CrossingTexasandMexico,theBigB-优题课

The H1NI flu outbreak has resulted in the first death outside Mexico today -- a 23-month-old child in Texas.
Three more cases were confirmed in the UK, adding to the two previously disclosed in Scotland.
A 12-year-old girl is among five people in the UK to have contracted HIN1 flu after visiting Mexico, Gordon Brown told the Commons during prime minister's questions.
Two adults -- one from Birmingham and one from London -- are undergoing treatment.
More than 150 people are suspected to have died of the virus in Mexico and the illness has spread around the globe, but news of the first death outside the country where it originated will increase fears that a pandemic (流行病) could develop.
The infant's death from H1NI flu in the US was confirmed by Dr Richard Besser, the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He gave no other details about the child.
America has confirmed 65 cases of HIN1 flu, most of them mild, but Besser said more deaths were likely.
"HIN1 Flu is a very serious infection and each virus is unique so it' s hard to know what we' re going to be seeing, but given what we've seen in Mexico we have expected that we would see more severe infections and we would see deaths," he said.
It was unclear if the girl had contracted the illness in Mexico, or been infected in the US.
Confirmation that infected people in two countries are spreading the new disease to their families or contacts n a sustained way would meet the World Health Organization's (WHO) criteria (标准) for declaring a phase five alert on its scale of one to six. It raised the level from three to four on Monday as the virus moved to Europe.
The WHO spokesman Gregory Hard told reporters yesterday, "If we have a confirmation from the United States or Canada, we could move to phase five."
64. How many cases of HINI flu are there in the UK?
A. One. B. Two. C Three D. Five.
65. According to Dr Richard Besser, why is it hard to predict what things will be like?
A. Because more than 150 people have died of the virus in Mexico.
B. Because H1 N1 flu is a very serious infection and each virus is unique.
C. Because the infections are severe and there will be more deaths.
D. Because the WHO has raised the alert level from three to four.
66. What's the main idea of the news?
A. More cases of H1NI flu were confirmed in the UK.
B. It's hard to deal with the HINI flu.
C. H1NI flu caused death outside Mexico.
D. "The WHO will raise the alert level.

The reading skills of young male students may improve more when huts are tutored (辅导) by women, a Canadian study shows, contradicting some school policies to hire male teachers to improve boys' literacy.
Herb Katz, an education professor at the University of Alberta, took 175 boys in the third and fourth grades, identified as struggling readers, and paired them with a research assistant who worked on their reading skills for 30 minutes a week over 10 weeks.
On average, the boys paired with female tutors felt better about their reading skills after the 10 weeks than those who were guided by a male research assistant, the study found.
Katz said the study, published in the US journal Sex Roles, may cause educational policy - makers in countries such as Australia and Britain to rethink policies that call for more male teachers to be hired to provide role models for boys whose reading skills fall behind their peers (同龄人). "It tells us that the way governments respond with policy is perhaps a little too quick and a little too simple," Katz said." Boys and girls enter kindergarten with similar reading skills, Katz said, but by the end of the third grade, boys have lower reading scores than girls. The reasons behind that difference are not entirely clear. "I don't know that reading skills fade so much as teachers may not recognize what boys are doing," he said. "We don't really know a lot about boys, even in those early years."
The boys involved in the study attended 12 schools in the City of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Most were from downtown neighborhoods. About a third were native Canadians and 55 percent came from ethnic minority groups.
60. What's the purpose of this passage?
A. To encourage boys to do more reading. B. To persuade schools to hire female teachers.
C. To advise good ways for reading skills. D. To provide some information about a study.
61. The underlined word "contradicting" in the first paragraph probably means"_________".
A. finding out B. going against C. standing by D. bringing about
62. Which of the following is TRUE about the boys taking part in the study?
A. They have difficulty in reading. B. They take no interest in reading.
C. They come from different Canadian cities. D. They have no female teachers at school.
63. It can be known from the passage that _________.
A. women must be better al teaching than men
B. girls do more reading than boys
C. male teachers are preferred to help reading- troubled boys in Australia
D. governments will change their policy on hiring teachers

第三部分：阅读理解 (共20小题；每小题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。
"Reduce, reuse and recycle", this familiar environmentalist slogan tells us how to reduce the amount of rubbish that ends up in landfills and waterways.
The concept is being used to deal with one possibly dangerous form of waste – electronic junk (电子垃圾), such as old computers, cell-phones, and televisions. But this process for managing e-waste may be used in an unscrupulous way more often than not used, a recent report suggests.
"A lot of these materials are being sent to developing nations under the excuse of tense - to bridge the digital divide," said Richard Gutierrez, a policy researcher.
One of the problems is that no one proves whether these old machines work before they hit the seaways. Because of this, the report says, e-waste is a growing problem in Lagos, Nigeria, and elsewhere in the developing world. Much of the waste ends up being thrown away along rivers and roads. Often it's picked apart by poor people, who may face dangerous exposure to poisonous chemicals in the equipment.
Businessmen also pay workers a little money to get back materials such as gold and copper. This low-tech recovery process could expose workers and the local environment to many dangerous materials used to build electronics. According to Gutierrez, this shadow economy exists because the excuse of recycling and reusing electronics gives businessmen "a green passport" to ship waste around the globe. '" Developing nations must take upon some of the responsibility themselves," Gutierrez said. But, he added, "A greater part of this responsibility should fall on the exporting state."
China, for example, has become a dumping place for large amounts of e-waste. The nation is beginning to take action to stop the flow of dangerous materials across its borders. The Chinese government, after many years of denial, is finally beginning to take the lead.
56. What does the fourth paragraph mainly discuss?
A. Old computers and TVs still work before they are sent abroad.
B. Poor people break up e-waste to collect some valuable materials.
C. A lot of e-waste is dumped in developing countries.
D. The problem of e-waste is growing in developing countries.
57. From what Gutierrez said we can learn that ________.
A. exporting countries should mainly be responsible for this problem.
B. neither rich nor pour countries should be blamed for this problem
C. developing countries should be responsible for this problem
D. poor countries should be blamed for this problem
58. It can be inferred from the last paragraph that __________.
A. China has hidden a large amount of e-waste in many secret places
B. China has greatly changed her idea about the problem of e-waste
C. China has prevented poisonous materials from entering China for a long time
D. China is failing behind other countries in dealing with e-waste
59. The passage mainly tells us that ________.
A. developing countries are facing serious environmental problems
B. e-waste is a growing problem in developed countries
C. e - waste is sent to developing countries under the excuse of reuse
D. developing countries are making full use of e-waste

第二节　根据对话内容，从对话后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。选项中有两项为多余选项。
—Lovely day, isn't it?
—Mm, yes, 61And it's supposed to get warmer.
—Yes, that's true. You know, though, I'm always a little worried to see winter go.
— 62
—Well, I love skating. In fact, I used to teach skating for a living.
—Oh? That sounds interesting. 63
—I work at Bank of America. How about you?
— 64
—Here?
—No, I'm from Chicago. I'm just visiting here for the wedding.
—Oh, I see.
—By the way, 65I'm Helen Keller.
—Nice to meet you. My name is John Smith.

A．But what do you do now?

B．It's very cold.

C．It's really warm.

D．I guess I should introduce myself.

E. I'm on the radio station.
F. What' your name?
G. Really?

Advice to “sleep on it” could be well founded, scientists say. After a good night’s sleep, a problem, which couldn’t be solved the night before, can often seem more manageable, although the evidence until now has been anecdotal (个人体验的). But researchers, at the University of Luebek in Germany, have designed an experiment that shows a good night’s sleep can improve insight (顿悟) and problem-solving.
“If you have some newly-got memories in your brain, sleep acts on these memories and restructures (重新组织) them, and as a result, after sleep, the insight into problem which you could not solve before increases,” said Dr Jan Born, a neuroscientist (神经科学家), at the university.
To test the theory, they taught volunteers two simple rules to help them turn a string of (一连串) numbers into a new order. There was also a third, hidden rule, which could help them increase their speed in solving the problem. The researchers divided the volunteers into two groups: Half were allowed to sleep after the training, while the rest were forced to stay awake. Dr Jan Born and his team noticed that the group that had slept after the training were twice as likely to figure out (想出) the third rule as the other group.
“Sleep helped,” Born said in a telephone interview. “The important thing is that you have to have a memory representation (描绘，表现) of the problem you want to solve in your brain and then you sleep, so it can act on the problem.” But Born admitted that he and his team don’t know how restructuring of memories occurs or what governs it.
Pierre Maquet and Perrine Ruby of the University of Liege in Belgium said the experimental evidence supports the anecdotal suggestions that sleep can help develop creative thinking. Although the role of sleep in human creativity will still be a mystery, the research gives people good reason to fully respect their periods of sleep, they added.
57. The underlined phrase “sleep on it” in Paragraph 1 probably means ______.
A. to delay deciding something until the next day
B. to get as much sleep as possible
C. to go on sleeping without being disturbed
D. to sleep till after the time you usually get up in the morning
58. Jan Born and his team carried out the experiment through ______.
A. comparison B. interview C. survey D. imagination
59. It can be inferred from the passage that ______.
A. people should sleep so long as they have time
B. sleep is the only way to solve hard problems
C. people have various periods of sleep
D. people know how sleep reconstructs memories
60. What would be the best title for the passage?
A. How Sleep Works B. Sleep Helps Solve Problems
C. No Evidence, But Well Founded D. Born’s Discovery On Sleep