My transportation was unexpectedly smooth and I arrived at the meeting half an hour earlier. I kept my eyes on the restaurant door. Several customers entered, but not my friend. At 6:00 pm, she sent me a text message: “Urgent work to finish. Will be 20 minutes late.”
I had left my book in the office, so I spent the time thinking of my experiences of being late in China. On my first visit in 1985, punctuality was deeply rooted in the Chinese hearts. There were no traffic jams then.
As a teacher in Canada, I always insisted on punctuality. I would open the classroom door to a late student for the first time and the second, but not the third. During the six years I worked for CCTV, I had a Chinese friend whom I often saw at lunch time, or after work. We used to meet at the subway station nearby. He was always late by 10-20 minutes. To my question, “You were busy?” he would surprisingly answer, “ No.” Once I asked him to check the clock in his office, he smiled.
In March 2015, I got permanent residence (居住权) in China. The ceremony was scheduled for 9:00 am at the Public Security Bureau on the Second Ring Road. I told my driver I had to get there by 8:40 am. “No problem,” he replied. But he thought he had time to drop someone off at the airport before picking me up. I desperately waited for him. Then, to rub salt into my wound, he had to stop at the exit of a gas station. Finally, I entered the room at 9:07 am ── the last guest to arrive!What can we learn from the passage?
| A．The author is always late for work or any activities. |
| B．The author dislikes making friends with unpunctual persons. |
| C．The author hates being late from the bottom of heart. |
| D．The author can do something to deal with unpunctuality. |
If the author’s student comes late for the third time, _______.
| A．he will let him/her remain outside |
| B．he will open the door for him/her again |
| C．he will shout at him/her loudly |
| D．he will tell him/her to take care next time |
How did the Chinese friend feel when the author asked him to check the clock?
| A．Excited. | B．Embarrassed. |
| C．Satisfied. | D．Shocked. |
Why didn’t the author arrive at the ceremony on time?
| A．Because the gas was running out. |
| B．Because his driver met a guest at the airport. |
| C．Because there was a big traffic jam on the road. |
| D．Because the driver estimated the time wrongly. |
As motorways become more and more blocked up with traffic, a new generation on flying cars will be needed to ferry people along skyways. That is the conclusion of engineers from the US space agency and aeronautical firms, who envision future commuters traveling by “skycar”.
These could look much like the concept skycar shown in the picture, designed by Boeing research and development. However, such vehicles could be some 25 years from appearing on the market. Efforts to build flying vehicles in the past have not been very successful. Such vehicles would not only be expensive and require the skills of a trained pilot to fly, but there are significant engineering challenges involved in developing them. “When you try to combine them you get the worst of both worlds: a very heavy, slow, expensive vehicle that’s hard to use,” said Mark Moore, head of the personal air vehicle(PAV) division of the vehicle systems program at Nasa’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, US. But Boeing is also considering how to police the airways-and prevent total pandemonium(吵杂狂乱的喧闹)-if thousands of flying cars enter the skies.
“The neat, gee-whiz part is thinking about what the vehicle itself would look like,” said Dick Paul, a vice president with Phantom Works, Boeing’s research and development arm. “But we’re trying to think through all the consequences of what it would take to deploy(散开) a fleet of these.”
Past proposals to solve this problem have included artificial intelligence systems to prevent collisions between air traffic. Nasa is working on flying vehicles with the initial goal of transforming small plane travel. Small planes are generally costly, loud, and require months of training and lots of money to operate, making flying to work impractical for most people. But within five years, Nasa researchers hope to develop technology for a small plane that can fly out of regional airports, costs less than $100,000(£55,725), is as quiet as a motorcycle and as simple to operate as a car.
Although it would not have any road-driving capabilities, it would bring this form of travel within the grasp of a wider section of people. The new technology would automate many of the pilot’s functions. This Small Aircraft Transportation System(Sats) would divert pressure away from the “hub-and-spoke(中心辐射型)” model of air travel. Hub-and-spoke refers to the typically US model of passengers being processed through large “hub” airports and then on to secondary flights to “spoke” airports near their final destinations.
The best title for this text would be .
| A．Developing Skycars | B．The Traffic Jams in the Sky |
| C．How to Guide Flying Cars in the Sky | D．What Flying Cars Will Look Like |
The underlined word “envision” in Paragraph 1 most probably means “ ”.
| A．see | B．expect | C．think | D．announce |
When engineers develop the skycars, they have to deal with the following difficulties except .
| A．how to fly out of regional airports |
| B．how to prevent the disorder of the airways |
| C．how to reduce expenses and the vehicle’s weight |
| D．how to fly the skycars to enter skies |
Now Nasa researchers’ aim is to .
| A．make big flying cars |
| B．work out the plan——how to transform small plane travel |
| C．develop a new kind of small plane different from the traditional one |
| D．build a new kind of small plane with road-driving abilities |
Why not an island get-away?
Newfoundland
Price
From £1080 per person in June 2005
We went with:
Frontier Canada frontier-travel. Co. uk/Canada
About this trip
John Cabot had set sail looking for a new trade route for Asia, when he landed in Cape Bonavista. Clearly he felt this barren desolate landscape could provide this, so he claimed it for its potential and so began the rise of the British Empire.
Newfoundland is the most easterly point in North America and was Britain’s first overseas colony until 1949, when it became part of Canada. It’s roughly the size of England and Craig’s journey by camper van or RV (recreational vehicle) took in just a small part of the island called the Bonavista Peninsula.
First stop was the tiny fishing port of Keels to stock up for the journey ahead. There’s a long standing love affair between Newfoundlanders and cod. The seas off the Newfoundland coast were once the richest cod fishing grounds in the world, attracting fishermen from all over Europe. Many settled, establishing these coastal villages known locally as outports.
An hour’s drive down the coast is the town of Bonavista, where Craig met up with retired fisherman, Wilson Hayward. He told Craig how the landscape used to lie, and described the peculiarities of the language and accents in the area. There’s a different language in every bay.
The title “Why not an island get-away?” _________.
| A．invites people to take a holiday trip to Newfoundland |
| B．informs people that the island is moving away from where it used to be |
| C．tells people that they can buy the island at the price of £1080. |
| D．asks people to visit the website frontier-travel. co.uk/Canada |
From the context we can conclude that “Frontier Canada” is the name of _________.
| A．a tourist guide |
| B．a kind of fish found around the island |
| C．a tourist agency |
| D．someone who has already booked the trip |
When John Cabot first discovered Cape Bonavista he was actually on a voyage to find ____.
| A．North America | B．Asia |
| C．South America | D．the British Empire |
According to the passage Newfoundland is now part of _________.
| A．UK | B．Canada | C．Europe | D．Bonavista |
In the past the Newfoundlanders mainly lived by _________.
| A．teaching languages | B．making camper vans |
| C．looking after retired fishermen | D．fishing cod |
At Yale University, enrollment in basic Chinese in 2005 grew rapidly, and for the first time professors can remember, large numbers of freshmen were arriving with enough knowledge of the Chinese language to start in second- or third-year Chinese language class, rather than basic Chinese.
The American interest in China is not just at the university level. In the 2006 school year, high-school students will be offered an Advanced Placement test, which is one of the national exams American students take for university admission, in Chinese. This is the first time Chinese is offered in the Advanced Placement test, which is usually limited to the most important subjects that high school students take.
What is surprising is that earlier last year, an organization that tracks university students surveyed high schools throughout America, asking if they planned to offer the language courses that prepare students for the language Advanced Placement test. They expected that only a hundred high schools, mostly in California, New York, and a few other places with large immigrant populations, would show interest in each of the new language programs. Although that was true for the courses in Italian, Russian and Japanese, it was not true for the Chinese language course. There were thousands of American high schools that indicated that they planned to build their Chinese programs to levels where students could take the Advanced Placement exam for Chinese language. The demand for courses in Chinese is rising so rapidly that it is rapidly overtaking all other foreign languages except Spanish. According to the passage many freshmen at Yale University today .
| A．know enough basic Chinese |
| B．needn’t learn Chinese any more |
| C．take courses in the Chinese language |
| D．go to university to study Chinese |
For university entrance, the American high-school students .
| A．have to learn Chinese | B．learn more than one foreign language. |
| C．take the Advanced Placement Test | D．used to have a test in Chinese |
We can learn from the passage that .
| A．Chinese will overtake all foreign languages in American high schools |
| B．Americans will know more about China and its people |
| C．the U.S. government pays much attention to language studies |
| D．Chinese may take the place of English in American universities |
Imagine one day, the water taps in your house stop running. You have to buy water from shops. And still there isn’t enough for everyone. Your mother has to save the family’s shower water to do other things. Would you be able to stand that kind of life?
Probably not. But that’s what kids in Yemen are experiencing. Experts said Yemen is going to be the first country in the world to run out of water. According to a report, the capital, Sanaa, will run out of drinking water as early as 2025. Because of the shortage, the government often cuts the water supply. Hannan, an 18-year-old from Lahej, told the Times: “In a good week we’ll have a water supply all week. But then the following week there will be water only for a day or two.”
Hannan said only rich people have enough water to use. They can buy water from the shops or from the water truck. Private companies own the trucks. They travel around the city every day to sell water – at very high prices.
“A lot of people can’t afford it,” she said.
The average person in Yemen uses 100 to 200 cubic meters of water per year. That is far below the international water poverty line of 1,000 cubic meters.
The government is thinking of making use of seawater. But it will cost a lot and it may not happen soon enough to help the people of Yemen.
The purpose of the text is to _______.
| A．tell us what life is like in Yemen |
| B．draw our attention to water shortage |
| C．remind us how important water is |
| D．show us ways of solving problems |
The underlined word “that” in Paragraph 2 refers to _____.
| A．buying water from shops |
| B．drinking dirty water |
| C．suffering from water shortage |
| D．washing clothes with used water |
Hannan described _____.
| A．what her life is like |
| B．how beautiful Lahej is |
| C．how people use water fully |
| D．how heavy the traffic in Lahej is |
The Yemen Government _____.
| A．has found a practical solution |
| B．only cares about rich people |
| C．may try to make use of seawater |
| D．can do nothing about the water supply |
We can infer from the text that _____.
| A．Sanaa will run out of water in 10 years |
| B．Hannan is a teenager from a rich family |
| C．the capital of Yemen is developing fast |
| D．private companies make a lot of money |
The US gov
ernment has started a website, Admongo, to help children think critically about the advertising aimed at them. It claims to provide visitors with an “aducation” through games and other entertainment.
A cartoon man dressed in old time pilot clothing greets visitors to Admongo. "Call me Haiz", he says upon arrival in a rocket ship that opens up with a crazy world inside it. Spacey dance music plays in the background as Haiz tells visitors that they need to learn about advertising.
Its inventors say eight to twelve years old is the age kids develop their critical thinking abilities. Kids that age are also a big market for advertisers.
The idea behind Admongo is to teach children three things: To identify the advertiser. To know what the advertiser is really saying. And to know what the advertisement is trying to get the child to do.
Children learn these things through a video game. They create their own game character. They can choose different skin colors, hair styles, eye and mouth shapes. Then they begin a trip through ad-land, where there are ads on buses and billboards. The players have to find all the marketing in the neighborhood before they can move on to the next level.
The Admongo game takes players inside a home, to the advertising studio and everywhere else ads can be found. It is a complete exploration of the world of marketing.
One such area is food marketing. The Federal Trade Commission(FTC) says it is a big business. The FTC estimates that food, drink and fast-food restaurants spent more than one and a half billion dollars on advertising to young people in 2009.
The FTC says children are important for three reasons. They buy products. They influence parents and caregivers to buy. And they are the future adult buyers of the products.
A recent study says most advertising aimed at children is for foods of the lowest nutritional value. First Lady Michelle Obama has said she would like to see advertisers marketing healthy foods for children.
What is the best title of the text?
| A．The guide of Admongo |
| B．An aducation website for children |
| C．A popular online video game |
| D．A website aimed at children |
Why did the government start the website?
| A．To attract the biggest market of buyers. |
| B．To sell the products of its company. |
| C．To help children know about advertising. |
| D．To advertise the video game for children. |
What can players do in the website game?
| A．Choose hair styles for their character. |
| B．Travel to a supermarket. |
| C．Eat in a fast-food restaurant. |
| D．Play video games during the trip. |
Children are important for advertising because they are .
| A．important for the society |
| B．the most potential buyers |
| C．easily influenced by ads |
| D．easily affected by poor products |
According to Michelle Obama, lots of food advertised for children are ________.
| A．healthy | B．of high nutrition |
| C．yummy | D．of low quality |
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