Passage 1 The reflective towers of New York City, which is on the Atlantic migrating (迁徙) route, can be deadly for bird. "We live in an age of glass," said Ms. Laurel, an architect. "It can be a perfect mirror in certain lights, and the larger the glass, the more dangerous it is." About 90,000 birds are killed by flying into buildings in the city each year. Often, they strike the lower levels of glass towers after searching for food in nearby parks. Such crashes are the second leading cause of death for migrating birds, after habitat (栖息地) loss, with an estimated number of death ranging up to a billion a year. As glass office and apartment towers have increased in the last decade, so, too, have calls to make them less deadly to birds. San Francisco adopted bird-safety standards for new buildings in July. The United States Green Building Council, a nonprofit industry group that encourages the creation of environmentally conscious buildings, will introduce a bird-safety credit this fall as part of its environmental certification process. There are no easy fixes, however. A few researchers are exploring glass designs that use ultraviolet (紫外线的) signals, but they are still in their infancy. Covers, dot patterns, shades and nets are the main options available. Often, only one section of a building needs to be changed. "You don't necessarily have to treat every window," Ms. Laurel said. "It would be too expensive to do the whole building." The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, which has been undergoing alterations, is the most recent building to voluntarily correct the problem of bird crashes. The architects used less reflective glass and dot patterns.
1. What is the main idea of the passage?
A.New York is a city of glass towers.
B.Glass towers are dangerous for migrating birds.
C.New York adopted new safety standards for buildings.
D.Glass towers are a new trend in the United States.
A B C D
B
2. What is the number one cause of death for migrating birds?
A.Climate change.
B.Habitat loss.
C.Lack of food.
D.Crashing into buildings.
A B C D
B
3. What does the word "fixes" in the third paragraph probably mean?
A.Choices.
B.Explanations
C.Solutions.
D.Developments.
A B C D
C
4. ______ are used in the alteration of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.
A.Dot patterns
B.Shades
C.Nets
D.Covers
A B C D
A
5. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?
A.In many cases, the whole building needs to be altered to prevent bird crashes.
B.The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center is the first building to deal with the problem of bird crashes.
C.About 90,000 birds are killed due to habitat loss in New York City each year.
D.Unfortunately, glass designs that use ultraviolet signals are still in their early stages.
A B C D
D
Passage 2 Today's students have grown up hearing more about Bill Gates than F.D.R., and they live in a world where amazing innovations (革新) are common. The current 18-year-olds, after all, were 8 when Google was founded by two students at Stanford; Mark Zukerberg founded Facebook in 2004 while he was at Harvard and they were entering high school. Having grown up digital (数字的) , they are impatient to get on with life. The easiest way to find kids like these is to check in on entrepreneurship (企业家才能) education, in which colleges and universities try to prepare their students to recognize opportunities and seize them. A report published last year by the Kauffman Foundation, which finances programs to promote innovation on campuses, noted that more than 5,000 entrepreneurship programs are offered on two- and four-year campuses--up from just 250 courses in 1985. Lesa Mitchell, a Kauffman vice president, says that the foundation is extending the reach of its academic influence, which used to be found only in business schools. Now, the concept of entrepreneurship is blooming in engineering programs and medical schools, and even in the liberal arts. "Our interest is in all the programs," she says. "We need to spread out from the business school." Either as class projects or on their own, students in a variety of majors are coming up with ideas, writing business plans and seeing them through to prototype and, often, market. In their spare time, students in agricultural economics at Purdue invent new uses for bean; industrial design majors at Syracuse, in a special laboratory, create wearable technologies. (78) The entrepreneurship movement has its critics, especially among those who see college as a time for extensive academic exploration. "I just don't think that entrepreneurship ranks so high in terms of national need," says Daniel S. Greenberg, author of Science for Sale: The Perils, Rewards and Delusions of Campus Capitalism. Leonard A. Schlesinger, Babson College's president, says that the question of whether innovation can really be taught is "an age-old argument."
1. When Google and Facebook were established, the founders were still ______.
A.in high school
B.in the army
C.in primary school
D.at college
A B C D
D
2. According to the passage, what is the main purpose of entrepreneurship education?
A.To prepare students for future academic life.
B.To prepare students to find opportunities and seize them.
C.To prepare students for overseas career.
D.To prepare students to develop interpersonal skills.
A B C D
B
3. The word "prototype" in the fourth paragraph is most likely to mean ______.
A.model
B.strategy
C.method
D.stage
A B C D
A
4. What does Daniel S. Greenberg think of entrepreneurship education?
A.Entrepreneurship, or at least certain elements of it, can be taught.
B.An entrepreneurship program can help students find what they really like and entrepreneurship isn't all about business.
C.Entrepreneurship should spread across different fields.
D.Colleges shouldn't put too much emphasis on entrepreneurship programs.
A B C D
D
5. What is the main idea of the passage?
A.Entrepreneurship courses in business schools.
B.Qualities of an entrepreneur.
C.Entrepreneurship education in colleges.
D.Kids in the information age.
A B C D
C
Passage 3 Regret is as common an emotion as love or fear, and it can be nearly as powerful. So, in a new paper, two researchers set about trying to find out what the typical American regrets most. In telephone surveys, Neal Roese, a psychologist and professor of marketing at the School of Management at Northwestern University, and Mike Morrison, a doctoral candidate in psychology at University of Illinois, asked 370 Americans, aged 19 to 103, to talk about their most notable regret. Participants were asked what the regret was, when it happened, whether it was a result of something they did or didn't do, and whether it was something that could still be fixed. The most commonly mentioned regrets involved romance (浪漫的事) (18%)--lost loves or unfulfilled relationships. Family regrets came in second (16%), with people still feeling badly about being unkind to their brothers or sisters in childhood. Other frequently reported regrets involved career (13%), education (12%), money (10%) and parenting (9%). Roese and Morrison's study, which is planned to be published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, is significant in that it surveyed a wide range of the American public, including people of all ages and socioeconomic and educational backgrounds. Previous studies on regret have focused largely on college students, who predictably tend to have education- focused regrets, like wishing they had studied harder or a different major. The new survey shows that in the larger population, a person's "life circumstances--accomplishments, shortcomings, situation in life---inject considerable fuel into the fires of regret," the authors write. People with less education, for instance, were more likely to report education regrets. People with higher levels of education had the most career regrets. And those with no romantic partner tended to hold regrets regarding love. Broken down (分解,细分) by gender, more women (44%) than men (19%) had regrets about love and family--not surprising, since women "value social relationships more than men," the authors write. In contrast, men (34%) were more likely than women (27%) to mention work- related regrets, wishing they'd chosen a different career path, for instance, or followed their passion. Many participants also reported wishing they had worked less to spend more time with their children. There was an even split between regrets about inaction (not doing something) and action (doing something you wish you didn't). But, like previous studies, the current research found that some regrets are more likely than others to persist over time: people tend to hang on longer to the regret of inaction; meanwhile, regrets of action tend to be more recent.
1. In the second paragraph, the author shows ______
A.the researchers' findings
B.the importance of family
C.the importance of money
D.the importance of career
A B C D
A
2. According to the passage, college student participants mainly had regrets about their ______.
A.family and childhood
B.study and major
C.career and job
D.romance and fear
A B C D
B
3. The word "notable" in the first paragraph is closest in meaning to "______".
A.common
B.capable
C.wonderful
D.remarkable
A B C D
D
4. Which of the following statements is TRUE?
A.The less education he or she has, the more regrets she or he would have.
B.The more education he or she has, the less regrets she or he would have.
C.More women than men had regrets about love and family.
D.The regret of action seems to last longer than that of inaction.
A B C D
C
5. What is the main idea of this passage?
A.How regret is understood by a typical American.
B.Common regret is more important than love and hate.
C.Why regret is more important than love and hate.
D.How regret has shaped Americans.
A B C D
B
Passage 4 Spending 50 minutes with a cell phone close to your ear is enough to change brain cell activity in the part of the brain closest to the antenna (天线). But whether that causes any harm is not clear, scientists at the National Institute of Health said at a conference last month, adding that the study will likely not settle concerns of a link between cell phones and brain cancer. "What we showed is glucose (葡萄糖) metabolism (代谢) (a sign of brain activity) increases in the brain in people who were exposed to a cell phone in the area closest to the antenna," said Dr. Nora Volkow of the NIH, whose study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The study was meant to examine how the brain reacts to electromagnetic fields caused by wireless phone signals. Volkow said she was surprised that the weak electromagnetic radiation (电磁辐射) from cell phones could affect brain activity, but she said the findings do not shed any light on whether cell phones cause cancer. "This study does not in any way indicate that. What the study does is to show the human brain is sensitive to electromagnetic radiation from cell phone exposures." Use of the devices has increased dramatically since they were introduced in the early 1980s, with about 5 billion cell phones now in use worldwide. Some studies have linked cell phone exposure to an increased risk of brain cancers, but a large study by the World Health Organization did not offer a clear answer to this. Volkow's team studied 47 people who had their brain examined while a cell phone was turned on for 50 minutes and another while the phone was turned off. While there was no complete change in brain metabolism, they found a 7 percent increase in brain metabolism in the region closest to the cell phone antenna when the phone was on. Experts said the results were interesting, but urged that they be understood with great care. "Although the biological significance, if any, of increased glucose metabolism from too much cell phone exposure is unknown, the results require further investigation," Henry Lai of the University of Washington in the U.S. and Dr. Lennart Hardell of University Hospital in Sweden, wrote in an article in JAMA. "Much has to be done to further investigate and understand these effects," they wrote.
1. According to the passage, which of the following is TRUE?
A.Cell phone use is dangerous.
B.Cell phone use causes cancer.
C.The human brain is an electromagnetic field.
D.There are about 5 billion cell phone users in the world right now.
A B C D
D
2. Doctor Volkow was astonished because ______.
A.her research has shed light on her understanding of cell phone
B.she found that cell phone exposure is harmful to human brain
C.she found that using a cell phone for about minutes could influence or change brain activity
D.human brain is not responsive to electromagnetic radiation
A B C D
C
3. According to the passage, cell phones were launched ______.
A.in the late 1970s
B.between 1980 and 1985
C.in the late 1980s
D.in the early 1990s
A B C D
B
4. What does the word "that" stand for in the second paragraph?
A.Brain activity.
B.Her research finding.
C.The fact that cell phone use may cause cancer.
D.Her research progress.
A B C D
C
5. Which of the following is an appropriate title for this passage?
A.Cell Phone Radiation: Is It Harmful?
B.Cell Phone Radiation: Is It Useful?
C.Cell Phone Radiation: Is It Healthy?
D.Cell Phone Radiation: Is It Weak?
A B C D
A
Passage 5 Human beings have always had an ability to attend to several things at once. Nor is electronic multitasking entirely new: we've been driving while listening to car radios since they became popular in the 1930s. But there is no doubt that multitasking has reached a kind of warp speed in the era of Web-enabled computers, when it has become routine to conduct several IM(即时通讯) conversations, watch TV and use the computer all at once. But what's the impact of this media consumption? And how are these multitasking devices changing how kids learn, reason and communicate with one another? Social scientists and educators are just beginning to deal with these questions, but the researchers already have some strong opinions. Although multitasking kids may be better prepared in some ways for today's fast-paced workplace, many scientists are positively alarmed by the trend. Kids that are instant messaging while doing homework, playing games online and watching TV, aren't going to do well in the long run. On the positive side, multitasking students tend to be extraordinarily good at finding and using information. And probably because modem childhood centers around visual (视觉的) rather than print media, they are especially skilled at analyzing visual data and images. Many educators and psychologists say parents need to actively ensure that their teenagers break free of uncontrollable engagement with screens and spend time in the physical company of human beings--a growing challenge not just because technology offers such a handy option but because so many kids lead highly scheduled lives that leave little time for old-fashioned socializing and family meals. Indeed, many teenagers and college students say overcommitted (任务过重的) schedules drive much of their multitasking. Just as important is for parents and educators to teach kids that it's valuable, even essential, to occasionally slow down, unplug and take time to enjoy life beyond the screen.
1. What is the main idea of this passage?
A.How is multitasking defined (定义) in the information age?
B.How do people see new technology and the social changes it brings about?
C.How does technology change modem family life?
D.What's the impact of multitasking on young people?
A B C D
D
2. The expression "warp speed" in the first paragraph is closest in meaning to "______".
A.low speed
B.average speed
C.high speed
D.steady speed
A B C D
C
3. According to some teenagers and college students, what causes their multitasking?
A.Overcommitted schedules.
B.Too much time alone.
C.Inability to focus.
D.Fear of being neglected.
A B C D
A
4. According to the passage, which of the following statements is TRUE?
A.Humans have begun to engage in multitasking behaviors since the information age.
B.Multitasking is a critical skill that students are required to learn at school.
C.Only parents can help their kids to get rid of the multitasking habits.
D.Multitasking may prepare students for the reality of today's fast-paced work environment.
A B C D
D
5. What do educators and psychologists advise parents to do about their multitasking kids?
A.To cut off home internet connection.
B.To seek medical treatment.
C.To encourage their kids to have some social life.
D.To help their kids to set personal goals.
A B C D
C
Passage 6 The nuclear power emergency at a Japanese atomic power plant last March could lead to a major reassessment in European countries that are already building such plants or are considering a shift from fossil (化石) fuels to nuclear energy to fight climate change. With the terrible accident 25 years ago in Chernobyl (切尔诺贝利) beginning to fade in European memories, governments across Europe have grown more open to using nuclear power. Enthusiasm for nuclear power is particularly strong in eastern Europe, which wants to move away from dependence on Russian oil and natural gas, and on heavily polluting coal-fired power plants. Eastern governments have begun improving existing nuclear plants or are building or planning new ones. But as Japan struggled to deal with her nuclear crisis, discussion about the good and the bad of nuclear power became heated. In Germany, nuclear power has been a repeatedly argued and widely felt issue for decades. Up to 70 percent of Germans oppose nuclear power. Recently, about 40,000 people turned out to form a human chain near a nuclear plant to protest government policies on nuclear power. "The accident in Japan could lead to a major rethink in Europe," said Henrik Paulitz of the International Doctors for the Prevention of Nuclear War. "Governments have not been quite open about the safety levels of the nuclear power plants." Chancellor (总理) Angela Merkel heads a center-right unity government that supports the use of nuclear power. Her government recently made a disputed decision to extend the life of the country's 17 nuclear power plants by an average of 12 years. She will now face more pressure to change that policy. She called an emergency meeting with her senior ministers. "We know how safe our plants are and that we do not face a threat from such a serious earthquake or violent tidal wave," Ms. Merkel said after the meeting. "We will learn what we can from the events in Japan."
1. According to the passage, which of the following about Europe is TRUE?
A.It is dependent on Russia for gas and oil.
B.It has put an end to fossil fuels.
C.It had a major nuclear accident this year.
D.It is likely that they would rethink their nuclear power policies.
A B C D
D
2. According to the passage, all the following statements about Eastern Europe are true EXCEPT ______.
A.they are eager to build new nuclear power plants
B.they have totally forgotten the Chernobyl accident 25 years ago
C.they have improved their nuclear power plants
D.they want energy independence
A B C D
B
3. In the second paragraph, the author mainly discusses ______.
A.the nuclear accident in Japan last March
B.nuclear power policies in Germany
C.German attitude towards nuclear power
D.The safety levels of nuclear power plants in Germany
A B C D
C
4. The word "heads" in the third paragraph can be best replaced by "______".
A.leads
B.tops
C.mind
D.arms
A B C D
A
5. Which of the following is an appropriate title for this passage?
A.Japan's Nuclear Crisis Causes Fear in Europe
B.The Chernobyl Disaster Helps Europe Better Understand Nuclear Power Energy