A report by the Consumer Electronics Association says electronics are among the most popular gifts
being bought this holiday season.
Jim Barry is a spokesman for the Consumer Electronics Association. He says the CEA study found that electronics represent three of the top five things on its "holiday gift wish list" this year.
JIM BARRY: "Notebook computers are at the top, followed by iPads and then e-readers. IPad is a touch-screen tablet computer and that's really the big player in that category."
The computer company Apple began selling its small, touch-screen computers in April. People use the touch-screen computers to surf the Web, write e-mails, watch movies and read books. Since the iPad's release earlier this year, several other companies have come out with their own tablet computers just in time for Christmas.
A report from the e-Marketer research group predicts that worldwide, tablet sales will reach more than eighty-one million in two thousand twelve. Still, Jim Barry says these devices are facing tough competition this year from another Christmas favorite.
JIM BARRY: "Another hot category right behind that are the e-readers. So you can read on an iPad or a touch-screen tablet, but the e-book readers are less expensive. The Kindle is the market leader there, from Amazon. But you also have the Nook from Barnes and Noble and the e-reader from Sony. And you have more and more of those e-readers coming into the market as well."
The Consumer Electronics Association report found that iPod music players are also in high demand this holiday season.
But not all of the things on the holiday gift wish list involved electronics. Clothes, cars and motorcycles also made the list. So did family togetherness and good health. And the one thing that people wanted most?
JIM BARRY: "At the top of the list was peace and happiness."
That is also our wish for you this holiday season.The best title of the passage is .
| A．How to choose a suitable gift for Christmas |
| B．iPads, E-Readers, Notebook Computers top wish lists |
| C．What we should buy for our kids this holiday season |
D．How modern technology is changing the way people relate |
People use the touch-screen computers to do all the following things except .
| A．surf the Web and write e-mails |
| B．watch movies and read books |
| C．surf the Web and contact others on phone |
| D．surf the internet and use it as an e-reader |
Which of the following sentences is TURE?
| A．iPads are the most popular gift among all the electronics. |
| B．Only the computer company Apple releases a touch-screen tablet computer. |
| C．All of the things on the holiday gift wish list are electronics. |
| D．There are more and more kinds of e-readers in the market. |
You don't have enough money for an iPad, but you can buy for a friend who enjoys reading.
| A．notebook computers | B．iPod music players |
| C．touch-screen tablet computer | D．e-book readers |
We can infer from the last paragraph that .
| A．people value peace and happiness more than anything else |
| B．clothes, cars and motorcycles are also popular gifts for Christmas |
| C．family togetherness and good health don't make the list |
| D．JIM BARRY also sends their wish for us this holiday season |
D
Have you ever noticed what happens to an idea once you express it? Just talking about it or writing it down causes you to make it clear in your own mind. How can you use this to increase your brain power? Start writing.
By putting thoughts into words, you are telling yourself the logic(逻辑) behind what you think, feel, or only partly understand. Often, explaining a thought is the process of understanding. In other words, you increase your brain power by exercising your “explain power.”
Try this experiment. Explain how you’ll increase your brain power, even if you have no idea how right now. Just start with anything, and create an explanation. For example, start with “I’ll learn chess,” or “I’ll read an article on the mind every week.” Explain how that will help. You’ll be surprised how often this becomes a workable plan, and if you actually do this, you’ll have a better understanding of your brain twenty minutes from now.
Another benefit of writing is that it helps you remember. Many, if not most, highly productive people are always taking notes. You can try keeping it all in your head, but if you keep a journal of your ideas the next time you’re working on a big project, you’ll probably have more success.
Want to understand a topic? Write a book about it. That’s an extreme example, but if you are learning something new, write a letter to a friend about it, and you will understand it better. Want to invent something? Write an explanation of the problem, why you want to solve it, and why it is worth solving, and you’re half-way there.
Writers don’t always write because they clearly understand something beforehand. Often, they write about something because they want to understand it. You can do the same. Writing will help bring you to an understanding. Give it a try.
71. What would be the best title for the text?
A. A Way on How to Write
B. Increase Your Brain Power through Writing
C. Brain Power Helps Improve Your Writing
D. How to Start Your Writing
72. According to the text, writing can help you a lot in the following ways EXCEPT ______.
A. the increase of your brain power
B. the ability to remember
C. the development of your interest in study
D. the better understanding of a topic
73. If a writer writes something, it means that he or she _______.
A. has understood it very well
B. needs to understand it better
C. wants to remember it in his or her mind
D. is exercising his or her “explain power”
74. The underlined sentence “you’re half-way there” in the fifth paragraph implies that ______.
A. you are already successful
B. you still need to work hard
C. writing can help you walk half way
D. writing is important to solve problems
75. What’s the main purpose of the writer writing the text?
A. To advise readers to start their writing.
B. To explain the importance of writing.
C. To persuade readers to become writers.
D. To increase readers’ brain power.
C
Wikipedia was founded as a branch of Nupedia, a now-abandoned project to produce a free encyclopedia (百科全书). Nupedia required highly qualified contributors, but the writing of articles was slow. During 2000, Jimmy Wales, founder of Nupedia, and Larry Sanger, whom Wales had employed to work on the project, discussed ways of supplementing (补充) Nupedia with a more open project. Multiple sources are suggested for the idea that a wiki might allow members of the public to contribute material, and Nupedia’s first wiki went online on January 10.
There was considerable resistance on the part of Nupedia’s editors and reviewers to the idea of associating Nupedia with a Web site in the wiki format(格式), so the new project was given the name “Wikipedia” and launched on its own domain (域名), wikipedia.com, on January 15. The domain was eventually changed to the present wikipedia.org when the not-for-profit Wikimedia Foundation was launched as its new parent organization. In March 2007, the word wiki became a newly-recognized English word.
In May 2001, a wave of non-English Wikipedias was launched — in Catalan, Chinese, Dutch, Esperanto, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish. These were soon joined by Arabic and Hungarian. In September, Polish was added. At the end of the year, Afrikaans, Norwegian, and Serbocroatian versions were announced.
Anyone with Web access can edit Wikipedia, and this openness encourages inclusion of a great amount of content. About 75,000 editors — from expert scholars to casual readers — regularly edit Wikipedia, and these experienced editors often help to create a consistent style throughout the encyclopedia.
Editors are able to watch pages and techies(科技人员) can write editing programs to keep track of or correct bad edits. Where there’re disagreements on how to present facts, editors work together to arrive at an article that fairly represents current expert opinion on the subject. Although the Wikimedia Foundation owns the site, it’s largely uninvolved in writing and daily operations.
66. Jimmy Wales wanted a more open project because ______.
A. he wanted to found Wikipedia
B. Nupedia had its own disadvantages
C. he earned less money from Nupedia
D. Nupedia had been abandoned
67. The idea of connecting Nupedia with a Web site in the wiki format ______.
A. gained a wide support
B. came into being on January 15, 2000
C. made Nupedia better and better known to the public
D. weren’t welcomed by all Nupedia’s editors
68. Which of the following versions joined the Wikipedia in or after October 2001?
A. English version. B. Norwegian version.
C. Hebrew version. D. Arabic version.
69. Who are responsible to create the main style for the Wikipedia?
A. Any readers of the Wikipedia B. The techies.
C. The Wikimedia Foundation. D. The experienced editors.
70. Which of the following facts about Wikipedia most probably surprises readers?
A. Its owner contributes less to its writing.
B. It appeals to a wider audience.
C. Its owner was founded only recently.
D. It was evolved from Nupedia.
B
It was a beautiful Sunday morning, and Maggie and I were returning from our walk through the woods. We were only a couple of blocks from home when I spotted a cellphone and credit card sitting on the road. We took them home. We find amazing things on the street. She looks upon it as a movable dinner. Chicken wings here and there.
I found another cellphone a few years back, too, and called a number in its phone book. I explained the situation to the guy who answered. He said it was his sister’s and that he'd swing by to pick it up, which he did.
And that was that. No verbal (口头的) thank-you, no written thank-you, no “here’s a box of chocolates” thank-you.
I didn’t have time to call anyone on my latest found cellphone. I was pouring myself coffee when it started to vibrate (颤动) and dance across the kitchen counter.
“Who’s this?” someone asked when I picked up.
“Who’s this?” I countered. “Sarah?”
She was taken aback until she realized her name was on the credit card I also had recovered. “Could you send it to me?” she asked.
She lives in Arlington, which is 2 miles from my house.
“Hmm, no,” I replied, adding that I thought she could come get them, and that if I wasn’t home, they would be in my mailbox.
A day later, when I was out for a run, someone retrieved them. But I got nothing. In this age of e-mail and cellphones, there’s really no excuse.
Years ago, I found something more precious than a $100 bill on the street: a driver’s license. I saw that its owner lived a couple of blocks from me, so I called him up. He asked whether I could slip the license through his front door.
“I guess I could,” I replied.
And that was that.
61. What would be the best title for the text?
A. Several Experiences of My Own
B. “Thank You” Is Becoming More Priceless
C. It’s Polite to Thank the Finders
D. Only Losers Lack “Thank” for Finders
62. According to the text, it can be inferred that Maggie should be ______.
A. the author’s wife B. the author’s pet
C. the author’s best friend D. the author’s son
63. The author didn’t call anyone on his latest found cellphone because ______.
A. it wasn’t worth to do B. he wanted to keep it as his own
C. he was busy then D. he didn’t know its owner
64. The underlined word “retrieved” in the tenth paragraph means “______”.
A. got back B. returned C. lost D. threw away
65. How does the author feel when he told his last experience about the driver’s license?
A. Disappointed. B. Helpless. C. Encouraged. D. Hopeful.
第三部分：阅读理解（共20小题，每题2分，满分40分）
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
A
We bet that on cold wintry days, many of you love to stay in your warm home and, every now and then, come out into the kitchen for a snack. Unfortunately, plenty of creepy-crawly critters(爬行生物) like to do the same thing!
Winter is the time when bugs (虫子) invade your house without an invitation. The season can be tough for such creatures. In winter the air is cold, the ground is hard and many trees have no leaves. So bugs do what they have to do to survive.
Monarch butterflies head south to warmer climates. Ants crowd in deep underground colonies and eat food they have been storing all year. Many insects go into a deep sleep called diapause. There’re different kinds of diapause, but all are similar to hibernation, a time when bigger animals become inactive in the cold. Insects go into an inactive period, too, but it often isn’t when the temperature drops.
They rely on more dependable signals in the environment. For example, many insects can tell how much sunlight there’s each day. They use that to tell them when to shut down. Bugs are cold-blooded, meaning that their inside temperature is the same as the outside. They can’t move much when it gets below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. So they search for any warm place.
They’re looking for protection. These guys have been doing this for 300 million years, so they don’t really know they’re coming into your house. The home is a recent event in terms of their evolutionary behavior. They enter through tiny cracks or come in unnoticed on your clothes or shoes. Remember that they may be invading your homes for warmth and food, but they don’t care about humans.
56. What is the purpose of the first paragraph?
A. To point out that humans like to stay at home in winter.
B. To mean that humans and bugs have the same living habits.
C. To mean that bugs will invade the house for their winter.
D. To put forward the idea that bugs are not welcome in winter.
57. According to the text, what is diapause?
A. It is the same as the animals’ hibernation.
B. It often appears in warm areas all the year.
C. It is done to keep bugs active in winter.
D. It is a deep sleep similar to hibernation.
58. What often decides bugs’ diapause?
A. The lower local temperatures. B. The amounts of sunlight.
C. Kinds of environmental signals. D. The insects’ inside temperature.
59. According to the text, bugs invade humans’ homes to ______.
A. attack humans B. look for enough food
C. seek for protection D. show their evolutionary results
60. What would be the best title for the text?
A. Bugs’ life on cold wintry days
B. Why bugs invade your home in winter?
C. Good relations between humans and bugs
D. What does diapause mean?
Are you nervous about climbing because you think it's too dangerous? Do you feel you're not fit enough to climb? Do you know how to start climbing?
Let's consider the idea that climbing is dangerous．Being afraid is natural, but if you use suitable ropes and other climbing equipments you will feel completely safe．Climbers are usually very careful because they know what they are doing is dangerous．Accidents happen, but when they do, they tend to attract a lot of publicity．As a result, people think there are many more accidents than there are in reality．
You cannot expect to start climbing straight away．Climbing is a challenge and challenges take time．It is necessary first of all that you achieve a good level of fitness．Begin as soon as you become interested in climbing? go to the gym, go swimming, take up jogging and continue to do so throughout your training period．
Discover as much as you can about climbing．Visit the library and find book, especially for beginners or buy climbing magazines and look for articles which describe your situation．Look up information on the Internet．Find out about equipment, methods and places to go．
Next, take a course on a climbing wall．There are plenty of climbing walls all over the country which have trained and qualified people as instructors．Call your local leisure centre to find out if there is one in your area. These training sessions are a quick way to get experience and you are likely to meet other beginners. After this, you can do an outside course of join a club where you can meet climbers of all abilities and eventually join in group-climbing events.
At first you may not understand the importance of a good training period, but after you have completed your first climb and you are standing safely at the top of a rock feeling thrilled, then you will know it was the right thing to do.The article is written by .
| A．a doctor | B．an experienced climber |
| C．a beginner | D．a fitness instructor |
The writer thinks a new climber should .
| A．begin by becoming fit |
| B．have the courage to meet the challenges |
| C．be aware of the causes of the accidents |
| D．do enough sports to get interested in climbing |
By climbing walls you can .
| A．join a club you like |
| B．gain controlled experience |
| C．become qualified instructors |
| D．take part in group-climbing events |
The underlined word “it” in the last paragraph probably means .
| A．the climb | B．the training | C．the equipment | D．the achievement |
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