When travelers think of an Adriatic cruise, scenes of Venice, Italy—its canals, bridges, piazzas, and stunning architecture—come to mind. It's one of the most popular cruise destinations in Europe. And for many, the sail-away from Venice, through its Giudecca Canal, is an awe-inspiring experience.
Venice may be known as La Serenissima, or "the most peaceful," which, however, isn't entirely accurate these days. Venetians have been increasingly concerned about the impact of tourism and the potential for an environmental disaster off its shoreline due to the number of cruise ships that enter and exit its lagoon(泻湖).
That's why earlier last month, Venice announced a new policy to forbid the transit(穿越) of cruise ships to the city via the Giudecca Canal. It's not that the city wants to shun the cruise industry altogether: It simply wants to force traffic further away from the landmarks along the shoreline. City officials say that most ships will now transit the Contorta Sant'Angelo Canal.
Additionally, the city is clamping down on the size of ships that can visit Venice, as well as the total number of ships that call on it on a daily basis. As of January 2014, Venice plans to reduce the visitations of larger ships (those that are 40,000 tons or heavier) by 20 percent. This effectively caps the number of ships that can enter per day to five. In November, ships heavier than 96,000 tons will not be allowed to enter Guidecca Canal at all.
How the city plans to carry out the new five-ships-per-day rule remains to be seen and have yet to be announced. Which ships will be allowed passage? Will it be first-come, first-served? However they proceed, cruise line executives want their passengers to know that Venice will remain a regular port of call—even if the transit to and from the city must evolve.Before last month, toursits left Venice by ship through ______.
| A．the Giudecca Canal | B．La Serenissima |
| C．the Contorta Sant'Angelo Canal | D．the Adriatic Sea |
The new policy was issued in order to_____________.
| A．stress the accuracy of Venice's fame for peace |
| B．reduce the damage to Venice's enviironment |
| C．depend less on the crusie industry |
| D．limit the number of toursits |
It can be learned from the passage that _____________.
| A．People in Venice are complaining about the toursits' behaviors. |
| B．Venetians are often bothered by noise and pollution. |
| C．The city government has announced the concrete ways to carry out the new five-ships-per-day rule. |
| D．The new policy will not discourage the tourism from developing. |
What does the underlined phrase "clapming down on" mean?
| A．limiting | B．abandoning |
| C．banning | D．punishing |
For Canadians, backpacking Europe is a special ceremony signifying a new life stage. Unlike package tours, backpacking is a struggle, full of discovery and chance connections. It is about focusing on something different from our own lives and losing ourselves in a new world, if only for a moment.
Well, that's what backpacking Europe is supposed to do. That’s what it used to do before modern communications, social media, and commercial hostelling (旅社). Older Canadians would not recognize the Europe that they backpacked in the 1960s, 1970s and even the 1980s. Far from a rough adventure into foreign cultures, the European experience has been shattered in part by today's technology.
A few years ago, I took my then 60-year-old father on a backpacking trip across part of Europe and Turkey. As he is an experienced traveler and someone who possesses a strong sense of adventure, I decided that we'd travel on a budget, staying in hostel dorms. For him, backpacking through Europe in 1969 was about independence and struggle. But two things surprised him at the end of our journey. First was how technology-based backpacking had become: Young people were so directly connected to home that they were hardly away in any meaningful sense. Second, the lack of connections we made with locals. Instead of making us feel closer to a place, he found commercial hostelling actually made us more alienated (疏远的).
But there was some room for hope. While technology takes our attention away from the beauty and history before us, there were also ways in which it helped us to connect with our surroundings. Websites like Airbnb have made it easier to stay with enthusiastic locals. Couch Surfing helps organize meet-ups between locals and travelers. The online marketplace Dopios offers a chance to meet locals through enjoyable experiences like a personalized city tour.
Backpacking can never be the way it was for our parents’ generation. But doing a little study of history and culture before leaving, and bravely getting rid of any electronic devices while traveling, will help give young travelers a taste of the glory days.The underlined word “shattered” in Paragraph 2 most probably means ________.
| A．broadened | B．relived |
| C．ruined | D．acquired |
Which of the following can be used to describe the author’s father?
| A．Sensitive. | B．Adventurous. |
| C．Strict. | D．Generous. |
After the recent backpacking trip in Europe, the author’s father finds ________.
| A．backpackers connect less with locals than before |
| B．young people dislike getting in touch with their family |
| C．a hostel is a nice place for travelers to meet each other |
| D．backpacking in Europe becomes more difficult than before |
What’s the author’s attitude towards technology?
| A．Negative. |
| B．Objective. |
| C．Uncertain. |
| D．Uninterested. |
The text mainly discusses the relationship between ________.
| A．technology and traveling |
| B．adventures and cultures |
| C．young people and their family |
| D．Canadian travelers and Europeans |
Two recent studies have found that punishment is not the best way to influence behavior.
One showed that adults are much more cooperative if they work in a system based on rewards. Researchers at Harvard University in the United States and the Stockholm School of Economics in Sweden did the study.
They had about two hundred college students play a version of the game known as the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The game is based on the tension (紧张气氛) between the interests (利益) of an individual and a group. The students played in groups of four. Each player could win points for the group, so they would all gain equally. But each player could also reward or punish each of the other three players, at a cost to the punisher.
Harvard researcher David Rand says the most successful behavior proved to be cooperation. The groups that rewarded it the most earned about twice as much in the game as the groups that rewarded it the least. And the more a group punished itself, the lower its earnings were. The group with the most punishment earned twenty-five percent less than the group with the least punishment. The study appeared last month in the journal Science.
The other study involved children. It was presented last month in California at a conference on violence and abuse. Researchers used intelligence tests given to two groups. More than eight hundred children aged two to four the first time they were tested. More than seven hundred children aged five to nine.
The two groups were retested four years later, and the study compared the results with the first test. Both groups contained children whose parents used physical punishment and children whose parents did not. The study says the IQs--or intelligence quotients--of the younger children who were not spanked were five points higher than those who were. In the older group, the difference was almost three points.
Murray Strauss from the University of New Hampshire worked with Mallie Paschall from the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation. Professor Strauss has written extensively about physical punishment of children. He says the more they are spanked, the slower their mental development. He also looked at average IQs in other nations and found them lower where spanking was more common.Which could be the best title of the passage?
| A．Punishment |
| B．The Best Way to Influence Behavior. |
| C．Punishment or Reward: Which Works Better on Behavior? |
| D．Two Recent Studies. |
The underlined word “spanked” probably means______.
| A．won | B．punished | C．tested | D．praised |
According to the passage, the researchers may agree the best way to influence behavior is______.
| A．rewarding good behavior |
| B．correcting bad behavior |
| C．punishing badly-behaved children |
| D．praising well-behaved children |
The author develops the passage______.
| A．in order of time |
| B．in order of importance |
| C．by describing his experiences |
| D．by using quotations and statistics |
Last month my family, my husband and I visited the zoo in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was afraid I just couldn’t hide my excitement as it had been five years since I had been to the zoo. I was especially excited about getting to see the penguin exhibit that was completed since my last visit. I thought it would be just as magical as it was the last time.
The Tulsa Zoo is located on Mohawk Park, and covers 84 acres, making it the third largest zoo in the US. The zoo has several highlights, but I have to admit that I found myself rather disappointed. The maintenance is deeply lacking, and most of the exhibits, landscaping, etc. looked like it had not been updated or well kept. Unfortunately, their polar bear died a short time ago. The strangest attraction was the missing-in-action jaguar (美洲虎). We spent several minutes searching for the animal without any luck. In most cases the zoo was good about putting up a sign if the animal was no longer there or was moved to a different location, but it was a different case with the jaguar and likewise the kangaroo.
Almost all of the hands-on equipment in the elephant encounter was broken and no longer working. Although the zoo did put up signs as an apology, it continued to add to the feeling that the zoo is approaching death. The one exhibit that did not fail to impress was the African Penguins. Their habitat was well built. The lion, bear, and tiger were also easy to watch. A favorite among the kids was clearly the monkeys who were very active and eager to put on a show.
The Tropical Rainforest did a very good job creating a special atmosphere. The cafe served very good food and had lovely indoor and outdoor areas for eating. They are currently re-designing the Sea Lion exhibit, so the Sea Lions were not available for viewing while we were there. All things considered, the Tulsa Zoo is still the best zoo in our area, but I would only award it three out of five stars.Seeing several highlights in the Tulsa Zoo, the author _________.
| A．felt very excited |
| B．was a little frightened |
| C．was not satisfied with them |
| D．thought it was worth seeing |
Why did the author think it was a different case with the jaguar?
| A．Because the jaguar was friendly to the kangaroo and visitors. |
| B．Because the zoo didn’t use a sign to show if the jaguar was there. |
| C．Because the jaguar is very dangerous compared with other animals. |
| D．Because the jaguar had disappeared when the author got there. |
What does the author think of the Tulsa Zoo in general?
| A．It is a first class zoo in her area. |
| B．It is the best zoo in the US. |
| C．She thinks very poorly of it. |
| D．She thinks nothing of it. |
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| A．to help parents with their daily life |
| B．to attract more subscribers |
| C．to collect more money for charity |
| D．to introduce a new product |
What benefit can the readers possibly get according to the ad?
| A．Only $12 is to be paid for 24 issues of the magazine. |
| B．Readers can get a free offer of the magazine any time of the year. |
| C．Readers from all over the world can enjoy the free offer. |
| D．Readers can communicate face to face with child experts on the Internet. |
A reader subscribed PARENTS 3 months ago, but now he finds the magazine dissatisfying. What can he do?
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| C．He can email them to access his bank account to get all his money back. |
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Here's a hotel worth writing something about: a company in Poland plans to build tourist accommodation under the sea. The structure can be dragged to a suitable location and placed on supports on the sea bed. The ‘Water Discus’ will be made up of an underwater disc containing 22 bedrooms with sea views, connected by lift and stairs to a disc above the surface containing other hotel facilities.
Project manager Robert Bursiewicz says: “Nowadays it's possible to build submarines ('潜艇) which go deeper than 500m below the sea surface, so building an underwater hotel is not a problem. ”
In fact, they don't plan to have the hotel very deep. Water acts like a filter (过滤器) for sunlight, and below 15m most colors, apart from blue, are washed out. And we all want to see colorful marine life, don't we?
But this isn't the first hotel to offer underwater views from the bedrooms. The two-bedroom Jules' Undersea Lodge, off the coast of Florida, has been taking in guests 10m beneath the surface since 1986.
The company that operates the hotel also runs a diving course for beginners to help get guests down and into the hotel. It is accessible only through an opening at the bottom.
And you'll find all the usual facilities in the room, according to Teresa McKirma, Jules's chief financial officer. It has a television, air conditioning and Wi-Fi. But for the staff, simple things like cleaning and making beds can be challenging, since the lodge is in sea water.
"It actually takes quite a lot of work to get anything down there," she says. "We have to put everything in waterproof boxes and attach weights to them to counter their buoyancy (浮力). "
The hotel has suitably sized waterproof boxes so that pizzas can be delivered by divers to guests who order them for their evening meal. And after a meal, if you can't sleep because of the excitement of the experience, you don't have to count sheep. You'll fall asleep quicker if you count fish.According to the passage, the new hotel will ______.
| A．contain three discs |
| B．come into use soon |
| C．have a movable structure |
| D．be built 500m beneath the surface |
Why won't they plan to have the hotel very deep in the water?
| A．They have financial problems. |
| B．They lack advanced technology. |
| C．They refuse to enjoy colorful life. |
| D．Most colors are washed out below 15m. |
According to Teresa McKirma, ______.
| A．entertainment is impossible in the hotel |
| B．the staff's work is difficult to finish |
| C．it's easy to get things down there |
| D．the built hotel is badly equipped |
What can be inferred from the last paragraph?
| A．Passengers can't enjoy their meals. |
| B．Passengers will feel fed up with the views. |
| C．Passengers have no choice but to count fish. |
| D．Passengers may get excited about the experience. |