At last, the mid-term exams are over. You’ve done the hard work, but you can’t relax. You have to prepare for the next exams. Do you hate exams? If you do, you’re not alone. Students in other countries hate them as well.
Luckily for them, British students have fewer exams than Chinese students. They take a test in each subject only every summer. Each test lasts about an hour. These exams don’t count for much. Even if some students do really badly, they can still enter the higher grade the next year. When the results come out, they are then placed in an end-of-year report. The report is sent to the child’s parents. It describes how the student studies at school.
This report is private(私人的), so only the teacher, the student and his or her parents can see it. This means that the student doesn’t know how other students score on the tests. Some students choose to tell each other, but others keep it a secret.
Parents’ meeting are held twice a year, at the end of the winter term and then at the end of the summer term. Children go along with their parents to meet their teachers privately and discuss their performance(表现) at school.According to the passage, British students___________.
| A．need to take a test twice a year. |
| B．have to take a test at the end of a year. |
| C．have to spend about one hour on each test. |
| D．need to take their reports to their parents. |
The end-of year report__________.
| A．is written by students themselves |
| B．can be seen by everyone in the school |
| C．can be used to keep the students safe. |
| D．is about students’ study at school |
The underlined sentence “These exams don’t count for much.” means “______”.
| A．there are too many exams |
| B．these exams play a key role |
| C．these exams don’t mean(意味着) everything |
| D．there are a few exams |
Which of the following is TURE according to the passage?
| A．British students don’t need to prepare for their exams. |
| B．British students are not allowed to tell each other their scores. |
| C．British students should visit their teachers with their parents. |
| D．British students have a piece of report at the end of a term. |
What’s the best title for the passage?
| A．The exam’s report |
| B．The tests’ scores |
| C．British parents’ meeting |
| D．British students’ exams |
Weather changes when the temperature and the amount of water in the atmosphere change. We can see and feel water coming from the atmosphere when we have rain. But the water must somehow get back to the atmosphere. Meteorologists call this the water cycle.
There are many stages in the water cycle. Rain falls when water vapour in clouds condenses(凝结). Drops of water form and fall to the ground. The water soaks into the ground and feeds streams and rivers. A lot of rain falls into the sea. The heat of the sun evaporates some of the water in the ground and in the rivers, lakes, and the sea. It changes the liquid water into water vapour. The vapour rises onto the air. Water vapour is normally invisible. On a very damp or humid day, however, you can sometimes see water vapour rising from a puddle(水坑) or pond in a mist(薄雾) above the water. Water vapour also gets into the air from living things. Trees and other plants take in water through their roots and give off water vapour from their leaves. People and land animals drink water and breathe out water vapour. In all these ways the water returns to the air. There it gathers to form clouds and condenses to form rain. The rain falls to earth, and the cycle starts again. It continues even if snow or hail(冰雹) fall instead because both eventually melt to form water. The amount of water vapour in the air depends on the temperature. The air is more moist(潮湿) in the tropics(热带) than in the cold polar regions.What is the main idea of the passage?
| A．Water cycle. | B．Water vapour. | C．How rain forms. | D．Water, vapour, rain. |
How many ways of the water returning to the air are discussed in the text?
| A．Two. | B．Three. | C．Four. | D．Five. |
Whether water vapour can be seen or not depends on _______.
| A．how much water is evaporated | B．how good your eyes are |
| C．in which way water is evaporated | D．climate or weather |
From the passage we get to know _______.
| A．there is more water vapour in the air in the tropics than in cold polar regions |
| B．there is more water vapour in the air in cold polar region than in the tropics |
| C．it gets more rain in the tropics than in cold polar regions because there is less vapour |
| D．the amount of water vapour in the air depends on how often it rains |
To get cash out in the 21st century, you won’t need a bank card, a PIN(个人识别编号) or even have to move a finger. You will simply have to look the cash machine straight in the eye, declares National Cash Registers, a multinational company that makes automated teller machines, or ATMs. NCR has shown its first example machine that is believed to be the future of banking. Instead of asking you for your PIN on a screen, the Super Teller-Stella for short, asks you orally through a loudspeaker to look straight ahead while an infrared camera turns to your head, then your eye, and finally takes an infrared photograph of your iris(虹膜). For identification(识别) purposes, an iris picture is better than a fingerprint, with around 256 noticeable characteristics compared with 40 for fingerprints. This means that the chances of someone else being recognized in your place is about 1 in 1020. Once you’ve been identified, Stella greets you by name and says: “Would you like cash or a statement?” An infrared port allows the machine to send a bank statement straight to your pocket computer. What does this passage mainly talk about?
| A．A new medical instrument | B．A new type of talking machine. |
| C．A new type of cash machine. | D．National Cash Register |
What is this new machine called?
| A．Stella | B．ATM | C．PIN | D．NCR |
When you want to get cash out in the 21st century, you will _______.
| A．need a bank card | B．have to put in your PIN |
| C．move your finger | D．just look directly at the teller machine |
Motherhood may make women smarter and may help prevent dementia(痴呆) in old age by bathing the brain in protective hormones(荷尔蒙) , U.S. reseachers reported on Thursday.
Tests on rats show that those who raise two or more litters of pups do considerably better in tests of memory and skills than rats who have no babies, and their brains show changes that suggest they may be protected against diseases such as Alzheimer’s(早老痴呆症). University of Richmond psychology professor Craig Kinsley believes his findings will translate into humans.
“Our research shows that the hormones of pregnancy(怀孕) are protecting the brain, including estrogen(雌激素), which we know has many neuroprotective (保护神经的) effects,” Kinsley said.
“It’s rat data but humans are mammals just like these animals are mammals,” he added in a telephone interview. “They go through pregnancy and hormonal changes.”
Kinsley said he hoped public health officials and researchers will look to see if having had children protects a woman from Alzheimer’s and other forms of age-related brain decline.
“When people think about pregnancy, they think about what happens to babies and the mother from the neck down,” said Kinsley, who presented his findings to the annual meeting of the Society of Neuroscience in Orlando, Florida.
“They do not realize that hormones are washing on the brain. If you look at female animals who have never gone through pregnancy, they act differently toward young. But if she goes through pregnancy, she will sacrifice her life for her infant—that is a great change in her behavior that showed in genetic alterations(改变) to the brain.”How do scientists know “Motherhood may make women smarter”?
| A．Some researchers have told them. |
| B．Many women say so. |
| C．They know it by experimenting on rats. |
| D．They know it through their own experience. |
What does the phrase “litters of pups” mean in the second paragraph?
| A．Baby rats. | B．Animals. | C．Old rats. | D．Grown-up rats. |
What can protect the brain of a woman according to the passage?
| A．Estrogen. | B．The hormones of pregnancy. |
| C．More exercise. | D．Taking care of children. |
“It’s rat data but humans are mammals just like these animals are mammals.” What does the sentence suggest?
| A．The experiments on the rats have nothing to do with humans. |
| B．The experiments on the rats are very important for animals. |
| C．The experiments on the rats are much the same on humans. |
| D．The experiments on the rats are much the same on other animals. |
Which title is the best for this passage?
| A．Do You Want to Be Smarter? | B．Motherhood Makes Women Smarter |
| C．Mysterious Hormones | D．An Important Study |
Scientists are uncovering the secrets of two port cities lost under the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, a researcher said yesterday.
Herakleion and Menouthis were rich and proud cities until something reduced them to rubble (碎石) and buried them in the mud beneath 30 feet of sea water, French underwater explorer Franck Goddio said at the American Geophysical Union conference.
“This is a mystery that is ongoing,” said Goddio, a founder of the European Institute of Marine Archeology, a Paris-based underwater research organization backed by the wealthy Hilti Foundation of Liechtenstein(列支敦士登基金会).
The destruction of the twin port cities has haunted Goddio ever since he happened upon the site about 15 miles from Alexandria while exploring sunken ships from Napoleon’s fleet.
Goddio and his group of expert divers, marine archeologists(海洋考古学家) and others, are using high powered vacuums, satellite navigation systems and sophisticated sonar(声纳) to excavate(挖掘) the sunken cities from underneath a carpet of silt about one meter (three feet) high.
Walls of shops, remains of streets and gold artifacts have been found and recovered.
Some experts believe that the port cities were destroyed by a series of massive earthquakes, much like the quakes scientists believe felled Troy(特洛伊城), Jericho and other ancient cities. The uniform direction of the collapsed columns and walls suggest an earthquake, Goddio said, but no fault lines have been found nearby.
Other researchers believe a massive wave, caused by either an offshore earthquake or a distant underwater landslide, could explain the catastrophe. Still others think rising seas and a shift in the Nile River outlet doomed the cities.
“The argument, as you can see, continues,” Goddio said.The reason why the two port cities disappeared under the waters of Mediterranean Sea is that ______.
| A．the two port cities were destroyed by huge earthquakes |
| B．the disappearance of the two port cities was caused by underwater landslide |
| C．rising seas and a shift in the Nile River outlet doomed the cities |
| D．the story didn’t tell us at all |
From the story we can draw a conclusion that _______.
| A．the two port cities were famous for their wealth and the mystery |
| B．the two cities belonged to France |
| C．some mysterious creatures from other planets destroyed the two cities |
| D．the American Geophysical Union conference was once held in one of the two cities |
This article is probably from _______.
| A．a scientific magazine | B．a report to the government |
| C．a school text book | D．a scientific report in a newspaper |
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 is being exploited 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 rural(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(复杂的) 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 chiefly talks about _______.
| A．the use of telemedicine | B．the on-lined 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 |