题目内容

Cleveland has won the distinction of being the worst city in the United States, according to a new survey. The city has high unemployment, terrible weather, heavy taxes, and ordinary sports teams, all of which have pushed it to the No. 1 position in the Forbes.com list.

"Cleveland was the only city that fell in the bottom half of rankings in all nine categories. And it has been entitled with a less than endearing nickname: the Mistake by the lake," Forbes said on its website,

The economic downturn hit cities across the United States last year particularly in the mid-west section of the country. Crime and unemployment secured the No. 2 spot for Stockton, which held the top position in last year's ranking. Memphis got third place thanks to its violent crime rate and the number of officials who are guilty, while the poor auto industry drove the Michigan cities of Detroit and Flint into the top five.

"A lot of the cities that showed up on our list are going through hard times fight now, dealing with high unemployment, with declining producing bases. Many have experienced strong movement out of the city over the last 20 and 30 years."

Despite (尽管) its fine weather, Miami scored in the bottom 10 percent in commuting (上下班往返) time, and violent crime which sent it into sixth place.

"One of the biggest surprises is Miami. The good weather and no state income taxes blur some of the severe problems that Miami has related to crime as well as long commutes," Badenhausen added.

Florida was followed in the poor ranking by St Louis, Buffalo, Canton, Ohio and Chicago, which has the country's highest sales tax at 10.25 percent. New York, the nation's biggest city, is rich in culture but its lengthy commuting time and high income taxes pushed it into 16th place.

1. From the text we can learn that ______.

A. Cleveland has been entitled a lovely nickname

B. the economic downturn hit cities in the mid-east section

C. Miami scored in the bottom 10 percent in all nine categories

D. commuting time in New York is too long

2. What information can be inferred according to the text?

A. The number of officials who are guilty is large in Memphis.

B. Stockton got second place in last year's ranking.

C. High income taxes made New York get 16th place.

D. Ohio has the country's highest sales tax.

3. The word "blur" underlined in the last paragraph but one probably means ______.

A. make it possible B. make it unclear C. make if obvious D. make it important

4. Which of the following is the correct ranking order?

A. Cleveland, Detroit, Miami, Buffalo, Florida.

B. Stockton, Miami, Flint, Florida, Canton.

C. Cleveland, Stockton, Miami, Chicago, Florida.

D. Stockton, Detroit, Miami, Florida, St Louis.

 

1-4 DABD

 

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根据短文内容, 从下面A到F选项中选出能够概括每段主题的最佳选项, 选项中有一项为多余项

A. Tools of thought

B. A reflection of your personality

C. An indication of your intelligence

D. The explosive effect of words

E. A direction of the history

F. Change the direction of your life

(填涂说明：E=A+D   F=B+D   G=C+D )

The extent of your vocabulary indicates the degree of your intelligence. Your brain power will increase as you learn to know more words. Here's the proof. Two classes in a high school were selected for an experiment. Their ages and their environment were the same. Each class represented an identical cross-section of the community. One, the control class, took the normal courses. The other class was given special vocabulary training. At the end of the period the marks of the latter class surpassed those of the control group, not only in English, but in every subject, including mathematics and the sciences. Similarly it has been found by Professor Lewis M.Terman, of Stanford University, that a vocabulary test is as accurate a measure of intelligence as any three units of the standard and accepted Stanford-Binet I.Q. tests.

The study of words is not merely something that has to do with literature. Words are your tools of thought. You can't even think at all without them. Try it. If you are planning to go down town this afternoon you will find that you are saying to yourself: "I think I will go down town this afternoon." You can't make such a simple decision as this without using words. Your words are your keys for your thoughts. And the more words you have at your command the deeper, clearer and more accurate will be your thinking.

A command of English will not only improve the processes of your mind. It will give you assurance; build your self-confidence; lend color to your personality; increase your popularity. Your words are your personality. Your vocabulary is you. Your words are all that we, your friends, have to know and judge you by. You have no other medium for telling us your thoughts-for convincing us, persuading us, giving us orders.

Words are explosive. Phrases are packed with TNT.A simple word can destroy a friendship. The proper phrases in the mouths of clerks have quadrupled the sales of a department store. The wrong words used by a campaign orator have lost an election. For instance, on one occasion the four unfortunate words, "Rum, Romanism and a Rebellion" used in a Republican campaign speech threw the Catholic vote and the presidential victory to Grover Cleveland. Ears are won by words. Soldiers fight for a phrase. "Make the world safe for Democracy." "All out for England." "V for Victory." The " Remember the Maine" of Spanish war days has now been changed to "Remember Pearl Harbor."

Words have changed the direction of history. Words can also change the direction of your life. They have often raised a man from mediocrity to success. If you consciously increase your vocabulary you will unconsciously raise yourself to a more important station in life, and the new and higher position you have won will, in turn, give you a better opportunity for further enriching your vocabulary. It is a beautiful and successful cycle.

（ Today’s opportunity erase yesterday’s failures.）

On May 29, 1973, Thomas Bradley, a black man, was elected mayor of Los Angeles. Los Angeles is the third largest city in the United States, with a population of three million. About sixteen percent of the city’s population are black.

News of this election appeared on the front pages of newspapers everywhere in the United States. Here is how one major newspaper reported the event:

LOS ANGELES ELECTS BRADLEY MAYOR UNSEATING YORTYBLACK WINS 56% OF VOTES

Bradley called his victory over Yorty “the fulfillment (实现) of a dream”. During his childhood and youth, people had kept telling him, “You can’t do this, you can’t go there, because you are a Negro.” Nevertheless he had won a decisive victory over a man who had been won 43.7 percent.

Los Angeles voters have had many opportunities to judge. Thomas Bradley had to form an opinion of him. The son of a poor farmer Texas, he joined the Los Angeles police force in 1940. During his twenty-one years on the police force he earned a law degree by attending school at night. He was elected to the city council (市政厅) ten years ago.

At the time of the Los Angeles election, three other American cities already had black mayors, but none of those cities had as large a population as Los Angeles. Besides, the percentage of blacks in those other cities was much larger. Cleveland, Ohio, had thirty-six percent black when Carl Stokes was elected mayor of Cleveland in 1967. In the same year Richard Hatcher was elected mayor of Cary. In Newark, New Jersey, sixty percent of the population were black when Kenneth Gibson was elected in 1970. Thus election of a black mayor in those cities was not very surprising.

In Los Angeles thousands of white citizens voted for Thomas Bradley because they believed he would be a better mayor than the white candidate(候选人). Bradley had spent forty-eight of his fifty-five years in Los Angeles. Four years ago Bradley lost mayoral election to Yorty. This time Bradley won.

1. In the author’s opinion, it was surprising that _______.

A. the whites would vote for a black mayor　　

B. a black mayor would be elected in such a large city

C. a black from a poor farmer’s family could be elected mayor of Los Angeles

D. there would be so many black mayors

2. From the passage we can infer that people ________.

A. voted for Bradley because of his black color

B. didn’t care much about his color when they voted

C. voted for him to give a chance to fulfill his dream

D. voted for Bradley because they trust him

3. Bradley hit the front page headline for _______.

A. he was the first black mayor in history

B. he was the first black mayor in the south of USA

C. he was the first black mayor of one of the largest cities in USA

D. a poor farmer’s son could also win an important election

4. From Bradley’s victory in the election we can see that ________.

A. blacks had equal rights as whites in the USA

B. black people’s situation began to be improving much more than before

C. one can be successful through hard work in the USA no matter what color he is

D. it is certain that someday the USA will have a black president

Boiler rooms are often dirty and steamy, but this one is clean and cool. Fox Point is a very new 47-unit living building in South Bronx, one of the city’s poorest areas. Two-thirds of the people living there are formerly (以前) homeless people, whose rent is paid by the government. The rest are low-income families.  The boiler room has special equipment, which produces energy for electricity and heat. It reuses heat that would otherwise be lost to the air, reducing carbon emissions(碳排放)while also cutting costs.

Fox Point is operated by  Palladia, a group that specializes in providing housing and services to needy people. Palladia received support from Enterprise Community Partners (ECP), which helps build affordable housing by providing support to housing developers.

ECP has created national standards for healthy, environmentally (环境方面) clever and affordable homes which are called, the Green Communities Standards. These standards include water keeping, energy saving and the use of environmentally friendly building materials.  Meeting the standards increases housing construction costs by 2%, which is rapidly paid back by lower running costs. Even the positioning of a window to get most daylight can help save energy.

Michael Bloomberg, New York's mayor, plans to create 165,000 affordable housing units for 500,000 New Yorkers. Almost 80% of New York City’s greenhouse-gas emissions come from buildings, and 40% of those are caused by housing. So he recently announced that the city’s Department of Housing and Preservation and Development (DHPD) , whose duty is to develop and keep the city’s supply of affordable housing, will require all its new projects to follow ECP’s green standards.

Similar measures have been taken by other cities such as Cleveland and Denver, but New York’s DHPD is the largest city developer of affordable housing in the country.

What is the purpose of describing the boiler room in the first paragraph?

    A．To explain the measures the city takes to care for poor people. 

    B．To suggest that affordable housing is possible in all areas.

    C．To show how the environment-friendly building works.

    D．To compare old and new boiler rooms.

What is an advantage of the buildings meeting the Green Communities Standards?

    A．Lower running costs.             B．Costing less in construction.   

    C．Less air to be lost in hot days      D．Better prices for homeless people.

It can be learned from the text that_______________.           

    A．New York City is seriously polluted

    B．people’s daily life causes many carbon emissions in New York City

    C．a great number of people in New York City don't have houses to live in

    D．some other cities have developed more affordable housing than New York City

What is the main purpose of this text?

    A．To call on people to pay more attention to housing problems.

    B．To prove that some standards are needed for affordable housing.

    C．To ask society to help homeless people and low-income families.

    D．To introduce healthy, environmentally clever-and affordable housing.

.

STEVE Wayne, 16, who worked this summer as a lifeguard and swim teacher in Idaho Falls, was thrilled to see an extra $20 in his paycheck when the federal minimum wage increased in July.

“When you’re getting paid minimum wage, anything helps, ” Wayne said.Wayne is one of several hundred thousand American teenagers who earn the minimum wage. The last of three recent increases that took the minimum from $5.15 an hour in 2007 to $7.25.U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis says the minimum-wage increase will pump an extra $5.5 billion into the economy over the next year, which is helpful at a time when the economy is hurting.

"You're giving people who spend money a raise," says Kai Filion of the Economic Policy Institute. "Those people will go out and spend that money, and it will circulate through the economy."

But other economists say raising the minimum wage actually hurts the very people it's designed to help. A higher hourly minimum, they say, could force businesses to cut workers' hours, or even lay people off.

"What matters for people earning minimum wage is how much money they take home, in total, in their paycheck," explains Rajeev of Georgia State University's Economic Forecasting Center. "Their hourly rate may go up, but their number of hours may come down, so it's not an overall increase."

Business owners also say that raising the minimum wage exerts（施加）upward pressure on other wages. "If the minimum wage is $7 and I have to pay $8 or $9 to hire a dishwasher, then the cooks are going to say they want more," sayd Cleveland restaurant owner Rick. "How much can I charge for that hamburger?"

Another argument is that it makes it more expensive for businesses to hire new workers. For many businesses already struggling to make ends meet in these tough times, it will be simply too expensive to keep or to hire new people.

55．Steve Wayne was excited that_____________ .

A．his hard work had paid off

B．he had received a big wage increase

C．he has more money due to an increase in minimum wage

D．the wages of American teenage workers have been increased

56．According to the text, the US federal government has increased minimum wage with the aim of__________

A．decreasing unemployment

B．promoting economic recovery

C．increasing American teenagers’ wage

D．narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor

57．What matters most to people in need of help is_____________.

A．a higher hourly minimum       B．more working hours

C．a minimum-wage increase      D．an increase in total income

58．Some are against the increase in minimum wage because they say_____________.

A．only very few workers will be helped

B．they have to cut down working hours

C．many business owners can’t afford to employ new workers

D．minimum wage workers will expect more pay rises in the future

 

 Boiler rooms are often dirty and steamy, but this one is clean and cool. Fox Point is a very new 47-unit living building in South Bronx, one of the city’s poorest areas. Two-thirds of the people living there are formerly (以前) homeless people, whose rent is paid by the government. The rest are low-income families. The boiler room has special equipment, which produces energy for electricity and heat. It reuses heat that would otherwise be lost to the air, reducing carbon emissions(碳排放)while also cutting costs.

 Fox Point is operated by Palladia, a group that specializes in providing housing and services to needy people. Palladia received support from Enterprise Community Partners (ECP), which helps build affordable housing by providing support to housing developers.

ECP has created national standards for healthy, environmentally (环境方面) clever and affordable homes which are called, the Green Communities Standards. These standards include water keeping, energy saving and the use of environmentally friendly building materials. Meeting the standards increases housing construction costs by 2%, which is rapidly paid back by lower running costs. Even the positioning of a window to get most daylight can help save energy.

Michael. Bloomberg, New York's mayor plans to create 165,000 affordable housing units for 500,000 New Yorkers. Almost 80% of New York City’s greenhouse-gas emissions come from buildings, and 40% of those are caused by housing. So he recently announced that the city’s Department of Housing and Preservation and Development (DHPD) , whose duty is to develop and keep the city’s supply of affordable housing, will require all its new projects to follow ECP’s green standards.

Similar measures have been taken by other cities such as Cleveland and Denver, but New York’s DHPD is the largest city developer of affordable housing in the country.

1.What is the purpose of describing the boiler room in the first paragraph?

A.  To explain the measures the city takes to care for poor people. 

B.  To suggest that affordable housing is possible in all areas.

C.  To show how the environment-friendly building works.

D.  To compare old and new boiler rooms.

2.What is an advantage of the buildings meeting the Green Communities Standards?

A.  Lower running costs.

B.  Costing less in construction.   

C.  Less air to be lost in hot days.

D.  Better prices for homeless people.

3. It can be learned from the text that, ____________________.

A.  New York City is seriously polluted

B.  people’s daily life causes many carbon emissions in New York City

C.  a great number of people in New York City don't have houses to live in

D.  some other cities have developed more affordable housing than New York City

4.What is the main purpose of this text?

A.  To call on people to pay more attention to housing problems.

B.  To prove that some standards are needed for affordable housing.

C.  To ask society to help homeless people and low-income families.

D.  To introduce healthy, environmentally clever-and affordable housing.

 

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