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 |
A couple had two little boys aged 8 and 10 who were very naughty. They were always getting into trouble and their parents knew that if any trouble occurred in their town their sons were probably involved.
The boys' mother heard that a clergyman(牧师) in the town had been successful in educating children so she asked if he would speak with her boys. The clergyman agreed but asked to see them individually. So the mother sent her 8-year-old boy first in the morning with the elder boy to see the clergyman in the afternoon.
The clergyman, a huge man with a booming (嗡嗡) voice, sat the younger boy down and asked him strictly, "Where is God?"
The boy's mouth dropped open but he made no answer, sitting there with his mouth hanging open, wide-eyed. So the clergyman repeated the question in an even stricter tone "Where is God?" Again the boy made no attempt to answer. So the clergyman raised his voice even more and shook his finger in the boy's face and shouted" Where is God?"
The boy screamed and escaped from the room, ran directly home and dove into his closet, slamming the door behind him. When his elder brother found him in the closet, he asked "What happened?"
The younger brother replied out of breath, "We are in big trouble this time. God is missing, and they think we did it. " What were the two boys like?
A.They always made trouble. |
B.They were brave. |
C.They were easygoing. |
D.They were honest. |
What did their parents plan to do?
A.They gave up their children. |
B.They liked their children very much. |
C.They wanted the clergyman to persuade their children. |
D.They helped their children to make trouble. |
What do you suppose the boy felt when he was asked by the clergyman?
A.Happy. | B.Sad. |
C.Afraid. | D.Surprised. |
What do you think the underlined word "slamming" in Paragraph 5 means?
A.Open. | B.Shut. |
C.Knock. | D.Pull. |
Mylonoa Island in autumn and winter is peaceful and beautiful. It is perfect for a relaxing stay or a brief visit. One can see and enjoy the blue skies, the wide beaches, and also have wonderful walks in the hills, perhaps not every day, but usually until the beginning of January. Visitors and winter tourists often come to Mykonos to discover the traditional Greek island. They can escape busy Athens after business, or calm down after a long European tour before traveling on further to Egypt, Israel, or Asia.
Apart from the more usual tourists, you will find various hikers, walkers, readers, writers, bikers, and so on in this island. You can also visit the beautiful Delos, hike through mountains walk on beaches, explore another side of the island life with some monasteries(修道院), horse ride, or take part in local gatherings and meet some friendly Mykonians,
Mykonos’ climate is Mediterranean and mild. Autumn is always blue skied and sunny, where the temperature only drops very gradually. The nice days for beach going and swimming last until early January. The real winter months are also mild. Even in January, the temperature never drops very to be on. The island has a great percentage of humidity because of the south-easterly winds and rainfall between mid-January and each- March; there is also a possibility of storms and colder northerly winds at this period. Snow is rare, perhaps one every ten years. The clear blue sky still exists for most of the winter.Mykonos island lies in _______.
A.Egypt | B.Israel | C.Greek | D.India |
What’s the main purpose of this passage?
A.To sum up some situations of many islands. |
B.To introduce a beautiful island to people. |
C.To compare their climate. |
D.To describe the people visiting the island. |
Which of the following is NOT wrong?
A.Every year, a great number of people go to Mykonos island to tour, hike, walk, read, write and bike. |
B.It often snows in Mykonos island. |
C.Mykonos’ climate is very awful. |
D.From time to time, you can see the blue sky in Mykonos island. |
What’s the Chinese meaning of the underlined word “humidity”?
A.温度 | B.湿度 | C.紫外线 | D.大气压 |
We can infer from the passage ______.
A.Mykonos island is a well-known tour resort |
B.Mykonos island is a very big island in Europe |
C.there are many rare animals in Mykonos island |
D.winter is the best season to travel to Mykonos island. |
Your genetic makeup plays a big part in determining your size and weight. If both your parents are tall, there is a good chance you’ll be tall. But if your parents are smaller than average, you may want to rethink that professional basketball career!
The same goes for your body type. Have you ever heard someone say a person is “big boned?” It’s a way of saying the person has a large frame, or skeleton(骨骼). Big bones usually weigh more than small bones. That’s why it’s possible for two kids with the same height, but different weight, to both the right weight.
Being overweight can run in someone’s family, but it may not be because of their genes. Poor eating and exercise habits also run in families and these may be the reasons the members of a family are overweight. And even though some kids gain weight more easily than others, when they eat right and exercise, most kids can have a healthy weight that’s right for them. It’s true- the way you live can change the way you look.
How much your weight is a balance between the calories you eat and the calories you use. If you eat more calories than your body needs to use, you will gain too much weight. If you spend you free time watching TV, your body won’t use as many calories as it would if you played basketball, skated, or went for a walk. But if you eat more and exercise less, you may become overweight. On the other hand, if you eat less and exercise more, you may lose weight. Which one can be used as the best title of this passage?
A.What Makes Me the Weight I Have? |
B.How Can I Lose More Weight? |
C.What Makes Me the Height I Have? |
D.Is the Way You Live Important? |
_______ might be the most important in determining your size and weight.
A.Your father and mother |
B.Your genetic structure |
C.Your diet and habit |
D.Doing exercise in the morning |
If two kids are of the same height _______.
A.they must have large frames. |
B.they must be of the same size |
C.they must be of the same weight |
D.their weight might be different |
Which one of the following is TRUE according to the third paragraph?
A.Eating right and exercise normally can keep you healthy. |
B.The members of a rich family must be overweight. |
C.The way you live has nothing to do with the way you look. |
D.the members of a poor family can’t be overweight. |
______ can help you to get your weight right.
A.Watching TV in your spare time. |
B.Eating more and doing less exercise |
C.Eating less and doing more exercises |
D.Sleeping more in your spare time |
Parents and kids today dress alike, listen to the same music, and are friends. Is this a good thing? Sometimes, when Mr. Ballmer and his 16-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, listen to rock music together and talk about interests both enjoy, such as pop culture, he remembers his more distant relationship with his parents when he was a teenager.
“I would never have said to my mom, ‘Hey, the new Weezer album is really great. How do you like it?’”says Ballmer. “There was just a complete gap in taste.”
Music was not gulf. From clothing and hairstyles to activities and expectations, earlier generations of parents and children often appeared to move in separate orbits.
Today, the generation gap has not disappeared, but it is getting narrow in many families. Conversation on subjects such as sex and drugs would not have taken place a generation ago. Now they are comfortable and common. And parent-child activities, from shopping to sports, involve a feeling of trust and friendship that can continue into adulthood.
No wonder greeting cards today carry the message, “To my mother, my best friend.”
But family experts warn that the new equality can also result in less respect for parents.
“There’s still a lot of strictness and authority on the part of parents out there, but there is a change happening,”says Kerrie, a psychology professor at Lebanon Valley College. “In the middle of that change, there is a lot of confusion among parents.”
Family researchers offer a variety of reasons for these evolving roles and attitudes. They see the 1960s as a turning point. Great cultural changes led to more open communication and a more democratic process that encourage everyone to have a say.
“My parents were on the ‘before’ side of that change, but today’s parents, the 40-year-olds, were on the ‘after’ side,”explains Mr. Ballmer. “It’s not something easily accomplished by parents these days, because life is more difficult to understand or deal with, but sharing interests does make it more fun to be a parent now.”The underlined word gulf in Para.3 most probably means _______.
A. interest B. distance C. difference D . separation Which of the following shows that the generation gap is disappearing?
A.Parents help their children develop interests in more activities. |
B.Parents put more trust in their children’s abilities. |
C.Parents and children talk more about sex and drugs. |
D.Parents share more interests with their children. |
The change in today’s parent-child relationship is _______.
A.more confusion among parents |
B.new equality between parents and children |
C.less respective for parents from children |
D.more strictness and authority on the part of parents |
By saying“today’s parents, the 40-year-olds, were on the ‘after’ side,” the author means that today’s parents _______.
A.follow the trend of the change |
B.can set a limit to the change |
C.fail to take the change seriously |
D.have little difficulty adjusting to the change. |
The purpose of the passage is to _______.
A.describe the difficulties today’s parents have met with |
B.discuss the development of the parent-child relationship |
C.suggest the ways to handle the parent-child relation ship |
D.compare today’s parent-child relationship with that in the past |
“A good book for children should simply be a good book in its own right,”says Mollie Hunter. Born and brought up near Edinburgh, Mollie has devoted her talents to writing primarily for young people. She firmly believes that there is and should always be a wider audience for any good book whatever its main market is. In Mollie’s opinion it is necessary to make full use of language and she enjoys telling a story, which is what every writer should be doing, “If you aren’t telling a story, you’re a very dead writer indeed.”she says. With the chief function of a writer being to entertain, Mollie is indeed an entertainer. “I have this great love of not only the meaning of language but of the music of language,”she says. “This love goes back to early childhood. I’ve told stories all my life. I had a school teacher who used to ask us what we would like to be when we grew up and, because my family always had dogs, and I was very good at handling them. I said I wanted to work with dogs, and the teacher always said‘Nonsense, Mollie; dear, you’ll be a writer.’So finally I thought that this woman must have something, since she was a good teacher and I decided when I was nine that I would be a writer.”
This childhood intention is described in her novel, A Sound of Chariots, which although written in the third person is clearly autobiographical (自传体的)and gives a picture both of Mollie’s ambition and her struggle towards its achievement. Thoughts of her childhood inevitably(不可避免的)brought thoughts of the time when her home was still a village with buttercup meadows and strawberry fields-sadly now covered with modern houses. “I was once taken back to see it and I felt that somebody had lain dirty hands all over my childhood. I’ll never go back,”she said.“Never.”“When I set one of my books in Scotland,”she said,“I can recall my romantic feelings as a child playing in those fields, or watching the village blacksmith at work. And that’s important, because children now know so much so early that romance can’t exist for them, as it did for us.” What does Mollie Hunter feel about the nature of a good book?
A.It should not aim at a narrow audience. |
B.It should be attractive to young readers. |
C.It should be based on original ideas. |
D.It should not include too much conversation. |
In Mollie Hunter’s opinion, which of the following is one sign of poor writer?
A.Being poor in life experience |
B.Being short of writing skill. |
C.The weakness of description |
D.The absence of a story. |
What do we learn about Mollie Hunter as a young child?
A.She didn’t expect to become a writer. |
B.She didn’t enjoy writing stories. |
C.She didn’t have any particular ambition. |
D.She didn’t respect her teacher’s view. |
In comparison with children of earlier years, Mollie feels that children now are _____.
A.more intelligent |
B.better informed |
C.less eager to learn |
D.less interested in reality |
What’s the writer’s purpose in this text?
A.To share her enjoyment of Mollie Hunter’s book. |
B.To introduce Mollie Hunter’s work to a wider audience. |
C.To provide information for Mollie Hunter’s existing readers. |
D.To describe Mollie Hunter’s most successful books. |