Lichens (地衣) are difficult to see. They don’t move. They often mix into the living place. You might not even recognize one if you are looking right at it.

Lichens live on rocks, branches, houses, and even metal street signs. You can find these colorful organisms (微生物) almost everywhere — from deserts to rainforests, and from Antarctica to Africa. They’ve traveled in outer space, and some scientists think there might even be lichens on Mars.

What you probably don’t realize is that a lichen is more than a single thing. It includes two different types of living organisms: a fungus (菌类) and an alga (藻类). Neither of these organisms is a plant, so the lichen isn’t a plant either.

Through photosynthesis (光合作用), the alga gets the sun’s energy to make food for the fungus, which is the place for the alga to live in. However, the alga cannot leave the fungus.

Around the world, scientists have found tens of thousands of types of lichens. Many may not even have been discovered yet. As scientists continue to find new kinds of lichens, they are also working to understand how they are connected to one another. By putting together a lichen family tree, they hope to understand why so many different types of lichens have grown in so many places around the world.

Many researchers are trying to understand basic facts about the organisms and their connections. Researchers are also using lichens to examine the health of the environment.

What do we know about lichens according to the passage?

A. They will die if they leave Earth.

B. There are more lichens than plants on Earth.

C. They look similar to the environment around them.

D. They are too small to be easily seen by people.

What does the second paragraph mainly talk about?

A. The way lichens live.

B. The natural environment of lichens.

C. The way lichens work as organisms.

D. The family tree of lichens.

Which of the following statements is NOT the scientists’ purposes of studying lichens?

A. To understand basic facts about them.

B. To creat a lichen family tree.

C. To understand how lichens are related to each other.

D. To understand why lichens can live in different places.

We can know from the passage that __________.

A. lichens can be used to better understand the environment

B. lichens don’t have any differences in colors or sizes

C. lichens don’t use photosynthesis like a green plant

D. scientists have discovered every kind of lichen

How do you think of the following example? Many Japanese never take the vacations they should enjoy, but with the coming of “Golden Week”, several holidays following one after another in late April and early May, they pour out of the country in the tens of thousands.

   So when traveling, whether on business or for pleasure, the first thing to think about are hotels. The kind of hotel you choose is decided according to how much money you want to spend. There are small hotels with very few services, where the prices are low, or there are large hotels with all the very latest comforts, where you could spend all the money you have in the bank for a very comfortable night.

   There are several different kinds of people who go to hotels. Some want to live, rather than just stay, in a hotel; hotels which are designed to meet their needs are called residential hotels. However, most people who stay in hotels are either business people or tourists on holiday.

   In most hotels, there are two kinds of rooms: single rooms, for the use of one person, and double rooms, for the use of two people. In addition, in large hotels, there are also suites (套房), which include two or more rooms connected together — perhaps a bedroom and a living room. They are for people who are very rich or very important.

1.From the example of many Japanese, we can learn that           .

A. they don’t enjoy taking vacations because it’s too expensive

B. they enjoy touring in “Golden Week” because it consists of several holidays

C. they don’t have vacations unless they go abroad

D. they enjoy staying at home unless they have enough time and money

2.A person’s choice of a particular hotel is made mainly according to           .

A. how much he is willing to pay for a night

B. whether he is traveling on business or for pleasure

C. whether the hotel is in the central part of a city

D. how good the services of the hotel are

3.If the president of a certain country comes, he will most probably             .

A. live in a new hotel               B. stay in a single room of a hotel

C. stay in a double room of a hotel     D. stay in a suite of a modern hotel

4.If a person stays in a modern hotel with the latest comforts for a night,           .

A. he will become poor        

B. he will have to pay a lot of money

C. he will have to spend all the money he has in the bank

D. he will have to draw all of his money out of the bank

 

A 33-year-old financial analyst in California recently quit his job to devote himself to an unpaid job teaching math on the Internet, and his lessons are reaching almost 100,000 people a month. Salman Khan’s voice is heard every day on the net — by tens of thousands of students around the world who are hungry for help learning math. He has posted 1,200 lessons on You Tube —lessons that appear on an electronic blackboard, which range from basic addition to advanced mathematics for science and finance. And they are free.

Khan lives in Silicon Valley, with his wife, a doctor, and their new baby. He got the idea for his “Khan Academy” four years ago, when he taught a young cousin how to convert kilograms to grams. With Khan’s help, the cousin got good at math, and Khan began a new career.

Now, Khan records his lessons himself, but he never goes on camera. “It feels like my voice in their head. You’re looking at it and it feels like someone’s over your shoulder talking in your ear, as opposed to someone at the blackboard, which is distant from you,” he said.

When Springfield High School in Palo Alto, California invited Khan to speak in person—he immediately connected to the students there.

The idea of short lessons that can be played over and over again attracted high school senior Bridget Meaney. She says she had trouble with math in the seventh grade. “I think the teachers are good, but they can’t teach at a speed that’s perfect for everyone,” she said. “I like the idea of learning something in class but then going back and pressing pause or rewind and actually getting a deeper understanding of it.”

Originally, Khan kept his lessons short because of YouTube restrictions. Now, he thinks short is better. “Education researchers now tell me that 10 minutes is how long someone can have a high level of concentration. And anything beyond that and your brain switches off,” he said.

For Khan, teaching math, science, and finance is just the beginning. He says he’s ready to expand his YouTube site to include other subjects as well.

1.What gave Khan the idea of teaching math online?

A.His success in helping his cousin learn math.

B.His discovery that many students found learning math difficult.

C.A suggestion made to him at a local high school.

D.His interest in Internet teaching.

2.Why does Khan never go on camera?

A.He’s too shy to show his face on camera.

B.It’s restricted by YouTube for education videos.

C.He wants to keep distance from the viewers.

D.He wants to create a more relaxed learning atmosphere.

3.From the passage, we know that ________.

A.Khan travels to many schools to promote his lessons

B.Khan plans to include more subjects in the future

C.Khan gives live math lessons every day for free

D.Khan set up the Khan Academy with his wife

4.Why does Bridget Meaney like Khan’s lessons?

A.Khan teaches seventh grade math better than her teacher.

B.The lessons can be watched repeatedly until fully understood.

C.She can perfectly follow the pace of Khan’s teaching.

D.She cannot concentrate when learning in class.

5.What does Khan mean by “short is better” in the 6th paragraph?

A.Keeping the lessons short can ensure better concentration.

B.YouTube recommends short lessons for its site.

C.Short lessons encourage students to return to the website.

D.Students enjoy short mathematics lessons more.

 

The forces that make Japan one of the world's most earthquake-prone(有地震倾向的) countries could become part of its long-term energy solution.

Water from deep below the ground at Japan's tens of thousands of hot springs could be used to produce electricity.

Although Japanese high-tech companies are leaders in geothermal(地热的) technology and export it, its use is limited in the nation.

"Japan should no doubt make use of its resources of geothermal energy," said Yoshiyasu Takefuji, a leading researcher of thermal-electric power production.

The disastrous earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011 caused a reaction against atomic power, which previously made up 30 percent of Japan's energy needs, and increased interest in alternative energies, which account for only 8 percent.

Artist Yoko Ono has called on Japan to explore its natural energy, following the example of Iceland which uses renewable energy for more than 80 percent of its needs.

For now, geothermal energy makes up less than 1 percent of the energy needs in Japan, which has for decades relied heavily on fossil fuels and atomic power.

The biggest problem to geothermal energy is the high initial cost of the exploration and constructing the factories.Another problem is that Japan's potentially best sites are already being developed for tourism or are located within national parks where construction is forbidden.

"We can't even dig 10cm inside national parks." said Shigeto Yamada of Fuji Electric, adding that regulations protecting nature would need to be relaxed for geothermal energy to grow.

Researcher Hideaki Matsui said, "Producing electricity using hot springs is a decades-long project.We also have to think about what to do for now as energy supplies will decline in the short term."

The Earth Policy Institute in Washington, US, believed Japan could produce 80,000 megawatts(兆瓦)and meet more than half its electricity needs with geothermal technology.

Japanese giants such as Toshiba are already global leaders in geothermal technology, with a 70 percent market share.In 2010, Fuji Electric built the world's largest geothermal factory in New Zealand.

1.What would be the best title for the text?

A.Alternative energies in Japan

B.World's largest geothermal plant

C.Japan takes the lead in geothermal technology

D.Japan thinks of geothermal energy

2.What percentage of Japan's energy needs is geothermal energy?

A.About 8%.       B.Below 1%.        C.Around 30%.     D.Over 80%.

3.According to Shigeto Yamada, the growth of geothermal power in Japan needs ____.

A.a change of rules                       B.financial support

C.local people's help                      D.high technology

4.Geothermal energy is considered as a long-term program by _____.

A.Yoshiyasu Takefuji                       B.Hideaki Matsui

C.Shigeto Yamada                         D.Yoko Ono

5.It can be learned from the last two paragraphs that _____.

A.the world's biggest geothermal plant was built by America

B.Japan will not export its geothermal technology

C.the potential of Japan's geothermal energy is great

D.it is hard to find geothermal energy in Japan

 

Tens of thousands of smartphone applications are running ads from the overwhelming(势不可挡的) advertising networks that change smartphone settings and copy people’s contact information without permission.

Aggressive ad networks can disguise(假扮) ads as text message notifications (通告), and sometimes change browser settings and bookmarks. Often, the ads will upload your contacts list to the ad network’s servers--- information that the ad network can then sell to marketers.

Sounds scary? It’s not a giant problem yet, but it’s a growing one. As many as 5% of free mobile apps use an “aggressive” ad network to make money, according to Lookout, a San Francisco-based mobile security company. PhoneLiving was one of the most popular app developers to use these kinds of ad networks; their dozens of talking animal apps have been downloaded several million times. Later, PhoneLiving says it has mended its ways. The company admittedusing invasive techniques to make money from its apps, but said it dropped those methods at the start of July because of bad reviews and declining downloads.

The most popular type of apps that use aggressive ad networks are “Personalisation” apps, which include wallpapers. Comic and entertainment apps are also among the most likely to have rogue(凶猛的) ad networks running behind the scenes. Like aggressive pop-ups on PCs, the bad software isn’t easy to get rid of. Though the damage can typically be removed by deleting the app, it can be hard to tell which app is causing the problems.

When developers create free mobile apps, they usually make money through ads displayed within the app. App makers don’t usually tell people which ad network they are using, which makes it hard to avoid the known offenders. The best defense is to read reviews and avoid downloading apps that have attracted many complaints.

1.What is an example of bad behavior by the annoying mobile ads?

A.They change browser settings and bookmarks.

B.They change people’s calendar settings.

C.They send scam text messages occasionally.

D.They download free versions of games.

2.What do we know about PhoneLiving?

A.Its operation model is against the will of netizens.

B.It was forced to admit its bad behavior.

C.It has changed its business model rapidly.

D.Its relationship with Lookout may break up.

3.Why is the bad software hard to get rid of?

A.The software runs behind the scenes.

B.The app is very hard to delete.

C.It is difficult to find the problem app.

D.The network antivirus is out of date.

4.What does the underlined word, “ invasive”, mean in the third paragraph?

A.innovative         B.positive           C.flexible           D.aggressive

5.What is the main idea of the passage?

A.Mobile ads can attack your phone and steal your contacts.

B.Mobile ads have become popular in recent years.

C.Smartphones have been damaged by mobile ads.

D.You may download some aggressive apps unconsciously.

 

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