One of the latest trends（趋势） in American Childcare is Chinese au pairs．Au Pair in Stamford, Conn, for example, has got increasing numbers of request for Chinese au pairs from aero to around 4, 000 since 2004．And that’s true all across the country．
“I thought it would be useful for him to learn Chinese at an early age” Joseph Stocke, the managing director of a company, says of his 2-year old son．“I would at least like to give him the chance to use the language in the future, ” After only six months of being cared by 25-year-old woman from China, the boy can already understand basic Chinese daily expressions, his dad says．
Li Drake, a Chinese native raising two children in Minnesota with an American husband, had another reason for looking for an au pair from China．She didn’t want her children to miss out on their roots．” Because I am Chinese, my husband and I wanted the children to keep exposed to(接触) the language and culture．” she says．
“Staying with a native speaker is better for children than simply sitting in a classroom, ” says Suzanne Flynn, a professor in language education of Children．”But parents must understand that just one year with au pair is unlikely to produce wonders． Complete mastery demands continued learning until the age of 10 or 12．”
The popularity if au pairs from china has been strengthened by the increasing numbers of American parents who want their children who want their children to learn Chinese．It is expected that American demand for au pairs will continue to rise in the next few years．
What does the term” au pair” in the text mean?
| A．A mother raising her children on her own |
| B．A child learning a foreign language at home |
| C．A professor in language education of children |
| D．A young foreign woman taking care of children． |
Li Drake has her children study Chinese because she wants them ______．
| A．to live in China some day |
| B．to speak the language at home |
| C．to catch up wit other children |
| D．to learn about the Chinese culture |
What can we infer from the text?
| A．Learning Chinese is becoming popular In America, |
| B．Educated woman do better in looking after children |
| C．Chinese au pairs need to improve their English Skills． |
| D．Children can learn a foreign language well in six months． |
In the past industries had more freedom than they have now, and they did not need to be as careful as they must today. They did not need to worry a lot about the safety of the new products that they developed. They did not have to pay much attention to the health and safety of the 
people who worked for them. Often new products were dangerous for the people who used them; often conditions in the work place had very bad effects on the health of the workers.
Of course sometimes there were real disasters which attracted the attention of governments and which showed need for changes. Also scientists who were doing research into the health of workers sometimes produced information which governments could not ignore. At such times, there were inquiries into the causes of the disaster or the problems. New safety rules were often intr
oduced as a result of these inquiries; however，the new rules 
came too late to protect the people who had died or become seriously ill.
Today many governments have special departments which protect customers and workers. In the U.S., for example, there is a department which tests new airplanes and gives warnings about possible problems. It also makes the rules that aircraft producers must follow. Another department controls the foods and drugs that companies sell. A third department looks at the places where people work, and then reports any companies that are breaking laws which protect the health and safety of workers.
According to Paragraph 1, compared with today, industries in the past __________.
| A．were controlled less strictly |
| B．were worse off |
| C．affected more peoples health |
| D．put out more unhealthy products. |
It is implied in Paragraph 2 that years ago governments __________.
| A．paid much attention to the results of scientific discoveries |
| B．seldom introduced safety laws before disasters occurred |
| C．hardly ever looked into the causes of tragedies |
| D．imposed safety rules as soon as disasters occurred |
The main topic of the passage is __________.
| A．industries in the past and at present |
| B．changes in the development of industries |
| C．the protection of industrial workers and customers |
| D．the freedom of industries |
The purpose o
f this passage is to __________.
| A．inform | B．criticize | C．entertain | D．persuade |
The desire to make explorations is born with man. Wherever his imagination goes, man also has a strong wish to go. A large part human history is connected with the exploration of the world in which we live. Again and again people have set out with surprising courage and patience to look into unknown regions and lands to see what had not yet been seen, to make known the unknown. With kites, balloons and aircraft they left the ground to pass through the lower atmosphere. Now the outer space receives their attention.
Why should man take the trouble of conquering space? It is hard to list the specific practical benefits that will result in. But one knows, from past experience in other areas, that man will surely see and discover new things in space that will increase our scientific knowledge, and this new knowledge will find its way into valuable practical uses. What we learn abou
t man himself, from his experience in space, and from the effects of space and the space flight environment on him, will be extremely valuable. The new techniques developed to carry out the exploration of space, and to keep man alive in space, will certainly find practical uses in everyday life 
in some way. The areas that will benefit are manifold. They include communication, generation of power, transportation and travel, food production, materials, fuels and many others. But to say definitely just what the practical results will be is almost impossible.
The main idea of the first paragraph is that __________.
| A．man desires to explore what is unknown |
| B．man often goes wherever his dreams go |
| C．man is no longer interested in the study of the land and sea now |
| D．man’s history is the exploration of the world |
The word “manifold” in the second paragraph probably means __________.
| A．vast | B．various | C．valuable | D．practical |
The author seems to be in favor of__________.
| A．doubting the necessity of the space exploration |
| B．the exploration of space |
| C．exploring more in space than in the sea |
| D．his experience in space |
I travel a lot in my work, and what I dislike about
my job is eating alone. It always makes me feel lonely to see others laughing and talking. So, room service for several nights was a better choice for me.
After having room service three nights at a hotel in Houston, however, I needed to get out of my room. Although the restaurant opened at 6:30, I arrived at 6:25. The waiter at the front desk made a comment(评论) about my “being there really early”. I explained my dislike of eating alone in restaurants. He then seated me at a lovely table and asked me whether I would mind if he sat down with me for a while.
I was glad! He sat and talked with me about his career goals and the difficulty of being at work on nights, weekends and holidays. He said he hadn’t enough time to be with his family. After 15 minutes, he saw some customers at the front desk and excused himself. I noticed that before he went to the fron
t desk, he stopped in the kitchen for a moment.
Then another waiter came out of the kitchen and had a wonderful chat with me. Before I left that night, some other waiters, even the cook, had come out of the kitchen and sat with me! When I asked for my bill about one hour later, all the people who had sat down with me came over in a big group to my table, and presented me with a red rose. And I cried! What had begun as a lonely night ended as a beautif
ul experience.
The author asked for room service because _______.
| A．a lot of money would be saved in this way |
| B．he didn’t like to eat with other people around |
| C．he didn’t wanted to be recognized by the waiters |
| D．seeing people laughing and talking made him feel bad |
How did the waiter feel when he saw the author come in at 6:25?
| A．Dissatisfied. | B．Pleased. | C．Surprised. | D．Angry. |
From the third paragraph, we can learn that the waiter at the front desk ______.
| A．knew how to attract more customers to his restaurant |
| B．found it hard to balance his work and his family |
| C．was getting tired of his present job |
| D．had never had such a chance to talk about his worries |
The author wants to tell us that ______.
| A．people are actually all lonely in their own way |
| B．restaurants should put the need of customers first |
| C．the kindness of strangers can make you less lonely |
| D．restaurants are full of surprises for lonely people |
Ears are for hearing — everyone knows that. But for a creature called the Cuvier’s beaked whale, hearing starts in the throat (喉咙), a new study found.
The observation might help explain how all whales hear. The work might also help scientists understand how animals ar
e affected by underwater sonar (声呐). This sonar, used by some ships, sends out sound waves to locate underwater objects.
The Cuvier’s beaked whale is a so-called toothed whale. Toothed whales dive deep into the ocean in search of food. As the whales hunt, they produce sounds that reach objects and then return to the whales. This allows the animals to “see” the shape, size, and location of objects, even when they’re 1,000 meters under the sea, where it is totally dark.
To better understand how the whale hears, researchers from San Diego State University in California took X rays of two Cuvier’s beaked whales. The whales had died and washed up on the beach.
Ted Cranford and his colleagues used the images to make a computer model of a Cuvier’s beaked whale’s head. Then, they modeled the process of sound traveling through the head.
The researchers knew that some sounds get to the ears of a toothed whale through a structure (构造) called “the window for sound”. Found on the lower jaw, this structure is very thin on the outside and has a large pad (垫) of fat on the inside.
When the researchers used their computer model to work out how sound waves travel in the whale’s head, they were surprised to find that sounds coming from right in front of the whale actually travel under the animal’s jaw. From there, sound waves move through the throat, into a hole in the back of the jaw, and finally to the pad of fat near the animal’s ears.
Toothed whales look for food under the sea by ______.
| A．watching the shape and size of their objects | B．diving deep into the sea |
| C．sending and receiving sounds | D．making lots of noises |
Researchers took X rays of two Cuvier’s beaked whales in order to ______.
| A．find out why they had died and washed up on the beach |
| B．make a computer model of a Cuvier’s beaked whale’s head |
| C．make sure that sound travels through the head |
| D．know more about the way the whale hears |
Which of the following describes the way taken by sound waves through a Cuvier’s beaked whale?
| A．A hole in the back of the jaw → the ears → the jaw → the throat. |
| B． The jaw → the throat → a hole in the back of the jaw → the ears. |
| C． The throat → the jaw → the ears → a hole in the back of the jaw. |
| D．The ears → the throat → a hole in the back of the jaw → the jaw. |
Which of the following is TRUE according to this passage?
| A．The throat is important to the Cuvier’s beaked whale’s hearing. |
| B．Ships send out sound waves like a Cuvier’s beaked whale. |
| C．The ears are actually useless to the Cuvier’s beaked whale. |
| D．The researchers haven’t found how the whales hear. |
A young British sailor was missing at sea yesterday in similar circumstances(情况) to the way his father died five years ago．
The dinghy(救生橡皮船), used to take Richard Smith, 21, to his yacht(快艇), was discovered empty, floating in seas off the Caribbean island. An air and sea search was carried out but he has still not been discovered.
Richard’s mother, Bicknell, said from her home in Hampshire, “It’s so much coincidence(意外). Richard always carried a photograph of his father attached to a poem, which included the date of his disappearance.”
“Now, it’s very strange because all they have found is Richard’s dinghy. We need to know this time what has happened one way or another. If you know at least you can go through the grieving process(悲痛的过程).”
In November 1996, Mr. Smith’s father, Charlie, was sailing in the Tasmen sea between the Australian mainland and the island of Tasmen with his new wife. They lost radio contact with the s
hore and they, together with their yacht were never seen again, and their disappearance remains a mystery.
Richard is described as a talented and experienced sailor. He had sailed to the Caribbean in November to help a yacht race for entertainment. He ended the evening drinking in the Abracbabra bar but left after local police closed it for being too noisy.
About 2 am the following day Richard headed back for his dinghy. He started its motor before giving an elderly woman a lift to her yacht after her dinghy had gone missing. It was the last time he was seen.
Richard Smith was ____ in 2000.
A. ten B. fifteen C
. twenty D. eighteen
People searched for Richard using ____ .
| A．ship only | B．ship and radio | C．ship and plane | D．yacht and car |
. According to the passage，we know Richard died because ____ .
| A．he was a green hand in sailing |
| B．some unknown animal attacked him |
| C．there was a fog in the area he was sailing |
| D．of something we don’t know |
Which statement is NOT true according to this passage?
| A．Old Mr. Smith had lost radio contact with the shore before he died. |
| B．Richard’s father had married two women at least. |
| C．Richard didn’t drink on the evening before he was lost because the policeman closed the bar. |
| D．Richard was seen at about 2 am the day he disappeared. |