For some people,music is no fun at all. About four percent of the population is what scientists call “amusic.” People who are amusic are born without the ability to recognize or reproduce musical notes(音调). Amusic people often cannot tell the difference between two songs. Amusics can only hear the difference between two notes if they are very far apart on the musical scale.
As a result, songs sound like noise to an amusic. Many amusics compare the sound of music to pieces of metal hitting each other. Life can be hard for amusics. Their inability to enjoy music sets them apart from others. It can be difficult for other people to identify with their condition. In fact, most people cannot begin to grasp what it feels like to be amusic. Just going to a restaurant or a shopping mall can be uncomfortable or even painful. That is why many amusics intentionally stay away from places where there is music. However, this can result in withdrawal and social isolation. “I used to hate parties,” says Margaret,a seventy-year-old woman who only recently discovered that she was amusic. By studying people like Margaret, scientists are finally learning how to identify this unusual condition.
Scientists say that the brains of amusics are different from the brains of people who can appreciate music. The difference is complex, and it doesn't involve defective hearing. Amusics can understand other nonmusical sounds well. They also have no problems understanding ordinary speech. Scientists compare amusics to people who just can't see. certain colors.
Many amusics are happy when their condition is finally diagnosed(诊断). For years, Margaret felt embarrassed about her problem with music. Now she knows that she is not alone. There is a name for her condition. That makes it easier for her to explain. “When people invite me to a concert, I just say,” No thanks, I'm amusic,'“says Margaret. “I just wish I had learned to say that when I was seventeen and not seventy.”
1.Which of the following is true of amusic?
A.Listening to music is far from enjoyable for them.
B.They love places where they are likely to hear music.
C.They can easily tell two different songs apart.
D.Their situation is well understood by musicians.
2.According to Paragraph 3, a person with “defective hearing” is probably one who ___________.
A.dislikes listening to speeches
B.can hear anything nonmusical
C.has a hearing problem
D.lacks a complex hearing system
3.In the last paragraph, Margaret expressed her wish that __________.
A.her problem with music had been diagnosed earlier
B.she were seventeen years old rather than seventy
C.her problem could be easily explained
D.she were able to meet other amusics
4.What is the passage mainly concerned with?
A.Amusics' strange behaviours.
B.Some people's inability to enjoy music.
C.Musical talent and brain structure.
D.Identification and treatment of amusics.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
Do you want to get home from work knowing you have made a real difference in someone’s life?
If yes, don’t care about sex or age! Come and join us, then you’ll make it!
Position: Volunteer Social Care Assistant
(No Pay with Free Meals)
Place: Manchester
Hours: Part Time
We are now looking for volunteers to support people with learning disabilities to live active lives! Only 4 days left. Don’t miss the chance of lending your warm hands to help others!
Role:
You will provide people with learning disabilities with all aspects of their daily lives. You will help them to develop new skills. You will help them to protect their rights and their safety. But your primary concern is to let them know they are valued.
Skills and Experience Required:
You will have the right values and great listening skills. You will be honest and patient. You will have the ability to drive a car and to communicate in fluent written and spoken English since you’ll have to help those people with different learning disabilities. Previous care-related experience will be a great advantage for you.
1.What does the underlined part mean?
A.You’ll make others’ lives more meaningful with this job.
B.You’ll arrive home just in time from this job.
C.You’ll earn a good salary from this job.
D.You’ll succeed in getting this job.
2.The volunteers’ primary responsibility is to help people with learning disabilities ________.
A.to get some financial support
B.to properly protect themselves
C.to learn some new living skills
D.to realize their own importance
3.Which of the following can first be chosen as a volunteer?
A.The one who can drive a car.
B.The one who has done similar work before.
C.The one who has patience to listen to others.
D.The one who can use English to communicate.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
About the time that schools and others quite reasonably became interested in seeing to it that all children, whatever their background, were fairly treated, intelligence testing became unpopular.
Some thought it was unfair to minority children. Through the past few decades such testing has gone out of fashion and many communities have indeed forbidden it.
However, paradoxically(自相矛盾的), just recently a group of black parents filed a lawsuit (诉讼) in California claiming that the state’s ban on IQ testing discriminates(歧视) against their children by denying them the opportunity to take the test. (They believe, correctly, that IQ tests are a valid method of evaluating (评估) children for special education classes.) The judge, therefore, reversed, at least partially his original decision.
And so the argument goes on and on. Does it benefit or harm children from minority groups to have their intelligence tested? We have always been on the side of permitting, even promoting such testing. If a child of any color or group is doing poorly in school it seems to us very important to know whether it is because he or she is of low intelligence, or whether some other factor is the cause.
What school and family can do to improve poor performance is influenced by its cause. It is not discriminative to evaluate either a child’s physical condition or his intellectual level.
Unfortunately, intellectual level seems to be a sensitive subject, and what the law allows us to do varies from time to time. The same fluctuation (起伏) back and forth occurs in areas other than intelligence. Thirty years or so ago, for instance, white families were encouraged to adopt black children. It was considered discriminative not to do so.
And then the style changed and this cross-racial adopting became generally unpopular, and social agencies felt that black children should go to black families only. It is hard to say what are the best procedures. But surely good will on the part of all of us is needed.
As to intelligence, in our opinion, the more we know about any child’s intellectual level, the better for the child in question.
1.Why did the intelligence test become unpopular in the past few decades?
A. Its validity was challenged by many communities.
B. It was considered discriminative against minority children.
C. It met with strong opposition from the majority of black parents.
D. It robbed the black children of their rights to a good education.
2.The author believes that intelligence testing .
A. may ease racial discrimination in the United States
B. can encourage black children to keep up with white children
C. may seriously worsen racial discrimination in the United States
D. can help black parents make decisions about their children’s education
3.The author’s opinion of child adoption seems to be that .
A. no definite rules can be prescribed
B. white families should adopt black children
C. adoption should be based on IQ test results
D. cross-racial adoption is to be advocated
4.Child adoption is mentioned in the passage to show that ______.
A. good will may sometimes complicate racial problems
B. social surroundings are vital to the healthy growth of children
C. intelligence testing also applies to non-academic areas
D. American opinion can shift when it comes to sensitive issues
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.
Nook’s arrival, Good or Bad?
Booklovers, most of them, will tell you 1. a pleasure it is to lend a favorite read to a friend – the novel you stayed up all night to get to the end of; the travel book that made you feel 2. you yourself were on a train ride through India. For a while it seemed that e-book users were to be denied this pleasure of lending to friends. You could buy a book or magazine for your reading device, but you couldn’t lend it out.
But now, with the Nook, the US book chain Barnes and Noble’s response to Amazon’s Kindle, electronic readers will be able to have their latest literary enthusiasm 3.(press) on their friends, just like readers of physical books can. You simply email the book from your Nook and your friend can read it for two weeks, 4.(use) any device with the Barnes & Noble e-book reader software. It’s a big improvement from previous e-book readers.
The Nook offers other features too. You read in black and white on the main screen, just like with Kindle. The difference is 5. on the lower part of the device there’s a color touch screen, 6. allows you to browse through a book or magazine, but goes black when you’re not using it so that you save power.
7. exciting thing about the Nook is that it offers Wi-Fi, arguably a big advance on previous e-book readers. Customers in the United States can use the Internet connection 8.(read) whole e-books at Barnes and Noble’s hundreds of bookstores for free. None of Barnes and Noble’s competitors can come close to this.
But the Nook, ironically, 9.(turn out) to be a money-loser for Barnes and Noble, or at least a job-loser for Barnes and Noble’s employees. According to Marian Maneker at The Big Money Website, 10. the Nook is successful it might take sales from the company’s bookstores, eventually forcing their closure and the loss of thousands of jobs.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
In modern society loneliness can be seen as a social phenomenon and people can experience loneliness for many reasons. It is a very common, though normally temporary, _______ of a breakup, divorce, or loss of any important long-term relationship. In these cases, loneliness may result both from the loss of a specific person and from the _______ from social circles. The loss of a significant person in one’s life will typically initiate a grief response; in this situation, one might feel lonely, even while in the company of others.
Loneliness may also result from any socially disruptive (破裂的) event, such as moving from one’s home town into _______ communities leading to homesickness. Loneliness can also occur in places with low population densities in which there are comparatively few people to _______.
There are many different ways used to _______ loneliness. The first step that most doctors recommend to patients is therapy. Short term therapy typically occurs over a period of ten to twenty weeks. During therapy, emphasis is put on understanding the cause of the problem, _______ the negative thoughts, feelings, and attitudes resulting from the problem, and exploring ways to help the patient feel connected. Some doctors also recommend _______ therapy as a means to connect with other sufferers and establish a support system. It may take several attempts before a suitable anti-depressant medication is found. Some patients may also develop a resistance to a certain type of medication and need to _______ periodically.
Another treatment is animal-assisted therapy. Studies and surveys indicate that the presence of animal companions such as dogs, cats, rabbits, and guinea pigs can _______ feelings of loneliness or depression among some sufferers. Beyond the companionship the animal itself provides there may also be increased opportunities for ________ with other pet owners. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention there are a number of other health benefits associated with pet ownership, such as lowered blood pressure. In addition, some other alternative approaches may include exercise, dieting, etc, which many patients find have a ________ effect on relieving symptoms. Results of a study also suggest that correcting maladaptive social cognition (认知) offers the best chance of ________loneliness.
Nevertheless, loneliness can sometimes play an important role in the ________ process. In some people, temporary or prolonged loneliness can lead to notable artistic and creative expression, for example, as was the case with poet Emily Dickinson, and numerous musicians. This is not to imply that loneliness itself ensures this creativity, ________, it may have an influence on the subject matter of the artist and more likely be present in individuals ________creative activities.
1.A.type B.concern C.consequence D.evidence
2.A.withdrawal B.absence C.disappearance D.presence
3.A.informal B.uncertain C.relevant D.unfamiliar
4.A.turn to B.interact with C.long for D.share with
5.A.release B.observe C.monitor D.treat
6.A.reversing B.directing C.measuring D.pursuing
7.A.long-term B.sightseeing C.patient D.group
8.A.quit B.evolve C.switch D.exercise
9.A.confirm B.protest C.enhance D.ease
10.A.socializing B.interfering C.comparing D.coping
11.A.historic B.restorative C.decisive D.permanent
12.A.promoting B.enhancing C.reducing D.striving
13.A.creative B.musical C.artistic D.poetic
14.A.however B.therefore C.rather D.otherwise
15.A.restricted to B.engaged in C.concerned about D.altered by
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
Direction: In the article, 4 sentences have been removed. Choose the most suitable ones from the list A-AC to fit into each of the numbered gaps. There are TWO which do not fit in any of the gaps.
Do not underestimate the power of revision in the days and hours before an examination. The closer you are to the exam, the more chance you have of storing and keeping important information. But do not overdo it 1. An effective daily routine can help you to go through an exam period, so in the days leading up to your first exam, get into the habit of being up and ready to work by 9 a.m. It can be a shock to the system after months of working to your own timetable to be mentally alert at that time if you have not prepared for.
On the day of the exam, have a good breakfast, pack everything you need (pens, pencils, erasers, etc), then make your way to the examination hall in good time. Do not arrive too early, though, as other people’s anxiety can be passed on to you, and you may suffer from panic.
Once in your seat, simply stop for a few seconds and collect your thoughts. 2. When you first look at the test paper, spend a shot period reading through all the instructions and questions, paying attention to key verbs such as “discuss”, “compare” and “evaluate”. Map out a quick plan of points you wish to make and how much time you should spend on each question.
It is wise always to allow for 10 minutes at the end of the exam to give yourself time to go back over your answers. Once you have selected the questions you wish to deal with, begin by attempting the one you think is you strongest. It will give you more confidence when you see a well-answered question down on paper.
3. If you do need something else to focus on to help collect your thoughts, choose a fixture in the room, such as the ceiling — or anything else — that will not allow you to be distracted.
Finally, once you have finished, never hang around outside afterwards to discuss the exams you’ve taken with other students. 4.
A.After all, examiners can get very bored marking dull answers.
B.Close your eyes and take in a few slow, deep breaths to help you relax.
C.When you get home, read the examination paper through and look up all the words you didn’t understand.
D.Go and have a well-earned rest then prepare for your next exam.
E.Try not to be tempted to look at those around you, or at the clock.
F.Sleep, exercise and relaxation are all just as important.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.
Americans are proud of their variety and individuality, yet they love and respect few things more than a uniform, whether it is the uniform of a lift operator or the uniform of a five-star general. Why are uniforms so popular in the United States?
Among the arguments for uniforms, one of the first is that in the eyes of most people they look more professional than civilian clothes. People have become conditioned to expect higher quality from a man who wears a uniform. The television repairman who wears a uniform is likely to inspire more trust than one who appears in civilian clothes. Faith in the skill of a garage mechanic is increased by a uniform. What easier way is there for a nurse, a policeman, a hairdresser, or a waiter to lose professional identity than to step out of uniform?
Uniforms also have many practical good points. They are often more comfortable and more lasing than civilian clothes.
Primary fact among the argument against uniforms is their lack of variety and the loss of individuality experienced by people who must wear them. Though there are many types of uniforms, the wearer of any particular type is generally stuck with it, without change, until retirement. When people look alike, they are likely to think, speak, and act similarly on the job at least.
Uniforms also give rise to some practical problems. Though they are long-lasting, often their initial expense is greater than the cost of civilian clothes. Some uniforms are also expensive to maintain, requiring professional dry cleaning rather than the home laundering possible with many types of civilian clothes.
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
Directions: Translate the following sentences into English, using the words given in the brackets.
1.在宇宙中有许多肉眼看不到的星星（visible）
2.直到期末考试临近，迈克才意识到他的复习时间不够了。（Not until…）
3.只有当你了解了在不同情形下色彩联想的差异性，你才会避免冒犯别人或使自己难看。（Only）
4.作为一名教育工作者，你应该牢记在日常教学中要注重学生的身心发展。（emphasis）
难度: 中等查看答案及解析
Directions: Write and English composition in 120-150 words according to the instructions given below in Chinese.
假设你是学生会主席王海，你发现许多学生倒掉午餐到学校的小卖部去买零食，于是在同学中作了调查。请给校长写封信，信的内容包括分析产生此现象的原因，并就此现象提出具体的建议。
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难度: 中等查看答案及解析