At the bottom of the world lies a mighty continent still wrapped in the Ice Age and, until recent times, unknown to man. It is a great landmass with mountain ranges whose extent and elevation are still uncertain. Much of the continent is a complete blank on our maps. Man has explored, on foot, less than one percent of its area.

Antarctica differs fundamentally from the Arctic regions. The Arctic is an ocean, covered with drifting packed ice and hemmed in by the landmasses of Europe, Asia, and North America. The Antarctica is a continent almost as large as Europe and Australia combined, centered roughly on the South Pole and surrounded by the most unobstructed water areas of the world—the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.

The continental ice sheet is more than two miles high in its center; thus, the air over the Antarctica is far more iced than it is over the Arctic regions. This cold air current from the land is so forceful that it makes the nearby seas the stormiest in the world and makes unlivable those regions whose counterparts (配对物) at the opposite end of the globe are livable. Thus, more than a million persons live within 2, 000 miles of the North Pole in an area that includes most of Alaska, Siberia, and Scandinavia—a region rich in forest and mining industries. Apart from a handful of weather stations, within the same distance of the South Pole there is not a single tree, industry or settlement.

66. The best title for this passage would be________ .

A. Iceland

B. Land of Opportunity

C. Utopia at Last

D. The Unknown Continent

67. At the time this article was written, our knowledge about Antarctica was______.

A. very limited                                                 B. vast

C. fairly rich                                                    D. non-existent

68. What’s the fundamental difference between Antarctica and the Arctic?

A. The Arctic is an ocean while Antarctica is a continent.

B. The Arctic is inhabited by people while Antarctica is uninhabitable.

C. The Arctic is covered with ice while Antarctica is surrounded by water.

D. The Arctic is surrounded by continents while Antarctica is bordered by oceans.

69. The Antarctica is made uninhabitable primarily by________.

A. ice                                                                     B. calm seas

C. cold air                                                              D. lack of water

70. According to this article,________ .

A. 2, 000 people live on the Antarctica Continent

B. a million people live within 2, 000 miles of the South Pole

C. weather conditions make settlements impractical

D. only a handful of natives inhabit Antarctica

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1.This advertisement aims at calling on people to ________.

A. attend full-time universities

B. work part time to further their education

C. improve their education at home to get better jobs

D. earn their degrees in different ways that suit them

2.Which of the following is NOT clearly mentioned in this advertisement? 

A. The way how you will get your degree. 

B. Tuition price. 

C. The hot fields you will be preparing yourself for.

D. The length of time it will take you to get a degree.

3.What does the writer of this ad intend to say by naming General Electric, IBM,?? Ford, etc.?

A. To show that their training is widely used in the country. 

B. To show that the training program is fully supported by famous companies in the U. S.

C. To prove the value of their training in every area.  　

D. To show the importance of getting recognized by the most famous companies.

4.It seems to the writer that the greatest attraction for people to take their training is______.

A. its convenience

B. the degree’s nation-wide recognition

C. the economic benefit it will bring about

D. the hot fields the training will help people to enter

Complete the following passage by filling in each blank with one word that fits the context.

Last month we finally got a chance to have a trip to E’mei Mountain, __48___ we had longed to do for ages. It was there ___49___ I was amazed by the most beautiful scenery I had ever seen!

The weather didn’t seem to welcome us when we got to West China’s Chengdu city --- it was quite wet and cold. On the coach heading to the mountain, I couldn’t help feeling disappointed. “What a bad day!” I said to myself when looking out of the window, “We may not be able to see a lot in the mountain. And ___50___ a pity it will be if we miss the sunrise next morning!”

The guide denied the possibility of a sunny day. “Actually, seldom ___51___ we have bright sunshine here, especially in winter.” he said.

Very early the next morning, amazingly, we got completely satisfied in a totally unexpected way. On the way up the mountain, we found everything was becoming white --- it was snowing! We screamed. Arriving at the top of the mountain, we found ___52___ in a white world that only existed in fairy tales. ___53___ could help describe what we saw. We were jumping, screaming, taking photos, trying to fill our eyes __54_____ everything we could see, because we knew that this was the ___55____ time to see such beauty of the nature, and probably, the only time in our lives.

Cultural Center Adds Classes for Young Adults

The Allendale Cultural Center has expanded its arts program to include classes for young adults. Director Leah Martin announced Monday that beginning in September, three new classes will be offered to the Allendale community. The course titles will be Yoga for Teenagers; Hip Hop Dance: Learning the Latest Moves; and Creative Journaling for Teens: Discovering the Writer Within. The latter course will not be held at the Allendale Cultural Center but instead will meet at the Allendale Public Library.

Staff member Tricia Cousins will teach the yoga and hip hop classes. Ms. Cousins is an accomplished choreographer (舞蹈教师) as well as an experienced dance educator. She has an MA in dance education from Teachers College, Columbia University, where she wrote a thesis on the pedagogical (教学法的) effectiveness of dance education. The journaling class will be taught by Betsy Milford. Ms. Milford is the head librarian at the Allendale Public Library as well as a columnist for the professional journal Library Focus.

The courses are part of the Allendale Cultural Center’s Project Teen, which was initiated by Leah Martin, Director of the Cultural Center. According to Martin, this project is a direct result of her efforts to make the center a more essential part of the Allendale community. Over the last several years, the number of people who have visited the cultural center for classes or events has steadily declined. Project Teen is primarily funded by a generous grant from The McGee Arts Foundation, an organization devoted to bringing arts programs to young adults. Martin oversees the Project Teen board, which consists of five board members. Two board members are students at Allendale’s Brookdale High School; the other three are adults with backgrounds in education and the arts.

The creative journaling class will be cosponsored by Brookdale High School, and students who complete the class will be given the opportunity to publish one of their journal entries in Pulse, Brookdale’s student literary magazine. Students who complete the hip hop class will be eligible to participate in the Allendale Review, an annual concert sponsored by the cultural center that features local actors, musicians, and dancers. All classes are scheduled to begin immediately following school dismissal, and transportation will be available from Brookdale High School to the Allendale Cultural Center and the Allendale Public Library. For more information about Project Teen, contact the cultural center’s programming office at 988-0099 or drop by the office after June 1 to pick up a fall course catalog. The office is located on the third floor of the Allendale Town Hall.

1.Which of the following statements is correct? 

A. Tricia Cousins will teach two of the new classes.

B. The new classes will begin on June 1.

C. People who want a complete fall catalogue should stop by the Allendale Public Library.

D. The cultural center’s annual concert is called Pulse.

2.According to Leah Martin, what was the direct cause of Project Teen?

A. Tricia Cousins was available to teach courses in the fall.

B. Community organizations were ignoring local teenagers.

C. The McGee Arts Foundation wanted to be more involved in Allendale’s arts programming.

D. She wanted to make the cultural center a more important part of the Allendale community.

3.Which of the following factors is implied as another reason for Project Teen?

A. The number of people visiting the cultural center has declined over the last several years.

B. The cultural center wanted a grant from The McGee Arts Foundation.

C. The young people of Allendale have complained about the cultural center’s offerings.

D. Leah Martin thinks classes for teenagers are more important than classes for adults.

4.This article is organized in which of the following ways?

A. In time order, from the past to the future.

B. Most important information first, followed by background and details.

C. Background first, followed by the most important information and details.

D. As sensational news, with the most controversial topic first.

Elephants have four distinct personalities that help their herd survive in the African bush, scientists have found. 

With their grey skin, mournful eyes and slow heavy pace, you could be forgiven for thinking elephants are uniformly melancholy(忧郁的) creatures. But scientists have now discovered the largest living land animals have personalities to match their size.

In a new study of African elephants, researchers have identified four distinct characters that are common in a herd – the leaders, the gentle giants, the playful rogues(小淘气) and the reliable plodders (辛勤工作的人).

Each of the types has developed to help the giant mammals survive in their harsh environment and is almost unique in the animal kingdom, according to the scientists.

Professor Phyllis Lee and her colleague Cynthia Moss studied a herd of elephants in the Amboseli National Park in Kenya known as the EB family — famous for their matriarch Echo before she died in 2009.

Using data collected over 38 years of watching this group, the researchers analyzed them for 26 types of behavior and found four personality features tended to emerge.

The strongest personality to emerge was that of the leader. Unlike other animals, where leadership tends to be won by the most dominant and aggressive individual, the elephants instead respected intelligence and problem solving in their leader. Echo, the matriarch and oldest in the group, her daughter Enid, and Ella, the second oldest female, all emerged as leaders.

The playful elephants tended to be younger but were more curious and active. Eudora, a 40-year-old female in the herd, seemed to be the most playful, consistently showing this feature throughout her life while playfulness in some of the other elephants declined with age.

Gentle elephants, which included two 27-year-old females Eleanor and Eliot, touched and rubbed against others more than the others.

Those that were reliable tended to be those that were most consistent at making good decisions, helped to care for infants in the herd and were calm when faced with threats. Echo and her youngest daughter Ebony seemed to be the most reliable.

Professor Lee said that elephants with these features tended to be the most socially integrated in the group while those who tended to be less reliable and pushy were more likely to split from the herd.

1.From the passage we get to know that ________.

A．the researchers reached their conclusion by analyzing the data

B．the research centered on the 26 types of behavior of the matriarch

C．the scientists conducted the research by comparing elephants with other animals

D．professor Phyllis Lee and her colleague spent nearly 38 years tracking the herd

2.According to the new findings of the scientists, ________.

A．playfulness of an elephant will always decline with age

B．those elephants which are caring and wise are most reliable

C．each elephant can be matched with only one of the four personalities

D．once becoming a member of a herd, an elephant will never split from it

3.In the EB family Echo and Eudora are ________.

A．mother and daughter                    B．two oldest females

C．the gentlest ones                       D．leader and member