Stop Spam!
When I first got an e-mail account ten years ago, I received communications only from family, friends, and colleagues. Now it seems that every time I check my e-mail, I have an endless series of advertisements and other correspondence that do not interest me at all. If we want e-mail to continue to be useful, we need specific laws that make spamming (发送垃圾邮件) a crime.
If lawmakers do not do something soon to prohibit spam, the problem will certainly get much worse. Computer programs allow spammers to send hundreds of millions of e-mails almost instantly. As more and more advertisers turn to spam to sell their products, individual (个人的) e-mail boxes are often flooded with spam e-mails. Would people continue to use e-mail if they had to deal with an annoying amount of spam each time?
This problem is troubling for individuals and companies as well. Many spam e-mails contain computer viruses that can shut down the entire network of a company. Companies rely on e-mail for their employees to communicate with each other. Spam frequently causes failures in their local communications networks, and their employees are thus unable to communicate effectively. Such a situation results in a loss of productivity and requires companies to repeatedly repair their networks. These computer problems raise production costs of companies, which are, in the end, passes on to the consumer.
For these reasons, I believe that lawmakers need to legislate (立法) against spam. Spammers should be fined, and perhaps sent to prison if they continue to disturb people. E-mail is a tool which helps people all over the world to communicate conveniently, but spam is destroying this convenience.What does the underlined word “correspondence” in the Paragraph 1 probably mean?
| A．messages | B．ideas | C．connections | D．programs |
According to the text, what is the major cause of the flooding spam?
| A．Companies rely on e-mail for communications. |
| B．More people in the world communicate by e-mails. |
| C．Many computer viruses contain spam e-mail. |
| D．More advertisers begin to promote sales through spam. |
According to Paragraph 3, who is the final victim of spam?
| A．The business | B．The advertiser. |
| C．The employee | D．The consumer. |
What is the purpose of the text?
| A．To inform. | B．To educate. | C．To persuade. | D．To instruct. |
On December 8, 1980, John Lennon –an English musician who rose to fame as one of the founding members of Liverpool pop band The Beatles – was shot dead outside his New York apartment.
In the 1960s and 70s, Lennon was one of the most iconic（偶像的）men on the planet. Some 30 years ago on from his death, he is still respected by many people in the West.
The Beatles, formed in 1960 in Liverpool, were one of the most commercial successful acts on the history of pop music, with, according to some estimates, global record sales over 1.1 billion.
The band conveyed the progressive ideals in which many young people of the time believed.
In the 1960s and 70s, widespread tension developed in both British and American society, regarding issues such as women’s rights and the Vietnam War.
Lennon in particular became known for his message of peace and for his opposition to the war in Vietnam. This led to an attempt by former US president Richard Nixon to drive him away from the US. Lennon’s second-wife Yoko Ono was also politically active.
Lennon was also hugely admired for his musical abilities. Along with fellow-Beatle Paul, Lennon and McCartney were the Beatle’s song-writing team.
After Lennon was shot by crazy fan Mark Chapman，one of his most iconic songs, Imagine, became a humanist anthem(颂歌).
Lennon’s legacy survived his death and continued till this day. In 2008, he was ranked the fifth greater singer of all time in US-based Rolling Stone magazine.
Former possessions of Lennon or furnishings from his homes continue to be sold for vast sums.
In an auction(拍卖) to be held next week in London, lines written by Lennon on the back of a demand for an outstanding bill are expected to sell for ￡350,000(3.7 million yuan).
In August, a bathroom from his last home in Britain, was auctioned for ￡9,500. And in 2009, a British film describing his early years before the Beatles began, was one of the most successful films of the years in the UK.
But do Lennon and his music continue to resonate(共鸣) with the young people of today? The passage is written here to show that Lennon has _______.
| A．lasting appeal | B．long history | C．exciting records | D．great success |
Which of the following is right about the Beatles according to the passage?
| A．It was founded in the 1960s in London. |
| B．It had 1.1 billion sales in Britain. |
| C．It was commercially successful. |
| D．Many of today’s young people believe its ideals. |
Lennon was forced to leave the US as a result of ________.
| A．the tension between Britain and America | B．his wife’s political activity |
| C．his struggle for women’s rights | D．his opposition to the war in Vietnam |
We can guess that the rest of the passage will tell us ________.
| A．why Lennon and his music are still popular with today’s young people |
| B．why Lennon and his music spoil today’s generations of young people |
| C．that today’s generations of young people don’t like Lennon’s songs |
| D．that today’s generations of young people like Lennon’s songs better |
Scientists who try to predict earthquakes have gotten some new helpers recently—animals.
That’s right, animals. Scientists have begun to understand what farmers have known for thousands of years. Animals often seem to know in advance that an earthquake is coming, and they show their fear by acting in strange ways. Before a Chinese quake in 1975, snakes awoke from their winter sleep early only to freeze to death in the cold air. Cows broke their halters (缰绳) and tried to escape. Chickens refused to enter their cage. All of this unusual behavior, as well as physical changes in the earth, warned Chinese scientists of the coming quake. They moved people away from the danger zone and saved thousands of lives.
One task for scientists today is to learn exactly which types of animal behavior predict quakes. It’s not an easy job. First of all not every animal reacts to the danger of an earthquake. Just before a California quake in 1977, for example, an Arabian horse became very nervous and tried to break out of his enclosure. The Australian horse next to him, however, remained perfectly calm. It’s also difficult at times to tell the difference between normal animal restlessness and “earthquake nerves”. A zoo keeper once called earthquake researchers to say that his cougar had been acting strangely. It turned out that the cat had an upset stomach.
A second task for scientists is to find out exactly what kind of warnings the animals receive. They know that animals sense far more of the world than humans do. Many animals can see, hear, and smell things that people do not even notice. Some can sense tiny changes in air pressure, gravity, or the magnetism of Earth. This extra sense probably helps animals predict quakes.
A good example of this occurred with a group of dogs. They were shut in an area that was being shaken by a series of tiny earthquakes. (Several small quakes often come before or after a large one.) Before each quake a low booming sound was heard. Each boom caused the dogs to bark wildly. Then the dogs began to bark during a silent period. A scientist who was recording quakes looked at his machine. It was acting as though there were a loud noise too. The scientist realized that the dogs had reacted to a booming noise. They also sensed the tiny quake that followed it. The machine recorded both, though humans felt and heard nothing.
In this case there was a machine to monitor what the dogs were sensing. Many times, however, our machines record nothing extraordinary, even though animals know a quake is coming. The animals might be sensing something we measure but do not recognize as a warning. Discovering what animals sense, and learning how they know it is a danger signal, is a job for future scientists.Through the passage the writer hopes to explore __________.
| A．why animals send a danger signal before an earthquake |
| B．how animals know when an earthquake is coming |
| C．why animals not men have good sense of danger |
| D．how much animals know about an earthquake |
During an earthquake in China in 1975, _________.
| A．chickens refused to go out of their cage |
| B．snakes were frozen to death in their caves |
| C．snakes awoke from their winter sleep earlier |
| D．cows broke their halters and escaped from their sheds |
Which of the following is one of earthquake nerves according to the passage?
| A．An Arabian horse tried to escape from his enclosure. |
| B．A cougar had an upset stomach unexpectedly. |
| C．An Australian horse was perfectly calm. |
| D．A cat acted very strangely in a zoo. |
The scientists did an experiment with a group of dogs to _________.
| A．find out that the machine could record unusual happenings |
| B．compare the reactions of animals and those of humans |
| C．prove that animals could sense more than humans |
| D．find out what exact warnings animals sent |
There was once, in a little market-town not far from Upsala (瑞典一城市), a peasant who lived there with his family, digging the earth during the week and singing in the choir on Sundays. This peasant had a little daughter to whom he taught the musical alphabet before she knew how to read. Daae was a great musician, perhaps without knowing it. Not a violinist in Scandinavia played as he did. His reputation was widespread and he was always invited to set the couples dancing at weddings and other festivals. His wife died when Christine was entering upon her sixth year. Then the father, who cared only for his daughter and his music, sold his land and went to Upsala in search of fame and fortune. He found nothing but poverty.
He returned to the country, wandering from fair to fair, playing his Scandinavian music pieces, while his child, who never left his side, listened to him in delight or sang to his playing. One day, at Ljimby Fair, Professor Valerius heard them and took them to Gothenburg. He insisted that the father was the first violinist in the world and that the daughter had the making of a great artist. Her education and instruction were provided for. She made rapid progress and charmed everybody with her prettiness, her grace of manner and her real eagerness to please.
When Valerius and his wife went to settle in France, they took Daae and Christine with them. "Mamma" Valerius treated Christine as her daughter. As for Daae, he became ill with homesickness. He never went out of doors in Paris, but lived in a sort of dream which he kept up with his violin. For hours at a time, he remained locked up in his bedroom with his daughter, playing and singing, very, very softly.
Daae seemed not to recover his strength until the summer, when the whole family went to stay at Perros-Guirec, in a far-away corner of Brittany, where the sea was of the same color as in his own country. Often he would play his saddest tunes on the beach and pretend that the sea stopped its roaring to listen to them. And then he persuaded Mamma Valerius to allow him to leave for a while. At the time of the "pardons," the village festivals and dances, he went off with his violin, as in the old days, and was allowed to take his daughter with him for a week. They gave the smallest villages music to last them for a year and slept at night in a barn, refusing a bed at the inn, lying close together on the straw, as when they were so poor in Sweden. At the same time, they were very neatly dressed, refused the halfpence offered to them; and the people around could not understand the behaviour of this country violinist, who walked heavily on the roads with that pretty child who sang like an angel from Heaven. They followed them from village to village. When he was in the countryside, Daae did NOT __________.
| A．work on his land | B．sing in the choir on Sundays |
| C．make a fortune at weddings and festivals | D．teach his daughter how to sing |
The 3rd sentence “He insisted …” in the 2nd paragraph showed Professor Valerius’ ______.
| A．hope for Daae and Christine | B．appreciation of Daae and Christine |
| C．sympathy for Daae and Christine | D．love for Daae and Christine |
While Daae was in Paris, he never went out of doors because he was ________.
| A．always sleepy | B．so homesick that he fell ill |
| C．too busy teaching his daughter | D．willing to be locked up with his daughter |
What made people curious about the father and daughter was that _______.
| A．the father made very good music |
| B．the daughter sang like an angel from Heaven |
| C．the father walked strangely with his daughter |
| D．they appeared to be badly off but refused money offered |
Do you remember the game “Telephone”? A message gets passed from person to person, and everyone laughs at how distorted(曲解) it becomes. As a game, telephone can be fun. In real life, sending messages through third parties fouls things up. It is important for family members who have “business” with other family members to take it up directly.
When tension arises in a relationship between two people, a frequent way of dealing with this is to send messages through a third person. Family doctors refer to the process as ‘triangulation”. Following a quarrel, a mother may say to her son, “Tell your father to pass the salt”, which may be answered by, “Tell your mother to get her own salt.” In many long cases of triangulation, the middleman becomes severely disturbed.
Two years ago, Ruth and Ralph Gordon brought their 17-year-old daughter for treatment. Lucille was not doing well in school, using drugs heavily. When I began to work with her, she was uncommunicative and aggressive. After some time, however, she opened up and told me her parents rarely talked to each other, but both used her as a middleman. Mrs. Gordon was sexually unsatisfied and suggested to Lucille that she ask her father to go for marriage advice. Mr. Gordon told Lucille that he was seeing another woman, and he urged Lucille to speak to her mother about improving her behaviour. Caught in this confusing situation, Lucille became more and more troubled. It wasn’t until she refused to play middleman that she began to improve. When either parent began to send a message through her, she learned to say, “Tell him/her yourself!”
You’ll find that when family members learn to dial each other directly, there’s rarely a busy signal or wrong number. With direct dialing, a sense of freshness is created. The underlined words “foul things up” in the 1st paragraph means ________.
| A．create things | B．improve things | C．remove things | D．ruin things |
“Triangulation” in the 2nd paragraph refers to _________.
| A．the process of sending messages through a 3rd person |
| B．the middleman who becomes severely disturbed |
| C．the tension in a relationship between 2 people |
| D．the argument between a mother and a father |
Through the example of Lucille and her parents, the writer hopes to tell the readers that _______.
| A．family members should learn to get their messages across directly |
| B．parents should send their children taking drugs for treatment |
| C．children can hardly get used to their parents’ troubles |
| D．children should refuse the requests of their parents |
Qian Xuesen is one of the pioneers of China’s space science. As a world-famous expert on aerospace rockets and aerodynamics, he obtained great achievements in the areas of applied mechanics, engineering cybernetics and system engineering and made distinguished contributions to the foundation and development of Chinese aerospace undertaking(事业).
He graduated from Shanghai Jiaotong University in 1934, and Qian Xuesen went to the United States to study in MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one year later. After receiving master’s degree in MIT, he went to study in California Institute of Technology and received PhD degrees in both aerospace and mathematics.
In 1955, six years after the founding of People’s Republic of China, Qian Xuesen returned to his motherland. His return brought China the hope of developing space science and its own missiles. In 1956, Qian Xuesen put forward “Proposal on the Development of China’s Aviation Industry for National Defense”. With the support from Zhou Enlai, the premier, and marshal Nie Rongzheng, Qian Xuesen began to prepare for the establishment of China’s first missile and rocket research and development structure, the Fifth Research Institute of State Ministry of Defense. Henceforth(从此以后), he has long been in charge of the chief technological research and development of China’s missile, rocket and spacecraft.
Due to research and development led by Qian Xuesen, China successfully exploded its first atom bomb in 1964. Later, China launched its first man-made satellite, Dong Fang Hong I, to the earth orbit on April 24, 1970, becoming the fifth country in the world to independently launch satellite following the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USA, France and Japan. The satellite floated around the earth, blaring(高声播放)the song Dong Fang Hong, which has the same name as the satellite.
As a forerunner leading the development of China’s aerospace science and technology, Qian Xuesen also provided chances for young scientists. Wang Yongzhi, former chief designer of China’s manned-space project, has benefited a lot from Qian Xuesen. “He suggested that rocket of the second generation should be developed by our second generation scientists. This suggestion gave us chances to be general designers.” Recalling the experience working with Qian Xuesen, Sun Jiadong, general designer of China’s lunar orbiter project, is very grateful. “He put great expectation on us and trusted us a lot. Whenever we made mistakes, he seldom blamed us, but helped us to find out the reason so we could avoid it in the future.”
Honored as Father of China’s Missile and King of Rockets, Qian Xuesen never stopped his work on scientific research after he retired. He said he had no time to review the past, but looked forward to the future.When did Qian xuesen begin to study in Massachusetts Institute of Technology?
| A．In 1955. | B．In 1935. | C．In 1936. | D．In 1934. |
Which of the following is about the five countries that launched man-made satellite independently before 1970?
| A．The former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the UK, France, China and Japan. |
| B．The former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USA, Japan, Canada and China. |
| C．America, France, Japan, China and Australia. |
| D．The former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, America, France, Japan and China. |
What does the underlined word “forerunner”(Paragraph 5) probably mean?
| A．A leader. | |
| B．A competitor. | C．A pioneer. |
| D．A successful scientist. |
According to the passage, which of the following about Qian Xuesen is NOT true?
| A．In 1956, he made good preparations for the Fifth Research Institute of State Ministry of Defence. |
| B．He made outstanding contributions to the establishment and development of Chinese aerospace undertaking. |
| C．He returned to China, bringing China the hope of developing space science and its own missiles. |
| D．He devoted all his life to China’s space science. |
It can be inferred from Paragraph 5 that _________.
| A．Qian Xuesen is very concerned about the development of young scientists |
| B．The help of Qian Xuesen is beneficial to young scientists |
| C．Qian Xuesen gives many opportunities to general designers |
| D．When the chief designers do something wrong, Qian Xuesen helps them find out the cause |