College visits are important．Before you commit years of your life and money to a school, be sure you're choosing a place," that is a good match for your personality and interests．You can’t get the "feel' of a school from any guidebook, so be sure to visit the campus．Below are a few tips for getting the most out of your college visit．
1.Explore on your own
Of course you should take the official campus tour, but be sure to allow time to hang around on your own． The trained tour guides will show you a school's selling points．But the 1dest and prettiest buildings don't give you the entire picture of a college．Try to walk the extra mile and get the complete picture of the campus．
2.Read the Bulletin Boards
When you visit the student center, academic buildings and residence hall, take a few minutes to read the bulletin boards．They provide an easy way to see what's happening on campus．The ads for lectures, clubs and plays can tell you what's going on outside the classrooms．
3.Eat in the Dining Hall
You can get a good feel for student life by eating in the dining hall．Try to sit with students if you can．Do the students seem happy or stressed? Also, is the food good? Are there adequate healthy options? Many admission offices will give prospective students coupons（优惠券）for free meals in the dining halls．
4.Visit a Class in Your Major
If you know what you want to study, a class visit makes a lot of sense．You'll get to observe other students in your field and see how involved they are in classroom discussion．Try to stay after class for a few minutes and chat with the students to get their impressions of their professors and major．Be sure to call in advance to schedule a classroom visit—most colleges don't allow visitors to drop in on class unannounced．
5．Talk to Lots of Students
Your campus tour guide has been trained to market the sch001．Try to talk to students who aren't getting paid to impress you．These important conversations can often provide you with information about co1lege life that isn't part of the admission script．Few university officials wi11 tell you if their students spend all weekend drinking or studying, but a group of random(随机的，随意的) students might.
For more tips，please go to collegeapps．about．com．The best way to know about a college in an official campus tour is____．
| A．to walk around the campus alone |
| B．to take pictures of the campus |
| C．to visit the oldest and prettiest buildings |
| D．to hire a tour guide |
Reading the bulletin boards can help you___________.
| A．decide the major you want to study |
| B．find out the after-class activities on campus |
| C．get free coupons from the admission offices |
| D．find out the options of healthy food |
If you plan to attend a class on campus,___________.
| A．drop in on a class in your major |
| B．have talks with the students in the class |
| C．make an appointment in advance |
| D．ask how the students like their teachers and majors |
To get a real idea of the college during a visit, it's best to talk to______.
| A．famous professors | B．campus tour guides |
| C．admission officers | D．random students |
Where does the passage probably come from?
| A．A news report | B．A tourist poster． |
| C．An educational journal． | D．A geographical magazine． |
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. |
If we are asked exactly what we were doing a year ago, we might have to say that we could not remember. But if we had kept a book and written in it an account (陈述) of what we did each day, we should be able to give an answer to the question.
It is the same in history. Many things have been forgotten because we do not have any written account of them. Sometimes men did keep a record of the important happenings in their country, but often it was destroyed by fire or in a war. Sometimes there was never any written record at all because the people of that time and place did not know how to write. For example, we know a great deal about the people who lived in china 4,000 years ago, because they could write and leave written records for whose who lived after them. But we know almost nothing about the people who lived even 200 years ago in central Africa, because they had not learned go write.
Sometimes, of course, even if the people cannot write, they may know something of the past. They have heard about it from older people, and often songs and dances and stories have been made about the most important happenings, and those have been sung and acted and told for many generations, for most people are proud to tell what their fathers did in the past. This we may call ‘remembered history’. Some of it has now been written history, because words are much more easily changed when used again and again in speech than when copied in writing. But where there are no written records, such spoken stories are often very helpful. Which of the following ideas is NOT talked about in the passage above?
| A．“Remembered history” is less reliable than written history. |
| B．Written records of the past played a most important in our learning of the human history. |
| C．A written account of our daily activities helps us to remember what we have done |
| D．Where there are no written records, there is no history. |
Remembered history”refers to .
| A．history based on a person’s imagination |
| B．stories of important happenings passed down from mouth to mouth |
| C．history written down in books |
| D．what we have learned and remembered in history lessons |
“Remembered history”is regarded as valuable only when .
| A．it is written down | B．there is no written account |
| C．is proves down | D．people are interested in it |
It can be inferred from the passage that we could have learned much more about our past than we do now if our ancestors had.
| A．kept a written record of every past event |
| B．not fought against one another in wars |
| C．told exact stories of the most important happenings |
| D．produced and taught more songs and dances |
You might think the largest library in the world would be in Europe. But it isn’t. It’s in Washington D.C. It’s called the Library of Congress.
President John Adams started the library in 1800 for members of Congress. He wanted them to be able to read books about law. The first 740 books were bought in England. They were simply set up in the room where Congress met. Then Thomas Jefferson sold Congress many of his own books. He felt Congress should have books on all subjects, not just on law. This idea changed the library forever.
The library grew and grew. Now it covers a large area of land. It contains20million books as well as many pictures, movies, globes and machines. Experts in every field work there. Hundreds of people call every day with all kinds of questions. Many of them get answers right over the phone.
The library is a huge storehouse. Thomas Edison’s first movie and Houdini’s magic books are preserved there. And it is the proud owner of the world’s best collection of humorous books.The first step in starting the Library of Congress was .
| A．buying Thomas Jefferson’s books |
| B．buying books from England |
| C．putting up the library building |
| D．asking experts in every field to work there |
Thomas Jefferson’s opinion about the library was that .
| A．it should buy books on law |
| B．it should be the largest in the world |
| C．it should have books on all subjects |
| D．it should answer all kinds of questions |
Which of the following is NOT true?
A. Thomas Jefferson enriched the collection of the Library.
B. The Library of Congress is in Washington D.C.
C. The Library of Congress has books on all subjects from the very beginning.
D. You can ask the experts in the Library of Congress all kinds of questions by phone.The best title for this passage is .
| A．General Introduction to the library of congress |
| B．The building of the Library of Congress |
| C．The Library of Congress—the American’s Pride |
| D．The Library of Congress—the World’s Best Collection of Humorous Books |