s="" too="" bad="" that="" humans="" can't="" hibernate.="" in="" fact,="" as="" a="" species,="" we="" almost="" did. Apparently, at times in the past, peasants in France liked a semi-state of human hibernation. So writes Graham Robb, a British scholar who has studied the sleeping habits of the French peasants. As soon as the weather turned cold people all over France shut themselves away and practiced the forgotten art of doing nothing at all for months on end. In line with this, Jeff Warren, a producer at CBC Radio's The Current, tells us that the way we sleep has changed fundamentally since the invention of artificial lighting and the electric bulb. When historians began studying texts of the Middle Ages, they noticed something referred to as “first sleep”, which was not clarified, though. Now scientists are telling us our ancestors most likely slept in separate periods. The business of eight hours' uninterrupted sleep is a modern invention.In the past, without the artificial light of the city to bathe in, humans went to sleep when it became dark and then woke themselves around midnight. The late night period was known as “The Watch”. It was when people actually kept watch against wild animals, although many of them simply moved around or visited family and neighbors.According to some sleep researchers, a short period of insomnia at midnight is not a disorder. It is normal. Humans can experience another state of consciousness around their sleeping, which occurs in the brief period before we fall asleep or wake ourselves in the morning. This period can be an extraordinarily creative time for some people. The impressive inventor, Thomas Edison, used this state to hit upon many of his new ideas.Playing with your sleep rhythms can be adventurous, as anxiety may set in. Medical science doesn't help much in this case. It offers us medicines for a full night's continuous sleep, which sounds natural; however, according to Warren's theory, it is really the opposite of what we need.1. The example of the French peasants shows the fact that （ ）.2. The late night was called “The Watch” because it was a time for people （ ）.3. Thomas Edison is cited to show （ ）.4. What does the author advise people to do?5. What is most possibly the source of this article?'>

Have you winterized your horse yet? Even though global warming may have made our climate milder, many animals are still hibernating. It's too bad that humans can't hibernate. In fact, as a species, we almost did.Apparently, at times in the past, peasants in France liked a semi-state of human hibernation. So writes Graham Robb, a British scholar who has studied the sleeping habits of the French peasants. As soon as the weather turned cold people all over France shut themselves away and practiced the forgotten art of doing nothing at all for months on end.In line with this, Jeff Warren, a producer at CBC Radio's The Current, tells us that the way we sleep has changed fundamentally since the invention of artificial lighting and the electric bulb.When historians began studying texts of the Middle Ages, they noticed something referred to as “first sleep”, which was not clarified, though. Now scientists are telling us our ancestors most likely slept in separate periods. The business of eight hours' uninterrupted sleep is a modern invention.In the past, without the artificial light of the city to bathe in, humans went to sleep when it became dark and then woke themselves around midnight. The late night period was known as “The Watch”. It was when people actually kept watch against wild animals, although many of them simply moved around or visited family and neighbors.According to some sleep researchers, a short period of insomnia at midnight is not a disorder. It is normal. Humans can experience another state of consciousness around their sleeping, which occurs in the brief period before we fall asleep or wake ourselves in the morning. This period can be an extraordinarily creative time for some people. The impressive inventor, Thomas Edison, used this state to hi

Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage.Before, whenever we had wealth, we started discussing poverty. Why not now? Why is the current politics of wealth and poverty seemingly about wealth alone? Eight years ago, when Bill Clinton first ran for president, the Dow Jones average was under 3,500, yearly federal budget deficits were projected at hundreds of billions of dollars forever and beyond, and no one talked about the “permanent boom” or the “new economy”. Yet in that more straitened time, Clinton made much of the importance of “not leaving a single person behind”. It is possible that similar “compassionate” rhetoric might yet play a role in the general election. But it is striking how much less talk there is about the poor than there was eight years ago, when the country was economically uncertain, or in previous eras, when the county felt flush. Even last summer, when Clinton spent several days on a remarkable tour through impoverished areas from Indian reservations in South Dakota to ghetto neighborhoods in East St. Louis, the administration decided to refer to the effort not as a poverty tour but as a “new market initiative”.What is happening is partly a logical, policy-driven reaction. Poverty really is lower than it has been in decades, especially for minority groups. The most attractive solution to it—a growing economy—is being applied. The people who have been totally left out of this boom often have medical, mental or other problems for which no one has an immediate solution. “The economy has sucked in anyone who has any preparation, any ability to cope with modern life,” says Franklin D. Raines, the former director of the Office of Management and Budget who is now head of Fannie Mac. When he and other people who specialize in the issue talk about solutions, they talk analytically and on a long term basis: education, development of work sill, shifts in the labor market, and adjustments in welfare reform.But I think there is another force that has made this a rich era with barely visible poor people. It is the unusual social and imaginative separation between prosperous America and those still left out. It’s simple invisibility because of increasing geographic, occupational, and social barriers that block one group from the other’s view.26. What does the word “straitened” in the first paragraph mean?

27. What is one important reason why we do not talk much about poverty according to the author?

28. What can be concluded from the passage?

29. What is the author’s purpose in writing this passage?

30. What is the main idea of the passage?

There are many who believe that the use of force（ ）political ends can never be justified.

As you all know, the United States is a country on wheels. Nearly eight million new cars are made each year; four households out of five own at least one car, and more than a quarter have two each. Yet you’ll be surprised to learn that some of the car-owners even suffer from malnutrition.In 1968, a nation-wide survey of malnutrition was made for the first time. It found that 10 million people are suffering in health through inadequate feeding; the causes of their plight were varied. Unemployment over a long period should be considered as the main factor. And unemployment, strange to say, nine times out of ten results from automation, both in industrial and agricultural areas. For example, in the rural South when a cotton plantation suddenly cuts its force from 100 people to three, the problem to help the displaced arises. So is the case with industrial automation. In fact, probably 2 million jobs are made unnecessary each year in the whole country as a result of the automation process, thus making unemployment a chief social concern. According to government statistics, the number of people unemployed was over 5 percent for the period from 1958 to 1963. In July 1981, it rose to 7.8 percent. As a matter of fact, it has long been known that even during the most prosperous periods there have been people without enough to eat. So I think that’s why President Kennedy said in his inauguration speech in 1961, if the government did not help the poor, it could not save the rich.In 1966, the Social Security Administration calculated that a family of four needed an income of $3,355 a year to be above the line of poverty. And in 1977, the average poverty line of the country was slightly more than $6,200 annual income for a non-farm family of four. According to the Social Security Act, families of that size below poverty line are eligible to receive benefits from the special welfare program. The average weekly payment of benefits now is equivalent to 36 percent of the worker’s normal wage. And the number of people who receive government benefits is increasing. In 1973, social insurance payments by governments, mainly to old age pensioners and people who had lost their jobs or were off work through illness, amounted to $86,000 million. Those not fully qualified for insurance payments received $29,000 million in public aid.But problems still exist. Many people are not reached by the anti-poverty program, because local authorities and agencies do not want to play their part or do not gave the resources to do so. Some poor people will not accept help for various reasons. Of course, there are some more important factors which lie in the structure of the society, but I don’t consider it necessary to dig into them here. Yet we will perhaps agree that social welfare programs have solved to some extent the problems of feeding, clothing and housing those below the poverty line. On the whole, it perhaps might be said that American people are living a better life than people in most other countries.1.The United States is called a country on wheels because（ ）.2.According to a 1968 survey, ten million Americans found themselves in a difficult health situation chiefly due to（ ）.3.The author use “the displaced” (Line 6 , Para. 2) to refer to those who are（ ）.4.The word “eligible” (Line 4, Para. 3) is synonymous with “（ ）”.5.Americans are living a better life than those in most of other countries because, to some degree,（ ）.

Some organizations find themselves faced with new product opportunities, or with projects that have a（ ）starting and ending point.

The government’s inability to （ ） its own laws and regulations disappointed the electorate.