The Docklands Light Railway(DLR) took just three years to build at a cost of ￡77 million. It is London’s first Light Rail System, but its route follows that of a number of older lines, which carried the nineteenth century railways through the crowded districts of the East End.
The section of the line from the Tower Gateway Station to Poplar follows the line of one of London’s earliest railways, the London & Blackwell(1840), a cable-drawn railway(later converted to steam) which carried passengers to steam ships at Blackwell Pier, and provided transport for the messengers and clerks who went backwards and forwards between the docks and the city every day.
From Poplar to Island Gardens, a new line crosses high above the dock waters, and then joins the old track of the Millwall Extension Railway, built to service the Millwall Docks(1868) and to provide transport for workers in the local factories. This line was horse-drawn for part of its route, until the 1880s.
The Poplar to Stratford section of the DLR route was first developed by the North London Railway, built in the 1850s to link the West and East India Docks with the manufacturing districts of the Midlands and North of England. There were major railway works and sidings(岔线) at Bow until recently.
The trains are automatically controlled from a central computer, which deals with all signaling and other safety factors, as well as adjusting speeds to keep within the timetable; on board each vehicle, Train Captains, who are also fully qualified drivers, are equipped with two-way radios to maintain contact with central control. There are passenger lifts, and self-service ticket machines, at every station.
1.The history of the railway tells us that the DLR ______.
A.was begun in the nineteen century
B.follows some of the original line
C.will be finished in three years’ time
D.took three years longer than expected to complete
2.It appears that the Poplar to Stratford section of the DLR route was originally developed to ____.
A.make the transport of goods easier B.encourage trade abroad
C.promote the transport in England D.create employment at home
3.The trains on the DLR are controlled by ______.
A.drivers on the trains themselves B.two-way radios operated by the drivers
C.a computer on board the train D.a computer based elsewhere
难度: 简单查看答案及解析
California’s attack on second-hand smoke reached its historic high this New Year, when even indoor areas in bars and casinos became smoke-free by force of law. The rules on smoke exposure have taken a 180-degree turn in less than a generation. In the United States of my youth, every citizen was hostage(人质)to other people’s cigarettes in airplanes, in offices and in almost every other public place. Now the indoor areas of public life are all nonsmoking zones — an inconvenience for the 25% of adults who smoke, but a benefit of large proportions to the breathing system of the 75% who do not.
In the cold and flu, the greatest risk of appearing in public is not tobacco smoke, but rather contagious(接触传染的)disease. And strangers who would not dream of blowing smoke in your face seem happy enough about coughing and sneezing whenever they see you coming.
Isn’t there a double standard here, when the same folks prohibited from smoking in my office building can sneeze me home for a week of hell with the ruling bacterium of the season? Why don’t the contagious among us stay home or wear those cut little paper nose and mouth covers or at least feel bad about putting the rest of us at risk of sharing their misery?
Could it be that the similarity passing a law that requires germ-free public spaces. But two smaller lessons do come from the contrasting treatment of germs and cigarettes. The first lesson is that what we accept in public is much more a matter of particular social expectation than scientific studies. The French read scientific journals just as diligently as do Americans, yet the average French cafe contains more smoke than a forest fire. You are more likely to encounter a face full of tobacco smoke if you go to Japan this year than you would in Los Aneles. But you will also notice hundreds of people on the subway in Japan who wear paper mask to avoid spreading contagious disease that they carry. Which culture is more considerate depends on the particular subject of the inquiry. The standard for what is polite in public varies tremendously from one social setting to another.
1.The first paragraph tells us ________.
A.the rules on smoke exposure have become less strict
B.in the past people exposed to other people’s cigarettes complained a lot
C.in California, smoke-free zones in public places have existed for a long time
D.most people can benefit from banning indoor smoking in public places
2.What can be inferred from the passage?
A.People think coughing and sneezing are less harmful than smoking in public.
B.Sick people should live alone and stay home wearing paper masks all winter.
C.Strangers will feel bad when they cough and sneeze in front of other people.
D.Those with contagious diseases feel bad sharing their misery with others.
3.The tone of the passage is best described as ______.
A.encouraging B.worrying
C.carefree D.suspicious
4.What does the author want to express in this passage?
A.Learn from Japan. B.Don’t smoke indoors.
C.Pay attention to environmental germs. D.Stay home all winter.
难度: 困难查看答案及解析
Google “information overload” and you are immediately overloaded with information: more than 7m hits in 0.05 seconds. Some of this information is interesting: for example, the phrase “information overload” was popularised by Alvin Toffler in 1970. Some of it is mere noise: obscure companies promoting their services and even more obscure bloggers sounding off. The overall impression is at once overwhelming and confusing.
“Information overload” is one of the biggest irritations in modern life. There are e-mails to answer, YouTube videos to watch and, back in the physical world, meetings to attend and papers to shuffle(翻动). A survey by Reuters once found that two-thirds of managers believe that the data deluge(泛滥) had made their jobs less satisfying or hurt their personal relationships. One-third thought that it had damaged their health. Another survey suggests that most managers think most of the information they receive is useless.
Some researchers raise three big worries. First, information overload can make people feel anxious and powerless: scientists have discovered that multitaskers produce more stress hormones. Second, overload can discourage creativity. Teresa Amabile of Harvard Business School has spent more than a decade studying the work habits of 238 people. She finds that focus and creativity are connected. People are more likely to be creative if they are allowed to focus on something for some time without interruptions. If constantly interrupted or forced to attend meetings, they are less likely to be creative. Third, overload can also make workers less productive. David Meyer of the University of Michigan has shown that people who complete certain tasks in parallel take much longer and make many more errors than people who complete the same tasks in sequence.
What can be done about information overload? One answer is technological: rely on the people who created the fog to invent filters(过滤器) that will clean it up. Xerox promises to restore “information purity” by developing better filtering and managing devices. A second answer involves willpower. Turn off your mobile phone and WiFi from time to time.
Most companies are better at giving employees access to the information superhighway than at teaching them how to drive. This is starting to change. Management consultants have spotted an opportunity. Derek Dean and Caroline Webb of McKinsey urge businesses to apply three principles to deal with data overload: find time to focus, filter out noise and forget about work when you can. Business leaders are chipping in. David Novak of Yum! Brands urges people to ask themselves whether what they are doing is constructive or a mere “activity”. Cristobal Conde of SunGard, an IT firm, preserves “thinking time” in his schedule when he cannot be disturbed. This might sound like common sense. But common sense is rare amid the cacophony(不和谐的声音) of corporate life.
1.According to the survey conducted by Reuters, most managers believe ______.
A.the data deluge does harm to their health.
B.most information they receive is of great use.
C.information overload destroys their personal relationship.
D.their jobs are satisfying thanks to the rich information on the Internet.
2.Which of the following is NOT a damaging effect of information overload?
A.Making people unproductive. B.Causing people to lack creativity.
C.Arousing people’s negative feelings. D.Leaving people bad at multitasking.
3.The technological way to deal with information overload is to ______.
A.improve the technique for filtering data B.limit the uploading of information
C.provide limited access to the Internet D.develop better search engines
4.Which of the following action may Derek Dean and Caroline Webb approve of?
A.Listening to music while working. B.Finishing several tasks at the same time.
C.Taking your mind off work occasionally. D.Avoiding using your common sense in your work.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
In my high school English class in a small Mississippi town, Miss Denman tried to insert our sleepy heads that every novel had to do one of the three things: tell something; show something; prove something. She then read us one she considered a piece of perfect writing because it achieved all the three things: The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, whose remaining stories and essays have now been published.
As Miss Denman began reading — “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full summer day; the flowers were blossoming(开花)freely and the grass was richly green” — we were calmed into “the square between the post office and the bank” of a small American town, where all 300 citizens are met. They’ve come to draw lots(抽签)for the lottery of each year that ends before noon. The person holding the paper with a black mark is then led to a clearing and stoned to death by all the town’s citizens.
When The Lottery first appeared in The New Yorker in 1948, the magazine was flooded with letters from angry readers demanding to know what it was about. Unlike those confused The New Yorker readers, Miss Denman’s students weren’t confused by a story in which foolish violence was passed down through the generations. Ours was a Gothic world and Shirley Jackson seemed to our ears like Flannery O’Connor without the Georgia accent.
Forty years passed before I read anything else by Shirley Jackson. Then I happened upon her final novel — We Have Always Lived in the Castle, published in 1962, three years before her death in 1965 — a true excellent work whose young main female character, Merricat Blackwood, is as precocious(早熟的)and worth remembering as any young people in the 20th-century American novels. She describes: “I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and my uncle Julian, and the poisonous mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.” Six years ago Blackwood’s parents, an aunt, and a younger brother were murdered — poisoned with arsenic(砒霜).
Fifty years after her untimely death, Let Me Tell You, a new reminder of how excellent a writer Shirley Jackson came out. The stories, essays, and lectures in this brilliant new collection include some published before and some able to the public for the first time. The title comes from the book’s only unfinished story, about two 14-year-old friends, the spoiled daughters of rich fathers. Their snobbery(势利)performances counteract beliefs of classlessness in American: “My father is a lawyer. It’s important what your father is. Also it’s important to have a swimming pool, only not the biggest swimming pool of all and of course no one would dream of going near it.” The reader is eager to know what happens but even Jackson’s finished stories are rarely tied up with appropriate endings. She counted on the reader to make an effort.
Let Me Tell You feels like a direct communication from beyond the tomb with the writer. This is especially true of her essays on the skill of writing. With the publication of Let Me Tell You, Shirley Jackson can now enjoy a peace with a new world of readers. The woman of Gothic psychological novel can truly rest in peace.
1.Miss Denman chose to read her students The Lottery mainly because ______.
A.it’s one of her favorite novels
B.it’s a good example to explain the features of novels
C.it has skillfully-arranged plots and beautiful statements
D.it’s a masterpiece of an American literary writer, Shirley Jackson
2.What can we learn about The Lottery?
A.It has a beautiful beginning but a sad ending.
B.Whoever got the lottery in the story was a lucky dog.
C.Living in the Gothic world, its writer was good Gothic novels.
D.It confused The New Yorker readers as well as Denman’s students.
3.According to Shirley Jackson’s final novel, ______.
A.Merricat was a quiet girl full of love for everything
B.only Merricat and her two sisters survived the murder
C.Merricat became as mature as her peers after the murder
D.altogether four people in the family died from being poisoned
4.What does the underlined word “counteract” in Paragraph 5 most probably mean?
A.Act against. B.Make stronger.
C.Make clear. D.Throw doubt on
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
The factors that cause youth unemployment often differ among regions and labor systems. 1. Since firing full-time workers is so complicated and expensive, employers are unwilling to take on new staff, while people who are already employed, mainly older workers, often keep their jobs for life. In developing countries with high birthrates and very young populations, like the Philippines, growth isn’t strong enough to absorb the wave of youngsters entering the workforce each year. 2. Young people entering the workforce are often the most vulnerable（易受伤害的）in economic downturns — new employees are often the first to get sacked, while college graduates find few employers willing to hire.
3. In Spain, Italy and Japan, for instance, companies looking to gain flexibility in regulated labor markets often offer new, young staffers only short-term contracts. These contracts, which sometimes last for only a few days, usually come with low salaries and few benefits. Since such staff is temporary, employers have little intention to invest in training.
Facing such obstacles, young people everywhere are finding that traditional route to success — education — isn’t paying off as much as in the past. 4. They will often be offered low-skilled jobs from waiters to supermarket clerks. A March report form the UK’s Office for National Statistics showed that the share of recent college graduates in Britain working in lower-skilled jobs rose to nearly 35% in 2011 form less than 27% a decade earlier. 5. Typical is Cairo’s Ahmed Said. He graduated from college with a business degree, and after performing the obligatory（义务的）year of military service, he applied for jobs in accounting and data entry. But Said, 24, had no luck, and today he works as a waiter at a cafe near Tahrir Square. “This was my last choice,” he says, “and this is the job that I got.”
A.Young graduates often find themselves competing with more-experienced workers.
B.More and more college graduates are forced to take jobs below their skill level.
C.They started applying for any positions they could find in other countries.
D.In some parts of the world, such jobs are all that is available to college graduates.
E.Yet youth unemployment also has common roots throughout the world.
F.Those young workers who do find employment are often trapped in awful contracts.
G.In much of Western Europe overemphasized labor protection makes it more difficult for youths to land good jobs.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
People have been saying great things about my dad lately. They keep telling me that my dad is a hero because of his __________.
My dad is a surgeon, and like many other doctors in China, he __________ to go to Wuhan to care for patients there. But the hospital where he works only asked him to make sure that _________ patients are still able to receive regular treatment. So my dad just follows his normal _________, analyzing patients’ diseases and performing chest operations.
With all kinds of compliments toward my dad, I became ___________. My dad has been a doctor long before this COVID-19 outbreak; why has no one else praised him as a hero before? Didn’t he __________ such compliments when this disease wasn’t around?
When we talk about heroes, what kind of __________ often jumps into our minds? War leaders who conquered everything that stood __________ their way? Historic characters who __________ a strong kingdom? Or our dear movie stars: the Avengers?
Well, they are indeed heroes, and they made marvelous achievements. __________, are the pages of heroes just prepared for these so-called “supermen” and “superwomen”?
I don’t think so. Heroes exist in our real lives. They can be seen and they are __________ just like you and I.
Now many streets of Chinese cities are almost __________, the schools are closed and the shops are shut. But in this world, some things remain __________.
If there’s a fire, just call 119, and you know that the firefighters will be there within minutes. If you happen to go out on the road, you’ll come across police officers waving their flags to __________ the traffic. __________, in hospitals, from doctors to nurses, cleaners to security guards, these people still __________ their jobs, doing the same services as they __________ did. The reason why they are still dedicated is not a __________ for compliments, but out of a willingness for their __________.
These people, who are or were __________ themselves to the job, do not need to be praised as heroes only now because they are heroes all the time.
1.A.ambition B.qualification C.occupation D.passion
2.A.offered B.claimed C.plotted D.intended
3.A.terminal B.acute C.stubborn D.local
4.A.section B.routine C.trend D.criterion
5.A.proud B.confused C.content D.disappointed
6.A.demand B.adore C.deserve D.undertake
7.A.image B.occasion C.script D.scene
8.A.on B.for C.in D.against
9.A.enlarged B.seized C.sought D.ruled
10.A.Therefore B.However C.Eventually D.Moreover
11.A.ordinary B.consistent C.clumsy D.fragile
12.A.evident B.broad C.diverse D.empty
13.A.dynamic B.holy C.unchanged D.abundant
14.A.direct B.address C.classify D.convey
15.A.Universally B.Similarly C.Partly D.Originally
16.A.stick to B.show off C.touch on D.live up to
17.A.never B.seldom C.rarely D.ever
18.A.tendency B.desire C.substitute D.preference
19.A.reputation B.growth C.duty D.opportunity
20.A.withdrawing B.exposing C.submitting D.committing
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。
Dinosaurs 1. (doubt) ruled the land and sky in their time, but there was little evidence of their presence in water until now. According to a new study published in the journal Nature, 2. international team of researchers uncovered a well-preserved skeleton (骨架) of a dinosaur’s tail in 3. is now known as the Saharan desert – a region 4. (believe) to have been an oasis (绿洲) 100 million years ago.
The remains belong to a dinosaur species named Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. Through reconstruction 5. the tail skeleton, scientists found that the tail had a fin-like (鳍状的) shape, 6. propelled(推进) the dinosaur forward. Its bones were very dense (密实的), allowing 7. to control its body position in the water. The structure of the tail bones also indicated that the animal could grow up to 15 meters long and 8. (weight) up to 20 tons.
The team made a model 9. (copy) Spinosaurus’ swimming movements, and the result supported the idea of a tail-propelled “river monster”. David Unwin, a scientist at the University of Leicester, UK, considered the discovery as “game changing” 10. it fundamentally alters (改变) our understanding of how this dinosaur species lived and hunted.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
根据句意及首字母或中文提示写出单词的完全形式。
1.His workmates demanded that he never c_________ with the boss on the issue of salary.
2.Paul is making s________ progress in English, making his parents relieved.
3.Union leaders and company bosses will meet tomorrow in an attempt to reach a s_________.
4.Take the road running ________(平行) to the main road just after the village, and you will reach your destination soon.
5.From the point of the manager, c_______ what effect all these changes will have on the company is really a hard job.
6.Upon hearing the news that her mother was badly injured, the girl g_______ her bag and ran out of the classroom.
7.U________ due to unforeseen circumstances, this year's show has been cancelled.
8.The new law will ensure that habitual ________ (罪犯) receive tougher punishments than first-time offenders.
9.To have dinner in that restaurant, you are advised to make seat _______ (预订) well in advance.
10.In this way we can train our students to speak English fluently and ________ (准确).
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
假定你是李华，是一名不久前经历了地震的中学生。请你就一下内容向报社写一封信，反映灾后情况，并对提供各方面帮助的爱心人士表达谢意。要点如下：
1. 目睹了人们奋不顾身救人，及时运送救援物资；
2. 在众多陌生人的帮助下，找回自己的父母，正在重建家园；
3. 更加珍惜来之不易的学习机会，将来会努力学习，回报他人。
注意：1. 词数100左右；
2. 开头和结尾已经给出，不计入总词数。
Dear editor,
I’m a senior student that has experienced a great earthquake. I’m writing to you to express my thanks to those who helped us when we suffered the disaster.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
阅读下面材料, 根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。续写词数应为150左右。
A tradesman was leading a caravan (商队) to another country to sell his goods. Along the way they came to the edge of a hot-sand desert. They learnt that during the daytime the sun heated up the fine sand until it was as hot as charcoal (木炭), so no one could walk on it — not even camels! Then the caravan leader hired a desert guide, one who could follow the stars, so they could travel only at night when the sand cooled down. The guide sat on the first cart. And they began the dangerous night-time journey across the desert. A couple of nights later, after eating their evening meal and waiting for the sand to cool, they started out again.
Later that night, the desert guide, who was driving the first cart, saw from the stars that they were getting close to the other side of the desert. He had been very tired, so when he relaxed, he fell asleep. Then the camels who, of course, couldn’t tell directions by reading the stars, gradually turned to the side and went in a big wide circle until they ended up at the same place that they started from! By then it was morning, and the people woke up and realized they were back at the same spot where they started. They lost heart and began to cry about their condition. Since the desert crossing was supposed to be over by now, they had no more water, and they were worried about there was nothing to drink, and were extremely afraid they would die of thirst. They even began to blame the caravan leader and the desert guide. However, the leader himself didn’t lose courage. He talked with the desert guide and then they began wandering, trying to work out a plan.
Paragraph 1
Suddenly, the leader noticed a small clump (团) of grass.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 2
A spring (泉源) was found at last.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
难度: 困难查看答案及解析