Certainly no creature in the sea is odder than the common sea cucumber. All living creature， especially human beings， have their peculiarities， but everything about the little sea cucumber seems unusual. What else can be said about a bizarre animal that， among other eccentricities， eats mud， feeds almost continuously day and night but can live without eating for long periods， and can be poisonous but is considered supremely edible by gourmets?
For some fifty million years， despite all its eccentricities， the sea cucumber has subsisted on its diet of mud. It is adaptable enough to live attached to rocks by its tube feet， under rocks in shallow water， or on the surface of mud flats. Common in cool water on both Atlantic and Pacific shores， it has the ability to suck up mud or sand and digest whatever nutrients are present.
Sea cucumbers come in a variety of colors， ranging from black to reddish brown to sand color and nearly white. One form even has vivid purple tentacles. Usually the creatures are cucumber shaped-hence their name-and because they are typically rock inhabitants， this shape， combined with flexibility， enables them to squeeze into crevices where they are safe from predators and ocean currents.
Although they have voracious appetites， eating day and night， sea cucumbers have the capacity to become quiescent and live at a low metabolic rate-feeding sparingly or not at all for long periods， so that the marine organisms that provide their food have a chance to multiply. If it were not for this faculty， they would devour all the food available in a short time and would probably starve themselves out of existence.
But the most spectacular thing about the sea cucumber is the way it defends itself. Its major enemies are fish and crabs， when attacked， it squirts all its internal organs into water. It also casts off attached structures such as tentacles. The sea cucumber will eviscerate and regenerate itself if it is attacked or even touched; it will do the same if the surrounding water temperature is too high or if the water becomes too polluted.
1. According to the passage， why is the shape of sea cucumbers important?
A. It helps them to digest their food.
B. It helps them to protect themselves from danger.
C. It makes it easier for them to move through the mud.
D. It makes them attractive to fish.
2. The fourth paragraph of the passage primarily discusses______.
A. the reproduction of sea cucumbers
B. the food sources of sea cucumbers
C. the eating habits of sea cucumbers
D. threats to sea cucumbers' existence
3. What can be inferred about the defence mechanisms of the sea cucumber?
A. They are very sensitive to surrounding stimuli.
B. They are almost useless.
C. They require group cooperation.
D. They are similar to those of most sea creatures.
4. Which of the following would NOT cause a sea cucumber to release its internal organs into the water?
A. A touch B. Food C. Unusually warm water D. Pollution.
About 5,000 years ago, the Egyptians and other people in the Near East began to use pictures as kind of writing. They drew simple pictures or signs to represent things and ideas, and also to represent the sounds of their language. The signs these people used became a kind of alphabet.
The Egyptians used to record information and to tell stories by putting picture writing and pictures together. When an important person died, scenes and stories from his life were painted and carved on the walls of the place where he was buried. Some of these pictures are like modern comic strip stories. It has been said that Egypt is the home of the comic strip. But, for the Egyptians, pictures still had magic power. So they did not try to make their way of writing simple. The ordinary people could not understand it.
By the year 1,000 BC, people who lived in the area around the Mediterranean Sea had developed a simpler system of writing. The signs they used were very easy to write, and there were fewer of them than in the Egyptian system. This was because each sign, or letter, represented only one sound in their language. The Greeks developed this system and formed the letters of the Greek alphabet. The Romans copied the idea, and the Roman alphabet is now used all over the world.
These days, we can write down a story, or record information, without using pictures. But we still need pictures of all kinds: drawing, photographs, signs and diagrams. We find them everywhere: in books and newspapers, in the street, and on the walls of the places where we live and work. Pictures help us to understand and remember things more easily, and they can make a story much more interesting.
1. Pictures of animals were painted on the walls of caves in France and Spain because______.
A. the hunters wanted to see the pictures
B. the painters were animal lovers
C. the painters wanted to show imagination
D. the pictures were thought to be helpful
2. The Greek alphabet was simpler than the Egyptian system for all the following reasons EXCEPT that______.
A. the former was easy to write
B. there were fewer signs in the former
C. the former was easy to pronounce
D. each sign stood for only one sound
3. Which of the following statements is TRUE?
A. The Egyptian signs later became a particular alphabet.
B. The Egyptians liked to write comic strip stories.
C. The Roman alphabet was developed from the Egyptian one.
D. The Greeks copied their writing system from the Egyptians.
4. In the last paragraph, the author thinks that pictures ______.
A. should be made comprehensible
B. should be made interesting
C. are of much use in our life
D. have disappeared from our life
“To be or not to be”. Outside the Bible, these six words are the most famous in all the literature of the world. They were spoken by Hamlet when he was thinking aloud, and they are the most famous words in Shakespeare because Hamlet was speaking not only for himself but also for every thinking man and woman. To be or not to be, to live or not to live, to live richly and abundantly and eagerly, or to live dully and meanly and scarcely. A philosopher once wanted to know whether he was alive or not, which is a good question for everyone to put to himself occasionally. He answered it by saying: "I think, therefore am."
But the best definition of existence ever saw did another philosopher who said: "To be is to be in relations." If this true, then the more relations a living thing has, the more it is alive. To live abundantly means simply to increase the range and intensity of our relations. Unfortunately we are so constituted that we get to love our routine. But apart from our regular occupation how much are we alive? If you are interest-ed only in your regular occupation, you are alive only to that extent. So far as other things are concerned--poetry and prose, music, pictures, sports, unselfish friendships, politics, international affairs--you are dead.
Contrariwise, it is true that every time you acquire a new interest--even more, a new accomplishment--you increase your power of life. No one who is deeply interested in a large variety of subjects can remain un-happy, the real pessimist is the person who has lost interest.
Bacon said that a man dies as often as he loses a friend. But we gain new life by contacts, new friends. What is supremely true of living objects is only less true of ideas, which are also alive. Where your thoughts are, there will your live be also. If your thoughts are confined only to your business, only to your physical welfare, only to the narrow circle of the town in which you live, then you live in a narrow cir-conscribed life. But if you are interested in what is going on in China, then you are living in China~ if you’re interested in the characters of a good novel, then you are living with those highly interesting people, if you listen intently to fine music, you are away from your immediate surroundings and living in a world of passion and imagination.
To be or not to be--to live intensely and richly, merely to exist, that depends on ourselves. Let widen and intensify our relations. While we live, let live!
Teenagers, when they grow up, begin to question their parents' authority and wisdom. And I tell you, they're not always wrong. Most parents have children too young themselves. They are not themselves wise enough to lead other unwise human beings. But the system of our world is like that. So we grow up, many of us being frustrated with our parents, because they want to have the right and authority to tell us what to do. And then we sometimes question that because they are not always right. This is true. But they are authority figures. We cannot argue with them. Yet, we feel frustrated inside. Sometimes younger people have more wisdom than older people, because all of us have wisdom to begin with. It doesn't mean that if you are born later, you have less wisdom. It's not always true. It is because we are born with wisdom, you see!
But then, according to worldly experience, the parents should be a little older in order to understand how to raise their children. But in our society, if you have children, you have to raise them, no matter how old you are, and most people in this society even encourage people to marry early so that they can raise children early while they are strong. They are strong, but they might not be wise.
Henry ford didn’t always pay attention in school. one day ,he and a friend took a watch apart. Angry and upset, the teacher told him both to stay after school. Their punishment was to stay until they had fixed the watch. But the teacher did not know young ford’s genius. In ten minutes, this mechanical wizard had repaired the watch and was on this way home..
Ford was always interested in how things worked. He once plugged up the spout of a teapot and placed it on the fire. Then he waited to see what would happen. The water boiled and, of course, turned to steam. Since the steam had no way to escape, the teapot exploded. The explosion cracked a mirror and broke a window.
The young inventor was badly scalded ford’s year of curiosity and tinkering paid off. He dreamed of a horseless carriage. When he built one, the world of transportation was changed forever.
It was very late and everyone had left the cafe except an old man who sat in the shadow the leaves of the tree made against the electric light. In the day time the street was dusty, but at night the dew settled the dust and the old man liked to sit late because he was deaf and now at night it was quiet and he felt the difference. The two waiters inside the cafe knew that the old man was a little drunk, and while he was a good client they knew that if he became too drunk he would leave without paying, so they kept watch on him.
"Last week he tried to commit suicide," one waiter said.
"Why?"
"He was in despair."
"What about?"
"Nothing."
"How do you know it was nothing?"
"He has plenty of money."
They sat together at a table that was close against the wall near the door of the cafe and looked at the terrace where the tables were all empty except where the old man sat in the shadow of the leaves of the tree that moved slightly in the wind. A girl and a soldier went by in the street. The street light shone on the brass number on his collar. The girl wore no head covering and hurried beside him.
"The guard will pick him up," one waiter said.
"What does it matter if he gets what he's after?"
"He had better get off the street now. The guard will get him. They went by five minutes ago."
The old man sitting in the shadow rapped on his saucer with his glass. The younger waiter went over to him.
"What do you want?"
The old man looked at him. "Another brandy," he said.
Tucked away in our subconscious is an idyllic vision. We see ourselves on a long trip that spans the continent. We are traveling by train. Out the windows, we drink in the passing scene of cars on nearby highways, of children waving at a crossing, of cattle grazing on a distant hillside, of smoke pouring from a power plant, of row upon row of corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of mountains and rolling hillsides, of city skylines and village halls.
But uppermost in our minds is the final destination. On a certain day at a certain hour, we will pull into the station. Bands will be playing and flags waving. Once we get there, so many wonderful dreams will come true and the pieces of our lives will fit together like a completed jigsaw puzzle. How restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes for loitering --waiting, waiting, waiting for the station.
"When we reach the station, that will be it! "we cry. "When I'm 18. ""When I buy a new 450SL Mercedes Benz! ""When I put the last kid through college. ""When I have paid off the mortgage!""When I get a promotion.""When I reach the age of retirement, I shall live happily ever after! "
Sooner or later, we must realize there is no station, no one place to arrive at once and for all. The true joy of life is the trip. The station is only a dream. It constantly outdistances us.
"Relish the moment " is a good motto, especially when coupled with Psalm 118：24："This is the day which the Lord hath made;we will rejoice and be glad in it. " It isn't the burdens of today that drive men mad. It is the regrets over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves who rob us of today.
So stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. In stead, climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot more often, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more, cry less. Life must be lived as we go along. The station will come soon enough.
Let children learn to judge their own work. A child learning to talk does not learn by being corrected all the time; if corrected too much, he will stop talking. He notices a thousand times a day the difference between the languages he uses and the language those around him use. Bit by bit, he makes the necessary changes to make his language like other people. In the same way, when children learn to do all the other things they learn to do without being taught-to walk, run, climb, whistle, ride a bicycle-compare those performances with those of more skilled people, and slowly make the needed changes. But in school we never give a child a chance to find out his own mistakes for himself, let alone correct them. We do it all for him. We act as if we thought that he would never notice a mistake unless it was pointed out to him, or correct it unless he was made to. Soon he becomes dependent on the teacher. Let him do it himself. Let him work out, with the help of other children if he wants it, what this word says, what answer is to that problem, whether this is a good way of saying or doing this or not.
If it is a matter of right answers, as it may be in mathematics or science, give him the answer book. Let him correct his own papers. Why should we teachers waste time on such routine work? Our job should be to help the child when he tells us that he can’t find the way to get the right answer. Let’s end this nonsense of grades, exams, marks, Let us throw them all out, and let the children learn what all educated persons must some day learn, how to measure their own understanding, how to know what they know or do not know.
Let them get on with this job in the way that seems sensible to them. With our help as school teachers if they ask for it. The idea that there is a body of knowledge to be learnt at school and used for the rest of one’s life is nonsense in a world as complicated and rapidly changing as ours. Anxious parents and teachers say, “But suppose they fail to learn something essential they will need to get in the world?” Don’t worry! If it is essential, they will go out into the world and learn it.
1.What does the author think is the best way for children to learn things?
A.by copying what other people do.
B.by making mistakes and having them corrected.
C.by listening to explanations from skilled people.
D.by asking a great many questions.
2.What does the author think teachers do which they should not do?
A.They give children correct answers.
B.They point out children’s mistakes to them.
C.They allow children to mark their own work.
D.They encourage children to mark to copy from one another.
3.The passage suggests that learning to speak and learning to ride a bicycle are___.
A.not really important skills.
B.more important than other skills.
C.basically different from learning adult skills.
D.basically the same as learning other skills.
4.Exams, grades, and marks should be abolished because children’s progress should only be estimated by___.
A.educated persons.
B.the children themselves.
C.teachers.
D.parents.
5.The author fears that children will grow up into adults while being___.
A.too independent of others.
B.too critical of themselves.
C.incapable to think for themselves.
D.incapable to use basic skills.
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