Many people believe the glare from snow causes snow-blindness. Yet, dark glasses or not , they find themselves suffering from headaches and watering eyes, and even snow-blindness, when exposed to several hours of “snow light”. The United States Army has now determined that glare from snow does not cause snow-blindness in troops in a snow-covered country. Rather, a man's eyes frequently find nothing to focus on in a broad expanse of barren (少植被的) snow-covered terrain (地形). So his gaze continually shifts and jumps back and forth over the entire landscape in search of something to look at. Finding nothing, hour after hour, the eyes never stop searching and the eyeballs become sore and the eye muscles ache. Nature eases this irritation by producing more fluid which covers the eyeball. The fluid covers the eyeball in increasing quantity until vision blurs (模糊), then is obscured (遮蔽), and the result is total, even though temporary, snow-blindness.
Experiments led the Army to a simple method of overcoming this problem. Scouts ahead of a main body of troops are trained to shake snow from evergreen bushes, creating a dotted line as they cross completely snow-covered landscape. Even the scouts themselves throw lightweight, dark colored objects ahead on which they too can focus. The men following can then see something. Their gaze is arrested. Their eyes focus on a bush and having found something to see, stop scouring the snow-blanketed landscape. By focusing their attention on one object at a time, the men can cross the snow without becoming hopelessly snow-blind or lost. In this way the problem of crossing a solid white terrain is overcome.To prevent headaches, watering eyes and blindness caused by the glare from snow, dark
glasses are _________.
| A．indispensable and essential | B．useful | C．ineffective | D．available |
When the eyes are sore tears are produced to _________.
| A．balance the pain | B．treat snow-blindness |
| C．clear the vision | D．loosen the muscles |
Snow-blindness may be avoided by _________.
| A．concentrating on the solid white terrain |
| B．searching for something to look at in snow-covered terrain |
| C．providing the eyes with something to focus on |
| D．covering the eyeballs with more fluid |
The scouts shake snow from evergreen bushes in order to _________.
| A．prevent the men behind losing their way |
| B．beautify the landscape of the terrain |
| C．warm themselves in the severe cold |
| D．give the men behind something to see |
A suitable title for this passage would be _________.
| A．nature's cure for snow-blindness |
| B．snow-blindness and how to overcome it |
| C．soldiers marching in the snow |
| D．snow vision and its effect on eyesight |
Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago in 1954 to a Mexican American family. As the only girl in a family of seven children, she often felt like she had "seven fathers" because her six brothers, as well as her father, tried to control her. Feeling shy and unimportant, she retreated (躲避) into books. Despite her love of reading, she did not do well in elementary school because she was too shy to participate.
In high school, with the encouragement of one particular teacher, Cisneros improved her grades and worked for the school literary magazine. Her father encouraged her to go to college because he thought it would be a good way for her to find a husband. Cisneros did attend college, but instead of searching for a husband, she found a teacher who helped her join the famous graduate writing program at the University of Iowa. At the university's Writers' Workshop, however, she felt lonely—a Mexican American from a poor neighborhood among students from wealthy families. The feeling of being so different helped Cisneros find her "Creative voice".
"It was not until this moment when I considered myself truly different that my writing acquired a voice. I knew I was a Mexican woman, but I didn't think it had anything to do with why I felt so much imbalance in my life, but it had everything to do with it! That's when I decided I would write about something my classmates couldn't write about. "
Cisneros published her first work, The House on Mango Street, when she was twenty-nine. The book tells about a young Mexican American girl growing up in a Spanish-speaking area in Chicago, much like the neighborhoods in which Cisneros lived as a child. The book won an award in 1985 and has been used in classes from high school through graduate school level. Since then, Cisneros has published several books of poetry, a children's book, and a short-story collection. Which of the following is TRUE about Cisneros in her childhood?
| A．She had seven brothers. |
| B．She felt herself a nobody. |
| C．She was too shy to go to school. |
| D．She did not have any good teachers. |
The graduate program gave Cisneros a chance to __________.
| A．work for a school magazine |
| B．run away from her family |
| C．make a lot of friends |
| D．develop her writing style |
According to Cisneros, what played the decisive role in her success?
| A．Her early years in college. |
| B．Her training in the Workshop. |
| C．Her feeling of being different. |
| D．Her childhood experience. |
What do we learn about The House on Mango Street?
| A．It is quite popular among students. |
| B．It is the only book ever written by Cisneros. |
| C．It wasn't successful as it was written in Spanish. |
| D．It won an award when Cisneros was twenty-nine. |
The word "sport" first meant something that people did in their free time. Later it often meant hunting wild animals and birds. About a hundred years ago the word was first used for organized games. This is the usual meaning of the word today. People spend a lot of their time playing football, basketball, tennis and many other sports. Such people play because they want to. A few people pay for the sport they play. These people are called professional sportsmen. They may be sportsmen for only a few years, but during that time the best ones can earn a lot of money. For example, a professional footballer in England earns more than 30, 000 dollars a year. The stars earn a lot more. International golf and tennis champions can make more than 500，000 dollars a year. Of course, only a few sportsmen can earn as much money as that.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about sportsmen and money is that the stars can earn more money from advertising than from sports. An advertisement for sports equipment does not simply say "Buy our things". It says "Buy the same shirt and shoes as...". Famous sportsmen can even advertise things like watches and food. They allow the companies to use their names or a photograph of them and they paid for this. Sport is no longer just something for people's spare time. From the passage we can learn that __________.
| A．people spend too much money on sports |
| B．the development of sports is slower than any other activity |
| C．most people enjoy sports because they can earn money |
| D．nowadays sport is not merely a pastime for people |
Nowadays, the word "sport" means __________.
| A．what people do in their spare time |
| B．hunting wild animals and birds |
| C．organized games |
| D．something people are paid to do |
People play sports for __________.
| A．fun | B．different purposes |
| C．money | D．keeping fit |
What surprises people most is that __________.
| A．the stars get more money from advertising |
| B．the word "sport" meant hunting animals |
| C．professional sportsmen are paid for what they do |
| D．only a few sportsmen can earn $500, 000 a year |
I always felt sorry for the people in wheelchair. Some people, old and weak, cannot get around by themselves. Others seem perfectly healthy, dressed in business suits. But whenever I saw someone in a wheelchair, I only saw a disability, not a person.
Then I fainted at Euro Disney due to low blood pressure. This was the first time I had ever fainted, and my parents said that I must rest for a while after First Aid. I agreed to take it easy but, as I stepped toward the door, I saw my dad pushing a wheelchair in my direction! Feeling the color burn my cheeks, I asked him to wheel that thing right back to where he found it.
I could not believe this was happening to me. Wheelchairs were fine for other people but not for me, as my father wheeled me out into the main street, people immediately began to treat me differently.
Little kids ran in front of me, forcing my father to stop the wheel chair suddenly. Bitterness set in as I was thrown back and forth. "Stupid kids—they have perfectly good legs. Why can't they watch where they are going?" I thought. People stared down at me, pity in their eyes. Then they would look away, maybe because they thought the sooner they forgot me the better.
"I'm just like you!" I wanted to scream. "The only difference is you've got legs, and I have wheels."
People in wheelchairs are not stupid. They see every look and hear each word. Looking out at the faces, I finally understood: I was once just like them. I treated people in wheelchairs exactly the way they did not want to be treated. I realized it is some of us with two healthy legs who are truly disabled. The author once __________ when she was healthy.
| A．laughed at disabled people |
| B．looked down upon disabled people |
| C．imagined herself sitting in a wheelchair |
| D．saw some healthy people moving around in wheelchairs |
Facing the wheelchair for the first time, the author __________.
| A．felt curious about it |
| B．got ready to move around in it right away |
| C．refused to accept it right away |
| D．thought it was ready for his father |
The experience of the author tells us that "__________".
| A．life is the best teacher |
| B．people often eat their bitter fruit |
| C．life is so changeable that nobody can foretell |
| D．one should not do to others what he would not like others do to him |
Which is the best title for this passage?
| A．How to Get Used to Wheelchairs |
| B．The Wheels Are as Good as Two Legs |
| C．People with Two Legs Are Truly Healthy |
| D．The Difference between Healthy People and the Disabled |
Wilderness
"In wilderness (荒野) is the preservation of the world." This is a famous saying from a writer regarded as one of the fathers of environmentalism. The frequency with which it is borrowed mirrors a heated debate on environmental protection: whether to place wilderness at the heart of what is to be preserved.
As John Sauven of Greenpeace UK points out, there is a strong appeal in images of the wild, the untouched; more than anything else, they speak of the nature that many people value most dearly. The urge to leave the subject of such images untouched is strong, and the danger exploitation (开发) brings to such landscapes (景观) is real. Some of these wildernesses also perform functions that humans need—the rainforests, for example, store carbon in vast quantities. To Mr. Sauven, these "ecosystem services" far outweigh the gains from exploitation.
Lee Lane, a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute, takes the opposing view. He acknowledges that wildernesses do provide useful services, such as water conservation. But that is not, he argues, a reason to avoid all human presence, or indeed commercial and industrial exploitation. There are ever more people on the Earth, and they reasonably and rightfully want to have better lives, rather than merely struggle for survival. While the ways of using resources have improved, there is still a growing need for raw materials, and some wildernesses contain them in abundance. If they can be tapped without reducing the services those wildernesses provide, the argument goes, there is no further reason not to do so. Being untouched is not, in itself, a characteristic worth valuing above all others.
I look forward to seeing these views taken further, and to their being challenged by the other participants. One challenge that suggests itself to me is that both cases need to take on the question of spiritual value a little more directly. And there is a practical question as to whether wildernesses can be exploited without harm.
This is a topic that calls for not only free expression of feelings, but also the guidance of reason. What position wilderness should enjoy in the preservation of the world obviously deserves much more serious thinking. John Sauven holds that __________.
| A．many people value nature too much |
| B．exploitation of wildernesses is harmful |
| C．wildernesses provide humans with necessities |
| D．the urge to develop the ecosystem services is strong |
What is the main idea of Para.3?
| A．The exploitation is necessary for the poor people. |
| B．Wildernesses cannot guarantee better use of raw materials. |
| C．Useful services of wildernesses are not the reason for no exploitation. |
| D．All the characteristics concerning the exploitation should be treated equally. |
What is the author's attitude towards this debate?
| A．Objective. | B．Disapproving. | C．Sceptical. | D．Optimistic. |
Which of the following shows the structure of the passage?
CP: Central Point P: Point Sp: Sub-point (次要点)
C: Conclusion
A couple from Miami, Bill and Simone Butler, spent sixty-six days in a life-raft (救生艇) in the seas of Central America after their boat sank.
Twenty-one days after they left Panama in their boat, Simony, they met some whales (鲸鱼). "They started to hit the side of the boat," said Bill, "and then suddenly we heard water." Two minutes later, the boat was sinking. They jumped into the life-raft and watched the boat go under the water.
For twenty days they had tins of food, biscuits, and bottles of water. They also had a fishing-line and a machine to make salt water into drinking water—two things which saved their lives. They caught eight to ten fish a day and ate them raw (生的). Then the line broke. "So we had no more fish until something very strange happened. Some sharks (鲨鱼) came to feed, and the fish under the raft were afraid and came to the surface. I caught them with my hands. "
About twenty ships passed them, but no one saw them. After fifty days at sea their life-raft was beginning to break up. Then suddenly it was all over. A fishing boat saw them and picked them up. They couldn't stand up. So the captain carried them onto his boat and took them to Costa Rica. Their two months at sea was over. The whales hit the side of the boat, and then __________.
| A．they brought in a lot of water |
| B．they broke the side of the boat |
| C．they pulled the boat |
| D．they went under the water |
After their boat sank the couple __________.
| A．jumped into the life-raft |
| B．heard water |
| C．watched the boat go under water |
| D．stayed in the life-raft |
During their days at sea, __________ saved their lives.
| A．tins of food and bottles of water |
| B．a fishing-line and a machine |
| C．whales and sharks |
| D．Twenty passing ships |
When they saw the fishing boat which later picked them up, __________.
| A．they were too excited to stand up |
| B．they couldn't wait to climb onto the boat |
| C．their life-raft was beginning to break up |
| D．they knew their two months at sea would be over |