After more than a year of bitter political debate, President Obama sat down in the White House East Room on March 23 and signed the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law with a pen，and then another pen，and another. Obama used 22 pens to sign the 
$938 billion health care bill.
The practice of using different pens to sign important legislation（法规）dates at least as far back as Franklin Roosevelt. The reason is fairly simple. The pen used to sign historic legislation itself becomes a historical artifact. The more pens a President uses, the more thank-you gifts he can offer to those who helped create that piece of history. The White House often give pens to supporters of the newly signed legislation. When Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, he reportedly used more than 75 pens and gave one of the first ones to Martin Luther King Jr. And in 1996, President Clinton gave the four pens he used to sign the Line-Item Veto bill to those most likely to appreciate the bill's consequence.
Once they're given away, some pens end up in museums; others are displayed proudly in recipients'(接受者) offices or homes. But they sometimes appear again, like in the 2008 presidential campaign（竞选活动）, when John Macain promised to use the same pen given to him by President Reagan to 
cut pork from the federal budget.
Not
every President goes for the multipen signature, however. President George W. Bush preferred signing bills with only one pen and then offering several unuse
d "gift" pens as souvenirs. .We can learn from paragraph 1 that the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act .
| A．has been passed easily |
| B．was put forward one year ago |
| C．becomes law in the USA |
| D．is unimportant |
How are the pens dealt with after being used by President Obama?
| A．Supporters of the newly signed legislation are likely to get some of them. |
| B．Obama will keep them. |
| C．They will be just set aside |
| D．They will be sold to the public at a high price. |
What can we learn about John Macain?
A. He was ever President in the USA.
B. He took part in the 2008 presidential campaign.
C. He never used the pen given by Reagan.
D. He was only concerned about his own business. What does this passage mainly tell us ?
A. Obama signed the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
B. It is a practice to use multiple pens to sign important legislation in the USA.
C. Pens are necessary in the signature.
D. All the presidents like the multipen signature.
Early last Tuesday, six men carrying machine guns, a pistol and a hunting rifle got on a four—car electric “ milk train” at the Dutch town of Assen. Shortly after it left Beilen, ten miles away, the terrorists stopped the train and seized the passenger as hostages. As police and Dutch soldiers ringed the train, another group of terrorists stuck in Amsterdam, forcing their way into the Indonesian consulate and taking 41 more hostages, including 16 children. By week’s end the terrorists had murdered three people aboard the train, and four more had been wounded in the raid on the consulate.
The kidnapping, and the subsequent cold—blooded murders, virtually rocked the Netherlands. While the Cabinet met in emergency sessions, television and radio station paused normal programming in favor of solemn music and news bulletins.
The terrorists were Indonesians from the South Moluccan Islands in the Pacific Ocean, and they were demanding that the Dutch help them gain independence from the Jakarta regime.(雅加达政权)
The twin acts of violence were not the first signs of South Molucca anger. Just before a 1970 visit to the Netherlands by Indonesia’s President Suharto, they attacked the Indonesian embassy in the Hague, killing a Dutch policeman. Last week’s kidnappings are two days before the Dutch Appeals Court was to trial 16 South Moluccan’s who were implicated in a plot last April to kidnap Queen Juliana and other members of the Royal family. They planned to storm the palace at Soestdijk after attacking the gates with an armoured car(装甲车).
The Moluccan headache is a heritage(遗留问题) of the old days of empire. A chain of islands at the eastern of the Indonesian archipelago, the Moluccas were once known as the Spice Islands. When the Netherlands gave up its East Indies colonies in 1949, the Moluccans wanted to set up a South Moluccan Republic, some 12,000 islanders were allowed to settle to the Netherlands. Their number swollen by Dutch—born children now reached 35,000. the young Moluccans here are demanding that the Dutch help them gain independence from the Jakarta regime.Which of the following is not mentioned in the passage?
| A．Dozens of people were seized by the terrorist as hostages. |
| B．The Indonesian consulate was located in Amsterdam. |
| C．The terrorists were Indonesians living in the Netherlands. |
| D．The terrorists all surrendered(投降) to the police and soldiers. |
Why did television and radio stations pause normal programming?
| A．The acts of violence shocked the whole country. |
| B．The terrorists destroyed necessary equipment. |
| C．the Cabinet needed to think quietly. |
| D．Their men were too sad to produce good program. |
The last paragraph __________.
| A．is mainly about the history of Indonesia |
| B．tells us how Indonesia won its independence |
| C．tell us how the Netherlands gave up its rule |
| D．briefly accounts for the acts of violence |
As people slowly learn to cure diseases, control floods, prevent hunger, and stop wars, fewer people die every year. As a result, the population of the world is becoming larger. In 1925 there were about 2 billion people in the world; today there are over 6 billion.
When the number rises, extra mouths must be fed. New lands must be brought under development, or land already farmed must be made to produce more crops. In some areas the land is so over-developed that it will be difficult to make it provide more crops. In some areas the population is so large that the land is divided into too tiny units to make improvement possible with farming methods. If a large part of this farming population went into industrial work, the land might be farmed much more productively (多产地) with modern methods.
There is now a race for science, technology, and industry to keep the output of food rising faster than the number of people to be fed. New types of crops, which will grow well in bad weather, are being developed, so there are now farms beyond the Arctic Circle in Siberia and North America. Irrigation (灌溉) and dry-farming methods bring poor lands under the plough. Dams hold back the waters of great rivers, which can provide water for the fields in all seasons and provide electric power for new industries. Industrial chemistry provides fertilizer to suit different soils. Every year, some new methods are made to increase or to protect the food of the world. The author says that the world population is increasing because _____.
| A．there are many rich valleys and large fields |
| B．farmers are producing more crops than before |
| C．people are living longer due to better living conditions |
| D．new lands are being made into farmlands |
The author says that in areas with large populations, land might be more productively farmed if _____.
| A．the land was divided into smaller pieces |
| B．people moved into the countryside |
| C．industrial methods were used in farming |
| D．the units of land were much larger |
We are told that there are now farms beyond the Arctic Circle. This has been made possible by _____.
| A．growing new types of crops | B．irrigation and dry-farming means |
| C．providing fertilizers | D．destroying pests and diseases |
Why do some people use dams to hold back waters from great rivers?
| A．To develop a new kind of dry-farming methods. |
| B．To prevent crops from floods. |
| C．To provide water and electricity in all seasons. |
| D．To water poor lands in bad weather. |
Personal computers and the Internet give people new choices about how to spend their time.
Some may use this freedom to share less time with certain friends or family members, but new technology will also let them stay in closer touch with those they care most about. I know this from personal experience.
E-mail makes it easy to work at home, which is where I now spend most weekends and evenings. My working hours aren’t necessarily much shorter than they once were but I spend fewer of them at the office. This lets me share more time with my young daughter than I might have if she’d been born before electronic mail became such a practical tool.
The Internet also makes it easy to share thoughts with a group of friends. Say you do something fun see a great movie perhaps-and there are four or five friends who might want to hear about it. If you call each one, you may tire of telling the story.
With E-mail, you just write one note about your experience, at your convenience, and address it to all the friends you think might be interested. They can read your message when they have time, and read only as much as they want to. They can reply at their convenience, and you can read what they have to say at your convenience.
E-mail is also an inexpensive way stay in close touch with people who live far away. More than a few parents use E-mail to keep in touch, even daily touch, with their children off at college.
We just have to keep in mind that computers and the Internet offer another way of staying in touch. They don’t take the place of any of the old ways.The purpose of this passage is to ________.
| A．explain how to use the Internet |
| B．describe the writer’s joy of keeping up with the latest technology |
| C．tell the merits(价值) and usefulness of the Internet |
| D．introduce the reader to basic knowledge about personal computers and the Internet |
The use of E-mail has made it possible for the writer to ________.
| A．spend less time working | B．have more free time with his child |
| C．work at home on weekends | D．work at a speed comfortable to him |
According to the writer, E-mail has an obvious advantage over the telephone because the former helps one ________.
| A．reach a group of people at one time conveniently |
| B．keep one’s communication as personal as possible |
| C．pass on much more information than the later |
| D．get in touch with one’s friends faster than the later |
The best title for this passage is ________.
| A．Computer: New Technological Advances |
| B．Internet: New Tool to Maintain Good Friendship |
| C．Computers Have Made Life Easier |
| D．Internet: a Convenient Tool for Communication |
Any mistake made in the printing of a stamp raises its value to stamp collectors. A mistake on one inexpensive postage stamp has made the stamp worth a million and a half times its original value.
The mistake was made more than a hundred years ago in the British colony of Mauritius, a small island in the Indian Ocean. In 1847 an order for stamps was sent to a London printer-Mauritius was to become the fourth country in the world to issue stamps.
Before the order was filled and delivered, a ball was planned at Mauritius’ Government House, and stamps were needed to send out the invitations. A local printer was instructed to copy the design for the stamps. He accidentally inscribed the words “Post Office” instead of “Post Paid” on the several hundred stamps that he printed.
Today there are only twenty-six of these misprinted stamps left fourteen One Penny Orange-Reds and twelve Two Penny Blues. Because of the Two Penny Blue’s rareness and age, collectors have paid as much as ＄16 800 for it.Over a century ago, Mauritius ________.
| A．was an independent country | B．belonged to India |
| C．was one of the British colonies | D．was a small island in the Pacific Ocean |
The mistake on the stamps was made ________.
| A．in Mauritius | B．at Mauritius Government House |
| C．in a post office | D．in London |
Stamp collectors have paid 16 800 for ________.
| A．fourteen One Penny Orange-Reds | B．twelve Two Penny Blues |
| C．one One Penny Orange-Red | D．one Two Penny Blue |
Today many people say that women have the same chance as men in society. But this was not always so. In the past, women all over the world had to fight to get the same chance as men in education and jobs. Many people said that women should not receive much education because they would not do as well as men when they went to work.
One woman who showed that women should have the same chance was Marie, a scientist. In the 1800s scientists knew that a metal, uranium, gave off radiation. They also knew how much radiation came from his element. But they didn’t know what this radiation was like; they wondered why and how uranium gave off radiation. Marie Curie set out to answer these questions. In one of her experiments she was studying a certain material which, she knew, contained uranium, But it gave off 4 times as much radiation as usually does. What could explain this fact? Marie Curie thought that there must be another source of radiation in this material.
In 1898 Marie Curie set out to find out this new source of radiation, which she named “radium”. Her husband, who was also a scientist, helped her. They set up a laboratory in an old building behind a school. For four years Curies searched, doing many experiments, And one morning in 1902 Marie found the source of the radiation.
Marie Curie proved to the world that there was element that gave off radiation. And she also proved to the world that, if women are given truly equal chance, they can really help society.The scientists of Marie Curie’s day knew .
| A．that uranium gave off radiation |
| B．that radium gave off radiation |
| C．that there was some radium in uranium |
| D．that uranium and radium both gave off radiation |
The Curies found the element radium .
| A．with other scientists’ help | B．by asking some famous scientists |
| C．by doing many experiments | D．with their teachers’ help |
In the past many people thought .
| A．that women must get the same chance as men in education and jobs |
| B．that women should receive much education |
| C．that women should get good jobs |
| D．that women could not do the work well |
Marie Curie proved to people .
| A．that there was a new element uranium |
| B．that there was a new element radium |
| C．that women could do their work as well as men if they were really given the same conditions |
| D．both B and C |
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