One evening in February 2007 . a student named Paula Ceely brought her car to a stop on a remote in Wales . She got out to open a metal gate that blocked her path . That's when she heard the whistle sounded by the driver of a train.Her Renault Clio parked across a railway line. Second later,she watched  the train drag her car almost a kilometre down the railway tracks.

     Ceely's  near miss  made the news because she blamed it on her GPS device(导航仪).She had never driven the route before .It was dark and raining heavily . Ceely was relying on her GPS. But it made no mention of the crossing ."I put my complete trust in the device and it led me right into the path of a speeding train ,"she told the BBC.

   W ho is to blame here ? Rick Stevenson ,who tells Ceely's story in his book When Machines Fail US, finger at the limitations of technology. We put our faith in digital devices, he says,

      but our digital helpers are too often not up to the job. They are filled with small  problems. And it’s not just GPS devices: Stevenson takes us on a tour of digital disasters involving everything from mobile phones to wireless key boards.

     The problem with his argument in the book is that it’s  not clear why he only focuses digital technology,while  there may be a number of other possible  causes. A map-maker might have left the crossing off a paper map. Maybe we should blame Ceely for not paying attention. perhaps the railway authorities are at fault for poor signaling system. Or maybe someone has studied the relative dangers and worked out that there really is something specific wrong with the CPS equipment. But Stevenson doesn’t say.

It’s a problem that runs through the book. In a section on cars, Stevenson gives an accout of the advanced techniques that criminals use to defeat computer-based locking systems for cars. He offers two independent sets of figures on car theft; both show a small rise in some parts of the country. He says that once once again not all new locks have proved reliable. Perhaps, but maybe it’s also due to the shortage of policemen on the streets. Or changing social circumstances. Or some combination of these factors .

The game between humans and their smart devices  is complex. It is shaped by economics and psychology and the cultures we live in. Somewhere in the mix of those forces there may be  way a wiser use of technology.   

If there is such a way, it should involve more than just  an awareness of the shortcomings of our machines. After all, we have lived with them for thousands  of years. They have probably been fooling us for just as long .

1.

What did Paula Ceely think was the cause of her accident?           

 A. She was not familiar with the road.           

 B. It was dark and raining heavily then.   

C. The railway works failed to give the signal.

D. Her GPS device didn’t tell her about the crossing

2.

The phrase”near miss” (paragraph 2 ) can best be replaced by _______.    

A. closebit                    B. heavy loss             C.narrow escape         D. big mistake    

3.

Which of the following would Rick Stevenson most probably agree with?          A. Modern technology is what we can’t live without.

B. Digital technology often falls short of out expectation.    

C. Digital devices are more reliable than they used to be.   

D. GPS error is not the only cause for Celery’s accident. 

4.

In the writer’s opinion, Stevenson’s argument is________.

A. one-sided     B. reasonable      C.puzzling      D.well-based

5.

What is the real concern of the writer of this article?

A.The major causes of traffic accidents and car thefts.

B.The relationship between humans and technology

C. The shortcomings of digital devices we use.           

D. The human unawareness  of technical problems.

 

My 8-year-old daughter is making an experiment. She has been making her own colorful smile cards and often takes them with her everywhere.
Last Sunday, I took my kid to go shopping with me. She was hoping to see John, who is an elderly man and gives out samples. We see him from time to time and he is so happy and friendly. John wasn’t at the store on Sunday, so my daughter decided that it would be a good idea to distribute her smile cards to the store’s other employees.
So she did. In the produce department, she gave a card to a young man and she hoped it would make him smile. And he smiled at her and thanked her. Then she came across an older gentleman who looked rather impatient. And she snuck a card into his cart on top of his groceries, remarking to me later that he looked at her suspiciously as if she was dumping trash in his cart. But I thought he would be happy later.
When we got back from our shopping trip, she had run out of cards. She was walking by a woman with two babies in her cart. My daughter smiled at her and the young mother smiled back. My daughter came to me and said excitedly, “Mom, I just realized something. You don’t need cards to make someone smile. All you need to do is make eye contact and smile into their eyes and they will smile back.” 
What a beautiful lesson my daughter reminded me of. You are never too young or too old to experiment with kindness and smiles.
【小题1】At first, the writer’s daughter made an experiment by ______.

A．giving smile cards	B．giving samples
C．making eye contact	D．giving groceries

【小题2】According to the text, John was a man ______.

A．who is very young and lively	B．who may be a salesman
C．who is in trouble and needs smiles	D．who is never seen to smile

【小题3】The underlined word “distribute” in paragraph 2 probably means ______.

A．make up

B．tear up

C．give out

D．sell out

【小题4】From the text, we can learn that ______.

A．John got a smile card from the writer’s daughter

B．the older gentleman would smile later after he got the smile card

C．we could make others smile only by giving them what they wanted

D．the mother with two babies smiled because she got a smile card

It might sound ridiculous that goal setting could actually hold you back from completing tasks and dreams you may have. But it seems like everyone tells you should be setting goals for everything you want to accomplish, short term and long term. Goals can help you sometimes, but in some cases they just lead to constant frustration and they actually bring you down.

Let's look at this a little closer with an example. A lot of people might set forth as a goal. Many people jump online and are looking to start a business online as a way to make money from home and let's say they set a goal to make $10,000 in their first month. They do this because they seem tons of people making large sums of money in very little time so they think, $10,000 a month, that shouldn't be too hard.

But what happens when you only bring in $1,000 in your first 30 days online? If this is pure profit you might still be happy but this is nowhere near reaching the goal you originally set out to meet. So naturally you would feel like you failed to reach your goal and you may be a little disappointed in yourself.

If you continue not to reach this goal month in month , it starts to add up and really weighs on you. I'm not saying that they are bad and you shouldn't set them but you need to realize that you should not be emotionally attached to your goals.

An alternative approach would be to set certain milestones for when you want to accomplish things and start out small. Build your confidence by accomplishing smaller feats and if you overproduce, then it will be a nice surprise. You have to have some sort of end result in mind but break it down in to a day by day task. It makes it a lot easier for you to handle by just knowing everyday you have to complete a few small tasks and over time the snowball will roll into great things.

1.The purpose of the passage is to _______.

A．show that it’s necessary to set goals

B．prove the disadvantages of setting goals

C．suggest way of setting goals to reach success

D．introduce how to reach success by setting high goals.

2.In Paragraph 2 , the writer used the example to _______.

A．persuade readers not to be greedy for money

B．prove that goals often result in frustration.

C．show goal setting sometimes stops you realizing your dreams

D．advise readers not to set goals to avoid frustration

3.According to the passage, always sticking to our goals is ______.

A．important

B．unnecessary

C．ridiculous

D．natural

4.What belief does the writer most probably hold?

A．The higher goals we set, the more success we’ll achieve

B．Goal setting is not always necessary and helpful

C．We shouldn’t set higher goals than other people

D．Goals should be set for short term and long term.

5.What information will probably be provided following the last paragraph?

A．Another helpful tip for setting goals	B．Benefits of setting small goal
C．Side effects of goal setting	D．Success achieved without goal setting.

 

When I come across a good article in reading newspapers. I often want to cut and keep it. But just as I am about to do so I find the article on the ___1___ side is as much interesting. It may be a discussion of the way to ___2___ in good health, or a ___3___ about how to behave and conduct oneself in society. If I cut the front article, the opposite one is likely to ___4___ damage, leaving out half of it or keeping the text ___5___ the title. Therefore, the scissors would ___6___ before they start, ___7___ halfway done when I find out the ___8___ result.

Sometimes two things are to be done at the same time, both worth you ___9___. You can only take up one of them, the other has to wait or be ___10___ up. But you know the future is unpredictable(不可预料) — the changed situation may not allow you to do what is left ___11___. Thus you are ___12___ in a difficult position and feel sad. How ___13___ that nice chances and brilliant ideas should gather around all at once? It may happen that your life ___14___ greatly on you preference of one choice to the other.

In fact that is what ___15___ is like, we are often ___16___ with the two opposite sides of a thing which are both desirable like a newspaper cutting. It often occurs that our attention is drawn to one thing only ___17___ we get into another. The ___18___ may be more important than the latter and give rise to a divided mind. I ___19___ remember a philosopher’s remarks, “When one door shuts, another opens in life.” So a casual(不经意) ___20___ may not be a bad one.

1. A. front      B. same   C. either  D. opposite

2. A. get  B. keep   C. lead    D. bring

3. A. advice    B. news   C. theory D. report

4. A. suffer     B. reduce C. prevent      D. cause

5. A. on   B. for      C. without      D. off

6. A. use  B. handle C. prepare      D. stay

7. A. or   B. but     C. so       D. for

8. A. satisfying       B. regretful     C. surprising   D. impossible

9. A. courage  B. strength      C. attention     D. patience

10. A. given    B. held    C. made  D. picked

11. A. near      B. alone  C. about  D. behind

12. A. filled    B. attracted     C. caught D. struck

13. A. dares    B. comes C. deals   D. does

14. A. improves     B. changes      C. progresses  D. goes

15. A. study    B. society       C. nature D. life

16. A. faced    B. supplied     C. connected   D. fixed

17. A. before  B. after   C. until   D. as

18. A. following     B. next    C. above  D. former

19. A. still      B. also    C. once   D. almost

20. A. treatment     B. action C. choice D. remark

第三部分 阅读理解（共20小题。每小题2分，满分40分）

阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

A

In 1971 a young man who grew up very poor was traveling across the country, trying to make a start for himself. Along the way he had completely run out of money and was forced to spend the night in his car. This continued until one morning, after a week of sleeping in his car, he walked nervously into a restaurant and ordered a big breakfast.

After eating his first good meal in weeks, he found himself lying to the waiter, telling him he had lost his wallet. The waiter, who was also the owner, walked behind the chair where the young man had been sitting. He bent down and came up with a $20 bill that looked as if it had been fallen on the floor and said, “Son, you must have dropped this” the owner said. The young man couldn’t believe his luck! He quickly paid for the breakfast, left a tip, bought gas with the change and headed west.

On the way out of town, he began to understand what the waiter did. Maybe nobody dropped the money at all. “Maybe that fellow just knew I was in trouble and he helped me in a way that didn’t embarrass me. So I just made a promise to help other people if I can.”

Later, he worked very hard and became a rich man. Now, he lives near Kansas City. Each year he gives away thousands of dollars. He is known as the “Secret Santa” because at Christmas time each year, he personally hands money out to those on the street and at restaurants. Last year, he gave more than $50,000 away in Kansas City.

56. The young man was traveling across the country in 1971 to ______.

A. find a piece of work to do

B. hand out gifts to passers-by

C. look for a good restaurant

D. show his new car to others

57. The underlined word “this” in paragraph 2 means ______.

A. a wallet    B. his luck    C. the $20 bill    D. his tip

58. On the way out of town, the young man got to know that ______.

A. it was very honest of the owner to return his money

B. another man who had breakfast in the restaurant lost the money

C. he could find a job in the restaurant

D. the owner helped him in a way that didn’t hurt his feelings.

59. From this text we can see that ______.

A. the man dropped $20 on the floor of the restaurant

B. the man did carry out his promise

C. Santa gives the man money each year

D. the man was not successful in the end

60. The best title for this passage may be ______.

A. Secret Santa of Kansas City

B. The Key to Success

C. A Kind Waiter in the Restaurant

D. Never Give Up