Since the end of World War I(WWI) in 1918, Canadians, and millions of others around the world have paused at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month to honour the sacrifice our soldiers have made in different ways, fighting for the freedoms that we all enjoy today.
Known as Remembrance Day, the day originated as a tribute to the soldiers of WWI, a dark period for our young country, which claimed the lives of over 60,000 military personnel and civilians and over 16 million dead worldwide. As there are no more surviving soldiers of WWI, today we rely on the wisdom and words of those soldiers who fought in the wars that followed and this day now also recognizes their heroic contribution. They tell us to always remember what those brave souls fought for, and all they ask in return is that we never forget.
That’s why we wear the red poppy(罂粟花); that’s why when we see a soldier in uniform we should stop him or her and say “Thank you”; that’s why we take a pause from our busy lives for two short minutes today to honor that request. Yet this message is fading away, year after year. Take for example the terrible decision to allow parents to excuse students from Remembrance Day ceremonies at school. Not only is this disrespectful, it distances the student from his or her classmates.
It is difficult to understand why any Canadian parent would want to remove their child from the time-honored tradition of reading the poem in Flanders Fields, while a wreath of poppies is laid. It is more important than ever to teach school-aged children about our history, no matter how violent it was. Sheltering them from the realities of war is a great disservice. Understanding why conflicts happened, or happen today can help shape choices and decisions they make as adults.
Of course, because we live in a free society, we cannot force an individual to do something. It is unfortunate, but some parents now have their child “opt-out” of the services. These people should be reminded they are free to make such choices only because of the men and women the rest of us are remembering. Which of the following is NOT mentioned as a Remembrance Day activity today?
| A．Stopping at 11a.m. to remember the war dead. |
| B．Listening to stories told by WWI soldiers. |
| C．Wearing a red poppy to show respect. |
| D．Showing gratitude to soldiers in uniform. |
What can we learn from the passage?
| A．War history is too violent for school children |
| B．The writer was once a soldier in the Canadian army |
| C．Few students are willing to take part in Remembrance Day ceremonies. |
| D．More parents are keeping their children away from frightening war stories. |
The underlined word “It” in the last paragraph probably refers to_______.
| A．the death of so many soldiers in wars |
| B．the fact that there were so many wars after WWI. |
| C．people’s ungratefulness for the freedom they have. |
| D．removing children from Remembrance Day events. |
The writer believes that ______.
| A．the sacrifice of the soldiers should always be remembered. |
| B．Remembrance Day is becoming less important for soldiers. |
| C．school no longer think Remembrance Day is necessary. |
| D．people should be forced to learn about the realities of war. |
Ⅳ. 阅读理解（共20小题，每题1分，满分20分）
When my first wartime Christmas came, I was in basic training in New Jersey and not sure if I could make it home for the holidays. Only on the afternoon of December 23 was the list of men who would have three-day holidays posted. I was one of the lucky soldiers. It was Christmas eve when I arrived home, and a light snow had fallen. Mother opened the front door. I could see beyond her, into the corner of the living room where the tree had always stood. There were lights, all colors, and ornaments (装饰物) shining against the green of a pine. “Where did it come from?” I asked.
“I asked the Gates boy to cut it,” my mother said. “I wouldn’t have had one just for myself, such a rush！He just brought it in this afternoon…” The pine reached to the proper height, almost to the ceiling, and the tree top crystal star was in its place. A few green branches reached about a little awkwardly at the side, I thought, and there was a bit of bare trunk showing in the middle. But the tree filled the room with warm light and the whole house with the pleasant smell of Christmas. “It’s not like the one you used to find,” my mother went on. “Yours were always in good shape. I suppose the Gates boy didn’t know where to look for a good one. But I couldn’t be fussy (挑剔的)．”
“Don’t worry,” I 
told her. “It’s perfect.” It wasn’t, of course, but at the moment I realized something for the first time: all Christmas trees are perfect．
46. From the passage, we can infer that ______．
A. the writer spent his first Christmas during the war
B. soldiers did not all go home for Christmas during the war
C. all the soldiers had three-day holidays
D. the writer could not go home for Christmas
47. When the writer got home, ______．
A. it was December 23th
B. it was snowing heavily
C. he found a Christmas tree in the living room
D. the Gates boy was cutting a Christmas tree for his mother
48. From this passage，we can conclude that ______．
A. the writer used to cut very beautiful Christmas trees
B. his mother didn’t like perfect trees
C. his mother didn’t want to have a tree
D. the writer wouldn’t have a tree cut by someone else
49. “All Christmas trees are perfect”，because they can remind you of ______．
A. the wartime B. the green of a pine
C. the pleasant smell D. the sweet home
50. The best title for this passage would be “______”．
A. How to Choose a Christmas Tree
B. How Soldiers Spent Christmas
C. The Perfect Christmas Tree
D. The Christmas Without a Tree
You’re in a department store and you see a couple of attractive young women looking at a sweater. You listen to their conversation:
“I can’t believe 
it —a Lorenzo Bertolla! They are almost impossible to find. Isn’t it beautiful? And it’s a lot cheaper than the one Sara bought in Rome.”
They leave and you go ove
r to see this incredible sweater．It's nice and the price is right．You've never heard of Lorenzo Bertolla, but those girls looked really stylish．They must know．So, you buy it．You never realize that those young women are employees of an advertising agency．They are actually paid to go from store to store, talking loudly about Lorenzo BertoHa clothes.
Every day we notice what people are weari
ng, driving and eating．If the person looks cool, the product seems cool, too．This is the secret of undercover（暗中影响的） marketing．Companies from Ford to Nike are starting to use it.
Undercover marketing is important because it reaches people that don't pay attention to traditional advertising．This is particularly true of the MTV generation----consumers between the age of 18 and 34．It is a golden group．They have a lot of money to spend, but they don't trust ads.
So advertising agencies hire young actors to "perform" in bars an
d other places where young adults go．Some people might call this practice deceptive, but marketing executive Jonathan Ressler calls it creative．"Look at traditional advertising．Its effectiveness is decreasing."
However, one might ask what exactly is "real" about of young women pretending to be enthusiastic about a sweater? Adverting executives would say it's no less real than an ad．The difference is that you know an ad is trying to persuade you to buy something．You don' t know when a conversation you overhear is just a performance.The two attractive young women were talking so that they could ________.
| A．get the sweater at a lower price | B．be heard by people around |
| C．be admired by other shoppers | D．decide on buying the sweater |
Lorenzo Bertolla is __________．
| A．a very popular male singer | B．an advertising agency |
| C．a clothing company in Rome | D．the brand name of a sweater |
Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
| A．The two girls are in fact employed by the Lorenzo Bertolla Company. |
| B．The MTV generation tend to be more easily influenced by ads. |
| C．Traditional advertising is becoming less effective because it's too direct. |
| D．Undercover marketing will surely be banned soon by the government. |
Which of the following would be the best title for t
he text?
| A．Two Attractive Shoppers | B．Lorenzo Bertolla Sweaters |
| C．Ways of Advertising | D．Undercover Marketing |
It was once thought that air pollution 
affec
ted only the area immediately around large c
ities with factories and/or heavy automobile traffic. Today, we know that although these are the areas with the worst air pollution, the problem is literally worldwide. On several occasions over the past decade, a heavy cloud of air pollution has covered the entire eastern half of the United States and led to health warnings even in rural areas away from any major concentration of manufacturing and automobile traffic. In fact, the very climate of the entire earth may be affected by air pollution. Some scientists feel that the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the air resulting from the burning of fossil fuels(coal and oil) creating a greenhouse effect-holding in heat reflected from the earth and raising the world’s average temperature. If this view is correct and the world’s temperature is raised only a few degrees, much of the polar ice cap will melt and cities such as New York, Boston, Miami, and New Orleans will be under water.
Another view, less widely held, is that increasing particulate matter in the atmosphere is blocking sunlight and lowering the earth’s temperature-a result that would be equally disastrous（灾难的）. A drop of just a few degrees could create something close to a new ice age, and would make agriculture difficult or impossible in many of our top farming areas. At present we do riot know for sure that either of these conditions will happen(though one recent government report prepared by experts in the field concluded that the greenhouse effect is very likely). Perhaps, if we very lucky, the two tendencies will offset each other and the world’s temperature will stay about the same as it is now.As pointed out at the beginning of the passage, people used to think that air pollution ______.
| A．caused widespread damage in the countryside |
B．affected the entire eastern half of the United States |
C．al most brought worldwide effect |
| D．existed merely in urban and industrial areas |
As far as the greenhouse effect is concerned, the author _____________.
| A．shares the same view with the scientists |
| B．is uncertain of its occurrence |
| C．rejects it as being ungrounded（无根据的） |
| D．thinks that it will increasingly destroy the world soon |
It can be inferred from the passage that.
| A．raising the world’s temperature a little would not do much harm to life on the earth |
| B．lowering the world’s temperature a little would lead to agricultural disasters |
| C．almost no temperature variations have occurred over the past decade |
| D．the world’s temperature will remain stable forever |
This passage is primarily concerned with.
| A．the greenhouse effect in the world |
| B．the measures to adjust the climate |
| C．the potential effect of air pollution |
| D．the measures to protect the environment |
Net Library Is a library that lends out digital books．It treats a digital like a pap
erback copy．It charges libraries per book per copy and gives publishers a cut of the total income．
From the consumer's point of view, this means that if more than, say, five people want the latest Danielle Steel romance novel, other people who request that book will get a message saying the title can't be found．
It's a model many publishers seem to have embraced．More than 350 gave the company rights to hand out their digital works and McGraw-Hill Corporation and Houghton Mifflin Corporation have put money in the company．The California public libraries and about 1,800 others across the US
are trying out the Net Library service．
Some librarians criticize the New Library model．Stanford University librarian Michael Keller argues that the company is creating an unnatural fear of digital woks; which is contrary to the ideas of the Internet．
Keller and some other librarians argue for the e-book vision set forth by E-Brary．E-Brary is starting a service mat lets us users read books for free．
But it will charge about 25 cents a page when a person tries to print out material or copy and paste it into a different file 
or tries to download copy onto a computer．
Christopher Warnock, chief executive of E-Brary, believes most consumers won't want to buy entire books, only the parts that interest them．
"There's not really a lot of good m owning an electronic file and having to store it and manage it．It doesn't make sense．" he said．How do publishers get money from the Net Library?
| A．They get money from selling their books to the Net Library. |
| B．They share the money with the Net Library. |
| C．They get money by cutting the cost of the books. |
| D．They get the money from the readers. |
The underlined word "embraced" in the 3rd paragraph means ____.
| A．taken something willingly | B．held something tightly |
| C．disliked something badly | D．tried out something hard |
From the 2nd paragraph we can see consumers .
A．don’t ca re if they are charged money |
| B．enjoy the service of the Net Library |
C．don’t like other peo ple borrowing books |
| D．complain about the limited number of the new books |
What does the last paragraph mean?
| A．Net Library is not a good way for the consumers. |
| B．There is no need for consumers to have a whole book. |
| C．E-Brary is not a good library for the consumers. |
| D．It’s reasonable to charge the consumers money for copying some pages. |
"Time is a problem for children," states a news report for a new Swiss watch．Children in some countries "learn time slowly" because "they don't wea
r watches" and "parents don't really know how to teach them time．" The children grow up with this handicap and become adults-and then can't get to work on time．Is there an answer to this problem? Of course-it's the Flick Flak, made by a famous Swiss watch company．
The Flick Flak is being marketed as something teaching watch for children aged 4 to 10．The watch itself does not teach children how to tell time, of course; it merely "takes their imagination" by presenting the "hour" hand as a beautiful red girl named Flak and the "minute" hand as a tall blue boy named Flick．Flick points to related "blue" minutes on the 
dial, while Flak points to "red" hour numbers．The characters and colors combined with parental help, are supposed to teach young children how to tell time．
The watch comes equipped with a standard battery and a nylon band （尼龙表带）．Peter Lipkin, the United States sales manager for the Flick Flak, calls it "childproof: if it gets dirty you can throw the whole watch in the washing machine．" The product is being sold in select department stores in Europe, Asia and the United States for a su
ggested price of $25．Parents who buy the watch may discover that it is one thing to tell time; it's quite another for them to be on time．From the news report we know that ____.
| A．parents are patient when teaching children time |
| B．parents have little idea of how to teach children time |
| C．children are likely to learn time quickly |
| D．children enjoy wearing the Flick Flak watch |
The author doesn't seem to believe____.
| A．children will be on time if they have not learnt how to tell time |
| B．a Flick Flak can help parents teach their children how to tell time |
| C．the Flick Flak can take children's imagination |
| D．children usually have trouble telling time if they don't wear watches |
The underlined word handicap （Para．1） means ____.
| A．displeasure | B．discouragement |
| C．disappointment | D．disadvantage |
The United State sales manager calls the new watch “childproof” because ___.
| A．it is designed to teach children to be on time |
| B．it proves to be effective in teaching children time |
| C．it is made so as not to be easily damaged by children |
| D．it is the children's favorite watch |