IKEA is the world’s largest furniture retailer, and the man behind it is Ingvar Kamprad, one of the world’s most successful enterprisers. Born in Sweden in 1926, Kamprad was a natural businessman. As a child, he enjoyed selling things and made small profits from selling matches, seeds, and pencils in his community. When Kamprad was 17, his father gave him some money as a reward for his good grades. Naturally he used it to start up a business—IKEA.
IKEA’s name comes from Kamprad’s initials (I.K.) and the place where he grew up (‘E’ and ‘A’). Today IKEA is known for its modern, minimalist furniture, but it was not a furniture company in the beginning. Rather, IKEA sold all kinds of miscellaneous goods.
Kamprad’s goods included anything that he could sell for profits at discounted prices, including watches, pens and stockings.
IKEA first began to sell furniture through a mail-order catalogue in 1947. The furniture was all designed and made by manufacturers near Kamprad’s home. Initial sales were very encouraging, so Kamprad expanded the product line．Furniture was such a successful aspect of the business that IKEA became solely a furniture company in 1951.
In 1953 IKEA opened its first showroom in Almhult, Sweden. IKEA is known today for its large stores with furniture in attractive settings, but in the early1950s, people ordered from catalogues. Thus response to the first showroom was overwhelming: people loved being able to see and try the furniture before buying it. This led to increased sales and the company continued to develop. By 1955, IKEA was designing all its own furniture.
In 1956 Kamprad saw a man disassembling(拆卸) a table to make it easier to transport. Kamprad was inspired. The man had given him a great idea: flat packaging. Flat packaging would mean lower shipping costs for IKEA and lower prices for customers. IKEA tried it and sales went up. The problem was that people had to assemble furniture themselves, but over time, even this grew into an advantage for IKEA. Nowadays, IKEA is often seen as having connotations(内涵) of self-sufficiency. This image has done wonders for the company, leading to better sales and continued expansion．
Today there are over 200 stores in 32 countries. Amazingly, Ingvar Kamprad has managed to keep IKEA a privately-held company. In 2004 he was named the world’s richest man. He currently lives in Switzerland and is retired from the day-to-day operations of IKEA. IKEA itself, though, just keeps on growing.The author states in Paragraph 6 that flat packaging___________.
| A．needs large space to assembly furniture |
| B．is a business concept inspired by Kamprad |
| C．helps reduce transportation costs |
| D．makes the company self-sufficient |
What is the main idea of the passage?
| A．Ingvar Kamprad is the richest man in the world. |
| B．IKEA is the world’s largest furniture retailer. |
| C．The advantage of IKEA’s furniture is dissembling. |
| D．Ingvar Kamprad established IKEA and led it to great success. |
What is the author’s attitude towards IKEA’s future according to the last paragraph?
| A．Indifferent | B．Optimistic |
| C．Doubtful | D．Pessimistic |
In modern society, receiving systematic college education seems a necessary way for success as a graduate from first-class university may always get more opportunities than others. However, if it is gold, it will shine one day. In this article, we will get to know three most successful people in U.S. who never finished their college education. Following experiences of these successful dropouts may give you some inspiration.
1. Bill Gates
Harvard’s campus paper “Harvard Crimson” called Bill Gates “Harvard’s most successful dropout,” while the rest of the world preferred to name him “the world’s richest man” for more than a decade. Now, even not on the top, he is still among the list of the world’s wealthiest people.Gates entered Harvard in the fall of 1973. Two years later, he dropped out to found Microsoft with friend Paul Allen. And in 2007, he finally received an honorary doctorate from Harvard.
2. Steve Jobs
The iPad, even Buzz Lightyear probably wouldn’t have existed if Steve Jobs stayed in school. Because his family couldn’t afford his college education, Jobs had to drop out of Reed College just after entering for 6 months. Then he found Apple, NeXT Computer and Pixar, which had made great influences on development of modern technique and culture. However, this wizard thought that his brief college education was not worthless.
3. Frank Lloyd Wright
As the America’s most celebrated architect, Wright spent more time on designing colleges rather than attending classes in them. Once spent one year in the University of Wisconsin-Madison, then he left for Chicago and started to learn from Louis Sullivan, the “father of modernism." Wright’ s splendid resume included more than 500 works, most famous of which are Fallingwater and New York City's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. What does“dropouts”in Paragraph One mean?
| A．Hardworking students. | B．Very successful students. |
| C．Students failing to finish their school education. | D．Students from poor families. |
Which of the following is right according to Paragraph One?
| A．People graduating from famous universities are more likely to get jobs. |
| B．Many successful people had the experience of giving up their school education. |
| C．If one has a lot of gold, he will become very rich one day. |
| D．We should stop our college education to follow in those successful people’s steps. |
According to the writer, Bill Gates _________.
| A．is richer than any other man in the world |
| B．is well-known in Harvard University |
| C．finally finished his study at Harvard and got a doctorate degree |
| D．is the only founder of Microsoft |
Which of the following statements can’t be learned from the last two paragraphs?
| A．The reason for Jobs’ dropping his college education is that his parents couldn’t pay for it. |
| B．Jobs thought his six-month college education gave him no help. |
| C．Wright’s teacher was a very famous artist. |
| D．Wright is the designer of New York City’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. |
What does the author want to tell us in this passage?
| A．Successful people often have unordinary life experience. |
| B．College education is not so important to one’s success. |
| C．People from poor families are more likely to give up their college education. |
| D．Even without college education, one can still achieve success with one’s hard work. |
If you will be cycling, you will need to know what these traffic signs and signals mean.
A sign like this one means that there is a bike lane. If there is a bike lane, you are required to use it. If there is not a bike lane, you should ride with traffic as far to the right side of the road as possible.
When the signal light turns green, cars go. When you cross the street at a signal light, you should wait for the walk signal. Be sure to look carefully to the left, right and left again, before crossing the street.
When the signal light turns yellow, car drivers should slow down and prepare to stop. You should not cross if the light is yellow. The light is about to turn red, and cars will enter the intersection.
This signal is the WALK sign. It has a picture of a person walking instead of using the word WALK.
This signal is the DON'T WALK sign. It is part of the signal with the picture of a person walking.This is a picture of a red hand, meaning you should stop. You should wait to cross the street until the green picture of the person walking is showing.
Car drivers and bikers must come to a complete stop at STOP signs.
A yield sign means to slow down and be ready to stop.
If there are pedestrians(行人)or vehicles in or nearing the intersection，you must stop.
If there is no traffic in or nearing the intersection and it is safe，you may go through.
This sign means you are coming to a crosswalk. Car drivers, antibikers must stop to allow people in the crosswalk to cross the street.
When people are working on the roads, parts of the road are often dug up or rough. Be careful when cycling. Rough roads could make you fall off your bike. If you must move into the road to go around a work area, you should stop and look carefully to be sure there is no traffic coming before going into the road.
A detour is a way of getting around a roadway that is closed. Roads are usually closed because of road work or dangerous conditions. If you must take a detour, be careful of roads you aren't used to.The passage is intended for ________.
| A．car drivers | B．skaters | C．bikers | D．Pedestrians |
If you see the sign
while riding a bike，you are required to ________.
| A．take the bike lane | B．stop your bike |
| C．ride close to the right side of the road | D．ride in the middle of the road |
Cyclists may see the sign when ________.
| A．they come near a crosswalk |
| B．the bad weather is on the corner |
| C．they are about to pass a school |
| D．the road ahead is blocked because of the landslide (山崩) |
Mark Ramirez, a senior executive at AOL, could work in the comfortable leather chair, if he wanted. No, thanks. He prefers to stand most of the day at a desk raised above stomach level.
“I’ve got my knees bent. I feel totally alive,” he said. “It feels more natural to stand.”
In the past few years, standing has become the new sitting for 10 percent of AOL employees at the firm’s Virginia branch. Part of a standing popularity is among accountants, programmers, telemarketers and other office workers across the nation.
GeekDesk, a California firm that sells desks raised by electric motors, says sales will triple this year.
Standers give various reasons for taking to their feet: It makes them feel more focused, prevents drowsiness(困倦睡意), and makes them feel like a general even if they just push paper. (Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfels works standing up. So does novelist Philip Roth.)
But unknown to them, a debate (辩论) is spreading among ergonomics experts（人类工程学家） and public-health researchers about whether all office workers should be encouraged to stand—to save lives.
Doctors point to surprising new research showing higher rates of diabetes, obesity, heart disease and even mortality among people who sit for long stretches. A study earlier this year in the American Journal of Epidemiology showed that among 123,000 adults followed over 14 years, those who sat more than six hours a day were at least 18 percent more likely to die during the time period studied than those who sat less than three hours a day.
“Every rock we turn over when it comes to sitting is astonishing,” said Marc Hamilton, a leading researcher on inactivity physiology at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana. “Sitting is harmful. It’s dangerous. We are on the cusp (尖端) of a major revolution.” He calls sitting “the new smoking”.
Not so fast, other experts say. Standing too much at work will cause more long-term back injuries. Incidences of varicose veins(静脉曲张) among women will increase. The heart will have to pump more.
Hedge, the Cornell professor, isn’t a fan of all this standing. “Making people stand all day is dumb,” he said.
The sensible and most cost-effective strategy（策略）, he said, is to sit in a neutral posture（姿势）, slightly reclined(下弯的), with the keyboard on a tray above the lap. This position promotes positive blood flow. Workers should occasionally walk around, stretch and avoid prolonged periods at the desk. The key, he said, is movement, not standing.Marc Hamilton said “Every rock we turn over when it comes to sitting is astonishing” to show that________.
| A．the result of the study about sitting too long is shocking |
| B．we need to remove many rocks |
| C．we need to smooth away many difficulties |
| D．sitting on a rock is necessary |
The following are the reasons why some experts are against standing too long except .
| A．It will cause more long-term back injuries |
| B．it will raise the burden of heart |
| C．incidences of varicose veins among women will increase |
| D．standing too much at work per day is too tiring |
According to the studies in the passage mentioned, .
| A．it is better not to stand more than 6 hours |
| B．sitting too long can arouse illnesses easily |
| C．sitting long is specially harmful to adults |
| D．standing much is better than sitting long |
Which of the following is the best title of the passage?
| A．Standing is not better than sitting |
| B．Standing more does no harm to people |
| C．Standing will promote the efficiency |
| D．More office workers take standing against sitting |
It's not a new phenomenon, but have you noticed how many nouns are being used as verbs? We all use them, often without noticing what we're doing.
I was arranging to meet someone for dinner last week, and I said “I’ll pencil it in my diary”, and my friend said “You can ink it in”, meaning that it was a firm arrangement not a tentative one!
Many of these new verbs are linked to new technology. An obvious example is the word fax. We all got used to sending and receiving faxes, and then soon started talking about faxing something and promising we'd fax it immediately. Then along came email, and we were soon all emailing each other madly. How did we do without it? I can hardly imagine life without my daily emails.
Email reminds me, of course, of my computer and its software, which has produced another
couple of new verbs. On my computer I can bookmark those pages from the World Wide Web that I think I'll want to look at again, thus saving all the effort of remembering their addresses and calling them up from scratch. I can do the same thing on my PC, but there I don't bookmark; I favorite—coming from “favorite pages”, so the verb is derived from an adjective not a noun.
Now my children bought me a mobile phone, known simply as a mobile and I had to learn yet more new verbs. I can message someone, that is, I can leave a message for them on their phone. Or I can text them, write a few words suggesting when and where to meet, for example. How long will it be before I can mobile them, that is, phone them using my mobile? I haven’t heard that verb yet, but I’m sure I will soon. Perhaps I’ll start using it myself! “I’ll pencil it in my diary” in the second paragraph probably means .
| A．it was a firm arrangement |
| B．it was an uncertain arrangement |
| C．the arrangement should be written as a diary |
| D．he prefers a pencil to a pen |
A website address can be easily found if it has been______.
| A．emailed | B．messaged | C．favorited | D．texted |
Which of the following has not been used as a verb, yet?
| A．message | B．page | C．email | D．mobile |
The best title for this passage is____.
| A．New Verbs from Nouns |
| B．The Development of the English language |
| C．New Technology and New words |
| D．Technology and Language. |
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to play the character of Ronald McDonald for the McDonald's Corporation.
One day each month，we visited hospitals bringing a little happiness to the children there. But there were two rules placed on me during a visit. First, I could not go anywhere in the hospital without permission. And second, I could not physically touch anyone within the hospital. They did not want me to carry germs(细菌)from one patient to another. Breaking either of these rules, I was told, I could lose my job. One day, as I was heading down a hallway and on my way home, I heard a little voice coming through a halfopened door，“Ronald，Ronald.”
I stepped in and saw a boy，about five years old, lying in his dad's arms, Mom with a nurse on the other side. I knew by the feeling in the room that the situation was grave. I asked his name. He told me it was Billy and that I did a few simple magic tricks for him. As I stepped back to say goodbye, he asked me “Ronald, would you hold me？”
At such a simple request, my heart was screaming, “Yes！”But my mind was screaming louder. “No！You are going to lose your job！”
“Hold me” was such a simple request, and yet I searched for any reasonable excuses that allowed me to leave, but none. It took me a moment to realize that in this situation, losing my job may not be the disaster I feared. Then, I picked up this little boy. He was so weak and so scared. We laughed and cried for 45 minutes. With tears in my eyes, I left them. Less than 48 hours later, I received a phone call from Billy's mom that Billy had passed away. She and her husband simply wanted to thank me for making a difference in their little boy's life.
Billy's mom told me shortly after I left the room. Billy looked at her and said, “Momma, I don't care any more if I see Santa this year because I was held by Ronald McDonald.”
For the record, McDonald's Corporation did find it out, but, given the situation，permitted me to go on with my job. I continued as Ronald for another year before leaving the corporation to share the story of Billy and how important it is to take risks.The underlined word “grave” in Paragraph 3 means “________”.
| A．weak | B．serious | C．interesting | D．exciting |
When Billy asked the author to hold him, at first the author ________.
| A．was unwilling to do so | B．was glad to do so |
| C．hesitated to do so | D．hurried to do so |
What lesson did the author draw from his experience?
| A．To amuse others is enjoyable. | B．To take risks is important. |
| C．To break rules is necessary. | D．To be fired is not fearful. |
We learn from the story that ________.
| A．the author left the corporation because he broke the rules |
| B．the author left the corporation because he didn't like the rules |
| C．the boy was quite happy with the experience with the author |
| D．the boy was quite happy with Santa at Christmas |
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