Based on new analysis, we are rapidly approaching major climate change and the effects on society and the environment could be quite severe. Geographers predict that within the next eighty years, current world climate zones could shift and some could completely disappear. Polar regions will get colder while tropical regions will get even hotter, forcing animals to migrate (迁徙) north.
Climate changes like these could lead to the spread of diseases. Tropical storms and hurricanes will not only increase but may also become more intense. If the changes come too quickly, animal and plant species may not be able to adapt fast enough and could disappear.
According to Science Daily, a new study predicts that by the year 2100, many of today’s familiar climates will be replaced by climates unknown in today’s world. It is urgent that we reduce the risks of these far-reaching consequences for the whole world. The planet itself has been showing signs of change. In 2004, a serious tsunami created by a major earthquake killed thousands in Sumatra and in 2008, thousands died in China because of another severe earthquake. Egypt was hit in 2009 with a major earthquake and Haiti was devastated in 2010 by yet another massive earthquake.
Within just the last few months, new reports from around the world have been coming in and most agree that our climate situation is much worse than previously thought. At this point, it doesn’t matter what is causing it, but rather, what can be done about it. What’s more, our world is getting more and more unstable every year. There is war and threat of war everywhere. Natural disasters are becoming more frequent and serious.
However, other planets are experiencing global warming as well as our own and some scientists believe there may be some connection between this. No one knows anything for sure at this point because there is simply not enough data. Which of the following would be the best title for the Passage ?
| A．Ways to protect our planet. | B．Solutions to climate change. |
| C．Be prepared for climate change. | D．Climate change and its effects. |
What is the author’s purpose in using the examples of earthquakes?
| A．To show the damage earthquakes caused. |
| B．To remind people to prevent future earthquakes. |
| C．To show major changes are taking place on the planet. |
| D．To tell us more earthquakes will happen in the future. |
What does the underlined word “devastated” in Paragraph 3 mean?
| A．Separated. | B．Destroyed. | C．Removed. | D．Affected. |
What can be inferred from the Passage?
| A．Animals and plants won’t die out as long as climate changes slowly. |
| B．There’s enough data for us to predict the future of climate change. |
| C．The world is getting more unstable because of animal migration. |
| D．The earth is not the only planet that is experiencing climate change. |
In the West, advertisements are the fuel that makes mass media (大众传媒) work. Many TV stations, newspapers, magazines, radio stations are privately owned. The government does not give them money. So where does the money come from? From advertisements. Without advertisements, there would not be these private businesses.
Have you ever asked yourself what advertising is? Through the years, people have given different answers to the question. For some time it was felt that advertising was a means of “keeping your name before the public”. And some people thought that advertising was “truth well told”. Now more and more people consider it in this way: Advertising is the paid, non-personal, and usually persuasive presentation of goods, services and ideas by some certain sponsors (赞助商) through various media.
First, advertising is usually paid for. Various sponsors pay for the advertisements we see, read, and hear over the various media. Second, advertising is non-personal. It is not face-to-face communication. Although you may feel that a message in a certain advertisement is aimed directly at you, in fact, it is directed at large groups of people. Third, advertising is usually persuasive. Directly or indirectly it asks people to do something. All advertisements try to make people believe that the product, idea, or service advertised can benefit them. Fourth, the sponsors of the advertisement must show their names. From the advertisement, we can see if the sponsor is a company, or a single person. Fifth, advertising reaches us through old and modern mass media. Included in the old media are newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and films. Modern media include emails, matchbox covers, and boards on top of buildings.The existence of the privately owned mass media depends on the support of ________.
| A．the government | B．their owners families |
| C．advertisements | D．the TV stations |
The passage seems to say that different ideas about what advertising is are given due to ________.
| A．the change of time | B．the subject of the advertisements |
| C．people’s age difference | D．people’s different opinions |
Which of the following is considered modern mass media? ________.
| A．Newspapers | B．Emails | C．Magazines | D．Films |
According to the passage, which of the following statements about advertisements is NOT true?
| A．The sponsors are always mentioned. |
| B．Advertising must be honest and humorous. |
| C．There is the description of things advertised. |
| D．Advertising is directed at large groups of people. |
Most students hate their endless homework. The students from Class 2, Senior 2 of the High School Affiliated to Peking University certainly did before they published their own collection of English novels at home.
Their small book contains stories about a holy (神圣的) war, the happy life of a self-taught artist and the story of a laid-off worker who devoted his last breath to playing his beloved accordion (手风琴). The book becomes an instant hit on campus. About 3,000 copies have been sold and the class is already working on the second volume.
"We’re up to our ears in homework. Exercises and exams make us out of breath. But to do something creative and full of imagination is such a great achievement," said Yu Xiaoxiao, 16.
"I took the writing as an ordinary homework at the beginning, but after I finished the first part of my story, I could not help but let it flow," said Wang An, who wrote "Accordion".
Inspired by "Lord of the Rings", Jiang Lu wrote his story about magic wars between angels from the light and the dark side. "The main message of the story was to look at the balance of the world. Both dark and light angels fight with love as their weapons. I want to tell people that selfish love might bring hate," Jiang said.
"I was shocked by their work and felt so proud to be the editor of my students’ book," said Nathaniel Timmermann, the oral English teacher at the school. Liu Xiuqin, an English teacher, started the project by asking students to write whatever was in their mind every week. "They have performed beyond expectation," Liu said. "They wrote interesting stories and their English has improved after they started to express their real minds."
"We never imagined that our homework would be so popular and profitable (盈利的). We sell the novels at five yuan, but many teachers pay more to encourage us," said Yuan Mengyao. After Wang An finished the first part of his story, he _________.
| A．couldn’t go on | B．had to put it aside |
| C．just wanted to express it freely | D．lost it |
What was not the outcome of the students’ homework of writing whatever was in their mind?
| A．Being popular. | B．Being profitable. |
| C．Improving their English. | D．Winning prize. |
What is the reason for the students’ liking to write interesting stories?
| A．It is creative and imaginative. |
| B．It is profitable. |
| C．Interesting stories are sure to be popular. |
| D．Interesting stories can be well sold. |
What is the best title of this passage?
| A．Creative homework leads to a popular book |
| B．Writing interesting stories |
| C．Students’ new book |
| D．A popular book |
Without proper planning，tourism can cause problems．For example，too many tourists can crowd public places that are also enjoyed by the inhabitants of the country．If tourists create too much traffic，the inhabitants become annoyed and unhappy．They begin to dislike tourists and to treat them impolitely．They forget how much tourism can help the country’s economy．It is important to think about the people of a destination (旅行目的地) country and how tourism affects them．Tourism should help a country keep the customs and beauty that attract tourists．Tourism should also advance the wealth and happiness of local inhabitants．
Too much tourism can be a problem．If tourism grows too quickly，people must leave other jobs to work in the tourism industry．This means that other parts of the country’s economy can suffer．
On the other hand，if there is not enough tourism，people can lose jobs．Businesses can also lose money．It costs a great deal of money to build large hotels．Airports，first-class roads，and other support facilities (配套设施) needed by tourist attractions．For example，a major international class tourism hotel can cost as much as 50 thousand dollars per room to build．If this room is not used most of the time，the owners of the hotel will lose money．
Building a hotel is just a beginning．There must be many other support facilities as well，including roads to get to the hotel，electricity，sewers (下水道) to handle waste，and water．All of these support facilities cost money．If they are not used because there are not enough tourists，jobs and money are lost．Which of the following do you think has been discussed in the part before this selection?
| A．It is extremely important to develop tourism． |
| B．Building roads and hotels is important． |
| C．Support facilities are highly necessary． |
| D．Planning is of great importance to tourism． |
The underlined word “inhabitants” (in Paragraph 1) probably means ______．
| A．citizens | B．passengers | C．population | D．tourists |
Too much tourism can cause all these problems EXCEPT _______．
| A．a bad effect on other industries | B．a change of tourists’ customs |
| C．over-crowdedness of places of interest | D．pressure on traffic |
It can be inferred from the text that _______．
| A．the author doesn’t like tourism developing so fast. |
| B．local people will benefit from tourist attraction. |
| C．people will lose jobs because of the development of tourism. |
| D．we shouldn’t build support facilities needed by tourist attractions . |
The author thinks it is good for local people to know that tourism will _____．
| A．waste a lot of money | B．weaken their economy |
| C．help establish (确立) their customs | D．help improve their life |
“Life is speeding up. Everyone is getting unwell.”
This may sound like something someone would say today. But in fact, an unknown citizen who lived in Rome in AD 52 wrote it.
We all love new inventions. They are exciting, amazing and can even change our lives. But have all these developments really improve the quality of our lives?
Picture this: You’re rushing to finish your homework on the computer. Your mobile phone rings, a QQ message from your friend appears on the screen, the noise from the television is getting louder and louder. Suddenly the computer goes blank and you lose all your work. Now you have to stay up all night to get it done. How calm and happy do you feel?
Inventions have speeded up our lives so much that they often leave us feeling stressed and tired. Why do you think people who live far away from noisy cities, who have no telephones, no cars, not even any electricity often seem to be happier? Perhaps because they lead simpler lives.
One family in the UK went “back in time” to see what life was like without all the inventions we have today. The grandparents, with their daughter, and grandsons Benjamin, 10, and Tomas, 7, spent nine weeks in a 1940s house. They had no washing machine, microwave, computer or mobile phones.
The grandmother, Lyn, said, “It was hard physically, but not mentally.” She believed life was less materialistic. “The more things you have, the more difficult life becomes,” She said. The boys said they fought less to fight over, such as their computer. Benjamin also noticed that his grandmother had changed from being a “trendy（时髦的）, beer-drinking granny, to one who cooked things.”
Here are some simple ways to beat the stress often caused by our inventions!
Don’t be available all the time. Turn off your mobile phone at certain times of the day. Don’t check your e-mail every day.
Don’t reply to somebody as soon as they leave a text message just because you can. It may be fun at first, but it soon gets annoying.The passage is mainly about _______.
| A．problem with technology |
| B．improvements of our life with technology |
| C．the important roles technology plays in our everyday life |
| D．major changes which will be likely to happen to technology |
The writer quoted (引用) what a citizen in ancient Rome said at the beginning of the story in order to ______________.
| A．share a truth about life |
| B．tell us what life was like long time ago |
| C．make us wonder what causes such a thing to happen |
| D．point out that you experience some big problems and they may be the same |
Why did the family choose to spend some time in a 1940’s house? Because ______________.
| A．they liked to live simple lives |
| B．they were curious about how people lived without modern inventions |
| C．they were troubled by modern inventions |
| D．living in a different time would be a lot of fun for them |
What do you think the underlined word “available” in the first suggestion offered by the writer mean?
| A．Busy on line | B．Free | C．Be able to | D．Be found by others. |
Some people are lucky enough to be born with a good sense of direction and even if they have only visited a place once, they will be able to find it again years later.
I am one of those unfortunate people who have poor sense of direction and I may have visited a place time after time but I still get lost on my way there. When I was young I was so shy that I never dared ask complete strangers the way and so I used to wander round in circles and hope that by some chance I would get to the spot I was heading for.
I am no longer too shy to ask people for direction, but I often receive replies that puzzle me. Often people do not like to admit that they didn’t know their hometown and will insist on telling you the way, even if they do not know it; others, who are anxious to prove that they know their hometown very well, will give you a long list of directions which you can not possibly hope to remember, and still others do not seem to be able to tell between their left and their right and you find in the end that you are going in the opposite direction to that in which you should be going.
If anyone ever asks me the way to somewhere, I always tell them I am a stranger to the town in order to avoid giving them wrong direction but even this can have embarrassing results.
Once I was on my way to work when I was stopped by a man who asked me if I would direct him the way to the Sunlight Building. I gave my usual reply, but I had not walked on a few steps when I realized that he had asked for directions to my office building. However, at this point, I decide it was too late to turn back and search for him out of the crowd behind me as I was going to meet with someone at the office and I did not want to keep him waiting.
Imagine my embarrassment when my secretary showed in the very man who had asked for directions of my office and his astonishment when he recognized me as the person he had asked.What is the writer going to do when someone asks him for direction?
| A．He will direct the right way to the person willingly. |
| B．He will reply to it by the means of being a stranger to the town. |
| C．He will give the very person long list of direction. |
| D．He is going to show the man an opposite direction. |
Why did the writer consider himself to be an unlucky dog?
| A．Because of his poor sense of direction. |
| B．Because he always forget the way to home. |
| C．Because he did not have any friend. |
| D．Because he used to be shy and dared not ask others the way. |
How did the visitor feel when he was showed into the very room?
| A．He felt strange. | B．He felt embarrassed. |
| C．He felt very sad. | D．He felt astonished. |
Who showed the right way to the interviewee according to the passage?
| A．Someone we don’t know. | B．The writer did it for himself. |
| C．The secretary did so. | D．A warm-hearted old lady did such a thing. |
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