The 87th Academy Award nominations(提名) were announced on Jan 15, and The Grand Budapest Hotel stood out as a favorite with nine nominations, including Best Picture. Check out some other Best Picture nominees to see if you missed any of last year’s top Hollywood films.
The Imitation Game
This historical thriller is about British computer scientist, Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch), the father of artificial intelligence. At the start of World War II, Turing was asked to join a select team of mathematical geniuses to decode（解码） the system the Nazis used to send military messages. Besides the actual breaking of the code, Cumberbatch’s portrayal（扮演）of Turing’s personality, a mixture of decency（正派）and shyness, is also a highlight of the movie.
Birdman
This dark comedy film is about how Riggan Thomson, a faded star once famous for his superhero roles, struggles to regain fame. American actor Michael Keaton, 63, who has a similar experience to Thomson’s, plays the leading role.
Selma
A stellar cast(主要演员) including talk show queen Oprah Winfrey may be one reason to see Selma. But that the film focuses on Martin Luther King Jr.’s struggle for civil rights also makes it worth viewing. Based on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches, the film is a chronicle(编年史) of King’s (David Oyelowo) campaign for political rights for African-American people.
The Theory of Everything
We know English theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking for his significant scientific discoveries, especially his black hole theories. This biographical film reveals the scientist’s (played by Eddie Redmayne) secret romantic relationship with Jane Hawking (Felicity Jones), whom he meets and falls in love with at Cambridge and who later becomes his first wife.
Boyhood
American Director Richard Linklater did an experiment in this film, using the same cast for 12 years to record a boy’s growth. In two and a half hours, we see Mason, a Texas boy from a divorced family, grow from 6-year-old boy to a freshman in college. How many Best Picture nominees are mentioned in the text?
| A．Five | B．Six | C．Eight | D．Nine |
Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the text?
| A．Michael Keaton became famous overnight after starring in the movie Birdman. |
| B．Alan Turing is a talented and outgoing man in The Imitation Game. |
| C．Selma is the story of Martin Luther King Jr.’s fight for voting rights for African-Americans. |
| D．The Theory of Everything is about how Stephen Hawking discovered his black hole theories. |
What is Boyhood mainly about?
| A．How Richard Linklater did his decade-long experiment. |
| B．The wonderful life of Mason. |
| C．The growth of a young boy. |
| D．How Mason spent his college years. |
What is the main purpose of the text?
| A．To analyze why these films were nominated for the 87th Academy Awards. |
| B．To give a brief introduction to the 87th Academy Award nominees. |
| C．To list some of the best nominees in the Academy Awards’ history. |
| D．To prove that the Academy Award nominees cover a broad range of topics. |
Texting is a great way to communicate and teenagers are doing just that. New research shows that on average, teens are sending 2,000 text messages a month, and doctors say it’s causing injuries.
13-year-old Bailey Baker keeps using her thumbs, sending text messages to her friends again and again. The past March may have been her best month ever, texting 8,000 times. Now, she says she’s feeling the pain. “Just mainly back and neck problems and thumb numbness,” she says.
Baylor-Garland Dr. Jane Sadler is seeing more and more teens who simply text until it hurts. She says parents, including Bailey’s mom, have no idea how much their kids are texting. “I was thinking she was texting about 25 texts a day,” says Lisa Baker. “Wrong! We’ve uncovered a problem.” It didn’t take Dr. Sadler long to find the problem. She gave Bailey the once-over and learnt that Bailey had developed Texting Teen Tendinitis(肌腱炎)
“A lot of them report pain in their thumbs, back and neck,” says Dr. Sadler. “When we look into it 
and examine a little bit further, we see texting is the main cause of the problem.” Dr. Sadler says back pain is caused by poor posture while texting. Bailey often texts for up to 2 hours a day; that’s a lot of wear and tear on the thumbs which over time, can break down. Dr. Sadler tells over-texting teens to look into the future. “What I tell them is ‘Hey, you might be normal now, but when you are 40 or 50, you can get arthritis (关节炎).’”
Dr. Sadler recommends limiting texting to 50 a day, and keeping good posture. Dr. Sadler also says touch screens are easier on the thumbs than keyboards and hand exercises are great to build up those muscles, making it easier to text.
1. How many text messages did Bailey Baker send a day on average last month?
A. Less than 226. B. About 230. C. About 267. D. More than 300.
2. Because of texting, Bailey Baker suffers from the following problems EXCEPT ______.
A. back pain B. neck pain C. headache D. thumb numbness
3. What does the underlined part in Paragraph 3 mean?
A. She gave Bailey Baker a quick examination.
B. She solved Bailey Baker’s problem at once.
C. She gave Bailey Baker a piece of advice.
D. She let Bailey Baker send a text message again.
4. What can we conclude from Paragraph 4?
A. Teenagers won’t get hurt if they stop texting right now.
B. Poor posture while texting is the main cause of injuries.
C. Thumbs won’t ache if teens text for no more than 2 hours a day.
D. Over-texting may have a bad effect on people in the long run.
IV. 阅读理解（30%）
The future is time that is to come. The future is not the present or the past. It is later. We have seen many possible futures in science fiction. They range from the world’s polar ice caps melting to nuclear winters. But not all futures are this morbid. We have seen the human race spread all over our universe, humans and aliens living in harmony together all over the universe.
It is very likely that we will make some kind of breakthrough in our ability to travel through space sometime in the next 150 years. This would give us the ability to rule other planets. Ultimately, the earth will die whether it be 1,000 years or 100,000 years. We will be forced to move to another planet then. It’s really just a matter of time. When we do so, what will we discover?
Personally, I think everyone will be speaking the same language in 200 years. A world government definitely seems to be in our future. It is stable and has few wars. Indeed, the only type of wars that can happen is the civil war.
And what if we face aliens? If they are friendly, we would probably benefit a lot from putting our knowledge together. They must have advanced technology to travel for great distances. We could seriously benefit from their technology. But if they aren’t friendly, then we are in trouble. Hope that we have become advanced enough, smart enough, and generally a better race by the time we meet them. But this is all probably being discussed for nothing, because any race out there among the stars is probably as curious as we are about other creatures.
1. The underlined word in Paragraph 1 can be replaced by ___________.
A. unpleasant B. shocking C. expected D. serious
2. What will humans do if the earth dies?
A. Humans have to face death. B. Humans will travel and live in space.
C. Humans will move to another planet. D. Humans will go back to the past time.
3. According to the author, the following statements are right about aliens EXCEPT that _________.
A. we can learn from aliens if they are friendly
B. when aliens arrive, humans will be smarter than them
C. aliens may be as curious as we human beings about other planets
D. aliens have more advanced technology than us
4. After reading the passage, we can know that the passage is based on_________.
A. scientific facts B. time and space
C. advanced technology D. the author’s imagination
第三部分阅读理解（共20小题：每小题2.5分，满分50分）
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项。
Today, as in every other day of the year, more than 3000 U.S. adolescents will smoke their first cigarette on their way to becoming regular smokers as adults. During their lifetime, it can be expected that of these 3000 about 23 will be murdered, 30 will die in traffic accidents, and nearly 750 will be killed by a smoking-related disease. The number of deaths attributed to cigarette smoking outweighs all other factors, whether voluntary or involuntary, as a cause of death.
Since the late 1970s, when daily smoking among high school seniors reached 30 percent, smoking rates among youth have declined. While the decline is impressive, several important issues must be raised.
First, in the past several years, smoking rates among youth have declined very little. Second, in the late 1970s, smoking among male high school seniors exceeded that among female by nearly 10 percent. The statistic is reversing. Third, several recent studies have indicated high school dropouts have excessively high smoking rates, as much as 75 percent.
Finally, though significant declines in adolescent smoking have occurred in the past decade, no definite reasons for the decline exist. Within this context, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) began its current effort to determine the most effective measures to reduce smoking levels among youth.
36. According to the author, the deaths among youth are mainly caused by __________.
A. traffic accidents B. smoking-related disease
C. murder D. all of these
37. Every day there are over ______ high school students who will become regular smokers.
A. 750 B. 23 C. 30 D. 3000
38. By “dropout” the author means __________.
A. students who failed the examination B. students who left school
C. students who lost their way D. students who were driven out of school
39. The reason for declining adolescent smoking is that __________.
A. NCI has taken effective measures
B. smoking is prevented among high school seniors
C. there are many smokers who have died of cancer
D. none of these
40. What is implied but not stated by the author is that __________.
A. smoking rates among youth have declined very little
B. there are now more female than male smokers among high school seniors
C. high smoking rates are due to the increase in wealth
D. smoking at high school is from low socio-economic backgrounds
Poorer children would be offered the chance to attend lessons on Saturday to help catch up with their middle class peers (同龄人), the shadow schools secretary, Michael Gove, said today. The Conservatives would give English state schools the freedom to choose to have longer teaching hours and extra classes at the weekend, he told the Association of Teachers and Lecturers’ annual conference.
Gove said the move would help to close the achievement gap with richer children whose parents could afford extras such as tutoring and music lessons.
He told delegates (代表) in Manchester: “For children who come from homes where parents don’t have the resources to provide additional stretch and cultural experiences, there are benefits in having those children in the learning environment, in school, for longer.”
“Parents would love to have schools starting earlier in some circumstances, and certainly going on later in the afternoon, given the reality of their working lives,” he said. He held up the example of Kipp (Knowledge is Power Program) schools in the US, which are often based in the poorest communities and open from 7:30 am to 5pm on weekdays, plus Saturdays.
But it would be up to schools to decide to offer longer hours, Gove added.
Parents said Saturday classes could become a “badge of dishonor” if pupils were forced to go, while teachers raised concerns about their workload.
Margaret Morrissey, of Parents Outloud, said: “I think the suggestion the government made about one-to-one teaching for these kids would be a more preferable way of improving these children’s performance. I’m just not sure whether taking away a child at weekends is actually going to make them cleverer in the week.”
The ATL’s general secretary, Mary Bousted, said: “If we want Saturday schools, then we need more teachers doing the extra hours, not the same teachers working longer.”
51. The program is intended for children____________.
A. who are from middle-class families
B. whose parents can’t afford extra help
C. who perform poorly academically
D. whose weekends are mostly unoccupied
52. “Additional stretch” in Paragraph 4 probably refers to_________.
A. music lessons
B. physical relaxation
C. entertainment activities
D. out-of-school improvement
53. Why did Gove mention Kipp schools in the US?
A. To make a comparison.
B. To introduce a new program.
C. To seek supportive evidence.
D. To prove his program is better.
54. What is Margaret Morrissey’s opinion about the new program?
A. Favorable. B. Doubtful. C. Optimistic. D. Acceptable.
55. Which of the following is true?
A. Teachers may not like the program. B. Schools are trying to make profits.
C. The program is already under way. D. The program is popular with children.
Across the United States, there are several places where two independent towns grew together to become one city ---- but kept both their names.
Winston-Salem is one of them. It’s a mid-sized city in what’s called the plateau（high land）, between the Atlantic Coast and the inland mountains in the state of North Carolina. The Winston part is a relatively new place, founded early this century. It’s home to the nation’s biggest open-air tobacco market.
The giant R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company’s headquarters is in Winston-Salem, and Winston is the name of one of Reynolds’ best-known cigarette brands. Fast-growing Winston soon surrounded the much older town of Salem, so in 1913, people in the area voted to combine them into a single place.
From a historical and tourist point of view, Salem, or Old Salem, as it’s called today, is the interesting and unusual part of town.
Salem was founded in the 1700s by the Moravians. They spoke German, and their community was religiously based, with single men and single women living apart in separate dormitories. The Moravians greatly valued women’s work and brainpower. In fact, one of the nation’s oldest boarding schools for young women— the Moravians’ Salem Academy founded in 1772 — is still in operation.
Over the years, Salem lost its Moravian character. That all changed, though, when a nonprofit group began to rehabilitate the historic area. These days Old Salem is what’s called a living history museum, with exhibits, music, and tours of 18th-century houses, taverns and Moravian dormitory buildings just seven blocks from the tallest skyscraper in Winston-Salem.
The historic community is booming again. Just as R. J. Reynolds is taking in millions of dollars making cigarettes across town, Old Salem is generating about $ 115 million a year in tourism revenue and donations.
46. From the passage we can know that____________.
A. Winston-Salem is the name of a city
B. Salem is home to the tobacco market
C. the city Winston-Salem has two names
D. Old Salem is the name of a tobacco brand
47. It can be inferred from Paragraph 3 that__________.
A. the two cities benefited each other
B. Salem developed faster than Winston
C. R.J. Reynolds Company has moved into Salem
D. the combination meets the wishes of the people
48. The city Salem is special for its__________.
A. boarding school B. lifestyle and tradition
C. respect for brainpower D. religious belief
49. The underlined word “rehabilitate” in Paragraph 6 is closest in meaning to “_______”.
A. reconstruct B. evaluate C. enlarge D. decorate
50. What will probably be talked about in the following part?
A. Some other attractions in Winston-Salem.
B. How Winston makes profits from tourism.
C. Other examples of cities combined by two parts.
D. Something about the boarding school for women.