It’s not often a tomato that is described as so sweet “whenever people see it they just want to hug”-but this was no ordinary piece of fruit.
The heart-shaped tomato was grown by the retired worker, Rod Matless, who said he was surprised when he noticed it in his field. Mr. Matless, 69, who had a heart attack a few years ago, was so taken aback by the fruit that he decided to sell it and donate the money to the British Heart Foundation. The 64 g tomato was bought for$16 on eBay by woman from Wales - who said she planned to give it to someone special.
Mr. Matless, of Wymondham, near Norwich, said：“I spent a couple of days thinking about what to do with it and I wasn’t really sure, but this seems like a good use. I hope it will do someone somewhere a bit of good.” He added：“It’s very sweet - whenever people see it they just want to hug it.” But with the tomato’s freshness a key factor, Mr. Matless was up against the clock to send it to its new owner before it went bad. He said：“I didn’t want to send someone something horrible. I probably could have raised a bit more money with more time but I was worried about it.”
“It will certainly make a nice present for a loved one. I hope that they like it and I’m glad I got to help. It’s all been very good fun and I’ve really enjoyed growing this very special tomato.”We can learn from the text that the tomato grown by Rod Matless ______.
| A．is very big | B．is very tough |
| C．is very special | D．is good for health |
The underlined part “taken aback by” in Paragraph 2 means ______.
| A．satisfied with | B．nervous about |
| C．surprised by | D．frightened by |
According to the text, the main problem for Rod Matless was ______.
| A．how to advertise the tomato |
| B．how to keep the tomato fresh |
| C．how to get a good price for the tomato |
| D．how to find a good owner for the tomato |
My friend had mentioned the other day that her father had a lot of children's toys he was looking to give away. She knew I have a three-year-old daughter so she thought of me first. I told her I would love it if I could get some nice things for my daughter, which I wouldn't otherwise have been able to afford.
When I met her father, he began to explain he was too poor once and that he would hate to throw away things that can be very useful.
Before he showed me what he was giving away, I thought the toys would be mostly lego's(乐高积木) or things like that. When he was showing me around I saw a bed, a slide, a kitchen set and many other things that just blew my mind. He told me to write a list of everything my daughter could use and as my eyes were wide, he told me not to feel guilty. He said I was helping him by getting rid of the stuff.
As I was looking around I did feel guilty, but I tried to remain more grateful than guilty. Every time I tried to thank him for giving me and my daughter all this wonderful stuff he would thank me right back. I wanted to believe that he was just thanking me so that I wouldn't feel so guilty but in reality I believe that he was as grateful as I was that these toys would be put to good use.
In the eyes of charity, it makes sense to feel grateful, but guilt is just as normal. I know that we could have lived without a slide, which is why I do feel guilty, but I am grateful all the same because my daughter really does enjoy all these nice things!Why did the old man want to give away his toys?
| A．He wanted to help those poor children. |
| B．He was wealthy enough to buy new toys. |
| C．He wanted to make full use of those toys. |
| D．He needed some space for more useful things. |
In the writer's opinion, the old man felt grateful because
| A．he wanted to make her more guilty |
| B．he wanted her to take the toys quickly |
| C．the toys would be put to good use |
| D．he finally got rid of the stuff |
What can we know from the passage?
| A．The writer took all the toys home. |
| B．The old man was a kind and thoughtful person |
| C．The writer wanted to refuse the stuff when she first saw them. |
| D．The writer's daughter enjoyed the slide most among all the stuff. |
How did the writer feel when given the stuff?
| A．Guilty and honored. | B．Grateful and respected. |
| C．Honored and respected. | D．Guilty and grateful. |
Tiny transmitters(发射机) fixed on the backs of the blue-green bees have allowed scientists to follow the insects as they fly for miles in search of rare flowers.
Working in Panama, scientists caught 17 bees of the common species and fixed a 300 milligram radio light onto the back of each. The signals they sent out were used to follow their movements in and around the forest where they lived.
Professor Martin, from Princeton University, US, and the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany, said, “By following the radio signals, we discovered that male bees spent most of their time in small centre areas, but could take off and visit areas farther away. One male even crossed over the shipping lanes in the Panama Canal, flying at least 5km, and returned a few days later.”
Researchers have struggled to follow the movements of bees before, following bees marked with paint or using radar which doesn’t work well in forests.
“Carrying the transmitter could reduce the distance that the bees travel, but even if the flight distances we record are the shortest distances that these bees can fly, they are impressive, long-distance movements,” said Dr. Roland Kays, from New York State Museum, a co-author of the research published today in the on-line journal. “This result helps to explain how these bees’ pollination(授粉) can be so rare.” Pollination by bees and other insects is the key to the diversity and continued growth of flowers and trees in some forests.
The new study is the first to use radio transmitters to follow bees in a forest. Similar research may now be carried in temperate forests, where bees also play a vital role.The main purpose of the passage is to___
| A．call on people to protect the bees for the environment |
| B．explain why the bees fly far away in search of flowers |
| C．introduce a modern way to follow the bees to readers |
| D．encourage the public to support the scientists’ research |
What was the problem when researchers tried to follow the bees in the past?
| A．It was quite difficult to mark the bees |
| B．The radar itself didn’t work very well |
| C．The bees weren’t easy to be recognized |
| D．Environmental limits were hard to solve |
What Dr. Roland Kays said implied that____
| A．he didn’t expect bees could fly so long a distance |
| B．The transmitter didn’t have any effects on bees at all |
| C．He wanted to know how far bees could travel badly |
| D．The record was in fact as exact as he had thought |
Researchers follow the movements of bees mainly to___
| A．learn how far they can fly at most |
| B．discover how they affect the plants |
| C．correct some wrong ideas about bees |
| D．get to know where they enjoy living |
If you’re tired of the Mediterranean and don’t want to head to Disney again, perhaps it’s time for a summer holiday in space. Russia has declared plans for its first floating hotel, 217 miles above earth, and it is something of an offering with good service.
Hosting just seven guests in a four cabins, the accommodation will boast huge windows with views back to earth and tasty microwave meals will be served instead of the ones often used by astronauts.
Just getting there will be an adventure in itself—it will take two days aboard a Soyuz rocket—and it won’t exactly be a budget holiday: A five-day stay will cost you￡100, 000 to￡500, 000 for your journey. The hotel is due to open by 2016 and, according to those behind it, will be far more comfortable than the International Space Station (ISS) used by astronauts and cosmonauts.
In the weightlessness of space, visitors can choose to have beds that are either vertical or horizontal. Tourists, who will be accompanied by experienced crew, will dine on food prepared on Earth and sent up on the rocket, to be reheated in microwave ovens. Many kinds of delicacies will be available.
Iced tea, mineral water and fruit juices will be available, but alcohol will be strictly prohibited. Toilets will use flowing air instead of water to move waste through the system. Waste water will be recycled.
Sergei Kostenko, chief executive of Orbital Technologies which will construct the hotel, said: “Our planned module inside will not remind you of the International Space Station. A hotel should be comfortable inside, and it will be possible to look at the Earth. The hotel will be aimed at wealthy individuals and people working for private companies who want to do research in space.” The hotel can also be used as an emergency bolthole (避难处) for astronauts aboard the International Space Station if there is a crisis.Which can be the best title of the passage?
| A．Russia declares the design for its first space hotel |
| B．The first space hotel is under construction now |
| C．The astronauts will have a second home in space |
| D．Russia has the advanced technology in exploring space |
What does the underlined word “budget” in the 3rd paragraph mean?
| A．expensive | B．worthwhile |
| C．economic | D．uncomfortable |
What kind of accommodation will the guests have in the space hotel?
| A．They will have the same food as the astronauts have. |
| B．Many kinds of drinks are available including alcohol. |
| C．Guests can have beds that are either vertical or horizontal. |
| D．Tourists are accompanied by the astronauts from the ISS. |
Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．The space hotel is built to remind you of the International Space Station. |
| B．The hotel is constructed with big windows so that tourists can see the earth. |
| C．The company, Orbital Technologies, has already begun to build the space hotel. |
| D．In the near future, a space trip for most of the people can be realized. |
Shopping for clothes is not the same experience for a man as it is for a woman. A man goes shopping because he needs something. All men simply walk into a shop and ask the assistant for what they want. If the shop has it in stock, the salesman immediately finds it, and the business of trying it on follows at once. All being well, the deal can be and often is completed inless than five minutes.
For a man, small problems may begin when the shop doesn't have what he wants. In that case, thesalesman, tries to sell the customer something else. "I know this jacket is not the style you want, sir, but would you like to try it for size? It happens to be thecolour you mentioned. "Few men have patience with this treatment, and the usual response is: "This is the right colour and may be the right size, but I should be wasting my time and yours by trying it on."
However, a woman in almost every respect she does so in the opposite way. Her shopping is not often based on needand she is only "having a look around". She is always open to persuasion; indeed she sets great store by what the saleswoman tells her. She will try on any number ofthings. Most women have an excellent sense of value when they buy clothes. They are always on the lookout for the unexpected bargain. Faced with a roomful of dresses, a woman may easily spend an hour going from one room to another, often retracing her steps, before selecting the dresses she wants to try on. It is a laborious process, but apparently an enjoyable one. Most dress shops provide chairs for the waiting husbands.The underlined part “sets great store by ” in paragraph 3 means___
| A．has much information about | B．knows nothing bout |
| C．believes in | D．has her doubts about |
What does the passage tell us about women shoppers for clothes?
| A．They welcome suggestions from others. |
| B．They rarely consider buying cheap clothes. |
| C．They predict what they want to buy. |
| D．They listen to advice but never take it. |
What can we learn from the passage?
| A．Men never buy what they don’t need |
| B．A man’s shopping is often based on need |
| C．A woman goes shopping in order to look for cheap things |
| D．A woman’s shopping is never based on need. |
In her new book, “The Smartest Kids in the World,” Amanda Ripley, an investigative journalist, tells the story of Tom, a high-school student from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, who decides to spend his senior year in Warsaw, Poland．Poland is a surprising educational success story: in the past decade, the country raised students’ test scores from significantly below average to well above it．Polish kids have now outscored（超过……分数） American kids in math and science, even though Poland spends, on average, less than half as much per student as the United States does．One of the most striking differences between the high school Tom attended in Gettysburg and the one he ends up at in Warsaw is that the latter has no football team, or, for that matter, teams of any kind．
That American high schools waste more time and money on sports than on math is an old complaint．This is not a matter of how any given student who plays sports does in school, but of the culture and its priorities．This December, when the latest Program for International Student Assessment（PISA） results are announced, it’s safe to predict that American high-school students will once again display their limited skills in math and reading, outscored not just by students in Poland but also by students in places like South Korea, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Singapore, and Japan．Meanwhile, they will have played some very exciting football games, which will have been breathlessly written up in their hometown papers．
Why does this situation continue? Well, for one thing, kids like it．And for another, according to Ripley, parents seem to like the arrangement, too．She describes a tour she took of a school in Washington D．C．, which costs thirty thousand dollars a year．The tour leader—a mother with three children in the school—was asked about the school’s flaws（暇疵）．When she said that the math program was weak, none of the parents taking the tour reacted．When she said that the football program was weak, the parents suddenly became concerned．“Really?” one of them asked worriedly, “What do you mean?” One of the ironies（讽刺） of the situation is that sports reveal what is possible．American kids’ performance on the field shows just how well they can do when expection are high．It’s too bad that their test scores show the same thing．Tom decides to spend his senior year in Poland because _______．
| A．there are striking differences between the 2 countries |
| B．Polish kids are better at learning |
| C．he intends to improve his scores |
| D．sports are not supported at schools in Gettysburg |
According to Paragraph 2, we know that _______．
| A．little time is spent on sports in Japanese schools |
| B．too much importance is placed on sports in America |
| C．American high schools complain about sports time |
| D．PISA plays a very important role in America |
The underlined sentence in the last paragraph means _______．
| A．American students’ academic performance worries their parents a lot |
| B．high expectations push up American students’ academic performance |
| C．lacking practice contributes to American students’ average performance |
| D．low expectations result in American students’ poor PISA performance |
The purpose of this article is to _______．
| A．draw public attention to a weakness in American school tradition |
| B．call on American schools to learn from the Polish model |
| C．compare Polish schools with those in America |
| D．explain what is wrong with American schools and provide solutions |
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