【改编】The island of Great Britain being small (compare the size of Australia), the natural place for holiday relaxation and enjoyment is extensive coastline, above all its southern and eastern coasts, and the favorite resort of the mass-population of industrial Lancashire, is on the north-west coast. Distant and little-inhabited area like Northern Scotland, are too remote for the development of large seaside resorts.
For most children, going to the seaside suggests a week or fortnight of freedom on the beach, ideally a sandy one providing enough opportunities for the construction of sandcastle, fishing in pool, paddling in shallow water or swimming in deep water. Their parents spend sunny days swimming in the sea and sunbathing on the beach. Not that the British sun can be relied on and the depressing sight of families wandering round the town in old –fashioned and under umbrellas is only too common. However, there are always shops with their tourist souvenirs, plenty of cafes and if the worst comes to the worst, the cinema to offer a refuge.
The average family is unlikely to seek accommodation in a hotel as they can stay more cheaply in a boarding-house. There are usually three or four-storeyed Victorian buildings, whose owners spend the summer season letting rooms to a number of couples or families and providing three cooked meals a day at what they describe as a reasonable price, with the hope that in this way they will add enough to their savings to see the winter through. Otherwise there are the camping sites for those who prefer self-catering.
Nowadays, even when an increasing number of people fly off to Mediterranean resorts where a well-developed suntan (晒黑) can be assured, or explore in comfort Swiss lakes and mountains or romantic Italian or Spanish cities, the British seaside is still the main attraction for families, especially those with younger children. As they queue for boats trips, cups of tea or ice-cream under gray skies and in dizzling rain, the parents are reliving (重温) their own childhood when time seemed endless, their own sandcastles the most splendid on the beach, the sea always blue and friendly and the sun always hot.Where do tourists seldom go ?
A.Australia | B.Great Britain |
C.Northern Scotland | D.Lancashire |
Why do children prefer the seaside ?
A.Because they can stay with their parents. |
B.Because they can play various games on the seaside. |
C.Because they can meet many other children there. |
D.Because they can buy whatever they want. |
What attracts people to Mediterranean resorts?
A.Romantic Italian or Spanish cities |
B.Ice-cream under gray skies. |
C.Cups of tea in dizzling rain. |
D.Reliving their own childhood. |
Which of the following is True according to the passage?
A.The cinema is the best place to get enough sunshine. |
B.The English seaside is an ideal place for children. |
C.Northern Scotland is very popular with tourists. |
D.Few people in Britain go abroad for holiday. |
Where can you find this passage in a newspaper ?
A.Economy | B.Science. |
C.Fashion. | D.Tourism. |
Here’s one number to keep in mind during your next cell phone conversation: 50. A new experiment shows that spending 50 minutes with an active phone pressed up to the ear increases activity in the brain. This brain activity probably doesn't make you smarter. When cell phones are on, they emit (发出) energy in the form of radiation that could be harmful, especially after years of cell phone usage. Scientists don't know yet whether cell phones are bad for the brain. Studies like this one are attempting to find it out.
The 47 participants in the experiment may have looked a little strange. Each one had two Samsung cell phones attached to his or her head — one on each ear. The phone on the left ear was off. The phone on the right ear played a message for 50 minutes, but the participants couldn't hear it because the sound was off.
With this set-up, the scientists could be sure they were studying brain activity from the phone itself, and not brain activity due to listening and talking during a conversation. After 50 minutes with two phones strapped to their heads, the participants were given PET scans.
The PET scan showed that the left side (the side with the phone turned off) of each participant's brain hadn't changed during the experiment. The right side of the brain, however, had used more glucose, which is a type of sugar that provides fuel to brain cells. These right-side brain cells were using almost as much glucose as the brain uses when a person is talking. This suggests that the brain cells there were active ― even without the person hearing anything. That activity, the scientists say, was probably caused by radiation from the phone.
Henry Lai, who works at the University of Washington in Seattle, is uncomfortable with the data related to cell phones. Holding a cell phone to your ear during a conversation is “not really safe,” Lai told Science News. Lai is a bioengineer at the University of Washington in Seattle. He wrote an article about the new study for a journal, but he did not work on the study. Bioengineers bring together ideas from engineering and biology.
For those who don't want to wait to find out for sure whether cell phones are bad for the brain, there are ways to talk more safely. You can have short and sweet conversations, use a speakerphone or keep the phone away from your head. Which of the following statement is true?
A.Scientists are sure that cell phones are bad for the brain. |
B.In the experiment, the left side of the brain used more glucose. |
C.Radiation from the phone probably causes the change in the brain. |
D.Henry Lai wrote a lot of articles about this new study. |
Why weren’t the participants allowed to have a conversation on the phone during the experiment?
A.Because the scientists want to be sure of the accuracy of the experiment. |
B.Because they really looked strange and no one wanted to talk to others. |
C.Because they were given PET scans and they lost the ability to talk. |
D.Because that would be too noisy and bad for the experiment. |
What is glucose?
A.A type of sugar that provides vitamin to brain cells. |
B.Something that the right side of the brain used. |
C.A type of sugar that gives energy to brain cells. |
D.Something that makes a human excited. |
According to the last two paragraphs, which is the safest way to use a cell phone?
A.Holding the cell phone close to your head. |
B.Using a cell phone more than three hours a day. |
C.Taking the most powerful cell phone. |
D.Keeping the cell phone at a distance. |
Where is this article probably taken from?
A.Literature magazine. | B.Science News. |
C.Story books. | D.Art Journal. |
Are morning people born or made? In my case it was definitely made. In my early 20s, I hardly went to bed before midnight, and I would always get up late the next morning.
But after a while I couldn’t ignore the high relationship between success and rising early. On those rare occasions where I did get up early, I noticed that my productivity (效率) was always higher. So I set out to become a habitual early riser. But whenever my alarm went off, my first thought was always to stop that noise and go back to sleep. Eventually some sleep research showed that my strategy was wrong.
The most common wrong strategy is this: supposing you’re going to get up earlier, you’d better go to bed earlier. It sounds very reasonable, but will usually fail.
There are two main schools (流派) of thought on sleep patterns. One is that you should go to bed and get up at the same time every day. The second school says you should go to bed when you’re tired and get up when you naturally wake up. However, I have found both are wrong if you care about productivity. If you sleep at fixed hours, you’ll sometimes go to bed when you aren’t sleepy enough. You’re wasting time lying in bed awake.
My solution is to combine both methods. I go to bed when I’m sleepy and get up with an alarm clock at a fixed time. So I always get up at the same time (in my case 5 a.m.), but I go to bed at different times every night.
However, going to bed only when I’m sleepy, and getting up at a fixed time every morning are my ways. If you want to become an early riser, you can try your own. According to the passage, the underlined phrase refers to ________.
A.people who stay up until the next morning |
B.people who get up early in the morning |
C.people who feel sleepy in the morning |
D.people whose productivity is the lowest in the morning |
Why did the author want to become a habitual early riser?
A.Because he / she found that the productivity was higher. |
B.Because he / she wanted to do morning exercise. |
C.Because he / she wanted to test which school is better. |
D.Because he / she wanted to have more sleep time. |
The author experienced all the following EXCEPT ________.
A.going to bed after midnight |
B.asking scholars for advice on sleeping habits |
C.getting up early occasionally |
D.pressing off the alarm to go on sleeping |
What’s the author’s sleep pattern?
A.Going to bed early and getting up early. |
B.Going to bed late and getting up late. |
C.Going to bed when sleepy and getting up at a fixed early time. |
D.Going to bed early and getting up late. |
The passage is mainly about ________.
A.main schools of thought on sleep patterns |
B.how to have a good sleep |
C.wrong strategies for getting up early |
D.how to become an early riser |
The Jungle Book
The Jungle Books were published in 1894 and 1895. Lost in the jungles of India as a child and adopted into a family of wolves, Mowgli is brought up on a diet of Jungle Law, loyalty, and fresh meat from the kill. Regular adventures with his friends and enemies in the jungles improve this child’s strength and cleverness and stir every reader’s imagination.
Price: $ 7.79
ISBN-13: 978-1613820742
Average Customer Review: ★★★★
A Stolen Life
The first work of its kind—Jaycee Dugard’s personal life story, her own story of being kidnapped in 1991. When Jaycee was eleven years old, she was kidnapped from a school bus stop. She was missing for more than eighteen years, and gave birth to two daughters during her imprisonment.
Price: $ 19.79
ISBN-13: 978-1442344983
Average Customer Review: ★★★★★
While We’re Far Apart
Five-time Christy Award winner Lynn Austin is called as “one of the style’s best historical fiction novelists”. Set in Brooklyn, New York, during World War I, while a motherless girl longs for her daddy and a young lady hopes for a second chance at love, this tale explores the uncertainty that stays in people in Europe.
Price: $ 6.00
ISBN-10: 0764204971
Average Customer Review: ★★★★
The Fashion Police
The Fashion Police was runner-up in the Chapter One Promotions Novel Competition 2010 and nominated (提名) Best Novel with Romantic Elements 2010 by The Romance Reviews. It is a strange comedy-mystery, combining murder with romance and chick-lit.
For starters, Amber accidently shoots Chief Inspector Janice Skipper and gets thrown off the police force. The only one who knows the truth about the incident is Amber, but no one will believe her. After accepting a job as an insurance investigator from her ex-fiancé, Brad Beckett, it turns out that Brad thinks they’ve still got unfinished business and the job description includes sexual favors that come with a price.
Price: $ 12.73
ISBN-13: 978-1451555653
Average Customer Review: ★★★If the book concerning a person who had children in prison appeals to you, you can choose the book .
A.A Stolen Life | B.The Jungle Book |
C.The Fashion Police | D.While We’re Far Apart |
The ISBN of the book that gains least popularity among the research is .
A.ISBN–13: 978–1613820742 |
B.ISBN–13: 978–1442344983 |
C.ISBN–10: 0764204971 |
D.ISBN–13: 978–1451555653 |
.If you want to buy one book about human’s living with animals and two about historical fiction, you have to pay .
A.19.79 dollars | B.20.52 dollars |
C.27.58 dollars | D.18.73 dollars |
What makes the book The Fashion Police distinguish itself from others?
A.It wins the award Christy Award five times |
B.It is a great book on violence and family education |
C.It is named Best Novel with Romantic Elements 2010 |
D.It has many elements borrowed from stories of true policemen. |
In which part of a newspaper would the information of the books be most likely to appear?
A.Science | B.Opinion |
C.Lifestyle | D.Advertisement |
Indeed,” George Washington wrote in his diary in 1785, “some kind of fly, or bug, had begun to eat the leaves before I left home.” But the father of America was not the father of bug. When Washington wrote that, Englishmen had been referring to insects as bugs for more than a century, and Americans had already created lightning-bug(萤火虫). But the English were soon to stop using the bugs in their language, leaving it to the Americans to call a bug a bug in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The American bug could also be a person, referring to someone who was crazy about a particular activity. Although fan became the usual term, sports fans used to be called racing bugs, baseball bugs, and the like.
Or the bug could be a small machine or object, for example, a bug-shaped car. The bug could also be a burglar alarm, from which comes the expression to bug, that is, “to install an alarm”. Now it means a small piece of equipment that people use for listening secretly to others’ conversation. Since the 1840s, to bug has long meant “to cheat”, and since the 1940s it has been annoying.
We also know the bug as a flaw in a computer program or other design. That meaning dates back to the time of Thomas Edison. In 1878 he explained bugs as “little problems and difficulties” that required months of study and labor to overcome in developing a successful product. In 1889 it was recorded that Edison “had been up the two previous nights discovering ‘a bug’ in his invented record player.” We learn from Paragraph 1 that __________________.
A.Americans had difficulty in learning to use the word bug |
B.George Washington was the first person to call an insect a bug |
C.the word bug was still popularly used in English in the nineteenth century |
D.both Englishman and Americans used the word bug in the eighteenth century |
What does the word “flaw” in the last paragraph probably mean?
A.Explanation. | B.Finding. |
C.Origin. | D.Fault. |
The passage is mainly concerned with__________________.
A.the misunderstanding of the word bug |
B.the development of the word bug |
C.the public views of the word bug |
D.the special characteristics of the word bug |
Here is an astonishing and significant fact: Mental work alone cant make us tired. It sounds absurd. But a years ago, scientists tried to find out how long the human brain could labor without reaching a stage of fatigue (疲劳). To the amazement of these scientists, they discovered that blood passing through the brain, when it is active, shows no fatigue at all! If we took a drop of blood from a day laborer, we would find it full of fatigue toxins(毒素) and fatigue products. But if we took blood from the brain of an Albert Einstein, it would show no fatigue toxins at the end of the day.
So far as the brain is concerned, it can work as well and swiftly at the end of eight or even twelve hours of effort as at the beginning. The brain is totally tireless. So what makes us tired?
Some scientists declare that most of our fatigue comes from our mental and emotional attitudes. One of England’s most outstanding scientists, J.A. Hadfield, says, “The greater part of the fatigue from which we suffer is of mental origin. In fact, fatigue of purely physical origin is rare.” Dr. Brill, a famous American scientist, goes even further. He declares, “One hundred percent of the fatigue of sitting worker in good health is due to emotional problems.”
What kinds of emotions make sitting workers tired? Joy? Satisfaction? No! A feeling of being bored, anger, anxiety, tenseness, worry, a feeling of not being appreciated---those are the emotions that tire sitting workers. Hard work by itself seldom causes fatigue. We get tired because our emotions produce nervousness in the body.What surprised the scientis
ts a few years ago?
A.Fatigue toxins could hardly be found in a laborer’s blood. |
B.Albert Einstein didn’t feel worn out after a day’s work. |
C.The brain could work for many hours without fatigue. |
D.A mental worker’s blood was filled with fatigue toxins. |
According to the author, which of the following can make sitting workers tired?
A.Challenging mental work. | B.Unpleasant emotions. |
C.Endless tasks. | D.Physical labor. |
What’s the author’s attitude towards the scientists’ idea?
A.He agrees with them. | B.He doubts them. |
C.He argues against them. | D.He hesitates to accept them. |
We can infer from the passage that in order to stay energetic, sitting workers need to __
_________.
A.have some good food | B.enjoy their work |
C.exercise regularly | D.discover fatigue toxins |