May : Happenings from the past
May 5,1884
Isaac Murphy , son of a slave and perhaps the greatest horse rider in American history , rides Buchanan to win his first Kentucky Derby . He becomes the first rider ever to win the race three times .
May 9 , 1754
Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette produces perhaps the first American political cartoon （漫画）, showing a snake cut in pieces, with the words “ Join or Die” printed under the picture.
May 11,1934
The first great dust storm of the Great Plains Dust Bowl , the result of years of drought，blows topsoil all the way to New York City and Washington , D.C. .
May 19, 1994
Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis , former first lady and one of the most famous people of the 1960s , died of cancer in New York City at the age of 64 .
May 24, 1844
Samuel F.B. Morsr taps out the first message , “ What Hath God Wrought ,” over the experimental long-distance telegraph line which runs from Washington, D.C. , to Baltimeore , Md .We know from the text that Buchanan is_____________.
| A．Isaac”s father |
| B．a winning horse |
| C．a slave taking care if horses |
| D．the first racing horse in Kentucky |
What is the title of the first American political cartoon ?
| A．Join or Die | B．Pennsylvania Gazette |
| C．What Hath God Wrought | D．Kentucky Derby |
In which year did the former first lady Jacqueline die ?
| A．1934 | B．1960 |
| C．1964 | D．1994 |
Which of the following places has to do with the first telegram in history ?
A. Washington , D. C. B. New York City
C. Kentucky. D. Pennsylvania
The greatest recent social changes have been in the lives of women. During the twentieth century there has been a remarkable shortening of the proportion of a woman's life spent in caring for the children. A woman marrying at the end of the nineteenth century would probably have been in her middle twenties ,and would be likely to have seven or eight children, four or five of whom lived till they were five years old. By the time the youngest was fifteen, the mother would have been in her early fifties and would expect to live a further twenty years, during which health made it unusual for her to get paid work.. Today women marry younger and have fewer children. Usually a woman's youngest child will be fifteen when she is forty-five years and can be expected to live another thirty-five years and is likely to take paid work until retirement at sixty. Even while she has to take care of children, her work is lightened by moder living conditions.
This important change in women's life-patterns has only recently begun to have its full effect on women's economic position. Even a few years ago most girls took a full-time job after they left school.. However, when they married, they usually left work at once and never returned to it. Today the school- leaving age is sixteen, many girls stay at school after that age, and though women usually marry older, more married women stay at work at least until shortly before their first child is born. Many more afterwards return to full-or-part-time work. Such changes have led to a new relationship in marriage, with the husband accepting a greater share of the duties and satisfactions of family life, and with both husband and wife sharing more equally in providing the money, and running the home, according to the abilities and interests of each of them.At what age did most women marry around the 1890 according to the passage?
| A．At about twenty-five | B．In their earl fifties |
| C．At the age of fifteen | D．At any age from fifteen to forty-five |
What happened to an ordinary family in about 1900?
| A．The youngest child could live to fifteen. |
| B．Four of five children died after they were five. |
| C．Seven or eight children lived to be more than five. |
| D．Some children died when the were very young. |
When she was over fifty , a late nineteenth-century mother ______.
| A．was usaully expected to die fiarely soon |
| B．would expect to work until she died |
| C．would be healthy enough to take up paid jobs |
| D．was less like to find a job even if she wanted to |
What do we know from the passage?
| A．Husbands and wives share equal responsibilities at home. |
| B．More and more women are looked down upon by husbands. |
| C．Today women prefer to get married rather than get jobs. |
| D．A husband plays a greater part in looking after the children. |
Some people have travelled to Canada while others may have just heard of it . As is known to all, the Canadian red and white maple leaf flag is officially called The National Flag of Canada. The Canadian flag shows a stylized red maple leaf with 11 points on a white background, with red borders down each side. The Canadian flag is twice as long as its width. The white square containing the red maple leaf is the same width as the flag. Canada is a very large country, too. It is the second largest country in the world.By contrast, it has a very small population. There are only about 29 millinon people there. Most Canadians are of British or French origin, and French is an official language as well English. About 45 % of the people are of British origin, that is, they or their parents or grandparents, etc, come from Britain. Nearly 30 % are of French origin. Most of the French-Canadians live in the province of quebec. Over the years people have come to live in Canada from many countries in the world. They are mostly from European countries and also from China, as well as other Asian countries.
However , Canada was not an empty country when the Europeans began to arrive. Canadian-Indian lived along the coast, bythe rivers and lakes and in forests. Today there are only 350,000 Canadian-Indians in the whole country, with their own language. In the far north live the Inuits. There are only 27, 000 Canadian-Inuits. Their life is hard in such a harsh climate.What is the populatin of Quebec?
| A．More than 29, 000.000 |
| B．About 30% of the total population. |
| C．Over 45% of th etotal population |
| D．Less than 30% of the French-Canadians. |
Which of the following stands for Canada?
Which of the following is TRUE according to this passage?
| A．The Canadian flag I stwice as wide as its length. |
| B．Most Indians are now forced to live along the coast. |
| C．Nowadays Inuit still have difficult living conditions. |
| D．Nobody existed when the Europeans began to arrive in Canada. |
My sister Jodie and I are always traveling for work. As jewelry designers, we need to go to a lot of shows. We can’t pack lightly and usually bring about four suitcases filled with our work.
Most of our stuff is made from heavy materials and metals. So part of the routine for us when we fly is getting stopped by security. Our jewelry sets off the alarms, and we’ve become accustomed to arriving early to go through private screenings. Most of the time, it’s not troublesome.
However, on our recent trip to a Paris trade show, we were stopped at security and asked to empty our bags. One of the agents walked over to another agent and they started whispering to each other. Both gentlemen came back, and one of them then told us that it seemed that we were carrying a very dangerous object.
My sister and I just said, “Huh?” Of course, we were a little concerned, thinking that maybe someone put something dangerous in one of our bags when we weren’t looking.
One of the agents then started to unpack our bags. I kept asking what he was looking for and then the object in question finally appeared. It was our Cosima necklace. It’s a piece of jewelry, with large, metal triangular spikes.
My sister and I looked at each other and breathed a huge sigh of relief. We started laughing and explained to the two male agents that it was just a necklace from our collection, not a weapon of mass destruction. They thought we were lying, and one agent kept repeating that he believed it was a weapon.
I tried to explain that we were jewelry designers going to a trade show, and this was simply a piece from our collection. But the agents didn’t buy it. Then a few women guards came over to assist. One of the women guards was holding an earring up to her ear and another was trying on a ring. Apparently, they liked our stuff.
It was only at this point that the male guards gave up. And I think they also got tired of listening to a bunch of women talk about jewelry. They let us through.
We took the names of the women agents and sent them a piece of jewelry when we got back to say thanks. When the object in question finally appeared, the writer and her sister felt _______.
| A．anxious | B．relieved | C．excited | D．frightened |
The writer and her sister were stopped by the agents because ________.
| A．their suitcases were too heavy |
| B．the agents wanted to play a joke on them |
| C．they were suspected to carry dangerous objects |
| D．the agents wanted to admire the jewelry inside the suitcases |
The underlined word “buy” in Paragraph 7 probably means ________.
| A．doubt | B．believe | C．purchase | D．understand |
The writer sent the women agents a piece of jewelry in order to ________.
| A．persuade them to buy her jewelry later |
| B．get help from them next time |
| C．show them her talent in designing jewelry |
| D．show them her gratitude for their assistance |
According to this passage, which of the following statements is NOT true?
| A．Someone put something dangerous in one of the writer’s bags. |
| B．The male agents didn’t believe the writer at first. |
| C．The female agents liked the jewelry. |
| D．The writer is always travelling on business. |
For those who make journeys across the world, the speed of travel today has turned the countries into a series of villages. Distances between them appear no greater to a modern traveler than those which once faced men as they walked from village to village. Jet plane fly people from one end of the earth to the other, allowing them a freedom of movement undreamt of a hundred years ago.
Yet some people wonder if the revolution in travel has gone too far. A price has been paid, they say, for the conquest （征服） of time and distance. Travel is something to be enjoyed, not endured （忍受）. The boat offers leisure and time enough to appreciate the ever-changing sights and sounds of a journey. A journey by train also has a special charm about it. Lakes and forests and wild, open plains sweeping past your carriage window create a grand view in which time and distance mean nothing. On board a plane, however, there is just the blank blue of the sky filling the narrow window of the airplane. The soft lighting, in-flight films and gentle music make up the only world you know, and the hours progress slowly.
Then there is the time spent being “processed” at a modern airport. People are conveyed like robots along walkways; baggage is weighed, tickets produced, examined and produced yet again before the passenger move again to another waiting area. Journeys by rail and sea take longer, yes, but the hours devoted to being “processed” at departure and arrival in airports are luckily absent. No wonder, then, that the modern high-speed trains are winning back passengers from the airlines.
Man, however, is now a world traveler and can not turn his back on the airplane. The working lives of too many people depend upon it; whole new industries have been built around its design and operation. The holiday maker, too, with limited time to spend, patiently endures the busy airports and limited space of the flight to gain those extra hours and even days, relaxing in the sun. speed controls people’s lives；time saved, in work or play, is the important thing—or so we are told. Perhaps those first horsemen, riding free across the wild, open plains, were enjoying a better world than the one we know today. They could travel at will, and the clock was not their master. What does the writer try to express in Paragraph1?
| A．Travel by plane has speeded up the growth of villages. |
| B．The speed of modern travel has made distances relatively short. |
| C．The freedom of movement has helped people realize their dreams. |
| D．Man has been fond of traveling rather than staying in one place. |
How does the writer support the underlined statement in Paragraph2?
| A．By giving instructions. |
| B．By analyzing cause and effect. |
| C．By following the order of time. |
| D．By giving examples. |
According to Paragraph3, passengers are turning back to modern high-speed trains because______.
| A．they pay less for the tickets |
| B．they feel safer during the travel. |
| C．they can enjoy higher speed of travel |
| D．they don’t have to waste time being “processed” |
What does the last sentence of the passage mean?
| A．They could enjoy free and relaxing travel. |
| B．They needed the clock to tell the time. |
| C．They preferred traveling on horseback. |
| D．They could travel with their master. |
What is the main idea of the passage?
| A．Air travel benefits people and industries. |
| B．Train Travel has some advantages over air travel. |
| C．Great changes have taken place in modern travel. |
| D．The high speed of air travel is gained at a cost. |
There were smiling children all the way. Clearly they knew at what time the train passed their homes and they made it their business to stand along the railway, wave to complete strangers and cheer them up as they rushed towards Penang. Often whole families stood outside their homes and waved and smiled as if those on the trains were their favorite relatives. This is the simple village people of Maiaysia. I was moved.
I had always traveled to Malaysia by plane or car, so this was the first time I was on a train. I did not particularly relish the long train journey and had brought along a dozen magazines to read and reread. I looked about the train. There was not one familiar face. I sighed and sat down to read my Economics.
It was not long before the train was across the Causeway and in Malaysia. Johore Baru was just another city like Singapore, so I was tired of looking at the crowds of people as they hurried past. As we went beyond the city, I watched the straight rows of rubber trees and miles and miles of green. Then the first village came into sight. Immediately I came alive. I decided to wave back.
From then on my journey became interesting. I threw my magazines into the waste basket and decided to join in Malaysian life. Then everything came alive. The mountains seemed to speak to me. Even the trees were smiling. I stared at everything as if I was looking at it for the first time.
The day passed fast and I even forgot to have my lunch until I felt hungry. I looked at my watch and was surprised that it was 3:00 pm. Soon the train pulled up at Butterworth. I looked at the people all around me. They all looked beautiful. When my uncle arrived with a smile, I threw my arms around him to give him a warm hug （拥抱）. I had never done this before. He seemed surprised and then his weather-beaten face warmed up with a huge smile. We walked arm in arm to his car.
I looked forward to the return journey.The author expected the train trip to be ________.
| A．adventurous | B．pleasant | C．exciting | D．dull |
What did the author remember most fondly of her train trip________?
| A．The friendly country people. |
| B．The mountains along the way. |
| C．The crowds of people in the streets. |
| D．The simple lunch served on the train. |
Which of the following words can best take the place of the word “relish” in the second paragraph_____?
| A．choose | B．enjoy | C．prepare for | D．carry on |
Where was the writer going________?
| A．Johore Baru. | B．The Causeway. | C．Butterworth. | D．Singapore. |
What can we learn from the story________?
| A．Comfort in traveling by t rain. |
| B．Pleasure of living in the country. |
| C．Reading gives people delight. |
| D．Smiles brighten people up. |
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