单词拼写（本题有8小题，每小题1分，共8分）

根据下列句子及所给单词的首字母，写出个单词的完全形式（每空限填一词）

To finish such a difficult task is b_______ my ability.

The color of our n_______ flag is red with five yellow stars on it ..

Mary was a_______ from school because of her mother’s serious illness.

He cheated her, which she would never f_______ and remember all her life.

In the old days, many children suffered from h_________ because of no food.

Our school is trying its best to improve our studying and working c__________.

With her great efforts, she has a______ everything she wanted to do.

D________ comes after November.

根据下列句子及所给汉语注释, 写出空缺处各单词的正确形式。(每空只写一词)

1.California also has the d______ of being the most multicultural state in the USA..

2.According to the constitution, it is _________ (必须做的，义务的)for a citizen to undertake military service.

3.Cloning plants is s___________ while cloning animals is very complicated.

4.When I first applied for a patent I was very puzzled by the ______(评判的标准).

5.It was this exploring around problems and his _________(充满活力的，精力充沛的)spirit that led to his most famous invention --- the telephone in 1876.

6.Without any h_________, he jumped into the river to save the drowning child.

7.The football game will continue, ___________（不管、不顾）of wind and rain.

8.Although he is most often a________ with the invention of the telephone, he was indeed a continuing searcher after practical solutions to improve the quality of everyday’s life.

9.The flower girl’s poor English will _______(使、、、注定) her to the gutter to the end of her days.

10.The war ________（中断了）the trade between the two countries.

III. 阅读 (共两节，满分40分)

第一节：阅读理解（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，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

As goods and services improved, people were persuaded to spend their money on changing from old to new, and found the change worth the expense. When an airline equipped itself with jets, for example, its costs (and therefore air fare) would go up, but the new planes meant such an improvement that the higher cost was justified. A new car (or wireless, washing machine, electric kettle) made life so much more comfortable than the old one that the high cost of replacement was fully repaid. Manufacturers still cry their goods as persuasively as ever, but are the improvements really worth paying for? In many fields, things have now reached such a high standard of performance that further progress is very limited and very, very expensive. Airlines, for example, go to enormous expense in buying the latest prestige jets, in which vast research costs have been spent on relatively small improvements. If we abandon these vast costs we might lose the chance of cutting minutes away from flying times; but wouldn’t it be better to see airfares drop dramatically, as capital costs become relatively insignificant? Again, in the context of a 70 m. p. h. Limit, with lines of cars traveling so close as to control each other’s speeds, improvements in performance are actually irrelevant; improvements in handling are unnecessary, as most production cars grip（抓牢） the road perfectly, and comfort has now reached a very high level. Small improvements here are unlikely to be worth the thousands that anybody replacing an ordinary family car every two years may have spent on them. Let us instead have cars — or wireless, electric kettles, washing machines, television sets — which are made to last, and not to be replaced. Significant progress is obviously a good thing, but the insignificant progression from model-change to model-change is not.

1. The author is obviously challenging the social norm (社会规范) that ________________.

A. it is important to improve goods and services

B. development of technology makes our life more comfortable

C. it is reasonable that prices are going up all the time

D. slightly improved new products are worth buying

2. According to this passage, airfares may rise because ______________.

A. the airplane has been improved

B. people tend to travel by new airplanes

C. the change is found to be reasonable

D. the service on the airplane is better than before

3. According to the author, passengers would be happier if they ____________.

A. could fly in the latest model of good planes

B. could get tickets at much lower prices

C. see the airlines make vital changes in their services

D. could spend less time flying in the air

4. When manufactures have improved the performance of their products to a certain level, then it would be _______________.

A. justified for them to cut the price

B. unnecessary for them to make any new changes

C. difficult and costly to further better them

D. insignificant for them to cut down the research costs

5. In the case of cars, the author advises that we _____________.

A. cancel the speed limit                       B. further improve their performance

C. change models every two years          D. improve their durability (耐久性)

单词拼写（共10小题；每小题0.5分，满分5分）

He ate the food and drank the beer. Then he put a piece of cheese in his ________ and went away.

A few hours earlier, someone had told the police that ______would try to steal the diamonds.

Nearly everybody enters for “The Nicest Garden _____” each year, but Joe wins every time.

It was the last day of the year and a large_______ of people had gathered under the Town Hall clock.

Our clavichord is kept in the living-room. It has __________ to our family for a long time.

It is worth your time and patience to get out of the h___________ of smoking.

The__________ (政府) should take measures to improve the living conditions of the people.

They have planned a tight s_________ of travel, so they need an early start.

Excuse me, what is the f___________ to Paris? Is $ 10 enough?

The plane was then flying at an a___________ of 8000 feet.

Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. contact    B. include   C. announced    D. public     E. especially

F. growing  G. leader   H. range      I. available  J. separately

Knowledge is free on the Internet at a small but __1.___ number of colleges and universities.

About 160 schools around the world now put free course materials on the web to the ___2.___. Recent additions in the United States ___3.___ projects at Yale,  Johns Hopkins and the University of California, Berkeley.

Berkeley said it would offer videos of lectures on YouTube. Free videos from other schools are ___4.___ at the Apple iTunes store.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) became an early ___5.___with its Open Course Ware project, first ___6.___ in 2001. Free lecture notes, exams and other resources are published at ocw.mit.edu. Many exams even include the answers.

Today, Open Course Ware offers materials from 1,800 undergraduate and graduate courses. These  ___7.___ from physics to political science.

Visitors can learn the same things that M.I.T. students learn. But as the site points out, Open Course Ware is not a M.I.T. education. Visitors receive no credit toward a degree. Some materials from a course may not be available, and the site does not provide ___8.___ with teachers.

Still, M.I.T. says that the site has had forty million visits by thirty-one million visitors from almost every country. Sixty percent of the visitors are from outside the United States and Canada.

Students and educators use the site, including students at M.I.T. But the largest number of visitors, about half, are self-learners.

Some professors have become well-known around the world as a result of appearing online. Walter Lewin, a physics professor at M.I.T., is ___9.___ popular. Fans enjoy his entertaining lectures.

M.I.T. Open Course Ware now includes materials for high school. The aim is to improve education in science, technology, maths and engineering.