Passage One

There has been, in history, a man who was swallowed by a whale and lived to tell the tale. The man's name is James Barley. The records to prove his unusual experience are in the British Admiralty.

Bartley was making his first trip on the whaling ship Star of the East. Suddenly the lookout sighted a huge sperm whale. The whalers knew it was a huge whale by the size of the spray it blew into the air. They lowered their small boats. James Bartley was in the first longboat. The men rowed until they were close to the whale. A harpoon was thrown and it found its mark. It sank into the whale's flesh. The maddened beast crashed into the boat, snapping its tail at the men and the wreckage of their boats. When the survivors were picked up, James Barley was missing.

Shortly before sunset, the whale was finally captured. The sailors tied the whale's dead body to the side of the ship. Because of the hot weather it was important that they cut up the whale right away. Otherwise, the meat would begin to rot and oil would begin to spoil. When they got to the stomach, they felt something moving about wildly. They thought it would be a big fish still alive inside. But when they opened the stomach they found James Bartley. After this trip , Bartley settled in England , and never returned to sea.

Passage Two

In ancient times wealth was measured and exchanged in things that could be touched: food, tools, and previous metals and stones. Then the barter system was replaced by coins, which still had real value since they were pieces of rare metal. Coins were followed by fiat money, paper notes that have value only because everyone agrees to accept them.

Today electronic monetary systems are gradually being introduced that will transform money into even less tangible forms, reducing it to a series of“bits and bytes" ,or units of computerized information, going between machines at the speed of light. Already, electronic fund transfer allows money to be instantly sent and received by different banks, companies, and countries through computers and telecommunications devices.

Passage Three

Alaska, which was called Russian America before it was sold to U. S. A. ,joined the union as the forty-ninth state in 1959.

Alaska is now the largest of all the 50 states of the U.S..

It was in 1867 that President A. Johnson's Secretary of State(国务卿) , Seward bought Alaska from the Russians at a cost of 7.2 million. The buying of the huge northern land mass seemed at first something foolishly done. Not only was Alaska difficult to reach, but it was also hard to live in, and it appeared to have no importance in time of war. Besides ，there are volcanoes there as Alaska lies on the Pacific" ring of fire" . In Alaska large treeless areas are covered with snow all the year. For these reasons the buying of Alaska was called“Seward's Fooly" at that time.

However, in 1896 gold was found in Alaska, and people poured tin to the land quickly. Since then other important natural resources were discovered, including oil. Soon people changed their thinking about “Seward's Fooly". But most people visit Alaska in order to see the endless beauty of nature that the northern land discloses to them. For instance, there are about 11 ,000 islands in Alaska. And in a certain area of Alaska the sun does not set for 82 days every year.

Passage Four

Deep inside a mountain near Sweetwater in East. Tennessee is a body of water known as the Lost Sea. It is listed by the Guinness Bool of World Records as the world's largest underground lake. The Lost Sea is part of an extensive and historic cave system called Craighead Caverns.

The caverns have been known and used since the days of the Cherokee Indian Nation. The cave expands into a series of huge rooms from a small opening on the side of the mountain. Approximately one mile from the entrance, in room called“the Council Room”,many Indian artifacts have been found. Some of the items discovered include pottery, arrowheads, weapons , and jewelry.

For many years there were persistent rumors of a large underground lake somewhere in a cave, but it was not discovered until 1905. In that year, a thirteen-year-old boy named Ben Sands crawled through a small opening three hundred feet underground. He found himself in a large cave half filled with water.

Today tourists visit the Lost Sea and ride far out onto it in gas-bottomed boats powered by electric motors. More than thirteen acres of water have been mapped out so far and still no end to the lake has been found. Even though teams of divers have tried to explore the Lost Sea, the full extent of it is still unknown.

Passage Five

"Family" is of course an elastic word. But when British people say that their society is based on family life , they are thinking of“ family”in its narrow , peculiarly European sense of mother , father and children living together alone in their own house as an economic and social unit. Thus , every British marriage indicates the beginning of a new and independent family--hence the tremendous importance of marriage in British life. For both the man and the woman， marriage means leaving one's parents and starting one's own life. The man's first duty will then be to his wife , and the wife's to her husband. He will be entirely responsible for her financial support , and she for the running of the new home. Their children will be their common responsibility and theirs alone. Neither the wife's parents nor the husband's , nor their brothers or sisters, aunts or uncles, have any right to interfere with them--they are their own masters.

Readers of novels like Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice will know that in former times, marriage among wealthy families were arranged by the girl's parents , that is,it was the parents' duty to find a suitable husband for their daughter, preferably a rich one , and by skillful encouragement to lead him eventually to ask their permission to marry her. Until that time ,the girl was protected and maintained in the parents' home, and the financial relief of getting rid of her could be seen in their giving the newly married pair a sum of money called a dowry. It is very different today. Most girls of today get a job when they leave school and become financially independent before their marriage. This has had two results. A girl chooses her own husband ,and she gets no dowry.

Passage One

Key James, Secretary of Health and Human Resources in the Virginia State government, loves to turn the tables on those who don't think it's possible to be middle-class, conservative, educated and still be truly black. Once, during an abortion debate, a woman in the audience angrily told James she was so middle-class she didn't have a clue about real African American life. "If you understood what these women go through," the woman said, "you would realize that abortion is their only choice."

James then asked the woman to consider a poor black mother on welfare. She already has four children and an alcoholic husband who has all but abandoned the family. Now she discovers another child is on the way. "How would you counsel that woman?" asked James.

"Have an abortion," the woman responded. "That child would have a very poor quality of life."

"I have a vested interest in your answer," James said. "The woman I described was my mother. I was the fifth of six children born into poverty. And, in case you're interested, the quality of my life is just fine!"

Passage Two

When I was about 12 I had an enemy, a girl who liked to point out my shortcomings. Week by week her list grew: I was skinny, I wasn't a good student, I was boyish, I talked too loud, and so on.I put up with her as long as I could. At last, with great anger, I ran to my father in tears.

He listened to my outburst quietly. Then he asked, "Are the things she says true or not?"

True? I wanted to know how to strike back. What did truth have to do with it?

"Mary, didn't you ever wonder what you are really like? Well, you now have that girl's opinion. Go and make a list of everything she said and mark the points that are true. Pay no attention to the other things she said. "

I did as he directed and discovered to my surprise that about half the things were true. Some of them I couldn't change ( like being skinny) , but a good number I could and suddenly wanted to change.

For the first time in my life I got a fairly clear picture of myself.

I brought the list back to Daddy. He refused to take it.

"That's just for you," he said. "You know better than anybody else the truth about yourself, once you hear it But you've got to learn to listen, not to close your ears in anger or hurt. When something said about you is true you'll know it. You'll find that it will echo inside you."

Daddy's advice has returned to me at many important moments.

Passage Three

Researchers have found that REM ( rapid eye movement) sleep is important to human beings. This type of sleep generally occurs four or five times during one night of sleep lasting five minutes to forty minutes for each occurrence. The deeper a person's sleep becomes, the longer the periods of rapid eye movement.

There are physical charges in the body to show that a person has changed from NREM ( non-rapid eye movement) to REM sleep. Breathing becomes faster, the heart rate increases, and, as the name implies, the eyes begin to move quickly.

Accompanying these physical changes in the body is a very important characteristic of REM sleep. It is during REM sleep that a person dreams.

Passage Four

Man's first real invention, and one of the most important inventions in history, was the wheel. All transportation and every machine in the world depend on it. The wheel is the simplest yet perhaps the most remarkable of all inventions , because there are no wheels in nature-no living thing was ever created with wheels. How, then, did man come to invent the wheel? Perhaps some early hunters found that they could roll the carcass of a heavy animal through the forest on logs more easily than they could carry it. However, the logs themselves weighed a lot.

It must have taken a great prehistoric thinker to imagine two thin slices of log connected, at their centers by a string stick. This would roll along just as the logs did, yet be much lighter and easier to handle. Thus the wheel and axle came into being and with them the first carts.

Passage Five

Even plants can run a fever, especially when they're under attack by insects or disease. But unlike humans, plants can have their temperature taken from 3 ,000 feet away- straight up. A decade ago, adapting the infrared ( 红外线) scanning technology developed for military purposes and other satellites, physicist Stephen Paley came up with a quick way to take the temperature of crops to determine which ones are under stress. The goal was to let farmers precisely target pesticide (杀虫剂) spraying rather than rain poison on a whole field, which invariably includes plants that don't have pest (害虫) problems.

Even better, Paley's Remote Scanning Services Company could detect crop problems before they became visible to the eye. Mounted on a plane flown at 3 ,000 feet at night, an infrared scanner measured the heat emitted by crops. The data were transformed into a color- code map showing where plants were running " fevers" . Farmers could then spot-spray, using 50 to 70 percent less pesticide than they otherwise would.

The bad news is that Paley's company closed down in 1984, after only three years. Farmers resisted the new technology and long-term backers were hard to find. But with the renewed concern about pesticides on produce, and refinements in infrared scanning, Paley hopes to get back into operation. Agriculture experts have no doubt the technology works. "This technique can be used on 75 percent of agricultural land in the United States", says George Oerther of Texas A&M. Ray Jackson, who recently retired from the Department of Agriculture thinks remote infrared crop scanning could be adopted by the end of the decade. But only if Paley finds the financial backing which he failed to obtain 10 years ago.

Passage One

Years ago, a cigarette commercial asked if you were smoking more, but enjoying it less. That describes the way many of us live today. We are doing more, but enjoying it less. And when that doesn't work, we get the problem. In our extremely hurried search for satisfaction, we try stuffing still more into our days, never realizing that we are taking the wrong approach.

The truth is simple; so simple it is hard to believe. Satisfaction lies with less, not with more. Yet, we pursue the myth that this thing, or that activity, will somehow provide the satisfaction we so desperately seek.

Arthur Lindman, in his very effective book, "The Harried Leisure Class," described the uselessness of pursuing more. His research focused on what people did with their leisure time. He found that as income rose, people bought more things to occupy their leisure time. But, ironically, the more things they bought, the less they valued any one of them. Carried to an extreme, he predicted massive boredom in the midst of tremendous variety. That was more than twenty years ago, and his prediction seems more accurate every year.

Lindman of course, is not the first to discover this. The writer of Ecclesiastes expressed the same thought thousands of years ago. It is better, he wrote, to have less, but enjoy it more.

If you would like to enjoy life more, I challenge you to experiment with me. How could you simplify your life? What could you drop? What could you do without? What could you stop pursuing? What few things could you concentrate on?

The more I learn, the more I realize that fullness of life does not depend on things. The more I give up, the more I seem to gain. But words will never convince you. You must try it for yourself.

Passage Two

The year 2000 will bring big changes in communication. Cell phones will be small enough to carry in your pocket. Videophones will let you see the person you are talking to on the phone. Tiny hand size computers will know your favorite subjects. The Internet and email will be everywhere. Technologists believe 20000 will be the year of video messaging. You will be able to see whom you're talking to.

Also in the near future small wireless boxes will pick up information from satellites. In 5 years, computers won't need to be connected through wires.

All of this will be good for rural areas and countries that don't have cable or telephone now.

In 20 years you may only need to think about something and the computer will do it.

Constance Hale is the author of Sin and Syntax, "I believe that email has been an incredible boo to communication. People are writing today where they would have been telephoning yesterday. So people are engaging with words more than they have for the last couple generations."

If people use email and the Internet more, it could make people better readers and writers. Some people think the most important part of communication is to make people understand each other better. Will technology make that easier?

The translator also comes in handy in medical emergencies. Tam Dinh says, "Where people are injured it's always important to get as much information as quickly as possible."

Bob Parks is an Associate Editor of Wired Magazine, "Bob's morning begins at about 6:45 a. m. and Bob is kind of mad, because Bob usually gets up at around 7:15 and likes to cut it close with his morning commute, but I look at my radio and it says that there's a traffic jam on 101 South and I'm gonna need an extra 1/2 hour. And so my radio has got a net connection, wireless net connection as well as a good old power cord to the wall and it has received notice that there's a traffic jam and it has calculated an extra 1/2 hour commute time."

Some day everything may be connected to the Internet. Your refrigerator will add milk to your Internet grocery list when the date on the carton has passed. Light bulbs will be ordered before they burn out.

It's fun to try to guess the future. Usually the predictions are wrong. The one thing we know for sure is that we can't imagine how technology will change.

Passage Three

The Mother Goose Stories, so well known to children all over the world, are commonly said to have been written by a little old woman for her grandchildren. According to some people, she lived in Boston, and her real name was Elizabeth Vergoose. Her son-in-law, a printer named Thomas Fleet, was supposed to have published the famous stories and poems for small children in 1719. However, no copy of this book has ever been found, and most scholars doubt the truth of this story and doubt, moreover, that Mother Goose was ever a real person. They point out that the name is a direct translation of the French "Mere I'Oye." In 1697 the Frenchman Charles Perrault published the first book in which this name was used. The collection contains eight tales, including "Sleeping Beauty", "Cinderella" and "Puss in Boots." But Perrault did not originate these stories; they were already quite popular in his day, and he only collected them.

Passage Four

In the old days, divers used to go down into the sea looking for ships that had sunk, because they hoped to find gold and jewels. Now divers still search for valuable things in sunken ships, but they also try to bring to the surface the ships themselves, or parts of them. The value of different kinds of metals has increased greatly over the last twenty or thirty years and even though a ship has been under the sea for many years, it may be worth a great deal.

One famous sunken ship is the "Lusitania", which sank off the southern coast of lreland in 1915 with a loss of nearly, 1, 500 lives. It has four huge propellers made of an expensive metal. Today each of those propellers is worth $ 300 ,000 or more. The ship lying on the seabed has been brought by a man called John Light. He paid about $ 1, 200, 000 for the whole ship. He hopes to bring up those propellers and sell them. He also hopes to sell other parts of the ship, when he has brought them to the surface, for about $ 600, 000.

Passage Five

The idea of a fish being able to generate electricity strong enough to light lamp bulbs--or even to run a small electric motor--is almost unbelievable , but several kinds of fish are able to do this. Even more strangely , this curious power has been acquired in different ways by fish belonging to very different families.

Perhaps the best known are the electric rays , or torpedoes(电鱼) ,of which several kinds live in warm seas. They posses on each side of the head ,behind the eyes ,a large organ consisting of a number of hexagonal shaped cells rather like a honeycomb. The cells are filled with a jelly-like substance , and contain a series of flat electric plates. One side, the negative side , of each plate , is supplied with very fine nerves , connected with a main nerve coming from a special part of the brain. Current passes from the upper, positive side of the organ downwards to the negative , lower side. Generally it is necessary to touch the fish in two places , completing the circuit, in order to receive a shock.

The strength of this shock depends on the size of the fish,but newly born ones only about 5 centimeters across can be made to light the bulb of a pocket flashlight for a few moments, while a fully grown torpedo gives a shock capable of knocking a man down, and, if suitable wires are connected , will operate a small electric motor for several minutes.

Another famous example is the electric eel. This fish gives an even more powerful shock. The system is different from that of the torpedo in that the electric plates run longitudinally(纵向)and are supplied with nerves from the spinal(脊骨)cord. Consequently, the current passes along the fish from head to tail. The electric organs of these fish are really altered muscles and like all muscles are apt(likely)to tire, so they are not able to produce electricity for very long.

The power of producing electricity may serve these fish both for defence and attack.

Passage One

Banks are not ordinarily prepared to pay out all accounts; they rely on depositors (储户) not to demand payment all at the same time. If depositors should come to fear that a bank is not safe, that it cannot pay off all its depositors, then that fear might cause all the depositors to appear on the same day. If they did, the bank could not pay all accounts. However, if they did not all appear at once, then there would always be enough money to pay those who wanted their money when they wanted it.

Mrs. Elsie Vaught has told us of a terrifying bank run that she experienced. One day in December of 1925 several banks failed to open in a city where Mrs. Vaught lived. The other banks expected a run the next day, and so the officers of the bank in which Mrs. Vaught worked as a teller had enough money on hand to pay off their depositors. The officers simply told the tellers to pay on demand. The next morning a crowd gathered in the bank and on the sidewalk outside. The length of the line made many think that the bank could not possibly pay off everyone. People began to push and then to fight for places near the tellers' windows. The power of the panic atmosphere was such that two tellers, though they knew that the bank was quite all right and could pay all depositors, drew their own money from the bank. Mrs. Vaught says that she had difficulty keeping herself from doing the same.

Passage Two

One of the greatest problems for those settlers in Nebraska in the last quarter of the previous century was fuel. Little of the state was forested when the first settlers arrived and it is probable that by 1880 , only about one-third of the originally forested area remained, down to a mere 1 percent of the state's 77 ,000 square miles. With wood and coal out of the question, and with fuel needed year-round for cooking, and during the harsh winter months for heating, some solution had to be found.

Somewhat improbably, the buffalo provided the answer. Buffalo chips (干牛粪) were found to bum evenly, hotly, and cleanly, with little smoke and interestingly, no odor. Soon, collecting them became a way of life for the settlers' children who would pick them up on their way to and from school, or take part in competitions designed to counteract their natural reluctance. Even a young man, seeking to impress the girl he wanted to marry, would arrive with a large bag of chips rather than with a box of candy or a bunch of flowers.

Passage Three

Eating in space is different from eating on earth. The food that astronauts carry with them does not look like the food you eat. Some fod is carried in closed bags. It is coked and frozen before the astronauts get it. AII the water is removed from the food. In the spaceship the astronaut puts the water back. He“schools" hot or cold water into the food bag with a special gun. He eats the food through a small hole in the bag.

Other foods come in bite sizes. The astronaut puts a whole piece in his mouth at once. There will be no crumbs. Crumbs would float around the spaceship and get in the way. Meat

and cake often come in bite-sized pieces. Astronauts can't drink water from open cups. The water would float in drops in the air. The water is put in the special gun. The astronaut shoots the water into his mouth. Eating in space is not easy. Astronauts must learn to eat this way.

Passage Four

What's the best way to protect a tender, green seedling from the hungry stomach of deer? Give the seedling bad breath!

The same chemical that gives people bad breath after they have eaten garlic can save small trees from being eaten by animals.

A kind of chemical selenium( 硒)，which is also found in garlic, is planted in the soil near a young tree. The tee's roots absorb the selenium which is then carried to the leaves.

From there the selenium is used to form a chemical called dimethyl selenide (乙烷硒化物)--the same chemical made in the human mouth after eating garlic. As deer wander around looking for food, they smell the seedings' leaves and leave the plants alone.

The selenium is important. Why? Because each year deer eat millions of dollars' worth of trees farm seedlings.

So far, selenium has been tested only on Douglas fir (枞树) seedings, but researchers think they could protect fruit trees and garden plants, too.

Passage Five

Auctions (拍卖) are public sales of goods , conducted by an officially approved auctioneer. He asks the crowd assembled in the auction room to make offers, or "bids", for the various items on sale. He encourages buyers to bid higher figures, and finally names the highest bidder as the buyer of goods. This is called "knocking down" the goods, for the bidding ends when the auctioneer bangs a small hammer on a table at which he stands. This is often set on a raised platform called a rostrum.

The ancient Romans probably invented sales by auction , and the English word comes from the Latin auction, meaning "increase". The Romans usually sold in this way the spoils taken in war ; these sales were called "subusta", meaning "under the spear"，a spear being stuck in the ground as a signal for a crowd to gather. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries goods were often sold by the candle, a short candle was lit by the auctioneer; and bids could be made while it stayed alight.

An auction is usually advertised beforehand with full particulars of the articles to be sold and where and when they can be viewed by possible buyers. If the advertisement cannot give full details, catalogues are printed, and each group of goods to be sold together, called a "lot", is usually given a number. The auctioneer need not begin with lot I and continue in numerical order; he may wait until he registers the fact that certain dealers are in the room and then produce the lots they are likely to be interested in. The auctioneer services are paid for in the form of a percentage of the price the goods are sold for. The auctioneer therefore has a direct interest in pushing up the bidding as high as possible.

Practically all goods whose qualities vary are sold by auction. Among these are coffee, hides , skins , wool , tea , cocoa，furs , spices , fruit and vegetables and wines. Auction sales are also usual for land, and property, antique, furniture, pictures, rare books, old china, and similar works of art. The auction-rooms at Christie's and Sotheby's in London and New York are world famous.

Passage One

Students enrolled at least half time may borrow up to $ 3 ,000 from the government over a two-year period. Repayment of the loan begins six months after the student leaves school. These loans carry on interest until this time. The current interest rate is 5 percent. Students may borrow up to $ 4 ,500 annually from a bank，credit union , savings and loan association or other eligible lender. Repayment on these loans usually begins six months after the student leaves school. These loans carry no interest until this time. This current interest rate is9 per- cent. Parents may borrow up to $ 300 annually for each dependent college. Repayment begins forty-five days after receiving the loan, and the interest rate is 12 percent.

Passage Two

Some people do not like anything to be out of place; they are never late for work; they return their books on tine to the library; they remember people's birthdays; and they pay their bills as soon as they arrive. Mr. Hill is such a man.

Mr. Hill works in a bank, and lives alone. The only family he has is in the next town: his sister lives there with her husband，and her son, Jack. Mr. Hill does not see his sister, or her family, from one year to the next, but he sends them Christmas cards, and he has not forgotten one of Jack's seventeen birthdays.

Last week Mr. Hill had quite a surprise. He drove home from the bank at the usual time, driving neither too slowly nor too fast; he parked his car where he always parked it, out of the way of other cars, and he went inside to make his evening meal. Just then, there was a knock at the door. He opened the door, to find a policeman standing on the door step.

"What have I done wrong?" Mr. Hill asked himself. "Have I driven on the wrong side of the road? Has there been some trouble at the bank? Have I forgotten to pay an important bill?" "Hello, Uncle," said the policeman, "My name is Jack."

Passage Three

The earliest immigrants to North America found Indians already living there. The Indians numbered about 500,000 at that time. Their society was a primitive society, but they lived peacefully and welcomed the white strangers to the land. However, these early immigrants from Europe didn't want to share the land with the natives. They killed off many of the Indians, seized their land and pushed them off to lands farther away. Today the Indians, not more than half a million, live in poverty and misery on the land on which they were once masters.

The earliest immigrants were the Spanish, who settled in the southern part of what is now the US. The next large group were the English, after the English came the French, Dutch, Irish, Germans , and other nationality groups, mostly European.

Another early group to arrive were the Negroes. But they were brought in as slaves from Africa. They didn't win freedom till generations later.

Passage Four

The energy which the sun radiates goes in every direction, and only a minute part of it falls on the earth. Even so, it represents power of about 5 ,000 ,000 horsepower (马力) per square mile per day; the sun gives us as much energy every minute as mankind utilizes in a year. At present, we use this energy indirectly, and it is our final source of power. Coal represents the chemical action of the sun on green plants thousands of years ago. Water power results from the rain formed by vapor which comes from the evaporation of water under the sunshine. Even windmills operate because of air currents set in motion by the different heating affects of the sun in different places. Some day, through chemistry or some type of solar engine, we shall harness this great source of energy more directly. Already a scientist has worked out an engine, surprisingly efficient, in which the sun's rays are concentrated through mirrors on a tube of water to create steam.

Passage Five

Some years ago industries had more freedom than they have now, and they did not need to be as careful as they must today. They did not need to worry a lot about the safety of the new products that they developed. They did not have to pay much attention to the health and safety of the people who worked for them. Often new products were dangerous for the people who used them; often conditions in the work place had very bad effects on the health of the workers.

Of course sometimes there were real disasters which attracted the attention of governments and which showed need for changes. Also scientists who were doing research into the health of workers sometimes produced information which governments could not ignore. At such times , there were inquiries into the causes of the disaster or the problems. New safety rules were often introduced as a result of these inquiries; however, the new rule, came too late to protect the people who died or who became seriously ill.

Today many governments have special departments which protect customers and workers. In the U.S., for example, there is a department which tests new airplanes and gives warnings about possible problems. It also makes the rules that aircraft producers must follow. Another department controls the foods and drugs that companies sell. A third department looks at the places where people work , and then reports any companies that are breaking laws which protect the health and safety of workers. Of course, new government departments and new laws cannot prevent every accident or illness, but they are having some good results. Our work places are safer and cleaner than before. The planes and cars which we use for travel are better. Producers are thinking more about the safety and health of the people who buy and use their products.