Settled by the Celts, invaded by the Romans and the Normans, and ruled by the English, Wales’ population has regularly changed over the ages. Wales, particularly South Wales, became a melting pot of European nationalities and cultures. At first workers from England, Ireland and the rural areas of Wales rushed into the coalfields of South Wales. By 1911, workers from Ireland, Italy and Spain had joined the industrial workforce there. Many of these newcomers were prepared to work for less pay.
But during this period, workers, dissatisfied with regular pay cuts, poor safety, the growing trend of employers to pay workers with tokens (代币), which could only be spent in the company store, returned to the land. In 1891, the rural population of Wales was about 616,000 and by 1911 just over 649,000 people lived and worked in these areas.
The rural population continues to grow slowly even today. People from richer parts of the UK, particularly southern England, are buying holiday or retirement homes in Wales. In some areas this has led to a shortage of affordable housing for local people. This, combined with the lack of employment prospects in rural Welsh communities, has started a new movement of people in search of jobs and homes into the towns and cities of Wales and to other parts of the UK and Europe.
As so many Welsh people have migrated to other countries over the last 200 years, it’s really no surprise that many visitors come to see friends and relatives — there were 229,000 visitors in 1998. These visitors strengthen their links to their land of origin and continue to support the Welsh economy. During the hot summer days, about 28% of the visitors visit the countryside and nearly 70% visit the seaside.Why was South Wales so attractive to people in the early 20th century?
| A．Because its coal industry needed a large number of workers |
| B．Because people could get the highest pay there. |
| C．Because it was rich in many different kinds of culture |
| D．Because people could buy holiday or retirement homes there. |
From the last paragraph, we learn that most visitors come to Wales for the purpose of _____.
| A．visiting their friends and relatives |
| B．supporting the Welsh economy |
| C．enjoying a cool and pleasant summer |
| D．all of the above |
What would be the best title for the passage?
| A．Wales, a land with a population on the move |
| B．Wales, a land with a promising past and future. |
| C．Wales, the biggest melting pot of Europe. |
| D．Tourism, the main economic source of Wales |
What does the writer want to tell us in the second paragraph?
| A．Welsh workers couldn’t get any pay for their work. |
| B．The working conditions were terrible at this time. |
| C．Many people got tired of city life at this time. |
| D．The rural population of Wales didn’t decline at this time |
Nothing can destroy a vacation quicker than losing your money or credit cards. A few simple steps before you head out of the door can help protect your cash, card and personal information while you’re traveling.
Paul Stephens, a policy analyst San Diego, notes that people spend a lot of time planning their trips, from buying guidebooks to finding just the right beach outfits（装备）.“But their eyes glaze（呆滞） over when the subject of keeping money safe comes up,” he said.
“Why not take a few minutes to do something that could probably save your vacation?” Stephens asked．“In most cases, they can go on your to-do list with‘ buy travel bags’ and everything else,” he added.
The top recommendation is to clean your wallet. Remove unnecessary credit cards and any other unneeded documents that could compromise（危及...的安全）your identity(身份) if lost or stolen while you’re on vocation.
Then make a photocopy of the cards you’ve decided to take along and keep it in a secure location with you（not in your wallet）or leave it with a trusted relative or friend back home. Then you will know who you need to contact and how to reach it if your wallet is missing.
“Travelers should never leave their wallets or any identifying documents in their hotel room when they’re not there,” he said.” Choose a hotel with a safe to keep your valuable things in. Or keep your wallet and documents with you at all times. ”According to passage, _______can destroy one’s vacation the most quickly.
| A．being lost on vacation | B．losing money or credit cards |
| C．living in a bad hotel. | D．losing contact with family |
What does the underlined word stand for?
| A．The people who are going traveling. |
| B．The outfits that are prepare4d for traveling. |
| C．The suggestions on what to buy when traveling. |
| D．The steps to avoid losing money or credit cards. |
What should people do with their wallet before they go on vacation?
| A．Take it with them all the time. | B．Put it in a safe place at the hotel |
| C．Remove unnecessary cards and documents. | D．Leave it with family or friend. |
What is the topic of the passage?
| A．How to prepare for travel. |
| B．How to be happy during your vacation. |
| C．How to keep cash and cards safe on vacation. |
| D．How to protect your luggage on vacation |
According to the passage, we know ______.
| A．people don’t always know how to protect their money or credit cards |
| B．people should take a lot of money with them while traveling |
| C． people can leave their identifying documents in rooms, if the hotel is expensive |
| D．people can spend a few minutes preparing the luggage for travelling |
To what degree can a computer achieve intelligence？The answer to this question may lie in a newly-developed US computer program called Smarter Child and the Internet.
If you ran into Smarter Child online, you would be surprised at this kid’s huge memory. It can recite many facts. For example, Smarter Child knows every baseball player in every team this season.
He knows every word in the dictionary and the weather in every major city areas across the US. However, if you ask Smarter Child other questions, you get strange answers. A question about Smarter Child’s age returns, “One year, 11 days, 16 hours, 7 minutes, and 47 seconds!” Asking where he lives gets, “In a clean room in a high-tech building in California.”
Smarter Child uses the vast information on the World Wide Web as his memory bank. To answer questions about spelling, for instance, Smarter Child goes to American Heritage Dictionary online. For the weather, he visits www.intellicast.com.
Some scientists believe that by joining the many systems of the Internet, an artificial(人工的) being with the combined knowledge of, say, Albert Einstein, Richard Nixon and Britney Spears could be born. However, if Smarter Child wants to think and learn on his own like the boy-computer David in the movie A. I. Artificial Intelligence, he must solve two problems.
The first is that computers find it difficult to read web pages because the files（文件） are sorted in different ways. That’s why programmers need to tell Smarter Child where to look for the weather. It would be a much more difficult task to let him find it himself.
Another problem is that while Smarter Child can process（处理）information more exactly and faster than any human, he lacks common sense—a basic grounding of knowledge that is obvious to any young child.From the text we can infer that www.intellicast.com is a website .
| A．which is specially designed to help Smarter Child |
| B．where we people can find Smarter Child |
| C．where weather forecasts are made |
| D．which is about artificial intelligence |
It is probably most difficult for Smarter Child to .
| A．tell us how to spell a difficult word |
| B．tell us how the American government is run |
| C．provide us with a famous poem by Shakespeare |
| D．learn the ability to tell right behaviors from wrong ones. |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the text?
A. Smart Child has his own memory bank big enough for all kinds of information.
B. A.I. Artificial Intelligence is probably the name of a film about a boy-computer.
C. Smart Child can recognize different files and find information needed on his own.
D. We have similar product now which has the knowledge of Einstein, Nixon and Spears.Which of the following is the best title for the passage?
| A．A New Web Child | B．Smarter Child |
| C．The Future of Internet | D．Intelligence Development |
Nearly everyone is shy in some ways. If shyness is making you uncomfortable, it may be time for a few lessons in self-confidence. You can build your confidence by
following some suggestions from doctors and psychologists.
Make a decision not to hold back in conversations. What you have to say is just as important as what other people say. And don’t turn down party invitations just because of your shyness.
Prepare for yourself for being with others in groups. Make a list of the good qualities you have. Then make a list of ideas, experiences, and skills you would like to share with other people . I think about what you would like to say in advance. Then say it.
If you start feeling self-conscious in a group, take a deep breath and focus your attention on other people, Remember, you are not alone. Other people are concerned about the impression they are making, too.
No one ever gets over being shy completely, but most people do learn to live with their shyness. Even entertainers admit that they often feel shy. They work at fighting their shy feelings so that they can face the cameras and the public. Just making the effort to control shyness can have many rewards. But perhaps the best reason to fight shyness is to give other people a chance to know about you.Where would this article probably appear?
| A．In a popular magazine | B．On the top-line position of a newspaper |
| C．In a science textbook | D．In an encyclopedia (百科全书) |
The main purpose of the article is to _____.
| A．explain how shyness developed | B．recommend ways of dealing with shyness |
| C．persuade readers that shyness is natural | D．prove that shyness can be overcome |
Which of these can you conclude from reading the article?
| A．Shy people never have any fun |
| B．Entertainers choose their work to fight shyness |
| C．The attempt to overcome shyness is always frustrating |
| D．The attempt to overcome shyness is always rewarding |
Who probably gives the suggestion for fighting shyness?
| A．The author of the article | B．Shy men and women |
| C．Doctors and psychologists | D．Popular entertainers |
Chinese media and Internet users on Monday condemned a lack of morals in society after a toddler was struck twice by two different vans and left bleeding on the road as more than a dozen bystanders did nothing to help the seriously injured girl.
The incident, captured by a surveillance camera and aired by Southern Television Guangdong (TVS), showed the two-year-old girl was knocked down and run over by a white van on a narrow market street on the afternoon of Oct. 13, in Foshan City of Guangdong Province.
The driver fled the scene of the accident, leaving the girl to bleed on the sidewalk. Over the next six minutes, more than a dozen people walked by the girl, yet not one individual did anything to help her. The girl was then hit a second time by another van before an elderly trash collector came to her aid and brought the attention of the girl’s mother, according to the video and eyewitnesses.
Doctors said that the girl, who was put on life support after being hospitalized, remains in a deep coma. The girl's parents, who are migrants living in the city, are now with her.
Police said the drivers of both vehicles have been arrested. However, the apathy of the bystanders shown in the video has shocked the public, as Internet forums have seethed with anger, and people are questioning the morality of society.
High moral standards were once triumphed as national pride in China where individuals known for selflessly helping others were adored by the public.
But in recent years, the perception of a decline of morals has become a hot topic as profit and materialism are perceived to be affecting society’s values.
On Sept. 2. an 88-year-old man in central China collapsed, his face striking the pavement. Yet, no one came to his aid, and he ended up choking to death on the blood from his nose.
Some have linked the absence of good models to a previous case in which a man trying to help an elderly woman who fell was accused of harming her.
A strong chorus of opinion on the Internet says laws should exempt（免除）models from responsibility, yet laws themselves cannot solve society’s morality dilemma.
Cao Lin, a China Youth Daily commentator, said in a signed article published on Monday that the worry of responsibility should not be an excuse for not helping, and this case exposes the decline of humanity in Chinese society.From the passage, what would happen if someone helped others selflessly in the past?
| A．He/she would be condemned by the public. |
| B．He/she would be awarded by the government. |
| C．The public would feel proud of him/ her and showed love and respect for him/ her |
| D．He/she would have to worry about liability. |
Which of the following is TRUE about this passage?
| A．Nobody helped the girl who was struck twice by two different vans. |
| B．The toddler died immediately after she was hit a second time. |
| C．High moral standards were once regarded as national pride in China. |
| D．Journalists from TVS captured the incident by using a camera. |
In recent years, society’s values is believed to be affected by .
| A．people’s perceptions | B．profit and materialism |
| C．the apathy of bystanders | D．the morals of society |
According to Cao Lin, what is the fundamental reason for not helping the girl?
| A．The worry of responsibility. |
| B．Lack of laws that exempt role models from responsibility. |
| C．The decline of humanity in society. |
| D．The other two cases mentioned in the article--the case of an 88-year-old man and the case where a man trying to help an elderly woman who fell was accused of harming her. |
Where is the article probably taken from?
| A．A fashion magazine. | B．A news report. |
| C．A science fiction. | D．An education column. |
A child who has once been pleased with a tale likes, as a rule, to have it retold in almost the same words, but this should not lead parents to treat printed fairy stories as formal texts. It is always much better to tell a story than read it out of a book, and, if a parent can produce what, in the actual situation of the time and the child, is an improvement on the printed text, so much the better.
A charge made against fairy tales is that they harm the child by frightening him or making him sad thinking. To prove the latter, one would have to show in a controlled experiment that children who have read fairy stories were more often sorry for cruelty than those who had not. As to fears, there are, I think, some cases of children being dangerously terrified by some fairy story. Often, however, this arises from the child having heard the story once. Familiarity with the story by repetition turns the pain of fear into the pleasure of a fear faced and mastered.
There are also people who object to fairy stories on the grounds that they are not objectively true, that giants, witches, two - headed dragons, magic carpets, etc. do not exist; and that, instead of being fond of the strange side in fairy tales, the child should be taught to learn the reality by studying history. I find such people, I must say so peculiar that I do not know how to argue with them. If their case were sound, the world should be full of mad men attempting to fly from New York to Philadelphia on a stick or covering a telephone with kisses in the belief that it was their beloved girl -friend.
No fairy story ever declared to be a description of the real world and no clever child has ever believed that it was.The author considers that a fairy story is more effective when it is ____ .
| A．repeated without any change | B．treated as a joke |
| C．made some changes by the parent | D．set in the present |
According to the passage, great fear can take place in a child when the story is ____ .
| A．in a realistic setting | B．heard for the first time |
| C．repeated too often | D．told in a different way |
The advantage claimed (提出) for repeating fairy stories to young children is that it ____.
| A．makes them less fearful |
| B．develops their power of memory |
| C．makes them believe there is nothing to be afraid of |
| D．encourages them not to have strange beliefs |
The author's mention of sticks and telephones is meant to suggest that ______.
| A．fairy stories are still being made up |
| B．there is some misunderstanding about fairy tales |
| C．people try to modernize old fairy stories |
| D．there is more concern for children's fears nowadays |
One of the reasons why some people are not in favor of fairy tales is that _______.
| A．they are full of imagination |
| B．they just make up the stories which are far from the truth |
| C．they are not interesting |
| D．they make teachers of history difficult to teach |
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