Is there something that you've always wa...

Which animal has the fastest snapping jaw (颚)? If you're guessing a shark or perhaps a larger animal, you'll have to think smaller. The trap­jaw ant, which lives in Central and South America, moves its mouth parts at 35 to 63 meters per second. Another way to think about this is that the ant's jaws close at 125 to 233 kilometers per hour. That's 2, 300 times faster than the blink of an eye.

Scientists were able to measure the amazing jaw speed using high­speed video techniques. Sheila Patek, a biologist, says the key is that the jaws have a springy (有弹性的) system, which is critical in getting explosive (爆发性的) speeds.

Consider a bow and arrow. If you try to throw an arrow with your arm, it won't go very far. If you use a bow, elastic energy stored in the bow is released almost instantly when you release the arrow with your finger or a latch. The combination of the springy bow and latch mechanism is what makes the arrow zoom through the air.

Maybe even more amazing than how fast these ants grab food or even enemies is how they use this same energy to move. As the ant closes its jaws, it uses them to push off the ground—all faster than the eye can see without slow motion video. A snap of the jaw can send an ant up to 8.3 centimeters into the air. That's like someone who is 1.7 meters jumping 13 meters high! Not only can they quickly escape from enemies, but often a group of ants will start jumping all at once. It would be hard for their enemies to grab just one.

People have suspected the ants used their jaws to jump for over a century, but could only prove it with today's modern video equipment.

1.The fast speed of the trap­jaw ant's jaw lies in ________.

2.The passage uses “a bow and arrow” as an example to show ________.

3.Which of the following may amaze the scientists most?

4.According to the passage, the trap­jaw ants' jaws keep them safe because ________.

How to improve our life? Many people think that they have to accept whatever life throws at them. They'll say，“my destiny(命运). I cannot change it. ”

Of course not! You don't have to suffer needlessly. Your life depends on you, not on any other external(外部的) factor.

I know a woman who says she just accepts what life gives her because she has done everything she can to improve it. Guess what her lifestyle is. She wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes back home, relaxes, chats with people, watches TV, and then goes to sleep. Next day, the same routine cycle follows.

Huh! Is this what she calls “doing her best”？ She believes she has tried her best and just accepts for her heart that this is the life that has been intended for her, and that her luck can only change if God wills it. She hasn't realized that we have to do our share of making the effort to live the life of our dreams.

Remember that you harvest what you sow. You have to get off the sofa, get your eyes off the TV screen, get your hands off the phone(unless it contributes to your success), and get your mind and body to work! Don't expect your luck to change, unless you do something about it.  If something goes wrong, don't just regard it as a temporary setback; instead, learn your lesson, make the most of the situation, and do something to solve the problem. It's not enough to think positively; you also have to act positively.

If someone's life is in trouble, do you just hope and pray that things will turn out fine? Of course not! You get to do anything you can to save the person. So it is with your own life. It is not enough to hope for the best, but you have to do your best. In other words, don't just stand(or sit) there, do something to improve your life.

1.According to the woman mentioned in Para. 3, her life ________.

2.What does the author think of the woman's life?

3.Which of the following statements is the author's opinion?

4.In Para. 5, the author emphasized the importance of ________.

Early one morning the sub­inspector at a station at the other end of the town rang me. An elephant was damaging the town. Would I please come and do something about it?

I did not know what I could do, but I got onto a horse and started out.  I took my gun, maybe too small to kill an elephant, but I thought the noise might scare him. Various local people stopped me on the way and told me about the elephant's doings.

It was not, of course, a wild elephant, but a tame one. It had been chained up but last night it had broken its chain and escaped. Its owner, had set out to run after it, but had taken the wrong direction. He was now twelve hours' journey away, and in the morning the elephant had suddenly appeared in the town. It had already destroyed somebody's bamboo hut (棚屋), killed a cow and turned over fruit­stalls.

I came round the hut and saw a man's dead body sprawling in the mud.  He was an Indian, and he could not have been dead many minutes. The people said that the elephant caught him with its trunk, put its foot on his back and grounded him into the earth. This was the rainy season and he was lying on his stomach in the soft mud, the__peacebreaker standing beside, looking innocent.

As I lifted my gun, I hesitated a few seconds. Then I fired. That was a shot that did for him.

You could see the pain of it knock the last strength from his legs. But in falling he seemed for a moment to rise, his trunk reaching skyward like a tree. He trumpeted, for the first and only time. And then down he came, with a crash that shook the ground.

1.Which of the following statements about the author is TRUE?

2.The elephant made so much trouble because ________.

3.The underlined words “the peacebreaker” in Paragraph 4 refer to ________.

4.It can be inferred that the author felt ________ when he shot the elephant.

John was very upset because he was ________ by the police with breaking the law.

In our daily life，everyone fails every now and then. It is how you ________ that makes a difference.