How man first learnt to invent words is unknown; in other words, the origin of language is a mystery. All we really know is that man, unlike animals, somehow invented certain sounds to express thoughts and feelings, actions and things, so that they could communicate with each other; and that later they agreed upon certain signs, called letters, which could be combined to stand for those sounds, and which could be written down. Those sounds, whether spoken or written in letters, we call words. The power of words, then lies in their association with the things they bring up before our minds. Words became filled with meanings for us by experience; and the longer we live, the more certain words recall to us the glad and sad events of our past; and the more we read and learn, the more the number of words that mean something to us increase. Great writers are those who not only have great thoughts but also express these thoughts in words that appeal powerfully to our minds and emotions. We should therefore learn to choose our words carefully and use them exactly, or they will make our speech silly and impolite. What is true about the words
A. They are used to express feeling only.
B. They can’t be written down.
C. They are spoken or written sounds.
D. They are soundless signs.
阅读下面这篇短文,短文后列出了7个句子,请根据短文的内容对每个句子作出判断。如果该句提供的是正确信息,请选择A项:如果该句提供的是错误信息,清选择B项;如果该句的信息文章中没有提及,请选择C项。 Rescue Platform In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, security experts are trying to develop new ways of rescuing people from buming skysrapers. One idea is a platform capable of flying vertically and hovering in the air like a helicopter. The platform would rise up and down alongside a skyscraper and pick up people trapped in high stories. The idea for the vertical takeoff platform was hatched more than ten years ago by a Russian aerospace engineer, David Metreveli, who has since moved to Israel. Metreveli’s dedsign, called the Eagle, calls for two jet engines that turn four large horizontal propellers. The spinning of the propellers generates the necessary lift, or upward force, to raise the platform. The more power is supplied to the propellers, the higher the platform rises. Moving the platform sideways involves applying differing amounts of power to each propeller. Helicopters are now used in some cases to get people out of buming buildings, Escape baskets slung from them dangle beside the building for people to climb into. Unfortunately, the baskets cannot reach every floor of a building because the ropes from which they hang become unstable beyond a certain length. So far, Metreveli has built a small-scale model of the Eagle to test his idea. In the wake of September 11, he has been able to secure enough funding to start building a larger, 4-meter by 4-meter prototype, which he calls the Eaglet. Mr. Metreveli is designing for Israel a more advanced form of rescue platform than the Eagle or the Eaglet.
A. Right
B. Wrong
C. Not mentioned
第二篇 Will Quality Eat up the US Lead in Software If US software companies don’t pay more attention to quality, they could kiss their business good-bye. Both India and Brazil are developing a world-class software industry. Their weapon is quality and one of their jobs is to attract the top US quality specialists whose voices are not listened to in their country. AIready, of the world’s 12 software houses that have earned the highest rating in the world, seven are in India. That’s largely because they have used new methodologies rejected by American software specialists. For example, for decades, quality specialists, W. Edwards Deming and J. M.Juran had urged US software companies to change their attitudes to quality. But their quality call mainly fell on deaf ears in the US — but not in Japan. By the 1970s and 1980s, Japan was grabbing market share with better, cheaper products. They used Deming’s and Juran’s ideas to bring down the cost of good quality to as little as 5% of total production costs. In US factories, the cost of quality then was 10 times as high: 50%. In software, it still is. Watts S. Humphrey spent 27 years at IBM heading up software production and then quality assurance. But his advice was seldom paid attention to. He retired from IBM in 1986. In 1987, he worked out a system for assessing and improving software quality. It has proved its value time and again. For example, in 1990 the cost of quality at Raytheon Electronics Systems was almost 60% of total software production costs. It tell to 15% in 1996 and has since further dropped to below 10%. Like Deming and Juran, Humphrey seems to be winning more praises overseas than at home. The Indian government and several companies have just founded the Watts Humphrey Software Quality Institute at the Software Technology Park in Chennai, India. Let’s hope that US lead in software will not be eaten up by its quality problems. What is the writer worrying about
A. Many US software specialists are working for Japan.
B. The quality problem has become a worldwide problem.
C. India and Japan are joining hands to compete with the US.
D. The US will no longer be the first software player in the world.
阅读下面的短文,文章中有5处空白,文章后有6组文字,请根据文章的内容选择5组文字,将其分别放回文章原有位置,以恢复文章原貌。 The Joy of Living Alone More and more Americans are living alone. Some live alone because of divorce or the death of a partner. (1) According to a recent US census (人口普查), 25 percent of all households in the US are made up of just one person. This is a dramatic change from the extended families of just a couple of generations ago. The typical person living alone is neither old nor lonely. (2) The majority of these people have chosen to live alone. They are responding to decreasing social pressure to get married and have a family. It’s now socially acceptable, even fashionable, to live alone. As people get better jobs and become financially independent, it becomes possible for them to maintain a one-person household. (3) However, people who do get married are marrying at.a later age and divorcing more often. The number one reason given by most people for living alone is that they simply enjoy doing what they want when they want to do it. "Living alone is a luxury,"says Nina Hagiwara, "Once you do it, you can’t ever go back to living with others." David C. Debaca, agrees. (4) Children think that being grown up means being able to do exactly as they please. (5) The chance to discover whether that freedom is as wonderful as it sounds is a chance more and more Americans are taking. A. There’s more pressure to get married nowadays. B. The growing number of women with good jobs has done much to increase the number of people living alone. C. However, even more people are living alone because they have chosen to. D. It seems that many grown-ups today are realizing that childhood dream. E. In fact, a quarter of the 23 million single people in the US are under the age of 35. F. He says, "I like being by myself."