People in South Korea who feel they can no longer bear the stress of everyday life now can choose to stay in a prison to relax and think deeply.
In a society where pressure to do well in school and find highly-paid jobs is intense, a former lawyer came up with an extreme relaxation idea. Kwon Yong-seok created the “Prison Inside Me”—a stress-reduction center with a punishment theme. People come here to cut themselves off from the outside world and pay to be kept in 60-square-foot (5.6-square-meter) cells (囚室).
Located on the outskirts of Hongcheon, about 58 miles (93 km) northeast of Seoul, “Prison Inside Me” came to life after Mr. Kwon voluntarily asked to spend time behind bars for “healing reasons,” but his request was turned down. “I didn’t know how to stop working back then,” he said. “I felt like I was being swept away against my will, and it seemed I couldn’t control my own life.” So, Kwon and his wife Roh Ji-hyang decided to take matters into their own hands, and designed and built a prison-like spiritual center. The construction was completed in June last year and cost about 2 billion won ($19 million).
The facility includes 28 cells, furnished with only a toilet, a sink and a small table, where guests can spend time alone, thinking about life and enjoying private thinking periods. Moreover, guests can also join group thinking periods in the hall, where they are given instructions on how to free themselves from what Mr. Kwon calls the “inner prison” to find inner peace.
According to the Wall Street Journal, hundreds of stressed South Koreans are checking in at the stress-reduction facility to think about their lives and regain control of it. A two-night stay at “Prison Inside Me” costs 150,000 won ($146).
Mr. Kwon and his wife explained that at the beginning they had a different plan for the “relaxation center,” and imagined a longer stay for their guests, but, given that people weren’t able to take more time off, they had to reduce the length of stays to just two days.
Park Woo-sub, a guest at “Prison Inside Me,” said the experience helped him a lot. “This is my third time in prison. Being kept in a prison makes me hard to breathe, but it also offers time to focus only on me and spend some quiet time with myself.”
Others said the experience would have been more helpful if the conditions had been poorer, like in a real prison.Paragraph 3 mainly tells us _______________.
| A．where “Prison Inside Me” is located |
| B．what people can do in “Prison Inside Me” |
| C．how “Prison Inside Me” came into being |
| D．when “Prison Inside Me” was completed |
Which of the statements is true?
| A．people in South Korea prefer living under great pressure |
| B．Mr. Kwon had intended to let guests stay at “Prison Inside Me” for over two days |
| C．most people in South Korea can not afford to stay at “Prison Inside Me” |
| D．the 28 cells are well furnished, but with no toilets in them |
We can know from the passage that _______________.
| A．many people have been kept in such a prison at least three times |
| B．it is not a good idea for people to focus only on themselves |
| C．people find it not difficult to breathe though the prison is small |
| D．some still felt a bit unsatisfied as the conditions weren’t poor enough |
Who should go to the “Prison Inside Me”?
| A．A successful businessman |
| B．A criminal at large |
| C．A primary student |
| D．A stressed man |
What is the main idea of the passage?
| A．Many South Koreans voluntarily go to “prison” to reduce stress. |
| B．Many South Koreans can hardly bear the stress of daily life. |
| C．South Koreans should spend more time alone thinking about life. |
| D．South Koreans have found the best way to deal with everyday pressure. |
I was a freshman in college when I met the Whites. They were completely different from my own family, yet I felt at home with them immediately. Jane White and I became friends at school, and her family welcomed me like a long-lost cousin.
In my family, it was always important to place blame when anything had happened.
“Who did this?” my mother would scream about a dirty kitchen.
“This is your entire fault, Katherine,” my father would insist when the cat got out or the dishwasher broke.
From the time we were little, my sister, brothers and I told to each other. We set a place for blame at the dinner table.
But the Whites didn’t worry about who had done what. They picked up the pieces and moved on with their lives. The beauty of this was driven home to me the summer Jane died.
In July, the Whites sisters and I decided to take a car trip from their home in Florida to New York. The two older sisters, Sarah and Jane, were college students, and the youngest, Amy, had recently turned sixteen. Proud of having a new drivers license, Amy was excited about practicing her driving on the trip. She showed off her license to everyone she met.
The big sisters shared the driving of Sarah’s new car during the first part of the trip, but when they reached less crowded areas, they let Amy take over. Somewhere in South Carolina, we pulled off the highway to eat. After lunch, Amy got behind the wheel. She came to a crossroads with a stop sign. Whether she was nervous or just didn’t see the sign no one would ever know, but Amy continued into the crossroads without stopping. The driver of a large truck, unable to stop in time, ran into our car.
Jane was killed immediately.
I was slightly injured. The most difficult thing that I had ever done was to call the Whites to tell them about the accident and that Jane had died. Painful as it was for me to lose a good friend, I knew that it was far worse for them to lose a child.
When Mr. and Mrs. White arrived at the hospital, they found their two daughters sharing a room. Sarah had a few cuts on the head; Amy’s leg was broken. They hugged us all and cried tears of sadness and of joy at seeing their daughters. They wiped away the girl’s tears and made a few jokes at Amy as she learned to use her crutches(拐杖).
To both of their daughters, and especially to Amy, over and over they simply said, “We are so glad that you are alive.”
I was astonished. No blame. No accusations.
Later, I asked the Whites why they never talked about the fact that Amy was driving and had run a stop sign.
Mrs. White said, “Jane is gone, and we miss her terribly. Nothing we say or do will bring her back. But Amy has her whole life ahead of her. How can she lead a full and happy life if she feels we blame her for her sister’s death?”
They were right. Amy graduated from the University of California and got married several years ago. She works as a teacher of learning-disabled students. She’s also a mother of two little girls of her own, the oldest named Jane. How did the author’s parents differ from the Whites?
| A．The author’s parents were less caring. | B．The author’s parents were less loving. |
| C．The author’s parents were less friendly | D．The author’s parents were less understanding |
How did the accident happen?
| A．Amy didn’t stop at a crossroad and a truck hit their car. |
| B．Amy didn’t know what to do when she saw the stop sign. |
| C．Amy didn’t slow down so their car ran into a truck. |
| D．Amy didn’t get off the highway at a crossroad. |
The accident took place in _____.
| A．Florida | B．California | C．South Carolina | D．New York |
The Whites did not blame Amy for Jane’s death because _____.
| A．they didn’t want Amy to feel ashamed and sorry for the rest of her life |
| B．Amy was badly injured herself and they didn’t want to add to her pain |
| C．They didn’t want to blame their children in front of others |
| D．Amy was their youngest daughter and they loved her best |
From the passage we can learn that _____.
| A．Amy has never recovered from the shock | B．Amy changed her job after the accident |
| C．Amy lost her memory after the accident | D．Amy has lived quite a normal life |
Children have their own rules in playing games. They seldom need a referee(裁判) and rarely trouble to keep scores. They don’t care much about who wins or loses, and it doesn’t seem to worry them if the game is not finished. Yet, they like games that depend a lot on luck, so that their personal abilities cannot be directly compare. They also enjoyed games that move in stages, in which each stage, the choosing of leaders, the picking-up of sides, or the determining of which side shall start, is almost a game in itself.
Grown-ups can hardly find children’s game exciting, and they often feel puzzled at why their kids play such simple game again and again. However, it is found that a child plays games for very important reasons. He can be a good player without having to think whether he is a popular person, and he can find himself being a useful partner to someone of whom he is ordinary afraid. He becomes a leader when it comes to his turn. He can be confident, too, in particular games, that it is his place to give orders, to pretend to be dead, to throw a ball actually at someone, or to kiss someone he has caught.
It appears to us that when children play a game they imagine a situation under their control. Everyone knows the rules, and more importantly, everyone plays according to the rules. Those rules may be childish, but they make sure that every child has a chance to win.What is true about children when they play games?
| A．They can stop playing any time they like. | B．They can test their personal abilities. |
| C．They want to pick a better team. | D．They don’t need rules. |
To become a leader in a game the child has to _____.
| A．play | B．wait for his turn |
| C．be confident in himself | D．be popular among his playmates |
What do we know about grown-ups?
| A．They are not interested in games |
| B．They find children’s games too easy |
| C．They don’t need a reason to play games |
| D．They don’t understand children’s games |
Why does a child like playing games?
| A．Because he can be someone other than himself. |
| B．Because he can become popular among friends. |
| C．Because he finds he is always lucky in games. |
| D．Because he likes the place where he plays a game. |
The writer believes that _____.
| A．children should make better rules for their games |
| B．children should invite grown-ups to play with them |
| C．children’s games can do them a lot of good |
| D．children play games without reasons |
Short and shy, Ben Saunders was the last kid in his class picked for any sports team. “Football, tennis Cricket—anything with a round ball, I was useless, “he says now with a laugh. But back then he was the object of jokes in school gym classes in England’s rural Devonshire.
It was a mountain bike he received for his 15th birthday that changed him. At first the teen went biking alone in a nearby forest. Then he began to cycle along with a runner friend. Gradually, Saunders set his mind building up his body, increasing his speed, strength and endurance. At age 18, he ran his first marathon.
The following year, he met John Ridgway, who became famous in the 1960s for rowing an open boat across the Atlantic Ocean. Saunders was hired as an instructor at Ridgway’s school of Adventure in Scotland, where he learned about the older man’s cold-water exploits(成就).Intrigued, Saunders read all he could about Arctic explorers and North Pole expeditions, then decided that this would be his future.
Journeys to the Pole aren’t the usual holidays for British country boys, and many peiole dismissed his dream as fantasy. “John Ridgway was one of the few who didn’t say, ‘You are completely crazy, ’”Saunders says.
In 2001, after becoming a skilled skier, Saunders started his first long-distance expedition toward the North Pole. He suffered frostbite, had a closer encounter(遭遇) with a polar bear and pushed his body to the limit.
Saunders has since become the youngest person to ski alone to the North Pole, and he’s skied more of the Arctic by himself than any other Briton. His old playmates would not believe the transformation.
This October, Saunders, 27, heads south to explore from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole and back, an 1800-mile journey that has never been completed on skis.The turning point in Saunders’life came when _____
| A．he started to play ball games |
| B．he got a mountain bike at age 15 |
| C．he ran his first marathon at age 18 |
| D．he started to receive Ridgway’s training |
We can learn from the text that Ridgway _______.
| A．dismissed Saunders’ dream as fantasy |
| B．built up his body together with Saunders |
| C．hired Saunders for his cold-water experience |
| D．won his fame for his voyage across the Atlantic |
What do we know about Saunders?
| A．He once worked at a school in Scotland. |
| B．He followed Ridgway to explore the North Pole. |
| C．He was chosen for the school sports team as a kid. |
| D．He was the first Briton to ski alone to the North Pole. |
The underlined word “Intrigued” in the third paragraph probably means_____.
| A．Excited | B．Convinced | C．Delighted | D．Fascinated |
It can be inferred tat Saunders’ journey to the North Pole ______.
| A．was accompanied by his old playmates |
| B．set a record in the North Pole expedition |
| C．was supported by other Arctic explorers |
| D．made him well-known in the 1960s |
The heart of Mexico is a high, oval valley surrounded by mountains. Once, forests covered the mountainsides, and broad, shining lakes covered nearly all the valley floor. Now, the mountains are bare and scarred with erosion（侵蚀）, and much of the valley floor is dry and dusty.
Cortez and his Spanish soldiers were the first Europeans to enter this valley. They saw the thriving Aztec city of Tenochtitlan rising from an island in one of the lakes. Surrounding it were green floating gardens. The Spaniards said it was as beautiful as a dream. Then the conquest began.
By 1521, when the Spaniards had conquered the fierce Aztecs, the island city was in ruins. Cortez decided to rebuild it after the pattern of European cities. Using the conquered Aztecs as slave laborers, Cortez built the new city, now Mexico City, in just four years.
“But a generation had scarcely passed after the conquest before a sad change came over these scenes so beautiful,” writes one historian. The broad, shining lakes began to dry up.
Modern historians believe that Cortez began the destruction of the valley’s lakes when be ordered the city rebuilt. A great deal of charcoal was needed to burn the limestone (石灰石) from which cement (水泥) and mortar were made. Wood was needed to finish the interiors of the buildings.
The mountainside forests were destroyed to provide the charcoal and wood. Once the sloped were bare, rainfall o longer seeped (渗漏) slowly into the earth to feed the springs that filled the valley’s lakes. Instead, rainfall poured off the mountainsides the city from floods, later rulers made a cut through the mountains so that the water drained away into another valley. Mexico City, once an island, had become a city of a dry plain. The underlined word “thriving” in the second paragraph means _______.
| A．developing successfully | B．increasing |
| C．failing | D．growing little |
Which statement does this article lead you to believe?
Keeping nature’s balance is not important any more.
Men thought nature’s resources would last forever.
New forests always automatically replace old ones.
The Aztecs didn’t begin to flourish until Cortez came. Why did later rulers cut through the mountains ?
They wanted to fill the city with rainwater.
They wanted the valleys to flood regularly.
They wanted to plant more trees.
They wanted to protect the city from floods. One the whole, the article tells about ______.
Mexico as it looked when it was a European city
Modern historians who write about Mexico City
Mexico city before and after the Spaniards came
The beautiful scenery in Mexico What is the author’s purpose of writing this article?
| A．To tell the beauty and ugliness of Mexico City |
| B．To introduce the terrible change of Mexico City |
| C．To explain how Mexico City changed |
| D．To make people aware of the importance of nature balance |
Tristan da Cunha, a 38 –square –mile island, is the farthest inhabited island in the world, according to the Guinness Book of Records. It is 1,510 miles southwest of its nearest, St. Helena, and I, 950 miles west of Africa. Discovered by the Portuguese admiral (上将) of the same name in 1506, and settled in 1810, the island belongs to Great Britain and has a population of a few hundred.
Coming in a close second –and often wrongly mentioned as the most distant land –is Easter Island, which lies 1,260 miles east of its nearest neighbor, Pitcairn Island, and 2,300 miles west of South America.
The mountainous 64 –square –mile island was settled around the 5th century，supposedly by people who were lost at sea. They had no connection with the outside world for more than a thousand years, giving them plenty of time to build more than 1,000 huge stone figures, called moai, for which the island is most famous.
On Easter Sunday, 1722, however, settlers from Holland moved in and gave the island its name. Today, 2,000 people live on the Chilean territory (智利领土). They share one street, a small airport, and a few hours of television per day. It can be learned from the text that the island of Tristan da Cunha ________.
| A．was named after its discoverer |
| B．got its name from Holland settlers |
| C．was named by the British government |
| D．got its name from the Guinness Book of Records |
Which of the following is most famous for moai?
| A．Tristan da Cuha. | B．Pitcairn Island. | C．Easter Island. | D．St. Helena. |
Which country does Easter Island belong to?
| A．Britain. | B．Holland. | C．Portugal. | D．Chile. |