阅读理解Directions: There are 3 passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A., B., C. and D.. You should decide on the best choice and write the answer on the Answer Sheet.Passage threeAs Philadelphia grew from a small town into a city in the first half of the eighteenth century，it became an increasingly important marketing center for a vast and growing agricultural hinterland. Market days saw the crowded city even more crowded，as farmers from within a radius of 24 or more kilometers brought their sheep, cows, pigs, vegetables, cider, and other products for direct sale to the townspeople. The High Street Market was continuously enlarged throughout the period until 1736, when it reached from Front Street to Third. By 1745 New Market was opened on Second Street between Pine and Cedar. The next year the Callowhill Market began operation.Along with market days, the institution of twice-yearly fairs persisted in Philadelphia even after similar trading days had been discontinued in other colonial cities. The fairs provided a means of bringing handmade goods from outlying places to would-be buyers in the city.Linens and stockingsfrom Germantown, for example, were popular items.Auctions were another popular form of occasional trade. Because of the competition, retail merchants opposed these as well as the fairs. Although governmental attempts to eradicate fairs and auctions were less than successful，the ordinary course ofeconomic development was on the merchants’ side, as increasing business specialization became the order of the day. Export merchants became differentiated from their importing counterparts, and specialty shops began to appear in addition to general stores selling a variety of goods.One of the reasons Philadelphia’s merchants generally prospered was because the surrounding area was undergoing tremendous economic and demographic growth. They did their business, after all，in the capital city of the province. Not only did they cater to the governor and his circle, but citizens from all over the colony came to the capital for legislative sessions of the assembly and council and the meetings of the courts of justice.

阅读理解You tell sex of a goose by its demeanor and its stancethe way it holds itself, its general approach to life

阅读理解Directions: There are 3 passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice and write the answer on the Answer Sheet.Passage TwoPotash (the old name for potassium carbonate) is one of the two alkalis (the other being soda, sodium carbonate) that were used from remote antiquity in the making of glass, and from the early Middle Ages in the making of soap: the former being the product of heating a mixture of alkali and sand, the latter a product of alkali and vegetable oil. Their importance in the communities of colonial North America need hardly be stressed.Potash and soda are not interchangeable for all purposes, but for glass- or soap-making either would do. Soda was obtained largely from the ashes of certain Mediterranean sea plants, potash from those of inland vegetation. Hence potash was more familiar to the early European settlers of the North American continent.The settlement at Jamestown in Virginia was in many ways a microcosm of the economy of colonial North America, and potash was one of its first concerns. It was required for the glassworks, the first factory in the British colonies, and was produced in sufficient quantity to permit the inclusion of potash in the first cargo shipped out of Jamestown. The second ship to arrive in the settlement from England included among its passengers experts in potash making.The method of making potash was simple enough. Logs was piled up and burned in the open, and the ashes collected. The ashes were placed in a barrel with holes in the bottom, and water was poured over them. The solution draining from the barrel was boiled down in iron kettles. The resulting mass was further heated to fuse the mass into what was called potash.In North America potash making quickly became an adjunct to the clearing of land for agriculture, for it was estimated that as much as half the cost of clearing land could be recovered by the sale of potash. Some potash was exported from Maine and New Hampshire in the seventeenth century, but the market turned out to be mainly domestic, consisting mostly of shipments from the northern to the southern colonies. For despite the beginning of the trade at Jamestown and such encouragements as a series of acts “to encourage the making of potash,” beginning in 1707 in South Carolina, the softwoods in the South proved to be poor sources of the substance.

阅读理解Text 2 Fears of new technology have sometimes produced terrifying versions of the future

阅读理解Passage Two Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage

阅读理解In this section there are five reading passages followed by a total of 20 multiple-choice questions and 5 short answerquestions. Please read the passages and then write your answers on the ANSWER SHEET.Text BMore Americans are cohabiting—living together out of wedlock—than ever. Some exports applaud the practice, but others warn playing house does not always lead to marital bliss. At one time in America, living together out of wedlock was scandalous. Unmarried spouses who “shacked up” were said to be “living in sin”. Indeed, cohabitation was illegal throughout the country until about 1970. Today, statistics tell a different tale. The number of unwed couples living together has risen to a new high—more than 4.1 million as of March 1997, according to the Census Bureau. That figure was up from 3.96 million couples the previous year and represents a quantum leap from the 430,000 cohabiting couples counted in 1960.The bureau found that cohabiting is most prevailing in the 24-35 age group, accounting for 1.6 million such couples. Cohabitants claim they live together primarily to solidify their love and commitment to each other. Most intend to marry; only 13% of cohabitants do not anticipate legalizing their relationship. But the reality for many couples is different: Moving in does not lead to “happily ever after”. Forty percent of cohabitants never make it to the altar. Of the 60% who do marry, more than half divorce within 10 years (compared with 30% of married couples who did not live together first).Cohabiting partners are more unfaithful and fight more often than married couples, according to research by the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society. Other studies have come to equally similar conclusions.Still, experts predict the number of cohabiting couples is likely to increase. As the offspring of the baby boomers come of age, they are inclined to defer marriages, as did their parents. This will lead to more cohabitation and nontraditional families. Until people unearth that living together has pitfalls, it won’t wane in popularity. Cohabiting has been portrayed with “careful neutrality” in the media, and Hollywood celebrities who move in and out of each other’s homes set the standard.But Warren Farrell, the San Diego-based author of Why Men Are the Way They Are, argues that living together is a good idea for a short period. “To make the jump from dating, when we put our best foot forward, to being married” —without showing each other the “shadow side of ourselves”—is to treat marriage frivolously, he says.

阅读理解Trendy Solar Radio/Crank Radio Stylish as It Is Useful This crank AM/FM radio can be charged in three different waysby crank, solar power or with an AC wall adapter

阅读理解 Schools have banned cupcakes, issued obesity report cards and cleared space in cafeterias for salad bars. Just last month, Michelle Obama's campaign to end childhood obesity promised to get young people moving more and improve school lunch, and beverage makers said they had cut the sheer number of liquid calories shipped to schools by almost 90 percent in the past five years. But new research suggests that interventions aimed at school-aged children may be, if not too little, too late. More and more evidence points to crucial events very early in life—-during the toddler years, infancy and even before birth—that can set young children on an obesity track that is hard to alter by the time they're in kindergarten. The evidence is not invulnerable, but it suggests that prevention efforts should start very early. Among the findings are these: The chubby angelic baby who is growing so nicely may be growing too much for his or her own good, research suggests. Babies whose mothers smoked during pregnancy are at risk of becoming obese, even though the babies are usually small at birth. Babies who sleep less than 12 hours are at increased risk for obesity later. If they don't sleep enough and also watch two hours or more of TV a day, they are at even greater risk. Some early interventions are already widely practiced. Doctors recommend that overweight women lose weight before pregnancy rather than after, to cut the risk of obesity and diabetes in their children; breast-feeding is also recommended to lower the obesity risk. But weight or diet restrictions on young children have been avoided. 'It used to be kind of taboo to label a child under 5 as overweight or obese, even if the child was—the thinking was that it was too disgraceful,' said Dr. Elsie M. Taveras of Harvard Medical School, lead author of a recent paper on racial difference in early risk factors. Scientists worry about what are called epigenetic changes. The genes inherited from mother and father may be turned on and off and the strength of their effects changed by environmental conditions in early development. Many doctors are concerned about women being obese and unhealthy before pregnancy because, as they point out, the womb is the baby's first environment. Experts say change may require abandoning some cherished cultural attitudes. 'The idea that a big baby is a healthy baby, and a crying baby is probably a hungry baby who should be fed, are things we really need to rethink,' Dr. Birch said.

阅读理解Visual impairment(视觉障碍)carries with it a reduced or restricted ability to travel through ones physical and social environment until adequate orientation and mobility skills have been established

阅读理解Questions 16 to 20 are based on the following passage

阅读理解Text 5 Imagine an immensely, speeded-up movie of Manhattan Island during the last hundred years

阅读理解In a recent study, neuroscientists found that playing fast-paced video games could help improve dyslexic children’s reading speed, and the improvements did not fade with time. Researchers tested the reading ability of two groups of 10-year-old dyslexic children after one group had played action video games and the other played non-action video games. Each group was composed of 10 children who played 80 minutes of video games a day for nine days, equaling 12 hours of play per child. Their reading skills were measured on a number of factors, including howfast they read words and how accurately they read them. Results showed that improvements in reading speed achieved from playing fast-paced video games could even exceed improvements gained from a year’s intense, traditional therapies. Scientists aimed to prove that there’s a correlation between a dyslexic child’s visual attention span and their ability to read. Action video games are distinguished from non-action video games by such characteristics as game speed, a high sensory-motor load, and presentation of multiple, peripheral stimuli. Action video game players constantly receive both external and internal feedback on their performance, producing learning. It turned out that the assumptions of researchers were correct. Action video game players defeated their non-action peers in improvements. Only action game kids showed general reading improvements, up to 40 percent, while non-action readers showed no improvement. The action gamers also improved their basic text reading by as much as 60 percent, while non-action gamers showed a more modest 5 percent-10 percent gain. Though more research is needed to nail down the specific role that action games play in the improvements, the researchers claimed their data is the start. They believe their findings show that attention can be studied and efficiently trained during infancy. This can pave the way for low-resource-demanding early prevention programs that could drastically reduce the incident of reading disorders.

阅读理解From Paragraph 2, we know that the author was __________.

阅读理解Scattered around the globe are more than 100 small regions of isolated volcanic activity known to geologists as hot spots

阅读理解 Progressives often support diversity mandates as a path to equality and a way to level the playing field. But all too often such policies are an insincere form of virtue-signaling that benefits only the most privileged and does little to help average people. A pair of bills sponsored by Massachusetts state Senator Jason Lewis and House Speaker Pro Tempore Patricia Haddad, to ensure 'gender parity' on boards and commissions, provide a case in point. Haddad and Lewis are concerned that more than half the state-government boards are less than 40 percent female. In order to ensure that elite women have more such opportunities, they have proposed imposing government quotas. If the bills become law, state boards and commissions will be required to set aside 50 percent of board seats for women by 2022. The bills are similar to a measure recently adopted in California, which last year became the first state to require gender quotas for private companies. In signing the measure, California Governor Jerry Brown admitted that the law, which expressly classifies people on the basis of sex, is probably unconstitutional. The US Supreme Court frowns on sex-based classifications unless they are designed to address an 'important' policy interest. Because the California law applies to all boards, even where there is no history of prior discrimination, courts are likely to rule that the law violates the constitutional guarantee of 'equal protection'. But are such government mandates even necessary? Female participation on corporate boards may not currently mirror the percentage of women in the general population, but so what? The number of women on corporate boards has been steadily increasing without government interference. According to a study by Catalyst, between 2010 and 2015 the share of women on the boards of global corporations increased by 54 percent. Requiring companies to make gender the primary qualification for board membership will inevitably lead to less experienced private sector boards. That is exactly what happened when Norway adopted a nationwide corporate gender quota. Writing in The New Republic, Alice Lee notes that increasing the number of opportunities for board membership without increasing the pool of qualified women to serve on such boards has led to a 'golden skirt' phenomenon, where the same elite women scoop up multiple seats on a variety of boards. Next time somebody pushes corporate quotas as a way to promote gender equity, remember that such policies are largely self-serving measures that make their sponsors feel good but do little to help average women.

阅读理解Can it be a mere coincidence that the world heard that Superman would renounce his U

阅读理解Passage Three For more than two days in September 1974, the people of Honduras shut their windows, locked their door and crouched in their homes

阅读理解What will UNESCO provide for the internship period？

阅读理解Many great discoveries were made in ________ the 19th century

阅读理解PartBHowdoesyourreadingproceed?Clearlyyoutrytocomprehend,inthesenseofidentifyingmeaningsforindividualwordsandworkingoutrelationshipsbetweenthem,drawingonyourimplicitknowledgeofEnglishgrammar.(41)_____________________________________Youbegintoinferacontextforthetext,forinstancebymakingdecisionsaboutwhatkindofspeecheventisinvolved:whoismakingtheutterance,towhom,whenandwhere.Thewaysofreadingindicatedherearewithoutdoubtkindsofcomprehension.Buttheyshowcomprehensiontoconsistnotjustofpassiveassimilationbutofactiveengagementininferenceandproblem-solving.Youinferinformationyoufeelthewriterhasinvitedyoutograspbypresentingyouwithspecificevidenceandclues;(42)_________________________________Conceivedinthisway,comprehensionwillnotfollowexactlythesametrackforeachreader.Whatisinquestionisnottheretrievalofanabsolute,fixedor‘true’meaningthatcanbereadoffandcheckedforaccuracy,orsometimelessrelationofthetexttotheworld.(43)_________________________________________Suchbackgroundmaterialinevitablyreflectswhoweare.(44)____________________________Thisdoesn’t,however,makeinterpretationmerelyrelativeorevenpointless.Preciselybecausereadersfromdifferenthistoricalperiods.Placeandsocialexperiencesproducedifferentbutoverlappingreadingsofthesamewordsonthepage—includingfortextsthatengagewithfundamentalhumanconcerns—debatesabouttextscanplayanimportantinthesocialdiscussionofbeliefsandvalues.Howwereadagiventextalsodependstosomeextentonourparticularinterestinreadingit.(45)_________________________________________Suchdimensionsofreadingsuggest—asotherintroducedlaterinthebookwillalsodo—thatwebringanimplicit（oftenunacknowledged）agendatoanyactofreading.Itdoesn’tthennecessarilyfollowthatonekindofreadingisfuller,moreadvancedandmoreworthwhilethananother.Ideally,differentkindsofreadinginformeachother,andactasusefulreferencepointsforandcounterbalancestooneanother.Together,theymakeupthereadingcomponentofyouroverallliteracy,orrelationshiptoyoursurroundingtextualenvironment.A.Arewestudyingthattextandtryingtorespondinawaythatfulfilstherequirementofagivecourse?Readingitsimplyforpleasure?Skimmingitforinformation?Waysofreadingonatrainorinbedarelikelytodifferconsiderablyfromreadinginaseminarroom.B.Factorssuchastheplaceandperiodinwhichwearereading,ourgender,ethnicity,ageandsocialclasswillencourageustowardscertaininterpretationsbutatthesametimeobscureorevencloseoffothers.C.Ifyouareunfamiliarwithwordsoridioms,youguessattheirmeaning,usingcluespresentedinthecontext.Ontheashemptionthattheywillbecomerelevantlater,youmakeamentalnoteofdiscourseentitiesaswellaspossiblelinksbetweenthem.D.Ineffect,youtrytoreconstructthelikelymeaningoreffectsthatanygivensentence,imageorreferencemighthavehad:Thesemightbetheonesauthorintended.E.Youmakefurtherinferences,forinstance,abouthowthetextmaybesignificanttoyou,oraboutitsvalidity—inferencesthatfromthebasisofpersonalresponseforwhichtheauthorwillinevitablybefarlessresponsible.F.Inplays,novelsandnarrativepoems,charactersspeakasconstructscreatedtheauthor,notnecessarilyasmouthpiecesfortheauthor’sownthoughts.G.Rather,weascribemeaningstotextsonthebasisofinteractionbetweenwhatwemightcalltextualandcontextualmaterial:betweenkindsoforganizationorpatteringweperceiveinatext’sformalstructures(soespeciallyitslanguagestructures)andvariouskindsofbackground,socialknowledge,beliefandattitudethatwebringtothetext.