四、阅读理解（20小题；每小题2分，共40分）
Joanne was stuck in a traffic jam in central Birmingham at 5：30, and at 6：30 she was expected to be chairing a meeting of the tennis club. At last, the traffic was moving. She swung quickly racing to her house. As she opened the door, she nearly tripped over Sheba.
“Hey, Sheba” she said, “I’ve got no time for you now, but I’ll take you out as soon as I get back from tennis club.” Then she noticed Sheba seemed to be coughing or choking. Obviously, she could hardly breathe. Immediately Joanne realized she would have to take her to the vet (兽医). When she got t
here, the vet was just about to close for the day. Seeing the state of Sheba, Dr. Sterne brought her quickly into his office.
“Listen, doctor, I’m really in a rush to get to a meeting. Can I leave her with you, and go and get changed? I’ll be back in ten minutes to pick her up, and then I’ll take her on to the meeting with me. Is that OK?”
“Sure.” said the doctor.
Joanne made the quick trip back to her house in a couple of minutes. As she was once more entering the hallway, the phone by the door began to ring.
“This is Dr. Sterne,” said an anxious voice. “I wan
t you to get out of that house immediately,” said the doctor’s voice. “I’m coming round soon, and the police will be there any time now. Wait outside!”
At that moment, a police car screeched to a stop outside the house. Two policemen got out and ran into the house. Joanne was by now completely confused and very frightened. Then the doctor arrived.
“Where’s Sheba? Is she OK?” shouted Joanne.
“She’s fine, Joanne. I took out the thing which was choking her, and she’s OK now. ”
Just then, the two policemen reappeared from the house, half-carrying a white-faced man, who could hardly walk. There was blood all over him.
“My God,” said Joanne, “how did he get in there? And how did you know he was there?”
“I think he must be a burglar,” said the doctor. “I knew he was there because when I finally removed what was stuck in Sheba’s throat: it turned out to be three human fingers.”
1. What was Joanne supposed to do at 6:30？
A. To walk her dog. B. To see her doctor.
C. To attend a club meeting. D. To play tennis with her friends.
2. Joanne wanted to get back to her home again .
A. to phone the police station B. to dress up for the meeting
C. to catch the badly hurt burglar D. to wait for her dog to be cured
3. 
From the passage, we can infer that .
A. Sheba fought against the burglar
B. the police found the burglar had broken in
C. Joanne had planned to take her dog to the meeting
D. the doctor performed a difficult operation on the dog
4. In this passage, the writer intends to tell us that the dog is .
A. clever B. friendly C. frightening D. devoted
Success is often measured by the ability to overcome adversity（逆境）. But it is often the belief of others that gives us the courage to try.
J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter book series, began writing at age 6. In her biography（传记）, she remembers with great fondness when her good friend-Sean became the first person to encourage her and help her build the confidence that one day she would be a very good writer.
“He was the first person with whom I really discussed my serious ambition（志向） to be a writer. He was also the only person who thought I was bound to（注定）be a success at it, which meant much more to me than I ever told him at the time.”
Though there were many difficulties, Rowling continued her writing, particularly fantasy stories. But it wasn’t until l990 that she first came up with the idea about Harry Potter. As she recalls（回忆）, it was on a long train journey from London to Manchester that “the idea of Harry Potter simply fell into my head. To my great disappointment, I didn’t have a pen with me, and I was too shy to ask anybody if I could borrow one. I think, now, that this was probably a good thing, because I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, and all the details came up in my brain, and this thin, black-haired, bespectacled（戴眼镜的）boy who didn't know he was a wizard became more and more real to me.”
That same year, her mother died after a ten-year fight with serious diseases, which deeply affected her writing. She went on to marry and had a daughter, but separated from her husband shortly afterwards.
During this time, Rowling was diagnosed with depression（诊断患有抑郁症）. Unemployed, she finished her first novel in area cafes, where she could get her daughter to fall asleep. After being refused by l2 publishing houses, the first Harry Potter novel was sold to a small British publishing house.
Now with seven books that have sold nearly 400 million copies in 64 languages, J. K. Rowling is the highest earning novelist in history. And it all began with her friend’s encouragement as well as her ambition to write. Who believed J. K. Rowling was to be a good writer?
| A．Her friend Sean. | B．Her mother. |
| C．Her daughter. | D．Her husband. |
Rowling first came up with the idea about Harry Potter________.
| A．at the age of 6 | B．on a train journey |
| C．after her mother’s death | D．in her secondary school |
She felt disappointed on the train because_________.
| A．her train was delayed for four hours |
| B．she didn’t have a pen with her |
| C．her mind suddenly went blank |
| D．no one would offer her help |
It can be concluded from Paragraph 5 and 6 that Rowling is_________.
| A．open-minded | B．warm-hearted |
| C．good-natured | D．strong-willed |
The text mainly tells us_________.
| A．adversity makes a good novelist |
| B．the courage to try is a special ability |
| C．you can have a wonderful idea everywhere |
| D．encouragement helps one succeed |
This is a true story from Guyana．One day, a boy took a piece of paper from a box．He made a paper ball and pushed it into his nose．He couldn’t get it out．He ran crying to his mother．His mother couldn’t get the paper out, either．A week later, the paper was still in the boy’s nose．His nose began to have a bad smell．
So his mother took the boy to a hospital．The doctor looked up at the child’s nose, but she couldn’t get the paper out．She said she had to cut the boy’s nose to get the paper out．
The boy’s mother came home looking sad．She didn’t want her child to have his nose cut．The next day she took the boy to her friend Sidney who lived in a house with an old lady called May．May wanted to see the child, so the child let her look up his nose．
“Yes, I can see it,” May said．“It will be out soon.”
As she spoke, she shook some black pepper on the child’s nose．The child gave a mighty（强而有力的） sneeze and the paper flew out．His mother was surprised．May told his mother to take the boy to the seaside for a swim, for the salt water would go up his nose and stop the bad smell．
So the lucky boy didn’t have to go to the hospital to have his nose cut．After the boy pushed a paper ball into his nose, ____．
| A．he took it out |
| B．his mother took it out |
| C．he tried to take it out but failed |
| D．he did nothing but cry |
Which of the following is TRUE?
| A．The doctor helped to take the paper ball out of the boy’s nose． |
| B．The boy had to have his nose cut at last． |
| C．The boy’s mother found some black pepper to solve the problem． |
| D．May succeeded in taking the paper out． |
The boy should be taken to the seaside for a swim because ____．
| A．he needed to learn to swim. |
| B．the sea water would wash out the paper ball． |
| C．the sea water would stop the bad smell of his nose． |
| D．he needed a rest. |
The paper ball stayed in the boy’s nose for ________.
| A．at most seven days | B．less than seven days |
| C．more than seven days | D．exactly seven days |
According to the story,______was most worried about the boy’s accident.
| A．the boy’s mother | B．Sidney |
| C．May | D．the doctor |
We can achieve knowledge either actively or passively（被动地）. We achieve it actively by direct experience, by testing and proving an idea, or by reasoning.
We achieve knowledge passively by being told by someone else. Most of the learning that takes place in the classroom and the kind that happens when we watch TV or read newspapers or magazines is passive. Conditioned as we are to passive learning, it’s not surprising that we depend on it in our everyday communication with friends and co-workers.
Unfortunately, passive learning has a serious problem. It makes us tend to accept what we are told even when it is little more than hearsay and rumor(谣言).
Did you ever play the game Rumor? It begins when one person writes down a message but doesn’t show it to anyone. Then the person whispers it, word for word, to another person. That person, in turn, whispers it to still another, and so on, through all the people playing the game. The last person writes down the message word for word as he or she hears it. Then the two written statements are compared. Typically, the original message has changed.
That’s what happens in daily life. The simple fact that people repeat a story in their own words changes the story. Then, too, most people listen imperfectly. And many enjoy adding their own creative touch to a story, trying to improve on it, stamping（打上标记）it with their own personal style. Yet those who hear it think they know.
This process is also found among scholars and authors: A statement of opinion by one writer may be re-stated as fact by another, who may in turn be quoted by yet another; and this process may continue, unless it occurs to someone to question the facts on which the original writer based his opinion or to challenge the interpretation he placed upon those facts.According to the passage, passive learning may occur in _______.
| A．doing a medical experiment |
| B．solving a math problem |
| C．visiting an exhibition |
| D．doing scientific reasoning |
The underlined word “it” in Paragraph 2 refers to _____.
| A．active learning | B．knowledge |
| C．communication | D．passive learning |
What can we infer from the passage?
| A．Active learning is less important. |
| B．Passive learning may not be reliable. |
| C．Active learning occurs more frequently. |
| D．Passive learning is not found among scholars. |
Sports shoes that work out whether their owner has enough exercise to warrant time in front of the television have been devised in the UK.
The shoes — named Square Eyes — contain an electronic pressure sensor and a tiny computer chip to record how many steps the wearer has taken in a day. A wireless transmitter passes the information to a receiver connected to a television, and this decides how much evening viewing time the wearer deserves, based on the day’s efforts.
The design was inspired by a desire to fight against the rapidly ballooning waistlines among British teenagers, says Gillian Swan, who developed Square Eyes as a final year design project at Brunel University to London, UK. “We looked at current issues and childhood overweight really stood out,” she says. “And I wanted to tackle that with my design.”
Once a child has used up their daily allowance gained through exercise, the television automatically switches off. And further time in front of the TV can only be earned through more steps.
Swan calculated how exercise should translate to television time using the recommended daily amounts of both. Health experts suggest that a child take 12,000 steps each day and watch no more than two hours of television. So, every 100 steps recorded by the Square Eyes shoes equals precisely one minute of TV time.
Existing pedometers （计步器） normally clip onto a belt or slip into a pocket and keep count of steps by measuring sudden movement. Swan says these can be easily tricked into recording steps through shaking. But her shoe has been built to be harder for lazy teenagers to cheat. “It is possible, but it would be a lot of effort,” she says. “That was one of my main design considerations.”According to Swan, the purpose of her design project is to ________.
| A．keep a record of the steps of the wearer |
| B．deal with overweight among teenagers |
| C．enable children to resist the temptation of TV |
| D．prevent children from being tricked by TV programs |
Which of the following is TRUE of Square Eyes shoes?
| A．They regulate a child’s evening TV viewing time. |
| B．They determine a child’s daily pocket money. |
| C．They have raised the hot issue of overweight. |
| D．They contain information of the receiver. |
What is stressed by health experts in their suggestion?
| A．The exact number of steps to be taken. |
| B．The precise number of hours spent on TV. |
| C．The proper amount of daily exercise and TV time. |
| D．The way of changing steps into TV watching time. |
Which of the following would be the best title for the text?
| A．Smart Shoes Decide on Television Time |
| B．Smart Shoes Guarantee More Exercise |
| C．Smart Shoes Measure Time of Exercise |
| D．Smart Shoes Stop Childhood Overweight |
Pearl Buck(1892—1973)was born in Hillsboro, West Virginia. She grew up in China, but was educated at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College. After her graduation she returned to China and lived there until 1934 with the exception of a year spent at Cornell University, where she took an MA in 1926.Pearl Buck began to write in the twenties; her first novel, East Wind; West Wind, appeared in 1930.It was followed by The Good Earth (1931),Sons(1932),and A House Divided(1935),together forming a trilogy(三部曲)on the stories of the family of Wang. The Good Earth stood on the American list of bestsellers for a long time and earned her several awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and the William Dean Howells Medal. She also published The first Wife and Other Stories(1933),All Men are Brothers(1933),The Mother(1934),and This Proud Heart(1938).The biographies(传记)of her mother and father, The Exile and Fighting Angel, were published in 1936 and later brought out together under the title of The Spirit and the Flesh(1944).
Pearl Buck’s works after 1938 are too many to speak about. Her novels have continued to deal with the differences between East and West. Her interest has spread to such countries as India and Korea.
Pearl Buck was active in many charity(慈善)organizations; in particular she set up an organization for the adoption of Asian-American children and took an active interest in children with low IQ.What is the correct time order of the following events?
a. Pearl Buck took an MA at Cornell University.
b. Pearl Buck published The First Wife and Other Stories.
c. Pearl Buck’s first novel, East Wind; West Wind appeared.
d. Pearl Buck published the biographies of her mother and father.
| A．a,b,c,d | B．a,d,c,b |
| C．a,c,b,d | D．a,d,b,c |
We can learn from the passage that_______.
| A．Pearl Buck attended a college in China |
| B．The Good Earth was well-received by American readers |
| C．Pearl Buck stayed in China in 1926 |
| D．Pearl Buck stopped writing in 1938 |
According to the passage, Pearl Buck was interested in______.
| A．American history | B．politics in India and Korea |
| C．writing novels about war | D．doing charity work |
In which part of a magazine would you probably read the passage?
| A．People | B．Politics | C．Travel | D．Business |