Windows 8, apart from Windows 95, is the biggest surprise and the only version of Microsoft’ s operating system that has been changed from the core（核心）when compared to its former one. However, a recent study has shown that under 20% of business owners would be willing to upgrade to the new version of Windows. The reason for this remains to be discussed and debated, and we will try to throw light on this research by providing you with some of the most common advantages and disadvantages of Windows 8.
Generally speaking, there are a great number of plus sides related to upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8.
Speed — This is the biggest advantage to mention. Boot time has been reported to be up to nine times shorter than that with Windows 7.
New passwords — Instead of typing your passwords, Windows 8 will let you use gestures on your favorite photos to enter your password. This is not only practical but also extremely cool!
Windows 8 experience — Apart from computers, Windows 8 will be used on all devices, including smart phones, tablet PC’s and so on. Also, owing to the fact that it has been specifically designed with touch screen users in mind, Windows 8, besides using keyboard and mouse, will offer a whole new user experience.
However, there are still some disadvantages.
The first one that has to be mentioned is that there is no Start Menu from Windows. Yes, there is no Start button in the lower left corner, and this might be a real puzzle of many Windows users. Also, many users have had a problem to get used to the new interface（界面）introduced by Windows 8. The biggest problem that is worth noticing is that Windows 8 was originally designed for touch screen users, and this may have a bad effect on desktop users who have gotten used to doing everything with the help of their keyboard and mouse.
What does “plus sides” in Paragraph 2 probably refer to?
| A．Math symbols. | B．Strengths. |
| C．New rules. | D．Messages. |
The most attractive aspect of Windows 8 is its .
| A．fast rate | B．complex passwords |
| C．unique experience | D．new interface |
From the text we can learn that Windows 8 .
| A．no longer requires a password |
| B．was upgraded from windows 95 |
| C．will be popular with desktop users |
| D．can be used on more than computers |
Many Windows 8 users will face the problem that .
| A．they don’t get accustomed to the new interface |
| B．they have to use fingerprints instead of buttons |
| C．keyboard and mouse can’t be used any longer |
| D．Start Menu is hidden in the lower left corner |
Jean is a bright young woman who comes from a rich and famous family. She goes to a good university and has everything that money can buy. Well, almost everything. The problem is that Jean’s family are so busy that they can hardly find time to be with her. In fact, Jean is quite lonely. So Jean spends a lot of time on her QQ. She likes being anonymous, talking to people who do not know about her famous family and her rich life. She uses the name Linda on QQ and has made a lot of friends who she keeps in touch with quite often.
Last year Jean made a very special friend on QQ. His name was David and lived in San Francisco. David was full of stories and jokes. He and Jean had a common interest in rock music and modern dance. So it always took them hours to talk happily on QQ and sometimes they even forgot their time. Of course, they wanted to know more about each other. David sent a picture of himself: He was a tall , good looking young man with big , happy smile. As time went by, they became good friends and often sent cards and small things to each other.
When Jean’s father told her that he was going on a business trip to San Francisco, she asked him to let her go with him so that she could give David a surprise for his birthday. She would take him the latest DVD of their favorite rock singer. But when she knocked on David’s door in San Francisco, she found that her special friend was a twelve-year-old boy named Jim!Jean spends a lot of her time on QQ because she is _________.
| A．rich | B．young | C．lonely | D．a bad student |
Jean thought “David” was special because he _________.
| A．made her quite happy on QQ |
| B．was from San Francisco |
| C．was tall and good-looking |
| D．was rich |
What’s the main idea of the passage?
| A．Don’t believe those you get to know on QQ so easily |
| B．People don’t use their real names on QQ so often |
| C．Don’t go to meet those you get to know on QQ |
| D．Don’t spend much time on QQ |
If you want to be a volunteer, you have to answer the following typical questions. Do you want to work with people, animals or machines? Do you want to work indoors or outdoors, directly serve people in need or serve people behind the scenes? Every year, thousands of people in the west offer volunteer service. Volunteering greatly strengthens the community because it helps the old, the young, the weak, the sick, and the disabled and the injured to solve problems.
Volunteers usually help in many different ways. They may give people advice, offer friendship to the young, drive the elderly to church (if up to the driving age), advise kids against drugs, work as assistants in schools or nursing homes, raise funds, plant trees, help out in local libraries and do many other things. Volunteering can be a few hours a week or a few hours a month. Anybody who wants to serve people in need can become a volunteer.
In fact, the art of volunteering is a process of both giving and receiving. Volunteering allows volunteers to meet new people, make new friends and mix with people from all walks of life. Volunteering is an excellent way to experiment and try out new techniques and skills, discover your individual talents and explore career choice. Being a volunteer will take you on a wonderful journey and help you learn more than what you can get from books.As a volunteer, only when you grow old enough can you _______.
| A．plant trees on hills |
| B．drive the elderly to church |
| C．give advice to others |
| D．help out in local libraries |
How is the second paragraph mainly developed?
| A．By listing examples. | B．By comparing. |
| C．By giving explanations. | D．By discussing. |
It can be inferred from the passage that to be a volunteer, _______.
| A．you can do experiments |
| B．you must be very strong |
| C．you need to work very long |
| D．you can get something valuable |
What’s the best title of the passage?
| A．How to hunt for jobs |
| B．Volunteer service in the west |
| C．How to make friends |
| D．How to work with animals |
My heart sank when the man at the immigration counter gestured to the back room. I was born and raised in America, and this was Miami, where I live, but they weren’t quite ready to let me in yet.
“Please wait in here, Ms. Abujaber,” the immigration officer said. My husband, with his very American last name, accompanied me. He was getting used to this. The same thing had happened recently in Canada when I’d flown to Montreal to speak at a book event. That time they held me for 45 minutes. Today we were returning from a literary festival in Jamaica, and I was shocked
That I was being sent “in back” once again.
The officer behind the counter called me up and said, “Miss, your name looks like the name of someone who’s on our wanted list. We’re going to have to check you out with Washington.”
“How long will it take?”
“Hard to say…a few minutes,” he said, “We’ll call you when we’re ready for you.” After an hour, Washington still hadn’t decided anything about me.
“Isn’t this computerized?” I asked at the counter, “Can’t you just look me up?”
“Just a few more minutes,” they assured me.
After an hour and a half, I pulled my cell phone out to call the friends I was supposed to meet that evening. An officer rushed over. “No phones!” he said, “For all we know you could be calling a terrorist cell and giving them information.”
“I’m just a university professor,” I said. My voice came out in a squeak.
“Of course you are. And we take people like you out of here in leg irons every day.”
I put my phone away.
My husband and I were getting hungry and tired. Whole families had been brought into the waiting room, and the place was packed with excitable children, exhausted parents, and even a flight attendant.
I wanted to scream, to jump on a chair and shout: “I’m an American citizen; a novelist; I probably teach English literature to your children.”
After two hours in detention (扣押), I was approached by one of the officers. “You’re free to go,” he said. No explanation or apologies. For a moment, neither of us moved. We were still in shock. Then we leaped to our feet.
“Oh, one more thing,” he handed me a tattered photocopy with an address on it, “If you aren’t happy with your treatment, you can write to this agency.”
“Will they respond?” I asked.
“I don’t know—I don’t know of anyone who’s ever written to them before.” Then he added,” By the way, this will probably keep happening each time you travel internationally.”
“What can I do to keep it from happening again?”
He smiled the empty smile we’d seen all day, “Absolutely nothing.”
After telling several friends about our ordeal, probably the most frequent advice I’ve heard in response is to change my name. Twenty years ago, my own graduate school writing professor advised me to write under a pen name so that publishers wouldn’t stick me in what he called “the ethnic ghetto”—a separate, secondary shelf in the bookstore. But a name is an integral part of anyone’s personal and professional identity—just like the town you’re born in and the place where you’re raised.
Like my father, I’ll keep the name, but my airport experience has given me a whole new perspective on what diversity and tolerance are supposed to mean. I had no idea that being an American would ever be this hard.
The author was held at the airport because ______.
| A．she had been held in Montreal |
| B．she had spoken at a book event |
| C．she and her husband returned from Jamaica |
| D．her name was similar to a terrorist’s |
She was not allowed to call her friends because ______.
| A．her identity hadn’t been confirmed yet |
| B．she had been held for only one hour and a half |
| C．there were other families in the waiting room |
| D．she couldn’t use her own cell phone |
We learn from the passage that the author would ______ to prevent similar experience from happening again.
| A．change her name | B．do nothing |
| C．write to the agency | D．avoid traveling abroad |
Her experiences indicate that there still exists ______ in the US.
A. tolerance B. diversity
C. discrimination D.hatred
【下头5】The author sounds ______ in the last paragraph.
A.ironic (具有讽刺意味的) B. impatient
C. worried D. bitter
When a big exam is coming up, you probably feel anxious about any wasted time and want to begin school as soon as you probably can.
But tens of thousands of British high school students will soon be getting up later. They’re taking part in a new experiment by Oxford University to see if later classes can improve their exam results.
Grades 10 students in the UK have to take the nationwide General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) exams. They have to pass these exams in order to study more advanced courses, and later apply for universities.
The Oxford University project means that GCSE students from more than 100 schools across England will start school at 10 am, more than one hour later than the current start time (8:50 am).
The project is based on scientific evidence that teenagers are “out of sync(同步)” with traditional school hours, the Telegraph reported. And what they need is more sleep in the morning.
“We know that something funny happens when you’re a teenager, in that you seem to be out of sync with the world,” said professor Colin Epsie, who is leading the study. “Your parents think it’s because you are lazy and opinionated（固执己见的）and everything will be OK if you could get to sleep earlier. But science is telling us that teenagers need to sleep more in the mornings.”
Everyone follows a natural cycle of sleep and wakefulne ss. Biology has decided that teenagers go to sleep around midnight and don’t feel fully awake until 9-10 am, according to scientists. That’s two hours later than adults. And their body clocks stay like this until the age of around 21 for males, and 19 for females.
“Society provides school for learning, but the brain provides sleep. So we are exploring the possibility that if you delay the schools start time until 10 am, that will improve learning performance,” said Epsie.
The results could be positive, based on previous studies.
An early study at the UK’s Monkseaton High School in 2009 found that starting an hour later improved grades in core subjects by 19 percent.
The Oxford project is expecting to publish the results in 2018. It’s time to wait and see whether scientists will give us an excuse to get up late.
According to the article, students who take part in the Oxford University project _________.
| A．will start school one hour earlier |
| B．will no longer have to take GCSE exams |
| C．will perform better academically than those who don’t participate |
| D．will be guaranteed more sleeping time in the morning |
The underlined phrase “out of sync”in Paragraph 5 probably means _____________ .
| A．breaking the habit of doing something |
| B．getting used to doing something |
| C．having no idea of something |
| D．having trouble keeping up with something |
We can infer from the article that _______________ .
| A．the Oxford University project is targeted at all British high schools |
| B．getting up late is a sign of laziness in the eyes of most British parents |
| C．children and adults have different natural cycles of sleep and wakefulness |
| D．there is still no scientific evidence that supports a late school start time |
What is the author’s attitude toward the Oxford University project ?
| A．Critical | B．Optimistic |
| C．Doubtful | D．Uninterested |
What’s the best title of the article ?
| A．Wake up late to excel |
| B．It’s never too late to learn |
| C．The later you get up, the better you’ll learn |
| D．An excuse to get up late |
Above is an entry taken from an English dictionary．
“Be careful not to scratch the furniture" most probably means “Be careful not
to ”．
| A．remove any marks | B．damage its surface |
| C．make any noises | D．change its position |
The word "scratch" in "Some drawings had been scratched on the back of the door" has the same meaning as in“ ”．
| A．We scratched some of the dirt away |
| B．The car's paintwork is badly scratched |
| C．The dog; kept scratching at the door to go out． |
| D．They scratched lines in the dirt to make marks |
“She had scratched because of a knee injury" might imply that “She couldn't ．
| A．take part in a race | B．cancel a prepared activity' |
| C．make a living af6ne | D．make enough money |
When the French girl says "I learned German from scratch iii six months she means she ．
| A．had previously well prepared |
| B．was unsatisfied with her German |
| C．knew no German before that |
| D．found few materials available |
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