湖北襄阳五中2017届高三开学考试（8月）英语试题及答案(2)

C. encourage readers to become online writers  
D. express his admiration for online writer Zhang Wei
23. What can we infer from what Zhang Wei says in the last paragraph?
A. Few words, many deeds.          B. First try, and then trust.
C. Harm set, harm get.              D. No pains, no gains.
B
Many people trying to sell homes find that an increase in home prices has turned the market in their favor. But sellers can still get the short end of the deal if they aren’t careful. Here are a few tips for you:
Don’t test your luck. Of course you think anyone who moves into your lovely home should be willing to pay top dollars, especially if you’ve recently invested in some improvements. But listing a home at a price that’s too high above the market price could turn away some buyers.
Buyers noticing that the home still hasn’t sold may begin to assume there’s something wrong with the house and use that as a reasonable excuse for offering a lower price. And if a home hasn’t received any offers after two weeks, it might be time to reset the price.
A price that’s too low can bring about an undesired outcome. Listing your home at or slightly below the market price can have the effect of drawing in a large group of buyers and increase the chances that a home will receive multiple offers. But setting the price too low comes with several risks. One possibility is that buyers will get skeptical of the home that is listed for $ 15,000 to $ 20,000 less than similar homes in the area, especially if it’s not properly marketed. Once again, people might assume there is something wrong with the home and may not bother to look at it.
Spy on the competition. Going to other people’s open houses can give you a better sense of how your home compares to others on the market. Check out the finishes in their kitchens, the size of their backyards and use the information to figure out where your home should fit in the range of the price. But don’t set your pricing just on what you see elsewhere.
24. What does the underline part in paragraph 1 probably mean?
  A. To be at a disadvantage  B. To get the upper hand
  C. To have control over the situation D. To be unable to fit in
25. What should home sellers do according to the passage?
  A. Price your house on the basis of its geographic location.
  B. Price your house slightly above the market price after decorating it.
  C. Change the price if no offer has been received within a week.
  D. Change your house at a price slightly below the market price.
26. If you set the price of your house too low, _____.
  A. buyers might think it not worthwhile to go to have a look
  B. you are likely to come into conflict with the neighborhood sellers
  C. your house will be crowded with buyers within a couple of days
  D. chances of your house being sold at a better price will be greatly increased
27. What is the benefit of going to other people’s open house?
  A. You can pick up some useful lessons on house selling.
  B. You can get your pricing mainly based on what you see elsewhere.
  C. You can work out how much money you should ask for your home.
  D. You can know how to make your house stand out against other houses.
                                  C
    Sunday is more like Monday than it used to be. Places of business that used to keep daytime“business hours” are now open late into the night. And on the Internet, the hour of the day and the day of the week have become irrelevant（不相关的）. A half century ago in the United States, most people experienced strong and precise dividing lines between days of rest and days of work, school time and summer time. Today the boundaries still exist, but they seem not clear.
    The law in almost all states used to require stores to close on Sunday; in most, it no longer does. It used to keep the schools open in all seasons except summer; in most, it still does. And whether the work week should strengthen its legal limits, or whether it should become more “flexible,” is often debated. How should we, as a society, organize our time? Should we go even further in relaxing the boundaries of time until we live in a world in which every minute is much like every other?
    These are not easy questions even to ask. Part of the difficulty is that we rarely recognize the “law of time” even when we meet it face to face. We know as children that we have to attend school a certain number of hours, a certain number of days, a certain number of years — but unless we meet the truant officer (学监), we may well think that we should go to school due to social custom and parents’ demand rather than to the law. As adults we are familiar with “extra pay for overtime working,” but less familiar with the fact that what constitutes（构成）“overtime” is a matter of legal definition. When we turn the clock forward to start daylight-saving time, have we ever thought to ourselves: “Here is the law in action”? As we shall see, there is a lot of law that has great influence on how we organize and use time: compulsory education law, overtime law, and daylight-saving law — as well as law about Sunday closing, holidays, being late to work, time zones, and so on. Once we begin to look for it, we will have no trouble finding a law of time to examine and assess.
28. By saying “Sunday is more like Monday than it used to be”, the writer means that_______.