Helen has always been interested in helping her community（社区）．Her first volunteer experience was for the American Red Cross when she was in high school．When she was a school teacher，she also found time to volunteer．
After she retired（退休），she started volunteering to help the old． When her father was older，he was not able to see as well as he used to，which made her sad because he had always enjoyed reading．She decided it would be fun to read to elderly people in her community．
She also helped one woman write her stories． Ann was almost 100 years old， and Helen wrote down information about her life when she visited her． She put the information in a book and got it published （出版）． Ann was very excited to share her life story with her children and grandchildren．
After a strong storm hit some southern cities， Helen volunteered again for the American Red Cross．She prepared food and answered phones in a care centre．
One day Helen read an article in the newspaper about refugees（难民）who needed to learn English． She met once a week with Sahra， a 38﹣year﹣old woman from Somalia． Helen gave Sahra a camera and asked her to take pictures of her daily life． In the end， they wrote a book together and used the photos in the book． This helped Sahra learn many new words about her everyday life．
Helen says，"The real value of my volunteer work is becoming friends with the people I help．They enrich my life as well as I enrich theirs．"
（1）When did Helen first volunteer for the American Red Cross？
（2）What did Helen do just after she retired？
（3）Why was Ann excited when her book got published？
（4）Why did Helen give Sahra a camera？
（5）What do you think of Helen？
If you are lost in the mountains, stay calm in the face of darkness, loneliness, and the unknown. It will greatly increase your chances of survival (生存). Many people think that preparing necessary equipment and knowing how to use it are very important, but actually eighty percent of mountain survival is your reaction to fear.
Find a hiding place
Unnecessary labor will make you sweat and make you cold. Find a hiding place around you before trying to start your own construction. If you are in a snow-covered area, you may be able to dig a cave in deep snow for protection from the wind. You should try to hide yourself in the middle of the mountain if possible. Stay out of the valleys-cold air falls, and the valley floor can be the coldest area on the mountain.
Signal for help
The best time to signal is during the day. Signal for help from the highest point possible-it will be easier for rescuers to see you, and any sound you make will travel farther. If you take a box of matches and a space blanket (a special blanket for traveling), build three smoky fires and put your blanket-gold side facing out on the ground.
Do not walk away
It will make finding you more difficult, as search teams will be trying to follow your path and may miss you if you have gone off in a different direction. Searchers often end up finding a car with no one in it.
If you get frostbite (冻伤), do not rewarm the affected area until you're out of danger.
You can walk on frostbitten feet, but once you warm the area and can feel the pain, you will not want to walk anywhere. Try to protect the frostbitten area and keep it dry until you are rescued.When lost in the mountains, you can increase your chances of survival if you_____.
| A．take a space blanket with you |
| B．do more physical labor |
| C．try to find a car immediately |
| D．walk as far as possible to find help |
According to the passage, people most probably fail to survive if they _____.
| A．do not take enough equipment |
| B．stay in the middle of the mountain |
| C．do not keep themselves warm |
| D．stay in a snow-covered area |
What can we infer from the passage?
| A．Don't travel by yourself. |
| B．Mountain traveling is dangerous. |
| C．Don't get frightened in danger. |
| D．Avoid going to unfamiliar places. |
April Fool’s Day is supposed to be a day to play jokes on others in hopes of getting a good laugh and making one feel like a fool. However, the April Fool’s Day of 2014 was quite different for my mom and me.
That day my friend Jimmy and I were playing a game. I had dropped down from a bar (横木) many times in the past without ever having a problem, but that day the simple act of dropping to the ground became a nightmare (噩梦). I broke my arm.
Jimmy’s dad heard my crying and rushed out to see what was going on. When he saw the problem he quickly put me into his truck and went inside to telephone my mom and let her know he would take me to hospital. As that day was April Fool’s Day, Mom was not buying it and really thought all this was a big joke. Mom was finally convinced by Jimmy’s mom. When she saw me, she broke down in tears because she felt so bad –she originally thought this was just a big prank (恶作剧).
I guess one could compare this to the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Since I had pulled pranks before, it is no wonder that my mom didn’t believe it. I as well as my mom was made to look like a fool that day. We both learned a valuable lesson.What happened to the writer on the April Fool’s Day of 2014?
| A．He dreamed a terrible dream. |
| B．He was hurt by Jimmy. |
| C．He had an accident. |
| D．He fooled his mom with his friend. |
Why did Jimmy’s dad phone the writer’s mom?
| A．Because he wanted to play a joke on her. |
| B．Because he wanted her to go to the hospital to pay the money. |
| C．Because he wanted to see how deeply she loved her son. |
| D．Because he wanted to inform her of the accident. |
From the passage we can infer that _________.
| A．the writer’s mom didn’t care much about him |
| B．the writer was a dishonest person |
| C．the writer won’t pull pranks as before |
| D．the writer will lose interest in games |
The day that a robot wakes you up, cleans your room and walks your dog might still be a few decades （十年）off. But increasingly, engineers are saying that robots are going to make the leap from the factory floor to your family room.
Companies like Sony and General Electric are working on designs for small robots. Products like the Roomba, a robot that can clean floors, are flying off the shelves. On the cover of a recent issue of Scientific American magazine, Bill Gates predicted the “Dawn of the Age of Robots”.
What’s behind this new era (时代)? It’s partly a matter of technology. Devices that can recognize and respond to a human voice have been developed. There are now a few different ways for robots to move around. They can walk, crawl or ride on wheels. They are being made smaller and smaller. They are also becoming more and more energy efficient.
A bigger part of the story is on the demand side. From the day Robert Adler invented the television remote control in the 1950s, people around the world have tirelessly searched for ways to get lazier.
Also take into consideration the increasing wealth of rich people, the time appears ripe to introduce robots to ease our daily lives.
To be sure, robots that walk on two legs and talk like people are still too complex for our present engineering abilities. Today’s robot revolution is to make them for everyday use. Robots will do basic housework such as cleaning or gardening, or just help you have more fun on the basketball court.
What makes a robot different from an ordinary cleaning machine is not the presence of computer chips (芯片). Nowadays even your microwave has a computer chip. It is the ability to sense and make changes to the environment in real time.
For example, a floor-cleaning robot should be able to sense your scared cat and move out of the way. Today’s computing ability is, for the first time, able to make machines that could “think”, at least in certain limited ways.
| Robot revolution |
|
| What today’s robot can do |
What |
| Recognize and respond to your voice |
talk like people sense and make some changes to the |
| work in the factory |
walk your dog |
| move around, like walking or |
Clean your floor |
| think in some limited |
Accompany you on the basketball court |
In the 1920s and 30s the airlines were just beginning. It was unusual for people to travel by air because it was expensive and dangerous. In those days, there were no flight attendants to look after the passengers. Young men ,or “stewards” helped the passengers onto the airplane and carried the passengers’ luggage(行李)but they did not provide food and drinks. But then in 1930,a woman called Ellen Church invented the “stewardess”.
Ellen Church was born in 1904 on a farm in Iowa. She was a different child. She didn’t want to work on a farm or marry a farmer —she wanted a more adventurous(冒险的)life. Ellen studied to be a nurse at the University of Minnesota and then got a job in a hospital. For the next few years she stayed at the hospital but also took flying lessons and got her pilot’s license.
Ellen was twenty-five years old when she first got in touch with Boeing Air Transport. She loved flying but she understood that airlines were a man’s world. Although women like Emelia Earheart were becoming famous, she realized it was impossible for a woman to have a career as a pilot .But she had another idea. Most people were frightened of flying because. flying was still an unreliable(不可靠的) way to travel. There were often delays(延误),many crashes and the bad weathers made many passengers sick. Ellen thought nurses could take care of passengers during flights and B.A.T. agreed.
The young woman from Iowa and seven other nurses became the first air stewardesses.
At first pilots were unhappy because they did not want stewardesses on airplanes, but passengers loved the stewardesses. In 1940 there were around 1000 of them working for different airlines. The early “stewardesses” had to be under twenty-five-year-old, single and slim. When a woman joined an airline, she had to promise not to get married or have children. It was hard job and not well paid. They worked long hours and earned ＄1 an hour.
In the 1970s, stewardesses were unhappy in their job and airlines had to make some changes. Since the 1970s, “stewardesses” have been called flight attendants. They are well paid and work fewer hours than in the past.The last sentence of the first paragraph suggests that _________.
| A．the word “stewardess” was made up by Ellen Church |
| B．Ellen Church was the first woman who flew a plane |
| C．Ellen Church was the first woman who worked on a plane |
| D．Ellen Church was the first woman passenger on a plane |
From the second paragraph, we learn that ________.
| A．Ellen did not behave in the same way as most other girls |
| B．Ellen’s family was not rich enough to support her education |
| C．Ellen was fond of working as a nurse in the hospital |
| D．Ellen has an unhappy childhood that changed her completely |
The main reason for Boeing Air Transport offering Ellen the job was ________.
| A．her flying experience | B．her university education |
| C．her nursing experience | D．her life attitudes |
The passage mainly talks about _______.
| A．the background of early flying pilots |
| B．the experience of flying passengers |
| C．the history of early flight attendants |
| D．the development of airplanes |
For a long time, humans have used technology (科技) to study the world around us, and Mars is the latest place we’re using machines to explore. Besides the earth, the “red planet” is seen, as the one place in our solar system most likely to have life.
Early last month, the first American robot, Spirit, landed on Mars without any problem. Opportunity, the second robot, landed on the planet more than a week ago. Scientists are very excited about these machines’ safe landing on Mars. It means that now we have an excellent chance to look for water and other signs of life. So far, the robots have found some stones that could show Mars was once a wet and warm planet.
But the trips made by Spirit and Opportunity were dangerous. Mars is often called the “death planet”, because in the past its environment has been unfriendly to the robot explorers. Before Spirit and Opportunity, nearly forty spaceships had been sent to Mars since the 1960s. Two-thirds of them failed. The first spaceship, Korabl, sent in 1962 by Russia was among them. It broke apart (分裂) near the earth.For a long time humans think ________.
| A．they can surely find life on Mars |
| B．there may be life on Mars |
| C．it’s too late for them to explore Mars now |
| D．Mars is the only planet that has life on it |
The two robots ________.
| A．have found out that it is warm and wet on Mars |
| B．were sent to Mars to find some stones |
| C．were the first two American robots that landed on Mars |
| D．are the only machines that have landed on Mars so far |
The third paragraph mainly tell us ________.
| A．it’s a very hard and dangerous trip for spaceships to Mars |
| B．two-thirds of the spaceships sent to Mars have failed |
| C．Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars successfully |
| D．Mars is called the “death planet” |
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