阅读理解。
Public bookshelves are appearing across Germany on street corners，city squares and in suburban supermarkets.In these freeforall libraries，people can grab whatever they want to read，and leave behind anything they want for others.There’s no need to register，no due date，and you can take or give as many as you want.“This project is aimed at everyone who likes to read.It is open for everybody，” Michael Aubermann，one of the organizers of the free book exchange said.
The western city’s latest public shelf was put up next to Bayenturm.It is the fourth free shelf that Aubermann’s group，the Cologne Citizen’s Foundation，has placed outside.“We set up our other outdoor shelves last year and it’s been working really well，” said Aubermann.The public bookshelves，which are usually financed by donations and cared for by local volunteer groups，have appeared independently of each other in many cities，suburbs and villages.Each shelf holds around 200 books and it takes about six weeks for a complete turnover，with all the old titles replaced by new ones.
Even commercial book stores and online book sellers seem to support the idea of free book exchanges.“We see this project rather as a sales promotion than as competition，” said Elmar Muether.“If books are present everywhere，it helps our business，too.”
So far，the Cologne book group has had few problems with damage or other problems.Aubermann said，“Propaganda (宣传) is the only kind of literature we do not allow here.”
At another bookshelf in the Bayenthal neighborhood，the lower shelves are reserved for children’s literature only.“It is important that we make it easy for everyone to participate in this ‘reading culture on the street’—from old readers to kids to immigrants，” Aubermann said.
While most of the shelves have so far been put up in upscale_neighborhoods，Aubermann and the 20 volunteers who help look after the project are planning to put up future shelves in poor neighborhoods，where citizens often don’t have as much access to literature.
1.Which of the following is TRUE about the public bookshelves?
A．People can take the books and leave their books at will.
B．People can’t borrow books unless they donate books.
C．People can borrow whatever they like after registering.
D．People have to return the books according to the required time.
2.According to Aubermann，the public bookshelves________.
A．are financed by local volunteers
B．have been going well since their birth
C．were managed by the local government
D．will hold more books and take a shorter turnover
3.The underlined phrase “upscale neighborhoods” refers to________.
A．communities that have many people
B．communities that have many tall buildings
C．communities that are free to live in
D．communities that are of high grade
4.Which might be the best title for the passage?
A．Public Reading Becomes Popular Worldwide
B．New Trends of Bookshelves in Germany
C．Public Bookshelves Spread Across Germany
D．Reading Culture on the Street in Europe
阅读理解。
Stressed? It is shown in recent research that walking or cycling to work calms you down (traveling by bus or train is also better than driving).
Walking to work reduces stress and improves brain power, researchers say. Adults who stopped driving the car and started walking or cycling became calmer and found it easier to concentrate. A study of 18,000 Britons found that going to work by train or bus improved their wellbeing compared with driving.
The study, published in the journal Preventive Medicine, also found that the longer people spent walking or cycling, the happier or less stressed they were. However, stress levels and inability to concentrate worsened if they spent more time in the car.
Lead researcher Adam Martin, from the University of East Anglia's Norwich Medical School, said that despite the crowds and disruption, walking to bus stops or stations and being able to relax on the journey “cheer people up”. Two thirds drive to work, 18 percent use public transport, 11 percent walk and 3 percent cycle.
A research earlier this year found that commuters (乘公共车辆往返者) had small but statistically significant lower scores on all measures of wellbeing. The worst effects were witnessed in those whose journeys last between 61 and 90 minutes. But when commuting time reaches three hours or more, the negative effects disappear, the report said.
“The effects of commuting on personal wellbeing are the greatest for anxiety and happiness, suggesting that commuting affects daytoday emotions more than overall evaluations of satisfaction with life or the sense that daily activities are worthwhile，” the report stated.
Dr Daniel Newman, from Cardiff University's Sustainable Places Research Institute, said, “This report says that many of us, who spend mornings and evenings sitting in traffic jam, already know: commuting can be a chore.”
1.What can be learned from Paragraph 1?
A.Driving for long drives people crazy.
B.Feeling stressed can be predicted.
C.Walking to work helps reduce stress.
D.Travelling by bus makes people excited.
2.Walking to work is something ________.
A.preferred by most people
B.easier to perform in daily life
C.making people more creative
D.beneficial to the sense of happiness
3.What does the underlined word “chore” probably mean?
A.Tiresome task.
B.Amazing challenge.
C.Meaningless thing.
D.Financial trouble.
4.What type of writing is this text?
A.A scientific report.
B.A transportation guide.
C.A policy announcement.
D.A new lifestyle introduction.
阅读理解
For anyone who is determined to be a fashion designer，it is not enough to have succeeded in college.The real test is whether they can survive，and become established during their early 20s，making a name for themselves in the real world where business skills can be as important as talent and creativity.
Fashion is a hard business.There is a continuous amount of stress because work is at a constant and extremely fast speed to prepare for the next season’s collections.It is extremely competitive and there is the constant need to make attractive advertisements of the latest fashion in newspapers and magazines.It also requires continual freshness because the appetite for new ideas is hard to satisfy.“We try to warn people before they come to us about how tough it is.” says Lydia Kemeny，Head of Fashion at St.Martin’s School of Art in London.“And we point out that drive and determination are absolutely necessary.”
This may seem far removed from the popular opinions of fashionable young people spending their time designing pretty dresses.That may well be what they do in their first year of study but a good college won’t be slow in introducing students to commercial realities，“We don’t walk our foot on the blossoming flower of creativity but in the second year we start introducing the restrictions of price，producing ability，marketing and so on.”
Almost all fashion design is done to a brief.It is not a form of selfexpression as such，although there is certainly room for imagination and creativity.Most young designers are going to end up as employees of a producer or a fashion house and they still need to be able to work within the characteristic style of their employer.Even those students who are most modern in their own taste of clothes may need to adapt to produce designs which are right for the mainstream of the market.They also have to be able to work at both the expensive and the cheap end of the market and the challenge to produce good design inexpensively may well be demanding.
1.Which of the following is mainly discussed in the passage?
A．Talent in fashion.
B．Good marks at college.
C．Ability to create new designs.
D．Business skills in fashion industry.
2.What can we learn from the second paragraph?
A．Fashion designers are highly motivated and really detemined.
B．Good preparations for the next season can reduce stress.
C．Consumers’ appetite for new ideas keeps changing.
D．Advertisement business is very competitive.
3.What does the underlined word “This” in Paragraph 3 refer to?
A．Lydia Kemeny’s opinion.
B．The competitive business world.
C．The warning to the young designers.
D．The real situation in fashion industry.
4.Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
A．St.Martin’s School of Art encourages the new students to design dresses they like.
B．St.Martin’s School of Art requires students to develop their creativity in their designing.
C．St.Martin’s School of Art demands students to make pretty dresses for companies.
D．St.Martin’s School of Art focuses on teaching students commercial realities.
阅读理解。
Since Henry Ford turned it into a massmarket product a century ago, the car has delivered many benefits. It has promoted economic growth, increased social mobility and given people a lot of fun. But the car has also brought many problems. It pollutes the air, creates traffic jams and kills people. An astonishing 1.24 million people die, and as many as 50 million are hurt, in road accidents each year.
Drivers and passengers waste around 90 billion hours in traffic jams each year. In some carchoked cities as much as a third of the petrol used is burned by people looking for a space to park.
Fortunately, a new technology promises to make motoring safer, less polluting and less tendency to holdups. “Connected cars” — which may eventually develop into driverless cars but for the foreseeable future will still have a human at the wheel — can communicate wirelessly with each other and with traffic management systems, avoid walkers and other vehicles and find open parking spots.
Some parts of the transformation are already in place. Many new cars are already being fitted with equipment that lets them keep their distance and stay in a motorway automatically at a range of speeds. Soon, all new cars in Europe will have to be able to warn the emergency services if their onboard sensors (传感器) discover a crash. Singapore has led the way with using variable tolls (道路通行费) to smooth traffic flows during rush hours; Britain is pioneering “smart motorways”， whose speed limits vary constantly to achieve a_similar_effect. These new inventions could create a much more highly effective system in which cars and their drivers are constantly warned of dangers and showed the ways. Traffic always flows at the proper speed and vehicles can travel closer together, yet with less risk of crashing.
In the past, more people driving meant more roads, more jams, more death and more pollution. In future, the connected car could offer mankind the pleasures of the road with rather less of the pain.
1.According to Paragraph 2, the problem of parking has resulted in ________.
A.more time on the road
B.a great waste of fuel
C.even heavier traffic jams
D.increased death and injuries
2.What does “a similar effect” in Paragraph 4 refer to?
A.Reducing traffic jams.
B.Building smart motorways.
C.Setting proper speed limits.
D.Keeping steady traffic flows.
3.What is the author's attitude towards connected cars?
A.Curious. B.Doubtful.
C.Supportive. D.Disappointed.
4.Which of the following can be the best title of the text?
A.The Future of Cars: Wireless Wheels
B.The Future Traffic Management System
C.The Benefits and Problems of Cars
D.The Promising Future of Car Production
阅读理解。
Walk down the drinks section at the supermarket.Look in the drink cooler in your local convenience store.A new drink is taking up more and more space on the shelves，and that drink is water.Bottled water sales in the US rose to 1.7 billion gallons in 2010 for plastic bottles alone，compared to total sales of only 700 million gallons in 1990. Whereas bottled water was once associated only with the rich and the privileged (特权阶层)，it is now regularly drunk by people at all income levels despite the fact that the price of bottled water can be between 240 and 10,000 times higher per gallon than tap water.What accounts for this surprising increase in demand?
Traditionally，people have drunk bottled water for health reasons.The practice of “taking the waters” originated with the Romans，who believed that a person developed a healthy mind by building a healthy body.Across Europe，drinking or bathing in mineral water has been associated with the power to cure various diseases.Health spas at Evian in France and Pellegrino in Italy began bottling water so that their consumers could continue their treatments at home.The consumers in the 21st century are also concerned about health.However，in America，where the habit of drinking bottled water is relatively new，the concern is often more related to the purity or sterilization (消毒) of the water than to its mineral contents.Americans are often worried about the effects of the chemical pollution and other contaminants on the water supply.Many Americans view bottled water as a safe alternative to tap water.
Further reasons for drinking bottled water are its usefulness as an aid to digestion，as a complement to a good meal in a restaurant，and for taste.City tap water is often treated with chlorine (氯) to guard against harmful microorganisms.Chlorine，as well as metals from pipes and tanks used to distribute and store tap water，can leave behind an unpleasant taste.
1.Which of the following statements is true?
A．Bottled water was once drunk both by the rich and the poor.
B．Bottled water sales have risen，for it’s cheaper than tap water.
C．Europeans believed in the power of treatment of mineral water.
D．Americans have had the habit of drinking bottled water for long.
2.People prefer bottled water because________.
A．it does good to their health
B．it has chlorine to make it taste good
C．it contains no mineral pollution at all
D．it’s a practice originated with the Romans
3.The underlined word “contaminants” most probably means________.
A．pollutants B．microorganisms
C．chemicals D．minerals
4.Which of the following could be the best title for the passage?
A．How Bottled Water Originated
B．“Taking the Waters” Has Been Practiced for Long
C．What’s the Safe Alternative to Tap Water
D．Why Bottled Water Sales Increase
阅读理解。
Many of us still tend to think that emotions can affect reasonable thought，and sometimes land us in trouble. But in recent years psychologists have taken quite a different view. Keith Oatley，Professor of Psychology at Glasgow University，is involved in the research which shows the fundamental importance of emotions.
He believes we are very ambivalent about them：we think of our emotions as being unreasonable，but we also consider them as essential to being human.For example，Mr Spock，a character in the television series Star Trek，is superintelligent and he has no emotions at all.However，he is never made captain of the spaceship.Maybe，this is because Mr Spock is not the kind of person you can share your feelings with—a person who shows his emotions.
As Professor Oatley points out，our emotions have very important functions，for example，fear.If we cross the road and a car approaches，we usually stop moving or step back.We stop what we are doing，check what we have done and pay very careful attention to the environment.The emotion of fear makes us take this small series of actions which，on average，help preserve our safety.
On the other hand，if things are going well and small problems come up，we find we can solve them with the resources we have to hand.As a consequence，we tend to feel happy and usually continue doing the job.
Anger is an emotion that tends to occur when someone is preventing us from doing something.Then this small “kit” of reactions enables us to prepare ourselves to be quite aggressive to that person，or to try harder，and so on.
Professor Oatley believes emotions generally occur at these important moments in actions.With fear and anger our emotions make us decide to start doing something else，while with happiness they “suggest” we continue what we are already doing.
1.What’s Keith Oatley’s opinion about emotions?
A．They affect reasonable thought.
B．They get us into trouble.
C．They are helpful to us.
D．They are reasonable.
2.What does the underlined part “we are very ambivalent about them” in Paragraph 2 mean?
A．We have contradictory feelings towards emotions.
B．We have similar ideas of emotions.
C．We are quite clear about emotions.
D．We can do nothing about emotions.
3.Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage?
A．Fear helps us to be careful about our surroundings.
B．Happiness inspires us to continue what we are doing.
C．Anger may urge us to make greater efforts.
D．Anger tends to do us more harm than good.
4.It can be inferred from the passage that________.
A．we must control our emotions in daily life
B．emotions play a more important part than we realize
C．positive emotions such as love and joy are good for us
D．negative emotions make us continue what we are doing
