Matthew Henson-Arctic Explorer
In 1880,fourteen-year-old Matthew Henson loved to hear sailors tell tales of their exciting 1ives at sea.The travel,the adventure,the danger,and the steady pay were all attracting young Henson.One day,he found a job as a cabin boy off a beautiful ship called the Katie Hinds.For the next five years.Henson sailed around the world.With the help of the ship’s captain and other members of the crew.Henson learned mathematics,navigation,history,geography,and many other subjects.By the time he left the Katie Hinds in 1885,Henson was well educated and had become an excellent seaman.
Unable to find work anywhere else,Henson took a job in a hat shop in Washington,D.C.One day in 1887,a man came in to buy a hat.The man,Robert Peary,asked the owner if he knew anyone with experience at sea.Peary would soon travel to South America for the U.S.government.He needed experienced men to accompany him.The shop owner knew about his young employee’s skills and experience on ocean journeys,so he introduced Peary to Henson.
Using his map-reading and sailing skills,Henson proved himself to be a worthy and smart seaman.Peary soon made Henson his assistant,and they became close friends.One day Peary told Henson about his real dream:to be the first man to stand on“the top of the world"at the North Pole.He asked Henson to help him make his dream come true.Over the next five years,the two explorers made two trips together to the Arctic.However,they were not able to reach the pole either time.The cold,wind,and ice were worse than either of them had ever imagined.
In 1908,Peary and Henson were ready to make their final attempt at reaching the North Pole.Both men were over forty years old.The years of hardship in the arctic cold had made them suffer a lot.This would be their last chance.With four Inuit guides,they made a mad rush straight across the ice toward the po1e.Peary’s feet were injured and he had to be pulled on a dogsled.In April 1909.Henson’s instruments showed they were standing at the North Pole.Together Henson and Peary planted the American flag in the snow.
In later years,Robert Peary and Henson were greatly honored for their achievements.Today,the two friends and fellow explorers lie in heroes’ graves not far apart in the Arlington National Cemetery.In paragraph 1,the author shows how Henson became________.
A.a skilled seaman |
B.a highly educated captain |
C.employed in a restaurant |
D.interested in helping others |
Paragraph 2 mainly tells us__________.
A.how Matthew Henson met Robert Peary |
B.why Matthew Henson went to the hat shop |
C.why Matthew Henson stopped working on the Katie Hinds |
D.how Robert Peary knew that Matthew Henson had sea experience |
On their trip to the North Pole,Henson and Peary could best be compared to___________.
A.hunters running after wolves |
B.generals seeking power over another country |
C.soldiers going to war to fight for their freedom |
D.fighters performing a task in an unknown land |
The information presented in this passage is mainly organized_________.
A.by cause and effect |
B.by comparing and contrasting |
C.in the order that the events happened |
D.with main ideas and supporting examples |
Everyone’s at it , even my neighbors. I thought I might be the only person left in the world who hadn't done an eBay deal. So, I decided to try my hand at online auction(网上拍卖).
Buying for beginners: Sign up on www. ebay. co. uk. Most items ( e. g. tables, computers, and books) ready for auction will come with a picture and a short description; others may be marked with "Buy It Now" and have a fixed price. You can buy these right away.
If the item is being auctioned, you offer the highest price you are prepared to pay and eBay bids (出价) for you. The bid will be increased little by little until it goes beyond your highest bid, then you are emailed and asked if you would like to bid again. Auctions last up to 10 days and when they finish you get an email telling you whether you have won the item.
How to pay: Sellers decide how they would like to be paid and you need to check this before placing a bid as you might not want to post a cheque or postal orders. The easiest way is through PayPal, an online payment system that takes the money away from your credit card (信用卡).
Selling made simple: If you plan to sell on eBay, it helps to include a picture of the item. I followed my friends' advice and put up the items I wanted to sell for a 10-day auction, starring on a Thursday. This way buyers had two weekends to bid.
The big things in life: It' s easy to post a small item, but furniture is a big part of eBay and this has to be collected or sent by deliverymen. Cheek the ways of delivery before you bid.
36. What is the passage mainly about?
A. How to make payment online. B. Ways of making delivery online
C. Advantages of an online-auction system. D. How to use an online-auction system.
37. After bidding for an item, a buyer.
A. will get what he wants in ten days B. should make payment immediately
C. has chances to make higher bids D. may check its picture and description
38. The easiest way of making payment mentioned in the passage is .
A. through an online payment system B. through a local banking system
C. by sending the money to the seller D. by paying the deliveryman directly
How could we possibly think that keeping animals in cages in unnatural environments-mostly for entertainment purposes-is fair and respectful?
Zoo officials say they are concerned about animals. However, most zoos remain “collections” of interesting “things” rather than protective habitats (栖息地). Zoos teach people that it is acceptable to keep animals bored, lonely, and far from their natural homes.
Zoos claim (声称) to educate people and save endangered species(物种), but visitors leave zoos without having learned anything meaningful about the animals’ natural behavior, intelligence, or beauty. Zoos keep animals in small spaces or cages, and most signs only mention the species’ name, diet, and natural range(分布区). The animals’ normal behavior is seldom noticed because zoos don’t usually take care of the animals’ natural needs.
The animals are kept together in small spaces, with no privacy and little opportunity for mental and physical exercise. This results in unusual and self-destructive behavior called zoochosis. A worldwide study of zoos found that zoochosis is common among animals kept in small spaces or cages. Another study showed that elephants spend 22 percent of their time making repeated head movements or biting cage bars, and bears spend 30 percent of their time walking back and forth, a sign of unhappiness and pain.
Furthermore, most animals in zoos are not endangered. Captive breeding(圈养繁殖)of endangered big cats, Asian elephants, and other species has not resulted n their being sent back to the wild. Zoos talk a lot about their captive breeding programs because they do not want people to worry about a species dying out. In fact, baby animals also attract a lot of paying customers. Haven’t we seen enough competitions to name baby animals?
Actually, we will save endangered species only if we save their habitats and put an end to the reasons people kill them. Instead of supporting zoos, we should support groups that work to protect animals’ natural habitats.
64. How would the author describe the animals’ life in zoos?
A. Dangerous. B. Unhappy. C. Natural. D. Easy.
65. In the state of zoochosis, animals _________.
A. remain in cages B. behave strangely
C. attack other animals D. enjoy moving around
66. What does the author try to argue n the passage?
A. Zoos are not worth the public support.
B. Zoos fail in their attempt to save animals.
C. Zoos should treat animals as human beings.
D. Zoos use animals as a means of entertainment.
67. The author tries to persuade readers to accept his argument mainly by _____.
A. pointing out the faults in what zoos do B. using evidence he has collected at zoos
C. questioning the way animals are protected D. discussing the advantages of natural habitats
68. Although he argues against zoos, the author would still agree that _______.
A. zoos have to keep animals in small cages
B. most animals in zoos are endangered species
C. some endangered animals are reproduced in zoos
D. it’s acceptable to keep animals away from their habitats
Throughout the history of the arts,the nature of creativity has remained constant to artists. No matter what objects they select,artists are to bring forth new forces and forms that cause change—to find poetry where no one has ever seen or experienced it before.
Landscape(风景)is another unchanging element of art. It can be found from ancient times through the 17th-century Dutch painters to the 19th-century romanticists and impressionists. In the 1970s Alfred Leslie,one of the new American realists,continued this practice,Leslie sought out the same place where Thomas Cole, a romanticist, had produced paintings of the same scene a century and a half before. Unlike Cole who insists on a feeling of loneliness and the idea of finding peace in nature,Ledge pains what he actually sees. In his paintings,there is no particular change in motion,and he includes ordinary things like the highway in the background. He also takes advantage of the latest developments of color photography(摄影术)to help both the eye and the memory when he improves his painting back in his workroom.
Besides,all art begs the age-old question:What is real?Each generation of artists has shown their understanding of reality in one form or another. The impressionists saw reality in brief emotional effects,the realists in everyday subjects and in forest scenes,and the Cro-Magnon cave people in their naturalistic drawings of the animals in the ancient forests. To sum up. understanding reality is a necessary struggle for Artists of all periods.
Over thousands of years the function of the arts has remained relatively constant. Past or present,Eastern or Western,the arts are a basic part of our immediate experience. Many and different are the faces of art,and together they express the basic need and hope of human beings.
71. The underlined word “poetry” most probably means______________.
A. an object for artistic creation B. a collection of poems
C. an unusual quality D. a natural scene
72. Leslie’s paintings are extraordinary because______________.
A. they are close in style to works in ancient times
B. they look like works by 19th-cenary painters
C. they draw attention to common things in life
D. they depend heavily on color photography
73. What is the author’s opinion of artistic really?______________.
A. It will not be found in future works of art. B. It does not have a long-lasting standard.
C. It is expressed in a fixed artistic form. D. It is lacking in modern works of art.
74. What does the author suggest about the arts in the last paragraph?
A. They express people’s curiosity about the past.
B. They make people interested in everyday experience.
C. They are considered important for variety in form.
D. They are regarded as a mirror of the human situation.
75. Which of the following is the main topic of the passage?
A. History of the arts. B. Basic questions of the arts.
C. New developments in the arts.D. Use of modern technology in the arts.
As a professor at a large American university, there is a phrase that I hear often from students: “I’m only a 1050. ”The unlucky students are speaking of the score on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), which is used to determine whether they will be admitted to the college or university of their choice, or even have a chance to get a higher education at all. The SAT score, whether it is 800, 1 100 or 1550, has becomes the focus at this time of their life.
It is obvious that if students value highly their test scores, then a great amount of their self-respect is put in the number. Students who perform poorly on the exam are left feeling that it is all over. The low test score, they think, will make it impossible for them to get into a good college. And without a degree from a prestigious university, they fear that many of life’s doors will remain forever closed.
According to a study done in the 1990s, the SAT is only a reliable indicator of a student’s future performance in most cases. Interestingly, it becomes much more accurate when it is set together with other indicators——like a student’s high school grades. Even if standardized tests like the SAT could show a student’s academic proficiency(学业水平),they will never be able to test things like confidence, efforts and willpower, and are unable to give us the full picture of a student’s potentialities(潜力). This is not to suggest that we should stop using SAT scores in our college admission process. The SAT is an excellent test in many ways, and the score is still a useful means of testing students. However, it should be only one of many methods used.
64. The purpose of the SAT is to test students’ .
A. strong will B. academic ability
C. full potentialities D. confidence in school work
65. Students’ self-respect is influenced by their .
A. scores in the SAT B. achievements in mathematic
C. job opportunities D. money spent on education
66.“A prestigious university”is most probably
A. a famous university B. a technical university
C. a traditional university D. an expensive university
67. This passage is mainly about .
A. how to prepare for the SAT B. stress caused by the SAT
C. American higher education D. the SAT and its effects
Photos that you might have found down the back of your sofa are now big business!
In 2005, the American artist Richard Prince’s photograph of a photograph, Untitled (Cowboy), was sold for $ 1, 248, 000.
Prince is certainly not the only contemporary artist to have worked with so-called “found photographs”—a loose term given to everything from discarded(丢弃的) prints discovered in a junk shop to old advertisements or amateur photographs from a stranger’s family album. The German artist Joachim Schmid, who believes “basically everything is worth looking at”, has gathered discarded photographs, postcards and newspaper images since 1982. In his on-going project, Archiv, he groups photographs of family life according to themes: people with dogs; teams; new cars; dinner with the family; and so on.
Like Schmid, the editors of several self-published art magazines also champion (捍卫) found photographs. One of them, called simply Found, was born one snowy night in Chicago, when Davy Rothbard returned to his car to find under his wiper(雨刷) an angry note intended for some else: “Why’s your car HERE at HER place?” The note became the starting point for Rothbard’s addictive publication, which features found photographs sent in by readers, such a poster discovered in our drawer.
The whole found-photograph phenomenon has raised some questions. Perhaps one of the most difficult is: can these images really be considered as art? And if so, whose art? Yet found photographs produced by artists, such Richard Prince, may riding his horse hurriedly to meet someone? Or how did Prince create this photograph? It’s anyone’s guess. In addition, as we imagine the back-story to the people in the found photographs artists, like Schmid, have collated (整理), we also turn toward our own photographic albums. Why is memory so important to us? Why do we all seek to freeze in time the faces of our children, our parents, our lovers, and ourselves? Will they mean anything to anyone after we’ve gone?
64. The first paragraph of the passage is used to _________.
A. remind readers of found photographs B. advise reader to start a new kind of business
C. ask readers to find photographs behind sofa
D. show readers the value of found photographs
65. According to the passage, Joachim Schmid _________.
A. is fond of collecting family life photographs B. found a complaining not under his car wiper
C. is working for several self-published magazines
D. wondered at the artistic nature of found photographs
66. The underlined word “them” in Para 4 refers to __________.
A. the readers B. the editors C. the found photographs D. the self-published magazines
67. By asking a series of questions in Para 5, the author mainly intends to indicate that ________.
A. memory of the past is very important to people
B. found photographs allow people to think freely
C. the back-story of found photographs is puzzling
D. the real value of found photographs is questionable
68. The author’s attitude towards found photographs can be described as _________.
A. critical B. doubtful C. optimistic D. satisfied