完型填空
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Choose the best word to fill each blank from the choices A, B, C and D given after the passage. Write your answers on the Answer Sheet. 从A、B、C、D中选择最正确的答案，并填写在答题卷上。
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One summer evening I was sitting by the open window, reading a good but rather frightening mystery story. After a time it was too dark for me to read __________(1), so I put my book down and turned on the light.
I was just about to draw the __________(2) as well when I heard a loud cry of “Help! Help!” It seemed to come from the trees at the end of the garden. I looked __________(3) but it was too dark to see anything clearly. So I decided to go out and have a look in the garden, just in case someone was in trouble. I took the torch and picked up a long walking stick. __________(4) with these, I went out into the garden. Now and then I heard the cry. There was no doubt that it came from the trees at the end of the garden. “Who’s there?” I called out as I walked, rather nervously, down the path that __________(5) to the trees. But there was no answer. With the help of my torch I __________(6) the whole of that part of the garden and the lower branches of the trees. There was no sign of anybody or anything. I came to the __________(7) that someone was playing a rather silly joke on me.
__________(8) feeling rather puzzled, I went back to the house and put away the torch and the stick. I had just sat down when I heard the cry of “Help! Help!” This time from right __________(9) my shoulder. I dropped my book and __________(10). There, sitting on top of the radio set, was a parrot!
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阅读理解
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Impatience characterizes young knowledge workers. They want to make their mark fast. So it’s important to get across to them in a challenging manner the idea that big achievements rarely come easily and quickly. Point out that the little successes are essential. Show that they in turn become the foundation on which reputations are built and from which more important tasks can be attacked.
A variety of job assignments, including job or project rotation, also keep a job from becoming dull. Whereas it’s natural for some individuals to want to move ahead immediately to more difficult assignments, under proper guidance they can continue to learn and to gain versatility by working on a number of jobs that are essentially of the same complexity. This way they gain breadth, if not depth.
Probably the greatest offense to guard against when dealing with younger specialists is to reject ideas out of hand. You must listen – and listen objectively – to their suggestions. Avoid being overcritical. You want to nurture an inquiring mind with a fresh approach. You’ll discourage it quickly if you revert too often to “We’ve tried that before and it won’t work here.”
One sure way to disenchant young college graduates is flagrantly misuse their talents. Expect them to do some routine work, of course. But don’t make their daily work just one long series of errands. This includes such break-in assignments as performing routine calculations, digging up reference material, and operating reproduction equipment. One large manufacturing company recently interviewed a number of promising engineers who had left them. The company found that the overwhelming complaint was that the company not only did not provide work that was challenging but also expected far too little from them in the way of performance.
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Every mom and dad can tell you that keeping children busy helps stave off cries of boredom – now there is scientific backing to prove it. Dr. Anthony Chaston has proven that time really does fly when you’re having fun. Or, at least, it flies when your attention is engaged.
Working in the University of Alberta, Chaston devised a test that required subjects to find specific items in various images. However, before the subjects started the test, they were told that once they had completed it they would be asked to estimate how much time had passed during their test.
There were seven levels of difficulty among the tests. In some cases, the items were easy to find because they were of different colors. In the more difficult tests, the items were placed among many similar looking items, or they didn’t even exist in the image. “The harder the search tasks were, the smaller the estimates became,” said Chaston.
There are two kinds of time estimations, Chaston added, and there’s generally a big difference between the two. There’s prospective time estimation, which means the estimator knows in advance that he or she will be asked to make an estimate after a task is completed. Then there’s retrospective, which means someone has been asked to provide a time estimate after the task has been completed.
Chaston said, “In our society, we’re pretty good with prospective estimates. Most of us wear watches, and we’re pretty good at keeping track of the time because we have to for most of our regular, daily lives.” For this reason, Chaston is pleased that the results of his study showed such a powerful effect of attention on prospective time estimates. “This really shows that even if you know in advance that you’re going to have to estimate the time of a task, the more attention the task requires, the faster time flies.”
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Every day now, when the tide was out, I went on board the ship. Gradually I brought away all the sails, the ropes and chains. I even brought some iron cables, but these proved to be too heavy for my raft. On the way back to the shore, it turned over and the cables fell into the sea. However, when the tide was out I was able to recover the cables one by one. On one of my trips I was very pleased to discover some more food, including sugar, flour and bread.
Very soon I had been on the island for a fortnight and had made eleven trips to the ship. On my last trip of all I noticed a cupboard which I had previously overlooked. In it were three razors, a large pair of scissors and a dozen good knives. There was also some European money, worth about thirty-six pounds in all.
By now I had taken everything from the ship, which was of value to me, and I began to consider where I should live on the island. My tent was on rather low ground heart to the sea and I did not think that it would be healthy to live there for very long. There were four points that I had to bear in mind in choosing the site of my home. First of all, I needed to find a place which would be healthy and near some flesh water. Secondly, there ought to be protection from the heat of the sun. Thirdly, I had to be safe from attacks by wild animals. Last of all, I needed to have a view of the sea so that, if any ship should chance to come near to the island, I would not miss it.
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Tim Berners-Lee is the brilliant British physicist and computer scientist who in 1991 invented the World Wide Web. But the great breakthrough engineered by this icon of cyberspace did occur, in part, by chance. Berners-Lee was trying to find a way to organize his research files, so he developed a software program that, as he puts it, was “really useful for keeping track of all the random associations one comes across in real life. Brains are supposed to be so good at remembering – but sometimes mine wouldn’t.” It worked so well, creating effective linkages between huge amounts of information. It eventually became the basis for the revolution we now casually refer to as the Web. “It would be akin to a carpenter building a little cabinet for himself and suddenly discovering he could store the entire world inside the thing. There was quite a bit of luck in it,” says Arthur Molella from the National Museum of American History.
The element of chance has also helped produce many of the most important innovations in modern life. Take Percy Lebaron Spencer, a hero of World War II for his work in developing radar. One day shortly after the war, he was walking through his lab when he stopped briefly by a magnetron – the tube that produces the high-frequency microwaves that power radar. But just that second he got a strange feeling. He realized that a candy bar in his pocket had melted. Odd, Spencer thought. Immediately, he performed an experiment. He put some popcorn in front of the magnetron and popcorn was soon popping all over the place. Right away Percy Spencer was thinking about what this could be used for – a microwave oven.
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