单选题Mike's uncle {{U}}insists on{{/U}} staying in this hotel.

单选题Satiric Literature Perhaps the most striking quality of satiric literature is its freshness, its originality of perspective. Satire rarely offers original ideas. Instead, it presents the familiar in a new form. Satirists do not offer the world new philosophies. What they do is to look at familiar conditions from a perspective that makes these conditions seem foolish, harmful, or affected. Satire jars us out of complacence into a pleasantly shocked realization that many of the values we unquestioningly accept are false. Don Quixote makes chivalry seem absurd; Brave New World ridicules the pretensions of science; A Modest Proposal dramatizes starvation by advocating cannibalism. None of these ideas is original. Chivalry was suspect before Cervantes, humanists objected to the claims of pure science before Aldoua Huxley, and people were aware of famine before Swift. It was not the originality of the idea that made these satires popular. It was the manner of expression, the satiric method, that made them interesting and entertaining. Satires are read because they are aesthetically satisfying works of art, not because they are morally wholesome or ethically instructive. They are stimulating and refreshing because with common sense briskness they brush away illusions and second-hand opinions. With Spontaneous irreverence, satire rearranges perspectives, scrambles familiar objects into incongruous juxtaposition, and speaks in a personal idiom instead of abstract platitude. Satire exists because there is need for it. It has lived because readers appreciate a refreshing stimulus, an irreverent reminder that they live in a world of platitudinous thinking, cheap moralizing, and foolish philosophy. Satire serves to prod people into all awareness of truth, though rarely to any active on behalf of truth. Satire tends to remind people that much of what they see, hear, and read in popular media is sanctimonious, sentimental, and only partially true. Life resembles in only a slight degree the popular image of it. Soldiers rarely hold die ideals that movies attribute to them, nor do ordinary citizens devote their lives to unselfish service of humanity. Intelligent people know these tings but tend to forget them when they do not hear them expressed.

单选题 下面有3篇短文，每篇短文后有5道题，每道题后面有4个选项。请根据文章的内容，从每题所给的4个选项中选择1个最佳答案。 {{B}} A Pay Rise or Not?{{/B}} "Unless I get a rise, I’ll have a talk with the boss, Henry Manley,' George Strong said to himself. George liked his job and he liked the town he lived in, but his wife kept telling him that his pay was n6t enough to meet the needs of the family. That was why he was thinking of taking a job in Birmingham, a nearby city about 50 miles away. He had been offered a job in a factory there, and the pay was far better. George lived in Wyeford, a medium-sized town. He really liked the place and didn't like the idea of moving somewhere else, but if he took the job in Birmingham, he would have to move his family there. Henry Manley was the manager of a small company manufacturing electric motors. The company was in deep trouble because, among other reasons, the Japanese were selling such things at very low prices. As a result, Manley had to cut his own prices and profits as well. Otherwise he would not get any orders at all. Even then, orders were still not coming in fast enough, so that there was no money for raises (加工资) for his workers. Somehow, he had to struggle along and keep his best workers as well. He sighed. Just then the phone rang. His secretary told him that George Strong wanted to see him as soon as possible. Manley sighed again. He could guess what it was about. George Strong was a very young engineer. The company had no future unless it could attract and keep men like him. Manley rubbed his forehead (前额); his problems seemed endless.

单选题Which of the following statements is NOT true, according to the passage?

单选题The football team is called "The Canaries" because of the colours the players wear.

单选题His job was to look after the animals.

单选题The old concerns lose importance and some of them {{U}}vanish{{/U}} altogether. A. develop B. disappear C. link D. renew

单选题I feel regret about what"s happened.

单选题The specific mechanisms by which cortisone and similar compounds function are poorly documented.

单选题Life at Aichi University I'm Yamamoto Mika, a 22-year old Japanese girl. I'd like to invite you to Aichi University so you can understand my life. Our university has a close relationship with China and my department is the only one of its kind in Japan. My courses include the Chinese language, modem Chinese politics and economics. I love the Chinese culture and I have been to Tian jin as an exchange student. In Japan, our courses are divided into compulsory, optional and specialized courses. However, we have a flexible schedule. We can choose classes from a wide range of options. Many students finish the compulsory courses in three years so that they can have one year without any classes. They often use this period of time to study abroad, conduct research and travel. Many students even suspend their study for additional study-abroad opportunities. Japanese universities encourage students to choose their own ways of study, so it is quite easy for us to apply for study suspension. Japanese students participate in various kinds of extracurricular activities. They attend clubs from elementary schools, so many have already been accustomed to clubs when they enter university. Our university now has 42 art clubs and 45 sports clubs. The annual University Festival is the grandest carnival of Japanese universities. In the festival, students promote their clubs and organize various activities. Our university's festival attracted about 150,000 people last year. I really like this festival. In school, I participate in the journalism club. When we have the club promotion, we cook "tonnjiru", a kind of pork soup, and sell it to other students at the fair. We also go to different places to interview celebrities who attend our festival as guests. It is a wonderful experience to talk to those stars face to face. Japanese students like to hold parties. We have two kinds of parties. One is the Mochiyori party. If you want to attend this party you have to cook a course and take it to the party. The organizer buys drinks and snacks. Another kind of party is the Nomikai, which mainly involves alcohol. We drink something called chu-hai, which is a combination of soda and wine. We also drink Japanese sake and beer. There are parties for many occasions, like welcoming new students, graduation, celebrating victories, birthday parties or just for promoting friendship.

单选题Seeing the World Centuries Ago If you enjoy looking through travel books by such familiar authors as Arthur Former or Eugene Fodor, it will not surprise you to lean that travel writing has a long and venerable history. Almost from the earliest annals of recorded time individuals have found ready audiences for their accounts of journeys to strange and exotic locales. One of the earliest travel writers, a Greek geographer and historian named Strabo, lived around the time of Christ. Though Strabo is known to have traveled from east of the Black Sea west to Italy and as far south as Ethiopia, he also used details gleaned from other writers to extend and enliven his accounts. His multivolumed work Geography provides the only surviving account of the cities, peoples, customs, and geographical peculiarities of the whole known world of his time. Two other classic travel writers, the Italian Marco Polo and the Moroccan Ibn Battutah, lived in roughly the same time period. Marco Polo traveled to China with his father and uncle in about A. D. 1275 and remained there 16 or 17 years, visiting several other countries during his travels. When Marco returned to Italy he dictated his memoirs, including stories he had heard from others, to a scribe, with the resulting book II million being an instant success. Though difficult to attest to the accuracy of all he says, Marco"s book impelled Europeans to begin their great voyages of exploration. Ibn Battutah"s interest in travel began on his required Muslim journey to Mecca in 1325, and during his lifetime he journeyed through all the countries where Islam held sway. His travel book the Rihlah is a personalized account of desert journeys, court intrigues, and even the effect of the Back Death in the various lands he visited. In almost 30 years of traveling it is estimated that Ibn Battutah covered more than 75,000 miles.

单选题He achieved success through hard work. ______

单选题 阅读下面这篇短文，短文后列出7个句子，请根据短文的内容对每个句子做出判断。 {{B}}Weather and forecast{{/B}} Many of the most damaging and life-threatening types of weather-torrential rains, severe thunderstorm, and tornadoes-begin quickly, strike suddenly, and dissipate (消散) rapidly, devastating (毁坏) small regions while leaving neighboring areas untouched. One such event, a tornado, struck the north-eastern section of Edmonton Alberta, in July 1987. Total damages from the tornado exceeded $250 million, the highest ever for any Canadian storm. Conventional computer models of the atmosphere have limited value in predicting short-lived local storms like the Edmonton tornado, because the available weather data are generally not detailed enough to allow computers to discern the subtle atmospheric changes that precede these storms. In most nations, for example, weather-balloon observations are taken just once every twelve hours at locations typically separated by hundreds of miles. With such limited data, conventional forecasting models do a much better job predicting general weather conditions over large regions than they do forecasting specific local events. Until recently, the observation-intensive approach needed for accurate, very short range forecasts, or "Nowcast", was not feasible. The cost of equipping and operating many thousands of conventional weather stations was prohibitively high, and the difficulties involved in rapidly collecting and processing the raw weather data from such a network were insurmountable (不能克服的). Fortunately, scientific and technological advances have overcome most of these problems. Radar systems, automated weather instruments, and satellites are all capable of making detailed, nearly continuous observations over large regions at a relatively low cost. Communications satellites can transmit data around the world cheaply and instantaneously, and modern computers can quickly compile and analyze this large volume of weather information. Meteorologists and computer scientists now work together to design computer programs and video equipment capable of transforming raw weather data into words, symbols, and vivid graphic displays that forecasters can interpret easily and quickly. As meteorologists have begun using these new technologies in weather forecasting offices, Nowcasting is becoming a reality.

单选题To Have and Have Not It had been boring hanging about the hotel all afternoon. The road crew were playing a game with dollar notes. Folding them into small planes to see whose would fly the furthest. Having nothing better to do, I joined in and won five, and then took the opportunity to escape with my profit. Despite the evil-looking clouds, I had to get out for a while. I headed for a shop on the other side of the street. Unlike the others, it didn"t have a sign shouting its name and business, and instead of the usual impersonal modern lighting, there was an appealing glow inside. Strangely nothing was displayed in the window. Not put off by this, I went inside. It took my breath away. I didn"t know where to look, where to start. On one wall there hung three hand-stitched American quilts that were in such wonderful condition they might have been newly-made. I came across tin toys and antique furniture, and on the wall in front of me, a 1957 stratocaster guitar, also in excellent condition. A card pushed between the strings said $ 50. I ran my hand along a long shelf of records, reading their titles. And there was more... "Can I help you?" She startled me. I hadn"t even seen the woman behind the counter come in. The way she looked at me, so directly and with such power. It was a look of such intensity that for a moment I felt as if I were wrapped in some kind of magnetic or electrical field. I found it hard to take and almost turned away. But though it was uncomfortable. I was fascinated by the experience of her looking straight into me, and by the feeling that I was neither a stranger, nor strange, to her. Besides amusement her expression showed sympathy. It was impossible to tell her age. She reminded me faintly of my grandmother because, although her eyes were friendly. I could see that she was not a woman to fall out with. I spoke at last. "I was just looking really", I said, though secretly wondering how much of the stuff I could cram into the bus. The woman turned away and went at once towards a back room, indicating that I should follow her. But it in no way lived up to the first room. The light made me feel peculiar, too. It came from an oil lamp that was hung from the centre of the ceiling and created huge shadows over everything. There were no rare electric guitars, no old necklaces, no hand-painted boxes with delicate flowers. It was also obvious that it must have taken years, decades, to collect so much rubbish, so many old documents arid papers. I noticed some old books, whose gold lettering had faded, making their titles impossible to read. "they look interesting", I said, with some hesitation. "To be able to understand that kind of writing you must first have had a similar experience", she said clearly. She noted the confused look on my face, but didn"t add anything. She reached up for a small book which she handed to me. "This is the best book I can give you at the moment", she laughed. "If you use it." I opened the book to find it full, or rather empty, with blank white pages, but paid her the few dollars she asked for it, becoming embarrassed when I realised the notes were still folded into little paper planes. I put the book in my pocket, thanked her and left.

单选题A Ride in a Cable-car A ride in a cable-car is one of the exciting and enjoyable experiences a child can have. In Switzerland, which is the home of the cable-car, it is used mostly to take tourists up the slope of a mountain, to a restaurant from which one can have a bird-eye view of the surrounding country, or to a top of a ski-run, from which, in winter, skiers glide down the snow covered the slope on skis. In Singapore, however, the cable-car takes one from the summit of a hill on the main island to a low hill on Sentosa, a resort island just off the southern coast. The cable-car is really a carriage which hangs from a strong steel cable suspended in the air. It moves along the cable with other cars on pulleys, the wheels of which are turned by electric motors. The cars are painted in eye-catching colours and spaced at regular intervals. Each car can seat up six persons. After the passengers have entered a car, they are locked in from outside by an attendant, they have no control over the movement of the car. Before long, the passengers get a breath-taking view through the glass windows of the modern city, the bustling harbour, and the several islands off the coast. The car is suspended so high in the air that slips on the sea look like small boats, and boats like toys. On a clear day, both the sky above and the sea below look beautifully blue. In contrast to the fast-moving traffic on the ground, the cars in the air move in a leisurely manner, allowing passengers more than enough time to take in the scenery during the brief trip to the island of Sentosa. After a few hours on Sentosa, it will be time again to take a cable-car back to Mount Faber. The return journey is no less exciting than the outward trip.

单选题 下面有3篇短文，每篇短文后有5道题，每题后面有4个选项。请仔细阅读短文，并根据短文回答其后面的问题，从4个选项中选择1个最佳答案。{{B}}第一篇{{/B}} {{B}}Stress{{/B}} How often do you sit still and do absolutely nothing? The usual answer these days is "never", or "hardly ever". As the pace of life continues to increase, we are fast losing the art of relaxation. Once you are in the habit of rushing through life, it is hard to slow down and unwind. But relaxation is essential for a healthy mind and body. Stress is a natural part of everyday life. There is no way to avoid it, since it takes many and varied forms—driving in traffic, problems with personal relationships are all different forms of stress. Stress, in fact, is not the "baddy" as it is often reputed to be. A certain amount of stress is vital to provide motivation and give purpose to life. it is only when the stress gets out of control that it can lead to level performance and ill health. The amount of stress a person can withstand depends very much on the individual. Some people thrive on stress, and such characters are obviously prime materials for managerial (管理的) responsibilities. Others crumple at the sight of unusual difficulties. When exposed to stress, in whatever form, we react both chemically and physically. In fact we invoke the "fight" mechanism which in more primitive days made the difference between life or death. The crises we meet today are unlikely to be so extreme, but however minimal the stress, it involves the same response. All the energy is diverted to cope with the stress, with the result that other functions, such as digestion, are neglected. It is when such reaction is prolonged, through continued exposure to stress, that health becomes endangered. Such serious conditions as high blood pressure, coronary heart disease (冠心病) all have established links with stress. The way stress affects a per son also varies with the individual. Stress in some people produces stomach disorders, while others succumb to tension headaches. Since we cannot remove stress from our lives, we need to find ways to cope with it.

单选题 A. since he returned B. that his teammates cannot help admiring him C. that he is often yelled at by the coach D. who can play basketball so well E. because he had been injured F. if Houston hopes to win

单选题Gates and Jobs Have a Friendly Chat LEGENDARY technology rivals Bill Gates and Steve Jobs made a rare joint appearance and wasted no time being nice at a chat at Wall Street Journal's "D: All Things Digital" conference last Wednesday. "Bill built the first software company in the industry," said Jobs, co-founder of the US's Apple Inc." Bill focused on software before anyone." Gates, the Microsoft Corp co-founder, hailed Jobs for taking big risks and developing products with "incredible taste and elegance". Jobs and Gates recalled the early days working together in the 1970s, sharing their views on the state of technology at that time. When Kara Swisher, the journal's technology reporter asked for the greatest misunderstanding in their relationship, Jobs joked: "We've kept our marriage secret for over a decade now." Gates added: "Neither of us have anything to complain about, in general... It's been fun to work together." The two touched briefly on the US 2008 elections. Gates said candidates should be measured by their ideas for improving education. The two worked together in the 1970s, but their companies have remained fierce rivals. Gates dropped out of Harvard University in 1975 to found Microsoft with childhood friend Paul Allen. He turned the company into the world's largest maker of computer software. Jobs and friend Steve Wozniak founded Apple in 1976, five years before IBM Corp jumped into the personal computer market. After leaving Apple in 1985, Jobs made a triumphant return in 1997 when Apple was struggling to survive. Jobs is widely credited with Apple's renaissance with a string of innovative products--the iMac computer for consumers, the powerful PowerMac and PowerBook, and more recently, the iPod digital music player. Microsoft has long dominated with its Windows operating system and software programs like Excel and Office. But Apple scored big with its iPod, introduced in 2001, and its iTunes online music store. Next month, the company's set to introduce its much-anticipated iPhone mobile handset. Microsoft released the Zune music player in November to compete with iPod. An audience member later asked the two men what they learned from each other. "The way he does things is just different. It's magical," Gates said. "Microsoft learned how to partner with people really well, and I think if Apple could have had a little more of that in its DNA, it would have served it extremely well," said Jobs.

单选题A. result of nuclear explosion, fallout is the descent of minute particles of radioactive material through the atmosphere.A. chargedB. heavyC. tinyD. lost

单选题We were attracted by the lure of quick money.