What will our future look like? People have always been wondering about this question. Go on reading this text and you will know what will happen in the next fifty years.
How can we know what the future will look like? To be able to understand the future, you must know the past. What has taken us to where we are today and what has changed along the way? The world has changed a lot in the last 150 years, but we humans are driven by the same basic needs as we were 150 years ago. Will this change in the next 150 years? No.
What inventions have really made a difference in the last 150 years? In the past years, the inventions that have affected most people around the world for everyday living are the telephone, electricity, radio, television, computer, the car and the ability to communicate through the Internet. Then we of course have a lot of inventions that have made life easier, like new medicine, faster transports etc. In general, human beings have been working hard in the last 150 years to make the inventions so that they will be able to get control of the time and the world. Since there is still much to do in this area, this will be the focus at least for the next 150 years.
Why do we need to predict the future? Predicting the future is important for two reasons: first we need to start to think about what kind of what kind of future we would like for ourselves and to pass on to the next generation, and then we need to know what decisions we need to make today that will give the best result in the future.What does the author try to tell us in the second paragraph?
| A．Humans will no longer enjoy food in the future. |
| B．The world will be completely changed tomorrow. |
| C．The world is quite different from what it was. |
| D．Our basic needs will not change in the future. |
Our past inventions have made __________.
| A．our daily life more stressful |
| B．it easy for us to live |
| C．us work less time |
| D．our work easily done |
What will humans do in order to keep the world under control?
| A．To focus on making more inventions. |
| B．To produce more cars for transportation. |
| C．To spend more time working on the Internet. |
| D．To work much harder to achieve their goals. |
What is the main idea of the last paragraph?
| A．What result we’ll receive in the future. |
| B．The decisions we make for our future. |
| C．The two reasons of predicting the future |
| D．The importance of predicting the future. |
It was the summer of 1965. DeLuca, then 17, visited Peter Buck, a family friend. Buck asked DeLuca about his plans for the future. “I’m going to college, but I need a way to pay for it,” DeLuca recalls saying. “Buck said, ‘You should open a sandwich shop.’”
That afternoon, they agreed to be partners. And they set a goal: to open 32 stores in ten years. After doing some research, Buck wrote a check for $1000. DeLuca rented a storefront (店面) in Connecticut, and when they couldn’t cover their start-up costs, Buck kicked in another $1000.
But business didn’t go smoothly as they expected. DeLuca says, “After six months, we were doing poorly, but we didn’t know how badly, because we didn’t have any financial controls.” All he and Buck knew was that their sales were lower than their costs.
DeLuca was managing the store and going to the University of Bridgeport at the same time. Buck was working at his day job as a nuclear physicist in New York. They’d meet Monday evenings and brainstorm ideas for keeping the business running. “We convinced ourselves to open a second store. We figured we could tell the public, ‘We are so successful, we are opening a second store.’” And they did—in the spring of 1966. Still, it was a lot of learning by trial and error.
But the partners’ learn-as-you-go approach turned out to be their greatest strength. Every Friday, DeLuca would drive around and hand-deliver the checks to pay their suppliers. “It probably took me two and a half hours and it wasn’t necessary, but as a result, the suppliers got to know me very well, and the personal relationships established really helped out,” DeLuca says.
And having a goal was also important. “There are so many problems that can get you down. You just have to keep working toward your goal,” DeLuca adds.
DeLuca ended up founding Subway Sandwich, the multimillion-dollar restaurant chain.DeLuca opened the first sandwich shop in order to ______.
| A．support his family |
| B．pay for his college education |
| C．help his partner expand business |
| D．do some research |
What can we learn about their first shop?
| A．It stood at an unfavorable place. |
| B．It lowered the prices to promote sales. |
| C．It made no profits due to poor management. |
| D．It lacked control over the quality of sandwiches. |
They decided to open a second store because they _______.
| A．had enough money to do it |
| B．had succeeded in their business |
| C．wished to meet the increasing demand of customers |
| D．wanted to make believe that they were successful |
What contribute most to their success according to the author?
| A．Learning by trial and error. |
| B．Making friends with suppliers. |
| C．Finding a good partner |
| D．Opening chain stores. |
King's College Summer School
King's College Summer School is an annual training program for high school students at all levels who want to improve their English. Courses are given by the teachers of King' s College and other colleges in New York. Trips to museums and culture centers are also organized. This year's summer school will be from July 25 to August 15.
More information is as follows:
| Application date Students in New York should send their applications before July 18, 2015. Students of other cities should send their applications before July 16, 2015. Foreign students should send their applications before July 10, 2015. |
Courses English Language Spoken English: 22 hours Reading and Writing: 10 hours American History: 16 hours American Culture: 16 hours |
| Steps A letter of self-introduction A letter of recommendation(推荐) ﹡ The letters should be written in English with all the necessary information. |
Cost Daily lessons: $200 Sports and activities: $100 Travels: $200 Hotel service: $400 ﹡You may choose to live with your friends or relatives in the same city. |
| Please write to: Thompson, Sanders 1026 King' s Street New York, NY 10016, USA E-mail: KC-Summer-School@ yahoo.com |
You can most probably read the text in _______.
| A．a textbook | B．a travel guide |
| C．a newspaper | D．a telephone book |
Which of the following is true about King' s College Summer School?
| A．Only top students can take part in the program. |
| B．Visits to museums and culture centers are part of the program. |
| C．King' s College Summer School is run every other year. |
| D．Only the teachers of King' s College give courses. |
King’s College Summer School offers the following courses except _______.
| A．English Language | B．American History |
| C．American Culture | D．American Geography |
If you are to live with your relatives in New York, you will have to pay the school _______.
| A．$200 | B．$400 | C．$900 | D．$500 |
Let us suppose it is now about A.D. 2060. let’s make believe it is about fifty years from now. of course, things have changed and life is very different.
Voyages to the moon are being made every day. It is as easy to take a holiday on the moon today as it was for the people in 1960 to take a holiday in Europe. At a number of scenic spots on the moon, many hotels have been built. The hotels are air-conditioned, naturally. In order that everyone can enjoy the beautiful scenery on the moon, every room has at least one picture window. Everything imaginable is provided for entertainment of young and old.
What are people eating now? People are still eating food. They haven’t yet started to take on heir(继承) supply of energy directly as electrical current or as nuclear power. They may some day. But many foods now come in pill form, and the food that goes into the pill continues to come mainly from green plants.
Since there are several times as many people in the world today as there were a hundred years ago, most of our planet’s surface has to be filled. The deserts are irrigated(灌溉) with water and crops are no longer destroyed by pests. The harvest is always good.
Farming, of course, is very highly developed. Very few people have to work on the farm. It is possible to run the farm by just pushing a few buttons now and then.
People are now largely vegetarians(素食者). You see, as the number of people increases, the number of animal decreases. Therefore, the people have to be vegetarians and we are healthier both in our bodies and in our minds, and we know the causes and cure of disease and pain, and it is possible to get rid of diseases. No one has to be ill any more.
Such would be our life in 2060. According to the text, what will be on the moon in about A.D.2060?
A. Many other animals. B. Many tourists.
C. Many plants. D. A sea. What will people eat in 2060 according to the text?
| A．Foods in pill form. | B．Foods in gas form. |
| C．Biscuits in pill form. | D．Foods in water form. |
Why are people largely vegetarians in 2060?
| A．There are fewer animals existing on earth. |
| B．People don’t like to eat meat. |
| C．People no longer need food. |
| D．People are healthy enough. |
The Enigma (谜）of Beauty
The search for beauty spans centuries and continents. Paintings of Egyptians dating back over 4,000 years show both men and women painting their nails and wearing makeup. In 18th-century France, wealthy noblemen wore large wigs (假发）of long, white hair to make themselves attractive. Today, people continue to devote a lot of time and money to their appearance.
There is at least one good reason for the desire to be attractive：beauty is power. Studies suggest that good-looking people make more money, get called on more often in class, and are regarded as friendlier.
But what exactly is beauty? It's difficult to describe it clearly, and yet we know it when we see it. And our awareness of it may start at a very early age. In one set of studies, six-month-old babies were shown a series of photographs. The faces on the pictures had been rated for attractiveness by a group of college students. In the studies, the babies spent more time looking at the attractive faces than the unattractive ones.
The idea that even babies can judge appearance makes perfect sense to many researchers. In studies by psychologists, men consistently showed a preference for women with larger eyes, fuller lips, and a smaller nose and chin while women prefer men with large shoulders and a narrow waist. According to scientists, the mind unconsciously tells men and women that these traits —the full lips, clear skin, strong shoulders —equal health and genetic well-being.
Not everyone thinks the same way, however. " Our hardwiredness can be changed by all sorts of expectations —mostly cultural, " says C. Loring Brace, an anthropologist at the University of Michigan. What is considered attractive in one culture might not be in another. Look at most Western fashion magazines：the women on the pages are thin. But is this "perfect" body type for women worldwide? Scientists' answer is no; what is considered beautiful is subjective and varies around the world. They found native peoples in southeast Peru preferred shapes regarded overweight in Western cultures.
For better or worse, beauty plays a role in our lives. But it is extremely difficult to describe exactly what makes one person attractive to another. Although there do seem to be certain physical traits considered universally appealing, it is also true that beauty does not always keep to a single, uniform standard. Beauty really is, as the saying goes, in the eye of the beholder.People's ideas about beauty ________.
| A．have existed since ancient times |
| B．can be easily described |
| C．have little influence on a person's success |
| D．are based upon strict criteria |
In Paragraph 3, the babies in the study ________.
| A．were rated for their appearance |
| B．were entered in a beauty contest |
| C．were shown photos of a group of college students |
| D．were able to tell attractive faces from unattractive ones |
The underlined word “traits” in Paragraph 4 probably means ________.
| A．qualities | B．measurements |
| C．judgments | D．standards |
We can learn from the passage that ________.
| A．the ideas of beauty vary as people grow up |
| B．the search for beauty is rooted in lack of confidence |
| C．the standards for beauty are based on scientific researches |
| D．the understanding of beauty depends on cultural backgrounds |
In order to help customers find what they want quickly, it’s important to keep the thousands of titles in the Main Street Movies store organized properly. This section of the Employee Handbook will tell you how to organize videos.
Each Main street Movies store has three main sections:
1. New Releases Wall.
2. Film library.
3. Video Games.
New Releases Wall. Almost 70 percent of movie rentals are new releases, and that is the first place where most customers go when they enter the store. The center section of shelves on this wall holds Hottest Hits. When new titles come into the store, place them on this wall in alphabetical order. The shelves beside Hottest Hits are called Recent Releases. The New Releases Wall, including the Hottest Hits and Recent Releases shelves, holds about 350 titles.
Film Library. The thousands of titles in the Film Library are organized into categories. The films within each category are displayed alphabetically. Here are the categories and their two-letter computer codes:
| AC |
Action |
DR |
Drama |
HO |
Horror |
| CH |
Children |
FA |
Family |
MU |
Music |
| CO |
Comedy |
FL |
Foreign Language |
SC |
SCIENCE Fiction |
Foreign Language titles include films that were originally made in a foreign language and films with foreign language subtitles. A sticker on the back of each box tells which type of film it is.
Video Game. All the video games in Main street Movies are arranged in alphabetical order. Although video games represent only a small percentage of our inventory(库存), they are stolen more often than any other type of goods in our store. Therefore, video games are never displayed on the shelves. Shelves in the Video Game section hold cardboard with pictures and information about each game. When a customer wants to rent a particular game, you then find the game from the locked case behind the counter.Whom do you think this passage is most probably addressed to?
| A．The readers in the store. |
| B．The manager of the store. |
| C．The customers in the store. |
| D．The salespersons of the store. |
In which order are the new movies moved in the store?
| A．From Hottest Hits to Film Library to Recent Releases. |
| B．From Film Library to Hottest Hits to Recent Releases. |
| C．From Recent Releases to Film Library to Hottest Hits. |
| D．From Hottest Hits to Recent Releases to Film Library. |
Why can’t video games be seen on the shelves?
| A．Because they’ve been sold out. |
| B．Because they’re in the storehouse. |
| C．Because they’re in a locked case behind the counter. |
| D．Because they represent a small percentage of the inventory. |
How can a customer find a film with foreign language subtitles?
| A．Check the computer. |
| B．Look at the back of the box. |
| C．Check the center section. |
| D．Watch a few minutes of the film. |