Australia is famous for its beautiful beaches. And Australian people love swimming and going to the beach.
But it wasn"t always that way.
Different Climate, Different Habits
When Europeans first invaded Australia, the only people here who were good at swimming were the
Aboriginal people. The Europeans came from climates where it was too cold to swim. However the warm
climate of Australia soon changed their attitude to swimming. At first, only men swam. They swam without
any clothes on-there were no women to see them.
Cover up!
By the 1880 and 1890s visiting the beach was very fashionable. People wore everyday street clothes-much
more than people wear at the beach today.
In those days people believed they should cover their most body so it would not be seen by the opposite
sex. Special bathing costumes were designed for women. This costumes used a lot of cloth and were very
heavy when wet, making it difficult to swim.
Laws Made and Laws Changed
The government decided to stop men swimming naked. It passed a law which forbade bathing between 6
am and 7 am. But in 1903, the laws changed; people could swim in the daytime, but they had to wear
neck-to-knee costumes.
The Shrinking Costume
As time passed, swimming costumes became smaller and more convenient.
At first men and women were covered from neck to knee. Then arms became bare. Then more of the legs
were uncovered. Each new change was regarded by many as shocking and rude and people wrote letters to
the newspapers complaining about the new costume. Nowadays some people go to special"nude beaches" to
swim naked.
However, most people cover their bodies more than they did ten years ago-not because they think bare
skin is shocking-but to protect their skin from the harmful rays of the sun.
B. It changed European settlers" swimming costume.
C. It made European settlers feel much hotter.
D. It made European settlers have to swim naked.
B. They should cover their body to avoid being seen by the opposite sex.
C. They should wear many heavy clothes on beaches.
D. They should wear special wet costumes designed for them.
A. People were surprised by each new change and criticized it.
B. People were amazed by each new change and praise it.
C. Only newspapers were in favor of each new change.
D. Only newspapers thought poorly of each new change.
B. People protected their swimming costumes from too much sun.
C. People are greatly shocked by the nude beaches.
D. People think it rude to swim with the smaller costumes.
American businesswoman. She and her husband Elliott along with Harold Matt Matson started the toy
company Mattel. She based the design of the new doll on a German doll named Bild Lilli and named her
after their daughter Barbara.
The first Barbie wore a black and white swimsuit and had her hair in a ponytail (马尾辫). She looked
very grown-up. But any concerns that parents would not want to buy it for little girls were soon proved
wrong.
Mattel sold 300,000 Barbie dolls in the first year at a price of three dollars. Today, a fifty-year-old
Barbie in good condition might cost more than 27,000 dollars. Barbie dolls have represented 50 different
nationalities and are sold in 150 countries. Mattel says 90% of girls in the United States between the ages
of three and ten own at least one Barbie doll. It says girls between the ages of three and six own an average
of about 12.
Barbie also faced her share of critics. A well-known example was when women"s education groups
objected to a talking Barbie doll that declared, among other things, “Math class is tough!” Mattel agreed to
change it. Saudi Arabia has banned Barbie dolls. And a lawmaker in the American state of West Virginia
would like to do the same. Last month, he proposed banning sales of Barbie and other dolls that influence
girls to put too much importance on physical beauty.
Some people say Barbie is an unhealthy role model for young girls. Robin Gerber disagrees. She wrote
a book about Barbie. She points out dolls like scientist Barbie and race car driver Barbie. She says people
who criticize Barbie should tell girls the story of the businesswoman who created her. She says Ruth
Handler wanted the dolls to help girls think about what they wanted to do with their lives.
B. her appearance looked much too mature
C. her way of dressing was against the tradition
D. physical beauty wasn"t thought to be important
B. is the director of an American toy company
C. was the woman who originally created Barbie
D. was a salesman who was good at selling Barbie dolls
B. neglect their schoolwork and inner beauty
C. prefer physical beauty to inner beauty
D. waste too much time and money on clothes
B. praises a successful person who sells Barbie dolls
C. expresses her own favorable opinion about Barbie
D. argues for banning the sales of Barbie dolls
Given Australia"s size and the fact that early settlements were far apart, Australian society is remarkably
homogeneous (同种的). Its citizens are fundamentally prosperous and the way of life in the major cities and
towns is much the same however many miles divide them. It takes a sharp ear to identify regional accents.
However, there is some difference in lifestyle between city dwellers and the country people. Almost 90
per cent of the population lives in the fast-paced cities along the coast and has little more than a passing
familiarity with the desert. The major cities preserve pockets of colonial heritage, but the overall impression
is modern, with new buildings reflecting the country"s youth. In contrast, the rural communities tend to be
slow-moving and conservative. For many years, Australia was said to have"ridden on the sheep"s back", a
reference to wool being the country"s main money earner. However, the wool industry is no longer dominant.
Much of Australia"s relatively sound economy is now achieved from natural coal and wheat, and by being the
largest diamond producer in the world. Newer industries such as tourism and wine making are also
increasingly important. Australians are generally friendly and relaxed, with a self-deprecating sense of humor.
On the whole, Australia is a society without hierarchies (等级制度), an attitude generally held to stem from
its prisoner beginnings.
Yet, contrary to widespread belief, very few Australians have true prisoner origins. Within only one
generation of the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, Australia had become a nation of immigrants. Originally
coming almost entirely from the British Isles, today one in three Australians comes from elsewhere.
Australia"s liberal postwar immigration policies led to an influx of survivors from war-torn Europe, most
notably Greeks, Italians, Poles and Germans.
The emphasis has shifted in recent years and today the majority of new immigrants are from Southeast
Asia. Today Australia is a "blend of nations" and although some racism exists, it has generally been a
successful experiment and the country is justifiably proud to have one of the most harmonious multicultural
communities in the world.
the first paragraph?
B. You have to practice a lot to learn to understand the different accents.
C. The Australian regional accents are very difficult to understand indeed.
D. There is not much difference between the accents in different areas of Australia.
B. The Australian economy is dependent on sheep exports.
C. The majority of people living in Australia come from Europe.
D. The pace of life is different in the city and in the country.
B. Australia"s recent immigration policy encourages immigrants from Southeast Asia
C. immigrants from Southeast Asia have brought racial problems
D."riding on sheep"s back" resulted in slow development in rural communities
remarkable pictures. Under the sea, deep in the woods and high in the sky, furry, feathery and leathery-skinned
creatures are opening up vistas (远景) by taking cameras where no human can go.
This is the world of animal-borne imagine celebrated last month at a conference sponsored(supported) by
the National Geographic Society for the 20th anniversary of its Crittercam, the device that started it all.
Since its debut (首次公开露面) in 1987 on the back of a turtle, the Crittercam and similar devices
developed by others have grown smaller and more powerful.
"It"s more than just a camera now," said Greg Marshall, the marine biologist and now filmmaker who
invented the Crittercam."We are now including more instruments to gather more data while at the same time
The idea of attaching video cameras to animals came to Mr. Marshall in 1986 on a dive off Belize when a shark
apporoached him. When the animal quickly turned away, he noticed a shark with a sucker fish on its belly. He
came up with the idea that putting a camera in place of the sucker fish would allow people to witness the
shark"s behavior without disturbing it.
Crittercams have been attached to sharks, sea lions and other marine animals, and, more recently, to land
animals.
Birds are a new addition, Mr.Marshall said. Dr. Christian Rutz of Oxford recently reported on tiny cameras
called feathercams that monitor the crows in the South Pacific. It has discovered that crows are smarter than
anyone knew they not only use twigs (嫩枝) and grass stems as tools to root out food, but they also save their
favorite tools to use again.
Tracey L.Rogers, director of the Australian Marine Mammal Research Center in Sydney, said crittercam
was a powerful tool in her work with leopard seals (豹斑海豹) in Antarctica. "In studying animals," Dr.
Rogers said at the meeting,"you want to see how our animal models align (与……一致) with reality. With a
camera, you actually see what they do. You don"t have to guess."
A. The advantages of crittercam.
B. The development of Crittercams in the past 20 years.
C. How crittercam was invented.
D. How crittercam works.
B. The thought of how to photograph animals better.
C. Noticing a shark eating a sucker fish on a dive.
D. Seeing a shark with a camera on its belly on a dive.
B. is the most powerful tool in studying animals
C. enabled her to observe the crows in the South Pacific closely
D. helped a lot with her research on leopard seals in Antarctica
B. more instruments are involved to gather more data
C. they allow researchers to see where and how animals live
D. they are able to be applied to smaller animals such as birds
根据短文内容，从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。选项中有两项为多余选项。
1 The only way that they can preserve their history is to recount it as sagas- 2 These legends are useful
because they can tell us something about migrations of people who lived long ago, but none could write down
what they did. Anthropologists(人类学家) wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples
now living in the Pacific Islands came from. 3
But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas, if they had any, are
forgotten. 4
Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, because this is easier to shape than other kinds.
5 Stone does not decay, and so the tools of long ago have remained when even the bones of the men who
made them have disappeared without trace.
B. descriptions of what important events happened in ancient times.
C. But there are some parts of the world where even now people can"t write.
D. legends handed down from one generation of story-tellers to another.
E. So scientists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first "modern men"
came from.
F. But there is some doubt who began to write.
G. The sagas of these people explain that some of them came from Indonesia about 2,000 years ago.
阅读下面文章并根据题目要求回答问题。
to reduce traffic problems. The poor areas of the city were so crowded with people. So the officials decided
to make it possible for workers to live outside of London and travel easily to work each day. If people had a
convenient way to get to and from work, they would live outside of the city and this would help reduce the
pressure. From these problems, the idea of the London Underground was born.
The plans for building the Underground met with several problems, but the first track was finally opened in
January,1863. A steam train pulled the cars along the first underground track which was six kilometers long.
About 30,000 people got on the subway the first day. They were treated to comfortable seats and pleasant
decorations inside the cars. However, the smoke from the engine soon filled the air in the tunnels. Fans had to
be put in the tunnel later to keep the air clean enough for people to breathe. Even with its problems, riding the
Underground did become popular. It carried nine million riders in its first year.
Modem subways have come a long way since the early days of the London Underground.
Today there are more than one hundred underground systems around the world. Shopping malls built in
traffic stations have helped the popularity of subways. Nowadays many stations include underground
department stores, supermarkets and restaurants. Shoppers never have to go above ground!
_____________________________________________________________________
2. What does "Shoppers never have to go above ground!"(in Para 3) mean? (within 10 words)
______________________________________________________________________
3. Which sentence can be replaced by the following one: "Although there were such prolems,
people loved to take subways."
______________________________________________________________________
4. What problems led the British government to build the London Underground? (within 10 words)
______________________________________________________________________
5. Translate the underlined sentence into Chinese.
_______________________________________________________________________
- 1【题文】下列句子没有语病的一项是（ ）A．这个夏天最火的节目非《中国好声音》莫属，它以
- 2已知是椭圆上的点，以为圆心的圆与轴相切于椭圆的焦点，圆与轴相交于两点.若为锐角三角形，则椭圆的离心率的取值范围为（
- 3不同的工业，各投入要素在总投入比重中存在较大差异，不同地域的工业由于自然、社会等因素的差异，其发展方向不同。据此完成下列
- 4某几何体的展开图如图所示：（1）这个几何体的名称是___________；（2）画出这个几何体的三视图；（3）求这个几何
- 5下列各题中黑体加点字的注音全都正确的一项是A．慑服 shè退避三舍 shè海市蜃楼 shèn教室 shìB．缫丝chāo
- 6I am angry about the act of dishonesty in the exams. I’m not
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- 1在平面直角坐标系中，反比例函数y=-2x的图象在第______象限内．
- 2下列有机物的结构简式和名称相符的是 [ ]A． 3-甲基-2-乙基戊烷 B． 2，3-二甲基-3-丁烯 C． 4
- 3在急救重金属盐中毒（如乙酸铅）时，可给患者吃大量牛乳或蛋清，其目的是
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- 5根据所给汉语意思,完成下列句子。1. 说实在的,我真的不知道我是否会对孩子们的生活产生影响. _________
- 6 Across the bridge and _______a vast carpet of green land st
- 7下面生活中的物体的运动情况可以看成平移的是[ ]A．摆动的钟摆B．在笔直的公路上行驶的汽车 C．随风摆动的旗帜D
- 8糖类俗称“碳水化合物”，组成糖类的化学元素有[ ]A．C、H、O、NB．C、H、OC．H、O、N、P D．C、H
- 9观测月球等天体时应选用__________镜，观察细胞内部结构时应选用_________镜．
- 10如图是元素周期表的一部分，其中氮元素的原子序数是______，该元素原子的核外电子数是______；图中元素组成的气态化