I'm not so sure I like my friends any more. I used to like them—to be honest. We'd have lunch，talk on the phone or exchange e-mails，and they all seemed normal enough. But then came Facebook and I was introduced to a sad fact：many of my friends have dark sides that they had kept from me.
Today my friends show off the unpleasant aspects of their personalities via Facebook. No longer hidden，they're thrown in my face like TV commercials—unavoidable and endless advertisements for the worst of their personalities.
Take Fred. If you were to have lunch with him，you'd find him warm，and down-to-earth. Read his Facebook and you realize he's an unbearable，food-obsessed bore. He'd pause to have a cup of coffee on his way to save a drowning man—and then write about it.
Take Andy. You won't find a smarter CEO anywhere，but now he's a CEO without a company to run. So he plays “Mafia Wars” on Facebook. He's doing well-level 731.Thanks to Facebook，I know he's playing about 18 hours a day. Andy，you've run four companies—and this is how you spend your downtime? What happened to golf? What happened to getting another job?
Take Liz. She is positive that the H1N1 vaccine will kill us all and that we should avoid it. And then comes Chris who likes to post at least 20 times a day on every website he can find，so I get to read his thoughts twice，once on Facebook and once on Twitter.
In real life，I don't see these sides of people. Face to face，my friends show me their best. They're nice，smart people. But facing Facebook，my friends are like a blind date which goes horribly wrong.
I'm left with a dilemma. Who is my real friend? Is it the Liz I have lunch with or the anti-vaccine lunatic(狂人) on Facebook? Is it the Fred I can grab a sandwich with or the Fred who weeps if he's at a party and the wine isn't up to his standards?According to the text，Facebook tends to ________．
| A．present another side of people |
| B．offer some food for free |
| C．show endless advertisements |
| D．get you to attend more parties |
The text is developed mainly by ________．
| A．giving examples | B．following the time order |
| C．listing figures | D．raising questions |
The author focuses on the question of “________”．
| A．what is Facebook? | B．what happened to golf? |
| C．who is my real friend? | D．who can help me? |
When most of us hear the word chocolate, the verb that comes to mind is probably “eat”, not “drink”, and the most proper adjective would seem to be “sweet”. But for about 90 percent of chocolate’s long history, it was strictly a beverage (饮料), and sugar didn’t have anything to do with it.
The Origin of Chocolate
Many modern historians have estimated that chocolate has been around for about 2000 years, but recent research suggests that it may be even older.
In the book The True History of Chocolate, authors Sophie and Michael Coe prove that the earliest linguistic (语言学的) evidence of chocolate consumption dates back three or even four thousand years.
Valuable and Fashionable Chocolate Beverage
It’s hard to discover exactly when chocolate was born, but it’s clear that it was cherished from the start. For several centuries in pre-modern Latin America, cacao beans were considered valuable enough to use as currency. 100 beans could purchase a good turkey hen, according to a 16th-century Aztec document.
Sweetened chocolate didn’t appear until Europeans discovered the Americas and sampled (品尝) the native cuisine. Chocolate didn’t suit the foreigners’ taste at first — one described it in his writings as “a bitter drink for pigs” — but once mixed with honey or cane sugar, it quickly became popular throughout Spain. By the 17th century, chocolate was a fashionable drink throughout Europe, believed to have nutritious, medicinal functions. But it remained largely a privilege of the rich until the invention of the steam engine made mass production possible in the late 1700s.
The Birth of Solid Chocolate
In 1828, a Dutch chemist found a way to make powdered chocolate. His product became known as “Dutch cocoa”, and it soon led to the creation of solid chocolate. In 1847, Joseph Fry created the first modern chocolate bar. By 1868, a little company called Cadbury was marketing boxes of chocolate candies in England. Milk chocolate hit the market a few years later.
Prosperous Chocolate Industry
In America, chocolate was so valued during the Revolutionary War that it was used instead of wages. Even now, statistics show that the humble cacao bean is still a powerful economic force. Chocolate manufacturing is a more than 4-billion-dollar industry in the United States, and the average American eats at least half a pound of the stuff per month.The earliest chocolate was most probably _________.
| A．a dish | B．a drink | C．a bar | D．a candy |
It can be inferred from the passage that ________________.
| A．the history of chocolate is at most 4,000 years. |
| B．people around the world could buy things with chocolate. |
| C．chocolate was well paid attention to since it was born. |
| D．an American at least eats a pound of chocolate per month. |
Why did chocolate suit the Spanish’s taste so quickly? _________
| A．Because chocolate was so tasty and bitter. |
| B．Because chocolate was believed to be a source of nutrition. |
| C．Because chocolate was sweetened with honey or cane sugar. |
| D．Because chocolate became a fashionable beverage. |
Which one shows the correct order according to the time of their appearing? _________
| A．chocolate beverage----chocolate bar----chocolate candies----milk chocolate |
| B．chocolate bar----chocolate beverage----chocolate candies----milk chocolate |
| C．chocolate bar ----chocolate candies ----milk chocolate ---- chocolate beverage |
| D．chocolate beverage ----chocolate candies----chocolate bar---- milk chocolate |
People often say that money talks. They mean that a person with a lot of money can say how he or she wants things done. But it is not easy to earn enough money to gain this kind of power. Ask anyone in a business, they will tell you that it is a jungle out there. The expression probably began because the jungle is filled with wild animals and unknown dangers that threaten people. Sometimes people in business feel competing businesses are as dangerous as wild animals. And they feel that unknown dangers in the business world frighten the survival of their business.
People in business have to be careful, if they are to survive the jungle out there. They must not be led into making bogus investments. Bogus means something that it is not real. Nobody is sure how the word got started. But it began to appear in a American newspapers in 1800s. A newspaper in Boston Massachusetts said the word came from a criminal whose name was Bogazy. The newspaper said Bogazy wrote checks to people, although he did not have enough money in the bank. After he wrote the checks, he would flee from town. So people who were paid with his checks received nothing. The newspaper said Americans shortened and changed to the criminal's name Bogazy to bogus.
People try to earn money also must be aware of being ripped off. A person who is ripped off has had something stolen or at least has been treated very unfairly. A writer for the magazine American Speech said he first saw the expression used in 1971. It was on a sign that a student carried during a protest demonstration at a university. The message on the sign was that the student felt ripped off or cheated. Perhaps the best way to prevent getting ripped off in business is to not try to get rich quickly.
To be successful, a person in business works hard and tries to get down to brass tacks. This expression means to get to the bottom or most important part of something. For example, a salesman may talk and talk about his product without saying the price. You get down to brass tacks when you say it sounds good but how much does it cost？
Word expert Charles Funk thinks the expression comes from sailors on ships. They clean the bottom of a boat. When they have removed all the dirt, they are down to the brass tacks, the copper pieces that hold the boat together. So if we get down to brass tacks, we can prevent rip-offs and bogus ways of earning money in that jungle out there. And some good luck will help too.This passage is mainly written to________.
| A．explain several expressions related to money |
| B．tell us some skills of learning English words |
| C．tell us the secret of how to do business |
| D．tell us the power of money |
People compare doing business to being in a jungle because________.
| A．doing business is as exciting as living in a jungle |
| B．businessmen are as dangerous as animals in a jungle |
| C．doing business is as difficult as living in a jungle |
| D．businessmen are as careful as people living in a jungle |
If we say something is bogus, we probably mean it is not________.
| A．real | B．beautiful | C．good | D．new |
According to Paragraph 2,where did the word "bogus" come from? _________
| A．The name of a very successful businessman. |
| B．The name of a criminal who cheated others. |
| C．The name of a famous newspaper in Boston. |
| D．The name of a check written by a criminal. |
I was blind, but I was ashamed of it if it was known. I refused to use a white stick and hated asking for help. After all, I was a teenager girl, and I couldn't bear people to look at me and think I was not like them. I must have been a terrible danger on the roads, coming across me wandering through the traffic; motorists probably would have to step rapidly on their brakes. Apart from that, there were all sorts of disasters that used to occur on the way to and from work.
One evening, I got off the bus about halfway home where I had to change buses, and as usual I ran into something. "I'm awfully sorry," I said and stepped forward only to run into it again. When it happened a third time, I realized I had been apologizing to a lamppost. This was just one of the stupid things that constantly happened to me. So I carried on and found the bus stop, which was a request stop, where the bus wouldn't stop unless passengers wanted to get on or off. No one else was there and I had to try to guess if the bus had arrived.
Generally in this situation, because I hated showing I was blind by asking for help, I tried to guess at the sound. Sometimes I would stop a big lorry and stand there feeling stupid as it drew away. In the end, I usually managed to swallow my pride and ask someone at the stop for help.
But on this particular evening no one joined me at the stop; it seemed that everyone had suddenly decided not to travel by bus. Of course I heard plenty of buses pass, or I thought I did. But because I had given up stopping them for fear of making a fool of myself, I let them all go by. I stood there alone for half an hour without stopping one. Then I gave up. I decided to walk on to the next stop. The girl refused to ask for help because she thought_________
| A．she might be recognized |
| B．asking for help looked silly |
| C．she was normal and independent |
| D．being found blind was embarrassing |
After the girl got off the bus that evening, she_________.
| A．began to run |
| B．hit a person as usual |
| C．hit a lamppost by accident |
| D．was caught by something |
At the request stop that evening, the girl___________.
| A．stopped a big lorry |
| B．stopped the wrong bus |
| C．made no attempt to stop the bus |
| D．was not noticed by other people |
What was the problem with guessing at the sound to stop a bus? _________
| A．Other vehicles also stopped there. |
| B．It was unreliable for making judgments. |
| C．More lorries than buses responded to the girl. |
| D．It took too much time for the girl to catch the bus |
The way people hold to the belief that a fun-filled, and pain-free life equals happiness actually reduces their chances of ever attaining real happiness. If fun and pleasure are equal to happiness then pain must be equal to unhappiness. But in fact, the opposite is true: more often than not things that lead to happiness involve some pain.
As a result, many people avoid the very attempts that are the source of true happiness. They fear the pain inevitably(不可避免的) brought by such things as marriage, raising children, professional achievement, religious commitment (义务), self - improvement.
Ask a bachelor(单身汉) why he resists marriage even though he finds dating to be less and less satisfying. If he is honest he will tell you that he is afraid of making a commitment. For commitment is in fact quite painful. The single life is filled with fun, adventure, excitement. Marriage has such moments, but they are not its most distinguishing features.
Couples with infant children are lucky to get a whole night’s sleep or a three - day vacation. I don’t know any parent who would choose the word fun to describe raising children. But couples who decide not to have children never know the joys of watching a child grow up or of playing with a grandchild.
Understanding and accepting that true happiness has nothing to do with fun is one of the most liberating realizations. It liberates time: now we can devote more hours to activities that can genuinely increase our happiness. It liberates （解放）money: buying that new car or those fancy clothes that will do nothing to increase our happiness now seems pointless. And it liberates us from envy: we now understand that all those who are always having so much fun actually may not be happy at all.According to the author, a bachelor resists marriage chiefly because _______ .
| A．he is reluctant to take on family responsibilities |
| B．he believes that life will be more cheerful if he remains single |
| C．he finds more fun in dating than in marriage |
| D．he fears it will put an end to all his fun adventure and excitement |
From the last paragraph, we learn that envy sometimes stems from ________ .
| A．hatred | B．misunderstanding | C．prejudice | D．ignorance |
What is the author trying to tell us?
| A．Happiness often goes hand in hand with pain. |
| B．One must know how to attain happiness. |
| C．It is important to make commitments. |
| D．It is pain that leads to happiness. |
When a rare disease ALD threatened to kill the four-year-old boy Lorenzo, his parents refused to give up hope. Doctors explained that there was no cure for ALD, and that he would probably die within three years. But Lorenzo’s parents set out to prove the doctors wrong.
The parents devoted themselves to keeping their son alive and searching for a cure. But doctors and the families of other ALD patients often refused to take them seriously. They thought the efforts to find a cure were a waste of time, and drug companies weren’t interested in supporting research into such a rare disease.
However, the parents still refused to give up and spent every available hour in medical libraries and talking to anyone who would help. Through trial and error, they finally created a cure from ingredients (调料) commonly found in the kitchen. The cure, named "Lorenzo’s Oil", saved the boy’s life. Despite the good results, scientists and doctors remained unconvinced. They said there was no real evidence that the oil worked and that the treatment was just a theory. As a result, some families with ALD children were reluctant to try it.
Finally, the boy’s father organized an international study to test the oil. After ten years of trials, the answer is: the oil keeps ALD children healthy.Doctors said that Lorenzo might die within three years because_____ .
| A．they had never treated the disease before |
| B．Lorenzo was too young to be cured |
| C．no cure had been found for ALD |
| D．ALD was a rare disease |
The families of other ALD patients thought that _____ .
| A．the research for the new cure would cost too much money |
| B．the efforts of Lorenzo’s parents were a waste of time |
| C．Lorenzo’s parents would succeed in finding a cure |
| D．Lorenzo’s oil was a real cure for ALD |
Scientists and doctors believed that Lorenzo’s Oil_____.
| A．was really effective | B．was a success story |
| C．only worked in theory | D．would save the boy’s life |
From the passage we can conclude that_____.
| A．doctors remain doubtful of the effectiveness of the cure |
| B．many ALD patients still refuse to use the oil |
| C．various cures have been found for ALD |
| D．the oil really works as a cure for ALD |