Even as Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda wrapped up a tired appearance before Congress，the head of the world’s largest automaker wasn’t leaving his problems behind．
Toyota faces a criminal investigation by federal lawyers in New York．The company is now being investigated．Its US dealerships in difficulty now are facing repairs to potentially millions of customer cars that have been recalled．The company is offering customers money back for rental cars and other expenses．
Its lawyers are busy preparing to cope with lawsuits．A new hearing will be conducted. And the cost to Toyota’s reputation is only now starting．
Despite back-to-back hearings this week，left to be said were a better explanation for slow actions to deal with the faults and believable promises that the problems that led to sudden，unintended accelerations will be fixed．
Toyoda said those changes were being made nearly around the clock，but during three hours of often tense questions and answers he repeated that there was no link to the vehicle’s electronic systems．
Many drivers making complaints against Toyota and the government say their acceleration problems had nothing to do with floor mat interference(油门踏板故障)or sticky gas pedals(刹车)．Outside experts have suggested electronic problems.
House lawmakers expressed serious criticism on Toyoda，the grandson of the company’s founder．
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration(NHTSA)is seeking records on Toyota’s recalls and is conducting its own review on whether electronics were behind the car faults．NHTSA also continues to look into steering complaints from drivers of the popular Corolla model．
Toyota has recalled 8．5 million cars，more than 6 million of them in the United States．
It may be a while before car buyers believe that Toyota really makes safe cars．
Toyota’s January sales already fell 16 percent even as most other automakers jumped back from last year’s bad results．Analyst Koji Endo of Advanced Research Japan in Tokyo said he expects February sales，due out next week，to be down 30 percent to 40．Toyota’s sales problem could continue beyond that．
It will take some time to feel the full effect of this，he said．
68．The best title for this passage is_________．
A．Toyota is in trouble B．Toyota is under hearing
C．Toyota is finished D．Toyota is still running
69．What is the purpose of the hearing?
A．America hopes that Toyota apologizes to the US customers．
B．America wants to get Toyota out of the US market．
C．America wants to help Toyota out of difficulty．
D．America hopes that Toyota admits their cars have electronic system problem．
70．What can we infer from the passage?
A．Toyota provides very good post sale service．
B．Toyota’s biggest market is in the United States．
C．Toyota will be closed soon．
D．Toyota’s dealership in the US will all be closed．
71．The last sentence of this passage indicates______
A．Analyst Koji Endo is fully confident about Toyota
B．Toyota could meet a worse situation
C．Toyota would get out of trouble sooner or later
D．Toyota would build up a better reputation among its customers
One day an old woman was traveling alone in the mountains. Suddenly she saw something shining（发光） in the stream. When she came close, she found it was a precious（宝贵） stone. She put the stone into her bag and went on with her trip.
The next day the old woman met a young man, who was also a traveler in the mountains. The young man looked very hungry, so the old woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked carefully, “The stone is beautiful. Would you like to give it to me?”
“Sure. Why not?” the woman said, and handed the stone to him.
The young man left happily with the stone. He knew it was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the woman.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back and hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within your bag.”
The woman opened her bag. It was almost empty. She looked at the young man and smiled, “I have nothing special in my bag, but I do have something precious — the joy of giving!”
The young man felt ashamed（羞愧） and left silently.How did the young man find the precious stone?
| A．He found it in his food. | B．He dug it out in a valley. |
| C．He saw it in the woman’s bag. | D．He noticed it shining in the stream. |
What does the underlined word “security” in Paragraph 4 probably mean?
| A．Money. | B．Worry. | C．Health. | D．Trouble. |
The man returned the stone to the woman because ______.
| A．he found the stone was not precious |
| B．he understood the real meaning of joy |
| C．he felt embarrassed at taking away the stone |
| D．he wanted to get something even more precious |
Which of the following would be the best title of the passage?
| A．A special stone | B．The joy of giving |
| C．A woman and a young man | D．An experience in the mountains |
English teenagers are to receive compulsory(必修的)cooking lessons in schools. The idea is to encourage healthy eating to fight the country’s increasing obesity(肥胖)rate. It’s feared that basic cooking and food preparation skills are being lost as parents turn to pre-pre-pared convenience foods.
Cooking was once regarded as an important part of education in England-even if it was mainly aimed at girls. In recent decades cooking has progressively become a minor activity in schools. In many cases the schools themselves have given up cooking meals in kitchens in the schools .But the rising level of obesity has led to a rethink about the food that children are given and the skills they should be taught.
“What I want is to teach young people how to do basic, simple recipes like a tomato sauce, a bolognaise, a simple curry, a stir-fry-which they can use now at home and then in their later life”, said Ed Balls, the minister responsible for schools.
The new lessons are due to start in September, but some schools without kitchens will be given longer to adapt. There is also likely to be a shortage of teachers with the right skills, since the trend has been to teach food technology rather than practical cooking. Also the compulsory lessons for hands on cooking will only be one hour a week for one term. But the well-known cookery writer, Pru Leith, believes it will be worth it .
“If we’d done this thirty years ago we might not have the crisis we’ve got now about obesity and lack of knowledge about food and so on. Every child should know how to cook, not just so that they’ll be healthy, but because it’s a life skill which is a real pleasure”.
The renewed interest in cooking is primarily a response to the level of obesity in Britain which is among the highest in Europe, and according to government figures half of all Britains will be obese in 25 years if current trends are not stopped.The passage mainly talks about .
| A．the compulsory cooking classes | B．the lost cooking skills |
| C．the healthy eating | D．the reason for obesity |
Which of the following is NOT the purpose for English teenagers to receive cooking lessons?
| A．To encourage teenagers to eat healthy food. |
| B．To reduce the country’s increasing obesity rate. |
| C．To prevent basic cooking and food preparation skills from being lost. |
| D．To stop parents from turning to pre-prepared convenience foods. |
In what way will cooking lessons benefit the students?
| A．They will be able to do some basic, simple recipes like a tomato sauce. |
| B．They will be healthy and enjoy the pleasure of such a life skill as well. |
| C．They will be able to make food experiments with the knowledge and skills. |
| D．They will be able to control the level of obesity in the whole country. |
The well-known cookery writer, Pru Leith, thinks it to offer compulsory cooking lessons in schools.
| A．difficult | B．necessary | C．funny | D．timely |
It can be inferred from the passage that .
| A．cooking has always been an important part of school education in England |
| B．English teenagers will have their cooking lessons twice a week for one year |
| C．the obesity rate in Britain has been rapidly growing in recent decades |
| D．the students will pay a lot of money to the school for their cooking lessons |
“Long time no see” is a very interesting sentence. When I first read this sentence from an American friend’s email, I laughed. I thought it was a perfect example of Chinglish.
Obviously, it is a word-by-word literal translation of the Chinese greetings with a ruled English grammar and structure! Later on, my friend told me that it is a standard American greeting. I was too thrilled to believe her. Her words could not convince me at all. So I did a research on google.com. To my surprise, there are over 60 thousand web pages containing “Long time no see.” This sentence has been widely used in emails, letters, newspapers, movies, books, or any other possible places. Though it is sort of informal, it is part of the language that Americans use daily. Ironically, if you type this phrase in Microsoft Word, the software will tell you that the grammar needs to be corrected.
Nobody knows the origin of this Chinglish sentence. Some people believe that it came from Charlie Chan’s movies. In the 1930s, Hollywood moviemakers successfully created a world wide famous Chinese detective named “Charlie Chan” on wide screens. Detective Chan likes to teach Americans some Chinese wisdom by quoting Confucius. “Long time no see” was his trademark. Soon after Charlie Chan, “Long time no see” became a popular phrase in the real world with thanks to the popularity of these movies.
Some scholars refer to America as a huge pot of stew. All kinds of culture are mixed in the stew together, and they change the color and taste of each other. American Chinese, though a minority ethnic(少数民族的成员) group in the United States, is also contributing some changes to the stew! Language is usually the first thing to be influenced in the mixed stew.
You can have some other examples than adoptions from Chinese, such as pizza from Italian, susi from Japanese, and déjà vu from French etc. There is a long list! Americans do not just simply borrow something from others. They will modify it and make it their own, so you would not be surprised to find a tofu and peanut butter hamburger in a restaurant, or to buy a bottle of iced Chinese green tea with honey in a grocery store. Since Americans appreciate Chinese culture more and more nowadays, I believe more Chinese words will become American English in the future. In this way the American stew keeps adding richness and flavor.The writer himself felt surprised at ______.
| A．the Chinglish expression “Long time no see” |
| B．“Long time no see” used as standard American English |
| C．so many literal translation of the expressions used in America |
| D．finding out Americans use the expression every day |
The word “stew” in the 4th paragraph probably means ______.
| A．mixture literature | B．Confucius’ words |
| C．a kind of cooked dish | D．American changing cultures |
According to the passage, it can be inferred that ______.
| A．detectives translate the phrase “Long time no see” |
| B．Hollywood made “Long time no see” popular |
| C．the huge pot of stew greatly affects all kinds of languages |
| D．cultures can be changed in the huge pot of stew |
The main idea of the passage is that ______.
| A．some Chinese expressions are introduced into English |
| B．you’ll not be surprised at a tofu in a restaurant in America |
| C．some American expressions can be used in China |
| D．American English keep being enriched from different cultures |
According to the passage, which of the following statements is not true?
| A．Informal language sometimes doesn’t go with grammar and structure. |
| B．Languages are always ruled by grammar and structure. |
| C．Long time no see” has been used in at least four media mentioned in the passage. |
| D．There are four languages mentioned to be adopted in the American stew. |
While watching the Olympics the other night, I came across an unbelievable sight. It was not a gold medal, or a world record broken, but a show of courage.
The event was swimming and started with only three men on the blocks. For one reason or another, two of them false started, so they were disqualified. That left only one to compete. It would have been difficult enough, not having anyone to race against, even though the time on the clock is important.
I watched the man dive off the block and knew right away that something was wrong. I’m not an expert swimmer, but I can tell a good dive from a poor one, and this was not exactly medal quality. When he resurfaced, it was evident that the man was not out for gold – his arms were waving in an attempt at freestyle. The crowd started to laugh. Clearly this man was not a medal competitor.
I listened to the crowd begin to laugh at this poor man who was clearly having a hard time. Finally he made his turn to start back. It was pitiful. He made a few desperate strokes and you could tell he was worn out.
But in those few awful strokes, the crowd had changed.
No longer were they laughing, but beginning to cheer. Some even began to stand and shout “Come on, you can do it!” and he did.
A clear minute past the average swimmer, this young man finally finished his race. The crowd went wild. You would have thought that he had won the gold, and he should have. Even though he recorded one of the slowest times in Olympic history, this man gave more heart than any of the other competitors.
Just a short year ago, he had never even swum, let alone race. His country had been invited to Sydney.
In a competition where athletes remove their silver medals feeling they have somehow been cheated out of gold, or when they act so proudly in front of their competitors , it is nice to watch an underdog.From the passage we can learn that the young man .
| A．made his turn to start back pitifully |
| B．was skillful in freestyle in the game |
| C．swam faster than the average swimmer |
| D．was not capable enough to win the medal |
The crowd changed their attitudes because .
| A．they felt sorry for the young man |
| B．they were moved by the young man’s courage |
| C．they wanted to show their sympathy |
| D．they meant to please the young man |
According to the passage, “it is nice to watch an underdog” probably means .
| A．it’s amazing to watch an ordinary man challenging himself |
| B．it’s amusing to watch a man with awful swimming skills |
| C．it’s cheerful for athletes to act proudly before their competitors |
| D．it’s brave enough for some athletes to remove the silver medals |
Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?
| A．The event started with three men, two of whom were disqualified later. |
| B．The crowd started to laugh at the athlete’s arms waving in an attempt at freestyle. |
| C．The athlete, as well as the author, is an expert swimmer. |
| D．The swimming event is a show of courage rather than a fierce competition. |
What’s the best title for the passage?
| A．Compete for Gold! | B．Try again! |
| C．Break a Record! | D．Go for it! |
A jobless man applied for the position of “office boy” at Microsoft. The HR manager interviewed him and then watched him cleaning the floor as a test.
“You are employed,” he said. “Give me your e-mail address and I’ll send you the application to fill in, as well as date when you may start. ”
The man replied, “But I don’t have a computer, neither an e-mail. ”
“I’m sorry,” said the HR manager. “If you don’t have an e-mail, that means you do not exist. And who doesn’t exist cannot have the job. ”
The man left with no hope at all. He didn’t know what to do, with only ten dollars in his pocket. He then decided to go to the supermarket and buy 10kg tomatoes. He then sold the tomatoes from door to door. In less than two hours, he succeeded to double his capital. He repeated the operation three times, and returned home happily with 60 dollars.
The man realized that he can survive in this way, and started to go every day earlier, and return late. Thus, his money doubled or tripled every day. Shortly, he bought a cart, then a truck, and then he had his own fleet of delivery vehicles. Five years later, the man is one of the biggest food retailers in the US.
He started to plan his family’s future and decided to have a life insurance. He called an insurance broker and chose a protection plan.
When the conversation was concluded the broker asked him his e-mail. The man replied, “I don’t have an e-mail. ”
The broker answered curiously, “You don’t have an e-mail, and yet have succeeded to build an empire. Can you imagine what you could have been if you had an e-mail?” The man thought for a while and replied, “Yes, I’d be an office boy at Microsoft!”Why can’t the man have the job at Microsoft?
| A．Because he was lazy. | B．Because he didn’t pass the test. |
| C．Because he didn’t have an e-mail. | D．Because he didn’t have a computer. |
The underlined word “triple” can be replaced by ______.
| A．become large | B．become 3 times |
| C．increase quickly | D．decrease quickly |
According to the passage, which of the following is TRUE?
| A．The man is one of the biggest food retailers in the world. |
| B．The man didn’t give up though he failed the interview. |
| C．He started his career by selling tomatoes in the supermarket. |
| D．Those who have e-mails can work at Microsoft. |
The man can be described as _______.
| A．helpful and considerate | B．positive and generous |
| C．smart and hardworking | D．stubborn and unselfish |
Which proverb can best describe the story?
| A．Misfortune may be an actual blessing. |
| B．Where there is a will, there is a way. |
| C．Accidents will happen. |
| D．No pains , no gains. |
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