D
The reasons for going to college have been accepted without question for more than a generation．All high school graduates ought to go ，because college will help them earn more money, become  “better” people，and learn to be more responsible citizens than those who don’t go.
But college has never been able to work its magic for everyone．And now that close to half our high school graduates are attending，those who don’t fit the pattern are becoming more numerous，and more obvious．College graduates are selling shoes and driving taxis；college students interfere with each other’s experiments and write false letters of recommendation in the intense competition for admission to graduate school．Others find no stimulation in their studies，and drop out—often encouraged by college administrators．
Some observers say the fault is with the young people themselves—they are spoiled and they are expecting too much．But that’s a criticize of the students as a whole，and doesn’t explain all campus unhappiness．Others blame the state of the world，and they are partly right．We’ve been told that young people have to go to college because our economy can’t absorb an army of untrained eighteen-year-old either．
Some adventuresome educators and campus watchers have openly begun to suggest that college may not be the best，the proper, the only place for every young person after the completion of high school．We may have been looking at all those surveys and statistics upside down，it seems，and through the rosy glow of our own remembered college experiences．Perhaps college doesn’t make people intelligent，ambitious，happy , liberal，or quick to learn things-maybe it's just the other way around，and intelligent，ambitious，happy, liberal，quick-learning people are merely the ones who have been attracted to college in the first place．And perhaps all those successful college graduates would have been successful whether they had gone to college or not．This is heresy(异端)to those of us who have been brought up to believe that if a little schooling is good，more has to be much better．But contrary evidence is beginning to gradually increase in amount．
48．What does the author believe according to the passage?
A．People used to question the value of college education．
B．People used to have full confidence in higher education．
C．All high school graduates went to college．
D．Very few high school graduates chose to go to college
49．Why does the drop-out rate of college students seem to go up?
A．Young people are disappointed with the traditional way of teaching at college.
B．Many young people are required to join the army．
C．Young people have little motivation in pursuing a higher education．
D．Young people don’t like the intense competition for admission to graduate school．
50．According to the passage，the problems of college education partly arise from the fact that___.
A．society cannot provide enough jobs for properly trained college graduates
B．high school graduates do not fit the pattern of college education
C．too many students have to earn their own living
D．college administrators encourage students to drop out

请你以校学生会的名义写一份有关即将在本校举办英语晚会的书面通知，内容如下表所示：

    Tony Wrench and his wife Faith, wearing the traditional woolly jacket, have set up their home in the shadows of Preseli Mountains.

    They built the house in the winter of 1997 with the dream of living what they call“low-impact lives”. Their dream is to get close to nature, have little pollution and prove they can change the world. But their action was stopped almost a year later by the local government. Eventually, a new rule about environment protection was brought and the government encouraged the couple to carry on their “low-impact lives”.

    The completed house is built around a frame of 200 firs(冷杉木)and made entirely of natural materials, in a style that is part-native American, part-ancient Celt. Mr. Wrench said this house was more like a sort of large basket.  The most expensive part of the building was the rubber (橡胶 ) pond-liner for the roof at ￡650—all in it cost a grand total of￡3, 000, the labor being supplied by the couple and a few good friends. The idea is to try to make the most of the natural resources around them, reducing their impact as much as possible on the environment.

    Electricity is generated from three solar panels on the roof and a small windmill. Food is mostly home-grown (自产的) and they even make their own wine from a vine（藤）on the roof. Drinking water comes from the mountain stream and hot water is more or less on-tap through a back-boiler system fixed up to the back of the fire by the old whisky barrel(桶).

    Waste is dealt with by being rotted, which in turn provides fertilizer for the corns and vegetables etc. . They are by no means tired of life; on the contrary they like it. Mr. Wrench in particular likes nothing better than a nice hot bath. They wait for enough wind to charge the laptop so they can watch a DVD in the evening.

    Their life is not a challenge of existence; they say—just an attempt to keep their footsteps on the planet as light as possible.

55. What can we know from the passage?

A. Mr. Wrench planned to run a wine factory when he was young.

B. Mr. Wrench and Faith love their house and have been in it for twenty years.

C. Mr. Wrench and Faith’s behavior once was forbidden by the local government.

D. Mr. Wrench and Faith can’t watch TV in their house because there’s no electricity.

56. From the text we learn that the couple’s house______.

A. cost them 3, 650 pounds in all

B. is only made of about 200 firs

C. is not strong enough to resist the wind

D. was built by them and some of their friends

57. The food that the couple eat is mostly______.

A. produced by themselves

B. bought from a supermarket

C. offered by the government

D. grown on the roof of their house

58. According to the passage, the waste is______.

A. dealt with to help crops grow better

B. thrown away

C. buried deeply

D. sold to other farmers

B
The resounding film Avatar has been very popular in the UK and around the world, becoming the fastest film ever to earn $1bn(7bn yuan) in ticket sales.  
But as well as being an entertaining feast for the eyes, the sci-fi epic（叙事诗）also introduces the audience to a brand new language invented especially for the film.
The movie is set on an alien planet called Pandora which is inhabited by many strange species. The most humanoid of the planet’s inhabitants are the Na’vi, and it is the struggle between the Na’vi  and human invader that forms the main story of the film.
The film has been released in 2D and 3D versions.
In order to add a sense of reality to his vision of an alien race the film’s director James Cameron asked a professor of language form the University of Southern California to invent a language for the Na’vi.
Professor Paul Frommer worked with James Cameron for four years to build upon the original 30 words or so that the director had already come up with for the language.
According to Professor Frommer, the most important aspect of the Na’  vi language was that it could be pronounced.
“This is an alien language but obviously it has to be spoken by human actors,” Professor Frommer told the BBC, “it has to be sounds that human beings are comfortable producing.”
The language currently has around 1,000 words but Professor Frommer hopes to expand it in possible sequels（续集）to the film and in video games.
The professor hopes that one day his creation will have a high level of the Klingon alien language from the Star Trek films.
“There’s a translation of Hamlet into Klingon,” says Professor Frommer.
“If anything happened like this with Na’vi I’d be delight.”
60. The underlined word “resounding” in Paragraph 1 mean_________.
A. later   B. scientific    C. hit      D. surprising
61. Which of the following is Right according to the passage?
A. A kind of new language was invented especially for the film
B. The film Avatar is as good as a film as the Star Trek
C. The creation in Alien Language is different from that in human beings.
D. Avatar is one of an excellent films invented by Pandora.
62. The most challenging part in the creation of the language is_________.
A. that Professor Frommer needs to create 1,000 words for the film Avatar by himself.
B. that the language is based on that of the Alien planet called Pandora
C. that James Cameron introduces a new style of language to the audience
D. that an Alien language is created to be spoken by human beings.
63. We can infer from the passage that_________.
A. the film Avatar has been released in 2D and 3D versions.
B. the most important aspect of the Na’vi language was that it could be pronounced.
C. Professor Paul Frommer believe his language creation in the film Avatar is very successful.
D. Professor Paul Frommer worked with James Cameron for four years for a sense of reality of the film.

An increase in students applying to study economics at university is being attributed to the global economic crisis awakening a public thirst for knowledge about how the financial system works.
Applications for degree courses beginning this autumn were up by 15% this January, according to UCAS, the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service. A spokesman for the Royal Economic Society said applications to do economics at A-level were also up.
Professor John Beath, the president of the society, and a leading lecturer at St Andrews University, said his first-year lectures—which are open to students from all departments—were drawing crowds of 400, rather than the usual 250.
“There are a large number of students who are not economics majors, who would like to learn something about it. One of the things I have done this year is to relate my teaching to contemporary events in a way that one hasn’t traditionally done.” He added.
University applications rose 7% last year. But there were rises above average in several subjects. Nursing saw a 15% jump, with people’s renewed interest in careers in the public sector, which are seen as more secure in economic crisis.
A recent study showed almost two thirds of parents believed schools should do more to teach pupils about financial matters, and almost half said their children had asked them what was going on, although a minority of parents felt they did not understand it themselves well enough to explain.
Zack Hocking, the head of Child Trust Funds, said: “It’s possible that one good thing to arise from the downturn will be a generation that’s financially wiser and better equipped to manage their money through times of economic uncertainty.”
【小题1】Professor John Beath’s lectures are              .