I recently turned fifty, which is young for a tree, midlife for an elephant , and ancient for a sportsman, Fifty is
a nice number for the states in the US or for a national speed limit but it is not a number that I was prepared to have hung on me．Fifty is supposed to be my father’s age．but now I am stuck with this number and everything it means．
A few days ago, a friend tried to cheer me up by saying, “ Fifty is what forty used to be ．”He had made an
inspirational point, Am I over the hill ?People keep telling me that the hill has been moved, and I keep telling them that he high-jump bar has dropped from the six feet I once easily cleared to the four feet that is impossible for me now．
“ Your are not getting older, you are getting better ．” says Dr．Joyce Brothers ．This, however, is the kind
of doctor who inspires a second opinion．
And so．as I approach the day when I cannot even jump over the tennis net．I am moves to share some thoughts on aging with you．I am moved to show how aging feels to me physically and mentally．Getting older．of course, is obviously a better change than the one that brings you eulogies(悼词)．In fact , a poet named Robert Browning considered it the best change of all :
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to me．
Whether or not Browning was right , most of my first fifty years have been golden ones, so I will settle for
what is ahead being as good as what has gone by．I find myself moving toward what is ahead with a curious blend ( 混合) of both fighting and accepting my aging, hoping that the philosopher(哲学家) was right when he said ．”Old is always fifteen years from now．”
5．The author seems to tell us in Paragraph I that
A．time alone will tell B．time goes by quickly
C．time will show what is right D．time makes one forget the past
6．When the author turned fifty , people around him
A．tried to comfort him B．got inspiration with him
C．were friendlier with him D．found him more talkative
7．The author considers his fifty years of life
A peaceful B．ordinary C．satisfactory D．regretful
8．We can infer from the passage that
A．the old should led a simple life B．the old should face the fact of aging
C．the old should take more exercise D．the old should fill themselves with curiosity
A lonely and sad pug (哈巴狗) was photographed as he waited for his owner by the side of the road has been considered as the world’s saddest dog. Pictures of the pet taken by a passer-by have become an internet foucus after being posted on the photo-sharing website Flickr. The dog which is nicknamed Mr Newman looks terribly upset as he sits on the pavement tied to a lamp-post with a rope.
The photograph was taken outside a café in the Californian city of San Francisco, which may go some way to explaining why he is dressed in a stylish grey and purple sweater.
"He was hanging around looking for somebody to love him. I tried to cheer him up – he seemed happy to see me," said the photographer Chris Michael.
One of the four photos of the pug on Flickr is titled "Tough day for Mr Newman" and with some other words as follows: "Despite his cool clothes, the girls just aren't interested in him any more."
Dozens of people on the site said they had been touched by the dog's pitiful expressions gaze. "I come back to see this photo every now and then because it's too cute, so does my daughter. In fact, my family all are touched," wrote one of the pedestrians who had seen the photo. Another viewer said that she had been moved as to buy a pug of her own after seeing the photos.
Mr Newman may have won the hearts of internet users but he is unlikely to be more famous than a cat competitor Keyboard Cat, the musical pet who has become a star on YouTube.
1．The little pug waited by the road probably because .
A．it was abandoned by its owner B．it was left behind by his owner
C．it was trapped by a passer – by D．it couldn’t find the way home
2．We can infer from the passage that the photographer Chris Michael .
A．knew much about the owner of the dog
B．helped to find the owner of the pug
C．took great interest in its colorful sweater
D．tried to amuse the pug in some ways
3．The writer used the underlined sentence from the website to .
A．add some humor to the passage
B．describe the pug’s loveliness
C．help the god owner recognize it
D．inform girls to adopt the dog
4．What would be discussed next according to the text? .
A．Description of another dog
B．The pug’s recent situation
C．Some details about the keyboard cat
D．Pet owners’ responsibility
第三部分：阅读理解（共20小题，每题2分，满分40分）
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项。
Until quite recently, I knew only three things about my father: I knew his name, David S. Johnson, Jr. I knew he was an only child, and I’d been told he was killed on April 12, 1945, somewhere in Germany.
I used to come to visit my Granny. “Daddy David and his two friends were out in the fields, making sure the way was safe for the others to follow,” she told me. “All of a sudden there was an explosion. All three of them were killed.” Granny was looking down, stroking one thin hand with the other. Then there were no words but silence.
I began my search and collection for information about my father as my 50th birthday and the 50th anniversary of his death drew near. I was told that the explosion had blown him to bits and I had great difficulty collecting anything I could find about him bit by bit. Bits of information about his began falling into my hands, my mind and my heart. Longing to know my father kept me connected to him. It was time to transform my longing into knowledge.
Once upon a time he was alive, and my mother and father were deeply in love. They were married, and they had a child, my brother David. Then my father left for the war.
I was born in January 1945. On February 15 my father wrote me a letter of welcome. The letter is kept in my baby book, “Dear Susan, you have a very good family. Your dad is sort of a less able person. Your mother is the most wonderful person I’ve ever known. I’ve always marveled at my great good fortune to have her and been loved by her. If you follow her words and examples, you may expect to meet life in the best possible way, and your path will always be the right one. Your father, Dave.”
Black on white paper, the words are from my father. From them I grow into a person of loyalty and love. How I long for stories that will bring him to life!
1．The writer got to know her father’s story of death from .
A．her father’s friends B．someone in Germany
C．her grandmother D．a little child
2．The author meet difficulty finding information about her father because .
A．it was too late for her to start the search
B．the explosion left little about her father
C．she only found pieces of hands and legs
D．she didn’t have enough knowledge to do it
3．Which of the following statements is TURE? .
A．Her parents had only one child B．Her father died before her birth
C．Her father was a disabled man D．The writer never saw her father
4．We know from the last paragraph that the author .
A．still hates her father for having left
B．is curious about her father’s death
C．shows much respect for her father
D．is sure that her father may survive
If Barack Obama's wife and kids thought they'd be getting his undivided attention during their long-awaited summer holiday, perhaps they should think again.
The US President kicked off his vacation by revealing that, in addition to endless games of tennis and golf, he plans to spend the week ploughing through five books, weighing in at an astonishing 2,300 pages. His summer reading list, unveiled(透露) by the White House, contains two heavyweight works of non–fiction and three novels.
On top of the president’s table is Hot, Flat and Crowded, by New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman. Subtitled "why we need a green revolution", it makes a leftish（左倾的） call to arms regarding the future of the planet.
Mr Obama's second choice is historian David McCullough's biography of John Adams, the often under-rated second US president, who was the subject of an award-winning HBO docu-drama（纪实剧）last year.
The novels include two crime thrillers: Richard Price's Lush Life, and The Way Home, a novel by George Pelecanos set in Washington, DC – which, much like Obama's best-selling autobiography（自传）, explores the relationship between a father and his son.
Completing the set is the novel Plainsong, by a little-known writer called Kent Haruf. Set in a small town on the Colorado plains, its existence on the reading list may reassure voters that Middle America has not been ignored by their commander-in-chief.
Publishers are keeping an eye on whether the famous "Obama bounce" – which has helped sales at the first family's favourite clothes stores, such as J Crew – will continue to apply to their troubled industry. The President's endorsement（认可） is said to have lifted sales of Joseph O'Neill's novel Netherland about cricket in Holland and New York last year.
Given that President Obama has already spent a portion of his week so far playing golf, beating Michelle at tennis, and visiting friends, questions will inevitably(不可避免地) be asked about his ability to put any dent（挫伤） at all in the ambitious reading list.
To finish all five books, he would have to manage more than 300 pages every day – quite an "ask" when a small portion of his time must also be spent running the country.
1. What’s the function of the first paragraph?
| A. To give an example. |
B. To introduce a topic. |
| C. To describe a hope. |
D. To offer an argument. |
2. Which of the following statements is NOT true?
| A. Some people doubted if the president could finish his books. |
| B. The Way Home is a book which explores the relationship between a father and his son. |
| C. Lush life, set in Washington, is a novel written by Richard Price. |
| D. Thanks to Obama, sales of Netherland have been lifted. |
3. Which of the following was NOT a book the President planned to read?
| A. John Adams. |
B. Netherland. |
| C. Hot, Flat and Crowded. |
D. Lush Life. |
4. Which of the following can be the best title of the passage?
| A. Obama’s Hobbies |
B. Obama’s Holiday Plan |
| C. Obama’s Holiday Life |
D. Obama’s Holiday Book List |
Fifty–eight percent of the teachers interviewed in the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) questionnaire had come across copying among their pupils. Gill Bullen from Itchen College in Southampton, for example, said, "Pieces handed in by two students were identical and significantly better than either of them could have done. Not only that, the essays handed in didn't quite answer the title question I had set". A teacher from Leeds said, "I had one piece of work so bravely cut and pasted that it still contained ads from the web page."
Connie Robinson from Stockton Riverside College said, "With less able students it is easy to spot copying as the writing style changes in the middle of the assignment, but with more able students it is sometimes necessary for tutors to carry out Internet research to identify the source of the copy."
Mary Bousted, general secretary of the ATL, said," Teachers are struggling under a mountain of cut-and-pasting to spot whether work was the student's own or copy." She called for policies to stop copying, and asked for help from exam boards and the government in providing resources and techniques to detect cheats.
But there was another side. "I have found once students clearly understand what copying is, its consequences and how to reference correctly so they can draw on published works, copying becomes less of a problem," said Diana Baker from Emmanuel College, Durham.
"I think the majority of students who engage in copying do it more out of ignorance than the desire to cheat. They really want to succeed on their own."
1. The passage mainly wants to tell us ____________.
| A. the benefits of the Internet for students |
| B. web copying is a serious problem in the UK |
| C. the ways to find web copying for teachers |
| D. how we can use the Internet to do homework |
2. The underlined word “identical” (Paragraph 1) probably means ____________.
| A. excellent |
B. contrasting |
C. the same |
D. complex |
3. What is TRUE according to Connie Robinson?
| A. It’s not easy to find the less able students copy from the Internet |
| B. It’s difficult to find whether the more able students have copied. |
| C. The less able student will not change their writing style when copying. |
| D. The more able students needn’t copy from the Internet. |
4. What’s the writer’s attitude towards “copying”?
| A. The writer doesn’t tell us. |
B. The writer feels angry about it. |
| C. The writer thinks it doesn’t matter. |
D. The writer approves of it. |
British and American scientists are raising genetically modified(转基因的) pigs in the hope of providing organs for transplant(移植) to humans, the project leader wrote in a newspaper Sunday.
Scientists in London and California have begun conducting the genetic experiments to find a solution to record–long waiting lists for organ transplants, Robert Winston said in an opinion piece written for Britain's Sunday Times.
In Britain alone, around 8,000 patients are waiting for a transplant.
"People needing a new heart or liver are waiting for someone else to die – usually a violent death in a traffic accident," Winston wrote in the newspaper. He said his team was "trying to modify pigs so their organs might save the lives of humans."
The scientists are introducing human genes into the animals to reduce the chances of the organs being rejected by patients, as has been common in previous attempts to use animal tissues, said Winston, who heads the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology at London's Hammersmith Hospital.
Working with Dr. Carol Redhead of the California Institute of Technology, Winston's team has injected human genes directly into male piglets(猪仔), adding them to the animal's sperm(精子).
He said that pigs involved in experiments had successfully produced transgenic sperm, but acknowledged that British and European laws had prevented the team from using the pigs to mate.
The Sunday Times newspaper reported that the experiments would be moved to the United States following difficulties with funding and regulations in Britain. It said the pigs would be bred in Missouri.
"Our U.S. friends will benefit from our technology and the income we might have produced for Britain will be lost," Winston wrote.
Some scientists have previously blamed the idea of using animal organs for human transplant, saying the technique risks spreading animal viruses to humans. Winston said his research project is attempting to breed virus-free pigs.
1. Scientists are introducing human genes into the animals to ____________.
| A. make the organs healthier |
B. reduce the pain of animals |
| C. make the organs live longer |
D. reduce the chances of rejection |
2. Some scientists have blamed the idea of using animal organs for human transplant because ____________.
| A. the technique is not perfect now |
| B. humans may be infected with animal viruses |
| C. it is against laws and regulations |
| D. it may cause a conflict between humans and animals |
3. According to Winston, it seems ___________ to Britain to move the experiments to the United States.
| A. a pity |
B. a pride |
C. a disaster |
D. a good idea |
4. It can be inferred from the passage that ____________.
| A. animal organs are commonly used for human transplant now |
| B. lots of patients need animal organ transplants now |
| C. examples of the animal tissues being rejected have happened |
| D. it is not safe to use animal organs for human transplant |