Passage 1 It seems like every day there's some new research about whether our favorite drinks are good for us. One day, science says a glass of red wine a day will help us live longer. The next day, maybe not. It seems journalists are pretty interested in wine research and the same might be said for coffee. Now, there's been a lot of research into whether coffee's good for our health. "The results have really been mixed," admits Neal Freedman who led the coffee study and published his findings in a medical journal recently. "There's been some evidence that coffee might increase the risk of certain disease and there's also been maybe more recent evidence that coffee may protect against other diseases as well." Freedman and his colleagues undertook the biggest study yet to look at the relationship between coffee and health. They analyzed data collected from more than 400,000 Americans ages 50 to 71 participating in the study. "We found that the coffee drinkers had a modestly lower risk of death than the non-drinkers," he said. Here's what he means by "modestly": those who drank at least two or three cups a day were about 10 percent or 15 percent less likely to die for any reason during the 13 years of the study. When the researchers looked at specific causes of death, coffee drinking appeared to cut the risk of dying from heart disease, lung disease, injuries, accidents and infections. Now, Freedman stressed that the study doesn't prove coffee can make people live longer. A study like this can never prove a cause-and-effect relationship. All it can really do is to point researchers in the right direction for further investigation. And even if it turns out that coffee is really good for you, scientists have no idea why.
1. According to the first paragraph, reporters would like to know the research findings of ______.
A.tea
B.beer
C.alcohol
D.coffee
A B C D
D
2. According to the passage, which of the following is TRUE?
A.Freedman and his colleagues hire 400,000 Americans to collect data.
B.About four hundred thousand Americans worked for Freedman's team full time for 13 years.
C.People who took part in Freedman's research are about 50 to 70 years old.
D.People who are 50 to 70 years old seldom drink coffee.
A B C D
C
3. According to the author, scientists ______.
A.have already proved that coffee is good for human health
B.have a long way to go before they find a way to study coffee
C.have avoided the cause-and-effect approach to study coffee
D.are still unable to figure out why coffee is good for us
A B C D
D
4. The word "mixed" in the first paragraph means "______".
A.both good and bad
B.put together
C.both sharp and soft
D.confused
A B C D
A
5. Which of the following is an appropriate title for this passage?
A.Can Beer Help You Live Longer?
B.Can Coffee Help You Live Longer?
C.Can Wine Help You Live Longer?
D.Can Tea Help You Live Longer?
A B C D
B
Passage 2 When we're learning a foreign language, making sense of what we hear is the first step toward fluency. It sounds obvious, but until recently, we didn't know much about how listening works. New research demonstrates that effective listening involves more than simply hearing the words that float past our ears. Rather, it's an active process of receiving information and making meaning. This kind of engaged listening is a skill that's as critical for learning a range of subjects at schools and work as it is for learning to understand a foreign tongue. Studies of skilled language learners have identified specific listening strategies that lead to superior comprehension. Last year, for example, University of Ottawa researcher Larry Vandergrift published his study of 106 undergraduates who were learning French as second language. Half of the students were taught in a conventional fashion, listening to and practicing texts spoken aloud. The other half, possessing the same initial (最初的) skill level and taught by the same teacher, were given detailed instruction on how to listen. It turned out that the second group "significantly outperformed" (胜过) the first one on a test of comprehension. So what are these listening strategies? Skilled learners go into a listening class with a sense of what they want to get out of it. They set a goal for their listening, and they generate predictions about what the speaker will say. Before the talking begins, they mentally review what the already know about the subject, and form an intention to "listen out for" what's important or relevant. Once they begin listening, these learners maintain their focus; if their attention wanders, they bring it back to the works being spoken. They don't allow themselves to be thrown off by confusing or unfamiliar details. Instead, they take note of what they don't understand and make inferences about what those things might mean, based on other clues available to them: their previous knowledge of the subject, the context (语境) of the talk, the identity of the speaker, and so on.
1. What is the main idea of this passage?
A.Effective listening means hearing the words that float past our ears.
B.Developing your listening skills is the first step toward developing fluency.
C.Skilled listeners use specific strategies to get the most out of what they hear.
D.Listening is one of the most powerful tools we have to gain information.
A B C D
C
2. What does Vandergrift's research show?
A.Learners who adopt specific listening strategies become better listeners.
B.Learners taught in the traditional way are better at reinforcing what they learn.
C.Learners are more confident if they make fewer mistakes.
D.Learners who listen on a regular basis improve faster.
A B C D
A
3. Which of the following statements about Vandergrift's research is TRUE?
A.The participants were postgraduates learning French as a second language.
B.All the participants were taught using the conventional method, with the focus on listening strategies.
C.The two groups were taught by different teachers.
D.The participants were at the same initial skill level.
A B C D
D
4. The expression "thrown off" in the third paragraph is closest in meaning to "______".
A.infected
B.confused
C.ruined
D.informed
A B C D
B
5. According to the passage, which of the following strategies is NOT used by skilled learners?
A.Review their prior knowledge of the subject.
B.Concentrate on the speaker's words.
C.Translate into their native language.
D.Predict what the speaker will say.
A B C D
C
Passage 3 As the Titanic was sinking and women and children climbed into lifeboats, the musicians from the ship's band stood and played. They died when the ship went down. Men stood on the deck and smoked cigarettes. They died, too. This behavior is puzzling to economists, who like to believe that people tend to act in their own self interest. "There was no pushing," says David Savage, an economist at Queensland University in Australia who has studied witness reports from the survivors. It was "very, very orderly behavior." Savage has compared the behavior of the passengers on the Titanic with those on the Lusitania, another ship that also sank at about the same time. But when the Lusitania went down, the passengers panicked (恐慌). There were a lot of similarities between these two events. These two ships were both luxury ones, they had a similar number of passengers and a similar number of survivors. The biggest difference, Savage concludes, was time. The Lusitania sank in less than 20 minutes. But for the Titanic, it was two-and-a-half hours. "If you're going down in under 17 minutes, basically it's instinctual." On the Titanic, social order ruled, and it was women and children first. On the Lusitania, instinct won out. The survivors were largely the people who could swim and get into the lifeboats. "Yes, we're self-interested," Savage says. But we're also part of a society. Given time, social norms (规范) can beat our natural self-interest. A hundred years ago, women and children always went first. Men were stoic (坚忍的). On the Titanic, there was enough time for these norms to become forceful.
1. According to the Author, economists were confused because ______.
A.people's behavior was disorderly on the Titanic
B.people did not act in their own interest on the Titanic
C.most men did not act in their own interest on the Lusitania
D.women and children could not climb into the lifeboats
A B C D
B
2. The expression "won out" in the third paragraph is closest in meaning to ______.
A.took the upper hand
B.went out of control
C.ran wild
D.shut down
A B C D
A
3. According to David Savage, ______ was a critical factor in determining people's behavior in the sinking of those two ships.
A.social order
B.place
C.instinct
D.time
A B C D
D
4. According to the passage, which of the following is NOT TRUE?
A.Both ships were expensive ones.
B.A similar number of women and children from both ships survived.
C.About the same number of people from each ship died.
D.Both ships had a similar number of passengers.
A B C D
B
5. Which of the following is an appropriate title for this passage?
A.Why Didn't Musicians Play on the Lusitania?
B.Why Did Musicians Play on the Titanic?
C.Why Didn't Passengers Panic on the Titanic?
D.Why Did Men Smoke on the Titanic?
A B C D
C
Passage 4 The most famous collections of fairy tales (童话) are the ones by Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm. The Grimms published their first fairy-tale collection in 1812. They didn't think they were writing for children. They thought they were preserving disappearing German folk culture. Their first edition (版本) was a scholarly book that carefully recorded the oral tales. They were surprised when some of their early readers suggested that the stories might be interesting to children. But the Grimms needed money. They had made a bad deal with their publisher and received little payment for their first book. At one point Wilhelm complained there wasn't a chair in his house one could sit on without worrying it would break. So he took the hint and set to work to make a book that would be suitable for children. He selected a few of the tales, made them much longer, and polished up the language. He didn't add morals, but he did slip in character judgments and moralizing comments wherever he could. The Grimms' fairy tales also have one characteristic that would seem to make them unsuitable for children. Many of them include violent incidents. In "Hansel and Gretel", an old woman is burned to death in an oven, and in "Little Red Riding Hood", a child is eaten by a wolf. When he revised the tales for children, Wilhelm Grimm retained the violence. In fact, he sometimes even ramped it up. For example, in the first edition of the tales, Cinderella forgives her sisters at the end. It's only in the second edition, the one intended for children, that her birds peck (啄) out their eyes. Why, then, have the Grimms' fairy tales become classics of children's literature, so much so that it is hard to imagine a child who doesn't know Cinderella's story or Snow White's? One answer is that only a few of the tales of the tales survived into modem times. The first edition of the Grimms' fairy tales had 210 tales. By 1825, it was down to 50. And today, only a dozen or so of the tales are often reprinted in children's collections. But the deeper answer is that the tales that have lasted are magical adventures that help children deal with the straggles and fears of their everyday lives.
1. Why did Wilhelm Grimm set out to adapt his book for children?
A.To deal with readers' complaints.
B.To improve his financial situation.
C.At the request of his publisher.
D.To preserve the ancient stories in print.
A B C D
B
2. When revising the fairy tales, Wilhelm did all of the following EXCEPT ______.
A.adding character judgments
B.making the tales much longer
C.deleting the violent scenes
D.polishing up the language
A B C D
C
3. What does the expression "ramped it up" in Paragraph 3 probably mean?
A.Started.
B.Allowed.
C.Classified.
D.Increased.
A B C D
D
4. Which of the following statements about the Grimms' fairy tales is TRUE according to the passage?
A.They were originally intended to be children's stories.
B.Generally speaking, the tales that have endured can help children deal with the challenges life brings to them.
C.A large number of the tales made it to the modern age.
D.They are less violent than the children's stories being written today.
A B C D
B
5. What is the passage mainly concerned with?
A.History of fairy tales.
B.Ways to preserve the oral tradition.
C.The Grimms' fairy tales.
D.Violence in fairy tales.
A B C D
C
Passage 5 As the school year kicks off, parents are once again struggling to cajole (哄骗) and, it need be, drag their exhausted teens out of bed. That image may make you laugh, but lack of sleep is no joke. Teenagers who don't get enough rest have more learning, health, behavior and mood problems than students who get at least nice hours a night. Long-term lack of sleep is tied to heart disease, overweight, depression and a shortened life span in adults, indicating the importance of establishing good sleep habits early in life. Lack of sleep can be especially deadly for teens; car accidents are the leading cause of death among teenagers, and safety experts believe sleepy driving is a major factor. Unfortunately, few teenagers get the sleep they need. In a survey of middle- and high-school students, University of Colorado researchers found that 82 percent said they woke up tired and unrefreshed, and more than half had trouble concentrating during the day at least once a week. Blame multitasking for some of this. Many students are juggling after-school activities, homework and part-time jobs. Even when they manage to fulfill these obligations by a reasonable hour, television, the Internet, video games, phone calls and text messages to friends often keep them awake deep into the night. Taking soda and energy drinks late in the day and going to late- night parties on weekends add to sleep debt. Biology also works against teenagers' sleep. The body's internal clock, which controls when a person starts to feel tired, shifts after puberty (青春期), making it hard for most teens to fall asleep before 11 p.m. Class usually begins before 8:15 a.m., with many high schools starting as early as 7:15a.m. To get to school on time, most teens have to get up by 6:30a.m., guaranteeing they'll be sleep-deprived during the week. Teens often sleep much later on weekends to catch up, making it even harder to fall asleep on Sunday night and wake up on Monday morning. Playing catch-up on weekends also doesn't help teens stay refreshed when they need it most: during the week at school. Since the 1990s, middle and high schools in more than two dozen states have experimented with later school start times. The results have been encouraging: more sleep, increased attendance, better grades and fewer driving accidents. But most schools still start early, meaning teens have their work cut out for them if they want to get enough sleep.
1. According to the passage, poor sleep can be linked to all of the following EXCEPT ______.
A.heart disease
B.car accidents
C.skin problems
D.poor concentration
A B C D
C
2. The main idea of Paragraph 3 is ______.
A.how sleep deprivation (缺乏) can be treated
B.what causes sleep deprivation
C.who is most at risk for sleep deprivation
D.why sleep deprivation is a serious concern
A B C D
B
3. What does the word "juggling" in Paragraph 3 probably mean?
A.Dealing with at the same time.
B.Striking a balance between.
C.Applying for.
D.Having difficulty in,
A B C D
B
4. Which of the following is NOT to blame for teenagers' lack of sleep?
A.Multitasking
B.Biological clock.
C.Weekend catch-up sleep
D.Healthy diet.
A B C D
D
5. According to the passage, what have some schools done to help their students get enough sleep?
A.Educating their students about the importance of sleep.
B.Monitoring their students' late-night activities.
C.Delaying school start times.
D.Setting strict rules.
A B C D
C
Passage 6 As any middle-class parent knows, unpaid work experience can give youngsters a valuable introduction to a secure job. The government has recognized it too, abandoning rules in 2011 that had formerly stopped 16-to 24-year-olds from doing unpaid work while claiming unemployment benefit. But moving from that to forcing them to work without pay in order to collect these benefits has proved a big step. More than one million young people in Britain are unemployed, the highest number since the mid-1980s. Keen both to cut the welfare bill and to avoid the depressed future wages that may result from early unemployment, the government has introduced an ambitious program of reform to get youngsters off welfare and into work. A key part of it is ensuring that no one gets benefit from the government for long; ministers are keen to avoid what happened after the early- 1980s recession (衰退), when unemployment continued in some parts of the country for a long time after the economy began to improve. To help young people into work, ministers had persuaded lots of employers, including bakery chains, bookshops, and supermarkets, to take on unemployed youths, who receive work experience but no pay, with the prospect of a proper job for those who shine. Some 35,000 youngsters participated last year; half found paid work soon after finishing the scheme. The idea of getting young adults used to showing up for work is popular with voters: according to a survey published in February, about 60% of people support the program. Equally attractive was the option of compelling them to work: under the existing arrangements youngsters could choose whether or not to accept a place, but if they dropped out after the end of the first week, they stood to lose up to two weeks' benefits. Yet the scheme has also polarized (两极分化的) opinion: a third of people are consistently opposed. Following a noisy "Right to Work" campaign that accused employers of co-operating secretly with the government in "forced labor", several firms dropped out of the program. To prevent this from getting worse, Chris Grayling, an employment minister, admitted that young people could leave their work experience at any time without being punished for doing so. This not only halted the flight of employers (for now, at least) but also enabled him to announce that new firms have agreed to take part in the program.
1. According to the passage, young people in Britain ______.
A.are used to showing up for work
B.value unpaid work very much
C.are always opposed to unpaid work
D.could learn something about job security through unpaid work
A B C D
D
2. According to the passage, which of the following is NOT TRUE?
A.Most voters support the government's effort to help young people to find work.
B.Some people protest against the government's attempt to force young people to work.
C.There are more than one million young people who took part in the program.
D.There are more than one million young people who are jobless.
A B C D
C
3. According to the author, the British government is trying to ______.
A.punish young people if they are not cooperating with it
B.reform the unemployed youngsters
C.avoid the economic slowdown
D.reduce welfare spending
A B C D
D
4. The word "shine" in Paragraph 3 means "______".
A.do well
B.reflect light
C.look happy
D.produce light
A B C D
A
5. Which of the following is an appropriate title for this passage?