Destructive insects in larger numbers are finding Alaska forests to be a comfortable home and climate change could be the wel-come mat.

  Warmer winters kill fewer insects. Lon-ger, warmer summers let insects complete a life cycle and reproduce in one year instead of two. Warm winters also can damage trees and make them less able to stop insect attacks by changing the nature of snow. Instead of light snow formed at extremely cold tempera-tures, warm winters produce wet, heavy snow more likely to break the tops of spruce trees because they are not well adapted to handling big, heavy, wet snow loads.

  Since 1980, spruce bark (树皮) beetles have killed mature white spruce trees on 4. 4 million acres. For lack of two cold winters on end, the numbers of the beetles there blew up while the resistance (抵抗力) of the trees was down at the same time everywhere. Most of the mature trees have been killed in some whole region of the state.

  Spruce bark beetles bore into (蛀穿)trunks and feed on the live cambium layer, a thin part of tissue between bark and wood. Trees re-sist beetles with pitch, made up of hydrocarbons including up to 17 forms of terpene (松稀). The rates of those terpenes are a signal of the health of the tree. When a tree is injured, terpene rates go off in one direction.

  Using complex chemical receptors (感受 器), spruce bark beetles discover differences in terpenes. Injured trees offer less resistance.

  They smell the tree. If the tree's healthy,they try to avoid it Why? If they start to bore into a healthy tree, it's got a lot of pitch, and the pitch is under high pressure. It's boring in and the pitch is pushing it back out.

(1) What would be the best title for the text?

[  ]

A.The Destruction of Forests in Alaska

B.Warm Winters and Its Bad Effects

C.The Way of Spruce Trees' Living in Alaska

D.Destructive Insects on Rise in Alaska

(2) According to the text, how do warm win-ters reduce the trees' ability to resist in-sect attacks?

[  ]

A.By changing the nature of snow.

B.By offering too much water to trees.

C.By making the weather drier.

D.By increasing the insects' growth speed.

(3) The third paragraph mainly tells________.

[  ]

A.winters are warmer and warmer

B.there are more and more beetles

C.the situation of trees is much worse

D.mature trees are easy to be attacked

阅读理解

  The pound new Library of Birmingham(LoB)will be the most visible sign of the way the city is accepting the digitalization(数字化)of everyday life.

  Set to open in 2013, the £188 m LoB is already beginning to take shape next to the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, with which it will share some equipment.

As digital media(媒介)is important to its idea, 49the project is already providing chances for some of the many small new local companies working at new technologies.

  Brian Gambles, the LoB project director, says 51.a it is about giving people the right tools for learning:“The aim is to mix the physical with the digital.51.b Providing 24-hour services which can be used through many different ways.It is important to enable us to reach more people, more effectively.”

  The digital library will, he says, be as important as the physical one, allowing the distant use of the services, making sure that it is never closed to the public.

  Even before the LoB is complete, the public has been able to go online to visit the Virtual(虚拟的)LoB, designed by Baden, the Birmingham virtual worlds specialists.50Not only have the public been able to learn about LoB, but the virtual one has also enabled those working on the LoN to understand the building and how it will work before ot even opens.

  Two other small Birmingham-based digital companies are working on the LoB projects.Substrat, a digital design company, is developing what it calls an “enlarged reality” project.It is about the use of an exciting smart phone, an important part of LoB the which is the early stages of development.And The People’s Archive is an online library of figures of the city being built content company in Cahoots, 51.d in which users will be encouraged to add to and comment on the material.

  Gambles says:“Technology will enable us to make the library’s and services open to citizens as sever before.”

(1)

The underline part “its idea” in Paragraph 3 refers to the idea of _________

[  ]

A.

the equipment

B.

the project

C.

the digital media

D.

the physical library

(2)

While visiting the Virtual LoB, the public can _________

[  ]

A.

get a general idea of the LoB

B.

meet more world-famous experts

C.

learn how to put up a library building

D.

understand how the specialists work on the project

(3)

Which of the following is true of the LoB when it opens?

[  ]

A.

a, b, d

B.

a, c, e

C.

b, c, d

D.

b, d, e

(4)

This text more probably from _________

[  ]

A.

a computer book

B.

a library guide

C.

a project handbook

D.

newspaper report

Adults usually do not remember most of the things that are taught by their teachers at school. But this story is one such lesson that I will never forget. Every time I drift off course, I think of this story.

       It was a normal Monday morning, and my teacher was teaching us on important things in life and about devoting ourselves to what is important to us. This is how the story went:

       An old man lived in a certain part of London, and he would wake up every morning and go to the sub-way. He would get onto the train right to Central Lon-don, and then sit at the street corner and beg. He would do this every single day of his life. He sat at the same street corner and begged for almost 20 years.

       His house was dirty, and a stench (恶臭) came out of the house and it smelled terrible. The neighbors could not stand the smell any more, so they called for the police officers to clear the place. The officers knocked down the door and cleaned the house. There were small bags of money all over the house that he had collected over the years.

       The police counted the money, and they soon realized that the old man was a millionaire (百万富翁). They waited outside his house expecting to share the good news with him. When the old man arrived home that evening, one of the officers told him that there was no need for him to beg any more as he was a rich man now, a millionaire.

       But the old man said nothing at all; he went into his house and locked the door. The next morning he woke up as usual, went to the subway, sat at the street corner and continued to beg.

       Clearly, this old man had no great plans, dreams or anything significant (有意义的) for his life. We learn nothing from this story other than staying focused on the things we enjoy doing.

The underlined part in the first paragraph may mean ______.

A. I get tired of learning my subjects    B. I fail to listen to lessons attentively

C. I go in the wrong direction of life    D. I wouldn’t like to go to school

The neighbor called the police because ______.

A. the old man kept begging money from them every day

B. there was something dangerous in the old man’s house

C. the old man wouldn’t buy tickets for the train

D. they couldn’t bear the smell from the old man’s house

When the old man knew he was a millionaire, he ______.

A. remained calm        B. became excited   C. felt worried         D. became nervous

What lesson do we learn from the story?

A. Make great plans for your life.     B. Keep on doing what you like.

C. Do something that is good to society.  D. Depend on yourself rather than others.

Fear and its companion pain are two of the most useful things that men and animals possess, if they are properly used. If fire did not hurt when burnt, children would play it until their hands were burnt away. Similarly, if pain existed but fear did not, a child would burn itself again and again, because fear would not warn it to keep away from the fire that had burnt it before. A really fearless soldier— and some do exist — is not a good soldier because he is soon killed ; and a dead soldier is of no use to his army. Fear and pain are therefore two guards without which men and animals might soon die out.

In our first sentence we suggested that fear ought to be properly used.If, for example, you never go out of your house because of the danger of being knocked down and killed in the street by a car, you are letting fear rule you too much. Even in your house you are not completely safe: an airplane may crash on your house, or ants may eat away some of the beams in your roof so that the lat­ter falls on you, or you may get cancer!

The important thing is not to let fear rule you, but instead to use fear as your servant and guide. Fear will warn you of dangers; then you have to decide what action to take.

In many cases, you can take quick and successful action to avoid the dan­ger. For example, you see a car coming straight towards you: fear warns you, you jump out of the way, and all is well.

In some cases, however, you decide that there is nothing that you can do to avoid the danger. For example, you cannot prevent an airplane crashing onto your house. In this case, fear has given you its warning, you have examined it and decided on your course of action, so fear of this particular danger is no lon­ger of any use to you, and you have to try to overcome it.

1.Children would play with fire until their hands were burnt away if ________.

    A.they were given no warning beforehand

    B.they had never burnt themselves

    C.they had no sense of pain

    D.they were fearful of the fire      

2.A really fearless soldier_________.

    A.is of little use to the army                  B.is without equal

    C.is nothing but a dead soldier                D.easily gets killed in a battle

3.Fear should be used properly because_________.

    A.an airplane may crash on your house                                    

    B.you may get cancer

    C.fear can only be used as a servant and guide

    D.men are now letting fear rule them too much

4.Which of the following is implied but not stated in the passage?

    A.Fear is always something helpful.

    B.Too much fear is harmful.

    C.Fear ought to be used as a servant and guide.

       D.Fear is something unbeneficial.

The earliest surviving Jane Austen's manuscript (手稿),a handwritten draft for a book with the name of The Watsons that was never published ,sold for 993,250 pounds in the Lon- don sale.

The sale of The Watsons draft has provided a chance to have a deep understanding of how the author wrote it and her reworkings on it, which this manuscript uniquely displays. Probably written in 1804, the novel tells the story of Emma Watson, the youngest of four sisters who is raised by a wealthy aunt but then forced to return to her family while two of her sisters search for husbands.

The novel is only a quarter complete but critic Margaret Drabble described it as “a delightful and highly complete novel, which must surely have proved the equal of her other six novels, had she finished it. ”

The Watsons contains themes found in other Austen's works and also displays her wisdom. The Watsons displays Jane Austen's unique writing style and the influence of this novel on her later works can clearly be seen. It was Austen's only literary work during the period between finishing Northanger Abbey in 1799 and starting Mansfield Park in 1811. It is not known why Austen abandoned the manuscript, though it was possibly related to her father's death in 1805.

Besides the sale of The Watsons in the London sale, the earliest rules of soccer, part of the archive (档案)of the oldest football club in the world, Sheffield FC, sold for 881,250 pounds, which attracted many people.

The Sheffield soccer sale included handwritten drafts from 1858 and the only existing copy of the printed "Rules, Regulations Laws of the Sheffield Football Club” dating from 1859, two years after the club was formed.

64. According to the text, the value of the sale of The Watsons draft lies in ____.

A. making more readers interested in the novel

B making readers know the author's writing process

C. making readers know the author's sad life better

D. making readers know the story of the novel better

65. It can be inferred from what Margaret Drabble said that ____.

A. most of the novel, The Watsons, had been finished

B. Austen wrote seven novels at the same time

C. Austen's father's death made her give up completing The Watsons

D. it is a pity that The Watsons was not finished

66.  Which is TRUE about The Watsons?

A. It was Austen's first novel.

B. It was Austen's only literary work.

C. The writing style in it influenced that in Northanger Abbey.

D. It has similar themes to other Austen's works.

67.  What character do the two sales share in common?

A. Both of them have handwritten drafts.

B. Both of them date back to the 18th century.

C. Both of them were widely read at the same time.

D. Both of them told us the reason for writing them.

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