Passage One

Today, there's scarcely an aspect of our life that isn't being upended by the torrent of information available on the hundreds of millions of sites crowding the Internet, not to mention its ability to keep us in constant touch with each other via electronic mail. "If the automobile and aerospace technology had exploded at the same pace as computer and information technology," says Microsoft, "a new car would cost about $2 and go 600 miles on a thimbleful of gas. And you could buy a Boeing 747 for the cost of a pizza."

Probably the biggest payoff, however is the billions of dollars the Internet is saving companies in producing goods and serving for the needs of their customers. Nothing like it has been seen since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, when power-driven machines began producing more in a day than men could turn out in nearly a year. "We view the growth of the Internet and e-commerce as a global megatrend, says Merrill Lynch, "along the lines of the printing press, the telephone, the computer, and electricity."

You would be hard pressed to name something that isn't available on the Internet. Consider: books, health care, movie tickets, construction materials, baby clothes, stocks, cattle feed, music, electronics antiques, tools, real estate, toys, autographs of famous people, wine and airline tickets. And even after you've moved on to your final resting place, there's no reason those you love can't keep in touch. company called Final Thoughts. offers place for you to store "afterlife e-mails"you can send to Heaven with the help of a"guardian angel".

Kids today are so computer savvy that it virtually ensures the United States will remain the unchallenged leader in cyberspace for the foreseeable future. Nearly all children in families with incomes of more than $75,000 a year have home computers, according to a study by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Youngsters from ages2to17 at all income levels have computers,with 52% of those connected to the Internet. Most kids use computers to play games（some for 30 hours or more a week）, and many teenage girls think nothing of rushing home from school to have e-mail chats with friends they have just left.

What's clear is that, whether we like it or not, the Internet is an ever growing part of our lives and there is no turning back. "The Internet is just 20% invented," says cyber pioneer Jake Winebaum. "The last 80% is happening now."

A.Information technology is developing at an amazing speed

B.Nowadays cars and airplanes are outrageously overpriced

C.There’s more competition in information technology industry

D.Information technology has reached the point where improvement is difficult

A.it provides easy access to information

B.it brings people incredible convenience

C.it accelerates the speed of profit making

D.it saves companies huge amounts of money

A.some websites provide novel services to increase hits

B.people can find good bargains on the Internet

C.almost anything is available on the Internet

D.there are some genius ideas on the Internet

A.There is no link between income and computer ownership

B.Many American children don’t put computers to good use

C.Studies show that boys are more computer savvy than girls

D.The U.S. will stay ahead in information technology in years

A.The Internet is going to get firm hold of our lives some day

B.The Internet is going to change our lives even more profoundly

C.We should have a positive attitude towards the changes the Internet brings

D.Children should be well prepared for the challenges in the information age

Passage Two

Many Americans harbor a grossly distorted and exaggerated view of most of the risks surrounding food. Fergus Clydesdale, head of the department of food science and nutrition at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, says bluntly that if the dangers from bacterially contaminated chicken were as great as some people believe, "the streets would be littered with people lying here and there."

Though the public increasingly demands no-risk food, there is no such thing. Bruce Ames, chairman of the biochemistry department at the University of California, Berkeley, points out that up to 10% of a plant's weight is made up of natural pesticides. He says, "Since plants do not have jaws or teeth to protect themselves, they employ chemical warfare." And many naturally produced chemicals, though occurring in tiny amounts, prove in laboratory tests to be strong carcinogens- substance which can cause cancer. Mushrooms might be banned if they were judged by the same standards that apply to food additives. Declares Christina Stark, a nutritionist at Cornell University, "We've got far worse natural chemicals in the food supply than anything man-made.

Yet the issues are not that simple. While Americans have no reason to be terrified to sit down at the dinner table, they have every reason to demand significant improvements in food and water safety. They unconsciously and unwillingly take in too much of toomany dangerous chemicals. If food already contains natural carcinogens, it does not make much sense to add dozens of new man-made ones. Though most people will withstand the small amount of contaminants generally found in food and water, at least a few individuals will probably get cancer one day because of what they eat and drink.

To make good food and water supplies even better, the Government needs to tighten its regulatory standards, stiffen its inspection program and strengthen its enforcement policies. The food industry should modify some long-accepted practices or turn to less hazardous alternatives. Perhaps most important, consumers will have to do a better job of learning how to handle and cook food properly. The problems that need to be tackled exist all along the food-supply chain, from fields to processing plants to kitchens.

A.overestimate the hazards of their food

B.overlook the risks of the food they eat

C.are overoptimistic about the safety of the food they eat

D.overstate the Government’s interference with the food industry

A.almost all foods have additives and preservatives

B.no food is free from pollution in the environment

C.pesticides are presently widely used in agriculture

D.many vegetables contain dangerous natural chemicals

A.plants make use of natural chemicals to promote their growth

B.plants produce certain chemicals to combat pests and diseases

C.farmers use man-made chemicals to dissolve the natural chemicals in plants

D.farmers use man-made chemicals to protect plants against pests and diseases

A.bear

B.oppose

C.resist

D.uphold

A.Eating and drinking have become more hazardous

B.Health food is no longer a dream in modern society

C.There is no cause for alarm about food consumption

D.Measures must be taken to improve food production

Passage Three

My mother used to tell my father that he was a very good mother. This was her way of praising his attendance at every concert and game, his patience and care. In those days, "good mother"was the highest domestic achievement; to have called him a good father, given how low the bar was set, wouldn't have done him justice.

But that was long, long ago. Now fathers sing to their babies in uteri, come to birthing class, coach mom through delivery （as opposed to the days of the hospital clubs, where fathers smoked and paced while mothers delivered their offspring）. They can buy strap-on breasts, so they can share in the bonding. And baby toupees, for those sensitive about hairlessness. I can't help thinking that the increased engagement of fathers has some direct connection to the increased availability of baby gadgets, since having two fanatically engaged parents offers twice the target for retailers.

The typical father spends about seven hours per week in "primary child care", which doesn't sound like a lot until you realize it's more than twice as much as in1965.

Among other things, this all means fathers are now much better positioned to write parenting books like Michael Lewis'Home Game and Sam Apple's American Parent: My Strange and Surprising Adventures in Modern Babyland.

The dad diarists approach their subject like anthropologists, engaged in rational inquiry into an alien culture and the nature of nurture. Thus I learned from Apple things I never knew from reading What to Expect When You're Expecting, like the fact that in the Ist century Pliny the Elder recommended that women in labor drink goose semen mixed with water to ease the process along.

Maybe the respectful distance men keep reflects the obvious ambivalence so many women show about male involvement. We talk about fathers like puppies tripping over their big paws, a portrait long mirrored in a culture in which"Father Knows Least". We diminish with faint praise; dads still get points for returning children at the end of the day with all their limbs in place. But the more engaged fathers become, the more women have to reckon with what a true parenting partnership would look like.

A.Her mother said that as a joke

B.Her mother wanted to console him

C.Her father was always very tough with children

D.Her father took care of the children most of the time

A.critical

B.sarcastic

C.humorous

D.approving

A.they do more housework

B.they are more eager to get involved

C.they are better informed in child care

D.they spend more time with their children

A.focus on fathers’ role over mothers’ in child raising

B.approach the subject of baby care with rational inquiry

C.include in their books things most readers don’t expect

D.take unbiased attitude dealing with the subject of baby care

A.Children are shown safer under mothers’ care

B.Fathers are not as skillful as mothers in childcare

C.Most mothers think fathers should be more involved

D.Mothers are happy about fathers’ involvement in childcare

Passage Four

That experiences influence subsequent behavior is evidence of an obvious but nevertheless remarkable activity called remembering. Learning could not occur without the function popularly named memory. Constant practice has such an effect on memory as to lead to skilful performance on the piano, to recitation of a poem, and even to reading and understanding these words. So-called intelligent behavior demands memory, remembering being a primary requirement for reasoning. The ability to solve any problem or even to recognize that a problem exists depends on memory. Typically, the decision to cross a street is based on remembering many earlier experiences.

Practice（or review） tends to build and maintain memory for a task or for any learned material. Over a period of no practice what has been learned tends to be forgotten, and the adaptive consequenc may not seem obvious Yet. dramatic instances of sudden forgetting can be seen to be adaptive. In this sense, the ability to forget can be interpreted to have survived through a process of natural selection in animals. Indeed, when one's' memory of emotionally painful experience leads to serious anxiety, forgetting may produce relief. Nevertheless, an evolutionary interpretation might make it difficult to understand how the commonly gradual process of forgetting survived natural selection.

In thinking about the evolution of memory together with all its possible aspects, it is helpful to consider what would happen if memories failed to fade. Forgetting clearly aids orientation in time since old memories weaken and the new tend to stand out, providing clues for inferring duration. Without forgetting, adaptive ability would suffer, for example, learned behavior that might have been correct a decade ago may no longer be. Cases are recorded of people who （by ordinary standards） forgot so little that their everyday activities were full of confusion. This forgetting seems to serve that survival of the individual and the species.

Another line of thought assumes a memory storage system of limited capacity that provides adaptive flexibility specifically through forgetting. In this view, continual adjustments are made between learning or memory storage （input） and forgetting（output）. Indeed, there is evidence that the rate at which individuals forget is directly related to how much they have learned. Such data offers gross support of contemporary models of memory that assume an input-output balance.

A.sudden forgetting may bring about adaptive consequences

B.forgetting for lack of practice tends to be obviously inadaptive

C.gradual forgetting is an indication of an individual’s adaptability

D.if a person gets very forgetful all of a sudden he must be very adaptive

A.he would survive best

B.he would have a lot of trouble

C.his ability to learn would be enhanced

D.his memory storage system would stop developing

A.forgetfulness is a response to learning

B.memory is a compensation for forgetting

C.the capacity of a memory storage system is limited

D.the memory storage system is almost always balanced

A.humorous

B.exaggerative

C.theoretical

D.threatening

A.illustrate the process of adapting

B.interpret the function of forgetting

C.explain the performance of memory

D.emphasize the importance of learning

Passage Five

Most of us lead unhealthy lives: we spend far too much time sitting down. If, in addition, we are careless about our diets, our bodies soon become flabby and our system sluggish. The guilt feelings start: "I must go on a diet", "I must try to lose weight", "I must get more fresh air and exercise", "I must stop smoking", "I must try to keep fit". There are some aspects of our unhealthy lives that we cannot avoid.

I am thinking of such features of modern urban life as pollution, noise, rushed meals and stress. But keeping fit is a way to minimize the effects of these evils.

The usual suggestion for a person who is looking for a way to keep fit is to take up some sport or other. While it is true that every weekend you will find people playing football and tennis in the local park, they are outnumbered a hundred to one by the people who are simply watching them. It is an illusion to think that you will get fit by going to watch the football match every Saturday, [unless you count the effort required to fight your way through the crowds to get to the best seats.]

For those who do not particularly enjoy competitive sports-and it is especially difficult to do so if you are not good at them-there are such solitar activities as cycling, walking and swimming. What often happens, though, is that you do them in such a leisurely way, so slowly, that it is doubtful if you are doing yourself much good, apart from the fact that you have at least managed to get up out of your armchair. Of course you can be very thorough about exercises. Many sports shops now sell frightening pieces of apparatus, chest-expanders and other mysterious gadgets of shiny spring steel, which, according to the advertisements, will bring you up to an Olympic standard of fitness, provided programs generally involve long periods of time bending these curious bits of metal into improbable shapes.

A.not be very careful about your diet

B.not spend long hours sitting in your armchair

C.not put on too much weight around your waist

D.not only do competitive sports, but solitary ones

A.ironic

B.serious

C.critical

D.doubtful

A.they are completely a waste of time

B.they can at least do some good to one’s health

C.they can be done at any time and in any place

D.they are not helpful in building up one’s shape

A.organs

B.organization

C.system

D.equipment

A.relaxation, like sports, is equally important in keeping fit

B.going to football matches can help to keep you healthy

C.sports apparatus are indispensable to keeping fit

D.competitive sports are difficult and boring