Reading Comprehension 
从下列每篇短文的问题后所给的四个选择项中选出一个最佳答案。
     Stephen Hawking's 1988 bestseller, A Brief History of Time, sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. It has been translated into 40 languages. Last fall, Hawking returned with The Universe in a Nutshell aimed at the general public.This book is already going to the top of the bestseller lists. Highly praised by Time magazine, The Universe in a Nutshell is full of fantastic full-color illustrations. Easier to understand than the previous one, the new book highlights Hawking's famous wit, learning and writing ability.
     In The Universe in a Nutshell, Hawking deals with a wide range of theoretical topics that fascinate ordinary people, particularly those who do not consider God the creator of the universe. These topics include questions such as: Is the universe borderless? What is the nature of time, light and space? What is the Big Bang theory?
     Hawking was diagnosed with ALS(脑瘫)at 21. On his website, he discusses his disability and reflects on a boy he met at the hospital. "I had seen a boy I vaguely knew die of leukemia(白血病), in the bed opposite me. It had not been pretty sight. Clearly, there were people who were worse off than me. At least my condition didn't make me feel sick. Whenever I feel sorry for myself, I remember that boy."
     Asked about his mixing hard science and fun details, Hawking says, "I find a few human touches help the science go down. I don't plan them, they just came into my mind." Hawking occupies the Lucasian chair of applied mathematics and physics at Cambridge University. The second holder of that position was Isaac Newton.
     At the end of the new book, Hawking writes, "I see myself as a scientist trying to uncover the basic laws that govern the universe. If I can encourage others to take an interest in those laws, I'm glad, but that has not been my primary aim."

阅读选择：阅读下面短文，请从短文后所给各题的四个选项(A、B、C、D)中选出一个最佳选项。

     With technological advances, the first half of the twentieth century saw a movement of workers away from agricultural to industrial production. The second half saw a movement from industrial production to services. So far, technological advances have not reduced our need for service workers. But what would happen if advances in artificial intelligence (AI) should greatly increase the productivity of service workers, as suggested by the following scene?
     Andrea calls the doctor's office with a medical concern. The doctor's automated telephone system, in a friendly and personal voice, asks her a series of questions. Based on Andrea's answers and in consultation with her insurer's claim system, the doctor's system directs her to a neighborhood lab for tests. At the lab, another automated system performs the prescribed tests, makes a diagnosis, and provides the appropriate medication, all while in contact with Andrea's insurer. As the service is completed, the insurer pays the cost of the service. Andrea signs for any co-payment, to be paid automatically from her bank account. Heading home, Andrea was happily spared from long waits and a hurried contact with the doctor.
     To anticipate the realization of such a scene and its timing, we should watch the industries with the most potential for early application of AI. These would be where services are already provided at a distance (airline reservations were an early example). Once widespread in these industries, AI will have built the necessary level of trust and acceptance to move into more and more service industries.
     The critical issue now is that such changes could lead to considerable reduction in service jobs at a time when people will want to (or need to) work longer. Services in the first half of the twenty-first century might thus resemble manufacturing in the second half of the twentieth century, with considerable unemployment and significant incentives（诱因） for early retirement. If we are to minimize the panic, we need first to see it coming. 

阅读选择：阅读下面短文，请从短文后所给各题的四个选项(A、B、C、D)中选出一个最佳选项。

     Many language learners fail to realize that when they listen to their native language, they do not actually hear every word. They also fail to understand that they integrate their knowledge about language with their experience and knowledge of such things as topic and culture, and do not need to hear to hear every word. This means that learners often have unrealistic expectations and try to understand each word of a listening text.
     As some experts point out, “such total comprehension…is a misconception of how normal comprehension works in the native language.” Learners’ anxiety may get worse when a classroom procedure does not provide adequate context for the text or prepare the topic by activating their prior knowledge；in other words, a procedure which asks students to “Listen to the text and then answer the questions.” This tests listening ability rather than aiming to teach it. Adults returning to English language learning whose earlier experiences have been of this nature may have developed negative perceptions of their ability as listeners and a major task for the teacher will be to build confidence.
     This means recognizing anxiety and a major tasking care to provide positive classroom experiences. For example, the teacher needs to make sure that the pace and length of a listening activity is not too taxing as the concentration required in trying to comprehend unfamiliar sounds can be tiring.

阅读下面短文，请从短文后所给各题的4个选项(A、B、C、D)中选出一个最佳选项。 

     My generation —— the generation that came of age in the 1950s and 1960s —— may be the last one to know the feeling of being surrounded by millions of words that were the products of years of work by authors famous and obscure. For now we are seeing a subtle but unmistakable turning away from such things. The houses of America, I fear, may soon include no room for libraries. The hardcover book —— that symbol of the permanence of thought, the handing down of wisdom from one age to the next —— may be a new addition to our list of endangered species.
　　I have a friend who runs a bookstore in a Midwestern college town. He has found that he can not sell hardcover books; paperback books are his stock in trade, and even those are a disappointment to him. “You know how we used to see people carrying around book bags？” he tells me. “Well, now I look out of the window of my shop, and all I see are students carrying boxes from the record stores. The students aren‘t reading any more. They’re listening to albums(唱片集).”
　　And indeed he may be right. Stories of problems young people have with reading are not new, but the trend seems to be worsening. Recently the president of a university in New York said that 10 percent of the freshmen (大学一年级学生) at this university could read no better than the average eighth grader. There is an even more worrying aspect to it: of those college freshmen whose reading skills were equivalent to the sixth-to-eighth-grade level, the president reported that many had ranked in the top half of their high-school classes.

Reading Comprehension 
从下列每篇短文的问题后所给的四个选择项中选出一个最佳答案。
     Among the few scientists who have had a great effect on science and history, Albert Einstein is perhaps the greatest. An American university president once commented that Einstein had created a new view of the universe. His theory has completely changed the way scientists understand time and space. Now, more and more people agree that the universe is something complicated than what they have ever thought before.
     Einstein was born in Germany in 1879. By 1914, young Einstein, already internationally famous，became a professor at an institute in Berlin. He had few duties, little teaching and unlimited opportunities for study. However, his peaceful life was soon broken by the First World War.
     Einstein hated violence. He was deeply affected by the war；he sat unhappily in his office doing little and lost interest in his research. Only when peace came in 1918 was he able to get back to work.
     In the years following the First World War, people showered honors upon him. He became the head of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Theoretical Physics. In 1921 he won the Nobel Prize for Physics and was greatly honored and respected in Germany. However, his life was again disrupted. The Second World War broke out and Einstein had to move to the US, where he lived until his death in 1955.

阅读下面短文，请从短文后所给各题的4个选项(A、B、C、D)中选出一个最佳选项。

     Sleep has long been a concern of educators. Some schools even send notes to parents reminding them to make sure that their children get enough sleep before examinations. Such concerns and school practices are supported by findings of a recent research, which is conducted by a psychologist named Gahan Fallone at Brown Medical School. According to the research, staying up an hour or two past bedtime makes it far harder for kids to learn.
     Fallone set out to test whether teachers could find out problems with attention and learning when students stayed up late. In his three-week experiment, he studied 74 students aged between 6 and 12. In the first week, the students went to bed, woke up at their usual time and got 9 to 9.5 hours of sleep each night. In the second week, they were given no fewer than 10 hours in bed. In the third week, they were kept up later than usual and got less sleep: 8 hours for first-and second-year students and 6.5 hours for the older children.
     Although they were not told how long the children slept every night during the three-week experiment, the teachers reported that the students had more problems with their learning during the third week. With the help of the teachers' report, Fallone concluded that when students had less than 8 hours of sleep, they were more forgetful; they even had trouble learning new lessons and concentrating. Accordingly, Fallone recommended 10 to 11 hours of sleep a night for children and 8.5 hours for teenagers. 

Reading Comprehension
从下列每篇短文的问题后所给的四个选项中选择一个最佳答案。

     I think it is true that parents often underestimate their teenage children and tend to forget how they themselves felt when young. And it is natural for young people to be critical of their parents at times and to blame them for most of the misunderstandings between their parents and themselves. They are always complaining, more or less justly, that their parents are out of touch with modern ways of life; that they are possessive and dominant; that they do not trust their children to deal with crises; that they talk too much about certain problems; and that they have no sense of humour, at least in parent-child relationships.
     Young people often irritate their parents with their choices in clothes and hairstyles and music, yet this is not their motive. They feel cut off from the adult world into which they have not yet been accepted. So they create a culture and society of their own. Then, if it turns out that their music or vocabulary or clothes or hairstyles irritate their parents, they will only get additional enjoyment. They feel that they are superior, at least in a small way, and that they are leaders in style and taste.
     Sometimes they are rebellious（叛逆的）and proud because they do not want their parents to approve of what they do. If their parents do approve, they feel they are betraying their own age group. But in that case, they are assuming that they are the loser: they can't win but at least they can keep their honour. This is a passive way of looking at things. It is natural enough after long years of childhood when they are completely under their parents' control. But they ignore the fact that they are now beginning to be responsible for themselves.
     If they plan to control their life, co-operation can be part of their plan. They can charm others, especially their parents into doing things the way they want. They can impress others with their sense of responsibility and initiative, so that their parents will give them the authority to do what they want to do.

Reading Comprehension 
从下列每篇短文的问题后所给的四个选择项中选出一个最佳答案。
     It is said that the United States is a nation with a mass of geography but a shortage of history, and there is some truth in it. Quite unlike the Old World, Americans' experience with their wild country was abrupt and often violent. It took less than four hundred years to deal with more than three million square miles of land. Americans occupied the greater part of the country within the last century and a half. In fact, even today much of the U.S. still remains half populated and half tamed.
     The early settlers lacked detailed geographic knowledge, but they were full of hope for the future. Unlike the blacks who were shipped to the continent as slaves, most people came of their own free will, hoping for a better life. Quite naturally they tended to think well of the new land, even when they knew little about it. More often than not, their expectations were met—and met handsomely. It is often said that American history is a tale based on geographic riches.
     Historically speaking, the U.S. was indeed geographically fortunate. Two great oceans kept it away from threats coming from Europe and Asia, sparing the country the need to maintain large military forces. Its vast territory also offered abundant environmental wealth, which allowed the nation to become self-sufficient in agriculture and minerals. In addition, magnificent system of natural waterways linked this territory together, making travel less expensive and more convenient than in other parts of the world.

阅读选择：阅读下面短文，请从短文后所给各题的四个选项(A、B、C、D)中选出一个最佳选项。

     Electronic waste, also called e-waste, has become an issue of serious concern to environmentalists as a growing number of electronic items are discarded in landfills (垃圾填埋场) every year. Many consumers are not aware that electronics like computers and cell phones actually contain toxins that can enter the soil and damage the environment.
     Several nations have passed laws about e-waste to try and keep it out of landfills, or in landfills which are equipped to handle toxic materials. The heavy metals in e-waste pose serious environmental and health risks. While many consumers are trained to think of things like cathode ray tubes (阴极射线管) as dangerous articles that require special disposal most do not connect cell phones for example, with beryllium, a toxic heavy metal which can cause severe damage to the lungs. In addition to the toxins it contains, e-waste also takes a very long time to biodegrade, which means that it will be taking up landfill space for centuries.
     The question of what to do with e-waste is a serious one. In the first world many companies have begun to take steps to reduce the amount of e-waste they create. Companies which manufacture electronics are starting to take items back when they are no longer useful so that usable elements like copper can be safely removed and the rest of the electronics can be safely disposed of. However, a large portion of unwanted electronics in the first world is being shipped to the third world.
     Sometimes this e-waste is shipped under the cover of humanitarian (人道主义的) reasons, arguing that old technology can still help bridge the gap between first and third world. Slow computers which are not wanted in the United States, for example, might make a big difference to someone living in Africa. However, much of this equipment actually arrives in an unusable and broken state, and people desperate for money try to harvest usable materials such as valuable metals from donated equipment. Unfortunately, most of these individuals lack training in how to handle the dangerous materials used in electronics manufacture, and expose themselves and their communities to toxic chemicals and metals.

阅读选择：阅读下面短文，请从短文后所给各题的四个选项(A、B、C、D)中选出一个最佳选项。 

     Lawmakers are raising alarms about sleep-deprived doctors — and if you're concerned, so 'should you sleep' is a funny thing. We're taught that we should get seven or eight hours a night, but lot of us sleep less than that, and some of us actually sleep too much. A study reported that people who routinely sleep more than eight hours a day and are still tired are nearly three times as likely to die of a stroke.
     Doctors have their own special sleep problems. Resident doctors（住院医生）are famously sleep deprived. When I was training to become a doctor, it was not unusual to work 40 hours on end without rest. Most of us took it calmly, confident that we could still deliver the highest quality of medical care.
     Maybe we shouldn't have been so sure of ourselves. An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association points out that in the morning after 24 hours of sleeplessness, a person's motor performance is comparable to that of someone who is legally drunken. Curiously, doctors, who believe that operating under the influence of drinking is grounds for dismissal, often don't think twice about operating without enough sleep.
     "I could tell you a horror story," says Jaya Agrawal, president of the American Medical Student Association. "A doctor was operating after being up for over 36 hours, and he almost fell asleep standing up and nearly face planted into the wound.”
     Agrawal's organization is supporting the Patient and Physician Safety and Protection Act of 2001, introduced last November. Its key provisions include an 80-hour workweek and a 24-hour work-shift limit.
     Most doctors, however, resist such interference. Dr. Charles Binkley, a senior surgery resident at the University of Michigan, agrees that something needs to be done but believes doctors should be bound by their conscience, not by the government. The U.S. controls the hours of pilots and truck drivers. But until such a system is in place for doctors, patients are on their own.

阅读下面短文，请从短文后所给各题的4个选项(A、B、C、D)中选出一个最佳选项。 

     The flu（流感）, also called influenza, is caused by virus （病毒） that has the ability to spread between people faster than water rushing out of the pipe.
     Viruses are everywhere. During the flu season, which in the United States lasts from October through May, viruses are particularly widespread. Viruses invade the cells of human beings and begin to rapidly make copies of themselves. Influenza is spread through the passing of viruses from one person to another. This is why it is always important to wash your hands or cover your mouth when you cough.
     There are many kinds of flu and each is caused by a specific kind of virus. But even though there are kinds of flu, the symptoms are very similar from one kind of flu to another. It usually causes you to feel achy, feverish, sick in your stomach, and worn down.
     There are three basic types of influenza: Influenza A, Influenza B, and Influenza C. Influenza A can cause serious illnesses in humans and animals, and it is usually responsible for large outbreaks. Influenza B is milder, causes smaller outbreaks, and affects only humans (mostly children). Influenza C usually causes only mild illnesses in humans.
     Viruses are capable of changing. Flu viruses are among the most changeable of all viruses. Each type of virus that changes from another virus is called a strain of that virus. Many influenza viruses start in wild animals, most often in birds. These viruses can easily change into strains that infect（感染） ducks and chickens found on farms. From there, a virus further changes into strains that infect animals such as pigs.
     Since chickens, pigs, and humans live close to each other on farms, the spread and mixing of viruses becomes a great concern. The chain of animals infected varies from virus to virus. A virus chain can include dogs and even whales. Sometimes viruses can take shortcut — the Avian Virus of 1997 jumped directly from birds to humans.

Reading Comprehension 
从下列每篇短文的问题后所给的四个选择项中选出一个最佳答案。
     Jerry was unique restaurant manager. He was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.
     Jerry once said to me, "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the useless things, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live life."
     Later I quit working for Jerry and started my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it. Recently, I heard that Jerry was shot in his restaurant by three robbers and was severely wounded. He was immediately rushed to the local hospital. After an 18-hour medical operation and weeks of intensive care, Jerry eventually survived. When we met, I asked him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place.
     "The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door," Jerry replied. "Then, as I lay on the floor, remembered I had two choices: to live, or to die. I chose to live. When they wheeled me into the emergency room (急诊室) and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, 'He's a dead man.' I knew I needed to take action."
     "What did you do then?" I asked.
     "Well, there was a big nurse shouting questions at me," said Jerry. "She asked if I was allergic(过敏) to anything. 'Yes,' I said. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and cried out, 'Bullets(子弹)!' While they were laughing, I told them, 'I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.'"
     Jerry lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his healthy attitude. I learned from him that every day have the choice to live fully.

Reading Comprehension 
从下列每篇短文的问题后所给的四个选择项中选出一个最佳答案。

     Quite a number of political and religious groups today are putting pressure on government to further censor（审查）and control the media. It is extremely important that we deal with this issue and resolve it. Instead of putting tight controls on media violence, we should take steps to protect the media from unnecessary government interference and censorship.
      Violence had been with us long before modern media. For most tribes throughout most of the world, war and violence was always part of life. Most of the earliest human records indicate that violence has been an ever-present part of human life; such works as the Old Testament, the Greek Iliad, the Indian Bhagavad-Gita and the Nordic Beowulf all tell tales of war and violence. However, the peoples of ancient Babylonia, Greece, India, and Scandinavia were not influenced by the media. Therefore, it seems unlikely that controlling the media now would stop human violence.
     A comparison of violence in nations around the world also indicates that there is no direct relationship between violence and the media. There were 9,390 gun-related deaths in the US in 1996 while Japan had 15 gun-related deaths in the same year. Yet the level of violence on television in Japan is higher than in the US. Japanese TV often describes violence that would not be allowed on US television, and Japanese movie-goers see the same major Hollywood films that Americans see. The number of murders in the US is small compared with that of Columbia where 23,000 people were murdered in 1999, yet Columbians have much less exposure to media violence than either Americans or Japanese; they have fewer TV stations and watch fewer films. Likewise, Islamic terrorists（恐怖主义者）have murdered numerous people, yet they hate Western media and have very little exposure to violent television and film. Canada borders the US, and Canadians receive the same TV and radio programs that Americans receive, yet gun violence in Canada was nearly one hundred times lower than that in the US in the 1990s. Clearly there is no significant relationship between media violence and real-life violence. Therefore, blaming the media for violence is misguided; we need to look elsewhere for solutions to this problem.

阅读选择：阅读下面短文，请从短文后所给各题的四个选项(A、B、C、D)中选出一个最佳选项。 

     My drop-out started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that, when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She changed her mind a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
     And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
     It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5 cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. And much of what I stumbled into turned out to be priceless later on.

Reading Comprehension 
从下列每篇短文的问题后所给的四个选择项中选出一个最佳答案。
     Some insects imitate other insects or creatures. If a harmless insect looks like harmful insect or creature, predators stay away. Result: The insect escapes being eaten, and so it survives.
     This works the other way, too. A harmful insect can look like a harmless one and surprise its prey. Result: The harmful insect gets food to eat, and so it survives.
     Some insects have coloring or patterns that enable them to mix well with a background. This is called camouflage (伪装). It helps an insect to look like other things around it. That way it is hard for other insects or creatures to see the insect. You must look very carefully to find a camouflaged insect. A camouflaged insect seems to be almost invisible.
     Camouflage can be helpful in two ways. A camouflaged predator can surprise the insect that it is hunting for food. Or a camouflaged prey becomes almost invisible, and its predator will not see it and attack it.
     Some insects look like other things in nature, such as twigs (树枝) or leaves.This appearance is called a disguise (掩饰). For disguise to work, the insect stays very still for hours at a time.
     There are many more insects that have adaptations. Some insects look like dead leaves, tree bark (the outer covering of a tree), beautiful flowers, or something else in nature. These disguises are critical to their survival.

Reading Comprehension 
从下列每篇短文的问题后所给的四个选择项中选出一个最佳答案。
     There was a strange girl in my high school whom we all called the Bird. We called her that because of her nervous, birdlike movements. Her skin looked as if it had never felt the sun, and there was usually a red spot in the middle of her forehead. She had thin black hair on her arms long enough to comb, and she wore clothes that had been out of fashion since Shirley Temple's time. She was so often laughed at that it shames me to this day to think that I was part of it. Oh, I never laughed at her in her face; I wasn't that brave. I'd wait until she hurried by and join the other guys. And it's important when you're a teenager to join in the laughter so that the laughter will not turn on you.
     I remember one day when the Bird was surrounded by three or four rude guys who had stopped her in the hall between classes. They were moving their arms up and down like birds and shouting in her ear. She was terrified and there was fright in her eyes. A couple of her books fell to the floor. Then this girl came out of nowhere. I'd never seen such anger in a girl before. She went up to the leader of the guys and shouted angrily, “Stop it! Can't you see what you're doing?” The guys backed off, astonished. Then the girl went over to the Bird and put her arm around her shoulders and walked her to class.
     I thought about the Bird when I read about Nathan Faris, the little boy who shot a classmate and killed himself after being laughed at by the kids in his school. I thought of how I had been part of her misery, how more than twenty years later it still bothered me. But I also thought of what I had learned that day about respect and bravery, about being a human being, from a girl whose name I don't even know. And I wonder whether that one act of kindness might have saved another girl's life.

Reading Comprehension 
从下列每篇短文的问题后所给的四个选择项中选出一个最佳答案。
     More attention was paid to the quality of production in France at the time of Ren Coty. Charles Deschanel was then the financial minister. He stressed that workmanship and quality were more important than quantity for industrial production. It would be necessary to produce quality goods for the international market to compete with those produced in other countries. The French economy needed a larger share of the international market to balance its import and export trade.
     French industrial and agricultural production was still inadequate to meet the immediate needs of the people, let alone long-ranged developments. Essential imports had stretched the national credit to the breaking point. Rents were tightly controlled, but the extreme inflation affected general population most severely through the cost of food. Food costs took as much as 80 percent of the workers' income. Wages, it is true, had risen. Extensive family allowances and benefits were paid by the state, and there was full-time and overtime employment. Taken together, these factors enabled the working class to exist but allowed them no sense of security. In this precarious (不安定的) and discouraging situation, workmen were willing to work overseas for higher wages.
     The government was reluctant to let workers leave the country. It was feared that this migration of workers would deplete the labor force. The lack of qualified workers might hinder the improvement in the quality of industrial products produced. Qualified workers employed abroad would only increase the quantity of quality goods produced in foreign countries. Also the quantity of quality goods produced in France would not be able to increase as part of its qualified labor force moved to other countries.

阅读下面短文，请从短文后所给各题的4个选项(A、B、C、D)中选出一个最佳选项。 

     As I lay in bed looking out the window I noticed the leaves on the trees starting to turn their colors and I couldn't help thinking fall will be here soon. I soon fell back into sleep and started to dream.
     On a warm spring morning I was walking down the street, and then all at once the sky clouded over, a strong wind started blowing. I started to look for a safe place to sit out the storm. But all I could see was a car parked on the street, so I climbed into it for safety.
     As I sat in the car, the storm was getting more intense and the car started to lift off the ground. The storm seemed like it would never stop. Then suddenly it stopped and the car hit the ground. I got out of the car and started walking down the street. Suddenly, I heard some rolling music coming from a house. I opened the door and couldn't believe what I was seeing: it was like going back in time to the early 1970s. A long haired, bearded man was sitting at a table, making clay figurines that reflected that time period. He glanced up at me, "Can I help you, man?"
     "Yes. I'm lost. Could you tell me where I am?"
     “In Seattle.”
     I asked if he had a cell phone I could use to call home with.
     "What is a cell phone, man?"
     Then I said, "How about a computer that I can use to get online and send an e-mail to my wife?"
     He looked at me with great puzzlement and replied, "Are you serious, man? Only big businesses have computers. And what is e-mail?"
     At that moment I could hear a voice calling me; it was my wife's voice. I glanced up and could see the leaves on the tree starting to turn colors for fall. What a strange dream, I thought, but it turned out it wasn't a dream but a reflection of how technology had progressed during a life time.

Reading Comprehension 
从下列每篇短文的问题后所给的四个选择项中选出一个最佳答案。
     The day after my high school graduation，I boarded a plane heading for South Korea．My parents had registered me in a cultural summer program at a university in Seoul. For five weeks I was to live in a dormitory with hundreds of fellow Second generation Korean American teenagers.

     The first week of the program flew by, greatly damaging my self-confidence. My language skills were poor；the natives could not understand me when I spoke Korean. What's more，I was having a difficult time adapting to the climate．The weather was hot and there was no air conditioning. I didn't know where to begin when I called my mother to tell her about my first days，but there was something I wanted to ask since stepping off the plane. 
     "Mom，what does 'gyopo' mean? I asked Grandma，but she didn't seem to understand my question in Korean．'Gyopo' is what the natives—taxi drivers，waiters and saleswomen—are calling me everywhere I go."
     "It means foreigner, my girl，"answered my mom.
     As I didn't want to stand in the phone booth (电话亭) for too long，I got into the habit of writing down everything to tell my parents before calling them．It was boiling both inside and outside and the air felt hotter than my own breath．In a letter to my friend，I told her that in Seoul you didn't move from one place to the next，you swam, as if you were in Africa.
     "Oh，it means foreigner?" I replied in surprise．I didn't have much else to say to my mom that day．Nothing on my list seemed important anymore.

阅读下面短文，请从短文后所给各题的4个选项(A、B、C、D)中选出一个最佳选项。

     Earlier in the last century, Halloween was a night when children（usually boys）went around the neighborhood and played tricks on their neighbors. Their tricks were more like practical jokes than vandalism（恶意破坏）. For example, these boys （called trick-or-treaters） might lift an outdoor toilet off its foundation and move it to someone else's yard, or they might remove a screen door from its joints and leave it on the owner's roof. Such tricks required skill and planning, and the victims were usually neighbors or relatives. In those days, Halloween was a night when teenage tricks were tolerated by the community.
     Today, the Halloween tricks have turned into destructive vandalism, such as cutting tires and breaking windows. These kinds of actions require no skill or intelligence. In addition, instead of the small gifts — an apple or a piece of cake — meant to be given in exchange for protection from practical jokes, trick-or-treaters demand bagfuls of candies from numerous people, many of them strangers. But the most alarming and annoying aspect of the new Halloween involves evildoings in the worst way, including such criminal acts as inserting pins into candies and apples. Thus Halloween has been transformed into an event, not of harmless fun, but of greed（贪婪）, vandalism, and even terror.