Beauty has always been regarded as something praiseworthy. Almost everyone thinks attractive people are happier and healthier, have better marriages and have more respectable jobs. Personal advisors give them better advice for finding jobs. Even judges are softer on attractive defendants. But in the executive（主管的） circle, beauty can become a liability.
While attractiveness is a positive factor for a man on his way up the executive ladder, it is harmful to a woman.
Handsome male executives were considered having more honesty than plainer men; effort and ability were thought to lead to their success.
Attractive female executives were considered to have less honesty than unattractive ones; their success was connected not with ability but with factors such as luck.
All unattractive women executives were thought to have more honesty and to be more capable than the attractive female executives. Interestingly, though, the rise of the unattractive overnight successes was connected more to personal relationships and less to ability than that of the attractive overnight successes.
Why are attractive women not thought to be able? An attractive woman is considered to be more feminine has an advantage in traditionally female jobs, but an attractive woman in a traditionally manly position appears to lack the "manly"qualifies required.
This is true even in politics, "When the only clue is how he or she looks, people treat men and women differently, " says Anne Bowman, who recently published a study on the effects of attractiveness on political candidates（候选人）. She asked 125 undergraduate students to rank two groups of photographs, one of men and one of women, in order of attractiveness. The students were told the photographs were of candidates for political offices. They were asked to rank them again, in the order they would vote for them.
The results showed that attractive males completely defeated unattractive men, but the women who had ranked most attractive unchangeably received the fewest votes.
The word "liability" most probably means ________.
| A．disadvantage | B．advantage | C．misfortune | D．trouble |
Bowman's experiment shows that when it comes to politics, attractiveness________
| A．turns out to be a disadvantage to men |
| B．is more of a disadvantage than an advantage to women |
| C．has as little effect on men as on women |
| D．affects men and women alike |
It can be inferred from the passage that people's views on beauty are often________.
| A．practical | B．supportive | C．old - fashioned | D．one - sided |
The author writes this passage to ________.
| A．give advice to job - seekers who are attractive |
| B．discuss the disadvantages of being attractive |
| C．demand equal rights for women |
| D．state the importance of appearance |
Plants are very important living things. Life could not go on if there were no plants. This is because plants can make food from air， water and sunlight. Animals and man cannot make food from air， water and sunlight. Animals get their food by eating plants and other animals. Therefore animals and man need plants in order to live. This is why we find that there are so many plants around us.
If you look carefully at the plants around you， you will find that there are two kinds of plants： flowering plants and non-flowering plants. Flowering plants can make seeds. The seeds are protected by the fruits. Some fruits have one seed， some have two， three or four， and some have many seeds. But a few fruits have no seeds at all. An example of a fruit without seeds is the banana fruit. Most non-flowering plants do not grow from seeds. They grow from spores（胚芽）。 Spores are very small. Some spores are so small and light that they can float in the air. We may say that spores are quite the same as seeds. When these spores are all on wet and shady places， they usually grow into new plants.
62.The main idea of the first paragraph is that ______.
| A．plants are important for life | B．plants cannot grow without air |
| C．there are many plants in the world | D．we can not live without water |
63.What can we infer（推断） from the passage ？
| A．Of all living things animals are most. | B．Spores are seeds. |
| C．All fruits of flowering plants have seeds. | D．Without plants，man will die out. |
64.What is the meaning of the underlined word?
| A．Kept. | B．Guarded. | C．Prevented. | D．Surrounded |
65.This passage may be taken from______.
| A．a medicine book | B．a novel |
| C．a science magazine | D．an experiment report |
On the coast of Brazil lies its most famous city Rio de Janeiro. Rio is a beautiful pace to visit. It is full of exciting parades, historical architecture and natural beauty.
The most famous time of year in Rio is the spring when the samba schools organize a giant parade of dance, music and costumes. Samba is a type of fast Brazilian music, which is perfect for dancing. The carnival lasts two days and over 20 samba schools perform, a total of 70,000 people in brightly coloured costumes, all dancing and singing! It is a magnificent spectacle and millions of people watch the carnival on television around the world.
Rio de Janeiro is a religious city and it is full of churches. Some, like the former Imperial Church, were built over 400 years ago while others, like the Metropolitan Cathedral, are very modern. The Metropolitan Cathedral was built in 1976 and is so large that 20,000 people can stand inside at one time!
Another important religious site in Rio is the Corcovado hill. On the top of the hill, along with a small church, stands a 30-metre high statue of Jesus with his arms stretched out. From this point you can see every part of the city.
59.Brazilian carnival is .
| A．a type of Brazilian music | B．a parade of 70,000 people dancing |
| C．a parade of millions of people on television | |
| D．the name of a samba school |
60.The Metropolitan Cathedral .
| A．was built 400 years ago | B．is on Corcovado Hill |
| C．is a religious city | D．was built in 1976 |
61.The Corcovado Hill is famous for .
| A．the samba parade | B．the beautiful beaches |
| C．the statue of Jesus | D．the small church |
Visitors from space may have landed on our planet from time to time, maybe hundreds of times during the long, empty ages while Man was still a dream of the far future. Indeed, they could have landed on 90% of the earth as recently as two or three hundreds years ago, and we could never have heard of it. If one searches through old newspapers and records from some certain places, one can find many reports of strange events that could be some explanations about visiting from outer space. A writer, Charles Fort, has made a collection of UFO sightings in his book Lo! One is tempted(引诱) to believe them more than any modern reports, for the simple reason that they happened long before anyone had ever thought of space travel. Yet at the same time, one cannot take them too seriously, for before education on science was popular, even sightings of meteors(流星) and comets(彗星) made people believe the most unbelievable stories, as they still do today.
56.According to the passage, visitors from outer space may have landed on the earth .
| A．long before man had dreamed of it | B．long before there were human beings |
| C．in the last few hundred years | D．after the space travel began |
57.Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?
| A．Charles Fort sighted a lot of UFOs himself. | B．All sightings of UFOs are believable. |
| C．There may be living things on other planets. | D．People have seen visitors from other planets everywhere. |
58.According to the passage, .
| A．UFOs are only seen in recent years | B．UFOs sightings are not new |
| C．UFOs are just meteors and comets | D．UFOs are invented by people |
The way people hold to the belief that a fun - filled, pain free life equals happiness actually reduces their chances of ever attaining real happiness. If fun and pleasure are equal to happiness then pain must be equal to unhappiness. But in fact, the opposite is true: more often than not things that lead to happiness involve some pain.
As a result, many people avoid the very attempts that are the source of true happiness. They fear the pain inevitably brought by such things as marriage, raising children, professional achievement, religious commitment （预担的义务）, self - improvement.
Ask a bachelor（单身汉） why he resists marriage even though he finds dating to be less and less satisfying. If he is honest he will tell you that he is afraid of making a commitment. For commitment is in fact quite painful. The single life is filled with fun, adventure, excitement. Marriage has such moments, but they are not its most distinguishing features.
Couples with infant children are lucky to get a whole night’s sleep or a three - day vacation. I don’t know any parent who would choose the word fun to describe raising children. But couples who decide not to have children never know the joys of watching a child grow up or of playing with a grandchild.
Understanding and accepting that true happiness has nothing to do with fun is one of the most liberating realizations. It liberates time: now we can devote more hours to activities that can genuinely increase our happiness. It liberates money: buying that new car or those fancy clothes that will do nothing to increase our happiness now seems pointless. And it liberates us from envy: we now understand that all those who are always having so much fun actually may not be happy at all.According to the author, a bachelor resists marriage chiefly because ________ .
| A．he is reluctant to take on family responsiblilities |
| B．he believes that life will be more cheerful if he remains single |
| C．he finds more fun in dating than in marriage |
| D．he fears it will put an end to all his fun adventure and excitement |
Raising children, in the author’s opinion is ________ .
| A．a moral duty |
| B．a thankless job |
| C．a rewarding task |
| D．a source of inevitable pain |
From the last paragraph, we learn that envy sometimes stems from ________ .
| A．hatred | B．misunderstanding |
| C．prejudice | D．ignorance |
To understand what true happiness is one must ________ .
| A．have as much fun as possible during one’s lifetime |
| B．make every effort to liberate oneself from pain |
| C．put up with pain under all circumstances |
| D．be able to distinguish happiness from fun |
For more than twenty years scientists have been searching for signs of life on other planets. Most of these searches have been done over the radio. The hope is that someone in outer space may be trying to get in touch with us. Scientists also have sent radio and television messages on spaceships traveling through space, on the chance that someone may be receptive to such messages.
Scientists are using powerful radio telescopes to listen to signals from about 1, 000 stars, all within 100 light years of earth. In addition, they will scan（扫视）the entire sky to “listen” for radio messages from more distant stars. Using a computer, they will be able to monitor more than eight channels at one time. Scientists are looking for any signal they stands out from the background noise.
Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy（银河星系）, scientists find that five percent are like our sun. Perhaps half of them have a planet like earth. Such a planet would be a reasonable distance from the star for temperatures to be right for the evolution（进化）of life. Based on the inhabitable（that can be lived in）planets in our galaxy, most scientists agree that chances are likely that one or more of these planets support some life.
However, many scientists wonder whether intelligent（有智力的）life exists on other planets. Some believe that twenty years of searching without any intelligible messages shows that no one is out there. They say that the evolution of intelligence comparable to ours is unlikely.
Other scientists believe that our search hasn’t been long enough to rule out the possibility that intelligent life exists in our galaxy. Although our sun family is only about five billion years old, our galaxy is about 20 billion years old. In that time, some scientists think it is likely that civilization（文明）much more advanced than ours have developed. Perhaps these civilizations send us no signals; perhaps we have not recognized the signals they have sent us. If we hope to find intelligent life, these scientists believe that we have to keep looking.According to the passage, how many planets in our galaxy might be inhabitable?
| A．5 billion． | B．10 billion. |
| C．15 billion. | D．200 billion |
The first paragraph in this passage is mainly about ________ .
| A．how scientists are looking for signs of life on other planets |
| B．why scientists are looking for signs of life on other planets |
| C．where scientists are looking for signs of life on other planets |
| D．when scientists are looking for signs of life on other planets |
The underlined word “monitor” in the passage means“ ________ ”.
| A．find | B．follow |
| C．check | D．form |
Which of these statements is true based on the information in the passage?
| A．The earth is one of the oldest planets in our galaxy. |
| B．Most scientists believe that there is intelligent life on other planets. |
| C．Scientists are trying different ways to find signs of life on other planets. |
| D．Scientists don’t believe that there might be life on other planets. |
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