III. 阅读理解

阅读下面短文，掌握其大意，然后从文后所给各题的四个选项中，选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项。

When you turn on the radio, you hear an advertisement. When you watch television, you hear and see an advertisement. If you turn the pages of a newspaper or magazine, again you find a advertisement. If you walk down the street, you see one advertisement board after another. All day, every day, people who want to sell something compete to catch your attention. As a result, advertisements are almost everywhere.

In the West, advertisements are the fuel that makes mass media（媒体）work. Many TV stations, newspapers, magazines, radio stations are privately（私人）owned. The government does not give them money. So where does the money come from? From advertisements. Without advertisements, there would not be these private businesses.

Have you ever asked yourself what advertising is? Through the years, people have given different answers to the question. For some time it was felt that advertising was a means of “keeping your name before the public.” And some people thought that advertising was “truth well told.” Now more and more people tend to define（定义） it in this way: Advertising is the paid, nonpersonal, and usually persuasive presentation of goods, services and ideas by identified sponsors through various media.

 First, advertising is usually paid for. Various sponsors（赞助商） pay for the ads we see, read, and hear over the various media. Second, advertising is nonpersonal. It is not face-to-face communication. Although you may feel that a message in a certain advertisement is aimed directly at you, in reality, it is directed at large groups of people. Third, advertising is usually persuasive. Directly or indirectly it urges people to do something. All advertisements try to convince（说服） people that the product, idea, or service advertised can benefit them. Fourth, the sponsor of the advertisement must be identified. From the advertisement, we can see if the sponsor is a corporation, or a committee, or an individual. Fifth, advertising reaches us through traditional and non-traditional mass media. Included in the traditional media are newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and films. Non-traditional media include the mail, matchbox covers, and billboards.

1. The existence of the privately owned mass media depends financially on the support of ____ .

A. the government   B. their owners’ families    C. advertisements    D. the audience

2. The passage seems to say that different definitions of advertising are given due to __ ____.

A. the change of time             B. the subject of the advertisements

C. people’s age difference         D. people’s different perspectives (角度)

3. According to the passage, who are most probably paying for the advertisements? __ ____.

A. Corporations.    B. Committees.    C. Individuals.     D. All of the above.

4. According to the passage, which of the following statements about the features of advertisements is NOT true? _____.

A. Advertising must be honest and amusing   B. Advertising is meant for large groups of people

C. There is the description of things advertised  D. The sponsors are always mentioned

III. 阅读理解

阅读下面短文，掌握其大意，然后从文后所给各题的四个选项中，选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项。

Millions of people die of hunger in Southern Africa every year, but when Zambia was offered thousands of tons of free maize by the US, the government politely said no.

“We don’t know whether the food is safe,” said Zambia’s Commerce, Trade and Industry Minister Dipak Patel.

His worries are shared by countries around the world that are in two minds about America’s genetically modified (GM) crops. Just last week, EU member nations were discussing whether or not to import GM sweet corn from the US.

Ever since people started farming, they have tried to crossbreed (杂交) plants to make them stronger or better tasting. At one time, only related plants could be crossed with each other.

But when GM techniques were developed in the 1970s, scientists were able to put a single gene from a living creature into an unrelated creature.

This means they can make crops more productive and resistant to disease by adding genes from other species. They can also create food with special characteristics, such as “golden rice”, which is enriched with vitamin A. But many people believe GM foods are a health risk.

“If left to me, I would certainly not eat GM foods,” said Scottish scientist Arpad Pusztai. “We are putting new things into food which haven’t been eaten before. The effects on the immune system are not easy to predict.”

At the moment, the official argument is that GM foods “are not likely to present risks for human health”. But there are still many questions to be answered as the foods are produced in different ways.

Some experts believe the genetic material added to plants can transfer to humans and give damage to our bodies. Further harm could be caused by the genes from GM plants crossbreeding with naturally produced crops.

1. We learn from the passage __________.

       A. people have discovered that GM foods will do harm to human health

       B. millions of Zambia people die of eating too much GM foods

C. people are still not sure if GM foods will do harm to human health

       D. genetic material added to plants will damage our bodies sooner or later

2. What does “in two minds” in the third paragraph mean?

       A. Unsure.      B. Worried.    C. Likely.       D. Careless.

3. Which of the following statements is NOT true about GM foods?

       A. It is produced from plants added genes from other species.

       B. GM foods can have special characteristics.

       C. GM foods will affect people’s immune system.

       D. GM foods have been produced since 1970s.

4. What’s the author’s attitude?

       A. Supportive.                 B. Neutral.      C. Doubtful.        D. Critical.

阅读下列文，从每题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳答案。

Boxing was long viewed sickly. Generally forbidden by law in earlier days, the fighting was usually done with bare fists, and matches often lasted forty or fifty rounds.

    In 1882 John L. Sullivan, a fighter of great power, won the world heavyweight championship from Paddy Ryan in a bare-fisted battle marked by hitting, scratching, and biting without any rule. Five years later, while fighting Patsy Cardiff at Minneapolis, Sullivan broke his right arm in the third round, but he continued fighting to the sixth round and won. In 1889, Sullivan defeated Jake Kilrain with his bare fists in another championship fight, winning twenty thousand dollars and a diamond prize medal. His admirers talked then of running him for the neat governor, but he traveled to Australia for a boxing tour instead, coming back only to lose his title in a twenty-one-round match with a young Californian named James, J. Corbets.

    “Gentleman James” victory in this match marked a turning point, for it showed scientific boxing was over strength. But Corbett's title ended in 1897,when another boxer, Bob Fitzsimmons, in less than three seconds, achieved his feats and then Fitzsimmons knocked out an Irishman, won the heavyweight championship of the world, and invented the terrible “solar plexus punch.”

1．Boxing matches in the early days were ________.

    A. short and bloody

    B. usually spare-time competitions

    C. governed by strict rules

    D. cruel

2．Sullivan held the world's heavyweight tide for ________.

A. at least seven years　　  B. only a year

C. five days　　　　　　　　　　 D. twenty-one years

3．Sullivan's fight with Kilrain was ________.

    A. the first boxing championship match

    B. a bare-fisted championship fight

    C. the last boxing match to be fought bare-listed

D. a six-round match

阅读理解

阅读下列文，从每题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳答案。

Amos Grundy and Sam Spangler had been playing checkers (棋子) together for about twenty-five years. They kept their scores of wins and losses carefully on yellow lined paper. You might call it sort of life time checker tournament (比赛). Sam was leading 5000 games to 0. He liked it that way because he liked to win. Amos kept trying and his motto was “Don't give up. You can't lose them all.”

    Now Game 5001 began pretty much like any other game. Sam and Amos sat in their regular chairs—Sam looking confident and unbeatable-Amos nervously rubbing his white rabbit's foot. Rain was banging(猛击) loudly on the windows and there was the rumble(隆隆)of thunder shaking overhead.

    Sam was playing the blacks. Amos was playing the reds. Neither man smoke. Sam moved. Amos moved. Sam moved. Amos moved. But Amos for once was making all the right moves.

    He double-jumped Sam.

    He triple()-jumped Sam.

    He made one king and another king.

    Amos played the game of his life and he won it! “Rats!” said Sam. He wasn't used to losing. After winning 5000 straight games a loss was pretty hard to take. He grumbled (三倍的) . “But I'm still 4999 games ahead of you, Amos.” “Maybe so.” said Amos, “but we've got 5000 games to go, I'm going to win this tournament!”

1．Amos has Lost 5000 games, ________.

    A. so he would give up

    B. so he wouldn't go on playing

    C. but he wouldn't be disappointed

    D. because he was so old

2．The reason why Amos won Game 5001 was ________.

    A. that it had begun pretty much like any other game

    B. that he happened to play the reds

    C. that Sam had thought to lose it

    D. that he had trade all the right moves

3．The final score was ________.

A. 5000 to 1　　　　　　　　    B. 5001 to 1

C. 4999 to 1　　　　　　　　    D. 5000 to 0

阅读下列文，从每题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳答案。

Betty and Harold have been married for years. But one thing still puzzles old Harold. How is it that he can leave Betty and her friend Joan sitting on the sofa, talking, go out to a ball game, come back three and a half hours later, and they're still sitting on the sofa? Talking?

    What in the world, Harold wonders, do they have to talk about?

    Betty shrugs. Talk? We're friends.

    Researching this matter called friendship, psychologist Lillian Rubin spent two years interviewing more than two hundred women and men. No matter what that age, their job, their sex, the insults were completely clear: women have more friendships than men, and the difference in the content and the quality of those friendships is “marked and unmistakable”. More than two-thirds of the single men Rubin interviewed could not name a best friend. Those who could were likely to name a woman. Yet three-quarters of the single women had no problem naming a best friend, and almost always it was a woman. More married men than women named their wife/husband as a best friend, most trusted person. or the one they would turn to in time of emotional distress (感情危机). “Most women,” says Rubin, “identified (认定) at least one. usually more, trusted friends to whom they could turn in a troubled moment, and they spoke openly about the importance of these relationships in their lives.”

    “In general,” Writes Rubin in her new book, “women's friendships with each other rest on shared emotions and support, but men's relationships are marked by shared activities.” For the most part, Rubin says, interactions (交往) between men are emotionally controlled a good fit with the social requirements of “manly behavior”.

    “Even when a man is said to be a best friend,” Rubin writes, “the two share little about their innermost feelings. Whereas a woman's closest female friend might be the first to tell her to leave a failing marriage, it wasn't unusual to hear a man say he didn't know his friend's marriage was in serious trouble until he appeared one night asking if he could sleep on the sofa.”

1．What old Harold cannot understand or explain is the fact that ________.

    A. he is treated as an outsider rather than a husband

    B. women have so much to share

    C. women show little interest in ball games

    D. he finds his wife difficult to talk to

2．Rubin's study shows that for emotional support a married woman is more likely to turn to ________.

A. a male friend　　　　　　   B. a female friend

C. her parents　　　　　　　　  D. her husband

3．The research done by psychologist Rubin centers around ________.

    A. happy and successful marriages

    B. friendships of men and women

    C. emotional problem in marriage

D. interactions between men and women