第三部分：阅读理解（共15小题；每小题2分，满分30分）
请认真阅读下列短文，从短文后各题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
When Janet, a grade two student at a well-known school, was pestered(纠缠) by her classmates to join their group to steal from shops, she was shocked. She was a quiet, well-behaved girl and she did not understand why the girls had approached her.
They showed her some of the things they had stolen and said that shop theft was great fun and very exciting. Then they threatened to beat Janet if she did not join them.
Janet was deeply troubled. She did her best to avoid the group of the girls after classes, but they often waited for her outside the school and tried to persuade her to come with them.
This problem is one which many school students in Hong Kong face. We asked the chairman of the local-fight-crime committee what Janet should do in these cases.
“First of all, she could try to talk the other girls out of the whole thing. Being caught stealing from shops could ruin their futures and it is simply not worth the risk,” he said.
“Young people may think that it is easy to get away with stealing from shops, but more and more stores now have plain clothes detectives who are dressed like customers. I would say shop thieves have a more than ninety percent chance of being caught.”
“If they won’t listen to her, Janet should go to someone in charge in school, who can then decide if the matter can be dealt with by her or whether it is necessary to report the incident to the police.”
56. From the first three paragraphs we can learn that ____________.
A. Janet didn’t know what to do with the case
B. Janet faced the group bravely
C. the group stole a lot of things
D. the group were short of money
57. The underlined part “talk the other girls out of the whole thing” means ____________.
A. discuss the possible result with them
B. tell them about their futures
C. persuade them to stop theft
D. warn them not to disturb her
58. One of the suggestions to Janet is to ____________.
A. report the situation to the police
B. ask the local-fight-crime committee for advice
C. hire a detective to catch them
D. turn to her teacher for help
Dear readers,
I receive many letters from children and can’t answer them all — there wouldn’t be enough time in a day. I’ll try to answer some of the questions that are commonly asked.
Where did I get the idea for Stuart Little and for Charlotte's Web? Well, many years ago, I went to bed one night in a railway sleeping car, and during the night I dreamed about a tiny boy who acted rather like a mouse. That’s how the story of Stuart Littlegot started.
As for Charlotte’s Web, I like animals and my farm is a very pleasant place to be — at all hours. One day, when I was on my way to feed the pig, I began feeling sorry for the pig because, like most pigs, he was going to die. This made me sad. So I started thinking of ways to save a pig’s life. Three years after I started writing it, it was published. (I am not a fast worker, as you can see.)
Sometimes I’m asked when I started to write, and what made me want to write. I started early — as soon as I could spell. Children often find pleasure and satisfaction through trying to set their thoughts down on paper, either in words or in pictures. I was not good at drawing, so I used words instead. As I grew older, I found that writing can be a way of earning a living.
Well, here is the answer to the last question. No, they are imaginary tales, containing fantastic characters and events. In real life, a family doesn’t have a child who looks like a mouse and a spider doesn’t write words in her web. Although my stories are imaginary, I like to think that there is some truth in them, too — truth about the way people and animals feel and think and act.
Yours sincerely,
E.B. WhiteE.B. White wrote this letter to _____.
A. introduce his new books
B. introduce two funny stories
C. explain why he enjoys writing
D. answer some readers’ questionsWe can know from the passage that E.B. White is a writer who ______.
A. writes very fast
B. works on a friend’s farm
C. mainly writes stories for adults
D. writes imaginary tales for children What inspired E.B. White to write Charlotte's Web?
A. He wanted children to love animals.
B. He was deeply impressed by a clever pig.
C. He wanted to use his own way to save a pig. The reason why E.B. White started to write is to ______.
A. improve his spelling B. express his thoughts
C. show his sadness D. make a good living What is probably the last question?
| A．Are your stories true? |
| B．What is the truth in your stories? |
| C．Will you write more imaginary tales? |
| D．Do you know a child looking like a mouse? |
Jackie Heinricher's love affair with bamboo started in her backyard. “As a child, I remember playing among the golden bamboo my dad had planted, and when there was a slight wind, the bamboos sounded really musical.”
A fisheries biologist, Heinricher, 47, planned to work in the salmon industry in Seattle, where she lived with her husband, Guy Thornburgh, but she found it too competitive. Then her garden gave her the idea for a business: She'd planted 20 bamboo forests on their seven-acre farm.
Heinricher started Boo-Shoot Gardens in 1998. She realized early on what is just now beginning to be known to the rest of the world. It can be used to make fishing poles, skateboards, buildings, furniture, floors, and even clothing. An added bonus: Bamboo absorbs four times as much carbon dioxide as a group of hardwood trees and releases 35 percent more oxygen.
First she had to find a way to mass-produce the plants—a tough task, since bamboo flowers create seed only once every 50 to 100 years. And dividing a bamboo plant frequently kills it.
Heinricher appealed to Randy Burr, a tissue culture expert, to help her. “People kept telling us we'd never figure it out,” says Heinricher.“Others had worked on it for 27 years! I believed in what we were doing, though, so I just kept going.”
She was right to feel a sense of urgency. Bamboo forests are being rapidly used up, and a United Nations report showed that even though bamboo is highly renewable, as many as half of the world's species are threatened with dying out. Heinricher knew that bamboo could make a significant impact on carbon emissions(排放)and world economies, but only if huge numbers could be produced. And that's just what she and Burr figured out after nine years of experiments—a way to grow millions of plants. By placing cuttings in test tubes with salts, vitamins, plant hormones, and seaweed gel, they got the plants to grow and then raised them in soil in greenhouses.
Not long after it, Burr's lab hit financial difficulties. Heinricher had no experience running a tissue culture operation, but she wasn't prepared to quit. So she bought the lab.
Today Heinricher heads up a profitable multimillion-dollar company, working on species from all over the world and selling them to wholesalers(批发商). “If you want to farm bamboo, it's hard to do without the young plants, and that's what we have，” she says proudly.What was the main problem with planting bamboo widely?
| A．They didn't have enough young bamboo. |
| B．They were short of money and experience. |
| C．They didn't have a big enough farm to do it. |
| D．They were not understood by other people. |
What does Heinricher think of bamboo?
| A．Fragile and affordable. |
| B．Productive and flexible. |
| C．Useful and earth-friendly. |
| D．Strong and profitable. |
The underlined word “renewable” in Paragraph 6 probably means “________”．
| A．able to be replaced naturally |
| B．able to be raised difficultly |
| C．able to be shaped easily |
| D．able to be recycled conveniently |
What do you learn from the passage?
| A．Heinricher's love for bamboo led to her experiments in the lab. |
| B．Heinricher's determination helped her to succeed in her work. |
| C．Heinricher struggled to prevent bamboo from disappearing. |
| D．Heinricher finally succeeded in realizing her childhood dream. |
In modern society there is a great deal of argument about competition. Some value it highly, believing that it is responsible for social progress and prosperity, others say that competition is bad; that it sets one person against another; that it leads to unfriendly relationship between people.
I have taught many children who held the belief that their self – worth relied (依赖) on how well they performed at tennis and other skills. For them, playing well and winning are often life – and – death affairs. In their single – minded pursuit (追求) of success, the development of many other human qualities is sadly forgotten.
However, while some seem to be lost in the desire to succeed, others take an opposite attitude. In a culture which values only the winner and pays no attention to the ordinary players, they strongly blame competition. Among the most vocal are youngsters who have suffered under competitive pressures from their parents or society. Teaching these young people, I often observe in them a desire to fail. They seem to seek failure by not trying to win or achieve success. By not trying, they always have an excuse: “I may have lost, but it doesn’t matter because I really didn’t try.” What is not usually admitted by themselves is the belief that if they had really tried and lost, that would mean a lot. Such a loss would be a measure of their worth. Clearly, this belief is the same as that of the true competitors who try to prove themselves. Both are based on the mistaken belief that one’s self – respect relies on how well one performs in comparison with others. Both are afraid of not being valued. Only as this basic and often troublesome fear begins to dissolve (缓解) can we discover a new meaning in competition.What does this passage mainly talk about?
| A．Competition helps to set up self–respect. |
| B．Opinions about competition are different among people. |
| C．Competition is harmful to personal quality development. |
| D．Failures are necessary experiences in competition |
Why do some people favor competition according to the passage?
| A．It pushes society forward. |
| B．It builds up a sense of duty. |
| C．It improves personal abilities. |
| D．It encourages individual efforts. |
The underlined phrase “the most vocal” in Paragraph 3 means ________ .
| A．those who try their best to win |
| B．those who value competition most highly |
| C．those who are against competition most strongly |
| D．those who rely on others most for success |
What is the similar belief of the true competitors and those with a desire to fail ?
| A．One’s worth lies in his performance compared with others. |
| B．One’s success in competition needs great efforts. |
| C．One’s achievement is determined by his particular skills. |
| D．One’s success is based on how hard he has tried. |
Which point of view may the author agree to?
| A．Every effort should be paid back. |
| B．Competition should be encouraged. |
| C．Winning should be a life–and–death matter. |
| D．Fear of failure should be removed in competition. |
She was born to wealth and power in an era when money and politics were left to the men. Later, as The Washington Post's publisher, Katharine Graham became one of America's most powerful women.
Despite a privileged background, Katharine had to deal, while growing up, with the high demands her mother placed on her children. Katharine's love of journalism, which she shared with her father, led to her career after college at The Washington Post, the newspaper her father bought in 1933. At the Post, Katharine met Phil Graham, a young, charming lawyer who became her husband. When, in 1945, Katharine's father chose Phil over her to take over his struggling paper, Katharine didn't object and stayed at home as a wife and mother of four.
While Phil's successful efforts to restore the Post to prominence (显著) made the Grahams popular members of the Washington social scene, Katharine privately suffered tremendous pain from her husband's increasingly abusive behavior and wild mood swings caused by severe depression. When Phil committed suicide (自杀), the 46-year-old Katharine found herself thrown into a new job, that of newspaper publisher. But determined to save the family paper for her children, Katharine rose to the challenge of running the Post, attending meetings in every department, working endlessly to prove herself to her critics, and becoming the toast of Washington.
In 1971, Katharine ordered the Post to print a copy of the Pentagon Papers, the top-secret documents revealing the truth about the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War. What's more, her courageous decision and support for her journalists prepared the Post to break the most important political story in modern history: Watergate, one of the greatest scandals (丑闻) in American political history. Katharine managed to keep control over the most chaotic (disorder) of situations when it was reported, all the time insisting the news stories be accurate and fair. Watergate made the Washington Post an internationally known Paper and Katharine was considered as the most powerful woman in America. Katharine Graham was born in a time when ______.
| A．women were not given the chance to receive education |
| B．women were not considered as intelligent as men |
| C．women were not permitted to achieve their goals |
| D．women were not allowed to enter every field |
When her husband was chosen to take charge of the newspaper, Katharine Graham ______.
| A．was strongly against the idea |
| B．was not happy to be rejected |
| C．was willing to take her share of responsibility |
| D．didn't believe her husband would do a good job |
Which of the following statements is true?
| A．It was Katharine Graham's husband who made the greatest contributions to the Post. |
| B．When Katharine Graham first took over the Post, her critics doubted her ability. |
| C．Katharine Graham was successful in her career but suffered severe depression. |
| D．Katharine Graham was free to do whatever she liked in her early life. |
Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?
| A．Ups and downs of The Washington Post. |
| B．Katharine Graham's family life and career. |
| C．Katharine Graham: from housewife to successful publisher. |
| D．Katharine Graham: a woman who shaped American journalism. |
Dear MSN,
I live in San Diego. I’m single and would like to meet people near me. Can I do this on the Internet?
Searching in San Diego
Dear Searching,
On the Internet, you could easily go looking for love in all the wrong places, but here are lots of great ways to meet singles near you.
The Web is a good place to start. MSN also has international sites for Europe, Asia, Australia and South America.
There are several California–based MSN Web communities where you can meet like –minded people near you as well as city-specific chat rooms for real-time interaction (互动). Hope for some clever friends. What a little more excitement in your online interactions? Try the “Gaming Zone!”
I also tried MSN Search, looked under the “Personal” heading and found “Relationships”. Clicked on that, then found “Ads & Personals”, by “Region” and found San Diego–specific personal from there. Try it!
Also, give “IRC” (Internet Relay Chat) and “Usenet Newsgroups” a try. Many a net romance has started and then developed in these off-the-Web communities. If you’d rather make friends F2F (face to face), the Web has some helpful dating and redating tips. Searching has written this letter with the purpose of _______
| A．getting help from MSN with his computer |
| B．winning the heart of a love from the web |
| C．meeting single people on line |
| D．looking for love in all the wrong places |
According to the second letter, MSN has several advantages such as ________
| A．shooting IRC and Usenet Newsgroups |
| B．giving you time and places to chat with others |
| C．satisfying you with whatever kind of help you want |
| D．supplying you with many methods to make friends |
From the second letter we can infer that MSN treats an ordinary reader so kindly and warmly because ________.
| A．it is its duty to help those who have trouble with their computers |
| B．it needs to attract as many readers as possible so as to make greater benefit |
| C．it likes to see more net romances and shares their happiness |
| D．all people need it and it needs all people |