When her five daughters were young, Helene An always told them that there was strength in unity (团结). To show this, she held up one chopstick, representing one person. Then she easily broke it into two pieces. Next, she tied several chopsticks together, representing a family. She showed the girls it was hard to break the tied chopsticks. This lesson about family unity stayed with the daughters as they grew up.
Helene An and her family own a large restaurant business in California. However, when Helene and her husband Danny left their home in Vietnam in 1975, they didn't have much money. They moved their family to San Francisco. There they joined Danny's mother, Diana, who owned a small Italian sandwich shop. Soon afterwards, Helene and Diana changed the sandwich shop into a small Vietnamese restaurant. The five daughters helped in the restaurant when they were young. However, Helene did not want her daughters to always work in the family business because she thought it was too hard.
Eventually the girls all graduated from college and went away to work for themselves, but one by one, the daughters returned to work in the family business. They opened new restaurants in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Even though family members sometimes disagreed with each other, they worked together to make the business successful. Daughter Elisabeth explains, "Our mother taught us that to succeed we must have unity, and to have unity we must have peace. Without the strength of the family, there is no business."
Their expanding business became a large corporation in 1996, with three generations of Ans working together. Now the Ans' corporation makes more than $20 million each year. Although they began with a small restaurant, they had big dreams, and they worked together. Now they are a big success.
Helene tied several chopsticks together to show ______.
| A．the strength of family unity |
| B．the difficulty of growing up |
| C．the advantage of chopsticks |
| D．the best way of giving a lesson |
We can I earn from Paragraph 2 that the An family ______.
| A．started a business in 1975 |
| B．left Vietnam without much money |
| C．bought a restaurant in San Francisco |
| D．opened a sandwich shop in Los Angeles |
What can we infer about the An daughters?
| A．They did not finish their college education. |
| B．They could not bear to work in the family business. |
| C．They were influenced by what Helene taught them. |
| D．They were troubled by disagreement among family members. |
Which of the following can be the best title for the passage?
| A．How to Run a Corporation |
| B．Strength Comes from Peace |
| C．How to Achieve a Big Dream |
| D．Family Unity Builds Success |
LONDON: What could possibly be wrong with planting trees? The advantages are obvious; they firm the soil, soak up (摄取) extra water and take carbon dioxide (二氧化碳) out of the atmosphere.
However, it now turns out that planting trees could add to global warming.
Tree roots do a great job of keeping soil firmly on the ground and out of the wind’s power. The problem is that some of those dust clouds play an important part in soaking up carbon dioxide.
Huge dust storms blow out over the oceans from dry parts of North Africa and central Asia. Tons of dust are lifted and left as a thin film over the ocean surface. The dust fuels oceanic life.
Dust from China is carried east and left in the Pacific Ocean. If a tree-planting programme there is successful and the dust supply reduced, the net result may be that less carbon dioxide gets locked away in the ocean.
Andy Ridgwell, an environmental scientist from the University of East Anglia, has spent the past few years studying dust and says his work “shows clearly the complexity of the system and the importance of not tinkering(粗劣地修补) with it without understanding the results. For this reason there is the need to focus(集中) on cutting carbon dioxide giving off rather than monkeying (瞎弄) about with the land surface.”
An American scientist, Robert Jackson, has shown that when native grassland areas are invaded(侵入) by trees, carbon is lost from the soil. “We are studying why the soil carbon disappears, but one theory is that trees do a lot more of their growing above ground compared to grasses, so less carbon goes directly into the soil from trees, ” says Jackson.
In wet areas of the world, the gain from trees absorbing carbon dioxide above ground seems to be outweighed(超过) by the loss of carbon from the soil below ground. Countries that plan to combat global warming by planting trees may have to think again. Solutions(解决办法) to environmental problems are often more complex than they first appear, and understanding the Earth’s climate is a very great challenge.People usually hold the opinion that
| A．huge dust storms can destroy carbon dioxide |
| B．huge dust storms can destroy the oceans on the earth |
| C．huge dust storms can’t do anything beneficial for man |
| D．planting trees is the only way to control huge dust storms |
Andy Ridgwell, the environmental scientist, believes that
| A．dust plays a more important part than trees |
| B．trees shouldn’t have been planted in dry places |
| C．carbon dioxide is harmful to everything on the earth |
| D．environmental problems are more complex than expected |
Robert Jackson’s experiment proves that
| A．grassland areas should be covered by forests |
| B．trees hold more carbon than grass |
| C．carbon can turn grass into dust |
| D．less carbon can make trees grow faster |
The underlined word “combat” in the last paragraph means
| A．learn about | B．fight against | C．live with | D．give up |
When Jackie Robinson walked onto Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, New York, on April 15, 1947, he changed baseball forever. As the first African American to play in the Major League in modern times, many believe he changed the country forever.
Robinson was born in 1919. He lived in a time when rules controlled what African Americans could do. He was a top athlete, playing football, basketball and baseball. But playing for a major League team was off limits to Robinson because of his race.
Branch Rickey, president and manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, signed (和……签约) Robinson in 1947. He believed that Robinson not only had the skills, but the courage to face the challenge of becoming modern baseball’s first black player.
It wasn’t easy. Robinson sometimes faced boos (嘘声) from fans. But he became a star, anyway. In 1962, he became the first African-American player chosen to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame. In 2005, he was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal, the highest award Congress can give to an American.
By breaking baseball’s color barrier (肤色障碍), Robinson opened the door for many to follow his footsteps, not only in baseball, but in other areas of life as well. After he stopped playing the game, Robinson worked as a manager for a coffee company. He wrote a newspaper column (专栏). He also started a bank. Before Jackie Robinson, no African-American players could __________.
| A．play baseball |
| B．play in the Major League |
| C．play football and basketball |
| D．watch Major League games |
According to Branch Rickey, Jackie Robinson was __________.
| A．poor but clever | B．unlucky but confident |
| C．proud and strong | D．brave and skilled |
We can know that Jackie Robinson’s story __________.
| A．changed many Africans’ ideas |
| B．had an effect on many black people’s lives |
| C．encouraged black people to fight with whites |
| D．started a hot discussion about the color barrier |
Which of the following is NOT what he once did?
| A．a newspaper column writer | B．a banker |
| C．a university teacher | D．a manager in a company |
Madame de Stael says that only the people who can play with children are able to educate them. For success in training children, the first condition is to become a child oneself. It means to treat the child as really one’s equal, that is, to show him the same consideration, the same kind of confidence one shows to an adult. It means not to affect the child to be what we ourselves want him to become, but to be affected by the impression of what the child himself is; not to treat the child with cheating, or by force, but with the seriousness and true love suitable to his own character.
Not leaving the child in peace is the greatest problem of present methods of training children. Parents do not see that during the whole life, the need of peace is never greater than in the years of childhood, an inner peace under all outside liveliness.
But what does a child experience? Corrections, orders, interference（干涉）, the whole livelong day. The child is always required to leave something alone, or to do something different, to find something different, or want something different from what he does, or finds, or wants. He is always guided in another direction from the true inner will that is leading him. All of this is caused by our so-called enthusiasm in directing, advising, and helping the child to become the same model produced in one assembly line（流水线）. Understanding, the deepest characteristic of love, is almost always absent.
To bring up a child means carrying one’s soul in one’s hand; it means never placing ourselves in danger of meeting the cold look on the face of the child. It means the truth that the ways of injuring the child are limitless while the ways of being useful to him are few. How seldom does the educator remember that the child, even at four or five years of age, has already had a sharp feeling! The smallest mistrust and unkindness, the least act of injustice, leave wounds that last for life in the heart of the child. While, on the other hand, unexpected friendliness and kindness make quite as deep an impression on those soft senses.The passage mainly talks about _______.
| A．misleading zones and right ways in educating children |
| B．current problems in training children |
| C．what should be taught to children |
| D．the importance of educating children |
Children, according to the passage, are experiencing _______.
| A．corrections, orders and peace |
| B．orders, interference and peace |
| C．interference, orders and corrections |
| D．peace, guide and praise |
If you were a parent, which of the following methods is TRUE according to the text?
| A．You could treat your children not so seriously for they don’t understand many things. |
| B．You could train your children as you wish them to be since you are parents. |
| C．You should sometimes leave your children in peace as they wish in their childhood. |
| D．You should correct your children immediately if their behavior is not what you want. |
We may conclude that the author believes people should _______.
| A．play with the children with enthusiasm all day long just to please them |
| B．try to give an order, advice and suggestions to their children at any time |
| C．treat their children just as the way they treat an adult in their daily life |
| D．regard their children as an equal to them and have understanding of the inner peace of them |
Fifty people died, over 11,000 were injured, and 100,000 houses were heavily damaged or destroyed in an earthquake that struck North China's Hebei Province.
The quake, measuring 6. 2 on the Richter scale (里氏6 .2级) , hit the area 220km northwest of Beijing at 11: 50 a. m. on January 10, 1998.
Scientists made a report of the recent quake. They said that the area of northwestern Beijing, the joint of Shanxi and Hebei Provinces and the Inner Mongolia (内蒙古) were most easily attacked by earthquakes measuring 6 to a bit over 7 on the Richter scale.
However, scientists did not see the recent earthquake earlier. Clouds covered a large area in the northern part of North China before the earthquake and experts say that this prevented satellites from correctly watching the temperature at the correct altitude (纬度).
Experts say that in the last ten years, about 305 earthquakes have taken place in China with 9 measuring over 7 on the Richter scale, 60 measuring over 6, and 236 measuring over 5.
Tens of thousands of people died or were injured. Loss(损失) valued over 10 billion yuan.When the earthquake attacked the area, most people there were unlikely（不太可能的）to ____.
| A．sleep in bed | B．work in the fields | C．walk in the streets | D．stay at home |
The report shows that about nine earthquakes in the past ten years are measured over ____ on the Richter scale.
| A．7 | B．5 | C．9 | D．6 |
It can be inferred（推断） from the report that the damage caused by the earthquakes could be much less heavy if ____.
| A．all the people stayed outside |
| B．the earthquake happened at midnight |
| C．the people had been warned earlier |
| D．the earthquake scale was lower than 6. 2 only |
Which of the following can be reasonable except ____.
| A．We can not stop earthquakes |
| B．Scientists are working hard at the researches on earthquakes |
| C．We can do our best to have fewer damages than ever |
| D．Nothing can be done on earthquakes |
When I first got an e-mail account ten years ago, I received communications only from family, friends, and colleagues. Now it seems that every time I check my e-mail，I have an endless series of advertisements and other correspondence that do not interest me at all. If we want e-mail to continue to be useful, we need specific laws that make spamming（发送垃圾邮件）a crime.
If lawmakers do not do something soon to prohibit spam, the problem will certainly get much worse. Computer programs allow spammers to send hundreds of millions of e-mails almost instantly. As more and more advertisers turn to spam to sell their products，individual e-mail boxes are often flooded with spam e-mails. Would people continue to use e-mail if they had to deal with an annoying amount of spam each time?
This problem is troubling individuals and companies as well. Many spam e-mails contain computer viruses that can shut down the entire network of a company. Companies rely on e-mail for their employees to communicate with each other. Spam frequently causes failures in their local communications networks, and their employees are thus unable to communicate effectively. Such a situation results in a loss of productivity and requires companies to repeatedly repair their networks. These computer problems raise production costs of companies, which are, in the end, passed on to the consumer.
For these reasons, I believe that lawmakers need to legislate（立法）against spare. Spammers should be fined, and perhaps sent to prison if they continue to disturb people. E-mail is a tool which helps people all over the world to communicate conveniently, but spam is destroying this convenience.What does the underlined word “correspondence” in the Paragraph l probably mean?
| A．messages | B．ideas | C．connections | D．programs |
According to the text, what is the major cause of the flooding spam?
| A．Companies rely on e-mail for communications. |
| B．More people in the world communicate by e-mail. |
| C．Many computer viruses contain spam e-mail. |
| D．More advertisers begin to promote sales through spam. |
According to Paragraph 3, who is the final victim of spam?
| A．The business. | B．The advertiser. | C．The employee. | D．The consumer. |
What is the purpose of the text?
| A．To inform. | B．To educate. | C．To persuade. | D．To instruct. |