AnewstudyfromHarvardUniversity-优题课

For some people, the sight of a mouse can be reason to scream. For other mice, the same sight can be reason to sing.
Mice will probably 21sing their way to any concert, but researchers in the United States have found 22that mice do, 23, sing.
Scientists already knew that mice make ultrasonic(超声波) sounds—noises that are too high-pitched(高音的) for people to hear 24special equipment.
To find out whether mice put such sounds together in song-like 25, the researchers recorded the sounds of 1 mice. Using computer 26, they were able to separate the sounds into specific types of syllables(音节), and found the mice produced about 10 syllables per second.
The results showed that nearly all of the mice repeated sequences(顺序) of syllables in different patterns. That’s enough to meet the definition of what scientists 27song. But not all scientists are 28 _ that what the mice are doing is 29singing. To prove it, the researchers must show that there’s learning involved. And, they need to __ 30why the mice sing.
21. A. almost B. even C. never D. usually
22. A. coincidence B. evidence C. guidance D. instance
23. A. at once B. by means C. for example D. in fact
24. A. during B. inside C. through D. without
25. A. fashions B. instructions C. patterns D. styles
26. A. access B. printer C. screen D. software
27. A. call B. hear C. sing D. write
28. A. accustomed B. convinced C. involved D. qualified
29. A. actually B. obviously C. simply D. unlikely
30. A. figure out B. get about C. run across D. talk over

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 camera 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 displayed 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, RiteAid, 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 it 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 (化合物)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.
51. Britney Spears is a / an______.
A. dancer B. singer C. athlete D. chemist
52. Which of the following is also a kind of weight-loss pill?
A. CVS B. Rite Aid C. Wal-Mart D. Anorex
53. 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
54. From the second paragraph we know that ______ .
A. Zantrex-3 is one of the successful weight-loss pills on the US market
B. Zantrex-3 is the most successful weight-loss pills on the US market
C. Zantrex-3 is the only weight-loss pill on the US market
D. there are five kinds of weight-loss pills on the US market
55. 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

Most mornings, the line begins to form at dawn: scores of silent women with babies on their backs, buckets balanced on their heads, and in each hand a bright-blue plastic jug. On good days, they will wait less than an hour before a water tanker goes across the dirt path that serves as a road in Kesum Purbahari, a slum on the southern edge of New Delhi. On bad days, when there is no electricity for the pumps, the tankers don’t come at all. “That water kills people,” a young mother named Shoba said one recent Saturday morning, pointing to a row of pails filled with thick, caramel (焦糖)-colored liquid. “Whoever drinks it will die.” The water was from a pipe shared by thousands of people in the poor neibourhood. Women often use it to wash clothes and bathe their children, but nobody is desperate enough to drink it.
There is no standard for how much water a person needs each day, but experts usually put the minimum at fifty litres. The government of India promises (but rarely provides) forty. Most people drink two or three litres—less than it takes to wash a toilet. The rest is typically used for cooking and bathing. Americans consume between four hundred and six hundred litres of water each day, more than any other people on earth. Most Europeans use less than half that. The women of Kesum Purbahari each hoped to drag away a hundred litres that day—two or three buckets’ worth. Shoba has a husband and five children, and that much water doesn’t go far in a family of seven, particularly when the temperature reaches a hundred and ten degrees before noon. She often makes up the difference with bottled water, which costs more than water delivered any other way. Sometimes she just buys milk; it’s cheaper. Like the poorest people everywhere, the people of New Delhi’s slums spend a far greater percentage of their incomes on water than anyone lucky enough to live in a house connected to a system of pipes.
46. The underlined word “slum” most likely means ______.
A. a village
B. a small town
C. an area of a town with badly-built, over-crowded buildings
D. the part of a town that lacks water badly
47. Sometimes the water tanker doesn’t come because ______.
A. the weather is bad
B. there is no electricity
C. there is no water
D. people don’t want the dirty water
48. A person needs at least ________ litres of water a day.
A. a hundred B. four hundred C. forty D. fifty
49. Which of the following statements is wrong?
A. a hundred litres of water a day is enough for Shoba’s family
B. Americans uses the largest amount of water each day
C. in Kesum Purbahari milk is cheaper than bottled water
D. Shoba has a family of seven people
50. The passage mainly tells us ______.
A. how women in Kesum Purbahari gets their water
B. how much water a day a person deeds
C. that India lacks water badly
D. how India government manages to solve the problem of water

Saturday, October 7th, was a marathon of sad tasks for Anna Politkovskaya. Two weeks earlier, her father, a retired official in the department of foreign affairs, had died of a heart attack as he emerged from the Moscow Metro while on his way to visit Politkovskaya’s mother, Raisa Mazepa, in the hospital. She had just been diagnosed(诊断) with cancer and was too weak even to attend her husband’s funeral. “Your father will forgive me, because he knows that I have always loved him,” she told Anna and her sister, Elena Kudimova, the day he was buried. A week later, she had an operation and since then Anna and Elena had been taking turns helping her deal with her grief.
Politkovskaya was supposed to spend the day at the hospital, but her twenty-six-year-old daughter, who was pregnant, had just moved into Politkovskaya’s apartment, on Lesnaya Street, while her own place was being prepared for the baby. “Anna had so much on her mind,” Elena Kudimova told me when we met in London, before Christmas. “And she was trying to finish her article.” Politkovskaya was a special reporter for the small newspaper Novaya Gazeta, and, like most of her work, the piece focused on the terror that can be seen all over the southern republic of Chechnya. This time, she had been trying to report repeated cruel acts done by people faithful to the Prime Minister, Ramzan Kadyrov, who are in favour of Russia. In the past seven years, Politkovskaya had written dozens of accounts of life during wartime; many had been collected in her book “A Small Corner of Hell: reports from Chechnya.” Politkovskaya was far more likely to spend time in a hospital than on a battlefield, and her writing bore frequent witness to robbery, and the uncontrolled cruelty of life in a place that few other Russians—and almost no other reporters—cared to think about.
41. Politkovskaya’s father died of ______.
A. tiredness B. a heart disease C. an attack D. an accident
42. From the text we know that Raisa Mazepa ______.
A. didn’t love her husband
B. didn’t attend her husband’s funeral
C. was having an operation the day her husband was buried
D. was too sad to attend her husband’s funeral
43. The underlined word “emerged” most likely means ______.
A. came out B. went into C. disappeared D. left for
44. How many family members of Anna are mentioned in the passage?
A. Three. B. Four C. Five D. Six
45. Which of the following words can best describe Politkovskaya’s character?
A. Curious B. easy-going C. careless D. responsible

Kincaid looked at his watch: eight-seventeen. The truck started on the second try, and he backed out, shifted gears, and moved slowly down the alley under hazy sun. Through the streets of Bellingham he went, heading south on Washington 11, running along the coast of Puget Sound for a few miles, then following the highway as it swung east a little before meeting U.S Route 20.
Turning into the sun, he began the long, winding drive through the Cascades. He liked this country and felt unpressed stopping now and then to make notes about interesting possibilities for future expeditions or to shoot what he called “memory snapshots.” The purpose of these causal photographs was to remind him of places he might want to visit again and approach more seriously. In later afternoon he turned north at Spokane, picking up U.S. Route 2, which would take him halfway across the northern United States to Duluth, Minnesota.
He wished for the thousandth time in his life that he had a dog ,a golden retriever, maybe ,for travels like this and to keep him company at home. But he was frequently away; overseas much of the time and it would not be fair to the animal .Still ,he thought about it anyway. In a few years he would be getting too old for the hard fieldwork. “I must get a dog then.” He said to himself.
Drives like this always put him into a sentimental mood. The dog was part of it .Robert Kincaid was alone as it’s possible to be—an only child ,parents both dead , distant relatives who had lost track of him and he of them, no close friends.
He thought about Marian .She had left him nine years ago after five years of marriage. He was fifty-two now , that would make her just under forty .Marian had dreams of becoming a musician ,a folksinger .She knew all of the Weavers’ songs and sang them pretty well in the coffeehouse of Seattle .When he was home in the old days, he drove her to the shows and sat in the audience while she sang.
His long absences—two or three months sometimes—were hard on the marriage .He knew that. She was aware of what he did when they decided to get married ,and both of them had a vague(not clear) sense that it could all be handled somehow. It couldn’t when he came from photographing a story in Iceland and ,she was gone . The note read, “Robert ,it didn’t work out ,I left you the Harmony guitar. Stay in touch.”
He didn’t stay in touch .Neither did she .He3 signed the divorce papers when they arrived a year later and caught a plane for Australia the next day. She had asked for nothing except her freedom.
51. Which route is the right one taken by Kincaid?
A. Bellingham— Washington 11—Puget Sound—U.S Route 20—U.S Route 2—Duluth
B. U.S. Route 2—Bellingham—Washington 11—Puget Sound—U.S Route 20—Duluth
C. U.S. Route 2—U.S Route 20—Duluth –Bellingham—Washington 11
D. Bellingham— Washington 11—U.S. Route 2—U.S Route 20—Duluth
52. Which statement is true according to the passage?
A. Kincaid’s parents were dead and he only kept in touch with some distant relatives.
B. Kincaid would have had a dog if he hadn’t been away from home too much.
C. Kincaid used to have a golden retriever.
D. Kincaid needed a dog in doing his hard fieldwork.
53. Why did Kincaid stop to take photos while driving?
A. To write “memory snapshots”
B. To remind himself of places he might want to visit again.
C. To avoid forgetting the way back.
D. To shoot beautiful scenery along the road.
54. What can you know about Marian?
A. She died after five years of marriage.
B. She was older than Kincaid.
C. She could sing very well and earned big money.
D. She was not a professional pop singer.
55. We can draw a conclusion from the passage that.
A. Marian knew what would happen before she married Kincaid.
B. Kincaid thought his absence would be a problem when he married Marian.
C. It turned out that Marian could not stand Kincaid’s absence and left him.
D. After Marian left him, they still kept in touch with each other.