STARBUCKS China yesterday renamed a newlyopened outlet near one of Buddhism's most famous temples after a wave of controversy over what critics called a “cultural invasion”.
The coffee shop in Hangzhou had opened as the Lingyin Temple Starbucks, leading some people to believe it was located inside the renowned temple.
However, the company said in a statement yesterday that the coffee shop was actually in the Lingyin scenic area, about 20 minutes' walk from the temple's entrance.It was said the outlet would now be known as the Lingyin Starbucks.
Wang Shan, deputy director of the Lingyin office of the West Lake Administration in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, said, “Actually, the coffee house is a long distance from the temple.It is located in the tourist service area on Lingyin Road outside of the temple, as part of the supporting facilities.”
The temple's administration urged the cafe to change its name to make it clear that it was not located inside the temple.
In a heated online debate, critics said the U.S.chain's commercial style would spoil the serenity that an oriental Buddhism temple should embrace.
Supporters, however, said that the talk of an “invasion” was misplaced as the outlet was not inside the temple but on a nearby commercial street where a KFC restaurant and a shopping mall had been open for more than six months.
The incident follows calls in 2009 to stop an earlier “cultural invasion” when the Seattlebased coffee chain had to move its outlet out of Beijing's Forbidden City seven years after it opened.
Critics urged closure of the outlet, which they said was a “humiliation” for a culture exemplified by the ancient buildings.Why did the temple's administration urge the cafe to change its name?
A.To attract the tourists. |
B.To tell the public the coffee outlet doesn't lie inside the temple. |
C.To obey the government. |
D.To do something to protect the temple. |
Why did the Seattlebased coffee chain have to move its outlet out of Beijing's Forbidden City?
A.Because the Seattlebased coffee chain was thought as an earlier “cultural invasion”. |
B.Because it changed Chinese culture. |
C.Because the Seattlebased coffee chain earned much more money than the temples. |
D.Because the Seattlebased coffee chain closed the shops by itself. |
What's the best title of this passage?
A.Coffee shop's new outlet deletes the word “temple”. |
B.Cultural invasion. |
C.Starbucks chain invasion. |
D.Seattlebased coffee chain's invasion. |
Students who work during term time to support themselves at university are far more likely to graduate with a poor degree, according to a government-funded study published yesterday.
Undergraduates with part-time jobs are a third less likely to get a first or upper second-class degree than other students, harming their career chances. Students from the poorest backgrounds were most likely to take jobs during term because they could not depend on help from their parents.
The report, commissioned (委托) by the Department for Education and Skills, also found a clear relation between fear of debt and employment in non-graduate jobs. Students from poorer backgrounds are known to be more unwilling to be in debt than those from middle class families.
The study of 8,600 people who graduated in 1999 was made by Peter Elias, of Warwick University, and Kate Purcell, from Bristol Business School. They found that twice as many first-class degrees were awarded to students who did not work during term compared with those who did. Between 35 and 38 percent who worked during term achieved a lower second, compared with about 28 percent of those who did not.
Professor Elias said that the increase in school fees next year to £3,000 would have to be monitored (监控) carefully for its effect on poorer students. "Higher education is going to be a harder struggle for those who do not come with all the advantages," he said.
He suggested that universities could get in touch with employers to provide work experience on good salaries to choose students during holidays, so that they did not have to work during term.What's the main idea of the passage?
A.Students at university like to take part-time jobs to support themselves, |
B.Term-time jobs at university lead to poorer examination results. |
C.The school fees are becoming higher and higher at university. |
D.Students at university have much difficulty getting first-class degrees. |
Why did lots of students take term-jobs at university?
A.No one would lend them money to continue their study. |
B.They wanted to improve themselves by taking part-time jobs, |
C.Their families were poor and couldn't afford the high expense. |
D.They thought earning money was more important than studying. |
Students who took term-jobs at university ____.
A.had no possibility to study better than those who didn't |
B.couldn't graduate from school normally in the future |
C.might have trouble in finding a job in the future |
D.were more independent than those who didn't in the future |
Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?
A.Poor students can't take part-time jobs all the time at university. |
B.Employers have the duty to help poor students solve the money problem. |
C.First class degrees couldn't be given to the students whose families were poor. |
D.High school fees are one of the important reasons why students have to take term-jobs. |
A programmer and an engineer are sitting next to each other on a long flight from Los Angeles to New York.The programmer leans over to the engineer and asks if he would like to play a fun game.The engineer just wants to take a nap, so he politely declines and rolls over to the window to catch a few winks.
The programmer persists and explains that the game is really easy and has a lot of fun.He explains, "I ask you a question, and if you don't know the answer, you pay me $5.Then you ask me a question, and if I don't know the answer, I'll pay you $5." Again, the engineer politely refuses and tries to get to sleep.
The programmer, now somewhat anxious, says, "OK, if you don't know the answer you pay me $5, and if I don't know the answer, I'll pay you $50!" This catches the engineer's attention, and he sees no end to this torment(折磨) unless he plays, so he agrees to the game.
The programmer asks the first question."What's the distance from the earth to the moon?'' The engineer doesn't say a word, but reaches into his wallet, pulls out a five dollar bill and hands it to the programmer.Now, it's the engineer's turn.He asks the programmer, "What goes up a hill with three legs, and comes down on four?" The programmer looks up at him with a puzzled look.He takes out his laptop computer and searches all of his references.After about an hour, he wakes the engineer and hands him $50.The engineer politely takes the $50 and turns away to try to get back to sleep.The programmer, more than a little angry, shakes the engineer and asks, "Well, so what's the answer?" Without a word, the engineer reaches into his wallet, hands the programmer $5, and turns away and goes back to sleep.What's the best title for the passage?
A.A Boring Conversation | B.A Fun Game |
C.A Trick During The Flight | D.A Question Without Answer |
What kind of person is the programmer according to what he said?
A.Confident. | B.Selfish. | C.Greedy. | D.Generous. |
What can we infer according to the last sentence?
A.The engineer has little money with him. |
B.Actually the engineer doesn't know the answer, either. |
C.The engineer is bored with programmer. |
D.The engineer beats the programmer at last. |
Which is NOT true according to the passage?
A.In the beginning the engineer is not interested in the game. |
B.The engineer is too sleepy to want to play the game. |
C.At last the engineer gains $45 from the programmer. |
D.Nobody knows the answer to the engineer's question. |
The scientists observed that the more junk food the rats ate, the more they wanted to eat – a behavior very similar to that of rats addicted(上了瘾的) to heroin, a dangerous drug. Johnson said the experiment shows that the brain chemistry of obesity(肥胖) and drug addiction may be quite similar.
In their experiment, Johnson and his team studied the “pleasure center” of rats’ brains. The pleasure center is a complicated network of nerve cells. If the animal exercises or eats, the cells reward the animal by releasing chemicals into the body that make it feel good. And when the body feels good, the animal – or person – will want to do the behavior again.
For the experiment, Johnson fed foods like cheesecake to one group of rats. Food like this is high in calories and fat. Another group of rats got a regular diet. The rats that ate junk food started to eat more and more.
“They’re taking in twice the amount of calories as the control rats,” says Paul Kenny, one of Johnson’s colleagues.
Kenny and Johnson wanted to know what was going on in the brains of these rats. They first designed a way to deliver a small electrical charge to the rats’ brains. This electrical charge would stimulate the pleasure centers to release pleasure-causing chemicals. The rats could control how much stimulation – and how much pleasure – they received by running on a wheel. The more the rat ran, the more pleasure it received.
The rats that had been eating junk food started running more and more. This behavior suggested that the junk-food-eating rats needed more brain stimulation to feel good compared with rats on a normal diet. In other words, their pleasure centers were becoming less sensitive and the junk food didn’t make them feel good unless they ate more and more.
Experiments like this one could help scientists understand how chemicals in the brain contribute to obesity. With that information, they may be able to help people avoid obesity in the first place.
(Note: Answer the questions or complete the statements in NO MORE THAN TEN WORDS.) The scientists suggested it was actually ___________________ that made the rats feel good.
How did the scientist know what was happening in the brains of the junk-food-eating rats?
What was the purpose of the experiment mentioned in the article?
Every time you go to the supermarket you come away with your purchases packed in plastic bags. But wouldn’t it be kinder to the environment if you asked for paper bags instead?
The answer is not as easy as it might seem. Environmentalists say there are drawbacks to using both plastic bags and paper bags.
80 percent of groceries in the US are packed in plastic bags and the numbers are becoming huge. Consumers use between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags per year worldwide.
Some experts believe that all these bags harm the environment. Plastic takes hundreds of years to break down and, as it does so, poisonous materials are released into the water and soil.
Further damage is caused if plastic bags enter the sea. For example, endangered sea turtles cannot tell the bags from jellyfish, their main source of food, and often choke on them.
However, this kind of bag does have its advantages.
Paper bags use more energy and create more waste than plastic bags. Plastic bags require 40 percent less energy to produce and cause 70 percent less air pollution. They also release as much as 94 percent less waste into the water than paper ones do.
But paper bags do break down more quickly than plastic bags. They don’t endanger wildlife, either.
So what should we do? One possible solution would be to use biodegradable plastic bags. “Biodegradable” means that the bags break down naturally just like a piece of banana peel when it is left outside.
But until biodegradable technology improves, it might be easier to pack things you buy in reusable cloth bags.Compared to paper bags, plastic bags ______.
A.produce 6 percent more waste |
B.can be made biodegradable more easily |
C.can be used as a source of food |
D.save 40 percent of the energy |
By saying “The answer is not as easy as it might seem,” (in paragraph 2) the writer means _____.
A. biodegradable plastic bags can compete with paper
B. paper bags seem to be kind to environment
C. it’s difficult to say whether plastic or paper bags are better for the environmentWhat does the author suggest people use at the present time?
A.Paper bags | B.Plastic bags |
C.Biodegradable plastic bags. | D.Cloth bags. |
Without proper planning, tourism can cause problems. For example, too many tourists can crowd public places that are also enjoyed by the inhabitants of a country. If tourists create too much traffic, the inhabitants become annoyed and unhappy. They begin to dislike tourists and to treat them impolitely. They forget how much tourism can help the country and how tourism affects them. Tourism should help a country keep the customs and beauty that attract tourists. Tourism should also advance the well-being (health and happiness) of local inhabitants.
Too much tourism can be a problem. If tourism grows too quickly, people must leave other jobs to work in the tourism industry. This means that other parts of the country’s economy can suffer.
On the other hand, if there is not enough tourism, people can lose jobs. Businesses can also lose money. It costs a great deal of money to build large hotels, airports, air terminals, first-class roads, and other support facilities needed by tourist attractions. For example, a major international-class tourism hotel can cost as much as 50 thousand dollars per room to build. If this room is not used most of the time, the owners of the hotel lose money.
Building a hotel is just a beginning. There must be many support facilities as well, including roads to get to the hotel, electricity, sewers(阴沟) to handle waste, arid water. All of these support facilities cost money. If they are not used because there are not enough tourists, jobs and money are lost. Which of the following has most probably been discussed in the paragraph that goes before the passage?
A.It is extremely important to develop tourism. |
B.Building roads and hotels is essential. |
C.Support facilities are highly necessary. |
D.Planning is of great importance to tourism. |
Too much tourism can cause all these problems EXCEPT ______.
A.a bad impact on other industries |
B.A change of tourists’ customs |
C.overcrowdedness of places of interest |
D.pressure on traffic |
It is good for local people to be well aware that tourism will _____.
A.use up a large amount of water |
B.weaken their economy |
C.help establish their traditions |
D.help improve their life |