In December, 2010, many American newspapers publish a list of the best books of the year. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen is one of the most repeatedly praised books on this year's list of favorites. It tells about the ups and downs of the Berglund family over many years. Mr. Franzen fills the book with sharp observations about American politics, culture and society.
Jennifer Egan's book A Visit from the Goon Squad takes place in 13 chapters over 40 years. The story moves back and forth in time, from different viewpoints. One main character is former rock musician Bennie Salazar who works for a record company. The other main character is a troubled young woman named Sasha who works for Bennie. The reader learns about their pasts and those of their friends.
The main character in The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman is a failing English Language newspaper published in Rome, Italy. Each chapter of the book tells about a reporter or editor working for this paper. Their stories are filled with intelligence and great personality.
Two of the most popular nonfiction books of 2010 were about rock and roll stars. Just Kids is by rock singer Patti Smith. It tells about her friendship with the artist Robert Mapplethorpe in the 1960s and 1970s before they became famous. Life is the autobiography of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. It is an honest and exciting look at the development of rock and roll and the wild times this famous band has experienced.
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand tells about a man named Louis Zamperini. She tells about his extraordinary survival story after his plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean during World War Two.
Stacy Schiff has received great praise for her book Cleopatra: A Life. It tells about one of the most misrepresented and famous women in his story, Cleopatra. She ruled ancient Egypt about 2,000 years ago. One critic said Ms. Schiff has brought Cleopatra to life again by unearthing her story from centuries of lies.The following books are related to music EXCEPT________.
| A．The Imperfectionists | B．A Visit from the Goon Squad |
| C．Just Kids | D．Life |
If your major is the history of ancient Africa, you may pay attention to ________.
| A．Freedom by Jonathan Franzen |
| B．Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand |
| C．The Imperfections by Tom Rachman |
| D．Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff |
Which book will give you a practical understanding of the USA?
| A．Life | B．Cleopatra: A Life |
| C．Freedom | D．A Visit from the Goon Squad |
The last sentence of the passage implies that ________.
| A．Stacy Schiff is an archaeologist |
| B．the critic finds the character in the book very real |
| C．the critic speaks highly of Cleopatra in history |
| D．Stacy Schiff tells a story about an imaginary Egyptian queen |
Walter Wetzel had met Ryan Lamantia nearly eight years ago in a hospital waiting room. Both were very sick—Ryan with brain cancer, Walter with leukemia. Walter, then 9，began making silly faces at the little boy sitting across from him.
Soon after, Ryan, who was 3 at the time, made his way into Walter's room and chatted about going home to change into his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles costume and ride his Big Wheel to his cousin Catlyn's house.
Though they saw each other only a handful of times after that, Walter never forgot Ryan. “He inspired me to survive my cancer，” said Walter, now 17，a football player and snowboarder. “Seeing him happy all the time made me happy. How could I be upset if he had it so much worse than me?”
For the past few years, Walter, who lived with his family in Elgin, wondered what had happened to his little friend. Without so much as a last name, Walter asked the hospital staff to track down a number or address, but privacy laws prohibited the staff from giving out information.
"As I was going to bed one night, it popped in my head：6Google it. Google what you know，"said Walter's mother, Erzsi Gemzsi. She typed in "Ryan Lake in the Hills brain tumor”. Much to her surprise a link to a Facebook page for Ryan came up. Finally, they had found him. But when she clicked her mouse, the news was devastating.
Ryan had died on Sept. 8，2005. He was 6.
When she picked up Walter from school the next day, she broke it to him. “It hit me pretty hard，” Walter said. “ I was crying for a week straight. ”
The Facebook page was for the Ryan Lamantia Foundation, a nonprofit foundation that Ryan's family formed after his death. The organization raises money for pediatric (小儿科的）brain tumor research.
Walter logged on right away and left this message：
"I have wanted nothing more than to talk to (Ryan's) parents and tell them ( their) son is my hero. My trips to（the hospital)were always dreadful, until the day I(met) Ryan. ”
Ryan's mom's eyes filled with tears as she read Walter's post. She said，“It made us so proud. ”What made a deep impression on Walter Wetzel?
| A．Ryan's way to communicate with others. |
| B．Ryan's love for his costume and Big Wheel. |
| C．Ryan's panic when suffering from brain cancer. |
| D．Ryan's happiness though suffering from brain cancer. |
What can be learned from the passage?
| A．Ryan was working for a foundation. |
| B．Walter was recovering from his leukemia. |
| C．Walter and Ryan often wrote to each other after they left the hospital. |
| D．After Ryan left the hospital, he was in good health. |
The underlined word "prohibited" in Paragraph 4 is the closest to "__________" in meaning.
| A．banned |
| B．permitted |
| C．advised |
| D．published |
How did Walter manage to know Ryan's information?
| A．One of his friends came to tell him. |
| B．Ryan's mother telephoned Walter and told him. |
| C．His mother googled Ryan's information and found it. |
| D．The Ryan Lamantia Foundation contacted him and told him. |
They were sitting together on a dull afternoon when Hannah hurried in with a telegram. Mrs March read and dropped it with her hands shaking. Jo picked up the telegram and read it in a frightened voice：Mrs March, your husband is very ill. Come at once. S. Hale, Blank Hospital, Washington.
The girls moved close to their mother. All their happiness vanished in a moment.
“I shall go at once，” said Mrs March. “Oh, my children！” For several minutes, there was only the sound of crying, and then Hannah hurried away to get away to get things ready for the long journey.
"Where's Laurie? " Mrs March asked. "Here，" said the boy. "Oh, let me do something! " "Send a telegram back，" said Mrs March. “The next train goes early in the morning. Now, I must write a note to Aunt March. ”
Jo knew that the money for the journey must be borrowed from Aunt March, and she wanted to do something to help her father. Laurie went off to take the note to Aunt March and to send the telegram. Jo got some things from the shops.
“Father will need good food and wine to help him get better, and there won't be much at the hospital，" said Mrs March. "Beth, go and ask Mr Laurence for a couple of bottles of wine. ，，
Laurie came back with a letter and money from Aunt March, but Jo did not return. It was in the late afternoon that Jo came back and gave her mother some money.
“That's to help make Father comfortable and bring him home，99 she said.
“Twenty-five dollars!” said Mrs March. “My dear, where did you get it?” Jo took off her hat. "My dear, there was no need for this，" said Mrs March. "Don't cry, Beth，" said Jo. “I'll soon have curly hair again. ”
After their mother went away, they all helped Hannah with housework. News of their father came, telling them he was slowly getting better. The underlined word “vanished” in Paragraph 2 probably means __________.
| A．burst |
| B．disappeared |
| C．jumped |
| D．rushed |
What can be inferred from the passage?
| A．Mrs March was not rich. |
| B．Hannah was younger than Jo and Laurie. |
| C．The children didn't care about their father. |
| D．Mrs March left for the hospital immediately. |
How did Jo get the money?
| A．By asking her friends for help. |
| B．By helping others work. |
| C．By selling her nice hair. |
| D．By breaking her pig bank. |
It can be learned from the passage that Mrs March's children were __________.
| A．selfish |
| B．kind |
| C．helpful |
| D．delighted |
It is difficult for doctors to help a person with a hurt brain. Without enough blood, the brain lives only three to five minutes. Sometimes the hurt brain gets better by itself. More often the doctors can't fix the hurt brain. Sometimes they are afraid to try something to help. It is dangerous to work on the brain. The doctor might make the person worse if he works on the brain.
Dr. Robert J. White, a famous professor and doctor, thinks he knows a way to help. He thinks doctors should try to make the brain become very cold. If it is very cold, the brain can live without blood for 30 minutes. This gives the doctors a longer time to do something for the brain.
Dr. White tried his idea on 13 monkeys. First he taught them to do different jobs. Then he opera-ted on them. He made the monkeys' blood go through a machine. The machine cooled the blood. Then the machine sent the blood back to the monkeys' brains. When the brain temperature was 10 degrees. Dr. White stopped the blood to the brain. After 30 minutes he turned the blood back on. He warmed the blood again. After their operations, the monkeys were like they were before. They were healthy and busy. Each one could still do the jobs the doctor had taught them.
Dr. White's idea works well on the monkeys. Are there other problems with human beings? Dr. White thinks doctors will use his idea on human beings. He thinks it will help people who have heart problems, too. A person doesn't have to die when his heart stops? doctors can start it again. The problem comes when the brain is without blood for three to five minutes—the person has a living body, but a dead brain. Maybe in the future, doctors will try Dr. White's idea. When the person's heart stops, the doctors will quickly try to cool the brain. They will have 30 minutes to start the heart again. Maybe there will be no problem with the brain. People probably die when __________.
| A．their brain dies |
| B．their heart stops |
| C．they stop breathing |
| D．their brain becomes very hot |
Dr. White thinks his idea about cooling the brain will work because __________.
| A．he has tried it on people |
| B．he has tried it on monkeys |
| C．he has tried it on heart problems |
| D．he has tried it on himself |
Which of the following is not true?
| A．Doctors can begin the heart again in five minutes. |
| B．Doctors can begin the heart again after 30 minutes. |
| C．Doctors can change patients' hearts. |
| D．Doctors can change a person's face. |
According to the writer，__________.
| A．it is not difficult to repair the brain damage |
| B．it is worse to make a mistake on the brain than any other part of the body |
| C．brain is not an important part in one's body |
| D．brain doesn't need blood |
Want a glance of the future of health care? Take a look at the way the various networks of people about patient care are being connected to one another, and how this new connectivity (连通性)is being used to deliver medicine to the patient—no matter where he or she may be.
Online doctors offering advice based on normal symptoms (症状)are the most obvious example. Increasingly, however, remote diagnosis (远程诊断)will be based on real physiological data (生理数据)from the actual patient. A group from the University of Kentucky has shown that by using personal data assistance plus a mobile phone, it is perfectly practical to send a patient's important signs over the telephone. With this kind of equipment, the cry asking whether there was a doctor in the house could well be a thing of the past.
Other medical technology groups are working on applying telemedicine to countryside care. And at least one team wants to use telemedicine as a tool for disaster need—especially after earthquakes. On the whole, the trend is towards providing global access to medical data and experts' opinions.
But there is one problem. Bandwidth (宽带)is the limiting factor for sending complex medical pictures around the world —CT photos being one of the biggest bandwidth users. Communication satellites may be able to deal with the short-term needs during disasters such as earthquakes or wars. But medicine is looking towards both the second-generation Internet and third-generation mobile phones for the future of remote medical service.
Doctors have met to discuss computer-based tools for medical diagnosis, training and telemedicine. With the falling price of broadband communications, the new technologies should start a new time when telemedicine and the sharing of medical information, experts, opinions and diagnosis are common. The writer mainly talks about _____ .
| A．the use of telemedicine |
| B．the online doctors |
| C．medical care and treatment |
| D．communication improvement |
The basis of remote diagnosis will be _____ .
| A．personal data assistance |
| B．some words of a patient |
| C．real physiological information |
| D．medical pictures from the Internet |
Which of the following statements is true according to the text?
| A．Patients don't need doctors in hospitals any more. |
| B．It is impossible to send a patient's signs over the telephone. |
| C．Many teams use telemedicine dealing with disasters now. |
| D．Broadband communications will become cheaper in the future. |
The "problem" in the fourth paragraph refers to the fact that _____ .
| A．bandwidth isn't big enough to send complex medical pictures |
| B．the second-generation of Internet has not become popular yet |
| C．communication satellites can only deal with short-term needs |
| D．there is not enough equipment for spreading the medical care |
When Gretch en Baxter gets home from work as a New York City book editor, she checks her cellphone at the door. "I think we are attached to these devices (装置)in a way that is not always positive, " says Baxter, who'd rather focus at home on her husband and 12-year-old daughter. "It's there but we get crazy sometimes and we don't know where it should stop. "
Americans are connected at unprecedented (前所未有的)levels—93% now use cellphones or wireless devices; one-third of those are "smartphones" that allow users to surf the Internet and check e-mails, among other things. The benefits are obvious： checking messages on the road, staying in touch with friends and family, efficiently using time once spent waiting around.
The downside： Often, we're effectively disconnecting from those in the same room.
That's why, despite all the technology that makes communicating easier than ever, 2010 was the Year We Stopped Talking to One Another. From texting at dinner to posting on Facebook at work or checking e-mails while on a date, the connectivity revolution is creating a lot of divided attention. Many analysts say it's time to step back and reassess.
"What we're going to see in the future is new opportunities for people to be connected like never before, " says Scott Campbell, assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan, who studies the social implications (暗示)of using mobile devices. "It can be a good thing. But I also see the traditional social structure is getting somewhat torn apart. "
Sherry Turkic, director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self in Cambridge, Mass, wants to remind people that technology can be turned off. "Our human purpose is to really have connections with people," she says. "We have to reclaim (收回)it. It's not going to happen naturally." According to the first paragraph, Gretchen Baxter thinks _____ .
| A．cellphones are not always helpful |
| B．we benefit a lot from the invention of cellphones |
| C．using cellphones too much may be bad for health |
| D．cellphones play an important role in her life |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．People communicate more now than in the past. |
| B．Using mobile devices can focus people's attention quickly. |
| C．93% of Americans often use cellphones to surf the Internet. |
| D．The use of mobile devices has a negative effect on the traditional social structure. |
What is Sherry Turkle’s attitude towards using mobile devices?
| A．Positive. |
| B．Negative. |
| C．Confused. |
| D．Uncertain. |
The main purpose of the passage is to tell readers that _____ .
| A．something must be done for people to get a real connection with others |
| B．cellphones may be replaced by new devices |
| C．cellphones should be turned off on some occasions |
| D．people should have more connections with others |