2. Passage EighteenAn idea that started in Seattle’s public library has spread throughout America and beyond.The concept is simple: help to build a sense of community in a city by getting everyone to read the same book at the same time.In addition to encouraging reading as a pursuit (追求)to be enjoyed by all, the program allows strangers to communicate by discussing the book on the bus, as well as promoting reading as an experience to be shared in families and schools.The idea came from Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl who launched the “If All of Seattle Read the Same Book” project in 1998.Her original program used author visits, study guides and book discussion groups to bring people together with a book, but the idea has expanded to many other American cities, and even to Hong Kong.In Chicago, the mayor appeared on television to announce the choice of To Kill a Mockingbird as the first book in the “One Book, One Chicago” program.As a result, reading clubs and neighborhood groups sprang up around the city.Across the US, stories emerged of parents and children reading to each other at night and strangers chatting away on the bus about the plot and character.The only problem arose in New York, where local readers could not decide on one book to represent the huge and diverse population.This may show that the idea works best in medium-sized cities or large towns, where a greater sense of unity can be achieved.Or it may show that New Yorkers rather missed the point, putting all their energy and passion into the choice of the book rather than into discussion about a book itself.Ultimately, as Nancy points out, the level of success is not measured by how many people read a book, but by how many people are enriched by the process, or have enjoyed speaking to someone with whom they would not otherwise have (shared a word).Why was it difficult for New Yorkers to carry out the project?
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4. Passage SixteenJustin was always prepared.His motto was “Never throw anything out, you never know when it might come in handy.” His bedroom was so full of flat bicycle tires, bent tennis rackets, deflated basketballs, and games with missing pieces that you could barely get in the door.His parents pleaded him to clean out his room.“What use is a fish tank with a hole in the bottom?” his father asked.But Justin simply smiled and repeated his motto, “Never throw anything out, you never know when it might come in handy.”When Justin was away from home, he always carried his blue backpack.He liked to think of it as a smaller version of his bedroom——a place to store the many objects that he collected.It was so worn and stretched that it hardly resembled a backpack anymore.It was full of the kind of things that seemed unimportant, but when used with a little imagination, might come in handy.Justin had earned a reputation for figuring things out and getting people out of otherwise hopeless situations.Many of his classmates and neighbors sought him out when they needed help with a problem.On the first day of school, his friend Kenny, came looking for Justin.“Do you think you have something in your bag that could help me remember my locker combination?” he asked.“I lost the paper it was written on.I have science class in two minutes and if I’m late on the first day it’ll make me look bad for the rest of the year.” Kenny looked genuinely worried.“Relax,” Justin said, taking his backpack off and opened it.“Remember how you borrowed my notebook in homeroom to write the code down? Well, I know how we can recover what you wrote.”He took the notebook and a soft lead pencil out of his bag.The page that Kenny had written on had left faint indentations (旧凹痕)on another page in the notebook.Justin held the pencil on its side and rubbed it lightly over the indentations.Slowly but surely the numbers of the locker combination appeared in white, set off by the gray pencil rubbings.“That’s amazing!” Kenny said.“I owe you one.” And he dashed off to open his locker.How come Justin could help Kenny recover his locker combination?
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32.Things might have been much worse if the mother ()on her right to keep the baby.
A. has been insisting
B. had insisted
C. would insist
D. insisted
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34. Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage.To write his 2010 book, The 5-Factor World Diet, nutritionist Harley Pasternak traveled to the healthiest countries around the world to learn more about what made their meals extra nourishing.He noted that Japanese people ate a wonderful variety of seaweeds, and that Chinese people tried to include at least five different colors in every meal.Pasternak also came away with some valuable observations about how different the North American way of life was, compared with many other countries.For starters, Americans eat much bigger portions than people in other countries.“We don’t prioritize eating seasonally or locally, and we also add lots of salt, sugar and thickening agents to our foods,” explained Pasternak.Contrast that to the healthy Mediterranean, Nordic and Okinawan diets listed in Pasternak's book.They all seem to stick to the ethos (特质)of regional, seasonal produce.For example, a traditional Mediterranean diet includes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and olive oil as the main components of nutritional intake.Fish, chicken and red wine make moderate appearances, while red meat, salt and sugar are used much less often.The benefits of a traditional Mediterranean diet have been studied since the 1970s, and researchers have found that living that olive oil life can help people lose weight, lower their heart disease risk and reverse diabetes.Most other healthy eating cultures also make meals an event—say, multiple courses around the family table, or a glass or two of red wine at a long lunch—opposed to hastily wolfing down handfuls of cereal above the kitchen sink and calling it dinner.Each of the healthy eating cultures has its own unique feature.But Pasternak did take note of one unifying factor in all of the healthy societies he observed.“The only overlapping feature in most of these healthy countries is that they all walk way more than the average American,” said Pasternak.“So really, regardless of what you’re eating, if someone’s walking four miles more than you each day, they are going to be a lot thinner and live a lot longer than you.”What do people in most healthy eating cultures have in common?
A. They get the whole family to eat at a table.
B. They eat their meals regularly and punctually.
C. They consume plenty of cereal for breakfast.
D. They attach great importance to their meals.
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5. Passage Twenty-NineHow can we get rid of garbage (垃圾)? Do we have enough energy sources to meet our future energy needs? These are two important questions that many people are asking today.Some people think that man might be able to solve both problems at the same time.They suggest using garbage as an energy source, and at the same time it can save the land to hold garbage.For a long time, people buried garbage or dumped (倾倒)it on empty land.Now, empty land is scarce.But more and more garbage is produced each year.However, garbage can be a good fuel to use.The things in garbage do not look like coal, petroleum, or natural gas; but they are chemically similar to these fossil fuels.As we use up our fossil-fuel supplies, we might be able to use garbage as an energy source.Burning garbage is not a new idea.Some cities in Europe and the United States have been burning garbage for years.The heat that is produced by burning garbage is used to boil water.The steam that is produced is used to make electricity or to heat nearby buildings.In Paris, France, some power plants burn almost 2 million metric tons of the city’s garbage each year.The amount of energy produced is about the same as would be produced by burning almost a half million barrels of oil.Our fossil fuel supplies are limited.Burning garbage might be one kind of energy source that we can use to help meet our energy needs.This method could also reduce the amount of garbage piling up on the earth.The best title for the passage may be ().
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3. Passage ThirteenTrees are useful to man in three important ways: they provide him with wood and other products; they give him shade; and they help to prevent droughts and floods.Unfortunately, in many parts of the world, man has not realized that the third of these services is the most important.In his eagerness to make money from trees, he has cut them down in large numbers, only to find that without them he has lost the best friends he had.And besides, he is usually too careless to plant and look after new trees.So the forests slowly disappear.This does not only mean that man will have fewer trees.The results are even more serious: for where there are trees, their roots break up soil——allowing the rain to sink in——and also bind the soil, thus preventing it from being washed away easily; but where there are no trees, the rain falls on hard ground and flows away, causing floods and carrying away the rich topsoil.When all the topsoil is gone, nothing remains but worthless desert.Two thousand years ago a rich and powerful country cut down its trees to build warships, with which to gain itself an empire.It set up the empire but, without its trees, its soil became poor and it grew weak.When the empire fell into pieces, there is nothing left except floods and starvation.Why did the country mentioned in the passage suffer from floods and starvation?
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1. Passage FifteenBig data can be defined as information that is too big or complex to be contained or processed by any one machine or person.As a student at the University of Sussex, Julian Dailly had two majors——English and philosophy.When he completed his studies, Dailly wondered how he would ever earn a living in a world filled with machines and technology.Now, he is part of the big data industry that includes Google and Facebook.Dailly’s research company, Monar Consulting, started three years ago with five employees.The company’s earnings have increased by 25% each year.It now employs 90 people.“What we do here is we try to discover what’s meaningful for people and link that to their economic behavior,” Dailly said.He noted the importance of working with people with different skills.“We have people from traditional research backgrounds, in addition to some in social sciences, economics, people from tech backgrounds, and sales people,” Dailly said.Companies like Dailly’s employ recent college graduates.The industry profits from the ideas of these young men and women.New forms of data also make it possible for some observers to predict the future.They are more valuable to companies than the traditional forms of data recording or reporting.“We have access to the core information inside people’s heads,” Dailly said, “They tell you what people are going to do as opposed to what they’ve done.That helps people take proper action in advance.This makes it much more useful for strategy.”Julian Dailly dismisses concerns that computers have finally taken control of our daily lives.“Some may worry that humans will be allowed to be replaced by machines.I think it’s a fantasy.”Dailly has an education background of ().
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2.As Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, I have directed that all measures ()for our defense.
A. had been taken
B. would be taken
C. be taken
D. to be taken
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2. Passage SixteenJustin was always prepared.His motto was “Never throw anything out, you never know when it might come in handy.” His bedroom was so full of flat bicycle tires, bent tennis rackets, deflated basketballs, and games with missing pieces that you could barely get in the door.His parents pleaded him to clean out his room.“What use is a fish tank with a hole in the bottom?” his father asked.But Justin simply smiled and repeated his motto, “Never throw anything out, you never know when it might come in handy.”When Justin was away from home, he always carried his blue backpack.He liked to think of it as a smaller version of his bedroom——a place to store the many objects that he collected.It was so worn and stretched that it hardly resembled a backpack anymore.It was full of the kind of things that seemed unimportant, but when used with a little imagination, might come in handy.Justin had earned a reputation for figuring things out and getting people out of otherwise hopeless situations.Many of his classmates and neighbors sought him out when they needed help with a problem.On the first day of school, his friend Kenny, came looking for Justin.“Do you think you have something in your bag that could help me remember my locker combination?” he asked.“I lost the paper it was written on.I have science class in two minutes and if I’m late on the first day it’ll make me look bad for the rest of the year.” Kenny looked genuinely worried.“Relax,” Justin said, taking his backpack off and opened it.“Remember how you borrowed my notebook in homeroom to write the code down? Well, I know how we can recover what you wrote.”He took the notebook and a soft lead pencil out of his bag.The page that Kenny had written on had left faint indentations (旧凹痕)on another page in the notebook.Justin held the pencil on its side and rubbed it lightly over the indentations.Slowly but surely the numbers of the locker combination appeared in white, set off by the gray pencil rubbings.“That’s amazing!” Kenny said.“I owe you one.” And he dashed off to open his locker.In what way is Justin’s backpack a smaller version of his bedroom?
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3. Passage TenNowadays, children heavily cling to digital devices such as computers and smart phones.Some spend up to six hours a day on their digital devices.They can be playing games online with people elsewhere, updating their status on social media, texting friends, or looking for the latest apps to download to their computers or smart phones.This worried Martin Strott.He is the headmaster of the Old Hall School in Wellington, England.He was so concerned that he challenged his students to take part in a week of (“digital detox”), a program to reduce their reliance on digital devices.Mr.Strott told the local newspaper, the Shropshire Star, that too much screen time would affect the development of their social skills.At another interview with a magazine, he mentioned that this over-reliance on digital devices “takes away family time and reduces their chances of face-to-face communication”.The parents are happy with the program.But what about the children? Nine-year-old Fred usually spends around two hours on his digital devices at home after school and around 12 hours on weekends.For him, the digital detox experience was “really hard”.He said that he had been engaged in many interesting outdoor activities organized by the headmaster, but still missed his phone and online games.The idea of keeping children away from their digital devices for a while to prevent too much dependence on them is not particularly new.There have been similar practices in the United States.But are they effective in the long run? According to Mr.Strott, even if kids go back to their digital devices, the hope is that at least they will think about how they will use their time.The Shropshire Star is ().
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