The writer Margaret Mitchell is best known for writing Gone with the Wind, first published in 1936. Her book and the movie based on it, tell a story of love and survival during the American Civil War. Visitors to the Margaret Mitchell House in Atlanta, Georgia, can go where she lived when she started composing the story and learn more about her life.
Our first stop at the Margaret Mitchell House is an exhibit area telling about the writer’s life. She was born in Atlanta in 1900. She started writing stories when she was a child. She started working as a reporter for the Atlanta Journal newspaper in 1922. One photograph of Ms. Mitchell, called Peggy, shows her talking to a group of young college boys. She was only about one and a half meters tall. The young men tower over her, but she seems very happy and sure of herself. The tour guide explains: “Now in this picture Peggy is interviewing some boys from Georgia Tech, asking them such questions as ‘Would you really marry a woman who works?’ And today it’d be ‘Would you marry one who doesn’t?’ ”
The Margaret Mitchell House is a building that once contained several apartments. Now we enter the first floor apartment where Ms. Mitchell lived with her husband, John Marsh. They made fun of the small apartment by calling it “The Dump”.
Around 1926, Margaret Mitchell had stopped working as a reporter and was at home healing after an injury. Her husband brought her books to read from the library. She read so many books that he bought her a typewriter and said it was time for her to write her own book. Our guide says Gone with the Wind became a huge success. Margaret Mitchell received the Pulitzer Prize for the book. In 1939 the film version was released. It won ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture.The book Gone with the Wind was _________.
| A．first published on a newspaper |
| B．awarded ten Academy Awards |
| C．written in “The Dump” |
| D．adapted from a movie |
The underlined phrase “tower over” in Paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to_________.
| A．be very pleased with |
| B．show great respect for |
| C．be much taller than |
| D．show little interest in |
Why did Ms. Mitchell stop working as a reporter according to the passage?
| A．Because she was rich enough. |
| B．Because she was injured then. |
| C．Because her husband didn’t like it. |
| D．Because she wanted to write books. |
Which is the best title for the passage?
| A．Gone with the Wind: A Huge Success. |
| B．Margaret Mitchell: A Great Female Writer. |
| C．An Introduction of the Margaret Mitchell House. |
| D．A Trip to Know Margaret Mitchell. |
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.
Joe Bloggs always had a cigarette on his lips. He smoked while he read, while he watched TV, and while he drank a cup of coffee. He smoked forty cigarettes a day, but he was happy.
Joe’s friend, Fred Brown, said to him, “It is very bad to smoke”. When Joe heard this , he started to worry and became so thin that he went to Fred for help.
Fred said , “You must eat more”. O Joe did not smoke , but he ate chocolate , and he became very fat. Again he went to Fred for help.
Fred said , “ You must not eat chocolate”. So Joe stopped eating chocolate , but he went back to smoking cigarettes. He became thin again but he was not happy, because he still smoked.
Sometimes Joe Bloggs wished Fred Brown was not his friend!When Joe became thin the first time it was because_____.
| A．he smoked too much | B．he worried too much |
| C．he stopped smoking | D．he ate too little |
The following sentences tell what happened to Joe.Which is the right order of the events?
a.He did not smoke , he ate chocolate , he was fat, he was unhappy.
b.He smoked , he did not eat chocolate, he was thin , he was unhappy.
c.He smoked , he did not eat chocolate , he was not fat , he was happy
| A．a, b, c | B．c, b, a |
| C．b, a, c | D．c, a, b |
In the end Joe was unhappy about his friendship with Fred because___
| A．Fred had given him the wrong advice on purpose. |
| B．he never liked being told what to do |
| C．he in fact had never really understood what Fred meant |
| D．Fred’s advice had brought him much trouble |
What is the writer trying to tell us with this story?
| A．Chocolate is bad for one’s health. |
| B．One should ask friends for help and advice |
| C．Smoking is bad for one’s health |
| D．One should think and decide for oneself |
Try imagining what the world will be like in the year 3000. Some serious thinkers are starting to imagine just that.
Bart: I don’t know that present-day electronic chips are, but some sort of chips — I’d guess maybe plastic. Our three-pound brain is definitely a wonder, perhaps the greatest wonder of natural biology. In this coming century, we’ll be re-engineering the brain a piece at a time, first with implants（植入物） and finally engineering an complete replacement. There’s no question that in the distant future we’ll play the music of the mind on instruments different from the current ones. So, yes, chips are our destiny (命运).
Edward: In 3000 perhaps the biggest difference from today is that there will be no more men. Females can have female children, without any need for men. In about ten years, we’ll find the cocktail that women can take to have female children. There’ll be no need for men at all.
Greg: What is Heaven? Heaven’s a place where you can create worlds at will, and the ideal Heaven is where you run the whole thing yourself. The current means of getting to Heaven involve various supernatural systems for which, at this point, there’s no scientific evidence. So I think we can reduce Heaven to an engineering project which we’re doing. The demand for Heaven is great—witness the desire of every human heart, from the people who built the ancient pyramids to modern society, to live beyond one’s given time. Our plan is to change human consciousness from the brain to bits of information in a computer chip, or some other kind of computational medium, so that just by thinking we’ll be able to create our own personal world. And I think the first stage of Heaven will be the feeling world, and beyond that I think we’d find a higher, more spiritual plane.According to Bart, the brain may be the greatest wonder in the future because _______.
| A．it may weigh as much as 3 pounds |
| B．it may be driven by plastic chips |
| C．it may be replaced by robots |
| D．it may play the music of the mind |
What does Bart refer to by saying “chips are our destiny”?
| A．Chips are our last choice in the future. |
| B．Chips are on the way to controlling mind. |
| C．Chips are the production of future technology. |
| D．Chips are the implants in the distant future. |
In 3000, what about the population of the world?
| A．It will be all made up of females. |
| B．It will be larger than that of present. |
| C．It will mainly consists of children. |
| D．It will be reduced by a drink of cocktail. |
According to Greg, Heaven in the future is a place where ________.
| A．your scientific idea exists |
| B．you have once traveled |
| C．your own thought travels |
| D．your material world is formed |
Why do we call the sounds of birds, whales and insects songs? Because something about what we hear seems to have beauty, and some mellifluous (动听的) structure that touches us more than any possible message. Though for many years science has cautioned against hearing too much of what we humans would like to hear when we are trying to understand animal sounds, the musicality in some sounds is now starting to have an effect on the science of animal communication itself.
Many specific animal sounds express aggression(进攻), warning, or food, but such practical explanations are tough to apply to the long songs. Some whale songs can go on for up to 24 hours. The usual explanation for birdsong is that the birds are singing to attract mates or to announce the limits of their area. But the audience is not always evident for these long love songs, which have many of the elements related to human music: rhythm, melody (旋律), themes, repeating patterns, organization, variety, interest — all adding up to something humans have found beautiful for thousands of years. “Birds taught man,” wrote Roman poet and philosopher (哲学家) Lucretius, “and taught them songs before their art began.”
What is the scientific value of such sounds? The advantage of hearing music in nature and trying to reach out to nature through music is that though we don’t fully understand it, it is so accessible.
Music refuses explanation, but it clearly expresses something deep and important, which humans can’t live without. Finding music in the sound of birds, whales and other animals makes the farther frontiers(边缘) of nature see much closer to us.The underlined phrase “cautioned against” in Paragraph 1 probably means “_______”.
| A．warned against |
| B．fought against |
| C．been filled with |
| D．been satisfied with |
According to the passage, which of the following is NOT true?
| A．We call the songs of birds’ sounds because there is beauty that sounds pleasant to the ears. |
| B．It is believed that birds are singing to attract mates or to warn the limits of their areas. |
| C．The songs of a bird really carry an emotional message such as “aggression and caring”. |
| D．It is not very long for people to know that birdsong does have something beautiful. |
By saying “Birds taught man”, what did Lucretius mean?
| A．People teach rhythm, melody, themes, repeating patterns to birds. |
| B．Birds can teach people how to go on singing a song up to 24 hours. |
| C．Human music has, in fact, come from the sounds of birds in nature. |
| D．Humans learned something beautiful from the sounds of many animals. |
From the passage we know that music in nature ________.
| A．can’t be explained at all |
| B．is very easy to pick up and listen to |
| C．can’t be understood at all |
| D．is of no scientific value |
With another invention in use, viewers will be also able to watch TV while walking to the office, taking a bus or simply waiting in line for lunch.
A Beijing-based company named Innofidei Inc. claims to have developed the first mobile TV chip for the market, which can change hundreds of thousands of mobiles into micro-TVs.
With this chip, people can receive TV signals on their phones and watch programs without any time or space limitations.“As long as the handset terminal（接收终端设备） has a colored screen and a battery, our chip can turn it into a mobile TV,” said Meng Fei, director of Innofidei’s business development department. The chip can be placed into a cell phone, a PDA, an MP4, a digital camera or even a laptop. He said that this, together with plans by China’s state broadcaster, would ensure the 2008 Games lives up to its promise as a “People’s Olympics”.
“Our chips are cheap so that cell phones with them will not be much different in price from regular phones,” Meng said. “CCTV will offer some free channels during the Games, so people can enjoy the Olympics for free.”
SARFT（国家广播电影电视总局） is planning to build a regional test network in Beijing and hopes to start trials as soon as possible. The goal is to deploy CMMB (部署中国移动多媒体广播) on a national level by the first half of 2008.
Innofidei is now busy selling their chips to cell phone makers so that the new generation of phones reaches the market in early 2008.
“Our invention successfully combines the good points of the two best-selling consumer products in history—TV sets and cell phones, ” said Meng. “In the near future, soccer fans won’t be tearing their hair out because they are stuck in traffic and missing the chance to see their favorite team’s play.”
Local baseball fans, meanwhile, will be able to draw comfort from the knowledge that—both at the Olympics and afterwards—their teams will be playing on a field designed to help recycle water.Which of the following CANNOT be turned into a mobile TV according to the passage?
A. A cell phone. B. A PDA.
C. An MP3. D. A laptop.Which of the following would possibly happen with the invention of the chip?
A. Sports fans watch Olympic Games on cell phones in 2008.
B. People watch video CDs on the MP4.
C. A game addict plays 3D games on a PDA.
D. Listening to news broadcast on radio.We can infer from the passage that _______.
| A．we cannot buy a mobile TV before the 2008 Olympic Games. |
| B．soccer fans will be angry when they miss the chance to see a TV program. |
| C．the baseball field will play a part in helping recycle water. |
| D．the invention of the chip successfully combines TV sets and cell phones. |
The best title for this passage would be “_______”.
| A．A new invention for Olympics |
| B．A new generation of cell phones |
| C．Watching live games on TV for free |
| D．People’s Olympics |
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