Thefollowingarethesculpturesin-优题课

Hi! Have you ever suddenly felt that someone you knew was in trouble — and was he? Have you ever dreamed something that came true later? Maybe you have ESP (超感觉知觉).
　　ESP stands for Extrasensory Perception. It may be called a sixth sense. It seems to let people know about events before they happen, or events that are happening some distance away.
　　Here’s an example. A woman was ironing clothes. Suddenly she screamed, “My father is dead! I saw him sitting in the chair!” Just then, a telegram came. The woman’s father died of a heart attack. He died sitting in a chair.
　　There are thousands of stories like this one on record. Scientists are studying them to find out what’s behind these strange mental messages. Here’s another example—one of hundreds of dreams that have come true.
A man dreamed he was walking along a road when a horse and a carriage came by. The driver said, “There is room for one more.” The man felt the driver seemed dead, so he ran away. The next day, when the man was getting on a crowded bus, the bus driver said, “There is room for one more.”
　　Then the man saw that the driver’s face was the same face he had seen in the dream. He wouldn’t get on the bus. As the bus drove off, it crashed and burst into flames. Everyone was killed!
　　Some people say stories like these are coincidences. Others, including some scientists, say that ESP is real. From studies of ESP, we may someday learn more about the human mind.
According to the passage, the author believes that the sixth sense is ________.

A．in existence

B．imaginative

C．not real

D．impossible

ESP lets people know _________.

A．about events before they happen

B．about events after they happen

C．about events that are happening some distance away

D．A and C

By studying ESP, scientists may get to ________.

A．learn how people tell lies

B．know more about human dreams

C．know more about human mind

D．learn how strange things happen

In the last paragraph the underlined word “coincidences” probably means _______.

A．things that may not happen

B．things that happen in a dream

C．things that must happen

D．things that happen by accident

We were standing at the top of a church tower. My father had brought me to this spot in a small town not far from our home in Rome. I wondered why.
“Look down, Elsa,” father said. I gathered all my courage and looked down. I saw the square in the center of the village. And I saw the crisscross (十字形) of twisting, turning streets leading to the square. “See, my dear,” father said gently. “There is more than one way to the square. Life is like that. If you can’t get to the place where you want to go by one road, try another.”
Now I understood why I was there. Earlier that day I had begged my mother to do something about the awful(糟糕的) lunches that were served at school. But she refused because she could not believe the lunches were as bad as I said.
When I turned to father for help, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he brought me to this high tower to give me a lesson. By the time we reached home, I had a plan.
At school the next day, I secretly poured my luncheon（午餐）soup into a bottle and brought it home. Then I asked our cook to serve it to mother at dinner. The plan worked perfectly. She swallowed one spoonful and sputtered（喷溅出）” The cook must have gone mad！” Quickly I told her what I had done, and Mother stated firmly that she would take up the matter of lunches at school the next day!
In the years that followed I often remembered the lesson father taught me. I began to work as a fashion designer two years ago. I wouldn’t stop working until I tried every possible means to my goal. Father’s wise words always remind me that there is more than one way to the square.
The author’s father took her to the top of a church tower to _____.

A．enjoy the beautiful scenery of the whole town

B．find out how many ways lead to the square

C．inspire her to find out another way to solve her problem

D．help her forget some unpleasant things earlier that day

What did the author want her mother to do earlier that day?

A．Do something delicious for lunch.

B．Taste her awful lunch.

C．Dismiss the mad cook.

D．Speak to the school about lunch.

By sharing her own experiences, the author tries to tell us ____________.

A．when one road is blocked, try another

B．how bad the lunch of her school is

C．how wise her father is

D．about the church tower near her home

IMAGINE if there was a device that could do everything for you – wake you up every morning, chat with you and type your e-mails.
The piece of technology in question would be smart, able to tell you about the weather and where the nearest restaurants are.
The good thing is you no longer need to wonder, because something like this already exists. And its name is Siri.
Siri is a voice recognition application designed for Apple products and the concept has been around for almost a year.
When Siri first came out it could only speak English, but now it has “learned” lots of new languages, including Chinese, Cantonese and Taiwanese, reported The Wall Street Journal. So, you can give it orders in your mother tongue.
But how could a cell phone or a computer “hear” what you are saying and understand it? This is all because of voice recognition technology.
When you speak, your voice creates vibrations (振动) in the air – a bit like waves in the water when you throw a rock into the lake. The microphone receives the vibrations and the computer changes them into digital data that is then divided into many parts. They are analyzed one by one to see what pronunciations each part stands for. The computer then puts these pronunciations together into possible words according to its built-in dictionary.
But figuring out the words is far from enough; building words into meaningful sentences is the most difficult part. The computer has to compare what it hears to a large library of known phrases and sentences to determine what the user is saying.
However, people don’t always talk in the most standard way and sometimes make grammatical mistakes. This is why traditional voice recognition software always requires you to remember keywords and to speak in a certain way.
Fortunately, Siri isn’t like that. It’s not just “voice recognition”; it’s “natural language understanding (NLU)”. You can ask it things like “Do I need an umbrella today?” and it will know that you are asking about the weather, according to ABC News.
“The key thing is NLU – understanding what you mean and what you want,” Neil Grant from Nuance, a software company in the US, told The Guardian. “Historically, you had to learn a huge long list of commands . As NLU progresses, you can say what you want in a way that’s natural to you.”
What is the function of the first two paragraphs?

A．To show that invention usually results from need.

B．To clear doubts about voice recognition technology.

C．To introduce something that offers these helpful services.

D．To show how the voice recognition works.

Which step is the most complicated in the process of voice recognition according to the article?

A．Changing the received vibrations into digital data.

B．Analyzing the digital data to see what pronunciations it represents.

C．Putting the pronunciations together into possible words.

D．Figuring out meaningful sentences based on the words.

How can you get Siri to respond according to the article?

A．You can speak in a natural way as you would to a person.

B．You can only speak English and Chinese.

C．You have to say things in a certain way.

D．You have to remember keywords and speak specific commands.

What can be concluded from the article?

A．Siri can record and save what you say frequently into a computer dictionary.

B．Siri will fail to understand what you say if you make grammatical mistakes.

C．The biggest advantage of Siri is that it’s NLU is rather than just voice recognition.

D．Since first applied to Apple products a year ago, Siri has made great improvements.

The text is mainly about ________.

A．the convenience of future life.

B．an introduction to the Apple products.

C．the working system of voice recognition

D．the introduction to Siri

Does being rich make you happy? Many studies on happiness give negative answers. Here are some points in being happy.
Basic Human Needs Must Be Met
People whose basic needs for shelter, clothing and food are not met will find it very difficult to feel happy. Of course, there are exceptions, but for most of us, we can only be happy once our basic needs are met.
The Joneses Cannot Be Escaped
People’s happiness is not determined by how much they have, but by how much people around them have. So, we tend to feel happy once our basic needs are met and we have more than the people surrounding us.
This means that while keeping up with the Joneses could be destructive if we let it go too far. It is also part of humana nature to want to feel at least on the same level, financially, as those surrounding us.
You Should Escape The Rat Race
We should know the importance of staying out of the rat race. So yes, you need to work hard, get the education you need to land a good job and work long enough and hard enough to get to a place where you can easily meet your basic needs. What are basic needs? For most middle or upper middle class Americans, basic needs are not very basic anymore.
For most of us, once our basic needs have been met, happiness is achieved when we engage in activities we like, spend time with friends and family and stay active. Making money for the sake of making money does not make people happy.
Ideally, these questions should be answered when you’re still young and just starting out. Don’t wait until your midlife crisis to realize that half your life has passed you by and you’re still unhappy.
What’s the main idea of the passage?

A．The research on happiness.	B．Key points on being happy.
C．What makes people feel unhappy.	D．Being rich makes people happy.

In the view of the author, we know that ______.

A．people need to have a place to live first of all

B．human basic needs are not necessary for being happy

C．human basic needs are fundamental for being happy

D．one will be happy if he has enough money

What does the underlined phrase”the Joneses” in Paragraph 4 probably stand for?

A．Expensive things.	B．Neighbors.
C．Money.	D．Richer people.

From the passage, what is the purpose of people probably to do in “the rat race”?

A．To enjoy their life with family.

B．To get high education for better jobs.

C．To work too hard for money only.

D．To work hard for basic needs.

What’s the attitude of the author towards the passage?

A．Money is a big problem, but money isn’t everything.

B．The love of money is the root of all evil.

C．Money doesn’t grow on trees.

D．Money is happiness.

Competition between international universities is heating up, as China grows as one of the largest exporters of students aiming to study abroad. “Lots of universities are becoming more and more aggressive to attract Chinese students. Every day I receive contacts from universities in the US expressing the desire to come to China to recruit students,” said Frank Joseph, a commercial officer from embassy of the United States.
One key reason why more Chinese students are able to study abroad is the economy: With China’s boom within the past decade, more families have the financial wherewithal(资金) to send their children to international universities. There will be a total of 200,000 family-funded Chinese students studying overseas in 2009, up 20 percent from last year, said Wu Zaofeng, deputy secretary general of China Education Association for International Exchange.
International institutions, Joseph said, are also facing increasingly tough financial situation with a shortage of domestic students and a drop in government subsidies(补贴). Students, especially in the US are paying high tuition fees and living expenses. Chinese students with money to spend, according to experts, can fill up the gap. Students on average spend 150,000 yuan to 200,000 yuan every year studying in US, according to statistics from the US Institute of International Education. During 2007-2008, there were approximately 81,000 Chinese students studying in the US, up 19.8 percent from 2006.
Representatives from approximately 60 universities from the United States are planning to arrive in Beijing this weekend to attract more Chinese students at this year’s fair. Besides the US, many other countries are also vying(竞争) to enroll Chinese students.
Post-study work visa put out by British government allows all international students completing a UK degree qualification to apply for a visa to stay on and look for work in UK for up to 2 years. Being the third most popular destination for international students next to the US and the UK, France has set up two types of scholarships and has handed out an increase of 26 percent in scholarship funds to Chinese students in recent years.
The reason for heating up competition between international universities is ___.

A．that China has become one of the largest exporters of the students aiming to study abroad

B．that the students in China are becoming richer and richer

C．China’s boom, the students’ desire and foreign universities’ commercial motive

D．that the students in foreign countries do not want to go to universities

Why are more Chinese students able to study abroad?

A．Because they can’t go to the best universities at home.

B．Because their families have enough money to send them to international universities.

C．Because they want to win the scholarship of foreign universities

D．Because the Chinese students enjoy following others and they want to be independent.

Which of the following statements is true?

A．There are fewer family-funded Chinese students studying abroad in 2008 than in 2009.

B．Chinese students are able to study abroad for their relatives overseas.

C．In 2009 there will be 200,000 state-funded Chinese students studying overseas.

D．In 2009 there will be 200,000 Chinese students studying in the US.

From the passage we can learn that _____.

A．the number of foreign students is becoming smaller and smaller

B．there were approximately 81,000 foreign students studying in the US during 2007-2008

C．the international universities are short of money

D．the Chinese students are richer than the American students

What does the UK do to attract the international students?

A．Setting up two types of scholarships.

B．Handing out an increase of 26 percent in scholarship funds to Chinese students in recent years.

C．Allowing to look for work in their spare time in the UK for up to 2 years.

D．Permitting students to have a visa to stay on and look for work for 2 years after completing the degree.

The following are the sculptures in the Underwater Museum, which are accessible in person by glass boat, or scuba diving.
	The Archive of Lost Dreams The Visual: It describes an underwater archive of messages in bottles. The Meaning: The bottles contain messages of dreams for future generations. The Hope: The statue is placed with the purpose of helping draw visitors away from the healthy parts of the reef. The Location: The Archive of Lost Dreams was placed 8 meters deep at Manchones Reef, close to Isla Mujeres. Behind the Scenes: The collection of bottled messages were provided by various communities who wrote about today’s values and their dreams for the future generations.
	The Gardener of Hope The Visual: Here a young Mexican girl lies in a garden surrounded by pots which will be grown with live coral. The Meaning: The young girl in the sculpture represents a model for hopeful future generations. The Hope: The base of the Gardener of Hope was built to attract various marine creatures. The coral in the pots is also expected to grow. The Location: The Gardener of Hope was placed 4 meters deep at Punta Nizuc near the coast of Cancun. Behind the Scenes: The pots here are filled with live coral cuttings that were saved from areas of the local reef system.
	Man on Fire The Visual: Man on Fire describes a lone male figure covered in live fire coral to resemble fire. The Meaning: The sculpture symbolizes the unawareness of the “fire” our generation has started with the over use of limited natural resources. The Hope: Man on Fire has 75 holes planted with small live cuttings of fire coral which are expected to grow like fire. The Location: Man on Fire was installed 8 meters deep at the Manchones Reef nearby to Isla Mujeres. Behind the Scenes: The sculpture was cast from a local Mexican fisherman and it weighs over 1 ton.
	The Silent Evolution The Visual: Here more than 400 sculptures depict the timeline of human nature. The Meaning: It is a documentation of how society and people have changed over time. It is also to remind us of how we are connected to nature. The Hope: The installation is designed for forming a complex reef structure that marine life will claim as its own and inhabit. The Location: The Silent Evolution will be installed 8 meters deep behind the Manchones Reef. Behind the Scenes: The total installation will expand over 150 square meters and will weigh over 120 tons.
Attention: Guided tours are a must. You can catch a tour from Aquaworld, which leaves every hour from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily.