Listening to music can help me focus better. Since I discovered it two years ago, I’ve used music to get through boring work or to focus creatively. I’ve found that it can make even the dullest jobs enjoyable and help clear mental blocks to creativity.

I first noticed the good effects of music while playing video games. It was a few days before Christmas in 2005 and I was playing online video games. My parents had just given me a new MP3, so I decided to listen to music through the headphones while I played. After a few minutes I noticed a great change in my style of play. I was playing more naturally. The music relaxed me, and, to a certain extent, distracted me from the game, allowing my subconscious (潜意识的) talent to come through. The music also helped me block out the outside world. With those headphones on I was like a machine, moving from one task to the next without unnecessary thoughts or actions.

Music can also have a great effect on mood. If I’m in a bad mood at work, I’ll listen to some of Bob Marley’s and get down to business. It always takes my mind off what I’m doing and makes me a happier person. The same is true for classic rock. One summer, I did a boring job collecting bottle openers by hand. Without a radio playing classic rock in the background, I would have hated life.

Listening to music with relaxing rhythms and a positive message helps you forget your work and think happy thoughts. But the results you see will depend heavily on your personal tastes. Experiment with the types of music you listen to during certain tasks. By trial and error you’ll finally discover your best choice. I’m always looking for new concentration aids, so I’d love to know what type of music works best for me.

We can infer that the passage was written in __________.

  A. 2005     B. 2006    C. 2007     D. 2008

The author first discovered the effects of music __________.

  A. from his parents       B. by chance

  C. at work           D. when he was a child

Which of the following statements is NOT an effect of music for the author?

  A. It helps him block out the outside world.

  B. It arouses his subconscious talent.

  C. It helps his mind relax.

  D. It makes him work without any thought.

The author mentions the experience of collecting bottle openers in Paragraph 3 to ________.

  A. tell us that life is dull

  B. prove that music affects mood

  C. tell us how to seek happiness

  D. tell us bad mood can affect work

In order to get the greatest effect of music, you are advised to ________.

  A. listen to some of Bob Marley’s

  B. only choose relaxing music

  C. test all kinds of music

  D. listen to classic rock

    Collections were the inspiration(灵感) for a project at Thomas Tallis School, which formed part of the Imagine Children's Literature Festival last autumn. Each child (aged 12-13) beatified a box and wrote a story on the subject of collections to throw inside it. The boxes were spread within the Royal Festival Hall's Ballroom. Some were left empty to encourage

    The subject chosen by Luren was an imaginative one. "It's a sort o f Cinderella (灰姑娘) story," she told me, inspired by a collection of letters from her cousin, ha the story these become love letters, burned by a creel stepmother. Lauren's best friend Charlotte is the stepmother. "I'm in Charlotte's story too," says Lauren, "and I get run over." Charlotte's tale was inspired by the girls' coin collection. "We've collected foreign coins for years since our families went on holiday to Tenerife." she explains. "That was before the Euro, so we put pesetas in." Lauren continues: "I fred a coin in the road, go to get it and get run over. I'm in hospital and then I die." Charlotte adds: "Or she might not die. I haven't decided yet."

     Millie Murray, who is a tea-novel author, thinks that setting the subject of collections was a useful inspiration to their creativity rather than a restriction(限制). "In the beginning I thought, 'Will the children be able to do it?'" she says. "But it's been fruitful. Some have their own collection, some have parents who do, and some have wlstten complete stories. It's made them think about something they wouldn't have otherwise, winch can only be a good thing."

59. What were the children asked to do in the project?

      A. To meet friends at Thomas Tallis School

      B. To write stories on the subject of collections.

      C. To encourage visitors to write their own stories.

      D. To have their friends for characters in the stories.                      

60. The underlined word "pesetas" in Paragraph 2 is a kind of _____.

      A. story       B. collection      C. inspiration     D. foreign coin      

61. From the stories by Lauren and Charlotte, we know that _____ .

      A. Charlotte hurt herself when getting a coin

      B. both of them developed their imagination

      C. both of tram will die in each other's stories

      D. Latwen's cousin posted her some love letters                            

62. Millie Murray thinks ________.

      A. collections could inspire writing creativity

      B. it was good for parents to have collections

      C. inspirations were very useful in writing stories

      D. setting collection subjects restricted inspirations                

I’m Adam Gun from Istanbul, Turkey. I’m in a good school. And at the age of 15, in my first year of high school. I’m a great fan of tennis and cycling. I play tennis twice a week for two hours each time. Sometimes I want to play more, but I just keep playing for hours on end, never getting tired of doing it. This is one of the rare things I love in my life, in addition to cycling.
Like tennis, I find that I’m able to ride for ever and ever. Since Istanbul is made up of large and small hills, it’s a nice challenge to ride my bike every day. Although there aren’t many cycling places in Istanbul, I’m lucky enough to live near the biggest park. It’s downhill from my house to the park and I enjoy cycling up as much as floating down, because it’s challenging.
Now I have been thinking about being a lawyer and following my father’s footsteps, but I just don’t think I’m into it. I have heard people tell me over and over again: If you want to be happy with your life, you need to like and enjoy your job. Well, I’m not sure about the fact that I will enjoy being a lawyer when I grow up. I’m just not the type of person who sits down and studies for hours. So I just need opinions on whether to become a tennis player(hopefully), to become a cyclist(hopefully) or to become a lawyer.
【小题1】We can know that Adam Gun is satisfied with ______.

A.his friendsB.his choice to be a lawyerC.his schoolD.his favorite tennis star
【小题2】According to the passage, Adam Gun believes that cycling in Istanbul______.
A.need skillsB.needs good preparationC.is easy but boringD.is difficult but challenging
【小题3】What does the underlined part in the last paragraph mean?
A.I’m able to do it.B.I hate to do it.C.I’m confident about it.D.I’m interested in it.
【小题4】What’s Adam Gun’s problem?
A.He isn’t certain about his future career.
B.He has no enough time to practise tennis.
C.His dad disagrees with his career choice.
D.He can’t concentrate on his study for hours.

When you think about math, you probably don’t think about breaking the law, solving mysteries or finding criminals. But a mathematician in Maryland does, and he has come up with mathematical tools to help police find criminals.

People who solve crimes look for patterns that might reveal(揭示) the identity of the criminal. It’s long been believed, for example, that criminals will break the law closer to where they live, simply because it’s easier to get around in their own neighborhood. If police see a pattern of robberies in a certain area, they may look for a suspect(嫌疑犯) who lives near the crime scenes. So, the farther away from the area a crime takes place, the less likely it is that the same criminal did it.

But Mike O’Leary, a mathematician at Towson University in Maryland, says that this kind of approach may be too simple. He says that police may get better clues to the location of a criminal’s home base by combining these patterns with a city’s layout(布局) and historical crime records.

The records of past crimes contain geographical information and can reveal easy targets — that is, the kind of stores that might be less difficult to rob. Because these stores are along roads, the locations of past crimes contain information about where major streets and intersections are. O’Leary is writing a new computer program that will quickly provide this kind of information for a given city. His program also includes information about the people who live in the city, and information about how a criminal’s patterns change with age. It’s been shown, for example, that the younger the criminal, the closer to home the crime.

Other computer programmers have worked on similar software, but O’Leary’s uses more math. The mathematician plans to make his computer program available, free of charge, to police departments around the country.

The program is just one way to use math to fight crime. O’Leary says that criminology — the study of crime and criminals — contains a lot of good math problems. “I feel like I’m in a gold mine and I’m the only one who knows what gold looks like,” he says. “It’s a lot of fun.”

1.

 To find criminals, police usually ______.

A. focus on where crimes take place      B. seek help from local people

C. depend on new mathematical tools      D. check who are on the crime scene

2.

O’Leary is writing a computer program that ______.

A. uses math to increase the speed of calculation

B. tells the identity of a criminal in a certain area

C. shows changes in criminals’ patterns

D. provides the crime records of a given city

3.

 By “I’m the only one who knows what gold looks like”, O’Leary means that he ______.

A. is better at finding gold than others

B. is the only one who uses math to make money

C. knows more criminals than other mathematicians

D. knows best how to use math to help solve crimes

4.

What is the main idea of the text?

A. Criminals live near where crimes occur.

B. Math could help police find criminals.

C. Crime records could be used to fight crime.

D. Computer software works in preventing crimes.

 

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