It seems that there is no middle ground when it comes to cats. People either love them or hate them. These feelings are not new either. All through history, cats have been worshiped or hated. A study of ancient writings and evidence found in tombs indicates that for the past 5,000 years, cats have been kept as pets in China, Arabia, Egypt, and India. However, this isn’t very long compared to dogs, which have been domesticated for 50,000 years. Still, while the period in which cats have been domesticated may be quite short, it has definitely had its high and low points.

Cats were at their highest position of domesticated life in ancient Egypt. There were more cats living in Egypt during the time of the pharaohs than in any other place in the world since that time. This high number of cats was probably due to the laws protecting them. Cats were associated with the moon goddess, Bast, so the Egyptians worshiped them as holy animals. If anyone was caught killing a cat, the person could be put to death. Families in Egypt also mourned the death of a cat and had the body of the dead cat wrapped in cloth before it was finally laid to rest. This respect for cats carried over to the Roman Empire where cats were the only animals allowed into temples. This fact was probably due to the ability of cats to keep the temples free of mice and rats. With the coming of the Dark Ages in Europe, the place of cats in society took a turn for the Empire, Christians began to associate cats with pegan (异教徒) beliefs. Cats had a reputation as helpers of witches. When a person was accused of being a witch, a cat would often be put on trial with the person. The cat would be tortured（拷打） to try and make the person tell the truth, and usually the cat and the person would end up being burned in a bonfire or drowned. Bonfires of collected cats were not uncommon during this time.

The days of hunting witches have ended, but other myths about cats still hold out. For a while, people in some places used to bury live cats under new buildings for good luck. As well, many people today continue to believe that black cats bring bad luck. If a black cat walks in front of a person, that person must take extra care in the near future to watch out for dangerous situations. Regardless of superstition(迷信), cats remain a popular pet today. Some cat experts believe that a cat never truly be domesticated because it may turn wild and run away at any time. However, this claim has not put people off keeping cats in their homes. A third of homes in the United States have cats, and one out of every three of these homes keeps both a dog and a cat. Especially in large cities, many people in small apartments have found that cats make much better pets than dogs.

Cats may not be worshiped as gods any more, but there are people who seem to think of their cat as their children. These cat owners will do almost anything to keep their pets healthy and happy. For those cat owners who have always wondered what their pets are trying to tell them, a Japanese company may have come up with the perfect invention. In 2003, the Takara Company announced the Meowlingual, a cat translation device. The Meowlingual uses a microphone, display, and cat voice analyzer to analyze a cat’s meows to determine which of 200 phrases a cat is trying to say.

According to a company spokesperson, “… cat owners all over the world have been telling Takara, ‘ We want a cat translator!’” Now, the company “is making their dream come true by bringing in a new era of communication between cat lovers and their pets.”

1.Which of these is NOT discussed in the passage?

A．the status of cats throughout history

B．the evolution of different species of cats

C．the popularity of the cats today

D．communication between cats and their owners

2.The second paragraph mainly describes_______.

A．how Bast became a goddess.

B．the low point in the history of cats

C．the high point in the history of cats

D．the reason why cats are such good hunters

3.How were cats treated in Europe during the Dark Ages?

A．as farm animals     B．as food           C．as magical creatures D．as honored guests

4.According to the passage, what percentage of people in the United States keep both a cat and a dog?

A．about 10 percent   B．nearly 25 percent   C．about 33 percent   D．close to 50 percent

 

How to Be a Winner

Sir Steven Redgrave

Winner of 5 Olympic Gold Medals

“In 1997 I was found to have developed diabetes（糖尿病）. Believing my career was over, I felt extremely low. Then one of the specialists said there was no reason why I should stop training and competing. That was it — the encouragement I needed. I could still be a winner if I believed in myself. I am not saying that it isn’t difficult sometimes. But I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't finished yet. Nothing is to stand in my way.”

Karen Pickering

Swimming World Champion

“I swim 4 hours a day, 6 days a week. I manage that sort of workload by putting it on top of my diary. This is the key to success — you can’t follow a career in any field without being well-organized. List what you believe you can achieve. Trust yourself, write down your goals for the day, however small they are, and you’ll be a step closer to achieving them.”

Kirsten Best

Poet & Writer

“When things are getting hard, a voice inside my head tells me that I can’t achieve something. Then, there are other distractions, such as family or hobbies. The key is to concentrate. When I feel tense, it helps a lot to repeat words such as ‘calm’, ‘peace’ or ‘focus’, either out loud or silently in my mind. It makes me feel more in control and increases my confidence. This is a habit that can become second nature quite easily and is a powerful psychological tool．”

1.What does Sir Steven Redgrave mainly talk about?

A．Difficulties influenced his career．

B．Specialists offered him medical advice．

C．Training helped him defeat his disease．

D．He overcame the shadow of illness to win．

2.What does Karen Pickering put on top of her diary?

A．Her sports career．

B．Her achievements．

C．Her daily happenings．

D．Her training schedule．

3.What does the underlined word “distractions” probably refer to？

A．Ways that help one to focus．

B．Words that help one to feel less tense．

C．Activities that turn one's attention away．

D．Habits that make it hard for one to relax．

4.According to the passage, what do the three people have in common?

A．Self-confidence．	B．Hard work．
C．Devotion．	D．Courage．

 

When I was fourteen, I earned money in the summer by cutting lawns（草坪）, and within a few weeks I had built up a body of customers. I got to know people by the flowers they planted that I had to remember not to cut down, by the things they lost in the grass or struck in the ground on purpose. I reached the point with most of them when I knew in advance what complaint was about to be spoken, which request was most important. And I learned something about the measure of my neighbors by their preferred method of payment: by the job, by the month—or not at all.

Mr. Ballou fell into the last category, and he always had a reason why. On one day, he had no change for a fifty, on another he was flat out of checks, on another, he was simply out when I knocked on his door. Still, except for the money apart, he was a nice enough guy, always waving or tipping his hat when he’d seen me from a distance. I figured him for a thin retirement check, maybe a work-related injury that kept him from doing his own yard work. Sure, I kept track of the total, but I didn’t worry about the amount too much. Grass was grass, and the little that Mr. Ballou’s property comprised didn’t take long to trim (修剪).

Then, one late afternoon in mid-July, the hottest time of the year, I was walking by his house and he opened the door, mentioned me to come inside. The hall was cool, shaded, and it took my eyes a minute to adjust to the dim light. 

“I owe you,” Mr Ballou said, “but…”

I thought I’d save him the trouble of thinking of a new excuse. “No problem. Don’t worry about it.”

“The bank made a mistake in my account,” he continued, ignoring my words. “It will be cleared up in a day or two. But in the meantime I thought perhaps you could choose one or two volumes for a down payment.

He gestured toward the walls and I saw that books were stacked (堆放) everywhere. It was like a library, except with no order to the arrangement.

“Take your time,” Mr. Ballou encouraged. “Read, borrow, keep, or find something you like. What do you read?”

“I don’t know.” And I didn’t. I generally read what was in front of me, what I could get from the paperback stack at the drugstore, what I found at the library, magazines, the back of cereal boxes, comics. The idea of consciously seeking out a special title was new to me, but, I realized, not without appeal--- so I started to look through the piles of books.

“You actually read all of these?”

“This isn’t much,” Mr. Ballou said. “This is nothing, just what I’ve kept, the ones worth looking at a second time.”

“Pick for me, then.”

He raised his eyebrows, cocked his head, and regarded me as though measuring me for a suit. After a moment, he nodded, searched through a stack, and handed me a dark red hardbound book, fairly thick.

“The Last of the Just,” I read. “By Andre Schwarz-Bart. What’s it about?”

“You tell me,” he said. “Next week.”

I started after supper, sitting outdoors on an uncomfortable kitchen chair. Within a few pages, the yard, the summer, disappeared, and I was plunged into the aching tragedy of the Holocaust, the extraordinary clash of good, represented by one decent man, and evil. Translated from French, the language was elegant, simple, impossible to resist. When the evening light finally failed I moved inside, read all through the night.

To this day, thirty years later, I vividly remember the experience. It was my first voluntary encounter with world literature, and I was amazed by the concentrated power a novel could contain. I lacked the vocabulary, however, to translate my feelings into words, so the next week. When Mr. Ballou asked, “Well?” I only replied, “It was good?”

“Keep it, then,” he said. “Shall I suggest another?”

I nodded, and was presented with the paperback edition of Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa (a very important book on the study of the social and cultural development of peoples—anthropology (人类学) ).

To make two long stories short, Mr. Ballou never paid me a cent for cutting his grass that year or the next, but for fifteen years I taught anthropology at Dartmouth College. Summer reading was not the innocent entertainment I had assumed it to be, not a light-hearted, instantly forgettable escape in a hammock (吊床) (though I have since enjoyed many of those, too). A book, if it arrives before you at the right moment, in the proper season, at an internal in the daily business of things, will change the course of all that follows.

1.Before his encounter with Mr. Ballou, the author used to read _____________.

A．anything and everything                  B．only what was given to him

C．only serious novels                      D．nothing in the summer

2.The author found the first book Mr. Ballou gave him _____________.

A．light-hearted and enjoyable               B．dull but well written

C．impossible to put down                   D．difficult to understand

3.From what he said to the author we can guess that Mr. Ballou _______________.

A．read all books twice                     B．did not do much reading

C．read more books than he kept             D．preferred to read hardbound books

4.The following year the author _______________.

A．started studying anthropology at college

B．continued to cut Mr. Ballou’s lawn

C．spent most of his time lazing away in a hammock

D．had forgotten what he had read the summer before

5.The author’s main point is that _____________.

A．summer jobs are really good for young people

B．you should insist on being paid before you do a job

C．a good book can change the direction of your life

D．books are human beings’ best friends

 

For many parents, raising a teenager is like fighting a long war, but years go by without any clear winner. Like a border conflict between neighboring countries, the parent-teen war is about boundaries: Where is the line between what I control and what you do?

Both sides want peace, but neither feels it has any power to stop the conflict. In part, this is because neither is willing to admit any responsibility for starting it. From the parents’ point of view, the only cause of their fight is their adolescents’ complete unreasonableness. And of course, the teens see it in exactly the same way, except oppositely. Both feel trapped.

In this article, I’ll describe three no-win situations that commonly arise between teens and parents and then suggest some ways out of the trap. The first no-win situation is quarrels over unimportant things. Examples include the color of the teen’s hair, the cleanliness of the bedroom, the preferred style of clothing, the child’s failure to eat a good breakfast before school, or his tendency to sleep until noon on the weekends. Second, blaming. The goal of a blaming battle is to make the other admit that his bad attitude is the reason why everything goes wrong. Third, needing to be right. It doesn’t matter what the topic is. The laws of physics or the proper way to break an egg —the point of these arguments is to prove that you are right and the other person is wrong, for both wish to be considered an authority—someone who actually knows something — and therefore to command respect. Unfortunately, as long as parents and teens continue to assume that they know more than the other, they’ll continue to fight these battles forever and never make any real progress.

1.Why does the author compare the parent-teen war to a border conflict?

A．Both can continue for generations.          B．Both are about where to draw the line

C．Neither has any clear winner               D．Neither can be put to an end

2.What does the underlined part in Paragraph 2 mean?

A．The teens blame their parents for starting the conflict.

B．The teens agree with their parents on the cause of the conflict

C．The teens cause their parents to mislead them

D．The teens tend to have a full understanding of their parents

3.Parents and teens want to be right because they want to ________.

A．give orders to the other                  B．know more than the other

C．gain respect from the other               D．get the other to behave properly

4.What will the author most probably discuss in the paragraph that follows?

A．Causes for the parent –teen conflicts       B．Examples of the parent –teen war.

C．Solutions for the parent –teen problems    D．Future of the parent-teen relationship

 

Millions of years ago dinosaurs (恐龙) lived on the earth. In the days of dinosaurs the whole earth was warm and wet. There were green forests and they could find enough to eat. Later, parts of the earth became cold and dry. and the forests there died. Then dinosaurs could not find enough to eat. This must be one reason why dinosaurs died out.

We can guess another reason. New kinds of animals came on the earth. Some had big brains and were fast and strong. They could kill dinosaurs. There may be other reasons that we don’t know about yet. Scientists are trying to make more discoveries about dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs were of many sizes and shapes (形状).  Some were as small as chickens, while some were about 90 feet long.

There were also terrible fights between dinosaurs. They might have happened more than 100 million years ago. Though there was no man to see any of the fights, we can be told by the animal’s footprints (足迹) that fight did take place.

1.According to the passage, dinosaurs did exist only ______on the earth.

A．for millions of years	B．millions of years ago
C．more than 100 millions years ago	D．when it was warm and wet somewhere

2.One reason why dinosaurs died out is that______.

A．there were too many dinosaurs

B．parts of the earth became cold and dry

C．the dead forests there could not supply them with enough food

D．they couldn’t find enough to eat

3.One more reason may be that ______.

A．new kinds of animals came on the earth

B．some fast and strong animals with big brains could kill them

C．some dinosaurs were as small as chickens

D．some big dinosaurs died in the fights

4.We can see from this passage ______.

A．scientists are trying to make some dinosaurs	B．dinosaurs are dangerous enough
C．dinosaurs are worth studying	D．scientists know nothing about dinosaurs