ecosystem (生态系统). Unlike other animals, the African elephant is to a great extent the builder of its
environment. As a big plant-eater, it largely shapes the forest-and-savanna (大草原) surroundings in
which it lives, therefore setting the terms of existence for millions of other animals that live in its habitat
(栖息地).
It is the elephant"s great desire for food that makes it a disturber of the environment and an important
builder of its habitat. In its continuous search for the 300 pounds of plants it must have every day, it kills
small trees and underbushes, and pulls branches off big trees. This results in numerous open spaces in both
deep tropical forests and in the woodlands that cover part of the African savannas. In these open spaces
are numerous plants in various stages of growth that attract a variety of other plant-eaters.
Take the rain forests for example. In their natural state, the spreading branches overhead shut out
sunlight and prevent the growth of plants on the forest floor. By pulling down trees and eating plants,
elephants make open spaces, allowing new plants to grow on the forest floor. In such situations, the forests
become suitable for large hoofed plant-eaters to move around and for small plant-eaters to get their food as
well.
What worries scientists now is that the African elephant has become an endangered species. If the
elephant disappears, scientists say, many other animals will also disappear from vast areas of forest and
savanna, greatly changing and worsening the whole ecosystem.
B. Forests and savannas as habitats for African elephants.
C. The effect of African elephants" search for food.
D. The eating habit of African elephants.
B. Worsening the state.
C. Improving the quality.
D. Deciding the conditions.
B. They provide food mainly for African elephants.
C. They are home to many endangered animals.
D. They are attractive to plant-eating animals of different kinds.
B. pointing out similarities and differences
C. describing the changes in space order
D. giving examples
what objects they select, artists are to bring forth new forces and forms that cause change-to find poetry
where no one has ever seen or experienced it before.
Landscape (风景) is another unchanging element of art. It can be found from ancient times through the
17th-century Dutch painters to the 19th-century romanticists and impressionists. In the 1970s Alfred Leslie,
one of the new American realists, continued this practice. Leslie sought out the same place where Thomas
Cole, a romanticist, had produced paintings of the same scene a century and a half before. Unlike Cole who
insists on a feeling of loneliness and the idea of finding peace in nature, Leslie paints what he actually sees.
In his paintings, there is no particular change in emotion, and he includes ordinary things like the highway
in the background. He also takes advantage of the latest developments of color photography (摄影术) to help
both the eye and the memory when he improves his painting back in his workroom.
Besides, all art begs the age-old question: What is real? Each generation of artists has shown their
understanding of reality in one form or another. The impressionists saw reality in brief emotional effects, the
realists in everyday subjects and in forest scenes, and the Cro-Magnon cave people in their naturalistic
drawings of the animals in the ancient forests. To sum up, understanding reality is a necessary struggle for
artists of all periods.
Over thousands of years the function of the arts has remained relatively constant. Past or present,
Eastern or Western, the arts are a basic part of our immediate experience. Many and different are the faces
of art, and together they express the basic need and hope of human beings.
B. a collection of poems
C. an unusual quality
D. a natural scene
B. they look like works by 19th-century painters
C. they draw attention to common things in life
D. they depend heavily on color photography
B. It does not have a long-lasting standard.
C. It is expressed in a fixed artistic form.
D. It is lacking in modern works of art.
B. They make people interested in everyday experience.
C. They are considered important for variety in form.
D. They are regarded as a mirror of the human situation.
B. Basic questions of the arts.
C. New developments in the arts.
D. Use of modern technology in the arts
Cloze test.
flights were given plenty of work to keep them 1 . They were also in constant communication with people
on the earth. 2 , being with people from whom you cannot get away might be even harder that being alone.
This is what happens on long submarine (潜水艇) voyages. It will also happen on 3 space flights in the
future. Will there be special problems of adjustment under such conditions?
Scientists have studied the reactions of men to one another during long submarine voyages. They have
found that longer the voyage lasts, the more serious the problem of 4 is. When men are 5 together for
a long period, they begin to feel uneasy. Everyone has little habits of speaking and behaving that are ordinarily
acceptable. In the limited space over a long period of time, however, these little habits may become very 6 .
Apparently, although no one wants to be 7 all the time, everyone needs some degree of privacy. When
people are enclosed together, they are in what is called a stress situation. That means that they are under an
unusual amount of 8 or stress.
People who are well-adjusted are able to 9 stress situations better than others. That is one reason why
so much care is taken in 10 our astronauts. These men undergo a long period of testing and training. One
of the things tested is their behaviour under stress.
( )1.A. tired ( )2.A. So for ( )3.A. long ( )4.A. fuel ( )5.A. shut up ( )6.A. pleasing ( )7.A. noisy ( )8.A. emphasis ( )9.A. handle ( )10.A. becoming | B. asleep B. After all B. fast B. entertainment B. held up B. annoying B. alone B. conflict B. create B. choosing | C. conscious C. However C. dangerous C. adjustment C. brought up C. common C. personal C. power C. affect C. ordering | D. busy D. Therefore D. direct D. health D. picked up D. valuable D. sociable D. pressure D. investigate D. promoting | |||||||||||||||||||||
Cloze test. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
One topic is rarely mentioned in all the talk of improving standards in our schools: the almost complete failure of the foreign-language teaching. As a French graduate who has taught for more than twenty-five years, I believe I have some idea of why the failure is so total. 1 the faults already found out in the education system as a whole-such as child-centred learning. The "discovery" method, and the low expectations by teachers of pupils-there have been several serious 2 which have a direct effect on language teaching. The first is the removal from the curriculum (课程) of the thorough teaching of English 3 . Pupils now do not know a verb from a noun, the subject of a sentence from its object, or the difference between the past, present, or future. Another important error is mixed-ability teaching, or teaching in ability groups so 4 that the most able pupils are 5 and are bored while the least able are lost and 6 bored. Strangely enough, few head teachers seem to be in favour of mixed-ability school football teams. Progress depends on memory, and pupils start to forget immediately they stop having 7 lessons. This is why many people who attended French lessons at school, even those who got good grades, have forgotten it a few years later. 8 they never need it, they do not practise it. Most American schools have accepted what is inevitable and 9 modern languages, even Spanish, from the curriculum. Perhaps it is time for Britain to do the same, and stop 10 resources on a subject which few pupils want or need. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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