“The first and best of victories is for a man to conquer himself; to be conquered by himself is, of all things, the most shameful，” says Plato. Selfcontrol is at the root of all the advantages. Let a man give in to his impulses (冲动) and feelings, and from that moment he gives up his moral (道德上的) freedom.
A single angry word has lost many a friend. When Socrates found in himself any temper or anger, he would check it by speaking low in order to control himself. If you are conscious of being angry, keep your mouth shut so that you can hold back rising anger. Many a person has dropped dead in great anger. Fits of anger bring fits of disease. “Whom the gods would destroy they firstmake mad” “Keep cool”， says George Herbert, “for fierceness (狂怒) makes error a fault.”
To be angry with a weak man is to prove that you are not strong yourself. “Anger，” says Pythagoras, “brings with folly(愚蠢) and ends with regret.” You must measure the strength of a man by the power of the feelings he conquers, not by the power of those which conquer him.
Selfcontrol is man's last greatest victory.
If a man lacks selfcontrol he seems to lack everything. Without it he can have no patience, no power to govern himself; he can have no selfconfidence, for he will always be controlled by his strongest feeling. If he lacks selfcontrol, the very backbone and nerve of character are lacking also. What does the reader learn from the first paragraph?
| A．The greatest victory for a man is to conquer everything except himself. |
| B．One's moral freedom is based on the control of himself. |
| C．To control oneself is the most difficult in one's life. |
| D．If a person is too stubborn, he will feel most shameful. |
What is the correct interpretation of “Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad”？
| A．If the gods want to kill you, they make you crazy first. |
| B．If you cannot control yourself, you will become crazy. |
| C．If you always lose your temper, you will soon be finished. |
| D．If you are mad, you will be punished by the gods. |
If a man lacks selfcontrol, he lacks all of the following EXCEPT ________.
| A．the very backbone and nerve of character |
| B．the patience and power to control himself |
| C．selfconfidence |
| D．strong feelings |
When I told my father that I was moving to Des Moines, Iowa, he told me about the only time he had been there. It was in the 1930s, when he was an editor if the literary magazine of Southern Methodist University（SMU）in Dallas, Texas. He also worked as a professor at SMU, and there was a girl student in his class who suffered from a serious back disease. She couldn;t afford the operation because her family was poor.
Her mother ran a boardinghouse in Galveston, a seaside town near Houston, Texas. She was cleaning out the attic（阁楼）one day when she came across an old dusty manuscript（手稿）. On its top page were the words, “By O. Henry”. It was a nice story, and she sent it to her daughter at SMU, who showed it to my father. My father had never read the story before, but it sounded like O. Henry, and he knew that O. Henry had once lived in Houston. So it was possible that the famous author had gone to the beach and stayed in the Gainestown boardinghouse, and had written the story there and left the manuscript behind by accident. My father visited an O. Henry expert at Columbia University in New York, who authenticated the story as O. Henry’s.
My father then set out to sell it. Eventfully, he foud himself in Des Moines, meeting with Gardner Cowles, a top editor at the Des Moines Register. Cowles loves the story and bought it on the spot. My father took the money to the girl. It was just enough for her to have the operation she so desperately needed.
My father never told me what the O. Henry story was about. But i doubt that it could have been better than his own story.Who found the O. Henry’s manuscript?
| A．The girl’s mother. | B．The author’s father. |
| C．The girl. | D．The author. |
Which of the following might explain the fact that the manuscript was found in the attic?
| A．O. Henry once worked in Houston. |
| B．O. Henry once stayed in Galveston. |
| C．O. Henry once moved to Des Moines. |
| D．O. Henry once taught at SMU. |
The underlined word “authenticated” in Paragraph 2 probably means __________.
| A．named | B．treated | C．proved | D．described |
According to the text, why did the author’s father go to Des Moines?
| A．To sell the O. Henry story. | B．To meet the author himself. |
| C．To talk with the O. Henry expert. | D．To give money to the girl. |
Our warming planet is expected to face serious water crisis（危机）in the coming decades — which means each nation’s natural resource will be more important than ever.  |
According to the statistics, what is the world average of freshwater resource per person?
| A．244,973 cubic kilometers |
| B．241 cubic kilometers |
| C．3,642 cubic kilometers |
| D．6,122 cubic kilometers |
Which country or region has the most freshwater resource per year?
| A．Guyana | B．Brazil | C．Iceland | D．China |
Which country or region appears twice on the top 5 lists?
| A．Bhutan | B．Seychelles | C．Canada | D．Suriname |
It's generally believed that people act the way they do because of their personalities and attitudes. They recycle their garbage because they care about the environment. They pay $5 for a caramel brulee latte because they like expensive coffee drinks.
It's undeniable that behavior comes from our inner dispositions（性情）, but in many instances we also draw inferences about who we are, as suggested by the social psychologist Daryl Bern, by observing our own behavior. We can be strangers to ourselves. If we knew our own minds, why should we need to guess what our preferences are from our behavior? If our minds were an open book, we would know exactly how much we care about the environment or like lattes. Actually, we often need to look to our behavior to figure out who we are.
Moreover, we don't just use our behavior to learn about our particular types of character --- we infer characters that weren't there before. Our behavior is often shaped by little pressures around us, which we fail to recognize. Maybe we recycle because our wives and neighbors would disapprove if we didn't. Maybe we buy lattes in order to impress the people around us. We should not mistakenly believe that we always behave as a result of some inner disposition.
Whatever pressures there can be or inferences one can make, people become what they do, though it may not be in compliance（符合）with their true desires. Therefore, we should all bear in mind Kurt Vonnegut's advice: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."
| 1． |
According to the passage, personalities and attitudes are commonly believed to.
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| 2． |
Which of the following would Daryl Bern most probably agree with?
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| 3． |
What can be inferred from the underlined sentence in the passage?
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| 4． |
What does the author mainly discusses in the passage?
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One moment it was quiet and calm in the forest, the next, the air was charged with tension. The elephant had heard the distant alarm calls of animals and her mood suddenly changed. I urged the elephant deeper into the forest. We sounded like a forest fire --- cracking, snapping, trailblazing. But through all the noise came a sharp warning cry. The elephant stopped and we heard it again --- the tell-tale call of a spotted deer.
I looked quickly around the shadows of the forest. Rays of sunlight shone through tree branches, beneath which the patchwork（交错）of green plants and shadows-within-shadows would make tiger stripes（条纹）look more attractive. Apart from an occasional noise from the elephant’s stomach, the forest was silent.
Gradually, the tension slipped from our bodies. The elephant seized a nearby branch and put it into its mouth. I reached forward and gently moved my hand over the elephant’s neck; there was a soft part, free of wrinkles and hairs, behind her ear.
This was my fourth time to sense the aura of the forest in Corbett, although I saw no tigers in the end. Located at the foot of the Himalayan mountains, Corbett is home to about 135 Bengal tigers, but the forest seemed to be guarding their whereabouts（出没处）, a silent reminder of their secrecy and rarity. Still, I was happy enough touching the elephant behind the ear. If I had so desperately wanted to see a tiger, I could have gone to a zoo. After all, spotting tigers merely confirms their beauty; tracking them can make you aware of something more.Which of the following was a clear signal of alarm?
| A．The elephant stopped. |
| B．A spotted deer called. |
| C．The elephant seized a branch. |
| D．The forest was silent for a while. |
The author begins his account of the tour in the forest mainly by _______.
| A．describing various sounds |
| B．comparing different animals |
| C．listing different activities |
| D．introducing various plants |
What does the underlined part “to sense the aura” most probably mean?
| A．To see the diversity. |
| B．To enjoy the scenery. |
| C．To feel the atmosphere. |
| D．To experience the freedom. |
How does the author feel after several visits to Corbett?
| A．Seeing a Bengal tiger is quite thrilling. |
| B．It is very time-consuming to travel in Corbett. |
| C．It is really worthwhile to study the animals in Corbett. |
| D．The process of finding Bengal tigers is most appealing. |
The idea of being able to walk on water has long interested humans greatly. Sadly, biological facts prevent us ever accomplishing such a thing without artificial aid --- we simply weigh too much, and all our mass pushes down through our relatively small feet, resulting in a lot of pressure that makes us sink.
However, several types of animals can walk on water. One of the most interesting is the common basilisk Basilicus basilicus, a lizard（蜥蜴）native to Central and South America. It can run across water for a distance of several meters, avoiding getting wet by rapidly hitting the water's surface with its feet. The lizard will take as many as 20 steps per second to keep moving forward. For humans to do this, we'll need huge feet that we could bring up to our ears in order to create adequate "hitting."
But fortunately there is an alternative: cornflour. By adding enough of this common thickening agent to water (and it does take a lot), you can create a "non-Newtonian" liquid that doesn't behave like normal water. Now if the surface of the water is hit hard enough, particles（粒子）in the water group together for a moment to make the surface hard. Move quickly enough and put enough force into each step, and you really can walk across the surface of an adequately thick liquid of cornflour.
Fun though all this may sound, it's still rather messy and better read about in theory than carried out in practice. If you must do it, then keep the water wings handy in case you start to sink --- and take a shower afterward!
| 1． |
Walking on water hasn't become a reality mainly because humans.
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| 2． |
What do we know about Basilicus basilicas from the passage?
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| 3． |
What is the function of the cornflour according to the passage?
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| 4． |
What is the author's attitude toward the idea of human's walking on water?
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