Besides news reports that tend to focus on war or election, Americans generally don’t hear much about people in other countries. One reason may be that very little foreign-language literature is translated into English. In the United States, just a few of the titles, mainly translations of foreign novels, short stories, or poetry, make it into English. However, a number of efforts have taken root to try to bring more global literature to US audiences.

The online magazine of international literature, Words Without Borders, was founded by Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y. The nonprofit site, now in its fifth year, offers modern writing from places such as Argentina, China and Italy, often for the first time in English. It gets about 200,000 page views per month and counts roughly 8,000 subscribers (订阅者) , more than one-quarter of whom live in the US.

“There’s a wave of interest right now,” says Jill Schoolman, publisher of Archipelago Books, a small nonprofit press in Brooklyn, N.Y., opened in 2003 to publish world literature in translation only. “People are hungry for ideas from other countries.”

Rainmaker Translations — a Las Vegas-based nonprofit — was formed two years ago to support the publication of more top-quality global writing here in the US. They put out their first three titles, translated from Arabic, Chinese, and Russian, in the spring of 2006 and plan to aid up to four more in the coming year.

In March, the Center for the Art of Translation, a nonprofit started in 1994 in San Francisco, will publish Two Lines World Library, focused on writing from some particular areas published over the last several decades.

Dalkey Archive Press, a century-old nonprofit publisher in Champaign, Illinois, has upped the number of translations on its publication list since 2003, from 25 percent to nearly 80 percent.

       In recent years, more nonprofits have applied to the National Endowment for the Arts for help to publish literary translations. The agency is also trying to increase the availability of translated prose (散文) and poetry in the US, such as publishing partnerships with foreign governments.

1．The main purpose in founding the magazine Words Without Borders is __________.

       A．to compete for page views and subscribers online

       B．to get American literature better known to the world

       C．to help advance nonprofit world literature translation

       D．to introduce more world literature to readers in the US

2．What do the publishers mentioned in the passage have in common?

       A．They mainly publish top-quality world literature in translation.

       B．They don’t aim at making money by publishing global writing.

       C．They provide their translation and publication services online.

       D．They have published a number of literary works in translation.

3．Which of the following shows the proper order of the founding of the presses (出版社)?

DAP = Dalkey Archive Press                      CAT = Center for the Art of Translation

       RT = Rainmaker Translations                      AB = Archipelago Books

A．DAP→CAT→RT→AB                         B．DAP→CAT→AB→RT

C．CAT→DAP→AB→RT                         D．CAT→DAP→RT→AB

4．Which of the following can be the best title for the passage?

A．World literature: Shared by the world    

B．World literature: Loved by Americans

       C．World literature: Founded in translation  

D．World literature: Developed in styles

Want to be a happy married couple? Consider having kids．

A new study found that having children boosts happiness．And the more, literally, the merrier．

But unmarried couples shouldn’t expect to find greater happiness through child-raising．The study, published in the Oct．14 online edition of the Journal of Happiness Studies, suggests that having children has little or no effect on boosting happiness among couples who aren’t hitched(和谐)．

The findings contradict previous research that suggested that having more offspring doesn't lead to greater happiness and might even make people less satisfied with their lives．One theory behind the conclusion is that parents don’t receive many rewards in return for the hard work of raising children．

The new study, however, notes that parents say children are one of the most important things in their lives, if not the most important．

The study found that life satisfaction for married people -- women especially -- goes up the more kids they have．Single, separated and co-habiting people, by contrast, report negative experiences．

“One is tempted to advance that children make people rich under the ‘right conditions’ -- a time in life when people feel that they are ready, or at least willing, to enter parenthood,” Dr．Luis Angeles, of the University of Glasgow in Scotland, said in a news release from the journal’s publisher．“This time can come at very different moments for different individuals, but a likely signal of its approach may well be the act of marriage．”

he underlined word “offspring” in the fourth paragraph can be replaced by _____．

     A．generation      B．children         C．mothers         D．marriage

The best title of this passage should be _______．

     A．Children Are the Source of Happiness

     B．Are You Happy Married Couple?

     C．Married with Children Paves Way to Happiness

     D．The Right Conditions of Having Children

Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?

     A．The more children women have, the happier they are．

     B．The more children the married women have, the more unsatisfied they become．

     C．Raising kids can give any person happiness．

     D．Without marriage, one woman had better not raise kids．

In the passage, the underlined part ‘right conditions’ refers to _______．

   A．a time when the couple are ready and willing to become parents

   B．the situation where the family is rich enough to raise a child

   C．the situation where the couple are very happy

   D．a time when the couple thinks raising children can boost happiness

New York: Staying positive through the cold season could be your best defence against getting ill, new study findings suggest.
In an experiment that exposed healthy volunteers to a cold or flu virus, researchers found that people with a generally sunny disposition were less likely to fall ill. The findings, published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, build on evidence that a “positive emotional style” can help protect us from the common cold and other illnesses.
Researchers believe the reasons may be both objective----as in happiness improving immune, function----and subjective----as in happy people being less troubled by a sore throat or funny nose. "People with a positive emotional style may have different immune responses to the virus," explained lead study author Dr Sheldon Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. "And when they do get a cold, they may interpret their illness as being less severe."
Cohen and his colleagues had found in a previous study that happier people seemed less likely to catch a cold, but some questions remained as to whether the emotional trait itself had the effect.
For the new study, the researchers had 193 healthy adults complete standard measures of personality traits, self-perceived health and emotional "style." Those who tended to be happy, energetic and easy-going were judged as having a positive emotional style, while those who were often unhappy, tense and hostile had a negative style.
The researchers gave them nasal(鼻的) drops containing either a cold virus or a particular flu virus. Over the next six days, the volunteers reported on any aches, pains, sneezing or congestion they had, while the researchers collected objective data, like daily mucus production. Cohen and his colleagues found that based on objective measures of nasal woes, happy people were less likely to develop a cold.
【小题1】Which is the best title for the passage?

The snow has paralysed(使瘫痪) transport in China during the country’s most important vacation period, the celebration of the Chinese New Year. Not only have transport delays hindered personal trips, but they have also slowed the delivery of fresh produce to markets. Consequently, in Zhengzhou, the capital city of the Henan province, tomato prices have doubled, and the cost of 47 other vegetables has increased by 36%, as reported by local media at the end of January.

     According to an inside PR source, “wholesalers in Beijing were quoted as saying that only about 20% of the usual fresh vegetable supplies were reaching the city.” As an Asian country with a diet based on fresh produce, the shortage of vegetables and the rise in prices is not only affecting fresh food producers, but also the final consumers.

     In terms of production, this is the worst snow disaster to hit China in the last 50 years, affecting a total of 9.4 million hectares of farmland in the country, according to a report published on 4 February 2008 by Feng Tao of Xinhua News, at the Chinese government website. Most of the crops devastated（毁坏）by the frost are located in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the traditional natural border between North and South China.

Chen Xiwen, Director of the Office of the Central Leading Group on Rural Work, pointed out at the end of last week that “the blizzard disaster in the south has had a severe impact on winter crops, and the impact on fresh vegetables could be catastrophic in certain areas”, as stated in the Xinhua News report.

     The Chinese government has been quick to take extreme measures. The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) has sent 13 teams of experts to 8 of the areas most seriously affected by the harsh weather. The aim of this initiative is to provide farmers with technical assistance to minimize their losses.

From this passage, we can know that the snow happened _____.

   A. During the Spring Festival

   B. In the coldest days of the winter

   C. In the North of China.

   D. It’s not mentioned here.

What’s the meaning of the underlined word in paragraph four?

   A. worst  B. snowstorm  C. cold weather  D. biggest

This passage mainly tells us _____ .

   A. The snow in the south of China caused many problems.

   B. The effect of the snow in the south of China on the fresh food

   C. The snow in the south of China slowed the delivery of fresh produce to markets.

   D. The Chinese government has taken extreme measures to help the suffered farmers.

The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) has sent 13 teams of experts to 8 of the areas to _____ .

   A. help the farmers plant crops          B. give money to the farmers

   C. give directions to the farmers with their technic（技术；技巧）.

   D. deliver crops for the farmers.

In the USA Forbes magazine has published its annual list of the richest people in the world. Bill Gates of Microsoft is the richest man again for the eleventh successive year with a fortune of forty four billion dollars.

　　There are a record 691 dollar billionaires according to Forbes magazine. Between them they have a fortune of two point two trillion dollars. The highest concentration of the ultra-rich is in New York followed by Moscow and San Fransisco and then London and Los Angeles. But in total the very wealthy live in forty seven different countries with Iceland Kazakstan Ukraine and Poland entering the list for the first time this year.

　　Laksmi Mittal, an Indian born steel tycoon （巨头）enjoyed the biggest increase in personal fortune. His net worth has quadrupled （变成四倍）to thirteen billion dollars making him the world’s third richest man. Ingvar Kamprad founder of the Swedish furniture chain Ikea also saw a big increase in wealth taking him to the sixth place. Developing countries make more of a showing than in past years — there are for example three Russians and four Indians in the top sixty richest people, though surprisingly perhaps none from China excluding Hong Kong. Asian wealth is probably under represented as its usually spread among families whereas Forbes looks at individuals. Relatively few women feature in the list — among them is JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter novels ranked 620th with a fortune of 519 million dollars. New entrants to the list include the founders of the Internet search group Google Sergie Brin and Larry Page each worth more than seven billion dollars after their company’s recent stock market debut. The richest Italian is the prime minister Silvio Berlusconi ranked number 25 in the global wealth league.

1.Which of the following persons has the largest fortune according to this year’s  Forbes magazine?

A. Laksmi Mittal.       B. Ingvar Kamprad.

C. JK Rowling.         D. Silvio Berlusconi.

2.There are about _____ persons with a fortune between 100 million dollars and 519 million dollars in the world.

A. 300    B. 180    C. 70    D. 150

3.Which of the following statements is NOT true?

A. No Chinese has entered the top sixty richest people in the world.

B. Russia is a developing country.

C. This is the first time that Sergie Brin and Larry Page has been included in the list.

D. There are more billionaires（亿万富翁） in New York than any other city in the world.

4.We can infer from the passage that ______.

A. There are more billionaires in London than in Moscow.

B. Ukraine is a very rich country in the world.

C. JK Rowling’s novels have sold very well.

D. The IT industry is a profit making industry.