Valentine’s Day is named for Saint Valentine, an early Christmas churchman who helped young lovers. Valentine was killed for his Christian beliefs on February 14 more than 1700 years ago, but the day which 
is named after him is even earlier than that.
More than 2,000 years ago, the ancient Romans celebrated a holiday for lovers. As part of the celebration, girls wrote their names on pieces of paper and put them in a large container. Boys reached into the container and pulled one out. The girl whose name was written on the paper became his lover or sweet heart for a year.
Now, lovers still put their names on pieces of paper and they sent each other Valentine’s Day cards that tell of their love. Sometimes they also send gifts, like flowers or chocolate candies. Americans usually send these gifts and cards through the mail system. But some use another way to send this message. They have it printed in a newspaper. The cost is usually a few dollars. Some of the messages are simple and short, “Jane, I love you very much”. Others say more. This one, for example, “Dan, Roses are red. Violets are blue. I hope you love me as much as I love you. Forever, May.”
Most of the newspapers that print such messages are local, but USA Today is sold throughout the United S
tates and 90 other countries. This means someone can send a Valentine message to the lover in a far-away place almost anywhere in the world. These messages cost 80 dollars and more. An employee of USA Today says readers can have a small heart or rose printed along with their messages this year. Will this kind of Valentine’s Day message reach the one you love? Well, just make sure he or she reads the newspaper. When was the day named after Valentine?
| A．More than 1700 years ago before Valentine’s death. | B．More than 2, 000 years ago. |
| C．On February 14. | D．It is not mentioned in the passage. |
Which of the following is Wrong about the ancient Romans holiday in the text?
| A．Girls put paper with their names into a container. |
| B．Boys and girls became sweet hearts by chance. |
| C．Girls and boys chose life lovers in the holiday. |
| D．It was celebrated as a holiday for lovers. |
Now lovers celebrate Valentine’s Day _________.
| A．like what the ancient Romans did | B．by sending gifts to each other |
| C．by printing newspapers | D．by spending lots of money |
What can we learn from the text?
| A．The ancient Roman girls were more easy-going. |
| B．Valentine was killed for not helping the government. |
| C．USA Today helps readers to send roses with printed messages. |
| D．Valentine was honored for his Christian belief and warm heart. |
The text is written to _________.
| A．tell us something about Valentine’s Day | B．advertise for USA Today |
| C．tell us that Americans are open to express love | D．sell roses on Valentine’s Day |
While I was in 9th grade, I built a circuit (电路装置) for the traffic system of our city. After getting the first prize, I got this valuable advice from my father: “Do whatever interests you, and don’t let the work challenge you, make sure you are challenging that work.”
I have always preferred the projects which are challenging and related to real life problems. I clearly remember building a shipping program several years ago. I divided the whole project into several small sections. When I understood it clearly, I used my brainstorming skill on it, and gave some basic ideas. Then I asked my professor for help before jumping into coding (编码). At first, I did not know how to ask questions correctly and always asked the question “How do I do it?” As I kept working and discussed with my professor, I became more comfortable and those “how” questions soon turned into “what if I do this and that” types of questions.
It took me four days to write the code. The desire to solve the problem kept me sleepless all nights brainstorming in even greater details. Every time I saw my program running smoothly, I exploded with joy. I still remember the last day of my work. I was getting some problem and didn’t know what to do. At that moment, a man came in to clean. He had headphones, and he was dancing while cleaning the room. Seeing this, I burst out laughing. That moment calmed me. I regained energy and interest and started to work again, and soon I fixed the problem.
My success in the project proved that breaking up a large problem into small parts could help find a possible solution. Discussing the problem with others was also very beneficial. Now I have gained the confidence to attempt any kind of project. According to the passage, the writer was interested in ______.
| A．developing traffic systems | B．doing challenging projects |
| C．winning great prizes | D．writing different codes |
The writer asked the question “how do I do it” at first because ______.
| A．he had no clear idea about his program | B．he was to o shy to express himself |
C．he wa nted to be understood easily |
D．he preferred this kind of question |
We learn from the passage that the writer’s shipping program ______.
A．would ben efit people a lot |
B．was done together with others |
| C．was difficult and needed patience | D．cost much money and energy |
What would be the best title for the passage?
| A．Do It Yourself | B．No Pains, No Gains |
| C．Learning with Interest | D．Practice Makes Perfect |
Good posture certainly shows good health. It also adds to a body’s energy and beauty. The body is not handsome when the back is bent and neck thrusts forward. Bad posture suggests the impression t
hat a person is tired, lacking in energy, bored, or weak. Tiredness may sometimes be the cause of bad posture. Most often, however, it is due to careless and poor health habits. Whatever it causes, bad posture affects one physically. The muscles are stretched and pulled into unnatural positions, which can lead to poor base of the body’s various systems.
Nutrition is the study of how the body takes food and uses it. This science provides information about the kinds of food a person must eat to improve and maintain good health. Such knowledge helps him develop and form people habits to his problems of healthful living. People habits of nutrition can be developed by paying attention to: (1) the variety of food included in the diet; (2) the quality of each kind of food eaten. A diet, or the food regularly eaten, must contain all the necessary factors.
Many physicians believe that overweight is one of the greatest dangers to good health. This condition often leads to a shorter life. An overweight person is also easier to suffer disease, and various disorders of the digestive system. A person’s weight directly has something to do with the amounts of food he eats.
All foods can make a person fat if too much is eaten. In reducing, the safe weight loss is about two pounds a week. The sensible way to lose weight is to decrease the gaining starchy(含淀粉的) foods, fats and sweets in the diet. According to this passage, which of the following is suggested about the good health habits?
| A．Good way of holding your body. | B．Balanced food. |
C．R ight body weight. |
D．All of the above |
According to this passage, bad posture is most probably caused by_______.
| A．tiredness, boredom and weakness | B．lack of energy |
| C．carelessness and poor health habits | D．overworking and illness |
Which of the following eating habits is NOT proper in terms of maintaining good health?
| A．Vegetables, meat and water only |
| B．A suitable quantity of each kind of food |
| C．Fats being part of diet. |
| D．Various foods included in the diet |
We can infer from the statement “all foods can make a person fat if too much is eaten” that___.
| A．to lose weight you had better eat properly for daily meals |
| B．the most effective way to lose weight is to have no fat and sweet |
| C．even vegetables can make you put on weight, so there is no need to have fat and sweet. |
| D．a shorter life is a sure result of overweight |
We produce 500 billion of plastic bags in a year worldwide and they are thrown away pollu
ting oceans, killing wildlife and getting dumped in landfills where they take up to 1,000 years to decompose. Researchers have been unsuccessfully looking for a solution.
The 16-year-old Canadian high school student, Daniel Burd, from Waterloo Collegiate Institute, has-discovered a way to make plastic bags degrade(降解) in as few as 3 months, a finding that won him first prize at the Canada Wide Science Fair, a ＄10,000 prize, a ＄20,000 scholarship, and a chance to revolutionize a major environmental issue.
Burd’s strategy was simple: Since plastic does eventually degrade, it must be eaten by microorganisms (微生物). If those microorganisms could be identified, we could put them to work eating the plastic much faster than under normal conditions.
With this goal in mind, he grounded plastic bags into a powder and concocted(调制) a solution of household chemicals, yeast(酵母) and tap water to encourage microbes growth. Then he added the plastic powder and let the microbes work their magic for 3 months. Finally, he tested the resulting bacterial culture on plastic bags, exposing one plastic sample to dead bacteria as a control. Sure enough, the plastic exposed to the live bacteria was 17% lighter than the control after six weeks.
The inputs are cheap, maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because microbes produce heat as they work, and the only outputs are water and tiny levels of carbon dioxide.
“Almost every week I have to do chores and when I open the closet door, I have piles of plastic bags falling on top of me. One day, I got tired of it and I wanted to know what other people are doing with these plastic bags. The answer: not much. So I decided to do something myself.” Said Daniel Burd.Daniel Burd won first prize at the Canada Wide Science Fair because .
| A．he found a new kind of microorganism |
B．he contributed much to environmental protection |
C．he found a way to degrad e plastics in shorter time |
| D．he could encourage microbe growth in an easier way |
Daniel Burd exposed one plastic sample to dead b
acteria to .
| A．make the live bacteria work better | B．test how effective his method was |
| C．know which bacteria worked faster | D．control the temperature in the process |
Maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because .
| A．plastics can get hot easily | B．microbes can produce heat themselves |
| C．much carbon dioxide is produced | D．the temperature can be controlled |
Daniel Burd got his idea from .
| A．his school textbook | B．the failure of researchers |
| C．his everyday work | D．the practice of other people |
In 2006, a large number of new Internet sites became popular around the world. Some of these are for communication, others for entertainment.
The blog is one form of communication that increased in popularity. Through these personal websites, people can share their lives, ideas and opinions on the Internet. People of all ages have their own blogs. For young people, they are a way to show their writing and other forms of self-expression. Blogs also connect people with other people who have the same interests. For example, teachers use blogs to share ideas with other teachers’, as well as experiences and concerns about their work.
YouTube is another Internet site that became more popular last year. This website lets anyone create, share and watch short videos. These include videos of people singing or dancing, or animals doing funny things. Three young men created YouTube almost two years ago as a personal video sharing service. They recently sold it to Google for more than one and a half billion dollars.
Games and entertainment also became a l
arger part of the Internet last year. One Internet social site is called Second Life. It is an online world in which computer u
sers create a new self and live a different life. They get married, build homes, operate businesses, buy and sell goods, work, play and attend school.
People also take part in fantasy sports leagues with the help of the Internet. A fantasy sport is a game in which each member of a group acts as the owner of a team. Each owner creates a team of real-life professional players to compete against other teams in the league. More than fifteen million American adults play fantasy sports. The industry earns more than one billion dollars each year from publications, memberships and other costs. The passage is mainly about __________.
| A．the most popular Internet technology in 2006 |
| B．some new ways for people to communicate or have fun on the Internet |
| C．one online game called Second Life |
| D．the high price of playing online |
Who is the owner of YouTube now?
| A．Three young men. | B．Google. | C．Computer users. | D．Yahoo. |
Whom does the underlined word “they” in Paragraph 4 refer to?
| A．The people who are interested in blogs. |
| B．The people who play games on YouTube. |
| C．The people who play Second Life. |
| D．The people who are created in Second Life. |
What do we know from the passage?
| A．Teachers can share ideas, experiences and concerns about their work with other teachers on any website. |
B．More than fifteen millio n American teena gers play fantasy sports. |
| C．Second Life helps people get married, buy and sell goods, work, play and attend school in real life. |
| D．Fantasy sports, a game in which each member of a group acts as the owner of a team, is very popular around the world. |
Ellis Island is located in New York Harbor. Ellis Island is open daily year-round from 9:30am to 5:00pm, with extended hours during summer. It is closed on December 25. There is no admission charge to Ellis Island; donations are gratefully accepted.
At Your Fingertips
Park information (212) 363- 7620
Emergencies (212 ) 363- 3260
Ferryboat information (212) 269- 5755
Lost and found (212) 344- 7620
Dining, gifts, & audio tour (212) 344- 0996
Transportation
Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Ferry: Boats leave from Battery Park, Manhattan, and from Liberty State Park, New Jersey. They run about every
30 to 45 minutes beginning at 9: 15 am. (ferry schedule subject to change).
Hou
rs: May vary; call the number below
Closed: December 25
Ferry fees (Includes Liberty and Ellis Islands): adults, $ 7; senior citizens, $6; children (age 3 to 17), $ 3. (lower group rates are available for 25 or more adults)
Ticket & schedule information: (212) 269- 
5755In summer, visitors will have ___________ to visit Ellis Island.
| A．no enough money | B．a longer time | C．a shorter time | D．a wonderful time |
Which number would you call if your friends were suddenly ill?
| A．(212) 344- 0996 | B．(212) 363- 7620 | C．(212 ) 363- 3260 | D．(212) 269- 5755 |
Which of the following is NOT true?
| A．People can visit Ellis Island free of charge. |
| B．The boats departure time from Battery Park is at 9:15 a.m. all the year round. |
| C．Ferry fees for children are cheaper than for adults. |
| D．Ferry fees for group visitors can be reduced. |
We may infer from the passage that _____________.
| A．visitors prefer to go to Ellis Island by boat | B．there are more visitors in winter |
| C． Ellis Island is open every day | D．Boat is the only transportation to Ellis Island[ |