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 stories 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 roans. 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．seeing an exhibition | D．learning life drawing |
"Torch Aloe" and "Venus Flytrap" are_____.
| A．common insects | B．wildlife-enthusiasts |
| C．rarely-seen snakes | D．impressive plants |
We can infer from the passage that Byron seemed_____.
| A．to fear pet bears | B．to be a heavy drinker |
| C．to like walking | D．to finish university in 1805 |
What is the passage mainly about?
| A．A way to become creative in art. |
| B．Some places for weekend break |
| C．The colourful life in the countryside. |
| D．Unknown stories of Cambridge University. |
Countless people long to make a difference this holiday season, yet they don’t realize that opportunities to make a difference are everywhere .Here are some ideas to get you started.
Organize a blank drive
It is cold outside, but imagine how thousands of homeless people may feel without a home of their own, or even a blanket to keep them from the cold. Organize a blank drive for your local homeless, and ask around for donations!
Practice random acts of kindness
I’ll never forget the time when I went to pay for my Dr. Pepper, but the sever resisted, saying my bill was paid by an anonymous(匿名的) guest. It’s this random act of kindness that restores my faith in humanity. Bless someone by paying for their drink at Starbucks, or praising them! If you live somewhere where it snows, shovel your neighbour’s snow out of their driveway for them! Whether it is as simple as praise or as complex as paying the bill, you’ll never know how far your impact will reach.
Say thank you
Just a simple thank-you can make somebody’s day, especially if they feel like their work is never noticed. Cultivate（培养） a smile on their face by being sincere and grateful for all that they do.
Use your talents to help the community
The best way to show your appreciation for people is by using the talents and skills you have to bless others. For me, I love to coordinate（协调） events and write , and so my way of reaching out to the community is through writing articles and creating awareness about problems we face today. If you can bake, make some delicious cookies for people to enjoy! If you can knit, put your talents to use by making clothes for children in foster care. Any talent can be used to help the community in meaningful ways.
Wish you a happy, healthy and helpful holiday season.If you join a blank drive, you can _________
| A．keep yourself from the cold |
| B．bring a blanket to go on a trip |
| C．buy a home for homeless people |
| D．collect donations for the homeless people |
How did the author restore his faith in humanity?
| A．he helps others |
| B．he often blessed others |
| C．He got help from others |
| D．He got praised by others |
The underlined phrase” to make somebody’s day” is to ________
| A．make someone feel grateful all day |
| B．do something unnoticed by people |
| C．make someone feel good all day |
| D．help someone to solve problems |
What is the author’s talent?
| A．Sewing | B．Writing | C．Baking | D．Knitting |
Which of the following can be the best title for the passage?
| A．Help Others in Need |
| B．Make the Best of Talent |
| C．Enjoy Your Holiday Season |
| D．Make a Difference in Your Holiday Season |
A German study suggests that people who were too optimistic about their future actually faced greater risk of disability or death within 10 years than those pessimists who expected their future to be worse.
The paper, published this March in Psychology and Aging, examined health and welfare surveys from roughly 40,000 Germans between ages 18 and 96. The surveys were conducted every year from 1993 to 2003.
Survey respondents (受访者) were asked to estimate their present and future life satisfaction on a scale of 0 to 10, among other questions.
The researchers found that young adults (age 18 to 39) routinely overestimated their future life satisfaction, while middle-aged adults (age 40 to 64) more accurately predicted how they would feel in the future. Adults of 65 and older, however, were far more likely to underestimate their future life satisfaction. Not only did they feel more satisfied than they thought they would, the older pessimists seemed to suffer a lower ratio (比率) of disability and death for the study period.
“We observed that being too optimistic in predicting a better future than actually observed was associated with a greater risk of disability and a greater risk of death within the following decade,” wrote Frieder R. Lang, a professor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.
Lang and his colleagues believed that people who were pessimistic about their future may be more careful about their actions than people who expected a rosy future.
“Seeing a dark future may encourage positive evaluations of the actual self and may contribute to taking improved precautions (预防措施),” the authors wrote.
Surprisingly, compared with those in poor health or who had low incomes, respondents who enjoyed good health or income were associated with expecting a greater decline. Also, the researchers said that higher income was related to a greater risk of disability.
The authors of the study noted that there were limitations to their conclusions. Illness, medical treatment and personal loss could also have driven health outcomes.
However, the researchers said a pattern was clear. “We found that from early to late adulthood, individuals adapt their expectations of future life satisfaction from optimistic, to accurate, to pessimistic,” the authors concluded.According to the study, who made the most accurate prediction of their future life satisfaction?
| A．Optimistic adults. |
| B．Adults of lower income. |
| C．Adults in poor health. |
| D．Middle-aged adults |
Pessimism may be positive in some way because it causes people ______.
| A．to fully enjoy their present life |
| B．to take measures against potential risks |
| C．to estimate their contribution accurately |
| D．to value health more highly than wealth |
How do people of higher income see their future?
| A．They will suffer mental illness |
| B．They will become pessimistic. |
| C．They will earn less money.. |
| D．They will have less time to enjoy life. |
What is the clear conclusion of the study?
| A．Pessimism guarantees chances of survival. |
| B．Good financial condition leads to good health. |
| C．Expectations of future life satisfaction decline with age. |
| D．Medical treatment determines health outcomes. |
The technology is great. Without it we wouldn’t have been able to put a man on the moon, explore the ocean’s depths or eat microwave sausages. Computers have revolutionized our lives and they have the power to educate and pass on knowledge. But sometimes this power can create more problems than it solves.
Every doctor has had to try their best to calm down patients who’ve come into their surgery waving an Internet print-out, convinced that they have some rare incurable disease, say, throat cancer. The truth is usually far more ordinary, though: they don’t have throat cancer, and it’s just that their throats are swollen. Being a graduate of the Internet “school” of medicine does not guarantee accurate self-health-checks.
One day Mrs. Almond came to my hospital after feeling faint at work. While I took her blood sample and tried to find out what was wrong, she said calmly, “I know what’s wrong; I’ve got throat cancer. I know there’s nothing you doctors can do about it and I’ve just got to wait until the day comes.”
As a matter of routine I ordered a chest X-ray. I looked at it and the blood results an hour later. Something wasn’t right. “Did your local doctor do an X-ray?” I asked. “Oh, I haven’t been to the doctor for years,” she replied. “I read about it on a website and the symptoms fitted, so I knew that’s what I had.”
However, some of her symptoms, like the severe cough and weight loss, didn’t fit with it—but she’d just ignored this.
I looked at the X-ray again, and more tests confirmed it wasn’t the cancer but tuberculosis (肺结核)—something that most certainly did need treating, and could be deadly. She was lucky we caught it when we did.
Mrs. Almond went pale when I explained she would have to be on treatment for the next six months to ensure that she was fully recovered. It was certainly a lesson for her. “I’m so embarrassed,” she said, shaking her head, as I explained that all the people she had come into close contact with would have to be found out and tested. She listed up to about 20, and then I went to my office to type up my notes. Unexpectedly, the computer was not working, so I had to wait until someone from the IT department came to fix it. Typical. Maybe I should have a microwave sausage while I waited?Mrs. Almond talked about her illness calmly because ______.
| A．she had purchased medicine online |
| B．she thought she knew it well |
| C．she graduated from a medical school |
| D．she had been treated by local doctors |
It was lucky for Mrs. Almond ______.
| A．to have contacted many friends |
| B．to have recovered in a short time |
| C．to have her disease identified in time |
| D．to have her assumption confirmed |
Mrs. Almond said “I’m so embarrassed” (Para. 7) because ______.
| A．she had caused unnecessary trouble |
| B．she had to refuse the doctor’s advice |
| C．she had distrusted her close friends |
| D．she had to tell the truth to the doctor |
By mentioning the breakdown of the computer, the author probably wants to prove _____.
| A．it’s a must to take a break at work |
| B．it’s unwise to simply rely on technology |
| C．it’s vital to believe in IT professionals |
| D．it’s a danger to work long hours on computers |
It happened to me recently. I was telling someone how much I had enjoyed reading Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father and how it had changed my views of our President. A friend I was talking to agreed with me that it was, in his words, “a brilliantly （精彩地）written book”. However, he then went on to talk about Mr. Obama in a way which suggested he had no idea of his background at all. I sensed that I was talking to a book liar.
And it seems that my friend is not the only one. Approximately two thirds of people have lied about reading a book which they haven’t. In the World Book Day’s “Report on Guilty Secrets”, Dreams From My Father is at number 9. The report lists ten books, and various authors, which people have lied about reading, and as I’m not one to lie too often (I’d hate to be caught out), I’ll admit here and now that I haven’t read the entire top ten. But I am pleased to say that, unlike 42 percent of people, I have read the book at number one, George Orwell’s 1984. I think it’s really brilliant.
The World Book Day report also has some other interesting information in it. It says that many people lie about having read Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky (I haven’t read him, but haven’t lied about it either) and Herman Melville.
Asked why they lied, the most common reason was to “impress” someone they were speaking to. This could be tricky if the conversation became more in–depth!
But when asked which authors they actually enjoy, people named J. K. Rowling, John Grisham, Sophie Kinsella (ah, the big sellers, in other words). Forty-two percent of people asked admitted they turned to the back of the book to read the end before finishing the story (I’ll come clean: I do this and am astonished that 58 percent said they had never done so).How did the author find his friend a book liar?
| A．By judging his manner of speaking. |
| B．By looking into his background. |
| C．By discussing the book itself. |
| D．By mentioning a famous name. |
Which of the following is a “guilty secret” according to the World Book Day report?
| A．Charles Dickens is very low on the top-ten list. |
| B．42% of people pretended to have read 1984. |
| C．The author admitted having read 9 books. |
| D．Dreams From My Father is hardly read. |
By lying about reading, a person hopes to .
| A．control the conversation | B．make more friends |
| C．learn about the book | D．appear knowledgeable |
What is the author’s attitude to 58% of readers?
| A．Favorable. | B．Uncaring |
| C．Friendly | D．Doubtful |
They baby is just one day old and has not yet left hospital. She is quiet but alert （警觉）. Twenty centimeters from her face researchers have placed a white card with two black spots on it. She stares at it carefully. A researcher removes the card and replaces it by another, this time with the spots differently spaced. As the cards change from one to the other, her gaze（凝视） starts to lose its focus — until a third, with three black spots, is presented. Her gaze returns: she looks at it for twice as long as she did at the previous card. Can she tell that the number two is different from three, just 24 hours after coming into the world?
Or do newborns simply prefer more to fewer? The same experiment, but with three spots shown before two, shows the same return of interest when the number of spots changes. Perhaps it is just the newness? When slightly older babies were shown cards with pictures of objects (a comb, a key, an orange and so on), changing the number of objects had an effect separate from changing the objects themselves. Could it be the pattern that two things make, as opposed to three? No again. Babies paid more attention to squares moving randomly on a screen when their number changed from two to three, or three to two. The effect even crosses between senses. Babies who were repeatedly shown two spots became more excited when they then heard three drumbeats than when they heard just two; likewise （同样地） when the researchers started with drumbeats and moved to spots.The experiment described in Paragraph 1 is related to the baby’s.
| A．sense of sight | B．sense of touch |
| C．sense of hearing | D．sense of smell |
Babies are sensitive to the change in______.
| A．the size of cards | B．the colour of pictures |
| C．the number of objects | D．the shape of patterns |
Why did the researchers test the babies with drumbeats?
| A．To reduce the difficulty of the experiment. |
| B．To carry their experiment further. |
| C．To see how babies recognize sounds |
| D．To keep the babies’ interest. |
Where does this text probably come from?
| A．Science fiction. | B．Children’s literature. |
| C．A science report. | D．An advertisement. |