There are a number of special days of the year that are celebrated in different countries.The origins of most of the days are unknown.They were certainly not created by individual people.Other days，however，especially those celebrated in western countries often owe their origins to a particular person.One of the most popular of these，even though it is fairly recent，is Mother’s Day.Mothers have always been highly regarded in all cultures.The ancient Romans had a festival known as Hilaria，during which children took presents to the temple of the “Mother of the Gods”．The Christian Church adopted this idea and called it Mothering Sunday.However，over the years this custom was gradually forgotten，and almost disappeared by the end of the 19th century.
Born in 1864 in Virginia，USA，Anna Jarvis was a school teacher and believed children should show gratitude to their mothers for all their love and care.Encouraged by a friend，she wrote to thousands of important people—politicians，churchmen，doctors，city officials and asked them to support her idea：a special day of the year for thanking mothers.
In 1910 the Governor of West Virginia introduced Mother’s Day into the state.The date chosen was May 10—the second Sunday in May，which is still observed in America today.This date was chosen because May 10 was the date on which in 1908 Anna Jarvis’s mother died.In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson made May 10 the official date for Mother’s Day throughout the United States.
Soon there was a Mother’s Day International Association and the custom began to be adopted in many countries of the world.
Anna Jarvis，a sad and disillusioned woman died in 1948.The custom she had worked hard to establish and which had become almost universal had lost its original purpose.It had been taken over by business.As with Christmas，the giving of presents and the sending of cards had become a multimillion dollar industry.The story is about ________.
| A．Mothering Sunday for Christmas |
| B．the origin of a special day for mothers |
| C．President Wilson and Anna Jarvis |
| D．how people celebrate Mother’s Day |
Hilaria was a festival in ________.
| A．ancient Rome |
| B．America |
| C．China |
| D．the Christian Church |
Anna Jarvis wanted to ________.
| A．thank her mother for her care |
| B．introduce a celebration for mothers |
| C．meet thousands of important people |
| D．make her pupils celebrate her on Mother’s Day |
May 10 became the date for Mother’s Day because ________.
| A．May is in the American spring |
| B．it was the second Sunday in May in 1910 |
| C．President Wilson liked the date |
| D．this was the date on which Anna Jarvis’s mother died |
Unfortunately，Anna Jarvis was not happy with Mother’s Day when she died because ________.
| A．her mother was not there to see it |
| B．she had never been a mother herself |
| C．people were too interested in making it a business |
| D．no one gave any presents or cards to their mothers |
It’s 2035. You have a job, a family and you’re about 40 years old. Welcome to your future life.
Getting ready for work, you pause in front of the mirror, “Turn red,” you say. Your shirt changes from sky blue to deep red. Tiny preprogrammed electronic are rearranged in your shirt to change its color. Looking into the mirror, you find it hard to believe that you are 40. You look much younger. With amazing advances in medicine, people in your generation may live to be 150 years old. You’re not even middle-aged.
As you go into the kitchen and prepare to pour your breakfast cereal into a bowl, you hear: “To lose weight, you shouldn’t eat that, ” from your shoes. They read the tiny electronic code on the cereal box find out the nutrition details. “Kitchen, what can I have for breakfast?” A list of possible foods appear on the counter as kitchen checks its food supplies.
“Ready for your trip to space. You ask your son and daughter. ” In 2005 only specially trained astronauts went into space－and very few of them. Today anyone can go to space for day trips or longer vacation. Your best friend even works in space. Handing your children three strawberries each, you add, “The doctor said you need these for space travel. ” Thanks to medical advices, vaccination（疫苗）shots are a thing of the past. Ordinary foods contain specific vaccines. With the berries in their mouths, the kids head for the front door.
It’s time for you to go to work. Your car checks your fingerprints and unlocks the doors. “My office. Autopilot,” you command. Your car drives itself down the road and moves smoothly into traffic on the highway. You sit back and unroll your e-newspaper. The latest news downloads and fills the viewer. Looking through the pages, you watch the news as video films rather than read it.
1．What changes the color of your shirt?
A．The mirrorB．The shirt itself
C．The counter D．The medicine
2．How do the shoes know that you shouldn’t eat the breakfast cereal?
A．By pouring the breakfast into a bowl
B．By listening to the doctor’s advice
C．By testing the food supplies in the kitchen
D．By checking the nutrition details of the food
3．The strawberries the children eat serve as______.
A．breakfast B．lunchC．vaccinesD．nutrition
4．How is the text organized?
A．In order of timeB．In order of frequency
C．In order of preference D．In order of importance
People in the United States honour their parents with two special days: Mother’s Day, on the second Sunday in May, and Father’s Day’s, on the third Sunday in June. These days are set aside to show love and respect for parents. They raise their children and educate them to be responsible citizens. They give love and care. These two days offer a chance to think about the changing roles of mothers and fathers. More mothers now work outside the home. More fathers must help with child-care.
These two special days are celebrated in many different ways. On Mother’s Day people wear carnations A red one stands for a living mother. A white one shows that the mother is dead. Many people attend religious services（宗教仪式）to honor parents. It is also a day when people whose parents are dead visit their graves. On these days, families get together at home and in restaurants. They often have outdoor BBQs for Father’ Day. These are days of fun and good feelings and memories.
Another tradition is to give cards and gifts. Children make them in school. Many people make their own presents. These are valued more than the ones bought in stores. It is not the value of the gift that is important, but it is “the thought that counts”. Greeting card stores, florists, candy makers, bakeries, telephones companies and other stores do a lot of business during these holidays.
1．Which is NOT a reason for children to show love and respect for parents?
A．Parents bring up children.
B．Parents give love and care to children.
C．Parents educate children to be good persons.
D．Parents pass away before children grow up.
2．What do you know from the passage?
A．Mother’s Day and Father’ Day are both in May.
B．Fewer women worked outside the home in the past.
C．Not all the children respect their parents.
D．Fathers are not as important as mothers at home.
3．Which do you think is right about “carnation”?
A．It only has two kinds of color.
B．It is a special kind of clothes people wear on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.
C．It’s a kind of flower showing love and best wishes.
D．People can wear carnations only on the second Sunday in May.
4．What do you think “florists” do?
A．They sell flowers.
B．They made bread or pastry.
C．They offer enough room for having family parties.
D．They sell special clothes for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.
COOL INVENTIONS
CHARGE ON THE GO
From school to band practice, the Venturi Eclectic is an Earth-friendly way to get where you want to go. This battery-powered, zero-emission(meaning it doesn’t pollute the air) vehicle runs mainly on renewable energy. Solar panels on the Eclectic’s roof absorb sun rays when you’re driving. On windy days, you can connect a machine to the car’s roof collects energy from the wind while you’re parked. The Eclectic’s top speed is 28 miles an hour; the battery lasts for 31 miles before it needs to be recharged. Zipping （迅速行进）round the neighborhood has never been better.
WATER CLOCK
Here’s an eco-friendly way to tell time: Simply fill the Bedol Water-powered Clock’s tank（箱）with water, add some lemon juice, and the clock will display the time without the need for environmentally harmful batteries. There are two sets of metal electrodes（电极）inside the water tank. Water contains ions（离子）that carry negative and positive charges. These ions complete a charge between the electrodes creating enough energy to power the clock. Just refill the tank every few weeks, and this clock will keep on ticking.
LAND ROCKET
Bloodhound SuperSonic Car (SSC) will be the first car to attempt to break the 1,000-mile-an-hour barrier. (The current record is 763 miles an hour.) a concept for now, the rocket-shaped car gets its initial push to 350 miles an hour from a jet engine. Then a rocket fires up, pushing the SSC past 1,000 miles an hour. In order to keep the car streamlined（流线型的）the driver lies back at a 45-degree angle.
COOL CAMERA
You’re having a blast at your friend’s birthday party. But when it’s time to bring out the cake, everyone crowds around, blocking your view. No worries. Throw the Triops into the air, and this clever camera captures the view from above. The Triops can take three pictures at once, each from different angles. You can also record sounds and command the Triops to start shooting whenever it hears that noise. That’s one smart camera.
1．According to the passage, the Venturi Eclectic______.
A．is popular with businessmen
B．is suitable for a long trip
C．can turn wind into energy
D．has only a little gas emission
2．What is the common characteristic of the Venturi Eclectic and the Bedol Water-powered Clock?
A．They don’t need batteries.
B．They are difficult to operate
C．They can be powered by water
D．They are environmentally friendly
3．The underlined phrase “having a blast” in the last paragraph means______.
A．looking at a picture B．enjoying yourself
C．blowing out a candle D．recording sounds
4．Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
A．The Triops in sensitive to sounds.
B．The driver of the SSC must be of great size.
C．The color of the Bedol Water-powered Clock is like that of lemon
D．The SSC doesn’t have anything to do with a rocket actually.
第三节阅读理解（共25小题，第一节每小题2分，第二节每小题1分；满分45分）
第一节阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项A、B、C、D中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
In 1955, Susan Boyle went to Glasgow to audition（试演）for My King of People, a televised talent show popular in the UK. She was immediately rejected.
She was nervous during the audition, and felt she didn’t perform well, but her brother said that she was rejected because of plain looks. Boyle was not discouraged and continued to sing at church and at the karaoke nights in a local pub.
Boyle suffered a personal loss in 1997, when her father passed away. After his death, Boyle put her big dreams on hold to care for her sick mother Bridget Boyle. The mother and daughter often talked of Susan’s possible fame. Bridget Boyle encouraged her daughter to take part in singing competitions. “She was the one who said I should enter Britain’s Got Talent. We used to watch it together”, Susan later told reporters. “She thought I would win.”
In 1999, Boyle used all of her saving to pay for a professional demo（样本唱片）tape, which she went to record companies. In 2002, Bolye began taking singing lessons from voice coach Fred O’ Neil.
In 2007, Boyle’s mother passed away at the age of 91. A neighbour reported that when Bridget Boyle died, her daughter “wouldn’t come out for three or four days or answer the door or phone.” She lived alone with her cat, Pebbles. For over a year, she refused to sing. But in August of 2008, O’Neil urged her to try out for Britain’s Got Talent. Convinced that the performance would be an honour to her mother, Boyle auditioned in Glasgow, Scotland. She sang I Dreamed A Dream in the first round of the show, which was aired on 11 April 2009.
The 47-year-old Scottish woman’s plain looks provided a sharp contrast to her powerfully beautiful voice. The performance astonished the audience and the judges. Online videos of her performance totaled over 40 million views within a week. Although she failed to win the final of Britain’s Got Talent, Susan Boyle became globally popular. Her first album I Dreamed A Dream has sold over five million copies.
1．Bridget Boyle’s attitude towards her daughter’s musical talent can be described as _________.
A．critical B．doubtful C．indifferent D．optimistic
2．From Para. 4 we learn that Boyle______.
A．was slightly discouraged by her voice coach
B．entered Britain’s Got Talent to prove her ability
C．decided to give up her singing career.
D．was deeply affected by her mother’s death.
3．Which of the following is TRUE about Susan Boyle?
A．Her international fame grew rapidly in 2008.
B．Her audition for My Kind of People failed.
C．She has never stopped singing since 1995.
D．She was the winner of Britain’s Got Talent
4．In writing this passage, the author mainly intends to______.
A．tell us how Bolye’s dream came true
B．let us know more about Boyle’s personal life.
C．show how Boyle was influenced by her family.
D．explain how to enter and win a talent show.
The most exciting kind of education is also the most personal. Nothing can exceed (超越) the joy of discovering for yourself something that is important to you! It may be an idea or a bit of information you come across accidentally—or a sudden insight, fitting together pieces of information or working through a problem. Such personal encounters are the “payoff” in education. A teacher may direct you to learning and even encourage you in it—but no teacher can make the excitement or the joy happen. That's up to you.
A research paper, assigned in a course and perhaps checked at various stages by an instructor, leads you beyond classrooms, beyond the texts for classes and into a process where the joy of discovery and learning can come to you many times. Preparing the research paper is an active and individual process, and ideal learning process. It provides a structure within which you can make exciting discoveries, of knowledge and of self, that are basic to education. But the research paper also gives you a chance to individualize a school assignment, to suit a piece of work to your own interests and abilities, to show others what you can do. Writing a research paper is more than just a classroom exercise. It is an experience in searching out, understanding and synthesizing（综合）, which forms the basis of many skills applicable（可利用的） to both academic and nonacademic tasks. It is, in the fullest sense, a discovering of an education. So, to produce a good research paper is both a useful and a thoroughly satisfying experience!
To some, the thought of having to write an assigned number of pages, often more than ever produced before, is upsetting. To others, the very idea of having to work independently is threatening. But there is no need to approach paper assignment with anxiety, and nobody should view the research paper as an obstacle to overcome. Instead, consider it a goal to accomplish, a goal within reach if you use the help this book can give you.
1．According to the writer, personal discoveries___________.
A．will give one encouragement and direction
B．are helpful in finding the right information
C．are the most valuable part of one's personal education
D．will help one to successfully complete school assignments
2．It can be inferred from the passage that writing a research paper gives one chances________.
A．to fully develop one's personal abilities
B．to use the skills learnt in the classroom
C．to prove that one is a productive writer
D．to demonstrate how well one can accomplish school assignment
3．The writer argues in the passage that___________ .
A．one should explore new areas in research
B．one should trust one's own ability to meet course requirements
C．one should consider research paper writing a pleasure, not a burden
D．one should use all one's knowledge and skills when doing research
4．What will probably follow this passage?
A．How to write a research paper.
B．The importance of research in education.
C．How to make new discoveries for oneself.
D．The skill of putting pieces of information together.