第三篇 Youth Emancipation in Spain The Spanish Government is so worried about the number of young adults still living with their parents that it has decided to help them leave the nest. Around 55 percent of people aged 18-34 in Spain still sleep in their parents’ homes, says the latest report from the country’s state-run Institute of Youth. To coax (劝诱) young people from their homes, the Institute started a "Youth Emancipation (解放)" program this month. The program offers guidance in finding rooms and jobs. Economists blame young people’s family dependence on the precarious (不稳定的) labor market and increasing housing prices. Housing prices have risen 17 percent a year since 2000. Cultural reasons also contribute to the problem, say sociologists (社会学家). Family ties in south Europe - Italy, Portugal and Greece - are stronger than those in middle and north Europe, said Spanish sociologist Almudena Moreno Minguez in her report "The Late Emancipation of Spanish Youth: Key for Understanding". "In general, young people in Spain firmly believe in the family as the main body around which their private life is organized," said Minguez. In Spain - especially in the countryside, it is not uncommon to find entire groups of aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews (外侄/侄子) all living on the same street. They regularly get together for Sunday dinner. Parents’ tolerance is another factor. Spanish parents accept late-night partying and are wary of setting bedtime rules. "A child can arrive home at whatever time he wants. If parents complain he’ll put up a fight and call the father a fascist," said Jose Antonio G6mez Yanez, a sociologist at Carlos III University in Madrid. Mothers’ willingness to do children’s household chores (家务) worsens the problem. Dionisio Masso, a 60-year-old in Madrid, has three children in their 20s. The eldest, 28, has a girlfriend and a job. But life with mum is good. "His mum does the wash and cooks for him; in the end, he lives well," Masso said. It can be inferred from paragraph 5 that family ties are stronger in Portugal than in
A. Finland.
B. Greece.
C. Spain.
D. Italy.
One Good Reason to Let Smallpox Live It’s now a fair bet that we will never see the total extinction (灭绝) of the smallpox (天花) virus. When smallpox was completely got rid of in the world, scientists wanted to (51) the killer virus in the last two labs - one in the US and one in Russia. They asked: If smallpox has truly gone from the planet, (52) point was therein keeping these reserves in reality, of course, it was naive to (53) that everyone would let go of such a powerful potential weapon. Undoubtedly several nations still have (54) vials (小药瓶). And the last "official" stocks of live virus bred mistrust of the US and Russia, (55) no obvious gain. Now American researchers have (56) an animal model of the human disease, opening the (57) for tests on new treatments and vaccines (疫苗). So once again there’s a good reason to (58) the virus -just in (59) the disease puts in a reappearance. How do we (60) with the mistrust of the US and Russia (61) . Keep the virus (62) international support in a well-guarded UN laboratory that’s open to all countries. The US will object, of course, just as it (63) a multilateral (多边的) approach to just about everything. But it doesn’t mean the idea is (64) . If the virus is useful, then let’s (65) it the servant of all humanity not just a part of it.
A. for
B. in
C. on
D. with
Mary evidently is the most diligent student among us.
A. intelligent
B. beautiful
C. talkative
D. hardworking
第一篇 Water The second most important constituent (构成成份) of the biosphere (生物圈) is liquid water. This can only exist in a very narrow range of temperatures, since water freezes at 0℃ and boils at 100℃. Life as we know it would only be possible on the surface of a planet which had temperatures somewhere within this narrow range. The earth’s supply of water probably remains fairly constant in quantity. The total quantity of water is not known very accurately, but it is about enough to cover the surface of the globe to a depth of about two and three-quarter kilometers. Most of it is in the form of the salt water of the oceans about 97 percent. The rest is fresh, but three quarters of this is in the form of ice at the Poles and on mountains, and cannot be used by living systems until melted. Of the remaining fractional which is somewhat less than one per cent of the whole, there is 10—20 times as much stored underground water as there is actually on the surface. There is also a tiny, but extremely important fraction of the water supply which is present as water vapor in the atmosphere. Water vapor in the atmosphere is the channel through which the whole water circulation (循环) of the biosphere has to pass. Water evaporated (蒸发) from the surface of the oceans, from lakes and rivers and from moist (潮湿的) earth is added to it. From it the water comes out again as rain or snow, falling on either the sea or the land. There is, as might be expected, a more intensive evaporation per unit area over the sea and oceans than over the land, but there is more rainfall over the land than over the oceans, and the balance is restored by the runoff from the land in the form of rivers. The word "fraction" in the second paragraph means
A. a very small amount.
B. a large area.
C. an important system.
D. a major source of information