When I was 16 years old, I made my first visit to the United States. It wasn’t the first time I had been abroad. Like most English children, I learnt French at school and I had often been to France, so I was used to speaking a foreign language to people who didn’t understand English. But when I went to America I was really looking forward to having a nice easy holiday without any language problems.
How wrong I was! The misunderstanding began at the airport. I was looking for a public telephone to give my American friend Danny a ring and tell her that I had arrived. A friendly old man saw me looking like being lost and asked if he could help me.
“Yes,”I said.“I want to give my friend a ring.”
“Well, that’s nice,”he exclaimed (惊呼).“Are you getting married? But aren’t you a bit young？”
“Who is talking about marriage?” I replied. “I just want to give my friend a ring to tell her I’ve arrived. Can you tell me where there’s a phone box?”
“Oh!”he said.“There’s a phone downstairs.”
When at last we did meet up, Danny explained the misunderstanding to me.“Don’t worry,” she said to me.“I had many difficulties at first. There are lots of words which the Americans use differently in meaning from us British. You’ll soon get used to all the funny things they say. But most of the time British and American people can understand each other!”Where was the writer from? _____.
| A．America | B．France |
| C．England | D．China |
When the writer arrived at the airport, he wanted to _____.
| A．buy a ring for his friend |
| B．make a call to his friend |
| C．ask the way to his friend’s |
| D．go to the telephone company |
From the passage we can see that “give somebody a ring ”___
| A．has two different meanings |
| B．means “call somebody” for the old man |
| C．means “be going to get married ”in England |
| D．has the same meaning in American as in England |
Which sentence is wrong according to the passage?
A. The writer’s friend, Danny had a lot of difficulties in the U.S.A. at first.
B. There are some differences between American and British English.
C. British people can’t understand the Americans most of the time.
D. British and American people can understand each other most of the time.
As people slowly learn to cure diseases, control floods, prevent hunger, and stop wars, fewer people die every year. As a result, the population of the world is becoming larger. In 1925 there were about 2 billion people in the world; today there are over 6 billion.
When the number rises, extra mouths must be fed. New lands must be brought under development, or land already farmed must be made to produce more crops. In some areas the land is so over-developed that it will be difficult to make it provide more crops. In some areas the population is so large that the land is divided into too tiny units to make improvement possible with farming methods. If a large part of this farming population went into industrial work, the land might be farmed much more productively (多产地) with modern methods.
There is now a race for science, technology, and industry to keep the output of food rising faster than the number of people to be fed. New types of crops, which will grow well in bad weather, are being developed, so there are now farms beyond the Arctic Circle in Siberia and North America. Irrigation (灌溉) and dry-farming methods bring poor lands under the plough. Dams hold back the waters of great rivers, which can provide water for the fields in all seasons and provide electric power for new industries. Industrial chemistry provides fertilizer to suit different soils. Every year, some new methods are made to increase or to protect the food of the world. The author says that the world population is increasing because _____.
| A．there are many rich valleys and large fields |
| B．farmers are producing more crops than before |
| C．people are living longer due to better living conditions |
| D．new lands are being made into farmlands |
The author says that in areas with large populations, land might be more productively farmed if _____.
| A．the land was divided into smaller pieces |
| B．people moved into the countryside |
| C．industrial methods were used in farming |
| D．the units of land were much larger |
We are told that there are now farms beyond the Arctic Circle. This has been made possible by _____.
| A．growing new types of crops | B．irrigation and dry-farming means |
| C．providing fertilizers | D．destroying pests and diseases |
Why do some people use dams to hold back waters from great rivers?
| A．To develop a new kind of dry-farming methods. |
| B．To prevent crops from floods. |
| C．To provide water and electricity in all seasons. |
| D．To water poor lands in bad weather. |
Personal computers and the Internet give people new choices about how to spend their time.
Some may use this freedom to share less time with certain friends or family members, but new technology will also let them stay in closer touch with those they care most about. I know this from personal experience.
E-mail makes it easy to work at home, which is where I now spend most weekends and evenings. My working hours aren’t necessarily much shorter than they once were but I spend fewer of them at the office. This lets me share more time with my young daughter than I might have if she’d been born before electronic mail became such a practical tool.
The Internet also makes it easy to share thoughts with a group of friends. Say you do something fun see a great movie perhaps-and there are four or five friends who might want to hear about it. If you call each one, you may tire of telling the story.
With E-mail, you just write one note about your experience, at your convenience, and address it to all the friends you think might be interested. They can read your message when they have time, and read only as much as they want to. They can reply at their convenience, and you can read what they have to say at your convenience.
E-mail is also an inexpensive way stay in close touch with people who live far away. More than a few parents use E-mail to keep in touch, even daily touch, with their children off at college.
We just have to keep in mind that computers and the Internet offer another way of staying in touch. They don’t take the place of any of the old ways.The purpose of this passage is to ________.
| A．explain how to use the Internet |
| B．describe the writer’s joy of keeping up with the latest technology |
| C．tell the merits(价值) and usefulness of the Internet |
| D．introduce the reader to basic knowledge about personal computers and the Internet |
The use of E-mail has made it possible for the writer to ________.
| A．spend less time working | B．have more free time with his child |
| C．work at home on weekends | D．work at a speed comfortable to him |
According to the writer, E-mail has an obvious advantage over the telephone because the former helps one ________.
| A．reach a group of people at one time conveniently |
| B．keep one’s communication as personal as possible |
| C．pass on much more information than the later |
| D．get in touch with one’s friends faster than the later |
The best title for this passage is ________.
| A．Computer: New Technological Advances |
| B．Internet: New Tool to Maintain Good Friendship |
| C．Computers Have Made Life Easier |
| D．Internet: a Convenient Tool for Communication |
Any mistake made in the printing of a stamp raises its value to stamp collectors. A mistake on one inexpensive postage stamp has made the stamp worth a million and a half times its original value.
The mistake was made more than a hundred years ago in the British colony of Mauritius, a small island in the Indian Ocean. In 1847 an order for stamps was sent to a London printer-Mauritius was to become the fourth country in the world to issue stamps.
Before the order was filled and delivered, a ball was planned at Mauritius’ Government House, and stamps were needed to send out the invitations. A local printer was instructed to copy the design for the stamps. He accidentally inscribed the words “Post Office” instead of “Post Paid” on the several hundred stamps that he printed.
Today there are only twenty-six of these misprinted stamps left fourteen One Penny Orange-Reds and twelve Two Penny Blues. Because of the Two Penny Blue’s rareness and age, collectors have paid as much as ＄16 800 for it.Over a century ago, Mauritius ________.
| A．was an independent country | B．belonged to India |
| C．was one of the British colonies | D．was a small island in the Pacific Ocean |
The mistake on the stamps was made ________.
| A．in Mauritius | B．at Mauritius Government House |
| C．in a post office | D．in London |
Stamp collectors have paid 16 800 for ________.
| A．fourteen One Penny Orange-Reds | B．twelve Two Penny Blues |
| C．one One Penny Orange-Red | D．one Two Penny Blue |
Today many people say that women have the same chance as men in society. But this was not always so. In the past, women all over the world had to fight to get the same chance as men in education and jobs. Many people said that women should not receive much education because they would not do as well as men when they went to work.
One woman who showed that women should have the same chance was Marie, a scientist. In the 1800s scientists knew that a metal, uranium, gave off radiation. They also knew how much radiation came from his element. But they didn’t know what this radiation was like; they wondered why and how uranium gave off radiation. Marie Curie set out to answer these questions. In one of her experiments she was studying a certain material which, she knew, contained uranium, But it gave off 4 times as much radiation as usually does. What could explain this fact? Marie Curie thought that there must be another source of radiation in this material.
In 1898 Marie Curie set out to find out this new source of radiation, which she named “radium”. Her husband, who was also a scientist, helped her. They set up a laboratory in an old building behind a school. For four years Curies searched, doing many experiments, And one morning in 1902 Marie found the source of the radiation.
Marie Curie proved to the world that there was element that gave off radiation. And she also proved to the world that, if women are given truly equal chance, they can really help society.The scientists of Marie Curie’s day knew .
| A．that uranium gave off radiation |
| B．that radium gave off radiation |
| C．that there was some radium in uranium |
| D．that uranium and radium both gave off radiation |
The Curies found the element radium .
| A．with other scientists’ help | B．by asking some famous scientists |
| C．by doing many experiments | D．with their teachers’ help |
In the past many people thought .
| A．that women must get the same chance as men in education and jobs |
| B．that women should receive much education |
| C．that women should get good jobs |
| D．that women could not do the work well |
Marie Curie proved to people .
| A．that there was a new element uranium |
| B．that there was a new element radium |
| C．that women could do their work as well as men if they were really given the same conditions |
| D．both B and C |
Anyone who doubts that children are born with a healthy amount of ambition need spend only a few minutes with a baby eagerly learning to walk. No matter how many times the little ones stumble in their first efforts, most keep on trying, determined to master their amazing new skill. It is only several years later, many psychologists and teachers agree, that a good number of kids seem to lose their natural drive to succeed. For the parents of such kids, whose own ambition is often tied to their children’s success, it can be a painful experience.
Figuring out why the fire went out is the first step. Assuming that a kid doesn’t suffer from a learning disability, or isn’t involved in some family crisis at home, many educators attribute a sudden lack of motivation to a fear of failure or classmate pressure. “Everything is within the kids’ control; their intelligence is changeable,” says Lisa Blackwell, a research scientist at Columbia University. “More than any teacher or workshop,” Blackwell says, “parents can play a key role in conveying this message to their children by praising their effort, and progress rather than emphasizing their ‘smartness’ or praising high performance alone. Most importantly, parents should let their kids know that mistakes are a part of learning.”
Some experts say our education system, with its strong emphasis on testing and separation of students into different levels of ability, also bears blame for the disappearance of drive in some kids. “These programs shut down the motivation of all kids who aren’t considered gifted and talented. They destroy their confidence,” says Jeff Howard, a social psychologist. Howard and other educators say it’s important to expose kids to a world beyond homework and tests, through volunteer work, sports, hobbies and other extracurriculum activities.
“The problem of the issue is that many students experience education as irrelevant to their life goals and ambitions,” says Michael Nakkual, a Harvard education professor. The key to getting kids to aim higher at school is to free them of the idea that class work is irrelevant, to show them how doing well at school can actually help them fulfill their dreams beyond it. They need to understand that you have to learn to walk before you can run. According to the passage, the parents of kids with no ambition .
| A．don’t do a very good job teaching them to walk |
| B．are to blame if the kids do poorly in school |
| C．feel pain because ambitions are connected to their success |
| D．should take part in extra-curriculum activities with kids |
The underlined part “the fire went out” probably means .
| A．the motivation was suddenly lost |
| B．the fear of failure was suddenly gone |
| C．the learning disability was suddenly lost |
| D．the fire was suddenly gone |
All the following can contribute to a sudden lack of ambition EXCEPT .
| A．learning disability | B．classmate pressure |
| C．emphasis on testing | D．extracurricular activities |
What is the most important thing for parents in motivating their kids?
| A．By punishing kids who don’t display ambition. |
| B．By emphasizing smartness and high performance. |
| C．By telling kids that mistakes are a part of learning. |
| D．By praising the effort and progress they have made. |
We can infer from the passage that .
| A．children who have lost their ambition will never succeed in life |
| B．school performance has much to do with students’ later success |
| C．both the parents and the school are to blame for the lost ambition |
| D．younger kids learning to walk are more ambitious than older ones |
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