Bells sound. Lighted messages appear. Men and women work at computers. They talk on the telephone. At times they shout and run around.
This noisy place is a stock exchange (证券交易所). Here expert salespeople called brokers buy and sell shares(股份) of companies. The shares are known as stocks. People who own stock in a company own part of that company.
People pay brokers to buy and sell stocks for them. If a company earns money, its stock increases in value. If the company does not earn money, the stock decreases in value. Brokers and investors(投资者)carefully watch for any changes on the Big Board. That is the name given to a list of stocks sold on the New York Stock Exchange.
Investors and brokers watch the Big Board to see if the stock market is a bull market or a bear market. In a bear market, prices go down. In a bull market, prices go up.
Investors in a bear market promise to sell a stock in the future at a set price. But the investor does not own the stock yet. He or she waits to buy it when the price drops.
The meaning of a bear market is thought to come from an old story about a man who sold the skin of a bear before he caught the bear. An English dictionary of the sixteen hundreds said, to sell a bear is to sell what one has not.
Word experts dispute the beginnings of the word bull in the stock market. But some say it came from the long connection of the two animals – bulls and bears – in sports that were popular years ago in England.
Investors always care about the possibility of a company failing. In the modern world, a company that does not earn enough profit (利润)is said to go belly up. A company that goes belly up dies like a fish. Fish turn over on their backs when they die. So they are stomach, or belly up.
Stock market investors do not want that to happen to a company. They want a company whose stock they own to earn more profit than expected. This would sharply increase the value of the stock. Investors are hoping for a windfall(横财).
72. The first paragraph is written for the purpose of ________.
A. making readers interested in buying stocks
B. telling readers the place is so busy
C. telling readers people in the stock exchange are busy
D. attracting readers’ attention to the topic of the passage
73. A fresher of a stock market probably turns to a (n) _______ for advice.
A. company                                 B. investor
C. broker                                   D. word expert
74. John bought his stock from a company which has gone belly up this year. We can infer _________ .
A. John would lose money this year
B. John would earn money this year
C. the stock market is a bear market
D. the stock market is a bull market
75. The reason why investors pay attention to the company whose stock they own is that _______ .
A. the company belongs to them
B. the company earns much money
C. they work for the company
D. they are financially connected with the company

                            Education is not an end, but a means to an end. In other words, we do not educate children only for the purpose of educating them. Our purpose is to fit them for life.

  In some modern countries it has for some time been fashioned to think that by free education for all --- one can solve all the problems of society and build a perfect nation. But we can already see that free education for all is not enough; we find in such countries a far larger number of people with university degree; they refuse to do what they think “low” work; and, in fact, work with hands is thought to be dirty and shameful in such countries. But we have only to think a moment to understand that the work of a completely uneducated farmer is far more important than that of a professor; we can live without education, but we die if we have no food. If no one cleaned our streets and took the rubbish away from our houses, we should get terrible diseases in our towns…

   In fact, when we say that all of us must be educated to fit us for life, it means that we must be educated in such a way that, firstly, each of us can do whatever work suited to his brains and ability and, secondly, that we can realize that all jobs are necessary to society, and that is very bad to be ashamed of one’s work. Only such a type of education can be considered valuable to society.

45. The writer of the passage thinks that __________.

A. education can settle most of the world’s problems

B. free education for all probably leads to a perfect world.

C. free education won’t help to solve problems

D. all the social problems can’t be solved by education.

46. The writer wants to prove that __________.

A. our society needs all kinds of jobs 

B. our society needs free education for all

C. a farmer is more important than a professor

D. work with hands is the most important

47. The purpose of education is __________.

A. to choose officials for the country

B. to prepare children mainly for their future work

C. to let everyone receive education fit for him

D. to build a perfect world

48. The passage tells us about ________ of the education.

A. the means   B. the system     C. the value      D. the type

The “Bystander Apathy Effect” was first studied by researchers in New York after neighbors ignored—and in some cases turned up the volume on their TVs—the cries of a woman as she was murdered (over a half-hour period). With regard to helping those in difficulty generally, they found that:

(1) women are helped more than men;

(2) men help more than women;

(3) attractive women are helped more than unattractive women.

    Other factors relate to the number of people in the area, whether the person is thought to be in trouble through their own fault, and whether a person sees himself as being able to help.

    According to Adrian Furnham, Professor of University College, London, there are three reasons why we tend to stand by doing nothing:

(1) “Shifting of responsibility”－the more people there are, the less likely help is to be given. Each person excuses himself by thinking someone else will help, so that the more “other people’ there are, the greater the total shifting of responsibility.

(2) “'Fear of making a mistake'’－situations are often not clear. People think that those involved in an accident may know each other or it may be a joke, so a fear of embarrassment makes them keep themselves to themselves.

(3) “Fear of the consequences if attention is turned on you, and the person is violent.”

    Laurie Taylor, Professor of Sociology at London University, says: “In the experiments I’ve seen on intervention (介入), much depends on the neighborhood or setting. There is a silence on public transport which is hard to break. We are embarrassed to draw attention to something that is happening, while in a football match, people get involved, and a fight would easily follow. ”

    Psychotherapist Alan Dupuy identifies the importance of the individual: “The British as a whole have some difficulty intervening, but there are exceptional individuals in every group who are prepared to intervene, regardless of their own safety: These would be people with a strong moral code or religious ideals.”

1.Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?

A. Pretty women are more likely to be helped.  

B. People on a bus are more likely to stop a crime.

C. Religious people are more likely to look on.  

D. Criminals are more likely to harm women.

2.Which factor is NOT related with intervention according to the passage?

A. Sex.              B. Nationality.                  C. Profession.                  D. Setting.

3.Which phenomenon can be described as the “Bystander Apathy Effect”?

A. When one is in trouble, people think it’s his own fault.

B. In a football match, people get involved in a fight.

C. Seeing a murder, people feel sorry that it should have happened.

D. On hearing a cry for help, people keep themselves to themselves.

4.The author wrote this article ______.

A. to explain why bystanders behave as they do  

B. to urge people to stand out when in need

C. to criticize the selfishness of bystanders  

D. to analyze the weakness of human nature

Reading poems is not exactly an everyday activity for most people. In fact, many people never read a poem once they get out of high school.

    It is worth reminding ourselves that this has not always been the case in America. In the nineteenth century, a usual American activity was to sit around the fireplace in the evening and read poems aloud. It is true that there was no television at the time, nor movie theatres, nor World Wide Web, to provide diversion. However, poems were a source of pleasure, of self-education, of connection to other people or to the world beyond one’s own community. Reading them was a social act as well as an individual one, and perhaps even more social than individual. Writing poems to share with friends and relations was, like reading poems by the fireside, another way in which poetry had a place in everyday life.

    How did things change? Why are most Americans no longer comfortable with poetry, and why do most people today think that a poem has nothing to tell them and they can do well without poems?

    There are, I believe, three culprits (肇事者): poets, teachers and we ourselves. Of these, the least important is the third: the world surrounding the poem has betrayed (背叛) us more than we have betrayed the poem. Early in the twentieth century, poetry in English headed into directions hostile (不利的) to the reading of poetry. Readers decided that poems were not for the fireside or the easy chair at night, that they belonged where other difficult-to-read things belonged.

    Poets failed the readers, so did the teachers. They want their students to know something about the craft (技巧) of a poem, and they want their students to see that poems mean something. Yet what usually occurs when teachers push these concerns on their high school students is that young people decide poems are unpleasant crossword puzzles.

1. Reading poems is thought to be a social act in the nineteenth century because _______.

A. it built a link among people              B. it helped unite a community

C. it was a source of self-education        D. it was a source of pleasure

2.The underlined word “diversion” in Paragraph 2 most probably means _______.

A. diversity        B. change            C. amusements       D. happiness

3.In the last paragraph, the writer questions _______.

A. the difficulty in studying poems                 

B. the way poems are taught in school

C. students’ wrong ideas about poetry                  

D. the techniques used in writing poems

4.According to the passage, what is the main cause of the great gap between readers and poetry?

A. Poems have become difficult to understand.                  

B. Students are poorly educated in high school.

C. TV and the Internet are more attractive than poetry.

D. Students are becoming less interested in poetry.

Each year there is an increasing number of cars on roads and streets as millions of new cars and trucks are produced. One out of every six Americans works at putting together the parts of cars, driving trucks, building roads or filling cars and trucks with gas.  1.

Most Americans would find it hard to imagine what life would look like without cars.  2.. The polluted air becomes poisonous and dangerous to health.

 3. . That’s what several of the large car factories have been trying to do. But to build a clean car is easier said than done. Progress in this field has been slow.

Another way is to take the place of the car engine by something else.  4. . Many makers believe that it will take years to develop a practical model that pleases man.

To prevent the world from being polluted by cars, we’ll have to make some changes in the way many of us live. Americans, for example, have to cut down on the number of their total cars. They are encouraged to travel and go to work by bicycle. Bicycling is thought to help the air clean. But this change does not come easily. A large number of workers may find themselves without jobs if a car factory closes down.  5..

Although cars have led us to a better life, they have also brought us new problems.

A.Thus the problem of air pollution would become less important than that of unemployment.

B. Americans know cars very well.

C. However, some have realized the serious problems of the air pollution that is caused by cars.

D. One way to get rid of the polluted air is to build a car that does not pollute.

E. However, the number of vehicles has continued to increase in recent years.

F. Americans won’t live without cars!

G. Inventors are now working on steam cars as well as electric cars.