Directions：Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.
There are various means consumers can do if they find that an item they bought is faulty or in some other way does not live up to the manufacturer’s claims. A simple and common method used by many consumers is to complain directly to the store manager. In general, the“higher up”his or her complaint, the faster he or she can expect it to be settled. In such a case, it is usually settled in the consumer’s favor, assuming he or she has a just claim.
Consumers should complain in person whenever possible, but if they cannot get to the place of purchase, it is acceptable to phone or write the complaint in a letter．
Complaining is usually most effective when it is done politely but firmly, and especially when the consumer can demonstrate what is wrong with the item in question. If this cannot be done, the consumer will succeed best by presenting specific information as to what is wrong, rather than by making general statements. For example,“The left speaker does not work at all and the sound coming out of the right one is unclear”is better than“This stereo does not work.”The store manager may advice the consumer to write to the manufacturer. If so, the consumer should do this, stating the complaint as politely and firmly as possible. If a polite complaint does not achieve the desired result, the consumer can go to a step further. She or he can threaten to take the seller to court or report the seller to a private or public organization responsible for protecting consumer’s rights.
Directions：Read the passage carefully. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.
A team of engineers at Harvard University has been inspired by Nature to create the first robotic fly. The mechanical fly has become a platform for a series of new high-tech integrated systems. 1. Its mini wings allow it to stay in the air and perform controlled flight tasks.
“It’s extremely important for us to think about this as a whole system and not just the sum of a bunch of individual components,” said Robert Wood, the Harvard engineering professor who has been working on the robotic fly project for over a decade. 2. “The added difficulty with a project like this is that actually none of those components are off the shelf and so we have to develop them all on our own,” he said.
They engineered a series of systems to start and drive the robotic fly. “The seemingly simple system which just moves the wings has a number of inter-dependencies on the individual components, each of which individually has to perform well, but then has to be matched well to everything it’s connected to,” said Wood. The flight device was built into a set of power, computation, sensing and control systems.
While this first robotic flyer is linked to a small, off-board power source, the goal is eventually to equip it with a built-in power source, 3. “Basically it should be able to take off, land and fly around,” he said.
Wood says the design offers a new way to study flight mechanics and control at insect-scale. 4. “You can start thinking about using them to answer open scientific questions, you know, to study biology in ways that would be difficult with the animals, but using these robots instead,”
A. Yet, the power, sensing and computation technologies on board could have much broader applications.
B. A few years ago, his team got the go-ahead to start piecing together the components.
C. There used to be few ways like this to study how insects fly.
D. There are a lot of technologies and open interesting scientific questions that are really what drives humans on a day-to-day basis.
E. Thus, it might some day perform data-gathering work at rescue sites, in farmers’ fields or on the battlefield.
F. Designed to do what a fly does naturally, the tiny machine is the size of a fat housefly.
Edgar Degas, J. M. W. Turner and other painters captured centuries of atmospheric records as they decorated canvases with sunset scenes.
Greek Scientists worked with an artist to confirm that the ratio of red to green in sunset painting, both old and new, increased when particles filled the air, such as after major volcanic eruption（火山喷发）or dust storms. The atmosphere physicists also found a gradual shift in artistic sunset hues over centuries, possibly due to ever-increasing air pollution during the Industrial Revolution.
An earlier study, led by atmospheric physicist Christos Zerefos of the Academy of Athens in Greece, discovered that the amount of red relative to green in sunset descriptions increased after eruptions, including Tambora, Indonesia in 1815, Coseguina, Nicaragua in 1835 and Krakatau, Indonesia in 1883.
Zerefos’ team analyzed 554 paintings created between 1550 and 1990. For up to three years after eruptions, sunsets reddened as sunlight bounced off dust and gas from the volcanoes. The latest study, also by Zerefos, used improved scanning and analysis techniques to confirm the earlier results.
A modern painter, Panayiotis Tetsis, unknowingly repeated the artistic atmospheric observations of classical masters. In the artists’ description of sunsets light over the Greek island of Hydra, the color ratio shifted towards red in paintings done both before（June 19,2010）and after（June 20,2010）a dust cloud from Sahara Desert filtered the sunset’s light.
Zerefos’ team connected the timing of classical paintings’ red shift to other records of the atmosphere trapped in ice cores from Greenland, in the recent study published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. The ice cores recorded spikes（尖刺）in sulfur-containing chemicals likely from volcanoes. These spikes corresponded in time to artists’ increasingly dark red sunsets.
The comparison of ice and art also revealed a slow shift in the coloring of the sunset. As the factories of Europe roared into production in the 19th and early 20th century, painting described a steady increase in the red to green ratio. The ice cores recorded a steady rise in airborne particles from industrial pollution during the same time.
1.The underlined word“hues”in the second paragraph probably means_____.
A.angles B.colors
C.locations D.times
2.What do we know about Zerefos’ research from the passage?
A.Both modern and ancient artists describing sunset are involved in the research.
B.It confirmed an obvious increase in the ratio of green to red in sunset paintings.
C.The shift from green to red also existed in the records of ice cores trapped items.
D.The team used traditional techniques to confirm the earlier results of the research.
3.How did Zerefos’ team confirm that atmospheric records kept by painters were reliable?
A.By analyzing classical paintings.
B.By connecting time to color.
C.By comparing art with ice.
D.By working with an artist.
4.Which of the following is the best title of the passage?
A.A modern research of ancient art and ice with pollution.
B.Art Masterpiece and pollutants trapped in ice cores.
C.An increase in the ratio of red to green in paintings.
D.Art Masterpiece Recorded Centuries of Pollution.
Your True Stories
On the Wing
My husband had passed tragically and unexpectedly the night before. I returned home the next morning with my sister-in-law, my emotional support. We sat in the upstairs loft, sharing stories about a man who’d left us too young. I glanced out the window and noticed a woodpecker on the roof. It appeared to be watching us. A member of a species rarely seen here, the bird sat for almost 20 minutes as we reminisced（追忆）. I affectionately named it after my late husband. It has been five years he passed, and a woodpecker continues to appear at my weakest moments.
Shannon Rozewicz
Like Son, Like Father
Caught in a sudden downpour on the last day of a bike-packing trip, I ducked（躲避）into the lobby of a nearby supermarket for cover. As I waited out the storm with my bike and gear, a teenage boy invited me to spend the night with his family, I gladly accepted, and he went to find his parents. While I waited, an older man made me the same offer. I thanked him and said I already had a place to stay. Shortly after, the boy returned with his parents. The man who had approached me was his father.
Philip Wood
Color Me Proud
When my granddaughter Bethany was four years old, she visited my home for a few days. I gave her some crays and pictures for coloring. When I looked down, I saw she had used a crayon to draw purple marks all over her legs. “Bethany, what are you doing?”I asked.“Why, Grandma,”she said,“you have such pretty purple lines up and down your legs, and I wanted mine to look just like yours.”Since them, I have worn my varicose vein（静脉曲张）with pride, and they got prettier each year.
1.From the stories, we can learn that _____.
A.The woodpecker is Shannon’s emotional support
B.Shannon has been crazy for the death of her husband
C.Purple is Granddaughter’s favorite color
D.Grandma used to be proud of her varicose vein
2.When Philip Wood says“Like Son, Like Father,”he means the father and the son _____.
A.resemble each other in many ways B.are both helpful and considerate
C.like to socialize with strangers D.are fond of accommodating strangers
3.What is the general tone of the three stories?
A.Warm and optimistic B.Sad but positive
C.Humorous and ironic D.Hopeful and idealistic
For some people,music is no fun at all. About four percent of the population is what scientists call “amusic.” People who are amusic are born without the ability to recognize or reproduce musical notes(音调). Amusic people often cannot tell the difference between two songs. Amusics can only hear the difference between two notes if they are very far apart on the musical scale.
As a result, songs sound like noise to an amusic. Many amusics compare the sound of music to pieces of metal hitting each other. Life can be hard for amusics. Their inability to enjoy music sets them apart from others. It can be difficult for other people to identify with their condition. In fact, most people cannot begin to grasp what it feels like to be amusic. Just going to a restaurant or a shopping mall can be uncomfortable or even painful. That is why many amusics intentionally stay away from places where there is music. However, this can result in withdrawal and social isolation. “I used to hate parties,” says Margaret,a seventy-year-old woman who only recently discovered that she was amusic. By studying people like Margaret, scientists are finally learning how to identify this unusual condition.
Scientists say that the brains of amusics are different from the brains of people who can appreciate music. The difference is complex, and it doesn't involve defective hearing. Amusics can understand other nonmusical sounds well. They also have no problems understanding ordinary speech. Scientists compare amusics to people who just can't see. certain colors.
Many amusics are happy when their condition is finally diagnosed(诊断). For years, Margaret felt embarrassed about her problem with music. Now she knows that she is not alone. There is a name for her condition. That makes it easier for her to explain. “When people invite me to a concert, I just say,” No thanks, I'm amusic,'“says Margaret. “I just wish I had learned to say that when I was seventeen and not seventy.”
1.Which of the following is true of amusic?
A.Listening to music is far from enjoyable for them.
B.They love places where they are likely to hear music.
C.They can easily tell two different songs apart.
D.Their situation is well understood by musicians.
2.According to Paragraph 3, a person with “defective hearing” is probably one who ___________.
A.dislikes listening to speeches
B.can hear anything nonmusical
C.has a hearing problem
D.lacks a complex hearing system
3.In the last paragraph, Margaret expressed her wish that __________.
A.her problem with music had been diagnosed earlier
B.she were seventeen years old rather than seventy
C.her problem could be easily explained
D.she were able to meet other amusics
4.What is the passage mainly concerned with?
A.Amusics' strange behaviours.
B.Some people's inability to enjoy music.
C.Musical talent and brain structure.
D.Identification and treatment of amusics.
Over the last 15 years, digital communication has ushered（引入）in more changes than the printing press did in 1570. And the stand-out early adopters in this world are teenagers, whose brains appear to have an extraordinary _____ to adapt to the world around them, according to Dr Jay Giedd, an adolescent brain expert.
We are now proving that as a species, our brains are still flexible and _____during adolescence. Having a more flexible brain means that some _____ of it, such as impulse control and the ability to make long-term decisions, haven’t developed yet, which may also explain why we spend a/an _____ period living under the protection of our parents rather than leaving home at the age of 12 or 13. This also means that the adolescent brain can adapt to new technology, allowing teenagers to _____ the accelerating pace of digital technology and giving them a multitasking advantage.
In the US, teenagers are spending 8.5 hours using computers, mobiles and other devices to learn, interact and play. This jumps to 11.5 if you take into account all of the _____ that goes on, such as talking on the phone while you’re watching TV. Australian teenagers were found to be spending an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes using these devices in 2009.
There are _____as to how social media is affecting the way in which the brain learns to _____ , as one of the most important skills that we learn as children is how to make friends and interact with people around you. Geidd says that from a biology standpoint, a lot of what goes on inside our brains is social.“A lot of the brain changes are sort of set up to develop these social skills. ” These interactions are now being _____ by technology—you could have hundreds of friends, all of whom are real people that you interact with—and scientists aren’t sure whether we’ll be able to develop the same _____using Facebook.
There is possible _____ of the growing digital trend: Youtube indicates that teenagers all over the world are watching the same clips and laughing at the same jokes, indicating that they are more _____ than their predecessors. Sharing the same jokes could possibly go a long way to breaking down some of the prejudices out there. They may be _____ to texting their friends and posting updates on Facebook, but teenagers today are probably going to have access to technology and _____ social and educational opportunities that anyone with a less flexible brain might have trouble imagining. _____, there is a cut off and by the age of 30, our brains become more set in their ways, making it harder for us to adapt and cope with new technologies.
1.A.activity B.capacity C.responsibility D.opportunity
2.A.operating B.promoting C.adjusting D.establishing
3.A.functions B.options C.restrictions D.positions
4.A.opposed B.imposed C.limited D.extended
5.A.keep up with B.come up with C.put up with D.end up with
6.A.entertaining B.multitasking C.interacting D.gossiping
7.A.curiosities B.criticisms C.concerns D.shortcomings
8.A.memorize B.internalize C.realize D.socialize
9.A.changed B.controlled C.troubled D.interrupted
10.A.attitudes B.prospects C.trends D.skills
11.A.advantage B.distraction C.indication D.tuition
12.A.narrow-minded B.global-minded C.absent-minded D.quick-minded
13.A.keen B.addicted C.obsessed D.enthusiastic
14.A.however B.hence C.moreover D.instead
15.A.Consequently B.Additionally C.Nevertheless D.Thus
