A little under one-third of U.S. families have no Internet access and do not plan to get it, with most of the holdouts seeing little use for it in their lives, according to a survey released on Friday.
Park Associates, a Dallas-based technology market research firm, said 29 percent of U.S. families, or 31 million homes, do not have Internet access and do not intend to subscribe（预订）to an Internet service over the next 12 months. The second annual National Technology Scan conducted by Park found that the main reason why potential customers say they do not subscribe to the Internet is because of the low value to their daily lives rather than concerns over cost.
Forty-four percent of these families say they are not interested in anything on the Internet, versus just 22 percent who say they cannot afford a computer or the cost of Internet service, the survey showed. The answer “I’m not sure how to use the Internet” came from 17 percent of participants who do not subscribe. The response “I do all my e-commerce shopping and YouTube-watching at work” was cited by 14 percent of Internet-access users. Three percent said the Internet doesn’t reach their homes.
The study found U.S. broadband adoption grew to 52 percent over 2006, up from 42 percent in 2005. Roughly half of new subscribers converted（转变）from slower-speed, dial-up Internet access while the other half of families had no prior access.
“The industry continues to chip（击破）away at the core of non-subscribers, but has a long way to go,” said John Barrett, director of research at Parks Associates. “Entertainment applications will be the key. If anything will pull in the holdouts, it’s going to be applications that make the Internet more similar to pay-TV,” he predicted.
41. What does the underlined word “holdouts” in the first paragraph most probably mean?
A. some American families
B. those who hold out one’s opinions
C. those who have been surveyed
D. those who still haven’t access to the Internet currently
42. Many potential customers refuse to subscribe to the Internet mainly because _________.
A. they show too much concern about the cost B. they can find little value of it
C. they do most YouTube-watching at work D. the Internet doesn’t reach their homes
43. From the passage we can infer that ________.
A. It is not an easy job to transform those holdouts into the Internet users
B. people will adopt dial-up Internet access no more
C. many Americans enjoy doing e-commerce shopping at home
D. more than half of the population are using the Internet in 2005
44. According to John Barrett, what is the key to attracting more U.S. families to broadband service?
A. making the Internet look more similar to TV set
B. applying the Internet more to entertainment
C. providing more pay-TV programs
D. chipping away at the core of non-subscribers
45. Which is the best title for the passage?
A. Web develops with technology B. The present situation of web
C. Many Americans see little point to web D. It is urgent to promote web service
Heroes of Our Time
A good heart
Dikembe Mutombo grew up in Africa among great poverty and disease. He came to Georgetown University on a scholarship（奖学金） to study medicine — but Coach (教练) John Thompson got a look at Dikembe and had a different idea. Dikembe became a star in the NBA, and a citizen of the United States. But he never forgot the land of his birth, or the duty to share his fortune with others. He built a new hospital in his old hometown in the Congo. A friend has said of this good-hearted man: “Mutombo believes that God has given him this chance to do great things.”
Success and kindness
After her daughter was born, Julie Aigner-Clark searched for ways to share her love of music and art with her child. So she borrowed some equipment, and began filming children’s videos (录像) in her own house. The Baby Einstein Company was born, and in just five years her business grew to more than $20 million in sales. And she is using her success to help others — producing child safety videos with John Walsh of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Julie says of her new program: “I believe it’s the most important thing that I have ever done. I believe that children have the right to live in a world that is safe.”
Bravery and courage
A few weeks ago, Wesley Autrey was waiting at a Harlem subway station with his two little girls when he saw a man fall into the path of a train. With seconds to act, Wesley jumped onto the tracks, pulled the man into the space between the rails (铁轨), and held him as the train passed right above their heads. He insists he’s not a hero. He says: “We have got to show each other some love.”What was Mutombo praised for?
A. Being a star in the NBA.
B. Being a student of medicine.
C. His work in the church.
D. His willingness to help the needy.What did the Baby Einstein Company do at its beginning?
| A．Produce safety equipment for children. |
| B．Make videos to help protect children. |
| C．Sell children’s music and artwork. |
| D．Look for missing and exploited children. |
Why was Wesley Autrey praised as a hero?
| A．He helped a man get across the rails. |
| B．He stopped a man from destroying the rails. |
| C．He protected two little girls from getting hurt. |
| D．He saved a person without considering his own safety. |
Dress codes cause us arguments
The first day of school is always a chaotic(混乱的) time. For many students in the US, this year was even more so. It was all due to one extra school policy. They are now required to wear clothes that meet a new standardized dress code(规范).
According to the handbooks of all high schools in Allentown, Pennsylvania, students must wear short or long sleeve polo shirts and khaki(卡其色的) or black pants. Skinny jeans, leggings(紧身裤), and open toe shoes are not allowed.
Allentown schools are not alone. Overall, about 57 percent of American public schools now have a “strict dress code”, up from more than 47 percent a decade earlier, said USA Today.
Some students don’t mind wearing a similar attire(服装) every day. “It takes away the daily fashion show and helps level the playing fields a little bit with the haves and have-nots,” longtime school safety consultant Ken Trump told USA Today.
But others aren’t happy, claiming that uniforms rob students of individuality(个性).
While school uniforms have been a popular topic to discuss recently in the US, however, in the UK there are much fewer questions about them-they are a tradition.
School uniforms in England were first introduced during the reign(统治) of King Henry VIII in the 16th century. They became popular following the Elementary Education Act of 1870. The UK Department of Education’s website states: “The Department strongly encourages schools to have a uniform as it can…contribute to the beliefs of a school and set the correct tone.
The uniform is now a strong part of school culture in the UK. Schools sometimes even have “Mufti”(便服) days on which students can wear their own clothes if they make a small donation(捐赠) to charity.
However, the tradition does not mean that school uniforms are popular there.
Many “children hate them”, according to Aisha on the BBC Newsround website. Ask UK students why they wear a school uniform and their answer will mostly likely be, “because we have to”.We can infer from the first three paragraphs that ________.
| A．there is a strict standardized dress code in most American public schools |
| B．the high schools in Allentown, Pennsylvania have the strictest dress code in the US |
| C．there has been a growing trend of strict dress codes in US high schools in the last decade |
| D．the new standardized dress code in Allentown’s high schools was put forward by teachers and parents |
We can learn from the article that students’ attitudes towards dress codes are _____
| A．negative | B．divided |
| C．supportive | D．doubtful |
What does paragraph 7 mainly talk about?
| A．The popularity of school uniforms in the UK. |
| B．The history and tradition of school uniforms in the UK. |
| C．The benefits of promoting school uniforms in the UK. |
| D．The UK Department of Education’s requirements on school uniforms. |
According to the article, on Mufti days, students in some UK schools ______.
| A．are required to make a donation to charity |
| B．can vote to choose their own school uniforms |
| C．can wear their own clothes if they contribute to charity |
| D．are allowed to wear whatever they like for the morning |
“Indeed,” George Washington wrote in his diary in 1785, “some kind of fly, or bug, had begun to eat the leaves before I left home.” But the father of America was not the father of bug. When Washington wrote that, Englishmen had been referring to insects as bugs for more than a century, and Americans had already created lightning-bug(萤火虫). But the English were soon to stop using the bugs in their language, leaving it to the Americans to call a bug a bug in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The American bug could also be a person, referring to someone who was crazy about a particular activity. Although fan became the usual term, sports fans used to be called racing bugs, baseball bugs, and the like.
Or the bug could be a small machine or object, for example, a bug-shaped car. The bug could also be a burglar alarm, from which comes the expression to bug, that is, “to install (安装) an alarm”. Now it means a small piece of equipment that people use for listening secretly to others’ conversation. Since the 1840s, to bug has long meant “to cheat”, and since the 1940s it has been annoying.
We also know the bug as a flaw in a computer program or other design. That meaning dates back to the time of Thomas Edison. In 1878 he explained bugs as “little problems and difficulties” that required months of study and labor to overcome in developing a successful product. In 1889 it was recorded that Edison “had been up the two previous nights discovering ‘a bug’ in his invented record player.”We learn from Paragraph 1 that ___________.
| A．Americans had difficulty in learning to use the word bug |
| B．George Washington was the first person to call an insect a bug |
| C．the word bug was still popularly used in English in the nineteenth century |
| D．both Englishmen and Americans used the word bug in the eighteenth century |
What does the word “flaw” in the last paragraph probably mean?
| A．Explanation. | B．Finding. |
| C．Origin. | D．Fault. |
The passage is mainly concerned with__________.
| A．the misunderstanding of the word bug |
| B．the development of the word bug |
| C．the public views of the word bug |
| D．the special characteristics of the word bug |
Win a Week in England
You still don’t know what to do this summer? Well, here’s your chance to win a one-week language course in Kent, England! Free4Fun and ETC(English Travel Connections) are giving away two trips to Rochester. This historic city is less than an hour’s drive from London and close to the sea resort of Herne Bay. It is also the home of one of England’s most famous writers, Charles Dickens. The town of the Rochester is in Southeast England. Charles Dickens often wrote about it in his books. His home, Gad’s Hill，is there too. A popular attraction is Rochester Castle，a large Norman fortress（堡垒）. It was built in the 11th century and rebuilt during the 14th century. Other attractions are Rochester Cathedral, which was built during the 13th century, and Dickens Centre. It has got it’s name in honour of Dickens himself.
The trip to England includes:
* travel by train (via the Eurotunnel) to and from any railway station in Germany
* room and full board with a guest family for one week
* language course in small groups
* two trips to London
* large choice of sports and entertainment
* German-speaking advisors available 24 hours a day
Interested? All you have to do is to answer the following question: When was Charles Dickens born?
So, take the chance and send your answer by May1 to:
Free4Fun “Rochester”
Free4Fun, 24 Elphinstone Road, Hastings, 2FQ6VJ
Fax: 089/85-763-103
e-mail: free4fun@netlight.com
The two winners will be contacted directly before May5. They will also be announced in the June issue of Free4Fun. Good luck!
For further information contact:
Phone: (03212)144-43
Fax: (03212) 144-42
e-mail: info@etc.comRochester Cathedral was built in the ___________.
| A．1400s | B．1300s | C．1200s | D．1100s |
What activities can you participate in during the trip?
| A．Enjoying sports and entertainment. |
| B．Learning the German language. |
| C．Traveling by train with a guest family. |
| D．Working as a language advisor. |
This advertisement was designed to target _______.
| A．Italians | B．Germans |
| C．Europeans | D．Americans |
How could we tell time if there were no watches or clocks anywhere in the world?
The sun was probably the world’s first “clock”, except in the far north, where the Eskimos(爱斯基摩人) live. There it’s dark most of the winter, and light most of the summer. But in most of the world, people have used the sun for a clock. Even today if you don’t have a clock that shows time, you still know that when the sun shines, it’s day; and when it’s dark, it’s night. The sun can not only tell you whether it’s day or night but also it’s morning, noon, or afternoon. When the sun is almost directly overhead, it’s noon.
People who live near the sea can tell time from the tides. In the daytime, for about six hours, the water rises higher and higher on the beach. And then it goes down and down for another six hours. The same thing happens again at night. There are two high tides and two low tides every 24 hours.
Seamen on a ship learn how to tell time by looking at the moon and the stars .The whole sky is their clock.
In some places in the world the wind comes up at about the same time every day or changes direction or stops blowing. In these places, the wind can be the clock.
A sand clock is an even better clock. If you had fine dry sand in a glass shaped like the one in the picture above, you would have what is called an hourglass. The sand in the hourglass goes from the top part to the bottom part in exactly one hour. When the hourglass it turned over, the sand will take another hour to go back again.The Eskimos in the far north can’t use the sun for a clock because ______.
| A．they know very little about the sun |
| B．the sun there never goes down in winter. |
| C．it’s too cold for them to go out to watch the sun |
| D．there are long dark winters and long light summers in the far north |
The underlined word “tides” in paragraph 3 means ___________.
| A．ocean current |
| B．storm |
| C．a regular rise and fall of the sea |
| D．wave |
In which part of the newspaper can you probably read this passage?
| A．News | B．Science |
| C．Business | D．Advertisement |
What’s the best title for the passage?
| A．Different Ways to Tell Time |
| B．Useful Machine to Tell Time |
| C．The History of the Clock |
| D．The Development of the Clock |
How many ways are mentioned in the passage to tell time?
| A．Five | B．Four | C．Six | D．Three |
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