To take the apple as a forbidden fruit is the most unlikely story the Christians (基督教徒) ever cooked up. For them, the forbidden fruit from Eden is evil. So when Colu brought the tomato back from South America, a land mistakenly considered to be Eden, everyone jumped to the obvious conclusion. Wrongly taken as the apple of Eden, the tomato was shut out of the door of Europeans.
What made it particularly terrifying was its similarity to the mandrake, a plant that was thought to have come from Hell. What earned the plant its awful reputation was its roots which looked like a dried-up human body occupied by evil spirits. Though the tomato and the man were quite different except that both had bright red or yellow fruit, the general population considered them one and the same, too terrible to touch.
Cautious Europeans long ignored the tomato, and until the early 1700s most of the Western people continued to drag their feet. In the 1880s, the daughter of a well-known plant expert wrote that the most interesting part of an afternoon tea at her father's house had been the "introduction of this wonderful new fruit -- or is it a vegetable?" As late as the twentieth century some writers still classed tomatoes with mandrakes as an "evil fruit".
But in the end tomatoes carried the day. The hero of the tomato was an American named Robert Johnson, and when he was publicly going to eat the tomato in 1820, people journeyed for hundreds of miles to watch him drop dead. "What are you afraid of?" he shouted. "I'll show you fools these things are good to eat!" Then he bit into the tomato. Some people fainted. But he survived and, according to a local story, set up a tomato-canning factory.The tomato was shut out of the door of early Europeans mainly because _______.
| A．it made Christians evil | B．it was the apple of Eden |
| C．it came from a forbidden land | D．it was religiously unacceptable |
What can we infer from the underlined part in Paragraph 3?
| A．The process of ignoring the tomato slowed down. |
| B．There was little progress in the study of the tomato. |
| C．The tomato was still refused in most western countries. |
| D．Most western people continued to get rid of the tomato. |
What is the main reason for Robert Johnson to eat the tomato publicly?
| A．To make himself a hero. |
| B．To remove people's fear of the tomato. |
| C．To speed up the popularity of the tomato. |
| D．To persuade people to buy products from his factory. |
What is the main purpose of the passage?
| A．To challenge people's fixed concept of the tomato. |
| B．To give an explanation to people's dislike of the tomato. |
| C．To present the change of people's attitudes to the tomato. |
| D．To introduce the establishment of the first tomato-canning factory. |
The church seems cold this morning, even after all the people, friends and family, fill the benches. I sit here in silence, in shock and denial. This was not supposed to happen. What about our dreams, or our plans? We were going to raise our children, travel the world, and grow old together. I’m only 37, a typical housewife. I don’t know if I can do all this alone—two children, no father. What do I do or say?
The faces of so many people confuse me as they come to pay their last respects. Some have real sorrow; I can see it in their eyes. The others seem to just say, “I told you so.” Those famous last words: I-told-you-so. How I can’t stand them. And the pointing fingers as so-called family and so-called friends pick me out of the crowd for others to see. I want to scream and wake up but I can’t do anything but sit there. How can they be so blind? I fell in love with a man. Love knows no boundaries .
He was a good man, hardworking, caring and kind. He was retired from the Navy and a gentleman. He was sensitive to others’ needs, the kind of man that knew what to do or say, how to humor any situation and calm everyone’s fears. I remember our first child was a big surprise to both of us. I remember when I told him the news. He fell off his chair, saying over and over in disbelief, “But I’m almost sixty.” After a few months he started planning our next and even doing his famous little dance whenever he discussed the idea.
A man, thirty years older than I, lies in a coffin. Flowers, the American flag and his VFW comrades surround him, paying tribute（颂词）to him as the man he really was. And I sit alone here, with our two children, in silence, praying that this cold morning at church is only a nightmare and I will awake to his loving arms again.What can we know from the passage about the writer?
| A．She married a man much older than she. |
| B．She is going to give birth to their second child. |
| C．She lost her husband, who was as old as she. |
| D．She lost her father, whom she loved deeply. |
From Paragraph Two, we can see ______.
| A．the writer didn’t really love the man |
| B．some of her family members didn’t understand her |
| C．some of her family members and friends were blind |
| D．she thought her marriage to the man was a mistake |
Which of the following can best replace the underlined words “But I’m almost sixty”?
| A．I can’t believe it. |
| B．That’s a lot of trouble. |
| C．That should have happened long ago. |
| D．It can’t be my child. |
Which of the following can’t be used to describe the writer’s feelings for the man?
| A．Sad. | B．Loving. | C．Inseparable | D．Complaining. |
In recent years, the world has made progress in reducing deaths among children under the age of five. A new report says an estimated 6.9 million children worldwide died before their fifth birthday. That compares to about twelve million in1990.
The report says child mortality rates have fallen in all areas. It says the number of deaths is down by at least 50 percent in eastern, western and southeastern Asia. The number also fell in North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Ties Boerma is head of the WHO’s Department of Health Statistics and Informatics. He says most child deaths happen in just a few areas.
TIES BOERMA: “Sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia face the greatest challenges in child survival. More than eighty percent of child deaths in the world occur in these two regions. About half of child deaths occur in just five countries—India, which actually takes twenty-four percent of the global total; Nigeria, eleven percent; the Democratic Republic of Congo, seven percent; Pakistan, five percent and China, four percent of under-five deaths in the world.”
Ties Boerma notes that, in developed countries, one child in one hundred fifty-two dies before his or her fifth birthday. But south of the Sahara Desert, one out of nine children dies before the age of five. In Asia, the mortality rate is one in sixteen.
The report lists the top five causes of death among children under five worldwide. They are pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and problems both before and during birth.
Tessa Wardlaw is with the U-N Children’s Fund. She is pleased with the progress being made in Sub-Saharan Africa. The area has the highest under-five mortality rate in the world. But she says the rate of decline in child deaths has more than doubled in Africa.
TESSA WARDLAW: “We welcome the widespread progress in child survival, but we importantly want to stress that there’s a lot of work that remains to be done. There’s unfinished business and the fact is that today on average, around nineteen thousand children are still dying every day from largely preventable causes.”
The World Health Organization says one way to solve these problems is to make sure health care services are available to women. In this way, medical problems can be avoided or treated when identified.Since 1990, the number of the children who died before 5 in the world has dropped by about__________.
| A．6,900,000 | B．12,000,000 | C．1,200,000 | D．5,100,000 |
What does the underlined word “mortality” ( in Paragraph 2)mean?
| A．illness | B．reduction | C．death | D．problem |
According to the passage, the readers are likely to believe that __________.
| A．child mortality rates have fallen just in five areas |
| B．Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest under-five mortality rate in the world |
| C．in developed countries, no children die before the age of five |
| D．the world has made little progress in reducing the rates of child mortality |
______ is the top-one cause of death among children under five worldwide.
| A．Global warming | B．Malaria | C．Pneumonia | D．Diarrhea |
What will be probably referred to in the following paragraph?
| A．Women do not want to have babies. |
| B．How more health care services are available to women. |
| C．Medical problems are completely solved. |
| D．The World Health Organization. |
This Mother’s Day will be the 8th year I have spent without my own mother. She passed away less than a month before Mother’s Day in the year 2000. She had been ill for almost two years, and I didn’t cry when she died, or at her funeral, but on that first Mother’s Day without her. On that day, I realized that this person I loved and depended on was gone forever.
She still lives in family memories, in the thoughts of her friends and co-workers, in the values she had instilled(灌输) in her children, and in the lovely flower gardens that she had so carefully tended.
She loved her gladioli and irises. Each fall she would dig the bulbs out of the soil and carefully wrap them in paper. The bulbs would be stored until the following spring when they would be replanted. It seemed like a lot of effort to me, but each year her flower garden was more glorious than the year before. She put the same hard work into caring for her family, instilling in her children a sense of justice and fair play, compassion, and strong moral values so that we blossomed.
Share anecdotes about your mother’s life at your Mother’s Day party. Too often, we avoid speaking of those loved ones who have passed away, fearful that we will unearth sad feelings. It doesn’t have to be that way. Sharing fond memories and stories of the life we shared with her can be a healing process that binds（捆绑）the family together.
My mother passed away when her oldest grandchild was only eight years old. Children will enjoy sharing pictures and stories of the grandmother they may have never known or have little memory of. Sharing anecdotes to pass on to the next generation will give children a feeling of family history and continuity, and may be one of the best ways to honor our mothers and grandmothers who have gone before us.What does the underlined words “passed away” ( in Paragraph 1)mean?
| A．died | B．continued | C．started | D．lasted |
On the first Mother’s Day after mum died the author realized_______ .
| A．mum had been dead for a long time | B．mum had suffered a lot from the illness |
| C．it was true that mum had been dead | D．it was impossible to depend on mum |
From the third paragraph we can infer that mum_______ .
| A．loved her gladioli and irises | B．showed kindness to all her children |
| C．taught the children to plant patiently | D．had a good influence on the author |
At the Mother’s Day party people don’t mention their lost mums only because_______ .
| A．they are simply afraid of causing sad feelings |
| B．they have forgotten their mums completely |
| C．they don’t love their mums any longer |
| D．they think their mums have passed away |
In order to show honor to our mothers and grandmothers we can _____ .
| A．spend the Mother’s Day with our children |
| B．share the stories of them with the children |
| C．hold the Mother’s Day party every year |
| D．plant beautiful flowers in the family garden |
Douglas Adams was born in Cambridge in March 1952, educated at Brentwood School, Essex and St John's College, Cambridge where, in 1974 he gained a BA (and later an MA) in English literature.
He was the creator of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy(《银河系漫游指南》), which started life as a BBC Radio 4 series in March 1978. Since then it has been transformed into a series of best-selling novels, a TV series, a record album, a computer game and several stage adaptations.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's success sent the book straight to Number One in the UK Bestseller List and in 1984 Douglas Adams became the youngest author to be awarded a Golden Pan. He won a further two (a rare feat), and was nominated—though not selected - for the first Best of Young British Novelists awards.
He followed this success with The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980); Life, The Universe and Everything (1982); So Long and Thanks for all the Fish (1984); and Mostly Harmless (1992). The first two books in the Hitchhiker series were adapted into a 6-part television series, which was an immediate success when first showed in 1982. Other publications include Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987) and Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul (1988). In 1984 Douglas teamed up with John Lloyd and wrote The Meaning of Life and their second huge success, The Deeper Meaning of Life followed in 1990. One of Douglas’s personal favorites was written in 1990 when he teamed up with zoologist Mark Carwardine and wrote Last Chance to See an account of a world-wide search for rare and endangered species of animals.
Douglas sold over 15 million books in the UK, the US and Australia. He was also a best seller in German, Swedish and many other languages.
Douglas Adams died on Friday, May 11, 2001, in Santa Barbara, CA. He will be greatly missed by fans worldwide. The main idea of this passage is .
| A．Douglas Adams, always loved by fans |
| B．Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy |
| C．Douglas Adams and his works |
| D．Douglas Adams’s personal lives |
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was first shown to the public as .
| A．a radio series | B．a movie | C．a TV series | D．a computer game |
Which two books were adapted into a six-part TV series?
| A．Life, The Universe and Everything and Mostly Harmless |
| B．The Restaurant at the End of the Universe and Life, The Universe and Everything |
| C．The Restaurant at the End of the Universe and So Long and Thanks for all the Fish |
| D．So Long and Thanks for all the Fish and Mostly Harmless |
Last Chance to See is a book about .
| A．Some stories happening in a Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency |
| B．the author’s personal favorites |
| C．a zoologist and his worldwide experiences |
| D．searching for rare and endangered species of animals |
Which of the following statement is not true?
| A．Douglas Adams died at the age of 49 and he was memorized by his fans. |
| B．Douglas Adams was the youngest author to be selected as one of the first Best of Young British Novelists. |
| C．John Lloyd was one of the authors of the two books, The Meaning of Lifeand The Deeper Meaning of Life. |
| D．Douglas graduated from Essex and St John's College and gained a Master’s Degree. |
Renee had been married for a long, long time. Her favorite part of being married was the weekend, when she was with her two horses. On the weekend, Renee was at the stables(养马场) from morning until dark. She fed, groomed, and rode her horses. She was an excellent rider. She would ride the horses bareback on Saturday, and then she would saddle（给马装鞍） them up on Sunday.
Renee loved parades. She used to say, “A parade isn’t a parade without a horse.” Renee loved parades almost as much as she loved her horses. She belonged to an email list of volunteers for parades. She regularly visited the state website list of parades to see if there were any new parades that she didn’t know about. All the state parades were organized in her computer. In the parades file, she listed the date, drive time and distance, parade time, contact people, and other details she felt were important.
She knew the parade director of every town within a four-hour drive. She never stayed overnight. She always left the parade in time to get her horses back to the stables before “bedtime”. She had to feed them before they turned in. Her horses seemed to like parades, too. They knew a few tricks that always impressed the children.
Renee was very generous with her time and her horses. But owning horses wasn’t cheap. You had to rent the stables, and there were always vet(兽医) and feed bills. Renee knew how to cope with expenses, though. Her vet always gave her a 10-percent discount for paying cash. She always bought the no-name, generic food for the horses. Her vet had told her it was just as healthful and tasty as the brand name material. She always bought economy gasoline. And on parade days, Renee always packed her own lunch and ate with her horses. What did Renee regularly do on the weekend?
| A．She visited the state website list of parades. |
| B．She took part in parades. |
| C．She fed, groomed, and rode her horses at the stables. |
| D．She spent with her family. |
Which one did Renee like better,horses or parades?
| A．She liked horses better than parades. |
| B．She liked parades better than horses. |
| C．She didn’t love her horses as much as she loved parades. |
| D．She loved her horses almost as much as she loved parades. |
Renee never stayed overnight when she took part in parades because__________.
| A．she didn’t like to sleep together with horses |
| B．she had to get her horses back to the stables before “bedtime” to be fed |
| C．her horses didn’t agree to stay overnight |
| D．she couldn’t sleep well outside |
How did Renee cope with expenses of owning horses? The following ways were used except that __________.
| A．she always bought the brand name food for the horses |
| B．she had a 10-percent discount for paying cash offered by her vet |
| C．she always packed her own lunch and ate with her horses on parade days |
| D．she always bought the no-name, generic food for the horses |
Which of the following words can’t be used to describe Renee?
| A．caring | B．money-saving | C．careful | D．mean |