选择知识点

You will enjoy a wonderful summer vacation with these easy tips.
1 Fly into Alternate Airports

Most major destinations are served by more than one airport. Flying into a less popular one can result in cheaper tickets. Another added perk of quieter airports? Shorter check-in and security lines, and less waiting around.
   2  Use Public Transportation for City Travel to Save Time and Money

When possible, take public transportation from the airport to your hotel. For example, the London-Heathrow express train takes just 15 minutes to get from airport to city and costs under 20 pounds. By contrast, “A taxi costs about 70 pounds and takes 40 minutes,” reports DiScala.

3  Eat Smart, Explore。。。and Save

Look for ways to take your order in pricey restaurants and you can avoid “Are we about to run out of money?” “Don’t order an appetizer. Don’t drink a lot of booze,” says DiScala.

Also, cover more ground by spreading out your snack places. “Have dessert at a café or ice cream stand, instead of at the dinner restaurant,” suggests DiScala. You’ll see more of the city and decisions about where to go for dinner will be less worrying.

4  Hit the Market

Much like reading the local newspaper, visiting a market gives context to a foreign country. Even the smallest villages tend to have a weekly open-air market(often on Saturday mornings), while in larger towns and cities, expect additional market days, as well as big supermarkets.

Markets also sell amazing, wallet-friendly souvenirs. Think about sea salt, local spices or sauces, and regional oils and vinegars. Eatable gifts are almost always appreciated, saving you the stress of finding the “perfect” gift for each person on your list.     

Micro bloggers: don’t be too excited if you have more fans than your friends on your Sina Weibo or Tencent micro blog—some of them might be “zombie fans”, or fake(假的) followers.

That’s what Chen Chuanliang, creator of Leijian Network, found when he bet against his friend several months ago. Chen, who used to do data mining for Microsoft Asia Research Institute, discovered that there were far more invalid(无效的)micro blog accounts than he had imagined.

Later Chen picked 10 users on Sina Weibo and analyzed their statistics. Kai-Fu Lee, the former CEO of Google China, who’s on Chen’s list of research, posted a message on his micro blog after he found out that he had more than 1 million fake fans(out of about 5 million), joking “I have 1 million zombie fans? If united, we can finally defeat those plants.”

According to a report by S Weekly in March, zombie fans on micro blogs are defined as invalid accounts signed up by network companies for the purpose of increasing the number of fans for certain users and getting them more attention.

And this kind of fake followers are also very much alive on Western social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

The Financial Times reported in August，that Newt Gingrich，a Republican candidate in the US presidential election, bought about 80 percent of his 1.3 million Twitter followers and tried to use them as help in his campaign.

Now there are also business deals through which users can get hundreds of thousands of fans for their micro blog accounts, by paying a small amount of money.

“We have been working to find ways to block or delete those invalid accounts,” Mao Taotao, a spokesperson for Sina Weibo told S Weekly.

“But as the fake accounts grow so fast, they’re going to be here for a while.”

C

Automation refers to the introduction of electronic control and automatic operation of productive machinery. It reduces the human factors, mental and physical, in production, and is designed to make possible the manufacture of more goods with fewer workers. The development of automation in American industry has been called the “Second Industrial Revolution”.
   Labour’s concern over automation arises from uncertainty about the effects on employment, and fears of major changes in jobs. In the main, labour has taken the view that resistance to technical change is unfruitful. Eventually, the result of automation may well be an increase in employment, since it is expected that vast industries will grow up around manufacturing, maintaining, and repairing automation equipment. The interest of labour lies in bringing about the transition with a minimum of inconvenience and distress to the workers involved. Also, union spokesmen emphasize that the benefit of the increased production and lower costs made possible by automation should be shared by workers in the form of higher wages, more leisure, and improved living standards.
   To protect the interests of their members in the era of automation, unions have adopted a number of new policies. One of these is the promotion of supplementary unemployment benefit plans. It is emphasized that since the employer involved in such a plan has a direct financial interest in preventing unemployment, he will have a strong drive for planning new installations so as to cause the least possible problems in jobs and job assignment. Some unions are working for dismissal pay agreements, requiring that permanently dismissed workers be paid a sum of money based on length of service. Another approach is the idea of the “improvement factor”, which calls for wage increases based on increases in productivity. It is possible, however, that labour will rely mainly on reduction in working time.

C

When many people are worried that there are no more heroes in the modern era，two university students who lost their

lives to rescue drowning children have shown that heroes still 

exist. According to the Inner Mongolia Morning Post, the tragedy (悲剧）occurred on the afternoon of

 December 14,2002 when three school students skating on a frozen lake in Qingcheng Park in Hohhot 

fell through the ice into the freezing water．  

More than 20 university students who happened to be near the spot immediately went to the rescue of

the children. Two children were quickly rescued but the third died. The child’s body was not found for

three hours. Two of the rescuers，Liu Ye and Hao Longbiao，also died of cold and exhaustion（筋疲力尽）.The body of Hao who

took the lead in jumping into the lake was not found until the next day．A 

student who was unwilling to tell his name said he and his classmates from the local college were taking photos at the lake．

When they heard the children's cries for help， they went to the ice hole hand in 

hand to rescue the children． But the ice kept breaking， causing most of them to fall into the icy water．

Local residents held mourning ceremonies（祭奠仪式） at the lake．

Eight of the students were seriously affected by the freezing water and were being kept in hospital

for further observation， but their lives were no longer in danger．

49. When the three students fell into water，the university students were              

50. Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage？    

51. It can be inferred that         ．  

52. The author wrote the passage to        ​．     

(B)

Arriving in Sydney on his own from India, my husband, Rashid, stayed in a hotel for a short time while looking for a house for me and our children.

During the first week of his stay, he went out one day to do some shopping. He came back in the late afternoon to discover that his suitcase was gone. He was extremely worried as the suitcase had all his important papers, including his passport(护照).

He reported the case to the police and then sat there, lost and lonely in strange city, thinking of the terrible troubles of getting all the paperwork organized again from a distant country while trying to settle down in a new one. 

Late in the evening, the phone rang. It was a stranger. He was trying to pronounce my husband’s name and was asking him a lot of questions. Then he said they had found a pile of papers in their trash can（垃圾桶）that had been left out on the footpath.

My husband rushed to their home to find a kind family holding all his papers and documents(文件). Their young daughter had gone to the trash can and found a pile of unfamiliar papers. Her parents had carefully sorted them out, although they had found mainly foreign addresses on most of the documents. At last they had seen a half-written letter in the pile in which my husband had given his new telephone number to a friend.

That family not only restored the important documents to us that day but also restored our faith and trust in people. We still remember their kindness and often send a warm wish their way.

D

In the USA, many high schools and some colleges and universities have a special celebration once a year called Homecoming. Former students and teachers come back to the school to enjoy the memories of their time there and the many Homecoming activities. Homecoming might last for only one day or for several days, even one week.

High schools usually choose one boy and one girl from the senior class to be the “Homecoming King” and “Homecoming Queen”. The students usually choose a boy and a girl who have done a lot for the school.

Most schools have a Homecoming parade. The school band will often lead the way, followed by many different cars and trucks.

Most schools also have a football game for Homecoming—and, of course, tailgate parties. A tailgate party is a group of people drinking and eating around the back, or tailgate, of someone’s pick-up truck.

There are many other activities that might be a part of the Homecoming celebration. There might be a school-wide picnic one day; another day, there may be plays, concerts, competitions or games, all depending on a school’s traditions.

Homecoming celebrations nearly always end with a dance and/or a great dinner. The school is decorated beautifully, and a band is paid to come and play. Students dress up: guys in suits and girls in beautiful dresses. 

  I log (登录)onto a computer at the doctor's office to say I have arrived and then wait until a voice calls me into the examination room.      

There, a robotic nurse directs me onto a device and then takes my blood pressure. Some time later, in steps the doctor, who is also a robot. He notes down my symptoms and gives me a prescription (处方). I pay for my visit using a credit card machine and return home without having met another human being.     

When I call my dentist's office and actually get a human being on the line, I am thrilled. And when I see the introduction of yet more self-service checkout stations at the grocery store, I feel like shouting, "When it comes to cashiers, make mine human, please!"    

After all, human cashiers sometimes give you a store coupon (优惠券) for items you are buying. Even more than that, real-life cashiers often take an interest in particularly cute children, which can brighten a young mother's day. A cashier may also show compassion (同情)for an elderly person struggling to get that last penny out of her purse. 

What technological device would do any of this? I don't want to go back to the Stone Age, but I'm also worried about a world run by machines. Sometimes when you're chatting with someone, you discover things you need to know. Maybe a receptionist needs prayers said for a sick child. Maybe a salesperson can offer a bit of encouragement to a customer who is feeling tired.       

Machines can be efficient and cost-effective and they often get the job done just fine. But they lack an element so important to everyday life.      

Call it the spirit, the soul or the heart. It is something no machine will ever have. It is being human that prompts us to smile at others, which may be what they need at that moment.  

                                                                                                          B

Anna Schiferl hadn’t even got out of bed when she reached for her cell phone and typed a text to her mom, one recent Saturday. Mom was right downstairs in the kitchen. The text? Anna wanted an egg for breakfast. Soon after, Joanna Schiferl called, “If you want to talk to me, Anna, come downstairs and see me!” Anna laughs about it now. “I was kind of being lazy, ” she admits.

These days, many people with cell phones prefer texting to a phone call. And that’s creating a communication divide, of sorts—the talkers vs. the texters. Some would argue that it’s no big deal. But many experts say the most successful communicators will, of course, have the competence to do both. And they fear that more of us are unable to have—or at least are avoiding—the traditional face-to-face conversations.

Many professors say it is not common to see students outside of class. “I sit in my office hours lonely now because if my students have a question, they email me, often late at night,” says Renee Houston, a professor at the University of Puget Sound in Washington state. “And they never call.”

As Anna sees it: “There are people you’ll text, but won’t call. It’s just a way to stay in touch with each other.”  Some believe that scores of texts each day keep people more connected. “The problem is that the conversation isn’t very deep, ” says Joseph Grenny, co-author of the book Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High.

“The problem has been there since we’ve had telephones—probably since the time of a telegraph,” Grenny says. Texting is just the latest way to do that. Though they may not always be so good at deep conversations themselves, Grenny suggests that parents model the behavior for their children and put down their own cell phones. He says that they also should set limits, as Anna’s mom did when she made the “no texting to people in the same house” rule.

B

Famous US columnist (专栏作家) George F. Will once wrote: “Baseball is a habit. The slow build to the end of each game, the rhythm of the long season – these are the essentials and they are remarkably unchanged over nearly a century and a half. Of how many American institutions (制度) can that be said?”

He is right. Baseball, only one word, is enough to make millions of people in the US think of many images – spring afternoons, cold beers and hot dogs.

As the USA Today newspaper put it, “A hot dog at the ballpark is always better than one out of the microwave.”

Delicious treats aside, baseball is also a game for fathers and sons to enjoy. They play catch with each other on lawns (草坪) and in parks for many years. Fathers pass down favorite teams to their sons. Grandfathers share stories of games played long ago.

Many US children try to collect trading cards with the pictures of their favorite players on them. In schools it is as likely for friends to trade baseball cards as it is for them to trade lunches.

Baseball players are known as “the boys of spring” because that is the time of year at which the sport is most often played; indeed, the new season of MLB (Major League Baseball) began on April 3. And the players come in all shapes and sizes. To play baseball you don’t have to be tall like a basketball player or strong like an American footballer. You just need to want to have fun.

Besides, baseball games are not as fast-paced (快节奏的) as basketball games so they allow viewers to relax, talk and get to know each other.

Today, baseball is not the US’ most-watched sport, but it is its most historical. It has gone past being simply a game and has become part of the fabric (构造) of US culture.

As The Telegraph newspaper noted, “Baseball is as American as apple pie, red, white and blue (the colors of the US national flag) and Grandma’s house.”