A I was very disappointed not to be able to go to the jazz concert last Friday.The advertisement in the paper said that you could buy tickets at the theatre box in Richland Hills any day between 10:00 and 4:00.Since I work from 9:00 to 5:30, the only time I could go to the theatre was during my 45-minute lunch break.

Unfortunately, the theatre is on the other side of the town, and the bus service between my office and Richland Hills is not very good.But if you are lucky, you can make the round trip in 45 minutes.Last Monday.I stood at the bus stop for 15 minutes waiting for the bus, By the time I saw one come around the corner, there was not enough time left to make the trip.

So I gave up and went back to the office.The same thing happened on Tuesday, and again next day.On Thursday, my luck changed.I got on a bus right away and arrived at the theatre in exactly 20 minutes.When I got there, however, I found a long line of people at the box office, I heard one man say he had been waiting in line for over an hour.Realizing I would not have enough time to wait in line.I caught the next bus and headed back across the town.

By Friday I realized my only hope was to make the trip by taxi, it was expensive, but I felt it would be worth it to hear the concert.The trip by taxi only took 10 minutes, but felt like an hour to me.When I got to the theatre, I was relieved to see that nobody was waiting in line.The reason, however, I quickly discovered, was that they had already sold all the tickets.

1.The man learned that there would be a concert last Friday.

A.from the newspaper

B.from his friends

C.from one of his work-mates

D.over the radio

2.He tried to go to the theatre every day but managed to get there only _______.

A.once

B.three times

C.twice

D.four times

3.One day the man took _______ to get to the theatre by bus.

A.forty-five minutes

B.fifteen minutes

C.over an hour

D.just twenty minutes

4.The underlined word “relieved” may best be replaced by ___________.

A.surprised

B.puzzled

C.pleased

D.sorry

E­reading and e­books are slowly conquering the world.Compared to traditional paper books,e­books in some schools and universities attract more interest because the information flow seems much easier to manage and comes in a greatly higher quantity.

Japan is known for the reform­minded attitude towards the gadget(精巧装置) world and for the fact that it is one of the first countries that encouraged in the educational system the emailing of homework.

The digital textbook looks like the logical step in the world of learning.It is natural but it is also completely untraditional.

The plan of the largest publishing companies to get in line with the trend is to save a large quantity of paper and make the kids become interested in learning using a cool gadget.Many USA universities and colleges have made students be used to the procedure of downloading the courses and of course the procedure involves interactive software and also the chance of using the computer.

The traditional education system is still unwilling when it comes to giving up books.The standard approach of information taught out of a book and Shakespeare read out of an old school novel makes studying English as traditional as it can be.

In a world where kids would rather see the movie than read a book,the digital age has brought along a completely different flavor to reading.Bringing that flavor in school will make teaching a greener and also a completely different matter.

1.Why are e­books so popular in the world?

A.It's cheap to buy.

B.It's effective to use.

C.It's convenient to bring.

D.It's the latest fashion.

2.Which of the following words can best take the place of the word “reform­minded” in the second paragraph?

A.Old­fashioned. B.Aggressive.

C.Rejecting. D.Progressive.

3.In America,the students are encouraged to________.

A.apply the procedure of downloading the courses

B.communicate with their teachers using computer

C.research some interactive software for their studies

D.do their homework in computer instead of in paper

4.What's the author's attitude to the digital textbooks?

A.Being against. B.Being for.

C.Not mentioned. D.Being neutral.

Knots are the kind of stuff that even myths are made of.In the Greek legend of the Gordian knot, for example, Alexander the Great used his sword to slice through a knot that had failed all previous attempts to unite it. Knots, enjoy a long history of tales and fanciful names such as “Englishman’s tie, ” “and “cat’s paw. ” Knots became the subject of serious scientific investigation when in the 1860s the English physicist William Thomson (known today as Lord Kelvin) proposed that atoms were in fact knotted tubes of ether(醚). In order to be able to develop the equivalent of a periodic table of the elements, Thomson had to be able to classify knots — find out which different knots were possible. This sparked a great interest in the mathematical theory of knots.

A mathematical knot looks very much like a familiar knot in a string, only with the string’s ends joined. In Thomson’s theory, knots could, in principle at least, model atoms of increasing complexity, such as the hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen atoms, respectively. For knots to be truly useful in a mathematical theory, however, mathematicians searched for some precise way of proving that what appeared to be different knots were really different — the couldn’t be transformed one into the other by some simple manipulation(操作). Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the Scottish mathematician Peter Guthrie Tait and the University of Nebraska professor Charles Newton Little published complete tables of knots with up to ten crossings. Unfortunately, by the time that this heroic effort was completed, Kelvin’s theory had already been totally discarded as a model for atomic structure. Nevertheless, even without any other application in sight, the mathematical interest in knot theory continued at that point for its own sake. In fact, mathematical became even more fascinated by knots. The only difference was that, as the British mathematician Sir Michael Atiyah has put it, “the study of knots became a special branch of pure mathematics. ”

Two major breakthroughs in knot theory occurred in 1928 and in 1984. In 1928, the American mathematician James Waddell Alexander discovered an algebraic expression that uses the arrangement of crossings to label the knot. For example, t2-t+1 or t2-3t+1, or else. Decades of work in the theory of knots finally produced the second breakthrough in 1984. The New Zealander-American mathematician Vaughan Jones noticed an unexpected relation between knots and another abstract branch of mathematics, which led to the discovery of a more sensitive invariant known as the Jones polynomial.

1.What is surprising about knots?

A. They originated from ancient Greek legend.

B. The study of knots is a branch of mathematics.

C. Knots led to the discovery of atom structure.

D. Alexander the Great made knots well known.

2.What does the underlined word “that” in Paragraph 3 refer to?

A. No other application found except tables of knots.

B. The study of knots meeting a seemingly dead end.

C. Few scientist showing interest in knots.

D. The publication of complete tables of knots.

3.According to the passage, ______ shows the most updated study about knots.

A. t2-t+1 B. t2-3t+1

C. Alexander polynomial D. Jones polynomial

4.Which one would be the best title for this passage?

A. Mathematicians VS Physicians

B. To be or Knot to be

C. Knot or Atom

D. Knot VS Mathematics

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