C
The outstretched(伸出的) hand caught my eyes immediately. I’d fallen on the sidewalk, having tripped on the curb(路边). A hand was there, ready to help me. Then, warm smile and, “ Are you OK?”
I’d fallen on my hands and knees, and I was fine. But I loved seeing that hand reaching toward me. The woman helped me up, made sure I was all right, and we both went our way.
As I remembered this incident during the next few days, it became a symbol of the significance of helping another one. In the grand scheme of things, such help may often seem small, but at the moment it’s needed, it can feel very significant.
One of my most meaningful lessons on how to help others came at the end of a week-long music workshop. At that final gathering, we each had the opportunity to perform for the other participants. A woman who was much more experienced and accomplished(技艺高超的)than I ---- a piano teacher who attended the workshop in order to learn new teaching techniques- invited me to play the piano with her. I'd actually been quite happy as part of the audience, watching the other students perform. My piano skills were elementary, and my confidence was low.
When she asked, though, it was almost as if she’d taken me by the hand and led me to the piano. As I plunked out a melody(旋律), she played a lovely accompaniment. Hearing that accompaniment to my melody moved me to tears. She was helping my music be beautiful—helping me play my song. But the lasting impact of that experience related to much more. I took away with me the lesson that we are each here to help one another “ play our songs” --- live our lives to the fullest, be the individuals whom we are.
63. What is the main idea of the passage?
A. The significance of helping one another.
B. My experience of playing the piano.
C. The people who helped me out.
D. The incident I remembered on the street.
64. Why did the author just want to be part of the audience?
A. She couldn’t play the piano quite well.
B. There was no time left for her to perform.
C. Nobody invited her to play the piano.
D. She was too shy to perform in public.
65. We can infer from the passage that the melody played by the author was ____.
A. moving B. lovely C. so-so D. beautiful
66. Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?
A. The author appreciated the two women’s help.
B. Small help is also important when it is needed.
C. A piano teacher invited the author to play the piano together.
D. The author was moved to tears because of the beautiful music.
Technology today has stolen away our voices and robbed our children of memories. I’ve been keeping count of how often people sing around the house these days. The fact is, they don’t.
My earliest memories are of my mother crooning lullabies(催眠曲) in a gentle low voice as she rocked each infant in turn. She said she “didn’t have a singing voice,” but her low, wavering alto will always mean comfort to me. Every time I have sat through the night with a feverish body or held a pre – schooler through a nightmare, the melodies returned, words appearing and disappearing like fragments of a dream but held together by the hum (低声吟唱)of love.
Today, young mothers are routinely presented with lullaby tapes at the baby shower. When baby cries, the idea goes, they will be able to switch on the high-tech audio system and the little one will drift off with the voices of strangers in his ears, perfectly on pitch. If I had my way, new parents would learn the songs themselves, throw out their stereos, and give their child the gift of their own sleepy voices through the midnight hours.
These days, when we go on a trip, my daughters take along tiny personal stereos and headphones. They are lost in their private worlds, and I can’t help wishing that at least here, in the car my girls would be forced to listen to their mother’s voice raised in lost – the – words again, sure I’m out－of－tune songs that they might then pass down to another generation. Those sophisticated earphones have robbed them of something I think every kid should carry from childhood car trips into adulthood.
I drove away from that party humming, and all the way home the good old songs kept tumbling out. Dammit (该死), I thought, why did I ever stop singing in the car and start turning on the radio instead? Why don’t I sign anymore while I’m doing the dishes? I’m going to yank those stereo wires right out of the wall when I get home. We’re going to sing grace before meals, sing coals around the piano, sing in the shower instead of switching on that waterproof radio that stol away our voices and our souls.
63．The author hates today’s technology because________
A．driving a car requires high concentration
B．children are learning pop songs from tapes
C．children have lost touch with good old songs
D．high – tech systems do not record the voices of aged people
64．The underlined sentence “the little one will drift off” in Paragraph 3 means that “________ ”.
A．the play of the high – tech system is of little use
B．the high – tech system will play on and on
C．the low voice will delight the baby
D．the baby will slowly go to sleep
65．To the author, the voices of strangers ________ .
A．are not familiar to the baby
B．lack the motherly love the baby needs
C．work better to stop the baby’s cry
D．surely sound more pleasant
66．What the author wishes to make her girls do is to________ .
A．help memorize the words while she is singing
B．take off their well – designed earphones
C．listen and learn the old songs from her
D．remember their childhood car trips
Last spring, members of Alaska’s Troop 34, based in Fairbanks, trudged (跋涉) out into the snowy wilderness to take part in their state’s Take a Kid Trapping program. In many parts of the state, beavers （海狸）are pests and need to be controlled.
The 10－to－12－year－old girls found out where beavers lived, set traps, and skinned the two animals they caught. The girls hope to catch ten more beavers so that the entire troop can make mittens and hats with the fur. They also want to cook beaver meat.
Troop leaders and members say the Scouts are doing a good deed by helping control the state’s beaver population. But animal－rights activists say trapping is cruel. They want the Girl Scouts to stop in their tracks.
Beavers aren’t only causing a problem in Alaska. Residents in Sampson County, N.C. , have turned to a local committee to help them battle the growing beaver population there.
County landowners are frustrated after the county spent more than $ 50,000 in eight years trying to reduce the beaver population through a government program. The joint state and federal program included paying money to trappers for every beaver carcass they trapped.
Many local residents say that the program didn’t work because there were too few trappers. That’s why the county set up its own committee to investigate other ways to control the area’s beaver population.
The county will rely on its own beaver－trapping program. It has hired a trapper to set traps in various areas. The county will pay $10 for every beaver carcass.
Why do many people say that beavers are a nuisance? For beavers to survive, they need lots of water. Water provides the large rodent （啮齿动物）with a place to hide from meat – eating animals. Beavers also store food underwater for the winter. When there’s not enough water in a particular area, beavers get busy building dams.
Beaver dams can cause major flooding and damage to the surrounding countryside as the animals cut down trees to use in their construction projects. Beavers build canals to transport heavy objects.
59．What is Alaska’s Troop 34?
A．A team of the Boy Scouts. B．An army.
C．A team of the Girl Scouts. D．A sports team.
60．Why does the troop hope to catch ten more beavers?
A．To fulfill their task. B．To sell them for money.
C．To get enough fur. D．To exchange them for mittens and hats.
61．Which of the following statements is true?
A．Sampson County has to find a new way to control the beaver population there.
B．The government program in Sampson County has proved to be a success.
C．The local government has controlled the number of beavers in the County.
D．More and more trappers now start to set traps in Sampson County.
62．Local residents hate beavers because they can ___________.
A．cause damage to dams
B．block up canals with heavy objects.
C．do great harm to construction projects.
D．badly damage the environment and cause floods.
第三部分：阅读理解（共两节，40分）
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的A、B、C、D中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
Learning new words is learning new ideas: High school students can take control of their
learning by always looking up new words and finding out what they mean. They should keep a dictionary and a thesaurus close at hand.
Make clear lists: Students should make a list of everything that they need to get done. They should check off assignments （作业）once completed. They should include clear due dates.
Make a commitment: Active learners will resolve to keep up –to-date from the start. They will avoid procrastinating (delay doing something). They will complete most of their work as early as possible.
Independent work is best: Students will so all assignments independently—they will never copy! Students who copy are passive learners. Passive learners do not give their mind a chance to think on its own.
Organization is key: Students should keep an excellent folder and notebook. All problems should be clearly stated and solutions given. All tests and quizzes should be corrected and used as study guides for exams and finals.
All actions without solutions are dead: Active learners will always show their work needed to solve a problem. Active learners will never turn in a list of answers without giving an explanation or a solution.
Advanced reading: Students should do any required reading for the topic before class. They should write an outline of the section or chapter. They should actively take notes as they read to help them remember.
56．If you want to be successful in exams and finals you should ________.
A．give your mind a chance to think on its own
B．check off your papers once completed
C．keep an excellent folder and notebook
D．hand in your homework on time
57．If you want to be an active learner you________.
A．shouldn’t copy others assignments
B．shouldn’t write an outline before class
C．needn’t correct mistakes in the tests
D．needn’t kept a dictionary at hand
58．The best title of the passage is “________”.
A．How to Be an Effective Reader B．How to Get Good Scores in Tests
C．How to Collect Academic Information D．How to Actively Study in High School
Chinese reports say the country’s vast pool of cheap labor is getting smaller, which could hurt an economy that heavily depends on labor-intensive manufacturing.
The academy’s research shows that China’s rural labor surplus, the source of migrant workers for the country’s factories, is about 50 million people—far less than the previously estimated 150 to 200 million.
Jonathan Unger, director of the Contemporary China Center at the Australian National University, says fewer rural residents are willing to leave their farms today. This is partly because there are more employment opportunities in rural areas, and because agricultural prices have gone up.
“And at the same time taxes in the countryside, fees in the countryside have gone down because of new sets of government policies,” he explained. “So people are not eagerly forced in the way they were five, six years ago to leave the farm in order to earn enough money for their families.”
The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences says another reason for the reduced labor pool is the country’s population policy, which allows city residents to have just one child, and farmers up to two if the first one is a girl.
A UN study predicts that China’s workforce will reach its top in 2015 and then gradually drop. Some of China’s major manufacturing areas, such as Guangdong Province, already face labor shortages.
Some economists think these shortages are, at least for now, a regional rather than a national problem. Sun Mingchun, an economist with investment bank Lehman Brothers in Hong Kong, points out that there are still millions of people in China who can not find work.
57. According to the academy’s research, China’ rural labor surplus today is about _______.
A. 150 million B. 50 million C. 200 million D. 175 million
58. The reason why many rural residents don’t leave their farms today is ________.
A. the farmers are older than before.
B. the farmers are lazier than before
C. the farmers have much more money
D. there are more employment opportunities and agricultural prices have gone up
59. Which of the following is TURE according to the passage?
A. A study of UN estimates China’s workforce will come to the top in 2015.
B. No a study shows millions of people can’t find work in China.
C. The country’s population policy isn’t a reason for the reduced labor.
D. Five years ago, few farmers left their homes to earn money for supporting their families.
60. According to some economists, the shortage of Chinese workforce __________.
A. is a national problem B. is a regional problem
C. is not a problem D. can be solved easily
One of the most wonderful things about having a positive attitude is that it can touch many people, and it often exists in our everyday life.
Recently, I stopped by a store to get a newspaper and a bottle of drink. The young woman at the check-out counter said, “That’ll be three dollars in all please.” She then glanced down at the paper I was buying and said. “I’m sick and tired of all this negative stuff-on the front pages. I want to read some good news for a change.” She then said, “In fact, I think soemone should just publish a Good News newspaper--- a paper with wonderful, inspirational stories about people over-coming difficulty and doing good things for others. I’d buy one every day!” she then thanked me for coming in and said, “Maybe we’ll get lucky tomorrow; maybe we’ll get some good news.” And she laughed. She made my day.
The following day after my business appointments. I dropped by the same store again to pick up bottled water and a piece of newspaper, but a different young lady was behind the counter. As I checked out I said “Good afternoon” and handed her my money. She said nothing, not a word, not a smile or not a gesture. She just handed me my change and in a negative tone ordered “Next!”
It hit me right between the eyes: Two people, the same age; one made me feel great, and the other, well, made me feel that I had inconvenienced her by showing up.
Every morning you should ask yourself this important question. “Who do I want to be today? The Grouch(不高兴的人) or ‘The Good News Girl?’” Your answer will go a long way toward determining the joy and happiness that you will experience in your life.
53. What does the first salesgirl dislike according to her words?
A. Those who have bad manners.
B. The bad news in the newspaper.
C. The advertisements in the newspaper.
D. The bad news who break the laws.
54. After he had bought a newspaper on the first day the author _________.
A. was very lucky and excited that day
B. always remembered the girl’s word
C. read the news in the newspaper carefully
D. was in a pleasant mood the whole day
55. We learn from the passage that the salesgirl the author met the next day was ________.
A. humorous B. enthusiastic C. very cool D. positive
56. What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 4 mean?
A. I was very surprised. B. I was especially angry.
C. I felt very unhappy. D. It hurt my heart badly.