About 70 scientists were working on a very busy project. All of them felt really desperate due to the pressure of work and the demands of their boss but everyone was loyal to him and did not think of quitting their job.
One day, one scientist came to his boss and told him, “Sir, I’ve promised to take my children to the exhibition going on in our township so I want to leave at 5:30 p. m.” His boss replied, “OK. You’re permitted to leave the office early today.”
The scientist started working. He continued his work after lunch. As usual, he got involved to such an extent that he looked at his watch only when he felt he was close to completion. The time was 8:30 p. m. Suddenly he remembered his promise to the children. He looked for his boss but he was not there. Having told him in the morning himself, he closed everything and left for home. Deep within himself, he was feeling guilty for having disappointed his children. He reached home. The children were not there. His wife alone was sitting in the hall and reading magazines. The situation was explosive; any talk would boomerang on him. His wife asked him, “Would you like to have coffee or shall I straight away serve dinner if you are hungry?” The man replied, “If you would like to have coffee, I too will have but what about the children?” His wife replied, “You don’t know? Your boss came here at 5:15 p. m. and has taken them to the exhibition.”
What had really happened was the boss who gave him permission was observing him working seriously at 5:00 p. m. He thought to himself: this person will not leave the work, but he’s promised to take his children to the exhibition. So he took the lead in taking them there. The boss does not have to do it every time. But once it’s done, loyalty is established.
That is why all the scientists at Thumba continued to work under their boss even though the stress was extraordinarily huge. By the way ,can you boldly guess who the boss was? He was none other that the mastermind behind India’s successful nuclear weapons program, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, former president of India.
1．The scientist asked for an early leave because______.
A．he felt increasingly desperate about his work
B．he meant to accompany his wife at dinner
C.the task at hand was close to completion
D．he’d promised to take his kids to a show
2．The underlined sentence implies that the scientist thought his wife was _____.
A．dissatisfied with his coming home late
B．ready to serve dinner for him
C.grateful to his kind-hearted boss
D．delighted to see him back home
3．The boss took children to the exhibition_________.
A．when it was too late for the scientist to do so
B．because the scientist was absorbed in his work
C.because he also wanted to see what was on show
D．when the man’s wife asked him to do so
4．All the scientists stayed loyal to their boss__________.
A．out of gratefulness for his thoughtfulness
B．because he had power over them
C.to learn how to live under pressure
D．every time he took the children to the show
四．阅读理解（每题2分，共40分）
An old woman went suddenly blind. She promised a doctor a lot of money if he could make her see again. “If you fail”, she said , “ you will get nothing,” The doctor agreed with her.
The doctor soon discovered what was wrong with her, but he decided not to cure her right away. Instead, each time he visited, he secretly took some of her things. When he had taken everything that he wanted, he cured her blindness and sent her a large bill. Now when the old woman could see again she noticed that all her things had gone and she refused to pay the bill. So the doctor took her before a judge.
“What the doctor says is true.” she said to the judge. “But I say I’m not cured, because I still can’t see any of the things in my house.”
The old woman won her case and the doctor went away unhappily without getting his pay.
71. The doctor didn’t cure the old woman right away because __________.
A. He didn’t know how to cure her B. He wanted to get a lot of money
C. He wanted to take the woman’s things D The woman refused to pay him
72. The woman was _______ .
A. clever B. greedy C. cruel D. dishonest
73. The doctor was ________.
A. honest B. a cheat C. a kind man D. ready to help others
74. Which sentence is right according to the passage?
A. The judge didn’t believe the old woman
B. The doctor cured the woman’s blindness in a short time.
C. The woman got back all her things taken by the doctor.
D. The doctor failed to get his pay.
There are two kinds of physical activity which require special training. The first demands exact careful movements of the muscles（肌肉）. This kind of activity must be strictly controlled because even a slight movement in the wrong direction will lead a mistake. To type quickly, for example, a person needs training; the slightest movement of a finger in the wrong direction may cause a spelling mistake. A dancer who has to dance on the point of her shoes or turn around on one foot must be trained for a long period of time before she can sense her own center and balance herself. You may have seen a girl walking on a rope across an empty space, which, too, requires a lot of practice.
The second kind of physical activity needs greater strength or extra effort. Most of us get tired if we try to run half a mile without stopping, but a specially-trained person can do this without much effort. Three years ago, some scientists carried out experiments, which produced meaningful and unexpected results. They wanted to find out whether a certain amount of physical exercise would injure those suffering from heart problems. They selected some male patients and trained them in continuous bicycle riding. They were surprised to find that the harmful effect of given amount of physical effort was actually less on the hearts of these trained patients than on those of the patients who were not similarly trained. This is important because it shows that regular physical exercise enables us to make better use of the oxygen（氧气）we breathe in and that this training, in fact, reduces the amount of work our hearts do. Many tasks which are hard for untrained people are not hard at all for trained people.
72．The first kind of physical activity must be strictly controlled because _________.
A．a mistake in the wrong direction is dangerous to the fingers
B．a wrong movement in a direction will cause no mistakes
C．a movement in the wrong direction will cause a mistake
D．a slight movement of a finger will lead to a mistake
73．What must a dancer do before she can balance herself?
A．She must dance on the point of her shoes. B．She must receive long-time training.
C．She must turn around on one foot. D．She must perform again and again.
74．The experiments done by some scientists showed that ________.
A．some male patients were asked to ride bicycles regularly in the experiments
B．the physical exercise had more harmful effect on the hearts of the untrained patients
C．the physical exercise was harmless to the male patients with heart trouble
D．the physical exercise could be helpful for the patients to take in more oxygen
75．What would be the best title for this text?
A．Training Our Bodies B．Physical Activities
C．Movement Training D．Extra Body Effort
Language as a System of Symbols
Of all systems of symbols(符号）, language is the most highly developed. It has been pointed out that human beings, by agreement, can make anything stand for anything. Human beings have agreed, in the course of centuries of mutual(相互的）dependency, to let the various noises that they can produce with their lungs, throats, tongues, teeth, and lips systematically stand for certain happenings in their nervous systems. We call that system of agreements language.
There is no necessary connection between the symbol and that which it stands for. Just as social positions can be symbolized by feathers worn on the head, by gold on the watch chain, or by a thousand other things according to the culture we live in, so the fact of being hungry can be symbolized by a thousand different noises according to the culture we live in.
However obvious these facts may appear at first glance, they are actually not so obvious as they seem except when we take special pains to think about the subject. Symbols and the things they stand for are independent of each other, yet we all have a way of feeling as if, and sometimes acting as if, there were necessary connections. For example, there are people who feel that foreign languages are unreasonable by nature; foreigners have such funny names for things, and why can’t they call things by their right names? This feeling exhibits itself most strongly in those English and American tourists who seem to believe that they can make the natives of any country understand English if they shout loud enough. Like the little boy who is reported to have said: “Pigs are called pigs because they are such dirty animals,” they feel that the symbol is inherently(内在地） connected in some way with the things symbolized.
68．Language is a highly developed system of symbols because human beings ______.
A．have made use of language for centuries
B．use our nervous systems to support language
C．have made various noises stand for any events
D．can make anything stand for anything by agreement
69．What can we conclude from Paragraph 2?
A．Different noises may mean different things.
B．Our culture determines what a symbol stands for.
C．The language we use symbolizes our social positions.
D．Our social positions determine the way we are dressed.
70．In Paragraph 3, “take special pains” probably means “_____”.
A．try very hard B．take our time C．are very unhappy D．feel especially painful
71．The example of the little boy is used to show that _____.
A．adults often learn from their young
B．“pig” is a dirty word because pigs are dirty
C．words are not connected with the things they stand for
D．people sometimes have wrong ideas about how language works
As a professor at a large American university, there is a phrase that I hear often from students: “I’m only a 1050. ”The unlucky students are speaking of the score on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT）, which is used to determine whether they will be admitted to the college or university of their choice, or even have a chance to get a higher education at all. The SAT score, whether it is 800, 1 100 or 1550, has becomes the focus at this time of their life.
It is obvious that if students value highly their test scores, then a great amount of their self-respect is put in the number. Students who perform poorly on the exam are left feeling that it is all over. The low test score, they think, will make it impossible for them to get into a good college. And without a degree from a prestigious university, they fear that many of life’s doors will remain forever closed.
According to a study done in the 1990s, the SAT is only a reliable indicator of a student’s future performance in most cases. Interestingly, it becomes much more accurate when it is set together with other indicators——like a student’s high school grades. Even if standardized tests like the SAT could show a student’s academic proficiency（学业水平）,they will never be able to test things like confidence, efforts and willpower, and are unable to give us the full picture of a student’s potentialities（潜力）. This is not to suggest that we should stop using SAT scores in our college admission process. The SAT is an excellent test in many ways, and the score is still a useful means of testing students. However, it should be only one of many methods used.
64．The purpose of the SAT is to test students’ .
A．strong willB．academic ability
C．full potentialitiesD．confidence in school work
65．Students’ self-respect is influenced by their .
A．scores in the SAT B．achievements in mathematic
C．job opportunitiesD．money spent on education
66．“A prestigious university”is most probably .
A．a famous university B．a technical university
C．a traditional university D．an expensive university
67．This passage is mainly about .
A．how to prepare for the SAT B．stress caused by the SAT
C．American higher education D．the SAT and its effects
In the early part of the twentieth century, racism was widespread in the United States. Many African Americans were not given equal opportunities in education or employment. Marian Anderson (1897-1993) was an African American woman who gained fame as a concert singer in this climate of racism. She was born in Philadelphia and sang in church choirs during her childhood. When she applied for admission to a
local music school in 1917, she was turned down because she was black. Unable to attend music school, she began her career as a singer for church gatherings. In 1929, she went to Europe to study voice and spent several years performing there. Her voice was widely praised throughout Europe. Then she returned to the US in 1935 and became a top concert singer after performing at Town Hall in New York City.
Racism again affected Anderson in 1939. When it was arranged for her to sing at Constitution Hall in Washington, DC, the Daughters of the American Revolution opposed it because of her color. She sang instead at the Lincoln Memorial for over 75 000 people. In 1955, Anderson became the first black soloist to sing win the Metropolitan Opera of New York City. The famous conductor Toscanini praised her voice as “heard only once in a hundred years”. She was a US delegate to the United Nations in 1958 and won the UN peace prize in 1977. Anderson eventually triumphed over racism.
60．According to this passage, what did Marian Anderson do between 1917 and 1929?
A．She studied at a music school. B．She sang for religious activities.
C．She sang at Town Hall in New York. D．She studied voice in Europe.
61．Toscanini thought that Marian Anderson .
A．had a very rare voice B．sang occasionally in public
C．sang only once in many years D．was seldom heard by people
62．Anderson’s beautiful voice was first recognized .
A．at the Lincoln Memorial B．in Washington, DC.
C．in Europe D．at the United Nations
63．This passage shows that Anderson finally defeated racism in the US by .
A．protesting to the government B．appealing to the United Nations
C．demonstrating in the streets D．working hard to perfect her art