阅读理解。 Obama Still Smokes in Secret
题型：北京模拟题难度：来源：
US President Barack Obama has just made life more difficult for cigarette makers. He has just signed
a law that will set tough new rules for the tobacco industry. The new law gives the US Food and Drug
Administration the power to strictly limit the making and marketing of tobacco products.
At a White House signing ceremony Monday, Obama said that he was among the nearly 90% of
smokers who took up the habit before their 18 th birthday.
Obama, who has publicly struggled to give up smoking, said he still hadn"t completely kicked the habit. Every now and then he still smokes in secret.
"As a former smoker I struggle with it all the time. Do I still smoke sometimes? Yes. Am I a daily
smoker, a constant smoker? No." Obama said at a news conference.
"I don" t do it in front of my lads.I don ?t do it in front of my family.I would say that I am 95% cured,
but there are times when I mess up, " he said.
"Once you go down this path, it" s something you continually struggle with, which is exactly why the
law is so important.The new law is not about me, it" s about the next generation of kids coming up.What
we don " t want is kids going down that path," he said.
Nearly 20% of Americans smoke and tobacco use kills about 440,000 people a year in the United
States due to cancer, heart disease, and other serious diseases.
B. tobacco industry
C. White House
D. US Food and Drug Administration
B. He still smokes as usual.
C. He began to smoke at eighteen.
D. He is trying hard to give up smoking.
B. officials
C. his family
D. businessmen
答案
举一反三
for the economy? The American public overwhelmingly thinks they"re bad. Yet the consensus among
most economists is that immigration, both legal and illegal, provides a small net boost to the economy.
Immigrants provide cheap labor, lower the prices of everything from farm produce to new homes, and
leave consumers with a little more money in their pockets. So why is there such a discrepancy between
the perception of immigrants" impact on the economy and the reality?
There are a number of familiar theories. Some argue that people are anxious and feel threatened by
an inflow of new workers. Others highlight the strain that undocumented immigrants place on public
services, like schools, hospitals, and jails. Still others emphasize the role of race, arguing that foreigners
add to the nation"s fears and insecurities. There"s some truth to all these explanations, but they aren"t quite
sufficient.
To get a better understanding of what"s going on, consider the way immigration"s impact is felt. Though
its overall effect may be positive, its costs and benefits are distributed unevenly. David Card, an economist at UC Berkeley, notes that the ones who profit most directly from immigrants" low-cost labor are businesses and employers - meatpacking plants in Nebraska, for instance, or agricultural businesses in California.
Granted, these producers" savings probably translate into lower prices at the grocery store, but how many consumers make that mental connection at the checkout counter? As for the drawbacks of illegal
immigration, these, too, are concentrated. Native low-skilled workers suffer most from the competition of
foreign labor. According to a study by George Borjas, a Harvard economist, immigration reduced the wages of American high-school dropouts by 9% between 1980-2000.
Among high-skilled, better-educated employees, however, opposition was strongest in states with
both high numbers of immigrants and relatively generous social services. What worried them most, in
other words, was the fiscal (财政的)burden of immigration. That conclusion was reinforced by another
finding: that their opposition appeared to soften when that fiscal burden decreased, as occurred with
welfare reform in the 1990s, which curbed immigrants" access to certain benefits.
The irony is that for all the overexcited debate, the net effect (净效应) of immigration is minimal. Even
for those most acutely affected - say, low-skilled workers, or California residents - the impact isn"t all that dramatic. "The unpleasant voices have tended to dominate our perceptions," says Daniel Tichenor, a
political science professor at the University of Oregon. "But when all those factors are put together and
the economists calculate the numbers, it ends up being a net positive, but a small one." Too bad most
people don"t realize it.
B. The American economy used to thrive on immigration but now it"s a different story.
C. The consensus among economists is that immigration should not be encouraged.
D. The general public thinks differently from most economists on the impact of immigration.
B. They can get consumer goods at lower prices.
C. They can mix with people of different cultures.
D. They can avoid doing much of the manual labor.
B. deny
C. encourage
D. limit
B. Those who are opposed to it turn out to benefit most from it.
C. Even economists can"t reach a consensus about its impact.
D. There is no essential difference between seemingly opposite opinions.
the agency responsible for moving people around England"s capital, put 5,000 bicycles in 400 different
locations around the city.
The idea is to cut traffic, reduce pollution and provide a greener way of getting around London"s
streets. The scheme had a few small problems on its first day as people could not lock the bikes properly
once they had finished riding them. As a gesture of goodwill, London Mayor Boris Johnson announced
all rentals (租金) on the first day would be free of charge. The bikes are available for free for the first 30 minutes but costs go up sharply since then. Renters have to pay $1.60 for the first hour and $78 for 24
hours. The bikes are clearly designed for very short trips.
TFL says it sees a "cycle revolution" happening in London. It predicts there will be around 40,000
new cycle journeys every day on the rental bikes. Mr. Johnson says he wants to see a return to the turn
of the 20th century, when 20 per cent of journeys in London were made by bicycle. The scheme has
received a lot of positive feedback (反馈) in the first two days.
Many Londoners believe it is a great alternative (替代品) to London"s overcrowded and overpriced
trains and buses. One person, Andy Clark, told the Reuters news agency, "It"s a great idea. I"ve seen it
operating in Paris and Barcelona and thought why don"t we have one?" The Londonist Blog said the
bikes were very strong and were "designed to bear a beating from both careless cyclists and drunken
people".
B. London needs better measures to cut traffic.
C. London encourages people to buy bikes.
D. London decides to protect the environment.
B. time
C. distance
D. lock
B. To protect nature.
C. To decrease pollution.
D. To beautify the city.
B. it costs nearly $80 to rent one of the bikes for a day
C. London is the first city to start the bike rental scheme
D. All Londoners approve of the scheme
trying hard to solve a question that would otherwise have been completely unthinkable: Can building be
designed to stand catastrophic blasts (攻击) by terrorists?
Soon after the terrorist attacks on the twin towers, structural engineers from the University at Buffalo
and the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER) traveled to ground zero
as part of a project funded by the National Science Foundation. They spent two days beginning the task
of formulating (构思) ideas about how to design such structures and to search for clues on how to do so
in buildings that were damaged, but still are standing.
"Our objective in visiting ground zero was to go and look at the buildings surrounding the World
Trade Center, those buildings that are still standing, but that sustained damage," said M. Bruneau, Ph.D. "Our immediate hope is that we can develop a better understanding as to why those buildings remain
standing, while our long-term goal is to see whether earthquake engineering technologies can be married
to existing technologies to achieve enhanced performance of buildings in the event of terrorist attacks,"
he added.
Photographs taken by the investigators demonstrate the monumental damage to the World Trade
Center towers and buildings nearby. One building a block away from the towers remains standing, but
was badly damaged. "This building is many meters away from the World Trade Center and yet we see
a column (柱子) there that used to be part of that building," explained A. Whittaker, Ph.D. "The column
became a missile that shot across the road, through the window and through the floor."
The visit to the area also brought some surprises, according to the engineers. For example, the floor
framing (框架) system in one of the buildings was quite strong , allowing floors that were pierced by tons
of falling debris (残砾) to survive. "Good framing systems may provide a simple, but reliable strategy for
blast resistance," he added. Other strategies may include providing alternate paths for gravity loads in the
event that a load-bearing column fails. "We also need a better understanding of the mechanism of collapse," said A. Whittaker. "We need to find out what causes a building to collapse and how you can predict
it."
A. Reinhorn, Ph.D. noted that "earthquake shaking has led to the collapse of buildings in the past.
Solutions developed for earthquake-resistant design may apply to blast engineering and terrorist-resistant
design. Part of our mission now is to transfer these solutions and to develop new ones where none exist
at present."
B. that is too difficult for structural engineers a month ago
C. that was never thought of before the terrorist attack
D. that terrorists are eager to find a solution to
B. was part of the World Trade Center
C. was shot through the window and the floor of the World Trade Center
D. damaged many buildings near the World Trade Center
B. some floor framing systems demonstrate resistance to explosion
C. complex floor framing systems are more blast resistant
D. floors in one of the buildings were pierced by tons of debris
B. blast engineering can borrow technologies developed for terror-resistant design
C. solutions developed for earthquake-resistant design may apply to terrorist-resistant design
D. blast engineering emerges as a totally new branch of science
阅读下列短文,根据所读内容在文章后的表格中填人 恰当的单词。
注意:表格中的每个空格只填1 个单词.
twenty-five percent of the nation"s population lived on farms. Today less than one percent of Americans
do.
Farm incomes have changed over the years, too. For example,in 1933,people living and working on
farms had much less money to spend than other Americans. At that time,farm families had about one-third
the income of non- farmers after all necessary expenses had been paid. By the late 1970s, however, that difference had almost disappeared. In 2004,farmers had their best year ever. The average farm family
earned about eighty-one thousand dollars. That was more than the average American family, which
earned about sixty thousand dollars.
The Department of Labor measures the pay of industrial workers differently. It measures the average
hourly and weekly pay for industrial workers. This is because factory workers are generally paid by the
hour unlike farmers who earn income from their farm businesses. Generally, the average hourly pay for
all
industrial workers is about sixteen dollars. And the average weekly pay,about five hundred fifty dollars.
Industrial workers were about twenty-three percent of the labor force in the 1970s. But that number
has been decreasing. Most Americans have jobs that provide services. Professional,technical and other
services employ about eighty-six percent of the labor force.
to the US as slaves in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth
century, They worked on farms, especially the large farms in the
southern states. Slowly they became a necessary part of the economic
system (经济体系) of the South.
Slaves did not have the right of people;according tO the law,
they were a" thing" which belonged to the person who bought them.
They had to obey the orders of their owners without question. They
were not allowed to learn to read ; their owners feared the educated
slaves would begin to think about the injustice of the system and
would learn to struggle for their freedom. Slaves had to work long
hours in very unhealthy conditions. Their owners had complete power
over them. They could be bought and sold like animals. At the
slave markets, black children were separated from their parents and
never saw them again. Slave owners had the right to punish the
slave who broke the rule or was against the system. Slaves were often
beaten by their owners or killed. After the Civil War, one free
slave reported that his owner killed an older slave who was teaching
him to read. In theory, an owner who treated a slave badly could be
punished. In practice, however, the taw meant nothing.
The opposition to slavery began very early in the history of the
US-in 1671-but little progress was made until the beginning of
the nineteenth century. By 1804, slavery was illegal in the northern
states. But it continued and even grew, in the southern states, which
depended on cotton for their economic health. Slavery ended in the
South only after the Civil War. For blacks,however,the end of slavery
was only a beginning, the beginning of a long and difficult struggle for
true justice.
B. The opposition to slavery in the United States.
C. Slavery in the United States.
D. The right of black Americans.
B. Because their owners were afraid that books would give them advanced ideas.
C. Because they did not have enough time to read.
D. Because they were so poor that they could not go to school.
B. The US government paid much attention to freedom.
C. There were some laws that successfully protected the rights of slaves.
D. The opposition to slavery in the United States began in the seventeenth century.
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