Sheldon Cooper is a scientific genius on the popular American TV show---The Big Bang Theory. He finally met his match last year: Stephen Hawking.
This is not the first time that the scientist has appeared on TV. He has also been on Star Trek (in 1987) and The Simpsons (in 1989). Each time, he played himself.
Hawking, 71, is perhaps the world’s most famous scientist after Albert Einstein. He has spent his whole life studying the beginning and the end of the universe, including the Big Bang theory.
The Big Bang theory explains the early development of the universe. According to the theory, about 13.7 billion years ago everything was all squeezed together in a tiny, tight little ball, and then the ball exploded. The results of that explosion are what we call the universe.
Hawking has always tried to make science more popular with people. His book: A Brief History of Time was published in 1988. In the book he shares his understanding of the universe in simple language. The book tries to explain many subjects about the universe to common readers, including the Big Bang, black holes and light cones (光锥).
Hawking’s achievements are even greater if you think about his disability. When he was 21, Hawking caught a bad illness that slowly stopped him from moving or talking. Now he sits on a wheelchair with a computer by his side. To communicate, he moves two fingers to control the computer’s mouse. He chooses his words from the screen, which are then spoken by a voice synthesizer (合成器).
Hawking also believes that there might be aliens in space. However, he believes they are probably very dangerous, so we should not look for them. “I imagine they might exist in very big ships ... having used up all the resources from their home planet,” Hawking said in a British documentary named Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking.What does the “two Bangs” in the title refer to?
| A．The director of the TV show and the founder of it. |
| B．The director and the actor of “The Big Bang Theory”. |
| C．The scientific genius on the TV show and the one in real life. |
| D．The founder of the “Big Bang” theory and Sheldon. |
The Big Bang theory mainly explains _____.
| A．how the universe started |
| B．what the universe is like |
| C．how old the universe is |
| D．how the universe exploded |
According to the passage, which of the following about Hawking is TRUE?
| A．He was born with a disability. |
| B．He played an artist in Star Trek. |
| C．He uses a computer to communicate. |
| D．He believes aliens are our friends. |
Gwendolyn Brooks wrote hundreds of poems during her lifetime. She was known around the world for using poetry to increase understanding of black culture in America.
During the 1940’s and the 1950’s, Gwendolyn Brooks used her poems to describe conditions among the poor, racial (种族的) inequality and drug use in the black community. She also wrote poems about the struggles of black women.
But her skill was more than her ability to write about struggling black people. She combined traditional European poetry styles with the African American experience.
Gwendolyn Brooks once said that she wrote about what she saw and heard in the street. She said she found most of her materials through looking out of the window of her second-floor apartment in Chicago, Illinois.
In her early poetry, Gwendolyn Brooks wrote about the South Side of Chicago, where many black people live. In her poems, the South Side is called Bronzeville. It was “A Street in Bronzeville” that gained the attention of literary experts in 1945. Critics praised her poetic skills and her powerful descriptions about the black experience during the time. The Bronzeville poems were her first published collection.
In 1950, Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. She won the prize for her second book of poems called “Annie Allen”. “Annie Allen” is a collection of poetry about a Bronzeville girl as a daughter, a wife and a mother. She experiences loneliness, loss, death and poverty (贫穷).
Gwendolyn Brooks said that winning the prize changed her life.
Her next work was a novel written in 1953 called “Maud Martha”. “Maud Martha” attracted little attention when it was first published. But now it is considered an important work by some critics. Its main ideas about the difficult lives of many women are popular among female writers today. Gwendolyn Brooks became world-famous because .
| A．she was an expert on the language of poetry |
| B．she introduced black culture by writing poems |
| C．she fought for black rights by writing poems |
| D．her poems showed the lives of black women |
Which of the following can we learn from the text?
| A．Gwendolyn Brooks’ poems focused on black people in Africa. |
| B．Winning the Pulitzer Prize for Literature was important to Brooks. |
| C．Gwendolyn Brooks used to suffer a lot from drugs. |
| D．Gwendolyn Brooks was very strict with herself. |
How did Gwendolyn Brooks get ideas for most of her poems?
| A．By observing life. | B．By having talks. | C．By reading widely. | D．By traveling. |
We can infer that the book “Annie Allen” mainly deals with .
| A．family life | B．inequality | C．adventure | D．failure |
There is an old Chinese tale about a woman whose only son died. Sadly, she went to the holy man and asked, “What magical things do you have to bring my son back to life?”
Instead of sending her away or reasoning with her, he said to her, “Fetch me a mustard (芥菜) seed from a home that has never known sadness. We will use it to drive the sadness out of your life.” The woman happily went off at once in search of that magical mustard seed.
She first came to a splendid house, knocked at the door and said, “I am looking for a home that has never known sadness. Is it such a place? It is very important to me.”
They told her “You’ve certainly come to the wrong place” and began to describe all the tragic things that had happened to them recently.
The woman said to herself, “I have had misfortune of my own. Who is able to help these poor, unfortunate people?” She stayed to comfort them, and then went on in search of a home that had never known sadness. But wherever she went, she found one tale after another of sadness and misfortune. She became so involved in other people’s sorrow that finally she forgot about her search for the magical mustard seed, never realizing that it had, in fact, driven the sadness out of her life. Which of the following does the story lead us to believe?
| A．Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. |
| B．Time passed cannot be called back again. |
| C．You can’t feel happy unless compared with others. |
| D．You can’t expect to know the result until you have tried. |
Instead of sending the woman away, the holy man .
| A．asked her to help him first |
| B．tried to comfort her with kind words |
| C．asked her to look for a thing that didn’t exist at all |
| D．tried to encourage her by talking with her |
Leaving the holy man, the woman .
| A．was full of hope | B．was filled with sadness |
| C．was determined to try again | D．became discouraged |
The best title for the text would be “ ”.
| A．A woman’s misfortune | B．A nice surprise | C．The holy man’s faith | D．Cure for sadness |
Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He stopped by the fence in front of the house where he lived with his aunt Polly. He looked at it, and all joy left him. The fence was long and high. He put the brush into the whitewash and moved it along the top of the fence. He repeated the operation. He felt he could not continue and sat down.
He knew that his friends would arrive soon with all kinds of interesting plans for the day. They would walk past him and laugh. They would make jokes about his having to work on a beautiful summer Saturday. The thought burned him like fire.
He put his hand into his pockets and took out all that he owned. Perhaps he could find some way to pay someone to do the whitewashing for him. But there was nothing of value in his pockets —nothing that could buy even half an hour of freedom. So he put the bits of toys back into his pockets and gave up the idea
At this dark and hopeless moment, a wonderful idea came to him. It filled his mind with a great, bright light. Calmly he picked up the brush and started again to whitewash.
While Tom was working, Ben Rogers appeared. Ben was eating an apple as he walked along the street. As he walked along, he was making noises like the sound of a riverboat. First he shouted loudly, like a boat captain. Then he said “Ding-Dong-Dong”, “Ding-Dong-Dong” again and again, like the bell of a riverboat. And he made other strange noises. When he came close to Tom, he stopped.
Tom went on whitewashing. He did not look at Ben. Ben stared a moment and then said: “Hello! I’m going swimming, but you can’t go, can you?”
No answer. Tom moved his brush carefully along the fence and looked at the result with the eye of an artist. Ben came nearer. Tom’s mouth watered for the apple, but he kept on working.
Ben said, “Hello, old fellow, you’ve got to work, hey?”
Tom turned suddenly and said, “Why, it’s you, Ben! I wasn’t noticing.”
“Say —I’m going swimming. Don’t you wish you could? But of course you’d rather work — wouldn’t you? Of course you would.”
Tom looked at the boy a bit, and said “What do you call work?”
“Why, isn’t that work?”
Tom went back to his whitewashing, and answered carelessly.
“Well, maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t. All I know is, it suits Tom Sawyer.”
“Oh come, now, you don’t mean to say that you like it?”
The brush continued to move.
“Like it? Well, I don’t see why I shouldn’t like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?”
Ben stopped eating his apple. Tom moved his brush back and forth, stepped back to look at the result, added a touch here and there, and stepped back again. Ben watched every move and got more and more interested. Soon he said,
“Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little.”
Tom thought for a moment, was about to agree; but he changed his mind.
“No —no —it won’t do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly wants this fence to be perfect. It has got to be done very carefully. I don’t think there is one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it well enough.”
“No —is that so? Oh come, now —let me just try. Only just a little.” “Ben, I’d like to, but if it isn’t done right, I’m afraid Aunt Polly … ”
“Oh, I’ll be careful. Now let me try. Say —I’ll give you the core of my apple.”
“Well, here —No, Ben, now don’t. I’m afraid …”
“I’ll give you all of it.”
Tom gave up the brush with unwillingness on his face, but joy in his heart. And while Ben worked at the fence in the hot sun, Tom sat under a tree, eating the apple, and planning how to get more help. There were enough boys. Each one came to laugh, but remained to whitewash. By the time Ben was tired, Tom sold the next chance to Billy for a kite; and when Billy was tired, Johnny bought in for a dead rat —and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, Tom had won many treasures.
And he had not worked. He had had a nice idle time all the time, with plenty of company －and the fence had been whitewashed three times. If he hadn’t run out of whitewash, Tom would have owned everything belonging to his friends.
He had discovered a great law of human action, namely, that in order to make a man or a boy want a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to get. How many characters are mentioned in this story?
| A．7 | B．6 | C．5 | D．4 |
Why did Tom take all his bits of toys out of his pockets?
| A．Because he is tired and wanted to play with his toys. |
| B．Because he wanted to throw his toys away. |
| C．Because he wanted to know if he could buy help with his toys. |
| D．Because he wanted to give his toys to his friends. |
Tom was about to agree to let Ben whitewash when he changed his mind because ______.
| A．Tom wanted to do the whitewashing by himself |
| B．Tom was afraid Ben would do the whitewashing better. |
| C．Tom was unwilling to let Ben do the whitewashing |
| D．Tom planned to make Ben give up his apple first |
We can learn from the passage that ________.
| A．Tom was good at whitewashing the fence, so he looked at the result of his work with the eye of an artist. |
| B．Tom was unwilling to whitewash the fence, but he managed to let other boys do it for him |
| C．Tom had a lot of friends who are ready to help others. |
| D．Tom was interested in whitewashing the fence. |
What made Ben Rogers eagerly gave up his apple and offer to brush the fence for Tom?
| A．His curiosity about Tom’s brushing job. |
| B．His warm heart and kindness to friends. |
| C．Tom’s threat. |
| D．Aunt Polly’s idea. |
Which of the following is the most suitable title for this passage?
| A．Tom And His Fellows |
| B．The Happy Whitewasher |
| C．Whitewashing A Fence |
| D．How To Make The Things Difficult To Get |
Passage 1 is from the introduction to a Zen Buddhist (禅宗的佛教僧侣) manual on the art of “mindfulness”, the practice of paying close attention to the present moment. Passage 2 is from an essay by a United States author.
Passage 1
Every morning, when we wake up, we have 24 brand-new hours to live. What a precious gift! We have the capacity to live in a way that these 24 hours will bring peace, joy, and happiness to ourselves and to others.
Peace is right here and now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see. The question is whether or not we are in touch with it. We don’t have to travel far away to enjoy the blue sky. We don’t have to leave our city or even our neighborhood to enjoy the eyes of a beautiful child. Even the air we breathe can be a source of joy.
We can smile, breathe, walk, and eat our meals in a way that allows us to be in touch with the abundance of happiness that is available. We are very good at preparing how to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive. Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with joy, peace, and serenity. We need only to be awake, alive in the present moment.
Passage 2
The argument of both the hedonist (享乐主义者) and the guru (印度教的宗师)is that we were but to open ourselves to the richness of the moment, to concentrate on the feast before us, we would be filled with bliss. I have lived in the present from time to time and can tell you that it is much overrated. Occasionally, as a holiday from stroking one’s memories or brooding (担忧) about future worries, I grant you, it can be a nice change of pace. But to “be here now,” hour after hour, would never work. I don’t even approve of stories written in the present tense. Ads for poets who never use a past participate, they deserve the eternity they are striving for.
Besides, the present has a way of intruding whether you like it or not. Why should I go out of my way to meet it? Let it splash on me from time to time, like a car going through a puddle, and I, on the sidewalk of my solitude (孤独), will salute it grimly like any other modern inconvenience.
If I attend a concert, obviously not to listen to the music but to find a brief breathing space in which to meditate on the past and future. I realize that there may be moments when the music invades my ears and I am forced to pay attention to it, note for note. I believe I take such intrusions gracefully. The present is not always anunwelcome guest, so long as it doesn’t stay too long and cut into my remembering or brooding time.The author of Passage 1 would most likely view the author of Passage 2 as _______.
| A．failing to respect the feelings of other people |
| B．squandering (浪费) a precious opportunity on a daily basis |
| C．advocating an action without considering the consequences |
| D．attaching too much importance to the views of others |
The author of Passage 1 would most likely respond to the “argument” (line 1 Passage 2) with_______.
| A．absolute neutrality | B．partial acceptance |
| C．complete agreement | D．surprised disbelief |
In Passage 1 line 11, the list (“a job…house”) presents things that most people ________.
| A．assume they will eventually obtain |
| B．eventually realize are overrated |
| C．are unwilling to make sacrifices for |
| D．see as worth much effort to acquire |
In Passage 2 lines 8—10, the “present” is characterized as _________.
| A．an unavoidable imposition (强加) |
| B．an unsolvable puzzle |
| C．a dangerous threat |
| D．a burdensome obligation |
Which of the following phrases from Passage 2would the author of Passage 1 most likely choose as a title for Passage 1?
| A．“the hedonist and the guru” (line 1) |
| B．“a brief breathing space” (line 11) |
| C．“the feast before us” (line 2) |
| D．“an unwelcome guest” (line 14) |
From the health point of view we are living in an amazing age. We are free from many of the most dangerous diseases. A large number of once deadly illnesses can now be cured by modern medicine. It is almost certain that one day medicines will be found for the most stubborn remaining diseases. The expectation of life has increased greatly. But though the possibility of living a long and happy life is greater than ever before, every day we witness the unbelievable killing of men, women and children on the roads. Man vs the motor-car. It is a never-ending battle which man is losing. Thousands of people the world over are killed or horribly killed each year and we are quietly sitting back and letting it happen.
It has been rightly said that when a man is sitting behind a steering wheel (方向盘), his car becomes the extension of his personality. There is no doubt that the motor-car often brings out a man’s very worst qualities．People who are normally quiet and pleasant may become unrecognizable when they are behind a steering-wheel. They say, they are ill-mannered and aggressive, willful as two-year-olds and completely selfish．All their hidden angers and disappointments seem to be brought to the surface by the act of driving.
The surprising thing is that society smiles so gently on the motorist and seems to forgive his behavior. Everything is done for his convenience. Cities are allowed to become almost uninhabitable because of heavy traffic; towns are made ugly by huge car parks; the countryside is ruined by road networks; and the deaths become nothing more than a number every year, to be easily forgotten.
It is high time a world rule was created to reduce this senseless waste of human life. With regard to driving, the laws of some countries are unbelievably lax (不严格) and even the strictest are not strict enough. A rule which was universally accepted could only have an obviously beneficial effect on the accident rate．Here are a few examples of some of the things that might be done. The driving test should be standardized and made far more difficult than it is; all the drivers should be made to take a test every three years or so; the age at which young people are allowed to drive any vehicle should be raised to at least 21; all vehicles should be put through strict tests for safety each year. Even the smallest amount of alcohol in the blood can damage a person's driving ability. Present drinking and driving laws (where they exist) should be made much stricter. Speed limits should be required on all roads. Governments should lay down safety specifications for car factories, as has been done in the USA. All advertising stressing power and performance should be banned. These measures may not sound good enough. But surely nothing should be considered as too severe if it results in reducing the number of deaths. After all, the world is for human beings, not motor-cars. What is the main idea of this passage?
| A．The laws of some countries about driving are too lax. |
| B．Traffic accidents are mainly caused by motorists. |
| C．Thousands of people the world over are kille6 each year. |
| D．Only stricter traffic laws can prevent accidents. |
What does the author think of society toward motorists?
| A．Society forgives their rude driving. |
| B．Society laughs at the motorists. |
| C．Victims of accidents are nothing. |
| D．Huge car parks are built in the cities and towns. |
What does the author mean by saying “his car becomes the extension of his personality” in Para. 2 ?
| A．Driving can represent his manners. |
| B．Driving can show his hidden qualities. |
| C．Driving can bring out his character. |
| D．Driving can show the other part of his personality. |
Which of the followings is NOT mentioned as a way against traffic accidents?
| A．Build more highways. |
| B．Stricter driving tests. |
| C．Test drivers every three years. |
| D．Raise age limit and lay down safety specifications. |
The author’s attitude towards the present traffic situation is ________.
| A．positive | B．unsatisfied | C．appealing | D．unclear |
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