In a moment of personal crisis, how much help can you expect from a New York taxi driver? I began studying this question and answers interesting.
One morning I got into three different taxis and announced, “Well, it’s my first day back in New York I seven years. I’ve been in prison.” Not a single driver replied, so I tried again. “Yeah, I shot a man in Reno.” I explained, hoping the driver would ask me why, but nobody asked. The only response came from a Ghanaian driver, “Reno? That is in Nevada?”
Taxi driver were uniform sympathetic when I said I‘d just been fired. “This is America,” a Haitian driver said. “One door is closed. Another is open.” He argued against my plan to burn down my boss house. A Pakistani driver even turned down a chance to profit from my loss of hope; he refused to take me to the middle of the George Washington Bridge-a $20 trip. “Why you go there? Go home and relax. Don’t worry. Take a new job.”
One very hot weekday in July, while wearing a red ski mask and holding a stuffed pillowcase with the word “BANK” on it, I tired calling a taxi five times outside different banks. The driver picked me up every time. My ride with a Haitian driver was typical of the superb assistance I received.
“Let’s go across the park.” I said. “I just robbed the bank there. I got $25,000?” he asked.
“Yeah, you think it was wrong to take it?”
“No, man. I work 8 hours and I don’t make almost $70. If I can do that, I do it too.”
As we approached 86th and Lexington, I pointed to the Chemical Bank.
“Hey, there is anther bank,” I said, “Could you wait here a minute while I go inside?”
“No, I can’t wait. Pay me now.” his unwillingness may have had something to do with money –taxi drivers think the rate for waiting time is too low----but I think he wanted me to learn that even a bank robber can’t expect unconditional support.
1. From the Ghanaian driver’s response, we can infer that______.
A. he was afraid of the author          B. he though the author was crazy
C. he looked down upon the author    D. he was indifferent to the killing
2. Why did the Pakistani driver refuse to take the author to the middle of the George Washington Bridge?
A. Because he was able to help the author to find a new job.
B. Because he wanted to go home and relax.
C. Because he thought that the author would commit suicide.
D. Because it was far away from his home.
3. In the author’s opinion, the driver’s unwillingness “to wait outside the chemical Bank indicate ______.
A. The driver thought it wrong to support a taxi rider unconditionally
B. The driver was frightened and wanted to leave him as soon as possible
C. The driver did not want to help a suspect to escape from a bank robbery
D. The driver thought that the rate for waiting time was too low
4. The passage mainly discusses ________.
A. the way to please taxi riders
B. the way to deal with taxi riders
C. taxi driver’s attitude to riders in personal trouble
D. taxi driver’s attitude to troublesome taxi riders

 Is there a limit to the number of years that a person can expect to live? Can changes in life-style add years to one’s life? Throughout history people have sought answers to these questions and others.

Various myths offer the hope of great longevity. In the imaginary land of Shangri-La, for example, people are said to lead a charmed existence for a thousand years. The Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon was convinced that he would find the Foundation of Youth in what is now the state of Florida. According to the Bible, Methuselah lived to be more than 900 years old.

The subject of longevity is fascinating, and scientists study individuals such as Jeanne Calment to learn about the aging process. Calment died in 1997 in Arles, France, at the age of 122. She never married, and she lived in her own apartment until moving to a retirement community when she was 109.

Most scientists agree that bodies will last, at best, about 125 years. This potential has changed little since modern human beings appeared more than 100 thousand years age. Recent improvements in medicine and the environment have extended life expectancy, especially for those from poorer parts of the world. It is not clear, however, whether such improvements will lengthen life expectancy beyond a certain point.

Life expectancy is the number of years an infant can be expected to live, given the conditions into which it is born. Life expectancy, therefore, is affected by nutrition, medical care, and social and political circumstances. An individual’s genetic makeup is also an important factor. Children from long-lived families can hope to enjoy long lives themselves. According to recent data, the average life expectancy worldwide in 1998 was 67 years. This can be compared with an average life expectancy of 77 in the United States.

In 1970 the average life expectancy worldwide was 61 years, or 6 years less than it was in 1998. This same period saw a drop in infant mortality -— the death of a child before the first birthday-—from 80 births out of 1,000 to 54 births out of 1,000. According to some researchers, the rise in the average life expectancy is due primarily to the drop in infant mortality. It is not so much that adults are living to an older age. It is, rather, that more people are living into adulthood because more children are surviving beyond their first birthdays.

1.Infant mortality is defined as ________ .

A. the number of children born alive

B. the kinds of behavior typical of very young children

C. the number of children, out of 1,000 births, who die before their first birthday

D. the typical and obvious thoughts of very young children

2.Although it may be possible to improve the life expectancy of a particular group of people, ________ .

A. it is more difficult to affect the rate of infant mortality

B. it is unlikely that one will be able to extend the potential life span of human beings in general

C. the process of evolution is extending the potential life span beyond 125 years

D. the potential that bodies will last, at best, about 125 years has changed much since modern human beings appeared

3.One can infer that people have at times imagined that ________ .

A. people live longer in the state of Florida

B. a long life is a burden rather than a blessing

C. it is possible to find a way to live for centuries

D. life expectancy is affected by a couple of factors

4.One can conclude that  ________ .

A. the aging process can be stopped.

B. the aging process is inevitable.

C. life expectancy in the United States will soon reach 125 years.

D. the average life expectancy worldwide is decreasing

A group of students in Japan have created a realistic robot baby to motivate young people to start planning a family so as to increase the country’s birth rate. The automated (自动化的)doll developed at the University of Tsukuba, called Yotara, laughs and “wakes up” when a rattle is shaken.
He can become angry and sleep like a real baby and he smiles when his stomach is pressed. The robot can also sneeze and have a runny nose, thanks to a heated water pump system. The students of the Graduate school of Comprehensive Human Science at the university created the robot last year with touch sensors. A projector sends the facial features onto a warm silicon balloon which makes up Yotara’s face. The robot’s facial expression and body movements change according to pressure applied to different parts of its body.
The information collected through touch sensors（传感器）under the silicon skin is processed by a special programme. It then changes the baby’s expression projected onto the balloon-face from behind. There is a hat on the robot’s head and a colorful blanket covering the robot’s limbs which simulate wiggling(摆动) with the help of a geared motor. “We wanted to create a new type of robot that is soft, cuddly and cute,” said project leader Hiroki Kunimura.
“We’d like people to experience the innocent, joyful expressions typical of small babies. Through this experience, it would be great if some people started feeling that they wanted to have their own baby, if they started feeling that work is not everything.”
Japan’s birth rate is among the lowest in the developed world at 1.37%, compared to 2.12% in the United States and l.84%in Britain. Japan is facing serious economic consequences with over a quarter of its citizens expected to be aged over 65 by 20l5.The population is expected to reduce by a third within 50 years if the birth rate does not increase．
【小题1】. What is the students’ purpose of creating such a baby?

Another food which is closely associated with Americans is apple pie．Apple pie is often served hot with a spoon of ice cream or a slice of cheese at the end of the biggest meal of the day—dinner, and it is a favorite dessert throughout the nation, if a person is typical of Americans, we can say, "He is as American as apple pie．"

It is true that the apple and apple pie do not originate in America, but the expression "as American as apple pie" is not the product of a pure imagination．As early as 1625, the English colonists, having brought orchards （果园） on this new land and in most of the colonial times, the apple was a main material of both plain and fancy cooking．The first Massachusetts governor, William Endicott, was one of many keen apple planters who helped to lay the foundations for today' s apple-growing industry in America．

A major attraction of the apple for the colonists was that it could be made into cider （苹果酒）. Like most Europeans, English colonists held a strong suspicion （怀疑） of drinking water, and since grapegrowing was hindered by plant peats, cider became an alternative to wine．Cheap and easy to produce, it was the American drink of first choice well into the nineteenth century． Whether it was dried, raw or cooked, the apple also found its way into numerous colonial dishes, including apple sauces, pudding, stuffings and many desserts．Therefore, the conclusion to be drawn here is obvious．The apple pie became known as American, not because it was invented on this land （since it was proved that Europeans had been eating apple pies for centuries）, but because, thanks to the huge orchards in the states of Washington and New York, America became the world's largest apple-producing nation．

1.If a person is said to be as American as apple pie, it means that _______．

2.The apple can be used to make into all of the following except _______．

3.The underlined word hindered in Paragraph 3 means．________．

4.It can be concluded from the passage that_______．

 It is typical of him to go to bed without washing his feet,

which his roommates can’t _____. 

A. put up with           B. make up of    C. decide on              D. look forward to