One day last September, as Britney Spears was about to board a flight to Los Angeles from London,a blue bottle fell out of her purse. She quickly put it back in，but not before the paparazzi recorded the event. Neither Spears nor her spokesman was willing to comment on the contents of the bottle, but the next morning London's Daily Express published a page of pictures under the headline "EXCLUSIVE：POP PRINCESS SPOTTED AT AIRPORT WITH POT OF SLIMMING TABLETS. ” Spears was apparently carrying Zantrex-3, one of the most popular weight-loss pills now sold in the United States. The pill，which is sold at about fifty dollars for a month's supply, contains a huge amount of caffeine, some green tea，and three common South American herbs that also act as stimulants (兴奋剂） It hit the U. S. market last March and has had a success that would be hard to overstate. Millions of bottles have been sold, and during the Christmas season it was dis-played in the windows of the nation's largest chain of vitamin shops, G. N. C. (It is so highly sought after that many of the stores keep it in locked counters. )Zantrex-3 is also sold at CVS, Rite Aid, Wal-Mart,and other chains, and over the telephone and on the Internet. If you type “ Zantrex ” into Google, more than a hundred thousand pieces of information about it will appear. At any moment, there are scores of people sell the stuff on eBay.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the success story of Zantrex-3, however, is that it is far from unique. There are hundreds of similar products on the market today，and they are bought by millions of Americans. And though Zantrex 's producer makes some exciting statements (“ the most advanced weight control compound period "), so do the people who sell Stacker 2 and Anorex along with those who sell Carb Eliminator and Fat Eliminator. Almost all of these compounds suggest that they can help people lose weight and regain lost energy, and often without diet, exercise, or any other effort. Which of the following is also a kind of weight-loss pill?
| A．CVS. |
| B．Rite Aid. |
| C．Wal-Mart. |
| D．Anorex. |
The underlined part of the sentence in the first paragraph is most likely similar in meaning to __________
| A．it is difficult to say how successful Zantrex-3 is |
| B．you can't overstate the success of Zantrex-3 |
| C．you can't think too highly of the success of Zantrex-3 |
| D．Zantrex-3 is not very successful |
The text mainly tells us __________.
| A．when Britney Spears was found taking weight-loss pills with her |
| B．how Zantrex-3 became successful in the USA |
| C．weight-loss pills are very popular in the USA |
| D．Zantrex-3 is forbidden to be sold on the US market |
Isaac Stern was more than a great violin player. He was one of the most honored musicians in the world, an international cultural ambassador. And he was also a teacher and activist. For more than sixty years, Mr. Stern performed excellent music. He performed in concerts around the world and on recordings.
Isaac Stern was born in 1920 in Ukraine. His parents moved to California the following year. He began taking violin lessons after hearing a friend play the instrument. Later, he began studying music at the San Francisco Conservatory(旧金山音乐学院). He progressed quickly. When he was sixteen, he played with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. The next year, he performed in New York and was praised by music critics.
Isaac Stern became one of the busiest musicians of his day. He played more than one hundred concerts a year. He also became one of the most recorded musicians in history. Isaac Stern also supported artistic development and freedom.
In 1979, Isaac Stern visited China. He met with Chinese musicians and students. He taught them about classical Western music. His visit was made into a film. It is called From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China. It won an Academy Award for best documentary film.
In 1984, Isaac Stern received the Kennedy Centre Honors Award for his gifts to American culture through music. He expressed his thoughts about the part that music plays in life. He said music is an important part of a civilized life. He said people need music as much as they need bread.
Isaac Stern died in 2001 at the age of eighty-one. He was a major influence on music in the twentieth century. He leaves the world richer with his many recordings.What did Isaac Stern think of music?
| A．Necessary. |
| B．Difficult. |
| C．Entertaining. |
| D．Interesting. |
The passage mentioned Isaac Stern’s visit to China mainly to _____.
| A．encourage people to develop the international relationship |
| B．advise the readers to take up music |
| C．introduce more achievements of Isaac Stern |
| D．show he acted as an international cultural ambassador |
Which of the following statements is TRUE about Isaac Stern?
| A．He was born in California in the 1920s. |
| B．He had visited many countries to advertise his recordings. |
| C．He played less than one hundred concerts in all. |
| D．His excellent music life lasted over 60 years. |
From the passage, we can infer that _____.
| A．Isaac Stern influenced the culture in the 20th century a lot |
| B．Isaac Stern was one of the most active musicians of his day |
| C．Isaac Stern was so busy that he couldn’t spare time to educate the youth |
| D．Isaac Stern led a rich life in his later life |
What will be the best title for the passage?
| A．Isaac Stern and the awards he got. |
| B．Isaac Stern’s life of pursuing music. |
| C．Isaac Stern: one of the most honored musicians |
| D．Isaac Stern’s visit to China |
Still seeking a destination for your weekend break？ There are some places which are probably a mere walk away from your college.
King’s Art Centre
A day at the Centre could mean a visit to an exhibition of the work of one of the most interesting contemporary artists on show anywhere. This weekend sees the opening of an exhibition of four local artists.
You could attend a class teaching you how to learn from the masters’ or get more creative with paint—free of charge.
The Centre also runs two life drawing classes for which there is a small fee.
The Botanic Garden
The Garden has over 8,000 plant species; it holds the research and teaching collection of living plants for Cambridge University.
The multi-branched Torch Aloe here is impressive. The African plant produces red flowers above blue-green leaves, and is not one to miss.
Get to the display house to see Dionaea muscipula, a plant more commonly known as the Venus Flytrap that feeds on insects and other small animals.
The Garden is also a place for wildlife-enthusiasts. Look for grass snakes in the lake. A snake called “Hissing Sid” is regularly seen lying in the heat of the warm sun.
Byron’s Pool
Many stores surround Lord Byron’s time as a student of Cambridge University. Arriving in 1805, he wrote a letter complaining that it was a place of “mess and drunkenness”. However, it seems as though Byron did manage to pass the time pleasantly enough. I’m not just talking about the pet bear he kept in his rooms. He spent a great deal of time walking in the village.
It is also said that on occasion Byron swam naked by moonlight in the lake, which is now known as Byron’s Pool. A couple of miles past Grantchester in the south Cambridgeshire countryside, the pool is surrounded by beautiful circular paths around the fields. The cries of invisible birds make the trip a lovely experience and on the way home you can drop into the village for afternoon tea. If you don’t trust me, then perhaps you’ll take it from Virginia Woolf—over a century after Byron, she reportedly took a trip to swim in the same pool.As mentioned in the passage, there is a small charge for _____.
| A．attending the masters’ class |
| B．working with local artists |
| C．learning life drawing |
| D．seeing an exhibition |
“Torch Aloe” and “Venus Flytrap” are _____.
| A．common insects |
| B．impressive plants |
| C．rarely-seen snakes |
| D．wildlife-enthusiasts |
We can infer from the passage that Byron seemed _____.
| A．to fear pet bears |
| B．to like walking |
| C．to be a heavy drinker |
| D．to finish university in 1805 |
In the passage Byron’s Pool is described as a lake _____.
| A．surrounded by fields |
| B．owned by Lord Byron |
| C．located in Grantchester |
| D．discovered by Virginia Woolf |
What is the passage mainly about?
| A．Some places for weekend break. |
| B．A way to become creative in art. |
| C．The colorful life in the countryside. |
| D．Unknown stories of Cambridge University. |
People from East Asia tend to have more difficulties than those from Europe in distinguishing facial expressions—and a new report published online in Current Biology explains why.
Rachael Jack, University of Glasgow researcher, said that rather than scanning evenly(均匀地) across a face as Westerners do, Easterners fix their attention on the eyes.
“We show that Easterners and Westerners look at different face features to read facial expressions,” Jack said. “Westerners look at the eyes and the mouth in equal measure, whereas Easterners favor the eyes and neglect the mouth.”
According to Jack and her colleagues, the discovery shows that human communication of emotion is more complex than previously believed. As a result, facial expressions that had been considered universally recognizable cannot be used to reliably convey emotion in cross-cultural situations.
The researchers studied cultural differences in the recognition of facial expressions by recording the eye movements of 13 Western Caucasian and 13 East Asian people while they observed pictures of expression faces and put them into categories: happy, sad, surprised, fearful, disgusted, angry, or neutral. They compared how accurately participants read those facial expressions using their particular eye movement strategies.
It turned out that Easterners focused much greater attention on the eyes and made significantly more errors than Westerners did. “The cultural difference in eye movements that they show is probably a reflection of cultural difference in facial expressions,” Jack said. “Our data suggest that whereas Westerners use the whole face to convey emotion, Easterners use the eyes more and mouth less.”
In short, the data show that facial expressions are not universal signals of human emotion. From here on, examining how cultural factors have diversified these basic social skills will help our understanding of human emotion. Otherwise, when it comes to communicating emotions across cultures, Easterners and Westerners will find themselves lost in translation.The discovery shows that Westerners _____.
| A．pay equal attention to the eyes and the mouth |
| B．consider facial expressions universally reliable |
| C．observe the eyes and the mouth in different ways |
| D．have more difficulties in recognizing facial expressions |
What were the people asked to do in the study?
| A．To make a face at each other. |
| B．To get their faces impressive. |
| C．To classify some face pictures. |
| D．To observe the researchers’ faces |
What does the underlined word “they” in Paragraph 6 refer to?
| A．The participants in the study. |
| B．The researchers of the study. |
| C．The errors made during the study. |
| D．The data collected from the study. |
In comparison with Westerners, Easterners are likely to _____.
| A．do translation more successfully |
| B．study the mouth more frequently |
| C．examine the eyes more attentively |
| D．read facial expressions more correctly |
What can be the best title for the passage?
| A．The Eyes as the Window to the Soul |
| B．Cultural Differences in Reading Emotions |
| C．Effective Methods to Develop Social Skills |
| D．How to Increase Cross-cultural Understanding |
Few people would question the value of taking part in sports for young people. With proper training, supervision, protective equipment and techniques, and a proper emphasis on winning, sports can develop a healthy body and spirit and a life-long interest in being active and fit. Without such measures, childhood sports can lead to injuries and even paralysis or death.
Even in the best conditions, no activity can be risk-free. But most serious hazards are preventable. Cyclists and football players can reduce their risks by wearing helmets; hockey players by wearing masks; basketball and tennis players by wearing eye guards; baseball players by wearing batting helmets.
Besides, risks to individual players can often be found, and thus prevented, through a properly performed medical examination before a child plays. For accidents that may not be preventable, having an emergency plan, first-aid equipment and someone trained to use the equipment can be lifesaving.
Still, each year, according to the American College of Sport Medicine, more than 775,000 children under 14 are treated in emergency rooms for sports injuries, but early half of them are preventable. An estimated 300,000 athletes experience exercise-related head illnesses each year, and almost all of them should have been avoided.
Further, from half to three-fourths of sports-related concussions（脑震荡）are never even diagnosed; the injured are often sent back to play too soon and put at risk of another more serious brain-damaging concussion. To help reduce these risks, the National Centre for Sports Safety, with the National Athletic Trainers’ Association, offers a three-hour online safety course for coaches for $28 at www.sportssafety. org.Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．All the accidents can be prevented. |
| B．All the accidents cannot be prevented. |
| C．Lives can be saved so long as there is proper equipment. |
| D．Lives cannot be saved even if there is proper equipment. |
What does the underlined word “hazard” in Paragraph 2 mean?
| A．Mistakes |
| B．Diseases |
| C．Dangers |
| D．Situations |
It is implied in the passage that _____.
| A．prevention of injuries is not paid enough attention to. |
| B．children under 14 are more easily hurt in sports. |
| C．most head illnesses are related with exercise. |
| D．none of the head illnesses should have happened. |
What can coaches mainly learn from the online safety course?
| A．How to cure brain-damaging concussion. |
| B．How to diagnose brain-damaging concussion. |
| C．How to predict the possibility of brain damage. |
| D．How to deal with the injured properly. |
Every person has their own way of saying things, their own special expressions. Many everyday American expressions are based on colours.
Red is a hot colour. Americans often use it to express heat. They may say they are red hot about something unfair. When they are red hot they are very angry about something. The small hot tasting peppers found in many Mexican foods are called red hots for their colour and their fiery taste. Fast loud music is popular with many people. They may say the music is popular with many people. They may say the music is red hot, especially the kind called Dixieland jazz.
Pink is a cool colour. The traditional blues music in the United States is the opposite of red hot music. Blues is slow, sad and soulful. Duke Ellington and his orchestra recorded a famous song—Mood Indigo—about the deep blue colour, indigo. In the words of the song: “You aren’t blue till you’ve had that Mood Indigo.” Someone who is blue is very sad.
The colour green is natural for trees and grass. But it is an unnatural colour for humans. A person who has a sick feeling in his stomach may say he feels a little green. A passenger on a boat who is feeling very sick from high waves may look very green.
Sometimes a person may be upset because he does not have something as nice as his friend’s, like a fast new car. That person may say he is green with envy. Some people are green with envy because a friend has more dollars of greenbacks. Dollars are called greenbacks because that is the colour of the back side of the paper money.
The colour black is often used in expressions. People describe a day in which everything goes wrong as a black day. The date of a major tragedy is remembered as a black day. A blacklist is illegal now. But at one time, some businesses refused to employ people who were on a blacklist for belonging to unpopular organizations.If you had your wallet stolen while doing some shopping, you may call it _____.
| A．a white day |
| B．a black day |
| C．a red day |
| D．a green day |
Suppose Mr. Brown says he is very happy because his three children are all in the pink, this means all his children are .
| A．lucky and wealthy |
| B．gentle and modest |
| C．fit and healthy |
| D．creative and energetic |
When she got home and found nothing had been done by her husband, Jane was really .
| A．red hot |
| B．green |
| C．blue |
| D．black |
In the following paragraph, the writer might tell the reader something about .
| A．unpopular organizations in the world |
| B．people’s response towards a black day |
| C．the influence of the traditional blues |
| D．more words about a colour, such as brown |