Once when I was six years old I saw an amazing picture in a book called True Stories from Nature about the forest. It was a picture of a snake in the act of swallowing an animal. In the book it said: "Snakes swallow the whole animal without chewing(嚼)it. After that they are not able to move and they sleep through the six months that they need for digestion(消化)."
I thought deeply then over the adventures of the forest. And after some work with a colored pencil I succeeded in making my first drawing. My Drawing Number One. I showed my work to the grown-ups and asked them whether the drawing frightened them. But they answered: "Frighten? Why should anyone be frightened by a hat?"
My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a snake digesting an elephant. But since the grown-ups were not able to understand it, I made another drawing. I drew the inside of the snake so that the grown-ups could see it clearly. They always need to have things explained. That's my Drawing Number Two.
The grown-ups' answer this time was to advise me to lay aside my drawings of snakes whether from the inside or the outside and devote myself instead to geography, history, maths and grammar. That is why at the age of six I gave up what might have been a great painter. I had been discouraged by the failure of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Number Two. Grown-ups never understand simple things by themselves and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
So then I chose another profession(职业)and learned to pilot airplanes. I have flown a little over all parts of the world; and it is true that geography has been very good for me. I can tell China from Arizona easily. If one gets lost in the night, such knowledge is valuable.
In my life I have had lots of chances to meet with a great many people. And that hasn't much improved my opinion of them. Whenever I met one of them who seemed to me at all clear-sighted, I tried showing him my Drawing Number One which 1have always kept. I would try to find out if this was a person of true understanding. But whoever it was, he or she would always say: That is a hat. Then I would never talk to that person about snakes or forests or stars. I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him about golf and politics and neckties. And the grown-up would be greatly pleased to have met such a wise man. For him I am a normal man.
1.Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage? ______
A. The writer wants to draw a hat in Drawing Number One.
B. The writer sees an elephant eaten by a snake in the forest.
C. Drawing Number Two shows the inside of the big snake.
D. The two drawings of the writer make people very scared.
2.Why do people tell the writer to study same subjects instead of drawing in Paragraph 4? ______
A. Because those subjects are more useful and helpful.
B. Because those subjects are only about simple things.
C. Because his drawings are too difficult to understand.
D. Because his drawings are not good for people at all.
3.In Paragraph 6, why does the writer always keep his Drawing Number One? ______
A. To show off his good drawing.
B. To know who truly understands life.
C. To make other people pleased.
D. To bring himself down to a low level.
4.The grown-up in the last paragraph thinks the writer is normal because the writer ______ .
A. is good at drawing
B. flies a plane all over the world
C. talks about snakes or forests or stars
D. talks about sport, politics and clothing
5.The passage is most probably taken from ______ .
A. a travel guide B. a science report
C. a news story D. a story book
Many teens make risky decisions, such as careless driving or too much drinking. Some of those choices can kill them. Teens may behave in this way because they don't know the possibility of a bad result. Or they may do it because they don't care. In fact, a new study suggests that the second choice is the more likely one.
Wouter van den Bos and Ralph Hertwig are psychologists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany. They study how people search out information and make decisions according to what they have learned and made an experiment to see if they could solve why teens behave this way. They recruited(招募)105 people, all from 8 to 22 years old. By including different ages, the researchers could test how behavior changes from childhood through to young adulthood.
All played a kind of game. Over and over, they had to choose between taking a guaranteed(确保的)prize of five euros or turning a wheel. The wheel was divided into 10 parts. Some were orange, others blue. If the wheel stopped turning on an orange part, the player won or lost money. This could be between 3 and 32 euros. But if the wheel stopped on a blue part, they got nothing. Each of them played the game 108 times.
① The flve-euro choice was a guaranteed win. It had no risk. However, players who chose to turn the wheel had anywhere from a 10- to 90- percent chance of winning - or losing money. So turning the wheel was a risky choice.
② Teens were more likely to turn the wheel, van den Bos and Hertwig found. The teens didn't care about the lack of information on the risk they were taking. Children and adults, however, avoided those uncertain situations. Instead, they chose the guaranteed reward in the game.
③ "In the teenage years, there is a lot to explore and to learn by exploration," van den Bos says. Many experiences are new, he says, and teens don't know how they will turn out. "Many of situations are not dangerous and are helpful in becoming an independent adult. So in general, this seems to be good for them," he says.
④ But, he warns, it's also good to consider whether a behavior may have very harmful results. Where that's the case, he points out, teens should stop to think before they act.
The results are exciting, says Valerie Reyna. A psychologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., she was not involved with the new work. "The most important part of this research is the careful use of lab tasks that separate exploring the unknown from taking risks," she says.
1.According to the passage, teens prefer to behave in a risky way because ______ .
A. they don't care much about the result
B. they don't know the possible result
C. they try to avoid uncertain situations
D. they care about the guaranteed prize
2.Which of the following is TRUE about the experiment? ______
A. It studies how people search out information and make risky decisions.
B. Valerie Reyna was excited because she took part in the experiment.
C. People of different ages were included to see how behavior changes.
D. Teens were able to win money when wheels stopped on orange parts.
3.The researchers think that teens' choices ______ .
A. are too risky
B. have both good and bad sides
C. do them good
D. have no effect on their life
4.The sentence "Teenagers' risk-taking behavior is meaningful." should be best placed in ______ .
A. ① B. ②
C. ③ D. ④
Germans have a word wanderlust which translated into English would be ‘the desire to wander'. Nowadays the chance to travel is endless. Thanks to cheap air tickets, travelling abroad is very easy and sometimes it's even cheaper to fly out of the country than to travel within your own. So, yes, travelling is cheap but there have to be other reasons to travel and you've right, there are plenty!
I have always had this feeling of wanderlust. It started from me wanting to explore my local woods at the back of my garden as a young girl and as I have grown, so has my sense of adventure. And I found my local woods being replaced with the Brazil wetland, Pantanal, where I went last summer in search of jaguars, snakes and crocodiles. The thing with travelling is it's always different. Even if you went to the same country, to the same town and stayed in the exact same hotel it would be a completely different experience. The people you meet will be different, and they will tell you their own travelling stories: stories of holiday romance, holiday worries and stories that seem so outrageous that you can hardly believe them until something similar happens to you.
Or maybe the difference is you? Maybe you have changed since last time you were there? And that's the thing with travelling - it changes you. When you travel you are forced to experience a new culture. Whether it's eating guinea pig, or staying with a family where neither of you speak a common language and you have to communicate through hand actions and smiles, the experience gives me itchy feet to do it all again. And although wanderlust is a German word, the English idiom "to have itchy feet" has a similar idea. Someone who has itchy feet needs to leave or travel. This desire to explore is found not only in language but in us.
1.According to Paragraph 2, what is the most important part of travelling? ______
A. You can have different experiences.
B. You can hear many travelling stories.
C. You will experience holiday romance.
D. You are able to take more adventures.
2.The underlined word "outrageous" in Paragraph 2 probably means ______ .
A. interesting B. surprising
C. moving D. disappointing
3.What does the underlined word "it" in Paragraph 3 refer to? ______
A. Staying with a family without common languages.
B. Communicating through hand actions and smiles.
C. Eating guinea pig with a family.
D. Experiencing a different culture.
4.The writer wrote the passage in order to ______ .
A. give various reasons for travelling
B. encourage people to travel abroad
C. explain the German word "wanderlust"
D. share the writer's travelling experiences
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1.Which of the following is NOT the reason for choosing a Cambridge English exam? ______
A. Enjoy new experiences. B. Study at any university.
C. Show your English abilities. D. Take part in student life.
2.What information about the exams can you get from the passage? ______
A. The exams are given all year irregularly.
B. The exams are accepted by all institutions.
C. 2,800 preparation centres can be chosen from.
D. Some learning resources are free for the learners.
-When he is invited to a party, he is always making trouble or upsetting others.
-Just as people who know him say,______.
A. he is really the top dog B. he is always pulling our leg
C. he is always a wet blanket D. he really has green fingers
Jack Ma insisted that there______no excellent businessmen if everything went too smoothly and that they______as normal in face of hardships.
A. were; would carry on B. would be; carry on
C. would be; carried on D. should be; carried on