Hundreds of years ago, a Roman army came north from England to make war on Scotland. The Scots, a brave people, love their country. They fought hard to drive the enemy out of Scotland. But there were too many of the Romans. It looked as if the Romans would win.
One night, the leader of the Scots marched his soldiers to the top of a hill. “We will rest here tonight, my men,” he said, “Tomorrow we will fight one more battle①. We must win, or we will die.”
They were all very tired. So they ate their supper quickly and fell asleep. There were four guards on duty, but they were very tired, too, and one by one, they fell asleep.
The Romans were not asleep. Quickly they gathered at the foot of the hill. Slowly they went up the hill. Closer they came to the sleeping Scots. They were almost at the top. A few minutes more the war would be over. Suddenly, one of them put his foot on a thistle (蓟). He cried out and his sudden cry woke the Scots. In a minute they were on their feet and ready for a battle. The fighting was hard, but it did not last long. The Scots wiped out the Romans and saved Scotland②.
The thistle is not a beautiful plant. It has sharp needles all over it. Few people liked it. But the people of Scotland liked it so much that they made it their national flower.
Hundreds of years ago, the Romans ____ .
| A．came from the north through England to make war on Scotland |
| B．came to the north Scotland from England to make war on Scotland |
| C．came from the north of England to fight the Scots |
| D．came to the north from the south of Britain to fight the Scots |
At the shout of a Roman soldier, all the Scots who were asleep at the hill ____ .
| A．began to fight the Romans hard |
| B．stood up without putting on their shoes and began to fight |
| C．woke and rose immediately, ready to fight |
| D．put their feet into their shoes at once and were ready to fight |
The result of the war is that ____ .
| A．the Romans killed all the Scots |
| B．the Scots were defeated |
| C．the Scots were driven out of Scotland |
| D．the Scots defeated the Romans |
The Scots made thistle their national flower because thistle ____ .
| A．is lovely, though not beautiful |
| B．gave them happiness |
| C．is a kind of useful plant |
| D．helped the Scots in wiping out the Romans |
I received a call today asking if I would be willing to bring food to a family in need. The mother was having a major operation and would be lying down for several weeks. Of course, I responded with an immediate ―Yes!
As I planned the meal in my head, I reflected on how many times over the years I had been asked to prepare food. I have done so countless times with a very open heart. But the truly amazing thing is that I have received double over the course of my life. When my mother passed away, our house was filled with fresh dinners for weeks. A woman from the church of our community stopped by each evening with some food. The gift of food was her small way of trying to ease our pain. Later in my life, when I was on bed rest during my pregnancy with twins, women of the church again stepped in to help. They arranged babysitting for my two-year-old daughter, and brought lovely dinners to our house. Even when I was put in the hospital, my husband would bring cooked meals to my hospital room. How we relied on these dinners to feed my tired husband and young daughter. Food is all about comfort. It feeds our bodies, but it can also feed our souls. When you hear people talking about their favourite holidays, it usually includes their feelings connected with sharing food. I know that I will have many more opportunities in my lifetime to prepare food for others. It is truly a gift I want to prepare and deliver to someone in need. We can learn from the passage that the author________.
| A．had to stay in bed for several weeks |
| B．knew the family in need very well |
| C．was glad to be able to lend a hand |
| D．was tired of preparing food |
Which of the following is TRUE about the author?
| A．Her mother died when she was in hospital. |
| B．She didn’t get enough food during her pregnancy. |
| C．She received food as well as comfort in her hard times. |
| D．She thinks offering food is the best way to show love. |
What do we know about the author’s family?
| A．Her family is too poor to buy enough food. |
| B．Her family lives not far from a church. |
| C．Her husband is not good at cooking. |
| D．She has a babysitter taking care of her twins. |
According to the passage, which of the following conclusion can we get?
| A．A good beginning makes a good ending. |
| B．One good turn deserves another. |
| C．Actions speak louder than words. |
| D．Every man has his faults. |
When I met him，I had a lot of anger inside of me. I’ve lived my whole life in Spanish Harlem，but in my neighborhood，there are shoot-ups all the time. I know kids who have been shot or beaten up. I have friends who ended up in prison. I could have ended up that way，too，but Mr. Clark wouldn’t let that happen.
Mr. Clark worked long hours，making sure I did my work. My grades rose. In fact，the scores of our whole class rose. One day，he took our class to see The Phantom of the Opera，and it was the first time some kids had ever been out of Harlem. Before the show，he treated us to dinner at a restaurant and taught us not to talk with our mouths full. We did not want to let him down. Mr. Clark was selected as Disney’s 2000 Teacher of the Year. He said he would draw three names out of a hat；those students would go with him to Los Angeles to get the award. But when the time came to draw names，Mr. Clark said，“You’re all going.”
On graduation day，there were a lot of tears. We didn’t want his class to end. In 2001，he moved to Atlanta，but we always kept in touch. He started giving lectures about education，and wrote a bestselling book based on his classroom rules，The Essential. In 2003，Mr. Clark took some of us on a trip to South Africa to deliver school supplies and visit the orphanages(孤儿院)．It was the most amazing experience of my life. It’s now my dream to one day start a group of women’s clubs，helping people from all backgrounds.Without Mr. Clark，the writer ________.
| A．might have been put into prison |
| B．might not have won the prize |
| C．might have joined a women’s club |
| D．might not have moved to Atlanta |
How many students’ names were finally drawn out of a hat by Mr. Clark?
| A．None. | B．Three. |
| C．Fiftyfive. | D．All. |
What can we learn from the passage?
| A．It was in Harlem that we saw The Phantom of the Opera for the first time. |
| B．Mr. Clark taught us not to talk with our mouths full，and we did. |
| C．Mr. Clark was selected as Disney’s 2000 Teacher of the Year in Los Angeles. |
| D．In 2003，Mr. Clark moved to Atlanta，and he always kept in touch with us. |
It is a matter of common observation that although money income keeps going up over the years, we never seem to become richer. Prices are rising continuously. This condition is what we call inflation: the money supply is becoming inflated so that each unit of it becomes less valuable. We have got used to higher and higher rates of inflation in recent years. What could be bought twenty years ago for one pound now costs well over 2 pounds. And at present this rate of inflation seems to be rising rather than falling. If in the real world our money incomes go up at the same rate as prices do. One might think that inflation doesn’t matter. But it does .When money is losing value it also loses one of the qualities of a good money—stability（稳定）of value. It is no longer acceptable as a store of value; and it becomes an unsuitable means of delayed payment. Nobody wants to hold a wasting possession, so people try to get rid of money as quickly as possible. Inflation therefore simply simulates（刺激）our spending and discourages saving.From the passage we can know that inflation is a situation in which________.
| A．everyone’s incomes rise |
| B．money will hold its value |
| C．we can watch our money grow |
| D．money constantly loses its value |
In the writer’s view, if incomes and prices rise at the same rate, ________.
| A．inflation may still be a problem |
| B．we have nothing to worry about |
| C．inflation is no longer a problem |
| D．we will become richer and richer |
Under inflation people are likely to ________.
| A．go to the bank more often than usual |
| B．save more money since their incomes rise |
| C．spend money quickly rather than to save it |
| D．keep money at home instead of going to banks |
We can conclude according to the passage that ________.
| A．the writer is a government official |
| B．the writer is worried about inflation |
| C．the writer encourages people to spend money |
| D．the writer has become richer because of inflation |
Clay Wanner began to gather a group of architects in Las Vegas a few years ago，to ask them what it would take to design a public school that used 50 percent less energy, cost much less to build and obviously improved student learning. “I think half of them fell off their chairs, ” Wanner says.
Wanner manages school facilities (设施) for Clark County, Nevada，a district roughly the size of Massachusetts. By 2018,143,000 additional students will enter the already crowded public education system. Wanner needs 73 new schools to house them. Four architecture teams have nearly finished designing primary school prototypes (样品)；they plan to construct their schools starting in 2009. The district will then assess how well the schools perform, and three winners will copy those designs in 50 to 70 new buildings.
Green schools are appearing all over, but in Clark County，which stands out for its vastness, such aggressive targets are difficult because design requirements like more natural light for students go against the realities of a desert climate. “One of the biggest challenges is getting the right site orientation(朝向) ,” Mark McGinty, a director at SH Architecture, says. His firm recently completed a high school in Las Vegas. “You have the same building, same set of windows, but if its orientation is incorrect and it faces the sun, it will be really expensive to cool.”
Surprisingly, the man who is responsible for one of the most progressive green-design competitions has doubts about ideas of eco-friendly buildings. “I don’t believe in the new green religion，” Wanner says.“Some of the building technologies that you get are impractical. I’m interested in those that work. ”But he wouldn’t mind if some green features inspire students. He says he hopes to set up green energy systems that allow them to learn about the process of harvesting wind and solar power. “You never know what’s going to start the interest of a child to study math and science，”he says.How did the architects react to Wanner’s design requirements?
| A．They lost balance in excitement. | B．They expressed little interest. |
| C．They showed strong disbelief. | D．They burst into cheers. |
Which order of steps is followed in carrying out the project?
| A．Design—Prototype—Assessment—Construction. |
| B．Design—Assessment—Prototype—Construction. |
| C．Assessment—Design—Prototype—Construction. |
| D．Assessment—Prototype—Design—Construction. |
What makes it difficult to build green schools in Clark County?
| A．The large size. | B．Limited facilities. |
| C．Poor natural resources. | D．The desert climate. |
What does Wanner think of the ideas of green schools?
| A．They are out of date. | B．They are questionable. |
| C．They are advanced. | D．They are practical. |
History is rich with 'eureka' moments: scientists from Archimedes to Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein are said to have had flashes of inspiration while thinking about other things. But the mechanisms(机理) behind this psychological phenomenon have remained unclear. A study now suggests that simply taking a break does not bring on inspiration — rather, creativity is fostered by tasks that allow the mind to wander.
The discovery was made by a team led by Benjamin Baird and Jonathan Schooler, psychologists at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The researchers presented 145 undergraduate students with two 'unusual uses' tasks that gave them two minutes to list as many uses as possible for everyday objects such as toothpicks, clothes hangers and bricks.
After the two minutes were over, participants were given a 12-minute break, during which they rested, undertook a demanding memory activity that required their full attention or engaged in an undemanding reaction-time activity known to elicit mind-wandering. A fourth group of students had no break. All participants were then given four unusual-uses tasks, including the two that they had completed earlier.
Those students who had done the undemanding activity performed an average of 41% better at the repeated tasks the second time they tried them. By contrast, students in the other three groups showed no improvement.
“We’ve traditionally found that rapid-eye-movement sleep grants creative insight. That allowing the mind to wander does the same is absolutely fascinating. I think they are on to something really interesting here, ” says Sara Mednick, a psychologist at the University of California, Riverside.
Participants who engaged in the undemanding task did not do any better than others on unusual-uses tasks that they encountered for the first time in the second round. “The implication (暗示) is that mind-wandering was only helpful for problems that were already being mentally chewed on. It didn’t seem to lead to a general increase in creative problem-solving ability, ” says Baird.
As well as revealing that breaks on their own do not encourage creative thinking, Baird’s work suggests an explanation for one of psychology’s great mysteries: why we zone out.
From an evolutionary perspective, mind-wandering seems totally counterproductive and has been viewed as dysfunctional because it compromises people’s performance in physical activities. However, Baird’s work shows that allowing the brain to enter this state when it is considering complex problems can have real benefits. Zoning out may have aided humans when survival depended on creative solutions.The “eureka” moments in history actually refer to some_________.
| A．sudden inspirations | B．necessary discoveries |
| C．great achievements | D．unexpected results |
Inspiration or creativity, according to this passage, comes about when _________.
| A．your mind is in an “unusual uses” task |
| B．your mind loses itself and hangs about |
| C．you’ve had a break after hard mind work |
| D．you’ve thought about something for long |
The word “zone out”in italics is the nearest in meaning to _________.
| A．dream while sleeping | B．die away in a secret way |
| C．get the solution suddenly | D．be unable to think clearly |
What do the fifth and sixth paragraphs want to state?
| A．Rapid-eye-movement sleep is a high-quality sleep with a creative mind. |
| B．Regular mind-wandering will lead to creative problem-solving ability. |
| C．People who engage in undemanding tasks cannot do unusual-uses tasks well. |
| D．Only those who’ve been thinking about a thing can come across the solution. |
粤公网安备 44130202000953号