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．

1.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

2.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

3.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

4.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．

 

A digital ring is locked on every newborn baby’s foot _______ they are taken by strangers out of the hospital.

A．because

B．when

C．so that

D．in case

 

A new World Calendar is published every year, and provides the latest information about many places and things. For example, you can find the names of past academy-award winners, the names of award-winning athletes, and information about American cities and states.

The book also provides information about other nations. It includes world history, geography, business, science and technology and languages.

It presents the most important and most unusual news stories of the past year. And it gives interesting facts, such as the nation with the most refugees (难民) (Pakistan), the nation with the most vacation days each year (Italy), and the most popular breed (品种) of dog in the United States.

The New York World newspaper published the first World Calendar in 1868. The World Calendar website says the publication has even played a part in American politics. For example, in 1923, Calvin Coolidge was sworn (宣誓) in as president after the sudden death of President Warren Harding. Mr. Coolidge’s father, a judge, read the oath of office from a copy of the World Calendar. The website also says that several recent American presidents have used the book. It says there are photographs of presidents John Kennedy and Bill Clinton that show copies of the World Calendar on or near their desks.

The website also claims that the World Calendar is the best-selling American reference book of all time. It says that more than 80 million copies have been sold.

The World Calendar now also publishes a digital version (版本), as well as a separate calendar for children. The Kids Calendar provides information children might need for school reports. It also has games, puzzles and other activities children enjoy.

60. According to the passage, all the following are available in the new World Calendar EXCEPT ______.

A. information about famous awards in America

B. some interesting news stories

C. introductions to some American cities

D. Calvin Coolidge’s oath of office

61. Who is the owner of the World Calendar, according to the passage?

A. The New York World newspaper.

B. The World Calendar website.

C. John Kennedy.

D. The Kids Calendar.

62. According to the passage, the World Calendar has a history of about ______ years.

A. 140         B. 85                C. 55               D. 105

 

The New York Times announced Wednesday that it intended to charge frequent readers for access to its website, a step being debated across the industry that nearly every major newspaper has so far feared to take.

Starting in early 2011, visitors to NYTimes.com will get a certain number of articles free every month before being asked to pay a standard and fixed fee for unlimited access. Subscribers to the newspaper’s print edition will receive full access to the site.

But executives of The New York Times Company said they could not yet answer fundamental questions about the plan, like how much it would cost or what the limit would be on free reading. They stressed that the amount of free access could change with time, in response to economic conditions and reader demand. Still, publishers fear that money from digital subscriptions would not make up for the resulting loss of audience and advertising income.

NYTimes.com is by far the most popular newspaper site in the country, with more than 17 million readers a month in the United States, according to Nielsen Online, and analysts say it is the leader in advertising income, as well. That may make it better positioned than other general-interest papers to charge—and also gives The Times more to lose if the move produces an opposed result.

The Times Company has been studying the matter for almost a year, searching for common ground between pro-and-anti pay campaigns—a debate mirrored in dozens of media-watching blogs-- and the system will not go into effect until January 2011. Executives said they were not bothered by the possibility of absorbing barbs(挖苦) for moving cautiously.

 “There’s no prize for getting it quick,” said Janet L. Robinson, the company’s president and chief executive. “There’s more of a prize for getting it right.”

What’s the function of the first paragraph?

       A. It servers as a comment.

       B. It serves as a background

       C. It serves as a lead-in

       D. It serves as a conclusion.

Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

       A. Non-paying subscribers will get no access to NYTimes.com.

       B. Readers will be charged more to read articles on NYTimes.com.

       C. Readers will get more free online articles to log on NYTimes. com more often.

       D. Subscribers to the paper’s print edition will also enjoy full access to the site.

Which of the words can best describe The Time Company’s attitude towards its announcement?

A. Unwilling.       

B. Serious.                  

C. Hasty               

D. Doubtful

What is the main idea about the passage?

       A. The Times to offer free access to its web site.

       B. The Times to increase audience to its web site.

       C. The Times to attract advertisement to its web site

       D. The Times to charge for frequent access to its web site.

Imagine that the genome (基因组) is a book. The book consists of 23 chapters with thousands of stories made up of paragraphs, words and letters on different levels. There are one billion words in the book, which makes it longer than 5,000 volumes the size of this book, or as long as 800 Bibles. If I read the genome out to you at the rate of one word per second for eight hours a day, it would take me a century. If I wrote out the human genome, one letter per millimeter, my text would be as long as the River Danube. This is an enormous document. A huge volume, a cook book of great length, and it all fits inside the extremely small nucleus (核) of a tiny cell that fits easily upon the head of a pin.

The idea of the genome as a book is not, strictly speaking, even a metaphor (比喻), It is true to a great extent. A book is a piece of digital information, written in one-directional form and defined by a code that translates a small alphabet of letters into a large dictionary of meanings through the order of their groupings. So is a genome. The only complication is that all English books read from left to right, while some parts of the genome read from left to right, and some from right to left, though never both at the same time.

While English books are written in words of different lengths using twenty-six letters. Genomes are written entirely in three-letter words, using only four letters, And instead of being written on flat pages, they are written on long chains of DNA molecules (分子), The genome is a very clever book, because in the right conditions it can both photocopy itself and read itself.

1.How do human genomes read according to the passage?

       A. Only from left to right.    B. Only from right to left.

       C. From both directions at the same time   D. From one direction at a time

2.We can learn from the passage that the human genome ______.

       A. is as long as the River Danube

       B. can be easily placed on the head of a pin

       C. is coded with and alphabet of four letters

       D. is smart enough to read and take photos of itself

3.It can be concluded that the passage is mainly written for ______.

       A. specialists in the field      B. general readers

       C. natural scientists        D. readers with academic background

4.The real purpose of the author’s comparison of the genome to a book is ______.

       A. to focus on the differences between the two

       B. to lay emphasis on the similarities between the two

       C. to simplify the concept of the human genome

       D. to give an exact description of the human genome