阅读练习题、作文练习题

练习一It is my pleasure to inform you, on behalf of the chemistry department, of your admission to the PH.D. program at Stanford University beginning September, 2004. The size and strength of our applicant pool (有共同兴趣的一群人）is such that only the strongest candidates can be admitted, and our offer of admission to you reflects our great confidence in your potential as a scientist. The quality of the faculty and graduate students, combined with an outstanding scientific atmosphere, makes the Stanford Chemistry Department a unique place to pursue graduate study. We hope that you will join the department in September.The Stanford Chemistry Department is committed to continuing financial support of all graduate students in the department. Students in good standing will receive full tuition (学费) plus stipend (补贴）in the form of Teaching and Research Assistantships (研究生助教奖学金）for the duration of their graduate studies towards the Ph.D. degree. The university has not yet set the stipends for the 2004-2005 academic year. However , last year the stipend from Teaching and Research Assistantships was $17,300, and we expect a modest increase for the 2004-2005 academic year.Successful Stanford applicants ordinarily have a number of offers from which they must choose. In reaching a decision, you may find it helpful to conmmunicate with Stanford faculty members or graduate students whose interests parallel (类似) your own. Please feel free to call our student services offcers, Lawrence Ma and Mannie Baig at (650)723-4867, if you need assistance in obtaining names or phone numbers of people to talk to . To foster(鼓励）personal interactions with our faculty and students, we would like to invite you to come out to Stanford for a visit on Friday, March 13. You will hear from Lawrence and Mannie shortly concerning the details and the arrangements for your visit.The high quality of our students is a distinguishing feature of our program. To facilitate planning and arrangement, we would like to hear your response to this offer as soon as you have made a decision, but in any case, not later than the formal deadline of April 15, 2004.1.This passage is a letter of ______at Stanford University.A.introduction to an applicant of financial supportB.recommendation of the student services to a new studentC.offer of admission to an applicant to the ph.D. programrmation of planning and arrangement of a new student2.We can infer from the passage that______A.the addressee is regarded as a candidate among the strongestB.the addressee is a scientist doing research at StanfordC.Stanford can be the only place for the addressee to pursue graduate studyD.all graduate students in Stanford University will gain financial support3.The stipends for the 2004-2005 academic year will probably______$17, 300.A.double that of last yearB.be much lower thanC.be exactlyD.be a little higher than4.In reaching a decision whether to take Stanford's offer, the addressee may get direct helpfrom______.wrence Ma and Mannie BaigB.faculty members or graduate students having similar interestsC.student services officersD.the Stanford Chemistry Department5.If the addressee accepts Stanford’s offer, he will start his studies there from____A.March, 2004B. April, 2004C. September, 2004D. any time练习二That people often experience trouble sleeping in a different bed in unfamiliar surroundings is a phenomenon known as the “first-night”effect. If a person stays in the same room the following night they tend to sleep more soundly. Yuka Sasaki and her colleagues at Brown University set out to investigate the origins of this effect.Dr. Sasaki knew the first-night effect probably has something to do with how humans evolved. The puzzle was what benefit would be gained from it when performance might be affected the following day. She also knew from previous work conducted on birds and dolphins that these animals put half of their brains to sleep at a time so that they can rest while remaining alert enough to avoid predators (捕食者). This led her to wonder if people might be doing the same thing. To take a closer look, her team studied 35 healthy people as they slept in the unfamiliar environment of the university’s Department of Psychological Sciences. The participants each slept in the department for two nights and were carefully monitored with techniques that looked at the activity of their brains. Dr. Sasaki found, as expected, the participants slept less well on their first night than they did on their second, taking more than twice as long to fall asleep and sleeping less overall. During deep sleep, the participants’brains behaved in a similar manner seen in birds and dolphins. On the first night only, the left hemispheres (半球) of their brains did not sleep nearly as deeply as their right hemispheres did.Curious if the left hemispheres were indeed remaining awake to process information detected in the surrounding environment, Dr. Sasaki re-ran the experiment while presenting the sleeping participants with a mix of regularly timed beeps (蜂鸣声) of the same tone and irregular beeps of a different tone during the night. She worked out that, if the left hemisphere was staying alert to keep guard in a strange environment, then it would react to the irregular beeps by stirring people from sleep and would ignore the regularly timed ones. This is precisely what she found.1. What did researchers find puzzling about the first-night effect?A. To what extent it can trouble people. C. What circumstances may trigger it.B. What role it has played in evolution. D. In what way it can be beneficial.2. What do we learn about Dr. Yuka Sasaki doing her research?A. She found birds and dolphins remain alert while asleep.B. She found birds and dolphins sleep in much the same way.C. She got some idea from previous studies on birds and dolphinsD. She conducted studies on birds’and dolphins’sleeping patterns.3. What did Dr. Sasaki do when she first did her experiment?A .She monitored the brain activity of participants sleeping in a new environment.B.She recruited 35 participants from her Department of Psychological Sciences.C.She studied the differences between the two sides of participants’brains.D.She tested her findings about birds and dolphins on human subjects.4. What did Dr. Sasaki do when re-running her experiment?A. She analyzed the negative effect of irregular tones on brains.B. She recorded participants’adaptation to changed environment.C. She exposed her participants to two different stimuli.D. She compared the responses of different participants.5. What did Dr. Sasaki find about the participants in her experiment?A. They tended to enjoy certain tones more than others.B. They tended to perceive irregular beeps as a threat.C. They felt sleepy when exposed to regular beeps.D. They differed in their tolerance of irregular tones.练习三Urbanization —migration away from the suburbs to the central city —will be the biggest real estate trend in 2015, according to a new report.The report says America’s urbanization will continue to be the most significant issue affecting the industry, as cities across the country imitate the walkability and transit-oriented development making cities like New York and San Francisco so successful.As smaller cities copy the model of these “24-hour cities”，more affordable versions of these places will be created. The report refers to this as the coming of the “18-hour city”，and uses the term to refer to cities like Houston, Austin, Charlotte, and Nashville, which are “positioning themselves as highly competitive, in terms of livability, employment offerings, and recreational and cultural amenities.”Another trend that looks significant in 2015 is that America’s largest population group, Millennials （千禧一代），will continue to put off buying a house. Apartments will retain their appeal for a while for Millennials, haunted by what happened to home-owning parents.This trend will continue into the 2020s, the report projects. After that, survey respondents disagree over whether this generation will follow in their parents’footsteps, moving to the suburbs to raise families, or will choose to remain in the urban core. The survey projects that thispopulation cohort will evolve and segment over time, and warns against painting the generation with too broad a brush.Another issue affecting real estate in the coming year will be America’s failing infrastructure. Most roads, bridges, transit, water systems, the electric grid, and communications networks were installed 50 to 100 years ago, and they are largely taken for granted until they fail.The report’s writers state that America’s failure to invest in infrastructure impacts not only the health of the real-estate market, but also our ability to remain globally competitive.Apart from the specific trends highlighted above, which cause some investors to worry, the report portrays an overall optimism borne by the recent healthy real-estate “upcycle”and improving economy. Seventy-four percent of the respondents surveyed report a “good to excellent”expectation of real-estate profitability in 2015. While excessive optimism can promote bad investment patterns, resulting in a real- estate “bubble”，the report’s writers downplay that potential outcome in that it has not yet occurred.Some respondents to the Emerging Markets survey call the urbanization trend “oversubscribed”，and the report concedes that there do exist some edge cities and suburbs with promise. But these places are few and far between. The most successful places are those built using urban-design principles —with density, walkability, and good transit.Real-estate investors in 2015 need to pay attention to the two main conclusion of the report: if a property resembles or relies upon sprawl in any way, or doesn’t appeal to Millennials, think before you invest.1. According to the new report, real estate development in 2015 will witnessA. an accelerating speedB. a shift to city centersC. a new focus on small citiesD. an ever-increasing demand2. What characterizes “24-hour cities”like New York?A. People can live without private cars.B. People are generally more competitive.C. People can employ services around the clock.D. People are in harmony with the environment.3. Why are Millennials are reluctant to buy a house?A. They can only afford small apartments.B. The house prices are currently too high.C. Their parents，bad experience still haunts them.D. They feel attached to the suburban environment.4. What might hinder real estate development in the U.S.?A. The continuing economic recession in the country.B. The lack of confidence on the part of investors.C. The fierce global competition.D. The worsening infrastructure.5. How do most of the respondents in the survey feel about the U.S. real-estate market in 2015?A. Pessimistic.B. Hopeful.C. Cautious.D. Uncertain.练习四Outside the movie theater in virtually any American town in the late 1910s stood a life-size cardboard figure of charlie chaplin. He was pictured in baggy pants, a cutaway coat and vest, impossibly large, worn-out shoes and a battered hat. The advertisement would bear the inscription I AM HERE TODAY. An advertisement for a charlie chaplin film was a promise of happiness, of that valuable, almost shocking moment when art delivers what life can not.Eighty years later, chaplin is still here. In a 1995 worldwide survey of film critics, Chaplin was voted the greatest actor in movie history. He was the first, and to date the last, person to control every aspect of the filmmaking process—founding his own studio, United Artists, with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D. W. Griffith, and producjng, casting,directing, writing, scoring and editing the movies he starred in. In the first decades of the 20th century, when weekly movie-going was a national habit, Chaplin more or less invented global recognizability and helped turn an industry into an art. In 1916, his third year in films, his salary of $10, 000 a week made him the highest-paid actor—possibly the highest paid person—in the world. By 1920, "Chaplinitis," accompanied by a flood of Chaplin dances, songs, dolls, comic books and cocktails, was rampant. Filmmaker Mack Sennett thought him "just the greatest artist who ever lived". Other early admirers included George Bernard Shaw, Marcel Proust and Sigmund Freud. In 1923 Hart Crane, who wrote a poem about Chaplin, said his pantomime "represents the hopeless gesture of the poet today". Later, in the 1950s, Chaplin was one of the icons of the Beat Generation. Jack Kerouac went on the road because he too wanted to be a tramp. From 1981 to 1987, IBM used the tramp as the logo to advertise its venture into personal computers.6 .What is mainly talked about in this passage?A.Charlie Chaplin changed the filmmaking industry into an art.B.Charlie Chaphn had great influence on film-making and people worldwide.C.Charlie Chaplin was once the highest-paid actor in the world.D.Charlie Chaplin was the only person who participated in every aspect of filmmaking.7. The word "rampant" (underlined in Paragraph 2) most probably means_____.A. uniqueB. impressiveC. originalD. widespread8. It can be inferred from the passage that_____.A. up to now Charlie Chaplin has been the wealthiest person in the world.B. movie theaters still use Charlie Chaplin's image as a welcoming sign.C. in the 1920s, movie-going was a popular entertainment in the US.D. Charlie Chaplin was alive in 1995.9. Which of the following statements is TRUE?A.Charlie Chaplin belonged to the Beat Generation.B.Charlie Chaplin's tramp was employed by IBM in its advertisement.C.Jack Kerouac became a tramp.D.Charlie Chaplin acted the part of a poet in one of his films.10.When was this article most probably written?A.In the 1950s.B.In the 1980s.C. In the 1990s.D. ln 1995.练习五The concept of “environment” is certainly dificult and may even be misunderstood; but we have no handy substitute. It seems simple enough to distinguish between the organism and the surrounding environment and to separate forces acting on an organism into those that are internal and biological and those that are extemal and environmental. But in actual practice this system breaks down in many ways, because the organism and the environment are constantly interacting so that the environment is modified by the organism and vice versa(反之亦然).In the case of man, the diffieulties with the environmental concept are even more complicated because we have to deal with man as an animal and with man as a bearer (持有者)of culture. If we look at man as an animal and try to analyze the environmental forces that are acting on the organism, we find that we have to deal with things like climate soil, plants, and such-like factors common to all biological situations; but we also find, always, very important environmental influences that we can only classify as “cultural”, which modify the physical and biological factors. But man, as we know him, is alwaysa bearer of culture; and if we study human culture, we find that it, in turn, is modified by the environmental factors of climate and geography. We thus easily get into great dfficulties from the necesity of viewing culure, at one moment, as a part of the man and, at another moment, as a part of the environment.1. Which of the following words can best deseribe the popular understanding of “environment”as the author sees it?A) Elaborate. B) Prejudiced. C) Faultless. D) Oversimplified2. According to the author the concept of "environment" is difficult to explain because .A) it doesn't distinguish between the organism and the environmentB) it involves both internal and external forcesC) the organism and the environment influence each otherD) the relationship between the organism and the environment is unclear3. In analyzing the environmental forces acting on man the author suggests that .A) biological factors are less important to the organism than cultural factors to man B) man and other animals are modified equally by the environmental forcesC) man is modified by the culural envionment as welll as by the natural environmentD) physical and biological factors exert more influence on other organisms than on man4. As for culture , the author points out that .A) it develops side by side with environmental factorsB) it is also affected by environmental factorsC) it is generally accepted to be part of the environmentD) it is a product of man's biological instincts5. In this passage , the author is primarily concerned with .A) the interpretation of the term “environment”B) the discussion on organisms and biological environmentC) the comparison between internal and external factors influencing manD) the evaluation of man's inluence on culure作文练习The Advantages of the Internet to Education1.互联网开创了教育的新纪元；2.互联网在教育领域显示的优势；3.总结。