Being the head of a high school for many years, I grew tired of budget meeting, funding cuts, and many other administrative chores (杂务). I started to dream of retirement. Sitting in traffic on a weekday morning, I would find my mind wandering, I would imagine spending time with my grandchildren, quiet evenings with my wife, traveling, or rediscovering some great books. I told myself that I wouldn’t sign myself up for any committees, any classes, or anything requiring a schedule.
My first day of retirement came at last! I cooked a great break fast for my wife and me, leisurely read the paper, cleaned a bit of the house, and wrote a few letters to friends. On the
second day, I cooked breakfast, read the paper … On the third day, … This is retirement? I tried to tell myself that it was just the transition（过渡）, that those golden moments were right round the corner, and that I would enjoy them soon enough, But something was missing.
A former colleague asked a favor. A group of students was going to Jamaica to work with children in the poorest neighborhoods. Would I interrupt my newfound “happiness” and return to the students, just this once? One trip. That’s all, My bags were packed and by the door.
The trip was very inspiring. I was moved not only by the poverty I saw but also by the sense of responsibility of the young people on the trip. When I returned home, I offered to work one day a week with a local youth organization. The experience was so positive that I was soon volunteering nearly full-time, working with students across North America to assist them in their voluntary work.
Now, it seems, the tables have turned. Some days I am the teacher, other days I am the student. These young people have reawakened my commitment (责任感) to social justice issues by challenging me to learn more about the situation in the world today, where people are still poor and suffer because of greed, corruption and war, Most important, they have given me the opportunity to continue to participate in helping to find solutions. In return, I help them do their charitable projects overseas. I’ve gone from running one school to helping oversee the construction of schools in twenty-one countries!
60.What did the writer expect to do after he retired?
A. To stay away from busy schedules. B. To write some great books.
C. To do some voluntary work D. To plan for his future.
61.Why did the writer decide to go to Jamaica?
A. He missed his students in that country. B. He couldn’t refuse his colleague’s favor.
C. He was not satisfied with his retired life. D. He was concerned about the people there.
62.The underlined part “the tables have turned”(Paragraph 5) means that the writer .
A. improved the situation in his school B. felt happy to work with students again
C. became a learner rather than a teacher D. changed his attitude toward his retired life
63.What does the writer think of his retired life now?
A. Disappointing B. Meaningful C. Promising D. Troublesome
第二部分阅读理解第一节（共15小题，每小题2分，共30分）
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的A,B,C 和D 中，选出最佳答案。
In 1999, 11-year –old Kevin Stephan was a bat boy for his younger brother’s Little League team in Lancaster, New York. It was an early evening in late July. The sun slanting across the field, the game unfolding in baseball time, Kevin was standing on the grass away from the plate ,where another youngster was warming up. Swinging his bat back and forth, giving it all the power an elementary school kid could collect, the boy brought the bat back hard and hit Kevin square in the chest. His heart stopped.
When Kevin fell to the ground , the mother of one the players rushed out of the stands to his aid. Penny Brown hadn’t planned to be there that day, but at the last minute, her shift at the hospital had been changed , and she was given the night off.
Penny bent over the unconscious boy , his face already starting to turn blue, and applied CPR, breathing into his mouth and doing chest compressions(按压)
And he came back.
It was a good thing, for a good kid. Kevin wasn’t just a volunteer for his brother’s baseball team he was a Boy Scout(童子军) , learning various useful skills. Kevin later became a volunteer junior firefighter, learning some of the emergency first-aid techniques that had saved his life. He studied hard in school and was saving money for college by working as a dishwasher in a local restaurant. He liked the people, but the work could be hard and pretty routine until the afternoon of January 27 2006.
Kevin was working in the kitchen when he heard people screaming. He rushed into the main room and saw a woman there, her face turning blue ,her hands at her throat. She was choking.
Quickly Kevin stepped behind her and wrapped his arms around her. Then using skills he’d learned in Scouts, he jerked inward and up ,once , twice, using the Heimlich maneuver. The food that was trapped in the woman’s throat was freed. The color began to return to her face.
“ The food was stuck. I couldn’t breathe,” she said. She thought she was dying. “I was very frightened.”
Guess who the woman was? Penny Brown.
1. How was Kevin seriously injured in 1999?
A. His hear disease overtook him.
B. He fought with a boy doing baseball warming up.
C. A bat hit him unexpectedly in the chest.
D. He swung his bat too fiercely and hurt himself.
2. What does the underlined word “It” in Paragraph 5 refer to ?
A. That Kevin was a bat boy. B. That Kevin got injured.
C. That Kevin was a Boy Scout.
D. That Kevin was successfully saved.
3. Which of the following is NOT true according to the text?
A. In Scouts children can learn many practical skills.
B. CPR can be used to treat one that has no heartbeat.
C. Kevin dreamed of becoming a firefighter in the future.
D. The Heimlich maneuver is an effective way to help those who choke.
Today about 70 countries use Daylight Saving Time(DST). Daylight Saving was first introduced during World War I in Australia. During the world wars, DST was used for the late summers beginning January 1917 and 1942, and the full summers beginning September 1942 and 1943.
In 1967, Tasmania experienced a drought. The State Government introduced one hour of daylight saving that summer as a way of saving power and water. Tasmanians liked the idea of daylight saving and the Tasmanian Government has declared daylight saving each summer since 1968. Persuaded by the Tasmanian Government, all states except two passed a law in 1971, for a test use of daylight saving. In 1972, New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria joined Tasmania for regular daylight saving, but Queensland did not do so until 1989.
Tasmania, Queensland and South Australia have had irregular plans, often changing their dates due to politics or festivals. For example, in 1992, Tasmania extended daylight saving by an extra month while South Australia began extending daylight saving by two weeks for the Adelaide Festival. Special daylight saving plans were made during the sydney 2000 Olympic Games.
The differences in daylight saving in Australia continue to cause serious problems in transport and many other social activities. It also reduces the number of hours in the working day that are common to all centers in the country. In particular, time differences along the east coast cause major difficulties, especially for the broadcasters of national radio and television.
1.Daylight Saving Time was introduced in Tasmania ________.
A. to save water and electricity B. to support government officials
C. to pass a special law in the state D. to stop the drought in 1967
2.According to the text, which state was the last to use DST?
A. Victoria. B. Queensland.
C. South Australia. D. New South Wales.
3.What can we learn about DST in some Australian states?
A. It lasts for two weeks. B. It is not used in festivals.
C. Its plan was changed in 2000. D. It doesn't have fixed dates.
4.What do we know about the use of DST from the last paragraph?
A. There exist some undesirable effects.
B. It helps little to save energy.
C. It brings about longer working days.
D. Radio and TV programs become different.
It’s not a particular brain region that makes someone smart or not smart. Nor is it the strength and speed of the connections throughout the brain or such features as total brain volume. Instead, new research shows, it’s the connections between very specific areas of the brain that determine intelligence.
“General intelligence actually relies on a specific network inside the brain, and this is the connections between the gray matter, or cell bodies, and the white matter, or connecting fibers between neurons(神经元)，”said Jan Glascher, lead author of a paper appearing in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The results weren’t entirely unexpected, said Keith Young, vice chairman at Texas A﹠M Health Science Center College of Medicine in Temple, but “it proves that good communication between various parts of brain are very important for this general intelligence.”
“People noticed a long time ago that, in general, people who are good test-takers did well in a lot of different subjects,”explained Young. “If you’re good in mathematics, you’re also usually good in English. Researchers came up with this idea that this represented a kind of overall intelligence.”
Hoping to learn more, some experts located 241 patients who had some sort of their lesions (损害). They then diagrammed the location of their lesions and had them take IQ testes. “We took patients who had parts of their brain damaged, tested them on intelligence to see where they were good and where they were bad, then we connected those scores across all the patients with the location of the brain lesions,”Glascher explained. “That way, you can know the areas that are associated with reduced performance on these tests, which means these areas are really important for general intelligence.”
“These studies suggest results based on the absence of brain tissue (组织),”added Paul Sanberg, famous professor and director of the University of South Florida Center. “It allows them to systemize and find areas important to intellingence.”
1. Which of the following is the best title for the passage?
A. General Intelligence Depend on Brain Volume
B. Scientists Explain Mysteries of Intelligence
C. Science Research Done on Human Brain
D. Brain Lesions Cause Patients Stupid
2.According to Keith Young, we can infer that_____________.
A. the parts of brain are working smooth on their own
B. a person good at maths has obstacles learning languages
C. overall intelligence will make a person successful
D. Jan Glascher’s article really shocks the world
3. Why did experts locate 241 patients with some sort of brain lesions?
A. To diagram the location of their lesions.
B. To take IQ tests to the patients.
C. To know more about the secrets of intelligence.
D. To take better care of the patients.
4.From the diagram, the experts concluded that_____________.
A. the absence of brain tissue will influence intelligence
B. the brain lesions can improve the performance
C. patients with brain lesions will get a high score
D. Some areas totally determine the ability of intelligence
Buses are celebrating their 100th anniversary. About 80 percent of all public-transport passengers worldwide are carried by buses.
The bus is a very efficient mode of transport, being cheap, flexible, comfortable and, in many cases, tailored to the needs of users both in terms of capacity and speed. Buses operate in mixed traffic, and are easy to put in service.
From an economic, environmental and social point of view, the bus remains the best solution to the problem of achieving balanced and environmentally-friendly urban development. Indeed, the bus is the only mode of public transport in many of the world’s cities, and plays a key supporting role in cities with rail transport.
Over the past decades, increased use of roads by private cars has contributed to terrible traffic problems, affecting the speed of buses as well, and hence their service quality, reliability, energy consumption, and economy. In such circumstances, the efficiency and performance of buses depends heavily on special lanes. Various forms are possible----from a mere painted mark on the road to more expensive variants such as elevated lanes, movable barriers, and “bus locks”.
A related trend is to look beyond vehicle technology alone and to consider the wider system, of which buses are a part, such as the infrastructure(基础设施)and other operational aspects of city. This is commonly known and promoted as the “bus-system approach”. Other key innovations(革新) include clean engines, alternative fuels, and guidance devices. In terms of the designs of buses, much of what has happened to light rail can be transferred to them, including the shapes of the vehicles themselves.
The energy consumption of a bus per passenger is one-sixth that of a car, and buses are only responsible for about 5% of the CO2 emissions generated by vehicles at present.
1. From this passage we learn that_____________.
A. buses are the most environmentally-friendly of all motorized vehicles
B. buses were first used more than a century ago
C. most passengers prefer trains to buses
D. a bus has a much larger capacity than any other vehicle
2. What has affected the service quality of buses?
A. Unsuitable infrastructure. B. Private cars.
C. The increasing population of cities.
D. Very rapid urban development.
3. Which of the following is an approach to improving bus service?
A. Improving the speed of buses.
B. Reducing the number of private cars.
C. Setting up special lanes for buses.
D. Increasing the number of buses.
4. From the passage we can infer that in the future_____________.
A. there will be more buses than today
B. bus engines will need no power
C. buses will be replaced by other means of transport
D. the appearance of buses will change
Camp memories last forever! We make sure they are unforgettable!
Shadow Ridge Summer Camps offer so many exciting things for campers to do. Unlike other camp programs that include horses as a small part of their program, at Shadow Ridge horses ARE, the program! We are 100% horse from stable(马厩)management, nature walks, and track rides to bedroom furnishings.
Horses help us achieve many of our aims. Girls can learn to develop responsibility, self-confidence and personal connections in their lives while having fun. Using horses as a wonderful tool for education, our camps offer an interesting place for growth and learning.
Imagine each girl having her very own horse to spend time with and a best friend to love and take care of. Each camper is responsible for a horse for the week. Our riding program provides a lot of riding and lesson time. Campers will learn how to take care of the horse and the tack(马具), as well as how to ride. Days are filled with horse-related activities to strengthen the connection between each girl and horse, as the girls learn to work safely around the horses.
At Shadow Ridge we try to create a loving, caring family atmosphere for our campers. We have “The Bunkhouse”(4 girls), the“ Wranglers Roost”(4 girls), and “The Hideout”(2 girls)in our comfortable 177-year-old farm house. All meals are home cooked, offering delicious and healthy food for the hungry rider.
Our excellent activities create personalized memories of your child's vacation, Each child will receive a camp T-shirt and a photo album (usually 300-500 pictures) of their stay at camp.
Our camps are offered during June, July and August 2007, for small groups of girls aged 13-16 years, not only from Canada but also other parts of the world.
We will send you full program descriptions at your request.
1. What is the main purpose of the passage?
A. To attract people to the camps.
B. To talk about camping experiences.
C. To describe the programs of the camps.
D. To explain the aims of the camps.
2. What do we know about the camp programs at Shadow Ridge?
A. Campers are required to wear camp T-shirts.
B. Horses play a central role in the activities.
C. Campers learn to cook food for themselves.
D. Horse lessons are offered all the year round.
3. The programs at Shadow Ridge mainly aim to help people ________.
A. understand horses better B. enjoy a family atmosphere
C. have fun above other things D. achieve an educational purpose
4. The passage is written mainly for ________.
A. horse riders B. teenage girls
C. Canadian parents D. international travelers