It is an exciting start to the college football season. A team that many people never heard of defeated one of the best in the country. If you follow American sports, then you know we are talking about the Michigan-Appalachian State game, which took place on September 1st at Michigan Stadium, in front of more than 100,000 people.
Appalachian State University is in Boone, North Carolina. Its team often plays in a stadium that holds about 25,000 people. Also, Appalachian State plays in the Football Championship Subdivision. Michigan is in the newly named Football Bowl Subdivision, the top level of college football. So the Mountaineers of Appalachian State and the Wolverines of the University of Michigan normally do not even play each other.
But they decided to meet for the first time. Michigan agreed to pay Appalachian State 400,000 dollars, win or lose. Teams like Michigan need victories, even a victory over a lower division team, to get into big, nationally broadcast bowl games. These games are worth millions of dollars at the end of the season.
Fans expected an easy Michigan win. After all, in the preseason, sports experts had considered Michigan the fifth best college football team in the country. But Appalachian State is a two-time national champion at its own division level. Its players wanted to show they could play well against a nationally ranked team. And they did. The final score was Appalachian State thirty-four, Michigan thirty-two. The game quickly became known as one of the greatest upsets in college football history.
The win has brought national attention to Appalachian State. Local stores reported a huge increase in orders for college clothing and other items. And the university official head expects more students to seek admission next year. Last Saturday, at home, Appalachian State defeated another North Carolina school, Lenoir-Rhyne College, forty-eight to seven.The Michigan-Appalachian State game ________.
| A．is a regular competition held in the US every year |
| B．is a state competition held for the football championship |
| C．is part of a national competition held on September 1st every year |
| D．was an occasional football competition between two universities |
Michigan wanted to play with Appalachian State because Michigan ________.
| A．needed money to support its development |
| B．wanted to test the skills of Appalachian State |
| C．was a new football team without experience |
| D．needed victories to enter nationally broadcast bowl games |
After the game, the Appalachian State University got _________.
| A．much economic support from the government |
| B．much national assistance |
| C．national recognition |
| D．many applicants for admission |
I had five hours in the company of First Great Western(FGW) last weekend, on a train full of passengers, all the way from Cornwall to London. I got to know some of my fellow passengers rather well. Not through talking to them, you understand.
There was the youth who was explaining to his friend exactly how he enjoyed a party with his friends last night. Opposite him was a young woman who was very excited to be going to Lanzarote for her summer holiday. And then there was the man who I took to be a car mechanic(汽车修理工); so detailed and technical was his conversation about a second-hand Audi. Everyone had a different, noisy ringtone, and none of the mobile phone conversations I was forced to hear was interesting.
By the end of the journey, I was silently complaining about the modern world, and feeling mad with FGW who, at the very moment when our carriage fell silent, would make an announcement about the buffet car (a carriage where food and drinks are sold) either opening or closing.
FGW seems to be campaigning against peace and quietness, having removed quiet carriage spaces where passengers were requested not to use mobiles so that their trains could carry more passengers. How so? I cannot understand why FGW takes no notice of passengers like me, who have suffered a lot from hearing endless telephone conversations. I have no interest in the smallest details of others’ lives. Making people listen to boring mobile phone conversations should be regarded as a rude act.”
Every train carriage should, in theory, be quiet. Why can’t that be the standard? It is possible to change public custom and practice. It was not so long ago that sidewalks were littered with dog waste：now it’s a general rule that dog owners clean it up after their pets. And once we restore peace and quietness to trains, we can then move on and stop people bringing fast food onto them, too.How did the author get to know the three passengers?
| A．From their phone conversations. |
| B．Through introductions. |
| C．In informal conversations. |
| D．By using a mobile phone. |
At the end of the journey, the author ______.
| A．became satisfied with FGW’s service |
| B．felt uneasy about the silence |
| C．was filled with anger |
| D．went to the buffet car |
What can we learn about the author from Paragraph 4?
| A．He is in support of the decision of FGW. |
| B．He believes FGW will have more passengers. |
| C．He dislikes hearing others’ phone conversations. |
| D．He thinks it’s rude to listen to others’ conversations. |
The author mentioned the rule of cleaning up dog mess to show ____.
| A．dog mess has become a serious problem |
| B．quiet carriages can become the standard |
| C．noise in carriages is as troubling as dog mess |
| D．changing public custom and practice is difficult |
Jeri Solomon is a morning person but Jim, her husband of 11 years, is not. Early in their life, it caused a problem. “When we were planning our wedding, I wanted to have these big discussions at 8 a. m.，when I had been up for two hours and was fresh, but Jim would just be getting out of bed,” says the 46-year-old designer from Melrose, Mass. “We ended up getting into many arguments because I thought he had no interest, when really he was just still half-asleep.”
The couple learned to work around their differences over the years, but their situation isn’t uncommon, says Katherine Sharkey, professor at BrownUniversity. “More women tend to be larks, while men are like night owls(猫头鹰),” she says.
The question is：Why? The answer lies in each person’s body clock. “The body clock is about 24 hours, thanks to Earth’s 24-hour light-dark cycle,” Sharkey says. “But some people have a longer natural cycle, and some are shorter.” If yours is on the long side, you’re more likely to be a night owl. If it runs short, you’re probably an early riser. But your body clock can change over your lifetime. There’s a developmental piece-school-age children are generally early birds, while teenagers tend to be night owls, and then as they age, adults gradually turn back into morning people,” Sharkey says.
Besides the clear problems with being a night owl if you have fl day job, “night owls tend to be more low-spirited, and have a higher dependence on coffee,” Sharkey says. But the news isn’t all bad. A recent study in Belgium found that night owls can stay more focused as the day goes on, compared with early risers.
Morning people, however, also have advantages. “Larks generally sleep better, have more regular sleep, and have more flexible characters,” Sharkey says. They also tend to be happier and feel healthier than night owls, according to a recent study from the University of Toronto.Jeri Solomon and her husband ______.
| A．tried to change each other’s sleeping habits |
| B．often argued about small things |
| C．could not understand each other |
| D．got up at different times |
The underlined word “larks” in Paragraph 2 refers to birds which ______.
| A．are sleepy at noon |
| B．stay awake all night |
| C．search for food at night |
| D．are active in the morning |
Compared with morning people, night owls ______.
| A．work more flexibly |
| B．feel happy more easily |
| C．sleep more soundly at night |
| D．get more and more focused during the day |
What is the purpose of the text?
| A．To explain why we get up early or late. |
| B．To advise every one of us to get up early. |
| C．To tell us how to change our body clock. |
| D．To point out morning people’s advantages. |
Dolphins(海豚) live in a dark underwater world. It’s often impossible to see each other or anything else around them, so sound plays an important role in their survival. To communicate with each other, dolphins produce all kinds of sounds.
Only other dolphins understand what the sounds mean. Scientists haven’t uncovered their secret communication, except for one kind of whistle. It might last less than a second, but this whistle is a big deal. Why? Because these whistles are actually names of dolphins - and every dolphin has one. Scientists call these sounds a “signature whistle.” When other dolphins hear the whistle, they know which dolphin is calling.
Dolphins often hunt by themselves but still need to stay connected to the group. Since they can’t always see each other, dolphins use their signature whistles to check in with other dolphins hundreds of yards away. “In coastal areas, dolphins exchange whistles even when they’re a third of a mile apart,” says Greg Campbell, who studies animals. That means dolphins shout out to group members that might be nearly five football fields away.
What’s amazing is who names the baby dolphin. Not the mother. Not an auntie dolphin or another group member. Scientists believe the baby dolphin itself comes up with the signature whistle. Like human babies, a baby dolphin plays with sounds throughout its first year. While testing its sound skills, a baby dolphin is doing something amazing. It’s creating or figuring out its signature whistle. How or why it chooses its signature whistle is not clear. Studies show that most of the time the signature whistle is nothing like its mother’s or group members’ whistles.
When the baby dolphin is about a year old, its signature whistle is set. It repeats it of ten so the other dolphins learn to recognize it.
Deciphering(破译) dolphin names is just the beginning of figuring out what dolphins communicate about. Do they chat about sharks? Discuss the tides? Maybe they even have a name for people. Someday scientists to decipher the rest of dolphins’ communication.Sound is important for dolphins because of ______.
| A．their poor sense of direction |
| B．their living environment |
| C．their strong enemies |
| D．their big groups |
The dolphin’s signature whistle ______.
| A．lasts along time |
| B．can travel long distances |
| C．is especially helpful in hunting |
| D．can be recognized by other animals |
The author writes the text mainly to ______.
| A．encourage readers to study dolphins |
| B．tell reader s how dolphins communicate |
| C．show how lovely and clever dolphins are |
| D．introduce a special sound made by dolphins |
A baby dolphin gets its name ______.
| A．soon after it was born |
| B．according to its size |
| C．all by itself |
| D．with the help of its group |
It’s not often a tomato that is described as so sweet “whenever people see it they just want to hug”-but this was no ordinary piece of fruit.
The heart-shaped tomato was grown by the retired worker, Rod Matless, who said he was surprised when he noticed it in his field. Mr. Matless, 69, who had a heart attack a few years ago, was so taken aback by the fruit that he decided to sell it and donate the money to the British Heart Foundation. The 64 g tomato was bought for$16 on eBay by woman from Wales - who said she planned to give it to someone special.
Mr. Matless, of Wymondham, near Norwich, said：“I spent a couple of days thinking about what to do with it and I wasn’t really sure, but this seems like a good use. I hope it will do someone somewhere a bit of good.” He added：“It’s very sweet - whenever people see it they just want to hug it.” But with the tomato’s freshness a key factor, Mr. Matless was up against the clock to send it to its new owner before it went bad. He said：“I didn’t want to send someone something horrible. I probably could have raised a bit more money with more time but I was worried about it.”
“It will certainly make a nice present for a loved one. I hope that they like it and I’m glad I got to help. It’s all been very good fun and I’ve really enjoyed growing this very special tomato.”We can learn from the text that the tomato grown by Rod Matless ______.
| A．is very big | B．is very tough |
| C．is very special | D．is good for health |
The underlined part “taken aback by” in Paragraph 2 means ______.
| A．satisfied with | B．nervous about |
| C．surprised by | D．frightened by |
According to the text, the main problem for Rod Matless was ______.
| A．how to advertise the tomato |
| B．how to keep the tomato fresh |
| C．how to get a good price for the tomato |
| D．how to find a good owner for the tomato |
When something goes wrong，it can be very satisfying to say，”Well, it’s so-and-so’s fault,” or “I know I’m late，but it’s not my fault；the car broke down”. It is probably not your fault，but once you form the habit of blaming somebody or something else for a bad situation，you are a loser. You have no power and could do nothing that helps change the situation. However, you can have great power over what happens to you if you stop focusing on whom to blame and start focusing on how to remedy the situation. This is the winner’s key to success.
Winners are great at overcoming problems. For example, if you were late because your car broke down, maybe you need to have your car examined more regularly. Or, you might start to carry along with you the useful phone numbers, so you could call for help when in need. For another example, if your workmate causes you problems on the job for lack of responsibility or ability, find ways of dealing with his irresponsibility or inability rather than simply blame the person. You should accept the fact and find creative ways to work successfully regardless of how your workmate fails to do his job well.
This is what being a winner is all about—creatively using your skills and talents so that you are successful no matter what happens. Winners also have some problems in their lives; they have just as many difficult situations to face as anybody else. They are just better at seeing those problems as challenges and opportunities to develop their own abilities. So, stop focusing on “whose fault it is.” Once you are confident about your power over bad situations, problems are just stepping stones for success.
According to the passage, winners .
| A．deal with problems rather than blame others |
| B．meet with fewer difficulties in their lives |
| C．have responsible and able colleagues |
| D．blame themselves rather than others |
The underlined word remedy in Paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to _________.
| A．avoid | B．refuse | C．improve | D．consider |
When your colleague brings about a problem, you should .
| A．find a better way to handle the problem |
| B．blame him for his lack of responsibility |
| C．tell him to find the cause of the problem |
| D．ask a more able colleague for help |
When problems occur, winners take them as
| A．excuses for their failures |
| B．barriers to greater power |
| C．challenges to their colleagues |
| D．chances for self-development |
Which of the following is the best title for the passage?
| A．A Winner’s Achievement. |
| B．A Winner’s Problem. |
| C．A Winner’s Opportunity. |
| D．A Winner’s Secret. |
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