A lesson in caring
It was a cold evening. My daughter and I were walking up Broadway. I didn’t notice a guy sitting inside a cardboard box. But Nora    36    . She wasn’t even four, but she   37    at my coat and said, “That man’s cold. Daddy, can we take him home?”
I don’t remember my   38    . But I do remember a sudden   39    feeling inside me. I had always been delighted at how much my daughter noticed in her   40     , whether it was     41    flying or children playing. But now she was noticing   42    and beggary.
A few days later, I saw an article in the newspaper about volunteers who picked up a food package from a nearby school on a Sunday morning and   43     it to an elderly person. It was quick and easy. I signed us up. Nora was   44    about it. She could understand the importance of food, so she could easily see how   45    our job was. When Sunday came, she was ready, but I had to    46    myself to leave the house to fetch the food package. On my way to the school, I fought an urge (强烈愿望) to turn    47    . The Sunday paper and coffee were waiting for me at home. Why do this?   48    , we phoned the elderly person we’d been appointed. She   49    us right over.
The building was in a bad state. Facing us was a silver-haired woman in an old dress. She took the package and asked us to come in. Nora ran inside. I unwillingly followed.   50     inside, I saw that the department belonged to someone poor. Our hostess showed us some photos. Nora played and when it came time to say goodbye, we three hugged. I walked home    51    .
Professionals call such a(n)   52    “a volunteer opportunity”. They are opportunities and I’ve come to see. Where else but as volunteers do you have the opportunity to do something    53     that’s good for others as well as for yourself? Nora and I regularly serve meals to needy people and   54     clothes for the homeless. Yet, as I’ve    55     her grow over these past four years, I still wonder—which of us has benefited more?

A team of researchers in California has developed a way to predict what kinds of objects people are looking at by scanning what’s happening in their brains.
When you look at something, your eyes send a signal about that object to your brain. Different regions of the brain process the information your eyes send. Cells in your brain called neurons(神经元) are responsible for this processing.
　　The fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging功能性磁共振造影) brain scans could generally match electrical activity in the brain to the basic shape of a picture that someone was looking at.
　　Like cells anywhere else in your body, active neurons use oxygen. Blood brings oxygen to the neurons, and the more active a neuron is, the more oxygen it will consume. The more active a region of the brain, the more active its neurons, and in turn, the more blood will travel to that region. And by using fMRI, scientists can visualize which parts of the brain receive more oxygen- rich blood--and therefore, which parts are working to process information.
　　An fMRI machine is a device that scans the brain and measures changes in blood flow to the brain. The technology shows researchers how brain activity changes when a person thinks, looks at something, or carries out an activity like speaking or reading. By highlighting the areas of the brain at work when a person looks at different images, fMRI may help scientists determine specific patterns of brain activity associated with different kinds of images.
　　The California researchers tested brain activity by having two volunteers view hundreds of pictures of everyday objects, like people, animals, and fruits. The scientists used an fMRI machine to record the volunteers' brain activity with each photograph they looked at. Different objects caused different regions of the volunteers' brains to light up on the scan, indicating activity. The scientists used this information to build a model to predict how the brain might respond to any image the eyes see.
In a second test, the scientists asked the volunteers to look at 120 new pictures. Like before, their brains were scanned every time they looked at a new image. This time, the scientists used their model to match the fMRI scans to the image. For example, if a scan in the second test showed the same pattern of brain activity that was strongly, related to pictures of apples in the first test, their model would have predicted the volunteers were looking at apples.
　　 51. What is responsible for processing the information sent by your eyes?
　　A A small region of the brain.
　　B The central part of the brain.
　　C Neurons in the brain.
　　D Oxygen-rich blood.
　　52. Which of the following statements is NOT meant by the writer?
　　A Cells in your brain are called neurons.
　　B The more oxygen a neuron consumes, the more blood it needs.
　　C fMRI helps scientists to discover which parts of the brain process information.
　　D fMRI helps scientists to discover how the brain develops intelligently.
53. "Highlighting the areas of the brain at work" means
　　A "marking the parts of the brain that are processing information"
　　B "giving light to the parts of the brain that are processing information"
　　C "putting the parts of the brain to work"
　　D "stopping the parts of the brain from working"
　　54. What did the researchers experiment on?
　　A Animals, objects, and fruits.
　　B Two volunteers.
　　C fMRI machines.
　　D Thousands of pictures.
55.What is the best title for the passage?
A Mind-reading Machine
B A Technological Dream
C Device that can Help You Calculate
D The Recent Development in Science and Technology

A lawyer and a young lady were sitting next to each other on a long flight. The lawyer asked if she would like to play a fun game. The lady just wanted to take a nap, so she politely refused.
The lawyer explained that the game was actually very easy. He explained “I ask you a question, and if you don’t know the answer, you pay me, and vice versa（反之亦然）.” Again, the lady politely refused and tried to get some sleep.
The lawyer added eagerly, “Okay, if you don’t know the answer, you pay me $5, and if I don’t know the answer, I will pay you $50!” Considering that there would be no end to this suffering unless she played, the lady agreed.
The lawyer asked the first question, “What is the distance from the earth to the moon?” The young lady didn't say a word, pulled out five dollars from her purse and handed it to the lawyer.
Now, it was the lady’s turn. She asked the lawyer, “What goes up a hill with three legs, and comes down with four?” The lawyer was greatly puzzled. He took out his computer and searched all of his references. He searched the Net and sent e-mails to all of his friends, but it was all to no avail. After over an hour, he woke up the lady and handed her $50. The lady politely took the money and turned away to get back to sleep.
The lawyer, very puzzled now, woke the lady up again and asked, “Well, what on earth is the answer?” Without a word, the lady reached into her purse, handed the lawyer another $5 and went back to sleep.
【小题1】The lawyer tried to persuade the lady to play the game because he       .

C

Healthy Habits, Healthy Body

Feel tired lately? Has a doctor said he can’t find anything wrong with you? Perhaps he sent you to a hospital, but all the advanced equipment there shows that there is nothing wrong with you．

Then, consider this：you might be in a state of sub-health(亚健康)．

Sub-health, also called the third state or gray state, is explained as a borderline state between health and disease．

According to the investigation by the National Health Organization, over 45 percent of sub-healthy people are middle-aged or elderly．The percentage is even higher among people who work in management positions as well as students around exam-week．

Symptoms(征兆)include a lack of energy, depression(压抑),slow reactions, insomnia(失眠),agitation, and poor memory．Other symptoms include shortness of breath, sweating and aching in the waist and legs．

The key to preventing and recovering from sub-health, according to some medical experts, is to form good living habits, alternate work and rest, exercise regularly, and take part in open air activities．

As for meals, people are advised to eat less salt and sugar．They should also eat more fresh vegetables, fruits, fish because they are rich in nutritional elements…vitamins and trace elements …vitamins and trace elements…that are important to the body．

Nutrition(营养)experts point out that it is not good to eat too much at one meal because it may cause unhealthy changes in the digestive tract(消化系统)．They also say that a balanced diet is very helpful in avoiding sub-health．

63．According to this passage, which of the following is right?

A．When you are in a state of sub-health, you should stay home and keep silent．

B．When you are in a state of sub-health, you should go to see a doctor and buy some medicine．

C．When you are in a state of sub-health, you should have yourself examined in foreign countries．

D．When you are in a state of sub-health, you should find out the reasons and relax yourself．

64．Middle-aged people may be easy to get sub-health because ___.

A．they have used up their energy      

B．they have lost their living hopes

C．they have more pressure in life and work

D．they begin to get older

65．The key to preventing you from falling into a state of sub-health is that you should ___.

A．work hard                           B．sleep more

C．form good living habits               D．take more medicine

66．As for food, experts suggested that ___.

A．we should never eat meat       B．we should have variety of food

C．we should eat less than usual   D．we should have meals without salt to sugar

67．The bold-faced word “alternate” in this passage is closest in meaning to ___.

A．arrange by turns         B．cause to take place        

C．keep up                 D．take up

C

Educating girls quite possibly brings in a higher rate of return than any other investment available in the developing world. Women education may be an unusual field for economists,  but increasing women's contribution to development is actually as much an economic as a social issue. And economics provides guideposts that point to an explanation for why so many girls are deprived（被剥夺） of an education.

Parents in low-income countries fail to invest in their daughters because they do not expect them to make an economic contribution to the family: girls grow up only to marry into somebody else's family and bear children. Girls are thus seen as less valuable than boys and are kept at home to do housework while their brothers are sent to school-the prophecy （预言） becomes self-fulfilling, trapping women in a bad circle of neglect.

An educated mother, on the other hand, has greater earning abilities outside the home and faces an entirely different set of choices. She is likely to have fewer but healthier children and can insist on the development of all her children, ensuring that her daughters are given a fair chance. The education of her daughters then makes it much more likely that the next generation of girls, as well as of boys, will be educated and healthy. The bad circle is thus transformed into a good one. Ks5u

Few will question that educating women has great social benefits. But it has enormous economic advantages as well. Most obviously, there is the direct effect of education on the wages of female workers. Wages rise by 10 to 20 percent for each additional year of schooling. Such big returns are impressive by the standard of other available investments, but they are just the beginning. Educating women also has a significant effect on health practices, including family planning. Ks5u

59. By saying "the prophecy becomes self-fulfilling..." in Paragraph 2, the author means that ________.

A. girls will turn out to be less valuable than boys

B. girls will be capable of realizing their own dreams

C. girls will eventually find their goals in life beyond reach

D. girls will be increasingly discontented with their life at home

60. The author believes that a bad circle can turn into a good circle when ________.

A. women care more about education

B. girls can gain equal access to education

C. a family has fewer but healthier children

D. parents can afford their daughters' education

61. What does the author say about women' s education?

A. It deserves greater attention than other social issues.

B. It is now given attention before anything else in many developing countries.

C. It will bring in greater returns than other known investments

D. It has aroused the interest of a growing number of economists.

62. The passage mainly discusses________.

A. unequal treatment of boys and girls in developing countries

B. the potential earning power of well-educated women

C. the major contributions of educated women to society

D. the economic and social benefits of educating women