One of the best-known American writers of children’s books is Alfred Strong, or Doctor Strong, as he is better known to readers everywhere. Now, an art show called “Doctor Strong From Then to Now” is travelling around the United States. The pictures and drawings show the history of Doctor Strong.

Doctor Strong first became famous almost fifty years ago when his first children’s book was published. Since then, he has written forty-five books that have sold more than one hundred million copies around the world.

Doctor Strong’s books are known for their easy use of words and colorful, hand-drawn pictures. These drawings bring life to his imaginary creatures. The Cat in the Hat, Horton the Elephant, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, and hundreds of others.

The San Diego Museum, in California, organized the art show. It included about three hundred Doctor Strong’s original(最早的) drawings and some of his writings.

Most of Doctor Strong’s books, although written in a funny way, have serious messages. For example, in Mc Elligot’s Pool, he describes the danger of pollution. He discusses the arms race in The Butter Battle Book, written in 1984.

Doctor Strong is almost eighty-four years old now. He says he never planned to write stories just for children. He says he writes stories that interest people of all ages. He says he uses easy words so that everyone, even a child, can understand.

1.Alfred Strong is a famous _______ in the United States.

A.doctor            B.artist             C.writer            D.reader

2.Doctor Strong first became famous in __________.

A.his eighties when an art show was travelling around the United States

B.his fifties when his drawings and writings were published

C.1984 when his book Mc Elligot’s Pool was published

D.his thirties when his first book was published

3.Doctor Strong’s books are very popular in America because __________.

A.they are stories about animals such as cats, elephants and so on

B.they are written in easy words with colorful pictures

C.he organized the art show in California    

D.they are written in a funny way

4.His purpose in writing many such books is __________.

A.to show his original pictures and drawings  

B.to organize a special art show of his own

C.to make his readers laugh or smile when they read his books

D.not only to interest people but also to uncover some serious social problems

 

虎妈,美国耶鲁大学的华裔教授蔡美儿Amy Lynn Chua,出版了一本名叫《虎妈战歌》Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother的书,在美国引起轰动。在接受采访时,回答了记者的5个问题(第61—65题)。请从下列提问(A、B、C、D、E和F)中选出与她的回答相匹配的问题,并在答题卡上将相应选项涂黑。选项中有一项是多余选项。

Questions

A.What do you think of the competition between China and the US?

B.What do you think of the image of “tiger mom?”

C.How do your daughters take the criticism about you after your book was published?

D.You said you would not get her Christmas gifts or anything when your daughter refused to repeatedly practice the music. How did your husband respond?

E.What do you think makes a good mother?

F.What does your husband think of your method of bringing up kids?

1.       

Chua’s answer: Well, actually I think there are many ways of being a good mother. In my book my focus is just a memory about my own family story, me trying to raise my own children in a kind of traditional Chinese way. I make mistakes and I make fun of myself. It’s amazing the way the book has been received internationally, because. I didn’t intend my book to be telling other people of view and I am a proud strict “tiger mom”. But I’m not trying to tell other people what are the best ways to teach or raise their children.

2.       

Chua’s answer: Well, the title may sound a little frightening. Let me tell you why I chose the title. I was born in the year of the tiger. And “battle Hymn” in the United States comes from “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”. The book is really about finding some sort of balance: how can we find the balance between the eastern way of parenting and the western way of parenting. In ways the book as been misunderstood maybe because of the title.

3.       

Chua’s answer: I didn’t write this book to have any foreign policy implications. But it’s been taken into the foreign policy realm. It is of course true that there is a connection between child-raising and the future of nations. We are raising, as parents, the next generation. So I think Henry is right. We tapped into this thing of insecurity, American’s fear about the rising power of china. A friend of mine told me that if the book had been called The Battle Hymn of an Italian Mother or The Battle Hymn of a Mexican Mother, nobody would have cared. It’s really “China”. you know.

4.       

Chua’s answer: I don’t think he opposes my idea of raising children. I’d like to think we have a combination, which is the right solution. You need a balance. From my perspective, what I give my kids is something that I thought was lacking in the US educational system. You know, they hate memorization, while in China you have too much of it. In the US, learning should be fun, a lot of games,. So I brought hard work and disciplines. My husband and I think this is a great thing always teaching them to question the authority and to ask why. Don’t accept everything just because somebody tells you. Figure it out yourself. I really think you need to combine both these qualities if you want creativity and dynamism.

5.       

Chua’s answer:  They both are stronger than I am. I am really proud of them. Their friends and communities supported them. At a time, I couldn’t even look at the Internet because there are so many negative comments. And they would find the good ones and text them to me, saying “here’s a good one mommy, hang in there.” This experience has actually brought my family together. Believe it or not, not just my kids, also my parents and my three younger sisters have supported me.

 

Deep in the Amazon forest, thousands of people still live in isolation from the rest of the world.

In a recent press release, the Brazilian government confirmed the existence of another isolated tribe of about 200 people living in the Vale do Javari reservation. The 200 people living in the Vale do Javari reservation. The reservation, located near the Peruvian border, is about the size of Portugal. At least another 14 isolated tribes, with a total population of about 2000, call the area home.

The newly observed group lives on four large straw-roofed buildings and grows corn, peanut and other crops.

Brazil’s National Indian Foundation (BNTF) first noticed the reservation in the forest using satellite maps, but it wasn’t until April that an airplane expedition was able to confirm the tribe’s existence. “The work of finding and protecting isolated groups is part of Brazilian public policy,” said the BNIF officer for Vale do Javari, Fabricio Amorim. “To confirm something like this takes years of hard work.”

BNIF estimates there are 68 isolated tribes living in the Amazon. The organization uses airplanes to avoid disturbing the tribes through personal contact, but that doesn’t mean others are so respectful of their right to privacy.

Illegal fishing, woodcutting and hunting bring people into the protected area. Oil exploration on the Peruvian side of the border is another threat. All kinds of criminals also invade the lands of the local groups, said Amorim. The outsiders can damage the land and influence the cultures of indigenous(土著的)peoples. They can also bring diseases which can wipe out the whole population that still lack even basic antibiotics(抗生素).

Brazil’s indigenous peoples won the legal right to their traditional lands in Brazil’s 1988 Constitution, which stated that all indigenous lands shall be divided and turned over to tribes within five years. Indigenous groups now control 11 percent of Brazil’s territory, including 22 percent of the Amazon.

Allowing indigenous groups the right homelands is not just a matter of human rights. The rest of the world can benefit from their knowledge. Mark Plotkin has spent years living with the people of the Amazon and learning from their traditional healers. In his lecture, he pointed out that many useful materials and knowledge, including numerous drugs, can be gained from listening to the indigenous groups of the Amazon. Besides this, they are also more effective at protecting the land, and less expensive, than hired rangers(护林人).

1.The underlined word in the first paragraph probably means “a state of            ”.

A.separation

B.interaction

C.satisfaction

D.excitement

2.From the passage we can learn that the tribes in the Amazon forest             .

A.only live on a reservation designated for them

B.prefer straw-roofed buildings to wooden ones

C.keep contact with the outside world through airplanes

D.have the legal right to the land they live on

3.Which of the following is TRUE according to Amorim?

A.Privacy violation is common among the Amazon tribes.

B.The laws dividing the lands of the tribes are far from enough.

C.Modern civilization endangers the tribes and their cultures.

D.It is hard to make public policy to protect primitive tribes.

4.The last paragraph is mainly about              .

A.the lost human rights of the indigenous peoples

B.the benefits of protecting the primitive tribes

C.the value of traditional healing

D.the indigenous peoples as guardians of the Amazon forest

 

We’ve heard about radiation from the damaged nuclear reactors in Japan reaching American shores. Experts say so far there is no reason to worry, and point out that we meet radiation every day. Where and how? NPR’s Renee Montagne posed that question to Peter Caracappa, a radiation safety officer and professor of nuclear engineering.

MONTAGNE: How many things emit radiation?

Dr CARACAPPA: Well, radiation and radioactive material is a part of nature. So everything that’s living has some amount of radiation coming from it—a very small amout. Plus there’s radiation in the ground and the air.

So the extremes are uranium in the soil to bananas?

Yes.

By the way, why do bananas have radiation?

Bananas have a lot of potassium(钾). And a small amount of potassium naturally is called potassium 40, which is radioactive

What’s the difference between radiation that’s harmful and not harmful?

Well, the term radiation can apply to a lot of different things. But the harmful radiation is ionizing(离子)radiation. It has enough energy that it can make chemical changes in material. We could get ionizing radiation from an X-ray, for example. It’s the kind of radiation that causes cancer.

The broader definition of radiation includes a lot of things that we call non-ionizing radiation. That includes everything like radio waves and visible light and your microwave.

So what then is the largest contributor of ionizing radiation?

For the natural sources of ionizing radiation, actually the biggest chunk of that tends to come from radon(氡), which is a radioactive material that is present in the air. It can become a concern when it builds up in low-lying areas of homes like basements.

Would it be fair to say that most people do not need to worry about the danger of being exposed to radiation?

I would say that the everyday exposure to radioation that we meet contributes an extremely tiny risk to our life or to our health compared to all of the other risks that we meet in our day-to-day life.

1.We can infer from the first paragraph that radiation is______.

A.rare

B.powerful

C.dangerous

D.common

2.The passage may be _______.

A.an interview

B.an argument

C.a talk show program

D.a science report

3.Whether radiation is harmful or not depends on______.

A.whether it has a small amount of potassium

B.whether it changes chemical in materials.

C.whether it has energy to change materials

D.whether it is visible in life

4.The purpose of writing this passage is to _______.

A.advise on how to protect us from radiation

B.analyze what causes radiation in daily life

C.warn people of the danger of radiation

D.expect people not to fear everyday radiation

 

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