阅读理解(4) It is not difficult to imagine a world short of ambition

阅读理解(2) My friend received another degree this month

阅读理解Text 3 What is your favorite colour? Do you like yellow, orange, red? If you do, you must be an optimist, a leader, an active person who enjoys life, people and excitement

阅读理解Passage Two 3M comes from Minnesota Mining Manufacturing, but those three Ms might better stand for Mistake=Magic=Money

阅读理解Directions: There are 4 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 down your answer on the Answer Sheet.Passage 3It started last year when a group of middle school children on a biology field trip in south-central Minnesota spotted some unusual-looking frogs. One was missing a leg, some had withered arms, others had shrunken eyes. Of the 22 frogs caught that day, 11 were deformed. Their teacher told officials. Reports of strange frogs began to mount: a frog with nine legs; a clubfooted frog; a frog with three eyes, one of them in its throat.At first, investigators from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in St. Paul assumed that the problem was restricted to their state, and the agricultural part at that. They were wrong. Deformed frogs have since turned up in Wisconsin, South Dakota, Vermont and up into Canada.“Abnormalities like this get me worried,” says David Hoppe, a University of Minnesota researcher. “We don’t know how far this is going to go.” Because frogs spend much of their life in water, pesticides or harmful metals were prime suspects. But now possible causes include acid rain, global warming and increased ultraviolet light. Hoppe observes that different deformities seem to be concentrated in frogs from different regions. It may be, he says, that more than one cause is at work.What some scientists fear is that the frogs could be a sign that something is very wrong with the environment. “We may have a large problem here,” says Robert McKinnell, a University of Minnesota cancer researcher, who has collected hundreds of deformed frogs. “If frogs are not able to handle whatever it is that is causing this, it may turn out that people can’t either.”

阅读理解Passage 1 There are two factors which determine an individuals intelligence

阅读理解Directions: There are 4 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 down your answer on the Answer Sheet.Passage 4It was September of 1620 when their ship, called the “Mayflower” left port with 102 men, women and children on board. This was the worst season of the year for an ocean crossing, and the trip was very uneven. After sixty-five days at sea, she landed in Provincetown Harbor, Massachusetts.The Pilgrim leaders knew that they were in unsettled territory which had no governing body. They also knew that in order to survive, every society needed a means of establishing and enforcing proper rules of conduct. Partly to protect themselves from others, forty-one men aboard the ship held a meeting to choose their first governor and sign the historic Mayflower agreement, the first one for self-government in America.For about a month longer, the Pilgrims lived aboard ship and sent out parties to explore the coastline of the bay. They found a harbor, and cleared land, which was an Indian village, but a disease a few years earlier had killed the entire Indian population. Coming ashore in their small boat, the Pilgrims landed on a large rock later named Plymouth Rock. This was the beginning of the second permanent English settlement in America.The Pilgrims were poorly trained and poorly equipped to cope with life in the wilderness. During their first winter in the new land, they suffered a great deal. Poor food, hard work, diseases, and bitterly cold weather killed about half of them. By the end of this terrible first winter, only about fifty Plymouth colonists remained alive.One spring morning in 1621, an Indian walked into the little village of Plymouth and introduced himself in a friendly way. Later he brought the Indian chief, who offered assistance. The Indians taught the Pilgrims how to hunt fish, and grow food. Because of this help from the Indians, the Pilgrims had a good harvest. Then the first Thanksgiving dinner was cooked and served out-of-doors, and the holiday was a great success.

阅读理解Passage 3 The Return of Artificial Intelligence It is becoming acceptable again to talk of computers performing human tasks such as Problem-solving and Pattern-recognition

阅读理解Directions: There are 4 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 deicide the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a single line through the center.Passage OneDuring the past few years, scientists all over the world have suddenly found themselves productively engaged in task they once spent their lives avoiding—writing, any kind of writing, but particularly letter writing. Encouraged by electronic mail’s surprisingly high speed, convenience and economy, people who never before touched the stuff are regularly, skillfully, even cheerfully tapping out a great deal of correspondence.Electronic networks, woven into the fabric of scientific communication these days, are the route to colleagues in distant countries, shared data, bulletin boards and electronic journals. Any-one with a personal computer, a modern and the software to link computers over telephone lines can sign on. An estimated five million scientists have done so with more joining every day, most of them communicating through a bundle of interconnected domestic and foreign routes known collectively as the Internet, or net.E-mail is starting to edge out the fax, the telephone, overnight mail, and of course, land mail. It shrinks time and distance between scientific collaborators, in part because it is conveniently asynchronous (Writer can type while their colleagues across time zones sleep; their message will be waiting). If it is not yet speeding discoveries, it is certainly accelerating communication.Jeremy Bernstein, the physicist and science writer, once called E-mail the physicist’s umbilical cord. Later other people, too, have been discovering its connective virtues. Physicists are using it; college students are using it; everybody is using it; and as a sign that it has come of age, the New Yorker has celebrated its liberating presence with a cartoon—an appreciative dog seated at a keyboard, saying happily, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”

阅读理解Passage 4 The train began to slow down among the fields

阅读理解Directions: There are 4 passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions orunfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You shoulddeicide the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a single linethrough the center.Passage ThreeNowadays if you ask most people what “rap” means, they’re likely to state that it’s the reciting of rhymes to the best of music. It’s a form of expression that has its roots deep, in ancient African culture and oral tradition. Throughout history here in America there has always been some form of verbal skills involving rhymes within the Afro-American community. School yard rhyme, prison “jail house’ rhymes and double Dutch jump rope’ rhymes are some of the names and ways that various forms of rap have manifested.Rap caught on because it offered young urban New Yorkers a chance to freely express themselves. This was basically the same reason why any of the verbal or rhyme games manifested themselves in the past. More importantly, it was an art form that anyone can use. One did not need a lot of money or expensive resources to rhyme. One didn’t have to invest in lessons, or anything like that. Rapping was a verbal skill that could be practiced and improve to perfection at almost anytime.Rap also became popular because it offered unlimited challenges. There were no real set rules, except to be original and to rhyme on time to the beat of music. Anything was possible. One cou1d make up a rap about the man in the moon or someone else. The final goal was to be regarded as being good by one’s peers. The praises and positive approval a rapper received put him or her on a par with any other urban hero (sports star, tough guy, comedian, etc.), which was another special attraction.Finally, rap, because of its inclusive aspects, allowed one to accurately and efficiently add their personality. If you were laid back, you could rap at a slow pace. If you were too much active, you could rap at a fast pace. No two people rapped the same, even when reciting the same rhyme. There were many people who would try and emulate someone’s style, but even that represented a particular personality.Rap continues to be popular among today’s urban youth for the same reasons it was a draw in the early days: it is still a form of self-expression capable of winning positive approval from one’s peers. Because rap has evolved to become such a big business, it has given many kids the false illusion that it is a quick escape from the harshness of inner city life. There are many kids out there under the belief that they need to do is write a few fresh rhymes arid they’re off to the good life.

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 4The danger of misinterpretation is greatest, of course, among speakers who actually speak different native tongues, or come from different cultural backgrounds, because cultural difference necessarily implies different assumptions about natural and obvious ways to be polite.Anthropologist Thomas Kochman gives the example of a white office worker who appeared with a bandaged arm and felt rejected because her black fellow worker didn’t mention it. The doubly wounded worker assumed that her silent colleague didn’t notice or didn’t care. But the co-worker was purposely not calling attention to something her colleague might not want to talk about. She let her decide whether or not to mention it, being considerate by not imposing. Kochman says, based on his research, that these differences reflect recognizable black and white styles.An American woman visiting England was repeatedly offended—even, on bad days, enraged—when the British ignored her in setting in which she thought they should pay attention. For example, she was sitting at a booth in a railway-station cafeteria. A couple began to settle into the opposite seat in the same booth. They unloaded their luggage; they laid their coats on the seat; he asked what she would like to eat and went off to get it; she slid into the booth facing the American. And throughout all this, they showed no sign of having noticed that someone was already sitting in the booth.When the British woman lit up a cigarette, the American had a concrete object for her anger. She began ostentatiously looking around for another table to move to. Of course there was none; that’s why the British couple had sat in her booth in the first place. The smoker immediately crushed out her cigarette and apologized. This showed that she had noticed that someone else was sitting in the booth, and that she was not inclined to disturb her. But then she went back to pretending the American wasn’t there, a ruse in which her husband collaborated when he returned with their food and they ate it.To the American, politeness requires talk between strangers forced to share a booth in a cafeteria, if only a fleeting “Do you mind if I sit down?” or a conventional, “Is anyone sitting here?” even if it’s obvious no one is. The omission of such talk seemed to her like dreadful rudeness. The American couldn’t see that another system of politeness was at work. By not acknowledging her presence, the British couple freed her from the obligation to acknowledge theirs. The American expected a show of involvement; they were being polite by not imposing.An American man who had lived for years in Japan explained a similar politeness ethic. He lived, as many Japanese do, in extremely close quarters—a tiny room separated from neighboring rooms by paper-thin walls. In this case the walls were literally made of paper. In order to preserve privacy in this most un-private situation, his Japanese neighbor with the door open, they steadfastly glued their gaze ahead as if they were alone in a desert. The American confessed to feeling what I believe most American would feel if a next-door neighbor passed within a few feet without acknowledging their presence—snubbed. But he realized that the intention was not rudeness by omitting to show involvement, but politeness by not imposing.The fate of the earth depends on cross-cultural communication. Nations must reach agreements, and agreements are made by individual representatives of nations sitting down and talking to each other—public analogues of private conversation. The processes are the same, and so are the pitfalls. Only the possible consequences are more extreme.

阅读理解Passage 2 Once a circle missed a wedge

阅读理解Passage 2 Nowadays, a cellphone service is available to everyone, everywhere

完形填空Among the many ways 【A1】 ________ which people communicate through speech, public speaking has probably received more study and attracted more attention 【A2】 ________ any other, Politicians campaigning for public office, sales-people presenting products: and preachers delivering sermons all depend 【A3】 ________ this form of public communication

完形填空At the age of twelve years, the human body is at its most vigorous

完形填空A special feature of education at M

完形填空Tucked away in our subconscious is an idyllic (41) ________

完形填空So great is our passion for doing things for ourselves, 【B1】 ________we are becoming increasingly less dependent on specialized labor

完形填空From childhood to old age, we all use language as a means of broadening our knowledge of ourselves and the world about us