When introducing American universities, some of the first institutions to mention are the Ivy League schools. Originally, the Ivy League was an athletic conference made up of 8 private institutes of higher learning in northeastern United States. However, as time went on, these schools also became known for their excellence in academics besides athletics. Included in the Ivy League schools are Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, and Harvard University. These 8 schools have been recognized as some of the best colleges and universities in the United States.
Harvard University is a private institution located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The university includes a number of graduate and professional schools, as well as a college for undergraduates. In 2012, Harvard ranked number one in US News’ ranking of national universities again. Founded in 1636, Harvard is the oldest institute of higher education in the United States. It can be said that first there was Harvard, then the United States of America. Also, Harvard’s library contains the oldest collection of books in the United States as well as the largest private collection in the world. Harvard has also been described by Forbes Magazine as one of the “billionaire universities” as of their recent list of 469 billionaires, 50 received a degree from Harvard.
Harvard College (the institute for undergraduate students) is one of the most famous schools in the United States. It offers over 40 undergraduate fields of study, including astrophysics, mathematics, neurobiology(神经生物学), etc. And the financial aid program there is amazing. Even though the tuition is about 37,576, and there are other expenses throughout the year, about 70% of undergraduate students received financial aid. Out of those students, over 90% of them had their full need met. And the policies for international students are the same for U.S. citizens.
Harvard College is very selective, as it only admits about 6% of their applicants. For admission into Harvard College, it is required that students take the SAT or the ACT, as well as 2 SAT Subject Tests. Harvard will also look at other factors during admission such as your application essay, high school transcript, work experience, GPA (Grade Point Average), your interview, recommendations, and most importantly, your character and personal qualities.
What are the Ivy League schools famous for?
| A．Athletics and location. |
| B．Academics and history. |
| C．Financial aid and training. |
| D．Athletics and academics. |
Harvard University includes .
| A．a number of colleges for undergraduates |
| B．a kindergarten, a middle school and a college |
| C．many graduate and professional schools and a college for undergraduates |
| D．only one college |
Why is Harvard called one of the “billionaire universities”?
| A．Because nearly one ninth of the billionaires once studied in Harvard. |
| B．Because there are 50 billionaires in Harvard. |
| C．Because people can get a lot of money from Harvard. |
| D．Because 469 billionaires sponsor Harvard. |
What can we learn from the passage?
| A．90% students in Harvard have their full need met. |
| B．About 70% of undergraduate students received financial aid. |
| C．Harvard College is the institute for graduate students. |
| D．The policies for international students are different for U.S. citizens. |
To be admitted by Harvard, you need _________.
①high school transcript
②a good application essay
③living permit
④to take the SAT or the ACT
⑤health certificate
⑥good personal qualities
| A．①②③ | B．④⑤⑥ | C．①③⑤ | D．②④⑥ |
第二部分阅读理解（共两节，满分30分）
第一节、（共10小题；每小题2分，满分20分）
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的A、B、C、和D四个选项
“Cool” is a word with many meanings. Its old meaning is used to express a temperature that is a little bit cold．As the world has changed, the word has had many different meanings. “Cool” can be used to express feelings of interest in almost anything. When you see a famous car in the street, maybe you will say, “It’s cool.” You may think, “He’s so cool,” when you see your favorite footballer. We all maximize（扩大）the meaning of “cool”. You can use it instead of many words such as “new” or “surprising”. Here’s an interesting story we can use to show the way the word is used．A teacher asked her students to write about the waterfall （瀑布） they had visited．On one student’s paper was just the one sentence, “It’s so cool. ” Maybe he thought it was the best way to show what he saw and felt. But the story also shows a scarcity（缺乏）of words. Without “cool”, some people have no words to show the same meaning. So it is quite important to keep some credibility （可信性）. Can you think of many other words that make your life as colorful as the word “cool”? I can. And I think they are also very cool .
36．We know that the word “cool” has had ________________
A．only one meaning B．no meanings
C．many different meanings D．the same meaning
37．In the passage, the word “express” means “_____________”
A．see B．show C．know D．feel
38．In the passage, the writer suggests（暗示） that the word “cool”__________
A．can be used instead of many words B．usually means something interesting
C．can make your life colorful D．may not be as cool as it seems
To what degree can a computer achieve intelligence ? The answer to this question may lie in a newly-developed US computer program called Smarter Child and the Internet .
If you ran into Smarter Child online , you would be surprised at this kid’s huge memory .It can recite many facts . For example , Smarter Child knows every baseball player in every team this season .
He knows every word in the dictionary and the weather in every major city areas across the US. However , if you ask Smarter Child other questions , you get stranger answers . A question about Smarter Child’s age returns . “One year , 11 days , 16 hours , 7 minutes , and 47 seconds!” Asking where he lives gets , “In a clean room in a high-tech building in California.”
Smarter Child uses the vast information on the World Wide Web as his memory bank . To answer questions about spelling , for instance , Smarter Child goes to American Heritage Dictionary online . For the weather , he visits www.intellicast.com.
Some scientists believe that by joining the many systems of the Internet , an artificial being with the combined knowledge of , say , Albert Einstein, Richard Nixon and Britney Spears could be born. However if Smarter Child wants to think and learn on his own like the boy-computer David in the movie A. I. , Artificial Intelligence , he must overcome two problems .
The first is that computers find it difficult to read web pages because the files are labeled in different ways . That’s why programmers need to tell Smarter Child where to look for the weather . It would be a much more difficult task to let him find it himself .
Another problem is that while Smarter Child can process (处理) information more exactly and faster than any human , he lacks common sense—a basic grounding of knowledge that is obvious to any young child .
42．From the text we can infer that www.intellicast.com is a website______.
A．which is specially designed to help Smarter Child .
B．where we people can find Smarter Child
C．where weather forecasts are made
D．which is about artificial intelligence
43．It is probably most difficult for Smarter Child to______.
A．tell us how to spell a difficult word
B．tell us show the American government is run
C．provide us with a famous poem by Shakespeare
D．learn the ability to tell right behaviors from wrong ones .
44．Which of the following is TRUE according to the text ?
A．Smart Child has his own memory bank big enough for all kinds of information .
B．A.I. Artificial Intelligence is probably the name of a film about a boy-computer .
C．Smart Child can recognize different files and find information needed on his own .
D．We have similar product now which ahs the knowledge of Einstein , Nixon and Spears.
45．Which of the following is the bet title for the passage ?
A．A New Web Child B．Smarter Child
C．The Future of Internet D．Intelligence Development
We often think of future．We often wonder what the world would be like in a hundred years' time.
Think of space, perhaps a permanent(永久的) station on the moon will have been set up．Perhaps people will be able to visit the moon as tourists．Cheap rockets for space travel will have been developed, permitting long journeys throughout the solar system(太阳系)．When that time comes, people will be taking holidays in space and visiting other planets．Great progress will have been discovered for the most terrible of all diseases—cancer．Pollution is a problem we must solve．In a hundred years' time it will have been controlled.
All the world will have been developed—even Antarctica．There will be large cities in Antarctica．We already have supersonic(超音速的) flight, but in a hundred years' time we will have supersonic land travel as well.
We will have used up most of earth's land to build our cities, so floating cities will have been built．The Japanese already have plans for cities of this kind．And there will be cities under the sea．The first of these will have been completed.
39．We will have developed __________ in a hundred years' time, permitting long journeys all over the solar system.
A．cheap rockets for space travelB．a plane for space travel
C．a permanent spaceshipD．a satellite for tourists
40．The last paragraph mainly talks about _____________.
A．new ways of building cities B．the building of cities under the sea
C．the building of floating cities in Japan D．the danger which earth's land will face
41．The best title for the passage is ______________.
A．Travel in the Future B．Future Life
C．Where to Live in the Future D．Space Travel
Communication technologies are far from equal when it comes to conveying the truth．The first study to compare honesty across a range of communications media has found that people are twice as likely to tell lies in phone conversations as they are in emails．The fact that emails are automatically recorded—and can come back to haunt（困扰） you—appears to be the key to the finding．
Jeff Hancock of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, asked 30 students to keep a communications diary for a week．In it they noted the number of conversations or email exchanges they had lasting more than 10 minutes, and confessed to how many lies they told．Hancock then worked out the number of lies per conversation for each medium．He found that lies made up 14 percent of emails, 21 percent of instant messages, 27 percent of face-to-face interactions and an astonishing 37 percent of phone calls．
His results, to be presented at the conference on human-computer interaction in Vienna, Austria, in April, have surprised psychologists．Some expected emailers to be the biggest liars, reasoning that because deception makes people uncomfortable, the detachment（非直接接触） of emailing would make it easier to lie．Others expected people to lie more in face-to-face exchanges because we are most practiced at that form of communication．
But Hancock says it is also crucial whether a conversation is being recorded and could be reread, and whether it occurs in real time．People appear to be afraid to lie when they know the communication could later be used to hold them to account, he says．This is why fewer lies appear in email than on the phone．
People are also more likely to lie in real time—in an instant message or phone call, say—than if they have time to think of a response, says Hancock．He found many lies are spontaneous（脱口而出的） responses to an unexpected demand, such as: “Do you like my dress?”
Hancock hopes his research will help companies work out the best ways for their employees to communicate．For instance, the phone might be the best medium for sales where employees are encouraged to stretch the truth．But given his result, work assessment, where honesty is a priority, might be best done using email．
57．Hancock’s study focuses on ________．
A．the consequences of lying in various communications media
B．the success of communications technologies in conveying ideas
C．people’s preference in selecting communications technologies
D．people’s honesty levels across a range of communications media
58．Hancock’s research finding surprised those who believed that ________．
A．people are less likely to lie in instant messages
B．people are unlikely to lie in face-to-face interactions
C．people are most likely to lie in email communication
D．people are twice as likely to lie in phone conversations
59．According to the passage, why are people more likely to tell the truth through certain media of communication?
A．They are afraid of leaving behind traces of their lies
B．They believe that honesty is the best policy
C．They tend to be relaxed when using those media
D．They are most practiced at those forms of communication
60．According to Hancock, the telephone is a preferable medium for promoting sales because ________．
A．salesmen can talk directly to their customers
B．salesmen may feel less restrained to exaggerate
C．salesmen can impress customers as being trustworthy
D．salesmen may pass on instant messages effectively
There is one difference between the sexes on which every expert and study agrees: men are more aggressive than women．It shows up in 2-year-olds．It continues through school days and persists into adulthood．It is even constant across cultures．And there is little doubt that it is rooted in biology．
If there's a woman’s trait（特点） which is the same as men’s aggressiveness, it's what social scientists refer to as the result of "education"．Feminists have argued that the caring nature of women is not biological in origin, but rather has been forced into women by a society that wanted to keep them in the home．But the signs that it is at least partly inborn are too numerous to ignore．Just as tiny infant girls respond more readily to human faces, female toddlers（学步者） learn much faster than males how to pick up nonverbal cues（非言语暗示） from others．And grown women are far more skilful than men at interpreting facial expressions: A recent study by University of Pennsylvania brain researcher Ruben Gur showed that they easily read emotions such as anger, sadness and fear．The only such emotion men could pick up was disgust．
What difference do such differences make in the real world? Among other things, women appear to be somewhat less competitive--or at least competitive in different ways--than men．At the Harvard Law School, for instance, female students enter with qualities just as outstanding as those of their male peers．But they don' t qualify for the well-known Law Review in proper numbers, a fact some school officials owe to women' s discomfort in the incredibly competitive atmosphere．
Students of management styles have found fewer differences than they expected between men and women who reach leadership positions, perhaps because many successful women deliberately imitate men．But an analysis by Purdue social psychologist Alice Eagly of 166 studies of leadership style did find one difference: Men tend to be more “autocratic”-making decisions on their own--while women tend to consult colleagues more often． Studies of behavior in small groups turn up even more differences．Men will typically dominate the discussion, says University of Toronto psychologist Kenneth Dion, spending more time talking and less time listening．
53．The passage mainly discusses__________．
A．how sex differences are demonstrated in social relations
B．how hormone determines sex differences
C．why there are differences between males and females
D．why men and women have different social roles
54．According to the writer, women’s caring nature is .
A．not inborn in any sense B．inspired by women’s families
C．caused by social prejudice D．partly biological in origin
55．The Harvard Law School example in paragraph 3 suggests that_________．
A．women are not as competitive as men
B．law is not the fight profession for women
C．women are as excellent as men when they are young
D．academic qualities are not equal to performance
56．We can say from paragraph 4 that ___________.
A．men leaders should consult colleagues and subordinates more often．
B．female leaders' success is due to their imitating male leaders．
C．men and women are different in their leadership style．
D．decisiveness is an important quality for a successful politician．