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Short and shy, Ben Saunders was the last kid in his class picked for any sports team. “Football, tennis, cricket—anything with a round ball, I was useless,” he says now with a laugh. But back then he was the object of jokes in school gym classes in England’s rural Devonshire.
It was a mountain bike he received for his 15th birthday that changed him. At first the teen went biking alone in a nearby forest. Then he began to cycle along with a runner friend. Gradually, Saunders set his mind building up his body, increasing his speed, strength and endurance. At age 18, he ran his first marathon.
The following year, he met John Ridgway, who became famous in the 1960s for rowing an open boat across the Atlantic Ocean. Saunders was hired as an instructor at Ridgway’s school of Adventure in Scotland, where he learned about the older man’s cold-water exploits (成就). Intrigued, Saunders read all he could about Arctic explorers and North Pole expeditions, then decided that this would be his future.
Journeys to the Pole aren’t the usual holidays for British country boys, and many people dismissed his dream as fantasy. “John Ridgway was one of the few who didn’t say, ‘You are completely crazy,’ ” Saunders says.
In 2001, after becoming a skilled skier, Saunders started his first long-distance expedition toward the North Pole. He suffered frostbite, had a closer encounter(遭遇) with a polar bear and pushed his body to the limit.
Saunders has since become the youngest person to ski alone to the North Pole, and he’s skied more of the Arctic by himself than any other Briton. His old playmates would not believe the transformation.
This October, Saunders, 27, heads south to explore from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole and back, an 1800-mile journey that has never been completed on skis.
46. The turning point in Saunders’ life came when _______.
A. he started to play ball games
B. he got a mountain bike at age 15
C. he ran his first marathon at age 18
D. he started to receive Ridgway’s training
47. We can learn from the text that Ridgway _______.
A. dismissed Saunders’ dream as fantasy
B. built up his body together with Saunders
C. hired Saunders for his cold-water experience
D. won his fame for his voyage across the Atlantic
48. What do we know about Saunders?
A. He once worked at a school in Scotland.
B. He followed Ridgway to explore the North Pole.
C. He was chosen for the school sports team as a kid.
D. He was the first Briton to ski alone to the North Pole.
49. The underlined word “Intrigued” in the third paragraph probably means_______.
A. Excited B. Convinced C. DelightedD. Fascinated
50. It can be inferred that Saunders’ journey to the North Pole ________.
A. was accompanied by his old playmates
B. set a record in the North Pole expedition
C. was supported by other Arctic explorers
D. made him well-known in the 1960s

Ⅲ阅读(共两节，满分50分)
第—节阅读理解(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A、B、C和D项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
Among rich countries, people in the United States work the longest hours. They work much longer than in Europe. This difference is quite surprising because productivity per hour worked is the same in the United States as it is in France, Spain and Germany, and it is growing at a similar speed.
In most countries and at most times in history, as people have become richer they have chosen to work less. In other words they have decided to “spend” a part of their extra income on a fuller personal life. Over the last fifty years Europeans have continued this pattern, and hours of work have fallen sharply. But not in the United States. We do not fully know why this is. One reason may be greatly lower taxes in America, which increase the rewards to work. Another may be more satisfying work, or less satisfying personal lives.
Longer hours do of course increase the GDP (国内生产总值). So the United States has produced more per worker than, say, France. The United States also has more of its people at work, while in France many more mothers and older workers have decided to stay at home. The overall result is that American GDP per head is 40% higher than in France, even though productivity per hour worked is the same.
It is not clear which of the two situations is better. As we have seen, work has to be compared with other values like family life, which often get lost in interest. It is too early to explain the different trends（趋势）in happiness over time in different countries. But it is a disappointing idea that in the United States happiness has made no progress since 1975, while it has risen in Europe. Could this have anything to do with trends in the work-life balance?
41.From the text we know that the author___________.
A. believes that longer working hours is better
B. prefers shorter working hours to longer ones
C. says nothing certain about which pattern is better
D. thinks neither of the patterns is good
42.Which of the following countries has more of its people at work?
A. Spain.B. France. C. Germany.D. America. 43.In the last paragraph, the underlined word “which” refers to ______.
A. family lifeB. situations C. other valuesD. trends
44.What message can we get from the text?
A. The GDP of Europe is higher than that of America.
B. Two possible reasons are given for working longer hours in the US.
C. People all over the world choose to work less when they are richer.
D. Americans are happier than Europeans.
45.Which of the following would be the best title for the text?
A. Americans and EuropeansB. Staying at Home
C. Work and ProductivityD. Work and Happiness

There are still many things that Peter Cooke would like to try his hand at－ paper – making and feather – work are on his list. For the moment though, he will stick to the skill he has been delighted to perfect over the past ten years ;making delicate and unusual objects out of shells.
As he leads me round his apartment showing me his work, he points to a pair of shell-covered ornaments(装饰品) above a fireplace. ‘I shan’t be at all bothered if people don’t buy them because I have got so used to them, and to me they’re adorable. I never meant to sell my work commercially. Some friends came to see me about five years ago and said, “You must have an exhibition-people ought to see these. We’ll talk to a man who owns an art gallery”.’ The result was an exhibition in London, at which 70 percent of the objects were sold. His second exhibition opened at the gallery yesterday. Considering the enormous prices the pieces command-around ￡2,000 for the ornaments-an empty space above the fireplace would seem a small sacrifice for Cooke to make.
“I do wish, though,” says Cooke, ‘that I’d taken this up a lot earlier, because then I would have been able to produce really wonderful things-at least the potential would have been there. Although the ideas are still there and I’m doing the best I can now, I’m more limited physically than I was when I started. Still, the work that he has managed to produce is a long way from the common shell constructions that can be found in seaside shops. ‘I have a miniature(微型的)mind’ he says, and this has resulted in boxes covered in thousands of tiny shells, little shaded pictures made from shells and baskets of astonishingly realistic flowers.
Cooke’s quest for beautiful, and especially tiny, shells has taken him further than his Norfolk shore: to France, Thailand, Mexico, South Africa and the Philippines, to name but a few of the beaches where he has lain on his stomach and looked for beauties to bring home.
67．What does the reader learn about Peter Cooke in the first paragraph?
A．He has produced hand-made objects in different materials.
B．He hopes to work with other materials in the future.
C．He has written about his love of making shell objects.
D．He was praised for his shell objects many years ago.
68．When looking round his apartment, the wrier__________.
A．is attracted by Cooke’s personality
B．realizes he doesn’t like Cooke’s work at all
C．feels uncertain about giving Cooke his opinion
D．senses that Cooke wants his products to be admired
69．The ‘small sacrifice’ in Paragraph 2 refers to _________.
A．the loss of Cooke’s ornaments
B．the display of Cooke’s ornaments
C．the cost of keeping Cooke’s ornaments
D．the space required to store Cooke’s ornaments
70．What does Cooke regret about his work?
A．He is not as famous as he should have been.
B．He makes less money than he should make.
C．He is less imaginative than he used to be.
D．He is not as skillful as he used to be.

Technology today has stolen away our voices and robbed our children of memories. I’ve been keeping count of how often people sing around the house these days. The fact is, they don’t.
My earliest memories are of my mother crooning lullabies(催眠曲) in a gentle low voice as she rocked each infant in turn. She said she “didn’t have a singing voice,” but her low, wavering alto will always mean comfort to me. Every time I have sat through the night with a feverish body or held a pre – schooler through a nightmare, the melodies returned, words appearing and disappearing like fragments of a dream but held together by the hum (低声吟唱)of love.
Today, young mothers are routinely presented with lullaby tapes at the baby shower. When baby cries, the idea goes, they will be able to switch on the high-tech audio system and the little one will drift off with the voices of strangers in his ears, perfectly on pitch. If I had my way, new parents would learn the songs themselves, throw out their stereos, and give their child the gift of their own sleepy voices through the midnight hours.
These days, when we go on a trip, my daughters take along tiny personal stereos and headphones. They are lost in their private worlds, and I can’t help wishing that at least here, in the car my girls would be forced to listen to their mother’s voice raised in lost – the – words again, sure I’m out－of－tune songs that they might then pass down to another generation. Those sophisticated earphones have robbed them of something I think every kid should carry from childhood car trips into adulthood.
I drove away from that party humming, and all the way home the good old songs kept tumbling out. Dammit (该死), I thought, why did I ever stop singing in the car and start turning on the radio instead? Why don’t I sign anymore while I’m doing the dishes? I’m going to yank those stereo wires right out of the wall when I get home. We’re going to sing grace before meals, sing coals around the piano, sing in the shower instead of switching on that waterproof radio that stol away our voices and our souls.
63．The author hates today’s technology because________
A．driving a car requires high concentration
B．children are learning pop songs from tapes
C．children have lost touch with good old songs
D．high – tech systems do not record the voices of aged people
64．The underlined sentence “the little one will drift off” in Paragraph 3 means that “________ ”.
A．the play of the high – tech system is of little use
B．the high – tech system will play on and on
C．the low voice will delight the baby
D．the baby will slowly go to sleep
65．To the author, the voices of strangers ________ .
A．are not familiar to the baby
B．lack the motherly love the baby needs
C．work better to stop the baby’s cry
D．surely sound more pleasant
66．What the author wishes to make her girls do is to________ .
A．help memorize the words while she is singing
B．take off their well – designed earphones
C．listen and learn the old songs from her
D．remember their childhood car trips

Last spring, members of Alaska’s Troop 34, based in Fairbanks, trudged (跋涉) out into the snowy wilderness to take part in their state’s Take a Kid Trapping program. In many parts of the state, beavers （海狸）are pests and need to be controlled.
The 10－to－12－year－old girls found out where beavers lived, set traps, and skinned the two animals they caught. The girls hope to catch ten more beavers so that the entire troop can make mittens and hats with the fur. They also want to cook beaver meat.
Troop leaders and members say the Scouts are doing a good deed by helping control the state’s beaver population. But animal－rights activists say trapping is cruel. They want the Girl Scouts to stop in their tracks.
Beavers aren’t only causing a problem in Alaska. Residents in Sampson County, N.C. , have turned to a local committee to help them battle the growing beaver population there.
County landowners are frustrated after the county spent more than $ 50,000 in eight years trying to reduce the beaver population through a government program. The joint state and federal program included paying money to trappers for every beaver carcass they trapped.
Many local residents say that the program didn’t work because there were too few trappers. That’s why the county set up its own committee to investigate other ways to control the area’s beaver population.
The county will rely on its own beaver－trapping program. It has hired a trapper to set traps in various areas. The county will pay $10 for every beaver carcass.
Why do many people say that beavers are a nuisance? For beavers to survive, they need lots of water. Water provides the large rodent （啮齿动物）with a place to hide from meat – eating animals. Beavers also store food underwater for the winter. When there’s not enough water in a particular area, beavers get busy building dams.
Beaver dams can cause major flooding and damage to the surrounding countryside as the animals cut down trees to use in their construction projects. Beavers build canals to transport heavy objects.
59．What is Alaska’s Troop 34?
A．A team of the Boy Scouts. B．An army.
C．A team of the Girl Scouts. D．A sports team.
60．Why does the troop hope to catch ten more beavers?
A．To fulfill their task. B．To sell them for money.
C．To get enough fur. D．To exchange them for mittens and hats.
61．Which of the following statements is true?
A．Sampson County has to find a new way to control the beaver population there.
B．The government program in Sampson County has proved to be a success.
C．The local government has controlled the number of beavers in the County.
D．More and more trappers now start to set traps in Sampson County.
62．Local residents hate beavers because they can ___________.
A．cause damage to dams
B．block up canals with heavy objects.
C．do great harm to construction projects.
D．badly damage the environment and cause floods.