Most people agree that honesty is a good thing. But does Mother Nature agree? Animals can't talk, but can they lie in other ways? Can they lie with their bodies and behavior? Animal experts may not call it lying, but they do agree that many animals, from birds to chimpanzees, behave dishonestly to fool other animals. Why? Dishonesty often helps them survive. 
Many kinds of birds are very successful at fooling other animals. For example, a bird called the plover sometimes pretends to be hurt in order to protect its young. When a predator(猎食动物)gets close to its nest, the plover leads the predator away from the nest. How? It pretends to have a broken wing. The predator follows the "hurt" adult, leaving the baby birds safe in the nest.
Another kind of bird, the scrub jay, buries its food so it always has something to eat. Scrub jays are also thieves. They watch where others bury their food and steal it. But clever scrub jays seem to know when a thief is watching them. So they go back later, unbury the food, and bury it again somewhere else.
Birds called cuckoos have found a way to have babies without doing much work. How? They don't make nests. Instead, they get into other birds' nests secretly. Then they lay their eggs and fly away. When the baby birds come out, their adoptive parents feed them.
Chimpanzees, or chimps, can also be sneaky. After a fight, the losing chimp will give its hand to the other. When the winning chimp puts out its hand, too, the chimps are friendly again. But an animal expert once saw a losing chimp take the winner's hand and start fighting again.
Chimps are sneaky in other ways, too. When chimps find food that they love, such as bananas, it is natural for them to cry out. Then other chimps come running. But some clever chimps learn to cry very softly when they find food. That way, other chimps don't hear them, and they don't need to share their food.
As children, many of us learn the saying "You can't fool Mother Nature." But maybe you can't trust her, either.A plover protects its young from a predator by______.
| A.getting closer to its young |
| B.driving away the adult predator |
| C.leaving its young in another nest |
| D.pretending to be injured |
By "Chimpanzees, or chimps, can also be sneaky" (paragraph 5), the author means______.
| A.chimps are ready to attack others |
| B.chimps are sometimes dishonest |
| C.chimps are jealous of the winners |
| D.chimps can be selfish too |
Which of the following is true according to the passage?
| A.Some chimps lower their cry to keep food away from others. |
| B.The losing chimp won the fight by taking the winner's hand. |
| C.Cuckoos fool their adoptive parents by making no nests. |
| D.Some clever scrub jays often steal their food back. |
Which of the following might be the best title of the passage?
| A.Do animals lie? |
| B.Does Mother Nature fool animals? |
| C.How do animals learn to lie? |
| D.How does honesty help animals survive? |
Koalas are pictured everywhere in Australia-on cleaning products, on “boxes of chocolate, on sports team shirts. Yet the animals live only in pockets along the east coast.
They once inhabited the entire coastline. The koala population dropped after farmers cut down many of the forests where koalas lived, and
hunters killed the animals for their fur.
By the early 1900s, “koalas were basically shot out of south Australia,” says ecologist Bill Ellis, who studies the relationships among living things and their environments.
I recently joined Ellis and his team in a forest on St Bees Is land, 19 miles off the northeastern coast of Australia, with eight other volunteers. The island is a natural laboratory, yielding findings that may help protect koalas elsewhere on the continent.
The volunteers searched the island for koalas in the blue gum trees. When we found a koala, we gathered information about the trees in the area.
Blue gum is a species of the eucalyptus tree in which the funny leaf eaters spend most of their time. Eucalyptus trees are native to Australia, and their leaves are the main food source for koalas. Although koalas can walk on the ground, they are better suited for life in the canopy, the high cover of branches and leaves in a forest.
What has Ellis’s research told him so far? The population of St Bees seems to be healthy. Yet Ellis wonders whether the koalas might be heading for hard times. The island is overrun with wild goats, and Ellis thinks the goats are eating the small blue gum trees.
Without those trees, the koalas will run out of food in the future. Ellis hopes more research will help him understand how to protect the blue gum trees-and the koalas that depend on them. “I think that’s what everyone is trying to do-to make a difference.” Ellis says.
59. It can be inferred from the first paragraph that .
A. koalas’ pictures can be found everywhere in the world
B. koalas in Australia like to eat chocolate
C. only in the east coast of Australia can you find koalas
D. you can buy the pictures of koalas only in the east coast of Australia
60. Which of the following is TRUE about koalas?
A. They usually hide in a cave. B. They feed on the leaves of blue gum trees.
C. They prefer to walk on the ground. D. They don’t adapt to the high cover of branches.
61. What will Ellis most probably start to do next?
A. To keep the population of St Bees healthy.
B. To kill all the goats on the island.
C. To find some new foods for goats.
D. To protect blue gum trees for koalas.
62. The purpose of writing this passage is to .
A. expect people to concern about the life of koalas
B. record trip to Australia for watching koalas
C. present some basic knowledge of koalas’ life
D. introduce the ecosystem of wildlife in Australia
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,从每题题所给的四个选项(A、B、C、D和E)中选出最佳选项。
Sitting too much is now listed with smoking and junk food as a bad habit that increases your risk of heart disease.
New Australian research shows that half-an-hour in the gym will not make up for the waist-expanding damage caused by spending the rest of the day sitting.
But the good news is that doing chores in the house or gently walking around the office while on the phone might be enough to keep you fit.
The study joins the growing body of evidence suggesting too much sitting might undo the benefits of exercise.
The study measured the intensity of physical activities in 168 subjects over seven days. It found that, regardless of how much exercise they did or their total sitting time, those who took more breaks from sitting had lower risk of thick waists and lower levels of blood lipids(脂肪).
“Higher levels of blood lipids have been linked to a heightened risk of heart disease,” principal researcher Genevieve Healy of the University of Queensland said. “What the study shows is that there are benefits in just getting up regularly and interrupting your sitting time.”
Researchers behind the Stand Up Australia project have written to the Rudd Government requesting $3.5 million for a two-year study into the impact of long sitting time on health and productivity of workers. The study would also develop and test strategies for reducing sitting time on the job.
The latest s
tudy builds on work that is shifting the health promotion focus from purposeful exercise, such as running, to lower intensity activities throughout the day.
The Australian research has been hacked up by US studies.
“To hold a body that weighs 77 kilograms upright takes a fair amount of energy from muscles,” said Professor Marc Hamilton from the University of Missouri. “There is a large amount of energy associated with standing every day that cannot easily be replaced by 30 to 60 minutes in the gym.”
56. What’s the aim of the Stand Up Australia project?
A. To study the factors influencing productivity of workers.
B. To study the reasons for the longer sitting time at work.
C. To develop and test strategies for reducing sitting time in the office.
D. To develop and test strategies for reducing working time.
57. The purpose of the last paragraph is to .
A. provide a scientific basis for the benefits of standing up
B. Compare the effect of standing with exercising in the gym
C. report the new research findings of professor Marc Hamilton
D. figure out the amount of energy associated with daily standing
58. What’s the best title for the text?
A. Exercise in the Gym Is Out.
B. Your Office Chair Is Killing You.
C. A Cause of Heart Disease.
D. Good News for Workers.
Sustainable development is applied to just about everything from energy to clean water and economic growth, and as a result it has become difficult to question either the basic assumptions behind it or the way the concept is put to use.This is especially true in agriculture, where sustainable development is often taken as the sole measure of progress without a proper appreciation of historical and cultural perspectives.
To start with, it is important to remember that the nature of agriculture has changed markedly throughout history, and will continue to do so .Medieval agriculture in northern Europe fed, clothed and sheltered a predominantly rural society with a much lower population density than it is today.It had minimal effect on biodiversity, and any pollution it brought about was typically localized.In terms of energy use and the nutrients captured in the product it was relatively inefficient.
Contrast this with farming since the start of the industrial revolution.Competition from overseas led farmers to specialize and increase yields.Throughout this period food became cheaper, safe and more reliable.However, these changes have also led to habitat loss and to diminishing biodiversity.
What’s more, demand for animal products in developing countries is growing so fast that meeting it will require an extra 300 million tons of grain a year by 2050,yet the growth of cities and industry is reducing the amount of water available for agriculture in many regions.
All this means that agriculture in the 21st century will have to be very different from how it was in the 20th.This will require radical(激进的)thinking.For example, we need to move away from the idea that traditional practices are inevitably more sustainable than new ones.We also need to abandon the notion that agriculture can be “zero impact”.The key will be to abandon the rather simple and static measures of sustainability, which centre on the need to maintain production without increasing damage.Instead we need a more dynamic interpretation, one that looks at the pros and cons of all the various way land is used.There are many different ways to measure agricultural performance besides food yield: energy use, environmental costs, water purity, carbon footprint and biodiversity.It is clear, for example, that the carbon of transporting tomatoes from Spain to the UK is less than that of producing them in the UK with additional heating and lighting, but we do not know whether lower carbon footprints will always be better for biodiversity.
What is crucial is recognizing that sustainable agriculture is not just about sustainable food production.
72.How do people often measure progress in agriculture?
A.By its productivity B. By its impact on the environment
C.By its sustainability D.By its contribution to economic growth
73.What does the author think of traditional farming practices?
A.They have remained the same over the centuries
B.They have not kept pace with population growth
C.They are not necessarily sustainable
D.They are environmentally friendly
74.What will agriculture be like in the 21st century?
A.It will go through radical changes
B.It will supply more animal products
C.It will abandon traditional farming practices
D.It will cause zero damage to the environment
75.What is the author’s purpose in writing this passage?
A.To remind people of the need of sustainable development
B.To suggest ways of ensuring sustainable food production
C.To advance new criteria for measuring farming progress
D.To urge people to rethink what sustainable agriculture is.
Twenty years ago, most experts believed that differences in how boys and girls behaved were mainly due to differences in how they were treated by their parents, teachers, and friends. It’s hard to cling to that belief today. Recent research has shown that there are biological differences between boys and girls. Understanding these differences is important in raising and educating children.
For example, girls are born with more sensitive hearing than boys, and the difference increases as kids grow up. So when a grown man speaks to a girl in what he thinks is a normal voice, she may hear it as yelling. Conversely (反过来), boys who appear to be inattentive in class may just be sitting too far away to hear the teacher.
Likewise, girls are better in their expression of feelings. Studies reveal that negative emotions are seated in an area of the brain called the amygdala. Girls develop all early connection between this area and the cerebral cortex (大脑皮层), enabling them to talk about their feelings. In boys these links develop later. So if you ask a troubled adolescent boy to tell you what his feelings are, he often cannot say much.
Dr. Sax, an advocate of single-sex education, points out that keeping boys and girls separate in the classroom has yielded(产生) striking educational, social, and interpersonal benefits. Therefore, parents and teachers should try to recognize, understand, and make use of the biological differences that make a girl a girl, and a boy a boy.
68.What is the main idea of the passage?
A. Boys tend to pay less attention in class than girls.
B. Girls are better than boys in their ability to detect sounds.
C. Boys and girls behave differently because of biological differences.
D. Single-sex schools are not good because they keep boys and girls separate.
69.Why do girls express negative feelings better than boys?
A. Girls are more emotional than boys.
B. Girls have more brain cells than boys.
C. The amygdala is located in different areas of the brain for boys and girls.
D. The links between certain parts of the brain develop earlier in girls than in boys.
70.Which of the following does the author believe?
A. Girls need more training in communication.
B. Boys and girls should be educated in different ways.
C. Parents should pay more attention to boys.
D. Sex differences should be ignored in education。
71.What does the underlined phrase “cling to” in the first paragraph mean?
A. maintain B. abandon C. evaluate D. challenge
Top islands in the Mediterranean
Desiring a sun-and –sea summer holiday destination where you can also party the night away? Travel website TripAdvisor has come up with a list of the top islands in the Mediterranean sea. “All of these islands offer pristine (原始的) beaches and their own unique features,” said TripAdvisor spokeswoman Michele Perry. “Our travelers have identified the hot islands in the Med this summer, especially if you want sun, sea and dancing all night”.
Cyprus, Republic of Cyprus
Visit Aphrodite’s birthplace in the eastern Mediterranean. Beaches are the draw for many visitors to the island, but so is the nocturnal (夜间的) activity with Ayia Napa being the town to party in. According to one TripAdvisor traveler, “we would have to say the Troodos Mountains were our highlight. You will know what we mean if you take the journey. Breathtaking!”
Crete , Greece
As the former centre of the Minoan civilization, it’s no wonder that Crete features lots of historical attractions. Those in search of adventure on the largest Greek island can hike down Samaria Gorge for wonderful scenery. As one TripAdvisor traveler said, “Crete is an amazing place to explore ancient culture.”
Ibiza, Balearic Islands, Spain
Visit the party capital of Ibiza and feel honoured by joining thousands of revelers(狂欢者) at Privilege, the largest club in the world. Besides the vast nightlife, check out one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites, such as God’s Finger, a large rock at the entrance of Benirras Bay.
Sicily, Italy
The largest island in the Mediterranean, Sicily has the three Cs—culture, cuisine and calm. Laden with orange and lemon orchards, the countryside boasts natural beauty, great for relaxing. One
TripAdvisor traveler recommended, “If you are in Sicily, go on the sunset tour off Mount Etna. You can see the steaming ground and smell the sulfur(硫磺).”
65. Where should you go if you like ancient culture?
A. Cyprus. B. Crete. C. Ibiza, Balearic Islands. D. Sicily.
66. Which of the following statements is NOT true?
A. In Cyprus and Ibiza, Balearic Islands, you can enjoy various activities at night.
B. The largest island in the Mediterranean is part of Greece.
C. Perhaps you can read the passage on the Internet.
D. God’s finger is one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
67. What is a common feature of the places mentioned in the passage?
A. They have a lot of historical attractions.
B. They all boast natural beauty and natural resources.
C. They offer sun, sea and dancing all night.
D. They are listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.