【题目】

Right in front of the Minneapolis Central Library, a row of green bikes sits parked in a special stand. Each bike is designed with the logo “Nice Ride”-the name of the city's bike-sharing programme.

Nice Ride bikes are a lot like the library books that people come here to borrow. To rent a bike, you simply use your membership card at a Nice Ride bike station. Members can rent one of 1,200 bikes from 138 stations throughout Minnesota's largest city. People use the Nice Ride bikes to go to work, to go out on business, or just to enjoy the city's many bike paths.

The rise of bike-sharing programmes like Nice Ride is encouraging more people than ever to choose biking over driving. Skyrocketing gas prices and concerns about the environment have also gotten people to dust off their bike helmets, pump air into flat tires, and hit the road.

Why ride? Not only is biking good exercise, but switching from a car to a bike also cuts down the amount of pollution in the air. Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas linked to climate change, is one of the many polluting substances that come out of a car's tail pipe.

Bike-sharing systems are found around the world in cities like London, Paris, Barcelona, and Melbourne. The largest programme with 70,000 bikes-is in Wuhan, China.

To make roads friendlier to non-motorists, the US Department of Transportation has invested more than a billion dollars in cycling and pedestrian projects in recent years. The money went towards building thousands of miles of on-street bike lanes and pedestrian-only passages called greenways.

1Which of the following can people do with the bikes?

A.Earn a living.B.Enjoy bikeways.

C.Compete in a race.D.Rent them out to others.

2What is Paragraph 4 mainly about?

A.Benefits of biking.

B.Pollution caused by cars.

C.Methods to use the bikes.

D.Measures to decrease pollution.

3Which of the following is true of Nice Ride?

A.China has better public bike systems than it.B.It will take the place of taxi companies.

C.It attracts more people to choose biking.D.The government lacks money to support it.

4What is the author's purpose in writing this text?

A.To seek advice for Nice Ride.

B.To compare Nice Ride with libraries.

C.To raise money for bike-sharing programmes.

D.To introduce the bike-sharing system in public places.

【题目】Eight years before his death in 1896, Alfred Nobel was surprised to read an obituary (讣告) in the local newspaper. It was a strange obituary, for it told Alfred Nobel, the man who was reading it, that he was dead. The newspaper had confused Alfred with his brother, Ludwig, who had recently died.

Nobel was shocked to read that he had passed away, and he was also annoyed by the title of his obituary: “The Merchant of Death is Dead”. Alfred was an armaments manufacturer (武器制造商), and a very rich and successful one. This incident got him thinking about his reputation. What would people think of him after his real death? Would they really say, “That was a man who profited from killing”?

It was this thought that led him to leave his huge amount of money for the founding of the famous Nobel prizes. His aim was to support the ongoing quest (追求) for excellence in the sciences and literature, and the ideal of peace. The first awards were given out in 1901, and since then thousands of men and women have been honored.

The awards let the world know about developments that may have a huge effect, on our lives. Of the most famous awardees, think about Polish chemist Marie Curie, who was the first woman to win a Nobel, in 1903. Sometimes, the prizes are controversial. There is often protest (抗议) at the award of the peace prize when not everyone thinks that the awardees deserve the award. Even the award for literature has sometimes been criticized, although it is often because the award committees neglect important writers. The highly influential novelists James Joyce and Marcel Proust, for example, were never honored by the Swedish Academy.

Still, for the most part the awards don’t cause many complaints. Alfred Nobel founded the prize to recognize those who have had “the greatest benefit on mankind” and few would disagree that most of the prize winners have made contributions that deserved to be honored and remembered.

1How did Alfred Nobel feel when he read the obituary in the newspaper?

A. Amused and understanding. B. Sad and worried.

C. Shocked and upset. D. Surprised and confused.

2What did Alfred Nobel decide to do after reading the obituary?

A. Stop producing any killing weapons.

B. Donate all his money to charity.

C. Pursue excellence in the sciences.

D. Use his money to set up the Nobel prizes.

3Why are James Joyce and Marcel Proust mentioned in the article?

A. To prove the influence of the Nobel prizes on literature.

B. To show the controversy of some Nobel prizes.

C. To explain the standard of giving out the Nobel prizes.

D. To give examples of influential Nobel prize-winners.

4What is the author’s opinion toward Nobel prizes?

A. There are too many controversial winners.

B. There should be more female winners.

C. They have honored many worthy winners.

D. The committees should be more selective.

【题目】请阅读下面短文,并根据所读内容在文章后表格中的空格里填入一个最恰当的单词。
The expression, “everybody's doing it,” is very much at the center of the concept of peer pressure. It is a strong influence of a group, especially of children, on members of that group to behave as everybody else does. It can be positive or negative. Most people experience it in some way during their lives.
People are social creatures by nature, and so it is hardly surprising that part of their self-respect comes from the approval of others. This instinct (天性) is why the approval of peers, or the fear of disapproval, is such a powerful force in many people's lives. It is the same instinct that drives people to dress one way at home and another way at work, or to answer “fine” when a stranger asks “how are you?” even if it is not necessarily true. There is a practical aspect to this: it helps society to function efficiently, and encourages a general level of self-discipline that simplifies day-to-day interaction.
For certain individuals, seeking social acceptance is so important that it becomes like an addiction; in order to satisfy the desire, they may go so far as to abandon their sense of right and wrong. Teens and young adults may feel forced to use drugs, or join gangs that encourage criminal behavior. Mature adults may sometimes feel pressured to cover up illegal activity at the company where they work, or end up in debt because they are unable to hold back the desire to buy a house or car that they can't afford in an effort to “keep up with the Joneses.”
However, peer pressure is not always negative. A student whose friends are good at academics may be urged to study harder and get good grades. Players on a sports team may feel driven to play harder in order to help the team win. This type of influence can also get a friend off drugs, or to help an adult take up a good habit or drop a bad one. Study groups and class projects are examples of positive peer groups that encourage people to better themselves.
Schools try to teach kids about the dangers of negative peer pressure. They teach kids to stand up and be themselves, and encourage them to politely decline to do things that they believe are wrong. Similarly, it can be helpful to encourage children to greet the beneficial influence of positive peer groups.

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