Over the past few years the cost of living _______________considerably.

A. has been raised      B. has risen                             C. was raising                    D. was rising

 

Japanese people,who never miss a chance to be photographed,were lining up to get their pictures on a postage stamp．Vanity（虚荣）stamps with personal photographs went on sale for the first time in Japan as part of an international postage stamp exhibition．The customer’s photo was taken with a digital camera and then printed on stamp sheets,a process that takes about five minutes．Sold in a sheet of 10 stamps for $8．80,little more than the cost of lunch in Tokyo,each stamp printed a different scene from a traditional painting along with the photo．

    The stamps can be used normally to mail a letter,and postal officials hope they will help encourage interest in letter writing in the Internet age．“Certainly e-mail is a useful method of communication,but letters are fun in a different way,”said Hatsumi Shimizu an official in the Post Ministry．“We want to show young people that letters can be fun too．”

    While similar stamp sheets appeared in Australia in 1999 and are now sold in some nations and territories,Japan’s fondness for commemorative photos is likely to make them especially popular here．Indeed,officials had prepared 1 000 sheets but they were sold out in less than 30 minutes．Although the stamps are currently only available as a special service during the exhibition,postal officials said they may start selling them on a regular basis in the future．

The best title of this passage might be______．

    A．Never Miss a Chance to be Photographed           B．Your Own Face on a Postage Stamp

    C．First Japanese Postage Stamps with a Photo       D．Letters are as Fun as E-mails

By saying“little more than the cost of lunch in Tokyo”,the author really means______．

    A．this service is not very expensive       B.the cost of this service is very high

    C．food in Tokyo is very dear             D．$8．80 is a very small amount of money

The purpose of this activity is______．

    A．to make the international postage stamp exhibition more interesting

    B．to make more stamps for normal use   C．to draw interest in writing letters

    D．to satisfy Japan’s fondness of commemorative photos

Which of the following is true according to the passage?

    A．Japanese people like to take photos．    B．This kind of stamps must be used to mail letters．

    C．Japanese people can get this kind of stamps easily after the stamp exhibition．

    D．This service is more popular in Japan than in other places．

 

Every pet owner loves his pet. There is no argument here.

But when we asked our readers whether they would clone(克隆) their beloved animals, the answers were split almost down the middle. Of the 228 readers who answered it, 108 would clone, 111 would not and nine weighed each side without offering an opinion.

Clearly, from readers’ response, this is an issue that reaches deeply into both the joy and final sadness of owning a pet. It speaks, as well, to people’s widely differing expectations over the developing scientific procedure.

Most of the respondents (被调查的人) who liked the idea strongly believed it would produce at least a close copy of the original; many felt the process would actually return an exact copy. Those on the other side, however, held little hope a clone could never truly recreate a pet, many simply didn’t wish to go against the natural law of life and death.

Both sides expressed equal love for their animals. More than a few respondents owned “the best dog/cat in the world”. They thought of their pets as their “best friend”, “a member of the family,” “the light of my life.” They told moving stories of pets’ heroism(英勇精神), cleverness and selfless devotion.

“People become very close to their animals, and the loss can be just as hard to bear as when a friend or family member dies,” says Gary Kowalski, author of Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet. “For me, cloning feels like an attempt to turn death away…It’s understandable. Death is always painful. It’s difficult to deal with. It’s hard to accept.”

　　But would cloning reduce the blow? This question seemed to be at the heart of this problem.

71. So far as the cloning of pets is concerned, a recent survey shows that, of all pet owners, __________.

A. a lot more of them are for it  

B. a lot more of them are against it

C. very few of them are willing to tell their opinions

D. about half of them are for it and the other half against it

72. While talking about the respondents from the readers, the underlined expression “final sadness of owning a pet” refers to ___________.

A. the death of one’s pet   

B. the high cost of owning a pet

C. the troubles one has to deal with in keeping a pet

D. the dangers involved in the cloning of a pet

73. In spite of(尽管) their differences on the problem of cloning, it seems that ________.

A. all pet owners try to go against the natural law of life and death

B. all pet owners love their pets very much

C. people who support cloning love their pets more

D. people who dislike cloning love their pets more

74. From what Gary Kowalski says, we can know that he _________.

A. has never thought about the problem of cloning

B. is going to write another book on pets

C. support the idea of cloning pets

D. is all against the cloning of pets

75. What is the key question at the heart of the problem of cloning pets?

A. Can cloning make one suffers less pain when a pet dies?

B. Can pet owners afford the cost of cloning?

C. Does cloning go against the law of nature?

D. Can cloning really produce an exact copy of one’s pet?

 

 

    A 1.6-meter tall robot may soon become the best friend for lonely elderly people，as Chinese scientists are making the final sprint(冲刺)toward its market launch(投放)，said a senior researcher on the robot project on Saturday．

    “We are working on testing the exact functions and ways to reduce the cost in preparations for an expected market launch of the robot in two to three years，”said Li Ruifeng，a member of  the project．  

    He said the team hoped to reduce the cost so that the robot can be priced at 30，000 to 50，000 yuan，which is expected to be an affordable price for most of China’s better-off families．

    The robot has been developed with the functions of fetching food，medicine，sounding alarms in case of water or gas leakage，sending texts or video images via wireless communications，and even singing a song or playing chess to entertain its masters．

    Li said that the robot，developed independently in China, has technology at the same level as those in western labs．   

    China set about the research of the robot in 2007，when it was listed as a national key project．It is backed by government funding(拨款)．China has the world’s largest elderly  population with 159 million people over 60，accounting for 12 percent of its total population． According to a survey by the Ministry of Civil Affairs，more than 10 million caregivers and nurses are needed to attend the elderly population，as most of Chinese elderly prefer to live their retired lives at home．   

61．The passage mainly talked about          ．

    A．the problems of Chinese elderly population

    B．the advantages of the Robot caregivers

    C．robot caregivers for the elderly to lilt market

    D．the government’s attention to the elderly

62．The underlined word “backed” in the last paragraph means      ．

    A. supported  B．suggested C．controlled       D．stopped

63．From the last paragraph we know that        ．

A．our government pays no attention to the elderly people

    B．China has the world’s largest elderly population

    C．Chinese elderly people prefer to be looked after by robot caregivers

    D．robots are the best friends for the lonely elderly people

64．Which of the following is true according to the passage?

    A．Robot caregivers will appear in the market in 2 or 3 years．

    B．Robot caregivers can help elderly people do everything．

    C．The robot needs some technology from western labs．

    D．The robot is expected to be bought by every people．

65．The author wrote the passage to         ．

    A．advertise a robot caregiver to the elderly

    B．tell China elderly not to worry about their life  

    C．explain how robot caregivers work in the future[来源:Zxxk.Com]

D．introduce a newly-developed robot caregiver

 

Net Library is a library that lends out digital books. It treats a digital book like a paperback copy. It charges libraries per book per copy and gives publishers a cut of the total income.

From the consumer’s point of view, this means that if more than five people want the latest Danielle Steel romance novel, other people who request that book will get a message saying the title is unable to get.

Many publishers seem to have embraced its model. More than 350 publishers gave the company rights to hand out their digital works, and McGraw-Hill Corporation and Houghton Mifflin Corporation have put money into the company. The California public libraries and about 1,800 others across the US are trying out the Net Library service.

Some librarians criticize the Net Library model. Stanford University librarian Michael Keller argues that the company is creating an unnatural fear of digital works, which is contrary to the ideas of the Internet.

Keller and some other librarians argue for the e-book vision set forth by Brary. Brary is starting a service that lets us users read books for free.

But it will charge about 25 cents a page when a person tries to point out material or copy and taste it into a different file or tries to download a copy onto a computer.

Christopher Warnock, chief executive of Brary, believes most consumers won’t want to buy entire books, only the parts that interest them.

“There is not really a lot of good owning an electronic file and having to store it and manage it. It doesn’t make sense,” he said.

How do publishers get money from the Net Library?

 A．They get money from selling their books to the Net Library

 B．They get money from the readers．

 C．They get money by cutting the cost of the books．

 D．They share the money with Net Library．

The underlined word“embraced”in the third paragraph means

A．tried out something hard       B．held something tightly

C．disliked something badly       D．taken something willingly

From the second paragraph we can see consumers             

A．don’t care if they are charged money

B．enjoy the service of the Net Library

C．don’t like other people’s borrowing books

D．complain about the limited number of the new books

What does the last paragraph mean?

A．Net Library is not a good way for the consumers．

B．There is no need for consumers to have a whole book．

C，Brary is not a good library for the consumers．

D It’s reasonable to charge the consumers money for copying some pages．