Why do people shrink？ Did you ever see the movie Honey，I shrunk the kids？ It’s about a

第1题

Why Do People Shrink？Did you ever see the movie Honey, I shrunk the kids？ It's about a wac

Why Do People Shrink？

Did you ever see the movie Honey, I shrunk the kids？ It's about a wacky(古怪的)dad (who's also a scientist) who accidentally(偶然的) shrink's his kids with his homemade miniaturizing (使小型化) invention. Oops! The kids spend the rest of the movie as tiny people who are barely visible while trying to get back to their normal size.

(46) It takes place over years and may add up to only one inch or so off of their adult height (maybe a little more, maybe less), and this kind of shrinking can*t be magically reversed, although there are things that can be done to stop it or slow it down. But why does shrinking happen at all？

(47) As people get older, they generally lose some muscle and fat from their bodies as part of the natural aging process. Gravity (the force that keeps your feet on the ground) take hold, and the bones in the spine, called vertebrae(椎骨), may break down or degenerate, and start to collapse into one another. (48) . But perhaps the most common reason why some older people shrink is because of osteoporosis (骨质疏松症).

Osteoporosis occurs when too much spongy(海绵) bone tissue (which is found inside of most bones) is broken down and not enough new bone material is made. (49) . Bones become smaller and weaker and can easily break if someone with osteoporosis is injured. Older people—especially women, who generally have smaller and lighter bones to begin with—are more likely to develop osteoporosis. As years go by, a person with osteoporosis shrinks a little bit.

Did you know that every day you do a shrinking act？ You aren't as tall at the end of the day as you are at the beginning. (50) . Don't worry, though. Once you get a good night's rest, your body recovers, and the next morning, you're standing tall again.

A. They end up pressing closer together, which makes a person lose a little height and become shorter.

B. That's because as the day goes on, water in the disks of the spine gets compressed (squeezed) due to gravity, making you just a tiny bit shorter.

C. Over time, bone is said to be lost because it's not being replaced.

D. Luckily, there are things that people can do to prevent shrinking.

E. For older people, shrinking isn't that dramatic or sudden at all.

F. There are a few reasons.

(46)

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第2题

Why do those rich people steal things ______ they could easily afford to buy them？A．thatB．

Why do those rich people steal things ______ they could easily afford to buy them？

A．that

B．because

C．if

D．when

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第3题

In the opinion of the writer, why do women still earn less money than men？A．Some professio

In the opinion of the writer, why do women still earn less money than men？

A．Some professions are not suitable for women.

B．The principle of" equal pay for equal work" isn' t observed.

C．It is very difficult to change people' s attitude towards the roles of women.

D．Women are often in the majority in low-paying jobs.

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第4题

听力原文：When people care for an elderly relative, they often do not use available communi

听力原文： When people care for an elderly relative, they often do not use available community services such as adult daycare centers. If the caregivers are adult children, they are more likely to use such services, especially because they often have jobs and other responsibilities. In contrast, a spouse usually the wife, is much less likely to use support services or to put the dependent person in a nursing home. Social workers discover that the wife normally tries to take care of her husband herself for as long as she can in order not to use up their life savings. Researchers have found that caring for the elderly can be a very positive experience. The elderly appreciated the care and attention they received. They were affectionate and cooperative. However, even when care-giving is satisfying, it is hard work. Social workers and experts on aging offer caregivers and potential caregivers help when arranging for the care of an elderly relative. One consideration is to ask parents what they want before they become sick or dependent. Perhaps they prefer going into a nursing home and can select one in advance. On the other hand, they may want to live with their adult children. Caregivers must also learn to state their needs and opinions clearly and ask for help from others especially brothers and sisters. Brothers and sisters are often willing to help, but they may not know what to do.

Questions:

29. Why are adult children more likely to use community services to help care for elderly parents？

30. Why are most wives unwilling to put their dependent husbands into nursing homes？

31. According to the passage，what must caregivers learn to do？

(30)

A．They think they should follow the current trend.

B．Nursing homes are well-equipped and convenient.

C．Adult day-care centers are easily accessible.

D．They have jobs and other commitments.

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第5题

听力原文：M: So, you must have a lot of contact with overseas students in your work helping

people coping with daily existence.

W: Sometimes. You know the life of a social worker is not all wonderful and working to help people in their daily life. I have to spend a lot of time pushing paper, and writing reports too. But when I do get out, yeah, I see a lot of foreigners. And sometimes they come in because life in America has just beaten them down and they can't cope financially or emotionally.

M: Really？ I would think that they had a good support network in place, especially university students.

W: They do have a network, and a variety of support groups, but these can't meet all of the students' needs. They can't help with paying bills, dealing with American neighbors and customs, fitting in, getting a driver's license, etc. They try, but very often the student has to figure out a lot of this stuff by himself. And if he or she is shy, they don't have the courage to ask other people, even other people from their nationality.

M: So what are some of the things that overseas students struggle with？

W: This might interest you, but they struggle with the food, especially Chinese. You know, they come here knowing that Americans love Chinese food so much. They think that there will be good restaurants with Chinese food that they love. But they get here and they are extremely surprised. Americans enjoy totally different flavors.

M: So what do they do？

W: If they're brave and curious, they look around and test all the restaurants. There is usually at least one restaurant in every town that has almost quality food.

Questions 23 to 25 are based on the conversation you have just heard.

23. In which aspect does the woman help people in her work？

24. Why do people come to the woman for help？

25. How did Chinese students expect the American-made Chinese food before they came to the U.S？

(20)

A．Writing reports for them.

B．Teaching them foreign languages.

C．Helping them deal with daily existence.

D．Introducing work for them.

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第6题

Everybody loathes it, but everybody does it. A recent poll showed that 40% of Americans ha

te the practice. It seems so arbitrary, after all. Why does a barman get a tip, but not a doctor who saves lives？

In America alone, tipping is now a ＄16 billion-a-year industry. Consumers acting rationally ought not to pay more than they have to for a given service. Tips should not exist. So why do they？ The conventional wisdom is that tips both reward the efforts of good service and reduce uncomfortable feelings of inequality. The better the service, the bigger the tip.

Such explanations no doubt explain the purported origin of tipping—in the 16th century, boxes in English taverns carried the phrase "To Insure Promptitude" (later just "TIP"). But according to new research from Cornell University, tipping no longer serves any useful function.

The paper analyses data from 2,547 groups dining at 20 different restaurants. The correlation between larger tips and better service was very weak: only a tiny part of the variability in the size of the tip had anything to do with the quality of service. Customers who rated a meal as "excellent" still tipped anywhere between 8% and 37% of the meal price.

Tipping is better explained by culture than by economics. In America, the custom has become institutionalized: it is regarded as part of the accepted cost of a service. In a New York restaurant, failing to tip at least 15% could well mean abuse from the waiter. Hairdressers can expect to get 15-20%, the man who delivers your groceries ＄2. In Europe, tipping is less common; in many restaurants, discretionary tipping is being replaced by a standard service charge. In many Asian countries, tipping has never really caught on at all.

How to account for these national differences？ Look no further than psychology. According to Michael Lynn, the Cornell paper's co-author, countries in which people are more extrovert, sociable or neurotic tend to tip more. Tipping relieves anxiety about being served by strangers. And, says Mr. Lynn, "In America, where people are outgoing and expressive, tipping is about social approval. If you tip badly, people think less of you. Tipping well is a chance to show off." Icelanders, by contrast, do not usually tip—a measure of their introversion, no doubt.

While such explanations may be crude, the hard truth seems to be that tipping does not work. It does not benefit the customer. Nor, in the case of restaurants, does it actually stimulate the waiter, or help the restaurant manager to monitor and assess his staff. Service people should "just be paid a decent wage" which may actually make economic sense.

Which is tree according to the passage？

A．It is regulated that the customers must pay a tip if they want to get good service.

B．There exists the tipping custom in each country.

C．In some countries, tipping has become an industry.

D．More and more people are in favor of tipping.

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第7题

The study of philosophies should make our own ideas flexible. We are all of us apt to take

certain general ideas for granted, and call them common sense. We should learn that other people have held quite different ideas, and that our own have started as very original guesses of philosophers.

A scientist is apt to think that all the problems of philosophy will ultimately be solved by science. I think this is true for a great many of the questions on which philosophers still argue. For example, Plato thought that when we saw something, one ray of light came to it from the sun, and another from our eyes and that seeing was something like feeling with a stick. We now know that the light comes from the sun, and is reflected into our eyes. We don't know in much detail how the changes in our eyes give rise to sensation. But there is every reason to think that as we learn more about the physiology of the brain, we shall do so, and that the great philosophical problems about knowledge are going to be pretty fully cleared up.

But if our descendants know the answers to these questions and others that perplex us today, there will still be one field of which they do not know, namely the future. However exact our science; we cannot know it as we know the past. Philosophy may be described as argument about things of which we are ignorant. And where science gives us a hope of knowledge it is often reasonable to suspend judgment. That is one reason why Marx and Engels quite rightly wrote to many philosophical problems that interested their contemporaries.

But we have got to prepare for the future, and we cannot do so rationally without some philosophy. Some people say we have only got to do the duties revealed in the past and laid down by religion, and god will look after the future. Others say that the world is a machine and the course of future events is certain, whatever efforts we may make. Marxists say that the future depends on ourselves, even though we are part of the historical process. This philosophical view certainly does inspire people to very great achievements. Whether it is true or not, it is powerful guide to action.

We need a philosophy, then, to help us to tackle the future. Agnosticism easily becomes an excuse for laziness and conservatism. Whether we adopt Marxism or any other philosophy, we cannot understand it without knowing something of how it developed. That is why knowledge of the history of philosophy is important to Marxists, even during the present critical days.

What is the main idea of this passage？

A．The argument whether philosophy will ultimately be solved by science or not.

B．The importance of learning philosophies, especially the history of philosophy.

C．The difference between philosophy and science.

D．A discuss about how to set a proper attitude towards future.

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第8题

"How was your weekend？" This question comes up at workplaces all over the United States ev

"How was your weekend？"

This question comes up at workplaces all over the United States every Monday morning as people greet each other. It is another way of saying, "How did you spend your leisure time？"

In the Unites States the way people spend their leisure time is an important part of their identity. Perhaps everybody does nearly the same thing all day in the office or the factory, but leisure time is what makes people distinct and reveals who they are.

For many people, leisure time means going somewhere -- to a museum, a concert, a restaurant, or a baseball game. Or it means doing something such as playing volleyball, backpacking, swimming, singing in a chorus (合唱), or playing in a park with their children. For other people, free time means staying home with wonderful sources of entertainment, such as VCR, stereo or cable TV with dozens of channels. Others pursue creative activities such as cooking, gardening, and home improvement. The latest stay-at, home activity is "surfing (冲浪) the net" -- that is, looking for information and entertainment on the Internet.

In the United States, leisure time is big business. Enormous amounts of money are spent by competing enterprises that make and sell the goods and services that people use in their free time. In fact, shopping itself is an important leisure time activity. Spending a day at a giant mall has become, for some people, as interesting as spending the day at museum or amusement park.

People in the United States are ultimately not much different from others in what they do in their leisure time. The real difference may lie in the energy, time, money, and sheer enthusiasm that they devote to it.

Why do Americans often greet each other by asking "How did you spend your leisure time？"

A．Because they are interested in the different pastime activities.

B．Because leisure time is what makes people different from each other.

C．Because they are bored with the job they have done for the whole week.

D．Because everybody does the same thing all day long.

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第9题

Why do we invest so much hope in new technology and why are we so disappointed when the Ne

xt Big Thing turns out to be just a new computer？ This is what I'm asking myself after Apple's 【C1】______ over hyped product introduction. This time around the Next Big Thing is called an iPad. It's 【C2】______ an oversize iPod Touch, and it will be great for watching movies, reading books, and browsing the Web.

【C3】______ for some of us who sat in the audience watching Steve Jobs introduce the device, the whole thing felt like a 【C4】______ . The iPad is a perfectly good product. It's reasonably 【C5】______ , and after spending a few minutes with one, I'm pretty sure I'll buy one for myself and probably 【C6】______ second one for my kids to watch movies on road trips.

Then why are we so【C7】______？ The case is that at the very 【C8】______ , we had hoped a tablet from Apple would do something new. Jobs and his 【C9】______ kept using words like "breakthrough" and "magical", but the iPad is 【C10】______ It might turn out to be magical for Apple, because 【C11】______ Jobs is really doing here is trying to【C12】______the personal computer with a closed appliance that runs software only from Apple's online App Store. So instead of selling you a(n) 【C13】______ and never hearing from you again, Apple gets a(n) 【C14】______ revenue stream with iPad as you keep【C15】______more apps. That really is "magical" for Apple's bottom line, anyway.

And that's 【C16】______ . What's wrong, or at least interesting, is why some of us 【C17】______ so much more from a new gadget. I suspect this is because for some people, myself 【C18】______ , technology has become a kind of 【C19】______ . We may not believe in God anymore, but we still need mystery and wonder. We need the magic 【C20】______ .

【C1】

A．late

B．last

C．latter

D．latest

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第10题

Break-upOnce in a person's lifetime, everyone finds this one perfect person whom they fall

Break-up

Once in a person's lifetime, everyone finds this one perfect person whom they fall hopelessly in love with and live happily with ever after. That is a mere fallacy. In the real world, this simply does not happen. Yes, people do have common interests and therefore develop romantic involvement, but it is basic common sense that these relationships have a life span and simply cannot last. Real life relationships are definitely more like "The Real World" rather than "Romeo and Juliet".

Romanticism is wonderful in itself, and thus two people can live in heavenly bliss, but it all must come to an end somehow. It is a fact of life that couples do break up, and there are many reasons why. There are countless reasons, ranging from cheating to abuse, attributing to breakups.

Wealth

One reason why couples might break up is money or a lack thereof. If one partner in a relationship is always paying or keeping up all the bills, his/her partner just might grow tired of it and decide that it is a valid reason to separate. For example, a woman who is always lending her boyfriend money for his rent, car note, and social expenses will probably eventually grow tired of it and leave him.

Addiction

More reasons why couples separate, addictions often result in ugly breakups. Whether it is an addiction to drugs, gambling, or whatever, hardly anyone would be willing to take that on an everyday basis. Most people would agree that it is not pretty to see someone throw their life away on addictions. It is simply not attractive and thus, not many people would want to be with someone with an extreme problem like that.

Physical Assets

An unfortunate reason for a breakup, physical disabilities, also occurs at times. This can range from a paralyzing accident to infertility. To some people, having children is the most important priority in their adult life. Having a partner who is unable to have children can very much hinder a relationship. Thus, it will not last. Likewise, having a partner who has a paralyzing disability might be too much for someone to take. Being with a person, who becomes handicapped, though unfortunate, is a big burden to place on a person.

Test of Time and Distance

Growing apart, an instance in which two people just do not feel attraction towards each other anymore is very commonplace, resulting in an end of a relationship. Some couples simply "fall out of love". Some people can only stand so much of another person before they grow tired of the situation. Also, it could be as a result to distance. For example, when a couple who were together in high school go their own ways in choosing colleges, this, more often than not, results in the couple breaking up. A long distance relationship like that simply does not work out often.

"I Want the Better."

In direct relation to growing apart, a person sometimes finds another person besides their boy/ girlfriend who they are attracted to. Finding somebody "better" will kill a relationship quickly, and start a new relationship, If a person finds someone more attractive than the person they are currently with, they might have to weigh their options and decide that they want to go another direction.

Cheating

Likewise, when a person finds someone they like, this could result in cheating, another reason why couples break up. If a guy catches his girlfriend cheating on him, or vice versa, this could very well be a valid reason to end that relationship. Finding someone cheating leads to a lack of trust and thus, kills the relationship.

Abuse

Also, another very serious reason resulting in a break-up is abuse. When someone abuses his or her girlfriend, spouse, or children, a break-up is definitely necessary. Someone who is taking abuse is playing with f

A．Y

B．N

C．NG

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