Long, long ago there were a lot of donkeys. The donkeys worked hard every day. They had no time to play or to relax, but they never felt appreciated for the work they did.
One day two donkeys got bored. They wanted to live a comfortable life, So the donkeys went to see a wise old man. They told him their problem. The wise old man agreed that they worked too hard, and he wanted to help the donkeys.” I have an idea,” he said.
“What is your idea?” asked the donkeys.
“I will paint you and no one will know you are donkeys” said the man.
The man went off to find some paint and he returned in just a matter of minutes. He had two pots of paint. One pot was filled with white paint, and the other black paint.
The old man first painted them white, and then painted black stripes（斑纹）over the white paint. When he finished, the donkeys did not look at all like donkeys.” You no longer look like donkeys” the old man said.” Everyone will be fooled. I will call you something else, zebras.”
The zebras went to a field to eat grass. Now they did not have to work.
Soon, other donkeys saw the zebras. They asked the zebras where they came from. When the zebras told the donkeys their secret, the donkeys all rushed to see the old man.
“Make us into zebras, too,” they pleaded. So the wise old man painted more donkeys. As he did, more and more donkeys came.
The old man could not paint fast enough. Soon the donkeys became impatient. They began to kick about, and they knocked over the paint pots.
There was no more paint. The painted donkeys ran off to become zebras. The unpainted donkeys, because of their impatience, had to return to work.
This is why it is important to be patient. The text was written to
| A．tell an important truth about things |
| B．explain how donkeys became zebras |
| C．tell a good way to avoid hard work |
| D．explain how zebras got their stripes |
The two donkeys went to see a wise old man in order to
| A．tell him their problem | B．ask him for help |
| C．change into zebras | D．get some grass |
When the two donkeys returned, why did they no longer have to work?
| A．They didn’t eat enough grass. |
| B．They didn’t want to work. |
| C．No one knew they were donkeys. |
| D．They were no longer donkeys. |
What does the underlined word “pleaded” mean?
| A．Advised. | B．Ordered. |
| C．Agreed. | D．Begged, |
Many donkeys were not painted by the old man because
| A．no more paint was left | B．all the paint was used up |
| C．they couldn’t wait any longer | D．he was too tired to paint |
Petroleum, consisting of crude oil（原油） and natural gas, seems to originate from organic matter in marine sediment（海洋沉淀物）.Tiny organisms settle to the seafloor and gather in marine mud. The organic matter may partially break down, using up the dissolved oxygen in the sediment. As soon as the oxygen is gone, decay stops and the remaining organic matter is preserved.
Continued sedimentation buries the organic matter and subjects it to higher temperatures and pressures, which change the organic matter to oil and gas. As muddy sediments are pressed together, the gas and small drops of oil may be squeezed out of the mud and may move into sandy layers nearby. Over millions of years, accumulations of gas and oil can collect in the sandy layers. Both oil and gas are less dense than water, so they generally tend to rise upward through rock and sediment.
Oil pools are valuable underground accumulations of oil, and oil fields are regions underlain by one or more oil pools. When an oil pool or field is discovered, wells are drilled into the ground. When the well reaches a pool, oil usually rises up the well because of its density difference（密度差） with water beneath it or because of the pressure of expanding gas trapped above it. Although this rise of oil is almost always carefully controlled today, strong natural flows of oil were common in the past. Gas pressure gradually dies out, and oil is pumped from the well. Water or steam may be pumped down neighboring wells to help push the oil out.
As oil becomes increasingly difficult to find, the search for it is extended into more unfriendly environments. The development of the oil field on the North Slope of Alaska and the construction of the Alaska pipeline are examples of the great expense and difficulty involved in new oil discoveries. Offshore drilling platforms extend the search for oil to the ocean’s continental shelves. More than one-quarter of the world’s oil and almost one-fifth of the world’s natural gas come from offshore, even though offshore drilling is six to seven times more expensive than drilling on land.
Of course, there is far more oil underground than can be recovered. Even given the best exploration techniques, only about 30 to 40 percent of the oil in a given pool can be brought to the surface. The rest is far too difficult to reach and has to remain underground.Which of the following is true about petroleum formation?
| A．Microscopic organisms that live in mud produce crude oil and natural gas. |
| B．Large amounts of oxygen are needed for petroleum formation to begin. |
| C．Petroleum is formed when organic material in sediments combines with decaying organisms. |
| D．Petroleum formation appears to begin in marine sediments where organic matter exists. |
What does the development of the Alaskan oil field mentioned illustrate?
| A．More petroleum is extracted from the sea than from land. |
| B．Drilling for oil requires huge financial investments. |
| C．The global demand for oil has been increasing over the years. |
| D．The North Slope of Alaska has substantial amounts of oil. |
What does the author mainly intend to tell us in the passage?
| A．The formation, processing and exploration of petroleum |
| B．The specific techniques involved in oil exploration. |
| C．The changing relationships between countries. |
| D．The future intense situation in oil product markets. |
What can we infer from the passage?
| A．Available exploration techniques serve our purpose of exploring oil very well. |
| B．More and more public regions will be further protected from being drilled in the future. |
| C．Countries may suffer from unpleasant relationships for respective benefits in exploring oil. |
| D．Powerful flows of oil is a phenomenon which can be witnessed rarely now. |
While success is surely sweeter than failure, it seems failure is a far better teacher, and organizations that fail miserably often flourish (繁荣) more in the long run, according to a new study by Vinit Desai, assistant professor of management at the University of Colorado Denver Business School. Researchers have found that people missing their goals perform much better in the long run. That is because they gain more knowledge from their failures than their successes and the lessons are more likely to stay longer in their minds.
“We found that the knowledge gained from success was often fleeting while knowledge from failure stuck around for years,” said professor Desai, who led the study. “But companies often ignore failure. Managers may fire people or turn over the whole workforce while they should treat the failure as a learning opportunity.”
Prof Desai compared the flights of the space shuttle Atlantis and the Challenger. During the Atlantis flight last year, a piece of insulation (绝缘体) broke off and damaged the left solid rocket booster (助推火箭) but didn’t influence the program. There was little investigation. The Challenger was launched next and another piece of insulation broke off. This time the shuttle and its seven–person crew were destroyed. The disaster led to a major investigation resulting in 29 changes to prevent future disasters.
The difference in response in the two cases came down to this: Atlantis was considered a success and the Challenger a failure.
“Despite crowded skies, airlines are extremely reliable,” he said. “The number of failures is extremely small. And past researches have shown that older airlines, those with more experience in failure, have a lower number of accidents.”
Prof Desai doesn’t recommend finding out failure in order to learn. Instead, he advises organizations to analyze small failures to collect useful information rather than wait for major failures.Why did experts pay little attention to the problem of Atlantis?
| A．Because it worked perfectly. |
| B．Because the right booster was still OK. |
| C．Because nothing serious happened then. |
| D．Because fewer people died in the flight. |
Fewer accidents happen to older airlines in that ________.
| A．their planes couldn’t fly high in the sky |
| B．they gained much from experience in failure |
| C．their planes were often checked by the experts |
| D．they were unpopular among passengers |
The passage is written mainly to ________.
| A．show failure is a better teacher than success |
| B．explain why Challenger failed |
| C．introduce something about Prof Desai |
| D．tell managers how to achieve success |
My old digital camera broke down, so I wanted to buy a new one．Being the cautious type, I fancied a reliable brand．So I went on the Net, spent 15 minutes reading product reviews on good websites, wrote down the names of three top recommendations and headed for my nearest big friendly camera store．There in the cupboard was one of the cameras on my list．And it was on special offer．Oh joy．I pointed at it and asked an assistant, "Can I have one of those? " He looked perturbed（ 不安）．"Do you want to try it first? "he said．It didn' t quite sound like a question．"Do I need to?" I replied, "There's nothing wrong with it．" This made him look a bit offended and I started to feel bad．"No, no．But you should try it," he said encouragingly, "Compare it with the others．
I looked across at the others: shelves of similar cameras placed along the wall, offering a wide range of slightly different prices and discounts, with each company selling a range of models based around the same basic box. With so many models to choose from, it seemed that I would have to spend hours weighing X against Y, always trying to take Z and possibly H into account at the same time. But when I had finished, I would still have only the same two certainties that I had entered the store with: first, soon after I carried my new camera out of the shop, it would be worth half what I paid for it; and second, my wonderful camera would very quickly be replaced by a new model．
But something in the human soul whispers that you can beat these traps by making the right choice, the clever choice, the wise choice．In the end, I agreed to try the model I had chosen．The assistant seemed a sincere man．So I let him take out my chosen camera from the cupboard, show how it took excellent pictures of my fellow shoppers．．．and when he started to introduce the special features, I interrupted to ask whether I needed to buy a carry-case and a memory card as well．Why do we think that new options still offer us anything new? Perhaps it is because they offer an opportunity to avoid facing the fact that our real choices in this culture are far more limited than we would like to imagine．The shop assistant insisted that the writer should ____．
| A．trust him and stop asking questions |
| B．try the camera to see if there was anything wrong with it |
| C．get more information about different companies. |
| D．compare the camera he had chosen with the others |
What does the writer mean by "it would be worth half what I paid for it"（ Paragraph 2）?
| A．He should get a 50% discount． |
| B．The price of the camera would soon fall． |
| C．The quality of the camera was not good. |
| D．The price of the camera was unreasonably high． |
The writer decided to try the model he had chosen because he ____．
| A．knew very little about it |
| B．wanted to make sure the one he chose would be the best |
| C．didn' t trust the shop assistant |
| D．had a special interest in taking pictures of his fellow shoppers |
It can be inferred from the passage that in the writer's opinion, __．
| A．we waste too much money on cameras |
| B．cameras have become an important part of our daily life |
| C．we don' t actually need so many choices when buying a product |
| D．famous companies care more about profit than quality |
About six years ago I was eating lunch in a restaurant in New York City when a woman and a young boy sat down at the next table. I couldn’t help overhearing parts of their conversation. At one point the woman asked, “So, how have you been?” And the boy --- who could not have been more than seven or eight years old ---replied, “Frankly, I’ve been feeling a little depressed lately.”
This incident stuck in my mind because it confirmed my growing belief that children are changing. As far as I can remember, my friends and I didn’t find out we were “depressed” until we were in high school.
The evidence of a change in children has increased steadily in recent years. Children don’t seem childlike anymore. Children speak more like adults, dress more like adults and behave more like adults than they used to. Whether this is good or bad is difficult to say, but it is certainly different. Children as they once were on longer exists. Why?
Human development is based not only on innate biological states, but also on patterns of access to social knowledge. Movement from one social route to another usually involves learning the secrets of the new status. Children have always been taught adult secrets, but slowly and in stages: traditionally, we tell sixth graders things we keep hidden from fifth graders.
In the last 30 years, however, a secret-revelation machine has been installed in 98 percent of American homes. It is called television. Television passes information indiscriminately to all viewers alike, be they children or adults. Unable to resist the temptation, many children turn their attention from printed texts to the less challenging, more vivid moving pictures.
Communication through print, as a matter of fact, allows for a great deal of control over the social information to which children have access. Reading and writing involve a complex code of symbols that must be memorized and practiced. Children must read simple books before they can read complex materials.According to the author, feeling depressed is ________.
| A．a sure sign of a psychological problem in children’s mental development |
| B．something rarely expected in children’s mental development |
| C．an inevitable thing in children’s mental development |
| D．something usually experienced in children’s mental development |
What does the underlined word innate in Paragraph 4 mean ?
| A．something a person is born with |
| B．something a person is tired of |
| C．something a person is expected of |
| D．something a person is dreaming of |
What of the following statement is NOT true according to the last paragraph?
| A．Communication through print helps children develop their reading skills. |
| B．Communication through print helps children access more social information. |
| C．Communication through print helps children command a complex code of symbols. |
| D．Communication through print helps children read different materials at random. |
What is the attitude of the author about today’s children?
| A．He feels shocked by their premature behavior. |
| B．He thinks it is a phenomenon unworthy of note. |
| C．He considers it a positive social development. |
| D．He seems to be concerned about the tendency. |
Anger is good for you, as lon g as you control it, according to new psychology research. A new study from Carnegie Mellon University shows anger may help people reduce the negative impacts of stress and help you become healthier.
"Here getting emotional is not bad for you if you look at the case of anger," said Jennifer Lerner of Carnegie Mellon. "The more people display anger, the lower their stress responses."
Lerner studied 92 UCLA students by asking them to count back from 6,200. They must say out loud every thirteenth number. Researchers disturbed them by asking them to count faster or ask them other questions. If they made any mistakes, they had to restart from the very beginning. Many students felt depressed about making so many mistakes or got angry because the researchers were interrupting them.
Lerner used a hidden video camera and recorded all their facial expressions during the test. The researchers describe their reactions as fear, anger and disgust.
Other researchers recorded the students' blood pressure, pulse and production of a high-stress hormone (荷尔蒙) called cortisol. People whose faces showed more fear during th e experiment had higher blood pressure and higher levels of the hormone. Both can have lasting effects such as diabetes (糖尿病), heart disease, depression and extra weight gain.
When people feel fear, negative impacts increase, but when they get angry, those negatives go down, according to the study.
"Having that sense of anger leads people to actually feel some power in what otherwise is maddening (令人发狂的) situation,"
Lerner said. Lerner previously studied Americans' emotional response to the 911 terrorist attacks two months after the incident. She found people who reacted with anger were more optimistic. These people are healthier compared with those who were frightened during the event. So in maddening situations, anger is not a bad thing to have. It's a healthier response than fear.Which statement will Jennifer Lerner agree with?
| A．It's better to be angry than to be frightened. |
| B．Different reactions reflect different outlooks on life. |
| C．Don't control your anger and it makes you powerful. |
| D．Pessimistic people are generally healthier than opt imistic people. |
What does the underlined word "both" refer to according to the passage?
| A．Fear and anger. |
| B．Higher blood pressure and higher levels of the hormone. |
| C．Blood pressure and pulse. |
| D．Blood pressure and cortisone. |
The researchers made the experimented students angry by ______.
| A．recording their performance secretly |
| B．asking them to count to 6,200 again and again |
| C．disturbing them and making them start all over again |
| D．criticizing them when they made mistakes |
In what way can anger be beneficial to people?
| A．By showing their optimistic side. |
| B．By reducing their stress. |
| C．By reducing high blood pressure. |
| D．By taking the place of fear. |
What is the story mainly about?
| A．The findings of new psychology research. |
| B．What you can do with anger in certain cases. |
| C．Different effects produced by anger and fear. |
| D．Healthier responses in maddening situations. |