If California were not already so famous for Sillicon Valley(硅谷) and Hollywood, it might be well－known for the groups of water－technology firms in its San Diego County. The reverse－osmosis (RO) spiral module, the technique that supports turning seawater and waste－water into drinkable stuff, began in San Diego in 1964. Today dozens of firms in the area supply many of the world's approximately 13，000 RO plants in places from the Persian Gulf and Israel to Australia and China.

Southern California itself, however, has not so far been a big user of its own technology. This is surprising, given that the whole American south－west faces a water problem. But now as the climate gets warmer and the population increases, there is more agreement that the existing infrastructure, consisting of vast pipes that carry water from the Sacramento Delta in the north and the Colorado River in the east, will not be enough. In places such as San Diego, which has inadequate and salty groundwater and currently imports 90% or its water, the answers must be greater conservation, reusing as much water as possible, and getting most of the rest from the sea.

The first part, conservation, has been widely accepted by the public. San Diego today uses less water with a larger population than it did in 1989, the year water consumption peaked. The second part, water recycling has been a hard sell, because of an unpleasant factor. Americans still use the term “toilet－to－tap” for recycling, even though properly treated waste－water is nowadays completely clean. Singapore made its programme acceptable in part by renaming it as NEWater.

This is where desalination comes in, which means taking the salt out of salt water. A firm called Poseidon Resources is now close to building the biggest desalination plant in America behind a power station by the beach in Carlsbad. The power plant sucks in 304m gallons of seawater a day for cooling, so Poseidon plans to change 104m gallons a day by using the RO spiral module.

Lots of people like the idea. Once fully running in 2015, the plant could produce 10% of the region's water. And there are plans for more desalination plants. Many places would need to take much less water from the endangered Colorado River. But a few people hate it a lot. Joe Geever, an expert in biology, says desalination uses too much energy and that Poseidon plant would kill too much sea life. He understands that there is a role for desalination, he says, but would rather not have it right there, right now, and on this scale.

43．Which of the following is WRONG about the RO spiral module according to the passage?

A. This technology is not widely used in its birthplace.

B. Today there are about 13，000 RO plants in the Persian Gulf, Israel, Australia and China.

C. This technology can be used in desalination plants to make sea water drinkable.

D. It is a promising water treatment technology welcomed by a lot of people.

44．How many solutions to the water problem in San Diego are mentioned in the article?

A. 2.  B. 3.  C. 4.  D. 5.

45．What can we infer from the article?

A. The Colorado River is the main water source for California.

B. Americans still use the term “toilet－to－tap” for recycling water.

C. NEWater serves as a brand for recycled clean water in Singapore.

D. Poseidon Resources stands for the power station by the beach in Carlsbad.

46．What is Joe Geever's attitude toward building a large desalination plant at present?

A.Supportive.  B. Negative.  C. Optimistic.  D. Vague.

If you' re feeling stressed, rather than wallow （沉迷） in watching television, try looking out of the window, with a US study finding scenes of nature can ease off minor stress levels．

Researchers at the Human Interaction with Nature and Technological Systems Lab at the University of Washington set out to look at whether nature, either the real thing or the one depicted （描述） technologically, can impact on minor stress levels．The study involved measuring people' s heart recovery rates from minor stress when they were exposed to a natural scene through a window and when exposed to the same scene shown on a high-definition plasma （ 等离子） screen, or a blank wall．

"The heart rates of people who looked at the scene through the window dropped more quickly than the others．In fact, the high-definition plasma screen had no more effect than the blank wall," the researchers said in a statement．They also found that when people spent more time looking at the natural scene their heart rates tended to decrease more．That was not the case with the plasma screen．

The study, involving 90 college students, is published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology．"Technology is good and it can help our lives, but let' s not be fooled into thinking we can live without nature," Peter Kahn, who led the research team, said in a statement．He said people were losing direct experiences with nature and instead experiencing nature represented technologically through television and other media with children growing up watching Discovery Channel and Animal

Planet．"But as a species we need interaction with actual nature for our physical and psychological well-being," he said．

59．According to the passage, watching an actual natural scene on a high-definition plasma screen __        

       A．is actually harmful to one' s health

       B．is as good to one' s health as watching an actual natural scene

       C．doesn't do any good to one' s health at all

       D．may have some impact on minor stress levels

60．Peter Kahn believes that watching Discovery Channel and Animal Planet

       A．is quite necessary for the growth of children

       B．doesn't help in the growing process of children

       C．does more harm than good to children

       D．can't take the place of children' interaction with the real nature

61．The study shows that people' s heart rates decrease the most when they____

       A．fix their eyes on a blank wall

       B．watch a beautiful scene on a high-definition plasma screen

       C．watch the natural scene out of a window

       D．fix their eyes on a natural scene depicted technologically

62．Who would be most interested in the study mentioned in the passage?

       A．People with minor stress levels．

       B．People with high stress levels．

       C．People with medium stress levels．

       D．People with psychological problems．

    Begin doing the work you love as soon as possible, even if you don’t get paid for it, or if you can only work at it part-time. Albert Einstein was unable to get a job as a physics professor. He could have said to himself, “Well, I just don’t have the work relation to physics. I should give up on it and settle for something else.” Instead, he wrote the two most famous papers while employed as a patent(专利) office worker. After their publication, there was not a major university in the world that would not have been glad to have him work for them.

    If you want to work as an artist and you are making a living as a waiter, don’t think of your- self as a waiter who hopes one day to become an artist. That puts the work you love somewhere off in the distant future. Rather, think of yourself as an artist, supporting yourself by waiting table-and paint, or draw as much as you can. It is possible to earn a living wage as a waiter working 24 hours a week. That leaves plenty of time to devote to training or developing your craft(手艺) in the off hours.

    While seeking the work you love, it helps to expand your awareness (意识) into the universe of all possibilities. You don’t want to be limited to the ideas of what should do or what you have done before. Having opened to all possibilities, you can make a final decision and select the work you love as your own.

　　 Doing the work you love requires that you be equally comfortable with the imaginative and the practical. It requires the ability to dream big dreams and the ability to face and master all the little details that make dreams come true.

1. According to the passage, perhaps Einstein once said to himself, “ ________ ”

A．Well, I just don’t have the work relative to physics. I should give up on it and settle for something else

B．The job is just what I want, I should work very hard on it

C．I have to support myself by working as a patent clerk now, but I won’ t give physics up

D．I must wait until I find my favorite job

2. If a person works 24 hours a week, he can

A．have enough spare time for his hobbies

B．have no time left to make his dream come true

C．do nothing else

D．make a good living

3. Which of the following is not implied in the last paragraph?

A．Sometimes the imaginative is different from the practical.

B．We have to take care of a lot of details before we make our dreams come true.

C．We shall do practical things rather than dream.

D．We shall dream big dreams and practice as well.

4. According to the passage, the author encourages us to ________

A．start to work quickly

B．select job carefully and patiently

C．dream often

D．．colorful

B．poisonous

C．ugly

D．both A and B

 

bidi-font-size:10.5pt;font-family:宋体; mso-ascii-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-hansi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; color:black;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>．Unskilled Labors on Rivers and Canals in Upper Canada, 1820 - 1850

 

span>make up our minds quickly

 

    Begin doing the work you love as soon as possible, even if you don’t get paid for it, or if you can only work at it part-time. Albert Einstein was unable to get a job as a physics professor. He could have said to himself, “Well, I just don’t have the work relation to physics. I should give up on it and settle for something else.” Instead, he wrote the two most famous papers while employed as a patent(专利) office worker. After their publication, there was not a major university in the world that would not have been glad to have him work for them.

    If you want to work as an artist and you are making a living as a waiter, don’t think of your- self as a waiter who hopes one day to become an artist. That puts the work you love somewhere off in the distant future. Rather, think of yourself as an artist, supporting yourself by waiting table-and paint, or draw as much as you can. It is possible to earn a living wage as a waiter working 24 hours a week. That leaves plenty of time to devote to training or developing your craft(手艺) in the off hours.

    While seeking the work you love, it helps to expand your awareness (意识) into the universe of all possibilities. You don’t want to be limited to the ideas of what should do or what you have done before. Having opened to all possibilities, you can make a final decision and select the work you love as your own.

　　 Doing the work you love requires that you be equally comfortable with the imaginative and the practical. It requires the ability to dream big dreams and the ability to face and master all the little details that make dreams come true.

1. According to the passage, perhaps Einstein once said to himself, “ ________ ”

A．Well, I just don’t have the work relative to physics. I should give up on it and settle for something else

B．The job is just what I want, I should work very hard on it

C．I have to support myself by working as a patent clerk now, but I won’ t give physics up

D．I must wait until I find my favorite job

2. If a person works 24 hours a week, he can

A．have enough spare time for his hobbies

B．have no time left to make his dream come true

C．do nothing else

D．make a good living

3. Which of the following is not implied in the last paragraph?

A．Sometimes the imaginative is different from the practical.

B．We have to take care of a lot of details before we make our dreams come true.

C．We shall do practical things rather than dream.

D．We shall dream big dreams and practice as well.

4. According to the passage, the author encourages us to ________

A．start to work quickly

B．select job carefully and patiently

C．dream often

D．make up our minds quickly

 

阅读理解

　　Money spent on advertising is money spent as well as any I know of. It serves directly to bring about a rapid sale of goods at reasonable prices, setting up a firm home market and making it possible to provide for export at good prices. By drawing attention to new ideas it helps greatly to raise standards of living. By helping to increase demand it causes an increased need for labor, and is therefore a nice way to fight unemployment. It lowers the costs of many services: without advertisements your daily newspaper would cost four times as much, the price of your television program would need to be doubled, and travel by bus or subway would cost more.

　　And perhaps most important of all, advertising provides a promise of reasonable value in the products and services you buy. Besides the fact that twenty-seven Acts of Parliament(国会) govern the terms of advertising, no regular advertiser dare produce anything that fails to live up to the promise of his advertisements. He might fool some people for a little while through misleading advertising. He will not do so for long, for the public has the good sense not to buy the poor goods more than once. If you see product frequently advertised, it is the proof I know that the product does what is promised for it, and that it has good value.

　　Advertising does more for the good of the public than any other force I can think of. There is one more point I feel I ought to touch on. Recently I heard a well-known television person declare that he was against advertising because it persuades rather than informs. He was telling us the real difference. Of course advertising tries to persuade.

　　If its message were nothing but information, that would be difficult to get more people to buy, for even the choice of the color of a shirt is a bit persuasive(有说服力的) －advertising would be so boring that no one would pay any attention. But perhaps that is what the well-known television person wants.

1．By the first sentence of the passage the writer means that ________.

[　　]

A．he is fairly familiar with the cost of advertising

B．everybody knows well that advertising is a waste of money

C．advertising costs more money than everything else

D．money on advertising is worth spending.

2．In the passage, which of the following is NOT included in the advantages of advertising?

[　　]

A．Getting greater fame.

B．Providing more jobs.

C．Raising living standards.

D．Reducing newspaper cost.

3．The writer thinks that the well-known TV person is ________.

[　　]

A．quite right in passing his judgment on advertising

B．interested in nothing but the buyers' attention

C．correct in telling the difference between persuasion and information

D．obviously unfair in his views on advertising

4．In the writer's opinion. ________.

[　　]

A．advertising can seldom bring material interest to man by providing information

B．advertising informs people of new ideas rather than wins them over

C．there is nothing wrong with advertising in persuading the buyer

D．the buyer is not interested in getting information from an advertisement