If there is one thing I’m quite sure about, it is that in a hundred years from now we still be reading newspapers. Not those newspapers are a necessity. Even now some people get most of the news from the television or have the radio switched on in the background or in the car. Many buy a paper only on Saturday or Sunday. But for most people a newspaper has become a habit passed down from generation to generation.
The basic British character won’t change, and one of the characteristics of the British is that we don’t much like talking to each other when we get up. So what better way is there to keep yourself thinking in the morning than to wrap yourself in a newspaper?
Over the past couple of centuries, human beings have developed a close relationship with the newspaper. It has become as natural as breathing or enjoying the sun. And it is not just the British who love newspapers. On suburban trains in Calcutta, for instance, just one person in the whole car will buy a newspaper and read aloud the best bits to his fellow passengers, much to everybody’s enjoyment.
The nature of what is news may change. What essentially makes news is what affects our lives and the big political stories, the coverage of the wars, earthquakes and other disasters, will continue much the same. I think there will be more coverage of scientific research, though. It’s already happening in areas that may directly affect our lives, like genetic engineering. In the future I think there will be more coverage of scientific explanations of why we feel as we do, whether it’s love or depression. We develop a better understanding of how the brain operates and what our feelings really are.
It’s quite possible that in the next century newspaper will be transmitted(传送) electronically from the national equivalents of Fleet Street (伦敦的舰队街，以报馆集中而著称) and printed out in our own homes. In fact, I’m pretty sure that that is how it will happen in future. You’ll be probably selecting from a menu, making up your own bespoke newspaper by picking out the things you want to read and say. You might even have an intelligent screening device (装置) to do the job for you.
I think people have got it wrong when they talk about the competition between the different media. They actually have a relationship, feeding off each other. It was once predicted that television would kill off newspapers, which hasn’t happened. What is read on the printed page is more enduring (持久的) than pictures on a flickering screen or sound lost in the sky. And as for the Internet, it’s never really satisfying to read something just on a screen.
1.The author of the passage is most probably from _______________.
A．Russia B．India C．Britain D．America
2.According to the passage, the future of newspapers ____________.
A．will be mainly connected with scientific research
B．will report more important political activities
C．will directly cover more on scientific research
D．will build a bridge between different people
3.The underlined part “bespoke newspaper” of the passage probably refers to _____________.
A．a newspaper which dares to report the truth
B．a newspaper edited to one’s own interest
C．a newspaper edited and published for the public
D．a newspaper which only covers the life of family members
4.Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
A．It was centuries ago that newspapers came into being .
B．Televisions have taken the place of newspapers .
C．The Internet will gradually take the place of newspapers.
D．The nature of news may remain the same over generations.
What will city life be like in the future? Some people think that life in the cities is going to be horrible. They say that cities will become more and more crowded. As the number of people increases, there will be less space for each person. This overcrowding will cause other problems — more crime, dirtier streets , and worse problems with traffic than we have now. How will people find enough drinking water, energy (such as gas and electricity ), and housing? Because life will be hard, people who live in cities will worry more, and they may become sick. For these reasons, some say that nobody will want to live in city areas.
How can we deal with such problems as overcrowding, crime, and traffic? In some cities, thousands of people are already sleeping in the streets because there is little suitable housing — and because houses are too expensive. The crime rate isn’t going down. Instead, it is increasing so fast that many people are afraid to go out at night. Traffic is also getting worse. More and more often, traffic jams are so bad that cars don’t move at all for several streets. These problems have been getting worse, not better, so many people see no hope for the future of the city.
Los Angeles, California, for example, has no subway system and buses are slow. Instead, many commuters (乘、开车上班族) drive many miles from their homes to work. Many of these drivers spend several hours each day on busy freeways. New York, however, has a big transport system — buses, commuter trains, and subways. Because the public transportation is crowded and dirty, many people drive private cars, and the traffic jams are worse than that in Los Angeles. A taxi driver complains, “I was driving home, but in forty-five minutes I moved only two miles! Finally, I turned off the engine and just sat there. A lot of people left their cars where they were in the middle of the street and went into a bar for a few beers!”
On the other hand, some cities have clean, fast and pleasant public transportation systems. In Paris, France, and Toronto, Canada, for example, anyone can use buses or subways to move quickly from one part of the city to another.
1.What do some people think is the main problem of the future city like?
A．Poor housing. B．Overcrowding.
C．Environmental pollution. D．Traffic jams.
2.The best way to work out the traffic problem in Los Angels might be _________.
A．cutting down the number of private cars
B．providing more buses in the freeway
C．building a subway system
D．persuading people to live nearer to their workplaces
3.Which of the following sentences is NOT TRUE?
A．Thousands of people are already sleeping in the streets.
B．The crime rate isn’t going down.
C．The traffic jams are so bad that cars don’t move at all for several streets.
D．Many people have a positive attitude towards the future of the city.
One thing the tour books don’t tell you about London is that 2,000 of its residents are foxes. They ran away from the city about centuries ago after developers and pollution moved in. But now that the environment is cleaner, the foxes have come home, one of the many wild animals that have moved into urban areas around the world.
“The number and variety of wild animals in urban areas is increasing,” says Gomer Jones, president of the National Institute for Urban Wildlife, in Columbia, Maryland. A survey of the wildlife in New York’s Central Park last year tallied the species of mammals, including muskrats, shrews and flying squirrels. A similar survey conducted in the 1890s counted only five species. One of the country’s largest populations of raccoons (浣熊) now lives in Washington D.C., and moose (驼鹿) are regularly seen wandering into Maine towns. Peregrine falcons(游隼) dive from the window ledges of buildings in the largest U.S. cities to prey on (捕食) pigeons.
Several changes have brought wild animals to the cities. Foremost(首要的) is that air and water quality in many cities has improved as a result of the 1970s pollution-control efforts. Meanwhile, rural areas have been built up, leaving many animals on the edges of suburbs. In addition, urban wildlife refuges (避难处)have been created. The Greater London Council last year spent￡750,000 to buy land and build 10 permanent wildlife refuges in the city. Over 1,000 volunteers have donated money and cleared rubble from deserted lots. One evening last year a fox was seen on Westminster Bridge looking up at Big Ben.
For peregrine falcons, cities are actually safer than rural cliff dwellings (悬崖栖息地). By 1970 the birds had died out east of the Mississippi because the DDT had made their eggs too thin to support life. That year, scientist Tom Cade of Cornell University began raising the birds for release in cities, for cities afforded abundant food.
Cities can attract wild animals without turning them harmful. The trick is to create habitats where they can be self-sufficient but still be seen and appreciated. Such habitats can even be functional. In San Francisco, the local government is testing different kinds of rainwater control basins to see not only which ones retain (保持) the cleanest water but which will attract the most birds.
1.The first paragraph suggests that ________.
A．environment is vital for wildlife
B．tour books are not always a reliable source of information
C．London is a city of fox
D．foxes are highly adaptable to environment
2.Which of the following is NOT a reason that wildlife is returning to the cities?
A．Food is plentiful in the cities.
B．Wildlife is appreciated in the cities.
C．Wildlife refuges have been built in the cities
D．Air and water quality has improved in the cities
3.It can be inferred from the passage that _________.
A．Londoners are putting more and more wild animals into their zoos.
B．Londoners are happy to see wild animals return to their city
C．Londoners are trying to move wild animals back to the countryside
D．Londoners have welcomed the wild birds, but found foxes a problem
我校与韩国某中学是友好学校，对方校刊来信想了解我校本学期选修课开设情况。请根据下表提供的学生问卷调查得到的信息，用英语写一篇报导。
|
课程门类 |
上课时间 |
最受欢迎的课 |
对课程的看法 |
建 议 |
|
二十余种 (学生可任选) |
每周三和周五 下午 3:30—4:50 |
计算机 英语口语 艺术等 |
1．十分感兴趣 2．学到许多课外 的知识 3．有大量的实践 机会 |
1．增加选修课 2．减少作业量 3．多组织参观， 了解社会 |
要求：1．报导需包括表内提供的所有内容。2．词数100--120左右。报导题目已给出。
词汇：optional course 选修课
Students Like Optional Courses
假定英语课上老师要求同学之间交换修改作文，请你修改你同桌写的以下作文。文中共有10处语言错误，要求你在错误的地方增加、删除或修改某个单词。
增加：在缺词处加一个漏词符号（/\），并在该句下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。
修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1. 每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；
2. 只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。
Yesterday my aunt went shopping and asked me take care of my two little lovely cousins. I was busy for my homework, but I let them read picture books by themselves. Moments later, I found the pages of a book tearing and lying all over the floor. When I asked them whom did that, the elder sister slowly nodded and bent down her head. Saw that she was true sorry, I just smiled, gave her some biscuits and told her not to do that again. When his younger brother saw the biscuit, he asked why he wasn’t given any. She answered, “You don’t tear out the pages of the book, but I did.”
阅读下面的短文，在标有序号的空白处填入一个适当的词或用括号中词的适当形式填空。
The skin is 1. essential part of your body and its largest organ. You have three
l 2. of skin which act as a barrier 3. disease , poisons and the sun’s harmful rays. The functions of your skin are also very 4. : it keeps you warm or cool; it5. your body from losing too much water; it is __6.__ you feel cold , heat or pain and it gives you your 7. of touch. So as you can imagine, if your skin gets _8.__ it can be very serious. First aid is a very important 9. step in the treatment of burns . You can get burned by a variety of things. There are three types of burns, 10. (depend) on which layers of the skin are burned.
