Which of the following probably impressesthe visitors most? A. The sun doesn’t go down for months in some area. B. The weather there is always fine. C. The land is covered with snow all the year round. D. No state is so large as Alaska. DI fell in love with England because it was quaint ―all those little houses, looking terribly old-fashioned but nice, like dolls’ houses. I loved the countryside and the pubs, and I loved London. I’ve slightly changed my mind after seventeen years because I think it’s an ugly town now.Things have changed. For everybody, England meant gentlemen, fair play, and good manners. The fair play is going, unfortunately, and so are the gentlemanly attitudes and good manners―people shut doors heavily in your face and politeness is disappearing.I regret that there are so few comfortable meeting places. You’re forced to live indoors. In Paris I go out much more, to restaurants and nightclubs. To meet friends here it usually has to be in a pub, and it can be difficult to go there alone as a woman. The cafes are not terribly nice.As a woman, I feel unsafe here. I spend a lot of money on taxis because I will not take public transport after 10 pm. I used to use it, but now I’m afraid.The idea of family seems to be more or less non-existent in England. My family is well united and that’s typically French. In Middlesex I had a neighbour who is 82 now. His family only lived two miles away, but I took him to France for Christmas once because he was always alone. 【查看更多】
My wife passed away a few years ago,and I went through the worst time in my life.I even wanted to kill myself.Just for kids,I had to continue to live and work as small-town doctor at my medical clinic in Hawaii.My kids had gone to live on the mainland,and I was alone.Then they asked me to have a family trip.On our trip, we turned on the TV at the motel and saw the second plane crash into the World Trade Center. Seeing it falling down, I said to my kids: “I’m going to Afghanistan”. And a few weeks later, international Medical Corps sent me to set up 20 clinics in provinces where people had no health care. In these field clinics surrounded by frightening shoots or deadly bombs, we were eventually serving 27,000 patients a month in a very busy schedule. Tired and nervous, I gradually had a sense of achievement, a sense of purpose, and my depression went away. In the years to follow, I went to Indonesia after the tsunami, Pakistan after the earthquakes, Sudan after the civil war and Iraq after more and more bombs. Each time after disasters one after another, hundreds of people were killed, wounded and many more had to flee. We once set up movable clinics in an area with 19,000 refugees, and it was supposed to hold 13,000 originally. Flu broke out, one of the biggest killers of kids in refugee camps, and it spread like wildfire. Water and food were also serious problems. “Adventures or not?” I often asked myself. When my wife passed away, I thought my life was done. But in reality, it was just getting started. At the end of her life, she went unconscious. I held her head in my hands and told her of all the places we would visit and the exciting adventures we would have. I think about the moment many times during my “adventures”. I didn’t know how predictive those words would be. But I know that she is still with me
1.
Where has the doctor been in the past few years?
A.
Some countries where he could set up clinics
B.
Some African countries where flu broke out
C.
The places where the earthquakes happened
D.
The places that the horrible disasters struck
2.
How would the doctor describe his life after he had worked in Afghanistan?
A.
Tired and troublesome
B.
Busy and risky
C.
Meaningful and helpful
D.
Frightening and depressing
3.
The underlined word “refugees” means people______.
A.
who are robbed, killed, or wounded
B.
who suffer from flu in movable clinics
C.
who like to take adventures
D.
who have lost homes because of disasters
4.
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
A.
the doctor’s wife encouraged him to work in foreign countries
B.
What the doctor said to his wife before her death became reality
C.
The doctor’s adventures made him understand the love of his wife
D.
With the true love of his wife, the doctor started to change his life
It was Saturday when the entire summer world was bright and fresh. Tom looked at the fence, which was long and high, feeling all enthusiasm leaving him. He dipped his brush into the whitewash before moving it along the top board of the fence. He knew other boys would arrive soon with all minds of interesting plans for this day. As walking past him, they would tease him for having to work on a beautiful Saturday—which burnt him like fire. He, putting his hands into his pockets and taking out all he owned with the expectation of letting someone paint, found nothing that could buy half an hour of freedom. At this dark and hopeless moment, a wonderful idea occurred to him, pouring a great bright light into his mind. He took up his brush and continued to work pleasantly with calm and quietness. Presently, Ben Rogers came in sight—munching an apple and making joyful noises like the sound of a riverboat as he walked along. Tom went on whitewashing, paying no attention to the steamboat. “Hello!” Ben said, “I’m going swimming, but you can’t go, can you?” No answer. Tom moved his brush gently along the fence and surveyed the result. Ben came nearer. Tom’s mouth watered for Ben’s apple while he kept painting the fence. Ben said, “That’s a lot of work, isn’t it?” Tom turned suddenly saying “Here you are! Ben! I didn’t notice you.” “I’m going swimming,” Ben said. “Don’t you wish you could go? Or would you rather work?” Tom said, “Work? What do you mean ‘work’?” “Isn’t that work?” Tom continued painting and answered carelessly, “Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t. All I know is it suits Tom Sawyer.” “Do you mean that you enjoy it?” “I don’t see why I oughtn’t to enjoy it.” “Does a boy have a chance to paint a fence frequently” said Tom. Ben stopped munching his apple. Tom moved his brush back and forth—stepped back to note the effect—added a little paint here and there. Ben watched every move, getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed1. After a short time, he said, “Tom, let me whitewash a little.” Tom seemed to be thinking for a moment before he said, “No, Aunt Polly wants this fence to be perfect. If it was the back fence, maybe you could do it. But this fence beside the street is where everybody can see it. It has to be done right.” “Oh, come on, let me try. I’ll be careful. Listen, Tom. I’ll give you part of my apple if you let me paint.” “No, Ben, I’m afraid—” “I’ll give you all the apple!” Tom handed the brush to Ben with unwillingness on his face but alacrity in his heart. While the riverboat worked and sweated in the hot sun, Tom, an artist sat in the shade close by, munching his apple, and planning how he could trick more of the boys. Before long there were enough boys each of whom came along the street; stopped to laugh but soon begged to be allowed to paint. By the middle of the afternoon, Tom had got many treasures while the fence had had three layers of whitewash on it. If he hadn’t run out of whitewash, he would have owned everything belonging to the boys in the village. Tom said to himself that the world was not so depressing after all. He had discovered a great law of human action: in order to make a man cover a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.
1.
By using “Tom continued painting and answered carelessly”, the author shows Tom ______ when he was talking to Ben.
A.
made mistakes
B.
damaged things
C.
was natural
D.
wasn’t concentrating
2.
The underlined word “alacrity” in the last but two paragraph most probable means “______”.
A.
kindness
B.
discouragement
C.
sympathy
D.
eagerness
3.
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage? ________
A.
Tom did not want to go swimming at all
B.
Tom was asked to help Aunt Polly paint the fence
C.
Tom did not get along well with his friends
D.
Tom was very busy that Saturday afternoon.
4.
We can draw a conclusion from the last paragraph that _______.
Sports shoes that work out whether their owner has done enough exercise to warrant time in front of the television have been devised in the UK. The shoes — named Square Eyes — contain an electronic pressure sensor and a tiny computer chip to record how many steps the wearer has taken in a day. A wireless transmitter(傳話器) passes the information to a receiver connected to a television, and this decides how much evening viewing time the wearer deserves, based on the day’s efforts. The design was inspired by a desire to fight against the rapidly ballooning waistlines among British teenagers, says Gillian Swan, who developed Square Eyes as a final year design project at Brunel University to London, UK. “We looked at current issues and childhood overweight really stood out,” she says. “And I wanted to tackle that with my design.” Once a child has used up their daily allowance gained through exercise, the television automatically switches off. And further time in front of the TV can only be earned through more steps. Swan calculated how exercise should translate to television time using the recommended daily amounts of both. Health experts suggest that a child take 12,000 steps each day and watch no more than two hours of television. So, every 100 steps recorded by the Square Eyes shoes equals precisely one minute of TV time. Existing pedometers （計步器） normally clip onto a belt or slip into a pocket and keep count of steps by measuring sudden movement. Swan says these can be easily tricked into recording steps through shaking. But her shoe has been built to be harder for lazy teenagers to cheat. “It is possible, but it would be a lot of effort,” she says. “That was one of my main design considerations.”
1.
According to Swan, the purpose of her design project is to ________.
A.
keep a record of the steps of the wearer
B.
deal with overweight among teenagers
C.
enable children to resist the temptation of TV
D.
prevent children from being tricked by TV programs
2.
Which of the following is true of Square Eyes shoes?
A.
They regulate a child’s evening TV viewing time.
B.
They determine a child’s daily pocket money.
C.
They have raised the hot issue of overweight.
D.
They contain information of the receiver.
3.
What is stressed（強(qiáng)調(diào)）by health experts in their suggestion?
A.
The exact number of steps to be taken.
B.
The precise number of hours spent on TV.
C.
The proper amount of daily exercise and TV time.
D.
The way of changing steps into TV watching time.
4.
Compared with other similar products, the new design ________.
A.
makes it difficult for lazy teenagers to cheat
B.
counts the wearer’s steps through shaking
C.
records the sudden movement of the wearer
D.
sends teenagers’ health data to the receiver
5.
Which of the following would be the best title for the text?
