Most of the time, the ground feels solid beneath our feet. That's comforting. But it's also misleading because there's actually a lot going on underground. Masses of land (called plates) slip, slide, and bump against each other, slowly changing the shape of continents and oceans over millions and billions of years.
Scientists know that Earth formed about 4. 5 billion years ago. They also know that our planet was hot at first. As it cooled, its outermost layer, called the crust （地壳), eventually formed moving plates. Exactly when this shift happened, however, is an open question.
Now, an international group of researchers has an answer. They've found new evidence suggesting that Earth's crust started shifting at least 3.8 billion years ago. The new estimate is l. 3 billion years earlier than previous ones.
Not long before 3. 8 billion years ago, lots of small planets were hitting Earth, keeping its crust in a hot, melting state. After the hard crust formed, much of it sank at various times into the planet's hot insides. There, it melted before returning to the surface.
In some places, however, the crust never sank. One of the oldest such places is in Greenland, in an area called the Isua supracrustal (上地壳) belt. The rocky crust there is between 3. 7 and 3. 8 billion years old. The belt was once part of the seafloor, but now it is exposed to air.
The researchers recently took a close look at the Isua supracrustal belt. They noticed long, parallel cracks（裂缝）in the rock that have been filled in with a type of volcanic rock.
To explain this structure, the scientists propose that tension in the crust caused the seafloor to crack open long ago. Hot, liquid rock oozed from deep inside Earth to fill the cracks. Finally, the whole area cooled, forming what we see today.
That explanation, plus chemical clues inside the rock, suggests that the Isua supracrustal belt was once part of plate under the ocean, beginning around 3.8 billion years ago.
“It's a fantastic case of solving a jigsaw puzzle（拼图）,”says one of the researchers. He notes that the puzzle was “a very difficult one because these rocks are all very old and have been badly ruined".
1.The underlined phrase “oozed from" in Paragraph 7 is closest in meaning to________.
A. filled up gradually
B. washed away quickly
C. flew out of slowly
D. broke through suddenly
2.What can we infer from the text?
A. The shapes of continents and oceans changed slowly.
B. The Earth's crust started shifting l.3 billion years ago.
C. The crust began to shift when the Earth was hot.
D. The hit from small planets made the Earth cool.
3.What do scientists know about the past of the Isua supracrustal belt?
A. It was once covered by hot, liquid rock.
B. It remained under the deep sea.
C. It stayed hot and sinking.
D. It kept moving slowly.
4.The text is mainly about________.
A. why the Earth cooled
B. how the Isua supracrustal belt formed
C. whether the ground beneath our feet is still
D. when Earth's crust began shifting
It is a familiar scene these days: employees taking newly laid-off co-workers out for a drink for comfort. But which side deserves sympathy more, the jobless or the still employed? On March 6, researchers at a conference at the University of Cambridge heard data suggesting it's the latter.
Brendan Burchell, a Cambridge sociologist, presented his analysis based on various surveys conducted across Europe. The data suggest that employed people who feel insecure in their jobs show similar levels of anxiety and depression as those who are unemployed. Although a newly jobless person's mental health may“bottom out" after about six months, and then even begin to improve, the mental state of people who are continuously worried about losing their job “just continues to get worse and worse", Burchell says.
Evolutionary psychologists support this theory by arguing that human beings feel more stress during times of insecurity because they sense an immediate but invisible threat. Patients have been known to experience higher levels of anxiety,for example, while waiting for examination results than knowing what they are suffering from-even if the result is cancer. It's better to get the bad news and start doing something about it rather than wait with anxiety. When the uncertainty continues, people stay in a nonstop “fight or flight" response, which leads to damaging stress.
But not every employee in insecure industries has such a discouraging view,Burchell says. In general, women get on better. While reporting higher levels of anxiety than men when directly questioned, women scored lower in stress on the GHQ 12, even when they had a job they felt insecure about losing. As Burchell explains, “For women, most studies show that any job-it doesn't matter
whether it is secure or insecure-gives psychological improvement over unemployment. " Burchell supposes that the difference in men is that they tend to feel pressure not only to be employed, but also to be the primary breadwinner, and that more of a man's self-worth depends on his job.
1.Why do researchers think the still employed deserve sympathy more?
A. They have to do more work since then.
B. They have no chance to find better jobs.
C. They have to work with inexperienced workers.
D. They constantly worry about losing their jobs.
2.What is most likely to cause a “fight or flight" response?
A. Not having a paid job.
B. Fierce competition for jobs.
C. Not knowing what will happen.
D. Pressure to work longer hours.
3.What will the writer talk about following the last paragraph?
A. Advice on preparing a job interview.
B. Advice to those in insecure industries.
C. Some knowledge of psychology.
D. Difference in men and women.
4. What could be the best title for the text?
A. Is it less stressful to get laid off than stay on?
B. Should greater sympathy be given to the jobless?
C. Do employees bear more stress than ever before?
D. Do men or women show higher levels of anxiety?
Tayka Hotel de Sal
Where: Tahua, Bolivia
How much: About $ 95 a night
Why it's cool: You've stayed at hotels made of brick or wood, but salt? That's something few can claim. Tayka Hotel de Sal is made totally of salt-including the beds (though you'll sleep on regular mattresses and blankets). The hotel sits on the Salar de Uyuni, a prehistoric dried-up lake which is the world's biggest salt flat. Builders use the salt from the 4,633-square-mile flat to make the bricks, and glue them together with a paste (糊) of wet salt that hardens when it dries.
When rain starts to dissolve the hotel, the owners just mix up more salt paste to strengthen the bricks.
Green Magic Nature Resort
Where: Vythiri, India
How much: About $ 240 a night
Why it's cool: Taking a pulley(滑轮)-operated lift 86 feet to your treetop room is just the start of your adventure. As you look out of your open window-there is no glass! -you watch monkeys and birds in the rain forest canopy(罩篷). Later you might test your fear of heights by crossing the handmade rope bridge to the main part of the hotel, or just sit on your bamboo bed and read. You don't even have to come down for breakfast-the hotel will send it up on the pulley-drawn
“elevator" .
Dog Bark Park Inn B&B
Where: Cottonwood, Idaho
How much: $ 92 a night
Why it's cool: This doghouse isn't just for the family pet. Sweet Willy is a 30-foot-tall dog with guest rooms in his belly. Climb the wooden stairs beside his hind leg to enter the door in his side. You can relax in the main bedroom, go up a few steps of the loft(阁楼) in Willy's head, or hang out inside his nose.
Although you have a full private bathroom in your quarters, there is also a toilet in the 12-foot-tall fire hydrant(消防栓) outside.
Gamirasu Cave Hotel
Where: Ayvali, Turkey
How much: Between $ 130 and $ 450 a night
Why it's cool: This is caveman cool! Experience what it was like 5,000 years ago,when people lived in these mountain caves formed by volcanic ash. But your stay will be much more modern. Bathrooms and electricity provide what you expect from a modern hotel, and the white volcanic ash, called tufa, keeps the rooms cool in summer. (Don't worry-there is heat in winter. )
1.What do we know about Tayka Hotel de Sal?
A. It is located on a prehistoric lake.
B. It should be protected against the rain.
C. Everything in the hotel is made of salt.
D. You have to cross a rope bridge to the hotel.
2.How are the hotels similar?
A. Expensive. B. Comfortable.
C. Natural. D. Unique.
3.What do the underlined words “Sweet Willy" refer to?
A. The name of the hotel.
B. The name of the hotel owner.
C. The building of Dog Bark Park Inn B&B.
D. The name of a pet dog of the hotel owner.
4.Which of the hotels gives you a feeling of living in the far past?
A. Tayka Hotel de Sal.
B. Green Magic Nature Resort.
C. Dog Bark Park Inn B&B.
D. Gamirasu Cave Hotel.
Laws that would have ensured pupils from five to sixteen received a full financial education got lost in the “wash up". An application is calling on the next government to bring it back.
At school the children are taught to add up and subtract（减法） but, extraordinarily, are not routinely shown how to open a bank account-let alone how to manage their finances in an increasingly complex and demanding world.
Today the parenting website Mumsnet and the consumer campaigner Martin Lewis have joined forces to launch an online application to make financial education a compulsory element of the school curriculum in England. Children from five to sixteen should be taught about everything from pocket money to pensions, they say. And that was exactly the plan preserved in the children,schools and families bill that was shelved by the government in the so-called ¨wash-up" earlier this month-the rush to legislation before parliament was dismissed. Consumer and parent groups believe financial education has always been one of the most frustrating omissions of the curriculum.
As the Personal Finance Education Group (Pfeg) points out, the good habits of young children do not last long. Over 75% of seven to ll-year-olds are savers but by the time they get t0 17, over half of them are in debt to family and friends. By this age, 26% see a credit or overdraft（透支）as a way of extending their spending power. Pfeg predicts that these young people will “find it much harder to avoid the serious unexpected dangers that have been fallen many of their parents' generation unless they receive good quality financial education while at school".
The UK has been in the worst financial recession（衰退）for generations. It does seem odd that-unless parents step in-young people are left in the dark until they are cruelly introduced to the world of debt when they turn up at university. In a recent poll of over 8,000 people, 97% supported financial education in schools, while 3% said it was a job for parents.
1.The passage is mainly about
A. how to manage school lessons
B. how to deal with the financial crisis
C. teaching young people about money
D. teaching students how to study effectively
2.It can be inferred from the first two paragraphs that
A. the author complains about the school education
B. pupils should not be taught to add up and subtract
C. students have been taught to manage their finances
D. laws on financial education have been effectively carried out
3.The website and the consumer campaigner joined to
A. instruct the pupils to donate their pocket money
B. promote the connection of schools and families
C. ask the government to dismiss the parliament
D. appeal for the curriculum of financial education
书面表达
假如你是李华，你的美国网友Tom想要了解一下你所在学校的校园布局，请你根据自己的校园给他写一封e-mail，描述一下你的学校，并简单表达你对学校的情感。
注意:1.词数100左右；
2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
3.不要提及学校名称；
4.开头语和结束语已经为你写好，不计入总词数。
Dear Tom，
How I miss you! I'd like to introduce the layout of my school to you.
Best wishes!
短文改错
假定英语课上老师要求同桌之间交换修改作文，请你修改你同桌写的以下作文。文中共有 10处语言错误，每句中最多有两处，每处错误仅涉及一个单词的增加，删除或修改。
增加:在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧)，并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除:把多余的词用斜线（\)划掉。
修改：在错词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
Dear Mandy，
I'm not doing well in my lessons at school，especial in maths. My dad says I must try hard because he wants me go to university. He thinks I'm lazy，but it's not true. I work really hard，often study late into the night! I've tried to talk to my mother，but she always said I have to work as hard like my brother does. My brother doesn't study very hard，and he always gets excellent grades. It's not fair!
The only thing I like it is art. My teacher says I'm the best student she's had for year. When I told my dad，all he said was，“ You mustn’t waste your time in art. You must focus your mind on your lessons! ”
I'm feeling quite puzzling as to what to do now. Would you please help me out?
Thanks a lot!
Yours sincerely， Lisa
