阅读理解Task 3Directions: This task (No.56 to No.60) is the same as Task 1. A new study by the Development of Health in Taiwan shows that more than half of the adult population in Taiwan lacks an understanding of health problems. More than 2,000 adults took part in the survey to find out about their knowledge of diet, health-care, disease control and medicine. Surprisingly, only 51% of the people surveyed understand that common cold has no cure, and taking medicine is absolutely no use at all. The problem is mad worse by doctors who give their patients large doses of useless drugs. More than two-thirds believe that it is only the nicotine in cigarettes rather than the other chemicals that causes cancer. These people believe that if they smoke “light” cigarettes with less nicotine, they will lead to more illness, suffering and early death. But the outlook for health education in Taiwan is not all negative. The survey concludes that younger Taiwanese have a better understanding of health concerns than their parents, while senior citizens have the least understanding among the three age groups. The purpose of the survey is to find out _______ 

阅读理解Passage 2 A quality education is the basic liberator

阅读理解If those "mad moments"—when you can''t remember what your friend has told you or where you left your keys—are becoming more frequent, mental exercises and a healthy brain diet may help. Just as bodies require more maintenance with the passing years, so do brains, which scientists now know show signs of aging as early as the 20s and 30s. "Brain aging starts at a very young age, younger than any of us had imagined and these processes continue gradually over the years," said Dr. Gary Small, the director of the Center on Aging at the University of California, Los Angeles. "I''m convinced that it is never too early to get started on a mental or brain-fitness program," he added. In his book, The Memory Bible, the 51-year-old neuroscientist (神经学家) lists what he refers to as the 10 suggestions for keeping the brain young. They include training memory, building skills, reducing stress, mental exercises, brain food and a healthy lifestyle. It''s a game plan for keeping brain cells sparking and neural networks in perfect shape. "Misplacing your keys a couple of times don''t mean you should start labeling your cabinets. Memory loss is not an inevitable consequence of aging. Our brains can fight back," he said. Small provides the weapons for a full-scale attack. Simple memory tests give an indication of what you are up against and tools such as "look" and "connect" are designed to make sure that important things such as names and dates are never forgotten. "So if you wanted to learn names and faces, for example, you meet Mrs. Beatty and you notice a distinguishing facial feature, maybe a high eyebrow," said Small. "You associate the first thing that comes to mind. I think of the actor Warren Beatty so I create a mental picture of Warren Beatty kissing her brow." Small admits it may sound a bit strange but he says it works. "Mental exercises could be anything from doing crossword puzzles and writing with your left hand if you are right handed or learning a language. It could be anything that is fun that people enjoy doing," he added. He also recommends physical exercise, a low-fat diet and eating foods rich in fatty acids, such as fish, nuts, and fruits and vegetables high in antioxidants (抗氧化剂) including blueberries and onions in addition to reducing stress.

阅读理解Bartenders are rarely shy about offering an opinion. But on a recent evening at the Finborough Wine Cafe, in between pours of Beaujolais, the bartender Van Badham was memorably on point about the new play “Mirror Teeth”being performed in an upstairs room: A Christopher-Durang-meets-Caryl-Churchill satire about racism, sex and control in the British family. Ms. Badham, it was later revealed, doubles as the literary manager for the Finborough Theater, which has been a tenant at the pub since 1980. Neil McPherson, the theater’s artistic director and its only salaried employee, said several company members tended bar to make ends meet, given that they are paid by the theater only if a production turns a profit. No success is too small: He once doled out ￡ 1.18 to each crew member after one play in the 50-seat theater did a bit better than break even. “The actors don’t get paid, either, not usually, “Mr. McPherson said, sitting on the snug stage after “Mirror Teeth”had concluded that night. “But if you’ve been stuck in ‘Phantom’for 10 years and you’re about ready to slit your wrists, and you crave doing some proper acting, you can do that here.”Like the storefront theater scene in Chicago, or the outdoor productions in parks, playgrounds and car lots across New York in the summer, pub theaters are a beloved part of the play-making tradition in England, especially London. Their lineage extends to the Restoration, when acting troupes took over empty dining rooms above pubs to perform plays of vulgar material that went well with a pint. Later the Victorian-era music halls — a wildly popular amusement for the working classes — got their start in saloon bars. Pub theaters proliferated in the 1970s and 1980s with the increase in theater companies of young artists and in-house playwrights wanting to do serious work on shoestring budgets in close proximity to audiences. “What works in our favor is the intimacy of the experience,”said Tim Roseman, who shares the job of artistic director at another pub space, Theater 503, with Paul Robinson. “You genuinely feel you are in the same room as the actors, that you breathe the characters’air, and this makes for an electrifying experience.”Mr. Robinson added: “It’s impossible to create that intensity when there are 1,000 people watching.”

阅读理解Passage 3 New technology links the world as never before

阅读理解Amtrak (美国铁路客运公司) was experiencing a downswing in riders hip (客运量) along the lines comprising its rail system. Of major concern to Amtrak and its advertising agency DDB Needham, were the long-distance western routes where ridership had been declining significantly. At one time, trains were the only practical way to cross the vast areas of the west. Trains were fast, very luxurious, and quite convenient compared to other forms of transportation existing at the time. However, times change and the automobile became America''s standard of convenience. Also, air travel had easily established itself as the fastest method of traveling great distances. Therefore, the task for DDB Needham was to encourage consumers to consider other aspects of train travel in order to change their attitudes and increase the likelihood that trains would be considered for travel in the west. Two portions of the total market were targeted: 1) anxious fliers—those concerned with safety, relaxation, and cleanliness and 2) travel-lovers—those viewing themselves as relaxed, casual, and interested in the travel experience as part of their vacation. The agency then developed a campaign that focused on travel experiences such as freedom, escape, relaxation, and enjoyment of the great western outdoors. It stressed experiences gained by using the trains and portrayed western train trips as wonderful adventures. Advertisements showed pictures of the beautiful scenery that could be enjoyed along some of the more famous western routes and emphasized the romantic names of some of these trains(Empire Builder, etc.).These ads were strategically placed among family-oriented TV shows and programs involving nature and America in order to most effectively reach target audiences. Results were impressive. The Empire Builder, which was focused on in one ad, enjoyed a 15 percent increase in profits on its Chicago to Seattle route.

阅读理解There are faults which age releases us from, and there are virtues which turn to vices with the lapseof years. The worst of these is thrift, which in early and middle life is wisdom and duty to practicefor a provision against destitution. As time goes on this virtue is apt to turn into the ugliest, cruelest,shabbiest of the vices. Then the victim of it finds himself storing past all probable need of saving forhimself or those next him, to the deprivation of the remoter kin of the race. In the earlier time whengain was symbolized by gold or silver, the miser had a sensual joy in the touch of his riches, inhearing the coins clink in their fall through his fingers and in gloating upon their increase sensible tothe hand and eye. Then the miser had his place among the great figures of misdoing; he was of adramatic effect, like a murderer or a robber and something of this bad distinction clung to him evenwhen his coins had changed to paper currency, the clean, white notes of the only English bank, or thegreenbacks, of our innumerable banks of issue; but when the sense of riches had been transmuted tothe balance in his favor at his banker’s, or the bonds in his drawer at the safety-deposit vault, allsplendor had gone out of his vice. His bad eminence was gone, but he clung to the lust of gain whichhad ranked him with the picturesque wrong-doers, and which only ruin from without could save himfrom, unless he gave his remnant of strength to saving himself from it. Most aging men are sensibleof all this, but few have the frankness of that aging man who once said that he who died rich dieddisgraced, and died the other day in the comparative poverty of fifty millions.

阅读理解Questions 11 to 20 are based on the following passage

阅读理解Joan sold the house anyway even though it was ________ her fathers wishes

阅读理解Do you find getting up in the morning so difficult that it''s painful? This might be called laziness, but Dr. Kleitman has a new explanation. He has proved that everyone has a daily energy cycle. During the hours when you labor through your work may say that you''re "hot". That''s true. The time of day when you feel most energetic is when your cycle of body temperature is at its peak. For some people the peak comes during the forenoon. For others it comes in the afternoon or evening. No one has discovered why this is so, but it leads to such familiar monologues (独白) as: "Get up, John! You''ll be late for work again!" The possible explanation to the trouble is that John is at his temperature-and-energy peak in the evening. Much family quarreling ends when husbands and wives realize what these energy cycles mean, and which cycle each member of the family has. You can''t change your energy cycle, but you can learn to make your life fit it better. Habit can help, Dr. Kleitman believes. Maybe you''re sleepy in the evening but feel you must stay up late anyway. Counteract (阻碍) your cycle to some extent by habitually staying up later than you want to. If your energy is low in the morning but you have an important job to do early in the day, rise before your usual hour. This won''t change your cycle, but you''ll get up steam and work better at your low point. Get off to a slow start which saves your energy. Get up with a leisurely yawn (哈欠) and stretch. Sit on the edge of the bed a minute before putting your feet on the floor. Avoid the troublesome search for clean clothes by laying them out the night before. Whenever possible, do routine work in the afternoon and save tasks requiring more energy or concentration for your sharper hours.

阅读理解Directions: There are 4 passages in this part. For each of them there are four choices marked A., B., C. and D. You should decide on the best choice.Passage 1A child who has once been pleased with a tale likes, as a rule, to have it retold in identically the same words, but this should not lead parents to treat printed fairy stories as sacred texts. It is always much better to tell a story than to read it out of a book and, if a parent can produce an improvement on the printed text, so much the better.A charge made against fairy tales is that they harm the child by frightening him or arousing his sadistic impulses. To prove the latter, one would have to show in a controlled experiment that children who have read fairy stories were more often guilty of cruelty than those who had not. On the whole, their symbolic verbal discharge seems to be rather a safety valve than an incitement to overt action. As to fears, there are, I think, well-authenticated cases of children being dangerously terrified by some fairy story. Often, however, this arises from the child having been told the story on only one occasion. Familiarity with the story by repetition turns the pain of fear into the pleasure of a fear faced and mastered.There are also people who object to fairy stories on the grounds that they are not objectively true, that giants, witches, two-headed dragons, magic carpets, etc. do not exist; and that, instead of indulging his fantasies in fairy tales, the child should be taught how to adapt to reality by studying history and mechanics. I find such people, I must confess, so unsympathetic and peculiar that I do not know how to argue with them. If their case were sound, the world should be full of madmen attempting to fly from New York to Philadelphia on a broomstick or covering a telephone with kisses in the belief that it was their enchanted girlfriend.No fairy story ever claimed to be a description of the external world and no sane child has ever believed that it was.

阅读理解Passage B 1

阅读理解 Several classes of bitter citrus compounds have looked promising as anticancer agents in laboratory tests. A new study indicates that long-term consumption of orange juice, a source of such chemicals, cuts cancer risk in rats. In test-tube studies, one class of the bitter compounds—flavonoids—has inhibited the growth of breast cancer cells. Related studies showed that bitter citrus limonoids similarly ward off cancer in animals. Mulling over such data, Maurice R. Bennink of Michigan State University in East Lansing wondered whether drinking orange juice would have a beneficial effect. His team injected 60 young rats with a chemical that causes colon cancer and then raised half of the animals on a normal diet. The others received orange juice instead of drinking water—and less sugar in their food to compensate for sugars in the juice. At an American Institute for Cancer Research meeting last week in Washington, D. C., Bennink reported that after 7 months, 22 of the animals receiving a normal diet had developed colon cancers. Only 17 of the rats on the orange-juice diet showed tumors. That's 77 percent of the control group's incidence. Concludes Bennink, whose work was supported by orange-juice producer—Tropicana Products of Bradenton, Fla. 'These data show orange juice helps protect against cancer.' He says that the study might also apply to breast, prostate, and lung cancers. Bandaru S. Reddy of the American Health Foundation in Valhalla, N.Y., was not surprised by Bennink's finding of an orange juice benefit. However, he calls the reported risk reduction unimpressive. His own data show that citrus limonoids protect against chemically induced colon cancer in lab animals. Luke K. T. Lam of LKT Laboratories in St. Paul, Minn., finds Bennink's data 'quite interesting,' although he describes as 'borderline' the suppression of cancer incidence observed by Bennink. Lam has inhibited tumors in the lung, skin, and forestomach of mice with limonoids. The scientists don't know what compounds in orange juice underlie its effect. The juice is rich in one limonoid—a sugar-containing version of limonin, which suppressed tumors in Lam's experiments. It's possible, Lam speculates, that rats convert the juice's limonoid into limonin. Indeed, argues Gary D. Manners of the Agricultural Research Service in Albany, Calif, 'there is no doubt that these anticancer citrus compounds are bioavailable in animals to the site of a cancer.' The question remains whether they are similarly available in people. To find out, his team will soon begin measuring the human body's uptake of limonoids from orange juice.

阅读理解Well, no gain without pain, they say. But what about pain without gain? Everywhere you go in America, you hear tales of corporate revival. What is harder to establish is whether the productivity revolution that businessmen assume they are presiding over is for real. 　　The official statistics are mildly discouraging. They show that, if you lump manufacturing and services together, productivity has grown on average by 1.2% since 1987. That is somewhat faster than the average during the previous decade. And since 1991, productivity has increased by about 2% a year, which is more than twice the 1978―1987 average. The trouble is that part of the recent acceleration is due to the usual rebound that occurs at this point in a business cycle, and so is not conclusive evidence of a revival in the underlying trend. There is, as Robert Rubin, the treasury secretary, says, a" disjunction" between the mass of business anecdote that points to leap in productivity and the picture reflected by the statistics. 　　Some of this can be easily explained. New ways of organizing the workplace―all that reengineering and downsizing―are only one contribution to the overall productivity of an economy, which is driven by many other factors such as joint investment in equipment and machinery, new technology, and investment in education and training. Moreover, most of the changes that companies make are intended to keep them profitable, and this need not always mean increasing productivity: switching to new markets or improving quality can matter just as much. 　　Two other explanations are more speculative. First, some of the business restructuring of recent years may have been ineptly done. Second, even if it was well done, it may have spread much less widely than people suppose. 　　Leonard Schlesinger, a Harvard academic and former chief executive of Au Bon Pain, a rapidly growing chain of bakery cafes, says that much" re-engineering" has been crude. In many cases, he believes, the loss of revenue has been greater than the reductions in cost. His colleague, Michael Beer, says that far too many companies have applied re-engineering in a mechanistic fashion, chopping out costs without giving sufficient thought to long-term profitability. BBDO''s AI Rosenshine is blunter. He dismisses a lot of the work of re-engineering consultants as mere rubbish―" the worst sort of ambulance-chasing."

阅读理解Passage One Woman nabbed for a DUI at same crash spot Wed May 21. 2: 17 AM ET TRUCKEE，Caif

阅读理解Questions are based on the following passage

阅读理解Passage 1 Imagine a Hollywood movie with this plot: Lily Yang, a young widow, leaves Taiwan and immigrates to the United States, hoping her son Chih-Yuan will have a better life there

阅读理解Passage Four: Questions are based on the following passage

阅读理解Directions: Read the following passages and answer the questions. Choose the most appropriate answer for each question and circle the letter on the answer sheet. Remember to write the letter corresponding to the question number.To understand the marketing concept, it is only necessary to understand the difference between marketing and selling. Not too many years ago, most industries concentrated primarily on the efficient production of goods, and then relied on “persuasive salesmanship” to move as much of these goods as possible. Such production and selling focuses on the needs of the seller to produce goods and then convert them into money.Marketing, on the other hand, focuses on the wants of consumers. It begins with first analyzing the preferences and demands of consumers and then producing goods that will satisfy them. This eye-on-the-consumer approach is known as the marketing concept, which simply means that instead of trying to sell whatever is easiest to produce or buy for resale, the makers and dealers first endeavor to find out what the consumer wants to buy and then go about making it available for purchase.This concept does not imply that business is benevolent (慈善的) or that consumer satisfaction is given priority over profit in a company. There are always two sides to every business transaction-the firm and the customer-and each must be satisfied before trade occurs. Successful merchants and producers, however, recognize that the surest route to profit is through understanding and catering to customers. A striking example of the importance of catering to the consumer presented itself in mid-1985, when Coca Cola changed the flavor of its drink. The non-acceptance of the new flavor by a significant portion of the public brought about a prompt restoration of the Classic Coke, which was then marketed alongside the new. King Customer ruled!

阅读理解[A] Eye fixactions are brief [B] Too much eye contact is instinetively felt to be rude [C] Eye contact can be a friendly social signal [D] Personality can affect how a person reacts to eye contact [E] Biological factors behind eye contact are being investigated [F] Most people are not comfortable holding eye contact with strangers [G] Eye contact can also be aggressive