Signs in Chinese will be set up in public areas such as airports, to benefit Chinese travelers, the Italian Government announced in late February. Now many European countries are expected to follow this example.
Despite the different languages, travel across Europe has never been so simple. Just five years ago, if you wanted to visit Germany in the north and Spain in the south in one trip, you had to wait for weeks to apply for different visas from the two countries. You also needed a calculator because both countries had different money.
Today, with a Schengen Visa issued by any member country, you can travel across 15 European countries without stopping. Since 2002, within most of the EU, there is now just one type of money called the Euro. The Euro was designed to be the only money in the EU, and already makes it easier to shop around. If you drive, your driving license and car insurance policy are valid（有效的）in the other European countries. And you can use your mobile phone everywhere.
All the countries in the continent are melting into a united Europe under the EU. For Europeans and visitors, the result is that it is more convenient to travel back and forth between the different countries. By saying the underlined sentence “Now many European countries are expected to follow this example”, the writer means that ____.
| A．more signs will be set up in Chinese in European countries |
| B．more and more Europeans have a desire to know more about China |
| C．more and more Chinese people will go to travel across Europe |
| D．Chinese is now an important language in Europe |
Compared to five years ago, traveling in Europe has become easier because ___.
| A．you needn’t drive a car |
| B．you can use a calculator to exchange money |
| C．applying for different visas is much simpler |
| D．one visa is good enough for traveling in a number of countries |
It can be inferred from the passage that _____.
| A．an increasing number of Chinese tend to travel to Europe |
| B．Chinese has become an important language in Europe |
| C．the Euro is the only money used in the EU now |
| D．it is always necessary to unite many countries into one |
A Hollywood movie was met with an awkward situation last Saturday in China. While fans are standing in long queues to watch the first show, others are advocating a boycott（抵制）on the American movie with Chinese story elements.
After "Kung Fu Panda", a cartoon movie telling about a panda’s Kung Fu master journey, hit China’s silver screens in 2008, its sequel (续集), Kung Fu Panda 2, was released in China just ahead of International Children’s Day, adding more Chinese elements such as shadow play (皮影戏) and lion dancing.
However, some Chinese artists and scholars argue that the movie has twisted (扭曲) Chinese culture and serves as a tool to "kidnap (绑架)" the mind of the Chinese people.
“Children’s Day should be pure. Don’t turn it into a money-making day for Hollywood, and don’ t fool our next generation with American fast food,” according to an open letter to Chinese cinema managers written by Zhao Bandi, an artist hoping to boycott the “Americanized” movie. His move is backed by Kong Qingdong, a professor of the Chinese language in Beijing University, who said Chinese elements have become advertising products to advocate American culture. "It is a cultural invasion," said Kong.
In the movie, the main character called “Po,” a panda, is talkative, humorous, lovely, and is widely believed to be a typical American figure.
However, the panda has won millions of fans in China. On China’s most popular website, comments on the movie reached nearly 270 million entries.
“I won’t call it a cultural invasion,” said Li Jiayi, a Beijing university student. “I see nothing bad for others to use our cultural elements to make a movie. I’ m a huge fan of Po. In spite of being a cartoon, it is still loved by many adults like me,” said the 25-year-old after watching the first show at midnight.
Cao Hui, general manager of Shenzhen Global Digital Creations company, said: “instead of a
‘boycott’, movie producers should learn from the movie to make better use of Chinese story elements. Technically, Kung Fu Panda is not more advanced than Chinese movies, but as for story telling skills, Chinese movies have a long way to go”.Some artists and scholars are against "Kung Fu Panda" because they think_____.
| A．it has added too many Chinese elements |
| B．it has ruined Chinese image deliberately |
| C．it is an exact copy of Chinese culture |
| D．it is advertising American culture |
What does the underlined word “backed” in the fourth paragraph mean?
| A．supported | B．criticized | C．released | D．resisted |
This passage can be classified as _________.
| A．an advertisement | B．a feature story | C．a news report | D．a film review |
It’s easy to see how to help others, but what about those whose needs aren’t so obvious? This story may have happened a while back, but it was a lesson which has stayed with me and helped me ever since.
It was Thanksgiving and I was volunteering with my parents at a shelter for the poor. We stood behind the counter dishing out hot food to whoever came in. Most of our dinners looked like they had been having hard times, their clothes old, worn and dry. In short, they looked poor!
Then, a man came in, who looked anything but poor. He was well dressed, wearing an expensive suit. I wondered what he was doing there and my jaw dropped in amazement when he joined the line for food. The closer he came to my service station, the more I muttered. What was this man doing? I wanted to know. Surely he wasn’t going to take food.
Then my mother quietly took me to one side. She said, “ You have assumed that the needs of the people who come here must be purely physical: hunger, inadequate shelter and needs are emotional? What if he needs comfort, friends, or just to be among other human beings?” Her words hit me like a ton of bricks! About a week later the shelter received a large donation from an anonymous source. I can’t help but wonder if it came from that man. I felt like I should apologize to the man, but I didn’t.
Now, whenever I meet others, I remember my mother’s words and try to send kindness and blessings to them, regardless of how they look. Needs aren’t always visible. But kindness always makes a difference.The task of the author at the shelter was to_______.
| A．decide whether dinners looked poor |
| B．learn life experience there |
| C．serve hot food to the poor |
| D．help parents order dishes |
When the man waited in line, how did the author feel?
| A．Surprised | B．Pitiful | C．Excited | D．Angry |
The author felt he should apologize to the man, because he_______.
| A．was asked to do so by his mother |
| B．gave the man food much less than others |
| C．realized something was wrong with the man |
| D．knew later that the man might go there to donate |
What can we infer from the last paragraph?
| A．We should show others kindness whatever their needs are |
| B．Some needs can’t be known clearly at times |
| C．Needs can always be met by kindness |
| D．We should find out others’ needs |
Recently I spoke to some of my students about what they wanted to do after they graduated, and what kind of job prospects they thought they had.
Given that I teach students who are training to be doctors, I was surprised to find that most thought that they would not be able to get the jobs they wanted without “outside help”. “What kind of help is that?” I asked, expecting them to tell me that they would need a relative or family friend to help them out.
“Surgery(外科手术)”, one replied. I was pretty alarmed by that response. It seems that the graduates of today are increasingly willing to go under the knife to get ahead of others when it comes to getting a job. One girl told me that she was considering surgery to increase her height. “They break your legs, put in special extending screws, and slowly expand the gap between the two ends of the bone as it regrows, you can get at least 5cm taller!”
At that point, I was shocked. I am short, I can’t deny that, but I don’t think I would put myself through months of agony(痛苦) just to be a few centimeters taller. I don’t even bother to wear shoes with thick soles, as I’m not trying to hide the fact that I am just not tall! It seems to me that there is a trend toward wanting “perfection”, and that is an ideal that just does not exist in reality.
No one is born perfect, yet magazines, TV shows and movies present images of thin, tall, beautiful people as being the norm. Advertisements for slimming aids, beauty treatments and cosmetic surgery clinics fill the pages of newspapers, further creating an idea that “perfection” is a requirement, and that it must be purchased, no matter what the cost. In my opinion, skills, rather than appearance, should determine how successful a person is in his chosen career.We can know from the passage that the author works as ______.
| A．a doctor | B．a model | C．a teacher | D．a reporter |
Many graduates today turn to cosmetic surgery to______.
| A．marry a better man\woman |
| B．become a model |
| C．get an advantage over others in job-hunt |
| D．attract more admirers |
According to the passage, the author believes that ______.
| A．everyone should purchase perfection, whatever the cost |
| B．it’s right for graduates to ask for others to help them out in hunting for jobs |
| C．media are to blame for misleading young people in their seeking for surgery |
| D．it is one’s appearance instead of skills that really matters in one’s career |
What does the author think of his height?
| A．He hates to be called a short man. |
| B．He tries to increase his height through surgery. |
| C．He always wears shoes with thick soles to hide the fact. |
| D．He just accepts it as it is |
Eating too much fatty food, exercising too little and smoking can raise your future risk of heart disease. But there is another factor that can cause your heart problems more immediately: the air you breathe.
Previous studies have linked high exposure (暴露）to environmental pollution to an increased risk of heart problem, but two analyses now show that poor air quality can lead to heart attack or stroke (中风）within as little as a few hours after exposure. In one review of the research, scientists found that people exposed to high levels of pollutants (污染物）were up to 5% more likely to suffer a heart attack within days of exposure than those with lower exposure. A separate study of stroke patients showed that even air that the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers to be of “moderate” (良好）quality and relatively safe for our health can raise the risk of stroke as much as 34% within 12 to 14 hours of exposure.
The authors of both studies stress that these risks are relatively small for healthy people and certainly modest compared with other risk factors such as smoking and high blood pressure. However, it is important to be aware of these dangers because everyone is exposed to air pollution regardless of lifestyle choices. So stricter regulation by the EPA of pollutants may not only improve environmental air quality but could also become necessary to protect public health.The text mainly discusses the relationship between ______ .
| A．heart problems and air quality | B．heart problems and exercising |
| C．heart problems and smoking | D．heart problems and fatty food |
The underlined word “modest” in Paragraph 3 most probably means ______ .
| A．relatively high | B．extremely low |
| C．relatively low | D．extremely high |
What can we learn from the text?
| A．Eating fatty food has immediate effects on your heart. |
| B．The EPA conducted many studies on air quality. |
| C．Moderate air quality is more harmful than smoking. |
| D．Stricter regulations on pollutants should be made. |
The author’s purpose of writing the text is most likely to _______.
| A．inform | B．persuade | C．describe | D．entertain |
When my brother and I were young, my mom would take us on Transportation Days.
It goes like this: You can't take any means of transportation more than once. We would start from home, walking two blocks to the rail station. We'd take the train into the city center, then a bus, switching to the train, then maybe a taxi. We always considered taking a horse carriage in the historic district, but we didn't like the way the horses were treated, so we never did. At the end of the day, we took the subway to our closest station, where Mom's friend was waiting to give us a ride home—our first car ride of the day.
The good thing about Transportation Days is not only that Mom taught us how to get around. She was born to be multimodal (多方式的). She understood that depending on cars only was a failure of imagination and, above all, a failure of confidence—the product of a childhood not spent exploring subway tunnels.
Once you learn the route map and step with certainty over the gap between the train and the platform, nothing is frightening anymore. New cities are just lightrail lines to be explored. And your personal car, if you have one, becomes just one more tool in the toolbox—and often an inadequate one, limiting both your mobility and your wallet.
On Transportation Days, we might stop for lunch on Chestrut Street or buy a new book or toy, but the transportation was the point. First, it was exciting enough to watch the world speed by from the train window. As I got older, my mom helped me unlock the mysteries that would otherwise have paralyzed my first attempts to do it myself: How do I know where to get off? How do I know how much it costs? How do I know when I need tickets, and where to get them? What track, what line, which direction, where's the stop, and will I get wet when we go under the river?
I'm writing this right now on an airplane, a means we didn't try on our Transportation Days and, we now know, the dirtiest and most polluting of them all. My flight routed me through Philadelphia. My multimodal mom met me for dinner in the airport. She took a train to meet me. According to the writer, what was the greatest benefit of her Transportation Days?
| A．Building confidence in herself. |
| B．Reducing her use of private cars. |
| C．Developing her sense of direction. |
| D．Giving her knowledge about vehicles. |
The underlined word “paralyzed”(in Para.5) is closest in meaning to “________”．
| A．displayed | B．justified | C．ignored | D．ruined |
Which means of transportation does the writer probably disapprove of?
| A．Airplane. | B．Subway. | C．Train. | D．Car. |
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