阅读理解

　　Roses are red, but they've never been blue. They are actually a lot of colors, but they lack the right pigment genes(色素基因)that would make them blue.

　　But don't worry, if blue is your favorite color, science has the answer. US scientists have said they could make the missing pigment gene in the near future with developments in biotechnology.

　　The scientists were studying how some medicines affect the liver(肝脏) when they found a human protein that fumed things blue during the process. This may be used to create the world's first - known blue rose.

　　Scientists have already turned a cup full of bacteria (细菌) blue with an enzyme (生化酶) taken from a person's liver. They're now trying to put this same human gene into roses. Technology also promises to make sure the roe still smells good. Commercial growing has led to many beautiful but dull- smelling roses. Their colors are varied and they last a long time, but they've little fragrance.

　　Genetic engineers are also trying to get science to fight diseases and insects that affect the world's 120 different rose kinds. These roses are a US $10 billion-a-year business world-wide. The technology may be very useful in gardening, say scientists. “We could try to grow blue cotton, blue anything really. ”said a scientist..

　　So far, though, it hasn't been easy. They have only managed to get a few blue spots into the stems. “ It's not as easy as you may think. It's going to take more work. ”

　　They're not alone, an Australian company was set up in 1986 to develop a blue rose. Researchers have tried to put a “blue” petunia gene into rose`. But they have not had much success so far.

1．If you like blue roses, you ________.

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A．can have one in the future

B．can buy one in a shop

C．can never see one

D．can to go to the lab to enjoy them

2．Scientists try to find ________ to make blue roses.

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A．right human genes

B．a right protein

C．right pigment genes

D．a right enzyme

3．We can infer from the passage that biotechnology will ________.

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A．make blue roses possible

B．change our life greatly

C．help a lot in gardening

D．make roses smell good

For many people today, reading is no longer relaxation. To keep up their work they must read letters, reports, trade publications, interoffice communications, not to mention newspapers and magazines: a never-ending flood of words. In  1  a job or advancing in one, the ability to read and comprehend  2   can mean the difference between success and failure. Yet the unfortunate fact is that most of us are   3   readers. Most of us develop poor reading  4    at an early age, and never get over them. The main deficiency   5  in the actual stuff of language itself ——words. Taken individually, words have  6   meaning until they are strung together into phrases, sentences and paragraphs.    7  , however, the untrained reader does not read groups of words. He laboriously reads one word at a time, often regressing（退回） to  8    words or passages. Regression, the tendency to look back over   9  you have just read, is a common bad habit in reading. Another habit which  10   down the speed of reading is vocalization—sounding each word either orally or mentally as  11    reads.

　　To overcome these bad habits, some reading clinics use a device called an  12  , which moves a bar (or curtain) down the page at a predetermined（预先确定的） speeD．The bar is set at a slightly faster rate  13   the reader finds comfortable, in order to “stretch” him. The accelerator forces the reader to read fast,    14  word-by-word reading, regression and subvocalization（默读）practically impossible. At first  15  is sacrificed for speeD．But when you learn to read ideas and concepts, you will not only read faster,   16    your comprehension will improve. Many people have found  17   reading skill drastically improved after some training. 18  Charlce Au, a business manager, for instance, his reading rate was a reasonably good 172 words a minute  19   the training, now it is an excellent 1,28 words a minute. He is delighted that how he can   20  a lot more reading material in a short period of time.  

1．  A．applying B．doing       C．offering   D．getting

2．  A．quickly    B．easily       C．roughly    D．decidedly

3．  A．good       B．curious    C．poor        D．urgent

4．  A．training   B．habits      C．situations        D．custom

5．  A．lies   B．combines        C．touches    D．involves

6．  A．some       B．a lot        C．little        D．dull

7．  A．Fortunately     B．In fact      C．Logically        D．Unfortunately

8．  A．reuse       B．reread      C．rewrite     D．recite

9．  A．what        B．which      C．that D．if

10．A．scales      B．cuts C．slows       D．measures

11．A．some one        B．one   C．he    D．reader

12．A．accelerator      B．actor        C．amplifier D．observer

13．A．then        B．as     C．beyond    D．than

14．A．enabling B．leading    C．making    D．indicating

15．A．meaning B．comprehensionC．gist    D．regression

16．A．but   B．nor   C．or     D．for

17．A．our   B．your        C．their        D．such a

18．A．Look at    B．Take        C．Make       D．Consider

19．A．for   B．in     C．after        D．before

20．A．master     B．go over     C．present     D．get through

What is most likely to affect your success at school or at a job? The ability to read. And that goes for your kids too. The declining literacy(读写能力的下降) of our society has been a main concern of educators for a while now, and yet things are not getting better.
In most cases, how well we learn to read will depend largely on our exposure（接触） to language as children. If we hear people around us talking about all kinds of subjects as children, we naturally pick up the words and phrases they use. If we pick up a lot of words, we will learn to read better.
Much of the traditional advice to struggling readers, theses days, seems to include developing “cognitive strategies”（认知策略）. In this way, readers are asked to centre more, to think, to be interested and ask questions, to analyze, to predict, to reason, and to check their understanding, or worse still to answer questions of what they have read. In other words they are asked to become self-conscious（有自我意识的） readers. I do not agree with this approach.
Here are my several strategies for reading improvement.
Read about things that interest you. If you are interested in what you are reading about, the words will come alive, and you will understand better. The more you read, the better you will become at reading. Just get started and it will become a habit, as long as you are interested in what you are reading.
Read material that is at your level or just a little difficult for you. Read material that you find easy to read, or just a little challenging. Looking up many unknown words in a dictionary is dull, and the results of the dictionary search are quickly forgotten.
_____ If you can hear the new words and phrases that you are reading, you will have an easier time understanding and remembering them. Hearing the rhythm of someone reading a text will help your own reading.
Don’t worry about what you don’t understand. Most of your reading should be for pleasure. You can still enjoy reading without understanding all of what you read. You may even understand some things in your own personal way.
Unfortunately not all reading is just for pleasure. When you are reading a textbook or report or other material for school, you may need to underline, take notes and read some parts over again. However, if you have developed the habit of reading for pleasure, you will find that the skills you need will come naturally, and that you will understand a lot better than before.
【小题1】In Paragraph 2, the author tells us the importance of _____.

阅读下列短文, 从每题所给的选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卷上将该项涂黑。
D
Around the globe, the tourist trade is booming and you are promised to enjoy all the comfort and convenience of modern tourism. The first-class systems of communication by air, sea and land make it possible for us to visit each other’s countries at a moderate cost. What was once the ‘grand tour’, reserved for only the very rich, is now within most people’s grasp. The package tour and chartered flights (包机) are quite popular to us. Modern travelers enjoy a level of comfort which those on grand tours in the old days couldn’t have dreamed of. With all this coming and going, you would expect greater understanding to develop between the nations of the world. Not a bit of it! So what’s the sense of this mass exchange of populations if the nations of the world remain basically ignorant of each other? So there is a great misdirection in tourist business, especially in conducted tour items.
Many tourist organizations are directly responsible for this state of affairs. They purposely set out to “protect” their passengers from too much contact with the local population. Modern tourists lead a protected and separated life. They live at international hotels, where they eats their international food and sips their international drink while gazing at the natives from a distance. Designed tours to places of interest are carefully arranged. The tourists are allowed to see only what the organizers want them to see and no more. A strict schedule makes it impossible for the tourists to wander off on their own; and anyway, language is always a barrier, so they might only be too happy to be protected in this way.
At its very worst, this merely leads to a new and terrible kind of colonization. The sad thing about this situation is that it leads to the persistence of certain old ideas of other nations and countries. We don’t see the people of other nations as they really are, but as we have been brought up to believe what they are, even staying along with that from text books during our schooling.
You can test this for yourself. Take five nationalities, say, French, German, English, American and Italian. Now in your mind, match them with these five adjectives: musical, emotional, cold, pedantic (爱追究的), native. Far from providing us with any insight into the national characteristics of the peoples just mentioned, these adjectives just actually act as barriers, for we can’t do the job with certainty. So, frequently, when you set out on your travels, the only characteristics you notice are those which confirm what you have already obtained as the first conceptions in your mind. And you get home only with the highly unoriginal and inaccurate impression, such as the saying, “Anglo-Saxons are hypocrites (伪君子)” and “Latin peoples shout a lot ”. However, to gain the real understanding, you only have to make a few foreign friends and you will know how ridiculousridiculous ridiculous ridiculous and harmful some old conceptions of other nations are. But how can you make foreign friends when the tourist trade does its best to prevent you?
Being carried to an extreme, stereotypes can be positively dangerous. A very wild and limited outlook may stir up racial hatred and blind us to the basic fact — how reasonless it sounds! – that all people are human. We are all similar to each other, while at the same time all unique.
【小题1】What does “grand tour” bring people now?

A．tourism does little to increase understanding between nations

B．tourism is terrible without the work of the tourist organizations

C．conducted tour is so dull that nobody wants to accept it now

D．tourism really does something wonderful to many countries

完形填空

　　For many people today, reading is no longer 1 To keep up their work they must read letters, reports, trade publications, not to mention newspapers and magazines: a never-ending flood of words. In getting a job or advancing, the ability to read and comprehend 2 can mean the difference between success and failure. Yet the unfortunate fact is that most of us are 3 readers.

　　Most of us develop poor reading 4 at an early age, and never get over them. The main problem 5 in the language itself－words. Words have 6 meaning until they are put together into phrases, sentences and paragraphs.

　　 7 , however, the untrained reader does not read groups of words. He reads one word at a time, often regressing to 8 words or passages. Regression, the tendency (倾向) to look back over 9 you have just read, is a common bad habit in reading. Another habit which 10 down the speed of reading is to sound each word either orally or mentally as 11 reads.

　　To overcome these bad habits some reading clinics use a device (装置) called an 12 , which moves a bar (or curtain) down the page at a predetermined speed. The bar is set at a slightly faster rate 13 the reader finds comfortable. The accelerator forces the reader to read fast, 14 word-by-word reading, regression and sounding of words, practically impossible.

　　At first 15 is sacrificed (牺牲) for speed. But when you learn to read ideas and concepts, you will not only read faster, 16 your comprehension will improve.

　　Many people have found 17 reading skill greatly improved after some training. 18 Charles Au, a business manager, for example, his reading rate was a reasonably good 172 words a minute 19 the training, now it is an excellent 1, 378 words a minute. He is delighted that now he can 20 a lot more reading material in a shorter period of time.

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