President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama ended their first trip to India on Monday. The First Couple set off on the ten-day tour of Asia on Friday. Obama’s goals for the tour are to improve ties between the US and the region, and to promote (促进) economic growth and job creation. The President and his team will return to Washington, D.C. on November 14.
The Obamas began their trip in Mumbai, India, the financial and economic center of the country, on November 6. There, they met with government officials, business leaders and school groups. Up first on the schedule was a visit to a memorial at the TajMahal Palace and Tower Hotel. Obama’s second day in India was lighter than the first. The Presidential visit took place on Diwali, or the Festival of Lights. The five-day religious festival is celebrated each year by Hindus, Sikhs and others. The Obamas spent the holiday visiting with local schoolchildren.
On Monday, Michelle Obama joined 15 Indian school girls on a field trip to a museum of Indian craft work. During the tour, the First Lady stressed to the students the importance of education. Most of the children on the trip are the first girls in their families to attend school. Mrs Obama also encouraged the young women to stay fit, telling them that she likes to exercise because “women have to stay strong”.
Early tomorrow, the Obamas will travel to Indonesia, the country in which the President spent four years as a boy. After that, they will fly to Seoul, South Korea, to attend the Group of Twenty, or G-20, economic summit. The conference brings together leaders from 20 wealthy and developing nations and the European Union. They meet twice a year to address challenges that affect the global economy.
The final leg of the tour will be in Japan, where Obama will attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. According to Paragraph 1, what are the goals for the ten-day tour?
a. To improve ties between the US and Asia.
b. To do sight-seeing in the countries.
c. To help economy grow faster.
d. To help create more jobs.
| A．abc | B．acd | C．ad | D．abcd |
What is Paragraph 2 mainly about?
| A．What the First Couple did in India. |
| B．How long the First Couple stayed in India. |
| C．Introduction to a traditional holiday in India. |
| D．What the First Couple thought of their tour in India. |
During the field trip to a museum of Indian craft work, the First Lady _____.
| A．asked why only the first girls could go to school |
| B．told the students the importance of craft work |
| C．explained why women must stay strong |
| D．encouraged the students to study hard |
We can know from the passage that Mr Obama _____.
| A．will stay in Indonesia for four days |
| B．will stay in Japan for the shortest time |
| C．hasn’t attended the Group of Twenty before |
| D．will attend an important conference in Seoul |
How many countries does the First Couple plan to visit in total in their ten-day tour in Asia?
| A．3. | B．4. | C．5. | D．6. 32．B |
The days of the hunter are almost over in India. This is partly because there is practically nothing left to kill, and partly because some steps have been taken mainly by banning tiger-shooting to protect those animals which still survive.
Some people say that Man is naturally a hunter. I disagree with this view. Surely our earliest forefathers, who at first possessed no weapons, spent their time digging for roots, and were no doubt themselves often hunted by meat-eating animals.
I believe the main reason why the modern hunter kills is that he thinks people will admire his courage in overpowering dangerous animals. Of course, there are some who truly believe that the killing is not really the important thing, and that the chief pleasure lies in the joy of the hunt and the beauty of the wild countryside. There are also those for whom hunting in fact offers a chance to prove themselves and risk death by design; these men go out after dangerous animals like tigers, even if they say they only do it to rid the countryside of a threat. I can respect reasons like these, but they are clearly different from the need to strengthen your high opinion of yourself.
The greatest big-game hunters expressed in their writings something of these finer motives. One of them wrote:
“You must properly respect what you are after and shoot it clearly and on the animal’s own territory. You must fix forever in your mind all the wonders of that particular day. This is better than letting him grow a few years older to be attacked and wounded by his own son and eventually eaten, half alive, by other animals. Hunting is not a cruel and senseless killing—not if you respect the thing you kill, not if you kill to enrich your memories, not if you kill to feed your people.”
I can understand such beliefs, and can compare these hunters with those who hunted lions with spears and bravely caught them by the tail. But this is very different from many tiger-shoots I have seen, in which modern weapons were used. The so-called hunters fired from tall trees or from the backs of trained elephants. Such methods made tigers seem no more dangerous than rabbits.
1. There is no more hunting in India now partly because ______.
A. it is dangerous to hunt there B. hunting is already out of date
C. hunters want to protect animals D. there are few animals left to hunt
2. The author thinks modern hunters kill mainly ______.
A. to make the countryside safe B. to earn people’ s admiration
C. to gain power and influenceD. to improve their health
3. What do we learn about the big-game hunters?
A. They hunt old animals. B. They mistreat animals.
C. They hunt for food. D. They hunt for money.
4. What is the author’s view on the tiger-shoots he has seen?
A. Modern hunters lack the courage to hunt face-to-face.
B. Modern hunters should use more advanced weapons.
C. Modern hunters like to hunt rabbits instead of tigers.
D. Modern hunters should put their safety first.
Warning: reading too much Cinderella to your daughter may damage her emotional health in later life. A paper to be developed at the international congress of cognitive psychotherapy in Gothenburg suggests a link between the attitudes of women abused by their parents and early exposure to the wrong sort of fairy tales. It says girls who identified with Cinderella, Rapunzel and Beauty in Beauty and the Beast were more likely to stay in destructive relationships as adults.
The theory was developed by Susan Darker Smith, a psychotherapist at the University of Derby. She interviewed 67 female abuse survivors and found that 61 put up with severe abuse because they believed they could change their partners with patience, composition and love. The same view was taken by male survivors who had been abused as children. Hardly any of the women in a control group, who had not experienced abuse, thought they could change their partners in this way.
These women and men said they would leave a relationship rather than put up with abuse from a partner. Ms Darker Smith found the abused women were much more likely to identify with Cinderella and other submissive female characters in fairytales, who were later rescued by a stranger prince or hero.
Although most girls heard the stories, damage appeared to be done to those who adopted the characters as role models. “They believe if their love is strong enough they can change their parents’ behaviors,” she said. “Overexposure in children to stories that emphasize the transformational qualities of love may make women believe they can change their partners.” For example, they might never have understood the obvious flaw in the story of Rapunzel, who remained locked in a high tower until rescued by a knight on a white horse, who broke the door down. “The question,” said Ms Darker Smith, “is why she did not break the door down herself.”
1. The passage is especially intended for ______.
A. parents with young daughters B. girls who like reading fairy stories
C. girls who think they can change their partners D. parents with grown-up daughters
2. Cinderella, Rapunzel and Beauty in Beauty and the Beast are similar in that ______.
A. they all married some princes B. they all changed their partners with love
C. they were all abused by their partners D. they all put up with abuse
3. Which of the following statements is true of the women in a control group?
A. They don’t believe in fairy tales.
B. They don’t believe in the transformational qualities of love.
C. They have also experienced abuse.
D. They survived abuse.
4. What does the underlined word “submissive” in the 3rd paragraph probably mean?
A. kind-hearted B. passive C. gentle D. easy-going
第三部分：阅读理解（共20小题；每小题2分，满分40分）
阅读下列短文，从每篇短文后所给的四个选项（A、B、C 和 D）中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
Steve Wayne, 16, who worked this summer as a lifeguard and swim teacher in Idaho Falls, was thrilled to see an extra $ 20 in his paycheck when the federal minimum wage increased in July.
“When you’re getting paid minimum wage, anything helps,” Wayne said.
Wayne is one of several hundred thousand American teenagers who earn the minimum wage. The last of three recent increases took the minimum from $5.15 an hour in 2007 to $7.25.
US Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis says the minimum-wage increase will pump an extra $ 5.5 billion into the economy over the next year, which is helpful at a time when the economy is hurting.
“You’re giving people who spend money a raise,” said Kai Filion of the Economic Policy Institute. “Those people will go out and spend that money, and it will circulate through the economy.”
But other economists say raising the wage actually hurts the very people it’s designed to help. A higher hourly minimum, they say, could force businesses to cut workers’ hours, or even lay people off.
“What matters for people earning minimum wage is how much money they take home in total,” explained Rajeev of Georgia State University’s Economic Forecasting Center. “Their hourly rate may go up, but their number of hours may come down, so it’s not an overall increase.”
Business owners also say that raising the minimum wage exerts (施加) upward pressure on other wages. “If the minimum wage is $ 7 and I have to pay $ 8 or $ 9 to hire a dishwasher, then the cooks are going to say they want more,” said Cleveland restaurant owner Rick. “How much can I charge for that hamburger?”
Another argument is that it makes it more expensive for businesses to hire new workers. For many businesses already struggling to make ends meet in these tough times, it will be simply too expensive to keep them or to hire new people.
1. Steve Wayne was excited that ______.
A. his hard work had paid off
B. he had received a big wage increase
C. he has more money due to an increase in minimum wage
D. the wages of American teenage workers have been increased
2. According to the text, the US federal government has increased minimum wage with the aim of ______.
A. decreasing unemployment B. promoting economic recovery
C. increasing American teenagers’ wage D. narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor
3. What matters most to people in need of help is ______.
A. a higher hourly minimum B. more working hours
C. a minimum-wage increase D. an increase in total income
4. Some are against the increase in minimum wage because they say ______.
A. only very few workers will be helped
B. they have to cut down working hours
C. many business owners can’t afford to employ new workers
D. minimum wage workers will expect more pay rises in the future
People are being invited to sit down to eat with their neighbors in a nationwide lunch party designed to promote community spirit. The Big Lunch is the idea of the Eden Project in Cornwall. It aims to persuade people up and down the country to hold street lunch parties.
Tens of thousands of vegetables, fruits and flowers were used to construct a giant 2,000-square-foot lunch invitation in London’s Convent Garden. More than 9,000 cauliflowers and 800 bananas were used.
According to the organizers, people who decide to take part in the activity will get support from large companies which will supply many of the necessities, including plants to be given out to people to grow. The organizers think that the Big Lunch is a great opportunity for people to get together and spend time with their neighbors, friends and families. Events like this also help build strong communities. People can show their talents, get over their embarrassment, shake hands and get to know their neighbors, and realize that the neighborhood where they live can be a great source of happiness and enjoyment.
The Eden Project’s leader, Tim Smith, says, “It’s a good way to face this recession. Imagine a day on which millions of us, throughout the UK, sit down to have lunch together with our neighbors in the middle of our streets, around our tower blocks, and on every patch of common ground. We’ll have cooked our own food, made our own entertainment, and created our own decorations. It will be a day to share bread with our neighbors, and put a smile on Britain’s face.”
1. The Big Lunch aims to _____.
A. persuade people to eat healthy food B. encourage people to cook at home
C. help poor people in the community D. develop community spirit
2. Which of the following is false?
A. Large companies will give participants enough money to hold the lunch parties.
B. The Big Lunch may be a good opportunity to show talents and make friends.
C. The Big Lunch is a nationwide activity designed by The Eden Project.
D. The giant lunch invitation in London used a lot of vegetables, fruits and flowers.
3. Big Lunch is a good opportunity for people to _____.
A. enjoy free food B. have fun with neighbors and families
C. shop on the street D. eat without cooking
4. The underlined word “recession” in the last paragraph probably means_____.
A. nice environment B. grand ceremony
C. rapid progress D. economic decline
1. For admission to the Detective House, a shopper needs to _____.
A. be a DBS card owner B. spend a total of $150
C. answer 3 simple questions D. have experience in solving cases
2. Mrs. Rosland, a DBS card holder, spent $200 in the mall, and she would be entitled to _____.
A. a free air ticket and a mother-of-pearl necklace
B. a white gold diamond and a limited edition key chain
C. a sure win gift of limited edition car key chain
D. a Peugeot P200 and a set of white gold diamond
3. Which of the following statements is true?
A. DBS Bank and Fraser Mall are the official sponsors.
B. All shoppers are entitled to a draw for free air ticket.
C. The rewards are open to all shoppers for the entire month of April.
D. DBS Card owners enjoy double chances in the "Win a car" lucky draw.