To find how the name Canada came about we must go back to the 16th century. At that time, the French dreamed of disclosing and controlling more land, of expanding trade beyond their borders and of spreading their faith across the world .In 1535, Francois I ,King of France, ordered a navigator named Jacques Cartier to explore the New World and search for a passage to India.
Cartier first arrived at the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, which he wanted to explore. He did not know what to expect but he hoped that this Gulf was just an arm of the ocean between two islands. If it was, he would soon be on his way to the Far East. So he sailed upstream along the St. Lawrence River. However, instead of reaching Asia he arrived at Quebec or Stadacona, as the Indians called it. It was at this point that the term “Canada” entered the country’s history. Apparently the word “Canada” came from an Indian word “Kanata”, which means community or village. Cartier first used it when he referred to Stadacona or Quebec. What a huge “village” Canada is!In the early sixteenth century, the King of France ordered Cartier to ______
A.find the new world. |
B.go and visit the American Indians |
C.build an entirely new country |
D.get more information about America and find a way to Asia |
Having reached the Gulf of St. Lawrence Cartier thought _____
A.he had already got to India |
B.he had sailed into the Atlantic |
C.it was a water passage to the East |
D. it was a water way to the New World |
In the early sixteenth century, Quebec was only ____.
A.an Indian village |
B.a little town in southern Canada |
C.the place which we call Canada now |
D.a village at the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence |
(C)
Many people often say there is more stress in today's society than in years past. In fact, these people are comparing our lives with that of the cave man, who didn't have to worry about the stock market or the atomic bomb. They forget that the cave man worried about being eaten by a hear while he was asleep, or about dying of hunger--things that few people worry much about today.
Actually stress is a normal state of affairs, and it's important that people understand what they are talking about when they speak about stress. Whenever anyone experiences something unpleasant, for lack of a better word they say they are under stress. Yet there is such a thing as pleasant stress--as in the case of the Olympic winner at the moment of his glory, or a conductor as his orchestra performs particularly well. They are just sending out excitement, and they are giving off all the stress hormones exactly the same as if they were in low spirits or had just heard of a death in the family. We call the pleasant or healthy kind "eustress” and the unpleasant or unhealthy kind "distress".
Then how can people deal with stress? The secret is not to avoid it but to "do your own thing". It implies doing what you like to do and what you are made to do at your own speed. For most people, it is really a matter of learning how to live and how to behave in various situations, to decide: “Do I really want to take my father's business or be a musician?” If you really want to be a musician, then be one.
64. What can be inferred from the first paragraph?
A. Modern people experiences more stress than the cave man.
B. The cave man experienced more stress than modern people.
C. People don't suffer more stress today; it's just that they think they do.
D. Modern people have the same worries as the cave man did.
65. In which of the following situations will you feel "eustress"?
A. Your favorite football team has lost an important game.
B. You have failed an important examination.
C. You are informed of an accident of your best friend.
D. You have won the first prize in an English competition.
66 The purpose of writing the passage is to let us know _________________________.
A. stress does not necessarily refer to unpleasant experience
B. distress is what people call the pleasant kind of stress
C. an Olympic winner feels the same stress as one who loses a family member
D. people will feel eustress and distress at the same time
67. According to the passage, how can people deal with stress?
A. Do things that you really want to do. B. Do whatever you're expected to do.
C. Try to do things successfully.D. Refuse to do whatever you're told to.
(B)
People can be addicted to different things — e.g. alcohol, drug, certain foods, or even television. People who have such an addiction are compulsive: they have a very powerful psychological need that they feel they must satisfy. According to psychologists, many people are compulsive spenders. They feel that they must spend money. This compulsion, like most others, is impossible to explain reasonably. For compulsive spenders who buy on credit, charge accounts are even more exciting than money. In other words, compulsive spenders feel that with credit, they can do anything. Their pleasure in spending large amounts is actually greater than the pleasure that they get from the things they buy.
There is even a special psychology of bargain hunting. To save money, of course, most people look for sales, low prices, and discounts. Compulsive bargain hunters, however, often buy things that they don’t need just because they are cheap. They want to believe that they are helping their budgets, but they are really playing an exciting game. When they can buy something for less than other people, they feel that they are winning. Most people, experts claim, have two reasons for their behavior: a good reason for the things that they do and the real reason.
It is not only scientists, of course, who understand the psychology of spending habits, but also business people. Stores, companies, and advertisers use psychology to increase business. They consider people’s needs for love, power, or influence, their basic values, their beliefs and opinions, and so on in their advertising and sales methods.
Psychologists often use a method called “behavior therapy(疗法)” to help individuals solve their personality problems. In the same way, they can help people who feel that they have problems with money.
60.According to the psychologists, a compulsive spender is one who spends large amounts of
money _____.
A. and takes great pleasure from what he or she buys
B. in order to satisfy his or her basic needs in life
C. just to meet his or her strong psychological need
D. and feels he or she is cheated
61. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the text?
A. People spend money for exactly the same reason that they need to buy things.
B. Business people and advertisers can use the psychology of people’s spending habits to
increase sales.
C. Business people understand the psychology of compulsive buying better than scientists do.
D. Compulsive bargain hunters do not have problems with money.
62. What is the text mainly about?
A. The psychology of money-spending habits.
B. The habits of compulsive spenders.
C. A special psychology of bargain hunting.
D. The use of the psychology of spending habits in business.
63.From the text we may safely conclude that compulsive spenders or compulsive bargain hunters
_______________.
A. are really unreasonableB. need special treatment
C. are really beyond drugsD. can never get any help to solve their problems with money
IV. Reading Comprehension (40 points)
(A)
So far as I know, Miss Hannah was the first person to give the basic difference between work and labor. To be happy, a man must feel, firstly, free and secondly, important. He cannot be really happy if he is forced by society to do what he does not enjoy doing, or what he enjoys doing lowly thought of by society as valueless or unimportant. In a society where slavery in the strict sense has been got rid of, the sign that what a man does is of social value is that he is paid money to do it, but a laborer today can rightly be called a wage slave. A man is a laborer if the job that society offers him is not interesting to himself but he has to take it just owing to the necessity of earning a living and supporting his family.
The opposite side to labor is play. When we play a game, we enjoy what we are doing, otherwise we should not play it, but it is a purely private activity; and society could not care less whether we play it or not.
Between labor and play stands work. A man is a worker if he is personally interested in the job which society pays him to do; what from the point view of society is necessary labor is from his own point of view willing play. Whether a job is to be classified as labor or work depends, not on the job itself, but on the tastes of the individual who does it. The difference does not, for example, agree with the difference between a physical and a mental job; a gardener or a copper may be a worker, a bank clerk is a laborer.
Which a man is can be seen from his attitude toward leisure. To a worker, leisure means simply the hours he needs to relax and rest in order to work efficiently. He is therefore more likely to take too little leisure than too much; workers die of heart attack and forget their wives' birthday. To the laborer, on the other hand, leisure means freedom from compulsion(强迫), so that it is natural for him to imagine that the fewer hours he has to spend laboring, and the more hours he is free to play, the better.
56. A man feels happy when ____________.
A. he is supposed to do what is important in his opinion
B. he has to take a job to earn a living and support his family
C. he is doing something personally interesting and socially valuable
D. what he enjoys doing is what he thinks highly of
57. The reason why a laborer can be called a wage slave is that ___________.
A. he has a family to support
B. his wages are as low as what a slave used to make
C. society doesn't care whether he plays or not
D. he is doing the job only for money, not for interest
58. Whether a job can be classified as labor or work depends on _____________.
A. whether it is a physical or mental B. the tastes of the person who does it
C. the attitude of the society toward it D. the necessity of the job to the society and individual
59. Which of the following can be the best title of the text?
A. Whether to Work or to Play B. Work, Labor, and Play
C. Differences between Labor and Play D. Leisure, Key to Work, Labor and Play
Beijing had its biggest snowfall since 1951. Britain is suffering through its longest cold snap (寒潮) since 1981. And freezing weather is hitting the Deep South, including Florida’s orange groves and beaches.
Whatever happened to global warming?
Such weather doesn’t seem to fit with warnings from scientists that the Earth is warming because of greenhouse gases. But experts say the cold snap doesn’t contradict global warming at all—it’s just a temporary phenomenon in the long-term heating trend. “It’s part of natural variability,” said Gerald Meehl, a senior scientist. With global warming, he said, “we’ll still have record cold temperatures. We’ll just have fewer of them.”
Scientists say man-made climate change does have the potential to cause more frequent and more severe weather extremes. But experts did not connect the current cold snap to climate change.
So what is going on?
“We basically have seen just a big outbreak of Arctic air over populated areas of the Northern Hemisphere”, Arndt said.
In the atmosphere, large rivers of air travel roughly west to east around the globe between the Arctic and the tropics. This air flow acts like a fence to keep Arctic air restricted. But recently, this air flow has become bent into a zigzag (之字形) pattern, wandering north and south. If you live in a place where it brings air up from the south, you get warm weather. In fact, record highs were reported this week in Washington state and Alaska.
But in the eastern United States, like some other unlucky parts of the globe, Arctic air is coming from the north. And that’s how you get a temperature of 3 degrees in Beijing, a reading of minus-42 in mainland Norway, and 18 inches of snow in parts of Britain. The zigzag pattern arises naturally from time to time, but it is not clear why it’s so strong right now.
71.What is the best title of the text?
A. Freezing weather is hitting the Deep South.
B. We’ll still have record cold temperatures.
C. The air flow has become a zigzag pattern.
D. Cold snap doesn’t contradict global warming.
72. With global warming, we will ______.
A. also meet with severe cold snap
B. have more hot temperatures forever
C. never experience cold temperatures
D. have more cold temperatures
73. According to experts, the current cold snap ______.
A. suggests that the climate has changed greatly
B. is not related to the climate change
C. shows that the climate will turn cold
D. is affected by global warming
74. Beijing had its biggest snowfall since 1951 because of ______.
A. a fence from the Arctic B. a cooling trend in climate
C. a big outbreak of Arctic air D. its large population
75. We can conclude that ______.
A. not all the parts of the Northern Hemisphere are cold in face of the cold snap
B. the zigzag pattern arises naturally accidentally
C. Beijing will get cold weather next year
D. Washington state and Alaska will not face cold weather next year
Rarely have I experienced a reaction like that which came about following the idea of banning private education. One of those who contacted me to disagree with the idea was 17 year old Anirudh Mandagere. He got 10 A*s at GCSE and is currently studying English, French, Math and History at a private school in Manchester. Here is his response:
For me, the idea that all private schools should be banned is not only ridiculous and unrealistic, but goes against the idea of liberty. We must have the freedom to choose between state-funded and privately educated schools. If parents pay taxes, surely they should be able to choose whether they send their children to a state-funded or a privately-funded school.
The economic impacts of abolishing private education are vast. Banning private schools would obviously contribute to a great transfer to state schools. Many state schools are already overburdened; do they really need more pupils? Abolishing private education would lead to higher taxes for taxpayers since more money would be needed to educate the 7% who were previously private educated. In the times of economic crisis, should the taxpayer need to fork out more money to pay for their education? There would also be a great rise in unemployment of the staff who works at private schools.
It is noted that, in general, private schools have better grades at GCSE and A level than state schools. Yet, why do people view this as a bad thing? The higher private school grades eventually force the government to endlessly improve state education so that the middle-classes do not totally abandon state education for private education. This competition creates reform and progress within state schools and eventually promote them! If the private schools did not exist, where would be the impetus for state school improvement?
Government should not simply ban a system which produces results. It should learn from it and use the private education model as a basis for the state education model. Abolishing a successful system will not help anybody, learning from a successful system will.
66. In the eye of Anirudh Mandagere, parents have the right to ______.
A. criticize state-funded schools
B. pay taxes for the promotion of private schools
C. choose the way their children receive education
D. advocate the competition between state schools and private ones
67. According to the passage, banning private education will ______.
A. obviously contribute to lower taxes
B. not cause the state schools to be overburdened
C. force the government to boost state education
D. lead to many people losing their jobs
68. The underlined word “impetus” in the fourth paragraph probably means ______.
A. motivation B. prevention C. participation D. assessment
69. Compared with state schools, private ones ______.
A. educate a little fewer students B. conduct better than all state ones
C. are better received by the publicD. are more competitive on the whole
70. Which of the following statements will Anirudh Mandagere agree with?
A. His wonderful performance results from the education his private school offers.
B. Without the existence of private schools, state ones wouldn’t get improved much.
C. Private education is a good system to make students successful in life.
D. Private schools are supposed to be sponsored more than state ones.