The easy way out isn't always easiest．I learned that lesson when I decided to treat Doug, my husband of one month, to a special meal．I glanced through my cookbook and chose a menu which included homemade bread．Knowing the bread would take time, I started on it as soon as Doug left for work．As I was not experienced in cooking, I thought if a dozen was good, two dozen would be better, so I doubled everything．As Doug loved oranges, I also opened a can of orange and poured it all into the bowl．Soon there was a sticky dough （面团） covered with ugly yellowish marks．Realizing I had been defeated, I put the dough in the rubbish bin outside so I wouldn't have to face Doug laughing at my work．I went on preparing the rest of the meal and, when Doug got home, we sat down to Cornish chicken with rice．He tried to enjoy the meal but seemed disturbed．Twice he got up and went outside, saying he thought he heard a noise．The third time he left, I went to the windows to see what he was doing．Looking out, I saw Doug standing about three feet from the rubbish bin, holding the lid up with a stick and looking into the container．When I came out of the house, he dropped the stick and explained that there was something alive in our rubbish bin．Picking up the stick again, he held the lid up enough for me to see．I felt cold．But I stepped closer and looked harder．Without doubt it was my work．The hot sun had caused the dough to double in size and the fermenting yeast （酵母） made the surface shake and sigh as though it were breathing．I had to admit what the "living thing" was and why it was there．I don't know who was more embarrassed by the whole thing--- Doug or me．The writer's purpose in writing this story is ________．
| A．to tell an interesting experience |
| B．to show the easiest way out of a difficulty |
| C．to describe the trouble facing a newly married woman |
| D．to explain the difficulty of learning to cook from books |
Why did the woman's attempt at making the bread turn out to be unsuccessful?
| A．The canned orange had gone bad． |
| B．She didn't use the right kind of flour． |
| C．The cookbook was hard to understand． |
| D．She did not follow the directions closely． |
Why did the woman put the dough in the rubbish bin?
| A．She didn't see the use of keeping it |
| B．She meant to joke with her husband． |
| C．She didn't want her husband to see it． |
| D．She hoped it would soon dry in the sun． |
What made the dough in the bin look frightening?
| A．The rising and falling movement． |
| B．The strange-looking marks． |
| C．Its shape． |
| D．Its size． |
When Doug went out the third time, the woman looked out of the window because she was_____．
| A．surprised at his being interested in the bin |
| B．afraid that he would discover her secret |
| C．unhappy that he didn't enjoy the meal |
| D．curious to know what disturbed him |
It is impossible to think about “growing up” in modern America without considering “youth culture” which every young person—even those who do not attend public schools—is confronted by and must deal with. It is impossible to be so isolated that we are untouched by the surrounding culture. Nor should we wish to be—as we are called to be—salt and light in a very confused and broken world. Popular culture deserves neither uncritical acceptance nor knee-jerk rejection, but thoughtful critique（批评）.
On the contrary, China paid too little attention to youth culture in the past. However, with society developing, more and more people have realized the importance of analyzing, understanding and promoting youth culture.
About 100,000 young Chinese people from all over the world will attend the first China Youth Culture Week scheduled to open Saturday in Shenzhen’s China Folk Culture Villages, a press conference was told Thursday.
A series of cultural activities will be staged from Saturday to Wednesday, including a huge performance expected to challenge for a listing in the Guinness Book of World Records.
About 10,000 young people will attend the opening ceremony Saturday. A final list of the Chinese Youth Idol Award to five outstanding young Chinese was announced at the conference. They are the country’s first astronaut, Yang Liwei, Chinese NBA star, Yao Ming, IT entrepreneur, Ding Lei, anchorperson, Wu Xiaoli, and Olympic Games gold medalist, Deng Yaping. The youth idols were selected by
Chinese teenagers with 380,000 votes cast nationwide.
During the past two months, the organizers received more than 3,000 applications from young people in Hong Kong and Macao who wanted to take part in the performance.
52. Which of the following can replace the underlined word “confronted by”?
A. Concerned about. B. Thought of. C. Confused with. D. Faced with.
53. Which of the following is TRUE according to Paragraph 1?
A. People can be isolated from the surrounding culture.
B. The American youth accept popular culture without any thought.
C. People shouldn’t refuse popular culture totally.
D. Americans ignore cultures at all while growing up.
54. The list of the five Chinese youth idols indicates that ____.
A. success is considered the most important factor in the Chinese youth’s values
B. the Chinese youth don’t care about their idols’ personalities
C. there are only five people admired by the Chinese youth
D. the parents want to set those people as examples
55. What can we infer from this passage?
A. America paid too much attention to youth culture.
B. China pays more attention to youth culture nowadays.
C. Chinese youth admire movie stars and regard them as their idols.
D. America thinks their youth are more important than the Chinese youth.
You may have never heard of Ladislao Biro, but you have certainly heard of the pen he invented—the ballpoint pen, or biro. Before Biro invented his pen, people wrote with fountain pens. The ink smudged(弄脏) and blotted and the pens sometimes leaked. In the 1930s Biro was a magazine editor in Budapest in Hungary. He noticed that the inks which the magazine’s printers used dried very quickly. Biro wondered if quick-drying inks could be used in pens. He came up with the idea of a tube of ink with a free-moving ball on the end. As a person wrote, the ball collected ink from the tube and rolled it on to the paper. The pen would be cheap and could be thrown away when the ink ran out.
Biro began to work on his invention, but before he could patent it the Second World War broke out. Biro left war-torn Europe and fled to Buenos Aires in Argentina. There, he and his brother Georg, who was a chemist, began to improve the pen. In the early 1940s Biro began to manufacture his new pen, the biro. In 1944, he sold his invention to another company, who began to mass-produce the pen for the British and American armed forces.
Biro was pleased that his pen was popular, but he did not gain much from his invention. The biro was later sold to the French firm, Bic, who now sell twelve million pens a day. Biro sank into obscurity in South America. His name, however, has become a household word.
48. The reasons for the popularity of ballpoint pens are these EXCEPT that_______.
A. the inks dried very quickly B. they were cheap
C. they were easy to carry around D. they were mass-produced
49. Which of the following is the correct order of the events that happened to Biro?
a. applied for patent for first ballpoint pen
b. began to manufacture pens
c. fled from Hungary to escape Nazis
d. sold his invention
A. a c d b B. c d a b C. a c b d D. c a b d
50. The underlined part “sank into obscurity”(last paragraph) is closest in meaning to“_______”.
A. became unknown to many people B. became popular with people
C. lost interest in business D. lost a lot of money
51. What does the passage mainly tell us about Biro?
A. He is successful in business. B. He is an important inventor.
C. He is a famous magazine editor. D. He is a popular writer.
Although the weathermen’s forecasts for a month ahead are only little better than guesswork, they are now making long-term forecasts into the next century with growing confidence. The main trend in the world’s climate in the coming years will, scientists say, be a predictable result of man’s activities.
At the start of the industrial revolution nearly two centuries ago, man set off a big experiment in planetary engineering. Unaware of what he was doing, he spared no thought for the consequences. Today the possible outcome is alarmingly clear, but the experiment is unstoppable. Within the lifetime of many of us, the Earth may become warmer than it has been for a thousand years. By the middle of this century it may be warmer than it has been since the last Ice Age.
A warmer climate may seem welcome, but it could bring many dangers： damages to crops in the world’s main food-producing areas, famine(饥荒), economic instability, civil unrest and even war.
In the much longer term, melting of the great ice-caps of Greenland and Antarctica could raise sea-levels throughout the world. The average sea-level has already risen a foot since the turn of the last century, and if the ice-caps disappear completely, it would rise by nearly 200 feet. Complete melting might take many centuries, but even a small increase in sea-level would threaten low-lying parts of the world such as the Netherlands.
44. Long-term weather forecasts beyond the year 2050 may seem strange because ____.
A. none of us will be alive then
B. weathermen can even forecast next month’s weather correctly
C. weathermen can forecast much better than they used to
D. no one can stop engineering experiments
45. Weathermen believe that our future climate will be the direct result of ____.
A. the big scientific experiment B. clever long-term forecasts
C. the melting of the ice-caps D. planets changing course
46. One of the results of a warmer world climate could be ____.
A. an increase in food production
B. greater co-operation between countries
C. the death of millions of people from starvation
D. a reduction in the amount of oil we use
47. Scientists are fairly sure that by the year 2050, _______.
A. the sea-level will have risen obviously
B. there will have been the Third World War
C. most countries will have been flooded
D. the polar ice-caps will have melted completely
Hi, everybody! Welcome to our newly-opened Richards Cinema Bookstore!
Now let me introduce to you some of the new film books in our store. Are you Chinese film fans? OK, here comes the latest 25 New Takes about Chinese films. It is a collection of 25 fresh readings of different Chinese films from the 1930s to the present. In recent years, Chinese films are very popular in the States, such as Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon, Hero, and Flowers of Shanghai.
Do you like French films? Well, here is The French Cinema Book. It covers French films from the 1890s to the beginning of the 21st century. It is written for all lovers of French cinema: students and teachers, specialists and fans, and so on.
Maybe you are Indian film fans and star-chasers. Then here is Encyclopedia(百科全书) of Indian Cinema. The book is a complete introduction to all the best Indian films. It also offers a full list of names of the famous and successful film stars in the past ten years. You know, the Indian film industry is the largest in the world after our Hollywood.
If you like British films, we have The British Cinema Book. It is a good review of British cinema. This book contains a good many nice pictures.
In our bookstore, you can also find books about Mexican, Japanese, Australian, German and Italian films.
Well, please help yourselves to some coffee or tea, and have a good time here!
40. The speaker of the passage is most probably ____.
A. the author of 25 New Takes B. a client in the cinema bookstore
C. the manager of the cinema bookstore
D. a reader of Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema
41. Which of the following statements is NOT mentioned in the passage?
A. Indian cinema industry is second only to Hollywood.
B. The British Cinema Book includes a complete list of names of stars.
C. Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon is well received in the States.
D. The French Cinema Book covers over a century’s French films.
42. The purpose of the speaker is to ____.
A. satisfy the customers’ various tastes
B. keep the authors popular with the readers
C. offer the clients chances to meet the film stars
D. turn the readers into film producers
43. The speaker of this passage most probably comes from ____.
A. England B. India C. China D. America
We’d been flying for hours, deeper and deeper into the desert of southeastern Niger. The mission: to find what is probably the last wild population of the great Saharan antelope called the addax (旋角羚)—the most endangered animal of its size in Africa.
Pilot Peter Ragg flew our bright red helicopter low over two parallel dunes (沙丘). The pale sand below us was dotted by the black bushes, the plants that are favorite food for the addax. Then, almost as if the dune extruded (使突出) them, two perfect addaxes appeared. Their long tails swung from side to side as they ran, heads held high on thick necks, horns reaching for the sky. We made a few turns in the plane, then let them be. In just a few seconds they were swallowed again by the Sahara. Soon they could just as easily disappear from the planet.
In September 2004 the government of Niger and a small NGO called SOS Faune du Niger surveyed this last known pocket of wild addaxes. They counted 128 individuals. Since then, the number has dropped as hunters have taken more for meat. How many addaxes remain in the Sahara is anybody’s guess, but those that do survive could be considered the living dead: There may not be a viable (能生存的) population left to reproduce.
I’m now helping to make an emergency plan for the last wild addaxes. With a few hundred thousand dollars, some trucks, and a strong group with the local Toubou guides, we may just be able to save these guys from extinction.
36. What do the addaxes in the passage usually eat?
A. Vegetables. B. Black bushes. C. Grass. D. Fruits.
37. All of the following descriptions of the addax are true EXCEPT that ____.
A. its tail is long B. its neck is thick
C. its legs are short D. its horns are long
38. What does the writer probably mean by saying that “There may not be a viable population left to reproduce”?
A. Wild addaxes will die out soon unless effective measures are taken.
B. The number of wild addaxes will increase if they are not hunted.
C. Wild addaxes cannot support themselves any longer.
D. Humans cannot survive without enough addaxes.
39. It can be inferred that the writer of the passage might be ____.
A. a journalist B. an official C. an engineer D. a zoologist