Some houses are designed to be smart. Others have smart designs. An example of the second type of house won the Award of Excellence from the American Institute of Architects.

Located on the shore of Sullivan’s Island off the coast of South Carolina, the award-winning cube-shaped beach house was built to replace one damaged by Hurricane Hugo years ago. In September 1989, Hugo struck South Carolina, killing 18 people and damaging or destroying 36,000 homes in the state.

Before Hugo, many new houses built along South Carolina’s shoreline were poorly constructed, according to architect Ray Huff, who created the cleverly-designed beach house. Now all new shoreline houses are required to meet stricter, better-enforced codes. The new beach house on Sullivan’s Island should be strong enough not to be damaged by a Category 3 hurricane with peak winds of 179 to 209 kilometres per hour.

At first sight, the house on Sullivan’s Island looks anything but(根本不) hurricane-proof. Its redwood shell makes it look like “a large party lantern” at night. But looks can be deceiving. The house’s wooden frame is strengthened with long steel rods(杆) to give it extra strength.

To further protect the house from hurricane damage, Huff raised it 2.7 meters off the ground on timber pilings(木桩) buried deep in the sand. Pilings might appear insecure, but they are strong enough to support the weight of the house. They also raise the house above storm waves. The pilings allow the waves to run under the house instead of running into it. “The waves of water come ashore at tremendous speeds and cause most of the damage done to beach-front buildings,” said Huff.

Huff designed the timber pilings to be partially concealed(隐藏) by the house’s ground-to-roof shell. “The shell masks the pilings so that the house doesn’t look like it’s standing with its legs pulled up,” said Huff. In the event of storm, the shell should break apart and let the waves rush under the house, the architect explained.

After Hurricane Hugo, new houses built along South Carolina’s shore line are required

to        .

A. be easily pulled down                B. look smarter in design 

C. meet stricter building standards        D. be designed to be cube-shaped

The award-winning beach house is quite strong because     .

A. it is strengthened by steel rods        B. it is made of redwood

C. it is in the shape of a shell         D. it is built with timber and concrete

Huff raised the house 2.7 meters off the ground on timber pilings in order to     .

A. avoid peak winds of about 200 km/h

B. bury stronger pilings deep in the sand

C. break huge sea waves into smaller ones

D. prevent the waves from running into it

It can be inferred from the passage that the house’s shell should be     .

A. smooth     B. waterproof    C. easily broken    D. extremely hard

Step to Discovering Your Passion

By Julie Jordan Scott

    Even before the first tip, you simply must get out a notebook, journal, piece of paper, napkin … SOMETHING to write on to save your discoveries! These tips will only help if you pursue them, so please either take a moment to find writing tools NOW or print this out and promise yourself to complete this exercise later. It may take you some thinking time to get it done . . . and now . . . here are your tips . . . . .

1. Find Your Joy Factor

    Look at the whole of your life history. When did you experience the most sustained period of Joy? What were you doing then? Where were you? Who were you with? How did it feel?

2. What Are Your 3 Most Favorite things to do?

    If you had a free day with NO commitments, where would you be found? What would you be doing with whom?

3. In what area do you excel? (NO MODESTY ALLOWED HERE!)

    Truly, what are you complimented on a lot? This could be ANYTHING.

4. What do you most want to be remembered for?

    If you were designing your epitaph(墓者铭), what would you want it to say? (NOT what your Mom wants, or your SPOUSE(配偶的一方) wants or your third cousin twice removed, but what do YOU want your headstone to say?)

5. If you had a magic wand(魔杖), what would you change about your life TODAY?

    How would it look compared to how it looks now? which aspects of your life ARE changeable, both short term and long term?

6. How does your Joy factor overlap with your favorite things and the areas in which you excel? Do the areas in which you excel bring YOU joy, or are they really for someone else . . . . . do you see which are obvious matches, and which do not fit? Those that overlap, that bring YOU the most Joy, are most likely the things that would bring you into Passionate Living.

7. What is the first even teeny tiny step you can take to living out your Passion as you have defined in #6?

    Take some time to really think this one through . . . . . . concentrate and focus, and then you will be able to start the the next step . . . BUILDING YOUR ROAD MAP.

The purpose of the first paragraph is        .

    A. to arouse the readers’ interest and show them what to do

    B. to find the piece of paper that is useful for the tips   C. to print the tips out and show them to others

    D. to copy the tips and read them

The underlined word “commitment” has the closest meaning to          .

    A. time             B. exercise             C. work             D. joy

The underlined word “compliment” means        .

    A. scold                B. praise                   C. criticize            D. question

Of the following,           would probably give the correct evaluation of you.

    A. You Mom          B. Your spouse          C. Your children        D. You yourself

        are most likely to bring into passionate living.

    A. Your favorite things                         B. The areas in which you excel

    C. Your joy factor                              D. The things that overlap


“Here, waiter! Look at your soup. What’s this? Is it vegetable soup? No. It’s fly(苍蝇) soup! Look at the bluebottle! Terrible! Pour it onto the face of the cook. Who wants such a wonderful soup?” shouted a middle-aged lady. In less than a second, the customers gathered around her table. A young waiter was already holding the soup plate, searching for the fly with a spoon. The lady was angry. The manager came out to see what the trouble was. “Bring her another bowl of soup” was his order. The lady wanted to show the fly to the manager. As she reached for the spoon, she pointed at something blue in it. “Look, that’s the fly!” she shouted.
The crowd pressed closer and stared at the spoon in the young waiter’s hand. Just before they could see it clearly, the man put the spoon full of soup into his mouth. Biting slightly, after a while, he smiled and nodded, “It’s really a piece of burnt green onion. I firmly believe that is worthy of our fame.” On hearing this, people laughed and walked away. The woman was at a loss and didn’t know if she could drink the soup or leave it there.
The whole incident lasted only a few minutes. Not long after that the waiter who had saved the restaurant form disgrace (不光彩) soon got a rise.
1. The “bluebottle” the lady mentioned means          .
A. a kind of soup          B. a kind of fly             C. the soup plate           D. the spoon
2. Seeing what had happened, the manager          .
A. knew that the fault would make this restaurant lose face
B. scolded the waiter to smooth down (消除) the lady’s anger
C. said sorry to the woman for the soup
D. sent away the cook who had caused so much trouble
3. Form the passage we can infer that the young waiter ate the fly, just because       .
A. it’s really his fault to make the lady angry
B. he didn’t want others to drive the cook out of the restaurant
C. he wanted to show what he ate was nothing but a piece of green onion
D. he was afraid he would be sent away by the manager
4. The young waiter saved the restaurant’s fame by           .
A. eating the fly in soup                  B. telling the truth to everyone
C. saying sorry to the lady                D. pointing out what the lady said was wrong

Once a man named Grand found a box of old papers in a room at the top of his house. He burned most of them, because he didn’t like old things very much, But one of these papers was an old letter. At the bottom(底部) of the letter was the name of a well-known writer. “When this letter was written,” said Grant, “no one knew about the writer. But now everyone knows him. Some people like to buy letters like this. I may be able to get much money for the letter if I sell it to the right man.”
But there were a lot of dirty marks all over the letter.
“It doesn’t look nice,” he thought. “No one wants to buy a letter if it’s dirty. I’ll have to clean it.”
So he took a piece of cloth and some water and cleaned the letter. He worked hard and gave a lot of care. At last the letter looked better. And he was very pleased with his work.
“Now it looks nice,” he said to himself. “I’ll be able to sell it for a lot of money.”
He took the letter to a shop in London where old papers of this kind were bought and sold.
“I want to sell this letter,” Grant said to the man in the shop. “It was written by a well-known writer. You know about these things. How much will you give me for it?”
The man looked at him for a long time.
“I will give you two pounds for it,” he said at last.
“Only two pounds!” said Grant. “But people pay ten pounds for a letter like this. And just look! I’ve even cleaned it to make it look nice.”
“I can see that,” said the man. “That’s the trouble. People who buy old papers like them to be dirty.”
【小题1】Which of the following is not right?

A.Grant found a box of old letters.B.Grant didn’t like old things very much.
C.Grant didn’t burn the old letter.D.The letter was written by a famous writer.
【小题2】Grant didn’t burn the letter because______.
A.it was written by his fatherB.he thought he could get much money by selling it
C.he wanted to keep it foreverD.he wanted to give it to the government
【小题3】In order to sell it, Grant decided to _____ first.
A.make advertisement(广告)in the newspapersB.show it to others around him
C.clean it to make it look niceD.take it to an archeologist(考古学家)
【小题4】Grant didn’t sell the letter at a good price because_______.
A.it was not an old letterB.few people knew about the writer
C.it had been cleanedD.the man didn’t like it

Bexley Middle School eighth-graders won the grand prize at the 2009 National Engineers Week Future City Competition (TM) on Feb. 18 in Washington, D.C. They competed with 37 other schools across the country.

The students qualified for the national competition by winning a regional competition on Jan. 17 in Columbus. By winning the national event, the students earned an all-expenses paid trip to Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala., according to a Bexley school district news report.

Future City aims to stir (激发) interest in science, technology, engineering and math among young people. Bexley team members were Tom Krajnak, Abby Sharp, Wyatt Peery, Elizabeth Maher, Aaron Hutchinson and Truman Haycock. They work in teams under the guidance of a teacher, Margaret Englehardt, and a volunteer engineer, Mark Sherman, design and build a city of tomorrow. Mayor John Brennan presented the students during a recent Bexley City Council meeting. Each team in the Future City competition plans its city using Sim City software and creates a model to show a physical representation of one section of the city. Team members must write both an essay about the yearly theme and an abstract about their city. They also must make a presentation to judges.

Focusing on eco-responsibility, the Bexley team built “Novo-Mondum,” an Icelandic city in the year 2171. Krajnak said the team’s project included a new water system for each resident unit and a 500-word essay on using bacteria to purify water. “We used our essay and abstract (摘要) to build a model,” he said. “It was hard to organize which building would go where, what each building does and how to make it look good.”

Englehardt said her students did a good job answering impromptu (即席) questions during the regional competition. “They can think on their feet,” she said. Principal Harley Williams said the school is very proud of the students’ performance.

 

1... From the passage we can learn that the grand prize winners will _________.

A. receive scholarship for further studies          

B. get a free trip to Space Camp in Huntsville

C. earn a large sum of money for their designs     

D. be admitted to universities without exams

2..The goal of the Future City competition is to _________.

A. make the Sim City software popular            

B. test the students’ knowledge of city planning

C. select future engineers from young students     

D. make students become interested in engineering

3.. Each team must do the following EXCEPT _________.

A. write brief abstracts describing their city        

B. present and defend their designs before judges

C. build a future city in Iceland by themselves      

D. create model cities using the Sim City software

4.. According to Margaret Englehardt, the students _________.

A. always stand still in the competition            

B. react very quickly to the questions

C. prepare for the questions in advance        

D. take pride in the advisers’ performance

 

5.

 

 

 

 

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