With the possible exception of equal rights, perhaps the most heated argument across the United States today is the death penalty (死刑). Many argue that it is an effective deterrent (威慑) to murder（谋杀）, while others think there is no enough proof that the death penalty reduces the number of murders. The argument advanced by those who are against the death penalty is that it is cruel and inhuman punishment, that it is a mark of a bad society and finally that it is of questionable effectiveness as a deterrent (威慑物) to crime (罪行) anyway.
In our opinion, the death penalty is a necessary action. Throughout recorded history there have always been those peculiar persons in every society who made terrible crimes such as murder. But some are more dangerous than others. For example, it is one thing to take the life of another in time of blind anger, but quite another to coldly plan and carry out the murder of one or more people in the style of a butcher. Thus, murder, like all other crimes, is a matter of different degree. While it could be argued with some reason that the criminal in the first instance should be merely kept from society, such should not be the fate of the latter type murderer.
The value of the death penalty as a deterrent to crime may be open to discussion. But the majority of people believe that the death penalty protects them. Their belief is proved by the fact that the death penalty prevents murder. For example, from 1954 to 1963, when the death penalty was carried out from time to time in California, the murder rate remained between three and four murders for each 100, 000 population. Since 1964 the death penalty has been done only once, and the murder rate has risen to10.4 murders for each 100, 000 population. The sharp climb in the state's murder rate, which began when killings stopped, does not happen by chance. It certainly shows that the death penalty does stop many murderers. If the law about death penalty is vetoed (否决), some people will be murdered----some whose lives may have been saved if the death penalty were in effect. This is really a life or death matter. The lives of thousands of people must be protected.The main purpose of this passage is to _________.
| A．speak for the majority |
| B．argue against the value of the death penalty |
| C．speak ill of the government |
| D．argue for the value of the death penalty |
Which of the following is among the heated arguments across the USA besides death penalty?
| A．Air pollution. | B．The war against Iraq. |
| C．Equal rights. | D．Election of president. |
The numbers in the last paragraph show that ______.
| A．if they stick to death penalty, the number of murders will be reduced |
| B．death penalty almost stopped from 1954 to 1963 |
| C．the population of California has risen |
| D．death penalty is of little value |
It can be inferred that the writer thinks that ______.
| A．the death penalty is the most important problem in the United States today |
| B．the second type of murderers (in Paragraph 2) should be sentenced to death |
| C．the veto of the law about death penalty is of little importance |
| D．the value of the death penalty as a deterrent to crime is not to be discussed |
D
Have you ever thought about what determines the way we are when we grow up? Remember the TV program Seven Up? It started following the lives of a group of children in 1973. We first meet them as wide-eyed seven-year-olds and catch up with them at seven-year intervals: nervous 14-year-olds, serious 21-year-olds and then grown-ups.
Some of the stories are inspiring, others sad, but what is interesting in almost all the cases is the way in which the children’s early hopes and dreams are shown in their future lives. For example, at seven, Tony is a lively child who says he wants to become a sportsman or a taxi driver. When he grows up, he goes on to do both. How about Niki? She says, “I would like to find out about the moon.” And she goes on to become a space scientist. As a child, soft-spoken Bruce says he wants to help “poor children” and ends up teaching in India.
But if the lives of all the children had followed this pattern, the program would be far less interesting than it actually was. It was the children whose childhood did not prepare them for what was to come that made the program so interesting. Where did their ideas come from about what they wanted to do when they grew up? Are children influenced by what their parents do, by what they see on television or by what their teachers say? How great is the effect of a single important event? Many film directors, including Steven Spielberg, say that an early visit to the cinema was the turning point in their lives. Dr. Margaret McAllister, who has done a lot of research in this area, thinks that the major factors are parents, friends and their wider society.
68. What does the text mainly discuss?
A. New ways to make a TV program interesting.
B. The importance of TV programs to children.
C. Different ways to make childhood dreams come true.
D. The influence of childhood experience on future lives.
69. What does the underlined word “influenced” mean in the last paragraph?
A. Impressed. B. Improved. C. Affected. D. Attracted.
70. What are the examples in Paragraph 2 meant to show?
A. Many people’s childhood hopes are related to their future jobs.
B. There are many poor children in India who need help.
C. Children have different dreams about their future.
D. A lot of people are very sad in their childhood.
71. Spielberg’s story is meant to show that _______.
A. going to a movie at an early age helps a child learn about society
B. a single childhood event may decide what one does as a grown-up
C. parents and friends can help a child grow up properly
D. films have more influence on a child than teachers do
C
Information has always been at the center of human communication. You may ask why. Well, communication between people contains giving and receiving information. The way we give and receive information today has experienced a revolution in the development of the mass media in the 20th century.
The first truly mass communication medium was the newspaper. For the first time in history, people could read about events in their country and from around the world every day. However, there were two problems with newspapers of that time. Firstly, newspapers were available only in large cities, for getting newspapers to the countryside was a difficult and time-consuming（耗时的） task. Secondly, newspapers weren’t always reliable, as there was a limited range of opinions.
Nowadays, we can choose from a wide variety of sources to get information. Television and the Internet have given us the chance to be informed about everything the minute it happens. Large numbers of radio and TV stations, satellite channels and millions of websites help people keep up with the latest news. People live in history and are part of it.
The media have come a long way in the last century and there is no doubt that we now live in the information age. Whatever type of media we choose, it all comes down to the need for information. This will always be a basic need as long as communication is part of human nature.
64. Information is considered the center of human communication because ________.
A. human communication means information exchange
B. human communication involves people’s participation
C. information is now experiencing a revolution
D. information helps people gather together
65. What was the historical contribution of the newspaper as a source of information?
A. It made the mass communication truly develop.
B. It helped the mass communication develop in cities.
C. It kept people timely informed about home and world events.
D. It kept reliable information available in big cities.
66. The third paragraph mainly tells us that technology helps ________.
A. information easily available B. people be part of history
C. inform everything timely D. produce the latest news
67. It can be concluded from the last paragraph that a basic need today is ________.
A. communication B. information
C. high technologyD. media types
B
Dior was born in Normandy in 1905, and his family’s original plans for him included a career in the diplomatic service, but by the time he was twenty-three, with his parents’ money, he opened a small art gallery in Paris. By 1931, the money had been used up. Dior’s friends in the art gallery asked him to draw and he took his first step at designing and drawing. His first job was with Lucien Lelong from whom Dior learned his craft（手艺）.
In February, 1947, Dior started the New Look in his first major Paris collection. He was backed by a famous textile producer, Boussac, who looked after the dollars, while Dior looked after the fashions. Dior knew nothing about cutting and sewing, but he was good at fashion design.
The New Look started an entirely different look to costume, with a tiny waist, a rounded shoulder and a shapely bust（胸围）, usually with a low-cut neckline and a long full skirt. To women who had lived through the war years, the femaleness of the New Look was a great success, for people were tired of the extremely plain, wartime restrictive fashions.
It is said that dresses by Dior were “constructed like buildings”, but young people were attracted to his design, and all over the western world, manufacturers plunged into（投入）the production of his new style. Dior’s revolutionary designs lighted up a whole cycle of fashion - rounded, gentle, feminine - a delight in elegance. A New kook House of Dior opened in 1948, followed by one in London. Considered as King of Couture （Women’s clothing） for years, the Dior Empire grew until it covered every country in the western world, and included furs, jewelry, perfumes, men’s wear and so on. Over 1,000 people worked at the Paris headquarters then.
His sudden death in 1957 when he was 52 years old did not stop the growth of the House of Dior. Even now, so many years after his death, his name is closely connected with fashion throughout the world, and indeed is one of the most recognized names in the world. His first great New Look, with its long skirts, was an expression of freedom in the late 1940s.
60. Which of the following designs is close to Dior’s?
61. According to the passage, in Dior’s life, he did not _________.
A. make creative fashion designs
B. work in a diplomatic service
C. learn craft as his first job
D. open a New Look House
62. We can infer from the passage that ________.
A. Dior and his supporter had different interests in business
B. Dior’s New Look had little influence on people then
C. Dior is only a brand of women’s fashion
D. Dior’s fashion was not accepted at first
63. What is probably the best title for the passage?
A. The History of the New Look
B. The Growth of the Dior Empire
C. An Expression of Freedom - Dior
D. The Founder of the New Look - Dior
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，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
A
A few years ago, when I was still in high school, I met a wonderful and warm teacher. At that time in my life, there were many changes to adjust to, apart from the usual teenage troubles. My parents had divorced, so my elder brother and I had chosen to stay with my dad. Due to the fact that he was keeping the house, we didn’t have to move.
During this time, my teacher took a special interest in me. Being my English teacher, she encouraged my mind to travel to creativity I had long given up. She brought me out of the shell I built.
She became my mother, my older sister, my friend and my teacher. The one thing she couldn’t do though was to make me more girly as growing up with only my dad and brother made me a real tomboy.
Sometimes, I would be really immature（不成熟的）, especially if she was scoring me less than others on purpose. She knew I could do better than what I was handing in and so pushed me to extend further than limits.
When I finished school and then after college I was about to leave my hometowns she gifted me a watch that every second, with my pulse, should remind me of the one person who will forever wait and love me without reservation.
Time has passed and our friendship is distant, but in my heart, soul and mind, she is the closest I ever got.
56. The writer and her elder brother chose to live with their father simply because _________.
A. their mother was expecting to have another baby
B. they didn’t have to move out of their house
C. they hated their mother remarried
D. they had a closer relationship with their father
57. How did the writer get along with her studies before she met her English teacher?
A. She was hopeless and had given up her studies.
B. She was getting along well with her studies.
C. She had some trouble with her studies.
D. She lacked interest in creativity.
58. The writer behaved herself like a boy because ________.
A. she needed the love of mother
B. she wanted to learn from her father and brother
C. she lived with only men all the time
D. her English teacher didn’t care about her
59. What was the writer’s attitude to the watch given by the teacher?
A. She considered it to be very useful.
B. She valued it very much.
C. She kept it very well.
D. She wanted to do something later in return for it.
E
Erica David lives in Pinedale,Wyoming，USA，where winter can bring temperatures of below 35 degrees Fahrenheit，howling winds，and a lot of snow．So it was just natural that she chose to study snow for her school science fair in the sixth grade．
Now a junior in high school，Erica is in her sixth year of snow experiments，and is well on her way to becoming a snow expert．She started with a basic question：Could snow fences be built to work better?
Snow fences are used to keep snowdrifts（雪堆）from covering areas like roads of train tracks，or to help build up snow where it can help with water shortages in spring when it melts（融化）．“Also，I wanted to protect my animals better from blowing snow，”says Erica，who raises goats，sheep，and pigs．
Before she could test fence designs，Erica had to figure out what would act like real snow in her experiments. “I tested flour, sugar, and salt before I settled on dishwasher powder , ”she explains.
Science fairs offer students the chance to test theories, present findings to judges, and meet other researchers. Erica’s many achievements include competing at the Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge for middle school students and the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, where students from around the world present their science research.
But perhaps the best reward is that her research is already being put to good use. She has come up with an improved snow fence design, and this year she’s helping think out how to provide water supply to native plants, which have been killed off by drilling at nearby natural gasfields.
“Science fairs are an amazing experience,”says Erica. “Just pick your true feeling and go for it. ”
72. What does the passage suggest to us?
A. Science fairs are held for high school students in America.
B. Erica is the youngest show expert well known in America.
C. The environment brought much convenience for Erica to study snow.
D. The hope to contribute to her hometown made Erica experiment on snow.
73. In Erica’s hometown, snow fences may play a part in ________.
a. reducing the harm blowing snow does to animals
b. supplying water resource to the nearby gas fields
c. making up for the lack of water resource.
d. keeping the traffic smooth
A. a,b,c B. a,b,d C. b,c,d D. a,c,d
74. Science fairs are attractive to students because they ________.
A. can have their research put into practical use
B. can have their scientific ideas tested out
C. are allowed to help protect the local wildlife
D. can learn about the most advanced technology
75. Which of the following material can best replace snowing in Erica’s experiment?
A. Flour. B. Sugar.C. Salt. D. Dishwasher powder.