Thanksgiving Day is a special holiday in the United States and Canada. Families and friends gather to eat and give thanks for their blessing.

Thanksgiving Day is really a harvest festival. This is why it is celebrated in late fall, after the crops are in. But one of the first thanksgivings in America had nothing to do with a good harvest. On December 4, 1619, the Pilgrims (朝圣者) from England landed near what is now Charles City, Virginia. They knelt down and thanked God for their safe journey across the Atlantic.

The first New England Thangksgiving did celebrate a rich harvest. The Pilgrims landed at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620. They had a difficult time and the first winter was cruel. Many of the Pilgrims died. But the next year, they had a good harvest. So Governor Bradford declared a three-day feast. The Pilgrims invited Indian friends to join them for their special feast. Everyone brought food.

In time, other colonies (殖民地) began to celebrate a day of thanksgiving. But it took years before there was a national Thanksgiving Day. During the Civil War, Sarah Josepha Hale persuaded Abraham Lincoln to do something about it. He proclaimed (宣布) the last Thursday of November 1863 as a day of thanksgiving. Today, Americans celebrate this happy harvest festival on the fourth Thursday in November, Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving Day in much the same way as their American neighbors. But the Canadian Thanksgiving Day falls on the second Monday in October.

The passage mainly tells us _______

   A. how Thanksgiving Day came into being and the different ways it is celebrated

   B. how to celebrate Thanksgiving Day

   C. how Thanksgiving Day changed with the time and places

   D. why Thanksgiving Day is a harvest holiday

Thanksgiving Day is celebrated _______.

   A. in spring           B. in summer         C. in autumn       D. in winter

The first to celebrate thanksgiving were _______ .

   A. people in Canada                        B. Governor Bradford

   C. some people from England                D. the American Indians

We can infer from the passage that New England must be ______ .

   A. in England                             B. in Canada

   C. on some island off the Atlantic             D. in America

Which of the following statements is NOT ture?

   A. There’s little difference between the American way and the Canadian way to celebrate Thanksgiving Day.

   B. Abraham Lincoln was not the first to decide on thanksgiving celebrations.

   C. Thanksgiving Day used to be a holiday to celebrate a good harvest.

   D. Thanksgiving Day is celebrated to express the American and Indian people’s thanks to God.

IELTS: international English language testing system

Introduction: The IELTS is jointly managed by the University of Cambridge Local Examination Syndicate (剑桥大学考试委员会), the British Council (英国文化委员会) and IDP Education Australia (澳洲教育国际开发署)

Why more and more people are taking the IELTS test?

The IELTS test is widely recognized by the colleges, universities and other academic institutions of Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom. More and more universities and colleges in the US are also accepting an IELTS result as a language requirement for application to degree courses.

IELTS is accepted by many important organizations, such as the New Zealand Immigration Bureau, the Australian Immigration and Cultural Department, the Canadian Immigration Bureau, the Australian Medical Council and the British Medical Association (总会).

Choice of two test types

There are two test models: Academic and General Training. The candidate must select the one suitable to his/here purpose for taking the test.

Academic: for candidates who want to apply for undergraduate or postgraduate courses.

General Training: for candidates who take IELTS for immigration purpose, training programmes, or work experience.

If you have any questions about which type to take, consult the Examinations Services staff at the British Council offices.

Content

The test is composed of four papers: Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking. The first three papers must be taken at one sitting on one day, and the speaking paper may be taken up to two days later. Usually in China, the Listening paper is taken on a Saturday morning, followed by the Reading paper, and then Writing paper. The Speaking test is usually taken on the Saturday afternoon or on the following Saturday. Candidates must complete all four papers in order to obtain an overall score.

1.How many organizations is IELTS managed by?

A.6.

B.5.

C.4.

D.3.

2.Why are more and more people taking the IELTS test?

A.It is widely accepted by many countries.

B.It is widely recognized by many colleges, institutions and many important organizations.

C.It’s proof for people’s ability.

D.It’s interesting and acceptable.

3.What kind of candidates should choose Academic test?

A.Candidates who want for immigration.

B.Candidates who want for training.

C.Candidates who want for work experience.

D.Candidates who want for undergraduate or postgraduate courses.

4.In China, what’s the test order?

A.Reading, writing, speaking, listening.

B.Reading, speaking, listening, writing.

C.Listening, reading, writing, speaking.

 

As if there weren’t enough of them in the world already, scientists have succeeded in cloning flies. The alike fruit flies are the first insects ever cloned, says the Canadian team that created them. The question everyone asks is why anyone would want to clone flies in the first place. She hopes that the insects , which are very easy to experiment with , will help to adjust the cloning process in other animals and even in humans, where the technique is being researched to aid production of therapeutic (治疗的) stem cells.

In cloning, the DNA-containing nucleus of an adult cell is injected into an egg whose own nucleus(细胞核) has been removed. At the moment, the majority of cloned mice, sheep and other animals die before birth. It is thought this is because the adult DNA is not properly ‘reprogrammed’.

Using flies, researchers might discover genes that are important for this reprogramming, and that have matches in other animals. That is because it is relatively easy in flies to knock out the function of a single gene and then attempt cloning with these cells, which will test whether that gene is important. If such genes are confirmed, then in theory cloned mammalian embryos(晶胚) might be grown in selected solutions that change the activity of those genes to improve the technique’s success rate. Although some groups have attempted to clone insects before, Lloyd says this is the first time it has been successful. The team used a slight difference on the standard cloning process: they transferred nuclei taken from embryos rather than fully-grown adult cells. They sucked several nuclei (pl)out of developing fly embryos, and injected them into a fertilized(已受精的) fly egg. From over 800 early attempts, they cloned five adult insects, the group reports in the journal Genetics.

1.The best title of this passage probably is _______.

    A.The importance of clone

    B.First insects are cloned

    C.The disagreement in clone

    D.The advantages of clone

2.The scientists cloned flies because________.

   A.there are fewer and fewer flies in the world 

    B.flies are easy to find and cheap to use

   C.they can gain some experience before cloning other animals

    D.it is safe to clone flies

3.The failure of most cloned animals is due to _______.

   A.the difference of other animals’ genes

   B.the improper technique of clone

   C.the complex of other animals

   D.the improper rearrange of the adult gene

4.It can be inferred from the last paragraph that ______.

   A.the clone of insects before used grown-up cells

    B.the clone of insects were never experimented before  

    C.this time scientists cloned flies successfully and easily

   D.based on this success, other animals will be cloned in large quantities.

 

The $11 billion self-help industry is built on the idea that you should turn negative thoughts like "I never do anything right" into positive ones like "I can succeed." But was positive thinking advocate Norman Vincent Peale right? Is there power in positive thinking?

Researchers in Canada just published a study in the journal Psychological Science that says trying to get people to think more positively can actually have the opposite effect: it can simply highlight how unhappy they are.

The study's authors, Joanne Wood and John Lee of the University of Waterloo and Elaine Perunovic of the University of New Brunswick, begin by citing older research showing that when people get feedback which they believe is overly positive, they actually feel worse, not better. If you tell your dim friend that he has the potential of an Einstein, you're just underlining his faults. In one 1990s experiment, a team including psychologist Joel Cooper of Princeton asked participants to write essays opposing funding for the disabled. When the essayists were later praised for their sympathy, they felt even worse about what they had written.

In this experiment, Wood, Lee and Perunovic measured 68 students' self-esteem. The participants were then asked to write down their thoughts and feelings for four minutes. Every 15 seconds, one group of students heard a bell. When it rang, they were supposed to tell themselves, "I am lovable."

Those with low self-esteem didn't feel better after the forced self-affirmation. In fact, their moods turned significantly darker than those of members of the control group, who weren't urged to think positive thoughts.

The paper provides support for newer forms of psychotherapy (心理治疗) that urge people to accept their negative thoughts and feelings rather than fight them. In the fighting, we not only often fail but can make things worse. Meditation (静思) techniques, in contrast, can teach people to put their shortcomings into a larger, more realistic perspective. Call it the power of negative thinking.

1.What do we learn from the first paragraph about the self-help industry?

A.It is a highly profitable industry.

B.It is based on the concept of positive thinking.

C.It was established by Norman Vincent Peale.

D.It has yielded positive results.

2.What is the finding of the Canadian researchers?

A.Encouraging positive thinking many do more harm than good.

B.There can be no simple therapy for psychological problems.

C.Unhappy people cannot think positively.

D.The power of positive thinking is limited.

3.What does the author mean by "… you're just underlining his faults" (Line 4, Para. 3)?

A.You are not taking his mistakes seriously enough.

B.You are pointing out the errors he has committed.

C.You are emphasizing the fact that he is not intelligent.

D.You are trying to make him feel better about his faults.

4. What do we learn from the experiment of Wood, Lee and Perunovic?

A. It is important for people to continually boost their self-esteem.

B. Self-affirmation can bring a positive change to one's mood.

C. Forcing a person to think positive thoughts may lower their self-esteem.

D. People with low self-esteem seldom write down their true feelings.

Section C.

Directions: Read the following text and choose the most suitable heading from A-F for each paragraph. There is one extra heading that you do not need. (请注意题号,将答案填涂在答题卡相应的位置)

 

Whenever human populations have lived in forest areas, they have always cut down trees which they used for a number of purposes, for housing and ships and served as a source of heating fuel and timber. Growth of cities often meant expansion into forest areas, while even more trees were removed to provide space for agriculture. With the growing demand for paper, vast quantities of trees have also been cut down for paper production. These factors, along with many others, have been contributing to a dangerous phenomenon known as deforestation.

In the last 5,000 years, humans have reduced forest from roughly 50 percent of the earth’s land surface to less than 20 percent. Most of this original, or old growth, forest cover is concentrated in three large areas: the Canadian and Alaskan boreal forest, the boreal forest of Russia, and the tropical forest of the northwestern Amazon Basin and the Guyana Shield. These areas comprise almost 70 percent of the world’s remaining original forest cover. In most places, the rate of deforestation is increasing, with the alarming result of 16 million hectares disappearing worldwide every year.

Loss of forest does not just mean the decline of natural resources. There are several other factors that make deforestation seriously harmful to both the human and natural worlds. One of them is changes in the global climate. For example, forest clearance is releasing substantial volumes of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere as vegetation is burnt or decays. It has been suggested that this is a significant factor in global warming. Moreover, about 10 percent of the world’s tree species are in danger of extinction as a result of deforestation. Deforestation also threatens biological diversity through the destruction of wildlife habitats, which endangers a number of animal species and leads to their potential disappearance. Species are particularly easy to extinction in tropical rainforests because many species have few individuals per unit area, which makes reproduction more difficult. Finally, since forests play an important role in storing water and stabilizing soil, deforestation and the resulting change in land use cause soil erosion (腐蚀) and other forms of land degradation.

1.The passage discusses all of the following EXCEPT the ________.

    A. causes of deforestation              B. consequences of deforestation

    C. management of deforestation          D. rate of deforestation

2.  The word “diversity” in the last paragraph probably means “________”.

    A. variety                              B. expansion       

    C. development                      D. advantage

3.Why does the author mention fuel and timber in Paragraph 1?

    A. To explain the rate of deforestation.

    B. To compare them with housing and ships.

    C. To show the dangers of deforestation.

    D. To illustrate the causes of deforestation.

4.Which of the following sentences summarizes Paragraph 3 best?

    A. Deforestation threatens biological diversity.

B. Deforestation has many harmful consequences.

    C. Deforestation causes changes in global climate.

    D. Deforestation should be stopped.

 

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