Many people who work in London prefer to live outside it, and to go in to their offices or schools every day by train, car or bus, even though this means they have to get up early in the morning and reach home late in the evening. 

One advantage of living outside London is that houses are cheaper. Even a small flat in London without a garden costs quite a lot to rent. With the same money, one can get a little house in the country with a garden of one’s own. 

Then, in the country one can rest from the noise and hurry of the town. Even though one has to get up earlier and spend more time in trains or buses, one can sleep better at night and during weekends and on summer evenings, one can enjoy the fresh, clean air of the country. If one likes gardens, one can spend one’s free time digging, planting, watering and doing the hundred and one other jobs which are needed in a garden. Then, when the flowers and vegetables come up, one has the reward of one who has shared the secret of Nature. 

Some people, however, take no interest in country things: for them, happiness lies in the town, with its cinemas and theatres, beautiful shops and busy streets, dance-halls and restaurants. Such people would feel that their life was not worth living if they had to live it outside London. An occasional walk in one of the parks and a fortnight’s (two weeks) visit to the sea every summer is all the country they want: the rest they are quite prepared to leave to those who are glad to get away from London every night. 

1.Which of the following statements is NOT true? 

2.One can use the same money for ________ to buy a little house with a garden in the country.

3.When the flowers and vegetables in the garden come up, those _______ have the reward of one who has shared the secret of Nature. 

4.People who think happiness lies in the town would feel that _______ if they had to live it outside London. 

5.The underlined word rest in the last paragraph refers to ________.

6.C。推断题。根据其上文：这些人偶尔去公园散散步后去海边度两周假；本句接着说：其余的就留给那些每天晚上喜欢离开伦敦的人，那么，“其余的”显然指“其余的乡村”。从而可推知题

根据所给首字母或中文意思，用单词的适当形式填空 （每个1分, 共20分.）
【小题1】He was c__________(好奇的) to know what was going on in the neighborhood.
【小题2】The law applies to all EU countries; Britain is no e__________ (例外).
【小题3】It was pouring. The hunter got inside a hollow tree for s__________ (庇护).
【小题4】 This new pay-TV channel sends s__________ (信号) via satellite to cable companies.
【小题5】They o__________(提供) him a very good job, but he turned it down.
【小题6】The entire s__________ (员工) has done an outstanding job this year.
【小题7】A good diet is e__________ (必不可少的) for everyone.
【小题8】His dog became his closest c__________(同伴).
【小题9】She a__________ (申请) for a job with the local newspaper yesterday.
【小题10】She keeps a bottle of gin h__________ (隐藏的) behind a stack of books.
【小题11】I want to do research on Mark Twain. Is there a b__________ (传记) about him?
【小题12】 He had a v__________(生动的) picture of her in his mind.
【小题13】 Sorry to d_________ (打扰) you, but I have an urgent message.
【小题14】He finally won his f__________(自由) after twenty years in jail.
【小题15】Our o__________(起初的) plan was to go camping, but it was pouring with rain.
【小题16】Many endangered species now face e__________ (灭绝)
【小题17】This kind of apples is more expensive because they are i__________(进口）from abroad.
【小题18】The hotel is not modern, but it does have the a__________ (优势) of being close to the city.
【小题19】Jordan, a talented leader, led his team to v__________(胜利) .
【小题20】She s_________ (得分) an average of 95 in the last test.

What would you think if someone suggested knocking down St Paul’s Cathedral to widen the road? Or pulling down Big Ben to make way for a car park? It would be ridiculous, right? But when it comes to devastation (毁灭) of the natural world, we aren’t so easily shocked. But we should be…or we’ll be in a lot of trouble.
Nature is shrinking by the day. Ancient forests are destroyed. Wetlands are becoming dry. Woodland is disappearing, and all in the name of progress. This is bad in itself, but it’s devastating for biodiversity.
Biodiversity refers to the variety of plants, animals and other living things that are all interconnected. The ecological services provided by biodiversity are vital to everyday life. The air we breathe is a product of photosynthesis (光合作用) by green plants. Insects, worms and bacteria break down waste and make soils rich. And tiny organisms clean the water in rivers and sea. In fact, all life on the earth exists thanks to the benefits of biodiversity. More than 90 percent of the calories consumed by people worldwide are produced from 80 plant species. And 30 percent of medicines are developed from plants and animals. Maintaining a wide diversity of species in each ecosystem is necessary to preserve all living things.
The loss of biodiversity could be devastating. “It is wrong to think that biodiversity can be reduced indefinitely without threatening humans,” said Harvard University biologist Edward O. Wilson, known as the “father of biodiversity”. He warned, “We are about to reach a critical point beyond which biodiversity loss will become irreversible (不可挽回的).”
But what can we do? The present problem is that the concept of biodiversity is so vague (含糊的). People might care about giant pandas, but it is much harder to excite them about the fate of tiny sea creatures which are being boiled to death in the cooling systems of power stations along coastlines. The Guardian newspaper is trying to help. It has launched the Biodiversity 100 campaign to try to convince governments around the world to take action to deal with the widespread concerns about biodiversity. This includes persuading the UK government to create a series of marine reserves to reserve the decrease in the sea-life caused by industrial fishing, stopping fishing sharks by the Japanese fishermen and banning the killing of dingoes (wild dogs) in Australia, among many other things.
There is a lot to do. And we’d better act quickly if we don’t want to end up with a planet that can’t sustain life!
【小题1】The writer thinks it ________ to pull down Big Ben to make way for a car park.

Visitors can find a small, old house called the O. Henry Museum in central Austin, Texas. William Sydney Porter(1862-1910)----better known as O. Henry, was one of America’s best loved writers of short stories. Beginning in 1893, he lived here. It was saved from destruction, moved, and turned into a museum in 1934. The museum is a good way to learn about the interesting life of him.
William Porter rented this house and lived with his wife and daughter for about two years. Many objects in the museum belonged to the Porters. Others did not, but are in the house to recreate the way it looked during their lifetime.
Porter worked at a pharmacy, farm, land office and bank. He also loved words and writing. The museum has special proof of Porter’s love of language---his dictionary. It’s said that he read every word in it. Porter started a small publication called “The Rolling Stone”. He wasn’t being published early on, so he published himself. His funny stories, poems, and drawings were published in the magazine. But it was too costly to continue for long, so he closed the project after about one year.
Other troubles would lead the Porters to leave Austin. Porter was accused of financial wrongdoing at the bank and lost his job. Fearing a trial, he fled the country. But he returned because his wife was dying. After her death, he faced trial and was found guilty. He served three and a half years in a federal prison in Ohio.
Porter would keep his time in prison a secret. But there was one good thing about it. It provided him with time to write. By the time of his release, he had published 14 stories and was becoming well-known as O. Henry.
Porter would later move to New York City and find great success there. He published over 380 stories in the last eight years of his life.
【小题1】What is the author’s purpose of writing paragraph 3?

第二部分阅读理解（共两节，满分50分）

第一节：阅读下面短文，从短文后各题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项，并将答案写在答题卡上。（共20小题，每小题2分，满分40分）

A

O. Henry was a pen name used by an American writer of short stories. His real name was William Sydney Porter. He was born in North Carolina in 1862. As a young boy he lived an exciting life. He did not go to school for very long, but he managed to teach himself everything he needed to know. When he was about 20 years old, O. Henry went to Texas, where he tried different jobs. He first worked on a newspaper, and then had a job in a bank, when some money went missing from the bank O. Henry was believed to have stolen it. Because of that, he was sent to prison. During the three years in prison, he learned to write short stories. After he got out of prison, he went to New York and continued writing. He wrote mostly about New York and the life of the poor there. People liked his stories, because simple as the tales were, they would finish with a sudden change at the end, to the reader’s surprise.

41. In which order did O. Henry do the following things?

a. Lived in New York.   b. Worked in a bank.        c. Travelled to Texas.

d. Was put in prison.    e. Had a newspaper job.      f. Learned to write stories.

A. e. c. f. b. d. a       B. e. b. d. c. a. f.        C. c. e. b. d. f. a    D. c. b. e. d. a f.

42. O. Henry went to prison because ___________.

A. people thought he had stolen money from the newspaper

B. people thought he had taken money that was not his

C. he wanted to write stories about prisoners

D. he broke the law by not using his own name

43. What do we know about O. Henry before he began writing?

A. He was very good at learning.                     B. He was not serious about his work.

C. He was devoted to the poor.                  D. He was well-educated.

44. Where did O. Henry get most material for his short stories?

A. His life inside the prison.                  B. The newspaper articles he wrote.

C. His exciting early life as a boy.       D. The city and people of New York.