When I was six, Dad brought home a dog one day, who was called “Brownie”. My brothers and I all loved Brownie and did different things with her. One of us would walk her, another would feed her, then there were baths, playing catch and many other games. Brownie, in return, loved each and every one of us. One thing that most touched my heart was that she would go to whoever was sick and just be with them. We always felt better when she was around.
One day, as I was getting her food, she chewed up（咬破）one of Dad’s shoes, which had to be thrown away in the end. I knew Dad would be mad and I had to let her know what she did was wrong. When I looked at her and said, “Bad girl,” she looked down at the ground and then went and hid. I saw a tear in her eyes.
Brownie turned out to be more than just our family pet. She went everywhere with us. People would stop and ask if they could pet her. Of course she’d let anyone pet her. She was just the most lovable dog. There were many times when we’d be out walking and a small child would come over and pull on her hair. She never barked（吠）or tried to get away. Funny thing is she would smile. This frightened people because they thought she was showing her teeth. Far from the truth, she loved everyone.
Now many years have passed since Brownie died of old age. I still miss days when she was with us. What would Brownie do when someone was ill in the family?
| A．Look at them sadly. | B．Keep them company. |
| C．Play games with them. | D．Touch them gently. |
We can infer from Paragraph 2 that Brownie __________.
| A．would eat anything when hungry | B．felt sorry for her mistake |
| C．loved playing hide-and-seek | D．disliked the author’s dad |
Why does the author say that Brownie was more than just a family pet?
| A．She was treated as a member of the family. |
| B．She played games with anyone she liked. |
| C．She was loved by everybody she met. |
| D．She went everywhere with the family. |
Some people got frightened by Brownie when she __________.
| A．smiled | B．barked | C．rushed to them | D．tried to be funny |
Which of the following best describes Brownie?
| A．Shy | B．Polite | C．Brave | D．Caring |
“Indeed,” George Washington wrote in his diary in 1785, “some kind of fly, or bug, had begun to eat the leaves before I left home.” But the father of America was not the father of bug. When Washington wrote that, Englishmen had been referring to insects as bugs for more than a century, and Americans had already created lightning-bug(萤火虫). But the English were soon to stop using the bugs in their language, leaving it to the Americans to call a bug a bug in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The American bug could also be a person, referring to someone who was crazy about a particular activity. Although fan became the usual term, sports fans used to be called racing bugs, baseball bugs, and the like.
Or the bug could be a small machine or object, for example, a bug-shaped car. The bug could also be a burglar alarm, from which comes the expression to bug, that is, “to install (安装) an alarm”. Now it means a small piece of equipment that people use for listening secretly to others’ conversation. Since the 1840s, to bug has long meant “to cheat”, and since the 1940s it has been annoying.
We also know the bug as a flaw in a computer program or other design. That meaning dates back to the time of Thomas Edison. In 1878 he explained bugs as “little problems and difficulties” that required months of study and labor to overcome in developing a successful product. In 1889 it was recorded that Edison “had been up the two previous nights discovering ‘a bug’ in his invented record player.”We learn from Paragraph 1 that ___________.
| A．Americans had difficulty in learning to use the word bug |
| B．George Washington was the first person to call an insect a bug |
| C．the word bug was still popularly used in English in the nineteenth century |
| D．both Englishmen and Americans used the word bug in the eighteenth century |
What does the word “flaw” in the last paragraph probably mean?
| A．Explanation. | B．Finding. |
| C．Origin. | D．Fault. |
The passage is mainly concerned with__________.
| A．the misunderstanding of the word bug |
| B．the development of the word bug |
| C．the public views of the word bug |
| D．the special characteristics of the word bug |
Win a Week in England
You still don’t know what to do this summer? Well, here’s your chance to win a one-week language course in Kent, England! Free4Fun and ETC(English Travel Connections) are giving away two trips to Rochester. This historic city is less than an hour’s drive from London and close to the sea resort of Herne Bay. It is also the home of one of England’s most famous writers, Charles Dickens. The town of the Rochester is in Southeast England. Charles Dickens often wrote about it in his books. His home, Gad’s Hill，is there too. A popular attraction is Rochester Castle，a large Norman fortress（堡垒）. It was built in the 11th century and rebuilt during the 14th century. Other attractions are Rochester Cathedral, which was built during the 13th century, and Dickens Centre. It has got it’s name in honour of Dickens himself.
The trip to England includes:
* travel by train (via the Eurotunnel) to and from any railway station in Germany
* room and full board with a guest family for one week
* language course in small groups
* two trips to London
* large choice of sports and entertainment
* German-speaking advisors available 24 hours a day
Interested? All you have to do is to answer the following question: When was Charles Dickens born?
So, take the chance and send your answer by May1 to:
Free4Fun “Rochester”
Free4Fun, 24 Elphinstone Road, Hastings, 2FQ6VJ
Fax: 089/85-763-103
e-mail: free4fun@netlight.com
The two winners will be contacted directly before May5. They will also be announced in the June issue of Free4Fun. Good luck!
For further information contact:
Phone: (03212)144-43
Fax: (03212) 144-42
e-mail: info@etc.comRochester Cathedral was built in the ___________.
| A．1400s | B．1300s | C．1200s | D．1100s |
What activities can you participate in during the trip?
| A．Enjoying sports and entertainment. |
| B．Learning the German language. |
| C．Traveling by train with a guest family. |
| D．Working as a language advisor. |
This advertisement was designed to target _______.
| A．Italians | B．Germans |
| C．Europeans | D．Americans |
How could we tell time if there were no watches or clocks anywhere in the world?
The sun was probably the world’s first “clock”, except in the far north, where the Eskimos(爱斯基摩人) live. There it’s dark most of the winter, and light most of the summer. But in most of the world, people have used the sun for a clock. Even today if you don’t have a clock that shows time, you still know that when the sun shines, it’s day; and when it’s dark, it’s night. The sun can not only tell you whether it’s day or night but also it’s morning, noon, or afternoon. When the sun is almost directly overhead, it’s noon.
People who live near the sea can tell time from the tides. In the daytime, for about six hours, the water rises higher and higher on the beach. And then it goes down and down for another six hours. The same thing happens again at night. There are two high tides and two low tides every 24 hours.
Seamen on a ship learn how to tell time by looking at the moon and the stars .The whole sky is their clock.
In some places in the world the wind comes up at about the same time every day or changes direction or stops blowing. In these places, the wind can be the clock.
A sand clock is an even better clock. If you had fine dry sand in a glass shaped like the one in the picture above, you would have what is called an hourglass. The sand in the hourglass goes from the top part to the bottom part in exactly one hour. When the hourglass it turned over, the sand will take another hour to go back again.The Eskimos in the far north can’t use the sun for a clock because ______.
| A．they know very little about the sun |
| B．the sun there never goes down in winter. |
| C．it’s too cold for them to go out to watch the sun |
| D．there are long dark winters and long light summers in the far north |
The underlined word “tides” in paragraph 3 means ___________.
| A．ocean current |
| B．storm |
| C．a regular rise and fall of the sea |
| D．wave |
In which part of the newspaper can you probably read this passage?
| A．News | B．Science |
| C．Business | D．Advertisement |
What’s the best title for the passage?
| A．Different Ways to Tell Time |
| B．Useful Machine to Tell Time |
| C．The History of the Clock |
| D．The Development of the Clock |
How many ways are mentioned in the passage to tell time?
| A．Five | B．Four | C．Six | D．Three |
How long has 3-D technology been around? Most of us might think of crowds of teenagers in a 1950’s movie house watching Bwana Devil in 3-D. But 3-D technology made its first appearance on the scene in 1838 with the first stereoscope(体视镜). And the first actual 3-D movie was a 1903 film called Le Ariveed’un Train.
Although it has such a long history, the technology has still remained based on one simple principle-----to make 3-D effects you must find a way to project two slightly different pictures to each eye. Modern 3-D technology works by rapidly flickering(闪动) two versions of the movie and projecting them onto each eye. The brain does the rest of the work, combining the two pictures together into one and giving the show the appearance of depth, the third dimension.
But does this exposure, especially long exposures, cause harm to the child’s developing brain and visual system? Unfortunately, long-term studies on new flicker digital 3-D technology and children aren’t yet available. We do not know if regular or daily 3-D viewing over years affects the developing visual system, although older 3-D methods basically do the same thing and are not considered harmful.
The question of possible harm in modern 3-D use in TV is really based on two facts: the amount of time children will now be watching 3-D TV each day and the sensitivity some children show in reaction to 3-D viewing. It is difficult to make actual lab studies of longer term 3-D viewing in children because of the possible harm of the experiment. Researchers will have to wait until 3-D TV technology is already in the marketplace for a number of years, then check heavy 3-D TV watchers and compare them with non-watchers.
With a 3-D television technology in the home, we will soon be able to answer the question of whether or not longer and more frequent periods of 3-D exposure cause more changes in the visual system. We may find that the bigger problem is the introduction of a new technology that leads to even more time spent on TV rather than playing outdoors.
| A．was refused by people when it first appeared. |
| B．will soon change the way we watch TV. |
| C．does no good to our visual system. |
| D．has a history of nearly 200 years. |
| A．how 3-D technology works. |
| B．why 3-D movies are popular |
| C．the history of 3-D technology. |
| D．the influence of 3-D technology. |
| A．To wait and see | B．To carry out lab studies |
| C．To stop making 3-D movies | D．To improve 3-D technology |
| A．ask children not to watch 3-D movies |
| B．discuss if 3-D viewing is harmful to children. |
| C．introduce the advantages of 3-D technology. |
| D．predict the development of 3-D technology. |
The nervous-looking young man had waited for a few moments outside the jeweler’s before he got enough courage to enter. He was warmly greeted by a young assistant. James felt a rush of blood to his face as he explained he would be bringing in his future wife to choose a birthday present.
The assistant listened carefully and told him he’d better buy a necklace. He wasn’t used to buying jewelry and was a little worried about overspending, because he was not very rich. After some discussion as to a reasonable price and the type, the assistant showed him dozens of necklaces and helped him to choose.
At last James chose one and left the shop promising to return at five o’clock. Half an hour later than planned, James did return to the shop with his future wife, Laura. The assistant acted as if she had never seen him before. When she was asked to show them some necklaces, she first brought out some inexpensive ones for them to choose, and then gave them the ones she had prepared. A choice was soon made and they went away satisfied. Later James would certainly come back to buy what he wanted when he got married.
| A．A Clever Assistant. | B．Buying a Birthday Present |
| C．How to Choose a Necklace | D．A Brave Young Man |
| A．spending too much |
| B．spending too much time |
| C．spending more time than he planned |
| D．spending too much money |
| A．4:30 | B．5:30 | C．5:00 | D．6:00 |
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