Below is a selection about interesting hotels.
Tayka Hotel de Sal
Where: Tahua, Bolivia
How much: About $95 a night
Why it’s cool: You’ve stayed at hotels made of brick or wood, but salt? That’s something few can claim. Tayka Hotel de Sal is made totally of salt – including the beds (though you’ll sleep on regular mattresses（床垫）and blankets). The hotel sits on the Salar de Uyuni, a prehistoric dried-up lake, which is the world’s biggest salt flat. Builders use the salt from the 4,633-square-mile flat to make the bricks, and glue them together with a paste（糊）of wet salt that hardens when it dries. When there is big rain, the owners just mix up more salt paste to strengthen the bricks.
Green Magic Nature Resort
Where: Vythiri, India
How much: About $240 a night
Why it’s cool: Taking a pulley（滑轮）-operated lift 86 feet to your treetop room is just the start of your adventure. As you look out of your open window – there is no glass! – you watch monkey and birds in the rain forest canopy（罩棚）. Later you might test your fear of heights by crossing the handmade rope bridge to the main part of the hotel, or just sit on your bamboo bed and read. You don’t even have to come down for breakfast – the hotel will send it up on the pulley-drawn “elevator”.
Dog Bark Park Inn B&B
Where: Cottonwood, Idaho
How much: $92 a night
Why it’s cool: This doghouse isn’t just for the family pet. Sweet Willy is a 30-foot-tall dog with guest rooms in his belly. Climb the wooden stairs beside his hind leg to enter the door in his side. You can relax in the main bedroom, go up a few steps of the loft（阁楼）in Willy’s head, or hang out inside his nose. Although you have a full private bathroom in your quarters, there is also a toilet in the 12-foot-tall fire hydrant（消防栓）outside.
Gamirasu Cave Hotel
Where: Ayvali, Turkey
How much: Between $130 and $475 a night
Why it’s cool: This is caveman cool! Experience what it was like 5,000 years ago, when people lived in these mountain caves formed by volcanic ash. But your stay will be much more modern. Bathrooms and electricity provide what you expect from a modern hotel, and the white volcanic ash, called tufa, keeps the rooms cool, about 65·F in summer. (Don’t worry – there is heat in winter.)What is the similarity of the four hotels?
| A．Being expensive. | B．Being comfortable. |
| C．Being natural. | D．Being unique. |
What does the underlined words “Sweet Willy” refer to?
| A．The name of a doghouse. |
| B．The name of the hotel owner. |
| C．The building of Dog Bark Park Inn B&B |
| D．The name of the hotel owner’s pet dog. |
Which of the hotels gives you a feeling of living in the far past?
A. Tayka Hotel de Sal. B. Green Magic Nature Resort.
C. Dog Bark Park Inn B&B. D. Gamirasu Cave Hotel.
The food we eat seems to have a great effect on our health. Although science has made big steps in making food more fit to eat, it has, at the same time, made many foods unfit to eat. Some research has shown that perhaps eighty percent of human illness is related to food and forty percent of cancer is related to food as well. That food is related to illness is not a new discovery. In 1945, some researchers realized that things commonly used to keep colour in meats and other food additives（添加剂）caused cancer.
Yet, these additives remain in our food, and it is difficult to know which things on the wrappings（包装）of foods are helpful or harmful. The additives which we eat are not all so direct. Farmers often give penicillin to their animals, and because of this, penicillin has been found in the milk of cows. Sometimes similar tings are supplied to animals not for their health, but just to make a profit.
The farmers are simply trying to fatten the animals in order to get a higher price on the market. Although some countries have tried to control such things, the practice continues.
71. According to this passage, we can know___________. .
A. perhaps most of human illness is caused by what we eat
B. perhaps most kinds of cancer are related to what people eat
C. cancer was discovered in 1945
D. science has made food unfit to eat
72.Things that are used to keep colours in meats are________. .
A. harmful B. useless C. helpless D. dangerous
73. All the additives________. .
A. are bright and colourless
B. are not bright and colourful
C. have indirect effects on our health
D. have direct effects on our health
74. People use additives_________ .
A. to make food more unfit to eat
B. to improve the colour and taste of the food
C. to change colour of the food
D. to take off the diseases of the food
75. Which of the following is not true?
A. Some wrappings of food are harmful.
B. Farmers try to make more money on the market by fattening their animals.
C. “The practice continues” means “things are still going on like that”.
D. We needn’t take care of what we eat..
We already know the fastest, least expensive way to slow climate change: Use less energy. With a little effort, and not much money, most of us could reduce our energy diets by 25 percent or more—doing the Earth a favor while also helping our wallets.
Not long ago, My wife, PJ, and I tried a new diet—not to lose a little weight but to answer an annoying question about climate change. Scientists have reported recently that the world is bending up even faster than predicted only a few years ago, and that the consequences could be severe if we don’t keep reducing emissions（排放）of carbon dioxide（CO2）and other greenhouse gases that are trapping heat in our atmosphere.
We decided to try an experiment. For one month we recorded our personal emissions of CO2. . We wanted to see how much we could cut back, so we went on a strict diet. The average US household（家庭）produces about 150 pounds of CO2 a day by doing common-place things like turning on air-conditioning or driving cars. That’s more than twice the European average and almost five times the global average, mostly because Americans drive more and have bigger houses. But how much should we try to reduce?
For an answer, I checked with Tim Flannery, author of The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth. In his book, he had challenged readers to make deep cuts in personal emissions to keep the world from reaching extremely important tipping points, such as the melting（融化）of the ice sheets in Greenland or West Antarctica. “To stay below that point, we need to reduce CO2 emissions by 80 percent,” he said.
Good advice, I thought. I’d opened our bedroom windows to let in the wind. We’d gotten so used to keeping our air-conditioning going around the clock. I’d almost forgotten the windows even opened. We should not let this happen again. It’s time for us to change our habits if necessary.
67. Why did the author and his wife try a new diet?
A. To take special kinds of food B. To respond to climate change.
C. To lose weight D. To improve their health
68. The underlined words “tipping points” most probably refer to________.
A. freezing points B. burning points C. melting points D. boiling points
69. It can be inferred from the passage that_________
A. it is necessary to keep the air-conditioning on all the time
B. it seems possible for every household to cut emissions of CO2
C. the average US household produces about 3,000 pounds of CO2 a month
D. the average European household produces about 1,000 pounds of CO2 a month
70. Which of the following would be the title for this passage?
A. Saving Energy Starts at Home
B. Changing Our Habits Begins at Work
C. Changing Climate Sounds Reasonable
D. Reducing Emission of CO2 proves Difficult
When a close friend dies, it often forces you to consider your own death. The more you have in common with the friend, the more his death will make you wonder about your own. Sometimes you will naturally say to yourself, "It could just as easily have been me." Such a death has a way of reminding us how fragile life is, and it may cause you to reassess（重新评价） the direction of your own life.
Jack's story is a good example. A successful businessman making a lot of money, Jack didn't spend as much time with his family as he wanted. His job required him to work long hours. But three years ago one of his best friends, a man who worked in the same office, had a heart attack. He died while celebrating his daughter's eighteenth birthday in a restaurant. He was only fifty years old.
Not long after his friend's death, Jack started to have a chest pain. Finally he had a good physical check-up. He received a clean bill of health. But the chest pain continued. He kept thinking of the death of his friend. Jack thought about how much his friend missed in life and he saw how hard it was for his friend's family to manage after he passed away.
Jack realized that he didn't want to end up his life that way. He talked his feelings over with his wife and children, and decided to change his way of life. The family moved to a small town where he started a simple life. Now he is running a small art gallery（画廊）. He is relaxed, and says he has never been so happy in his life, and he has got no more chest pain.
63. Your close friend's death is __________________ to you.
A. a warning B. common C. a direction of life D. an example
64. The underlined sentence in the third paragraph means "________________".
A. The doctor didn't write a word on his bill
B. The doctor didn't want Jack to pay for the bill
C. The doctor didn't find anything wrong with him
D. The doctor didn't want to treat his pain
65. His friend's death made Jack ________________.
A. lose much interest in life
B. realize that he missed the friend very much
C. doubt his way of life
D. ill for some time
66. While living in the small town Jack ________________.
A. earns less money B. gets more time
C. has a happier life D. does all these mentioned above
Stephen William Hawking was born on January 8th, 1942 in Oxford, England. His parents’ house was in North London, but during the Second World War Oxford was considered a safer place to have babies. When he was eight, his family moved to St Albans. At eleven Stephen went to St. Albans School, and then on to University College, Oxford, his father’s old college. Stephen wanted to do math, although his father would have preferred medicine. Math was not available at University College, so he did physics instead.
Stephen then went on to Cambridge to do research in Cosmology (宇宙论). After gaining his Ph.D. （哲学博士）he became first a Research Fellow, and later on a Professorial Fellow at Gonville and Caius College. After leaving the Institute of Astronomy in 1973, Stephen came to the Department of Applied Math and Theoretical Physics (理论物理), and since 1979 has held the post of Lucasian Professor of math.
Stephen Hawking has worked on the basic laws which rule the universe. With Roger Penrose he showed that Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity implied space and time would have a beginning in the Big Bang and an end in black holes. These results show it was necessary to unify（统一）General Relativity with Quantum Theory （量子论）. One result of such a unification that he discovered was that black holes should not be completely black, but should give off radiation and disappear in the end.
59. Which of the following is NOT suitable for describing Stephen Hawking?
A. He once studied at the same college that his father studied at.
B. At one time he did research in Cosmology in Oxford.
C. He preferred math to medicine at college.
D. He contributed to the unification of General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Theory.
60. The underlined word “available” in the first paragraph probably means “________”.
A. able to be had B. allowed to study
C. easy to understand D. limited to learn
61. Why did Stephen Hawking’s parents move to Oxford from North London?
A. Because they liked it better than North London.
B. Because there was a world-famous university there.
C. Because they were tired of living in North London.
D. Because it was safer to give birth to a baby in Oxford.
62. Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?
A. Einstein and Stephen Hawking
B. Big Bang, a great theory
C. Stephen Hawking, a great British scientist
D. The unification of two theories
OTTAWA — Canada’s western city of Calgary is the world’s best city when it comes to healthy living, local press reported Monday.
According to an international survey by Mercer Human Resource Consulting, a London-based consulting firm, Calgary was put at the top of a list of 144 cities. It scored 121 points, just above Honolulu’s score of 120. Helsinki（赫尔辛基，芬兰首都） and Ottawa followed at 119.5 and 118.5 respectively.
Three other Canadian cities came in the top 20. Montreal and Vancouver tied for ninth and Toronto came in at 18th.
The scores are based on air pollution levels, availability and quality of hospitals and medical supplies, as well as the efficiency of waste removal and sewage systems.
In America, the lowest scoring city was Atlanta, which was ranked 76th. Athens was the lowest scoring city in Western Europe, ranking 120th because of its air pollution. London was ranked 59th.
56. How many Canadian cities are in the top 20?
A. 3.B. 4. C. 5. D. 6.
57. Which of the following is NOT taken into account when the cities were scored?
A. Weather conditions. B. Air quality.
C. Waste removal.D. Medical supplies.
58. Among the following cities, which is the lowest scoring one?
A. Atlanta. B. Athens. C. London. D. Helsinki.