The United States estimates that about one out of every 10 people on the planet today is at least 60 years old. By 2050, it’s projected to be one out of 5. This means that not only will there be more old people, but there will be relatively fewer young people to support them.

Professor Richard Lee of the University of California at Berkeley says this aging of the world has a great effect on economics. “Population aging increases the concentration of population in the older ages and therefore it is costly,” he said.

Aging populations consume (消耗) more and produce less. With more people living longer, it could get expensive. But Mr. Lee says with continuing increases in worker productivity and smart planning, it can be manageable.

Societies have different methods for caring for the elderly, but each carries a cost. Generally, there are three types of support. Seniors can live off the wealth they gained when they were younger. They can rely on their family to take care of them, or they can rely on the government.

In industrialized nations, governments created publicly-funded (公共资助的) support systems. These worked relatively well until recent years, when aging population growth in places like the United States and Western Europe began to gradually weaken the systems’ finances. These nations now face some tough choices. Mr. Lee says the elderly in some of these countries must either receive less money, retire later or increase taxes to make the system continuable.

Most developing nations haven’t built this type of government-funded support, but have instead relied on families to care for their elderly. These nations also generally have a much younger population, which means their situation is not as urgent as more developed nations. But Mr. Lee says that doesn’t mean they can ignore the issue. “Third World countries should give very careful thought to this process, to population aging and how it may affect their economies — now, before population aging even becomes an issue,” he explained.

1.“Aging” in this text means ___________________ .

A. there are more young people than old people

B. an increasing number of old people are dying

C. more and more young people are growing old

D. the percentage of old people in the world is increasing

2. What is Professor Richard Lee’s attitude towards population aging?

A. Indifferent. B. Negative.

C. Optimistic. D. Worried.

3.The publicly-funded support systems in industrialized nations___________________.

A. are facing the risk of failing

B. have failed to provide support for the old

C. will be replaced by other support systems

D. have greatly affected the nations’ economies

4. We can infer from the text that developing nations___________________.

A. don’t see population aging as an issue

B. should prepare for population aging.

C. are facing urgent situations of population aging

D. have better ways to deal with population aging.

根据短文内容,从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项,选项中有两项为多余选项。

What do you know about the standard of living of a country? It actually means how much of the goods and services the country produces for an average person to share. 1. Obviously, the first factor is its ability to produce wealth. “Wealth” in this sense doesn’t refer to money. It’s because we don’t live on money but on things that money can buy, “goods” such as food and clothing, and “services” such as transport and entertainment.

There are various factors that determine a country’s ability to produce wealth. They affect one another. Wealth depends greatly on a country’s natural resources. 2. . Some regions of the world are rich in natural resources with a fertile soil and a favorable climate; other regions possess perhaps only one of them; some, unfortunately, possess none. The USA has everything listed above. 3. The Sahara Desert, on the other hand, is one of the least wealthy.

Also, the ability to put natural resources to use counts, which goes without saying.

4. As we see, old countries that have trained so many skilled workers over centimes are better at producing wealth than those whose workers are mainly unskilled.

Besides, with their wealth increasing, people have more for saving and can put their savings into factories and machines, which, in turn, will help workers to produce more goods. 5.

A. That means wealth itself also produces wealth.

B. No wonder it is one of the wealthiest regions of the world.

C. Natural resources are equally distributed around the world.

D. And next comes the technical efficiency of a country’s people.

E. You may ask what factors contribute to a country’s standard of living

F. They include coal, oil, gas, gold, other minerals, water supply and so on.

G. But that doesn’t make it a most wealthy country because it’s often hit by disasters.

阅读理解

请认真阅读下列短文, 从短文后各题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中, 选出最佳选项, 并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

FROM dogs and cats to pandas and penguins, lists of adorable animals can be very varied. However, when it comes to scary animals, the answers are often more or less the same – snakes and spiders are among the most dreadful ones for the majority of us.

However, most of us have never been bitten by a snake or a spider. So does this mean we are born with a fear of certain things?

Scientists have been actively looking into it for a long time. For example, studies have suggested that babies find live animals much more interesting than stuffed (毛绒填充的) ones. This interest continues even if those animals are snakes and spiders.

A study published in Psychological Science in 2008 seemed to show that snakes did have a different impact on babies. When scientists presented babies with animal videos along with random sounds of happy or frightened human voices, they found that babies looked at snakes for longer than any other animal however the voices sounded.

Now, a team from Rutgers University in New Jersey, US has tried to challenge the idea that babies are born with a fear of snakes and spiders. According to the BBC, the researchers measured babies’ physiological (生理的) responses as they watched videos of snakes and elephants paired with both fearful and happy voices.

Scientists then set out to surprise the babies to see how they would react. They presented them with an unexpected bright flash of light as they watched a video. As the BBC explained, a surprise like this would be more intense (强烈的) if the babies were already scared, just like when we watch scary films and jump more if we are already scared.

However, according to their findings, published recently in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, babies’ surprised responses were not bigger when watching a video of a snake, even when it was shown with a fearful voice. Their heart response was also lower, which also made it seem that babies were not scared.

“Children do not have an innate fear of snakes,” concluded the study. Even if previous studies had suggested that babies have different responses to snakes, it isn’t necessarily related to fear. “It’s possible that paying more attention to something might make fear learning easier later on. It leads to fear learning,” said research co-author Vanessa LoBue. She further explained that it was a good thing that humans didn’t have an inborn fear of snakes because it would make a young infant’s desire to explore new things less strong.

Instead, we have evolved to quickly learn to be afraid of something if it turns out to be dangerous.

1.What is the article mainly about?

A. How people’s fear of snakes and spiders has evolved.

B. Whether humans are born with a fear of snakes and spiders.

C. Why snakes and spiders are considered the most dreadful animals.

D. How babies react differently from adults to snakes and spiders.

2.What was the finding of the study published in Psychological Science in 2008?

A. The longer babies looked at snakes in the video, the less scared they were.

B. The fearful voices babies heard when watching snake videos doubled their fear of snakes.

C. Babies’ responses to the snake in the videos were greatly affected by the types of voices they heard.

D. Babies took more interest in snakes than the other animals in the videos regardless of which human voices they heard.

3. The underlined word “innate” in the second-to-last paragraph is the closest in meaning to ______.

A. from birth B. from learning

C. lasting D. immediate

4.How did babies react when the researchers from Rutgers University surprised them while they were watching a video of a snake?

A. They paid more attention to the snakes when they heard a fearful voice.

B. Babies’ heart responses changed slightly when they heard a fearful voice.

C. A fearful voice didn’t make their surprised response become more intense.

D. They became more scared when they experienced an unexpected bright flash of light.

5. According to Vanessa LoBue, since babies don’t have an inborn fear of snakes, ______

A. it would make it easier for them to learn fear

B. it would make them more willing to explore new things

C. it would lead them to stay away from dangerous things

D. it would encourage them not to be afraid of anything

As the new semester begins, millions of college students across the country are trying hard to remember how best to write a paper or, more likely, how best to delay that paper.

Procrastination is the thief of time and a lot of students suffer form it. They can spend whole days in the library doing nothing but staring into space, eating snacks, surfing the Internet, watching videos and looking at other students sitting around them, who, most likely are doing nothing either.

Paralyzed (使失去活力) by their habit to procrastinate, they write micro blogs about their fears, asking their online friends if they sometimes have the same issue. But this does nothing to break the spell (魔咒).

According to a recent report, 95 percent of us procrastinate at some point and 20 percent of the world’s population are always procrastinating. The figures are disappointing. Procrastinators are less wealthy, less healthy and less happy than those who don’t delay. Procrastinators like to find excuses to justify their behavior, but BBC columnist Rowan Pelling says they are all wrong.

Many procrastinators tell themselves they are perfectionists who work best under pressure. Pelling says this is non sense, as work done at the last minute is more likely to have mistakes than work done on time. The behavior of procrastinators often makes them feel ashamed, inconveniences others and annoys loved ones.

Pelling also points out that procrastination feels particularly delinquent(过失的) in a society that thinks of speedy action as admirable, and, at times, even as a moral good.

Fortunately, social scientists have thrown their weight behind efforts to understand this behavioral mistake and offer strategies to control it. Piers Steel, a Canadian social scientist and author of The Procrastination Equation, believes human is “designed” to procrastinate. Nevertheless, he suggests a couple of good ways to get through the task at hand.

1.Which behavior belongs to procrastination?

A. Never dream away the time.

B. Always complete the tasks ahead of time.

C. Never put off till tomorrow what should be done today.

D. Always wait to work until the “good mood” or “good time”.

2.According to the passage, which of the following statements is NOT TRUE?

A. Procrastination makes people waste their time.

B. Speedy action is considered as a moral standard in the society.

C. procrastinators usually complete their tasks perfectly.

D. Procrastination is common among people.

3.What is most likely to be discussed in the paragraph that follows?

A. Ways to handle the study pressures.

B. Introduction to the book The Procrastination Equation.

C. More examples to illustrate procrastination

D. Measures to deal with procrastination.

阅读下列短文,从每题所给的四个选项(A、B、C和D)中,选出最佳选项。

For Sparky, school was all but impossible. He failed every subject in the eighth grade. He failed physics in high school, getting a grade of zero.

Sparky was not good at Latin and English, either. He didn’t do much better in sports. Although he did manage to make the school’s golf team, he lost the only important match of the season. Throughout his youth, Sparky was awkward socially. He was surprised if a classmate ever said hello to him outside of school hours.

Sparky was a loser. However, one thing was important to Sparky — drawing. He was proud of his artwork. Of course, no one else appreciated it. In his senior year of high school, he sent some cartoons to the editors of the yearbook. The cartoons were rejected (拒绝). Despite this particular rejection, Sparky was so confident of his ability that he decided to become a professional artist.

After completing high school, he wrote a letter to Walt Disney Studios. He was told to send some pieces of his artwork, and the subject for a cartoon was suggested. Sparky drew the cartoon. He spent a great deal of time on it and on all the other drawings. Finally, the reply came from Disney Studios. He had been rejected once again. Another loss for the loser.

So Sparky decided to draw his own autobiography (自传) in cartoons. He described his childhood — a little boy loser. The cartoon character soon became famous worldwide. For Sparky, the boy who had such lack of success in school and whose work was rejected again and again was Charles Schulz. He created the “Peanuts” comic strip (连环画) and the little cartoon character whose kite never flew and who never succeeded in kicking a football — Charlie Brown.

1.School was impossible for Sparky because _____.

A. his family was very poor

B. he was not a hard-working student

C. he couldn’t do well in his lessons

D. he was naughty and always caused trouble

2.The underlined word “awkward” in the second paragraph means _________.

A. troublesome B. embarrassed

C. stubborn D. normal

3.Which of the following would be the best title for this passage?

A. The secret of success

B. Sparky — a failure at school

C. Nobody is always a failure

D. Sparky ― a lucky boy

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