In its early history, Chicago had floods frequently, especially in the spring, making the streets so muddy that people, horses, and carts got stuck. An old joke that was popular at the time went something like this: A man is stuck up to his waist in a muddy Chicago street. Asked if he needs help, he replies, "No, thanks. I've got a good horse under me."
The city planner decided to build an underground drainage (排水) system, but there simply wasn't enough difference between the height of the ground level and the water level. The only two options were to lower the Chicago River or raise the city.
An engineer named Ellis Chesbrough convinced me the city that it had no choice but to build the pipes above ground and then cover them with dirt. This raised the level of the city's streets by as much as 12 feet.
This of course created a new problem: dirt practically buried the first floors of every building in Chicago. Building owners were faced with a choice: either change the first floors of their buildings into basements, and the second stories into main floors, or hoist the entire buildings to meet the new street level. Small wood-frame buildings could be lifted fairly easily. But what about large, heavy structures like Tremont Hotel, which was a six-story brick building?
That's where George Pullman came in. He had developed some house-moving skills successfully. To lift a big structure like the Tremont Hotel, Pullman would place thousands of jackscrews (螺旋千斤顶) beneath the building's foundation. One man was assigned to operate each section of roughly 10 jackscrews. At Pullman's signal each man turned his jackscrew the same amount at the same time, thereby raising the building slowly and evenly. Astonishingly, the Tremont Hotel stay open during the entire operation, and many of its guests didn't even notice anything was happening. Some people like to say that every problem has a solution. But in Chicago's early history, every engineering solution seemed to create a new problem. Now that Chicago's waste water was draining efficiently into the Chicago River, the city's next step was to clean the polluted river.
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The author mentions the joke to show.
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| 2． |
The city planners were convinced by Ellis Chesbrough to.
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| 3． |
The underlined word "hoist" in Paragraph 4 means "".
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| 4． |
What can we conclude about the moving operation of the Tremont Hotel?
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| 5． |
The passage is mainly about the early Chicago's.
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How to say hello in Japanese depends on when you say it. This is very much like different greetings used in English at different times of the day or night. In Japanese culture, it also depends on whether you are on the phone or meeting somebody or whether you are close to the person you are greeting. We don’t get formal with our close friends. We seldom greet them with “Good morning” or “Good evening”. A “Hi” is enough.
Although the most popular and most well-known translation for “Hello” is still “Konniqiwa”, it is not exactly how to say hello in Japanese. Perhaps it is not the most suitable word for it. Actually, the correct greeting in English for “Konniqiwa” is “Good day” or “Good noon”, and I am sure you wouldn’t like to greet people with a “Good day” at any time, and neither do Japanese like saying “Konniqiwa” when they want to say “Hello”.
So what to do? Let’s do it in the way the Japanese do. Use “Ohaiyo Gozaimasu” for “Good morning”, “Konniqiwa” when it’s noon and “Konbanwa”to greet somebody in the afternoon. Things differ when you are on the phone. Just say “Moshi, Moshi”, which is actually similar to saying “Hello” over the phone, because one hardly ever uses “Good morning” or “Good afternoon” or “Good evening” right after picking up the phone. It is invariably the sweet old “Hello”.
Next time, I’ll tell something about my life in Japan. What is the best title for this passage?
| A．How to say hello |
| B．How to greet close friend in Japanese |
| C．How to greet people in Japanese |
| D．Some differences between English and Japanese |
Japanese people greet each other by saying “___” in the afternoon.
| A．Moshi, Moshi |
| B．Konniqiwa |
| C．Ohaiyo Gozaimasu |
| D．Konbanwa |
In the writer’s opinion, ____.
| A．Japanese culture is similar to American culture |
| B．Japanese people don’t like using “Konniqiwa” as a greeting for the whole day |
| C．people don’t need to be polite to their close friends |
| D．Japanese people are very friendly to each other |
The word “invariably” in the third paragraph means “___”.
| A．Probably |
| B．Always |
| C．Sometimes |
| D．Likely |
Last year,I lived in Chile(智利) for half a year last year. I lived with a Chilean family and had to do the same things as any Chilean teenager. I had good days and bad days I didn't understand.
Chuquicamata, my host community, is a mining camp. When I arrived there,I was scared. It was so different from what I was used to. There were lots of dogs on the streets,and there was no downtown(商业区),few good streets,and little to do for fun. Rain was not seen very often, earthquakes and windstorms happened quite often.
I had studied Spanish for two and a half years and was always one of the best students in my class. But in my first week in Chile,I was not able to communicate and I needed a person to whom I could explain my shock.But I couldn't speak the thoughts in my head and there were so many. Most exchange students experience this like me.And I had to deal with all the difficulties on my own.
However, as time passé, everything changed. I began to forget words in English and started to dream in Spanish and love Chilean food. I got used to not buying expensive things for fun. Fun in Chuquicamata was being with people. I took math, physics, chemistry, biology, Spanish, art, and philosophy in school.
What I lost was nothing compared to what I acquired. I learned how to accept and to succeed in another culture. I now have a deeper understanding of both myself and others. What is this passage mainly about?
| A．People’s life in Chile |
| B．The hard life of an exchange student |
| C．The writer’s life in Chile as an exchange student |
| D．What the writer learned in Chile as an exchange student |
When the writer arrived at Chuquicamata, he/she most probably felt ___.
| A．happy |
| B．excited |
| C．sad |
| D．angry |
What does the underlined word”acquired”in the last paragraph mean?
| A．Enjoyed |
| B．Learned |
| C．Did |
| D．Picked |
According to the passage, which of the following facts about Chile is TRUE?
| A．All people there speak English |
| B．It has a lot of rain all year round. |
| C．It has a lot of earthquakes and windstorms |
| D．Its people like shopping very much |
Mr. Templat was a teacher that I will never forget. I truly believe the teen years were the hardest time of my life. At that time, as a girl, I hated it when my parents asked me directly about my problems, making me more comfortable. I also remember many times when Mr. Templat would take me aside and talk to me. He had a special way of drawing out what the problem was. Every time he talked with me, I felt better.
He had a way of making his classes enjoyable. We always got the highest marks in math in our grade with his teaching. If there was a big world ball game on the radio, we would drop everything and he would put the name on so we could all enjoy it. That’s just the way he is.
Teens often hear things on TV or from adults about world problems that can frighten them. Now it is terrorism（恐怖主义）. Back in my teen years, it was the cold war. It worried me so much that I thought each day would be my last. Mr. Templat knew how much it troubled his students. He opened the subject up to discussion. He gave us a way to express our greatest fears and helped us understand war and politics. “One can feel afraid however brave he is.” We were told.
When I think back to those special days, I appreciate that he helped me through such a difficult time in my life. To learn about the problems the writers had, Mr Templat would _________________.
| A．ask her about the problems directly |
| B．wait until she told him about them |
| C．ask her parents about the problems without letting her know |
| D．ask her about them without making her feel uncomfortable |
From the second paragraph, we learn that __________________.
| A．Mr. Templat was a very serious man |
| B．the students like Mr. Templat’s teaching very much |
| C．the students could do whatever they like in Mr. Templat’s class |
| D．the students were more interested in sports than in their studies |
What does the underlined part “the subject” in the third paragraph most probably refer to?
| A．War and politics. |
| B．World history. |
| C．Terrorism. |
| D．The cold war. |
Michelle kwan was born on July 7,1980,in Torrance,California.The daughter of Hong Kong immigrants(移民),Kwan watched her older brother play ice hockey as a kid.She began skating when she was five,and entered and won her first figure skating competition at seven.She won the world title in the 1994 World Championships at the age of 13,and earned a spot as an alternate(候补者）for the 1994 Olympic Games.Kwan went on to capture the world title in 1996,1998,2000,2001 and2003.
At the Nagano Winter Olympics in 1998,Kwan was believed to win gold,but ended up with a disappointing silver medal when fellow US skater Tara Lipinski surprisingly took first place.Shortly before the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002,Kwan,who was then the reigning world champ,surprisingly fired both her choreographer(编舞者）,Lori Nichol,and longtime coach,Frank Carroll.Once again, she failed to get the gold medal when she finished third behind Irina Slutskaya of Russia and US skater Sarah Hughes, who took first.
As a student at the University of California in Los Angeles,Kwan has continued to compete since her defeat(战败）in Salt Lake City.In Febuary 2006, she was unable to take part in the Olympic Games in Torino, Italy because of a serious injury.Though Michelle Kwan did not compete during the 2006--2007 figure skating season; she has turned down an offer to work for NBC Sports and says she is not retiring.The underline word”capture”in the first paragraph means ___.
| A．enter |
| B．win |
| C．learn |
| D．find |
What happened to Michelle Kwan in 2002?
| A．Her coach didn’t want to train her any longer |
| B．She went to study at the University of California |
| C．She failed to take part in the Olympic Games in Torino, Italy |
| D．She failed to win the gold medal in the Olympics again |
Which of the following may NOT be a world champ?
| A．Lori Nichol |
| B．Michelle Kwan |
| C．Tara Lipinski |
| D．Sarah Hughes |
Stamp collecting is easy when you do it as a hobby. You don’t have to spend a lot of money on it. Sometimes stamps can be got from many sources（来源） for free.
Getting Started
If you have no stamps at all, you might want to buy a packet of 500 or 1,000 different worldwide stamps from a hobby shop or stamp dealer to get stared. One good choice is eBay. Try entering phrases like “worldwide stamps” in the searching box. However, even if you want to specialize in collecting stamps, my advice is not to spend much money on stamps in the beginning. Start off collecting stamps from many source for free until you have collected enough stamps and had enough experience.
Sorting Stamps
Assume (假设) you have some stamps and they are in paper. Before you take them from the paper, you should sort the stamps for example, by country. This is because dealing with stamps is much easier when they are on paper. When you take them off the paper, they become easy to bend, crease and tear easily.
Trimming (修剪) Stamps
Never try to take a stamp off its paper backing by pulling at it, even if it appears to be loose enough to do so. First, trim the paper around the stamp with a pair of sharp scissors making sure not to cut off the edge of the stamps. I suggest that you’d better leave a quarter inch safety area from the edge of the stamp when you trim the paper before you are good at doing it. This passage is written for people who .
| A．have no money to collect stamps |
| B．want to sell their stamps |
| C．want to collect stamps |
| D．don’t know how to sort stamps |
The writer didn’t mention collecting stamps from a .
| A．hobby shop | B．shopping website | C．post office | D．stamp dealer |
According to the writer, at the very beginning, stamp-collecting beginners shouldn’t .
| A．collect common stamps |
| B．borrow some stamps from their friends |
| C．act as an inexperienced collector |
| D．spend a lot of money in buying stamps |
What does the writer suggest not do when trimming stamps?
| A．Pulling at them to take them off the paper backing when they look loose. |
| B．Trim the paper around the stamps with a pair of sharp scissors. |
| C．Leave a quarter inch safety area from the edge of the stamp. |
| D．Make sure not to cut off the edge of the stamps. |