What does the passage mainly talk about?
Directions: In this section, there is one passage followed by 5 questions. Read the passage carefully, then answer the questions in as few words as possible (not more than 10 words). Remember to write the answers on the Answer Sheet.
Questions 1-5 are based on the following passage.
Rare among American actors, Depp has made a name for himself effortlessly switching between mainstream Hollywood Movies and more “out of the ordinary” projects. Talking about his choice of roles, he once said, “With any part you play, there is a certain amount of yourself in it. There has to be, otherwise it’s not acting. It’s lying.” Highlights of a richly diverse career include Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollowand Pirates of the Caribbean.
Depp dropped out of school at sixteen to concentrate on a career in music, playing the guitar (he played with more than twenty bands). However, his musical career failed to take off, and he found himself selling pens over the phone to pay the bills. His lucky break came when makeup artist Lori Allison, to whom he was briefly married, introduced him to Nicolas Cage. Although at first they did not like each other, they later became good friends and Cage persuaded him to try acting. Depp signed on with Cage’s agent, and made his feature film debut in Wes Craven’s horror film Nightmare on Elm Street, in which the character he played was eaten by his bed. After that he had his first screen leading role in Pirate Resort.
Depp went on to achieve teen idol status in the TV series 21 Jump Street, but after four seasons, he wanted out, with the hope of making the transition to the big screen. He starred in CryBaby, followed by Tim Burtons’ Edward Scissorhands, after which he went on to win considerable critical acclaim in Ed Wood, a reunion with Burtons. Depp made his feature directorial debut with The Brave in 1997, a film he also co-wrote and starred in. Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, the film also featured Marlow Brando, but earned mostly negative reviews, with most critics blaming its weak script. Sleepy Hollowteamed him with director Burton yet again, before he starred in Ted Demme’s Blow, and appeared in the thriller From Hell, about Jack the Ripper.
Off screen, his good looks and “bad boy” image (he was once arrested for attacking intrusive paparazzi with a wooden plank) have earned him a lot of media attention. He was voted one of the fifty most beautiful people in the world by People magazine in 1996. He has also had his fair share of celebrity romances; when his engagement to Edward Scissirhandsco-star Winona Ryder ended, he had a tattoo (one of at least eight), which said “Winona Forever”, altered by laser to get rid of the last two letters of her name. His relationship with model Kate Moss also ended abruptly in 1998, when he started dating French singer-actress Vanessa Paradis. They are now married and have two children, Lily-Rose Melody and Jack. More recent work has included Pirates of the Caribbeanwith Geoffrey Rush and Once Upon a Time in Mexico.
Questions:
1.What does Johnny Depp think of acting a role without having any part of oneself in it?
2.Who inspired Depp to start his film career?
3.Why did many critics negatively review Depp’S film The Brave?
4.How many films has Depp made with director Tim Burton?
5.What have brought Depp a lot of media attention off screen?
Of the following, the most appropriate title for the passage above would be: ______.
According to the passage, to slow the process of adaptation is the solution to “hedonic treadmill”.____
How might the organization of the passage be described?
Questions 16 to 20 are based on the following passage. In a time of low academic achievement by children in the United States, many Americans are turning to Japan, a country of high academic achievement and economic success, for possible answers. However, the answers provided by Japanese preschools are not the ones Americans expected to find. In most Japanese preschools, surprisingly little emphasis is put on academic instruction. In one investigation, 300 Japanese and 210 American preschool teachers, child development specialists, and parents were asked about various aspects of early childhood education. Only 2 percent of the Japanese respondents (答问卷者) listed “to give children a good start academically” as one of their top three reasons for a society to have preschools. In contrast, over half the American respondents chose this as one of their top three choices. To prepare children for successful careers in first grade and beyond, Japanese schools do not teach reading, writing, and mathematics, but rather skills such as persistence, concentration, and the ability to function as a member of a group. The vast majority of young Japanese children are taught to read at home by their parents. In the recent comparison of Japanese and American preschool education, 91 percent of Japanese respondents chose providing children with a group experience as one of their top three reasons for a society to have preschools. Sixty-two percent of the more individually oriented (强调个性发展的) Americans listed group experience as one of their top three choices. An emphasis on the importance of the group seen in Japanese early childhood education continues into elementary school education. Like in America, there is diversity in Japanese early childhood education. Some Japanese kindergartens have specific aims, such as early musical training or potential development. In large cities, some kindergartens are attached to universities that have elementary and secondary schools. Some Japanese parents believe that if their young children attend a university-based program, it will increase the children’s chances of eventually being admitted to top-rated schools and universities. Several more progressive programs have introduced free play as a way out for the heavy intellectualizing in some Japanese kindergartens. In Japan’s preschool education, the focus is on ()
Directions:In this section, there is one passage followed by 5 questions. Read the passage carefully, then answer the questions in a maximum of 10 words. Remember to write the answers on the Answer Sheet.
High Dropout Rate in US
Many young people in the United States never finish high school. Exactly how many dropouts is another issue. Recent studies of dropout rates have had conflicting results. For one thing, schools define and measure their dropout rates differently.
Some researchers say about fifteen to twenty parents of public school students do not complete their education. But many other experts and policymakers believe that for the past twenty years, the dropout rate has been around thirty percent. For Latino and black students, the numbers are even higher. Researchers say almost half of them leave school.
At the same time, almost half the states let students leave school before the age of eighteen without informing their parents.
Finding a good job without a high school education is more and more difficult. A Northeastern University study in 2002 found that almost half of all dropouts aged sixteen to twenty-four did not have a job.
The lack of high school education can also lead to other problems. An estimated two-thirds of prisoners in the United States dropped out of high school.
Recent studies have shown that the majority of students who drop out do not do it because they are failing. Many are bored with their classes or feel disconnected from their school and teachers. Some students feel that educators place low expectations on them. Teen pregnancies also add to the dropout problem.
During the past twenty years, there have been efforts to increase graduation rate through education reforms. Some communities are working on dropout prevention programs. These include alternative high schools to meet special needs.
Some programs, for example, provide free transportation and childcare to help young mothers and fathers finish school. Yet special programs can cost a lot, and many school systems have limited budgets.
Federal spending on second-chance programs to help students finish school has decreased from the 1970s. This was shown in a report last year from the Educational Testing Service.
Experts suggest "early warning systems" to help identify young schoolchildren at risk of dropping out of high school. They say schools also need to get parents more involved, especially if their children are missing school often.
Questions:
1.What is the researchers’ estimated percentage of school dropouts among Latino and black students?
2.What efforts have been made to increase graduation rates?
3.What has been done to help young parents complete their education?
4.Who made a report about the decrease,of Federal spending on second-chance programs to help students finish school?
5.What do experts suggest setting up to help prevent students from dropping out of school?
According to the passage, ______.
Passage 1 Neither the Americans nor the Russians have the resources to continue human space flight on their own; both sides know they need each other. (1) It’s much easier and cheaper to get used to each other and to blend differing operating styles, languages, and systems on the aged Mir (a Russian word for “peace”) than trying to do that while jointly building a new space station. NASA, in fact, calls its program of shuttle lights to Mir Phase 1 of the International Space Station (ISS). Phase 2 marks the beginning of actual construction. The procedures used to dock the shuttle to Mir, for example, also will be used as a lifeboat for the Island Progress freighters, like the one that crashed into Mir in June, will haul cargo to the ISS. (2) One unintended benefit of Mir’s technical troubles is that they have actually forced the two nations to work much more closely together than they had planned. Except for a brief period in the 1970s with Skylab, NASA has never operated a space station; the Russians have been running them for years. Astronauts have long been trained intensively to perform specific tasks on shuttle flights lasting 18 days or less. (3) Russian astronauts, however, learn more general skills, since they spend many months in orbit and no one can forecast all the problems they might encounter. As a result of shuttle-Mir experience, NASA is revising astronaut training to include more of the general skills they will need on the ISS. NASA decided to send astronauts to Mir based on its long record of safe operation. But this year, crews aboard Mir have faced two of the most serious emergencies in the history of human space flight. (4) In February, an oxygen generator caught fire, shooting out 4-foot-long jets of flame like; fire extinguishers were bolted in place, delaying reaction to the fire. In June, a Progress Freighter collided with the Specter module, puncturing it. Specter had to be sealed off to prevent all the air from leaking from the spacecraft. (5) The ancient computer that controls Mir has failed many times, causing most other systems, including the one that keeps the station’s solar panels pointing at the sun, to shut down. One failure in August occurred while a Progress was docking. Last week, the computer crashed again, the carbon dioxide removal system shut down, and a mysterious brown fluid — probably rocket fuel — appeared to leak from the station.
Directions:In this section, there is one passage followed by a summary. Read the passage carefully and complete the summary below by choosing no more than three words from the passage. Remember to write the answers on the Answer Sheet.
Questions 1-5 are based on the following passage.
The City of the Future What will city life be like in the future? Some people think that life in the cities is going to be horrible. They predict 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 urban areas.
How can we solve such problems as overcrowding, crime, and traffic? In some cities, thousands of people are already sleeping in the streets because there is so little suitable housing—and because rents are so high. 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 blocks. These urban problems have been getting worse, not better, so many people see no hope for the future of the city.
Los Angeles, California, for instance, has no subway system and the buses are slow. Instead, most commuters drive many miles from their homes to work. Many of these drivers spend several hours each day on busy freeways. New York, by contrast, has a mass transit system—buses, commuter trains, and subways. Because the public transportation is crowded and dirty, however, many people drive private cars, and the traffic jams are worse than in Los Angeles.
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 mass transit to move quickly from one part of the city to another.
The disadvantages of any modern city are not unique to that city—that is, cities all over the world have to solve the problems of traffic jams, crime, housing, energy, drinking water, and overcrowding. Yet many cities have found answers to one or more of these difficulties. Some European cities, such as Stockholm, Sweden, or London, England, have planned communities that provide people with apartments, jobs, shopping centers, green space, entertainment, and transportation. Many U.S. cities are rebuilding their downtown areas. Urban planners can learn from one another. They can try solutions that have been successful in other parts of the world.
Summary:
Some people think that life in the cities is going to be horrible. They say that cities will become more and more crowded and many other problems will be caused by this 1 Due to the hard life, people do not want to live in 2 These urban problems such as overcrowding, crime and traffic have been getting worse, so many people 3 for the future of the city. However, these disadvantages of any modern city are not unique to that city. All the cities all over the world must solve the problems and fortunately, many of them have found answers to one or more of these difficulties. For example, 4 or London has planned communities providing people with apartments, jobs and so on. Besides, many U. S. cities 5 In a word, solutions that have been successful in a place should be adopted and tried in another place.