He wishes the holiday season would end already. His back aches, his red suit feels like a spacesuit , his cheeks have gone tight from smiling for 12 hours —and still the kids keep coming and coming , like ants at a picnic . As Christmas becomes more commercialized (商业化) across the U. S. and Canada, so must Santas. As the holiday begins earlier each year, so must its spokesmen .
The questions from children these days are harder than ever. Now, with thousands of children expecting a father or mother serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, the questions are as heart-breaking as they are unanswerable. For example, “Can you please bring Daddy home from the war in time for Christmas morning?”
Santas also have a pretty good chance of getting sued (指控). A professional Santa Claus in Canada told a story: A Santa had a girl on his knee, and he commented, “You have nice eyes and nice hair.” The girl later said it was sexual harassment (骚扰) . When a Santa feels anxious, he often shows it in the same ways ordinary people do: The Santas were always seen to hang around at the dinner table when the show ended. Many of them just sleep in bed for several days and don’t see other children again.In the first paragraph, “spokesmen” refers to .
| A．businessmen | B．political leaders |
| C．organizers of the activities | D．Santa Clauses |
The passage implies that the job of Santa Claus is .
| A．well-paid | B．very hard | C．worth doing | D．dangerous |
According to the third paragraph, Santas may sometimes be bl
amed(责备) for .
| A．doing something against the law | B．hanging around the dinner table |
| C．being lazy and sleeping in bed for days | D．not playing their roles as expected |
What would be the best title for the passage ?
| A．Christmas: Not a Good Festival for Santas | B．Is Santa Claus Really Alive? |
| C．A Christmas Story | D．What Does Santa Claus Do for Children? |
People become quite illogical when they try to decide what can be eaten and what cannot be eaten. If you lived in the Mediterranean, for instance, you would consider octopus (章鱼) a great delicacy. You would not be able to understand why some people find it repulsive. On the other hand, your stomach would turn at the idea of frying potatoes in animal fat --the normally accepted practice in many northern countries. The sad truth is that most of us have been brought up to eat certain foods and we stick to them all our lives.
No creature has received more praise and abuse than the common garden snail(蜗牛). Cooked in wine, snails are a great luxury in various parts of the world. There are countless people who, ever since their early years, have learned to associate snails with food. My friend, Robert, lives in a country where snails are not liked. As his flat is in a large town, he has no garden of his own. For years he has been asking me to collect snails from my garden and take them to him.
The idea never appealed to me very much, but one day, after heavy shower, I happened to be walking in my garden when I noticed a huge number of snails taking a stroll on some of my prized plants. Acting on a sudden impulse, I collected several dozen, put them in a paperbag,and took them to Robert. Robert was delighted to see me and equally pleased with my little gift. I left the bag in the hall and Robert and I went into the living room where we talked for a couple of hours. 1 had forgotten all about the snails when Robert suddenly said that I must stay to dinner. Snails would, of course, be the main dish. I did not fancy the idea and I reluctantly followed Robert out of the room. To our dismay, we saw that there were snails everywhere: they had escaped from the paper bag and had taken complete possession of the hall! I have never been able to look at a snail since then.The underlined word “repulsive” in Paragraph 1 most probably means .
| A．disgusting | B．pleasant |
| C．acceptable | D．delicious |
We can infer from Paragraph 3 that when collecting the snails, the author .
| A．was glad that he could share them with his friend. |
| B．was angry because they might damage his beloved plants. |
| C．was excited about being able to give his friend a surprise. |
| D．was depressed because it was hard to catch them all. |
The author finds that snails .
| A．are as delicious as octopus. |
| B．are disliked in his hometown. |
| C．are the most controversial food. |
| D．are as popular as fried potatoes. |
The best title for the passage might be “ ”
| A．One Man’s Meat is Another Man’s Poison |
| B．Foods and Cultures |
| C．Snail and Octopus |
| D．People Are Illogical in Front of Delicacies |
Have you ever had that fantasy to visit the moon, grab a rock and throw it into space so it would float forever? Soon, if you have got the cash, you can!
Enter the Artemis Project. This new and exciting project is a private one that will “establish a permanent, self-supporting manned lunar base,” which translates into a community on the moon for people to live in. “It’s not a question of whether it’ll work, but rather how long it will take.” according to Gregory Bennett, the founder of the Artemis Project
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon. That moment became a great achievement in both the space community and for humanity itself. Despite the significance of occasion, almost certainly when viewers saw images of his weightless, bouncing (弹跳) figure they thought, “That looks like fun!”
So the Artemis team is taking realistic approach to a human fantasy: they are marketing the project of a lunar base as pure entertainment.
Veronis, Suhler & Associates are investment bankers for the communications and media industry. Their research found that Americans spent over 40 billion dollars to be entertained in the movies, through home videos and television in 1999.
California investor, Dennis Tito, recently took a trip to the International Space Station, after donating $20 million dollars to the Russian Space program. Wealthy celebrities like Canadian director James Cameron and the brothers of rock band Oasis have also voiced their interest to visit the big ball in the sky. In the same report by Veronis, Suhler & Associates, consumers spent close to 4 billion dollars on video-game software alone. So, for $1.42 billion dollars the Artemis Project is a drop in the entertainment bucket.
University student, Al Dharsee says, “I would certainly go to the moon, if given the opportunity, so that I could look at the earth and laugh. But with the way we treat our own planet, I don’t think we deserve to set foot on any planets or moons for that matter.
However, if you’re one of those ready to book a flight, don’t pack your bags quite yet, your flight is not scheduled to depart for at least a couple of decades.What is the Artemis Project aimed at?
| A．Maintaining a manned lunar base. |
| B．Providing a new kind of entertainment. |
| C．Offering some community-based facilities. |
| D．Finding facts about the first exploration to the moon. |
What did Veronis, Suhler& Associates find through their research?
| A．Wealthy celebrities donated a lot of space programs. |
| B．The Artemis Project would cost less than $1.42 billion dollars. |
| C．Americans paid a large amount of money for entertainment. |
| D．More than $40 billion are spent on communications and media industries in 1999. |
What does Al DHarsee imply?
| A．Most planets deserve to be employed. |
| B．Human beings may destroy the moon. |
| C．It costs too much to destroy the environment. |
| D．The trip to the moon doesn’t appeal to him. |
This text may be taken from .
| A．a fiction story. |
| B．an advertisement. |
| C．an entertainment report. |
| D．a business survey. |
Without any previous notice, a documentary dominated headlines and social websites over the weekend. Under the Dome, a 103-minute documentary self-funded by former CCTV news anchor Chai Jing was released on video-sharing websites in China on Feb 28. It has rapidly pushed the public awareness about air pollution and encouraged people to join in efforts to make a difference.
Chai, 39, said she started the work out of her “personal clashes” with smog after she gave birth to a daughter. “I sealed tight all the windows. I started every day by checking the air pollution index,” Chai said. Millions of other people are also doing the same. While they stop there, Chai goes deeper. “I don’t want to live in this way. 1 need to find out where the smog comes from and what on earth is going on.”
Over a year, she investigated polluted sites to find the sources of smog, visited the US and the UK to learn about their anti-pollution experiences, and interviewed officials, scientists and the general public. Chai’s research reveals that the burning of coal and oil contributes to 60 percent of PM2.5 pollutants. She thus questions the country’s energy consumption habits in the film.
She then goes on to disclose loopholes (漏洞) in car emissions regulations. The film also explains that businesses are pressured not to abide by(遵守) the laws because violating(违反) them carries little or no cost, while making changes bumps up costs. The film also points at China’s petroleum and steel industries as the biggest sources of air pollution.
Cheng Chen, a 22-year-old student from Beijing Foreign Studies University, found the documentary “very inspiring”. “I used to think it’s not my duty to deal with air pollution—I don’t own a factory or a car,” said Cheng. “But Chai told me we share the same fate since we breathe the same air and there is a lot I can do.”
However, some people are annoyed by the film’s description of their polluted hometowns, especially when it shows a banner from Xingtai in Hebei saying “Congratulations to our city for no longer being ranked the last place among the country’s 74 cities in terms of air quality”.
Such a feeling of “being insulted”, in Cheng’s eyes, could also be a good thing. “What’s important is that Chai’s work has raised public attention toward the structure of the energy industry,” she said. Meanwhile, experts remind moved viewers of the film’s limitations.According to the passage, which of the following statements is true?
| A．The documentary was made by Chai jing , who works in CCTV now. |
| B．The documentary dominated headlines and social websites soon after it was broadcast on TV. |
| C．Chai started making the documentary after she gave birth to a daughter. |
| D．Chai thinks that it is the burning of coal and oil that leads to air pollution in china. |
Why Chai jing decided to make the film at first ?
| A．She wanted to do something for her daughter |
| B．She wanted to disclose loopholes in car emissions regulations. |
| C．She wanted to make money |
| D．She wanted to raise public attention toward the structure of the energy industry |
what’s the author’s attitude towards the film?
| A．positive | B．objective |
| C．negative | D．indifferent |
What’s the meaning of the underlined sentence?
| A．Some people deserve to be insulted. |
| B．The feeling of “being insulted” can help draw attention to air pollution. |
| C．Insulting people is good for protecting environment. |
| D．No longer being ranked the last place is not a bad thing. |
The character “duang” is so new that it does not even exist in the Chinese dictionary. But it has already spread like wildfire online in China, appearing more than 8 million times on China’s micro-blogging site Weibo, where it spawned a top-trending hashtag(标签) that drew 312,000 discussions among 15,000 users. On China’s biggest online search engine Baidu, it has been looked up almost 600,000 times. It’s been noticed in the West too, with Foreign Policy seeing it as a “break the internet” viral meme － like a certain Kirn Kardashian image, or a certain multicoloured dress.
But what does it mean? “Everyone’s duang-ing and I still don’t know what it means! As if it’s back to school for me,” said Weibo user Weileiweito. Another user asked: “Have you duang-ed today? My mind is full of duang duang duang.” “To duang or not to duang, that is the question,” wrote user BaiKut automan.
“Duang” seems to be an example of onomatopoeia(拟声词), a word that phonetically imitates a sound. It all seems to have started with Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan, who in 2004 was featured in a shampoo commercial where he said famously defended his sleek, black hair using the rhythmical-sounding “duang”. The word resurfaced again recently after Chan posted it on his Weibo page. Thousands of users then began to flood Chan’s Weibo page with comments, coining the word in reference to his infamous shampoo appearance.
The word appears to have many different meanings, and there’s no perfect translation, but you could use it as an adjective to give emphasis to the word that follows it. A kitten might be “duang cute”, for example. Or you might be “very duang confused” by this blog.
For readers of Chinese characters, the Jackie Chan theme is also apparent from the quirky(古怪的) way in which the word is written: a combination of Chan’s Mandarin names.How does the writer try to prove that Duang has already spread like wildfire online in China?
| A．giving examples | B．listing numbers |
| C．making comparisons | D．offering quotations |
Why does the author mention “a certain Kirn Kardashian image”?
| A．to tell us “Duang” also draws attention in the West. |
| B．to tell us “Duang” is just like a certain image on a certain multicolored dress. |
| C．to tell us Foreign Policy doesn’t like “Duang”. |
| D．to tell us a certain Kim Kardashian image breaks the internet. |
Which of the following statements about “duang is NOT true?
| A．It came from Jackie chan’s commertial. |
| B．Weibo users created the word about his infamous shampoo appearance. |
| C．It was first used as an adjective to stress the word that follows it. |
| D．Many people are confused by the word. |
What kind of people may not know the word “duang”?
| A．the old who are over sixties |
| B．the young who are in fashion |
| C．a boy who has dropped out of school |
| D．a woman who never surfs the internet |
The secret of carrier pigeons' unbelievable ability to find their way home has been discovered by scientists: the feathered navigators follow the roads just like we do.
Scientists at Oxford University spent 10 years studying homing pigeons using global positioning satellite (GPS) and got a surprising result. The birds often don't use the sun to decide their directions. Instead, they fly along motorways, turn at crossings and even go around roundabouts (绕道) , adding miles to their journeys.
“It really has knocked our research team sideways to find that after a decade-long international study, pigeons appear to ignore their inbuilt directional instincts (本能) and follow the road system,” said Prof Tim Guilford, reader in animal behavior at Oxford University's Department of Zoology.
Guilford said pigeons use their own navigational system (导航系统) when doing long distance trips or when a bird does a journey for the first time.
“But once homing pigeons have flown a journey more than once, they can fly home on a habitual route, much as we do when we are driving or walking home from work,” said Guilford.
“In short, it looks like it is mentally easier for a bird to fly down a road. They are just making their journeys as simple as possible.” What would be the best title of the passage?
| A．Birds Follow Roads as We Do. |
| B．Why Pigeons Can Fly Long Distance? |
| C．How Pigeons Find Their Ways Home? |
| D．Why Crows Fly the Shortest Distance? |
What does the underlined words "the feathered navigators" refer to?
| A．The pigeons. |
| B．The crows. |
| C．Dogs. |
| D．Animals that can swim. |
Scientists used to think that homing pigeons often find their directions _______.
| A．by global positioning satellite |
| B．by the sun |
| C．by the road system |
| D．by following other birds |
粤公网安备 44130202000953号