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LOS ANGELES-British singing sensation Susan Boyle’s first album quickly climbed to No. 1 on U.S. album charts on Wednesday with sales of 701,000 copies, beating new releases by Adam Lambert and Rihanna and becoming the best-selling debut(首次演出) of 2009. Boyle, 48, a frumpy Scottish singer, who became an international YouTube phenomenon after appearing on TV show “Britain’s Got Talent”, also topped the British album charts earlier this week.
Her “I Dreamed a Dream” release through Sony Music Entertainment, marked the best U.S. opening of a female artist's debut album since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991, Billboard.com said. It was also the fastest selling album in Britain this year and has topped the charts in Australia and Ireland.
Billboard said only one album in SoundScan’s tracking history had seen a bigger opening week than Boyle. U.S. rapper Snoop Dogg’s album “Doggystyle” sold 803,000 copies in its first week in 1993—before traditional album sales began tumbling(falling rapidly) in the face of piracy(盗版) and a shift to digital sales.
Although Boyle finally failed to win “Britain’s Got Talent”, her April trial hearing for the show has been viewed more than 300 million times on the Internet.
In a good week for stars of TV talent shows, “American Idol” runner-up Adam Lambert’s debut album “For Your Entertainment”, also released through Sony, debuted at No.3 on the Billboard 200 with 198,000 copies sold. Lambert’s strong showing followed headline news coverage of his bad televised live performance at the American Music Awards 10 days ago in which he aroused oral sex with a dancer and kissed a male keyboard player.
R&B singer Rihanna’s “Rated R”, her first studio album since being attacked by her then-boyfriend Chris Brown in February, bowed in at No.4 with 181,000 copies—the best sales week in the 21-year-old singer’s career.
Italian singer Andrea Bocelli held onto the No.2 spot for a third week with his “My Christmas” album with 218,000 new copies sold during the week, SoundScan said.
60. According to the passage, what albums were released through Sony Music Entertainment?
A. Doggystyle and I Dreamed a Dream.
B. For Your Entertainment and I Dreamed a Dream.
C. Rated R and Doggystyle.
D. My Christmas and For Your Entertainment.
61. What do you learn from the passage?
A. Doggystyle marked the biggest opening week in SoundScan’s tracking history.
B. I Dreamed a Dream was the fastest selling album in English-speaking countries.
C. Upon its release, Boyle’s first album ranked first on album charts on Wednesday.
D. Boyle became world-famous after she won Britain’s Got Talent.
62. Who may perform crazily and leave audience a bad impression?
A. Susan Boyle. B. Andrea Bocelli. C. Rihanna. D. Adam Lambert.
63. From the passage we can conclude _______.
A. The albums could have sold better if it had not been for piracy and a shift to digital sales
B. Boyle became world-famous because she was a female artist.
C. Being attacked by her then-boyfriend might decrease the sales of Rihanna’s Rated R.
D. Andrea Bocelli’s album My Christmas only kept the No. 2 spot for two weeks.
For nearly a century before there was such a thing as a space program,a view of space was possible.People could see full views of the Moon,explore Mars(探测火星),and study the outer space beauty.All of this was made possible by a small group of artist-astronomers(天文艺术家) who worked to show people how other worlds in space might look.
Lucien Rudaux,a French artist,was the first to use his artistic ability and his knowledge of astronomy in art.His paintings show a mixture of skilled observations,brilliant imagination and careful attention.As a result,many of his works have come surprisingly close to actual conditions on distant planets.His painting of Mars included moonlike craters(火山口) that were first photographed by the astronauts in 1965.His 1930 painting of a dust storm looks remarkably like a photograph of a storm taken by the astronauts in 1976.
The artist-astronomers,including Rudaux,made people interested in outer space by painting what turned out to be exact portraits of the planets.The passage tells us _________.
| A．the surprising exactness of space artists | B．the popular success of Lucien Rudaux |
| C．the imaginations of great artists | D．the likeness between the Moon and Mars |
According to the passage,artist-astronomers spent their lives _________.
| A．exploring the planets | B．studying paintings |
| C．painting the planets | D．producing spaceships |
The works of Lucien Rudaux are a mixture of _________.
| A．astronomy and mathematics | B．astronomy and painting |
| C．photograph and art | D．fact and imagination |
In 1965,the astronauts photographed _________.
| A．a spaceship | B．a planet | C．craters on the Moon | D．a painting |
It came with devastating force,a natural disaster of strange intensity that shocked the world and killed tens of thousands.The waters have now receded,but disease and food and water shortages trouble a number of countries around the Indian Ocean.Millions of survivors face serious problems.
The number of survivors in need of food aid after the Indian Ocean disaster has climbed to 5 million people.They stretch from Somalia to Thailand,and the figure could rise further,the United Nations has said.
Relief teams hope to reach all of the estimated 700 000 hungry in Sri Lanka within three more days.It could take longer before enough food aid gets to the nearly 1 million people in need in hard-to-reach parts of Indonesia.Another serious problem is the need for purified water.
Although aid had poured in from all over the world to the disaster areas,“Logistics is the big problem here—just getting the stuff out to people who need it,”said Ron Libby,emergency management specialist at the USA agency for International Development.
Relief efforts are hindered by the difficulty of delivering aid to the more than 1000 islands scattered across hundreds of kilometers of ocean.
For those who survived the tsunami's force,disease is now the No.1 problem.Five million people are short of water,food and basic sanitation across the region.World Health Organization(WHO) crisis chief David Navarro said 50 000 more people could die from disease and other causes,as has been the case in previous humanitarian emergencies.
WHO said it had already received a handful of reports of malaria(疟疾) and dengue fever(登革热) and hundreds of reports of diarrhea(腹泻) and infected wounds.It said millions of water purification tablets had been sent to Asia,along with sanitation engineers to rebuild water sanitation infrastructure.
Psychologists are warning that mental health problems caused by the tsunami could prove harder to resolve than the physical damage.
Some survivors say they are plagued by recurring nightmares about walls of water.Many locals are afraid to return to beachside homes.Officials also warn that suicide rates could rise dramatically as parents struggle with guilt at losing children.
Psychologists estimate that 20 to 30 per cent of people who face traumatic events eventually develop symptoms,such as alcohol abuse,lack of concentration at work and an inability to develop close relationships.
Although the Thai Government has offered to build temporary beachside housing,many refugee families are refusing to come down from the hills.Others are afraid to go back to jobs on the sea.
Over 150 000 people were killed by the tsunami,but hundreds and thousands more have been left with no means to earn a living.
In the village of Akirapettai in India,all that is left is the twisted wreckage of the fishing fleet.Dakshina Murti,a fisherman,not only lost three family members,but also lost his boats,his nets,everything.
“Everything's gone,”he says.With no government aid so far,all he has is a wreck.There are several million people who suffered the same experience.Homes have been destroyed,as well as wharves,docks,and sheds.
For now,rebuilding the economy remains a distant concept.This passage is mainly about _________that happened around the Indian Oceans.
| A．the causes of the tsunami | B．the result after the tsunami |
| C．the sign of the tsunami | D．the warning of the tsunami |
According to what the United Nations has said,the number of survivors in need of food aid after the disaster _________.
| A．is not more than 5 million | B．is less than 5 million |
| C．has reached 5 million | D．won't reach 5 million |
From the passage we learn that _________ is the most serious problem for the time being.
| A．disease | B．food | C．water | D．house |
The passage tells us that such a disaster,as tsunami will cause diseases and _________ as well.
| A．Dengue fever | B．diarrhea | C．Malaria | D．mental health problem |
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Mail coupon today! Or call the number below 1-800-372-1589. Call any time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. www. Harcourt-learning. com E-mail：Harcourt＠learning. com. This advertisement aims at calling on people to ________.
| A．attend full-time universities |
| B．work part time to further their education |
| C．improve their education at home to get better jobs |
| D．earn their degrees in different ways that suit them |
Which of the following is NOT clearly mentioned in this advertisement?
| A．The way how you will get your degree. |
| B．Tuition price. |
| C．The hot fields you will be preparing yourself for. |
| D．The length of time it will take you to get a degree. |
What does the writer of this ad intend to say by naming General Electric, IBM, Ford, etc.?
| A．To show that their training is widely used in the country. |
| B．To show that the training program is fully supported by famous companies in the U. S. |
| C．To prove the value of their training in every area. |
| D．To show the importance of getting recognized by the most famous companies. |
It seems to the writer that the greatest attraction for people to take their training is______.
| A．its convenience |
| B．the degree’s nation-wide recognition |
| C．the economic benefit(利益) it will bring about |
| D．the hot fields the training will help people to enter |
How many ways are mentioned in the ad for people to get in touch with the Harcourt Learning Direct?
| A．One. | B．Two. | C．Three. | D．Four. |
It’s the place where smart people make smart machines work even smarter. But for the people who work in it, Silicon Valley (硅谷) is more than just a high technology hothouse. It’s also in the heart of sunny California, a great place to start a family and raise kids. What could be better?
But something is happening to the children. Up until the age of two they develop normally. Their proud parents watch and smile as they take their first steps and speak their first words. But then everything seems to go backwards. The children become locked into their own small world, unable to communicate at all.
They call it the “curse of Silicon Valley,” but the medical name for the condition is autism（孤独症）. It used to be thought that autism was a mental illness. Now doctors are sure that it is a disease transmitted genetically (遗传). It seems that the people leading the communications revolution are having children who cannot communicate at all.
But even the parents have trouble communicating. Asperger’s Syndrome (综合症) is connected with autism. People who have it are highly intelligent and often brilliant with numbers or systems but have no social skills, which makes Asperger’s sufferers into excellent computer professionals. Unfortunately, many of the children of two Asperger’s parents in Silicon Valley seem to be developing serious autism.
There is little anyone can do. And there is no cure in sight. Some argue that no cure should be found．“It may be that autistics are essentially (本质上) different from normal people, but that these differences make them valuable for the evolution (进化) of the human race,” says Dr Kirk Wilhelm of the University of California．“To remove the genes (基因) for autism could be terrible.
It seems that the children of Silicon Valley are paying the price of genius.A person who has autism usually _____.
| A．has difficulty in speaking | B．loses communication skills |
| C．has difficulty in working | D．hates people around |
Which of the following best explains “curse of Silicon Valley”?
| A．The children are brought up in Silicon Valley. |
| B．Autism is just a result of working in Silicon Valley. |
| C．The children suffer from autism due to their parents in Silicon Valley. |
| D．Autism makes the children in Silicon Valley unable to communicate. |
Some people think that no cure of autism should be found because ______.
| A．autism cannot be cured | B．autism isn’t a disease |
| C．harm will be done to the children | D．autism is necessary in some way |
What does the writer seem to feel about the children of Silicon Valley?
| A．It’s a pity that they cannot have a normal life. |
| B．They are the pride of the human race. |
| C．They are sure to have a bright future. |
| D．It’s likely that they will have a normal life. |
Do you find getting up in the morning so difficult that it’s painful? This might be called laziness, but Dr. Kleitman has a new explanation. He has proved that everyone has a daily energy cycle.
During the hours when you labor through your work you may say that you’re “hot”, that’s true. The time of day when you feel most energetic is when your cycle of body temperature is at its peak(最高峰). For some people the peak comes during the forenoon. For others it comes in the afternoon or evening. No one has discovered why it is so, but it leads to such familiar monologues(自言自语)as: “Get up, John! You’ll be late for work again!” the possible explanation to the trouble is that John is at his temperature—and—energy peak in the evening. Much family quarrelling ends when husbands and wives realize what these energy cycles mean, and which cycle each member of the family has.
You can’t change your energy cycle, but you can learn to make your life fit it better. Habit can help, Dr. Kleitman believes. Maybe you’re sleepy in the evening but feel you must stay up late anyway. Counteract(对抗)your cycle to some extent by habitually staying up later than you want to. If your energy is low in the morning but you have an important job to do early in the day, rise before your usual hour. This won’t change your cycle, but you’ll get up steam and work better at your low point.
Get off to a slow start which saves your energy. Get up with a leisurely yawn(呵欠)and stretch. Sit on the edge of the bed a minute before putting your feet on the floor. Avoid the troublesome search for clean clothes by laying them out the night before. Whenever possible, do routine work in the afternoon and save tasks requiring more energy or concentration for your sharper hours.If a person finds getting up early a problem, most probably ______.
A．he is a lazy person
B．he refuses to follow his own energy cycle
C．he is not sure when his energy is low
D he is at his peak in the afternoon or evening Which of the following may lead to family quarrels according to the passage?
| A．Not knowing about the energy cycle |
| B．Familiar monologues |
| C．A change in a family member’s energy cycle |
| D．Attempts to control the energy cycle of other family members |
If one wants to work more efficiently at his low point in the morning, he should ______.
| A．change his energy cycle | B．overcome his laziness |
| C．get up earlier than usual | D．go to bed earlier |
You are advised to rise with a yawn and stretch because it will ______.
| A．help to keep your energy for the day’s work |
| B．help you to control your temper early in the day |
| C．enable you to concentrate on your routine work |
| D．keep your energy cycle under control all day |
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