The Happiest Cities On Earth
If you’re looking for a cheery destination for your next vacation, consider these four spots and get ready to take notes on how to really live the good life.
Singapore
With one of the highest population densities（密度）in the world and residents known for being workaholics, it’s hard to imagine the city-state of Singapore having one of the happiest populations on earth. And yet in a recent survey, 95% of them said they were either very happy or quite happy.
They give their city high marks for cleanliness and safety—subways are pristine (洁净的) and unfailingly arrive on time, and police are seen as helpful and good at their jobs. What’s more, they feel they can count on their neighbours—all 5.1 million of them.
Arhus, Denmark
The residents of Arhus cheerfully part with 68% of their income in taxes, knowing that in return they will be guaranteed free healthcare, free daycare, and a top-notch (第一流的) education for their children.
An energetic city of 300,000 with a lively cultural scene and a diverse number of religions represented, the sense of equality (the range in incomes is narrow), as well as easy access to the nearby sea and surrounding countryside, make Arhus seem more like a small town.
San Luis Obispo, CA
According to a 2008 Gallup-Healthways study, people who live in San Luis Obispo are more likely than residents of other U.S. cities to smile and experience joy and are less likely to experience pain or depression. About 64,000 of the 260,000 people in the greater metropolitan area (都市区), located halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, volunteer at over 11,000 non-profit organizations.
Few journeys to work are longer than 10 minutes (one reason its members rank in the upper third for job satisfaction), so “it’s easy to be involved,” resident Pierre Rademaker said. Business signs are unobtrusive (不显眼的) by law, fewer than 11% of residents smoke—the lower rate in the U.S.—there are lots of bike lanes, and the city’s plaza draws crowds of people for free concerts on summer Fridays. What’s not to love?
Monterrey, Mexico
The people of Monterrey don’t enjoy high household incomes or access to good healthcare. Instead, there’s a profound sense of gratitude for the new political freedom enjoyed since the oppressive Institutional Revolutionary Party lost power in 2000—the first time in nearly a century—as well as an emphasis on social life over work.
Another reason Monterrey residents may be so happy is their faith in God and family, and their ability to tough it out through bad times.
“We laugh at sickness, poverty and even death,” says Basanez, a political scientist who lives in Monterrey. “We even have a holiday to celebrate death. November 2, the Day of the Dead, is one of the biggest holidays of the year.”According to the passage, what do the residents in the four cities have in common?
| A．All the residents can make great fortunes by working hard. |
| B．The residents there are mostly educators. |
| C．All the residents enjoy enough material wealth. |
| D．The majority of the residents are satisfied with their current life. |
According to the passage, we can infer that _______.
| A．the people of Singapore expect their neighbours to come to their help when necessary |
| B．the people of Monterrey even observe one’s death on a special day of a year |
| C．the residents of Arhus happily pay 68% of their income for their children’s education fee |
| D．the people who live in San Luis Obispo have job satisfaction because they can enjoy good working conditions |
According to the passage which of the following statements is NOT TRUE?
| A．The people of Monterrey didn’t enjoy political freedom until 2000. |
| B．The residents in Singapore feel happy because of its low population density. |
| C．The people of San Luis Obispo can enjoy free concerts in summer. |
| D．Arhus is handy to the seaside and countryside. |
What can we learn from the underlined part “the sense of equality”?
| A．The residents of Arhus have no racial discrimination. |
| B．Arhus is considered as a family sharing everything with each other. |
| C．There is no wide gap between the rich and the poor in Arhus. |
| D．The residents of Arhus can depend on their neighbours to help. |
第二部分阅读理解（共20小题：每小题2.5分，满分50分）
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项。
A very important world problem---- in fact, I tend to say it is the most important of all the great world problems which face us at present time----is the rapidly increasing pressure of population on land and on land resources.
It is not so much the actual population of the world but its rate of increase, which is the most important. It works out to be about 1.6 percent net annual increase. In terms of numbers this means something like 40 to 55 million additional people very year. Canada has a population of 20 million, rather less 6 months’ climb in world population. And there are 10 million people in Australia. So, it takes the world less than three moths to add to itself a population, a population of that vast country. Let us come to our own crowded country---- England and Wales; 45--50 million people---- just about a year’s supply. By this time tomorrow, and every day, there will be added to the earth about 120, 000 extra people---- just about the population of the city of York.
I am not talking about birthrate. This is net increase. To give you some idea of birthrate, look at the second hand of your watch. Every second three babies are born somewhere in the world. Another baby! Another baby! Another baby! You cannot speak quickly enough to keep pace with the birthrate.
This enormous increase of population will create immense problems. By 2010 A. D., unless something desperate happens, there will be as many as 7,000, 000, 000 people on the surface of this earth! So this is a problem which you are going to see in your lifetime.
1．The topic for the passage is _________.
A．The Lack of Land Resources B．Population Explosion
C．Your Lifetime D．The Birthrate
2．According to the author, _________ is the most important for population pressure.
A．the net increase rate B．the birthrate
C．the enormous amount of world population D．the population explosion in Australia
3．It can be learned from Paragraph 2 that ________.
A．in more than 6 months, to the world population 20 million will be added
B．three months later, to the population in the world 10 million will be added
C．in less than three months, to the world population 10 million will be added
D．one year later, the population of England and Wales will be doubled
4．Which of the following is TRUE?
A．After 24 hours, 120 thousand babies were born
B．The birthrate is 180 babies every minute.
C．During a year, about 45 million people are born.
D．After a day, York will have 120, 000 extra people.
5．“…something desperate happens” in the last paragraph can be best replaced by _________.
A．the world wars break out B．people are in despair
C．birth control policy is adopted
D．people realize the seriousness of the population problem
第II卷
注意事项：
1. 用黑色墨水的钢笔或签字笔将答案写在答题纸上。2. 本卷共6小题，共35分。
第三部分：写作
第一节阅读表达（共5小题；每小题2分，满分10分）
阅读下面短文，并根据题目要求用英语回答问题（请注意问题后的字数要求）。
Several years ago, while attending a communication course, I experienced a most unusual process. The instructor asked us to list anything in our past that we felt ashamed of, regretted or incomplete about and read our lists aloud.
This seemed like a very private process, but there’s always some brave soul in the crowd who will volunteer. The instructor then suggested that we find ways to make an apology to people, or take some action to right any wrong doings. I was seriously wondering how this could ever improve my communication.
Then the man next to me raised his hand and volunteered this story: “Making my list, I remembered an incident from high school. I grew up in a small town. There was a Sheriff that none of us kids liked. One night, my two buddies and I decided to play a trick on him.
After drinking a few beers, we climbed the tall water tank in the middle of the town, and wrote on the tank in bright red paint: Sheriff Brown is an s.o.b. (畜生). The next day, almost the whole town saw our glorious sign. Within two hours, Sheriff Brown had us in his office. My friends told the truth but I lied. No one ever found out.”
“Nearly 20 years later, Sheriff Brown’s name appears on my list. I didn’t even know if he was still alive. Last weekend, I dialed the information in my hometown and found there was a Roger Brown still listed. I tried his number. After a few rings, I heard, “Hello?” I said, “Sheriff Brown?” paused. “Yes.” “Well, this is Jimmy Calkins.”
“And I want you to know that I did it？”Paused. “I knew it!” he yelled back. We had a good laugh and a lively discussion. His closing words were: “Jimmy, I always felt bad for you because your buddies got it off their chest, but you were carrying it around all these years. I want to thank you for calling me for your sake.”
Jimmy inspired me to clear up all 101 items on my list within two years, and I always remember what I learned from the course: It’s never too late to right the past wrongdoings.
56. What was the uneasy part of communication course about for the writer?
____________________________________________________________________________
57. Please explain the underlined word “buddies” in English.
_________________________________________________________________________
58. Please state one of your wrongdoings and how to right it.
____________________________________________________________________________
59. Why did Sheriff Brown pause twice before he could carry on the telephone conversation?
____________________________________________________________________________
60. What does the writer learn from the course?
_________________________________________________________________________
How can you find out what is going on inside a person’s body without opening the patient’s body up? Regular X rays can show a lot. CAT scans can show even more. They can give a complete view of body organs.
What is a CAT scan? CAT stands for a kind of machine. It is a special X-ray machine that gets a 360-degree picture of a small area of a patient’s body.
Doctors use X rays to study and determine diseases and injuries within the body; X rays can find a foreign object inside the body or take pictures of some inside organs to be X-rayed.
A CAT scanner, however, uses a group of X rays to give a cross-sectional view of a specific part of the body. A fine group of X rays in scanned across the body and around the patient from many different directions. A computer studies the information from each direction and produces a clear cross-sectional picture on a screen. This picture is then photographed for later use. Several cross sections, taken one after another, can give clear “photos” of the entire body or of any body organs. The newest CAT scanners can even give clear pictures of active, moving organs, just as a fast-action camera can “stop the action”, giving clear pictures of what appears unclear to the eye. And because of the 360-degree pictures, CAT scans show clear and complete views of organs in a manner that was once only shown during operation or examination of a dead patient.
Frequent appearance before X rays can cause skin burns, cancer or other damage to the body. Yet CAT scans actually don’t cause the patient to more radiation than regular X rays do. CAT scans can also be done without getting something harmful into the patient, so they are less risky than regular X rays.
CAT scans provide exact, detailed information. They can quickly find such a thing as bleeding inside the brain. They are helping to save lives.
1．What is NOT true of a CAT scan?
A．It is safer than regular X rays. B．It makes use of computer techniques.
C．It can stop the action of an organ for a short time.
D．It gives clear pictures of active, moving body parts.
2．The underlined words “a foreign object”（Para 3）most probably refer to .
A．a badly injured part inside the body B．a new thing that is unknown to the doctor
C．a strange organ that has grown in the body D．an object that gets inside the body by chance
3．What is the special use of the latest CAT scanners?
A．It provides clear photos of moving organs.
B．It can take 3-dimension pictures of inside organs.
C．It won’t cause serious skin burns, cancer or other damage to the body.
D．It helps to find out what is going on inside a person’s body without opening it up.
4．We can infer from this passage that .
A．patients in front of CAT may suffer from a bit of radiation
B．doctors need no opening-up of the body with CAT scanners
C．CAT scanners are more expensive than regular X-ray machines
D．CAT scanners can take photos of either the whole body or a part of it
5．The best title of this passage might be.
A．the Newest Medical Invention
B．New X-ray Machine to Save Lives
C．How to Avoid the Damage of X Rays
D．Advantages and Disadvantages of CAT Scanners
Last year, on report card day, my son and a bunch of his 13-year-old friends piled into the back seat of my car, ready for the last-day-of-school party at McDonald’s. “Jack got a laptop for getting straight A’s, and Laurie got a cellphone,” one boy said. “Oh, yeah, and Sarah got an iPod Nano, and she’s only in third grade,” said another. “And how about Brian? He got $ 10 for each A.”
I suddenly became concerned. These payoffs might get parents through grammar school, but what about high school and beyond? What would be left after the electric guitar, the cellphone, and the portable DVD player?
I saw the road ahead: As the homework load increased, my income would decrease. I saw my comfortable lifestyle vanish before my eyes-no more of those $ 5 bags of already-peeled organic carrots. No more organic anything!
I started to feel surprised and nervous. Would every goal attained by my two children fetch a reward? A high grade point average? A good class ranking? Would sports achievements be included in this reward system: soccer goals, touchdowns, runs-batted-in? What about orchestra? Would first chair pay more than second? I’d be penniless by eighth-grade graduation.
“We never paid anything for good grades,” said my neighbor across the street, whose son was recently accepted at MIT. “He just did it on his own. Maybe once in a while we went out for pizza, but that’s about it.”
Don’t you just hate that? We’re all running around looking for the MP3 player with the most updates, and she’s spending a few dollars on pizza. She gets motivation; we get negotiation.
1．The sentence “As the homework load increased, my income would decrease.” in the third paragraph probably means _____________.
A．taking care of the children would influence my work
B．I would spend more money on my children’s homework
C．reducing children’s homework load would cost me a lot
D．more rewards would be needed as the children grew up
2．We can tell from the passage that the author’s son was in ___________.
A．primary school B．junior middle school C．high school D．university
3．It can be inferred from the passage that ____________.
A．if you pay the children for good grades, they would take it for granted
B．if you buy children pizza for good grades, they would work harder
C．children would not ask for rewards when they enter high school
D．children would not ask for rewards when they enter university
4．The example of the author’s neighbor shows that ____________.
A．pizza is the best way to motivate children
B．reward is not the only way to motivate children
C．the author’s neighbor was very poor
D．the author’s neighbor’s son didn’t like reward
5．What is the author’s attitude toward paying children reward for good grades?
A．Favorable B．Ambiguous C．Disagreeable D．Unknowable
The question of what children learn, and how they should learn, is continually being debated and redebated. Nobody dares any longer to defend the old system, the learning of lessons parrot-fashion, the grammar-with-a-whip system, which was good enough for our grandparents. The theories of modern psychology have stepped in to argue that we must understand the need of children. Children are not just small adults; they are children who must be respected as much.
Well, you may say, this is as it should be a good idea. But think further. What happens? "Education" becomes the responsibility not of teachers, but of psychologists. What happens then? Teachers worry too much about the psychological implications of their lessons, and forget about the subjects themselves. If a child dislikes a lesson, the teacher feels that it is his fault, not the child’s. So teachers worry whether history is "relevant" to modern young children. And do they dare to recount stories about violence? Or will this make the children themselves violent? Can they tell their classes about children of different races, or will this encourage racial hatred? Why teach children to write grammatical sentences? Verbal expression is better. Sums? Arithmetic? No: Real-life mathematical situations are more understandable.
You see, you can go too far. Influenced by educational theorists, who have nothing better to do than to write books about their ideas, teachers leave their teacher-training colleges filled with grand, psychological ideas about children and their needs. They make elaborate, sophisticated (精致的，复杂的) preparations and try out their "modern methods" on the long-suffering children. Since one "modern method" rapidly replaces another, the poor kids will have had a good bellyful by the time they leave school. Frequently the modern methods are so sophisticated that they fail to be understood by the teachers, let alone the children; even more often, the relaxed discipline so essential for the " informal" feelings the class must have, prevents all but a handful of children from learning anything.
1. People do not dare defend the old system mainly because under the old system________.
A. too much grammar was taught to children B. children were spoiled
C. children were treated as grown-ups D. children were made to learn passively
2. What view do the modern psychologists hold?
A. Children must be understood and respected.
B. Children are small adults and know what they need.
C. Children are better off without learning lessons.
D. Education of children is the responsibility of psychologists.
3. What happens when teachers pay too much attention to the psychology of their lessons?
A. They find that the children dislike the lessons.
B. They tend to blame students for their failure.
C. They do not pay enough attention to the actual lessons.
D. They no longer want to teach children history.
4. Grammatical sentences are regarded as unimportant because ________.
A. it is better to use verbs only
B. words are said out of natural feelings only
C. talking freely and naturally without sentences is a better form of expression
D. it is felt that formal grammar rules might cause unnatural expressions
5. According to the passage, the modern methods are understood by ________.
A. neither teachers nor pupils
B. only a handful of teachers and pupils
C. the more sophisticated teachers
D. everyone who enjoys the relaxed discipline of the informal classes