You are going to read a magazine article about learning to fly a plane. Eight paragraphs have been removed from the article. Choose from the paragraphs A-I the one which fits each gap (15-21). There is one extra paragraph which you do not need to use. There is an example at the beginning (0).
Learning to Fly
I had been testing cars and motorcycles for over twenty years. I couldn't take any more. It wasn't terribly exciting and, in any case, new cars were beginning to look identical and drive similarly. What I needed was a new challenge.
Unfortunately, I wore glasses. The Royal Air Force wouldn't consider anyone for pilot training unless they had perfect eyesight. Halfway through an aptitude test, they realised that my eyes were far from perfect. I didn't stand a chance.
【B1】__________
It was an obvious choice. It's just twenty minutes' drive from my home. It's very quiet, too, so the t;90 per hour fur the training is spent flying in the air, not waiting on the ground for other planes to take off.
【B2】__________
It took me a whole year to get my private pilot's licence. It started well, with my first solo flight coming after just seven hours. Then came all the studying, the exams, the hard work. I never thought I'd get to the end of it.
【B3】__________ Then came last winter and the end of the course was in sight. For weeks, the weather was so terrible that for most of the time it was impossible. to fly. Strong winds, heavy rain and even snow and ice made flying conditions extremely hazardous.
【B4】__________
But finally the first of three practical exams arrived- the navigation test. The exam finer sets you a course that you have to plan according to the weather, and then fly with him sitting beside you.
【B5】__________
I passed this test, but I don't know how. The second test involves flying cross-country to two other ah ports. which you can choose, and landing at both. The important thing is to give the right messages to the air-traffic control people and understand their replies.
【B6】__________
After this alarming episode, the excreiscs in the flight- handling test were simple. As we completed the sixth exercise, the examiner suddenly turned to me and said, "Congratulations-you've passed!"
I wasn't sure why, because we usually land as slowly as possible. Then I turned round and realised straightaway: we were being followed by a British Airways jumbo jet!
A A week which I had set aside for finishing the course came and went with no possibility of getting in the air at all. And besides the problems with the weather, my second son was born, and that made it even more difficult to find the time for lessons and studying.
B But the real reason I chose this club was that a friend of mine, Andrew Wilkins, is the chief instructor there. He impressed me by taking me out for a free flight just so that I could see what it was like.
C Unfortunately, I got myself lost this time and flew too far east. I completely missed the first airport. However, I flew over a car factory I recognised and managed to get back on course.
D Along the way, he'll take the controls and fly off course, ,just to get you lost. Then he'll hand back the controls to you and expect you to find your way home.
E One day I was asked by an air-traffic controller if I could see another aircraft ahead. I said yes, and immediately it disappeared into a cloud. I just didn't know what to do.
F At the time, taking private lessons to learn how to fly was financially beyond me. So 1 had to delay my plans to become a pilot for quite a while. It was twenty years, in fact, before I finally enrolled at a flying club in Hertfordshire.
G Since getting my pilot's licence, I've
第1题
Dolphins in the Bay of Plenty
Swimming with groups of dolphins, known as 'pods', is beck,ming a popular holiday activity for the adventurous tourist. Our travel correspondent reports.
'You must remember that these dolphins are wild. They are not fed or trained iii any way. These trips are purely on the dolphins' terms.' So said one of our guides, as she briefed us before we set out for our rendezvous.
No skill is required to swim with dolphins, just common sense and an awareness that we are visitors in their world. Once on board the boat, our guides talked to us about what we could expect from our trip.
【B1】 __________________
The common dolphin we were seeking has a blue-black upper body, a grey lower body, and a long snout. We had been told that if they were in a feeding mood we would get a short encounter with them, but if they were being playful then it could last as long as two hours.
【B2】__________________
Soon we were in the middle of a much larger pod, with dolphins all around us. The first group of six swimmers put on their snorkels, slipped off the back of the boat and swam off towards them.
【B3】 __________________
Visibility was not at its best, but the low clicking sounds and the high-pitched squeaks were amazing enough. The dolphins did not seem bothered by my presence in the water above them. Sometimes they would rush by so close that I could feel the pressure-wave as they passed.
【B4】 __________________
I personally found it more rewarding to sit on the bow of the boat and watch as the surface of the sea all around filled with their perfectly arching dolphin backs. Some of the mole advanced snorkellers were able to dive down with these dolphins, an experience they clearly enjoyed.
【B5】 __________________
In fact, they are very sociable animals, always supporting each other within the pod. The guides are beginning to recognise some of the local dolphins by the markings on their backs, and some individuals appear time after time.
【B6】 __________________
Indeed, the pod we had found, on some hidden signal, suddenly turned away from the boat and headed off in file stone direction at high speed. We watched as hundreds of backs broke through the water's surface at the same time, disappearing into the distance.
【B7】 __________________
They had finally finished feeding and were content to play alongside as they showed us the way home. The sun beamed down, and as each dolphin broke the surface of the water and exhaled, a rainbow would form. for a few seconds in the mist. It was an enchanting experience.
A This was a magical experience and, as time in the water is limited, everyone rotates to get an equal share. We spent the next two hours getting in and out of the boat, and visiting other pods.
B An excited shriek led us all to try something that one girl had just discovered, and we all rushed to hang our feet over the front so that the playful creatures would touch them.
C A spotter plane circled above the bay, looking for large pods of dolphins to direct us towards. On deck, we watched for splashes on the surface of the water.
D These include mothers gently guiding their young alongside, either to introduce them to the boat, or to proudly show off their babies. Yet, when they become bored with playing, they leave.
E After 20 minutes, we sighted our first small pod. The dolphins came rushing towards the boat, swimming alongside and overtaking us until they could surf on the boat's bow w
第2题
A An obvious need
B Gaining attention
C The odder the better
D Making sense of information
E Trade secrets
F Academic approval
G A change of focus
H Selected memories
I An ancient skill
Memory test
Jerome Burne talks to a magician who teaches children ways to remember facts.
The Greek philosophers knew about it and it could still dramatically improve children's school results today, except that no one teaches it. "It' is a very old technique for making your memory better. Try memorising this series of random numbers: 3, 6, 5, 5, 2, 1,2, 4. About as meaningful as dates in history or equations in maths, aren't they? Chances are you won't remember them in five minutes, let alone in five hours. However, had you been at a lecture given at a school in the south of England last month, you would now be able to fix them in your head for five days, five weeks, in fact for ever."
【B1】 ______
'I am going to give you five techniques that will enable you to remember anything you need to know at school," promised lecturer lan Robinson to a fascinated audience of a hundred schoolchildren. He slapped his hand down on the table. In his other life, Robinson is an entertainer, and he was using all the tricks he had picked up in his career. "When I've finished in two hours' time, your work will be far more effective and productive. Anyone not interested, leave now." The entire room sat still, glued to their seats.
【B2】 ______
When he entertains, Robinson calls himself the Mind Magician. He specialises in doing magic tricks that look totally impossible, and then he reveals that they involve nothing more mysterious than good old-fashioned trickery. '1 have always been interested in tricks involving memory being able to reel off the order of cards in a pack, that sort of thing," he explains.
【B3】 ______
Robinson was already lecturing to schools on his magic techniques when it struck him that students might find memory techniques even more valuable. "It wasn't a difficult area to move into, as the stutf's all there in books." So he summarised everything to make a two-hour lecture about five techniques.
【B4】 ______
What Robinson's schoolchildren get are methods that will be familiar to anyone who has dipped into any one of a dozen books on memory. The difference is that Robinson's approach is firmly aimed at schoolchildren. The basic idea is to take material that is random and meaningless—musical scales, the bones of the arm—and give them a structure. That series of numbers at the beginning of the article fits in here. Once you think of it as the number of days in the year—365—and the number of weeks—52—and so on, it suddenly becomes permanently memorable.
【B5】 ______
"You want to learn a list of a hundred things? A thousand? No problem," says Robinson. The scandal is that every child is not taught the techniques from the beginning of their school life. The schoolchildren who were watching him thought it was brilliant. "1 wish I'd been told this earlier," commented Mark, after Robinson had shown them how to construct "mental journeys."
【B6】 ______
Essentially, you visualise a walk down a street, or a trip round a room, and pick the points where you will put the things you want to remember—the lamppost, the fruit bowl. Then in each location you put a visual representation of your list—phrasal verbs, historical dates, whatever—making them as strange
第3题
Gary and Me
The restaurant owner John Moore writes about his relationship with his son Gary, the famous TV chef
I believe everyone's given a chance in life. My son, Gary, was given his chance with cooking, and my chance was to run a restaurant. When I heard about the opportunity, I rushed over to look at the place. It was in a really bad state. It was perfect for what I had in mind.
Coming into this business made me recall my childhood. I can remember my mother going out to work in a factory and me being so upset because I was left alone. With that in mind, I thought, "We want time for family life". My wife dedicated herself to looking after the children and did all my accounts while I ran the business. We lived over the restaurant in those days, and we always put a lot of emphasis on having meals together line 14 It's paid dividends with our children, Gary and Joe. They're both very confident. Also, from a very early age they would come down and talk to our regular customers. It's given both of them a great start in life.
Gary was quite a lively child when he was really small. We had a corner bath, and when he was about seven he thought he'd jump into it like a swimming pool, and he knocked himself out. When he was older, he had to work tot pocket money. He started off doing odd jobs and by the age of about ten he was m the kitchen every weekend, so be always had loads of money at school. He had discipline. He used to be up even before me it the morning. If you run a filmily business, it's for the family, and it was nice to see him helping out.
Gary wasn't very academic, but lie shone so much in the kitchen. By the age of fifteen he was as good as any of the men working there, and sometimes he was even left in charge. He would produce over a hundred meals, and from then I knew he'd go into catering because he had that flair. So when he came to me and said, "Dad, I've got to do work experience as part of my course at school", I sent him to a friend of mine who's got a restaurant.
Gary, recently took up playing the drums and now he has his own band. Goodness knows what will happen to the cooking if the music takes off. My advice to Gary would be: if you start chasing two hams, you end up catching neither-, so chase the hare you know you're going to catch. He understood when I said to him: "Gary, if you're going to get anywhere in life, you've got to do it by the age of 30. If you haven't done it by then, it's too late." line 44
Gary went to catering college at the age of 17, and on his first day he and the other new students--they're normally complete beginners-were given what's supposed to be a morning's work. But within an hour, Gary had chopped all his vegetables, sliced all his meats. He'd prepared everything. That's my soil for you! In the end, he was helping other people out.
None of is can believe how successful Gary's TV cookery series has become. I'm extremely proud of him. I've always tried to tell him that if you want something, you've got to work jolly hard for it, because no one gives you anything. He's seen the opportunity he's been given and grabbed hold of it with both hands. You know, you talk to your children as they grow up, and if they only take in ten per cent of what you've told them, you've got to be happy with that. The things Gary says, the firings he does, I think, well, he must have listened sometimes.
How did the writer react to his own big chance?
A.He worried about the problems.
B.He saw what could be done.
C.He thought the family would suffer.
D.He wondered if he should take it.
第4题
Which person or people
found on returning years later that nothing had changed? 0 E
was unable to count on the train service? 【S1】______
enjoyed the company of fellow passengers? 【S2】______
found the views from the train dramatic? 【S3】______ 【S4】______
welcomed a chance to relax on the trip? 【S5】______
was never disappointed by the journey? 【S6】______
has a reason for feeling grateful to one special train? 【S7】______
traveled on a railway which is no longer in regular service? 【S8】______
regretted not going on a particular train trip? 【S9】______
used to travel on the railway whenever possible? 【S10】______
learnt an interesting piece of information on a train journey? 【S11】______
took a train which travelled from one country to another? 【S12】______
says that the railway had been looked after by unpaid helpers? 【S13】______
was once considered not old enough to travel by train? 【S14】______
On the rails
Five celebrities tell Andrew Morgan their favourite memories of railway journeys.
A Andrea Thompson—Newsreader
I fell in love with the south of France a long time ago and try to get back there as often as I can. There's a local train from Cannes along the coast which crosses the border with Italy. It takes you past some of the most amazing seascapes. It never matters what the weather is like, or what time of the year it is, it is always enchanting. Out of the other window are some of the best back gardens and residences in the whole of France. You feel like someone peeping into the property of the rich and famous. The travelers themselves are always lively because there is an interesting mix of tourists and locals, all with different itineraries but all admirers of the breath taking journey.
B Rod Simpson—Explorer
I have enjoyed so many rail journeys through the years, but if I had to pick a favourite it would be the Nile Valley Express, which runs across the desert of northern Sudan. The one misfortune in my youth, growing up in South Africa, was missing out on a family train journey from Cape Town to the Kruger National Park. I was regarded as being too young and troublesome and was sent off to an aunt. When I came to live in England as a teenager, I still hadn't travelled by train. London Waterloo was the first real station I ever saw and its great glass dome filled me with wonder.
C Betty Cooper—Novelist
I am indebted to one train in particular: the Blue Train, which took my husband and me on our honeymoon across France to catch a boat to Egypt. It was on the train that my husband gave me a pink dress, which I though
第5题
A A central figure
B A policy for the times
C Seen but not heard
D A fairer system
E Playing the right part
F Time well spent
G A strong sense of involvement
H The deciding factor
I All-round improvement
At your service
Top chef and restaurant owner Giancarlo Curtis talks about what he looks for, apart from good food, when he eats out.
Recently, I went into a restaurant near my home where I have eaten several times over the years. It used to have old-fashioned traditional style, but it has just re-opened after being completely renovated. The new surroundings seem to have given a lift to everything, from the food cooked by a new chef from Brittany in France, to the atmosphere and the quality of the service.
【B1】______
Many hours of behind-the-scenes work must have gone into getting the service so good. The staff were very pleasant and the speed with which they reacted to customers' needs was excellent. When someone sneezed, a box of tissues appeared. I have never seen that before in a restaurant. The preparation has certainly paid off.
【B2】______
Twenty years ago when people went out to restaurants, they probably never set eyes on the chef— probably didn't even know his name. But the person they did know was the head waiter. He was the important one, the person who could get you the best table, who could impress your friends by recognising you when you arrived.
【B3】______
Things have changed, but I think what is going to happen with so many good new restaurants opening these days is that the waiters are going to become very important again. The level of service is what is going to distinguish one restaurant from another.
【B4】______
But we are talking about modern, unstuffy service, which is not four waiters hovering around your table making you nervous, but a relaxed presence, giving you the feeling there is someone there and providing help and advice when you need it. There is a fine distinction between a server and a servant, and this is what the best waiter has learnt to appreciate.
【B5】______
Although they have to be commercial, the most popular restaurants aim to provide the kind of reception, comfort and consideration you would give to someone coming for a dinner party at your home. Service is not about the correctness of knives and forks and glasses— people really don't care about those things any more—nowadays it is about putting people at their ease.
【B6】______
What's more, waiting staff need to have a stake in the success of the enterprise. I realised that when I opened my own restaurant. The staff, chefs and waiters did all the decorating and the flowers themselves and it worked well because the right atmosphere had been created by people who cared.
【B7】______
Above all, the waiting staff should be consistent, which is why I have always preferred the custom of putting an optional service charge on the bill, rather than relying on discretionary tips, so that all the stall feel valued. I don't like the kind of situation where there is competition going on, with one star waiter trying to outshine the rest. That affects the quality of the service as a whole.
【B1】______
第6题
Directions: In this section you will hear several conversations. Listen to the conversations carefully and then answer the questions that follow.
听力原文:M: I'm sorry I'm late, Cinday.
F: That's all fight, Joe. My house isn't that easy to find. But you know, you wouldn't have gotten lost if you had a "smart" car.
M: A smart car? What's that.
F: I just read a magazine article about some new technology that can make a car smart. One device is a computerized map display and a synthesized voice, you must enter the address where you want to go, and the voice tells you how to get there, street by street.
M: Hey, that's just like my brother. He never gets lost, and he's always telling me the best route. So what else will smart cars be able to do?
F: Well, the article said that they'll be equipped with radar warning systems that will warn drivers if they're getting too close to other cars with an alarm signal, and they'll even put on the brakes if the drivers don't.
M: Tell me, Cindy, will these cars be smart enough to fill themselves up with gas?
F: Not that I know of. Why do you ask?
M: Well, I'm not late because I got lost——I'm late because I ran out of gas on the way over here.
Where did Cindy get her information about "smart" cars?
A.From a newspaper advertisement.
B.From a magazine article.
C.From a television program.
D.From an automobile dealer.
第7题
You are going to read a text about the approaches to creating championship, followed by a list of examples. Choose the best example.
(41) What do you need in order to be a record breaker?
Sports experts agree that the single most important factor in creating a champion is genetic make-up, the possession of genes that impart an innate ability to stride leap, burn energy efficiently or suck lots of oxygen from the air. "The great athletes are genuine statistical outliers...physiological freaks," says sports scientist Craig Sharp of Brunel University in Middlesex, UK.
(42) How will we find or create the next generation of champion athletes?
The most likely way is to widen our search to find someone with a genetic makeup that allows him or her to surpass other athletes. When East African runners began competing internationally, for example, it became apparent that their light frame. make them uniquely economical in their use of energy.
(43) Have we reached the limit of human performance?
No, but records are being broken by ever narrower margins. When statisticians plot how the best performance in a given event changes over time, they see the graph leveling off. And the shorter the event, the smaller are the slivers of time being shaved off. So al though Paula Radcliffe has sliced whole seconds off the marathon world record, sprinters are improving by mere hundredths of a second.
(44) Will we ever reach an absolute limit?
Theoretically, an absolute time to how far or fast the human body can go does, but "where it is we don't know," says Millar. Perhaps the only way we can recognize the ultimate performance will be retrospectively, after a record has stood for years.
(45) In future, will athletes simply test their limits in new ways?
As records become harder and harder to break, we may start comparing athletes by other standards, such as the number of gold medals or their performance over time. Lance Armstrong's six consecutive wins in the Tour de France, for example, may never be surpassed. "The elite might be defined by how many times they win", says Millar.
A. Athletes might also invent new sports to test themselves. The emergence of the triathlon in the 1970s was fuelled by runners, swimmers and cyclists looking for a new challenge; it made its debut as an Olympic event in 2000.
B. Once scientists have identified the genes that confer a genetic advantage in sport, athletes might also be screened to pick out the ones with most genetic potential. "There are all sorts of people out there, and we don't know what they can do", says exercise and sports scientist Carl Foster of the University of Wisconsin in La Crosse. Because the rewards are growing and competition is becoming more intense, athletes are being driven more and more towards drugs to gain the edge. Experts predict that the next generation of champions will include many doped ones. They are particularly fearful of "gene doping" in which athletes boost the performance of key genes.
C. Psychology is vital. Athletes need enormous focus and drive to win. Many people think that the main barrier to breaking the four-minute mile was a psychological one: once Roger Bannister did it in 1954, several others clocked sub-four-minute times shortly afterwards. Sometimes breaking a record involves taking a risk in an event, such as breaking from the pack with a full lap to go, and that takes a certain state.
D. Not every sport can be accurately measured, of course. Running and jumping can be quantified with stick or stopwatch, but football and tennis performances are much harder to gauge.
E. On top of this, however, training and technique are vital. They allow athletes to sculpt muscles, for example, so that they burn less energy while achieving the same speeds as others.
第8题
ported some years before. Police records that 【M1】______.
were studied for five years over 2,400 cities
and towns show a surprised link between 【M2】______
changes in the season and crime patterns.
The pattern of crime has varied very little
over a long period of years. Murder reaches its
high during July and August, as does rape and 【M3】______
other violent attacks. Murder, however, is 【M4】______
more than seasonal: it is a weekend crime. It
is also a hightime crime :62 percent of mur-
ders are committed between 6 p. m. and 6 a.m.
Unlike the summer high in crimes of bod-
ily harm, burglary has a different cycle. You
are most likely to being robbed between 6 【M5】______
p.m. and 2 a.m. on a Saturday night in De-
cember, January, or February. The most un-
criminal month of all?
May--except for one strange statistic,
more dog bites are reported in this month than
an other month of the year. 【M6】______
Apparent our intellectual seasonal cycles 【M7】______
are completely different from our criminal
tendencies. Professor Huntington, of the
Foundation for the Study of Cycles, made ex-
tensive studies to discover the seasons when
people read serious books, attend scientific
meetings, make the highest scores on exami-
nation, and to propose the most changes to 【M8】______
patents. In all instances, he found a spring
peak and an autumn peak separated by a sum-
mer low. On other hand, Professor Hunting- 【M9】______
ton's studies indicated that June is the peak
month for suicides and admissions in mental 【M10】______
hospitals. June is also a peak month for mar-
riage!
【M1】
第9题
You are going to hear a passage about High-speed rail (HSR) in China. Listen carefully and fill in the missing information. 补录3 High-speed rail (HSR) in China refers to any railway in China with 1. train service at the speed of 2. km/h or higher as internationally recognized. By this definition, China has the world's 3. HSR network with over 16,000 km of track in service as of December 2014which is more than the rest of the world's high-speed rail tracks 4. , and a length of 16,775.5 km is 5. or in planning. Since high-speed rail service in China was 6. on April 18, 2007, daily ridership has grown from 237,000 in 2007 to 2.49 million in 2014, making the Chinese HSR network the most 7. used in the world. Cumulative ridership had reached 2.9 billion by October 2014. 1.
第10题
Unlike the summer high in crimes of bodily harm, robbing has a different cycle. You are most likely to be robbed between 6 p.m. and 2am. on a Saturday night in December, January, or February. The month with least crimes of all is in May except for one strange fact. More dog bites are reported in this month than in any other month of the year.
Clearly our seasonal cycles of knowledge are completely different from our tendencies for crimes. Professor Huntington made extensive studies to discover the seasons when people read serious books, attend scientific meetings and get highest results on examinations. In all cases, he found a spring high and autumn high separated by a summer low.
Possibly, high temperature and high humidity(湿度)cause our strange and violent summer actions, but police officials are not sure. "There is, of course, no proof of a connection between humidity and murder," they say," Why murder's high time should come in the summer time we really don't know."
A good title of the passage would be ______.
A.Crime Cycles
B.Summer Crimes
C.A Time for Murder
D.The Most Peaceful Month
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