In modern society there is a great deal of argument about competition. Some value it highly, believing that it is responsible for social-progress and prosperity. Others say that competition is bad; that it sets one person against another; that it leads to unfriendly relationship between people.
I have taught many children who held the belief that their self-worth relied on how well they performed at tennis and other skills. For them, playing well and winning are often life-and-death affairs. In theirsingle-minded pursuit of success, the development of many other human qualities is sadly forgotten.
However, while some seem to be lost in the desire to succeed, others take an opposite attitude. In a culture which values only the winner and pays no attention to the ordinary players, they strongly blame competition. Among the most vocal are youngsters who have suffered under competitive pressures from their parents or society. Teaching these young people, I often observe in them a desire to fail. They seem to seek failure by not trying to win or achieve success.By not trying, they always have an excuse:"I may have lost, but it doesn't matter because I really didn't try." What is not usually admitted by themselves is the belief that if they had really tried and lost, that would mean a lot Such a loss would be a measure of their worth. Clearly, this belief is the same as that of the true competitors who try to prove themselves. Both are based on the mistake belief that-one's self-respect relies on how well one performs in comparison with others. Both are afraid of not being valued. Only as this basic and often troublesome fear begins to dissolve (缓解) can we discover a new meaning in competition.What does this text mainly talk about?
A Competition helps to set up self-respect.
B. People hold different opinions about competition.
C. Competition is harmful to personal quality development.
D. Failures are necessary experience in competition.Some people favor competition because they think it __.
| A． pushes society forward |
| B． builds up a sense of pride |
| C． improves social abilities |
| D． develops people's relationship |
The underlined phrase "the most vocal”in Paragraph 3 refers to those who
| A． try their best to win |
| B． highly value competition |
| C． are strongly against competition |
| D． mostly rely on others for success |
Which viewpoint does the author agree to?
A Self-worth relys on winning.
B. Competition leads to unfriendly relationship.
C. Winning should be a life-and-death matter.
D. Fear of failure should be removed in competition.
A programmer and an engineer are sitting next to each other on a long flight from Los Angeles to New York．The programmer leans over to the engineer and asks if he would like to play a fun game．The engineer just wants to take a nap, so he politely declines and rolls over to the window to catch a few winks．
The programmer persists and explains that the game is really easy and has a lot of fun．He explains, "I ask you a question, and if you don't know the answer, you pay me $5．Then you ask me a question, and if I don't know the answer, I'll pay you $5．" Again, the engineer politely refuses and tries to get to sleep．
The programmer, now somewhat anxious, says, "OK, if you don't know the answer you pay me $5, and if I don't know the answer, I'll pay you $50!" This catches the engineer's attention, and he sees no end to this torment（折磨） unless he plays, so he agrees to the game．
The programmer asks the first question．"What's the distance from the earth to the moon?'' The engineer doesn't say a word, but reaches into his wallet, pulls out a five dollar bill and hands it to the programmer．Now, it's the engineer's turn．He asks the programmer, "What goes up a hill with three legs, and comes down on four?" The programmer looks up at him with a puzzled look．He takes out his laptop computer and searches all of his references．After about an hour, he wakes the engineer and hands him $50．The engineer politely takes the $50 and turns away to try to get back to sleep．The programmer, more than a little angry, shakes the engineer and asks, "Well, so what's the answer?" Without a word, the engineer reaches into his wallet, hands the programmer $5, and turns away and goes back to sleep．What's the best title for the passage?
| A．A Boring Conversation | B．A Fun Game |
| C．A Trick During The Flight | D．A Question Without Answer |
What kind of person is the programmer according to what he said?
| A．Confident． | B．Selfish． | C．Greedy． | D．Generous． |
What can we infer according to the last sentence?
| A．The engineer has little money with him． |
| B．Actually the engineer doesn't know the answer, either． |
| C．The engineer is bored with programmer． |
| D．The engineer beats the programmer at last． |
Which is NOT true according to the passage?
| A．In the beginning the engineer is not interested in the game． |
| B．The engineer is too sleepy to want to play the game． |
| C．At last the engineer gains $45 from the programmer． |
| D．Nobody knows the answer to the engineer's question． |
The scientists observed that the more junk food the rats ate, the more they wanted to eat – a behavior very similar to that of rats addicted(上了瘾的) to heroin, a dangerous drug. Johnson said the experiment shows that the brain chemistry of obesity(肥胖) and drug addiction may be quite similar.
In their experiment, Johnson and his team studied the “pleasure center” of rats’ brains. The pleasure center is a complicated network of nerve cells. If the animal exercises or eats, the cells reward the animal by releasing chemicals into the body that make it feel good. And when the body feels good, the animal – or person – will want to do the behavior again.
For the experiment, Johnson fed foods like cheesecake to one group of rats. Food like this is high in calories and fat. Another group of rats got a regular diet. The rats that ate junk food started to eat more and more.
“They’re taking in twice the amount of calories as the control rats,” says Paul Kenny, one of Johnson’s colleagues.
Kenny and Johnson wanted to know what was going on in the brains of these rats. They first designed a way to deliver a small electrical charge to the rats’ brains. This electrical charge would stimulate the pleasure centers to release pleasure-causing chemicals. The rats could control how much stimulation – and how much pleasure – they received by running on a wheel. The more the rat ran, the more pleasure it received.
The rats that had been eating junk food started running more and more. This behavior suggested that the junk-food-eating rats needed more brain stimulation to feel good compared with rats on a normal diet. In other words, their pleasure centers were becoming less sensitive and the junk food didn’t make them feel good unless they ate more and more.
Experiments like this one could help scientists understand how chemicals in the brain contribute to obesity. With that information, they may be able to help people avoid obesity in the first place.
(Note: Answer the questions or complete the statements in NO MORE THAN TEN WORDS.) The scientists suggested it was actually ___________________ that made the rats feel good.
How did the scientist know what was happening in the brains of the junk-food-eating rats?
What was the purpose of the experiment mentioned in the article?
Every time you go to the supermarket you come away with your purchases packed in plastic bags. But wouldn’t it be kinder to the environment if you asked for paper bags instead?
The answer is not as easy as it might seem. Environmentalists say there are drawbacks to using both plastic bags and paper bags.
80 percent of groceries in the US are packed in plastic bags and the numbers are becoming huge. Consumers use between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags per year worldwide.
Some experts believe that all these bags harm the environment. Plastic takes hundreds of years to break down and, as it does so, poisonous materials are released into the water and soil.
Further damage is caused if plastic bags enter the sea. For example, endangered sea turtles cannot tell the bags from jellyfish, their main source of food, and often choke on them.
However, this kind of bag does have its advantages.
Paper bags use more energy and create more waste than plastic bags. Plastic bags require 40 percent less energy to produce and cause 70 percent less air pollution. They also release as much as 94 percent less waste into the water than paper ones do.
But paper bags do break down more quickly than plastic bags. They don’t endanger wildlife, either.
So what should we do? One possible solution would be to use biodegradable plastic bags. “Biodegradable” means that the bags break down naturally just like a piece of banana peel when it is left outside.
But until biodegradable technology improves, it might be easier to pack things you buy in reusable cloth bags.Compared to paper bags, plastic bags ______.
| A．produce 6 percent more waste |
| B．can be made biodegradable more easily |
| C．can be used as a source of food |
| D．save 40 percent of the energy |
By saying “The answer is not as easy as it might seem,” (in paragraph 2) the writer means _____.
A. biodegradable plastic bags can compete with paper
B. paper bags seem to be kind to environment
C. it’s difficult to say whether plastic or paper bags are better for the environmentWhat does the author suggest people use at the present time?
| A．Paper bags | B．Plastic bags |
| C．Biodegradable plastic bags. | D．Cloth bags. |
Without proper planning, tourism can cause problems. For example, too many tourists can crowd public places that are also enjoyed by the inhabitants of a country. If tourists create too much traffic, the inhabitants become annoyed and unhappy. They begin to dislike tourists and to treat them impolitely. They forget how much tourism can help the country and how tourism affects them. Tourism should help a country keep the customs and beauty that attract tourists. Tourism should also advance the well-being (health and happiness) of local inhabitants.
Too much tourism can be a problem. If tourism grows too quickly, people must leave other jobs to work in the tourism industry. This means that other parts of the country’s economy can suffer.
On the other hand, if there is not enough tourism, people can lose jobs. Businesses can also lose money. It costs a great deal of money to build large hotels, airports, air terminals, first-class roads, and other support facilities needed by tourist attractions. For example, a major international-class tourism hotel can cost as much as 50 thousand dollars per room to build. If this room is not used most of the time, the owners of the hotel lose money.
Building a hotel is just a beginning. There must be many support facilities as well, including roads to get to the hotel, electricity, sewers（阴沟） to handle waste, arid water. All of these support facilities cost money. If they are not used because there are not enough tourists, jobs and money are lost. Which of the following has most probably been discussed in the paragraph that goes before the passage?
| A．It is extremely important to develop tourism. |
| B．Building roads and hotels is essential. |
| C．Support facilities are highly necessary. |
| D．Planning is of great importance to tourism. |
Too much tourism can cause all these problems EXCEPT ______.
| A．a bad impact on other industries |
| B．A change of tourists’ customs |
| C．overcrowdedness of places of interest |
| D．pressure on traffic |
It is good for local people to be well aware that tourism will _____.
| A．use up a large amount of water |
| B．weaken their economy |
| C．help establish their traditions |
| D．help improve their life |
What I like to advise people is to find out what it is that makes them happy. What do you love to do? If you truly love what you do just go ahead and try to make a living by doing it. People will throw money at you to do it. But you will always have to work hard at it. I have to draw every single day of my life. I have to draw about 20 ideas. My advice is to put aside a certain amount of time every day and make you draw or whatever, especially when you don’t feel like it. Only in this way will you be able to perfect your talent.
The first step you take is to go to your local library and ask for the publications issued in the current years. When you get these publications, try to find the names of the top people concerned and their presidents. After you find these, write down their names and addresses. Keep this list and update it every year. Next thing you want to do is to create at least 40 cartoons. Get a grid（格子） from one of the strips in the newspapers, enlarge it to whatever size you wish and draw inside this grid. Now take the best 20 of your ideas and make them into finished pieces. To do this, you would want to copy them in ink because if you were a professional cartoonist, that was what you should do. Now you can reduce the size of the finished cartoons to fit onto a regular comic’s page. By comparing yours with the others already in print, it gives you a good idea of clarity to your cartoon.
The next step is to write letters to presidents of the publication. In the letters, explain who you think would read your work, or in other words, what group do you think you would target. After you complete these, send all of your information enclosed with letters in the appropriate envelope.
Now as soon as you send out these letters, start to create a brand new strip with all new characters. Don’t get married to one idea because if your idea gets turned down then you will give up. And always remember. If you receive a rejection from any of them, keep in mind that you are working on something better. You will be working on something new and more exciting and the rejection letter will not have any impact. With this in mind…What is the advice from the writer in the first paragraph when you want to succeed in your life?
| A．Stop doing anything until you find something quite suitable for your future career. |
| B．Put aside a certain amount of time every day to consider how to make a living. |
| C．Make a living by something that you truly like to do as your profession and work hard at it. |
| D．Perfect your talent only by drawing some cartoons. |
The purpose of writing a letter to the president was to ____.
| A．get some money to support the later career |
| B．enclose the information on how to become cartoonists with the letter |
| C．focus his attention on the work |
| D．explain who would be the readers of the work |
The underlined phrase “get married to one idea” in the last paragraph probably refers to ______.
| A．having a strong desire to get married |
| B．fixing all attention on one idea |
| C．marrying someone is a good ideas |
| D．refusing one idea to get married |
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