Peter Onruang, a Hollywood businessman, has paid $310,000 to clone his best friend Wolfie, a lovely dog. He said, “Wolfie was more than just a pet to me.” Wolfie died two years ago, at the age of 15. But long before she and her sister Bubble passed away, Onruang had plans to bring them back to life. Onruang said, “I buried them at home. Each time I visit them, I say, ‘Hi, I’m making a new body for you.’”
Finally, Onruang found the South Korean biotechnology company RNL Bio, which can and will clone animals. Onruang collected his dogs’ stem cells (干细胞), and then he started a website MyFriendAgain.com, so he could earn and save the $310,000 that the cloning would cost.
The new dogs should look identical (完全相同的) to Wolfie and Bubble. When the cloning process is done, Onruang may end up with several clones of each dog. But Onruang admits he’s still not sure that they will be exactly the same.
Scientists cloned the first animal, a sheep named Dolly, in 1996 in Scotland. That project has raised ethical (伦理的) questions about where science should draw the line. Another question is whether such technique will lead to a day when humans could be cloned.
“If I had an opportunity to clone myself, I would do it readily,” Onruang said. “Because it’s me, I’m raising myself. I have already known exactly my strengths and weaknesses. This person is going to be the new and improved me, and will live the life I’ve always wanted to live.”Onruang started the website MyFriendAgain.com in order to .
A.encourage more people to clone their pets |
B.draw people’s attention to cloning |
C.collect his dog’s stem cells |
D.raise money to pay for the cloning |
The purpose of the fourth paragraph is to tell us .
A.when and where scientists cloned the first sheep Dolly |
B.people are in favor of the clone technology |
C.there are arguments about the clone technology |
D.cloning will be of great benefit to humans |
What is Onruang’s attitude towards cloning humans?
A.He doesn’t care about it. |
B.He is enthusiastic about it. |
C.He strongly opposes it. |
D.He never thinks about it. |
A child who has once been pleased with a tale likes, as a rule, to have it retold in almost the same words, but this should not lead parents to treat printed fairy stories as formal texts. It is always much better to tell a story than read it out of a book, and, if a parent can produce what, in the actual situation of the time and the child, is an improvement on the printed text, so much the better.
A charge made against fairy tales is that they harm the child by frightening him or making him sad thinking. To prove the latter, one would have to show in a controlled experiment that children who have read fairy stories were more often sorry for cruelty than those who had not. As to fears, there are, I think, some cases of children being dangerously terrified by some fairy story. Often, however, this arises from the child having heard the story once. Familiarity with the story by repetition turns the pain of fear into the pleasure of a fear faced and mastered.
There are also people who object to fairy stories on the grounds that they are not objectively true, that giants, witches, two-headed dragons, magic carpets, etc. do not exist; and that, instead of being fond of the strange side in fairy tales, the child should be taught to learn the reality by studying history. I find such people, I must say so peculiar that I do not know how to argue with them. If their case were sound, the world should be full of mad men attempting to fly from New York to Philadelphia on a stick or covering a telephone with kisses in the belief that it was their beloved girl -friend.
No fairy story ever declared to be a description of the real world and no clever child has ever believed that it was.The author considers that a fairy story is more effective when it is ____.
A.repeated without any change | B.treated as a joke |
C.made some changes by the parent | D.set in the present |
According to the passage, great fear can take place in a child when the story is ____.
A.in a realistic setting | B.heard for the first time |
C.repeated too often | D.told in a different way |
The advantage claimed (提出) for repeating fairy stories to young children is that it ____.
A.makes them less fearful |
B.develops their power of memory |
C.makes them believe there is nothing to be afraid of |
D.encourages them not to have strange beliefs |
The author's mention of sticks and telephones is meant to suggest that ______.
A.fairy stories are still being made up |
B.there is some misunderstanding about fairy tales |
C.people try to modernize old fairy stories |
D.there is more concern for children's fears nowadays |
One of the reasons why some people are not in favor of fairy tales is that _______.
A.they are full of imagination |
B.they just make up the stories which are far from the truth |
C.they are not interesting |
D.they make teachers of history difficult to teach |
Like any good mother, when Karen found out that another baby was on the way, she did what she could to help her 3-year-old son, Michael, prepare for a new baby. They find out that the new baby is going to be a girl, and day after day, night after night, Michael sings to his sister in Mommy's stomach.
In time, the labor pains come. But complications arise during delivery. Finally, Michael's little sister is born. But she is in serious condition. With alarm in the night, the ambulance rushes the infant to the neonatal intensive care unit at St. Mary's Hospital, Knoxville, Tennessee. The days go by. The little girl gets worse. The pediatric (儿科的) specialist tells the parents, “There is very little hope. Be prepared for the worst.”
Karen and her husband contact a local cemetery about a burial plot. They have fixed up a special room in their home for the new baby, but now they plan a funeral. Michael keeps begging his parents to let him see his sister, "I want to sing to her," he says. But kids are never allowed in Intensive Care. Karen makes up her mind. She will take Michael whether they like it or not. If he doesn’t see his sister now, he may never see her alive.
She dresses him in an oversized suit and marches him into ICU. He looks like a walking laundry basket, but the head nurse recognizes him as a child and shouts, "Get that kid out of here now. No children are allowed. Never disturb patients here.” The mother rises up strongly and said," He is not leaving until he sings to his sister!"
Karen leads Michael to his sister's bedside. He gazes at the tiny infant losing the battle to live. And he begins to sing. In the pure hearted voice of a 3-year-old, Michael sings:" You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray…" Instantly the baby girl responds. The pulse rate begins to calm down and becomes steady.
“Keep on singing, Michael.”encouraged Karen with tears in her eyes. "You never know, dear, how much I love you, please don't take my sunshine away."
The next day, the very next day, the little girl is well enough to go home! Woman's Day magazine called it "the miracle of a brother's song". The medical staff just called it a miracle. Karen called it a miracle of Gods love!
Never give up on the people you love.What may the underlined words "the infant" refer to?
A.The baby | B.Karen | C.Mary | D.Michael |
What do we know about the little sister after she was born?
A.She was driven to St. Mary's shop. | B.A doctor came to see her in her house. |
C.She was very thin and couldn't speak. | D.She was in great danger. |
Why did Karen firmly let little Michael see his sister in ICU?
A.Because he could make his sister alive. |
B.Because his sister would be sent to a far hospital. |
C.Because his sister was going to die soon. |
D.Because his father wanted to take him away. |
What do we know about the head nurse?
A.The head nurse was careful. | B.The head nurse was rude. |
C.The head nurse was responsible. | D.The head nurse had no sympathy. |
What is the general idea of the text?
A.A boy’s singing saved his sister’s life. |
B.The little girl is well enough to go home. |
C.Michael's little sister is born with a serious disease. |
D.No children are allowed to enter the intensive care unit. |
Some people believe that international sport creates goodwill between the nations and that if countries play games together, they will learn to live together. Others say that the opposite is true: international competitions encourage false national pride and lead to misunderstanding and hatred. There is probably some truth in both arguments, but in recent years the Olympic Games have done little to support the view that sport encourages international brotherhood. Not only was there the tragic incident including the murder of athletes, but the Games were also ruined by incidents caused mainly by smaller national contests.
One country received its second-place medals with visible anger after the hockey final. There had been noisy scenes at the end of the hockey match, the losers objecting to the final decisions. They were sure that one of their goals should not have been disallowed and that their opponents’ victory was unfair. Their manager was in great anger when he said, “This wasn’t hockey. Hockey and the International Hockey Federation are finished.” The president of the Federation said later that such behavior could result in the suspension(停赛)of the team for at least three years.
Incidents of this kind will continue as long as sport is played competitively rather than for the love of the game. The suggestion that athletes should compete as individuals, or in non-national teams, might be too much to hope for. But in the present organization of the Olympics there is far too much that encourages aggressive patriotism (爱国主义).According to the author, recently the Olympic Games have ______.
A.created goodwill between the nations |
B.brought about only false national pride |
C.hardly showed any international friendship |
D.put an end to misunderstanding and hatred |
The underlined word “disallowed”(in Paragraph 2) means “______”.
A.permitted to pass | B.considered as reasonable |
C.won by the other side | D.refused to accept |
What did the manager mean by saying, “Hockey and the International Hockey Federation are finished"?
A.His team would no longer take part in international games. |
B.Hockey and the Federation are both ruined by the unfair decisions. |
C.There should be no more Hockey matches organized by the Federation. |
D.The Federation should break up. |
The author gives the example in paragraph 2 to show ______.
A.how false national pride led to undesirable incidents in international games |
B.that sportsmen are often against the final decisions |
C.that competitiveness in the games discourages international friendship |
D.that unfair decisions are common in the Olympic Games |
What conclusion can be drawn from the passage?
A.The organization of the Olympic Games must be improved. |
B.Athletes should compete as individuals in the OlympicGames. |
C.A game should be played competitively rather than for the love of the game. |
D.More and more athletes will compete for their own honor. |
Dad loved children. And he always wanted a 21 family. Eventually, he got what he wanted with twelve children in the family. Without fail, he would show us all to visitors.
Once, Dad 22 presented the first three children in the family, Ann, Mary and Ernestine, to some visitors. Then he picked up a fourth child, and said, “And this is our 23 model, complete with all the improvements. And don’t think that this is all, we are 24 the 1953 model some time next month.”
But what he 25 most was taking us out for a drive. On one occasion a man in a village we were passing through shouted 26 that he had seen eleven people in our car, not 27 Mum and Dad. 28 , Dad called out over his shoulder, “You 29 the second baby up from the front here, Mister.”
Another time, Dad told us this joke, though we were not sure whether he was telling us the 30 . Mum, who was a psychologist, once went to give a lecture and left Dad in charge of the 31 . When Mum returned, she asked him if everything had been OK. He said everything was 32 except that one of the children had been taught a lesson because he had been 33 . When he pointed at the child that had been 34 Mum looked at him calmly and said, “That’s not one of ours, dear. He 35 next door.”
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If you are afraid of the dark,it’s not a big deal.It’s perfectly normal to feel afraid After all,animals do too. “Fear matters,”says Karen Warkentin,an ecologist.“It’s a good thing,” she adds, “because fear makes you do things that keep you alive.”
Like kids,many animals experience fear and they respond to the feeling in variety of ways.A frightened turtle pulls its head and legs inside its shell.A small fish will swim away when a big,hungry fish approaches.
Some animals respond to fear in ways you might not expect.The first example is that the fear of being eaten can scare some frogs right out of their eggs. Warkentin made the surprising discovery while studying red—eyed tree frogs in Costa Rica.
In this species,female frogs attach jellylike clumps(果冻一样的块状物)of their eggs to the undersides of leaves.The leaves hang on branches that dangle(悬挂)over ponds.After they hatch from the eggs,the tadpoles(蝌蚪)then fall into the water,where they eventually grow into adult frogs.
Tree frog eggs usually grow for 6 days before hatching.If they sense that a hungry snake is about to attack,however,they can hatch up to 2 days ahead of schedule. As the snakes are unable to swim,by falling into the water early,the tadpoles can escape.
If hatching early helps protect red—eyed tree frogs from snakes,you might wonder why their eggs don’t always hatch sooner.It turns out that hatching early brings its own danger.Once tadpoles land in the water,hungry fish and other animals like to eat them too.Staying in their eggs for a full 6 days,then,allows frog embryos(胚胎)to grow big and strong.This extra growth improves their chances of surviving in the water.It can be inferred from the passage that fears.
A.help animals grow bigger and stronger |
B.are less common among young animals |
C.help animals move a lot to fit the environment |
D.are more or less important in order for animals to survive |
We are told in the passage that tree frogs .
A.face danger both inside their eggs and in the water |
B.will grow fast if they fall into the water later |
C.are surprisingly clever when inside their eggs |
D.stay in their eggs longer if they are frightened |
Why do the tadpoles hatch up to 2 days ahead of the schedule?Because
A.They like falling into the water early |
B.They want to grow into adult frog |
C. They sense a hungry snake is about to attack |
D.Frog embryos can grow strong |
What is the best title of the passage ?
A.What is Fear | B.Why do we feel afraid |
C.You feel afraid,animals do too | D.Fear is a good thing |
What do you think would be discussed in the following paragraph?
A.Further explanations as to why tree frogs hatch ahead of schedule. |
B.How the unborn frogs know when a snake is about to attack them. |
C.Another example of animals that responds to fear in an unexpected way. |
D.How tree frogs improve their chances of survival before falling into the water. |