Doha, the capital of Qatar，is a city of contrasts(对照). In a few decades it has beentransformed from a small port to an international city. Today, its skyline is shaped by rising skyscrapers, but Old Doha---though fast disappearing---can still be found.
Time seems to stand still in the old quarter of the city. On the dusty streets, Indian and Pakistani men sit cross-legged outside tea shops and restaurants. At one end of the road, men queue by the doorways of crowded supermarkets to buy necessities: boxes of teabags, milk, sugar, bread and soap. The shops are dark and poorly stocked. However, only five miles away, on the other side of the city, Doha shows a completely different image. It shines brilliantly with skyscrapers, five-star hotels and noble apartment buildings. The area looks like any other modem district in the world.
Qatar, a tiny gulf(海湾)nation, is a country of vast local and international ambitions. At home, it has owned several international universities. Abroad, it tries to speak louder on gulf affairs. These ambitions are urged by the country’s unbelievably rich reserves of fossil fuels．In December 2012, Daba was the site of Copl8 UN Climate Change Conference and in 2022，Qatar will host the World Cup.
Mohammed Salim, 55, runs a hair salon in the old part of the city where he works as a hair
dresser．When he came to Doha 22 years ago from Pakistan，he recalls，Doha was a quiet town with few modern buildings．“At that time，Doha seemed rather small．There were no big roads or malls at all.” He has noticed a drop in customers to his salon in recent years．“People now tend to go to more fashionable hair salons in shopping malls．Some day this old area will be gone, and my business will probably be gone, too．I'll be sad. I love here, but things are changing．We can’t ignore it.”What makes Doha become a city of contrasts according to the passage?
| A．The city’s old and modern districts． |
| B．The modern city and the tiny country． |
| C．The city’s past and present conditions． |
| D．The fashionable city and its poor citizens． |
What do we know about the shops in the old quarter of Doha?
| A．They don't have many goods or customers． |
| B．They provide a great variety of luxury goods． |
| C．They are bright big shops crowded with people． |
| D．They look poor and offer fewer choices of goods． |
Qatar tries to speak louder on gulf affairs because______________.
A it has international cities such as Doha
B．it is going to host the World Cup in 2022
C．it has made progress in building universities
D．it is known for its large reserves of natural gasThe author takes the hair salon as an example to show that___________.
| A．people in Doha are fashionable |
| B．the economy in Doha becomes bad |
| C．changes are happening to Old Doha |
| D．Doha used to be an undeveloped town |
Which of the following is true according to the passage?
| A．Old Doha is characterized by rising skyscrapers． |
| B．Doha seemed small in the past as is recalled by Salim． |
| C．Doha will host Copl8 UN Climate Change Conference in 2022． |
| D．The western side of Doha looks more modern than the eastern side. |
In the United States and several other countries, 2.5 million children play baseball in an organization called Little League. They play on teams in their hometowns. Their parents and other adults in the community coach or instruct them and serve as umpires to make sure that everyone follows the rules. Local businesses give money for the ball fields and the uniforms. Local teams compete against each other and the winners get to play teams that are more distant. Eventually, the top teams go to the Little League World Series.
One hundred years after Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839, Little League got started in Pennsylvania. Three men started the game for neighborhood boys with a smaller playing field and fewer innings than adult baseball. Little League became popular after World War II when the game spread across the United States. By 1955 it was played throughout North America and within five years it had spread to Europe. Children’s baseball really caught on in Japan and Taiwan of China and teams from those areas won the World Series seven out of eight years. After this, the organization tried banning foreign teams from the World Series, but the ban came to an end after one year.
At first, Little League was only for boys aged nine to twelve. However, in 1974, the parents of girl baseball players brought a law suit. The courts ruled that Little League had to include both boys and girls. Later Little League added on softball and other games for teenagers up to age eighteen. Occasionally a Little Leaguer becomes a professional player. For example, Gary Carter went from Little League to play nineteen seasons in the Major Leagues, ten of them as an All-Star player. But, by and large, youngsters play baseball for fun and because their parents are proud of them.The mothers and fathers of Little League players ______.
| A．help run the games | B．travel in coaches |
| C．give the teams money | D．play in the World Series |
In what year was Little League established?
| A．1839 | B．1939 | C．1955 | D．1960 |
Why do most players take part in Little League?
| A．To play in the Major League. |
| B．To have fun and please their parents. |
| C．They expect a profit from All-Star games |
| D．They want to learn how to serve as umpires. |
What is true about players today?
| A．Little League is only for neighbourhood boys. |
| B．Girl players have to buy their suits. |
| C．Girls and boys can participate to age eighteen. |
| D．Children can only play until age twelve. |
Dan Bebber is a senior research fellow at the University of Exeter in Britain. He says research has shown that wild plants and animals are moving toward Earth's North and South poles as the planet warms.
Mr Bebber wanted to know if the same thing was happening with organisms that attack agricultural crops. He examined reports of first sightings of new insects and diseases around the world. The records came from CABI - the Centre for Agricultural Bioscience International. He says the group began collecting information from developing and industrialized countries years ago.
Dan Bebber and his research team studied 612 different organisms - from viruses and bacteria to insects like beetles and butterflies. They found that since 1960, crop pests and diseases have been moving toward the poles at an average rate of about 3 kilometers each year. Mr Bebber says this puts the most productive farmland in the world in danger.
"As new species of pests and diseases evolve and potentially the environment for them becomes more amenable at higher latitudes, the pressure on the breadbaskets of the world is going to increase."
Farmers face other threats. Invasive species passed through trade are also causing problems. Gene Kritsky is an Entomologist at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Ohio. He specialises in the study of insects. He says climate change may improve conditions for some invasive species.
“It means that species in other parts of the world that might do well in warmer temperatures can now do well in the breadbasket of America.”
Another Entomologist Christian Krupke of Purdue University says the effects of these changes will depend very much on the crop, the insect and the disease. But he says the research is a warning sign that people should care about climate change and do something about it.The purpose of Dan Bebber’s research was to find ______.
| A．if farmland could be moved to colder places thanks to global warming |
| B．if diseases and insects harmful to crops were going towards colder areas |
| C．if organisms were moving to the north and south poles |
| D．if the number of crop pests was increasing |
According to Dan Bebber, if crop pests keep moving towards the poles, ______.
| A．it will be hard for farmers to kill them |
| B．the most productive farmland will produce more crops |
| C．the earth will not produce enough food to support the world |
| D．the conditions for some crops may be improved |
Which of the following is not a threat that farmers have to face?
| A．Climate change helps crop pests to adapt to new environment. |
| B．Foreign species are brought in by trade. |
| C．Invasive species doing well in warmer places might do well in America. |
| D．The impacts of the climate and species changes on crops are not easy to determine. |
The underlined word “amenable” in the fourth paragraph most probably means ______.
| A．agreeable | B．terrible | C．unfriendly | D．changeable |
Sam, an unemployed piano tuner, said it was only the second thing he had ever won in his life. The first thing was an Afghan blanket at a church raffle when he was 25 years old. But this was much bigger: it was $120,000! He had won the Big Cube, a state lottery game. To win, a contestant must first guess which number a spinning cube will stop on. The cube has six numbers on it: 1X, 10X, 50X, 100X, 500X, and 1000X. If he is correct, the contestant must then guess which of two selected variables is going to be greater. So, just guessing which number appears on the cube does not guarantee that you will win any money. Sam correctly guessed 1000X, but he still had to choose between two variables. One variable was the number of cars that would run the stop sign at Hill Street and Lake Avenue in six hours. The other variable was the number of times that a teenage boy would change TV channels in a three-hour period. This was a tough decision.
Finally, Sam flipped a coin. It came up heads, so Sam picked the teenager. He picked right. The stop sign was run only 76 times, but the teen clicked 120 times. Sixty-year-old Sam jumped for joy, for he had just won 1000 times 120, or $120,000. Sam dreamily left the lottery studio. Talking excitedly on his cell phone while crossing the street, he got hit by a little sports car.
Sam is slowly getting better. He was in the hospital for a month. His hospital bill was $110,000. And the insurance company for the little sports car's owner sued Sam for $9,000 worth of repairs. Also, Sam still has to pay federal taxes on his winnings. Sam doesn't play the state lottery any more. He says it's better to be unlucky. When Sam won the second thing that he’d won in his life, he was ______.
| A．25 years old |
| B．six years old |
| C．76 years old |
| D．sixty years old |
To win the game, the contestants had to make ______ guesses.
| A．three | B．two | C．six | D．four |
Sam won the lottery because ______.
| A．he was lucky | B．he was good at math |
| C．he was smart | D．he was tough |
Sam’s experience shows that ______
| A．everything has its time and that time must be watched. |
| B．he who risks nothing, gains nothing. |
| C．everything comes to him who waits. |
| D．he who laughs on Friday will weep on Sunday. |
In July 1994 Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, was struck by 21 pieces of a comet（彗星）. When the fragment（碎片）landed in the southern part of the giant planet, the explosions were watched by scientists here on earth. But what if our own planet was hit by a comet?
The year is 2094. It has been announced that a comet is heading towards the Earth. Most of it will miss our plant, but two fragments will probably hit the southern part of the Earth. The news has caused panic.
On 17 July, a fragment four kilometers wide enters the Earth’s atmosphere with a huge explosion. About half of the fragment is destroyed. But the major part survives and hits the South Atlantic at 200 times the speed of sound. The sea boils and an enormous wave is created and spreads. The wall of water rushes towards southern Africa at 800 kilometers an hour. Cities on the African coast are totally destroyed and millions of people are drowned. The wave moves into the Indian Ocean and heads towards Asia.
Millions of people are already dead in the southern part of the Earth, but the north won’t escape for long. Tons of broken pieces are thrown into the atmosphere by the explosions. As the sun is hidden by clouds of dust, temperatures around the world fall to almost zero. Crops are ruined. Wars break out as countries fight for food. A year later civilization has collapsed. No more than 10 million people have survived.
Could it really happen? In fact, it has already happened more than once in the history of the Earth. The dinosaurs（恐龙）were on the Earth for over 160 million years. Then 65 million years ago they suddenly disappeared. Many scientists believe that the Earth was hit by a space fragment. The dinosaurs couldn’t survive in the cold climate that followed and they became extinct. Will we meet the same end?Which of the following is NOT TRUE according to the author’s description of the disaster in 2094?
| A．The whole world becomes extremely cold. |
| B．All the coastal cities in African are destroyed. |
| C．The whole mankind becomes extinct. |
| D．The visit of the comet results in wars. |
Why does the author mention dinosaurs at the end of the passage?
| A．Because they could only live in the warm climate. |
| B．Because they once ruled the Earth. |
| C．Because their extinction shows future disasters. |
| D．Because dinosaurs and humans never live in the same age. |
In writing the passage, the author intends to_________.
| A．give an accurate description of the possible disaster in the future |
| B．prove that humans will sooner or later be destroyed |
| C．tell the historical development of the Earth |
| D．warn of a possible disaster in the future |
It can be concluded that the passage is most probably part of a(n)________.
| A．terror story | B．news report |
| C．research paper | D．article of popular science |
One evening after dinner, Mr. and Mrs. Tisich called a family meeting. “We’ve had to make a difficult decision,” Mr. Tisich announced. “You see, your mother has been offered a post as co-director of a television station in Chicago. Unfortunately, the station is not here. After thinking long and hard about it, we’ve concluded that the right decision is to move to Chicago.” Marc looked shocked, while his sister Rachel breathlessly started asking when they’d be moving. “It’s surprising, but exciting!” she said. Marc simply said, “We can’t go—I can’t leave all my friends. I’d rather stay here and live with Tommy Lyons!”
The Tisichs hoped that by the time they moved in August, Marc would grow more used to the idea of leaving. However, he showed no signs of accepting the news, refusing to pack his belongings. When the morning of the move arrived, Marc was nowhere to be found. His parents called Tommy Lyon’s house, but Mrs. Lyons said she hadn’t seen Marc. Mrs. Tisich became increasingly concerned, while her husband felt angry with their son for behaving so irresponsibly.
What they didn’t know was that Marc had started walking over to Tommy’s house, with a faint idea of hiding in Lyons’s attic(阁楼) for a few days. But something happened on the way as Marc walked past all the familiar landscape of the neighborhood: the fence that he and his mother painted, the tree that he and his sister used to climb, the park where he and his father often took evening walks together. How much would these mean without his family, who make them special in the first place? Marc didn’t take the time to answer that question but instead hurried back to his house, wondering if there were any moving cartons(纸板箱)the right size to hold his record collection.The conflict(冲突) in this story was caused by_________.
| A．Marc and Rachel’s different attitudes |
| B．a quarrel between Tommy Lyons and Marc |
| C．Marc’s disagreement with his parents about their move |
| D．Mr. And Mrs. Tisich’s comment of Marc’s irresponsibility |
Marc and Rachel’s reactions to the move were similar in the way that both were________.
| A．surprised | B．angry and upset |
| C．anxious for more details | D．worried about pacing |
The reason for Marc’s going home was that_________.
| A．he did not want to be left behind |
| B．he realized his family was important to him |
| C．he hoped to reach an agreement with his parents |
| D．he wished to be a more responsible person |
What would most likely happen next?
| A．Marc would bring his records over to the Lyons’s house. |
| B．Mr. and Mrs. Tisich would call the police. |
| C．Marc would join his family for house moving. |
| D．Mr. and Mrs. Tisich would start searching for Marc. |