Its an odd paradox: thanks to cell phones, PDAs and the Internet, weve never before been i
第1题
It is a () that in some odd way world peace appears to depend on our spending millions of pounds on weapons that can kill us all.
A.paradox
B.contradict
C.perspective
D.manipulation
第2题
听力原文: The European cuckoo is notorious for its odd way of raising its young. The parents normally live in various regions of Asia or Africa, but migrate to England in the warm months. The first cuckoos reach England in April, and each year people write to newspapers to claim that they have heard the first cuckoo. The bird's call "Cue-coo" is regarded in North Europe as a sign that summer has nearly arrived. After the ice and snow of winter, the sound "Cue-coo" is most welcome, so the bird has a special significance for many Europeans.
The female cuckoo manages to reproduce her species by laying eggs which she then abandons. Each cuckoo tends to lay her eggs in the nest of one particular species. It is amazing that the female will lay eggs which have very similar colours and markings to the eggs of the host bird. This ability helps to prevent the host bird from rejecting the cuckoo's egg.
The cuckoo lays about a dozen eggs altogether at about two-day intervals. Each egg is in a different nest. Having laid her eggs for the year, the female's role as mother is completed. In late July or early August, she flies to the south to a warmer climate.
Meanwhile, each young cuckoo is busy looking after itself and doing the job quite well. The chicks hatch after 12 or 13 days, which is usually much sooner than any of the foster-mother's brood. The young cuckoos lift up any other eggs or chicks so that they fall over the side of the nest. In this way, the cuckoo removes any competition for the foster-mother's attention.
The young cuckoo grows much faster than the foster-mother's own chicks. It gets most of the food brought back to the nest by the foster-mother. After a few weeks, the cuckoo chick grows too big to sit in the nest, and much bigger than the foster-mother. But it is still not ready to fly, and remains on the nest, screaming for the food. The foster-mother is stimulated by this noise and has to work hard all day searching for the food.
After about three weeks, the cuckoo chick starts to fly. But it still stays at the nest most of the time for a further one or two weeks, until it is completely independent. And at this time, it can fly well and find its own food. The bird then remains in Britain until September. And then it too, like its parents, migrates for the winter to the warmer countries of the south.
Questions:
16. How long does a cuckoo stay in Britain according to the talk?
17.What does the bird's call "Cuc-coo" suggest for North Europeans?
18.Where does a female cuckoo lay her eggs?
19.When will a young cuckoo leave its foster-mother's nest?
20.which of the following is TRUE about the cuckoos?
(36)
A.All the year around.
B.For 10 months.
C.For about half a year.
D.For three or four months in summer.
第3题
For any architect taking on the challenge of the new space, the confusion of moral and design questions might seem overwhelming. What is an architects responsibility to Barness vision of a marvelous but odd collection of early Modern artworks housed in a rambling(布局凌乱的)1920s Beaux-Arts pile? Is it possible to reproduce its spirit in such a changed setting? Or does trying to replicate(复制)the Barness unique atmosphere only doom you to failure? The answers of the New York architects taking the commission are not reassuring. The new Barnes will include many of the features that have become virtually mandatory(强制性的)in the museum world today — conservation and education departments, temporary exhibition space, auditorium, bookstore, cafe — making it four times the size of the old Barnes. The architects have tried to compensate for this by laying out these spaces in an elaborate architectural procession that is clearly intended to replicate the peaceful-ness, if not the fantastic charm, of the old museum.
But the result is a complicated design. Almost every detail seems to ache from the strain of trying to preserve the spirit of the original building in a very different context. The failure to do so, despite such an earnest effort, is the strongest argument yet for why the Barnes should not be moved in the first place.
The old Barnes is by no means an obvious model for a great museum. Inside the lighting is far from perfect, and the collection itself, mixing masterpieces by Cezanne, Picasso and Soutine with second-rate paintings by lesser-known artists, has a distinctly odd flavor. But these apparent flaws are also what have made the Barnes one of the countrys most charming exhibition spaces. But today the new Barnes is after a different kind of audience. Although museum officials say the existing limits on crowd size will be kept, it is clearly meant to draw bigger numbers and more tourist dollars. For most visitors the relationship to the art will feel less immediate.
The Old Barnes becomes a successful museum mainly because of______.
A. the beneficial geographical position in a suburban town
B. its unique design and orderly collection of arts
C. the influence of its founder Albert C. Barnes
D. the perfect connection among art, architecture and landscape
第4题
Time, as we know it, is a very recent invention. The modem time-
sense is hardly older than the United States. It is a by-product of industrialism
—a sort of psychological analogy of synthetic perfumes and aniline 【M1】______
dyes.
Time is our tyrant. We are chronologically aware of the moving minute 【M2】______
hand, even of the moving second hand. We have to be.
There are trains to be caught, tasks to be done in specified period, records
to be broken by factions of a second, machines that set the pace and 【M3】______
have to be kept up with. Our consciousness of the smallest units of time is
now big. To us, for example, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something— 【M4】______
something very important, if happens to be the starting time of our daily 【M5】______
train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was with significance 【M6】______
—did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Steven-
son were part inventors of time.
Another time-emphasized entity is the factory and its dependent, the 【M7】______
office. Factories exist for the purpose of getting certain quantity of goods 【M8】______
made in a certain time. The artisan worked as it suited him with the result
that consumers generally had to wait for tile goods they had ordered from
him. The factory is a device for making workman hurry. The machine re-
volves so often each minute; so many movements have to be made, so many
pieces produce each hour. Result: the factory worker is compelled to know 【M9】______
time in its smallest fractions. In the hand-work age there was no such a 【M10】______
compulsion to be aware of minutes and seconds.
【M1】
第5题
Certainly people do not seem less interested in success and its signs now than formerly. Summer homes, European travel, BMWs — the locations, place names and name brands may change, but such items do not seem less in demand today than a decade or two years ago. What has happened is that people cannot confess fully to their dreams, as easily and openly as once they could, lest they be thought pushing, acquisitive and vulgar. Instead, we are treated to fine hypocritical spectacles, which now more than ever seem in ample supply: the critic of American materialism with a Southampton summer home; the publisher of radical books who takes his meals in three-star restaurants; the journalist advocating participatory democracy in all phases of life, whose own children are enrolled in private schools. For such people and many more perhaps not so exceptional, the proper formulation is, “Succeed at all costs but avoid appearing ambitious.”
The attacks on ambition are many and come from various angles; its public defenders are few and unimpressive, where they are not extremely unattractive. As a result, the support for ambition as a healthy impulse, a quality to be admired and fixed in the mind of the young, is probably lower than it has ever been in the United States. This does not mean that ambition is at an end, that people no longer feel its stirrings and promptings, but only that, no longer openly honored, it is less openly professed.Consequences follow from this, of course, some of which are that ambition is driven underground, or made sly. Such, then, is the way things stand: on the left angry critics, on the right stupid supporters, and in the middle, as usual, the majority of earnest people trying to get on in life.
It is generally believed that ambition may be well regarded if ____.
A.its returns well compensate for the sacrifices
B.it is rewarded with money, fame and power
C.its goals are spiritual rather than material
D.it is shared by the rich and the famous
The last sentence of the first paragraph most probably implies that it is ____.A.customary of the educated to discard ambition in words
B.too late to check ambition once it has been let out
C.dishonest to deny ambition after the fulfillment of the goal
D.impractical for the educated to enjoy benefits from ambition
Some people do not openly admit they have ambition because ____.A.they think of it as immoral
B.their pursuits are not fame or wealth
C.ambition is not closely related to material benefits
D.they do not want to appear greedy and contemptible
From the last paragraph the conclusion can be drawn that ambition should be maintained ____.A.secretly and vigorously
B.openly and enthusiastically
C.easily and momentarily
D.verbally and spiritually
请帮忙给出每个问题的正确答案和分析,谢谢!
第6题
Certainly no creature in the sea is odder than the common sea cucumber(海参). All living creatures, especially human beings, have their peculiarities, but everything about the little sea cucumber seems unusual. What else can be said about an odd animal that, among other eccentricities, eats mud, feeds almost continuously day and night but can live without eating for long periods, and can be poisonous hut is considered supremely edible by gourmets(美食家) ?
For some fifty million years, despite all its eccentricities, the sea cucumber has subsisted on its diet of mud. It is adaptable enough to live attached to rocks by its tube feet, under rocks in shallow water, or on the surface of mud fiats. Common in cool water on both Atlantic and Pacific shores, it has the ability to suck up .mud or sand and digest whatever nutrients are present.
Sea cucumbers come in a variety of colors, ranging from black to reddish-brown to sandcolor and nearly white. One form. even had vivid purple tentacles. Usually the creatures are cucumbers-shaped——hence their name——and because they are typically rock inhabitants, this shape, combined with flexibility, enables them to squeeze into narrow cracks where they are safe from predators and ocean currents.
Although they have voracious appetites, eating day and night, sea cucumbers have the capacity to become inactive and live at a low metabolic rate feeding sparingly or not at all for long periods, so that the marine organisms that provide their food have a chance to multiply. If it were not for this faculty, they would devour all the food available in a short time and would probably starve themselves out' of existence.
But the most spectacular thing about the sea cucumber is the way it defends itself. Its major enemies are fish and crabs, when attacked, it squirts all its internal organs into the water. It also casts off attached structures such as tentacles. The sea cucumber will eviscerate排除内脏) and regenerate itself if it is attacked or even touched; it will do the same if the surrounding water temperature is too high or if the water becomes too polluted.
The passage is mainly about______.
A.the reason for the sea cucumber's name
B.ways to identify the sea cucumber
C.places where the sea cucumber can be found
D.the peculiarities that make the sea cucumber unusual
第9题
A.hyperbole
B.homonym
C.paradox
D.pun
第10题
The word "paradox" in paragraph 1 is ______.
A.a parenthetical expression
B.a difficult puzzle
C.an abnormal condition
D.a self-contradiction