When Steve Jobs was born on Febuary24, 1955, in San Francisco , California, his unmarried mother decided to put him for adoption(收养) because she wanted a girl. So in the middle of the night, his mother called a lawyer named Paul Jobs and said, “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” But his mother told his future parents to promise that they would send Jobs to college. After Steve Jobs graduated from high school, he went to college but decided to drop out because it was so expensive that he had to sleep on the floor in his friends’ rooms.
At 20, he and a friend(Steve Wozniak) started a company in a garage on April 1, 1976. Jobs named their company ----Apple in memory of a happy summer he had spent as an orchard (果园) in Oregon.
After 10 years of hard time and failures, starting from two kids working in a garage, Apple computer eventually grew into a big company with over 4000 employees.
At 30, Jobs, however, was fired from the company he co-founded. But after he had to leave the company, Apple was under heavy pressure from rival (对手) Microsoft and in 1996 posted billions of dollars in losses. Apple needed Steve Jobs and he was appointed as Apple’ CEO in1997. Under his leadership, Apple returned to profitability（赢利） and introduced new products such as the iPhone and the iPad.
Steve Jobs once said, “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m sure that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking.”
| A．wanted to start a company. |
| B．had financial problems. |
| C．took no interest in his major. |
| D．hated to share rooms with his friends. |
| A．joined Microsoft in 1987 |
| B．give Apple a second life |
| C．set up another company |
| D．invented the iPhone |
| A．Interest is key to success. |
| B．Hope helps us succeed. |
| C．Attitude is everything. |
| D．Courage goes with confidence. |
It was Thanksgiving morning and in the crowded kitchen of my small home I was busy preparing the traditional Thanksgiving turkey when the doorbell rang. I opened the front door and saw two small children in rags huddling together. “Any old papers, lady?” asked one of them.
I was busy. I wanted to say “no” until I looked down at their feet. They were wearing thin little sandals, wet with heavy snow.
“Come in and I’ll make you a cup of hot cocoa.”
They walked over and sat down at the table. Their wet sandals left marks upon the floor. I served them cocoa and bread with jam to fight against the cold outside. Then I went back to the kitchen and started again on my household budget.
The silence in the front room struck me. I looked in. The girl held the empty cup in her hands, looking at it. The boy asked in a flat voice, “Lady, are you rich?”
I looked at my shabby slipcovers. The girl put her cup back in its saucer carefully and said, “Your cups match your saucers.” Her voice was hungry with a need that no amount of food could supply. They left after that, holding their bundles of papers against the wind. They hadn’t said “Thank you.” They didn’t need to. They had reminded me that I had so much for which to be grateful. Plain blue china cups and saucers were only worth five pence. But they matched.
I tasted the potatoes and stirred the meat soup. Potatoes and brown meat soup, a roof over our heads, my man with a good steady job—these matched, too.
I moved the chairs back from the fire and cleaned the living room. The muddy prints of small sandals were still wet upon my floor. Let them be for a while, I thought, just in case I should begin to forget how rich I am. Two children came to the writer’s front door because _________________.
| A．it was Thanksgiving Day | B．they were beggars |
| C．they wanted old papers | D．they wanted a cup of cocoa |
Why did the writer let the children in?
| A．She showed great pity on them |
| B．She had old papers to sell |
| C．She wanted to invite them to her Thanksgiving feast |
| D．She wanted them to see how rich she was |
The girl thought the writer was rich perhaps because ________________.
| A．she saw that the lady’s room was comfortable |
| B．she saw the cups matched the saucers |
| C．the writer’s slipcovers were very new |
| D．the writer was preparing a big meal while she was too hungry. |
From the passage, we can infer that whether you are rich depends on ________.
| A．how much money you have had |
| B．how you feel about your life |
| C．how you have helped others |
| D．what job your husband is doing |
The writer left the muddy prints of small sandals on the floor for a while to ____________.
| A．show her husband that someone had come |
| B．remind her that she had helped two children |
| C．remind her that she was very rich in the neighborhood |
| D．remind her how life should be |
When an ant dies, other ants move the dead insect out. Sometimes, the dead ant get moved away very soon—within an hour of dying. This behavior is interesting to scientists, who wonder how ants know for sure—and so soon—that another ant is dead.
One scientist recently came up with a way to explain this ant behavior. Dong-Hwan Choe is a biologist. Choe found that Argentine ants have a chemical on the outside of their bodies that signals to other ants, “I’m dead—take me away.”
But there’s a twist to Choe’s discovery. Choe says that the living ants—not just the dead ones—have this death chemical. In other words, while an ant crawls around, perhaps in a picnic or home, it’s telling other ants that it’s dead.
What keeps ants from dragging away the living ants？Choe found that Argentine ants have two additional chemicals on their bodies, and these tell nearby ants something like, “Wait—I’m not dead yet.” So Choe’s research turned up two sets of chemical signals in ants: one says, “I’m dead,” and the other set says, “I’m not dead yet.”
Other scientists have tried to figure out how ants know when another ant is dead. If an ant is knocked unconscious, for example, other ants leave it alone until it wakes up. That means ants know that unmoving ants can still be alive.
Choe suspects that when an Argentine ant dies, the chemical that says “Wait-I’m not dead yet” quickly goes away. Once that chemical is gone, only the one that says “I’m dead” is left. “It’s because the dead ant no longer smells like a living ant that it gets carried to the graveyard, not because its body releases(释放) new unique chemicals after death,” said Choe. When other ants detect the “dead” chemical without the “not dead yet” chemical, they drag away the body.
Understanding this behavior may help scientists figure out how to stop Argentine ants from invading new places and causing problems. Choe would like to find a way to use the newly discovered chemicals to spread ant killer to Argentine ant nests.
The ants’ removal behavior is important to the overall health of the nest. “Being able to quickly remove dead individuals and other possible sources of disease is extremely important to all animals living in societies, including us,” says Choe. “Think about all the effort and money that we invest daily in waste management.”The underlined word “twist” in Paragraph 3 means .
| A．an unexpected change | B．a clear mistake |
| C．an important key | D．a shocking conclusion |
Ants judge whether another one is dead or not depending on .
| A．the sense of taste | B．the sense of smell |
| C．the sense of touch | D．the sense of sight |
The result of the research can be used to .
| A．kill troublesome pests |
| B．solve the problem of endangered species |
| C．prevent further expansion of the ants’ territory |
| D．keep the balance of nature |
Why is it important to remove dead individuals?
| A．Because it is easier to manage the living. |
| B．Because it can save money to deal with the waste. |
| C．Because it can provide more space for the living. |
| D．Because it can keep the living from suffering disease. |
What might be the best title of the text?
| A．Dead or living? It is easy to judge |
| B．Pulling away the dead ants is a difficult task |
| C．Ant nests have great undertaking capacity |
| D．Leaving it alone or taking it away? Ants feel puzzled |
The accident at Lake Sherwood was in our backyard. An SUV(运动型多用途车)had gone off the road，down a hill, and collided with a tree. When we heard the wreck, I remembered to say “call 911”. My family was the first on the scene. Nick, my son, was on the cell phone with 911. He saw a friend who was a victim in the crash who was a 15 years old girl who was badly disfigured and had died instantly. It was a terrible scene.
There had been six people in the truck, all between 15 and 17 years old. My husband and I checked all the victims, and I picked one who was conscious and stayed with him. I talked with him and had him lay on the ground. When I asked him if he was hurt, he said he was sore all over. When help arrived, they asked me to stay and continue working with them. I did as Debbie Romine, .my instructor, said in class, and did what they wanted. They even said thank you before they left.
The sheriff deputies came by Saturday night to get our statements and play the 911 tape back, so Nick could identify all the voices in the background. They said over and over that the way he handled the call was the best they had heard in a long time. He was calm and worked with them even when he saw his friend who had died. The Sheriff’s Department is sending some people over to help us work through our emotions.
The first aid and CPR course I took in January really helped me. I just didn’t expect to put it to good use so soon.
Pennyd. Miller
Kansas State Dept of Education,Topeka According to the passage, in case of an emergence, people should dial_______________.
| A．110 | B．120 | C．800 | D．911 |
Who died immediately after the accident?
| A．A girl. | B．The writer. | C．Debbie Romine. | D．Nick. |
Why did the Sheriff deputies come by Saturday night?
| A．To arrest the offender. | B．To offer them help. |
| C．To get their statements. | D．To help them. |
According to the passage, which of the following statements is true?
| A．The writer is a doctor. |
| B．All the people in the car were killed in the accident. |
| C．Debbie Romine offered much help to the victims. |
| D．The writer took a first aid and CPR course in January. |
We can infer from the passage that__________________.
| A．The first aid and CPR course in January really helped the writer |
| B．The writer’s family were affected emotionally by the accident |
| C．The victims were all conscious after the accident |
| D．The police arrived long after the accident |
The world itself is becoming much smaller by using modern traffic and modern communication means. Life today is much easier than it was hundreds of years ago, but it has brought new problems. One of the biggest problems is pollution. To pollute means to make things dirty. Pollution comes in many ways. We see it, smell it, drink it and even hear it. Man has been polluting the earth. The more people, the more pollution.
Many years ago, the problem was not so serious because there were not so many people. When the land was used up or the river was dirty in one place, man moved to another place. But this is no longer true. Man is now slowly polluting the whole world. Air pollution is still the most serious. It’s bad for all living things in the world, but it is not the only one kind of pollution. Water pollution kills our fish and pollutes our drinking water. Noise pollution makes us angry more easily. Many countries are making rules to fight pollution. They stop people from burning coal in houses and factories in the city, and from putting dirty smoke into the air. Pollution by SO2 is now the most dangerous kind of air pollution. It is caused by heavy traffic. We are sure that if there are fewer people driving, there will be less air pollution.
The earth is our home. We must take care of it. That means keeping the land, water and air clean. And we must take care of the rise in pollution at the same time. _______, our world is becoming much smaller.
| A．Because of the rise in pollution |
| B．Thanks to science development |
| C．Because the earth is being polluted day and night |
| D．Because the earth is blown away by the wind every year |
Hundreds of years ago, life was __________ it is today.
| A．much easier than | B．as easy as |
| C．much harder than | D．as hard as |
Pollution comes in many ways. We can even hear it. Here “it” means _______.
| A．rubbish(垃圾) | B．noise pollution |
| C．air pollution | D．water pollution |
Air pollution is the most serious kind of pollution because _______.
| A．it makes much noise |
| B．it makes us angry more easily |
| C．it makes our rivers and lakes dirty |
| D．it’s bad for all living things in the world |
Which of the following is NOT true?
| A．Many countries are making rules to fight pollution. |
| B．The pollution of the earth grows as fast as the world population does. |
| C．The problem of pollution is not so serious because there are not so many people living on the earth. |
| D．If people could go to work by bus or bike instead of car or motorbike, it would be helpful in fighting against the problem of SO2. |
“The more you learn, the more you earn,” said the pop singer Cyndi Lauper as she accepted her high school diploma(证书) , at the age of 35 ! Although Cyndi made it without a high school degree, most people don't. In the USA today, about 75% of jobs need some education or technical training further than high school. The lowest wage earners in the USA are those without high school degrees; college graduates(毕业生) outearn those without a college education. People with master's degrees（硕士学位）outearn those with only a bachelor (学士学位); and the highest incomes of all are earned by people with advanced professional or academic degrees. These generalizations explain why most of young Americans go to college. However, despite the averages, more diplomas don't always mean more money. Many skilled blue-collar workers, salespeople, business executives, and entrepreneurs(企业家)outearn college professors and scientific researchers. And great athletes and entertainers outearn everyone else! Cyndi Lauper ______.
| A．had been studying in high school before she was thirty-five |
| B．wasn't clever because she graduated from high school too late |
| C．got her high school diploma when she was already thirty-five |
| D．didn't like studying |
According to the passage,______.
| A．high school diploma and high school degree are the same thing |
| B．people can't get both high school diploma and degree |
| C．people must get both high school diploma and degree |
| D．people can get both high school diploma and degree or either |
Why do most American young people go to college?
| A．Because their parents force them to go to college. |
| B．Because they can't get a job if they don't go to college. |
| C．Because the situation of the society make them go to college. |
| D．Because they like studying. |
What may the underlined word “outearn” mean?
| A．Earning more money. | B．Earning less money. |
| C．Earning no money. | D．Working better. |
Which of the following is right?
| A．If you don't have a diploma, you can't earn money. |
| B．Those who have diplomas always earn more money than those who don't have diplomas. |
| C．Less diplomas always mean less money. |
| D．Great athletes may earn more money than other people. |
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