For those who are conditioned to think that learning only happens in a classroom, the world of self-learning can be a little daunting. How do we best take   1   of these new opportunities?

Your interest in the subject is the essential driver of success. You can’t learn what you do not want to learn. Emotion is an important part of the learning   2   . If you are even moderately interested in a subject, give yourself  a chance. The key is to get started. If you can create some pleasurable   3  , you may find that the subject grows on you.

Don’t expect to understand things, much less remember them, the first time you study them. Trust that things will get clearer   4   your brain comes to grips with new information. It is like a cross-word puzzle. As you start to put the pieces together, or string the words together, the full picture becomes clearer. The brain learns all the time, but    5    its own schedule. Learning does not take place according to a schedule laid down by a curriculum or teacher. Some things are easier to learn than others. Some things just take    6   to click in. Keep at it, and you will gradually find that things that seem difficult at first , will become easy with time.

Your brain is struggling to form patterns to    7    new input from your learning activities. Sometimes, no matter how long you focus on one subject, your brain is not going to pick it up. If you are stuck, move   8   . Then cover the same general information from a different source, a different book, or a podcast, or an online lecture or a video. Try to become a  grazing learner, roaming the countryside,     9   a feedlot learner, just standing there in one spot. The broader your base, the easier it is to learn. Just as the “rich get richer”, the more you know,     10   you can learn.

Take full advantage of the Internet, iTunes, and     11   mobile devices, not to mention good old-fashioned books and magazines. Learn during “dead time”. Listen in your car, on the train, or   12   jogging. Have your learning with you while waiting in the doctor’s office, or listen while checking out at the supermarket. Anytime is     13  time. Remember, you are learning through exposure, not by nailing things down. It is more like moisture accumulation in a    14   , rather than building a brick wall.

The more varied your learning content, and the more varied the ways in which you learn, the       15 the puzzle will become. Different learning activities suit different people, at different times of the day. Vary your activities in order to keep your interest level   16    . Even if listening and reading work best for you, treat yourself to the odd video lecture, or get-together with other learners. This will renew your batteries.

The “loneliness of the distance learner” is a thing of the   17  . Join a learning community on the web, where members share their knowledge and experience. Search for the communities that suit your interests and learning style. You will find encouragement, advice and stimulus from fellow learners,        18    from tutors, teachers and coaches. In these communities, you can measure your progress against your own goals, or compare your experience     19    that of other learners. You can even teach and help others, which is a great way to learn.

Never has it been easier nor more exciting to be a learner. Let constant learning be a major part of your life-style. The   20        will be constant, personally, socially, and professionally.

(   ) 1. A. advantage    B. place                C. possession         D. example

(   ) 2. A. progress      B. process             C. pressure            D. proposal

(   ) 3. A. roads          B. streets              C. routines            D. building

(   ) 4. A. with           B. if                     C. unless               D. as

(   ) 5. A. on              B. to                    C. with                 D. for

(   ) 6. A. shorter               B. sooner              C. longer              D. lower

(   ) 7. A. take with     B. com with          C. go with            D. cope with

(   ) 8. A. down          B. on                    C. away                D. off

(   ) 9. A. more than   B. less than           C. rather than               D. other than

(   ) 10. A. less           B. quicker             C. lower                      D. more

(   ) 11. A. same         B. similar             C. familiar            D. various

(   ) 12. A. while               B. before              C. after                 D. if

(   ) 13. A. playing     B. learning            C. talking             D. speaking

(   ) 14. A. cloud               B. sky                  C. earth                D. sea

(   ) 15. A. cleaner      B. clearer              C. harder              D. lower

(   ) 16. A. down               B. up                    C. in                    D. out

(   ) 17. A. present      B. day                  C. past                  D. night

(   ) 18. A. as long as B. as far as            C. as well as          D. as soon as

(   ) 19. A. without     B. with                 C. to                    D. beyond

(   ) 20. A. awards      B. words               C. remarks            D. rewards

SECTION B

Directions: Read the following passage. Answer the questions according to the information given in the passage and the required words limit. Write your answers on your answer sheet.

The unsteady housing market is showing a rare sign of strength: waiting home sales were up significantly in February, a report released Monday said, suggesting that Americans took advantage of a tax credit for home buyers.

Sales rose 8.2 percent in February, the National Association of Realtors(房地产经纪人) said. Analysts had expected sales to stay flat.

Economists said Monday’s data suggested buyers were re-entering the market as the April 30 deadline approached for a government tax credit of up to $8,000. The tax credit drove up sales rapidly in the fall, when it was originally set to end, but it has been slow to push the market this spring.

Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the association, said Monday’s report “may signal the early stages of a second wave of home sales.”

A separate report on Monday showed the service division in the United States was improving, driven in part by gains in employment.

The Institute for Supply Management’s non-manufacturing barometer(晴雨表) rose to 55.4 in March, up from 53 in February, going beyond expectations. Much of the energy came from a rush in new orders and business activity.

It was the highest reading(测量或调查的读数) for the survey since May 2006. While employment rose, it was short of the break-even point, signaling the service division was still losing jobs. Exports also rose significantly.

“This is a very encouraging report, which indicates acceleration in demand growth from both domestic and foreign customers,” Barclays Capital researchers wrote in a note on Monday.

The jump in waiting home sales was a rare bit of good news for the housing market, which remains in a deep rut(车辙). Home prices have shown little change.

Analysts expect the housing market to gradually improve as unemployment becomes less and the broader recovery gains steam. But so far, relief has been slow to come.

Monday’s report showed sales rose even in areas hit hard by poor weather in February. Sales climbed 9 percent in the Northeast and South, which were blanketed by snow in February.

The Realtors association bases its data on signed contracts, which usually take one or two months to translate into final sales.

81. What is the effect of the government tax credit? (No more than 5 words)

__________________________________________________________________

82. Who is chief economist for the National Association of Realtors? (No more than 2 words)

_______________________________________________________________________________

83. What could be a surprise according to Monday’s report? (No more than 10 words)

_______________________________________________________________________________

84. If you are asked to describe the rise in home sales in February, which word do you think is the most appropriate? (No more than 1 word)

______________________________________________________________________________

 

根据短文内容，从下框的A—F选项中选出能概括每一段主题的最佳选项。选项中有一项为多余项．

A．Join learning communities and help each other.

B．Expect problems, never be disappointed, and gradually you’ll make it.

C．Anytime is learning time.

D．Get interested and arouse（唤起） your desire for knowledge.

E．Cover the same ground from different angles(角度).

F．Try to be a good and effective learner.

As a student, how we can learn our lessons effectively is a common problem which is always puzzling us．If you follow suggestions below, I'm sure you'll find the solution easily.

1.Your interest in the subject is the essential driver of success. You can' t learn what you do not want to learn. Emotion is an important part of the learning process. If you are even moderately interested in a subject, give yourself a chance. The key is to get started. If you can create some pleasurable routines, you may find that the subject grows on you. You must always remember learning is just like eating. You don' t expect to enjoy your food without appetite（食欲）.Therefore, you should always try to arouse your interest and desire for knowledge if you want to learn well.

2.Don't expect to understand things, or remember too much, the first time you study them．Think about what problem you will meet with in your study, so that you are well-prepared for it. Never be disappointed no matter what happens. Trust that things will get clearer as your brain comes to get new information. It is like a jig-saw puzzle or a cross-word puzzle（纵横填字游戏）. As you start to put the pieces together, or string the words together, the full picture becomes clearer. The brain learns all the time, but on its own schedule．Learning does not take place according to a schedule laid down by a curriculum or teacher. Keep at it, and you will gradually find that things that seem difficult at first, will become second nature with time.

3.Your brain is struggling to form patterns to cope with new input from your learning activities．Sometimes, no matter how long you focus on one subject, your brain is not going to pick it up．If you are stuck, move on．Then cover the same general information from a different source, a different book, or a blog, or an online lecture or a video．Try to become a grazing learner, wandering about the countryside, rather than a feed-lot learner, just standing there in one spot, chewing the same bale of hay．The broader your base, the easier it is to learn．Just as the "rich get richer" , the more you know, the more you can learn．

4.Take full advantage of the Internet, blogs, and various mobile devices, not to mention good old-fashioned books and magazines．Learn during "dead time". Listen in your car, on the train, or while jogging. Have your learning with you while waiting in the doctor's office, or listen while checking out at the supermarket. Anytime is learning time．Remember, you are learning through exposure, not by nailing things down. It is more like moisture accumulation in a cloud, rather than building a brick wall．

5.The "loneliness of the distance learner" is a thing of the past．Join a learning community on the web, where members share their knowledge and experience. Search for the communities that suit your interests and learning styles. You will find encouragement, advice and stimulus from fellow learners, as well as from tutors, teachers and coaches．In these communities, you can measure your progress against your own goals, or compare your experience with that of other learners．You can even teach and help others, which is a great way to learn.

 

We’ve heard about radiation from the damaged nuclear reactors in Japan reaching American shores. Experts say so far there is no reason to worry, and point out that we meet radiation every day. Where and how? NPR’s Renee Montagne posed that question to Peter Caracappa, a radiation safety officer and professor of nuclear engineering.

MONTAGNE: How many things emit radiation?

Dr CARACAPPA: Well, radiation and radioactive material is a part of nature. So everything that’s living has some amount of radiation coming from it—a very small amout. Plus there’s radiation in the ground and the air.

So the extremes are uranium in the soil to bananas?

Yes.

By the way, why do bananas have radiation?

Bananas have a lot of potassium(钾). And a small amount of potassium naturally is called potassium 40, which is radioactive

What’s the difference between radiation that’s harmful and not harmful?

Well, the term radiation can apply to a lot of different things. But the harmful radiation is ionizing(离子)radiation. It has enough energy that it can make chemical changes in material. We could get ionizing radiation from an X-ray, for example. It’s the kind of radiation that causes cancer.

The broader definition of radiation includes a lot of things that we call non-ionizing radiation. That includes everything like radio waves and visible light and your microwave.

So what then is the largest contributor of ionizing radiation?

For the natural sources of ionizing radiation, actually the biggest chunk of that tends to come from radon(氡), which is a radioactive material that is present in the air. It can become a concern when it builds up in low-lying areas of homes like basements.

Would it be fair to say that most people do not need to worry about the danger of being exposed to radiation?

I would say that the everyday exposure to radioation that we meet contributes an extremely tiny risk to our life or to our health compared to all of the other risks that we meet in our day-to-day life.

1.We can infer from the first paragraph that radiation is______.

A．rare

B．powerful

C．dangerous

D．common

2.The passage may be _______.

A．an interview

B．an argument

C．a talk show program

D．a science report

3.Whether radiation is harmful or not depends on______.

A．whether it has a small amount of potassium

B．whether it changes chemical in materials.

C．whether it has energy to change materials

D．whether it is visible in life

4.The purpose of writing this passage is to _______.

A．advise on how to protect us from radiation

B．analyze what causes radiation in daily life

C．warn people of the danger of radiation

D．expect people not to fear everyday radiation

 

Having spent two and a half years in China over several visits, I don’t remember ever going through a phase we in the United States call “cultural shock”. This period of difficulty in adjusting to a new culture would probably have set in during my semester at Peking University. Of course, this is not to say that I didn’t notice any differences between the American and Chinese cultures upon my arrival at Peking University, I did notice the differences. Looking back, I remember one of the first differences I noticed: Chinese universities are surrounded by walls.

    To an American, this is one of the most striking aspects of a Chinese university which immediately sets it apart from an American campus. Having grown up in the United States, I had never seen a university surrounded by high, cement(水泥) walls. My idea of a university, based on having seen scores of them in different states of the U.S., was a place of life and learning, an inseparable part of the community in which it was located, open not only to the students of the school itself, but also fully accessible to students from other schools and to the broader public.

    My idea of a university was that it was a center of cultural life, a resource for the entire community. In all my twenty-one years, it had never occurred to me that a school would have a wall around it. Walls enclose and separate; schools expand and integrate(合并). The very idea seemed fundamentally incompatible. I asked a Chinese friend if all Chinese universities have walls around them. “You know, I have never really thought about it. I guess so. I guess all Chinese schools have walls around them, not just universities.” “Why?” I asked, “What’s the point?” “I don’t know. To protect us, I suppose.”  “From whom?” “I don’t know. Don’t you have walls around your schools in the United States?” I thought carefully before answering. “No, I’ve never seen or heard of a university encircled by a wall.” My Chinese friend seemed puzzled. Walls around schools came to strike me as more than just an architectural difference between the United States and China. As China continues to open up to the outside world, these walls seem increasingly out of place.

1.The author felt strange about Chinese culture when he ___________.

A. studied in Peking University            

B. talked with his friends about the walls

C. experienced the “cultural shock” at his arrival

D. spent two and a half years in China over several visits

2.In the author’s opinion, a university is a place ___________.

A. where only students can come to study   

B. which is similar everywhere in the world

C. that should be surrounded by high cement walls             

D. that is an inseparable part of and a resource for the community

3.What does the underlined sentence in the last paragraph probably mean?

A. The two ideas are fundamental.        

B. The two ideas are basically different.

C. The two ideas about “school” and “wall” are suitable.

D. The two ideas about “school” and “wall” are conflicting.

4.What did the author’s friend feel about the walls around universities?

A. He thought it a good idea to have walls encircling schools.

B. He was shocked that American universities are not enclosed.

C. He thought they were necessary to protect students from being hurt.

D. He thought the difference between two countries is only architectural styles.

5.We can infer from the passage that the author thinks _____________.

A. walls are really useful in the universities

B. he can never really understand the Chinese culture

C. Chinese universities should work as public scenic spots

D. walls around the universities are inappropriate in an open China