阅读理解
阅读下列四篇短文，从每小题后所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该选项涂黑。
Emergency rooms (ER) are supposed to cure people but Dr. John Stemgold wonders if working in an ER in Willits made him sick. The ER was downwind of the Remco chrome plant. “I used to sit facing that window and kind of daydream out the window, looking at Remco, looking at the fog coming out of there. Then I would cough and cough.” Stemgold said.
What Dr.Stemgold didn’t know was that Remco was flowing out Chromium VI into the air--- a chemical known to cause cancer and breathing problems in humans. A recent state health department study found that people who were in Willits when Remco was in operation from 1964 to 1995 are at higher risk for cancer because of Chromium VI exposure.
Today Dr.Stemgold has lots of time to play his guitar. It turns out he has a form of breathing difficulty. Hospital chemicals cause coughing so violently that he’s broken bones and it’s cost him his career. Others in this town believe the Chromium has made them sick, too, and their families. Actually, Chromium VI was classified as a carcinogen , a cancer-causing substance, thirty years ago, Twenty years ago, a group of state scientific specialists found no exposure level below which carcinogen effects would not have some probability of occurring. Still, Remco was allowed to flow out Chromium VI into the air.
In the battle to balance public health and a healthy economy, laws often favor business, Alan Ramo is a professor of law at Golden Gate University. “There is a real drive to make money, to have employment. When there’s a real job that’s available and a theoretical risk of a chemical, jobs win out, business wins out.”
And chemicals are allowed to flood the marketplace and the government requires strict testing before any drugs can be sold. But the vast majority of industrial chemicals are put into use little testing of any kind Chemicals that people like us, you and me might be exposed to. Marilyn Underwood is with California state health department. “ You need to have the convincing evidence that something is bad to then start regulating it.” However, in most cases, chemicals are not tested until someone reports the abnormal, unnatural condition of the environment in general.
“I think that if people really knew what really goes on with environmental protection I think they would be shocked and they should be.” Says Professor Ramo. “It might be valuable for other people to know what has happened to me, not for me but for them.” He said “because they might be in a similar situation because of where they work.”What happened to the people who lived in Willits from 1964-1995?
| A．most of them were forced to move away. |
| B．They earn a lot of fortune from the factory or the profit it brought about. |
| C．employees from local area all got sick and lost their jobs at the plant. |
| D．They have a greater chance of having severe disease. |
What can we infer from the scientists’ finding twenty years ago?
| A．Chromium VI surroundings help surgeons have more casual life. |
| B．More skillful and capable doctors were needed. |
| C．There is no safe level of Chromium VI exposure. |
| D．A group of scientists were trying proper ways to solve the problems. |
When are new chemicals for industry tested?
| A．When they make smog-forming gases. |
| B．When some problem is noticed. |
| C．Ten years after they are first used. |
| D．When the plant faces collapse. |
One of the important issues in the story is______.
| A．The dangers of emergency rooms that create health problem downwind. |
| B．Doctors prescribing too many drugs. |
| C．The battle to balance public health and a healthy economy |
| D．Why scientists restricted chemical, like Chromium VI |
The 30-mile road that runs through the mountains of Willie Valley makes most drivers′ hands sweat. But Andersen, a 46-year-old father of four, wasn’t expecting any trouble on the road last New Year’s Eve, when he set off for a ski trip to the Bear Mountains with nine-year-old daughter Mia, four-old son Baylor, and nine-year-old neighbor Kenya. Andersen had driven through the Valley hundreds of times over the years.
The weather was fine. But the higher they drove, the more slippery the road became. Rounding a sharp U-turn, Andersen saw a heavy truck off the road and immediately hit his brakes. In a minute, the car was going at 25 miles per hour down the mountain before falling down from a ten-foot dam into the extremely cold Logan River.
The crash had broken a few windows, and within seconds, the car was filled with water. “It was frightening that we were going fast into deep water,” remembers Andersen, a soft-spoken manager.
Having lost all sense of direction, Andersen began to search the freezing water for the kids. Mia had been right next to him in the front seat; now, in the blackness, he couldn’t find her. “I thought, if I don’t get out, maybe none of us are going to get out.” Andersen got out of his seat belt, swam through a broken window, and, deeply and quickly, breathed air at the surface. That’s when he saw a group of men, about ten in all, appear at the top of the dam. One after another, they rushed down into the water. Helping onto safety all the three children, they began to shout at the father, “Who else is in the car？”
Andersen says respectfully, “It was like the sight of angels.” What might be the main cause of the car accident？
| A．The bad weather. | B．The high dam. |
| C．The sudden brake. | D．The heavy truck. |
Andersen didn’t expect any trouble on the road because _____.
| A．he was familiar with the road |
| B．he was good at driving |
| C．his hands didn’t have sweat |
| D．the weather was fine |
What can be learned from the last paragraph？
| A．Andersen lost consciousness in the water. |
| B．Strangers helped Andersen out of the car. |
| C．Andersen liked Mia most among the children. |
| D．Strangers teamed together to save three children. |
The underlined sentence is to express Andersen’s feeling of being _____.
| A．tired | B．excited | C．doubtful | D．thankful |
Which of the following can be the best title of the text？
| A．Stay calm when in trouble |
| B．Drive rounding a U-turn |
| C．Miracle rescue from a river |
| D．Mystery of the Bear Mountains |
When Mary Moore began her high school in 1951, her mother told her, “Be sure and take a typing course so when this show business thing doesn't work out, you'll have something to rely on.” Mary responded in typical teenage fashion. From that moment on, "the very last thing I ever thought about doing was taking a typing course," she recalls.
The show business thing worked out, of course. In her career, Mary won many awards. Only recently, when she began to write Growing Up Again, did she regret ignoring her mom, “I don't know how to use a computer,” she admits.
Unlike her 1995 autobiography(自传), After All, her second book is less about life as an award-winning actress and more about living with diabetes (糖尿病). All the money from the book is intended for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), an organization she serves as international chairman. “I felt there was a need for a book like this,” she says. “I didn't want to lecture, but I wanted other diabetics to know that things get better when we're self-controlled and do our part in managing the disease.”
But she hasn't always practiced what she teaches. In her book, she describes that awful day, almost 40 years ago, when she received two pieces of life-changing news. First, she had lost the baby she was carrying, and second, tests showed that she had diabetes. In a childlike act, she left the hospital and treated herself to a box of doughnuts (甜甜圈). Years would pass before she realized she had to grow up ---again---and take control of her diabetes, not let it control her. Only then did she kick her three-pack-a-day cigarette habit, overcome her addiction to alcohol, and begin to follow a balanced diet.
Although her disease has affected her eyesight and forced her to the sidelines of the dance floor, she refuses to fall into self-pity. “Everybody on earth can ask, 'why me?' about something or other,” she insists. “It doesn't do any good. No one is immune (免疫的) to heartache, pain, and disappointments. Sometimes we can make things better by helping others. I've come to realize the importance of that as I've grown up this second time. I want to speak out and be as helpful as I can be.”Why did Mary feel regretful?
| A．She didn't achieve her ambition. |
| B．She didn't take care of her mother. |
| C．She didn't complete her high school. |
| D．She didn't follow her mother's advice. |
We can know that before 1995, Mary__________.
| A．had two books published |
| B．received many career awards |
| C．knew how to use a computer |
| D．supported the JDRF by writing |
Mary's second book Growing Up Again is mainly about her__________ .
| A．living with diabetes | B．successful show business |
| C．service for an organization | D．remembrance of her mother |
When Mary received the life-changing news, she_____________ .
| A．lost control of herself | B．began a balanced diet |
| C．tried to get a treatment | D．behaved in an adult way |
What can we know from the last paragraph?
| A．Mary feels pity for herself. |
| B．Mary has recovered from her disease. |
| C．Mary wants to help others as much as possible. |
| D．Mary determines to go back to the dance floor. |
If a business wants to sell its products internationally, it had better do some market research first. This is a lesson that some large American corporations have learned the hard way.
What’s in the name?
Sometimes the problem is the name. When General Motors introduced its Chevy Nova into Latin America, it overlooked the fact that Nova in Spanish means “It doesn’t go”. Sure enough, the Chevy Nova never went anywhere in Latin America.
Translation problems
Sometimes it is the slogan that doesn’t work. No company knows this better than Pepsi-Cola, with its “Come alive with Pepsi!” campaign. The campaign was so successful in the United States , Pepsi translated its slogan literally for its international campaign. As it turned out , the translations weren’t quite right. Pepsi was begging Germans to “Come out of the grave(坟墓)” and telling the Chinese that “Pepsi brings your ancestors(老祖宗) back from the grave.”
A picture’s worth a thousand words
Other times, the problem involves packaging . A picture of a smiling baby has helped sell countless jars of Gerber baby food. When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the smiling baby on the label. Later they learned that in African countries, the picture on the jar shows what the jar has in it, for many people there can’t read.
Twist of fate
Even the culture and religious factors and pure coincidence can be involved. Thorn McAn shoes have a Thorn McAn “signature” inside. To people in Bangladesh, which is a Muslim country, this signature looked like Arabic script for the word Allah. In that country, feet are considered unclean, and Muslims felt the company was offending God’s name by having people walk on it.From the text we learned that _________.
| A．Chevy Nova was brought in Latin America |
| B．General Motors did the best market research of all companies |
| C．Pepsi still sold well in China owing to the translation problems |
| D．the “Come alive with Pepsi” campaign worked well in the US |
What was “Gerber’s problem”?
| A．A translation problem | B．Cultural factor |
| C．Religious factor | D．The picture on the jar |
For what reason were Thorn McAn shoes turned down in Bangladesh?
| A．They are not designed attractively |
| B．Their advertisements are not persuasive |
| C．A signature looking like the word Allah was in the shoes |
| D．Problem for Thorn McAn was the company’s name |
What does the text mainly tell us?
| A．Lessons from some large corporations. |
| B．How to make use of advertisements |
| C．The importance of market research |
| D．The importance of packaging |
Researchers found that walking around with a forced smile and fake (假的) happiness simply leads to people feeling unhappier. So, putting a brave face on your sadness could be harmful. The research also found that women suffered more than men when pretending to be happy.
Dr. Brent Scott, who led the study, said employers should take note because forcing workers to smile when dealing with the public can result in bad outcomes. He said, “Smiling for the sake of smiling can lead to emotional tiredness, and that’s bad for the organization.” He also said the research showed customer-service workers who had “fake smiles” throughout the day fell into a bad mood and didn’t want to work, so their productivity dropped.
The study is one of the first of its kind to examine emotional expressions over a period of time and compare the different effects on men and women. Dr. Scott’s team examined the effects of “surface acting”, or fake smiling, compared to “deep acting”, or making people smile by thinking of pleasant memories.
Dr. Scott said, “Women were harmed more by surface acting, meaning their moods worsened even more than men’s. However, they were helped more by deep acting, which means their moods improved more by thinking of pleasant memories. ”
According to Dr. Scott, women tend to suffer more when pretending to be happy because they are expected to be more emotionally expressive than men. Therefore, forcing a smile while feeling down is more likely to go against their normal behavior and cause more harmful feelings.
Although deep acting can improve moods a little in the short term, Dr. Scott says, it’s not a long-term solution to feeling unhappy. “There have been some suggestions that if you do this over a long period you start to feel unreal. You’re trying to develop positive emotions, but at the end of the day you may not feel like yourself any more.”According to the passage, Dr. Scott’s study ______.
| A．is supported by some big employers in the USA |
| B．is meaningful as there haven’t been many similar ones |
| C．examined more women than men for a long time |
| D．aimed to make the employees more productive |
Women suffer more from fake happiness mainly because ______.
| A．they usually become shy in public places |
| B．they are supposed to be more emotionally expressive |
| C．they are often treated in a terrible way |
| D．they like thinking of pleasant memories |
It is implied in the passage that deep acting _____.
| A．doesn’t have any effect on men |
| B．cannot improve our moods in any case |
| C．harms our feelings in the long run |
| D．pleases people by feeling like another person |
When was the last time someone unexpectedly did something nice for you ? Not someone you knew, but a total stranger? It’s happened to me a few times, but two instances really stand out.
A few years ago, I was dining in a restaurant with a friend who kept talking about himself, completely not aware of the fact that I was sitting there in misery. It wasn’t my friend’s talks that made me suffer. I was recovering from a broken heart, and just sitting down to dinner reminded me of my last relationship. I could have burst into tears right there at the table.
When we picked up the check, the waitress said, “ Your meal was already paid for .” My friend and I didn’t have a clue how it happened. Then I remembered a man I saw out of the corner of my eye. He was dressed in mostly white, sat down at the bar, had a beer, and stayed for maybe ten minutes. The waitress said, “Yes, the gentleman in white paid for you .” It felt like an angel was saying “I see you, honey. It’s going to be okay.”
Just last year, I was running a half-marathon. With just 1 mile to go, I was out of gas. Runners call it “hitting the wall”. I thought I couldn’t move another inch. Out of nowhere, a stranger came up to me and said, “What’s your name, sweetie? Jennifer? Okay, Jennifer, let’s go! Come on! It’s just around the corner! You can do it!” And he ran with me until I picked up my pace. I found him at the finish line to thank him for the encouragement only to learn he wasn’t even supposed to be in the race that day.
I still shake my head when I think of these momentary angels that came to me at my point of need. Do you have any experiences like these?Which of the following is the best title for the passage?
| A．The kindness of strangers. | B．Valuable friendship . |
| C．Two special experiences . | D．Helping others is worthwhile |
Why did the author suffer when dining out with a friend?
| A．Because she didn’t like the dishes. |
| B．Because she quarreled with her friend |
| C．Because her friend only talked about himself. |
| D．Because she was sad for her last relationship. |
The underlined expression in the passage means “______”.
| A．being hurt by the wall | B．winning the game |
| C．taking a deep breath | D．running out of energy |