Years ago, there lived a wealthy man named Mr. Cooper who, with his dearest young son John, loved art collecting. Together they traveled around the world, collecting the finest art treasures.
One winter, war came to the nation, and John left to serve his country. After only a few short weeks, his father received a telegram reading that John had died while saving a fellow soldier. Filled with sadness, the old man cried. On the coming Christmas morning, a soldier called on him and gave him a picture of John.
The following spring, the old man became ill and passed away. According to his will, all of his works of art would be auctioned (拍卖) on Christmas Day, when he had received the greatest gift of his life. The day soon arrived and art collectors from around the world gathered to buy some of the world’s greatest paintings. The auction began with a painting of the old man’s son. “Who will open the bidding (出价) with $100?” the auctioneer (拍卖人) asked. Minutes passed, but no one spoke. Finally, a neighbor of the old man’s spoke. “Can I take the painting for ten dollars? It is all I have, and he is a good man.”
“Will anyone go higher?” called the auctioneer. After more silence, the auctioneer said, “Going once, going twice, gone.” The gavel(槌) fell. “Now we can get on to the real treasures,” someone shouted angrily. But the auctioneer said that the auction was over. Someone asked, “It’s over? We didn’t come here for a picture of some old guy’s son. There are millions of dollars worth of art here!” The auctioneer replied, “It’s very simple. According to the will of the father, whoever takes the son ... gets all.” Why did they travel around the world?
| A．They wanted to visit some well-known artists. |
| B．They had their own companies around the world. |
| C．They wanted to visit all kinds of places of interest. |
| D．They wanted to collect the world’s finest art. |
When did the old man die?
| A．The morning when the solider visited him. |
| B．Several months after John died. |
| C．A few days after John served in the army. |
| D．The day he received the news of John’s death. |
The underlined words “the greatest gift” in Paragraph 3 refer to ________.
| A．a picture of John |
| B．the painting John collected |
| C．the finest work of art |
| D．the telegram about his son |
A neighbor of the old man’s bought the painting of John ________.
| A．because he knew the will of the old man |
| B．to pick up the world’s greatest paintings |
| C．in honor of John, who was worth respecting |
| D．because no one else was willing to buy it |
It can be inferred from the passage that ________.
| A．the old man and the auctioneer were good friends |
| B．no art collectors wanted to buy Mr. Cooper’s collection of art |
| C．John was a successful art collector and an excellent artist |
| D．the old man, Mr. Cooper, loved his son very much |
Games originally are entertainment. Contem-porary games are very realistic and for this reason they are a source of great experience for the player and develop the imagination. Games are entertain-ment and even more than that. The statistics (统计）of the New York University led by Green claim that the player preferring active games get improvement of some types of brain activity. In particular, game players deal with problems of simulta-neously(同时地） tracking several moving objects at the average level of 30% better than people who do not play active computer video games. The "gaming" violent experience may not be the cause of violent behavior in reality. None of the playing experience will become the priority in making important decisions concerning problems in real life. A game is an abstraction(抽象概念）. A player gets abstract tasks and acts according to abstract rules.
Games are also the possibility to be whatever a person wants to be and to rest from the outside world for some time. But what if a person gets so much excited with the game scenes that he becomes violent in reality? Then, it proves that the games cause people to become violent in reality. But a psychologically healthy person will never confuse these two different worlds. A game is a virtual world with visual images very similar to human's. These images are nothing but playing obstacles(障碍）. A game may potentially give the opportunity to "destroy the obstacles”that may not be destroyed according to the rules but it is more about personal choice whether to do it or not. This leads us to the conclusion that violence is not a consequence but the cause. People who are originally prone to violence may get into a temper by games and perform violence in the “ real world ”. But in this case violence in games is just a simple justification(正当的理由）of the violent nature of the player. The passage is __________.
| A．a story |
| B．a descriptive writing |
| C．an argumentative writing |
| D．a scientific essay |
In the first paragraph the author used the statistics to prove that __________.
| A．games can provide experience for the players |
| B．games can help develop players' imagination |
| C．games can cause violent behavior |
| D．games are more than entertainment |
What is the author's attitude towards the "computer games”？
| A．"Violent games" can lead to the performance of violence in the real world. |
| B．Violence is not a consequence of the “ computer games” but the cause. |
| C．Games are just entertainment and nothing more. |
| D．The virtual world and the real world are just the same. |
The best title for this passage is __________.
| A．Violent games cause violence |
| B．Games-resulting in violence? |
| C．The cause of violence |
| D．The consequence of games |
What is eBay? The simple answer is that it is a global trading platform where nearly anyone can trade practically anything. People can sell and buy all kinds of products and goods. Including cars, movies and DVDs, sporting goods, travel tickets, musical instruments, clothes and shoes—the list goes on and on.
The idea came from Peter Omidyar, who was born in Paris and moved to Washington when he was still a child. At high school, he became very interested in computer programming and after graduating from Tuft University in 1988，he worked for the next few years as a computer engineer. In his free time he started eBay as a kind of hobby, at first offering the service free by word of mouth. By 1996 there was so much traffic on the web-site that he had to upgrade (升级)and he began charging a fee to members. Joined by a friend, Peter Skill, and in 1998 by his capable CEO, Meg Whitman, he has never looked back. Even in the great. com crashes of the late 1990s, eBay has gone from strength to strength. It is now one of the the most visited online shopping websites on the Internet.
eBay sells connections, not goods* putting buyers and sellers into contact with each other. All you have to do is make an e-photo, write a description, fill out a sales form and you are in business： the world is your market place. Of course for each item (商品)sold eBay gets a percentage and that is a great deal of money. Every day there are more than sixteen million items listed on eBay and eighty percent of the items are sold.We learn from the text that eBay provides people with ________ .
| A．a way of buying and selling goods |
| B．a website for them to upgrade |
| C．a place to exhibit their own photos |
| D．a chance to buy things at low prices |
Why did Peter create eBay after graduating from university?
| A．For fun. |
| B．To make money. |
| C．For gathering the engineers. |
| D．To fulfill a task of his company. |
From "he has never looked back" in Paragraph 2 we learn that Peter ________ .
| A．did not feel lonely |
| B．was always hopeful |
| C．did not think about the past |
| D．became more and more successful |
How does eBay make money from its website?
| A．By bringing callers together. |
| B．By charging for each sale. |
| C．By listing items online. |
| D．By making e-photos. |
A 33-year-old financial analyst in California recently quit his job to devote himself to an unpaid job teaching math on the Internet, and his lessons are reaching almost 100，000 people a month. Sal-man Khan's voice is heard every day on the net—by tens of thousands of students around the world who are hungry for help in learning math. He has posted 1，200 lessons on YouTube—lessons that appear on an electronic blackboard, which range from basic addition to advanced mathematics for science and finance. And they are free.
Khan lives in Silicon Valley, with his wife, a doctor, and their new baby. He got the idea for his “Khan Academy" four years ago, when he taught a young cousin how to convert (转换）kilograms to grams. With Khan's help, the cousin got good at math, and Khan began a new career.
Now, Khan records his lessons himself, but he never goes on camera. “It feels like my voice in their head. You're looking at it and it feels like someone's over your shoulder talking in your ear, as opposed to someone at the blackboard, which is distant from you，” he said.
When Springfield High School in Palo Alto, California invited Khan to speak in person—he immediately connected to the students there.
The idea of short lessons that can be played over and over again attracted high school senior Bridget Meaney. She says she had trouble with math in the seventh grade. “I think the teachers are good, but they can't teach at a speed that's perfect for everyone，” she said. “I like the idea of learning something in class but then going back and pressing pause or rewind (倒回）and actually getting a deeper understanding of it. ”
Originally, Khan kept his lessons short because of YouTube restrictions (限制）. Now, he thinks short is better. “Education researchers now tell me that 10 minutes is how long someone can have a high level of concentration. And anything beyond that and your brain switches off，"he said.
For Khan, teaching math, science, and finance is just the beginning. He says he's ready to expand his YouTube site to include other subjects as well. What gave Khan the idea of teaching math online?
| A．His success in helping his cousin learn math. |
| B．His discovery that many students found learning math difficult. |
| C．A suggestion made to him at a local high school. |
| D．His interest in Internet teaching. |
Why does Khan never go on camera?
| A．He's too shy to show his face on camera. |
| B．It's restricted by YouTube for education videos. |
| C．He wants to keep distant from the viewers. |
| D．He wants to create a more relaxed learning atmosphere. |
Why does Bridget Meaney like Khan's lessons?
| A．Khan teaches seventh grade math better than her teacher. |
| B．The lessons can be watched repeatedly until fully understood. |
| C．She can perfectly follow the pace of Khan's teaching. |
| D．She cannot concentrate when learning in class. |
From the passage, we know that __________.
| A．Khan travels to many schools to promote his lessons |
| B．Khan plans to include more subjects in the future |
| C．Khan gives live math lessons every day for free |
| D．Khan set up the Khan Academy with his wife |
Most people have a general list before a job interview—updating a resume (简历)，ironing a professional suit, rehearsing an explanation for those two years spent after college. However, if tidying up the Facebook profile isn't on that list, maybe it should be.
According to a new study conducted by Harris Interactive for CareerBuilder. com45 percent of employers questioned are using social networks to screen people looking for jobs this year—more than double from a year earlier, when a similar survey found that just 22 percent of employers were researc-hing potential hires on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and Linkedln.
The study, which questioned 2，667 managers and human resource workers, found that 35 percent of employers decided not to offer a job to a candidate based on the content uncovered on a social net-working site.
The report showed that Facebook was the most popular online destination for employers to do their online sleuthing(侦查），followed by Linkedln and MySpace. In addition，7 percent followed job applicants on Twitter. More than half of the employers who participated in the survey said that provocative(挑衅的）photos were the biggest factor contributing to a decision not to hire a potential employee, while 44 percent of employers aimed at references to drinking and drug use as red flags. Other warning signs included bad-mouthing of previous employers and colleagues and poor online communication skills.
While most of these may seem like obvious blocks, what consists of alarming behavior to a particular employer? Would photographs of a trip to the beach be considered inappropriate? To be on the safe side, it's probably wise to use the new privacy settings offered by Facebook to keep everything but the most innocuous(无害的）content away from the public eye. Your general list before a job interview should include all the following EXCEPT __________.
| A．a written form of your education and previous jobs |
| B．preparing appropriate clothes |
| C．tidying up your information on social net-works |
| D．rehearsing what the employer would say to you |
What can we learn from the passage?
| A．Social networks are not important in job hunting. |
| B．Online information about job hunters is not reliable. |
| C．We should be careful while sending photos to social networks. |
| D．Facebook is not so popular as it used to be. |
Why should the job seekers use the new privacy settings offered by Facebook?
| A．Because they can keep everything from being seen by others. |
| B．Because they can keep the employers from seeing the inappropriate content. |
| C．Because they can only allow a particular employer to see their data online. |
| D．Because they can allow their friends to see their trips to the beach. |
The passage is mainly intended for __________.
| A．employers |
| B．employees |
| C．people work for Facebook |
| D．job applicants |
America is becoming a nation of book lovers— notebooks, netbooks and smartbooks; that is, if you believe the computer manufactures.
Notebooks
Notebooks, the senior citizens of mobile computing, are slimmed-down laptops. A notebook is an extremely lightweight PC, typically weighing less than 6 pounds and often compact enough to fit easily into a briefcase(公文包）. Aside from portability (轻便）and size, the biggest difference between a notebook computer and a desktop PC is the display screen. In terms of computing power, modern notebook computers are nearly equal to PCs.
Netbooks
The weight of a notebook can cause a lot of wear and tear on the shoulders, which is one reason why mobile workers joined the netbooks land rush. Also called mini notebooks, ultra portables or sub- notebooks, these small, light and inexpensive lap-top computers are used for general computing and for access to web-based applications.
When first introduced, netbooks featured smaller screens and keyboards, often had reduced specification and computing power, and lacked key features, such as optical drives (光驱）. They've since grown in size and features, often confusing the distinction between a netbook and notebook computer.
A netbook's display typically ranges from 7 to 10 inches. It weighs less than 3 pounds, and sup-ports a keyboard that is reduced in size. Netbooks have built-in WiFi, Ethernet, USB ports and slots (扁口）for flash memory cards. To keep them small and compact, netbooks do not have a CD or
DVD drive, and many use solid-state flash drives in-stead of hard drives for storage. Flash drives have no moving parts so they're less likely to break, and are smaller than regular hard drives, which saves space and weight.
Smartbooks
Smartbooks are the newest book on the block. Smartbooks combine the features of both a smart- phone and a netbook computer in a device that's mobile like a phone, yet comes in a laptop-style body with a screen that's 5 to 10 inches in size. Other features include long battery life，3G connectivity and GPS capability. And it has long battery life，8 to 12 hours.
Smartbooks are for the group who like multimedia and social networking, and have real-time information flow. What do we know about a notebook?
| A．It can serve as a briefcase. |
| B．It may cause pain in your shoulders. |
| C．It has as big a display screen as PCs. |
| D．It can deal with calculation as well as PCs. |
A netbook does NOT have __________
| A．a hard drive |
| B．a USB slot |
| C．a flash drive |
| D．a keyboard |
Which of the following is a smart book?
The purpose of writing this passage is to __________
| A．prove how Americans love books now |
| B．advertise several new kinds of books |
| C．introduce some mobile computing devices |
| D．explain the development of computers |