阅读理解Researchers found family influenced delinquency. Attachment and involvement were both (47)______ related to delinquency. Children who were more (48)______ to and involved with their parents were less involved in delinquency. The relationship between family process factors and delinquency was (49)______ — poor parenting increased the probability of delinquent behavior and delinquent behavior further weakened the relationship between parent and child. The impact of family variables appeared to fade as adolescents became older and more (50)______ from their parents. Additionally, researchers (51)______ the relationship between educational factors and delinquency and drug use and found that weak school commitment and poor school (52)______ were associated with increased involvement in delinquency and drug use. School success was associated with resilience. Youth who (53)______ delinquency and drug use were more attached to school and teachers and had better performance scores than youth who were involved in delinquency and drug use. Involvement in delinquency reduced commitment to school; involvement in drug use (54)______ the chances of dropping out of school. Researchers also found that associating with delinquent peers was strongly and (55)______ related to delinquency, in part because peers provide positive for delinquency. Delinquent beliefs also increased involvement in delinquency. In turn, engaging in delinquent behavior had strong reciprocal (56)______ , increasing associations with delinquent peers and the formation of delinquent beliefs. A) accustom I) increased B) attached J) significantly C) bi-directional K) performance D) consistently L) independent E) reflection M) dependent F) avoided N) effects G) examined O) arbitrary H) worldly

阅读理解Finally, some good news about airplane travel

阅读理解Consumers are being confused and misled by the hodge-podge (大杂烩) of environmental claims made by household products, according to a "green labeling" study published by Consumers International Friday. Among the report''s more outrageous (令人无法容忍的) findings -- a German fertilizer described itself as "earth worm friendly", a brand of flour said it was "non-polluting," and a British toilet paper claimed to be "environmentally friendlier." The study was written and researched by Britain''s National Consumer Council (NCC) for lobby group Consumers International. It was funded by the German and Dutch governments and the European Commission. "While many good and useful claims are being made, it is clear there is a long way to go in ensuring shoppers are adequately informed about the environmental impact of the products they buy," said Consumers International director Anna Fielder. The 10-country study surveyed product packaging in Britain, Western Europe, Scandinavia and the United States. It found that products sold in Germany and the United Kingdom made the most environmental claims on average. The report focused on claims made by specific products, such as detergents (洗涤剂), insect sprays and by some garden products. It did not test the claims, but compared them to labeling guidelines set by the International Standards Organization (ISO) in September, 1999. Researchers documented claims of environmental friendliness made by about 2,000 products and found many too vague or too misleading to meet ISO standards. "Many products had specially-designed labels to make them seem environmentally friendly, but in fact many of these symbols mean nothing," said report researcher Philip Page. "Laundry detergents made the most number of claims with 158. Household cleaners were second with 145 separate claims, while paints were third on our list with 73. The high numbers show how very confusing it must be for consumers to sort the true from the misleading," he said. The ISO labeling standards ban vague or misleading claims on product packaging, because terms such as "environmentally friendly" and "non-polluting" cannot be verified. "What we are now pushing for is to have multinational corporations meet the standards set by the ISO," said Page.

阅读理解For most people, the word "fashion" means "clothes". When people ask the question, "What''s in fashion in Italy?" they normally mean, "What clothes are in fashion?" And they use the adjective, "fashionable" in the same way. "She was wearing some fashionable boots. "" His shirt was a really fashionable colour." But, of course, there are fashions in many things, not only in clothes. There are fashions in holidays, in restaurants, in films and books. There are even fashions in university courses, jobs, and in languages. A few years ago, it was quite fashionable to study Russian. Now quite a lot of students want to learn Chinese. Of course, there are many reasons for this some students can now visit China. They read about China in the newspapers. There are programmes about China on television. A number of Chinese students now study in Western Europe. There are fashions in all sorts of things. Even in a language text book! Look at the book you use to learn English. If it was published in Britain during the last five years, it probably has a lot of pictures. There will probably be handwritten letters and postcards. There may be a story and photographs of the characters at the beginning of the book. There will be oral exercises which you can do in pairs or small groups. And there will probable be cassette recordings of people who speak ''naturally''. There may even be songs on the cassette. There have been a lot of new ideas about learning languages in the last few years. And new ideas need new kinds of books. Or is it just fashion? Fashions change naturally. If you look at pictures of people or objects from the past, you will see that fashions have always changed. An English house of 1750 was different from one of 1650. A fashionable man in 1780 looked very different from his grandson in 1860. There are obvious reasons for this. The man of 1860 lived in an industrial age. His way of life was different from his grandfather''s, so his clothes were different. He listened to different sorts of music and looked at different styles of paintings. Fashions had changed. Nowadays, fashions change very quickly. Some of this is natural. We hear about things much more quickly than in the past. Newspapers, radio, telex and television send information from one country to another in a few hours. But there are other reasons. New fashions mean that people will buy new things. Fashion is helped by clever advertising and journalism. There is money in fashion!

阅读理解Why arent you curious about what happened? A)you suspended ray rice after our video, a reporter from tmz challenged national football League commissioner roger goodell the other day

阅读理解Why aren#39;t you curious about what happened?A)quot;you suspended ray rice after our video, a reporter from tmz challenged national football League commissioner roger goodell the other day. quot;why didn#39;t you have the curosity to go to the casino ( 5 ) yourself? quot;the implication of the question is that a more curious.B) the accusation of incuriosity is one that we hear often carying the suggestion that there is something wrong with not wanting to search out the truth. quot; have been bothered for a long time about the curious lack of curiosity, quot;said a democratic member of the new jersey legislature back in july, referring to an insufficiently inquiring attitude on the part of an the george washington bridge traffic scandal quot; the mainstream media the least curious about what happened? quot;wrote conservative writer jennifer rubin earlier this year terring to the attack on americans in benghazi, Libya.C) the implication, in each case is that curiosity is a good thing, and a lack of curiosity is a problem are such accusations simply efforts to score political pointsnbsp;for one#39;s party? or is here something of particular value about curiosity in and of itself.D) the journalist lan leslie. in his new and enjoyable book curious: the desire to know and whyYour fatter depends on it, insists that the answer to that last question is yes. Leslie argues that curiosity is a much-overlooked human virtue, crucial to our success, and that we are losing it.E)we are suffering. he writes from aquot; deficitquot; the wordquot;quot;was coined by horace walpole in an 1854 letter from a tale of three princes whowere always makingnbsp;discoveries by accident, of things they were not in search of, quot; worries that the rise of the intemet, among other social and technological changes, has reduced our appetite for aimless adventures no longer have we the inclination to let ourselves wander through tields of knowledges, ready to be surprised. instead, we seek only the information we want.F) why is this a problem because without curiosity we will lose the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship. we will see unimaginative govemments and dying corporations make disas-trous decisions.We will lose a vital part of what has made humanity as a whole so successful as a species.G) leslie presents considerable evidence for the proposition that the society as a whole is growing less curious. In the U.S and Europe, for example, the rise of the internet has led to a declining consumption of news from outside the reader#39;s borders .But not everything is to be blamed on techeology.The decline in interest in literary fiction is also one of the causes identified by Leslie.Reading literary fiction,he says ,make us more curious.H)Moreover,in order tonbsp;nbsp;be curious, quot;you have to be aware of a gap in your knowledge in the first place. quot;although leslie perhaps paints a bit broadly in contending that most of us are unaware of how much we don#39;t know he#39;s surely right to point out that the problem is growing: quot;Google can give us the powerful illusion that all questions have definite answers.I）Indeed, Google, for which leslie expresses admiration, is also his frequent whipping body(替罪羊). he quotes Google co-founder larry page to the effect that theperfect search engine willunderstand exactly what i mean and give me back exactly what i want quot;elsewhere in the book, leslie writes:quot;google aims to save you from the thirst of curiosity altogether.J) Somewhat nostalgically(怀旧地). he quotes john maynard keynes#39;s justly famous words of praise to the bookstore: quot;one should enter it vaguely, almost in a dream, and allow what is there freely to attract and influence the eye to walk the rounds of the bookshops, dipping curiosity dictates, should be an afternoons entertainment. quot;if only!K) Citing the work of psychologists and cognitive( 认知的)scientists, leslienbsp;criticizes the re-ceived wisdom that academic success is the result of a combination of intellectual talent and hard work. curiosity, he argues, is the third key factor--and a difficult one to preserve, if not cultivated, it will not survive quot;childhood curiosity is a collaboration between child The surest way to kill it is to leave it alone.L) School education, he wams, is often conducted in a way that makes children incurious chil-dren of educated and upper-middle-class parents turn out to be far more curious, even at early ages than children of working class and lower class families that lack of curiosity produces arelative lack of knowledge, and the lack of knowledge is difficult if not impossible to compen. sate for later on.M）although leslie#39;s book isn#39;t about politics, he doesn#39;t entirely toast cucial moments. there are serious consequence, be ba i 2 Political leaders, like leaders of other organizations, should betheTheyare serious conesquences.he warns, in not wanting to know.N) he presents as an example the failure of the george w bush administration to prepare prop-erly for the after-effects of the invasion of iraq. according to leslie, those who ridiculed former.Defense secretary donald rumsfeld for his 2002 remark that we have to be wary of the un-known unknownswere mistaken. rumsfeld#39;s idea leslie writes, quot; absurd- it was smart. quot;he adds, quot;the tragedy is that he didn#39;t follow his own advice.quot;O) All of which brings us back to goodell and the christie case and benghazi. each critic in those curious. i leave it to the reader#39;s political preference to decide which, if any charges should remaining determinedly incurious about our own. we should be delighted to pursue knowledge for its own sake--even when what we find out is something we didn#39;t particularly want to.

阅读理解How a Poor, Abandoned Parisian Boy Became a Top Chef A)The busy streets in Paris were uneven and caked in thick mud, but there was always a breathtaking sight to see in the shop windows of Patisserie de la Rue de la Paix

阅读理解The word "brick" did not appear in the English Language before the fifteenth century. Bricks may have been known in Britain before then, but they were no common enough to be mentioned by any writer. We know that they were used in ancient Egypt, in India, and in the Roman Empire; they were used again in parts of Europe; but there is a strange gap in the history of brick making which left Britain, at least, without bricks for building for several hundred years. When they did arrive in Britain, it was in a very strange way. In the fifteenth century Britain''s wool trade was still flourishing and shiploads of wool were exported to other countries, among them Germany and Holland. These ships would have had to return empty, unless their captains were able to pick up a return cargo, and no captain likes an empty ship. For another thing, it is a great waste of space. Rather than return home with an empty ship the captains would fill up with anything, and at about this time somebody had the idea of filling up with bricks. These were already being used extensively in Holland and Germany, where the brick makers were anxious to sell their surplus stocks. These bricks must have been a godsend to the builders of London and southeast England. There was very little building stone in mat part of the country, and stocks of good building timber (especially from oak-trees) were running low. Bricks were first used for town houses and for humble cottages. Before me end of the fifteenth century the most enterprising (有魄力的) builders had set up their own brickworks wherever there was a good supply of the right kind of clay, and soon bricks were almost the commonest building material in the country.

阅读理解Halloween is one of the most famous holidays in the U. S. , and it is on October 31st. People carve pumpkins and make funny faces on them. These are called "Jack-O-Lanterns." On October 31st , children (47) a special costume such as a witch, ghost, or clown. They go to many houses and they knock on the door saying, "Trick or Treat!" It means that if people don''t give them a (48) , they will play some kind of trick on the household. So, (49) people give candy to them. I (50) my first Halloween pumpkin at my Friendship Family''s house. First, I cut open the top of the pumpkin and (51) the seeds out. It was not good for me because it was (52) and (53) bad. I had never carved a pumpkin, so it was interesting for me. Next, I carved the eyes and the mouth. I wanted to make a face like a (54) . When I finished making the face, I put a candle inside. It was very beautiful, so I was happy. I had a good experience because I learned one new idea about American (55) by taking part in it. I think Halloween is an interesting American holiday which (56) all family members and neighbors too! WORD BANK A) civilization I) pulled B) rarely J) smelled C) dug K) put D) culture L) involves E) includes M) carved F) treat N) sticky G) pirate O) usually H) wear

阅读理解What does the author imply in the last paragraph?

阅读理解The End of the Book? [A] Amazon, by far the largest bookseller in the country, reported on May 19 that it is now selling more books in its electronic Kindle format than in the old paper-and-ink format

阅读理解Most employers say that they wish to employ the right person for the right job. A recent report by Britain''s independent Institute of Manpower Studies, however, disagrees with this. The report states that most employers wish to avoid employing the wrong person. Rather than looking for the right person, they are looking for applicants to turn down. The report also suggests that in Britain and in many other parts of the world, recruiter(招聘人员) used three main selection methods to identify the right person: interviewing, checking curriculum vitae or application forms against predecided criteria, and examining references. Most of the recruiters consulted in this survey stated that these selection methods were used more for "weeding out" unsuitable candidates rather than for finding suitable ones. Interviews were considered to be more reliable than either curriculum checks or references from past employers. Research, however, proves otherwise. Interviewers'' decisions are often strongly influenced by their previous assessment of the written application. Also, different recruiters interpret facts differently. One may consider candidates who have frequently changed jobs as people with broad and useful experience. Another will view such candidates as unreliable and unlikely to stay for long in the new job. Some employers place great importance on academic qualifications whereas the link between this and success in management is not necessarily strong. Some recruiters use handwriting as a criterion. The report states that there is little evidence to support the validity of the latter for assessing working ability. References, also, are unreliable as they are rarely critical, whereas checks on credit and security records and applicants'' political leanings are often the opposite. The report is more favourable towards trainability tests and those which test personality and personal and mental skills. The report concludes by suggesting that interviewing could become more reliable if the questions were more structured and focused on the needs of the employing organization.

阅读理解The Sixth Sense When you were a child, did you ever wonder how your mother knew when you were writing on the wall with crayons (蜡笔) , even though she couldn''t possibly see or hear you? ... Or why she always came outside and called you just as you headed for forbidden territory? How did she know? If you asked her, she probably told you that it was her "mother''s intuition". That never really explained anything, but it gave you something to think about. Just exactly what is a mother''s intuition? Unfortunately, not even mothers who profess to having it can explain exactly what it is. Some would say it was a "sixth sense" or a funny feeling that prompted them to check on their children'' s whereabouts and activities. Others have claimed to hear a voice inside their heads that called their children'' s names or had a "flash vision" of what their children were doing. In any event, almost every mother seems to have it and will swear by its reliability. A typical example of this ability is the case of a woman who claims that her intuition prevented each of her five children from serious mishaps. Once she awoke in the middle of the night and felt the need to check on her son Paul, who was three years old at the time. He wash'' t in his bed, so she raced down the stairs to find him. She found him outside, sleepwalking, headed straight toward a flight of concrete steps. Then again, there was a time when one of her daughters fell off a horse and broke her arm. The child neither cried nor yelled for help. But the mother, sensing that something was wrong, came out of the house and found her in a field just minutes after the accident. How did she know? "Just a feeling," she said, "that something was wrong." The concept that people are capable of having a sixth sense is not a new one. Numerous studies of ESP (extra sensory perception) have been under way for decades. What they have revealed only supports the theory that people axe capable of having and using another sense beyond sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. But no single group of people seems to have this ability as consistently as mothers do? Why is this? Some theorize that the close and intimate relationship that mother and child have for the first years of a child'' s life sets up an empathy (感情移入) that no other relationship could possibly duplicate. In other words, a mother "tunes in" to the thoughts and behavior of her child more than any other person could. Therefore, even though she may be preoccupied with household chores or social activities, a part of her is constantly alert for her child'' s safety. Not an unreasonable theory--since most of us axe the product of our mothers'' devotion. But how does this explain why a mother will know that her child is in danger, even though the child itself may not be aware of it? This is the question which has kept mother''s intuition a mystery. Something beyond that which we can logically explain somehow seems to warn a mother when her child approaches danger. An interesting illustration of this sixth sense involves the famous escape artist, Houdini. As the story goes, Houdini was planning to perform an escape from a steel trunk wrapped in chains and dropped into a frozen river. Because the river was so cold, he'' d only have a few minutes to escape in order to survive. They wrapped Houdini in a straight jacket, locked him into the trunk, secured the chains, and then dropped him into the river through a hole cut into the ice. Minutes passed and Houdini did not appear. When enough time had passed to make it apparent that Houdini'' s escape had failed, the grief-stricken party left the scene and reported that Houdini had died. One friend remained at the hole in the ice, not yet convinced that Houdini had drowned. To his utter amazement, Houdini did indeed surface at the spot. When the half-frozen artist had recovered enough, he told his friend that he had not accounted for the current of the river under the ice. The river had carried the trunk downstream and when he got out of the trunk, he couldn''t find the hole cut into the ice. He managed to get oxygen from air pockets caught between the ice and the water, but he had no way of finding the hole through the thick ice. Then he heard his mother''s voice calling him. He followed her voice, and it led him to the hole in the ice where his friend was waiting. This was amazing, first, because his mother lived in another city and was nowhere near the scene of the frozen river. But more amazing than that was the fact that, when Houdini tried to call his mother, he was informed that she had died just hours before. What had told Houdini'' s mother that he was in danger--even beyond the grave? How had she been able to protect her child in spite of the fact that she was no longer living? Someday, perhaps, we will know. Someday we may understand the kind of communication that exists between mother and child and be able to expand on that knowledge to a better form of communication in all relationships. There is no doubt that such a thing as a mother''s revealed only supports the theory that people axe capable of having and using another sense beyond sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. But no single group of people seems to have this ability as consistently as mothers do? Why is this? Some theorize that the close and intimate relationship that mother and child have for the first years of a child'' s life sets up an empathy (感情移入) that no other relationship could possibly duplicate. In other words, a mother "tunes in" to the thoughts and behavior of her child more than any other person could. Therefore, even though she may be preoccupied with household chores or social activities, a part of her is constantly alert for her child'' s safety. Not an unreasonable theory--since most of us axe the product of our mothers'' devotion. But how does this explain why a mother will know that her child is in danger, even though the child itself may not be aware of it? This is the question which has kept mother''s intuition a mystery. Something beyond that which we can logically explain somehow seems to warn a mother when her child approaches danger. An interesting illustration of this sixth sense involves the famous escape artist, Houdini. As the story goes, Houdini was planning to perform an escape from a steel trunk wrapped in chains and dropped into a frozen river. Because the river was so cold, he'' d only have a few minutes to escape in order to survive. They wrapped Houdini in a straight jacket, locked him into the trunk, secured the chains, and then dropped him into the river through a hole cut into the ice. Minutes passed and Houdini did not appear. When enough time had passed to make it apparent that Houdini'' s escape had failed, the grief-stricken party left the scene and reported that Houdini had died. One friend remained at the hole in the ice, not yet convinced that Houdini had drowned. To his utter amazement, Houdini did indeed surface at the spot. When the half-frozen artist had recovered enough, he told his friend that he had not accounted for the current of the river under the ice. The river had carried the trunk downstream and when he got out of the trunk, he couldn''t find the hole cut into the ice. He managed to get oxygen from air pockets caught between the ice and the water, but he had no way of finding the hole through the thick ice. Then he heard his mother''s voice calling him. He followed her voice, and it led him to the hole in the ice where his friend was waiting. This was amazing, first, because his mother lived in another city and was nowhere near the scene of the frozen river. But more amazing than that was the fact that, when Houdini tried to call his mother, he was informed that she had died just hours before. What had told Houdini'' s mother that he was in danger--even beyond the grave? How had she been able to protect her child in spite of the fact that she was no longer living? Someday, perhaps, we will know. Someday we may understand the kind of communication that exists between mother and child and be able to expand on that knowledge to a better form of communication in all relationships. There is no doubt that such a thing as a mother''s intuition exists. And the fact of its existence may be an indication that all of us are capable of having another instinct--a sixth sense.

阅读理解A Census Bureau (人口调查局) survey released Thursday shows a college graduate can expect to earn $ 2. 1 million working full-time between 25 and 64, which demographers (人口学家) call a typical work-life period. A master'' s degree-holder is projected to earn 2.5 million, while someone with a professional degree, such as a doctor or lawyer, could make even more--$ 4.4 million. In contrast, a high school graduate can expect to make $ 1.2 million during the working years, according to the bureau report that tracked the influence of education on lifetime earnings. Not all students look at college as an investment, "but I am sure parents do," said Jacque line King, policy analyst with the American Education Council, a higher education advocacy (拥护) group. "The college is to convince those high school students on the margins that it is really worth their time to go to college." Kevin Malecek, a graduate student in American politics at American University in Washington said most of his classmates find higher education to be worth the time and financial promise. "They go to every single class, and they are trying to get the most out of their own dollar," he said. The survey was conducted between March 1998 and March 2000. All estimates are based on 1999 salaries and probably will increase as salaries rise over time, Census Bureau analyst Jennifer Day said. The estimates do not account for inflation (物价上涨) or for differences in the earning potential of various fields of study. For example, people with computer science degrees tend to earn more than those with social work degrees.

阅读理解Sign has become a scientific hot button. Only in the past 20 years have specialists in language study realized that signed languages are unique -- a speech of the hand. They offer a new way to probe how the brain generates and understands language, and throw new light on an old scientific controversy: whether language, complete with grammar, is something that we are born with, or whether it is a learned behavior. The current interest in sign language has roots in the pioneering work of one rebel teacher at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. , the world''s only liberal arts university for deaf people. When Bill Stokoe went to Gallaudet to teach English, the school enrolled him in a course in signing. But Stokoe noticed something odd: among themselves, students signed differently from his classroom teacher. Stokoe had been taught a sort of gestural code, each movement of the hands representing a word in English. At the time, American Sign Language (ASL) was thought to be no more than a form of pidgin English (混杂英语). But Stokoe believed the "hand talk" his students used looked richer. He wondered: Might deaf people actually have a genuine language? And could that language be unlike any other on Earth? It was 1955, when even deaf people dismissed their signing as "substandard". Stokoe''s idea was academic heresy (异端邪说). It is 37 years later. Stokoe -- now devoting his time to writing and editing books and journals and to producing video materials on ASL and the deaf culture -- is having lunch at a caf6 near the Gallaudet campus and explaining how he started a revolution. For decades educators fought his idea that signed languages are natural languages like English, French and Japanese. They assumed language must be based on speech, the modulation (调节) of sound. But sign language is based on the movement of hands, the modulation of space. "What I said," Stokoe explains, "is that language is not mouth stuff -- it''s brain stuff."

阅读理解Passage Two Questions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage

阅读理解What Are Tropical Storms? Severe storms spawned in the tropics are known by different names in different parts of the world: hurricanes in the Atlantic and east Pacific and typhoons in the northwest Pacific and cyclones in the southwest Pacific and Indian Ocean. These storms originate over tropical waters, close to the equator. If the atmosphere is calm and the water is warmer than about 27°C, evaporation forces large amounts of moisture into the air, creating a low pressure system. When this water vapor condenses, it releases heat that powers the circular winds that characterize these storms. Rainfall in the developing storm releases more heat, triggering a convection process that pulls more moisture-laden air up through the centre of the system. The storm grows via this feedback mechanism. The strongest winds are found immediately outside the centre, or "eye," of the hurricane at ground level. Every one of these systems begins as a tropical depression -- a system of thunder storms with an overall circular motion and maximum sustained winds less than 62 km/h. When a storm becomes severe enough and the winds pick up to more than 62 km/h, it is designated a tropical storm, When the winds reach 119 km/h, the system is called a hurricane, typhoon or cyclone. An average of 10 tropical storms develop over the Atlantic Ocean each year, of which about six become severe enough to be called hurricanes. Besides strong winds and heavy rain, these hurricanes also create a "storm surge," a massive wave beneath the centre of the storm. In the eye of the hurricane, air is sucked upward faster than it can rush in at the bottom. This lowers the atmospheric pressure under the eye of the storm; as a result, the eye tries to pull at the ocean itself, creating a bulge of water as much as six metres high that moves together with the storm. When is the hurricane season? Hurricane season officially runs from June 1 to November 30, but the most intense storms mainly occur between mid-August and mid-October. How are hurricanes classified? Tropical storms that get strong enough to be classified as hurricanes are categorized by the intensity of their wind speeds using the Saffir-Simpson scale. Only three Category 5 hurricanes have made landfall in the U.S. in the past century one that struck the Florida Keys in 1935, Hurricane Camille in 1969, and Hurricane Andrew in 1992. How are tropical storms named? A tropical storm is given a name if its winds reach a speed of 62 kilometres per hour. An international committee has drawn up a list of 126 names-half male and half female which are repeated after a six-year cycle. However, if a hurricane causes extensive dam age, its name is retired from use. So far, more than 50 names have been retired, from Hazel in 1954 to Juan in 2003. Memorable hurricanes In August and September 1992, Hurricane Andrew wrought havoc across the Caribbean and Florida. Andrew was an unusual storm-after brewing for several days at low latitudes, it weakened and nearly vanished about 600 km east of Puerto Rico. But the storm regained its strength and moved northward with devastating results. Andrew left 17,000 people homeless in Florida alone and destroyed or badly damaged 85,000 homes. The storm caused a record $ 26. S billion US in property damage. In 2002 Andrew, initially classified a Force 4, was upgraded to have actually been a Force 5 storm. ●In November 1998, Hurricane Mitch tore through Central America, killing as many as 10,000 people and leaving two million homeless in Nicaragua and Honduras. The storm''s 300 km/h winds and heavy rains caused more than $ 3 billion US in damage more than half the combined gross domestic product of those two countries. Mitch also unleashed deadly landslides, and caused the worst flooding in the region in 200 years. In the storm''s wake, with roads and infrastructure wiped out, thousands of people developed illnesses such as dengue fever, cholera and malaria. ●Hurricane Hugo swept across the Caribbean and the southeast U.S. in September 1989, leaving a 3,700-kilometre-long trail of destruction from Guadeloupe to the Carolinas. The storm killed at. least 28 people in the Caribbean, left up to 80,000 homeless and caused $ 2 billion US in damage. In the U. S. , it killed another 11 people and caused more than $ 750 million in damage. The storm sent giant waves crashing onto the U. S. Eastern Seaboard, with a wall of water some five metres in height washing over Charleston, S.C. ●In September 1996, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada, felt the wrath of Hurricane Hortense. The storm brought 120 km/h winds and caused $ 3 million in damages, mostly due to flooding, wind damage and power outages. ● For Ontarians old enough to remember it, Hurricane Hazel was the storm of a life time-and one of the few to inflict significant damage in central Canada. Hurricane Hazel formed in early October 1954 and crossed the Caribbean and the eastern U. S. before entering southern Ontario. The storm left as many as 1,000 dead in Haiti, six more in the Bahamas, another 95 in the U.S. and 81 in the Toronto region Tropical storms and global climate trends While tropical storms seem to follow certain natural cycles, scientists are concerned about the effects of global warming and tong-term climate change. On Sept. 15, 1999, the United Nations issued a report predicting that global warming will cause more frequent and more severe tropical storms, floods and tornadoes in the coming century. "We do know that hurricane intensity is directly correlated to how warm the ocean waters are," says Petersen "And if global warming continues to occur, and this results in warmer water temperatures, then we''ll see an undeniable signal of stronger hurricanes."

阅读理解What does Record expect of New York Fashion Week?

阅读理解Passage One Questions 21 to 25 are based on the following passage

阅读理解In West Virginia and in New York, one out of four students drops out of high school. In Washington, DC, the (47) are even worse. One half of all high school students never (48) Nationwide, the overall dropout rate is (49) 29%. Many say they drop out because they are bored. Because of this, U.S. educators are trying to figure out a way to stop this (50) trend. In Milwaukee, some schools are having lotteries for used cars for students who stay in school. In Philadelphia, at-risk students are being (51) summer jobs for staying in school. But in a New Jersey high school, one principal is using money, not jobs, as an incentive (刺激). This school received a hundred thousand dollar (52) to pay students who are at risk of dropping out. When these students go to school on time, bring their notebooks, and do their homework, they (53) five dollars a day. This means students can bring home a twenty-five dollar check every week for going to classes five days in a row. While the program is new, the principal claims that he has already achieved a higher rate of (54) with this money incentive. But some say it is too early to talk about the program''s (55) . Still others feel that even if it does work, using money as an incentive is (56) WORD BANK [A] appropriately [F] disturbing [K] approximately [B] misleading [G] awarded [L] rewarded [C] positive [H] contents [M] earn [D] success [I] statistics [N] grant [E] absence [J] graduate [O] attendance