阅读下面短文，从A、B、C对四个选项中选出最佳选项。

　　In history，a real cowboy was a simple farm worker on horseback．He spent a long time a day outdoors working with cows ．The work was dirty，tiring and not very well paid．

　　People in the western。states had to 　1　 cattle at low cost and send them by railway to the eastern 　2　 ．But someone had to 　3　 the cattle and get them to the nearest railroad．This was the job of a cowboy．Sometimes the 　4　 was more than a thousand Kilometers away and it could take as 　5　 as six months to move the cattle．The　6　 was long but the cattle were driven 　7　 as not to lose 　8　．Then they could be sold at a good price．

　　Most cowboys were young，　9　 men．A good horse 　10　 their job of moving cattle much easier．A good cowboy 　11　 cows and knew how to control them．At night，he 　12　 to the cows to keep them calm．

　　In the late 1800s，America was changing from a nation of farm to one of 　13　 and cities．The cowboy seemed 　14　 compared with other Americans doing ordinary jobs．

　　Today，the 　15　 of cowboys has 　16　 greatly．One change is the use of trucks．

　　The job is not so hard 　17　 it used to be．And cowboys are better 　18　 now．They are 　19　 to be married．Some of them are farmers teachers or truck drivers．Some work for big companies．　20　 at night and on weekends，they become cowboys．These part-time cowboys increase the total production of meat，keeping the beef price low．

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阅读下列短文，从每题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项。

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Researchers who helped discover a new species of Mexican butterfly are offering to sell the naming rights to raise money to fund more research. Co-discoverer Andrew Warren is hoping to raise at least $50,000 by auctioning(拍卖) off the rights to name the 4-inch “owl eye” butterfly, which lives in Sonora, a Mexican state bordering Arizona.

“That would support at least two years of research for our team down in Mexico,” Warren said. “Money goes a long way down here in Mexico.”

According to the scientific tradition, discoverers of a new species have the say in naming it. In recent years, some discoverers have auctioned off their naming rights to raise money.

Warren said the amount being sought for the butterfly is not out of the question, noting that naming rights for a new monkey species brought in $650,000 two years ago. A group of 10 new fish species that went on the naming auction block at the same time earlier this year brought in a total of $2 million.

The butterfly discovered by Warren and researcher George Austin ranges as far north as Mexico.

The butterfly was actually in a collection, misidentified as an example of another new species, at the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity at the Florida Museum of National History in Gainesville, said Warren. They soon began the hard process of determining that it was indeed a “new” model of butterfly.

After checking photos and comparing it with other known species, they determined it was a separate species.

Where did the researchers discover the new species of butterflies?

   A. In Sonora.                        B. In Mexico state.       

   C. In a place in US.                D. Near the US-Mexico border.

Why will the researchers sell the naming rights of the butterfly?

To raise money for wildlife protection.

To raise money for more research.

To cause people’s attention to the new discovery.

To cover the cost of the research.

When the butterfly was first discovered, people thought ______.

it was a new species at once

it wasn’t a species of American butterfly

it belonged to the monarch branches

it belonged to a new species

We can infer from the passage that ______.

the new species of butterfly live both in the US and Mexico

it took the researchers a lot of efforts to determine the new species of butterfly

the researchers are not sure whether they can get the money they want from the auction

it is the first time that the new species of butterfly has been found

 

    In the college-admissions wars, we parents are the true fighters. We’re pushing our kids to get good grades, take SAT preparatory courses and build resumes so they can get into the college of our first choice. I’ve twice been to the wars, and as I survey the battlefield, something different is happening. We see our kids’ college background as a prize demonstrating how well we’ve raised them. But we can’t acknowledge that our obsession(痴迷) is more about us than them. So we’ve created various justifications（辩解）that turn out to be half-truths, prejudices or myths. It actually doesn’t matter much whether Aaron and Nicole go to Stanford.

We have a full-developed panic; we worry that there won’t be enough prizes to go around. Fearful parents urge their children to apply to more schools than ever. What causes the hysteria(歇斯底里) is the belief that scarce elite（精英）degrees must be highly valuable. Their graduates must enjoy more success because they get a better education and develop better contacts. All seems right but mostly wrong. We haven’t found any convincing evidence that selectivity or prestige matters. Selective schools don’t systematically employ better instructional approaches than less selective schools. On two measures—professors’ feedback and the number of essay exams selective schools do slightly worse.

By some studies, selective schools do enhance（提高） their graduates’ lifetime earnings. The gain is reckoned at 2-4% for every 100-point increase in a school’s average SAT scores. But even this advantage is probably a statistical fluke(偶然). A well-known study examined students who got into highly selective schools and then went elsewhere. They earned just as much as graduates from higher-status schools.

Kids count more than their colleges. Getting into Yale may signify intelligence, talent and ambition. But it’s not the only indicator and, surprisingly, its significance is declining. The reason: so many similar people go elsewhere. Getting into college is not life’s only competition. In the next competition—the job market and graduate school—the results may change. Princeton economist Alan Krueger studied admissions to one top Ph.D. program. High scores on the GRE helped explain who got in; degrees of famous universities didn’t.

So, parents, take it easy（lighten up）. The stakes (利害关系) have been vastly exaggerated. Up to a point, we can rationalize our pushiness. America is a competitive society; our kids need to adjust to that. But too much pushiness can be destructive. The very ambition we impose on our children may get some into Harvard but may also set them up for disappointment. One study found that, other things being equal, graduates of highly selective schools experienced more job dissatisfaction. They may have been so conditioned to being on top that anything less disappoints.

1. Why does the author say that parents are the true fighters in the college-admissions wars?

         A. They have the final say in which university their children are to attend.

         B. They know best which universities are most suitable for their children.

         C. They have to carry out intensive surveys of colleges before children make an application.

         D. They care more about which college their children go to than the children themselves.

2. Why do parents urge their children to apply to more schools than ever?

         A. They want to increase their children’s chances of entering a prestigious college.

         B. They hope their children can enter a university that offers attractive scholarships.

         C. Their children will have a wider choice of which college to go to.

         D. Elite universities now enroll fewer student than they used to.

3. What does the author mean by “kids count more than their colleges” Line1, para.4?

         A. Continuing education is more important to a person’s success.

         B. A person’s happiness should be valued more than their education.

         C. Kids’ actual abilities are more important than their college background.

         D. What kids learn at college cannot keep up with job market requirements.

4. What does Krueger’s study tell us?

         A. Getting into Ph.D. programs may be more competitive than getting into college.

         B. Degrees of prestigious universities do not guarantee entry to graduate programs.

         C. Graduates from prestigious universities do not care much about their GRE scores.

         D. Connections built in prestigious universities may be kept long after graduation.

5. One possible result of pushing children into elite universities is that______

         A. they earn less than their peers from other institutions　　

         B. they turn out to be less competitive in the job market

         C. they experience more job dissatisfaction after graduation　

         D. they overemphasize their qualifications in job application

 

Scientists who try to predict earthquakes have gotten some new helpers recently—animals.

　　That’s right, animals. Scientists have begun to understand what farmers have known for thousands of years. Animals often seem to know in advance that an earthquake is coming, and they show their fear by acting in strange ways. Before a Chinese quake in 1975, snakes awoke from their winter sleep early only to freeze to death in the cold air. Cows broke their halters (缰绳) and tried to escape. Chickens refused to enter their cage. All of this unusual behavior, as well as physical changes in the earth, warned Chinese scientists of the coming quake. They moved people away from the danger zone and saved thousands of lives.

　　One task for scientists today is to learn exactly which types of animal behavior predict quakes. It’s not an easy job. First of all not every animal reacts to the danger of an earthquake. Just before a California quake in 1977, for example, an Arabian horse became very nervous and tried to break out of his enclosure. The Australian horse next to him, however, remained perfectly calm. It’s also difficult at times to tell the difference between normal animal restlessness and “earthquake nerves”. A zoo keeper once called earthquake researchers to say that his cougar had been acting strangely. It turned out that the cat had an upset stomach.

　　A second task for scientists is to find out exactly what kind of warnings the animals receive. They know that animals sense far more of the world than humans do. Many animals can see, hear, and smell things that people do not even notice. Some can sense tiny changes in air pressure, gravity, or the magnetism of Earth. This extra sense probably helps animals predict quakes.

　　A good example of this occurred with a group of dogs. They were shut in an area that was being shaken by a series of tiny earthquakes. (Several small quakes often come before or after a large one.) Before each quake a low booming sound was heard. Each boom caused the dogs to bark wildly. Then the dogs began to bark during a silent period. A scientist who was recording quakes looked at his machine. It was acting as though there were a loud noise too. The scientist realized that the dogs had reacted to a booming noise. They also sensed the tiny quake that followed it. The machine recorded both, though humans felt and heard nothing.

In this case there was a machine to monitor what the dogs were sensing. Many times, however, our machines record nothing extraordinary, even though animals know a quake is coming. The animals might be sensing something we measure but do not recognize as a warning. Discovering what animals sense, and learning how they know it is a danger signal, is a job for future scientists.

1.Through the passage the writer hopes to explore __________.

A．why animals send a danger signal before an earthquake

B．how animals know when an earthquake is coming

C．why animals not men have good sense of danger

D．how much animals know about an earthquake

2. During an earthquake in China in 1975, _________.

A．chickens refused to go out of their cage

B．snakes were frozen to death in their caves

C．snakes awoke from their winter sleep earlier

D．cows broke their halters and escaped from their sheds

3.Which of the following is one of earthquake nerves according to the passage?

A．An Arabian horse tried to escape from his enclosure.

B．A cougar had an upset stomach unexpectedly.

C．An Australian horse was perfectly calm.

D．A cat acted very strangely in a zoo.

4.The scientists did an experiment with a group of dogs to _________.

A．find out that the machine could record unusual happenings

B．compare the reactions of animals and those of humans

C．prove that animals could sense more than humans

D．find out what exact warnings animals sent