My daughter recently asked me what a Travel Agency does. There is one located on our street and it has just been completely rebuilt. I told her that they helped people book their trips and vacations. “Why haven’t we ever been in there?” she wanted to know. “Because we do everything ourselves online these days” I explained. “But why do it yourself if other people want to do it for you?” she wondered out loud.
The answer is that the travel agency makes a little bit of money on each ticket you book through them. If you book your ticket yourself, online, you save that money. Saving money sounds great except that when you think about it you typically spend three evenings comparing prices to end up saving $30 on a $300 trip. All those $30 discounts add up of course so I guess we should be happy with that.
Still, how bad is it really to pay someone $30 and trust them to buy you something decent? Wouldn’t you say your free evenings are worth more than $10 a piece?
Consider books for a moment. Buying your book at Amazon saves you maybe 30% to 40% on each book. Add to that the convenience of shopping from home and getting the package delivered to your home address. So far so good.
Unfortunately that does mean you spend way too much time browsing Amazon. com while you could do something fun instead. Like maybe reading an actual book?
Then the package arrives and you aren’t home and end up having to pick it up at the local post- office. All in all I wonder how much time I end up investing in the whole process.
Time sounds free, but to most of us, it is more valuable than money.
The Internet Economy promised to get rid of the middle-men and we loved it. Somehow, I’m starting to get the feeling that we ourselves ended up doing the work of that middle-men we were so eager to get rid of.
In any project you can always pick two of these: fast, cheap or good. We seem to have focused a lot on ‘cheap’ and ‘good’ but the extra time we need to invest to keep it ‘fast’ comes out of our own pockets.
You can always make more money but you can never make more time.
小题1:What is the purpose of the first paragraph?| A．It mainly shows the curiosity of the author’s daughter. | | B．It indicates that the Internet has influenced our daily life. | | C．It tells us the importance of a travel agency. | | D．It shows why people need a travel agency. |
小题2:What’s the author’s attitude towards the Internet Economy?| A．The author thinks online shopping saves time and is a convenient way to buy products. | | B．The author worries about sending personal information over the internet. | | C．The author doesn’t think online shopping is satisfactory in every way. | | D．The author likes the convenience but is concerned about the e-commerce environment. |
小题3:What’s the best title for the passage?| A．The convenience of the Internet Economy. | | B．How to save money in the Internet Economy. | | C．The hidden cost of the Internet Economy. | | D．How to save time in the Internet Economy. |
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小题1:B
小题2:C
小题3:C |
文章讲述的是网购虽然可以节省我们的开支，但是却花了我们大量的时间，省钱是有代价的。
小题1:主旨大意题，根据第一段Because we do everything ourselves online these days可知，现在人们的生活受到了英特网的影响。
小题2:推理判断题，根据文章中作者讲到网购的好处和存在的问题可以得知，作者不是全面肯定网购
小题3:推理判断题，根据文章内容可知，作者认为网购虽然省了一些钱，但是花费了很多的时间，这就是网购的隐藏代价。 |
核心考点
试题【My daughter recently asked me what a Travel Agency does. There is one located on】；主要考察你对
题材分类等知识点的理解。
[详细]举一反三
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is one of the most loved children’s books of all time, and many adults enjoy it as well. It tells the story of a young girl named Alice, who follows a rabbit entering a magical world called Wonderland. She has many experiences which seem to change the rules of reasoning or common sense. The popularity of the book comes from its imagination, interesting story, and art work.
The writer of the book is Lewis Carroll. In fact, Lewis Carroll was not the writer’s real name. His real name was Charles Dodgson. One day, he took a boat ride down the Thames River to have a picnic with three little girls who were friends of the family. To keep them entertained on the ride, he told them a story in which Alice, the middle child, was the main character. They enjoyed the story very much.
Charles later wrote the story down under the name Alice’s Adventures Under Ground and gave it to Alice as a Christmas present. Later, he gave a copy to his friend George MacDonald. George read it to his children and they loved it. George suggested to Charles that he make a book from his story. Charles then wrote more parts to the story until it was around 35,000 words. It was first printed in 1866, with art work by John Tenniel, under the name Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The book was an immediate success. One of its first fans was Queen Victoria. She immediately requested a collection of all of Lewis Carroll’s works. She was surprised to find that they included many works on math. In fact, Charles Dodgson was a highly respected mathematician. This can be seen in many puzzles and plays on reasoning that appear in his books and poems.
Since the story was first printed, it has kept selling up to the present day. It has been translated into over fifty languages and has had several movies based on it.
小题1:The passage is mainly about _________.| A．Charles’ family life | | B．the birth of a book and its lasting influences | | C．a magical world called Wonderland | | D．a girl’s adventurous experiences |
小题2:Who first had the idea of making a book from the story “Alice Adventures Under Ground”?| A．Alice | B．Charles | C．George | D．John |
小题3:Which of the following is the right order of the passage?
a. Charles gave his story to Alice as a Christmas present.
b. Charles had a picnic with three little girls on the Thames.
c. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was first printed in 1866.
d. More parts were added to the story by Charles.
e. The book won a large number of fans.| A．c-b-a-d-e | B．c-a-b-e-d | C．b-a-d-c-e | D．b-a-c-e-d |
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My mother really knows how to get others to do what she suggests. Besides my father, her neighbors and even a stranger in a grocery store, has fallen under her 36 .
One day we were shopping in a supermarket. When we were passing by the baby aisle(过道), she 37 a young mother browsing through different brands of powdered milk. Her baby was playing with a toy. My mother 38 babies so she went up to the woman and chatted with her.
My mother is an easy person to like. She has the kindest eyes in the world, so it isn’t 39
to trust her. She 40 with the baby a little bit and told the woman about how I used to be cute at that age, too. They laughed together.
The woman was about to put Brand X Milk Powder in her cart when my mother suggested Brand Y 41 because it obviously had better vitamins. Would you believe the woman actually
42 brands just like that?
She really does know how to influence people. But what about her getting other people to
43 whatever she tells them?
My father and I actually had a long conversation about her 44 on how to influence people. According to my father, my mother is just a really likeable person, and she has 45 been
like that, even when he first met her. Chatting people up is natural for her.
During our conversation, I realized that what my mother has is the 46 to build rapport(亲善) with other people. With rapport comes 47 . People are more likely to be influenced by those who they think understand their viewpoints or share their opinions.
| 小题1: | | A．leadership | B．control | C．instruction | D．influence |
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| 小题2: | | A．noticed | B．kept | C．watched | D．felt |
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| 小题3: | | A．admires | B．adores | C．adopts | D．praises |
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| 小题4: | | A．obvious | B．difficult | C．necessary | D．natural |
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| 小题5: | | A．sang | B．dealt | C．spoke | D．played |
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| 小题6: | | A．instead | B．finally | C．yet | D．anyhow |
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| 小题7: | | A．bought | B．considered | C．compared | D．switched |
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| 小题8: | | A．hear | B．accept | C．need | D．understand |
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| 小题9: | | A．plan | B．advice | C．secret | D．speech |
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| 小题10: | | A．always | B．frequently | C．seldom | D．occasionally |
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| 小题11: | | A．desire | B．motivation | C．purpose | D．ability |
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| 小题12: | | A．relationship | B．respect | C．trust | D．kindness |
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Senior citizens are permitted to travel cheaply on a bus if they have a special card. Women may get cards when they are sixty.
Mrs. Matthews lived in the country but she went into town once a week to buy food and other things for the house, and she usually went by bus. She always had to pay the full price for her ride.
Then she reached the age of sixty and got her senior citizen’s card, but when she used it for the first time on the bus, it made her feel very old.
The bus driver had often seen her traveling on the bus before, and he noticed that she was feeling unhappy, so after she had paid her money, he winked at her and whispered, “Don’t forget to give your mother’s card back to her when you see her again.”
Mrs. Matthews was very happy when she heard this.
小题1:Senior citizens in the story refer to .| A．those who have special cards | | B．old people with special cards | | C．people who hold high positions in the government | | D．those who wanted to travel cheaply |
小题2:Women over sixty .| A．don’t have to pay for taking buses | | B．pay less for their ride if they have a special card | | C．have to pay the full price for their ride | | D．have to pay their special card |
小题3:Mrs. Matthews used to pay the full price for her ride because .| A．she didn’t know the rule | | B．she wasn’t old enough | | C．she didn’t know where to get the card | | D．she had reached sixty but had not got her senior citizen card |
小题4:Mrs. Matthews felt unhappy on the bus because .| A．she still had to pay for the ride | | B．the card wasn’t hers | | C．she felt she was now an old woman | | D．the driver found out she was not honest |
小题5:The driver whispered to her .| A．in order to make her feel younger | | B．because he thought that she shouldn’t have borrowed her mother’s card | | C．because he wanted her to pay the full amount | | D．because he knew her mother was still alive |
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About six years ago I was eating lunch in a restaurant in New York City when a woman and a young boy sat down at the next table. I couldn’t help overhearing parts of their conversation. At one point the woman asked: “So, how have you been?” And the boy—who could not have been more than seven or eight years old—replied, “Frankly, I’ve been feeling a little depressed lately.”
This incident stuck in my mind because it confirmed my growing belief that children are changing. As far as I can remember, my friends and I didn’t find out we were “depressed”, that is, in low sprits, until we were in high school.
Undoubtedly a change in children has increased steadily in recent years. Children don’t seem childlike anymore. Children speak more like adults, dress more like adults and behave more like adults than they used to.
Whether this is good or bad is difficult to say, but it certainly is different. Childhood as it once was no longer exists. Why?
Human development is based not only on born biological states, but also on patterns of access to social knowledge. Movement from one social role to another usually involves learning the secrets of the new status. Children have always been taught adult secrets, but slowly and in stages: traditionally, we tell sixth graders things we keep hidden from fifth graders.
In the last 30 years, however, a secret-revelation（揭示）machine has been installed in 98 percent of American homes. It is called television. Television passes information to all viewers alike, whether they are children or adults. Unable to resist the temptation, many children turn their attention from printed texts to the less challenging, more vivid moving pictures.
Communication through print, as a matter of fact, allows for a great deal of control over the social information to which children have access. Reading and writing involve a complex code of symbols that must be memorized and practiced. Children must read simple books before they can read complex materials.
小题1:According to the author, feeling depressed is________.| A．a sure sign of a mental problem in a child | | B．a mental state present in all humans, including children | | C．something that cannot be avoided in children’s mental development | | D．something hardly to be expected in a young child |
小题2:Traditionally, a child is supposed to learn about the adult world________.| A．through connection with society | | B．gradually and under guidance | | C．naturally without being taught | | D．through watching television |
小题3:According to the author, that today’s children seem adultlike results from ________.| A．the widespread influence of television | | B．the poor arrangement of teaching content | | C．the fast pace of human scientific development | | D．the rising standard of living |
小题4:What does the author think of communication through print for children?| A．It enables children to gain more social information. | | B．It develops children’s interest in reading and writing. | | C．It helps children to read and write well. | | D．It can control what children are to learn. |
小题5:What does the author think of the change in today’s children?| A．He feels their adultlike behavior is so funny | | B．He thinks the change worthy of note. | | C．He considers it a rapid development. | | D．He seems to be upset about it. |
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My neighbor’s children love playing hide-and-seek (捉迷藏) as all children do, but no one 36 that a game they played last week would be reported in the local newspaper.
One afternoon, they were playing in the vacant lot (空地)down by the corner. Young Paul, who is only five years old, found the perfect place to 37 . His sister, Natalie, had 38 her eyes and was counting to ten when Paul noticed the mail box at the corner and that the metal door was standing open. The mailman had just 39 several bags of mail and had carried them to his truck which was standing a few feet away. Paul climbed 40 the mail box and pulled the door closed so hard that it 41 . Soon realizing what he had done, he became 42 and started crying. At that time, Natalie was looking for him everywhere but could not find him. It was 43 that she happened to stand at the corner for a minute and heard her brother’s cries. She 44 ran to tell the mailman who hurried back from his 45 to unlock the metal door. Paul was now 46 , but he had such a bad fright that he could not stop crying. The mailman, however, soon found a way of making him 47 again. He told him that the next time he wanted to hide in a mail box, he should remember to put a stamp on himself!
| 小题1: | | A．realized | B．warned | C．imagined | D．wondered |
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| 小题2: | | A．hide | B．watch | C．rest | D．sleep |
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| 小题3: | | A．opened | B．shut | C．raised | D．wiped |
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| 小题4: | | A．lost | B．found | C．taken out | D．put in |
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| 小题5: | | A．through | B．over | C．out of | D．into |
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| 小题6: | | A．broke | B．fell down | C．opened | D．locked |
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| 小题7: | | A．surprised | B．frightened | C．excited | D．angry |
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| 小题8: | | A．lucky | B．a pity | C．possible | D．strange |
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| 小题9: | | A．suddenly | B．slowly | C．immediately | D．carelessly |
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| 小题10: | | A．home | B．truck | C．mail box | D．post office |
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| 小题11: | | A．found | B．hidden | C．happy | D．free |
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| 小题12: | | A．laugh | B．cry | C．climb in | D．play |
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