Why do 33% of the households in the USA have cats? And how do you explain why there are 16 million more pet cats than dogs? Yes, kittens are adorable （讨人喜欢的）．Yes, they can grow up to be good mousers and are very entertaining to watch．And yes, cats are independent and don't require as much care as dogs．But research shows cats can also be caretakers for us and our families, improve our health and teach us and our children to be kinder, gentler souls．
Theodora Wesselman is 94 and has lived the past two years with her elderly cat, Cleo, at TigerPlace, a retirement community in Columbia, Mo．Their enduring friendship is a classic example of how humans and animals can become family and look out for each other．
Wesselman visits other residents, and her children stop by, but Cleo is her best friend, she says．They've been together nearly 21 years．
"She sleeps on her own pillow right beside mine," Wesselman says．"In the morning, she pecks on my cheek to wake me up．It's really sweet．I pet her, tell her I love her and take her to the kitchen to prepare her food．"
Research shows that being able to care for a pet improves our morale （士气;精神状态）, helps validate us and encourages us to take care of ourselves, says Rebecca Johnson, director of the University of Missouri's Research Center for Human-Animal Interaction．The body of research is leading more retirement communities and universities to roll out the welcome mat for pets．According to the context, where do you think the sentence “They start and end the day together” should appear in the passage?
| A．Between para．1 and para．2 | B．Between para．2 and para．3 |
| C．Between para．3 and para．4 | D．Between para．4 and para．5 |
Which of the following words best describe the author’s attitude towards keeping pet cats?
| A．Favorable | B．Critical | C．Reserved | D．Doubtful |
Why does the author take 94-year-old Theodora Wesselman as an example in the passage?
| A．To show that the elderly like Theodora Wesselman in the USA have pet cats． |
| B．To suggest to what degree humans and pet cats can be caretakers for each other． |
| C．Because Theodora Wesselman has been living with a pet cat for the past two years． |
| D．Because Theodora Wesselman pets her cat Cleo and tells her she loves her． |
What does “to roll out the welcome mat for pets” in the last paragraph imply?
| A．To give a special welcome to pets． |
| B．To make the welcome mat flat on the ground for pets． |
| C．To open out the welcome mat for pets to sleep． |
| D．To wrap the welcome mat to make room for pets． |
After students come home from a tiring day at school, they tend to worry a lot about their homework.
Whether students are working on English or chemistry homework, they are simply working on the assignment in order to get it done, attempting to memorize the concepts for the time being and do not absorb any of the information afterward. Students are wasting their time on insignificant assignments rather than effectively using that time to achieve other accomplishments. According to www.dailymail.com, many parents are concerned that homework is being assigned rather than being used to integrate (整合) what teachers are covering in the classroom. In their eyes, if less homework is assigned, students would have much less stress and could focus more on their passions and hobbies.
Homework gets in the way of participating in community service events as well as opportunities for getting a job or being a part of an extra-curricular activity. These responsibilities are important for teenagers to take on because they prepare the teenagers for the "real world." Without the proper exposure to work that is not school related, students will find themselves lost after they graduate. If homework were no longer given, students would have a lot more time to mature in other fields rather than being educated only on academics.
In spite of the fact that teachers want students to do better on tests and absorb the material that they are teaching, homework is not accomplishing its purpose. Because school is becoming increasingly more competitive and challenging, homework is becoming a setback rather than extra practice. Its removal would benefit the well being of teenagers as well as encourage them to get out in the "real world" and discover themselves instead of staring at a pile of assignments.Students are wasting their time on insignificant homework because
| A．they are working on it carelessly and hurriedly |
| B．they attempt to get only part of the information memorized |
| C．they spend too much time doing it without understanding |
| D．they fail to take in the information after finishing it |
Many parents think that teachers should ______.
| A．help students integrate the homework |
| B．simplify what they teach in the classroom |
| C．reduce homework to develop students' own interests |
| D．assign more effective homework for students |
From the third paragraph, we can infer that homework might ______.
| A．leave students lack of job opportunities |
| B．make students lose the sense of responsibilities |
| C．weaken students' social adaptation ability |
| D．cause students to feel lost after graduation |
The author insists that homework should be ______.
| A．made simpler and easier |
| B．completely cancelled |
| C．connected with social activities |
| D．switched over to subject competitions |
Eyeglasses correct many different types of sight problems, including nearsightedness, farsightedness or astigmatism (散光). Trying to understand those different numbers on an eyeglass prescription (验光单) requires understanding the measurements optometrists (验光师) use when fitting you for corrective lenses (镜片). 
Diopters (屈光度)
The numbers on your prescription are given in diopters, whose short form is "D". It is used to measure the focusing power, or amount of correction.
O.S. and O.D.
Optometrists use the Latin short form O.S. and O.D. to distinguish between your eyes. O.S. refers to your left eye, while O.D. refers to the right eye.
Generally, your prescription will show a number for O.S. and O.D. (given in diopters). The farther this number is on a number line from zero, the more correction your eyeglasses should provide. A plus sign means the eye is farsighted, while a minus sign means the eye is nearsighted.
Spherical Value
This plus or minus number for each eye is called the spherical value, or the degree of nearsightedness or farsightedness you have. Its short form is "S."
Cylinder
If you have an astigmatism, the optometrist will also measure its degree. The higher the number (given in diopters) marked as the cylinder of astigmatism, (its short form is "C"), the more astigmatism there is in that eye.
Axis
An astigmatism is also measured in terms of its axis, which is a number between 0 and 180. The axis of the astigmatism does not relate to the amount of cylinder, just the location of the irregularity of the astigmatism on that particular eye.According to the first paragraph, various sight problems ______.
| A．should be understood by the patients |
| B．can be avoided by wearing corrective lenses |
| C．should be tested by different optometrists |
| D．can be corrected by wearing eyeglasses |
If you need a pair of corrective lenses, the optometrist will first value the numbers of ______.
| A．Diopters | B．Spherical Value | C．Cylinder | D．Axis |
From the prescription above we can learn that Li Hua ______.
| A．is farsighted | B．is nearsighted |
| C．has no astigmatism | D．is normal in sight |
The text is probably taken from ______.
| A．an education report | B．a school bulletin |
| C．a local newspaper | D．an encyclopedia (百科全书) |
Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks for family, health, and life in general. However, Black Friday has turned it into a business.
Traditionally, the true value of Thanksgiving lies at home not the shopping centers. However, Black Friday has nowadays allowed society to ignore this as individuals long for something that they do not need or even truly want. Shopping on Black Friday becomes a sign of a shift into a culture that values material wealth over spending time with loved ones. People are willing to force their way through the crowds in their desperate search for marked-down sweaters and necklaces.
In recent years, Thanksgiving has become a pre-Black Friday holiday for many families. They are devoted to mapping out shopping routes and making organized schedules for which stores to hit first. By drawing individuals out to shopping centers with "matchless savings", businesses encourage this behavior of ignoring Thanksgiving. Many families take their home-cooked meals while camping out at the door of shopping centers. With each new year, Thanksgiving is becoming victim to over-commercialization—switching from a meaningful time of thanks and family to a day dedicated to products and profit.
Black Friday has shown that with current common standards, people cannot even set aside a single day to appreciate what they already have without immediately buying more. Families have lost sight of what is truly important in life, and have found reasons in debating between a low cost HD television and an appreciation for what they already have. Remember, Thanksgiving should be a day in which people are grateful for all that they have.The underlined word "this" in paragraph 2 probably refers to ______.
| A．the sign of a shift | B．the material wealth |
| C．the shopping crowd | D．the true value of Thanksgiving |
In recent years, what will many families do when thanksgiving comes?
| A．Make full preparations for the Black Friday shopping. |
| B．Visit some newly-opened shopping centers in advance. |
| C．Find it difficult to choose a store for their first visit. |
| D．Go camping at the gate of shopping center for a good deal. |
In the last paragraph, the author mainly intends to tell us that we should ______.
| A．set aside a single day to buy more |
| B．try to spend less to get low cost products |
| C．stay with our families as long as we can |
| D．appreciate what we've possessed with our families |
What's the author’s attitude towards the present ways people celebrate Thanksgiving?
| A．Annoyed. | B．Worried. | C．Supportive. | D．Unconcerned. |
Snapshots, the new fashion for an artistic portrait (肖像) photo: Take it underwater. Zhang Xiaomei, a 20 something Shanghai native who works in the media industry, tried it out twice.
"It was a completely different experience," says Zhang of her first such experience last May. "You get the feeling that you're cut off from the rest of the world. But also it s romantic and like a fairy tale."
She then successfully convinced her husband to be to have their wedding photos taken underwater a couple of months after her first try. "Can you imagine a 1.87-meter-tall man trying out something like a fishtail under the water?" Zhang says, laughing.
A commercial underwater photo portrait is perfect for post 80 and post 90 generations who adore taking snapshots, but are looking for new ways to be artistic, says Ai Cheng, owner and photographer of No.55 Underwater Photography in Shanghai.
Ai opened a studio in Shanghai's suburb of Songjiang two years ago, building a 5-meter- deep, fan-shaped pool equipped with heating facilities to start up the business. A 30-minute training on how to smile under the water so that you won't drink too much water and how to open your eyes underwater is offered in his studio for those who don't know how to swim.
Ai says most of his customers are female—half of them coming for an artistic portrait photo and the rest for wedding pictures. "Some of them drag their boyfriends or husband-to-be, who are unwilling to go down to the water, to shoot as well," he says.What would be the best title for the text?
| A．The Best Smiles May Be All Wet. |
| B．The Sweetest Smile in the World. |
| C．Smiling, a Universal Language. |
| D．A New Challenge, a New Trend. |
What does Zhang Xiaomei think of underwater snapshot?
| A．Funny. | B．Dangerous. | C．Fantastic. | D．Strange. |
Who are most likely to take photos underwater?
| A．Young people eager to be special. |
| B．Senior people to recall their old days. |
| C．Couples to celebrate their anniversary. |
| D．Artists to create new styles. |
It can be inferred from the last two paragraphs that ______.
| A．young people are in for this fashion |
| B．fewer men would show interest in this fashion |
| C．men are more romantic than women |
| D．women would like to take more adventures |
Over the past century, all kinds of unfairness and discrimination have been made illegal. But one popular form continues to exist, that is alphabetism (字母排序法). This, for those as yet unaware of such a disadvantage, refers to discrimination against those whose surnames(姓氏)begin with a letter in the lower half of the alphabet.
It has long been known that the cars of a taxi firm called AAAA have a big advantage over Zodiac cars when customers look through their phone directories. Less well known is the advantage that Adam Abbot has in life over Zoe Zysman. English names are fairly spread between the halves of the alphabet. Yet a quite large number of top people have surnames beginning with letters between A and K.
Thus the American presidents and vice-presidents have surnames starting with B and C separately and 26 of those before George Bush took office (including his father ) had surnames in the first half of the alphabet against just 16 in the second half. Even more striking, six of the seven heads of government of the G7 rich countries are alphabetically advantaged (Berlusconi, Blair, Bush, Chirac, Chretien and Koizumi). The world's three top central bankers ( Greenspan, Duisenberg and Hayami)are all close to the top of the alphabet, even if one of them really uses Japanese characters. The same case are the world's five richest men ( Gates, Buffet and so on) .
Can this merely happen by chance? At the start of the first year in primary school, teachers seat pupils, alphabetically from the front, to make it easier to remember their names. So shortsighted and small-sized Zysman junior gets stuck in the back row, and is seldom asked the improving questions by those teachers. At that time the alphabetically disadvantaged may think they have had a lucky escape. Yet the result may be worse qualifications, because they get less attention, as well as less confidence in speaking publicly.
The unfairness continues. At university graduation parties, the ABCs proudly get their awards first. However, by the time they reach the Zysmans most people are a little tired. Lists of job interviews and conference speakers and attendees all tend to be drawn up alphabetically, and their readers lose interest as they plough through them.What does the author intend to show with AAAA cars and Zodiac cars?
| A．An example of competition of two kinds of cars. |
| B．Some advantages of AAAA cars in the taxi firm. |
| C．An example of unfairness caused by alphabetism. |
| D．Some disadvantages of Zodiac cars in the taxi firm. |
What can we infer from the first three paragraphs?
| A．The alphabet is to blame for the failure of Zoe Zysman. |
| B．In both East and West, names are important to success. |
| C．Customers often pay a lot of attention to companies' names. |
| D．The discrimination in alphabetism can be found in many areas. |
The fourth paragraph suggests that .
| A．alphabetically disadvantaged often escape from class |
| B．teachers should pay equal attention to all their students |
| C．questions are often put to the more intelligent students |
| D．students should be seated according to their eyesight |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．VIPs in the western world gain a great deal from alphabetism. |
| B．People with surnames beginning with N to Z are often misunderstood. |
| C．Putting things alphabetically may lead to unintentional unfairness. |
| D．The movement to get rid of alphabetism still has a long way to go. |
粤公网安备 44130202000953号