The triathlon(铁人三项运动) promises to be one of the most popular Olympic sports.Recently it has drawn huge crowds attracted by athletes swimming 1,500m，cycling 40km，then running 10km without stopping.But what makes an attractive 17yearold girl give up everything for the doubtful pleasure it offers?
Melanie Sears has not yet learnt those oftenrepeated phrases about personal satisfaction，mental challenge and higher targets that most athletes use when asked similar questions.“You swim for 1,500m，then run out of the water and jump on your bike，still wet.Of course，then you freeze.When the 40km cycle ride is over，you have to run 10km，which is a long way when you’re feeling exhausted.But it’s great fun，and all worth it in the end，” she says.
Melanie entered her first triathlon at 14 and she won the junior section.Full of confidence，she entered the National Championships，and although she had the second fastest swim and the fastest run，she came nowhere.“I was following this man and suddenly we came to the sea.We realised then that we had gone wrong.I ended up cycling 20 kilometres too far.I cried all the way through the running.”
But she did not give up and was determined that she never will.“Sometimes I wish I could stop，because then the pain would be over，but I am afraid that if I let myself stop just once，I would be tempted(诱惑) to do it again.”Such doggedness draws admiration from Steve Trew，the sport’s director of coaching.“I’ve just been testing her fitness，” he says, “and she worked so hard on the running machine that it finally threw her off and into a wall.She had given it everything，and she just kept on.”
Melanie was top junior in this year’s European Triathlon Championships，finishing 13th.“I was almost as good as the top three in swimming and running，but much slower in cycling.That’s why I’m working very hard at it.” She is trying to talk her longsuffering parents，who will carry the ￡1,300 cost of her trip to New Zealand for this year’s world championships，into buying a ￡2,000 bike，so she can try 25km and 100km races later this year.
But there is another price to pay.“I don’t have a social life，”she says.“After two hours’ hard swimming on Friday night，I just want to go to sleep.But I phone and write to the other girls in the team.” What does she talk about？Boys？Clothes？“No，what sort of times they are achieving.”How does Melanie differ from other athletes，according to the writer?
| A．She worries less than they do. |
| B．She expresses herself differently. |
| C．Her family background is not like theirs. |
| D．Her aims are different from theirs. |
What upset Melanie during the National Championships?
| A．She was tricked by another competitor. |
| B．She felt she had let her teammates down. |
| C．She made a mistake during part of the race. |
| D．She realized she couldn’t cycle as fast as she thought. |
What is Melanie trying to persuade her parents to do?
| A．Buy an expensive bike for her. |
| B．Give her half the cost of a bike. |
| C．Let her compete in longer races. |
| D．Pay for her to go to New Zealand. |
What does Melanie say about her relationships with her teammates?
| A．She would like to see them more often. |
| B．She only discusses the triathlon with them. |
| C．She thinks they find her way of life strange. |
| D．She dislikes discussing boys or clothes with them. |
If the world were a village of 1,000 people, it would include:
★ 584 Asians
★ 124 Africans
★ 95 Eastern and Western Europeans
★ 84 Latin America
★ 55 former Soviets (including Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, and other national groups)
★ 52 North Americans
★ 6 Australians and New Zealand
The people of the village would speak:
★ 165 Mandarin
★ 86 English
★ 83 Hindu/Urdu
★ 64 Spanish
★ 58 Russian
★ 37 Arabic
The above list covers the mother tongues of only half the village.
One-third of the people in the village are children, and only 60 are over the age of 65. Just under half of the married women in the village have access to modern equipments.
This year 28 babies will be born. Ten people will die, 3 of them for lack of food, 1 from cancer. Two of the deaths will be of babies born within the year. With the 28 births and 10 deaths, the population of the village next year will be 1018.
In this village of 1,000 persons,200 people receive 75 percent of the income: another 200 receive only 2 percent of the income.
About one third have access to clean, safe drinking water.
Of the 670 adults in the village, half can not read nor write.
The village has a total yearly budget(预算), public and private, of over $ 3 million--$ 3,000 per person if it is distributed evenly. Of the total $ 3 million:
★ 181,000 goes to weapons and warfare
★ 159,000 to education
★ 132,000 to health care
These weapons are under the control of just 100 of the people. The other 900 are watching them with deep anxiety, wondering whether they can learn to get along together. Which of the following is true about Mandarin according to the text?
| A．Nearly one third of Asian people speak Mandarin in the village. |
| B．About 25 percent of the people speak Mandarin in the village. |
| C．About 16.5 percent of the people speak Mandarin in the village. |
| D．Nearly all the Mandarin-speaking people are from Asia in the village. |
Which of the following problems is NOT mentioned in the text?
| A．Poverty | B．Education. | C．Environment. | D．Marriage. |
The underlined part “have access to”(in Para. 4) means____.
| A．use | B．buy | C．produce | D．try |
The last sentence in the text implies that most of the people long for ___.
| A．a peaceful world | B．good education | C．better health care | D．a life without anxiety |
If you are a recent social science graduate who has had to listen to jokes about unemployment from your computer major classmates, you may have had the last laugh. There are many advantages for the social science major because this high-tech “Information Age” demands people who are flexible(灵活的) and who have good communication skills.
There are many social science majors in large companies who fill important positions. For example, a number of research studies found that social science majors had achieved greater managerial success than those who had technical training or pre-professional courses. Studies show that social science majors are most suited for change, which is the leading feature(特点) of the kind of high-speed, high-pressure, high-tech world we now live in.
Social science majors are not only experiencing success in their long-term company jobs, but they are also finding jobs more easily. A study showed that many companies had filled a large percentage of their entry-level positions with social science graduates. The study also showed that the most sought-after quality in a person who was looking for a job was communication skills, noted as “very important”, by 92 percent of the companies. Social science majors have these skills, often without knowing how important they are. It is probably due to these skills that they have been offered a wide variety of positions.
Finally, although some social science majors may still find it more difficult than their technically trained classmates to land the first job, recent graduates report that they don’t regret their choice of study.By saying that “you may have had the last laugh” in the first paragraph, the author means that you may have____.
| A．shared the jokes with computer majors | B．earned as much as computer majors |
| C．found jobs more easily than computer majors | D．stopped joking about computer majors |
Compared with graduates of other subjects, social science graduates ___.
| A．are ready to change when situations change | B．are better able to deal with difficulties |
| C．are equally good at computer skills | D．are likely to give others pressure |
The underlined word “land” in the last paragraph probably means ___.
| A．keep for some time | B．successfully get | C．immediately start | D．lose regretfully |
According to the text, what has made it easy for social science graduates to find jobs?
| A．Willingness to take low-paid jobs. | B．Readiness to gain high-tech knowledge. |
| C．Skills in expressing themselves. | D．Part-time work experience. |
Before a new type airplane goes service, every part of it is tested again and again. But there are two tests that are more of into important than the others.
The first is called the “tank test”. A modern airplane must fly very high in the sky. Air must be pumped into the plane so that the passengers can breathe. The metal structure of the plane has to be very strong for this reason. When the plane is filled with air, the air presses against the skin of the plane inside. The pressure(压力)on a small window is like a huge foot that is trying to get out. If a small part of the plane were to fail, the plane would explode in the sky. To test the structure of the plane, the plane is lowered into a huge tank or container of water. Then it is filled with air. The pressure inside the plane is greater than it ever will be when it is high up in the air. Finally, there is an explosion. This does not cause so much damage inside the water tank as it would anywhere else. Engineers can discover which part of the plane has broken. Then that part is made stronger.
The most dangerous test happens when the new plane is going through test flights in the air. The test must find out exactly what happens when the engines(发动机) are all shut off at once. The plane begins to fall like a stone. It is the pilot’s job to find out how he can get control of the plane again. These two tests are examples of how planes are made safe before they ever carry passengers.By doing the “tank test”, the engineers can find out ____.
| A．the amount of air in the plane | B．the strength of the plane structure |
| C．the pressure inside and outside the plane | D．the power of the airplane engines |
What will happen to the plane under the “tank test”?
| A．It will be broken | B．It will be made stronger. |
| C．It will be filled with water. | D．It will be tested by pilots. |
According to the text, why are test flights most dangerous?
| A．The plane may explode in the air | B．The pilot may lose control of the plane. |
| C．The engines may be damaged. | D．Too much air may get into the plane. |
What might be the most suitable title for the text?
| A．Two Important Tests on Airplane | B．The Importance of Flying Safety |
| C．The Danger of Testing Airplanes | D．How Airplanes Are made and Tested |
A sixth of undergraduates in Beijing this year have registered at driving school. The students, mostly from majors such as business management or international trade, will finish their driving courses within 20 days or so.
Training costs have dropped to 2, 600 yuan for students, according to the Haidian Driving School in Beijing. The price is not really low, but students will accept it, seeing it as an investment （投资）in their future. Familiarity with the operation of computers and fluent English are the basic skills graduating students need to find a job. But a driver’s permit has become another factor （因素）.
“In the job market, owning a driver’s permit sometimes strengthens a graduating student’s competitiveness for a good position, ”says Zhou Yang, an undergraduate at the China University of Political Science and Law.
Cars will become a necessary part of many people’s lives in the coming years, and it is difficult to get a permit of campus because of the pressures on working people’s time. “Having a fulltime job after graduation offers limited time to learn to drive. We senior students have plenty of spare time, plenty of opportunity to learn. ”Zhou says.
Xu Jian, an official at the driving school, said undergraduates were very able and serious, and could grasp in an hour what ordinary people took four hours to learn. In this driving school, middle -aged people, young women and college students are the main customers.
To get a driver’s permit, a beginner is now required to have at least 86 hours’practice before the final road test.
________ in Beijing want to learn to drive.
| A．Most of the undergraduates |
| B．Many undergraduates |
| C．Many students in the driving school |
| D．Most of the students who learn business or international trade |
The undergraduates are learning to drive because ________.
| A．they need this skill to find a good job |
| B．they like to drive cars |
| C．they will not have any time to learn to drive after they have found a full - time job |
| D．most of them will be able to buy cars in the future |
Which of the following is likely to be Xu Jian’s opinion of students learning to drive?
| A．He thought it was better to learn it at college than at work. |
| B．He decided it was a waste of money and time to learn to drive. |
| C．He agreed that they could learn to drive. |
| D．He thought they would spend three times more time to learn to drive than usual. |
Which of the following can be the best headline for the passage?
| A．Students Pay Less to Learn to Drive Now. |
| B．Students Learn to Drive. |
| C．It is Better to Learn to Drive at Colleges. |
| D．Welcome to the Driving School. |
Inside China Daily
China, Japan ink fishery accord
The New China -Japan Fishery Agreement will be put into effect starting June this year, Chinese vice - minister of agriculture, Qi Jingfa told a press conference yesterday in Beijing.
—Page 2
Offshore funeral
The remains of more than 500 dead will be scattered at sea this spring near the mouth of Yangtze River in Shanghai. To save space Shanghai officials discouraged land burials.
—Page 3
The only wise choice
Co -operation with the mainland for a peaceful reunification should be the only wise choice for the newly elected Taiwan leader.
—Page 4
Interest in activity such as fairs, galleries and exhibitions has caused the art market to take shape in China. —Page 9
Two sides of a story.
The government’s efforts to cut the homework burden of primary and middle school students have drawn mixed reactions.
—Page 10
Blind, but not out.
Yang Jia, an English professor at the Chinese Academy of Science meets the challenges brought by the sudden loss of her eyesight and continues to make it in her work.
—Page 11
The above section may possibly appear on ________ of China Daily.
| A．Page 5 | B．the Front Page |
| C．Page 9 | D．the last page |
From the text we can learn that ________ .
| A．no one will be buried in the ground after they die in Shanghai |
| B．Chinese fishermen can go fishing freely in Japan soon |
| C．a blind professor can work better |
| D．more and more people have begun to do art business |
When you look through this issue of China Daily, you are sure to find ________ .
| A．how Taiwan’s new leader was made |
| B．that people think differently of reducing pupils’ burden |
| C．sad stories about students with heavy burden in primary and middle schools |
| D．interesting stories of art fairs, galleries and exhibitions of different shapes in China |