一、完型填空真题和答案
Bargain shoppers need to remember that buying a high-end luxury item on a little-known website is just as risky aspurchasing one on a street corner. The Internet is full of
bogus deal sites that sell only counterfeit items.
“Any time you have an increase in shopping activity, you are going to have an increase in the predators who preyon shoppers,”
If you’re looking for a Rolex watch, Louis Vuitton wallet or a pair of Louboutins, you’re best off patronizing the brand’s store, which often means paying full price for the item.
It’s not only counterfeit goods that you need to be on the lookout for when buying gifts. According to the U.S. Secret Service, counterfeit money increases
in circulation during the holiday season as “counterfeiters prey on both cashiers distracted by long lines, andconsumers juggling purchases and shopping lists.” ‘Tis the season for giving, which means it’s also the perfect time for phony nonprofits to coerce consumers out of their hard-earned cash. To avoid falling prey to their tricks, visit the Wise Giving Alliance website before opening up your wallet this holiday season. The website lists all the nationally recognized
charities, while evaluating charities
for consumers so they can avoid making any dubious donations.
It’s not just your inbox that scammers are
flooding, either. A warning issued by the FBI this November reminded consumers to be on the lookout for smishing scams.
Beware any
deals
advertised via social media outlets, as scammers are just as savvy at imitating a retailers’ fan page as
they are at mimicking websites. McAfee Labs which specializes in virus protection,
cites a NovemberFacebook scam that offered a “free $1,000 Best Buy gift card” to the first 20,000 people who signed up on a bogus Best Buy fan page. The scam urged consumers to provide personal information as they took a series of quizzes.
Malware tweets and posts are even more prevalent than fan page ruses. You might remember this scam, which used the lure of a free iPad to get users to sign up for a premium cell phone service that cost $10 a week via both Facebook andTwitter.
二、英译中
Passage 1
Farms go out of business for many reasons, but few farms do merely because the soil has failed. That is the miracle of farming. If you care for the soil, it will last — and yield — nearly forever. America is such a young country that we have barely tested that. For most of our history, there has been new land to farm, and we still farm as though there always will be.
导致农场破产的原因有很多种，但是少数农场的破产仅仅是由于土地退化的原因所造成的，这算是农业上的奇迹。如果你能够照料好土地，那么它就几乎可以永远地产出。美国是这样一个年轻的国度，以至于我们几乎无法进行验证。因为在我们大部分历史中，总会有新的土地被开垦成农场，我们不断地耕作，好像资源取之不尽。
Still, there are some very old farms out there. The oldest is the Tuttle farm, near Dover, N.H., which is also one of the oldest business enterprises in America. It made the news last week because its owner — a lineal descendant of John Tuttle, the original settler — has decided to go out of business. It was founded in 1632. I hear its sweet corn is legendary.
然而，还是有一些上了岁数的农场破产了。其中历史最有悠久的莫过于“塔特尔农场”——它位于美国新罕布什尔州多佛市附近，也是美国历史最悠久的商业公司之一。最近，它的所有人——即农场创始人约翰.塔特尔的直系继承人——宣告破产，从而再次成为新闻。塔特尔农场始建于1632年。我听说它出产的甜玉米是个传奇。
The year 1632 is unimaginably distant. In 1632, Galileo was still publishing, and John Locke was born. There were perhaps 10,000 colonists in all of America, only a few hundred of them in New Hampshire. The Tuttle acres, then, would have seemed almost as surrounded as they do in 2010, but by forest instead of highways and houses.
1632年，一个遥远得令人无法想象的岁月。1632年，伽利略还在出版他的著作，约翰.洛克（著名的英国哲学家）才刚刚出生。在整片美国土地上大概有1万个殖民者，而在新罕布什尔州只有区区几百人。那时的塔特尔耕地可能与2010年一样被团团包围着，只不过大片森林为高度公路和房子所代替。
It was a precarious operation at the start — as all farming was in the new colonies—and it became precarious enough again in these past few years to peter out at last. The land is protected by a conservation easement so it can’t be developed, but no one knows whether the next owner will farm it.
（责任编辑:秩名）
