You probably have a first-aid kit at home for your family—but what about your family pets？You need to be ready if your furry friend faces an emergency at home. What's more，as the weather gets warmer，more pet owners take their pets with them when they leave the house—on vacation，to the park，jogging，hiking and even swimming. That can be fun for you and your pet，but there's a chance that your pet will get hurt there，as well. So，it's important to know some of the basics of first aid for your pet if necessary.

If your pet is exposed to long periods of heat and sunlight，she will be easy to get heat exhaustion（衰竭）or heatstroke. Signs of heat exhaustion are breathless，anxiousness，dry gums and red skin most easily seen on the ears.

If either of these occurs，cool the pet right away and，as always，get her to the vet（兽医）.Put the animal in a shaded or air-conditioned area，and wet the body with cool water. Rubbing isopropyl alcohol（异丙醇）on the belly and fanning the area will help drive away the heat. If a pet is suffering from heatstroke，don't try to give her water. Get her to the vet immediately.

If you see an animal that's been hit by a car，or you hit one accidentally，first be cautious of all oncoming traffic before trying to reach the animal. Approach carefully. Even a severely injured animal can bite you.

As someone helps with directing traffic, cover the animal with a blanket or towel. If the animal cannot stand on her own, there's a good chance that there are neck, back or head injuries, so try to gently transfer the animal to a flat surface. Then transport that flat surface to the nearest vet. Picking up or hand-carrying the animal may worsen the injuries.

【小题1】What is the main idea of the first paragraph?

A．It is dangerous to keep pets outside.

B．It is necessary to prepare for pets' first aid.

C．It is fun to bring pets while you go out.

D．It is possible for pets to run away from home.

【小题2】If a pet suffers from heatstroke, what should you do?

A．Wet her body with cold water.

B．Make her drink some alcohol.

C．Bring her to the vet at once.

D．Freeze her in an air-conditioned area.

【小题3】How can you help an animal injured in an accident?

A．By running to help her immediately.

B．By carrying her in your hands to the vet.

C．By picking her up in a gentle way.

D．By sending her to the vet on a flat surface.

【小题4】The underlined word "transfer" in the last paragraph may mean" ________ ".

A．move	B．trap
C．feed	D．drive

   It is a familiar scene these days: employees taking newly laid-off co-workers out for a drink for comfort. But which side deserves more sympathy，the jobless or the still employed？On March 6，researchers at a conference at the University of Cambridge suggested it was the latter.

Brendan Burchell，a Cambridge sociologist，presented his analysis based on various surveys conducted across Europe. The data suggest that employed people who feel insecure in their jobs show similar levels of anxiety and depression as those who are unemployed. Although a newly jobless person's mental health may“bottom out”after about six months，and then may even begin to improve，the mental state of people who are continuously worried about losing their own job“just continues to get worse and worse”, Burchell says.

Psychologists support this theory by arguing that human beings feel more stressed during times of insecurity because they sense an immediate but invisible threat. Patients have been known to experience higher levels of anxiety, for example, while waiting for examination results than knowing what they are suffering from—even if the results are cancer. It's better to get the bad news and start doing something about it rather than wait with anxiety.  When the uncertainty continues, people stay in a nonstop“fight or flight”response, which leads to damaging stress.

But not every employee in insecure industries has such a discouraging view, Burchell says. In general, women get on better. While reporting higher levels of anxiety than men when directly questioned, women score lower in stress on the 12-item General Health Questionnaire, even when they have a job they feel insecure about losing.  As Burchell explains,“For women, most studies show that any job—it doesn't matter whether it is secure or insecure—gives psychological improvement over unemployment.”He supposes that the difference in men is that they tend to feel pressure not only to be employed, but also to be the primary breadwinners, and that more of a man's self-worth depends on his job.

【小题1】Why do researchers think the still employed deserve more sympathy?

A．They have to do more work since then.

B．They have no chance to find better jobs.

C．They have to work with inexperienced workers.

D．They constantly worry about losing their jobs.

【小题2】What is most likely to cause a“fight or flight”response?

A．Not having a paid job.

B．Poor job conditions.

C．Not knowing what will happen.

D．Pressure to work longer hours.

【小题3】What will the writer talk about following the last paragraph?

A．Advice on preparing for a job interview.

B．Advice on handling pressure from insecure industries.

C．Some knowledge of psychology.

D．Difference in men and women.

【小题4】What is the main idea of the passage?

A．Is it less stressful to get laid off than staying on?

B．Should more sympathy be given to the jobless?

C．Do employees bear more stress than ever before?

D．Do men or women show higher levels of anxiety?

What is the first thing you notice when you walk into a shop? The products displayed (展示) at the entrance? Or the soft background music?
But have you ever notice the smell? Unless it is bad, the answer is likely to be no. But while a shop’s scent may not be outstanding compared with sights and sounds, it is certainly there. And it is providing to be an increasing powerful tool in encouraging people to purchase.
A brand store has become famous for its distinctive scent which floats through the fairly dark hall and out to the entrance, via scent machines. A smell may be attractive but it may not just be used for freshening air. One sports goods company once reported that when it first introduced scent into its stores, customers’ intension to purchase increased by 80 percent.
When it comes to the best shopping streets in Pairs, scent is just as important to a brand’s success as the quality of its window displays and goods on sales. That is mainly because shopping is a very different experience to what it used to be.
Some years ago, the focus for brand name shopping was on a few people with sales assistants’ disproving attitude and don’t-touch-what-you-can’t-afford displays. Now the rise of electronic commerce (e-commerce) has opened up famous brands to a wider audience. But while e-shops can use sights and sounds, only bricks-and-mortar stores (实体店) can offer a full experience from the minute customers step through the door to the moment they leave. Another brand store seeks to be much more than a shop, but rather a destination. And scent is just one way to achieve this.
Now a famous store uses complex man-made smell to make sure that the soft scent of baby powder floats through the kid department, and coconut (椰子) scent in the swimsuit section. A department store has even opened a new lab, inviting customers on a journey into the store’s windows to smell books, pots and drawers, in search of their perfect scent.
【小题1】According to the passage, what is an increasingly powerful tool in the success of some brand store?

A．Friendly assistant.	B．Unique scents.
C．Soft background music.	D．Attractive window display.

【小题2】E-shops are mentioned in the passage to ______.

A．show the advantages of brick-and-mortar stores

B．urge shop assistants to change their attitude

C．push stores to use sights and sounds

D．introduce the rise of e-commerce

【小题3】The underlined word “destination” in Paragraph 5 means ______.

A．a platform that exhibits goods

B．a spot where travelers like to stay

C．a place where customers love to go

D．a target that a store expects to meet

【小题4】The main purpose of the passage is to ______.

A．compare and evaluate	B．examine and assess
C．argue and discuss	D．inform and explain

   The idea of being able to walk on water has long interested humans greatly. Sadly, biological facts prevent us ever accomplishing such a thing without artificial aid---we simply weigh too much, and all our mass pushes down through our relatively small feet, resulting in a lot of pressure that makes us sink.

However, several types of animals can walk on water. One of the most interesting is the common basilisk Basilicus basilicus, a lizard (蜥蜴)native to Central and South America. It can run across water for a distance of several meters, avoiding getting wet by rapidly hitting the water’s surface with its feet. The lizard will take as many as 20 steps per second to keep moving forward. For humans to do this, we，d need huge feet that we could bring up to our ears in order to create adequate w hitting. ’’

But fortunately there is an alternative : cornflour. By adding enough of this common thickening agent to water (and it does take a lot), you can create a “non-Newtonian” liquid that doesn’t behave like normal water. Now, if the surface of the water is hit hard enough, particles(粒子）in the water group together for a moment to make the surface hard. Move quickly enough and put enough force into each step, and you really can walk across the surface of an adequately thick Liquid of cornflour.

Fun though all this may sound, it’s still rather messy and better read about in theory than carried out in practice. If you must do it, then keep the water wings handy in case you start to sink--and take a shower afterward!

【小题1】Walking on water hasn’t become a reality mainly because humans______.

A．are not interested in it

B．have biological limitations

C．have not invented proper tools

D．are afraid to make an attempt

【小题2】What do we know about Basilicus basilicus from the passage?

A．It is light enough to walk on water.

B．Its huge feet enable it to stay above water.

C．It can run across water at a certain speed.

D．Its unique skin keeps it from getting wet in water.

【小题3】What is the function of the cornflour according to the passage?

A．To create a thick liquid.

B．To turn the water into solid.

C．To help the liquid behave normally.

D．To enable the water to move rapidly.

【小题4】What is the author’s attitude toward the idea of humans’ walking on water?

A．It is risky but beneficial.

B．It is interesting and worth trying.

C．It is crazy and cannot become a reality.

D．It is impractical though theoretically possible.

   Just like humans, birds rely on sound to communicate, too. Often, birds recognize their mates or young by sound rather than sight. Hungry young birds use begging calls to let their mothers know it is feeding time, and warning calls are other sounds given out frequently by the adults. In addition to all these regular calls, some male birds develop beautiful songs intended（打算）to attract the females.

A new study carried out by an American university shows that songbirds practice their songs even in their sleep. The research team discovered that the electrical brain activity of the birds that were asleep was similar to the brain activity produced when the birds were awake and singing. Clearly the bird stores a song after hearing it, then practices it later in its sleep. Scientists now believe the birds dream of songs to help them master the fine art of singing and that sleep plays a key role in the learning process！

It is commonly known that many songbirds learn to sing by listening to adult birds of the same species. If taught the song of an adult of another bird species, the chick grows up singing the new song and passes on the foreign song to its chicks. For instance, researchers carried out an experiment in which a male bullfinch（红腹灰雀）was raised by a female canary（金丝雀）. The bullfinch soon learned the canary's songs and when it was later mated to a female bullfinch, Mr. Bullfinch taught his children the canary's songs.

Early last year, a British survey of London's songbirds showed that the city's birds are losing their melodies. Birds could hardly hear one another over the traffic noise；as a result they had difficulty in learning songs and communicating with potential mates. And instead of copying the sweet notes of the adults, chicks were copying sounds, which they heard most often—namely car horns（喇叭）and mobile phones！

【小题1】What can we learn according to Paragraph 2？

A．Sleep helps songbirds master new songs.

B．Songbirds can even hear songs in their dreams.

C．The study was carried out by Australian scientists.

D．The brain activity of songbirds would stop in their sleep.

【小题2】Why does Mr. Bullfinch teach his children the canary's songs？

A．Because he wants to help them learn a foreign language.

B．Because he can't sing bulfinches' songs.

C．Because he wants to make them get along well with other birds.

D．Because the canary's songs are more attractive.

【小题3】What's the problem of the city's birds according to the passage？

A．They have lost their voices.

B．They are losing their habitats.

C．They are bothered by the city's noises.

D．They tend to refuse to learn songs from adults.

【小题4】What conclusion can we draw from the passage？

A．The city's birds can learn more songs.

B．All birds learn foreign songs during their life.

C．It may be difficult for the city's birds to find their mates.

D．Young birds can tell the difference between songs and noises.