B

When I was about 14, I decided to make money, so I got a part-time job at a local restaurant. With my first paycheck, I realized that I would have to work awfully hard to make very little money. My boss had been making just above minimum wage for 20 years, and I knew I didn't want to spend the rest of my life working to death. Around the same time, my godparents took me to an investment(投资) workshop. Immediately, my eyes were opened to the power of compound growth in investing. I knew that this was a way to financial freedom. I left the workshop, determined to make my money work for me instead of just me working for money.

Honoring what my mother had taught me, to share whatever I had, I donated part of my paychecks to raise money for breast cancer, and saved everything else to build up a large enough nest egg to open a brokerage account (经纪人账户). Too excited to wait, I began reading everything I could about investing. With most of my life savings (which wasn't very much money), I invested in DuPont, AT&T, Caterpillar, and International Paper. The pride in being a shareholder (股东)in a company, along with watching my stocks increase in value, fueled my desire to learn more. I went to three more investment workshops with my godparents and browsed(浏览) books at the library.

I began with $4,000 in my account and have added about $2,000 since then. My portfolio is now worth roughly $12,000, five years later, having grown about 18% per year, on average. My favorite holdings are biotechnology companies that I know a fair amount about because they're based near me.

In the years since then, I have experienced many moments of gratitude for discovering investing so early in my life. I'm in college now, and plan to go on to medical school and become a family practice physician. And I know that, thanks to investing, my road will be much easier. Not only have I taken an active step towards improving my long-term financial future, but I am confident that I will also be able to generously support the causes I believe in with more ease than I otherwise would have imagined.

45. What can we learn from the first paragraph?

A. The working condition in the local restaurant was awful.

B. The writer didn’t make much money because he took a temporary job.

C. People can’t make a lot of money unless they work hard as hard work always pays.

D. The investment workshop taught the writer that he could make money through investment.

48. The best title of the passage should be __________.

A. The Rewards of Investing B. My Dream Career

C. The Key to Successful Investment D. Thank You, My Godparents

C

Some scientists say that animals in the ocean are increasingly threatened by noise pollution caused by human beings. The noise that affects sea creatures comes from a number of human activities. It is caused mainly by industrial underwater explosions, ocean drilling and ship engines. Such noises are added to natural sounds. These sounds include the breaking of ice fields, underwater earthquakes and sounds made by animals themselves.

Decibels(分贝)measured in water are different from those measured on land. A noise of one hundred and twenty decibels on land causes pain to human ears. In water, a decibel level of one hundred and ninety¬five would have the same effect.

Some scientists have proposed setting a noise limit of one hundred and twenty decibels in oceans. They have observed that noises at that level can frighten and confuse whales.

A team of American and Canadian scientists discovered that loud noises can seriously injure some animals.The research team found that powerful underwater explosions were causing whales in the area to lose their hearing.This seriously affected the whales' ability to exchange information and find their way.Some of the whales even died.The explosions had caused their ears to bleed and become infected(感染).

Many researchers whose work depends on ocean sounds object to a limit of one hundred and twenty decibels.They say such a limit would mean an end to important industrial and scientific research.

Scientists do not know how much and what kinds of noises are harmful to ocean animals. However, many scientists suspect that noise is a greater danger than they believed. They want to prevent noises from harming creatures in the ocean.