Technology is making life easier for some dairy farmers. They use robotic systems to milk their cows. Cows are trained to follow a series of paths that lead to milking stations. Only one cow at a time can enter a station.
Once inside，the cow is rewarded with food. As the cow eats，a robotic arm cleans and connects the animal to the milking machine. A few minutes later，milking is complete. The gate is opened，the cow is released and the next cow enters.
The robotic systems are designed to operate 24 hours a day. The cows get to decide when they want to be milked. Cows are milked an average of about three times a day. Some are milked four to six times a day.
The cows wear collars around their necks that identify them to the system. A computer keeps records on their eating and milking. A cow is released from the station if the computer decides it should not be milked.
The automated system also measures the temperature and color of freshly produced milk. Milk is thrown away if it does not pass the tests.
Professor Plaut believes the systems will appeal especially to the next generation of farmers. She means young people who are more interested in technology and less interested in working all the time on the farm. Still，she says the price of robotic milking systems will continue to limit their use.
Doug and Tina Suhr have more than 100 cows on their family farm. Last year it became the fourth farm in southeast Minnesota to get a robotic milking system. A recent story in a local agricultural newspaper said the first robot costs 175,000 dollars. The second costs 150,000 dollars.
Doug told AgriNews that wages that would have been paid for one employee in five years will pay for one robot. He says the increase in milk production reaches a high of more than six kilograms per cow per day.According to Doug，what is the wage of an employee per year?
| A．$150,000～$175,000. | B．$150,000～$30,000. |
| C．$30,000～$35,000. | D．over $75,000. |
Besides milking cows，the robotic system also can ________.
| A．judge the quality of fresh milk |
| B．keep fresh milk for two weeks |
| C．adjust the temperature of milking stations |
| D．improve the appetite of cows |
Why is the robotic system not popular now?
| A．Because it usually causes the waste of milk. |
| B．Because it is difficult to learn how to use it. |
| C．Because young people have no interest in it. |
| D．Because people can't afford to buy it. |
From the first paragraph，we can infer ________.
| A．cows can be raised by robots in the future |
| B．robots direct cows into milking stations |
| C．the robotic system is designed to reduce labor |
| D．cows are kept clean by robots on some farms |
The 47-year-old singer talks about the new album Symphony（交响乐） that came out of a “very dark time”, including her decision to give up trying to have children. “People have suggested I could adopt,” Brightman says. “But work is central to my life now. And so I am going to put it to one side. After a while not having children becomes the norm and perhaps that might sound alarming, to parents especially, but I have never known anything different. I’m not hurt by not having children. My life and career are incredibly rich.”
Talking about growing up in a large family in Berkhamsted (father a property developer who later committed suicide), she says: “I was gifted as a child, and very musical. I seemed to be good at anything to do with the arts. At 5，I understood the music I was dancing to and had an eye for costume.” She first appeared in a West End musical at 11 and hated boarding school.
Brightman led the saucy dance troupe（辣妹三人舞） Hot Gossip and had her first hit with I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper in 1978. At 18 she married a music manager called Andrew Graham Stewart. “I was probably in love but I can’t remember. Girls change such a lot between 18 and 22. It didn’t really work out.” In 1981 she was spotted by Lloyd Webber. She became his leading lady in Song and Dance, Requiem and Phantom of the Opera. They married in 1984.
Brightman says she felt hostility(敌意) “from the beginning. I haven’t tried to understand it. I’ve done very well everywhere else, especially the US, where I now live, I just accept it for what it is. The more you are away from Britain, the more you appreciate it. But I don’t miss it, although I miss my family. Our profession can be uncomfortable but I enjoy what I do. I get on with it.”The first paragraph tells us that _____.
| A．Brightman is very popular around the world except in America |
| B．Brightman’s musical style is a mixture of opera, pop and jazz |
| C．the British people don’t like her for her style of music |
| D．Brightman is much older than Andrew Lloyd Webber |
Brightman decided to give up having children because _____.
| A．she could adopt one |
| B．her life and career were unbelievably rich without children |
| C．she felt it normal not to have children |
| D．she was too busy |
The following statements are true except ______.
| A．Brightman first appeared in a West End musical at 5 |
| B．Brightman disliked life on the campus |
| C．Brightman was very gifted when she was young |
| D．The saucy dance troupe made Brightman famous |
The underlined word in the fourth paragraph probably means _____.
| A．located | B．admired | C．followed | D．found |
What does the author try to say in the last paragraph by quoting Brightman’s words?
| A．Brightman has to accept the fact that she is not liked in Britain |
| B．Brightman lives in America but she loves her own country |
| C．The British coldness towards Brightman led to her hatred to her homeland |
| D．Brightman was at a loss why she was not welcome in Britain |
When Emily Beardmore first heard that a trip was being planned by the biology class at Windsor High School, she thought about how much fun it would be.
“I thought it would be a really good experience to go with other friends and teachers to another country in an environment other than a vacation environment,” the 17-year-old girl said.
A few months later, Emily got her chance when she and 14 of her classmates, along with biology teacher Tamara Pennington went to Costa Rica for eight days in late May.
“It was not just a tour,” said Pennington, who organized the trip. “You can go any place in the world on just a tour. This one was really working with the sea turtles (海龟) and practicing conservation(保护). It just seemed like the perfect science field trip for kids who think they want to get into science to see what it's really like to be out in the field and enjoy themselves.”
Emily said her time on the turtle program, which was the focus of the trip, was “crazy.”“We were walking on the beach at night and you can’t see anything—just see a big black dot.” She said with a laugh. “I was not expecting the turtles to be that big.” The turtles are leatherback turtles, which are becoming extinct (灭绝) because their eggs are used as food.
“When they would move their legs while laying their eggs they were really hard to control because they were a lot more powerful than you would imagine,” Emily said.
Once the eggs were collected, the students took them back to a hatchery(孵化场) and dug holes to copy the hole the mother turtle had made and then buried the eggs for the 60 days needed to hatch.
“The experience was so cool,” Emily said. “You go to another country to see what their culture is like and learn what their everyday lives are like. It made me really want to help out my mom a lot more than I do, and value what I have.”What did Pennington consider the trip to be?
| A．It was a common tour to a foreign country. |
| B．It was a journey to practice what students learned. |
| C．It was to attract students’ interest in science. |
| D．It was a trip to do practical science activities. |
From what Emily said on her turtle program, we know that.
| A．she was afraid of walking on the beach at night |
| B．she didn’t dare to catch the powerful turtles |
| C．she had thought turtles were small animals |
| D．she got crazy at the sight of turtles at night |
What did Emily learn from her experience?
| A．She learned to be grateful to her teachers. |
| B．She understood the importance of what she had. |
| C．She realized the beauty of foreign culture. |
| D．She knew the importance of everyday life |
What would be the best title for the passage?
| A．Teens Help Fight Turtle Extinction. |
| B．Teens Take a tour to Costa Rica. |
| C．Teens Have a Research on Turtles. |
| D．Teens Learn to be Independent. |
I have been using the Internet since I was five years old, when my dad first sat me down in front of a computer and connected me the World Wide Web.
I’ve always felt like a master of the Internet world. AOL Instant Messaging, MSN, Gmail, Facebook, Myspace -- I’ve got it all under control. I thought there was nothing more to it besides checking my e-mail and wasting my time, until I was introduced to electronic commerce(e-commerce): business on the Internet.
Some online businesses are run from one-room home offices. Others have hundreds of employees (雇员) across the world. Have you ever heard of Amazon.com, Yahoo.com?
My friends often said they got cheap textbooks off Amazon.com, or had a good deal (交易) on Steve Madden shoes that were on sale at SteveMaden.com. Unfortunately for me, I continued my “e-commerceless” Web-surfing, not knowing about all the deals I was missing out on.
That is, of course, until my sister finally sold the idea to me.
“Why are all these packages arriving in the mail for you, Katy?” I asked her one day. Strange envelopes (信封) had been put on our doorstep for weeks now, each one always addressed to my sister; and we all know little sisters should never be getting more mail than their elders!
“Oh, it’s the things I ordered online!” she answered. I watched speechlessly as she opened them. There was no way our parents were letting her spend that much money- online or off!
“How much did all of this coat?”
“Oh, only about $15 in all!” She said excitedly. “Everything on eBay is on sale! It’s a way better than going to the mall.”
I felt as if there had been a store right in my backyard that I had never walked into! That week, I ordered a used Spanish textbook for my summer course online for 10 percent of the publishing price. A few days later, I bought an iPod protector and a book or two via the wonderful eBay.com.From the first two paragraph we can conclude that the author
| A．had no experience using computers |
| B．had no idea of what e-commerce is |
| C．only used the Internet to check e-mail |
| D．thought surfing the Internet was a waste of time |
The writer didn’t find out about e-commerce until
| A．he stopped web-surfing |
| B．he visited a store in his backyard |
| C．his sister explained the packages she got by mail |
| D．his friends told him about the online deals they made |
We can infer from the last paragraph that the author.
| A．never enjoyed shopping that much |
| B．loves the big store in her backyard |
| C．feels she is a true master of the Internet |
| D．has begun to enjoy online shopping |
What’s the purpose of the article?
| A．To tell the readers how he begins online shopping. |
| B．To do business on the Internet. |
| C．To make an online shopping ad. |
| D．To advise people not to do online shopping |
John H. Johnson was born in a black family in Arkansas City in 1918. His father died in an accident when John was six. He was reaching the high school age, but his hometown offered no high school for blacks.
Luckily he had a strong-willed caring mother. John remembered that his mother told him many times, “Son，you can be anything you want really to be if you just believe.” She told him not to depend on others，including his mother. “You have to earn success,” she said. “All the people who work hard don’t succeed, but the only people who do succeed are those who work hard.”
These words came from a woman with less than a third grade education. She also knew that believing and hard work don’t mean everything. So she worked hard as a cook for two years to save enough to take her son, who was then 15，to Chicago.
Chicago in 1933 was not the promised land that black southerners were looking for. John’s mother and stepfather could not find work. But here John could go to school, and here he learned the power of words — as an editor of the newspaper and yearbook at Du Sable High School. His wish was to publish a magazine for blacks.
While others discouraged (使气馁) him, John’s mother offered him more words to live by: “Nothing beats a failure but a try.” She also let him pawn（典当）her furniture to get the ＄500 he needed to start the Negro magazine.
It is natural that difficulties and failures followed John closely until he became very successful. He always keeps his mother’s words in mind: “Son, failure is not in your vocabulary!”
Now John H. Johnson is one of the 400 richest people in America — worth $150 million. John’s father died in ________.
| A．1922 | B．1933 | C．1924 | D．1923 |
John’s mother decided to move to Chicago because _______.
| A．his father died when John was very young |
| B．life was too hard for them to stay on in their hometown |
| C．there were no schools for black people in their hometown |
| D．John needed more education badly |
John’s mother ________．
| A．didn’t believe in or depend on others |
| B．thought no one could succeed without working hard |
| C．believed one would succeed without working hard |
| D．thought one could be whatever one wanted to be |
The story mainly tells us ________ .
| A．about the spiritual support John’s mother gave him |
| B．how John H. Johnson became successful |
| C．about the importance of a good education |
| D．about the key to success for blacks |
America is a mobile society. Friendships between Americans can be close and real, yet disappear soon if situations change. Neither side feels hurt by this. Both may exchange Christmas greetings for a year or two, perhaps a few letters for a while — then no more. If the same two people meet again by chance, even years later, they pick up the friendship. This can be quite difficult for us Chinese to understand, because friendships between us flower more slowly but then may become lifelong feelings, extending (延伸) sometimes deeply into both families.
Americans are ready to receive us foreigners at their homes, share their holidays, and their home life. They will enjoy welcoming us and be pleased if we accept their hospitality (好客) easily.
Another difficult point for us Chinese to understand Americans is that although they include us warmly in their personal everyday lives, they don’t show their politeness (礼貌) to us if it requires a great deal of time. This is usually the opposite (相反) of the practice in our country where we may be generous with our time. Sometimes, we, as hosts, will appear at airports even in the middle of the night to meet a friend. We may take days off to act as guides to our foreign friends. The Americans, however, express their welcome usually at homes, but truly can not manage the time to do a great deal with a visitor outside their daily activities. They will probably expect us to get ourselves from the airport to our own hotel by bus. And they expect that we will phone them from there. Once we arrive at their homes, the welcome will be full, warm and real. We will find ourselves treated hospitably.
For the Americans, it is often considered more friendly to invite a friend to their homes than to go to restaurants, except for purely business matters. So accept their hospitality at home!Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．Friendships between Americans usually extend deeply into their families. |
| B．Americans will continue their friendships again even after a long break. |
| C．Americans always show their warmth even if they are very busy. |
| D．Friendships between Americans usually last for all their lives. |
From the last two paragraphs we can learn that when we arrive in America to visit an American friend, we will probably be ______.
| A．treated hospitably at his home |
| B．offered a ride to his home |
| C．warmly welcomed at the airport |
| D．treated to dinner in a restaurant |
The underlined words “generous with our time” in Paragraph 3 probably mean ______.
| A．strict with time | B．serious with time |
| C．willing to spend time | D．careful with time |
A suitable title for this passage would probably be “______”.
| A．Friendships between Chinese |
| B．Friendships between Americans |
| C．Americans’ hospitality |
| D．Americans’ and Chinese’s opinions of friendships |