiago forward on his face and cutting his cheek. By dawn his left hand was cramped(抽筋的). The fish had headed northward; there was no land in sight. Hungry, he cut pieces from the tuna and chewed them slowly.
That morning the fish jumped. Seeing it, Santiago knew he had hooked the biggest marlin he had ever seen. Then the fish went down and turned toward the east. Santiago drank a little water from the bottle during the hot afternoon.
Close to nightfall a dolphin took the small hook he had rebaited. He lifted it aboard, careful. After he had rested, he cut meat from the dolphin and kept also the two flying fish he found in its stomach. That night he slept. He awoke to feel the line running through his fingers as the fish jumped. Feeding line slowly, he tried to tire the marlin. After the fish slowed its run, he washed his cut hands in sea water and ate one of the flying fish. At sunrise the marlin began to circle. Faint, he worked to bring the big fish nearer with each turn. Almost exhausted, he finally drew his big fish alongside and drove in the harpoon(鱼叉). The fish was two feet longer than the boat. No fish like it had ever been seen in Havana harbor.
An hour later, he sighted the first shark, a fierce Mako, and it came in fast to chase after the dead marlin. The old man struck the shark with his harpoon. The Mako rolled and sank, carrying the harpoon with it and leaving the marlin bloody. He knew the smell would spread. Watching, he saw two sharks closing in. He struck at one with his knife and watched it sliding down into deep water. The other he killed while it tore at the flesh of the marlin. When the third appeared, he thrust(刺) it with the knife. The other sharks came at sunset. At first he tried to beat them with the tiller(舵柄) from the boat, but his hands were bleeding and there were too many in the sea. In the darkness, as he steered toward the harbor of Havana, he heard them hitting the boat again and again. But the old man thought only of his steering and his great tiredness. He had gone out too far and the sharks had beaten him. He knew they would leave him nothing but the stripped skeleton of the big marlin.
All lights were out when he sailed into the little harbor and beached his boat. He could just make out the white backbone and the upstanding tail of the fish. Once he fell under their weight and lay patiently until he could gather his strength to go on. In his cottage he fell on his bed and went to sleep. The above story is adapted from __________.
A.Treasure Island | B.The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer |
C.The Old Man And The Sea | D.The Son Of The Sea |
Why did the man feel that he could be lucky this time?
A.Because a small tuna took the hook on his line. |
B.Because he dreamed about the American lions. |
C.Because he saw many flying fish were chased by the dolphins. |
D.Because a lot of sharks followed his boat. |
According to the text, which statement is NOT true about the boy?
A.The boy had mercy on Santiago. |
B.The boy often shared his stories with Santiago. |
C.The boy showed his great concerns to Santiago. |
D.The boy was Santiago’s adopted son. |
Why does Santiago let the marlin lead his boat instead of pulling the big fish up?
A.He wanted to kill the marlin first before he pulled it up to the boat. |
B.He was too tired and hungry to pull the big fish up. |
C.His experience told him not to do so before the fish was tired out. |
D.He wanted to use the marlin as a bait to catch the sharks. |
Which sentence below can be used to best describe Santiago’s character?
A.“He no longer dreamed of his dead wife.”(Para 1) |
B.“Although he was alone and no longer strong, he had his skill and knew many tricks.”(Para4) |
C.“Almost exhausted, he finally drew his big fish alongside and drove in the harpoon.”(Para7) |
D.“Once he fell under their weight and lay patiently until he could gather his strength to go on .”(Para 9) |
According to the text, what will be talked about in the next paragraph?
A.the man’s action to realize his dream about the lions. |
B.people’s reflection when they saw the giant marlin outside. |
C.people’s discussion about how they ate the giant marlin. |
D.a funeral held by the boy and the local people after his death. |
How the iron of tomorrow (the first Self Clean Iron)can change your lifestyle today?
General Electric introduces the iron of tomorrow. The iron can clean itself. Inside where irons get dirty. Because it cleans itself each and every time you empty it.How? With a push of a magic blue button.
The magic blue button.The first thing you’ll notice that’s different about this iron is the blue button on the side. It’s marked “Self Clean”. Push this blue button, and you can wash out loose mineral deposits that remain and block up inside. Push this button, and you’ve made life a lot easier.
Less chance of brown spotsSure, Self Cleaning Iron is going to cut down on brown spots. (Those ugly spots that happen on nice, cleanly pressed clothes.) Because a Self Cleaning Iron becomes clean each time you press that magic blue button.Steams much longerCommon sense tells you that if you’ve an iron that blocks less often it has to stay younger for a long period of time. In other words, it steams much longer. That’s another joy of owning General Electric’s Self Cleaning Iron.What does it mean to youToday you are doing so much more than just running a house and running after the kids. You’re working. You’re going to school. It’s all part of your lifestyle. The iron can change that lifestyle. By giving you less trouble before you iron. If we can make it easier for you to be a better wife, a better mother, a better housemaker, we want to. The new Self Cleaning Iron is another one of Home-Makers from General Electric.
Lifestlye.We’re with yours. GENERAL ELECTRIC
9.This passage is ______.
A.an introduction to General Electric B.an operating instruction of Self Cleaning Iron
C.an advertisement of Self Cleaning Iron D.a description of the change of lifestyle
10.This iron can clean itself by ______.
A.empting itself B.washing out mineral deposits
C.blocking up mineral deposits D.giving off more steam
11.According to the passage, what is most likely to attract the customers?
A.It is made by General Electric.
B.The iron will not produce mineral deposits.
C.There will be fewer brown spots on pressed clothes.
D.Their clothes will be cleaned at the same time.
12.Self Cleaning Iron can help change your lifestyle because ______.
A.you can run your house better B.you don’t have to run after the kids
C.you can use it while you are working D.we want you to be a better housemaker
WASHINGTONLaura Straub is a very worried woman. Her job is to find families for French teenagers who expect to live with American families in the summer.
It’s not easy, even desperate.
“We have many children left to place: 40 out of 75,” said Straub, who works for a Paris based foreign exchange programme called LEC.
When exchange programmes started 50 years ago, more families were willing to help others. For one thing, more mothers stayed home.
But now, increasing numbers of women work outside the home. Exchange student programmes have struggled in recent years to sign up host families for the 30,000 teenagers who come from abroad every year to have some courses for one year in the United States. as well as the thousands more who take part in summer programmes.
School systems in many parts of the US,unhappy about accepting nontaxpaying students, have also strictly limited the number of exchange students they accept. At the same time, the idea of hosting foreign students is becoming less exotic (异国情调的).
In searching for host families, who usually receive no pay, exchange programmes are increasingly broadening their requests to include everyone from young couples to the retired.
“We are open to many different types of families.” said Vickie Weiner, eastern regional director for ASSE, a 25-year-old programme that sends about 30,000 teenagers
on one-year exchange programmes worldwide.
For elderly people,exchange students “keep up young——they really do,” said Jean Foster,who is hosting 16-year-old Nina Porst from Denmark.
5.Foreign teenagers come to American families wilh the purpose of .
A.finding thier parents in America B.finding good jobs in America
C.learning the culture of America D.enjoying the life of America
6.In the past, Straub’s job was easy, because American families .
A.needed more money to live B.had fewer children to support
C.had spare rooms to rent D.were not as busy as now
7.To deal with the problem in recent years, Straub and her workmates have to .
A.ask different kinds of families for help B.limit the number of the exchange students
C.borrow much money to pay for the costs D.force some families to accept students
8.From the last paragraph we can conclude that __________.
A.exchange students are welcome in America
B.exchange students must pay much money to the host families
C.American students don’t want to join the exchange programmes
D.old Americans can benefit from hosting exchange students
When several different people look at the same person, it is not unusual for each of them to see different things; when you alone observe one behavior or one person at two different times, you may see different things. The following are but some of the factors that lead to these varying perceptions:
Each person’s perceptions of others are formed by his or her own cultural conditioning, education, and personal experience.
Sometimes perceptions differ because of what we choose to observe and how we deal with what we’ve observed. It is not necessarily true that person’s perception is based on observations of a particular person. Your observations may be totally controlled by some. Your observations may be totally controlled by what others have told you about this person; or you may focus primarily on the situation or role relationship. Most people do not use the same yardstick to measure their parents, their friends, and strangers.
Sometimes we see only what we want to see what may be obverse to others because of our own needs, desires, or temporary emotional states. This is a process known as selective perception. Selective perception is obviously more difficult when contradictory information is particularly obvious, but it can be done. We can ignore the stimulus—“He’s basically a good boy, so what I saw was not shoplifting.” We can reduce the importance of the contradictory information—“All kids get into mischief(顽皮). Taking a book from the bookstore isn’t such a big deal.” We call change the meaning of the contradictory information—“It wasn’t shoplifting because he was going to pay for it later.”..
1.While observing a particular person, .
A.one is likely to take all aspects into consideration
B.one pays more attention to his or her advantages
C.children often differ from gownups in perception
D.one tends to choose certain cues to look for
2.Observation of the same person by two people at the same time may differ because .
A.their yardsticks are not the same
B.either of them may be slow to catch information
C.the time for observations is not long enough
D.each of them uses different language to express his or her impressions
3.The underlined word “ignore” in Paragraph 4 means to .
A.understand something B.try to do something
C.pay no attention to something D.know something better
4.The worst thing in selective perception is that .
A.perceived information runs against your desire
B.facts can be totally ignored and distorted
C.importance of contradictory information can be overrated
D.the same information may not be dealt with in the same way
More surprising,perhaps, than the present difficulties of traditional marriage is the fact that marriage itself is alive and thriving.As Skolnick notes,Americans are a marrying people: relative to Europeans, more of us marry and we marry at a younger age. Moreover, after a drop in the early 1915s,the rate of marriage in the United States is now increasing. Even the divorce rate needs to be taken in this promarriage context: some 30 percent of divorced individuals remarry. Thus, marriage remains by far the preferred way of life for the vast majority of people in our society.
What has changed more than marriage is the nuclear family. Twentyfive years ago, the typical American family was made up of a husband, a wife, and two or three children.Now,there are many marriages in which couples have decided not to have any children. And there are many marriages where at least some of the children are from the wife’s former marriage, or the husband’s, or both.Sometimes these children spend all of their time with one parent from the former marriage; sometimes they are shared between the two former spouses (配偶).
Thus, one can find every type of family arrangement. There are marriages without children; marriages with children from only the persent marriage; marriages with “fulltime” children from both the present and former marriages; marriages with “fulltime” children from the present marriage and “parttime” children from former marriages. There are stepfathers, stepmothers, halfbrothers, and halfsisters.It is not all that unusual for a child to have four parents and eight grandparents! These are great changes from the traditional nuclear family.But even so, even in the midst of all this, there remains one constant: Most Americans spend most of their adult lives married.
13.By calling American marrying people the author means that .
A.Americans are more traditional than Europeans
B.Americans expect more out of marriage than Europeans
C.there are more married couples in U.S.A. than in Europe
D.more of Americans,as compared with Europeans, prefer marriage and they accept it at a younger age
14.Divorced Americans .
A.prefer the way they live
B.will most likely remarry
C.have lost faith in marriage
D.are the vast majority of people in the society
15.Which of the following can be presented as the picture of today’s American families?
A.Many types of family arrangements have become socially acceptable.
B.A typical American family is made up of only a husband and a wife.
C.Americans prefer to have more kids than before. D.There are no nuclear families any more.
16.“Part time”children .
A.spend some of their time with their half brothers and some of their time with their halfsisters
B.spend all of their time with one parent from the previous marriage
C.are shared between the two former spouses D.cannot stay with “fulltime” children
17.Even though great changes have taken place in the structure of American families, .
A.the vast majority of Americans still have faith in marriage
B.the functions of marriage remain unchanged
C.most Americans prefer a second marriage
D.most divorced Americans would rather not remarry
Looking back on my childhood, I am convinced that naturalists are born and not made. Although we were all brought up in the same way,my br others and sisters soon abandoned their pressed flowers and insects. Unlike them,I had no ear for music and languages. I was not an early reader and I could not do mental arithmetic.
Before World War I we spent our summer holidays in Hungary. I have only the dim memory of the house we lived in, of my room and my toys. Nor do I recall clearly the large family of grandparents,aunts, uncles and cousins who gathered next door. But I do have a clear memory of the dogs, the farm animals, the local birds, and above all, the insects.
I am a naturalist, not a scientist. I have a strong love of the natural world and my enthusiasm had led me into varied investigations. I love discussing my favorite topics and enjoy burning the midnight oil reading about other people's observations and discoveries. Then something happens that brings these observations together in my conscious mind. Suddenly you fancy you see the answer to the riddle, because it all seems to fit together. This has resulted in my publishing 300 papers and books, which some might honor with the title of scientific research.
But curiosity,a keen eye,a good memory and enjoyment of the animal and plant world do not make a scientist: one of the outstanding and essential qualities required is selfdiscipline, a quality I lack. A scientist, up to a certain point,can be made. A naturalist is born. If you can combine the two,you get the best of both worlds.
1.The first paragraph tells us the author .
A.was interested in flowers and insects in his childhood
B.lost his hearing when he was a child
C.didn’t like his brothers and sisters
D.was born to a naturalist’s family
2.The author can’t remember his relatives clearly because .
A.he didn’t live very long with them
B.the family was extremely large
C.he was too young when he lived with them
D.he was fully occupied with observing nature
3.It can be inferred from the passage that the author was .
A.a scientist as well as a naturalist
B.a naturalist but not a scientist
C.no more than a born naturalist
D.first of all a scientist
4.The author says that he is a naturalist rather than a scientist probably because he thinks he .
A.has a great deal of trouble doing mental arithmetic
B.lacks some of the qualities required of a scientist
C.just reads about other people’s observations and discoveries
D.comes up with solutions in a most natural way