B
At 3,500 metres, La Paz, Bolivia, is the highest capital in the world.Many roads are in bad condition and accidents are frequent.One road in particular, is considered the most dangerous in the world.On one side there is a sudden drop, which is so great that anyone inside the vehicle is lucky to survive.
But thanks to one man, the death toll (人数) has fallen.Timoteo Apaza is a man who lives in a village near the most dangerous part of the road, known as "the Devil's Bend".Timoteo has an unusual job — he is a human traffic signal.Every morning he stands on the bend and directs the traffic.When two vehicles approach from opposite directions, they can't see each other, but they can see Timoteo.Actually no one pays him to do the job.Sometimes drivers give him a tip so that he has just enough money to live on.But often they just pass by, taking the human traffic signal for granted.
So why does he do it? Before Timoteo volunteered to direct the traffic, he had been a driver.Then one day he was driving a lorry load of bananas when he came off the road at a bend and fell three hundred metres down the mountain.Somehow he survived, but was in hospital for months.Then, a few years later, he was called out in the night to help pull people out of a bus crashed at the Devil's Bend.This last experience had a profound effect on Timoteo.He realized that he was lucky to be alive himself, and felt that it was his mission in life to help others.So every morning, week in, week out, from dawn to dusk, Timoteo takes up his place on the bend.
60.Where does Timoteo work?
A.In a small mountainous village. B.At the busiest part of a road.
C.On a farm growing bananas. D.At the side of a dangerous road.
61.The road is so dangerous mainly because ______.
A.it is steep and in bad condition B.it is high up in the mountain
C.there is heavy traffic D.it is often very foggy
62.What does Timoteo get for his job?
A.No payment at all.
B.A small salary from the government.
C.A small amount of money from some drivers.
D.An award from the local people.
63.Why does Timeteo voluntarily direct the traffic?
A.He loves to be a traffic policeman.
B.He feels it his duty to help the drivers.
C.He isn't qualified to do anything else.
D.He can't drive the lorry any more.
(BBC News April 18) All flights in and out of the UK and several other European countries have been cancelled as ash from a volcanic eruption in Iceland moves south.
Up to 4,000 flights are being cancelled with airspace closed in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark among others.
The UK’s air traffic control service (Nats) said no flights would be allowed in UK airspace until at least 07:00 BST on Friday for fear of engine damage.
Safety group Eurocontrol said the problem could last for 48 hours.
The volcano is still erupting and the wind direction is expected to continue bringing clouds into UK and European airspace for some time to come.
The UK’s airspace restriction was the worst in living memory, a Nats spokesman said. Some 600,000 people are thought to have been affected.
Nats suggested that the restrictions were unlikely to be lifted (解除) after 07:00, saying it was “very unlikely that the situation over England will improve in the foreseeable future”.
Passengers were advised to contact their carriers before travelling.
Transport Secretary Lord Adonis said he was “closely monitoring the situation” and would be meeting with key transport officials on Friday morning.
Experts have warned that the tiny particles of rock, glass and sand contained in the ash cloud from the still-erupting volcano could be sufficient to jam aircraft engines.
The Health Protection Agency said the ash from the eruption did not bring a significant risk to public health because of its high altitude.
However, the British Lung Foundation has warned people with lung conditions to keep their medication (医疗护理) with them as a precautionary measure.
These are some of the knock-on effects:
● Eurocontrol says Germany is monitoring the situation and considering partial airspace closures.
● The two main airports in Paris and many others in the north of France are closing.
● There is severe disruption (崩溃) in France and Spain, where all northbound flights are cancelled.
● Nats is due to make an announcement shortly as to the arrangements that will be in place
through to 13:00 BST on Friday.
● British Airways offers refunds or an option to rebook after all its domestic flights are suspended.
Flybe announces it has cancelled all flights up until 13:00 BST on Friday and more than 25 services due to run after that.
British sports teams have been hit by travel problems after flights were grounded.
60. What may passengers do on hearing the news according to the passage?
A. They may cancel their international flights.
B. They may contact the airlines before traveling.
C. They may take measures to protect their lungs from the ash.
D. They may stay indoors till the volcanic eruption dies down.
61. Why have some European countries cancelled flights after the volcanic eruption?
A. Because the volcanic ash may make passengers ill.
B. Because people refuse to take the international flights.
C. Because the volcanic ash may jam or damage the engine.
D. Because the flights may be hit by the rocks from the eruption.
62. Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?
A. All the flights are likely to return to normal in 48 hours.
B. British people had experienced a worse airspace restriction before that.
C. Germany is monitoring the situation and considering closing all airspace.
D. The UK airspace restrictions are unlikely to be lifted in the foreseeable future.
第三部分阅读理解 (共15小题;每小题2分,满分30分)
请认真阅读下列短文,从短文后各题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中,选出最佳选项,并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
Why You Should Celebrate Your Mistakes
When you make a mistake, big or small, cherish (珍视) it like it’s the most precious thing in the world. Because in some ways, it is.
Most of us feel bad when we make mistakes, beat ourselves up about it, feel like failures, get mad at ourselves.
And that’s only natural: most of us have been taught from a young age that mistakes are bad, that we should try to avoid mistakes. We’ve been scolded when we make mistakes—at home, school and work. Maybe not always, but probably enough times to make feeling bad about mistakes an unconscious reaction.
Yet without mistakes, we could not learn or grow. If you think about it that way, mistakes should be cherished and celebrated for being one of the most amazing things in the world: they make learning possible; they make growth and improvement possible.
By trial and error—trying things, making mistakes, and learning from those mistakes—we have figured out how to make electric light, to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, to fly.
Mistakes make walking possible for the smallest toddler, make speech possible, make works of genius possible.
Think about how we learn: we don’t just consume information about something and instantly know it or know how to do it. You don’t just read about painting, or writing, or computer programming, or baking, or playing the piano, and know how to do them right away. Instead, you get information about something, from reading or from another person or from observing usually … then you construct a model in your mind … then you test it out by trying it in the real world … then you make mistakes … then you revise the model based on the results of your real-world experimentation … and repeat, making mistakes, learning from those mistakes, until you’ve pretty much learned how to do something. That’s how we learn as babies and toddlers, and how we learn as adults. Mistakes are how we learn to do something new—because if you succeed at something, it’s probably something you already knew how to do. You haven’t really grown much from that success—at most it’s the last step on your journey, not the whole journey. Most of the journey was made up of mistakes, if it’s a good journey.
So if you value learning, if you value growing and improving, then you should value mistakes. They are amazing things that make a world of brilliance possible.
56. Why do most of us feel bad about making mistakes?
A. Because mistakes make us suffer a lot.
B. Because it’s a natural part in our life.
C. Because we’ve been taught so from a young age.
D. Because mistakes have ruined many people’s careers.
57. According to the passage, what is the right attitude to mistakes?
A. We should try to avoid making mistakes.
B. We should owe great inventions mainly to mistakes.
C. We should treat mistakes as good chances to learn.
D. We should make feeling bad about mistakes an unconscious reaction.
58. The underlined word “toddler” in Paragraph Six probably means _______.
A. a small child learning to walk B. a kindergarten child learning to draw
C. a primary pupil learning to read D. a school teenager learning to write
59. We can learn from the passage that _______.
A. most of us can really grow from success
B. growing and improving are based on mistakes
C. mistakes are the most precious things in the world
D. we read about something and know how to do it right away
My bookshelves are full of dust — and with good reason.When it comes to cleaning that part of my home, I suffer from the most serious case of avoidance (回避反应症).
The thing is this: when I do set out to clean and re-organize my books, which seldom happens, I place myself into a really bad situation.No sooner do I take a title from the shelf, blow off the dust, and wipe down the cover than I find myself sitting on the floor with legs crossed and my back against the wall.Pretty soon books get piled up on my legs as I am reunited with old friends.
It is as if these books have voices, and each wants to say its piece.“Remember me? I was given to you when you went into the Navy, so that you would never lack for companionship,” one whispers.Another says, “I was your first book of poems, given to you before you learned to love poetry.” And a third, “I was the book that made history so attractive to you.”
Perhaps the greatest pleasure of re-organizing my books are the surprises — or better said, reunions — that occur.During my latest book-cleaning adventure, I found one that had fallen behind the shelf: “Tales of Edgar Allan Poe.” Not an unusual title, but the words written on the first page made it very special: “With Love from Mom and Dad, Christmas 1965.” What’s this? A book on the physics of lasers(激光).It is filled with mathematical statements, and I had bought it at a library sale when I was 12, not long after the laser had been invented.I couldn’t understand a bit of it, but I did learn what “laser” meant.
What I end up with when I empty my bookshelves is a cross-section (横剖面) of my personal history.It’s like a road cut where one sees all the layers of rock going back through time to the beginning of the simplest life forms.The books I’ve read — and kept — are not just old friends.They are my résumé.
57.What could be said about the author?
A.He is too busy to tidy up his bookshelves.
B.He considers his books treasured possessions.
C.He has made a lot of notes in his books.
D.He is a lover of science books.
58.By saying that his books have voices, the author means ________ .
A.they bring back happy memories B.they are recorded in human voice
C.they say a lot about human history D.they offer good topics for discussion
59.What does the author enjoy most from re-organizing his books?
A.Finding some missing books.
B.Putting books in good order.
C.Learning something new from the books.
D.Rediscovering interesting stories behind some books.
60.The underlined word “résumé” in the last paragraph probably means ______.
A.personal history B.precious notes
C.good companion D.simple life forms
The Diet Zone: A Dangerous Place
Diet Coke, diet Pepsi, diet pills, no-fat diet, vegetable diet… We are surrounded by the word “diet” everywhere we look and listen.We have so easily been attracted by the promise and potential (潜能) of diet products that we stopped thinking about what diet products are doing to us.We are paying for products that harm us psychologically and physically (身体上).
Diet products significantly weaken us psychologically.On one level, we are not allowing our brain to admit that our weight problems lie not in actually losing the weight, but in controlling the consumption of fatty, high-calorie, unhealthy foods.Diet products allow us to jump over the thinking stage and go straight for the scale (秤) instead.All we have to do is to swallow or recognize the word “diet” in food labels.
On another level, diet products have greater psychological effects, Every time we have a zero-calorie drink, we are telling ourselves without our awareness that we don’t have to work to get results.Diet products make people believe that gain comes without pain, and that life can be without resistance and struggle.
The danger of diet products lies not only in the psychological effects they have on us, but also in the physical harm that they cause.Diet foods can indirectly harm our bodies because consuming them instead of healthy foods means we are preventing our bodies from having basic nutrients (营养成分).Diet foods and diet pills contain zero calorie only because the diet industry has created chemicals to produce these wonder products.Diet products may not be nutritional, and the chemical that go into diet products are potentially dangerous.
Now that we are aware of the effects that diet products have on us, it is time to seriously think about buying them.Losing weight lies in the power of minds, not in the power of chemicals.Once we realize this, we will be much better able to resist diet products, and therefore prevent the psychological harm that comes from using them
53.One psychological effect of diet products is that people tend to ______.
A.try out a variety of diet food B.hesitate before they enjoy diet foods
C.pay attention to their own eating habits D.watch their weight rather than their diet
54.In Paragraph 3, “gain comes without pain” probably means_____.
A.losing weight is effortless B.it costs a lot to lose weight
C.diet products bring no pain D.diet products are free from calories
55.Diet products indirectly harm people physically because such products _____
A.are over- consumed B.are short of chemicals
C.lack basic nutrients D.provide too much energy
56.Which of the following shows the structure of the passage?
Dogs are known for their sense of smell.They can find missing people and things like bombs and illegal drugs.Now a study suggests that the animal known as man’s best friend can even find bladder(膀胱)cancer.
Cancer cells are thought to produce chemicals with unusual odors(气味).Researchers think dogs have the ability to smell these odors, even in very small amounts, in urine(尿).The sense of smell in dogs is thousands of times better than in humans.
The study follows reports of cases where, for example, a dog showed great interest in a growth on the leg of its owner.The man was later found to be skin cancer.Carolyn Willis led a team of researchers at Amersham Hospital in England.They trained different kinds of dogs for the experiment.The study involved urine collected from bladder cancer patients, from people with other diseases and from healthy people.Each dog was tested 8 times.In each test there were 7 samples for the dogs to smell.The dog should signal the one from a bladder cancer patient by lying down next to it.Two cocker dogs were correct 56 percent of the time.But the scientists reported an average success rate of 41 percent.The British Medical Journal published the research.In all, 36 bladder cancer patients and 108 other people took part.During training, all the dogs reportedly even identified(认出)a cancer in a person who had tested healthy before the study.Doctors found a growth on the person’s right kidney(肾).Carolyn Willis says dogs could help scientists identify the combined chemicals produced by bladder cancer.That information could then be used to develop machines to test for the chemicals.The team also plans to use dogs to help identify markers for other kinds of cancer.
49.What’s the general idea of the text?
A.Dogs have a good sense of smell B.Dogs can help cure cancer
C.Dogs can smell cancer D.Dogs help perform experiments
50.According to the text, people who suffer bladder cancer_____
A.often have urine with unusual smell B.probably smoke cigarettes in their life
C.can easily make dogs lie down
D.are likely to die within nine years
51.The underlined word “involved” in the text is closest in meaning to _____.
A.showed B.used C.proved D.preferred
52.What can we conclude from the last paragraph?
A.Dogs can only smell bladder cancer.
B.Dogs have a good knowledge of cancer.
C.Cancer doesn’t have any sign in the beginning.
D.Scientists might invent some equipment to test cancer.