In some urban centers, workaholism is so common that people do not consider it unusual: they accept the lifestyle as normal. Government workers in Washington D. C., for example, frequently work sixty to seventy hours a week. They don't do this because they have to;they do it because they want to.

Workaholism can be a serious problem.  Because true workaholics(工作狂) would rather work than do anything else, they probably don't know how to relax.

Is workaholism always dangerous? Perhaps not. There are, certainly, people who work well under stress. Some studies show that many workaholics have great energy and interest in life. Their work is so pleasurable that they are actually very happy.  For most workaholics, work and entertainment keep them busy and creative.

Why do workaholics enjoy their jobs so much? There are several advantages to work. Of course, it provides people with paychecks, and this is important. But it offers more than financial security. It provides people with self-confidence; they have a feeling of satisfaction when they've produced a challenging piece of work and are able to say," I made that.”. Psychologists claim that work gives people an identity(认同) through participation in work, they get a sense of self and individualism. In addition, most jobs provide people with a socially acceptable way to meet others. Perhaps some people are compulsive about their work, but their addiction seems to be a safe--even an advantageous―one:

 

72. The passage indicates that workaholics             .

A. just know work but nothing else

B. are willing to work hard for long hours without pay

C. find their work provide them more satisfaction and self-confidence than how much they are paid

D. has the work with more responsibility than others

73. One of the reasons that some people are not willing to quit their jobs even in their eighties and nineties is that

A. they are in the need of financial security

B. they would rather work than be disturbed by domestic affairs

C. they long for a sense of identity and being accomplished

D. they may have health problems from sheer boredom(极端厌倦)

74. This passage is mainly about             .

A. workaholics are usually successful people, but their lives are in a mess

B. workaholism can lead to serious problems but it can also create a joyful life

C. people who are absorbed in their work may enjoy movies, sports and other kinds of entertainment

D. those who work even under difficult conditions. may be very happy

75. It can be inferred from the passage that

A. in the eyes of all the common people workaholics are peculiar

B. to workaholics, work is the sole source of happiness

C. a piece of challenging work may provide the workaholics a sense of satisfaction

D. workaholics are as addicted to their job as other people are to drugs or alcohol

 

Solomon Shereshevski was a man with an amazing memory. He was one of the world's most famous me-monists (记忆能手). Born in Russia in about 1900, he spent much of his life performing memory skills that people found difficult to believe.  He could memorize long lists of numbers after reading them through once, and he could then recite(背诵) them forwards or back-wards.  He could also remember the same numbers months later.. He could easily remember lists of names, dozens of playing cards or hundreds of cities.

Although he had a wonderful memory, he found some normal skills very difficult.  For example,  he found it difficult to learn to read. He also found it difficult to recognize patterns in words or numbers. When presented with a long list of numbers like this : 1234 4231 5678 8765 6789 9876 he could not see that there was a pattern. If he could see or hear a collection of numbers, he could remember it. However, this did not mean that he could understand what he was looking at. He could remember long complex mathematical formulas, but could not understand what the numbers meant.

Solomon suffered from a condition known as Synaesthesia. This meant that all of his senses were connected in a special way. In other words, when he heard a particular word he also experienced a unique taste, or saw a unique color. Each word that he heard brought a particular description into his mind. Each word for him was unique, because he remembered it as a taste, a smell, a color or a sound, or all of them together.

He was not a clever man except this ability and people found him rather stupid. He found it difficult to, become friends with other people because his mind was so different. In a way, his memory was a curse(祸根). He remembered everything, and that made it difficult for him to understand anything.

 

68. We know from the first paragraph that                                                        

A. all of his life, Solomon was kept busy doing memory tricks

B. if Solomon read a list of numbers he could immediately remember them

C. Solomon could memorize long list of numbers and found their patterns

D. people thought Solomon could remember the most things in the world

69. Solomon had very powerful memory, but he          .                 

A. could not read or write

B. never knew what people meant when they said to him

C. could not work out some simple math problems

D. found everything he did was meaningless

70. When a person suffers from synaesthesia, he (or she)          .

A. senses things usually in a wrong way

B. confuses feelings with c61ors or tastes

C. often connects words he (or she) hears with things he(or she) experienced

D. each word he (or she) hears changes its meaning completely

71. The author wants to express an idea that               .

A. one cannot be good at both memorizing and understanding things

B. some people are actually quite stupid though they seem clever

C. having a good memory does not mean having good intelligence

D. the more you can memorize, the more stupid you will certainly be

A Plan For Exploring Mars (火星探索计划)

NASA is moving ahead with plans to put a long-armed lander on Mars’ icy north pole to search for clues for water and possible signs of life.

The $386 million Phoenix Mars is planned to touch down in the Martian arctic in 2008. The stationary probe will use its robotic arm to dig into the icy land and pick up soil samples to analyze. In 2002, the Mars Odyssey orbiter spotted evidence of ice-rich soil near the arctic surface.

Scientists hope the Phoenix mission will find clues to the geologic history of water on the Red Planet and determine whether microbes existed in the ice.

Phoenix will be the first mission of the Mars Scout program, a renewed, low-cost effort to study the Red Planet. “The Phoenix mission explores new territory in the northern plains of Mars analogous to the permafrost regions on Earth,” Peter Smith said.

True to its name, Phoenix rose from the ashes of previous missions. The lander for Phoenix was built to fly as part of the 2001 Mars Surveyor program. But the program broke down after the well-known disappearance of the Mars Polar Lander in 1999. The Polar Lander lost contact during a landing attempt near the planet’s south pole after its rocket engine shut off prematurely, causing the spacecraft to fall about 130 feet to almost certain destruction.

The Phoenix probe had been in storage at a Lockheed Martin clean room in Denver before it was reused for its present mission. It will carry science instruments that were designed for the Mars Surveyor program including an improved panoramic camera and a trench-digging robotic arm. Phoenix will lift off from the Kennedy Space Center in August 2007 and land on the planet nine months later.

 

63. The passage mainly tells readers that _________.

A. clues of water will be found in Phoenix

B. Phoenix will be sent to find clues of water on Mars

C. August 2007 will see Phoenix lift off    

D. the Mars Scout program will be carried out

64. The underlined word “prematurely” (paragraph 5) means _________.

A. on time     B. behind the time      C. out of work       D. ahead of time

65. According to the passage, we know Phoenix will land on Mars _________.

A. in May 2008            B. in August 2007

C. in August 2008          D. in September 2008

66. According to the passage, the name “Phoenix” is after the meaning of _________.

A. rebirth         B. death        C. energy        D. hope

67. After Phoenix lands on Mars, we can infer it will firstly _________.

A. find soil samples and send them to the earth

B. look for the icy land to dig for the soil samples

C. take photos and send them to the earth

D. find the remains of the Mars Polar Lander

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