Passage One How can a single postage stamp be worth $16800? Any mistake in the printing of a stamp raises its value to stamp collectors. A mistake on one inexpensive postage stamp has the stamp worth a million and a half times its original value. The mistake was made more than a hundred years ago in the British colony of Mauritius, a small island in the Indian Ocean. In 1847 an order for stamps was sent to a London printer. Mauritius was to become the fourth country in the world to issue stamps. Before the order was filled and delivered, a ball was planned at Mauritius' Government House, and stamps were needed to send out the invitations. A local printer was instructed to copy the design for the stamps. He accidentally wrote the words "Post Office" instead of "Post Paid" on the several hundred stamps that he printed. Today there are only twenty-six of these misprinted stamps left. fourteen One-penny Orange-Reds and twelve Two-penny Blues. Because of the Two-penny Blue's rareness and age, collectors have paid as much as $16800 for it.
1. According to the passage, a postage stamp is worth $16800 because ______.
A.it was the fourth stamp printed for practical use
B.it was particularly designed for a dancing ball
C.there are few others of its kind and a misprint on it
Passage Two Packaging is an important form of advertising. A package can sometimes motivate someone to buy a product. For example, a small child might ask for a breakfast food that comes in a box with a picture of a TV character. The child is more interested in the picture than in breakfast food. Pictures for children to colour or cut out, games printed on a package, or small gifts inside a box also motivate many children to buy products—or to ask their parents for them. Some packages suggest that a buyer will get something for nothing. Food products sold in reusable containers are examples of this. Although a similar product in a plain container might cost less, people often prefer to buy the product in a reusable glass or dish, because they believe the container is free. However, the cost of the container is added to the cost of the product. The size of a package also motivates a buyer. Maybe the package has "Economy Size" or "Family Size" printed on it. This suggests that the large size has the most product for the least money. But that is not always true. To find out a buyer has to know how the product is sold and the price of the basic unit. The information on the package should provide some answers. But the important thing for any buyer to remember is that a package is often an advertisement. The words and pictures do not tell the whole story. Only the product inside can do that.
1. As used in the first paragraph of the passage, the word "motivate" most probably means ______.
A.making one believe what he does is just
B.providing a story that makes one moved
C.supplying a thought or feeling that makes one act
2. "A buyer will get something for nothing" most probably means that ______.
A.a buyer will not get what he wants to
B.a buyer will gain more than he loses
C.a buyer will get what he pays for
D.a buyer will get something useful free of charge
A B C D
D
本题是一道句子含义类问题。问句子A buyer will get something for nothing的可能意思是什么。利用查阅式阅读法,根据此句所在的上下文内容,有些包装示意买主,可以得到不花钱的东西。食品与可以再使用的容器一并出售就是一个例子。虽然一个平装的同样产品花钱较少,但是,人们宁愿购买用可以再使用的杯子或盘子包装的产品,因为他们相信,这个容器是不花钱的。由此可知,本题的正确答案应是D“购买者可以不花钱免费得到有用的东西”。
3. People are likely to buy the product sold in a glass or dish because ______.
A.they have no other choice
B.they think they can get the container for free
C.the container is too attractive
D.they believe the cost of the container is included in the cost of the product
Passage Three In most work success is measured by income, and while our capitalistic society continues, this is inevitable. It is only where the best work is concerned that this measure ceases to be the natural one to apply. The desire that men feel to increase their income is quite as much a desire for success as for the extra comforts that a higher income can procure (获得,取得). However dull work may be, it becomes bearable if it is a means of building up a reputation whether in the world at large or only in one's own circle. Continuity of purpose is one of the most essential ingredients of happiness in the long run, and for most men this comes chiefly through their work. In this respect those women whose lives are occupied with housework are much less fortunate than men, or than women who work outside the home. The domestic wife does not receive wages, has no means of bettering herself, is taken for granted by her husband (who sees practically nothing of what she does), and is valued by him not for her housework but for quite other qualities. Of course this does not apply to those women who are sufficiently well-to-do to make beautiful houses and beautiful gardens and become the envy of their neighbors; but such women are comparatively few, and for the great majority housework cannot bring as much satisfaction as work of other kinds bring to men and to professional women.
Passage Four The law is a great mass of rules, showing when and how far a man is liable to be punished, or to be made to hand over money or property to his neighbors, and so forth. These rules are contained in books. A lawyer learns them in the main by reading books. He begins by doing little else than read, and after he has prepared himself by, Say, three years' study to practise, still, all his life long and almost every day, he will be looking into books to read a little more than he already knows about some new questions which he has to answer. The power to use books, then, is a talent which would be the lawyer ought to possess. He ought to have enough flexibility and fineness of mental fibre to make it easy for him to collect ideas from printed words. He ought to have some readiness in finding what a book contains, and something of an instinct for where to look for what he wants. But although this is the power of which he will first feel the need, it is not the most impor-tant. A lawyer does not study law to recite it; he studies it to use it and act upon the rules which he has learned in real life. His business is to try cases in court and to advise men what to do in order to keep out or get out of trouble. He studies his books in order to advise and to try his cases in the right way.
1. The first thing a law student has to do is to ______.
3. As it is used in the passage, the word "flexibility" (Para. 3) means ______.
A.capacity or power to do something physical or mental
B.quality of being able to do something
C.curve or turn, esp. in a road, race course, river, etc.
D.action of being able to change according to different circumstances
A B C D
D
此单词出现在第三段第二句中,“He ought to have enough flexibility and fineness of mental fibre to make it easy for him to collect ideas from printed words"。从动词不定式对“flexibility and fineness of mental fibre”的说明来看,flexibility这个词含有变化的意思。因为要想从书中很容易地找到他想得到的主意,头脑呆板、不变化是不行的,一定要具有灵活性,因而选项D最符合文章内容。
Passage Five How often one hears children wishing they were grown up, and old people wishing they were young again. Each age has its pleasures and its pains, and the happiest person is the one who enjoys what each age gives him without wasting his time in useless regrets. Childhood is a time when there are few responsibilities to make life difficult. If a child has good parents, he is fed, looked after and loved, whatever he may do. It is impossible that he will ever again in his life be given so much without having to do anything in return. In addition, life is always presenting new things to the child—things that have lost their interest for older people because they are too wellknown. But a child has his pains: he is not so free to do what he wishes to do; he is continually being told not to do things, or being punished for what he has done wrong. When the young man starts to earn his own living, he can no longer expect others to pay for his food, his clothes, and his room, but has to work if he wants to live comfortably. If he spends most of his time playing about in the way that he used to as a child, he will go hungry. And if he breaks the laws of society as he used to break the laws of his parents, he may go to prison. If, however, he works hard, keeps out of trouble and has good health, he can have the great happiness of building up for himself his own position in society.
1. According to Para. 2, the writer thinks that ______.
A.life for a child is comparatively easy
B.a child is always loved whatever he does
C.if much is given to a child, he must do something in return