During the tsunami(海啸)disaster of 2004，over 300,000 people died．No one has counted the number of animals killed，but we know that it wasn't many．All over the region，before the disaster struck，animals were behaving strangely.
Shortly before the tsunami，in Khaolak，Thailand，twelve elephants that were giving tourists rides became agitated．They suddenly left their usual habitat，carrying four surprised Japanese tourists to safety．On the eastern coast of India，flamingos(火烈鸟)，which should be breeding at this time of year，suddenly flew to higher ground．Of the two thousand wild pigs that live in an Indian nature reserve，only one was found dead after the tsunami．
The idea that the animals are able to predict disasters is nothing new. In fact，it has been well-recorded over the years. Twelve hours before Hurricane Charlie hit Florida in 2004，fourteen sharks left their natural habitat and stayed in deep waters for two weeks. The sharks，which were being observed by US scientists，had never done this before．They escaped the hurricane．In the winter of 1975 in Haicheng，China，snakes which would normally have been hibernating(冬眠)were seen on the ground．Days later there was a big earthquake striking．
Unlike human beings，wild animals' senses are sharper and they can feel even the smallest changes in the environment．In other words，they see natural warnings that are invisible to the human eye．Ancient people probably had the similar“senses”, which they needed to survive，but these have been lost to us as modern technology leads us further away from the danger that nature creates.
The real question is，can we use the reactions of animals to save ourselves from natural disasters? Animal behaviour expert，Rupesh Kaneira，believes we have no choice．“The technology which we rely on isn't always perfect，and in poorer countries it isn't even available(可用的)．Animals know the environment better than any of us．When they run for their lives，we must follow．”The underlined word “agitated”in Paragraph 2 probably means ．
| A．worried and nervous | B．tired and uneasy |
| C．disappointed and sad | D．excited and happy |
The wild animals can predict the natural disasters because they ．
| A．can run for their lives when natural disasters happen |
| B．don't have any modern technology to help them |
| C．are being observed and tracked for scientific experiments |
| D．are quick to notice the slightest changes in the environment |
How is the third paragraph developed?
| A．By giving explanations | B．By listing examples． |
| C．By presenting the reasons． | D．By comparing the differences． |
The best title of the passage might be ．
| A．Few Animals Died in the Tsunami | B．Animals React to Disasters |
| C．Animals can Survive Disasters | D．Following Animals may Save Us |
Teaching is more than leadership. Some of the teacher’s time and effort is directed toward instruction, some toward evaluation. But it is the teacher as a group leader who creates an effective organizational structure (结构) and good working environment so that instruction and evaluation activities can take place. A group that is totally disorganized, unclear about its goals, or constantly fighting among its members will not be a good learning group. The leadership pattern includes helping to form and maintain a positive learning environment so that instruction and evaluation activities can take place.
On the first day of class, the teacher faces a room filled with individuals (个体). Perhaps a few closely united groups and friendships already exist. But there is no sense of group unity, no set of rules for conduct in the group, no feeling of belonging. If teachers are successful leaders, they will help students develop a system of relationships that encourages working together.
Standards and rules must be set to keep order, make sure of justice and protect individual rights, but do not contradict school policy. What happens when one student hurts another’s individual rights? Without clear regulations agreeable to the students and teachers, the classroom can become chaotic. Students may break rules they did not know existed. If standards are set without participation from the class, students may spend a great deal of creative energy in destroying the class environment or finding ways to break rules.
No matter how skillful the teacher is in uniting students and creating a positive atmosphere, the task is never complete. Regular maintenance is necessary. Conflicts arise. The needs of individual members change. A new kind of learning task requires a new organizational structure. Sometimes outside pressures such as holidays, upcoming tests or sport competitions, or family troubles cause stress in the classroom. One task for the teacher is to recreate a positive environment by helping students deal with conflict, change, and stress. The underlined word “maintain” in Para.1 probably means_______.
| A．conserve | B．build | C．recreate | D．evaluate |
According to the author, the teacher should _______.
| A．free students from outside pressures |
| B．set the standards and rules on his own |
| C．be responsible for a well-organized class |
| D．focus more on instruction and evaluation |
From the passage we can learn that ______.
| A．rules cannot be changed once they’re formed |
| B．outside pressures may not cause tension among students |
| C．if the teacher well unites his students, he then will finish his task |
| D．if rules are not acceptable both to students and teachers, the classroom can be a mess |
What is the author’s main purpose of writing the passage?
| A．To provide information for teaching. |
| B．To show the importance of teaching a class. |
| C．To study the teacher’s behavior in the classroom. |
| D．To compare the teacher’s behavior with the students’ in class. |
Once I invited a group of friends round to my house, telling them that I was going to record their speech. I said I was interested in their regional accents, and that it would take only a few minutes. Thus, on one evening, three people turned up at my house and were shown into my front room. When they saw the room they were a bit alarmed, for it was laid out as a studio. In front of each easy chair there was a microphone at head height, with wires leading to a tape-recorder in the middle of the floor. I explained that all I wanted was for them to count from one to twenty. Then we could relax and have a drink.
I turned on the tape-recorder and each in turn seriously counted from one to twenty in their best accent. When it was over, I turned the tape-recorder off and brought round the drinks, and for the rest of the evening there was general cheerful conversation—interrupted only by the fact that I had to take a telephone call in another room, which unfortunately lasted some time.
Or at least that was how it would appear. For, of course, the microphones were not connected to the tape-recorder in the middle of the room at all but to another one, which was turning happily away in the kitchen. The participants, having seen the visible tape-recorder turned off, paid no more attention to the microphones which stayed in front of their chairs, only a few inches from their mouths, thus giving excellent sound quality. And my lengthy absence meant that I was able to obtain as natural a piece of conversation as it would be possible to find.
I should add, perhaps, that I did tell my friends what had happened to them, after the event was over, and gave them the choice of destroying the tape. None of them wanted to—though for some years afterwards it always seemed to be my round when it came to the buying of drinks. Linguistic research can be a very expensive business.The writer asked his friends to count from one to twenty because _______.
| A．he wanted to record the numbers for his research |
| B．he wanted to find out whether the tape recorder was working |
| C．he wanted to make his friends relax before real recording started |
| D．he wanted his friends to think that was all he wanted to record |
The writer went into another room to ________.
| A．get a natural recording of his friends’ conversation |
| B．stay away from too much drinking with his friends |
| C．bring a telephone into the front room |
| D．answer a long distance phone call |
The writer turned off the tape-recorder because _______.
| A．he had to answer a phone call |
| B．he wanted his friends to enjoy some drinks |
| C．he thought the tape-recorder might bother his friends |
| D．he wanted to make his friends believe he had finished the recording |
Which one is true according to the passage?
| A．The writer destroyed the tape. |
| B．The writer’s friends destroyed the tape. |
| C．The writer did tell his friends what had happened. |
| D．The writer’s friends like to drink. |
Oprah Winfrey, born in 1954, is all American talk show host, best known for her multi-award-winning talk show. She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world. It's no surprise that her endorsement(认可)can bring overnight sales fortune that defeats most, if not all, marketing campaigns. The star features about 20 products each year On her “Favorite Things” show. There’s even a term for it: the Oprah Effect.
Her television career began unexpectedly. When she was 16 year old, she had the idea of being a journalist to tell other people’s stories in a way that made a difference in their lives and the world. She was on television by the time she was 19 years old. And in 1986 she started her own television show with a continuous determination to succeed at first.
TIME magazine wrote, “People would have doubted Oprah Winfrey’s swift rise to host of the most popular talk show on TV. In a field dominated by white males, she is a black female of big size. As interviewers go, she is no match for Phil Donahue. What she lacks in journalistic toughness, she makes up for in plainspoken curiosity, rich humor and, above all understanding. Guests with sad[stories to tell tend to bring out a tear in Oprah’s eye. They, in turn, often find themselves exposing things they would not imagine telling anyone, much less a national TV audience.”
“I was nervous about the competition and then I became my own competition raising the bar every year, pushing, pushing, pushing myself as hard as I knew. It doesn't matter how far you might rise. At some point you are bound to fall if you’re constantly doing what we do, raising the bar. If you're constantly pushing yourself higher, higher the law of averages, you will at some point fall. And when you do, I want you to know this, remember this: there is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction” as Oprah addressed graduates at Harvard on May 30, 2013.The Oprah Effect refers to _______
| A．the effect on a business | B．the power of Oprah’s opinions |
| C．the impact on talkshows | D．the assessment of Oprah’s talk show |
What can be inferred about Oprah’s television career?
| A．She once gave up on her choice |
| B．Her swift success has been expected. |
| C．It lives up to her parents’ expectation. |
| D．She must have been challenged by white males. |
The message from Oprah to graduates at Harvard is that _______.
| A．success comes after failure |
| B．failure is nothing to fear |
| C．there is no need to set goals too high |
| D．pushing physical limits makes no sense |
Which of the following best describes Oprah Winfrey?
| A．Dull and pushy. | B．Honest but tough. |
| C．Caring and determined. | D．Curious but weak. |
When it comes to hard, noisy traveling, we’ve found that sometimes we’d rather read about it than actually go. Here are some bestsellers for armchair travelers.
The Station by Robert Byron. In 1928, the 22-year-old man made a journey to Mount Athos, resulting in one of the best travel books ever written, matched only by Byron’s own, much more famous The Road to Osciana.
In Darkest Africa by Henry Monton Stanley. It’s about his great efforts to save an unlucky German doctor Eduard Schnitzer, who had no desire to be rescued at all.
A Traveler’s Alphabet: Partial Memoirs by Sir Steven Runciman. A to Z and around the world. He provides priceless information of long-gone princesses, priests, and places.
South: A Memoir of the Endurance Voyage by Sir Ernest Shackleton. As the planet started the global war, Shackleton and his brave group of explorers made an unsuccessful but heroic journey to cross Antarctica from 1914 to 1917.
The Michelin Red Guide: France 2005 Reading through this final listing of all the nice hotels and wonderful restaurants in France is better than going there, listening to Chirac talk about the poisonous American culture, and spending the price of this book for a tiny cup of tea and a cookie the size of your thumb.
The Past Is a Foreign Country by David Lowenthal. This great book of an armchair exploration tells us what has happened in the past and shows the relationship between us and the past travelers.The underlined phrase “armchair travelers” in the first paragraph refers to those who___________.
| A．can only travel with special equipment for the disabled |
| B．find fun teaching others how to travel to other places |
| C．like to write about their strange traveling experiences |
| D．like to read about travels instead of traveling themselves |
Which of the books has a very low price according to the passage?
| A．The Past Is a Foreign Country. |
| B．South: A Memoir to the Endurance Voyage. |
| C．The Michelin Red Guide: France 2005. |
| D．A Traveler’s Alphabet: Partial Memoirs. |
What can we learn from the passage?
| A．The Station is more famous than The Road to Osciana |
| B．Henry Monton Stanley, was saved by a German doctor in Africa. |
| C．It took Shackleton and his men 3 years to cross Antarctica. |
| D．In his book, Lowenthal focuses more on history than the present. |
This passage is written____________ .
| A．to warn readers against traveling |
| B．to sell more books about travels |
| C．as an introduction to famous travelers |
| D．to tell people where to travel |
I remember my mother as a strong woman. She came to America when she was 12—old enough to remember her language, she achieved scores and grades high enough to be admitted to Duke University. With a degree in computer science, she finally became the manager of a company in New York. My mother could give fluent speeches, say “wolves” correctly.
It was my mother who always stressed the importance of language. From the time I was born, I was read to. I would fall asleep to the sounds of my parents’ voices, whether it was my dad’s softly accented, or my mother’s clear English. The flow of language was unbroken, and whether in Chinese or English, the stream of communication flowed through our house.
One October morning in sixth grade, after my mother had left to catch the train to the city, I left the house for the bus stop. I was surprised when I saw our car, the door hanging open. As I drew closer, I saw my mother lying on the ground.
In the hospital, it was hard to believe that the lady who lay before me was my mom. My mother could not remember my name. As the leaves changed colors, it became clear that the stroke had created a wall between my mother’s mind and mouth: her mind was not any less clear, but the words she spoke were not what she meant.
The battle my mother faced taught me the importance of language. Without it, identity does not exist; relationships cannot be formed; stories cannot be told; directions cannot be given, and knowing anything about anyone is impossible. Without language, communication cannot take place. Without language, one cannot express the beauty of a sunset or the kindness of a stranger. The world would pass us by in silence. From where might the author’s mom come to America?
| A．China | B．England | C．Russia | D．Canada |
From the second paragraph, we can know ________.
| A．the author was taught to read since she was born |
| B．the author’s father spoke English poorly |
| C．the author couldn’t fall asleep without being read to |
| D．the author’s parents taught her language by talking a lot |
According to the last two paragraphs, the author’s mom was unable to _______.
| A．think clearly | B．express herself well |
| C．speak | D．open her mouth |
The underlined word “stroke” in the 4th paragraph most probably refers to ______.
| A．an accident | B．a hit | C．an illness | D．a robbery |
This passage is mainly about _________.
| A．a strong mother |
| B．the importance of language |
| C．a family disaster |
| D．the significance of teaching language |