It was a beautiful day at the beach—blue sky, gentle wind, calm sea．I knew these things because a man sitting five feet from me was shouting them into his mobile phone, like a play-by-play announcer （实况解说员）.

“IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY,” he shouted．“THE SKY IS BLUE, AND THERE’S A GENTLE WIND, AND THE WATER IS CALM, AND…”

Behind me, a woman, her mobile phone pressed to her ear was walking back and forth.

“She DIDN’T,” she was saying．“No．She DIDN’T．She DID? Really? Are you SERIOUS? She did NOT．She DID? No she…”

And so on．This woman had two children, who were playing in the sea．I found myself watching them, because the woman surely was not．A huge squid could have caught and snatched the children, and this woman would not have noticed．Or, if she had noticed, she’d have said, “Listen．I have to go, because a huge squid just……No! She didn’t ! She DID? No! She……”

And next to me, the play-by-play man would have said: “…AND A HUGE SQUID JUST ATE TWO CHILDREN, AND I’M GETTING A LITTLE SUNBURNED, AND …”

It used to be that the major trouble at the beach was the fellow who brought a boom box （便携式录音机） and turned it up so loud that the bass notes caused seagulls to explode．But at least you knew where these fellows were; you never know which beachgoers have mobile phones．You’ll settle next to what appears to be a sleeping sunbather, or even （you hope） a corpse , and you’ll lie happily on your towel, and you’ll get all the way to the second sentence of your 467-page book before you fall asleep to the hypnotic surge of the surf （催人入梦的潮声）, and …

BREEP! BREEP! The corpse sits up, feels urgently for its mobile phone, and shouts “Hello! I’m at the beach! Yes! It’s nice! Very peaceful! What? She did? No, she didn’t! She DID? No, she…”

Loud mobile-phoners never seem to get urgent calls．Just once, I’d like to hear one of them say, “Hello? Yes, this is Dr．Johnson．Oh, Dr．Smith．You’ve opened the abdominal cavity （腹腔）? Good! Now the appendix should be right under the … What? No, that’s the liver．Don’t take THAT out, ha ha! Oh, you did? My God! OK, now listen carefully…”

From the passage we can know that the writer of the passage _____.

       A．had a wonderful holiday at the beach

       B．must have suffered a lot because of the terrible weather

       C．is only interested in talks by doctors about operation

       D．experienced an unhappy holiday at the beach

According to the passage, which of the following is NOT true?

       A．The writer often spends his holidays at the beach.

       B．A huge squid ate two children while their mother was not watching.

       C．Some people used to play boom box while spending their holidays at the beach.

       D．Some people often make loud mobile phone calls without caring for others.

The underlined word“ corpse”in this passage has the closest meaning to________.

       A．a dead body           B．a loud mobile phone        

       C．a sound sleeper        D．a sleep lover

In the past the fellow who brought a boom box_________.

       A．turned it up to make the seagulls happy

       B．turned it up to cause the seagulls to explode

       C．might cause less trouble than the beachgoers with mobile phones

       D．might cause more trouble than the beachgoers with mobile phones

We can infer from the passage that _______.

     A．the writer is interested in mobile phone.

     B．the writer hates people using mobile phone

     C．the writer hates to be disturbed while enjoying holidays on the beach.

     D．the writer seldom finishes reading a book before going to sleep.

    Collections were the inspiration(灵感) for a project at Thomas Tallis School, which formed part of the Imagine Children's Literature Festival last autumn. Each child (aged 12-13) beatified a box and wrote a story on the subject of collections to throw inside it. The boxes were spread within the Royal Festival Hall's Ballroom. Some were left empty to encourage

    The subject chosen by Luren was an imaginative one. "It's a sort o f Cinderella (灰姑娘) story," she told me, inspired by a collection of letters from her cousin, ha the story these become love letters, burned by a creel stepmother. Lauren's best friend Charlotte is the stepmother. "I'm in Charlotte's story too," says Lauren, "and I get run over." Charlotte's tale was inspired by the girls' coin collection. "We've collected foreign coins for years since our families went on holiday to Tenerife." she explains. "That was before the Euro, so we put pesetas in." Lauren continues: "I fred a coin in the road, go to get it and get run over. I'm in hospital and then I die." Charlotte adds: "Or she might not die. I haven't decided yet."

     Millie Murray, who is a tea-novel author, thinks that setting the subject of collections was a useful inspiration to their creativity rather than a restriction(限制). "In the beginning I thought, 'Will the children be able to do it?'" she says. "But it's been fruitful. Some have their own collection, some have parents who do, and some have wlstten complete stories. It's made them think about something they wouldn't have otherwise, winch can only be a good thing."

59. What were the children asked to do in the project?

      A. To meet friends at Thomas Tallis School

      B. To write stories on the subject of collections.

      C. To encourage visitors to write their own stories.

      D. To have their friends for characters in the stories.                      

60. The underlined word "pesetas" in Paragraph 2 is a kind of _____.

      A. story       B. collection      C. inspiration     D. foreign coin      

61. From the stories by Lauren and Charlotte, we know that _____ .

      A. Charlotte hurt herself when getting a coin

      B. both of them developed their imagination

      C. both of tram will die in each other's stories

      D. Latwen's cousin posted her some love letters                            

62. Millie Murray thinks ________.

      A. collections could inspire writing creativity

      B. it was good for parents to have collections

      C. inspirations were very useful in writing stories

第二节完形填空（共20小题；每小题1分，满分20分）
请认真阅读下面短文，从短文后各题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
What is it about maths, anyway? Why is it that a ___36___ who would rather die than ___37___ they found reading difficult at school will happily say he is brain-dead when it ___38___ to numbers?
“I was ___39___ at maths at school,” they say. “still am. Can’t ___40___ up to save my life. My little girl takes after____41___. Thinks take-aways are something to do with fish and chips. Ha-ha!” Oh, how we all laugh.
But how many of us remember it being ___42___ at the time? How many of us remember the blind panic of the Monday morning maths test when the ___43___ we could hope for was a miracle(奇迹) to make the numbers we ___44___ without thinking as answers somehow ___45___ the questions?
On the face of it, today’s children can ___46___ be considered happier and more satisfied. They have a daily numeracy lesson ___47___ to improving their maths skills. But if that sounds like hell to you, you may ___48__ find that your child surprises you by actually quite ___49__ it.
One of the __50___ is that over the last ten years or so, there has been a ___51___ in the way maths is taught. And many of those who teach it feel it’s been a ___52__ for the better. There’s generally much more emphasis now on __53___ arithmetic, getting children used to doing calculations without forever having a pen in one hand and a calculator in the other. Often the first question a teacher will ask is: can you do this in your___54___? And if they can, they do.
The whole approach is more___55___, the goal to get children understanding numbers, not just putting them through the uninteresting process of learning something by repeating it until they remember it.
36    A.    teacher    B.    parent     C.    pupil       D.    teenager
37    A.    understand      B.    admit      C.    observe   D.    pretend
38    A.    add  B.    relate      C.    comes     D.    reject
39    A.    good       B.    expert     C.    special     D.    rubbish
40    A.    add  B.    make       C.    look D.    pick
41    A.    stranger   B.    me   C.    herself     D.    somebody
42    A.    funny      B.    easy C.    attractive D.    remote
43    A.    worst      B.    prize       C.    best  D.    surprising
44    A.    missed     B.    lost  C.    found      D.    chose
45    A.    get   B.    foresee    C.    fit    D.    evaluate
46    A.    however  B.    frequently       C.    mostly     D.    hardly
47    A.    suggested B.    devoted   C.    intended  D.    adapted
48    A.    well B.    sometimes      C.    seldom    D.    extremely
49    A.    enjoying  B.    hating     C.    objecting D.    mastering
50    A.    consequences  B.    reasons    C.    findings   D.    incidents
51    A.    mistake   B.    program  C.    policy     D.    revolution
52    A.    preparation     B.    reputation       C.    requirement    D.    change
53    A.    difficult   B.    general    C.    mental     D.    basic
54    A.    class B.    head C.    textbook  D.    own
55    A.    logical     B.    unbelievable   C.    direct      D.    conservative

Three blondes (金发碧眼的女人) were being trained to become detectives by a policeman. To test their skills in recognizing a suspect (嫌疑犯), the policeman showed the first blonde a picture for five seconds and then asked how she could recognize him. She thought it easy, for the suspect had only one eye. The policeman felt disappointed at this funny answer. He showed the second lady the picture for five seconds and asked her how she would recognize him. The second blonde giggled, flipped her hair, and said, "Ha! It’s easy to find the one-eared person!" Her answer also made the policeman angry. Turning to the third lady, he asked, "This is your suspect, and how would you recognize him?" He added quickly, "Think hard before giving a stupid answer." The third blonde looked at the picture carefully for a moment and said, "HMMMM ... the suspect is wearing contact lenses (隐形眼镜)." The policeman was surprised and speechless, because he really didn't know himself if the suspect wore contacts or not. "Well, that is a good answer. Wait here for a few minutes while I check his file." He left the room and went to his office, checked the suspect's file in his computer and returned with a beaming smile. "Wow! I can't believe it ... it's TRUE! The suspect does in fact wear contact lenses. Good work! How were you able to make such a wise observation?" "That's easy," the blonde replied, "he can't wear glasses because he only has one eye and one ear!"

56. Which of the following cannot conclude from the passage that detectives should have?

   A. They must be charming.

   B. Their observation must be keen.

   C. They must be humorous.

   D. They must be good at thinking.

57. According to the passage we can infer that ________.

  A. the suspect was easy to be recognized

  B. the picture was just a side of the suspect

  C. the suspect must be a disabled person

  D. the suspect was caught by the policeman

58. What will probably happen to the three blondes after this test?

  A. The first blonde may be accepted as a detective at once.

  B. The second blonde may be accepted as a detective at once.

  C. The third blonde is good at thinking and needn’t any training.

  D. All of them may be given more training courses or fired.

I really hadn't meant to yell（吼叫）at them．But that grey afternoon saw it just as my son and daughter were making a terrible mess on the floor in the kitchen．

With a tiresome report to write，I felt bothered at my desk．Suddenly, it occurred to me that my kids were at fault．A voice inside me insisted that I do something quickly．

“OK，you two here．but what an awful thing you are attempting!” shouting angrily, I made for them, while it became evident that the boy wanted no part of me．“Get away from us!” he shouted back，there being expression of support from his sister．

All of a sudden，I found the fault in myself．Quickly I shaped my hands into pincers（螃蟹螯）and crawled towards them，“Crabby（似螃蟹的）Daddy is here Ha，Ha，Ha，he likes to yell at children，and then eat them!” My son continued to keep me away，but now he was laughing and crying at the same time．My mission to repair the damage caused by my yelling seemed to work well．Still，I regretted not having controlled myself first in a right way that my children could do after．

Need I let them know how badly they were acting by blaming? This is a lesson that serves myself．It only shows just how to get rid of something（ill-feelings，responsibility）by blaming others．It's not my “best self”．

We have to search for our “best self” when with our children．They don't need perfect parents，but they do need parents who are always trying to get better．Here，I'm reminded of the words of a great thinker，“When a man lives with God，his voice shall be as sweet as the murmur of the brook…” Then，in our lifetime，couldn't we always speak to our kids in such a sweet voice since，most of us consider them as the most precious in the world? And before we reach this level，what should we do when we come across various difficult cases with our children?  

1.The author couldn't help yelling at his kids this time probably because______．

2.Which of the following made the author aware of his fault?

3.According to the passage the author will                           in another similar situation．

4.What will the writer go on to write about in the next paragraph（s）?