As the summer time approaches, more and more commercials and advertisements can be seen on the mass media encouraging students to join English study tours abroad. The purpose of these tours is to provide students with an opportunity to learn English in a native speaking environment and use English in real situations. Parents always believe that their children will automatically speak good English after attending these study tours. However, for me, as an English major and former participant of many English study tours, I find these summer tours ineffective.
Parents who send their children abroad for a summer to study English usually believe that the native speaking environment, including the courses, teachers, and host families, can help their children to learn English better. This might be true if the students really study hard and they really get an all-English environment. But the fact is that, most of the time, the tour part is more important than the study part. Although these tours take place in foreign countries, students are rarely exposed in an all-English environment. You will find that, in the morning classes, Taiwanese students would like to stick together and speak Chinese with each other, even though there are some students from other countries. In the afternoon, the students go on a sightseeing excursion with their companions from Taiwan; they speak Chinese of course. In the evening, when students return to the host families, they would stay in their room and share the day with their roommate, another Taiwanese student. People who speak the same language with you is like a log（原木）in the ocean when living in a foreign country where you can not express yourself well, so that you would naturally stick with them. This is especially true with children.
Another unrealistic expectation parents have for these tours is that the experience of living abroad can make their children more independent and mature. However, maturity does not come overnight. It takes time and practice. The most important of all is that they need a good mentor（顾问）. None of these exist in the study tours. Which of the following is the most important thing for children who study in an English environment according to the writer?
| A．Host families. | B．Hard work. | C．Courses. | D．Teachers. |
The underlined word “mature” in the last paragraph probably means .
| A．active | B．free | C．outgoing | D．grown-up |
What’s the author’s attitude towards the English study tours abroad?
| A．Doubtful. | B．Negative. | C．Positive. | D．Neutral. |
Imagine you’re in a dark room, running your fingers over a smooth surface in search of a single dot the size of this period, How high do you think the dot must be for your finger to feel it?
Scientists have determined that the human finger is so sensitive it can detect a surface bump just one micron（l0－6m）"high． The human eye, by contrast, can't tell anything much smaller than100 microns．No wonder we rely on touch rather than eyesight when faced with a new roll of toilet paper．
Biologically, touch is the mother of all sensory（感觉的） systems．It is an ancient sense in evolution: even the simplest single-celled living things can feel when something brushes up against them and will respond by moving closer or pulling away． It is the first sense aroused during a baby’s development and the last to weaken at life's peak． Patients in a deep coma （昏迷）who seem otherwise lost to the world will show skin reaction when touched by a nurse．
“Touch ,is so central to what we are that we almost cannot imagine ourselves without it,” said Chris Dijkerman．“It's 'not like eyesight, where you close your eyes and you don't see anything． You can't do that with touch．It's always there．"
Long ignored in favor of the sensory heavyweights of eyesight and hearing, the study of touch lately:: has been gaining new concern among scientists．They're exploring the effects of recently reported false touch impressions, of people being made to feel as though they had three arms, for example, with the hope of gaining the true understanding of how the mind works．
Others are turning to touch for more practical purposes: to build better touch screen instruments and robot hands, a more well-rounded virtual life．。“There's a fair amount of research into new ways of offloading information onto our sense of touch," said Lynette Jones． "To have your cell phone buzzing （making a low sound） as opposed to ringing turned out to have a lot of advantages in．some situations．"
Touch is our most active sense, our means of seizing the world and experiencing it 'first hand． Dr．Susan Lederman pointed out that while we can become aware of something by seeing or hear,ing7;-．from a distance and without really trying, if we want to learn about something by means of touch, we must make a move．We must rub the cloth, or pet the cat． Touching is a two-way street, and that's not true for seeing or hearing． If you have a soft object and you squeeze it, you change its shape． The physical world reacts back．"
Our hands are smart and can do many tasks automatically - button a shirt, fit a key in a lock, play the; piano for others．Dr．Lederman and her colleagues have shown that blindfolded subjects can easily recognize a wide range of common -objects placed．in their hands．But on some feeling tasks, touch is all thumbs （very clumsy）． When people are given a raised line drawing of a common object, they're puzzled．“If all we've got is outline information;" Dr．Lederman said,．“no weight, no texture, no temperature information, well, we're very, very bad with that．"
Touch also turns out to be easy to fool, Among the sensory tricks now being investigated is something called the Pinocchio illusion． Researchers have found that if they shake the band of the biceps（二头肌）, many people report feeling that their forearm is getting 'longer, their hand floating ever further from their elbow（肘）． And if they are told to touch the forefinger of the shaken arm to the tip of their nose, they feel as though their nose was lengthening, too． Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?
| A．Our eyes are more sensitive than our fingers． |
| B．Our fingers are more sensitive than our eyes． |
| C．Our eyes are more sensitive than our ears． |
| D．Our noses are less sensitive than our ears． |
The sense that is firstly awaked during a child's development is the sense of ．
| A．sight | B．taste | C．hearing | D．touch |
The underlined sentence “You can't do that with touch” here means “You can't ”．
| A．close your skin | B．close your eyes ' | C．touch anything | D．see anything |
Scientists are lately getting interested in the following except ．
| A．living a well-rounded virtual life |
| B．understanding how the mind works |
| C．favoring eyesight and hearing |
| D．building better 'touch screen objects |
In the view of , movement is needed when we want to know something by touching．
| A．the author | B．Chris Dijkerman |
| C．Lynette Jones | D．Susan Lederman |
Below is an entry taken from an English dictionary．
“Be careful not to scratch the furniture" most probably means “Be careful not to ”．
| A．remove any marks | B．damage its surface |
| C．make any noises | D．change its position |
The word "scratch" in "Some drawings had been scratched on the back of the door" has the same meaning as in“ ”．
| A．We scratched some of the dirt away |
| B．The car's paintwork is badly scratched |
| C．The dog; kept scratching at the door to go out． |
| D．They scratched lines in the dirt to make marks |
“She．had scratched because of a knee injury" might imply that “She couldn't ．
| A．take part in a race | B．cancel a prepared activity' |
| C．make a living af6ne | D．make enough money |
When the French girl says "I learned German from scratch iii six months she means she ．
| A．had previously well prepared |
| B．was unsatisfied with her German |
| C．knew no German before that |
| D．found few materials available |
A letter of reply is sometimes a most treasured thing． Here is a story that tells about this common and natural human sentiment．
The busiest woman in Labrador during one bitter cold Christmas not very long ago, was an Australian nurse by the naI11e of Kate Austen． But Nurse Austen was not too busy to acknowledge with a long, friendly letter every gift of food or clothing received for distribution to the natives in that cold and poor district of the north． Among the gifts was a box of knittings for children, knitted（编织）and sent by a woman in Toronto．
Nurse Austen was busy, exhausted and not feeling too well that winter．She could have written just ordinary routine notes of acknowledgement． But that was not her way． She sat down and wrote the woman in Toronto a real letter telling all about the village, and the names of the children who were wearing the knitted gloves and caps, and what they said -when they got them, and how they looked when they wore them．She wanted the woman who had knitted and sent all those lovely knittings "to see how much happiness and warmth she had created．" Not long after, she received the following answer from Canada．
Dear Miss Austen:
Your letter made me happy． I did not expect such a full return． I am eighty years old, and I am blind． There is little I can do except knit, and that is why I knit so many caps and sweaters and scarves．Of course I cannot write this, so my daughter-in-law is doing it for me．She also sewed the seams and made the buttonholes for the knitted things．
I know something of the work you are doing． At the age of nineteen I married a man who was going to China to be a missionary(传教士）． For forty years, with an occasional year at home in America, we Worked in China, and during that time our two sons and a daughter were born to us, of whom only one son survives．\After forty years, my husband's health began to fail． We returned to the States where he took charge of a settlement house in Brooklyn, New York． A surprising number of the problems we faced there were similar to the problems we had met in China．When my husband died, I came to Toronto to live with my son and daughter-in-law． They are very good to me, and I pride myself that I am little trouble to them, though it is hard for a blind old lady to be sure of anything．
What I most want to say, my dear, is this． For sixty years I have been making up missionary packages of such clothing or food or medicine or books as I could collect． In various parts of the world and to various parts of the world I have sent them．Sometimes I have received a printed note of acknowledgement from the headquarters depot or mission board, sometimes nothing．Occasionally I :have been informed that my contribution was planned for Syria or Armenia or the upper Yangtze． But never before in all that time have l had a personal letter picturing the village and telling me who is wearing the clothing and what they said．I did not suppose that ever in my lifetime I should receive a letter like that．
May God bless you．
Sincerely yours,
The underlined word “sentiment”（in Paragraph l） most probably means“ ”?
| A．view point | B．gentle feeling |
| C．way of thinking | D．expression of attitude |
The underlined sentence “But that was not her way” （in Paragraph 3） implies that ．
| A．she would not just write an ordinary letter of thanks |
| B．she was too busy to write a note of acknowledgement |
| C．she was not busy, exhaustec3 0r feeling too well that time |
| D．she wrote a letter telling all about the village and the children |
Why was Laura so happy when she received the letter from Miss Austen? Because ．
| A．the letter was* from an Australian nurse |
| B．she was already eighty years old and blind |
| C．she had never received a letter like that |
| D．the letter was not supposed to reach her |
Ms． Laura N． Russell is now living in ．
| A．China | B．Australia | C．Canada | D．the States |
For decades, Ms． Laura has been to and sent contributions to people all over the world．
| A．Toronto and New York only | B．Syria and Armenia once |
| C．the upper Yangtze area alone | D．many places of the world |
In a world as fast-changing and full of information as our own, all of us need to know how to learn well. Yet evidence suggests that most of us don’t use the learning techniques that science has proved the most effective.
The scientific literature evaluating these techniques goes back to decades and across thousands of articles. It’s far too extensive and complex for the average parent, teacher or employer to look through. Fortunately, a team of five leading psychologists have done the job for us.
Professor John Dunlosky and other psychologists closely examined 10 learning strategies and rated each from high to low utility(实用) on the basis of the evidence they’ve gathered. Here’s part of their conclusions:
In contrast to familiar practices, the effective learning strategies with the most evidence to support them aren’t well known outside the lab. Take distributed practice, for example. This strategy involves spreading out your study time, rather than engaging in one marathon. Cramming (死记硬背）information at the last minute may allow you to get through that test or meeting, but the material will quickly disappear from your memory. It’s much more effective to look through the material at intervals over time.
And the longer you want to remember the information, whether it’s two weeks or two years, the longer the intervals should be.
The second learning strategy that is highly recommended by Dunlosky is practice testing. Yes, more tests---but there not for a grade. Research shows that the mere act of calling information to mind strengthens that knowledge and aids in future retrieval (检索). While practice testing is not a common strategy---despite the strong evidence supporting it ---there is one familiar approach that captures its benefits: using flash cards. And now flash cards can be presented in digital form. Both distributed practice and practice testing were rated as having “high utility” by Dunlosky. How did the psychologists study and rate the learning strategies?
| A．By analyzing the materials gathered in the past years. |
| B．By asking some students questions about their study. |
| C．By doing some experiments on the objects in the lab. |
| D．By asking parents and teachers to look through the articles. |
The underlined word “extensive” in Para.2 means _____.
| A．small in amount |
| B．easy or quick to do |
| C．more than is needed |
| D．dealing with a lot of information |
About distributed practice and practice testing, it’s true that _____.
| A．many students have benefited a lot from them |
| B．they were first put forward by John Dunlosky |
| C．only a small number of experts know about them |
| D．psychologists are studying whether they are effective |
The strategy of distributed practice shows that ______.
| A．we should not study for long hours every day |
| B．reviewing what we have studied is of little help |
| C．the shorter the interval is, the better we’ll study |
| D．doing repetition at intervals is the best way |
The evidence shows that the strategy of practice testing ______.
| A．is a way to use flash cards to help study |
| B．is mainly used to help us remember well |
| C．helps know about students’ grades in time |
| D．is a way widely used to strengthen memory |
Why do human beings still risk their lives under ground and doing one of the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs in the world? It is an increasingly urgent question, given the recent mining accidents in Sago, W. Va and Huntington, Utah. A small group of engineers and robotics experts look forward to a day in the not-too-distant future when robots and other technology do most of the dangerous mining work.
Robotic technology, in particular, holds much promise, McAteer says, especially when it comes to mapping mines and rescuing trapped miners --- the special operations of the mining industry.
One of the first mining robots was developed five years ago at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute. It was called Groundhog. It used lasers(激光器) to “see” in dark tunnels and map abandoned mines—some of the most dangerous work in the business.
The latest design is called Cave Crawler. It’s a bit smaller than Groundhog，and even more advanced. It can take photos and videos and has more sensors that can detect the presence of dangerous gases. Incredibly，the robot has a real sense of logic. If it comes across an obstacle it gets momentarily confused. It has to think about what to do and where to go next. Sometimes it throws a fit just like a real person.
The greatest problem, though, is cost. The money of the earliest research project was provided by the government, but that money had dried up, and it’s not clear where future money will come from. Partly for that reason, and partly because of advances in safety, mining is not nearly as dangerous as it was in the past. Since 1990, fatalities(致命性) have declined by 67% and injuries by 51% , according to the National Mining Association.
Some experts predict that robots in mines will serve much of the same function that they do in the automotive industry. The robots do the most boring and dangerous jobs，but won’t get rid of the need for human workers. The latest robot is more advanced than Groundhog, mainly because ____.
| A．it can map abandoned mines |
| B．it can see in the dark tunnels |
| C．it’s smaller than Groundhog |
| D．it has a real sense of logic |
The underlined phrase “throws a fit” in paragraph 4 probably means“______”
| A．gets angry | B．gets sick |
| C．becomes hungry | D．becomes cheerful |
We can infer from the last paragraph that _____ .
| A．robots in mines will serve much in the automotive industry |
| B．there will be no need for human workers in mines |
| C．the mine robots will have a very bright future |
| D．robots in mines only do some simple jobs now |
We can infer from the text that ______.
| A．the mining robots do most of the mining work at present |
| B．groundhog can discover the presence of dangerous gases |
| C．experts are trying to make robots help miners with dangerous work |
| D．robots cannot do dangerous work in dark areas |
What can be the best title for the text?
| A．Mining Accidents in America |
| B．Robots in Mines |
| C．Cave crawler, the Latest Robot |
| D．The Future of Robots |
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