America is well known for being a melting pot of different ethnic groups and cultures, but nowhere is this diversity more pronounced than in Queens, New York.
Here, second-generation Puerto Ricans live alongside third-generation Greeks and first-generation Koreans, all united by a common feeling of pride in their American identity. However, they are also proud and curious about their ancestral roots. National Geographic’s Genographic Project, also known as the Human Family Tree, set out to trace the origins by examining their genetic makeup using a simple DNA test. What interested them more was something that intrigues us all: the history of our recent ancestry. One recurring theme among immigrants seems to be the hard work and sacrifices that went into building a new life, and how their descendants now feel a duty to honor that effort by working hard too. Here is one Queens resident’s story.
Richard, 38
My great-grandfather Tomas came to America from Poland when he was fifteen. His mother had died, and his father remarried. Tomas didn’t like his stepmother, so he ran away to Belgium, where he boarded a ship to America—without a ticket. Arriving in America with nothing, he got a job on the railroads in California. Then one day he saw an announcement in a newspaper that was read by immigrants. It was from his brother in New York who was also seeking his fortune in America and was looking for him. Tomas got in touch and they had an emotional reunion in New York, where Tomas subsequently settled. This is the story that my grandmother has passed down to us, to my parents, and all my aunts and uncles. She is an amazing woman and I suppose: the one who holds us all together. She’s actually quite forgetful now, but she never forgets family details. What that has meant is that all of us have a strong family bond and a strong sense of belonging to a group that has struggled and fought together to steered here.
1.What is special about Queens?
A.Conflicting ethnic minorities live here.
B.Many foreigners like to travel to this place.
C.The pronunciation varies from person to person.
D.Many different people and cultures are gathering here.
2.What does the “one recurring theme” in paragraph 2 refer to?
A.A sad experience. B.A common subject.
C.An unknown topic. D.An unusual quality.
3.Which of the following can best describe Tomas?
A.Brave and independent. B.Tough and honest.
C.Talented and persistent. D.Kind and hard-working.
4.What can we know about the immigrants from the text?
A.They are ashamed of their roots.
B.They feel attached to their family.
C.They can’t fit in with the new surroundings.
D.They are less interested in recent generations.
At one time or another in your life you have probably done origami, even if it was just making a paper airplane or something more complicated like a paper crane. The chances are that as you did it, you reflected on how inventive this traditional art is. Animals, boxes, flowers, boats: it all can be created from a single square or rectangular sheet of paper simply by folding it. No cutting, no pasting.
But did you ever stop to think how the same techniques might be applied to engineering? Equipment that could be of real practical use? Origami meets the demand for things that need to be small when transported and large when they arrive, like the everyday umbrella. In fact, origami-inspired creations have already flown in space; in 1995, Japanese engineers launched a satellite with solar panels that folded like a map.
“It’s now mathematically proven that you can pretty much fold anything,” says physicist Robert J. Lang, who quit his engineering job eight years ago to fold things full time. Lang, an origami enthusiast since age six, advised a advised well-known ear manufacturer the best way to fold an airbag into a dashboard. He is currently working on a space telescope lens that, if all goes according to plan, should be able to unfold to the size of a football field.
At the other end of the scale, researchers are also working on tiny folding devices that could lead to breakthroughs in medicine and computing. There’s no doubt that computers of the future may contain tiny, folded motors or capacitors for faster processing and better memory.
Applications for origami engineering go further than many of us might imagine. “Some day,” says MIT’s Erik Demaine, “we’ll build reconfigurable (可重构的) robots that can fold on their own from one thing into another, like Transformers. Too much like science fiction to be true? Maybe—though you certainly wouldn’t want to bet against it.”
1.What do we know about origami?
A.It consumes lots of time. B.It involves interesting ideas.
C.It requires complex techniques. D.It has to do with cutting and pasting.
2.Which of the following is an application of origami?
A.A space telescope lens can be folded to the size of an umbrella.
B.A satellite is equipped with solar panels and a folded map.
C.An airbag can be better folded into a dashboard of a car.
D.A future computer contains many huge folded motors.
3.What is Erik Demaine’s attitude towards origami engineering?
A.Hopeful B.Doubtful.
C.Disapproving. D.Ambiguous.
4.In which section of a newspaper may this text appear?
A.Entertainment. B.Culture.
C.Education. D.Pop-science.
Even if you’ve never been to Phoenix, you know this about the place It’s hot. From June to September, the temperature can easily surpass the century mark. But that doesn’t stop hikers from attempting the 1.3-mile hiking to the top of the city’s famed Camelback Mountain. Signs warn that the trail is “extremely difficult”. If you continue, a posted checklist suggests at least a liter of water per person. And if you’re still not stopped, another sign farther up declares: “If you’re halfway through your water, turn around!”
Unfortunately, many people to not take the warnings seriously. Fortunate y, Scott Cullymore does. The 53-year-old Cullymore can be found hiking up and down Camelback a couple of times a day, giving out cold bottles of water to worn-out hikers. He has helped hydrate so many hikers that he has earned a heavenly nickname: the Water Angel.
Cullymore was on Camelback Mountain one day in 2015 when a British tourist died after being lost for nearly six hours in the July heat. That experience inspired him to start helping people caught unaware by the cruelty of Mother Nature. “They underestimate the mountain, and they overestimate what they can do, and they get themselves in trouble.” he warned.
One hiker who was offered water agrees. “You think you know the heat, but then you get out here in the desert and it surrounds you like a blanket,” said Austin Hill, who was hiking with a high school friend. They were lucky, he said pointing to Cullymore. “We ran into this Good Samaritan here.” And with that, the Water Angel goes in search of another hiker in need.
1.What is the first paragraph mainly about?
A.The risks involved in the hiking.
B.The seriousness of the warnings.
C.The distribution of signs that warn hikers.
D.The influence of the temperature on hikers.
2.Why did some hikers on Camelback Mountain get in trouble?
A.They were not well trained in hiking.
B.They forgot to take enough water with them.
C.They were too optimistic about the situation.
D.They were not fit enough to hike the mountain.
3.What can we know about Austin Hill?
A.He agreed to help others. B.He was saved by Cullymore.
C.He hiked alone in the desert. D.He regretted taking a blanket.
4.What is the best title for the text?
A.The Camelback Mountain B.Surviving the Heat
C.Hikers in Need D.The Water Angel
Whether you are a national or an international student, we welcome you to Middletown University. Our reputation is built on providing high-quality education in both academic and vocational (职业的) subjects. As well as priding ourselves on our traditional face-to-face learning, we have recently introduced a range of distance-learning courses.
What do they cost?
Costs for our coursers vary considerably. Click on each department’s homepage for more information. Scholarships and bursaries an available for certain courses, particularly for those in the sciences and education.
SAMPLE COURSE OVERVIEW
BA in English Language and Literature
The main purpose of this course is to develop your ability to describe, analyze and manipulate features of the English language, and to see how these are expressed in literature. As well as taking core modules which cover these areas, students will be able to specialize in their fields of interest.
Duration: three-year course
Course: Choose 12 out of 20 modules.
Weekly timetable: eight hours of lectures/four hours of seminars
Assessment: essays, exams and an 8,000-word dissertation at the end of the third year
Requirements: academic experience and interest in the subject; good school-exam grades
Diploma in teaching
In the first term, you will learn about the theory of teaching and how to be an effective teacher. In the second term, you will also begin teaching in a school. The third term is completely practical.
Duration: one-year course
Course: Choose six out of ten modules (three are compulsory).
Weekly timetable: six hours of lectures/ two hours of seminars/ six hours of classroom teaching
Assessment: combination of essays and classroom observation
Requirement: first degree in specific subject area
1.What is Middletown University famous for?
A.Academic and vocational education. B.Traditional teaching methods.
C.Distance-learning courses. D.Face-to-face communication.
2.What do the two sample courses have in common?
A.They both last for three years.
B.They both require students to hand in essays.
C.They both offer total freedom to choose modules.
D.They both favor students with interest in the subject.
3.What is the main purpose of the text?
A.To advertise certain online courses.
B.To stress the need for distance learning.
C.To introduce distance-learning techniques.
D.To suggest a way of pursuing further education.
阅读下面短文，根据其内容写一篇60词左右的内容概要。
Advertising plays a major role in the competitive business world. Many industries take advantage of the power of advertising to attract or to win customers away from their business competitors. The influence of advertising is so huge that it causes many people to buy things that they don't want at the start.
Advertising encourages people to buy things they don't want through misleading ideas. Advertising is proven to be a successful tool to stress the features of their product to the public even though it's regarded undesirable such as cigarettes，drugs，alcohol and so on. For example，Dunhill，a cigarette company which sponsors many football teams，seems to be promoting cigarettes to the public. Without the sponsorship，the company will be less known to the public，resulting in fewer sales of cigarettes.
Besides that，advertising has a large influence on the decisions made by the people in their everyday life. Many businesses use advertising as a form of promoting to create awareness about their product in the market. For instance，in a fast food industry，the introduction of a new flavor of burger needs advertising to reach the public while the other burgers require advertising to increase sales. Children，especially，are easily influenced by advertisements and will have the desire to dine at fast food restaurants after that. Although fast food is bad for health，it has successfully become appealing to the public through advertising.
However, advertising plays a part in helping customers to compare a product in terms of price, quality, reliability and so on. Without advertising, it will be very difficult for customers to judge the worthiness of a product. For example, advertisements published by various companies have given the customers the opportunity to choose wisely when they are purchasing an item. Without the power of advertising, customers will be stuck to a brand which may not offer the best choice.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Angela Erdmann aged 62, who lives in Berlin, never thought that one day she would received a letter from her grandfather who had been dead for 69 years. So she felt astonished and moved
More than 100 years ago, a young German man named Richard Platz put a message into a brown beer bottle, then threw the bottle into the Baltic Sea during a nature hike, Platz, the 20-year-old son of a baker, had no way of knowing that his message would survive more than a century.
Last month, some fishermen in the Baltic Sea pulled the old beer bottle out of the water, along with their catch. Inside they found a postcard, dated 17 May 1913, from Richard Platz asking for his message to be forwarded （转交） to his address ported in The local website. The fishermen thought it was such a miracle（奇迹） that it should be handed to the addressee（收信人）, They handed it in the International Maritime Museum in Hamburg. Researchers were then able to locate his granddaughter, Angela Erdmann. She visited the museum last week and was able to hold the bottle.
"That was a pretty moving moment. Tears rolled down my cheeks," she told German news agency. Erdmann also said she never knew her mother's father. who reportedly died in 1946 when he was 54 years old. But she said the discovery of his message had inspired her to find out more about him.
Some authorities believe that— at 101 years of age-it may be the world's oldest message in a bottle.
1.Which of the following shows the right order of what happened to the message?（ ）
a. Fishermen pulled the old beer bottle out of the water.
b. The bottle was thrown into the Baltic Sea.
c. Angela Erdmann got the message.
d. The message was sent to the International Maritime Museum.
A.b, d, a, c B.c, b, d, a
C.b, a, d, c D.c, a, b, d
2.According to the passage, which of the following is WRONG?
A.Richard Platz's father was a baker.
B.Richard Platz died at age of 69.
C.Angela Erdmann was moved to tears by the message.
D.There was a postcard in the bottle.
3.We can infer from the passage that the fishermen and the researchers in the museum were very_______.
A.warm-hearted B.hard-working
C.selfless D.brave
4.Which of the following can be the best title for the text?
A.The Story of a Fisherman and His Granddaughter
B."World's Oldest Message" in a Bottle Arrived Home
C.How to Make a Message in the Bottle
D.A Message Can Last a Long Time
