[简答题]Questions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage: The poverty line is the minimum income that people need for an acceptable standard of living. People with incomes below the poverty line are considered poor. Economists study the causes of poverty in order to find solutions to the problem. As the general standard of living in the country rises, the poverty line does, too. Therefore, even with today’s relatively high standard of living, about ten percent of the people in the United States are below the poverty line. However, if these people had stable jobs, they could have an acceptable standard of living. Economists suggest several reasons why poor people do not have jobs. For one thing, more than half of the poor people in the United States are not qualified to work. Over 40 percent of the poor people are children. By law, children less than 16 years old cannot work in many industries. A large number of poor people are old. Many companies do not hire people over 65 years old, t
A. A．they do not have enough motivation
B．they are so young that they are deprived of chances to work
C．they fail to get enough education
D．they are very poor in experience

[填空题]Questions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.
Canadian authorities relayed that suspicion to the U. S. Coast Guard, which dispatched a cutter to intercept the vessel. After a two-week chase, the cutter’s crew finally boarded the Cao Yu 6025, a stateless ship, south of Japan. In the hold, they found damning evidence: 110 tons of tuna and shark fins, and a drift gillnet almost 20 kilometers long--an indiscriminate killer of marine life banned on high seas under an international agreement.
Out of sight, and mostly out of mind, the oceans are under siege. Scientists from around the world are reporting global disturbances in the seas that threaten to bring Richard Cashin’s grim warning home to every Canadian household. From the polar seas to the tropics, fish populations have collapsed or teeter on the brink. In a third of the Pacific, plankton that form the foundation of the marine food chain are vanishing. In every corner of the planet, increasing t

[单项选择]Questions 46 to 50 are based on the following passage.
I saw a television advertisement recently for a new product called an air sanitizer. A woman stood in her kitchen, spraying the empty space in front of her as though using Mace against an imaginary assailant. She appeared very determined. Where others are satisfied with antibacterial-laced sponges, dish soaps, hand sanitizers and telephone wipes, here was a woman who sought to sterilize the air itself.
As a casual student of microbiology, I find it hard to escape the absurdity here. This woman is, like any human being, home to hundreds of trillions of bacteria. Bacteria make up a solid third, by weight, of the contents of her intestines. If you were to sneak into her bathroom while she was showering--and based on my general impression of this woman from the advertisement, I don’t recommend this--and secret away a teaspoon of the water at her feet, you would find some 820 billion bacteria. Bacteria are una
A. We don’t need to worry too much about bacteria everywhere in our life.
B. Antibacterial products for the home are found to be effective.
C. The TV advertisement the writer mentioned is a total failure.
D. The existent bacteria pose a threat only to the very young and very old.

[单项选择] Questions 18 to 20 are based on the following passage. At the end of the passage, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the questions. Now, listen to the passage.

Mental decay due to aging is ______ .
A. common
B. much more common than most people believe
C. much less common than most people believe
D. true of those over sixty

[单项选择] Questions 14 to 17 are based on the following passage. At the end of the passage, you will be given 20 seconds to answer the questions. Now, listen to the passage.

What causes the prices of the telephone system to lower in America
A. The material became cheaper.
B. There was more competition.
C. More people used the phones.
D. The phones were connected across the sea.

[单项选择]Questions 57 to 61 are based on the following passage.
The word "copyright" is, to most Americans, quite irrelevant to their daily lives. But the truth is it is the most relevant because it’s the source-bed from which springs America’s greatest trade export and this nation’s grandest economic asset.
The Copyright Industries are creating jobs at three times the rate of the rest of the American economy. They gather in more international revenues than aircraft, agriculture or automobiles. They have a surplus balance of trade with every country in the world at a time when the remainder of the U.S. economy is bleeding from trade deficits.
But at this moment, there are some unquiet anxieties which challenge that future. As we move into the cyber world, there is being bred on the Internet a kind of belief that says," Hey, if it’s on the Internet, it’s free to take down." That’s what happened to the music industry. Hundreds of thousands of music albums and
A. it can provide various positions for laid-off people
B. it can promote American’s trade export and economy
C. it can greatly increase Americans’ daily income
D. it can ensure Americans’ exclusive use of creative works

[单项选择]Questions 52 to 56 are based on the following passage.
Almost everyone who worries about America’s "competitiveness" in the world sighs for the sorry state of U.S.K-12 education. From President obama to CEOs, the refrain is to "fix the schools", almost as if it were an engineering problem." The urgency for reform has never been greater, "Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently wrote in The Washuzgton Post. The diagnosis spans the political spectrum. But what if it’s not true
There are grounds for doubt. For starters, economic competitiveness depends on more than good schools, which are important but not decisive. To take an obvious example: The Japanese have high test scores, but Japan’s economy languishes. Its export-led growth has collapsed. Next-and as important-American schools are better than they’re commonly portrayed. We now have a massive study of the reading abilities of 15-year-olds in 65 systems worldwide showing that U. S. schools compare f
A. Protest the depressing state of U.S. education.
B. Make some changes in American schools.
C. Fix and improve all the school buildings.
D. Treat the school reform as a political issue.

[填空题]Questions 47 to 51 are based on the following passage.
Any secondary school pupils not planning to go to university would be given a clearer "route into work" under Labour party plans for a new education contract between the individual and the state.
Andy Burnham, the shadow education secretary, will this week reveal plans which would aim to give every secondary school pupil a path to employment if they met a set of required standards under a revised curriculum more geared to the world of work.
The idea, one of the first to emerge from Labour’s policy commissions, reflects its view that current thinking is geared too much to those heading to university and leaves the "forgotten half" depressed, having studied subjects that are too often unsuited to modern working life.
Burnham’s idea would involve a radical reshaping of the curriculum so that it offered a much wider choice of subjects than those included in education secretary-Michael Gove’s

[单项选择]Questions 13 to 16 are based on the following passage. At the end of the passage, you will be given 20 seconds to answer the questions.
Now, listen to the passage.


How can sharks find their quarries
A. By good sense of water waves made by quarries.
B. By good sense of smell and electrical magnetic power.
C. By good sense of light.
D. By good sense of blood.

[单项选择]Questions 17 to 20 are based on the following passage. At the end of the passage, you will be given 20 seconds to answer the questions.
Now, listen to the passage.


How were the police able to prove that Joe had robbed the bank
A. The raid had been photographed by hidden cameras.
B. Some watchman had seen the raid.
C. The bank teller proved that Joe was the robber.
D. Some monitors had been installed nearby.