A new collection of photos brings an unsuccessful Antarctic voyage back to life.
Frank Hurley's pictures would be outstanding----undoubtedly first-rate photo-journalism---if they had been made last week. In fact, they were shot from 1914 through 1916, most of them after a disastrous shipwreck(海滩), by a cameraman who had no reasonable expectation of survival. Many of the images were stored in an ice chest, under freezing water, in the damaged wooden ship.
The ship was the Endurance, a small, tight, Norwegian-built three-master that was intended to take Sir Ernest Shackleton and a small crew of seamen and scientists, 27 men in all, to the southernmost shore of Antarctica's Weddell Sea. From that point Shackleton wanted to force a passage by dog sled(雪橇) across the continent. The journey was intended to achieve more than what Captain Robert Falcon Scott had done. Captain Scott had reached the South Pole early in 1912 but had died with his four companions on the march back.
As writer Caroline Alexander makes clear in her forceful and well-researched story The Endurance, adventuring was even then a thoroughly commercial effort. Scott's last journey, completed as be lay in a tent dying of cold and hunger, caught the world's imagination, and a film made in his honor drew crowds. Shackleton, a onetime British merchant-navy officer who had got to within 100 miles of the South Pole in 1908, started a business before his 1914 voyage to make money from movie and still photography. Frank Hurley, a confident and gifted Australian photographer who knew the Antarctic, was hired to make the images, most of which have never before been published.
13. What do we know about the photos taken by Hurley?
| A． |
They were made last week |
| B． |
They showed undersea sceneries |
| C． |
They were found by a cameraman |
| D． |
They recorded a disastrous adventure |
14. Who reached the South Pole first according to the text?
| A． |
Frank Hurley |
B． |
Ernest Shackleton |
| C． |
Robert Falcon Scott |
D． |
Caroline Alexander |
15. What does Alexander think was the purpose of the 1914 voyage?
| A． |
Artistic creation |
B． |
Scientific research |
| C． |
Money making |
D． |
Treasure hunting |
.
Beijing plans to build huge free or low-cost parking lots beyond the Fourth and Fifth Ring Roads to encourage more car owners to take buses or subways to the downtown area.
The plan is just one of the many measures the city plans to take to reduce its traffic jams. Low or no parking fees would be used as economic leverage（杠杆作用）to reduce growing parking demands from urban areas.
Car owners living in the suburbs will be encouraged to park their cars beyond the Fourth and Fifth Ring Roads and take buses or subways to the downtown area. Statistics show that nearly one quarter of the city’s traffic flow is concentrated in the 62-square-kilometre downtown area within the Second Ring Road, which makes up only 12 percent of the city’s total area.
The Beijing Traffic Management Bureau receives between 400 and 500 calls reporting traffic jams every day and more than 90 percent of the roads are filled to capacity during rush hour every morning and evening. Part of the problem is the lack of easy links between bus routes, subways and cars.
According to the communication commission, half of the city’s investment in transportation will go towards public transit（公共交通）construction in the next few years, making a jump from the current only 20 percent. Moreover, Beijing plans to change its layout（布局）by building new city centers, such as at Yizhuang, Tongzhou, Shunyi and Changping, in a bid to reduce the traffic flow to the downtown.
The current layout of Beijing-expanded ring roads around the same center of the Forbidden City, is seen as the root cause of the endless traffic jams. The downtown area is crowded with three business centers and one financial centre, as well as nearly 400 government organs and institutions.
Traffic experts say building more urban centers around Beijing may reduce the number of residents living in the suburbs and traveling long distances to work downtown every day, thus reducing traffic flow.
40. In the coming years, if a man beyond the Fourth Ring Road goes to work in the
downtown of Beijing, he is encouraged to _______.
A. take buses or subways
B. take a taxi
C. drive the car quickly
D. park his car in a place which asks for no fees
41. According to this passage, when more and more people drive to work in rush hour in Beijing, it is likely to ________.
A. save time B. cause traffic jams
C. cause traffic accidents D. reduce air pollution
42. The aim in building new city centers is to ________.
A. make it convenient for people to go shopping
B. develop its local resources
C. reduce the traffic flow to the downtown
D. solve the problem of more laid-off workers
43. The passage suggests the author _________.
A. is tired of driving to work
B. finds it costs less to take subways than to drive
C. is for the plan to reduce Beijing’s traffic congestion（拥挤）
D. has benefited a lot by driving to the downtown every day
.
第二部分阅读理解（共两节，满分40分）
第一节（共15小题：每小题2分，满分30分）
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项。
Heather Mills McCartney lives an admirable life, attending celebrity parties, meeting regularly with the rich and famous and doing meaningful work for charity. All who work with her admire and respect her. But Heather’s life hasn’t always been so easy. When Heather was only 9 years old, her mother abandoned her and her two brothers. At the age of 13, she ran away from home and ended up living on the streets in London. Eventually, however, her exceptional beauty led to a career in modeling. At that time, Heather also began helping with the war relief efforts in former Yugoslavia. Through her modeling and relief work, she soon became famous.
But in August 1993, at age 25 her life changed once again. She was crossing the street in London when a motorcycle crashed into her. She was so badly injured that the doctors had to cut off her left leg. After that, she discovered she frequently needed to change her artificial limbs (假肢). It was expensive and she felt it was a waste to just throw away the old one. It occurred to her to set up an organization that could deliver used artificial limbs to Yugoslavia and other war-torn countries. It was through her charity work that she met her husband Paul McCartney.
Throughout her life, Heather has risen above problems and focused on helping others. Her work with artificial limbs even earned her a nomination (提名) for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996. Heather’s persistence and determination are what impresses anyone who knows her. Heather believes anyone can make a positive difference in the world.
36.This passage is mainly about _________.
A. Heather’s miserable life
B. Heather’s contribution to the world
C. Heather’s success in her work
D. Heather’s belief in life
37. Heather began her modeling career _________.
A. due to her mother’s encouragement
B. after her brothers abandoned her
C. because of her excellent intelligence and performances
D. because she was especially beautiful
38. Which of the following is Not true according to the passage?
A. Heather won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996.
B. Heather began her charity work while working as a model.
C. Her artificial limbs had to be replaced continuously.
D. Heather has never been defeated by her problems.
39. From the passage we can infer that people admire and respect Heather because
_________.
A. she had a lot of misfortunes during her childhood
B. she was a world-famous model
C. she is determined and never gives in
D. she made a great difference in the world
.
Without plants, people could not live. We eat plants. We take in oxygen that plants make. And we need plants for another reason: We need them because they are beautiful.
Imagine a world with no plants. Imagine no flowers with their sweet smells, their beautiful colours and their lovely shapes. Imagine, when the wind blows, we are not able to hear the leaves of the trees or watch the branches swing from side to side.
Everywhere people need beautiful plants. That is why we have parks full of trees and flowers. That is why people always like houses with room for some grass and a garden.
Do you talk to your plants? Do you give them love and take good care of them? Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, writers of a book called The Secret of Plants , tell of an experiment in which two seeds were planted in different places. While the plants were growing, one plant was given love and hopeful ideas. After six months, the beloved plant was bigger. Under the earth it had more and longer roots; above the earth, it had a thicker stem and more leaves.
68.In the experiment, the two plants were _____.
A.treated in two different ways
B. of different kinds
C. both given love and taken go
od care of
D. grown in the same place
69 At the end of six months________.
A. the plants were of the same size
B. one plant had longer roots than the other
C. one plant had longer roots; the other plant had a thicker stem
D. one plant had a thicker stem; the other plant had more leaves
70.Tompkings and Bird believe that plants________
A. can talk to each other
B. can take care of each other
C. should be grown in different places
D. need love and care
.
Your friends might be in Australia or maybe just down the road , but they are all just a few clicks away. Life has changed for millions of teenagers across the world who now make friends online. Whether you use chat rooms, QQ, MSN or ICQ, you are part of a virtual community.
“I rarely talk with my parents or grandparents,but I talk a lot with my old friends on QQ,” said Fox’s Shadow, the online nickname used by a Senior 2 girl in China. “Eighty per cent of my classmates use QQ after school.”
QQ is the biggest messaging service in China. A record 4 million people used it one Saturday night in October, according to Tencent, the company which developed QQ.
And Fox’s Shadow might well have been one of them. “I log in on Friday nights, and Saturdays or Sundays when I feel bored. I usually spend about 10 hours chatting online every week,”she said. “But I rarely talk with strangers, especially boys or men.”
Even though she likes chatting, she is careful about making friends with strangers online. “You don’t know who you’re talking to. You should always be careful about who you trust online.”
64. According to Tencent, one Saturday night in October about four million people ________.
A. enjoyed themselves on QQ B. developed QQ
C. talked about QQ D. made friends on QQ
65. Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?
A. Perhaps the person you are chatting with lives just next door to you.
B. maybe the person you are talking with online is an overseas one.
C. No people online know the opposite’s real name or real address.
D. Four fifths of Fox’s Shadow’s classmates use QQ in their spare time.
66. Fox’s Shadow, according to the passage, is a online nickname of ____.
A. a boy B. a girl C. a QQ worker D. a mid-aged person
67. When you are chatting online, _____.
A. never believe everyone who is talking to you
B. never trust anyone who is talking to you
C. don’t make friends with the one who is talking to you
D. don’t talk too long with the one who is talking to you
.
School failure appears to trouble teenage girls more deeply than boys, US researchers said on Tuesday.
They said adolescent(青春期的)girls who are dismissed or drop out of high school before they graduate are more likely to have a serious depression by age 21 than boys with similar experiences.
“For girls it is more serious to be school failure,” said Carolyn McCarty, a University of Washington researcher whose study appears in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
“We already know that it leads to more poverty, higher rates of being on public assistance and lower rates of job stability. And now this study shows it is having mental health implications for girls,” McCarty said in a statement.
The study was drawn from data on more than 800 people in Seattle, Washington, and included people from 18 schools in high-crime neighborhoods.
The group was separated evenly by gender(性别)and nearly half were white, 24 percent were black, 21 percent were Asian-American and the rest were from other groups.
Overall, 45 percent of the girls and 68 percent of the boys in the study experienced a major school failure, but 22 percent of the girls later became depressed compared with 17percent for the boys.
“This gender shows that while school failure is more typical for girls, it appears to have more severe consequences when it does occur,” McCarty said.
60. What is the purpose of writing this article?
A Taking good care of the school boys.
B Asking the US researchers to search more evidences.
C Giving help to the graduated students.
D Paying more attention to the girls experiencing school failure.
61. Carolyn McCarty is ______________
A a scientist B a researcher C a professor D a student
62. The underlined word”it” in para.4 means__________
A school failure B a adolescent girl C a school boy D a university
63.Which of the following could be the best title of this passage?
A School failure appears to trouble teen-age girls more deeply than boys
B Girls are more possible to experience school failure
C Gender has decided how much success you will win
D Adolescent girls are more easily depressed than boys