Big trees are very important in ecology. For a start, they provide food for countless other species and shelter for many animals. With their tall branches in the sun, they take in vast amounts of energy. This allows them to produce massive crops of fruit and flowers that much of the animal life in the forest feed on.
Only a small number of tree species have the genetic(基因的) ability to grow really big. The biggest are native to North America, but big trees grow all over the globe, from the tropics(热带地区) to the forests of the high latitudes(纬度). To achieve giant size, a tree needs three things: the right place to establish(建立) its seedling, good growing conditions and lots of time with low adult death rate. Lose any of these, and you will lose your biggest trees.
In some parts of the world, populations of big trees are dwindling because their seedlings cannot survive. In southern India, for instance, an aggressive non-native bush, Lantana camara, is invading the floor of many forests. Lantana grows so thickly that young trees often fail to take root. With no young trees to replace them, it is only a matter of time before most of the big trees disappear.
Without the right growing conditions, trees cannot get really big and there is some evidence to suggest tree growth could slow in a warmer world, particularly in environments that are already warm. Having worked for decades at La Selva Biological Station in Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui, Costa Rica, David and Deborah Clark and colleagues have shown that tree growth there slows obviously in warmer years. “During the day, their growth shuts down when it gets too warm, and at night they consume more energy because their metabolic(新陈代谢的) rate increases,” explains David Clark. With less energy produced in warmer years and more being consumed just to survive, there is even less energy available for growth.
The Clarks’ theory, if correct, means tropical forests would be smaller over time. The largest, oldest trees would gradually die off and tend not to be replaced. According to the Clarks, this might cause a destabilization of the climate; as older trees die, forests would release some of their stored carbon into the atmosphere, causing a cycle of further warming, forest shrinkage and carbon emissions.
Besides, big trees face threats from elsewhere.According to the passage, big trees make great contributions to the ecosystem because ________.
| A．they can take in large amounts of energy |
| B．they determine the change of global climate |
| C．they provide the essentials for many creatures |
| D．they can improve a new cycle of further warming |
All the following factors are a must for making big trees EXCEPT ______.
| A．no deadly damage |
| B．the suitable place for new plants’ growing |
| C．good environment for growth |
| D．the highest location |
The word “dwindling” (paragraph3) is closest in meaning to “______”.
| A．exploding | B．growing |
| C．changing | D．dropping |
What is the best title of the passage?
| A．Big trees in trouble. |
| B．Advantages of big trees. |
| C．Results of big trees’ disappearing. |
| D．Importance of big trees to humans. |
What will the author most probably discuss after the last paragraph?
| A．More threats to the existence of big trees. |
| B．The effect of human activities on big trees. |
| C．Benefits of big trees to the whole atmosphere. |
| D．Comparison between common trees and big ones. |
Read the following text and choose the most suitable heading from A-F for each paragraph. There is one extra heading which you do not need.
A. Reasons for the use of Podcasting
B. Definition and origin of Podcast
C. Importance of Podcasting at school
D. Advantage of Podcasts over other audio media
E. Podcasts—a further step from voice recordings
F. Devices needed for Podcasting_______
Recently a group of second-graders visited our school library to work on a “holidays around the world” project. The children created pictures showing holiday customs and then created voice recordings explaining what they drew. The incident showed very clearly the effectiveness of student-created voice recordings. Now imagine taking things one step further and creating Podcasts in a classroom setting.________
The term Podcast refers to an audio recording, linked to the Web, that can be downloaded to a personal MP3 player. The word is created from broadcast and from iPod ---the wildly popular MP3 player from Apple.________
Using audio with students isn’t new, of course. Teachers have used audiobooks at listening centers and recorded student voice on tape or CD for many years. Voice and music are the original media for teaching. Podcasts, however, can reach a much wider audience in a time frame outside the school days. Booktalking, an old way of getting kids excited about books, gets a tech assistance with Podcasting. Students can do some booktalking themselves; book review Podcasts seem to be another natural way for students to share what they know, providing an alternative to the book report.________
There are a number of excellent reasons for using Podcasting. Teachers made audio Podcasts, including visuals or video clips for any content area instruction and review. Some teachers have begun to record themselves teaching important concept
s; this creates an account of information online for kids to access when they’re stuck on a homework assignment. Audio and video files can also function as assessment tools. Imagine being a classroom teacher in September who can actually hear how his or her students were reading in June the school year before.________
You don’t need an iPod to make a Podcast. If you have a computer, a microphone, and some free software, you can make a Podcast. While an MP3 player is a popular and useful gadget, your audience doesn’t need MP3 players to listen, either: your students and their families can use the computer to play back what you’ve recorded.
There are still many things that Peter Cooke would like to try his hand at — paper-making and feather-work are on his list. For the moment, though, he will stick to the skill that he has been delighted to make perfect over the past ten years: making delicate and unusual objects out of shells.
As he leads me round his apartment showing me his work, he points to a pair of shell-covered ornaments(装饰品) above a fireplace. “I shan’t be at all bothered if people don’t buy them because I have got so used to them, and to me they’re lovely. I never meant to sell my work commercially. Some friends came to see me about five years ago and said, ‘You must have an exhibition — people ought to see these. We’ll talk to a man who owns an art gallery’”. The result was an exhibition in London, at which 70 per cent of the objects were sold. His second exhibition opened at the gallery yesterday. Considering the enormous prices the pieces command —around ￡2,000 for the ornaments — an empty space above the fireplace would seem a small sacrifice for Cooke to make.
There are 86 pieces in the exhibition, with prices starting at￡225 for a shell-flower in a crystal vase. Cooke insists that he has nothing to do with the prices and 
is cheerily open about their level: he claims there is nobody else in the world who produces work like his, and, as the gallery-owner told him, “Well, you’re going to stop one day and everybody will want your pieces because there won’t be any more.”
“I do wish, though,” says Cooke, “that I’d taken this up a lot earlier, because then I would have been able to produce really wonderful things — at least the potential would have been there. Although the ideas are still there and I’m doing the best I can now, I’m more limited physically than I was when I started.” Still, the work that he has managed to produce is a long way from the common shell constructions that can be found in seaside shops. “I have a miniature(微型的) mind,” he says, and this has resulted in boxes covered in thousands of tiny shells, little shaded pictures made from shells and baskets of astonishingly realistic flowers.
Cooke’s quest(追求) for beautiful, and especially tiny, shells has taken him further than his Norfolk shore: to France, Thailand, Mexico, South Africa and the Philippines, to name but a few of the beaches where he has lain on his stomach and looked for beauties to bring home. He is insistent that he only collects dead shells and defends himself against people who write him letters accusing him of stripping the world’s beaches. “When I am collecting shells, I hear people’s great fat feet crunching(嘎吱嘎吱地踩) them up far faster than I can collect them; and the ones that are left, the sea breaks up. I would not dream of collecting shells with 
living creatures in them or diving for them, but once their occupants have left, why should I not collect them?” If one bases this argument on the amount of luggage that can be carried home by one man, the beauty of whose work is often greater than its natural parts, it becomes very convincing indeed.What does the reader learn about Peter Cooke in the first paragraph?
| A．He has produced hand-made objects in different materials. |
| B．He hopes to work with other materials in the future. |
| C．He has written about his love of making shell objects. |
| D．He was praised for his shell objects many years ago. |
When mentioning the cost of his shell objects, Cooke ____.
| A．cleverly changes the subject. |
| B．defends the prices charged for his work. |
| C．says he has no idea why the level is so high. |
| D．notes that his work will not always be so popular. |
The “small sacrifice” in Paragraph 2 refers to _________.
| A．the loss of Cooke’s ornaments | B．the display of Cooke’s ornaments |
| C．the cost of keeping Cooke’s ornaments | D．the space required to store Cooke’s ornaments |
What does Cooke regret about his work?
| A．He is not as famous as he should have been. | B．He makes less money than he should make. |
| C．He is less imaginative than he used to be. | D．He is not as skillful as he used to be. |
What does the reader learn about Cooke's shell-collecting activities?
| A．Not everyone approves of what he does. |
| B．Other methods might make his work easier. |
| C．Other tourists get in the way of his collecting. |
| D．Not all shells are the right size and shape for his work |
Have you ever had the strange feeling that you were being watched? You turned around and, sure enough, someone was looking right at you!
Parapsychologists(灵学家) say that humans have a natural ability to sense when someone is looking at them. To research whether such a “sixth sense” really exists, Robert Baker, a psychologist(心理学家) at the University of Kentucky, performed two experiments.
In the first one, Baker sat behind unknowing people in public places and stared at the backs of their heads for 5 to 15 minutes. The subjects（受试者）were eating, drinking, reading, studying, watching TV, or working at a computer. Baker made sure that the people could not tell that he was sitting behind them during those periods. Later, when he questioned the subjects, almost all of them said they had no sense that someone was staring at them.
For the second experiment, Baker told the subjects that they would be stared at from time to time from behind a two-way mirror in a laboratory setting. The people had to write down when they felt they were being stared at and when they weren’t. Baker found that the subjects were no better at telling when they were stared at and when they weren’t. Baker found that the subjects were no better at telling when they were started at than if they had just guessed.
Baker concludes that people do not have the ability to sense when they’re being stared at. If people doubt the outcome of his two experiments, said Baker, “I suggest they repeat the experiments and see for themselves.”The purpose of the two experiments is to _______.
| A．explain when people can have a sixth sense |
| B．show how people act while being watched in the lab |
| C．study whether humans can sense when they are stared at |
| D．prove why humans have a sixth sense |
In the first experiment, the subjects _______.
| A．were not told that they would be stared at | B．lost their sense when they were stared at |
C．were not sure when they woul d be stared at |
D．were uncomfortable when they were stared at |
The underlined word “outcome” in the last paragraph most probably means ______.
| A．value | B．result | C．performance | D．connection |
What can be learned from the passage?
| A．People are born with a sixth sense. |
| B．The experiments support parapsychologists’ idea. |
| C．The subjects do not have a sixth sense in the experiments. |
| D．People have a sixth sense in public places. |
Some years ago, a Miami woman walking through an office building noticed two men standing together. Several minutes after her leaving, the men murdered a person working in the building. The police determined that the woman was the only 
witness and could possibly describe them. However, her memory of the men proved disappointingly unclear. Several days later, psychologist Ronald Fisher was brought in to obtain a more complete account from the woman. His interview produced a breakthrough—the woman reported a clear picture of one of the suspects. The important information enabled the police to arrest the suspect and close the case.
The police asked Fisher for help because of his rich knowledge in cognitive interview, a kind of memory-rebuilding process. Memory researchers have found that people trying to remember a past event often only recall(回忆) part of the relevant information. Human memory is selective and it is often distorted by stress. But a person’s accurate recall of an event or understanding of a question can be improved using specific interviewing techniques. The “cognitive interview” was developed in the late 1990s. It encourages the 
witness to take an active role in recalling information rather than giving answers only to some
one else’s questions. The witness first describes what happened in his or her own words, with no interviewer interruptions. 
The interviewer then goes further with specific techniques, such as having the witness tell the details of what happened from different perspectives (角度).
The cognitive interview focuses on guiding witnesses through four general recalling techniques: thinking about physical surroundings and personal feelings that existed at the time of past events; reporting everything that comes to mind about those events, no matter how broken it is; retelling events in a variety of time orders, such as from beginning to end, end to beginning, forward or backward; and adopting different perspectives while recalling events.
Experiments with police detectives trained in this demanding interview method find that they obtain nearly 50% more information from witnesses than before training, while error rates remain about the same. It is proved that cognitive interviews are quite important tools in improving the accuracy and completeness of witness testimony (证词).The purpose of the passage is to ______.
| A．give an account of a murder case |
| B．introduce an idea of cognitive interview |
| C．prove Fisher was an expert in cognitive interview |
| D．help a witness to recall information in a cognitive interview |
What is required to recall in a cognitive interview for a witness?
| A．The exact time at which a murder took place. |
| B．The information about the event in the time order. |
| C．The important things that come to his or her mind. |
| D．The surroundings and feelings at the time of the event. |
The key point in a cognitive interview is that ______.
| A．the witness is encouraged to take part in recalling information |
| B．the interviewer should interrupt the witness from time to time |
| C．the interview should take place outside the police station |
| D．the witness should recall details at the scene of the event |
Bestsellers for last week
A Special Relationship
This novel is about a woman whose entire life is turned upside down in a very foreign place despite the fact that people there speak her language. Sally Good child is a 37-year-old American who, after nearly two decades as a highly independent journalist, finds herself pregnant and in London. She married an English foreign correspondent, Tony Thompson, whom she met while they were both on assignment in Cairo. From the beginning, Sally’s relationship with both Tony and London is an uneasy one: She finds her husband and his city to be far more foreign than imagined. But her adjustment problems soon turn into a nightmare(噩梦). She discovers that everything can be taken down and used against you, especially by a spouse (配偶) who now considers you an unfit mother and wants to prevent you from ever seeing your child again.
Born in 1955, Douglas Kennedy is the bestselling author of romances such as “The Big Picture”. He is also the author of several praised travel books.
White Hot
Sayre Lynch decided never to return to her hometown Destiny, after she changed her last name and finally escaped from the influence of her controlling father, Huff Hoyle, who owns the iron foundry that the town is built around.
But when Danny, her younger brother, is found dead with a shotgun in his mouth, Sayre unwillingly goes back for his funeral and is annoyed when her father’s handsome lawyer, Beck Merchant, tries to please her.
When the young officer investigating(调查) the case notes that some of the evidence points to murder rather than suicide(自杀), Sayre finds herself unable to leave Destiny. She’s annoyed by Beck’s constant presence, and she is not sure if 
he’s trying to help or throw her off the trail. Nor does she trust her father or her older brother, Chris, who is as prime suspect in Danny’s murder.
As she tries to figure out how the handsome, charming Beck fits into the picture, she finds herself deeply attracted to him.]
Sandra Brown is the author of 51 New York Times top-five bestsellers. She began her writing career in 1981 and has since published 65 novels.From the brief introduction of “A Special Relationship” we can imagine _____.
| A．Sally and Tony’s marriage is pleasant. | B．Sally and Tony may break up. |
| C．Sally and Tony often quarrel about their jobs. | D．Sally is hard to get on with. |
The story of Sally and Tony mainly happens in _____.
| A．America | B．London | C．Cairo | D．Cairo & London |
It can be learned from the passage that______.
| A．Chris killed Danny. | B．Lynch is Sayre’s real family name. |
| C．Huff Hoyle knows who killed Danny. | D．Sayre fell in love with Beck. |
In the introduction of White Hot, the underlined phrase suggests_____.
| A．Sayre thinks Beck has something to do with Danny’s death. |
| B．Sayre thinks Beck is the right person she wants to marry. |
| C．Sayre likes the handsome Beck in the picture. |
| D．Sayre doesn’t know whether Beck likes her. |