2.26-meter-tall Yao Ming made his NBA debut (初次登台) on October 23, 2002 and got 6 points for the Houston Rockets in the game. The next day, he got 13 points (得分)in another game.
Most people think that Yao Ming is a born basketball player. But Yao said, “When you watch it on TV, it looks very easy. But when you are playing in the NBA, it is really not so easy.” He said that joining the Houston Rockets was a new start and a new challenge. “I hope that through very hard work I can make everyone happy and help the Rockets win more games,” he said.
Yao Ming speaks some English. Both he and his teammates can understand each other. They don't think there is a language problem. While Yao Ming faces this new challenge（挑战）, the people of Houston have shown great interest in him and they hope Yao Ming will bring new energy (活力) to the Rockets. The team has started having lessons to learn more about China, and many people who work for the Rockets have learned to speak some Chinese.Yao Ming got 13 points on October _____, 2002.
| A．22 | B．23 | C．24 | D．26 |
Yao Ming said that _____.
| A．playing in the NBA was difficult |
B．it was hard to watch NBA games on  TV |
| C．he was an NBA star |
| D．it was boring to play basketball |
From the passage we can know that Yao Ming ________.
| A．will work hard for his team |
| B．made the highest score in his first NBA game |
C．can't understand hi s teammates |
| D．teaches the Rockets workers Chinese himself |
The passage is probably ______.
| A．an advertisement | B．a notice | C．a news report | D．an instruction |
In the past decade the popularity of rock climbing has greatly increased, and so has the number of injuries. It has been estimated that rock climbing is now enjoyed by more than 9 million people in the US each year. Study findings revealed a 65% increase in the number of patients that were treated in US emergency departments for rock climbing-related injuries between 1991 and 2012.
The study, published in the online issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, found that about 40,000 patients were treated in US emergency departments for rock climbing-related injuries between 1991 and 2012. The most common types of rock climbing –related injuries were fractures(骨折) and sprains （扭伤）。The ankle was the most common body part to be injured (40%). Climbers in the study ranged in age from 2 to 74, with an average age of 26. The study also found that women took up a quarter of the injuries.
Falls were the primary reason for injury with over three-quarters of the injuries occurring as the result of a fall. The severity of fall-related injuries had a lot to do with the height of the fall. Patients who were injured after falling from a height over 20 feet were 10 times more likely to be treated than patients who were injured falling from 20 feet or lower.
“We found that the climbers who fell from heights higher than 20 feet took up 70 percent of the patients treated for a rock climbing-related injury,” explained the study author Lara McKenzie, PhD, director at the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Hospital. “This trend, combined with the fact that rock climbers have a higher hospitalization rate than other sports and recreational injuries, demonstrates the need to increase injury prevention efforts for climbers.”Which body part is most likely to get injured for a climber ?
| A．The arm | B．The knee |
| C．The ankle | D．The hand |
How many women climbers in American got injured while climbing a rock between 1991 and 2012 ？
| A．About 40,000 | B．About 30,000 |
| C．About 20,000 | D．About 10,000 |
The severity of climbers’ fall-related injures is mainly related to ______.
| A．the height of the fall. |
| B．the climber’s age. |
| C．the climber’s health condition |
| D．the climber’s climbing experience. |
The underlined word “demonstrates” in the last paragraph can be replaced by ________.
| A．denies | B．proves | C．prevents | D．describes |
A growing number of American homes are keeping African pygmy hedgehogs(刺猬) as pets. Hers are some questions and answers about the small animals whose backs and sides are covered with about 6,000 quills. Their quills are short, but hard and sharp.
Where do they come from?
The breed is a hybrid (杂种) of the four-toed hedgehog or African white-bellied hedgehog and the Algerian hedgehog. Its natural habitat is central, eastern and southern Africa. It now breaks the law to bring them into the United States.
An adult African pygmy hedgehog is 6 to 11 inches long and weighs 1 to 2 pounds. A relaxed one is generally oval (椭圆的) , with a very short tail and short limbs that keep the body close to the ground . When threatened or frightened, it rolls into a ball and forces its quills out in all directions. Female hedgehogs are a bit larger than the male ones. The face and the underside are covered with soft and white fur.
What do they eat?
In the wild, the hedgehog feeds mainly on insects. It also eats earthworms, snails and slugs, as well as small snakes and frogs. Pet owners feed cat food to hedgehogs that are kept at home by them.
How many babies can a mother hedgehog give birth to one time?
After hedgehogs get pregnant, it just takes about 35 days for them to give birth. Hedgehogs are born in babies of 2 to 10, each having white quills that do not injure the mother during birth. The US Department of Agriculture requires anyone breeding at least three hedgehogs to get a license.Paragraph 1 shows that keeping African pygmy hedgehogs as pets__ __.
| A．is very exciting but dangerous for pet owners |
| B．is becoming more and more popular in the US |
| C．is causing more and more troubles for pet owners |
| D．is the most popular with people in the United States |
What do we know about African pygmy hedgehogs?
| A．They usually live in eastern and northern Africa. |
| B．They like rolling away when threatened or frightened. |
| C．They are usually 6 inches long when they are born. |
| D．They are a new breed by two kinds of hedge-hogs. |
Which of the following can be used as the second subtitle?
| A．What do they look like? |
| B．How much do they weigh? |
| C．How long are their bodies? |
| D．How do they protect themselves? |
When African pygmy hedgehogs are born, they probably__ __.
| A．often influence their mother’s life |
| B．have very soft white quills |
| C．can look for insects within days |
| D．often become food of small snakes |
I was born into a family of five children. As the youngest child, I didn’t have many new clothes. Though my parents worked very hard, we could hardly make ends meet. The only time we would receive new clothes was at Christmas.
The family across the street lived a much better life. They just had two daughters and they were often seen wearing new dresses. The younger girl named Anna was of my age. One afternoon, she walked on the street wearing a beautiful white dress. She looked like an angel in that dress. I, together with many little girls, followed her. We just couldn’t keep our eyes off her dress. We all wished we would have such a dress one day!
That day, after coming back, I told my mom that I wanted a dress like that. My mom frowned(皱眉) she thought such a beautiful dress like that must cost an arm and a leg, but my mom kept that in mind. She worked five days a week at that time, but when Christmas was getting close, she worked even on every Saturday.
However, several days before Christmas, I changed my mind. It was Anna’s birthday that day and I was invited to her home with some other girls. After that party, I asked if I could try on her white dress. “Of course,” she said, “and you can take it if you like it.” I couldn’t believe my ears. How could she give such a beautiful dress to someone else? After trying it on, I knew why.
The dress looked beautiful, but it was uncomfortable to wear. As a matter of fact, my back was quite itchy(痒的) after I put it on. From that day on, I stopped admiring what others had. They may not be as good aswe think.When the writer was a little girl, she .
| A．couldn’t get whatever she liked |
| B．couldn’t see her parents at all |
| C．didn’t like new clothes |
| D．didn’t like Christmas that much |
When the other girls saw Anna’s dress, they thought it .
| A．too little | B．very cheap |
| C．very beautiful | D．very comfortable |
The writer’s mother started working on very Saturday because she .
| A．wanted to buy a new dress for herself |
| B．had to buy all her children expensive gifts |
| C．prepared herself for the busiest Christmas. |
| D．wanted to buy the dress the writer wanted |
From the passage, we learn that .
| A．there are always kind-hearted people around us |
| B．what others have may not be as good as we think |
| C．we should give what we no longer need to others |
| D．we can get what we want if we try hard enough |
We take it for granted that with memory we can remember most of things which happened in our life. But it is difficult to imagine what life would be like without memory. The meanings of thousands of everyday perceptions(感知), the basis for the decisions we make, and the roots of our habits and skills are to be found in our past experiences, which are brought into the present by memory.
Memory can be defined as the ability to keep information available for later use. It not only includes “remembering” things like arithmetic(算术) or historical facts, but also involves any change in the way an animal typically behaves. Memory is involved when a rat gives up eating grain because he has sniffed something suspicious in the grain pile.
Memory exists not only in humans and animals but also in some physical objects and machines. Computers, for example, contain devices for storing data for later use. It is interesting to compare the memory storage capacity(容量) of a computer with that of a human being. The instant access memory of a large computer may hold up to 100,000 “words”—strings of alphabetic or numerical characters—ready for instant use. An average U.S. teenager probably recognizes the meaning of about 1000,000 words of English. However, this is but a part of the total amount of information that the teenager has stored. Consider, for example, the number of faces and places that the teenager can recognize on sight.
The use of words is the basis of the advanced problem solving intelligence of human beings. A large part of a person’s memory is in terms of words and combinations of words. But while language greatly expands the number and the kind of things a person can remember, it also requires a huge memory capacity. It may well be this capacity that distinguishes humans, setting them apart from other animals.Which of the following is true about memory?
| A．It helps us perceive things happening around us every day. |
| B．It is based on the decisions we made in the past. |
| C．It is rooted in our past habits and skills. |
| D．It connects our past experiences with the present. |
According to the passage, memory is helpful in one’s life in the following aspects EXCEPT that________________.
| A．it involves a change in one’s behavior |
| B．it keeps information for later use |
| C．it warns people not to do things repeatedly |
| D．it enables one to remember events that happened in the past |
What is the major characteristic of man’s memory capacity according to the author?
| A．It can be expanded by language. |
| B．It can remember all the combined words. |
| C．It may keep all the information in the past. |
| D．It may change what has been stored in it. |
Human beings make themselves different from other animals by________.
| A．having the ability to perceive danger |
| B．having a far greater memory capacity |
| C．having the ability to recognize faces and places on sight |
| D．having the ability to draw on past experiences |
Generally speaking, government regulations normally ban anything from smoking in public places to parking in certain zones. But officials in the Brazilian town of Biritiba Mirim, 70km (45miles) east of Sao Paulo, have gone far beyond that. They plan to prohibit residents from dying early because the local cemetery(墓地) has reached full capacity.
There’s no more room to bury the dead, they can’t be cremated(火化) and laws forbid a new cemetery. So the mayor has proposed a strange solution: outlaw death. Mayor Roberto Pereira says the bill is meant as a protest against federal regulations that prohibit new or expanded cemeteries in preservation areas. “They have not taken local demands into consideration”, he claims.
A 2003 decree(法令) by Brazil’s National Environment Council forbids burial grounds in protected areas. Mr. Pereira wants to build a new cemetery, but the project has been stopped because 98% of Biritiba Mirim is considered as a preservation area.
Biritiba Mirim, a town of 28,000 inhabitants, not only wants to prohibit residents from passing away. The bill also calls on people to take care of their health in order to avoid death. “I haven’t got a job, nor am I healthy. And now they say I can’t die. That’s ridiculous,” Amarido do Prado, an unemployed resident said.
The city council is expected to vote on the regulation next week. “Of course the bill is laughable, illegal, and will never be approved,” said Gilson Soares de Campos, an assistant of the mayor. “But can you think of a better resolution to persuade the government to change the environmental decree that is prohibiting us from building a new cemetery?” The bill states that “offenders will be held responsible for their acts.” However, it does not say what the punishment will be.What is the bill to be proposed by the officials in Biritiba Mirim?
| A．Ban on building a new cemetery. |
| B．Ban on parking in certain zones. |
| C．Forbidding buried grounds in preservation. |
| D．Prohibiting residents from dying early. |
What can we infer from the phrase “have gone far beyond that” in the first paragraph?
| A．The officials in Biritiba Mirim have made these regulations. |
| B．The officials in Biritiba Mirim have been to many places around the world. |
| C．The bill to be proposed by officials in Biritiba Mirim is much too unexpected. |
| D．The officials in Biritiba Mirim have built too many cemeteries in their town. |
What’s the attitude of the mayor of Biritiba Mirim towards the federal regulations?
| A．He remains silent about them. |
| B．He gives strong backing to them. |
| C．He objects to them. |
| D．He asks the residents for advice on them. |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the text?
| A．The mayor of the town wants to build a new cemetery against federal regulation. |
| B．The residents of the town sing high praise for the bill. |
| C．No better resolution of the problems has been thought out. |
| D．The government is going to change the environmental decree. |