As the pace of life continues to increase, we are fast losing the art of relaxation. Once you are in the habit of rushing through life, being on the go from morning till night, it is hard to slow down. But relaxation is essential for a healthy mind and body.

Stress is a natural part of everyday life and there is no way to avoid it. In fact, it is not the bad thing it is often supposed to be. A certain amount of stress is vital to provide motivation and give purpose to life. It is only when the stress gets out of control that it can lead to poor performance and ill health.

The amount of stress a person can withstand depends very much on the individual. Some people are not afraid of stress, and such characters are obviously prime material for managerial responsibilities, others lose heart at the first sign of unusual difficulties. When exposed to stress, in whatever form, we react both chemically and physically. In fact we make choice between "flight or fight" and in more primitive days the choices made the difference between life or death. The crises we meet today are unlikely to be so extreme, but however little the stress, it involves the same response. It is when such a reaction lasts long, through continued exposure to stress, that health becomes endangered. Since we can't remove stress from our lives (it would be unwise to do so even if we could), we need to find ways to deal with it.

People are finding less and less time for relaxing themselves because _____.

A. they regard working as their greatest enjoyment

B. they believe that work is superior to relaxation

C. they are traveling fast all the time

D. they are becoming busier with their work than ever before

According to the author, the most important character for a good manager is his _____.

A. strong will to hold out stress

B. knowing the art of relaxation

C. high sense of responsibility

D. having control over performance

Which of the following statements is TRUE, according to the passage?

A. We can find quite a few ways to avoid stress.

B. Stress is always harmful to people's health

C. It's easy to change the habit of keeping oneself busy with work.

D. Different people can bear different amount of stress.

In the last sentence of the passage, “do so” refers to _____.

A. "expose ourselves to stress"

B. "find ways to deal with stress"

C. "remove stress from our lives"

D. "establish links between diseases and stress"

According to the author, the right attitude toward stress is _____.

A. to avoid it                      

B. to try to cope with it

C. to regard it as a vital motivation     

D. to find some relaxation

阅读下面短文，并根据短文后的要求答题（请注意问题后的字数要求）。
Scientists believe that conditions on Mars around 3.8 billion years ago were very similar to those of the early earth, when primitive organisms were spreading through our oceans. At that time, Mars would have been much warmer and wetter than it is today, with an atmosphere composed mainly of carbon dioxide, just like that of the earth at the time. Under these conditions, it is highly probable that life may have arisen on Mars as well.
But, even if life did not arise naturally on Mars, it does not mean that it could not have existed there. According to Professor Paul Davies of the University of Adelaide, Australia, life forms could have been transferred between the earth and Mars in wreckage (broke pieces) created by the impact of comet(彗星) and small planets on the surface of the two planets.
Even today, about 500 tons of material from Mars lands on earth every year. It is mainly in the form of the dust but occasionally a larger chunk(厚片，大块) strikes the earth. In 1911, a piece of Martian rock crashed in Egypt, killing a dog. According to Professor Davies, it is in these chunks of rock, which were much larger and more frequent in the past that life forms could have been transported from planet to planet.
“But how could these life forms have survived their journey through space?” says Paul Davies, “The difficulty in believing this theory is that a bacterium on its own in space has to struggle itself not only against cold but also against deadly cosmic (宇宙的) radiation. But wrapped in a rock the situation is different. A rock ten meters across would shield life inside it from a lot of radiation and the temperature might only be minus 10 or 20 degrees, the sort of thing we have on earth.”
【小题1】Where do some scientists suppose life probably come from? (3’) (No more than 6 words)
____________________________________________________________________________
【小题2】What does Professor Paul Davies believe? (3’) (No more than 6 words)
____________________________________________________________________________
【小题3】Why could life survive when transferred from one planet to another? (3’) (No more than 12 words)
____________________________________________________________________________
【小题4】According to Professor Paul Davies, how did the wreckage come into being? (3’) (No more than 10 words)
____________________________________________________________________________
【小题5】List at least two differences about Mars between the past and now. (3’) (No more than 16 words)
____________________________________________________________________________

In the United Statcs, there were  some well-constructed houses for native Indians, ranging from the simple brush shelter to the five-storied pueblo.

  In the eastem United States, one of the existing types was that commonly know under the Algonkian name of wigwam in which the Iroquois Indians lived. The wigwams were of wagon-top shape with straight sides and ends, made by bending young trees to form the round shape. Over this shape pieces of tree bark were laid to protect the Indians from bad weather. Over the bark dried grass was added. A small hole allowde smoke to escape from the top. Doorways at each en served also as windows, The Iroquois Indians built trunk walls all around their villages. The wall had only one opening, They could quickly close this cpening if their enemies came near.

  Interestingly, the Choctaw Indians in Mississippi also lived in a wigwam of a most primitive(原始的) construction, but different from those of the Iroquois Indians.The Choctaw Indians’wigwams, made from mud,cane and straw, were in the form of a bee-hive. The covering was made of a long, tough grass. A post in the centre supported the roof.A hole in the top admitted the light, and allowed the smoke to pass out.

  The tipi tent-housing of the upper lake and plains area was put up with poles set lightly in the ground, tied together near the top, and covered with bark and grass in the lake country. It was easily portable, and two women could set it up or take it down within an hour.

  The Pawnee, Mandan and other Indian tribes (部落) along the Missouri built solid ring-shaped structhures of trunk, covered with earth and dried grass,housing adozen families.

  The Wichita and other tribes of the Texas border built large ring-shaped houses covered with dried grass.

Apart from the regular housing, almost every tribe had some style of housing.

72.Which of the follwing pictures shows the house for the Iroquois Indians？

73. According to the passage, the Pawnee Indians built their houses _____.

A. with openings in the trunk walls   B. large enough for several families 

C. in a ring shape with bark and mud  D.by bending young trees to form the shape

74.All the native Indian houses described in the passage were_____.

A.  of the same shape           B. covered with grass 

C.  built with a post in the centre  D. built with doorways at each end

75. The passage suggests that ________

 A.all the native Indians built  trunk walls all around  their houses 

B.all the native Indian houses were built with poles tied together

C.the Iroquois Indians took safety into account while building their wigwams

D.the Choctaw Indians in Mississippi built their wigwams with straight sides and ends

and printing and the spread of education have fixed a traditional usage. The only important change that English has undergone since the first of the 16th century is a large increase in its vocabulary. It is interesting to trace the different way in which new words are invented. Let us take just two English words and see how they were made, sandwich and television.

   Sandwich, which is now no longer are entirely English words, but also international, comes from the Earl of Sandwich (died in 1792) who invented the particular form of quick meal so that he could go on gambling all through the night without stopping for dinner. Many names of things are in fact taken from the name of the first inventors, for example, the electrical terms Watt and Volt.

    Television is one of many new scientific words which re invented from old Greek and Latin word. “Tele” is Greek, meaning “far”, while “vision” comes from the Latin verb, meaning “to see”.

1. “Stands” in the first sentence means___________.

   A. be in a certain condition　　　　　　　　  　　   B. not sit

   C. remain without change　　　　　　　　    D. rise to the feet

2. What do you think Volt was? It referred to_________.

   A. a player　　　　  B. a physicist　　　　 C. a writer　　 D. a nurse

3. The invention of sandwich has something to do with__________.

   A. work　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　      B. study

   C. gambling　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 D. journey

4. English has undergone an important change in its vocabulary for almost _______centuries.

   A. five　　　　    B. four　　　　   C. three　　　　   D. six

5. The language cannot develop rapidly in advanced societies because_______.

   A. the societies have stopped changing

   B. the printing has been invented

   C. the education has spread

   D. both B and C

Modern inventions have speeded up people’s lives amazingly. Motor-cars cover a hundred miles in little more than an hour, aircraft cross the world inside a day, while computers operate at lightning speed. Indeed, this love of speed seems never-ending. Every year motor-cars are produced which go even faster and each new computer boasts (吹嘘) of saving precious seconds in handling tasks.

    All this saves time, but at a price. When we lose or gain half a day in speeding across the world in an airplane, our bodies tell us so. We get the uncomfortable feeling known as jet-lag; our bodies feel that they have been left behind in another time zone. Again, spending too long at computer results in painful wrists and fingers. Mobile phones also have their dangers, according to some scientists; too much use may transmit harmful radiation into our brains, a consequence we do not like to think about.

    However, what do we do with the time we have saved? Certainly not relax, or so it seems. We are so accustomed to constant activity that we find it difficult to sit and do nothing, or even just one thing at a time. Perhaps the days are long gone when we might listen quietly to a story on the radio, letting imagination take us into another world.

    There was a time when some people’s lives were devoted simply to the cultivation of the land or the care of cattle. No multi-tasking there; their lives went on at a much gentler pace, and in a familiar pattern. There is much that we might envy about a way of life like this. Yet before we do so, we must think of the hard tasks our ancestors faced: they farmed with bare hands, often lived close to hunger, and had to fashion tools from wood and stone. Modern machinery has freed people from that primitive existence.

1. The new products become more and more time-saving because       .

A. the manufacturers boast a lot            B. time is limited

C. the prices are increasingly high          D. our love of speed seems never-ending

2. What does “the days” in Paragraph 3 refer to?

A. Simple life in the past.                B. Imaginary life.

C. Times of inventions.                  D. Time for constant activity.

3.. What is the author’s attitude towards the modern technology?

A. Critical.         B. Optimistic.      C. Objective.         D. Negative.

4.. What does the passage mainly discuss?

A. The present and past times.        B. Modern technology and its influence.

C. Imaginations and inventions.     D. Machinery and human beings.