Everybody has had at least one experience from which he knows the meaning of life. This time, which took place several years ago, but seems as if it just happened.
He took the shirt and put it on bed, with the other clothes we were taking to the funeral. Then he closed the drawer and turned to me, “Don’t ever save anything for a special occasion. Every day you’re alive is a special occasion.”
I’m thinking about his words, and they’ve changed the way I live my life. I’m spending more time with my family and friends and less time in committee meetings. Whenever possible, life should be a kind of experience to enjoy, not to suffer. “Someday”and “one of these days”are losing their importance on my vocabulary. If it’s worth seeing or hearing or doing, I want to see and hear and do it now.
Ever since that day, I have been trying very hard not to put off, hold back or save anything that would add laughter and color to our lives. Every morning when I open my eyes, I tell myself that every day, every minute, every breath, truly is a gift. So cherish every day and find the true meaning of your life.Why did Jan buy the beautiful skirt but didn’t wear it?
| A．She waited for a special occasion to wear it on. |
| B．She wanted to keep it for someone else. |
| C．She saved it till she grew up. |
| D．She would give it to herself as a gift some day. |
What does the underlined word “cherish” mean?
| A．Treasure. | B．Waste. | C．Own. | D．Save |
What does the author write this passage for?
| A．To show how to make good use of everyday in life. |
| B．To explain the true meaning of his brother-in-law’s words. |
| C．To tell people to cherish every day and find the meaning of life. |
| D．To encourage people to waste time and enjoy themselves in life. |
What’s the best title for this passage?
| A．Every Day IS a Gift |
| B．My Sister Jan |
| C．What Is the Meaningful Life like |
| D．The Most Important Time in Your Life |
The Oxford Mal, England
Most prisons are the kind of place you’d be desperate to escape from, not somewhere you’d possibly conceive of escaping to.
But this former Oxford prison has been converted into a boutique hotel by the fashionable Malmaison chain and offers the kind of luxurious living that former convicts could only have dreamed of.
Rates: Double room £140 (US$233). Breakfast £12.95 per person
Jules’ Undersea Lodge, United States
Originally a research laboratory, the world’s only underwater hotel sits at the bottom of the Emerald Lagoon in Florida, and can only be reached by scuba diving down six meters.
The lodge can accommodate two couples and is kitted out with showers, a microwave and a fridge.
The real attractions are the fish; the lodge is like a goldfish bowl in reverse, where you sit and watch angelfish, parrotfish, barracuda and snappers peering in at you through the window.
Rates: From US$400
Das Park Hotel, Austria
Stay overnight in a concrete sewer pipe on the banks of the River Danube.
The drainpipes are two meters in diameter and two and a half meters long, with a porthole to look out of, a front door to close and a cozy nest to snuggle into, which includes a low-slung futon, bedside lamp, woolly blanket and light sleeping bag.
Rates: You pay as much, or as little, as you want.
Sant` Angelo Luxury Resort, Italy
“Four-star boutique cave-hotel” is the proud boast of the Sant’Angelo in the city of Matera, which is famous for its sassi-houses dug into the rock. Matera is the only place in the world where people can boast to be still living in the same houses as their ancestors did 9,000 years ago. The rooms have been fashioned from old sassi stables and workshops. There are two restaurants, a bar and an art gallery.
Rates: A three-night package costs from US$560 per person including some meals, a walking tour and car hire, but not flights.
La Balade Des Gnomes, Belgium
A truly out-of-this-world experience, this hotel makes you feel like you’re on the moon.
You can sleep in a moon buggy, bathe in a lunar capsule, and the walls and ceilings are covered in twinkling stars and planets.
Other themed rooms include a newly opened Trojan Horse, a Troll Forest, a South Seas sailing ship and a Wine Room.
Rates: From €115 (US$170) per double
Das Park Hotel is different from the other hotels in that __________.
| A．it is underwater | B．you decide the pay |
| C．it used to be a prison | D．it is not in Europe |
If you want to experience the life on the moon, most probably you will choose to stay in __________.
| A．Jules’ Undersea Lodge, United States | B．La Balade Des Gnomes, Belgium |
| C．Das Park Hotel, Austria | D．The Oxford Mal, England |
If Mr. and Mrs Smith put up at the Oxford Mal for one night and have breakfast there, they will have to pay at least _____________.
| A．£165.9 | B．£152.95 | C．£258.9 | D．£305.9 |
Oprah Winfrey, the American media queen, is undoubtedly one of the most successful women in the world. She’s the host and owner of The Oprah Winfrey Show, which continuingly wins high ratings, and the founder of Harpo Productions, which produces her television shows and movies.
Certainly Winfrey feels right these days. Early on, however, Winfrey seemed more like a candidate for welfare rolls than film roles. She stayed with her grandmother after birth and moved to Wisconsin to live with her mother at 6, and hence began the most difficult period in her life. They lived in the low-income community and her mother showed her less attention. Her classmates came from families with more money and she couldn’t participate with them in a lot of activities.
The young girl had held too much anger and pain inside and she rebelled. She repeatedly ran away from home and got into various troubles. During that time, she turned heavy smoker, became addicted to alcohol and drug and was sent to a juvenile detention home(青少年拘留所) at the age of 13.
Fed up, Oprah’s mother sent her to Tennessee to live with her father. To a large extent, this man saved Oprah’s life and helped pave the way for her success. She received a full scholarship to Tennessee State University where she majored in Speech and Performing Arts. After graduation, she landed a job as a news reader at a television station, where she did not do well at first. But she did not give up; instead, she worked harder. She put in long hours and prepared carefully before going on camera.
Her hard work paid off: she moved up swiftly to news reader and reporter in Baltimore and was offered her own talk show in 1977. From then on, her career began to take off.
Some people are handed money at birth and are nurtured into success; other people create their own success, and Oprah Winfrey definitely belongs to the latter. “There is no such thing as failure in my life,” she concluded, “Life is a marathon. I think the ones who survive in life do it by hammering at it one day at a time.” Well, by doing so, she won the game.By mentioning “Winfrey seemed more like a candidate for welfare rolls than film roles” in Paragraph 2, the author indicates that ______.
| A．she was interested in acting and applied for roles in many films, but failed. |
| B．she was more interested in working for charities than in films. |
| C．she lived a poor life and had to depend on the government for food. |
| D．the film companies wouldn’t offer her roles because she was too poor. |
Which of the following is NOT the cause of her bad behaviors as a teenager?
| A．Her mother had no time to take good care of her. |
| B．Her classmates’ families were very rich. |
| C．She couldn’t take part in activities with her classmates. |
| D．She had too much anger and pain inside. |
Oprah Winfrey succeeded at last chiefly due to _______.
| A．her hard childhood living with her grandmother. |
| B．her hard work and the spirit of not giving up. |
| C．her good performance in the juvenile detention home. |
| D．her major in Speech and Performing Arts in college. |
Which of the following can best serve as the title of this passage?
| A．Oprah Winfrey, from a problem girl to the American media queen. |
| B．Oprah Winfrey, from a news reader to a marathon winner. |
| C．Even famous people have a disgraceful past. |
| D．All that glitters is not gold. |
For the 17 years my life was very happy. Then the first sad thing happened. My mother became very ill, and soon she knew that she was dying. Just before she died, she asked Elizabeth and me to go to her room. She held our hands and said, “Victor and Elizabeth, my children, I’m very happy because you love each other, and because one day you’ll get married. Everyone in the family loves you, Elizabeth. Will you take my place in the family, my dear? I can die happy if you look after them when I have gone.”
My mother died and we were very sad, because we loved her dearly. Elizabeth was brave and helped us; her sweet smile gave us some happiness in the unhappy days after my mother’s death. The time came for me to go to university. I didn’t want to leave my sad family, but we all knew that I should go. It was hard to leave, too, because the parents of my good friend Henry would not let him go to university with me. So I had gone alone.
On my first day at university I met my teacher, Professor Waldman, who was one of the greatest scientists in the world. He gave a wonderful talk to all the students who were starting at the university. He ended his talk by saying, “Some of you will become the greatest scientists of tomorrow. You must study hard and discover everything that you can. This is why God made you intelligent—to help other people.”
After the professor’s talk, I thought very carefully. I remembered the storm when I was 15; I remembered how the lightning had destroyed the tree. From then on, I wanted to use electricity to help people, and I wanted to discover the secrets of life. I decided to work on these two things.
I started to work the next day. I worked very hard and soon Professor Waldman and I realized that I could learn to be a very good scientist.
The professor helped me very much, and other important scientists who were his friends helped me, too. I was interested in my work and I did not take one day’s holiday during the next two years, I did not go home, and my letters to my family were very short.
After two years, I had discovered many things and I built a scientific machine that was the best in the university. My machine would help me answer the most important question of all. How does life begin? Is it possible to put life into dead things? To answer these questions about life I had to learn first about death. I had to watch bodies from the moment when they died and the warm life left them. In the hospital and in the university, I watched the dying and the dead. Day after day, month after month, I followed death, so it was a dark and terrible time.
I built a tall mast about 150 meters high, which is higher than the tallest building in the city, to catch lightning and send the electricity down to my machine in the lab. I believed I could use that electricity to give life to things that were dead.
Then one day, the answer came to me. Suddenly I was sure that I knew the secret of life.Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．Elizabeth married shortly after Victor’s mother died. |
| B．Elizabeth was a brave girl who loved Victor and gave him much help. |
| C．Victor’s mother was very angry when she knew he loved Elizabeth. |
| D．Victor did not want to leave his family because his mother died not long before. |
Victor did all the following during his research in the university EXCEPT that .
| A．he discovered many things and built a scientific machine |
| B．he learnt much about death both in the hospitals and in the university |
| C．he worked hard and took only one day’s holiday during the next two years |
| D．he built a tall mast to catch lightning and send the electricity down to the lab |
According to the author, the secret of life is to .
| A．give life to things that were dead |
| B．use electricity to help others |
| C．build the best machine to learn about death |
| D．become the greatest scientist of tomorrow |
Which is the correct order about the life of Victor?
① Victor’s mother passed away.
② Victor got help from the professor and other scientists.
③ Victor went to university and attended the professor’s talk.
④ Victor found the answer to giving life to things that were dead.
⑤ Victor experienced a storm, seeing the lightning destroying the tree.
| A．①②③④⑤ | B．⑤①②④③ | C．①③②⑤④ | D．⑤①③②④ |
At 2 p.m. on December 5, 1945, five Navy aircraft took off in perfect flying weather from a naval air installation in southeastern Florida, on a routine training mission over the Atlantic Ocean. Less than two hours later, the flight commander radioed that he was “completely lost”. Then there was silence. A rescue plane was sent to search for the missing aircraft, and it, too, disappeared. Despite one of history’s most extensive search efforts, involving more than 300 planes and dozens of ships, the Navy found nothing, not even an oil stain floating on the water.
This is just one of the many frightening stories told of “the Bermuda Triangle”, a mysterious area of the Atlantic Ocean roughly stretching southwest from Bermuda to the Florida coast and down to Puerto Rico. During the past 30 years, the triangle has claimed the lives of some 1,000 sailors and pilots.
Stranger yet are the numerous “ghost” ships that have been found floating crewless within the triangle. On one strange occasion in 1881, the cargo ship Ellen Austin discovered a small sailing ship, sails waving uselessly in the wind. The boat was full of wood with no one on deck. The captain of the Ellen Austin installed a new crew to sail it, but two days later, during a rough storm, the two ships temporarily lost sight of each other. When the captain again boarded the boat, he found his crew had disappeared. After a second crew was assigned, the ship was again lost in a fog bank. This time, no trace of the boat — or the crew — was ever found.
Charles Berlitz, a man with an interest in Atlantis, the legendary lost island, puts forward his theory that a giant solar crystal, which once was the power generator for Atlantis, lies on the ocean floor. From time to time, according to his theory, passing ships and planes set off the crystal, which confuses their instruments and engulfs them into the ocean.
Officially, the U.S. Navy does not recognize the triangle as a danger zone and is convinced that “the majority of disappearances in the triangle can be due to the unique features of the area’s environment.” These include the swift Gulf Stream current and the unexplored valleys under water of the Atlantic. Also, the triangle is one of only two places on earth where a compass needle points to true north rather than magnetic north, causing problems in navigation.
However, other scientists argue that beings from outer space have established a highly advanced civilization in the unexplored depths of the Atlantic inside the triangle. There, they believe, most of the missing vessels – and their crews – may still be on display for study by these higher intelligences.The author develops the first two paragraphs through _______.
| A．a series of events described in order of time |
| B．a general view supported by specific examples |
| C．a specific incident followed by a general introduction |
| D．a strange phenomenon followed by cause explanation |
What did the captain of Ellen Austin do when he discovered a small sailing ship floating crewless?
| A．He had all the wood transferred onto his own ship. |
| B．He had new powerful sails fixed on the small boat. |
| C．He sent a message that they were in danger and needed help. |
| D．He asked some of his sailors to get onto the boat to sail it. |
The underlined word “engulfs” in Paragraph 4 probably means ______.
| A．drops | B．sucks | C．puts | D．throws |
Which of the following could serve as the best title for this passage?
| A．The Mysterious Bermuda Triangle |
| B．The History of the Bermuda Triangle |
| C．A New Research on the Bermuda Triangle |
| D．A New Angle to Look at the Bermuda Triangle |
●What prevents depression：tea，coffee or hot chocolate?
Women who drink for or more cups of coffee a day are a fifth less likely to become depressed．Drinking two or three cups reduces the risk by 15 percent. This is the result of a study of 51,000 women over ten years, published in the Journal of the American Medicine Association.
One theory is that caffeine reduces the effect of the chemical adenosine(腺苷) in the brain, which can make us feel sleepy by slowing down nerve cell activity. Some anti-depressants also work by blocking the adenosine receptors. Coffee was found to be far more influential on depression levels than hot chocolate or tea due to the high caffeine content.
●How many eggs can we healthily eat: one a day or two a day?
Neither-eat them freely. We’ve long been warned to stick to two or three eggs a week because of their high cholesterol(胆固醇)content. But according to the Food Standards Agency, there is no recommended limit to how many eggs we can healthily eat, unless you have been told to cut down by your doctor.
There is no evidence that eating eggs raises cholesterol levels, and researchers found that eggs contain less cholesterol than in the past because hens are no longer given bone meal, which was banned in the 1990s after the BSE(疯牛病) cresis.
Research by the British Egg Council found that a medium egg gives you around 100 mg of cholesterol, a third of the 300mg recommended daily limit.What is considered to fight depression best?
| A．Tea． | B．Chocolate． | C．Adenosine． | D．Coffee． |
We can infer from the text that ．
| A．too much caffeine will probably make people sleepy |
| B．coffee contains less caffeine than tea or hot chocolate |
| C．one is depressed if his brain chemical adenosine is active |
| D．tea and hot chocolate have no effect on men’s depression |
What can we learn about eggs from the text?
| A．We should stick to two or three eggs a week in general． |
| B．Eat as many eggs as you like unless your doctor advises you not to． |
| C．Eggs contain more cholesterol at present than ever before． |
| D．One egg daily and you’ll get more cholesterol than recommended． |
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