阅读理解Concern with money, and then more money, in order to buy the conveniences and luxuries of modem life, has brought great changes to the lives of most Frenchmen. More people are working than ever before in France. In the cities the traditional leisurely midday meal is disappearing. Offices, shops and factories are discovering the greater efficiency of a short lunch hour in company lunchrooms. In almost all lines of work emphasis now falls on ever-increasing output. Thus the" typical" Frenchman produces more, earns more, and buys more consumer goods than his counterpart of only a generation ago. He gains in creature'' comforts and ease of life. What he loses to some extent is his sense of personal uniqueness, or individuality. Some say that France has been Americanized. This is because the United States is a world symbol of the technological society and its consumer products. The so-called Americanization of France has its critics. They fear that" assembly line life" will lead to the disappearance of the pleasures of the more graceful and leisurely (but less productive) old French style. What will happen, they ask, to taste, elegance, and the cultivation of the good things in life -- to joy in the smell of a freshly picked apple, a stroll by the river, or just happy hours of conversation in a local cafe? Since the late 1950'' s life in France has indeed taken on qualities of rush, tension, and the pursuit of material gain. Some of the strongest critics of the strongest critics of the new way of life are the young, especially university students. They are concerned with the future, and they fear that France is threatened by the triumph of this competitive, goods-oriented culture. Occasionally, they have reacted against the trend with considerable violence. In spite of the critics, however, countless Frenchmen are committed to keeping France in the forefront of the modem economic world. They find that the present life brings more rewards, conveniences, and pleasures than that of the past. They believe that a modem, industrial France is preferable to the old.

阅读理解Since the early 1930s, Swiss banks had prided themselves on their system of banking secrecy and numbered accounts. Over the years, they had successfully withstood every challenge to this system by their own government who, in turn, had been frequently urged by foreign governments to reveal information about the financial affairs of certain account holders. The result of this policy of secrecy was that a kind of mystique had grown up around Swiss banking. There was a widely-held belief that Switzerland was irresistible to wealthy foreigners, mainly because of its numbered accounts and bankers'' reluctance to ask awkward questions of depositors. Contributing to the mystique was the view, carefully propagated by the banks themselves, that if this secrecy was ever given up, foreigners would fall over themselves in the rush to withdraw money, and the Swiss banking system would virtually collapse overnight. To many, therefore, it came like a bolt out of the blue, when, in 1977, the Swiss banks announced they had signed a pact with the Swiss National Bank (the Central Bank). The aim of the agreement was to prevent the improper use of the country''s bank secrecy laws, and its effect was to curb severely the system of secrecy. The rules which the banks had agreed to observe made the opening of numbered accounts subject to much closer scrutiny than before. The banks would be required, if necessary, to identify the origin of foreign funds going into numbered and other accounts. The idea was to stop such accounts being used for dubious purposes. Also, they agreed not to accept funds resulting from tax evasion or from crime. The pact represented essentially a tightening up of banking rules. Although the banks agreed to end relations with clients whose identities were unclear or who were performing improper acts, they were still not obliged to inform on a client to anyone, including the Swiss government. To some extent, therefore, the principle of secrecy had been maintained.

阅读理解California is a land of variety and contrast. Almost every type of physical land feature, short of arctic ice fields and tropical jungles can be found within its borders. Sharply contrasting types of land often lie very close to one another. People living in Bakersfield, for instance, can visit the Pacific Ocean and the coastal plain, the fertile San Joaquin Valley, the arid Mojave Desert, and the high Sierra Nevada, all within a radius of about 100 miles. In other areas it is possible to go snow skiing in the morning and surfing in the evening of the same day, without having to travel long distances. Contrast abounds in California. The highest point in the United States (outside Alaska) is in California, and so is the lowest point (including Alaska). Mount Whitney, 14,494 feet above sea level, is separated from Death Valley, 282 feet below sea level, by a distance of only 100 miles. The two areas have a difference in altitude of almost three miles. California has deep, clear mountain lakes like Lake Tahoe, the deepest in the country, but it also has shallow, salty desert lakes. It has Lake Tulainyo, 12,020 feet above sea level, and the lowest lake in the country, the Salton Sea, 236 feet below sea level. Some of its lakes, like Owens Lake in Death Valley, are not lakes at all; they are dried-up lake beds. In addition to mountains, lakes, valleys, deserts, and plateaus, California has its Pacific coastline, stretching longer than the coastlines of Oregon and Washington combined.

阅读理解There must be few questions on which responsible opinion is so utterly divided as on that of how much sleep we ought to have. There are some who think we can leave the body to regulate these matters for itself. "The answer is easy," says Dr. A. Burton. "With the right amount of sleep you should wake up fresh and alert five minutes before the alarm rings." If he is right many people must be undersleeping, including myself. But we must remember that some people have a greater inertia than others. This is not meant rudely. They switch on slowly, and they are reluctant to switch off. They are alert at bedtime and sleepy when it is time to get up, and this may have nothing to do with how fatigued their bodies are, or how much sleep they must take to lose their fatigue. Other people feel sure that the present trend is towards too little sleep. To quote one medical opinion, "Thousands of people drift through life suffering from the effects of too little sleep"; the reason is not that they can''t sleep. Like advancing colonists, we do seem to be grasping ever more of the land of sleep for our waking needs, pushing the boundary back and reaching, apparently, for a point in our evolution where we will sleep no more. This in itself, of course, need not be a bad thing. What could be disastrous, however, is that we should press too quickly towards this goal, sacrificing sleep only to gain more time in which to jeopardize our civilization by actions and decisions made weak by fatigue. Then, to complete the picture, there are those who believe that most people are persuaded to sleep too much. Dr. H. Roberts, writing in Every man in Health, asserts: "It may safely be stated that, just as the majority eat too much, so the majority sleep too much." One can see the point of this also. It would be a pity to retard our development by holding back those people who are gifted enough to work and play well with less than the average amount of sleep, if indeed it does them no harm. If one of the trends of evolution is that more of the life span is to be spent in gainful waking activity, then surely these people are in the van of this advance.

阅读理解Lead deposits, which accumulated in soil and snow during the 1960''s mid 7O''s, were primarily the result of leaded gasoline emissions originating in the United States. In the twenty years that the Clean Air Act has mandated unleaded gas use in the United States, the lead accumulation worldwide has decreased significantly. A study published recently in the journal Nature shows that airborne leaded gas emissions from the United States were the leading contributor to the high concentration of lead in the snow in Greenland. The new study is a result of the continued research led by Dr. Charles Boutron, an expert on the impact of heavy metals on the environment at the National Center for Scientific Research in France. A study by Dr. Boutron published in 1991 showed that lead levels in arctic snow were declining. In his new study, Dr. Boutron found the ratios of the different forms of lead in the leaded gasoline used in the United States were different from the ratios of European, Asian and Canadian gasolines and thus enabled scientists to differentiate the lead sources. The dominant lead ratio found in Greenland snow matched that found in gasoline from the United States. In a study published in the journal Ambio, scientists found that lead levels in soil in the North-United States had decreased markedly since the introduction of unleaded gasoline. Many scientists had believed that the lead would stay in soil and snow for a longer period. The authors of the Am/do study examined samples of the upper layers of soft taken from the same sites of 30 forest floors in New England, New York and Pennsylvania in 1980 and in 1990. The forest environment processed and redistributed the lead faster than the scientists had expected. Scientists say both studies demonstrate that certain parts of the ecosystem respond rapidly to reductions in atmospheric pollution, but that these findings should not be used as a license to pollute.

阅读理解The natural environment has, of course, always conditioned technology. For example, the nature of an environment (polar, desert, jungle) engenders the development of technologies appropriate to that environment to enable man to adapt successfully to it. Farther, emerging scarcity of some technological resource may ignite a research for, and gradual transition to, a new technology using resources present in the environment in greater abundance, as, for example, in the case of the gradual change from wood-based to coal-based technology in England that began in Elizabeth times and stretched until the end of the eighteenth century. In modem Western society, environment has begun to condition technology in new ways, although admittedly more indirectly, The safety and quality of the environment and public perceptions of it have begun to translate into presidential politics and congressional mandates to regulatory agencies to protect or enhance environmental quality or safety, occasionally even at the cost of some perturbation of the tech-economic status-quo. In France, Italy, and recently the United States, political parties have been formed, organized around a complex of technology / environment issues. In general, in the last fifteen years, the gradual development of broad-based environmental awareness, the lobbying and litigious activities of environmental interest groups, and guidelines issued and reinforced by the EPA ( Environmental Protection Agency) in response to congressional mandates have markedly increased the heed paid to the environment by many corporations in going about their technological activities. Both research and development priorities and capital investment programs of the corporations have been affected by this.

阅读理解It was 1961 and I was in the fifth grade. My marks in school were miserable and, the thing was, I didn''t know enough to really care. My older brother and I lived with Mom in a dingy multi-family house in Detroit. We watched TV every night. The background noise of our lives was gunfire and horses'' hoofs from "Wagon Train" or "Cheyenne", and laughter from "I Love Lucy" or "Mister Ed". After supper, we''d sprawl on Mom''s bed and stare for hours at the tube. 　　But one day Mom changed our world forever. She turned off the TV. Our mother had only been able to get through third grade. But she was much brighter and smarter than we boys knew at the time. She had noticed something in the suburban houses she cleaned -- books. So she came home one day, snapped off the TV, sat us down and explained that her sons were going to make something of themselves. "You boys are going to read two books every week," she said. "And you''re going to write me a report on what you read." 　　We moaned and complained about how unfair it was. Besides, we didn''t have any books in the house other than Mom''s Bible. But she explained that we would go where the books were: "I''ll drive you to the library." 　　So pretty soon there were these two peevish boys sitting in her white 1959 Oldsmobile on their way to Detroit Public Library. I wandered reluctantly among the children''s books. I loved animals, so when I saw some books that seemed to be about animals, I started leafing through them. 　　The first book I read clear through was Chip the Dam Builder. It was about beavers. For the first time in my life I was lost in another world. No television program had ever taken me so far away from my surroundings as did this verbal visit to a cold stream in a forest and these animals building a home. 　　It didn''t dawn on me at the time, but the experience was quite different from watching TV. There were images forming in my mind instead of before my eyes. And I could return to them again and again with the flip of a page. 　　Soon I began to look forward to visiting this hushed sanctuary from my other world. I moved from animals to plants, and then to rocks. Between the covers of all those books were whole worlds, and I was free to go anywhere in them. Along the way a funny thing happened: I started to know things. Teachers started to notice it too. I got to the point where I couldn''t wait to get home to my books. 　　Now my older brother is an engineer and I am chief of pediatric neurosurgery at John Hopkins Children''s Center in Baltimore. Sometimes I still can''t believe my life''s journey, froma failing and indifferent student in a Detroit public school to this position, which takes me all over the world to teach and perform critical surgery. 　　But I know when the journey began - the day Mom snapped off the TV set and put us in her Oldsmobile for that drive to the library.

阅读理解The three biggest lies in American are: (1) "The check is in the mail." (2) "Of course I''11 respect you in the morning." (3) "It was a computer error." Of these three little white lies, the worst of the lot by far is the third. It''s the only one that can never be true. Today, if a bank statement cheats you out of $900 that way, you know what the clerk is sure to say:" It was a computer error." Nonsense. The computer is reporting nothing more than what the clerk typed into it. The most irritating case of all is when the computerized cash register in the grocery store shows that an item costs more than it actually does. If the innocent buyer points out the mistake, the checker, bagger, and manger all come together and offer the familiar explanation: " It was a computer error." It wasn''t, of course. That high-tech cash register is really nothing more than an electric eye. The eye reads the Universal Product Code--that ribbon of black and white lines in a comer of the package-and then checks the code against a price list stored in memory. If the price list is right, you''l1 be charged accurately. Grocery stores update the price list each day--that is, somebody sits at a keyboard and types in the prices. If the price typed in is too high, there are only two explanations: carelessness or dishonesty. But somehow "a computer error" is supposed to excuse everything. One reason we let people hide behind a computer is the common misperception that huge, modem computers are" electric brains" with" artificial intelligence. "At some point there might be a machine with intelligence, but none exists today. The smartest computer on Earth right now is no more "intelligent" than your average screwdriver. At this point in the development of computers, the only thing any machine can do is what a human has instructed it to do.

阅读理解1 I was born in Tuckahoe, Talbot Country, Maryland. I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their age as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant. I do not remember having ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday. They seldom come nearer to it than planting-time, harvesting, springtime, or falltime. A lack of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children could tell their ages, I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege. I was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master concerning it. He considered all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and impertinent. The nearest estimate I can give makes me now between twenty- seven and twenty-eight years of age. I come to this, from hearing my master say, some time during 1835, I was about seventeen years old. 2 My mother was named Harriet Bailey. She was the daughter of Issac and Betsey Bailey, both coloured, and quite dark. My mother was of a darker complexion than either my grandmother or grandfather. 3 My father was a white man. He was admitted to be such by all I ever heard speak of my parentage. The opinion was also whispered that my master was my father; but of the correctness of this opinion, I know nothing; the means of knowing was withheld from me. My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant — before I knew her as my mother. It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age. Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, and the child is placed under the care of an older woman, too old for field labour. For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child''s affection towards its mother.

阅读理解How did the author feel about the treasure from the Atocha(Para. 7)?

阅读理解The Carnegie Foundation report says that many colleges have tried to be "all things to all people". In doing so, they have increasingly catered to a narrow-minded careerism while failing to cultivate a global vision among their students. The current crisis, it contends, does not derive from a legitimate desire to put learning to productive ends. The problem is that in too many academic fields, the work has no context; skills, rather than being means, have become ends. Students are offered a variety of options and allowed to pick their way to a degree. In short, driven by careerism, "the national colleges and universities are more successful in providing credentials than in providing a quality education for their students." The report concludes that the special challenge confronting the undergraduate college is one of shaping an "integrated core" of common learning. Such a core would introduce students "to essential knowledge, to connections across the disciplines, and in the end, to application of knowledge to life beyond the campus". Although the key to a good college is a high-quality faculty, the Carnegie study found that most colleges do very little to encourage good teaching. In fact, they do much to undermine it. As one professor observed: "Teaching is important, we are told, and yet faculty know that research and publication matter most." Not surprisingly, over the last twenty years colleges and universities have failed to graduate half of their four-year degree candidates. Faculty members who dedicate themselves to teaching soon discover that they will not be granted tenure, promotion, or substantial salary increases. Yet 70 percent of all faculty say their interests lie among more in teaching than in research. Additionally, a frequent complaint among young scholars is that "There is pressure to publish, although there is virtually no interest among administrators or colleagues in the content of the publications."

阅读理解Which of the following best fits the style of this passage?

阅读理解Which of the following statements is CORRECT about the family's response to Paul's mockery?

阅读理解How we look and how we appear to others probably worries us more when we are in our teens or early twenties than at any other time in our life. Few of us are content to accept ourselves as we are, and few are brave enough to ignore the trends of fashion. Most fashion magazines or TV advertisements try to persuade us that we should dress in a certain way or behave in a certain manner. If we do, they tell us, we will be able to meet new people with confidence and deal with every situation confidently and without embarrassment. Changing fashion, of course, does not apply just to dress. A barber today does not cut a boy''s hair in the same way as he used to, and girls do not make up in the same way as their mothers and grandmothers did. The advertisers show us the latest fashionable styles and we are constantly under pressure to follow the fashion in case our friends think we are odd or dull. What causes fashions to change? Sometimes convenience or practical necessity or just the fancy of an influential person can establish a fashion. Take hats, for example. In cold climates, early building were cold inside, so people wore hats indoors as well as outside. In recent times, the late President Kennedy caused a depression in the American hat industry by not wearing hats; more American men followed his example. There is also a cyclical pattern in fashion. In the 1920s in Europe and America, short skirts became fashionable. After World War II, they dropped to ankle length. Then they got shorter and shorter until the miniskirt was in fashion. After a few more years, skirts became longer again. Today, society is much freer and easier than it used to be. It is no longer necessary to dress like everyone else. Within reason, you can dress as you like or do your hair the way you like instead of the way you should because it is the fashion. The popularity of jeans and the "untidy" look seems to be a reaction against the increasingly expensive fashions of the top fashion houses. At the same time, appearance is still important in certain circumstances and then we must choose our clothes carefully. It would be foolish to go to an interview for a job in a law firm wearing jeans and a sweater; and it would be discourteous to visit some distinguished scholar looking as if we were going to the beach or a night club. However, you need never feel depressed if you don''t look like the latest fashion photo. Look around you and you''ll see that no one else does either!

阅读理解In the last paragraph, the author thinks that pictures ______.

阅读理解What do the last two paragraphs mainly focus on(Paras. 10 and 11)?

阅读理解Migration is usually defined as "permanent or semipermanent change of residence." This broad definition, of course, would include a move across the street or across a city. Our concern is with movement between nations, not with internal migration within nations, although such movements often exceed international movements in volume. Today, the motives of people who move short distances are very similar to those of international migrants. Students of human migration speak of "push" and "pull" factors, which influence an individual''s decision to move from one place to another. Push factors are associated with the place of origin. A push factor can be as simple and mild a matter as difficulty in finding a suitable job, or as traumatic as war, or severe famine. Obviously, refugees who leave their homes with guns pointed at their heads are motivated almost entirely by push factors (although pull factors do influence their choice of destination). Pull factors are those associated with the place of destination. Most often these are economic, such as better job opportunities or the availability of good land to farm. The latter was an important factor in attracting settlers to the United States during the 19th century. In general, pull factors add up to an apparently better chance for a good life and material well-being than is offered by the place of origin. When there is a choice between several attractive potential destinations, the deciding factor might be a non-economic consideration such as the presence of relatives, friends, or at least fellow countrymen already established in the new place who are willing to help the newcomers settle in. Considerations of this sort lead to the development of migration flow. Besides push and pull factors, there are what the sociologists call "intervening obstacles". Even if push and/or pull factors are very strong they still may be outweighed by intervening obstacles. Such as the distance of the move, the trouble and cost of moving, the difficulty of entering the new country, and the problems likely to be encountered on arrival. The decision to move is also influenced by "personal factors" of the potential migrant. The same push-pull factors and obstacles operate differently on different people, sometimes because they are at different stages of their lives, or just because of their varying abilities and personalities. The prospect of packing up everything and moving to a new and perhaps very strange environment may appear interesting and challenging to an unmarried young man and appallingly difficult to a slightly older man with a wife and small kids. Similarly, the need to learn a new language and customs may excite one person and frighten another. Regardless of why people move, migration of large numbers of people causes conflict. The United States and other western countries have experienced adjustment problems with each new wave of immigrants. The newest arrivals are usually given the lowest-paid jobs and are resented by native people who may have to compete with them for those jobs. It has usually taken several decades for each group to be accepted into the mainstream of society in the host country.

阅读理解There are superstitions attached to numbers. Even those ancient Greeks believed that all numbers and their multiples had some mystical significance. Those numbers between 1 and 13 were in particular to have a powerful influence over the affairs of men, For example, it is commonly said that luck, good or bad, comes in threes; ii an accident happens, two more of the same kind may be expected soon afterwards. The arrival of a letter will be followed by two others within a certain period. Another belief involving the number three has it that it is unlucky to light three cigarettes from the one match. If this happens, the bad luck that goes with the deed falls upon the person whose cigarette was the last to be lit. The ill-omen linked to the lighting of three things from one match or candle goes back to at least the 17th century and probably earlier. It was believed that three candles alight at the same time would be sure to bring had luck; one, two, or four, were permissible, but never just three. Seven was another significant number, usually regarded as a bringer of good luck. The ancient astrologers believed that the universe was governed by seven planets; students of Shakespeare will recall that the life of man was divided into seven ages. Seven horseshoes nailed to a house will protect it from all evil. Nine is usually thought of as a lucky number because it is the product of three times three, It was much used by the Anglo-Saxons in their charms for healing. Another belief was that great changes occurred every 7th and 9th of a man''s life. Consequently, the age of 63 (the product of nine times seven) was thought to be a very perilous time for him. If he survived his 63rd year he might hope to live to a ripe old age. Thirteen, as we well know, is regarded with great awe and fear. The common belief is that this derives from the fact that there were 13 people at Christ''s Last Supper. This being the eve of his betrayal, it is not difficult to understand the significance given to the number by the early Christians. In more modern times 13 is an especially unlucky number of a dinner party, for example. Hotels will avoid numbering a floor the 13th, the progression is from i2 to 14, and no room is given the number 18. Many home owners will use 12(1/2) instead of 13 as their house number. Yet oddly enough, to be born on the 13th of the month is not regarded with any fear at all, which just shows how irrational we are in our superstitious beliefs.

阅读理解The way in which people use social space reflects their social relationships and their ethnic identity. Early immigrants to America from Europe brought with them a collective style of living, which they retained until late in the 18th century. Historical records document a group-oriented existence, in which one room was used for eating, entertaining guests, and sleeping. People ate soups from a communal pot, shared drinking cups, and used a common pit toilet. With the development of ideas about individualism, people soon began to shift to the use of individual cups and plates; the eating of meals that included meat, bread, and vegetables served on separate plates; and the use of private toilets. They began to build their houses with separate rooms to entertain guests—living rooms, separate bedrooms for sleeping, separate work areas— kitchen, laundry room, and separate bathrooms. In Mexico, the meaning and organization of domestic space is strikingly different. Houses are organized around a patio, or courtyard. Rooms open onto the patio, where all kinds of domestic activities take place. Individuals do not have separate bedrooms. Children often sleep with parents, and brothers or sisters share a bed, emphasizing familial interdependence. Rooms in Mexican houses are locations for multiple activities that, in contrast, are rigidly separated in the United States.

阅读理解Since World War II, there has been a clearly discernible trend, especially among the growing group of college students, toward early marriage. Many youths begin dating in the first stages of adolescence, "go steady" through high school, and marry before their formal education has been completed. In some quarters, there is much shaking of graying locks and clucking of middle-aged tongues over the ways of "wayward youth". However, emotional maturity is no respecter of birthdays; it does not arrive automatically at twenty-one or twenty five. Some achieve it surprisingly early, while others never do, even in three-score years and ten. Many students are marrying as an escape, not only from an unsatisfying home life, but also from their own personal problems of isolation and loneliness. And it can almost be put down as a dictum that any marriage entered into as an escape cannot prove entirely successful. The sad fact is that marriage seldom solves one''s problems; more often, it merely accentuates them. Furthermore, it is doubtful whether the home as an institution is capable of carrying all that the young are seeking to put into it; one might say in theological terms, that they are forsaking one idol only to worship another. Young people correctly understand that their parents are wrong in believing that "success" is the ultimate good, but they erroneously believe that they themselves have found the true center of life''s meaning. Their expectations of marriage are essentially utopian and therefore incapable of fulfillment. They want too much, and tragic disillusionment is often bound to follow. Shall we, then join, the chorus of "Miseries" over early marriages? One cannot generalize: all early marriages are not bad any more that all later ones are good. Satisfactory marriages are determined not by chronology, but by the emotional maturity of the partners. Therefore, each case must be judged on its own merits. If the early marriage is not an escape, if it is entered into with relatively few illusions or false expectations, and if it is economically feasible, why not? Good marriages can be made from sixteen to sixty, and so can bad ones.