Advertisers tend to think big and perhaps this is why they’re always coming in for criticism. Their critics seem to resent them because they have a flair for self-promotion and because they have so much money to throw around. ‘It’s iniquitous,’ they say, ‘that this entirely unproductive industry (if we can call it that) should absorb millions of pounds each year. It only goes to show how much profit the big companies are making. Why don’t they stop advertising and reduce the price of their goods? After all, it’s the consumer who pays…’
The poor old consumer! He’d have to pay a great deal more if advertising didn’t create mass markets for products. It is precisely because of the heavy advertising that consumer goods are so cheap. But we get the wrong idea if we think the only purpose of advertising is to sell goods. Another equally important function is to inform. A great deal of the knowledge we have about household goods derives largely from the advertisements we read. Advertisements introduce us to new products or remind us of the existence of ones we already know about. Supposing you wanted to buy a washing machine, it is more than likely you would obtain details regarding performance, price, etc., from an advertisement.
Lots of people pretend that they never read advertisements, but this claim may be seriously doubted. It is hardly possible not to read advertisements these days. And what fun they often are, too! Just think what a railway station or a newspaper would be like without advertisements. Would you enjoy gazing at a blank wall or reading railway byelaws while waiting for a train? Would you like to read only closely printed columns of news in your daily paper? A cheerful, witty advertisement makes such a difference to a drab wall or a newspaper full of the daily ration of calamities.
We must not forget, either, that advertising makes a positive contribution to our pockets. Newspapers, commercial radio and television companies could not subsist without this source of revenue. The fact that we pay so little for our daily paper, or can enjoy so many broadcast programmes is due entirely to the money spent by advertisers. Just think what a newspaper would cost if we had to pay its full price!
Another thing we mustn’t forget is the ‘small ads.’ which are in virtually every newspaper and magazine. What a tremendously useful service they perform for the community! Just about anything can be accomplished through these columns. For instance, you can find a job, buy or sell a house, announce a birth, marriage or death in what used to be called the ‘hatch, match and dispatch’ column but by far the most fascinating section is the personal or ‘agony’ column. No other item in a newspaper provides such entertaining reading or offers such a deep insight into human nature. It’s the best advertisement for advertising there is!What is main idea of this passage?
| A．Advertisement. |
| B．The benefits of advertisement. |
| C．Advertisers perform a useful service to communities. |
| D．The costs of advertisement. |
The attitude of the author toward advertisers is
| A．appreciative. |
| B．trustworthy. |
| C．critical. |
| D．dissatisfactory. |
Why do the critics criticize advertisers?
| A．Because advertisers often brag. |
| B．Because critics think advertisement is a “waste of money”. |
| C．Because customers are encouraged to buy more than necessary. |
| D．Because customers pay more. |
Which of the following is Not True?
| A．Advertisement makes contribution to our pockets and we may know everything. |
| B．We can buy what we want. |
| C．Good quality products don’t need to be advertised. |
| D．Advertisement makes our life colorful. |
The passage is
| A．Narration. |
| B．Description. |
| C．Criticism. |
| D．Argumentation. |
Vocabulary
come in for ( sth. ) 是某事物的对象，吸引（某事物），获得
flair 天资，天分
iniquitous 极邪恶的，极不公正的
drab 单调的，乏味的
subsist 活下去，生存下去，维持下去
hatch 孵化（指生孩子）
match 匹配，婚姻
dispatch 派遣，发送
agony 极大痛苦，煎熬
agony column （报刊中关于个人疑难问题征询意见的）读者来信专栏
Some English words are made up of the same part and have different beginnings and different endings, such as import, export, report and transport. All these words, you can see, have the same "port", which come from the Latin word, meaning "to carry" or "to move" from one place to another. And according to the bit at the beginning, which we call the prefix the meaning changes. "Import" means "to carry in" or "to bring into a country", "export", "ex" means "out of", so this word means "to carry out of the country", "re" means "back", so the "report" means "to tell somebody, to bring back information to somebody", "transport", "trans" means "across" and it means "to carry across one place to another".
Let's look at the following words: supporter, reporter, importer and exporter. You can see that in this case these words are nouns which are made up of the verbs plus a suffix, thus meaning a person who completes the verb. So supporter means somebody who supports. A reporter is somebody who reports. Importer is somebody who imports and exporter is somebody who exports, and so on. In the first sentence the word "part" means _______.
| A．different beginnings and different endings |
| B．the same part that has several meanings |
| C．the root of the word |
| D．the same root that has different meanings |
By adding a prefix or a suffix to a root, we can get a word which has _______.
| A．the meaning of a Latin word | B．a different meaning |
| C．the meaning of "in" or "out of" | D．a lot of meanings |
We can get a noun _______.
| A．just by adding "er" to verbs | B．by changing a prefix |
| C．only by adding "er" to a root | D．by adding a suffix to a verb |
According to the passage, if we talk about a man of refinement, you may guess that he must be _______.
| A．a man having good manners and education |
| B．a person who should be educated |
| C．somebody having bad manners |
| D．a person punished by somebody else |
The World's Largest Insect
This giant insect can be used as a toy.
A child ties one end of a string to a stick and the other end around the "neck" of an insect. Holding the stick, the child lets the insect go. With a loud whirring sound, the insect takes off, pulling the string in a large curve over the child's head. The child laughs as the stick jumps around. The child is African, and the toy is the African Goliath beetle, the largest insect in the world.
The Goliath is a true insect because it has six legs and a body that is divided into three parts. Like all beetles, it has two pairs of wings. The front pair are thick and stiff and protect the back pair, which are soft. It is these soft back wings that make the beetle fly forward. They also cause the loud whirring sound the beetle makes when it flies. To steer, the beetle twists and turns its legs the same way you steer a bike by turning its front wheel.
African children often use the Goliath beetle as a toy. Although it is over 15 centimeters long, it is quite harmless. The African Goliath beetle is _______.
| A．the world's largest insect |
| B．a toy used in many parts of the world |
| C．the only insect found in Africa |
| D．the world's smallest insect |
What made the whirring sound that the child heard?
| A．The curved string. | B．The beetle's soft wings. |
| C．The beetle's six legs. | D．The beetle's body. |
We know the Goliath beetle is a true insect because it _______.
| A．makes a whirring sound when it flies | B．has both soft and hard wings |
| C．has six legs and a body with three parts | D．can fly |
When flying, the Goliath steers by_______.
| A．turning its soft back wings |
| B．twisting and turning its hard front wings |
| C．twisting and turning its legs |
| D．twisting and turning its whole body |
Here is a question I have often asked at dinner parties:
You're on an island with only one other person, your best friend. He's dying of cancer. In his final days, he tells you, "I have 100,000 dollars in a bank back home. When I die, make sure my son goes to medical school." Then he dies. But his son is a no-good playboy who has no interest in going to medical school and will waste that money away in a very short time. But your son is entering college, and he is willing to become a doctor. Which one do you give the money to for medical school?
I've asked this question of everyone from the president of a famous university to an ordinary young soldier, and it has never failed to get a discussion going. Everyone has an opinion, most of them different, but all of them correct. Sometimes this one topic lasts the whole evening.Which of the following is TRUE to the passage?
| A．Only the clever people can answer the question rightly. |
| B．Some people refuse to answer such a silly question. |
| C．Everyone at the dinner party seems to be interested in the question. |
| D．Most of the people have the same answer. |
What the writer often says at dinner parties is _______.
| A．not a true story | B．a true story |
| C．a strange story | D．just a joke |
Why does the writer often ask people such a question? Because ______.
| A．he wants to find the answer for a research |
| B．he is interested in such a question |
| C．he likes to make fun of people at parties |
| D．he wants to offer people a topic in which everyone could say something |
Which of the following decisions is most likely NOT correct?
| A．You give the money to your friend's son. |
| B．You give the money to your son for medical school. |
| C．You keep the money for your future medical care. |
| D．You keep the money for your friend's son. |
It doesn't matter when or how much a person sleeps, but everyone needs some rest to stay alive. That's what all doctors thought, until they heard about Al Herpin. Al Herpin, it was said, never slept. Could this be true ? The doctors decided to see this strange man themselves.
Al Herpin was 90 years old when the doctors came to his home in New Jersey. They thought for sure that he got some sleep of some kind. So they stayed with him and watched every movement he made. But they were surprised. Though they watched him hour after hour and day after day. They never saw Herpin sleeping. In fact, he did not even own a bed. He never needed one.
The only rest that Herpin sometimes got was sitting in a comfortable chair and reading newspapers. The doctors were puzzled by this strange continuous sleeplessness. They found only one answer that might explain his condition. Herpin remembered some talk about his mother having been injured several days before he was born. But that was all. Was this the real reason ? No one could be sure. Herpin died at the age of 94. The main idea of this passage is that _______.
| A．large numbers of people do not need sleep |
| B．a person was found who actually didn't need any sleep |
| C．everyone needs some sleep to stay alive |
| D．people can live longer by trying not to sleep |
The doctors came to visit Herpin, expecting to _______.
| A．cure him of his sleeplessness |
| B．find that his sleeplessness was not really true |
| C．find a way to free people from the need of sleeping |
| D．find out why some old people didn't need any asleep |
After watching him closely, the doctors came to believe that Al Herpin _______.
| A．was too old to need any sleep | B．often slept in a chair |
| C．needed no sleep at all | D．needed some kind of sleep |
One reason that might explain Herpin's sleeplessness was _______.
| A．that he hadn't got a bed |
| B．that he had gradually got tired of the sleeping habit |
| C．his mother's injury before he was born |
| D．his magnificent physical condition |
阅读下面短文，将标有A~F的段落或句子插入文章中题号为1~5的恰当位置，使全篇文章意义完整，结构连贯。注意：1)有一个选项是多余的；2)如选E请填涂AB；选F请填涂CD.
Freezing can keep food fresh and safe to eat. Freezing lowers the food temperature below zero degree Celsius. That is the point where water turns to ice. , it is important to lower the temperature to between minus fifteen and minus twenty degrees Celsius as quickly as possible. The faster the freezing process is, the fresher the taste of the food.
Fruits and vegetables can be spread out inside the freezer. Once the food is frozen, . Fruits are usually not cooked before they are frozen. This allows them to keep their fresh taste. The simplest way to prepare fruits is to cut them up and place them in a container inside the freeze before putting it in the container. This will keep it from sticking to the container. This is called the “dry pack” method.
, The fruit is prepared along with some of its liquid or juice. You can ad some sugar to fruits that are naturally juicy. The sugar sweetens the fruit and brings out its natural juices.
. Blanching means placing the vegetables in boiling water for a few minutes and then quickly placing them into very cold water. Blanching slows down the natural chemical aging process. All extra water should be removed before placing the vegetables into containers and freezing.
.
| A．it should be placed in containers and then stored at a temperature of about minus twenty degrees Celsius |
| B．Vegetables are either cooked or blanched before freezing |
| C．To start the freezing process |
| D．To keep them fresh for a long time |
E. The second way is the “wet pack” method
F. Most foods can be stored frozen for up to one year