⑴ Every language has its own special words and expressions. And a story can be told about each of them. Hot is a simple, easily understood word. So are most of the expressions made with the word hot. But not always, as we shall see.
⑵ The words hot potato, for example, give you no idea at all to the meaning of the expression, hot potato. The potato is popular and many Americans like baked potatoes. Imagine trying to carry a hot potato in your hand. It would be difficult, even painful, to do so. Some publicly argued problems are highly emotional. The problems must be treated carefully, or they will be difficult and painful if an elected official has to deal with them. One such hot potato is taxes. Calling for higher taxes can mean defeat for a politician. And yet, if taxes are not raised, some very popular government programs could be cut. And that also can make a politician very unpopular. The questions must be dealt with carefully, the same way you would handle any other hot potato.
⑶ Another expression is not so hot. If you ask someone how she feels, she may answer “not so hot”. What she means is she does not feel well. Not so hot also is a way of saying you do not really like something. You may tell a friend that the new play you saw last night is not so hot. That means ____________________________.
⑷ A hot shot is a person, often a young person, who thinks he can do anything. He is very sure he can succeed. But often he fails. The expression was born in the military forces. A hot shot was a soldier who fired without aiming carefully.
⑸ Hot is a word that is often used to talk about anger. A person who becomes angry easily is called a hothead. An angry person’s neck often becomes red. We say he is hot under the collar.
【小题1】What is the text mainly about? (no more than 8 words)
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【小题2】Fill in the blank in Paragraph 3 with a proper sentence. ( no more than 8 words)
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【小题3】Which sentence in the text is the closest in meaning to the following one?
As you would deal with other difficult problems, you must be careful with these ones.
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【小题4】List three situations where “hot” expressions can be used according to the text. (no more than 30 words)
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【小题5】Translate the underlined sentence in Paragraph 2 into Chinese.
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They like using the Internet. They have lots of pocket money to spend. And they spend a higher proportion of it online than the rest of us. Teenagers are just the sort of people an online seller is interested in, and the things they want to buy----games, CDs and clothing----are easily sold on the Web.

But paying online is a tricky business for consumers who are too young to own credit(信用) cards. Most have to use a parent’s card. They want a facility that allows them to spend money.

That may come sooner than they think: new ways to take pocket money into cyber (网络的) space are coming out rapidly on both sides of the Atlantic. If successful, these products can stimulate(刺激) online sales.

In general, teenagers spend huge amounts: $153bn (billion) in the US last year and £20bn annually in the UK. Most teenagers have access to the Internet at home or at school-88 percent in the US, 69 percent in the UK. According to the Jupiter Research, one in eight of those with Internet access has bought something online-mainly CDs and books.

In most cases, parents pay for these purchases with credit cards, an arrangement that is often unsatisfactory for them and their children. Pressing parents to spend online is less productive than pressing on the high street. They are more likely to ask “Why?” if you ask to spend some money online.

One way to help teenagers change notes and coins into cybercash is through prepaid cards such as InternetCash in the US and Smart cards in the UK. Similar to those for pay-as-you-go mobile telephones, they are sold in amounts such as£20 or $50 with a hidden 14-digit number that can be used to load the cash into an online account.

1.What does the word “They” in paragraph 1 refer to?

A.Sellers.           B.Buyers.           C.Teenagers.         D.Parents.

2.According to the passage, which of the following statements is TRUE?

A.More than half of the teenagers in the US and the UK have Internet access.

B.Teenagers pay for goods online with their own credit cards.

C.Most teenagers in the US and the UK have bought something online.

D.Teenagers found it easier to persuade parents to buy online than in a shop.

3.A new way to help teenagers shop online is to use ______.

A.a new machine     B.prepaid cards      C.special coins and notes    D.pay-as-you-go mobile phones

4.What is the passage mainly about?

A.Online shopping traps.                   B.Internet users in the US and the UK.

C.New credit cards for parents.              D.The arrival of cyber pocket money.

 

If you ask Americans whether or not they think their former president George W. Bush is smart, most of them will probably tell you they don’t think so. However, Bush’s IQ score is estimated to be above 120, which puts him in the top ten percent of the population.

It doesn’t seem to make sense. How come someone with such an IQ score is not considered smart? Researchers say: IQ does not tell the whole story. Some people have high IQ scores, but still they can be poor thinkers and decision-makers.

Keith Stanovich, a Canadian professor of human development and applied psychology, has been looking into the “clever fools” phenomenon for 15 years. He says IQ tests are very good at measuring certain mental faculties(能力), including logic, learning ability, working-memory capacity (how much information you can hold in mind), etc. Those faculties play a part in one’s academic success, but rational thinking is more important for us to make good judgments in real-life situations.

IQ tests fail to work when it comes to rational thinking. That’s because they are unable to assess things such as a person’s ability to weigh up information, or whether an individual can set aside the cognitive biases(认知偏差)that may be misleading.

“A high IQ is like height in a basketball player,” says David Perkins, who studies thinking and reasoning skills at Harvard University. “It is very important, all other things being equal. But all other things aren’t equal. It takes a lot more to be a good basketball player than being tall, and it takes a lot more to be a good thinker than having a high IQ.”

1.According to the text your academic success depends on your __________.

A.logic

B.mental faculties

C.learning ability

D.working-memory capacity

2.If you need to decide where to invest your money, you must use your ______________

A.IQ scores

B.IQ test

C.rational thinking

D.cognitive biases

3.We know from the text that ____________

A.the former president George W. Bush has a high IQ score

B.many Americans think their former president George W. Bush is smart

C.David Perkins believe that a person’s IQ doesn’t need to be developed

D.Keith Stanovich looked into the “clever fools” phenomenon 5 years ago

4.What is the text mainly about?

A.Those who have high IQ do better than those who don’t in everything.

B.People with high IQ scores must be good decision-makers

C.People with high IQ scores are always smart in every way.

D.Why a high IQ doesn’t mean you’re smart

 

 

To what degree can a computer achieve intelligence (智力)? The answer to this question may lie in a newly-developed US computer program called Smarter Child and the Internet.

If you ran into Smarter Child online , you would be surprised at this kid’s huge memory.It can recite many facts. For example , Smarter Child knows every baseball player in every team this season.

He knows every word in the dictionary and the weather in every major city areas across the US.However , if you ask Smarter Child other questions , you get stranger answers.A question about Smarter Child’s age returns. “One year, 11 days, 16 hours, 7 minutes, and 47 seconds!” Asking where he lives gets , “In a clean room in a high-tech building in California.”

Smarter Child uses the vast information on the World Wide Web as his memory bank.To answer questions about spelling , for instance , Smarter Child goes to American Heritage Dictionary online.For the weather , he visits www.intellicast.com.

Some scientists believe that by joining the many systems of the Internet , an artificial being with the combined knowledge of , say , Albert Einstein, Richard Nixon and Britney Spears could be born.However if Smarter Child wants to think and learn on his own like the boy-computer David in the movie A.I., Artificial Intelligence , he must overcome two problems.

The first is that computers find it difficult to read web pages because the files are labeled in different ways.That’s why programmers need to tell Smarter Child where to look for the weather.It would be a much more difficult task to let him find it himself.

Another problem is that while Smarter Child can process (处理) information more exactly and faster than any human , he lacks common sense—a basic grounding of knowledge that is obvious to any young child.

67.From the text we can infer that www.intellicast.com is a website___________.

         A.which is specially designed to help Smarter Child

         B.where we people can find Smarter Child

         C.where weather forecasts are made

         D.which is about artificial intelligence

68.It is probably most difficult for Smarter Child to_______.

         A.tell us how to spell a difficult word

         B.tell us how the American government is run

         C.provide us with a famous poem by Shakespeare

         D.learn how to tell right behaviors from wrong ones。

69.Which of the following is TRUE according to the text?

         A.Smart Child has his own memory bank big enough for all kinds of information.

         B.A.I.Artificial Intelligence is probably the name of a film about a boy-computer.

         C.Smart Child can recognize different files and find information needed on his own.

         D.We have similar product now which has the knowledge of Einstein , Nixon and Spears.

70.Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

         A.A New Web Child          B.Smarter Child

         C.The Future of Internet      D.Intelligence Development

 

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