POETRYCHALLENGEWriteapoemabout-优题课

Planet Earth would be a scary place for humans if dinosaurs still ruled the world.
Though there are still some traces of life from the Jurassic Period, the Age of Dinosaurs more than 65 million years ago.
This mass extinction is believed to be the result of an asteriod（小行星）hitting Earth. A new report by the journal Biological Reviews called " The Extinction of Dinosaurs” concludes that this impact was, indeed, the cause of the dinosaurs’demise. But the space blast(爆炸) wasn't the only reason these creatures aren't still around today.
Dinosaurs need food to survive. Meat-eating monsters like the Tyrannosaurus Rex(霸王龙) were at the top of the food chain, and fed off plant eaters like the horned Triceratops (三角恐龙). These herbivores (食草动物) were decreasing in population after the asteroid hit Earth, which left the meat-eating species less food to survive on. “In any ecosystem where you remove links to key species, that community has problems," Richard Butler, one of the review's authors, told National Ceographic.
While the herbivore population was going down, Earth's temperatures were rising when volcanoes erupted. Hot vapors and gases began wiping out some of the dinosaur population and weakening the survivors.
These changes made the asteroid's impact especially powerful. It caused more volcanoes to erupt, heated up Earth's atmosphere, and led to a sharp drop in the level of oxygen in the oceans.
With the dinosaurs gone, mammals(哺乳动物) began to evolve into bigger and more diverse species. Many animals we see today, like birds, sharks, and even some cats and dogs, appeared after the asteroid hit Earth. But none rule Earth quite like the dinosaurs did..
Which of the following words can replace the underlined word“demise” in Paragraph 2?

A．Death.	B．Evolvement.
C．Presence.	D．Decrease.

You may not pay much attention to your daily elevator ride. Many of us use a lift several times during the day without really thinking about it. But Lee Gray, PhD, of the University of North Carolina, US, has made it his business to examine this overlooked form of public transport. He is known as the “Elevator Guy”.
“The lift becomes this interesting social space where etiquette（礼仪）is sort of strange,” Gray told the BBC. “They are socially very interesting but often very awkward places.”
We walk in and usually turn around to face the door. If someone else comes in, we may have to move. And here, according to Gray, liftusers unthinkingly go through a set pattern of movements. He told the BBC what he had observed.
He explained that when you are the only one inside a lift, you can do whatever you want – it’s your own little box.
If there are two of you, you go into different corners, standing diagonally（对角线地）across from each other to create distance.
When a third person enters, you will unconsciously form a triangle. And when there is a fourth person it becomes a square, with someone in every corner. A fifth person is probably going to have to stand in the middle.
New entrants to the lift will need to size up the situation when the doors slide open and then act decisively. Once in, for most people the rule is simple – look down, or look at your phone.
Why are we so awkward in lifts?
“You don’t have enough space,” Professor Babette Renneberg, a clinical psychologist at the Free University of Berlin, told the BBC. “Usually when we meet other people we have about an arm’s length of distance between us. And that’s not possible in most elevators.”
In such a small, enclosed space it becomes very important to act in a way that cannot be construed（理解）as threatening or strange. “The easiest way to do this is to avoid eye contact,” she said.
The underlined phrase “size up” in Paragraph 7 is closest in meaning to _______.
A. judge B. ignore
C. put up with D. make the best of

Scientists today are making greater effort to study ocean currents (洋流) . Most do it using satellites and other high-tech equipment. However, ocean expert Curtis Ebbesmeyer does it in a special way -- by studying movements of random floating garbage. A scientist with many years’ experience, he started this type of research in the early 1990s when he heard about hundreds of athletic shoes washing up on the shores of the northwest coast of the United States. There were so many shoes that people were setting up swap meets to try and match left and right shoes to sell or wear.
Ebbesmeyer found out in his researches that the shoes — about 60,000 in total — fell into the ocean in a shipping accident. He phoned the shoe company and asked if they wanted the shoes back. As expected, the company told him that they didn't. Ebbesmeyer realized this could be a great experiment. If he learned when and where the shoes went into the water and tracked where they landed, he could learn a lot about the patterns of ocean currents.
The Pacific Northwest is one of the world's best areas for beachcombing(海滩搜寻) because winds and currents join here, and as a result, there is a group of serious beachcombers in the area. Ebbesmeyer got to know a lot of them and asked for their help in collecting information about where the shoes landed. In a year he collected reliable information on 1, 600 shoes. With this data, he and a colleague were able to test and improve a computer program designed to model ocean currents, and publish the findings of their study.
As the result of his work, Ebbesmeyer has become known as the scientist to call with questions about any unusual objects found floating in the ocean. He has even started an association of beachcombers and ocean experts, with 500 subscribers from West Africa to New Zealand. They have recorded all lost objects ranging from potatoes to golf gloves.
The underlined phrase swap meets in Paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to ______________.

A．fitting rooms

B．trading fairs

C．business talks

D．group meetings

（一）
Arriving in Sydney on his own from India, my husband ,Rashid, stayed in a hotel for a short time while looking for a house for me and our children.
During the first week of his stay, he went out one day to do some shopping. He came back in the late afternoon to discover that his suitcase was gone. He was extremely worried as the suitcase had all his important papers, including his passport.
He reported the case to the police and then sat there，lost and lonely in strange city, thinking of the terrible troubles of getting all the paperwork organized again from a distant country while trying to settle down in a new one.
Late in the evening, the phone rang. It was a stranger. He was trying to pronounce my husband’s name and was asking him a lot of questions. Then he said they had found a pile of papers in their trash can（垃圾桶）that had been left out on the footpath.
My husband rushed to their home to find a kind family holding all his papers and documents. Their young daughter had gone to the trash can and found a pile of unfamiliar papers. Her parents had carefully sorted them out, although they had found mainly foreign addresses on most of the documents. At last they had seen a half-written letter in the pile in which my husband had given his new telephone number to a friend.
That family not only restored the important documents to us that day but also restored our faith and trust in people. We still remember their kindness and often send a warm wish their way.
What does the underlined word “restored” in the last paragraph mean?

A．Showed

B．Sent out

C．Delivered

D．Gave back

Though I have traveled in hundreds of trains, few unusual things have ever happened to me. But one day in a train something did happen. I do not mean that I was hurt: no one was hurt.
I do my work in a hot country far away from England. Every September I go there to do my business, and every July I come back to England to have a rest. So every September I go to Paris and take a train from the great French city to Mendova, and at Mendova I catch my ship.
There is one very fast train from Paris to Mendova, and it suits me well. It goes as far as Endoran, but it stops at Mendova for a few minutes to let travelers get out or in. It is called The Flying Bluebird. It reaches Mendova at seven minutes past nine in the morning, and it is never late.
A ship leaves Mendova at half past eleven, and so you will understand that The Flying Bluebird suits me very well. I always travel by it, and I have nearly two and a half hours at Mendova to go from the station to the ship. That is more than enough time.
Well, one September night, I took my place in The Flying Bluebird as usual. The train leaves Paris at nine o’clock every night, and I was in my place soon after half past eight. There were three or four people there with me, but very soon a lot of others got into the train. When no more people could sit down, they began to stand up near us and also in the corridor(走廊). In a short time the corridor was full too, and it was impossible for any more travelers to get into the train.
I could see a lot of other people outside the corridor windows, but they could not get in, and the train left Paris without them. The man sitting next to me started to ask all kinds of questions: “Where do you work? How long does it take you to get there? Are you married? How many children do you have? How much money do they pay you every year? How much do you have in the bank? How much do you spend every month?”
He asked questions for about twenty minutes but I did not give him any clear answers, and at last he stopped and began to read the paper.
I usually sleep quite well in the train, but this time I slept only a little. There were too many people, and there were too many things: small bags, large bags, coats, hats, boxes, newspapers and food. As usual, we got angry about the window. Most people wanted it shut, and two of us wanted it open. But that always happens. It was shut all night, as usual.
When I awoke in the early morning I felt hot and dirty, and glad that the journey was reaching its end. At seven minutes past nine The Flying Bluebird stopped. We were at Mendova, and I stood up thankfully. I took my two suitcases, held one in each hand, and tried to move towards the door into the corridor. In order to get out of the train, I had to pass down the corridor to the door at the far end. There was no other way out.
I could not even into the corridor. There was a suitcase on the floor by my feet, and three men were standing in my way. I felt a touch of fear. I had to get out, you see; I had to catch my ship, which left at half past eleven. And the train did not stop again until it reached Endoran, two hundred miles away.
“I must get out!” I cried. Everyone there understood me, but no one could move.
At last I was able to put one foot over the suitcase on the floor, and I nearly reached the door into the corridor. But then, very slowly, the train began to move. It was taking me away!
“Stop!” I cried. “I want to get out!” But no one outside the train could hear me, and the people inside did not care much. The train moved a little faster. What could I do? I was not even in the corridor.
Fear made me think quickly. In front of my eyes, just, above the door, was a notice that told everyone how to stop the train. I had to pull an iron thing near the notice. I did not waste time. I pulled it.
Well, a noise started above our heads. That was to show everyone that there was something wrong. It was not a small sound. Possibly the men in my ship two miles away could hear it. Then the train stopped.
No one likes to stop a train if there is no need. But I had to catch my ship. That was the only thought in my mind: to get out and catch my ship.
What do we know about the author and the man sitting next to him?

A．The author didn’t like the man’s foolish questions

B．They talked with each other all night

C．They got angry about the window

D．The author didn’t understand the man’s words

On this journey on The Flying Bluebird, the author felt uncomfortable because _______.

A．he couldn’t find a seat by the window

B．he was angry with the man sitting next to him

C．the window was kept shut all night

D．there were too many people on the train

It can be learned from Para.10 that the author was afraid that ______.

A．he would have to spend another sleepless night on the train

B．more people might crowd into the train

C．he would miss the ship that went where he worked

D．he would have to buy another ticket

The noise in the underlined sentence “a noise started above our heads”(Para.15) was made by ________.

A．the angry passengers shouting at the top of their voices

B．the ship that was lying two miles away

C．the falling of boxes and suitcases to the floor

D．the train itself telling people that something was wrong

A．	A plane ticket．
B．	A book by Corinne Szabo．
C．	A special T﹣shirt．
D．	A photo of Amelia Earhart．

A．	Typing your poem out．
B．	Writing a poem of 120 words．
C．	Using both sides of the paper．
D．	Mailing your entry on October 30．

A．	Two．
B．	Three．
C．	Four．
D．	Six．