Mark and his brother Jason both were looking at the shining new computer enviously. Jason was determined not to go against their father’s wishes but Mark was more adventurous than his brother. He loved experimenting and his aim was to become a scientist like his father.
“Dad will be really mad if he finds out you’ve been playing with his new computer.” Jason said, “He told us not to touch it.”
“He won’t find out.” Mark said, “I’ll just have a quick look and shut it down.”
Mark had been scolded before for touching his father’s equipment. But his curiosity was difficult to control and this new computer really puzzled him.
“It was a strange-looking machine –one his dad had brought home from the laboratory where he worked. “It’s an experimental model,” his father had explained, “so don’t touch it under any circumstances.” But his warning only served to make Mark more curious. Without any further thought, Mark turned on the power switch. The computer burst into life and seconds later, the screen turned into colors, shifting and changing and then two big white words appeared in the center of the screen: “SPACE TRANSPORTER.”
“Yes!” Mark cried excitedly, “It’s a computer game. I knew it! Dad’s only been pretending to work. He’s really been playing games instead.” A new message appeared on the screen:
“ENTER NAMES
VOYAGER 1: …
VOYAGER 2: …”
Mark’s fingers flew across the keyboard as he typed in both of their names.
“INPUT ACCEPTED. START TRANSPORT PROGRAM. AUTO-RETRIEVE INITIATED（自动回收程序已启动）.”
The screen turned even brighter and a noise suddenly rose in volume.
“I think we’d better shut it off, Mark,” Jason yelled, reaching for the power switch. He was really frightened.
But his hand never reached the switch. A single beam of dazzling white light burst out of the computer screen, wrapping the boys in its glow (光芒), until they themselves seemed to be glowing. Then it died down just as suddenly as it had burst into life. And the boys were no longer there. On the screen, the letters changed.
“TRANSPORT SUCCESSFUL. DESTINATION: MARS. RETRIEVE DATE: 2025.”Why did Mark touch the computer against his father's warning?
| A．He wanted to take a voyage. |
| B．He wanted to practice his skill. |
| C．He was so much attracted by it. |
| D．He was eager to do an experiment. |
Where did the boys' father most likely work?
| A．In an electronic factory. |
| B．In a computer company. |
| C．In a scientific research center. |
| D．In an information processing center. |
Mark thought "SPACE TRANSPORTER" on the screen was the name of __________.
| A．a computer game |
| B．a company website |
| C．a software producer |
| D．an astronomy program |
Why did Jason want to shut off the computer?
| A．He was afraid of being scolded. |
| B．He didn't like the loud noise and light. |
| C．He didn't want to play games any more. |
| D．He was afraid something dangerous might happen. |
What happened to the boys at the end of the story?
| A．They were blown into the air. |
| B．They were sent to another planet. |
| C．They were hidden in the strong light. |
| D．They were carried away to another country. |
If Confucius（孔子）were still alive today and could celebrate his September 28 birthday with a big cake, there would be a lot of candles. He’d need a fan or a strong wind to help him put them out.
While many people in China will remember Confucius on his special day, few people in the United States will give him a passing thought. It’s nothing personal. Most Americans don’t even remember the birthdays of their own national heroes.
But this doesn’t mean that Americans don’t care about Confucius. In many ways he has become a bridge that foreigners must cross if they want to reach a deeper understanding of China.
In the past two decades, the Chinese studies programs have gained huge popularity in Western universities. More recently, the Chinese government has set up Confucius Institutes in more than 80 countries. These schools teach both Chinese language and culture. The main courses of Chinese culture usually included Chinese art, history and philosophy（哲学）.Some social scientists suggest that Westerners should take advantages of the ancient Chinese wisdom to make up for the drawbacks of Westerners philosophy. Students in the United States, at the same time, are racing to learn Chinese. So they will be ready for life in a world where China is an equal power with the United States. Businessmen who hope to make money in China are reading books about Confucius to understand their Chinese customers.
So the old thinker’s ideas are still alive and well.
Today China attracts the West more than ever, and it will need more teachers to introduce Confucius and Chinese culture to the West.
As for the old thinker, he will not soon be forgotten by people in the West, even if his birthday is. The opening paragraph is mainly intended to ________
| A．provide some key facts about Confucius |
| B．attract the readers’ interest in the subject |
| C．show great respect for the ancient thinker |
| D．prove the popularity of modern birthday celebrations |
We can learn from Paragraph 4 that American students______
| A．have a great interest in studying Chinese |
| B．take an active part in Chinese competitions |
| C．try to get high scores in Chinese exams |
| D．fight for a chance to learn Chinese |
What is the best title for the passage?
| A．Forgotten Wisdom in America |
| B．Huge Fans of the Chinese Language |
| C．Chinese Culture for Westerners |
| D．Old Thinker with a Big Future |
The passage is likely to appear in ___________.
| A．a biography |
| B．a history paper |
| C．a newspaper |
| D．a philosophy textbook |
Mini Book Excerpts（节选）
Biography
When Salinger learned that a car park was to be built on the land, the middle-aged writer was shocked and quickly bought the neighboring area to protect it… The townspeople never forgot the rescue and came to help their most famous neighbor.
J. D. Salinger：A Life by Kenneth Slawenski（Random House,$27）Mystery（疑案小说）
“You’re a smart boy. Benny’s death was no accident, and you’re the only who saw it happen. Do you think the murderer should get away with it?”The boy was starting stubbornly at his lap again.
A thought suddenly occurred to Annika,“Did you …You recognized the man in the car, didn’t you?”
The boy hesitated, twisting his fingers,“Maybe,”he said quietly.
Red Wolf by Liza Marklund（Atria Books, $25. 99）
Short Stories
She wants to say to him what she has learned, none of it in class. Some women are born stupid, and some women are too smart for their own good. Some women are born to give, and some women only know how to take. Some women learn who they want to be from their mothers, some who they don’t want to be. Some mothers suffer so their daughters won’t. Some mothers love so their daughters won’t.
You Are Free by Danzy Senna （Riverhead Books,$15）
Humor
Do your kids like to have fun? Come to Fun Times! Do you like to watch your kids having fun? Bring them to Fun Times! Fun Times! “amusement cycling”is the most fun you can have, legally, in the United States right now. Why spend thousands of dollars flying to Disney World when you can spend less than half to that within a day’s drive lf most cities?
Happy And Other Bad Thoughts by Larry Doyle（Ecco,$14. 99）If the readers want to know about the title of Salinger, they should buy the book published by
.
| A．Ecco | B．Atria Books |
| C．Riverhead Books | D．Random House |
The book Happy And Other Bad Thoughts is intended for.
| A．young children | B．Disney World workers |
| C．middle school teachers | D．parents with young children |
Which book describes women with characters of their own?
A. Happy And Other Bad Thoughts
B. J. D. Salinger: A Life
C. You Are Free
D. Red Wolf After finishing the book Red Wolf, the readers would learn that .
| A．the boy helped arrest the murderer |
| B．Benny died of an accident |
| C．the murderer got away with the crime |
| D．Annika carried out the crime |
I left university with a good degree in English Literature, but no sense of what I wanted to do. Over the next six years, I was treading water, just trying to earn an income. I tried journalism, but I didn’t think I was any good, then finance, which I hated. Finally, I got a job as a rights assistant at a famous publisher. I loved working with books, although the job that I did was dull.
I had enough savings to take a year off work, and I decided to try to satisfy a deep-down wish to write a novel. Attending a Novel Writing MA course gave me the structure I needed to write my first 55,000 words.
It takes confidence to make a new start — there’s a dark period in-between where you’re neither one thing nor the other. You’re out for dinner and people ask what you do, and you’re too ashamed to say, “Well, I’m writing a novel, but I’m not quite sure if I’m going to get there.” My confidence dived. Believing my novel could not be published, I put it aside.
Then I met an agent（代理商）who said I should send my novel out to agents. So, I did and, to my surprise, got some wonderful feedback. I felt a little hope that I might actually become a published writer and, after signing with an agent, I finished the second half of the novel.
The next problem was finding a publisher. After two-and-a-half years of no income, just waiting and wondering, a publisher offered me a book deal—that publisher turned out to be the one I once worked for.
It feels like an unbelievable stroke of luck—of fate, really. When you set out to do something different, there’s no end in sight, so to find myself in a position where I now have my own name on a contract（合同）of the publisher — to be a published writer — is unbelievably rewarding（有回报的）.What does the underlined part in Paragraph 1 mean?
| A．I was waiting for good fortune. |
| B．I was trying to find an admirable job. |
| C．I was being aimless about a suitable job. |
| D．I was doing several jobs for more pay at a time. |
The author decided to write a novel ______ .
| A．to finish the writing course |
| B．to realize her own dream |
| C．to satisfy readers’ wish |
| D．to earn more money |
How did the writer feel halfway with the novel?
| A．Disturbed. | B．Ashamed. | C．Confident. | D．Uncertain. |
What does the author mainly want to tell readers in the last paragraph?
| A．It pays to stick to one’s goal. |
| B．Hard work can lead to success. |
| C．She feels like being unexpectedly lucky. |
| D．There is no end in sight when starting to do something. |
Environmentalists said our planet was doomed to die. Now one man says they are wrong.
"Everyone knows the planet is in bad shape," thundered a magazine article last year. Species are being driven to die out at record rates, and the rivers are so poisonous that fish are floating on the surface, dead.
But there's a growing belief that what everyone takes for granted is wrong: things are actually getting better. A new book is about to overturn our most basic assumptions about the world's environment. Rivers, seas, rain and the atmosphere are all getting cleaner. The total amount of forests in the world is not declining. The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg, professor of statistics at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, is an attack on the misleading claims of environmental groups, and the "bad news" culture that makes people believe everything is getting worse.
Now the attacks are increasingly coming from left-wing environmentalists such as Lomborg, a former member of Greenpeace. The accusation is that, although the environment is improving, green groups — with profits of hundreds of mil-lions of pounds a year — are using scare tactics(谋略)to gain donations. Lomborg's book doesn't deny global warming — probably the biggest environmental threat — but destroys almost every other environmental claim with many official statistics.
The Worldwatch Institute claims that "deforestation(沙漠化) has been accelerating over the last 30 years". But Lomborg says that is simply rubbish. Since the dawn of agriculture the world has lost about 20 per cent of its forest cover, but in recent decades the forest area's depleting has come to a stop. According to UN figures, the area of forests has remained almost steady, at about 30 per cent of total land area, since the 1940s. Forests in countries such as the US, the UK and Canada have actually been expanding over the past 40 years. Despite all the warnings the Amazon rainforest has only shrunk by about 15 per cent.
Nor are all our species dying out. Some campaigners claim that 50 per cent of all species will have died out within 50 years. But other studies show only 0.08 per cent of species are dying out each year. Conservation efforts have been successful. Whales are no longer threatened and the bald eagle is off the endangered list.
Environmental groups claim that many of the improvements are the results of the success of their campaigns. Stephen Tindale, director of Greenpeace UK, said, "There are important examples, such as acid rain and ozone, where things aren't as bad as predicted, and that's because behavior has changed."In his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, what is Lomborg's main argument?
| A．Our planet is in bad shape. |
| B．The world's environment is improving. |
| C．The total amount of forests in the world is not declining. |
| D．Conservation efforts have been successful. |
What is Lomborg's main accusation of environmentalists?
| A．They scared people into making donations. |
| B．They overturned our basic assumptions about the world's environment. |
| C．They changed their behavior toward the environment. |
| D．They only told people bad news about the environment. |
The underlined word "depleting" in Paragraph 5 is closest in meaning to "____".
| A．reducing | B．limiting | C．expanding | D．accelerating |
According to the passage, which of the following statements is true?
| A．The total area of forests in the world has increased significantly. |
| B．The effects of global warming are not as bad as first expected. |
| C．It appears that the bald eagle will now survive. |
| D．In the last 50 years the number of whales has increased. |
More Chinese are seeking out the surgeon’s knife to improve their looks.Yet the tragic death of the former Super Girl Wang Bei has made people aware of the risks of cosmetic surgery, which is becoming increasingly popular. Wang Bei，24，is said to have gone under the knife in Wuhan，to jump-start her stage-show career. It seems that the ambitious singer has finally achieved the fame and influence after her death.
For years Miss Lu expected a plastic surgery to make her jaw fashionable narrow and her face smaller. She finally decided against it after hearing of the death of Wang Bei. "Wang Bei’s death rang the warning bell for me，"Miss Lu said in her blog." It was frightening and I gave up the plan. "
A common thread of online discussion is why someone considered beautiful was so dissatisfied with her looks. Some netizens said Wang was a victim of society’s impractical standard of beauty：double eyelids，and the pointed chin typical of Western actresses. Others said her death indicated the limits to which people would go to achieve fame and fortune.
Last year 15 billion yuan was spent on cosmetic surgery and the figure is expected to rise 20％ annually. The International Society of Plastic Surgery ranks China first in Asia in terms of the number of cosmetic surgeries in 2009. Worldwide, China is third, after Brazil, while the United States is first.
Nowadays，people are living longer and better. But the effect of aging off their appearance affects their mood and confidence. Many older women want to look young and beautiful. Young people, on the other hand, see cosmetic surgery as the key to wealth and love. "They want to improve their appearance to find better opportunities at work and in marriage，"says a famous plastic surgeon. "We’re living in a highly competitive society. People regard appearance as a weapon in life battle. Those who are young and naturally good-looking tell me，‘I don’t care how much I spend. Just make me look more beautiful.’ "
Advice from a surgeon and psychologist：
1.Choose regular, qualified hospitals with a good reputation.
2.Try to find an expert surgeon who will not suggest several operations over time.
3.Don’t expect too much from changing your appearance. Safety should be the first.
4.Have a realistic understanding of the risks of the surgery (death，injury and failure)and make a balanced decision.What’s the influence of Wang Bei’s death on the public?
| A．People will feel alarmed at cosmetic surgery. |
| B．Young people will have no interest in beauty. |
| C．Doctors will be afraid to perform operations. |
| D．No one will dream of becoming a Super Girl. |
It is mentioned in the passage that________.
| A．Miss Lu’s face is narrow and small |
| B．Wang Bei is a victim of the Internet |
| C．all Westerners have the pointed chin |
| D．the US ranks first in cosmetic surgery |
What’s the main idea of the 5th paragraph?
| A．People are living 1onger and better nowadays. |
| B．People are living in a highly competitive society. |
| C．Social competition leads females to seek beauty. |
| D．Cosmetic surgery is the key to wealth and love. |
According to a surgeon and psychologist,it is better to________.
| A．change your appearance sooner |
| B．make a reasonable decision |
| C．do several operations over time |
| D．try some different hospitals |