No matter how long your life, you will, at best, be able to read only a few books of all that have been written, and the few you do read should include the best. You can rejoice in the fact that the number of such is relatively small.
________________ Yet there is a surprising uniformity in the lists which represent the best choices of any period. In every age, the list makers include both ancient and modern books in their selections, and they always wonder whether the moderns are up to the great books of the past.
What are the signs by which we may recognize a great book? The four I will mention may not be all they are, but they are the ones I’ve found most useful in explaining my choices over the years.
Great books are probably the most widely read. They are not best sellers for a year or two. They are enduring best sellers. GONE WITH THE WIND has had relatively few readers compared to the plays of Shakespeare or DON QUIXOTE. It would be reasonable to estimate that Homer’s Iliad（伊丽亚特）has been read by at least 25,000,000 people in the last 3000 years.
Great books are popular, not pedantic. They are not written by specialists about specialties for specialists. Whether they are philosophy or science, or history or poetry, they treat of human, not academic problems. They are written for men, not professors. To read a textbook for advanced students, you have to read an elementary textbook first. But the great books can be considered elementary in the sense that they treat the elements of any subject matter. They are not related to one another as a series of textbooks, graded in difficulty or in the technicality of the problems with which they deal.
Great books are always contemporary, the most readable and instructive.
Great books deal with the persistently unsolved problems of human life. There are genuine mysteries in the world that mark the limits of human knowing and thinking. Inquiry not only begins with wonder, but usually ends with it also. Great minds acknowledge mysteries honestly. Wisdom is fortified, not destroyed, by understanding its limitations.
1.Which of the following can be put in the blank in the second paragraph?
A.Great books deal with the persistently unsolved problems of human life.
B.It is to be expected that the selections will change with the times.
C.The listing of the best books is as old as reading and writing.
D.The fundamental human problems remain the same in all ages.
2.According to the author, Gone With The Wind is ________.
A.a best seller B.disgusted by readers who like Shakespeare
C.read more often than Don Quixote
D.a great book
3.In the passage “pedantic” means ________.
A.showing the feelings, esp, those of kindness, which people are supposed to have
B.serving as practical examples
C.being elementary
D.paying too much attention to details in books
4.The best title for this passage is ________.
A.Great Books in Your Life B.Great Books in Your Speciality
C.How to Find a Great Book? D.What Is a Great Book?
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has declared October 15 as Global Handwashing Day in 2005．The first Global Handwashing Day is on October 15 of 2008.Activities are planned over twenty countries to get millions of people in the developing world to wash their hands with soap. Global Handwashing Day is the idea of the Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing with Soap. Partners include the UN Children's Fund, American government agencies, the World Bank and soap makers Unilever and Procter and Gamble. The goal is to create a culture of hand washing with soap.
Hand washing can prevent the spread of disease. Experts say people around the world wash their hands but very few use soap at so-called critical moments. These include after using the toilet, after cleaning a baby and before touching food.
When people get germs on their hands, they can infect themselves by touching their eyes, nose or mouth. Then they can infect others.
The organizers say all soaps are equally effective at removing disease-causing germs. The correct way to wash is to wet your hands with a small amount of water and cover them with soap. Rub it into all areas, including under the fingernails. Rub for at least twenty seconds.Then, rinse well under running water. Finally, dry your hands with a clean cloth or wave them in the air. Soap is important because it increases the time that people spend washing. It also helps to break up the grease and dirt that hold most of the germs.And it usually leaves a pleasant smell,which increases the likelihood that people will wash again.
Washing with soap before eating and after using the toilet could save more lives than any medicine. It could help reduce cases of diarrhea(痢疾) by almost half. And it could reduce deaths from pneumonia and other breathing infections by one-fourth. Diarrhea is the second leading cause of child deaths, killing more than one and a half million children a year. Pneumonia is the leading cause, killing about two million children under five each year. Hand washing can also prevent the spread of other diseases.
1.We can learn from Paragraph 1 that _______.
A.the first Global Handwashing Day was held in 2005
B.many originations support the idea of Global Handwashing Day
C.Global Handwashing Day was founded by many soap makers
D.the content of Global Handwashing Day is to wash your hand frequently
2.The underlined phrase “critical moments” in Paragraph 2 refers to _______.
A.the turning points
B.schedules
C.the arrangement of a time
D.the necessary parts in health
3.The main purpose of the story is to tell us ________.
A.hand washing is very important
B.to create a culture of hand washing with soap
C.germs can infect ourselves and others
D.soaps play an important role in everyday life
4.The last paragraph implies that ___________.
A.a soap is a kind of medicine to prevent a disease
B.it is important for children to wash hands in a correct way
C.Pneumonia kills about two million children each year
D.Diarrhea is the second leading cause of child deaths.
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 lift, being on the go from morning till night, it is hard to slow down. But relaxation is essential for a healthy mind and body.
Stress is a natural part of everyday life and there is no way to avoid it. In fact, it is not the bad thing it is often supposed 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 poor performance and ill health.
The amount of stress a person can withstand depends very much on the individual. Some people are not afraid of stress, and such characters are obviously prime material for managerial responsibilities. Others lose heart at the first signs of unusual difficulties. When exposed to stress, in whatever form, we react both chemically and physically. In fact we make choice between "fight" or "flight" and in more primitive days the choice made the difference between life or death. The crises we meet today are unlikely to be so extreme, but however little the stress is, it involves the same response. It is when such a reaction lasts long, through continued exposure to stress, that health becomes endangered. Such serious conditions as high blood pressure and heart disease have established links with stress. Since we cannot remove stress from our lives (it would be unwise to do so even if we could), we need to find ways to deal with it.
1.People are finding less and less time for relaxing themselves because_____.
A.they do not know how to enjoy themselves
B.they do not believe that relaxation is important for health
C.they are travelling fast all the time
D.they are becoming busier with their work
2.According to the writer, the most important character for a good manager is his ________.
A.not fearing stress B.knowing the art of relaxation
C.high sense of responsibility D.having control over performance
3.Which of the following statements is true?
A.We can find some ways to avoid stress.
B.Stress is always harmful to people.
C.It is easy to change the habit of keeping oneself busy with work.
D.Different people can withstand different amounts of stress.
4.In the last sentence of the passage, "do so " refers to ______.
A."expose ourselves to stress"
B."find ways to deal with stress"
C."remove stress from our lives"
D."established links between diseases and stress"
阅读下面短文，从短文后各题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
It was so cold that I couldn’t feel my legs. There was going to be a racing contest that night so I was 1my horse, Skippy, up. I was simply running laps around the ring. The 2cold air had been blowing past me, freezing my limbs, but every second I 3it. You could hear the faint 4of the people up at the clubhouse eating their dinner. My parents were also there, not knowing that my little sister had slowly wandered her way down to the ring. It was 5because there was no moon or stars. Nobody else was in the ring at the time. I was really enjoying the 6and I was able to 7what Skippy was doing. As I took my last lap it 8. Everything rapidly slowed down as I saw my little sister step 9the ring. I saw true fear on her face because she knew she wouldn’t be 10to move out of the way fast enough. She knew that she was going to get hit.
She tried to 11but nothing came out of her fear-dried throat. When my horse got to her, he was still in a full out run. 12, miraculously(奇迹般地), he slid so hard on his back feet that he 13. It really made the 14seem absolutely unreal. I thought that maybe I was 15. I had 16in my mind that I wasn’t seeing what was happening. I knew I had hit my sister. There was no way I could have 17her. My horse was rising straight up and while he was in the air I couldn’t breathe. It’s like I forgot 18. As all of this happened I watched my sister’s face transform (变形) through many different 19: terror, confusion, curiosity, and then a sort of relief. Then she was laughing.
As I held my sister into my arms, Skippy stood right behind me knowing that I actually owed him my life 20he saved my sister’s.
1.A. picking B. warming C. catching D. setting
2.A. bitterly B. hardly C. gently D. perfectly
3.A. challenged B. witnessed C. enjoyed D. hated
4.A. ceremony B. tradition C. victory D. laughter
5.A. windy B. bright C. dark D. cloudy
6.A. quiet B. quality C. impression D.significance
7.A. rely on B. focus on C. insist on D. put on
8.A. let out B. held on C. participated in D.took place
9.A. close to B. out of C. into D. towards
10.A. able B. frightened C. content D. proud
11.A. evaluate B. worry C. scream D. escape
12.A. Accidentally B. Normally C. Generally D. Somehow
13.A. sped up B. rose up C. broke down D. wore out
14.A. moment B. contest C. comment D.technique
15.A. advancing B. breathing C. concluding D. dreaming
16.A. that B. none C. neither D. it
17.A. hit B. recognized C. missed D. acknowledged
18.A. how B. what C. when D. why
19.A. actions B. emotions C. attitudes D. thoughts
20.A. if B. because C. as if D. so that
______ almost all our time to our schoolwork in the past three months, we have almost no time for fun and play.
A.Having devoted B.Devoted
C.To devote D.To have been devoted
He tried to persuade his friends to travel with him, so he traveled alone．
A.in store B.in vain C.in turn D.in trouble
