While all my classmates seem to be crazy about a one-way ticket to Mars, I’d rather say Mars is totally unsuitable for human existence. People won’t have enough food supplies there, and the terrible environment would make it impossible for them to live a long life. Besides, the journey won’t be safe. Can anybody explain to me just why people would go to Mars, never to return?  Steve Minear, UK
Here are the things you can think of: the desire to explore a foreign and unique environment, the excitement of being the first humans to open up a new world, the expectation of fame and glory┅. For scientists there is another reason. Their observations and research will probably lead to great scientific achievements.  Donal Trollop, Canada
There are already too many people on the Earth. I think that something before the end of the century, there will be a human colony on Mars. It will happen when people finally realize that two-way trips to the red planet Mars are unnecessary. Most of the danger of space flight is in the launches and landings. Cutting the trip home would therefore reduce the danger of accidents, save a lot of money, and open the way to building an everlasting human settlement in another world. Enough supplies can be sent on ahead, and every two years more supplies and more people will be sent to the new colony. Mars has all the materials for a colony to produce or make everything it needs, and Mars is far more pleasant than the other planets in the outer space.   Paul Davies, USA
【小题1】The main purpose of Steve Minear’s writing is_________.    .

Celebrity (名人) has become one of the most important representatives of popular culture. Fans used to be crazy about a specific film, but now the public tends to base its consumption on the interest of celebrity attached to any given product. Besides, fashion magazines have almost abandoned the practice of putting models on the cover because they don’t sell nearly as well as famous faces. As a result, celebrities have realized their unbelievably powerful market potential, moving from advertising for others’ products to developing their own.

    Celebrity clothing lines aren’t a completely new phenomenon, but in the past they were typically aimed at the ordinary consumers, and limited to a few TV actresses. Today they’re started by first-class stars whose products enjoy equal fame with some world top brands. The most successful start-ups have been those by celebrities with specific personal style. As celebrities become more and more experienced at the market, they expand their production scale rapidly, covering almost all the products of daily life.

    However, for every success story, there’s a related warning tale of a celebrity who overvalued his consumer appeal. No matter how famous the product’s origins is, if it fails to impress consumers with its own qualities it begins to resemble an exercise in self-promotional marketing. And once the initial (最初的）attention dies down, consumer interest might fade, loyalty returning to tried-and-true labels.

Today, celebrities face ever more severe embarrassment. The pop-cultural circle might be bigger than ever, but its rate of turnover has speeded up as well. Each misstep threatens to reduce a celebrity’s shelf life, and the same newspaper or magazine that once brought him fame has no problem picking him to pieces when the opportunity appears. Still, the ego’s (自我的）potential for expansion is limitless. Having already achieved great wealth and public recognition, many celebrities see fashion as the next frontier to be conquered. As the saying goes, success and failure always go hand in hand. Their success as designers might last only a short time, but fashion — like celebrity — has always been temporary.

1. Fashion magazines today ________.

    A. seldom put models on the cover

    B. no longer put models on the cover

    C. need not worry about celebrities’ market potential

    D. judge the market potential of every celebrity correctly

2. A change in the consumer market can be found today that _______.

    A. price rather than brand name is more concerned

    B. producers prefer models to celebrities for achievements

    C. producers prefer TV actresses to film stars for advertisements

    D. quality rather than the outside of products is more concerned

3. The underlined sentence in Paragraph 4 indicates that any wrong step will possibly ______.

    A. decrease the popularity of a celebrity and the sales of his products

    B. damage the image of a celebrity in the eyes of the general public

    C. cut short the artistic careen of a celebrity in show business

    D. influence the price of a celebrity’s products

4. The passage is mainly about _______.

    A. celebrity and personal style

    B. celebrity and market potential

    C. celebrity and fashion design

D. celebrity and clothing industry

Tuesday

October 23   11:00 am

World Tree Day; World Tree Cuisine

For World Tree Day, Snook gives out badges（徽章）to everyone who is nice to the tree, but Bob can’t think of what to do -until he comes up with a song．Also: Madge and Snook plan a party to celebrate the World Tree's birthday．

Wednesday

October 21   11:00am

The Sloth Must Be Crazy; Smarter than You Think

Bob investigates a shiny green object that fell from the sky, and, with Madge's help, figures out what it is． Also: Winslow fears that everyone else is smarter than he is．

Thursday

October 22   11:00 am

Fish out of Water; Burdette's Nest

Bob fears that Ick is stuck inside a rock, but soon learns that the rock is a fossil; Smooch and Snook help patch Burdette's nest．

Friday

October 23  11:00 am

Bones; Food and Plenty of It

After Winslow injures his arm, he refuses to slow down and winds up hurting his leg too．Also: Burdette is upset when the nuts on her favorite tree disappear．

Thursday

November 5  11:00 am

The Sting; Growing

Wartz's frog friend Greenie is frightened by Stripey the bee; Madge and Snook think about everything that's occurred at the World Tree during the past year．

Friday

November 6   11:00 am

The Big Race; You Are What You Are

Winslow, Smooch and Snook organize a relay race(接力赛) for all the animals of the World Tree．Also: Wartz wonders if fish and plants are related since they both need water to survive．

1.The information above is most probably about _________．

    A．different science fiction films shown each day

    B．a series of TV programmes for parents

    C．a series of TV programmes for children

    D．different children's films shown each day

2.The theme of the song that Bob comes up with is probably about_________．

    A．protecting animals                   B．birthday celebration    

    C．alien legend                         D．protecting trees

3.If Jane wants to know how Winslow gets injured, she will be interested in _____．

    A．The Sloth Must Be Crazy; Smarter than You Think         

    B．Bones; Food and Plenty of It

　  C．The Sting; Growing                                      

    D．The Big Race; You Are What You Are

4.What is TRUE of Wartz?

    A．Wartz has many foolish ideas.        B．Wartz is not clever as others.

    C．Wartz is curious and imaginative.    D．Wartz wins a relay race.

Some time ago I discovered that one of my chairs had a broken leg. I didn't think there would be any difficulty in getting it mended, as there are a lot of antique(古董) shops near my home. So I left home one morning carrying the chair with me. I went into the first shop expecting a friendly reception (接待). I was quite wrong. The man wouldn't even look at my chair.

The second shop, though slightly more polite, was just the same, and the third and the fourth－so I decided that my approach must be wrong.

I entered the fifth shop with a plan in my mind. I placed the chair on the floor and said to the shopkeeper, "Would you like to buy a chair?" He looked it over carefully and said, "Yes, not a bad chair. How much do you want for it, sir?" "Twenty pounds," I said. "OK," he said, "I'll give you twenty pounds." "It's got a slightly broken leg," I said. "Yes, I saw that, it's nothing."

Everything was going according to plan and I was getting excited. "What will you do with it?" I asked. "Oh, it will be easy to sell once the repair is done." "I'll buy it," I said. "What do you mean? You've just sold it to me," he said. "Yes, I know but I've changed my mind. I am sorry. I'll give you twenty-seven pounds for it." "You must be crazy," he said. Then, suddenly the penny dropped. "I know what you want. You want me to repair your chair." "You're right," I said. "And what would you have done if I had walked in and said, ' Would you mend this chair for me?'  "I wouldn't have agreed to do it," he said. "We don't do repairs, not enough money in it and too much trouble. But I'll mend this for you, shall we say for five pounds?" He was a very nice man and was greatly amused (感到有趣) by the whole thing.

1.We can learn from the text that in the first shop the writer ________.

2.The underlined word "approach" in the second paragraph means ________.

3.The expression "the penny dropped" in the last paragraph means the shopkeeper ________.

4. How much did the writer pay?

5.From the text, we can learn that the writer was _________.

C
Have you ever played the game Hot Potato? Jon Scieszka and a team of 13 popular children’s book authors are playing a writer’s version of the game, and are having a blast.
Here’s how it works. In The Exquisite Corpse Adventure, the “hot potato” is the story, and it is passed from one author to the next. Scieszka wrote the first chapter. Then he passed the story to another author Katherine Paterson. If Scieszka decides to introduce a roller-skating baby into the story, Paterson and the other contributing authors will have to decide what to do with the baby in later chapters. Every two weeks a new chapter, written by a different author, will be published on the Library of Congress’s read. Gov site. The high rate of hits has proved that Scieszka did not fail to make the readers laugh with his incredibly silly story.
“Working on The Exquisite Corpse Adventure was so much fun,” Scieszka says. “I got to write the first chapter so I could set up all these foolish traps for the other authors and make them have to write about clowns and ninjas(忍者).”
The story might be crazy, but all of the authors agreed that writing the story together was a whole lot of fun. “I started in the middle of the story,” author Steven Kellogg said, “That’s kind of fun. I got to read about everyone else’s characters and then brought them into the chapter that I was writing. It’s really good to think about other authors’ ideas and connect them with my own.”
You may wonder why the book is called The Exquisite Corpse Adventure. In fact Kellogg and the other authors are playing a game that is over 100 years old. Exquisite Corpse is actually the name of an old game in which players begin a story on a sheet of paper and pass it on to the next player to continue the tale. The game ends when someone finishes the story, which is then read aloud.
59. How is the game Hot Potato played according to the passage?
A．People make up the story about the “hot potato” one by one.
B．People throw the “hot potato” to hit one another.
C．People pass the “hot potato” from one person to the next.
D．People hit by the “hot potato” must tell a funny story.
60. We can infer from the passage that________.
A．it’s the first time such a game of writing has ever been played
B．the story hasn’t been finished yet
C．the clues of the story have been decided by Kellogg
D．every chapter will be online for two weeks
61.Kellogg thinks the game is fun because________.
A．the story is very silly and crazy
B．he writes the main part of the story
C．he could continue the story by sharing it with other authors
D．there are so many different characters in the story
62.The last paragraph is mainly about________.
A．how the game ended           B．when the game stared
C．how the book was named       D．how the Exquisite corpse worked