Getting close to active or erupting volcanoes can be dangerous. But for Michael Rampino, it’s all in a day’s work. Rampino is a volcanologist, a scientist who studies volcanoes and how they affect our planet. Rampino has been close to red-hot lava flows (熔岩流) in Hawaii and explosive volcanoes in Indonesia. He knows when to get close to an active volcano and when to back away.
Rampino wasn’t always a volcanologist. He worked for NASA for seven years. He studied rocks until he began to research climate change and the effects that volcanoes have on climate. He became interested in the subject. “Once I started working with volcanoes,” Rampino said, “I was hooked.”
Rampino is a professor at New York University. As part of his job, he travels to areas where volcanoes have been active. “Active” means they have erupted within the past few centuries and probably will erupt again. Rampino studies the deposits (沉积物) of ash and other materials from the eruptions. The ash may hold clues to what happened to the Earth in the distant past. It may also help scientists predict what could happen to Earth’s climate in the future.
Rampino doesn’t work alone. He works with a team of scientists who use computers to stimulate (模拟) the effects volcanoes have on Earth’s atmosphere.
Being a volcanologist may be hard work, but it’s also fun. “It’s cool traveling the world studying volcanoes,” Rampino says. When he talks to students about his work, he tells them that his goal is “to understand the events that have shaped Earth’s history.”To Rampino, being close to active volcanoes is _____.
| A．adventurous but meaningful |
| B．scary but necessary |
| C．impossible and unnecessary |
| D．dangerous but urgent |
The underlined word “hooked” in Paragraph 2 probably means “_____”.
| A．trapped | B．touched | C．frightened | D．attracted |
Rampino’s study on volcanoes might help _____.
| A．warn people to protect the environment |
| B．support the study of Earth’s future climate |
| C．tell the future eruption time of the volcanoes |
| D．reduce the possibility of the volcanoes’ eruptions |
In which part of a newspaper could we find this text?
| A．Climate. | B．History. | C．People. | D．Business. |
Dear Mom, Clear My Calendar
September is around the corner, and some of us are already complaining about summer’s end. But parents have a special reason to do so. The end of summer means the start of school. And these days, planning a young child’s schedule is a big challenge. The challenge is no longer finding activities to fill a child’s day; it is saying no to the hundreds of options available. Our mailbox is filled with brochures urging us to sign our kids up for classes from cooking to martial arts(武术).
Educators are themselves discouraged by the number of special classes that many children attend. In the name of “enrichment,” three-year-olds not only go to preschool in the morning but study French or gymnastics after lunch. One teacher tells of a four-year-old asking for help in the toilet before hurrying off to tennis. Another teacher says that children sometimes hold on to her at pickup time. What happened to unstructured time?
A generous explanation is that we enjoy giving children opportunities we never had. The truth however is that many parents have doubts about how much time they spend away from their families. And one way to reduce this guilt is to believe that time spent in these classes is somehow more beneficial to children than the time we know we should be giving them ourselves.
David Elkind, an expert on children, suggests that the 1960s gave birth to the belief that earlier is better. Parents hope that early music lessons, for example will build a child’s confidence. The truth, however, is that any time children are asked to do too much, too soon, they are at greater risk for feelings of failure.
A child’s time does not have to be planned to be meaningful. Remember the lazy days of summer? Some children sleep late and play with the kids across the street until it’s time to come home for dinner. However, with the majority of mothers working, fewer children enjoy that idle (空闲的) time now.
Come September, children across the country will finish a full day of kindergarten, only to attend an after-school program until 6 P.M., when a working mom or dad comes to take them home. That’s too much for a five-year old. Finances, of course, do limit some parents. But let’s be honest with ourselves – our own busy schedules, whatever they involve, are no excuse for burdening a young child’s. The author holds that it’s a challenge to plan a schedule for a child mainly because _____.
| A．a child’s schedule is too complex |
| B．activities suitable for kids are limited |
| C．parents are stuck in numerous choices |
| D．children always say no to parents’ advice |
What the two teachers say in Paragraph 2 implies that _____.
| A．children love to stay at school |
| B．they are popular with children |
| C．children dislike after-school classes |
| D．after-school classes are of poor quality |
According to the author, what is the real reason for parents to send their children to after-school classes?
| A．Parents want to make up for their own regrets. |
| B．After-school classes develop children’s potential. |
| C．Parents have doubt about their own ability to guide children. |
| D．After-school classes give parents an excuse for being absent. |
Which of the following will the author probably agree with?
| A．For children’s benefits, the earlier the better. |
| B．Children’s spare time should be carefully designed. |
| C．Idle time for children is becoming a thing of the past. |
| D．Parents should be forgiven if they have a good reason. |
My grandmother Adele loved culture and was generous with its gifts. When I was a child, she took me to museums, restaurants, dances. She showered me with gifts from her travels around the world. But I can only remember her giving me one book—a book that, to this day, I have not read. She presented me with her own favorite childhood book: Hans Brinker. My grandmother was happy to share this book with me. She even decorated the title page with her proud writing.
I tried to read it. I adored reading, and would dive into a new pile of books from the library all at once. But something about Hans Brinker just wouldn’t let me in. The story was set in Holland, a long time ago. It felt dull and unfamiliar—even though I was a fan of classics of other times and places. I simply read the first pages over and over. I could not progress.
Standing on a bookshelf in our living room, the book was like something I avoided. It scolded me for not being interested, for not trying hard enough, for disappointing my grandmother.
The book started to fit in, almost forgotten, until Adele asked. Had I read it? Did I like it? Always determined, she wanted to know the answer. I would make some kind of excuse, feel bad, and open it again, hoping for a new reaction. The book weighed on me.
Years passed and finally Adele and I both accepted that I would never read Hans Brinker. Eventually I cleared the book from the shelf. The Hans Brinker experience led me to set a rule that I’ve lived by ever since: Do not ask about a book given as a gift. Don’t ask, despite your desire to discuss it to grow closer. The desire for such connection is what gives book-giving with special meaning—and increases the owner’s possibility to be a letdown.
Guilt is basically the same as for all gifts, though. If the giver doesn’t have the pleasure of seeing or hearing about the gift being enjoyed, and asks whether it is, then the owner—unless she can truthfully say “yes”—either has to admit to not liking the present, or else lie on the spot. Neither is pleasant. So, don’t ask. When the author was a kid, his grandmother ________.
| A．took him to travel around the world a lot |
| B．loved to take him to museums and stores |
| C．shared her childhood stories with him |
| D．gave him many gifts |
What does the author think about the book his grandmother gave him?
| A．Boring. |
| B．Interesting. |
| C．Puzzling. |
| D．Disappointing. |
The underlined sentence “The book weighed on me” in Paragraph 4 probably means _______.
| A．the book is too heavy for the author to carry |
| B．the author feels stressful facing the book |
| C．the book is full of powerful viewpoints |
| D．the author keeps reading the book |
The author learns from the Hans Brinker’s experience that never________.
| A．give others books as gifts |
| B．lie to people who give you gifts |
| C．get close to others through gifts |
| D．talk about the books given as gifts |
Using too much water or throwing rubbish into our rivers are clear ways that humans can put our water supply in danger ,but we also affect our water supply in less obvious ways.
You may wonder how paving(铺砌) a road can lead to less usable fresh water. A major part of the water we use every day is groundwater. Groundwater does not come from lakes or rivers .It come from underground. The more roads and parking lots we pave, the less water can flow into the ground to become groundwater.
Human activity is not responsible for all water shortages(短缺). Driver climates are of course more likely to have droughts(干旱)than areas with more rainfall, but in any case, good management can help to make sure there is enough water to meet our basic needs.
Thinking about the way we use water everyday can make a big difference, too. In the United States, a family of four can use 1.5 tons of water a day! This shows how much we depend on water to live, but there’s a lot we can do to lower the number.
You can take steps to save water in your home. To start with, use the same glass for your drinking water all day. Wash it only once a day .Run your dishwasher (洗碗机)only when it is full. Help your parents fix any leaks in your home. You can even help to keep our water supply clean by recycling batteries instead of throwing them away. Which of the following is most likely to lead to less groundwater?
| A．Using river water. |
| B．Throwing batteries away. |
| C．paving parking lots. |
| D．Throwing rubbish into lakes. |
What can be inferred from the text?
| A．All water shortages are due to human behavior. |
| B．It takes a lot of effort to meet our water needs. |
| C．There is much we can do to reduce family size. |
| D．The average family in America makes proper use of water . |
The last paragraph is intended to .
| A．show us how to fix leaks at home |
| B．tell us how to run a dishwasher |
| C．prove what drinking glass is best for us |
| D．suggest what we do to save water at home |
The text is mainly about .
| A．Why paving roads reduces our water |
| B．how much we depend on water to live |
| C．why droughts occur more in dry climates |
| D．how human activity affects our water supply |
Wikipedia: The Online Know-It-All
If you want to find out a piece of information about anything, the best place to search for it is Wikipedia. The name “Wikipedia” is from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning “quick”. This online encyclopedia (百科全书) is written by thousands of people around the world. Anyone with Internet access can write, add or make changes to Wikipedia articles if he or she finds it incorrect or not well written. In this way, people who know a lot about a certain subject can write about it even if they are not university professors. But contributions cannot damage Wikipedia because many experienced editors are watching pages and techies (技术专家) can write editing programs to keep track of or correct bad edits. Where there are disagreements on how to present facts, editors’ work together to arrive at an article that fairly represents current expert opinion on the subject.
Wikipedia is quite different from paper-based reference sources in important ways. Unlike printed encyclopedias, it is continually created and updated, with articles on historic events appearing within minutes, rather than months or years.
What’s more, Wikipedia includes articles written in about 285 languages. This fact makes it one of the few websites on the Internet that are truly international. It was started in 2001 by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales, as a free online English-language encyclopedia project. Since its creation, it has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference websites, attracting nearly 500 million unique visitors monthly. There are more than 77,000 active contributors working on more than 22,000,000 articles in different languages. As of today, there are 4,396,866 articles in English.
So, if you are looking for some information, why not try Wikipedia? It’s free, multilingual，and informative. According to the passage, what is Wikipedia?
| A．A free website encyclopedia. | B．A computer game. |
| C．A free encyclopedia in book form. | D．An online university. |
From the passage we know that ______.
| A．Wikipedia catches a wide audience |
| B．Wikipedia only charges users a small fee |
| C．incorrect editions might do great harm to Wikipedia |
| D．it will take long to update the information on Wikipedia |
Where can we probably read the passage?
| A．In a story book. | B．In a research report. |
| C．In a science magazine. | D．In a travel brochure. |
How to look good in a photo?
What should you do if you want to have a nice photo taken? Whether it's work or fun, the most important thing is lighting．If you get bad lighting, you will look bad, too．Know where the light is．You don't want it below you or above you, you want it to shine directly at you．
The key thing is no shadow．If you are being photographed outside, do it in the morning, or wait till the 2 o'clock shadow has passed．Also don't let pictures in the magazines stress you out —all the pictures are taken by great photographers．And all the faces have had pimples （丘疹，粉刺） taken out by computers．
Tip your head and learn what angles work with your face; everyone is different．So you have to learn what suits you．You can practice in Photo Booth for as long as it is your turn, to learn what angles suit your face．Tip your neck to make it look longer, make eye contact with the camera．No one can look bad if they smile．
For long legs, point one leg into center of the frame and get the photographer to shoot looking up your body．
For just leg shots, lie upside down and raise legs in the air for the best angle．And your legs will look thinner and be in better shape．
Keep shoulders back．
Always have mouth slightly open, enough to put a penny between your lips, as this will make your lips look fuller．
Lower your eyes and then look up just as shutter （快门） is clicked for full eyes．
Delete any evidence of a less than perfect photogenic moment, everyone has off days．If you want to look good in a photo, the light should be ______．
| A．below you |
| B．above you |
| C．directly at you |
| D．right behind you |
According to the passage, we should consider all EXCEPT ______．
| A．light |
| B．shadow |
| C．angles |
| D．photographers |
What advice does the author give on taking photos?
| A．Raise legs on the wall． |
| B．Look down． |
| C．Keep shoulders back． |
| D．Put a penny between lips． |
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