3 探秘2015高考英语阅读理解之词义猜测

（一）
Arriving in Sydney on his own from India, my husband ,Rashid, stayed in a hotel for a short time while looking for a house for me and our children.
During the first week of his stay, he went out one day to do some shopping. He came back in the late afternoon to discover that his suitcase was gone. He was extremely worried as the suitcase had all his important papers, including his passport.
He reported the case to the police and then sat there，lost and lonely in strange city, thinking of the terrible troubles of getting all the paperwork organized again from a distant country while trying to settle down in a new one.
Late in the evening, the phone rang. It was a stranger. He was trying to pronounce my husband’s name and was asking him a lot of questions. Then he said they had found a pile of papers in their trash can（垃圾桶）that had been left out on the footpath.
My husband rushed to their home to find a kind family holding all his papers and documents. Their young daughter had gone to the trash can and found a pile of unfamiliar papers. Her parents had carefully sorted them out, although they had found mainly foreign addresses on most of the documents. At last they had seen a half-written letter in the pile in which my husband had given his new telephone number to a friend.
That family not only restored the important documents to us that day but also restored our faith and trust in people. We still remember their kindness and often send a warm wish their way.
What does the underlined word “restored” in the last paragraph mean?

Scientists today are making greater effort to study ocean currents (洋流) . Most do it using satellites and other high-tech equipment. However, ocean expert Curtis Ebbesmeyer does it in a special way -- by studying movements of random floating garbage. A scientist with many years’ experience, he started this type of research in the early 1990s when he heard about hundreds of athletic shoes washing up on the shores of the northwest coast of the United States. There were so many shoes that people were setting up swap meets to try and match left and right shoes to sell or wear.
Ebbesmeyer found out in his researches that the shoes — about 60,000 in total — fell into the ocean in a shipping accident. He phoned the shoe company and asked if they wanted the shoes back. As expected, the company told him that they didn't. Ebbesmeyer realized this could be a great experiment. If he learned when and where the shoes went into the water and tracked where they landed, he could learn a lot about the patterns of ocean currents.
The Pacific Northwest is one of the world's best areas for beachcombing(海滩搜寻) because winds and currents join here, and as a result, there is a group of serious beachcombers in the area. Ebbesmeyer got to know a lot of them and asked for their help in collecting information about where the shoes landed. In a year he collected reliable information on 1, 600 shoes. With this data, he and a colleague were able to test and improve a computer program designed to model ocean currents, and publish the findings of their study.
As the result of his work, Ebbesmeyer has become known as the scientist to call with questions about any unusual objects found floating in the ocean. He has even started an association of beachcombers and ocean experts, with 500 subscribers from West Africa to New Zealand. They have recorded all lost objects ranging from potatoes to golf gloves.
The underlined phrase swap meets in Paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to ______________.

You may not pay much attention to your daily elevator ride. Many of us use a lift several times during the day without really thinking about it. But Lee Gray, PhD, of the University of North Carolina, US, has made it his business to examine this overlooked form of public transport. He is known as the “Elevator Guy”.
“The lift becomes this interesting social space where etiquette（礼仪）is sort of strange,” Gray told the BBC. “They are socially very interesting but often very awkward places.”
We walk in and usually turn around to face the door. If someone else comes in, we may have to move. And here, according to Gray, liftusers unthinkingly go through a set pattern of movements. He told the BBC what he had observed.
He explained that when you are the only one inside a lift, you can do whatever you want – it’s your own little box.
If there are two of you, you go into different corners, standing diagonally（对角线地）across from each other to create distance.
When a third person enters, you will unconsciously form a triangle. And when there is a fourth person it becomes a square, with someone in every corner. A fifth person is probably going to have to stand in the middle.
New entrants to the lift will need to size up the situation when the doors slide open and then act decisively. Once in, for most people the rule is simple – look down, or look at your phone.
Why are we so awkward in lifts?
“You don’t have enough space,” Professor Babette Renneberg, a clinical psychologist at the Free University of Berlin, told the BBC. “Usually when we meet other people we have about an arm’s length of distance between us. And that’s not possible in most elevators.”
In such a small, enclosed space it becomes very important to act in a way that cannot be construed（理解）as threatening or strange. “The easiest way to do this is to avoid eye contact,” she said.
The underlined phrase “size up” in Paragraph 7 is closest in meaning to _______.
A. judge           B. ignore     
C. put up with     D. make the best of

Planet Earth would be a scary place for humans if dinosaurs still ruled the world.
Though there are still some traces of life from the Jurassic Period, the Age of Dinosaurs more than 65 million years ago.
This mass extinction is believed to be the result of an asteriod（小行星）hitting Earth. A new report by the journal Biological Reviews called " The Extinction of Dinosaurs” concludes that this impact was, indeed, the cause of the dinosaurs’demise. But the space blast(爆炸) wasn't the only reason these creatures aren't still around today.
Dinosaurs need food to survive. Meat-eating monsters like the Tyrannosaurus Rex(霸王龙) were at the top of the food chain,  and fed off plant eaters like the horned Triceratops (三角恐龙).  These herbivores (食草动物)  were decreasing in population after the asteroid hit Earth, which left the meat-eating species less food to survive on. “In any ecosystem where you remove links to key species, that community has problems," Richard Butler, one of the review's authors, told National Ceographic.
While the herbivore population was going down, Earth's temperatures were rising when volcanoes erupted. Hot vapors and gases began wiping out some of the dinosaur population and weakening the survivors.
These changes made the asteroid's impact especially powerful. It caused more volcanoes to erupt, heated up Earth's atmosphere, and led to a sharp drop in the level of oxygen in the oceans.
With the dinosaurs gone, mammals(哺乳动物) began to evolve into bigger and more diverse species. Many animals we see today, like birds, sharks, and even some cats and dogs, appeared after the asteroid hit Earth. But none rule Earth quite like the dinosaurs did..
Which of the following words can replace the underlined word“demise” in Paragraph 2?

I remember the first time that I was extremely happy. I was about 8 years old when for the first time, there was a computer in the classroom. I remember that my teacher allowed each student to take turns to play various educational games on the computer. One day, I found the source code(编码) for one of these games. Without knowing or being taught any programming language, I was able to figure out some of the BASIC code. I just gave myself an infinite number of lives in the game, so I could continue playing it forever. This was also my first introduction to algebra, and I didn't even know it at the time. This was a decisive moment in my life. I was quite excited because of what I was learning and what I was able to do. As a result, I was enthusiastic for the rest of my life about self learning and computers, and I was quite happy doing them too.
I've noticed that people who are truly content with life are enthusiastic about what they do. This enthusiasm, along with good health, is the key to being happy. It also leads to self-confidence and content in life too. It may also lead to success, wealth, and achievements.
Success, wealth, or achievements can also bring some people happiness, yet I know plenty of rich people who are unhappy. I know many people with successful businesses that are not happy with what they are doing. I know people who continuously buy themselves new toys, such as cars, computers, and televisions, yet never seem content for too long. Please remember, happiness is the journey of life, not the destination.
The underlined word "infinite" means_______

If English means endless new words, difficult grammar and sometimes strange pronunciation, you are wrong. Haven't you noticed that you have become smarter since you started to learn a language?
According to a new study by a British university, learning a second language can lead to an increase in your brain power. Researchers found that learning other languages changes grey matter. This is the area of the brain which processes information. It is similar to the way that exercise builds muscles.
The study also found the effect is greater, the younger people learn a second language.
A team led by Dr Andrea Mechelli, from University College London, took a group of Britons who only spoke English. They were compared with a group of "early bilinguals" who had learnt a second language before the age of five, as well as a number of later learners.
Scans showed that grey matter density (密度) in the brain was greater in bilinguals than in people without a second language. But the longer a person waited before mastering a new language, the smaller the difference.
"Our findings suggest that the structure of the brain is changed by the experience of learning a second language," said the scientists.
It means that the change itself increases the ability to learn.
Professor Dylan Vaughan Jones of the University of Wales, has researched the link between bilingualism and maths skills. "Having two languages gives you two windows on the world and makes the brain more flexible (灵活的),"he said. "You are actually going beyond language and have a better understanding of different ideas."
The findings were matched in a study of native Italian speakers who had learned English as a second language between the ages of two and 34. Reading, writing, and comprehension were all tested. The results showed that the younger they started to learn, the better. "Studying a language means you get an entrance to another world," explained the scientists.
The underlined word “bilingual'’ probably means ______.

The Cuban iguana is a species of lizard（蜥蜴） of the iguana family． It is the largest of the West Indian rock iguanas, one of the most endangered groups of lizards． This species with red eyes and a thick tail is one of the largest lizards in the Caribbean．
The Cuban iguana is primarily herbivorous; 95% of its diet consists of the leaves, flowers and fruits from as many as 30 plant species, including the seaside rock bush and various grasses． However, Cuban iguanas occasionally consume animal matter, and individuals have been observed eating the dead flesh of birds, fish and crabs, The researchers wrote that quite a few people on Isla Magueyes could have caused this incident．
The Cuban iguana is distributed throughout the rocky southern coastal areas of mainland Cuba and its surrounding islands with a wild population booming on Isla Magueyes, Puerto Rico． It is also found on the Cayman Islands of Little Cayman and Cayman Brac, where a separate subspecies occurs． Females guard their nest sites and often nest in sites half destroyed by Cuban crocodiles． To avoid the attack from them, the Cuban iguana often makes its home within or near prickly-pear cacti （仙人掌）．
In general the species is in decline, more quickly on the mainland than on the outlying islands． One of the reasons for their decline is habitat destruction caused by the over consuming of farm animals, housing development, and the building of tourist resorts on the beaches where the animals prefer to build their nests． Although the wild population is in decline, the numbers of iguanas have been sharply increased as a result of captive-breeding（圈养） and other conservation programs．
The underlined word "herbivorous" （Paragraph 2） probably means            ．

For many years, I was convinced that my suffering was due to my size. I believed that when the weight disappeared, it would take old wounds, hurts and rejections with it.
Many weight-conscious people also mistakenly believe that changing our bodies will fix everything. Perhaps our mistake is believing that being thin equals being loved, being special, and being cherished. We fantasize (幻想) about what it will be like when we reach the long-awaited goal .We work very hard to realize this dream. Then, at last, we find ourselves there.
But we often gain back what we have lost. Even so, we continue to believe that next time it will be different. Next time, we will keep it off. Next time, being thin will finally fulfill its promise of everlasting happiness, self-worth, and, of course, love.
It took me a long time to realize that there was something more for me to learn about beauty. Beauty standards vary with culture. In Samoa a woman is not considered attractive unless she weighs more than 200 pounds. More importantly, if it’s happiness that we want, why not put our energy there rather than on the size of our body? Why not look inside? Many of us strive hard to change our body, but in vain. We have to find a way to live comfortably inside our body and make friends with and cherish ourselves. When we change our attitudes towards ourselves, the whole world changes.
What does the word “everything” in paragraph 2 mean?

As the new semester begins，millions of college students across the country are trying hard to remember how best to write a paper-or，more likely，how best to delay that paper．
Procrastination is the thief of time and a lot of students suffer from it．They can spend whole days in the library doing nothing but staring into space，eating snacks，surfing the Internet，watching videos and looking at their pretty peers sitting around them，who，most likely，are doing nothing either．
Paralyzed by their habit to procrastinate，they write micro blogs about their fears，asking their online friends if they sometimes have the same issue．But this does nothing to solve their problems．
According to a recent report by the BBC，95 percent of us procrastinate at some point and 20 percent of the world’s population are procrastinators，complicating their lives with their continual delaying of tasks．
Procrastinators like to find excuses to justify their behavior，but BBC columnist Rowan Pelling says they are all wrong．Many procrastinators tell themselves they are perfectionists who work best under pressure．Pelling says this is nonsense，as work done at the last minute is more likely to have mistakes than work done on time．
She says the behavior of procrastinators often makes them feel flustered and ashamed，inconveniences others，and annoys loved ones．
Fortunately，social seientists have made tireless efforts to understand this behavioral shortcoming and offer strategies to control it．Piers Steel，a Canadian social scientist and author of The Procrastination Equation，believes humankind is“designed”to procrastinate．Nevertheless，he suggests a couple of good ways to get through the task at hand．
The first one is obvious：Break the task down into small pieces and work your way through them methodically．
The second is clever：Give a trusted friend a sum of money and tell them that if you don’t complete the task you have undertaken by a specific time，they can keep it or donate it to a cause you hate.
What does the underlined word“Procrastination” in the second paragraph refer to?

They tell us when to get up or when we’re running late for work and whether we are in danger of missing our favourite TV programme. But while our daily routines rely on clocks that tell us the time, science is discovering that our well-being is influenced by a very different kind of timepiece. Circadian rhythms---the human body’s own internal clock---have a powerful influence on our health and behaviour. They are programmed from birth and control functions ranging from temperature and blood pressure to sleep patterns.
In recent years researchers have also discovered that this built-in mechanism can influence everything from the way we react to medicines to how well we learn music.
The latest example, from experts at Harvard University in the US, shows that the human body clock can even dictate whether or not we are likely to tell the truth. Researchers found it was easier for people to fib（撒小谎） in the afternoon because, as they were tired, the self control that would normally prevent them from lying started to break down. Tiredness made it harder to resist the temptation to tell lies---especially if it meant they got a financial reward at the end.
“The body clock has a great effect on us all,” says Professor Jim Horne from the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University. “Most people tend to feel good around late morning and then decline in the early afternoon. But the time most of us will feel our sharpest is between 6pm and 8pm. That’s because sleepiness tends to build up throughout the day. By early evening our body clock kicks in to wake us up. One reason may be to ensure we get home safely. When our ancestors were coming home after hunting all day their internal clocks kicked in to get them home in one piece.”
So what effects do circadian rhythms have and what’s the best time of day to take advantage of them?
The underlined word “They” in the first paragraph refers to            .

Certainly, a well-rounded education is the foundation from which all of us spring forth. I am grateful to the many incredible teachers who have inspired me to do greater things, and have fired my enthusiasm for everlasting learning!
I have also been honored to have the most amazing teachers in all of my children's lives. These are extraordinary people who not only teach our children, but love them, challenge them, and provide an environment where a child learns how to learn.
But, sometimes I wonder if the outline of our educational plan is lacking something. I watched the movie Easy A with my older daughter. The main character's parents were loving, supportive, and built great confidence in their daughter and developed her ability to handle her own problems.
There was a scene where the mother was speaking to the younger child and he announced that he received an "A" on his spelling test. She replied, "That' s great, honey,  but everything has spell check these days. "  It was funny --- but TRUE ! I don't mean that we shouldn't teach our children how to spell, but maybe some of our time should be spent educating them about the dangers of posting things on Facebook.
Maybe we might want to spend time showing them how real life works - the credit card isn't free money - you will have to pay it back at sometime. Oh, and get this - they charge you for borrowing that money. Perhaps, we should spend some time on interpersonal relationships. I worry that our kids do not know how to relate to one another.
Choosing a career (职业)  is a daunting task.  My daughter is in her second year in college and has changed her major twice. It' s not that she didn't know what she wanted to do. What she "wanted to do" and the degree she chose did not match.
I have learned many college students do not know what they want to do because they haven' t seen what it looks like in the real world.  Being a journalist in the real world looks very different from writing stories. Maybe if we spent some time exposing them to real life experience - maybe two or three courses m areas of interest in high school that give them a "feel" for what that particular field would look like, they might be better prepared. I do not know the solution, but it seems that it should at least be a topic of discussion.
The underlined word "daunting" in Paragraph 6 probably means_____

Nine years ago, after Leo had died, people said to me. "I never knew he was your stepfather." You see, I never called him that. At first, he was no one special in my life. Then he became my friend. In time, I felt he was also my father.
Leo married my mother when I was eleven. Two years later we moved into a house in a new suburban development, where we put down roots. At first our lawn was just a mud with wild grass, but Leo saw bright possibilities. "We'll plant trees there to give us shade as well as some flowers," he said. And just these little touches made our house different from all the others. More important, a real family was forming. Leo was becoming a full-time parent, and I was learning what it meant to have a father.
Weekday mornings when the weather was bad, Leo often drove me to school. Having a father drop you off may have been something my classmates took for granted, but I always thought it was wonderful. Saturday mornings, we went to the hardware shop, then stepped into the five-and-ten, buying a sports magazine or something else. Some people might think that doing shopping together is nothing special, but I, who had ever before spent my childhood watching other families do their everyday activities, experienced them now with extreme delight. Looking back, I realized that Leo gave me what I needed most—the experience of doing ordinary things together as a family.
Soon after we moved to the suburbs, one of our new neighbors introduced herself to me. She had already met my mother and Leo. "You know," she said, "you look just like your father." I knew she was just making conversation--but even so... "Thank you", I said. Why tell her anything different?
The phrase “put down roots”in the second paragraph means  _______.

No one should be forced to wear a uniform under any circumstance. Uniforms are controlling the human spirit and totally unnecessary in a democratic(民主的) society. Uniforms tell the world that the person who wears one has no value as an individual but only lives to function as a part of the whole. The individual in a uniform loses all self-worth.
There are those who say that wearing a uniform gives a person a sense of identification with a larger, more important concept. What could be more important than the individual himself? If an organization is so weak that it must rely on cloth and buttons to inspire its members, that organization has no right to continue its existence.
Others say that the practice of making persons wear uniforms, say in school, gets rid of all envy and competition in a matter of dress, such that a poor person who cannot afford good-quality clothing is not to be looked down upon by a wealthy person who wears expensive clothing. Those persons ignore the concepts as freedom of choice, motivation, and individuality. If all persons were to wear the same clothing, why would anyone struggle to be better? It is only a short step from forcing everyone to drive the same car, have the same type of food. When this happens, all motivation to improve one’s life is removed. Why would parents bother to work hard so that their children could have a better life than they had when they know that their children are going to be forced to have exactly the same life as they had?
Uniforms also hurt the economy(经济). Right now, billions of dollars are spent on the fashion industry yearly. Thousands of people are employed in designing, creating, and marketing different types of clothing. If everyone were forced to wear uniforms, artistic personnel would be unnecessary. Salesmen would be extra as well. Why bother to sell the only items that are available? The wearing of uniforms would destroy the fashion industry which in turn would have a wave effect on such industries as advertising and sales promotion. Without advertising, newspapers, magazines, and television would not be able to remain in business. Our entire information and entertainment industries would collapse.
The last word of the passage “collapse” probably means ________.

Whether you’re eating at a fancy restaurant or dining in someone’s home, proper table manners are likely to help you make a good impression. According to a US expert, Emily Post, “All rules of table manners are made to avoid ugliness.”
While Henry Hitchings of the Los Angeles Times admits that good manners can reduce social conflict, he points out that mostly their purpose is protective – they turn our natural warrior-like selves into more elegant ones.
So where did table manners come from?
In medieval England, a writer named Petrus Alfonsi took the lead to urge people not to speak with their mouths full. And King David I of Scotland also proposed that any of his people who learned to eat more neatly be given a tax deduction (减除).
Disappointingly, that idea never caught on. It was during the Renaissance, when there were real technical developments, opinions of correct behavior changed for good. “None of these was more significant than the introduction of the table fork,” wrote Hitchings. “Gradually, as forks became popular, they brought the new way of eating, making it possible, for instance, to consume berries without making one’s fingers dirty.”
Forks were introduced to Britain in 1608 and 25 years later, the first table fork reached America. Yet while most of the essentials (基本要素) are the same on both sides of the Atlantic, there are a few clear differences between what’s normal in the US and what holds true in the UK. For example, in the US, when food needs cutting with a knife, people generally cut a bite, then lay aside the knife and switch the fork to their right hand. Then they pick up one bite at a time. By contrast, Britons keep the fork in the left hand and don’t lay the knife down.
Though globalization has developed a new, simpler international standard of table manners, some people still stick with the American cut-and-switch method.The Los Angeles Times noted, “They are hanging on to a form of behavior that favors manners above efficiency.”
The underlined phrase “caught on” in the passage probably means ______.

Homework and stress are rarely reduced inside the classroom. Meanwhile, outside the classroom, the pressure is on to find scholarships for college.
According to Braintrack, a higher education database with worldwide reach, more than 3 billion US dollars (18 billion yuan) in private scholarships are awarded to college students annually. Average awards range from $2,000 to $3,000.
The scholarship application process is similar to the college application process: forms to be completed, test scores and transcripts to be sent, essays to be written and often interviews to be prepared for.
A few great places to start looking for scholarships are: www.fastweb.com, www.finaid.org and www.collegexpress.com.Check out the annual scholarship guidebooks Scholarships, Grants & Prizes by Peterson’s and the Ultimate Scholarship Book: Billions of Dollars in Scholarships, Grants and Prizes by Gen Tanabe and Kelly Tanabe.
Be selective. Thoroughly research the qualifications required by each of the scholarships. Don’t waste your time applying for those that are need-based if you can’t produce the appropriate documents.
Research past recipients (接受者). Check out the websites of the organizations sponsoring the scholarships. Many post the biographies of past recipients. You don’t need to have cured cancer, but if you don’t think your résumé (履历) measures up to the past winners’, you might be better served by moving onto the next scholarship on your list. Prepare for the interview.
You’ll want to dazzle them with your personality, but above all you’ll want to be prepared. Find someone you trust to conduct a similar interview with you – someone who will be honest with you and provide valuable suggestions.
Let your personality shine through in your essays. The essays are the best way for students to share who they are, where they’ve come from, what they’ve overcome and so on. Tell your story in an interesting and persuasive  way. And if you do have an interview, send a thank-you note afterward.
By Lee Bierer
The underlined word “dazzle” in Paragraph 7 is closest in meaning to ___.

If you could take a large snapshot (照片) of everyone in the United States today, it would contain six minion more females than males. In this country, women outlive men by about seven years. Throughout the modern world, cultures are different, diets are different, ways of life and causes of death are different, but one thing is the same--- women outlive men.
It starts before birth. At conception, male fetuses(胎儿) outnumber female by about 110 to 100; at birth, the rate has already fallen to about 105 boys to every 100 girls. By the age of 30, there are only enough men left to match the number of women. Then women start taking a lead.  Beyond the age of 80, there are nearly twice as many women as men.
“If you look at the top ten or twelve causes of death,” said Deborah Wingard, a disease expert at the University of California at San Diego, “every single one kills more men.” She listed out one sad fate after another – heart disease, lung cancer and so on. Each kills men at roughly twice the rate of that it does women.
More than a century ago American men surpassed and outlived the women. But in the 20th century, women began living longer,  primarily because pregnancy（怀孕) and giving birth to children had become less dangerous. The gap grew steadily. In 1946, for the first time ever in the United States, females outnumbered males.
Parts of the reasons are self-made. Men smoke more, drink more and take more life-threatening chances than women. Men are murdered (usually by other men) three times as often as women are. They commit suicide at a higher rate and have more than twice as many fatal car accidents as women do. Men are likely to be involved in alcohol-related deaths.
But behavior doesn’t explain away the longevity gap.
Today, some scientists studying the gender gap believe that the data point to one conclusion Mother Nature may be partial(偏袒) to women.
Every living thing is assembled according to instructions on its chromosomes (染色体), and humans have 23 pairs of them. But in males, one of these is a weak non-matching pair, expressed by “xy”. The agreement pair in females is “xx”, and its genetic “backup” power is sometimes listed as a clue to woman’s superior restoring force.  If the male’s single “x” chromosome isn’t perfect, it is possible for a serious genetic disorder to appear. Some blood diseases, for instance, are diseases caused by a shortcoming in a single gene on the “x” chromosome. They are far more common in males than females.
What may the underlined word “outlive” in Paragraph1 mean?

Two students started quarreling at school. One student shouted dirty words at the other, and a fight began. What can be done to stop fights like this at school? In some schools, the disputants sit down with peer mediators(同龄调解者). Peer mediators are students with special training in this kind of problems.
Peer mediators help the disputants to talk in a friendly way. Here are some of the ways they use:
1) Put what you think clearly but don’t say anything to hurt the other. Begin with “I feel…” instead of “You always…”
2) Listen carefully to what the other person is saying. Don’t stop the other person’s words.
3) Keep looking at the other person’s eyes when he or she talks.
4) Try to see the other person’s side of the problem.
5) Never put anyone down. Saying things like “You are foolish” makes the talk difficult.
6) Try to find a result that makes both people happy.
Peer mediators never decide the result or the winner. They don’t decide who is right and who is wrong. Instead, they help the two students to find their own “win-win” result.
The underlined word “disputants” refers to the students ________.

Searching for airfares（飞机票价） often seems like a game that passengers are bound to lose．
Prices change from day to day, even minute to minute． Looking through multiple websites for the best deal can be a big challenge． Even when you do book, there’s no guarantee that you are going to get the best price．
"You just don’t know when to pull the trigger． It’s not like buying anything else I can think of,” said George Hobica, founder of Airfarewatchdog．com．
Harriet Levy paid $179 for a recent round-trip flight on American Airlines between New York and Fort Lauderdale, Florida． Sitting just one row behind her, Shirley Harrison paid $215． A few rows back, Ellis and Dianne Traub paid $317 each．There were at least 12 fares on the flight, ranging from $169 to $360．
There’s no reason for it, Harrison said．
Fares can change significantly in just a few hours． One Delta flight from New York to Los Angeles jumped from $755 to $1,143 from a Friday to Saturday in late April, then fell to $718 0n Sunday．
The flight was one of a dozen the Associated Press followed over three months for a vacation between July 16 and 22． The number one finding: avoid booking tickets on weekends． It’s the most expensive time to buy．
There’s no way to guarantee the best fare． But before booking, travelers should pay attention to this additional advice:
Book on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday． That’s when airlines most often offer sales．
Buy in advance, but not too early． The best time is four to six weeks before traveling． In general, prices for any given flight are highest eight to ten weeks and two to three weeks in advance．
Make use of social media． Airlines are giving more benefits like exclusive（独有的 ） sales to travelers who interact with them on Twitter and Facebook． Those specials are often gone within hours．
The so-called discount airlines - JetBlue, Air-Tran, Southwest and Frontier-adjust their fares less frequently than other airlines, so you can feel more confident that the price will stay the same． But their prices aren’t always the lowest．Researching multiple airlines’ fares is the only way to get a good deal．
The underlined phrase "pull the trigger" in Paragraph 3 probably means ________.

Recently, the TV show “Where are we going, Dad?” produced by Hunan SatelliteTelevision is a big hit across nation. Many famous stars brought their children to a strange village alone, and they had to spend 72 hours with their children there. The program fully showed us a modern version of the “how to be a good father”. As the young parents today are too busy to take care of their children, this new form of “Lost on the way” played by nanny Daddy and cute kids triggered（触发）a lot of people’s emotional resonance（共鸣）. Both the kids and their parents will find that their hearts are being drawn closer. But this kind of feeling has just proved that there is a big spiritual barrier between the modern parents and children.
The TV shows like “Children are hard to support!”, “Where are we going, Dad?”, “hot mom” and “cute kids” are becoming more and more popular. All of these show the new parents’ confusion in children’s education and the appeal for the balance between career and family.
In the real life, on the one hand the young parents feel helpless because they are too busy to accompany their children under the pressures of work and life; on the other hand they continue to do so. The data collected by HNTV shows that nearly two-thirds of their audience are female, among whom 36% are aged from 25 to 34.We can imagine such a scene that one evening a young mother is watching the show with her young children, while her husband is still at work or trapped in socializing, or maybe is just playing computer games in the bedroom. The story of a child without the company of father is still going on. In fact, it is sometimes the same to mothers. In a modern family, it is often the old who take the responsibility of raising a child. The participation of mother in the children’s education is also very low.
It is just this kind of confusion where the parents have gone in the modern family education, and where the parents will guide their children to go that “Where are we going, Dad?” shows us. If a child wants to grow up healthily and safely into a modern citizen with independent personality and free spirit, it is very important for him or her to follow the parents who serve as their first teacher. Maybe this is the real reason why such kind of TV programs could get hot. The truth is that children will go where their parents go; and society will go where the children go.
What does the underlined word “participation” probably mean?

Occasionally, my father came back drunk. Late at night, he beat on the door, pleading to my mother to open it .He was on his way home from drinking, gambling, or some combination thereof, misspending money that we could have used and wasting time that we desperately needed.
It was the late-1970s. My parents were separated. My mother was now raising a group of boys on her own. My father spouted off about what he planned to do for us, buy for us.In fact, he had no intention of doing anything. As a father who was supposed to love us, in fact, he lacked the understanding of what it truly meant to love a child—or to hurt one. To him, this was a harmless game that kept us excited and begging. In fact, it was a cruel, corrosive lie. I lost faith in his words and in him. I wanted to stop caring, but I couldn’t.
Maybe it was his own complicated relationship to his father and his father’s family that caused him cold. Maybe it was the pain and guilt associated with a life of misfortune. Who knows. Whatever it was, it stole him from us, and particularly from me.
While my brothers talked about breaking and fixing things, I spent many of my evenings reading and wondering. My favorite books were a set of encyclopedias(百科全书) given by my uncle. They allowed me to explore the world beyond my world, to travel without leaving, to dream dreams greater than my life would otherwise have supported. But losing myself in my own mind also meant that I was completely lost to my father. Not understanding me, he simply ignored me—not just emotionally, but physically as well. Never once did he hug me, never once a pat on the back or a hand on the shoulder or a tousling of the hair.
My best memories of him were from his episodic attempts at engagement with us. During the longest of these episodes（插曲）, once every month or two, he would come pick us up and drive us down the interstate to Trucker’s Paradise, a seedy, smoke-filled, truck stop with gas pumps, a convenience store, a small dining area and a game room through a door in the back. My dad gave each of us a handful of quarters, and we played until they were gone. He sat up front in the dining area, drinking coffee and being particular about the restaurant’s measly offerings.
I loved these days. To me, Trucker’s Paradise was paradise. The quarters and the games were fun but easily forgotten. It was the presence of my father that was most treasured. But, of course, these trips were short-lived.
It wasn’t until I was much older that I would find something that I would be able to cling to as evidence of my father’s love.
When the Commodore 64 personal computer debuted, I convinced myself that I had to have it even though its price was out of my mother’s range. So I decided to earn the money myself. I mowed every yard I could find that summer for a few dollars each, yet it still wasn’t enough. So my dad agreed to help me raise the rest of the money by driving me to one of the watermelon farms south of town, loading up his truck with wholesale melons and driving me around to sell them. He came for me before daybreak. We made small talk, but it didn’t matter. The fact that he was talking to me was all that mattered. I was a teenager by then, but this was the first time that I had ever spent time alone with him. He laughed and repeatedly introduced me as “my boy,” a phrase he relayed with a sense of pride. It was one of the best days of my life.
Although he had never told me that he loved me, I would cling to that day as the greatest evidence of that fact. He had never intended me any wrong. He just didn’t know how to love me right. He wasn’t a mean man. So I took these random episodes and clung to them like a thing most precious, storing them in my mind for the long stretches of coldness when a warm memory would prove most useful.
It just goes to show that no matter how friendless the father, no matter how deep the damage, no matter how shattered the bond, there is still time, still space, still a need for even the smallest bit of evidence of a father’s love.
“My boy.”
The underlined phrase “cling to” can be replaced by __________.

Unlike chemists and physicists, who usually do their experiments using machines, biologists and medical researchers have to use living things like rats. But there are three Nobel prize-winning scientists who actually chose to experiment on themselves – all in the name of science, reported The Telegraph.
1. Werner Forssmann (Nobel prize winner in 1956)
Forssmann was a German scientist. He studied how to put a pipe inside the heart to measure the pressure inside and decide whether a patient needs surgery.
Experiments had been done on horses before, so he wanted to try with human patients. But it was not permitted because the experiment was considered too dangerous.
Not giving up, Forssmann decided to experiment on himself. He anaesthetized (麻醉) his own arm and made a cut, putting the pipe 30 centimeters into his vein. He then climbed two floors to the X-ray room before pushing the pipe all the way into his heart.
2. Barry Marshall (Nobel prize winner in 2005)
Most doctors in the mid-20th century believed that gastritis was down to stress, spicy food or an unusually large amount of stomach acid. But in 1979 an Australian scientist named Robin Warren found that the disease might be related to a bacteria called Helicobacter pylori.
So he teamed up with his colleague, Barry Marshall, to continue the study. When their request to experiment on patients was denied, Marshall bravely drank some of the bacteria. Five days later, he lost his appetite and soon was vomiting each morning – he indeed had gastritis.
3. Ralph Steinman (Nobel prize winner in 2011)
This Canadian scientist discovered a new type of immune system cell called the dendritic cell. He believed that it had the ability to fight against cancer.
Steinman knew he couldn’t yet use his method to treat patients. So in 2007, when doctors told him that he had cancer and that it was unlikely for him to live longer than a year, he saw an opportunity.
With the help of his colleagues, he gave himself three different vaccines based on his research and a total of eight experimental therapies（疗法）. Even though Steinman eventually died from his cancer, he lived four and a half years, much longer than doctors had said he would.
The underlined word “gastritis” in Paragraph 5 probably means ______.

One Sunday, my family had gathered at my parents’ house to feast upon Mom’s wonderful cooking．During the normal dinner chatter, I noticed that my father was slurring （说话含混） his words．No one mentioned this during dinner, but I felt compelled to discuss it with my mother afterward．
We decided that there was something seriously wrong and that Dad needed to see the doctor．
Mom phoned me two days later．“The doctor found a brain tumor （肿瘤）．It’s too large at this point to operate．Maybe they can do something then, but the odds are long．”
Even with the treatment, my father’s condition worsened, and the doctor finally informed us that this condition was terminal．During one of his stays in the hospital, we brought our baby daughter Chelsey with us when we visited him．By this time he had great difficulty speaking．I finally figured out that he wanted Chelsey to sit on his stomach so he could make faces at her．
Watching the two of them together, I realized I was living an experience that would stay with me forever．Though grateful for the times they could share, I couldn’t shake the feeling of a clock ticking in the background．
On the visit to my parents’ home during what we all know was my father’s last days, my mother took Chelsey from my arms and announced, “Your father would like to see you alone for a minute．”
I entered the bedroom where my father lay on a rented hospital bed．He appeared even weaker than the day before．
“How are you feeling, Dad?” I asked．“Can I do anything for you?”
He tried to speak, but he couldn’t make out a word．
“I’m sorry, but I can’t understand you,” I said．
With great difficulty he said, “I love you．”
We don’t learn courage from heroes on the evening news．We learn true courage from watching ordinary people rise above hopeless situations．In many ways my father was a strict, uncommunicative man．He found it difficult to show emotion．The bravest thing I ever saw him do was overcome that barrier to open his heart to his son and family at the end of his life．
What does the underlined sentence “the odds are long” mean?

According to body language expert Robert Phipps, the way people sleep at night actually determines a lot about the type of personality they have. Phipps has identified four sleeping positions that affect personality.
Phipps found that worriers, those who stress the most, tend to sleep in the fetal(胎儿的) position. He found that this is the most common bedtime position, with nearly 58 percent of people sleeping on their side with knees up and head down. The more we curl up(蜷曲), the more comfort we are seeking, according to Phipps.
The second most common position is the log. Sleeping with a straight body, with arms at each side, as if they are standing guard at Buckingham Palace, indicates stubbornness, and these people (the 28 percent who sleep this way) often wake up stiffer than when they went to sleep.
"The longer you sleep like this, the more rigid your thinking is and you can become inflexible, which means you make things harder for yourself," according to Phipps.
Yearner(向往型) sleepers are next on the list. About 25 percent of people sleep in this style — on their side with arms stretched out in front, looking as if they are either chasing a dream or perhaps being chased themselves. Yearners are typically their own worst critics, always expecting the best results, explained Phipps. These people often wake up refreshed and eager to face the challenges of the day ahead.
Perhaps the most peculiar(奇怪的) of sleep styles is the freefaller position. This sleep style makes up 17 percent of the population. They sleep face down with arms stretched out. These people, according to Phipps, feel like they have little control over their life. Not only is this the strangest of sleep styles, but also the least comfortable, and people may wake up feeling tired and have no energy.
In conclusion, Phipps has only one more thing to add: "A good night’s sleep sets you up for the following day and our sleeping positions can determine how we feel when we wake."
The underlined word "rigid" is closest in meaning to "   ".

With all the wars, fighting and sadness in the world today, it's not only necessary, but also essential to have a good sense of humor just to help us get through each and every day of our lives. Putting a smile on someone's face when you know they are feeling down in the dumps ( 处于沮丧中), as the saying goes, makes me feel good and warms my heart.
How would you feel if you could not joke around with your wife, husband, child, co-worker neighbor, close friend, or even just someone that you are standing in line with at your comer store? I am always saying things that make others smile or laugh, even if I don't know the person I'm joking around with.My Grandma always found humor in everything she did, even if it was the hardest job anyone could imagine.This not only relieves stress in any situation, but also is common courtesy (礼貌) to speak to others that are around you.
I know of a few people that don’t have a funny bone in their bodies, as they say.Everyone around them could be rolling on the floor after hearing a great joke and they would sit there without the slightest smile on their face.They don't get the joke that makes others laugh. I am busting a gut while they just sit there, looking at me as if I were from outer space. How can people not get a really funny joke?
Laughing is essential to keep your stress levels under control. Without humor we would find ourselves with a lot of psychological problems, or on a lot of medications to keep us from going crazy. There is too much sadness in this present world. It drives people crazy. We all need to find a way to bypass the sadness and bring a little light into our lives. So, I believe our best medicine is to get together and tell some jokes and have some fun laughing together.
The phrase “busting a gut" in the third paragraph can be replaced by __________.

Sometimes it is difficult to talk to taxi drivers. They must give all their attention to the road as they work out the shortest way to the place where you are going. However, passengers from Wangfujing were in surprise when they took a taxi. The driver just would not stop talking - in English.
Organized by the Cultural and Education Section of the British Embassy, “Dare to Speak” examines if Chinese people will speak English in “real-life” situations.
Matthew Knowles, an acting student from South Carolina at Beijing Film Academy, acted the part as the “driver”. He collected six passengers on Saturday morning, most of whom were female white-collar （白领）workers.
“Of course they were surprised at first, wondering why I’m driving a taxi, and wondering whether this is a real taxi, but then most of them were pretty willing to speak,” he said. Knowles said he was also surprised by his “passengers”. “Apart from my first ‘passenger’, who could speak very little English, all the rest spoke English very well, and it was fun to communicate with them,” he said, adding that some “passengers” were quite talkative.
The “foreign taxi driver” project was just one of the “Dare to Speak” activities, which have been going on since the end of October. Other projects included a foreign store owner near a high school in Beijing, a cook in a Shanghai university canteen. They were testing the willingness of Chinese people, especially students and white-collar workers, to speak to foreigners in English.
Rong Xin, senior manager of IELTS （雅思） with the British Embassy, said they hoped to let IELTS takers in China know that communication is the ultimate goal of IELTS.
“We hope that more and more IELTS takers in China can realize the importance of communicating in English in real life, instead of just getting high test scores,” she said.
The underlined word ultimate is closest in meaning to ________.

One day an old woman was traveling alone in the mountains. Suddenly she saw something shining in the stream. When she came close, she found it was a precious stone. She put the stone into her bag and went on with her trip.
The next day the old woman met a young man, who was also a traveler in the mountains. The young man looked very hungry, so the old woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked carefully, “The stone is beautiful. Would you like to give it to me?”
“Sure. Why not?” the woman said, and handed the stone to him.
The young man left happily with the stone. He knew it was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the woman.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back and hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within your bag.”
The woman opened her bag. It was almost empty. She looked at the young man and smiled, “I have nothing special in my bag, but I do have something precious — the joy of giving!” The young man felt ashamed and left silently.
What does the underlined word “security” in Paragraph 4 probably mean?