Robert Frost was one of America’s best known and most honored serious writers. But his fame came late in his life.
He was born in San Francisco, California in 1874. He lived in California during his early childhood. He was named after the chief Southern general in America’s Civil War. The general’s name was Robert Edward Lee. The poet was named Robert Lee Frost, because his father wanted to honor the general.
Someone once asked another American writer, Ernest Hemingway, how to become a writer. The best thing, he said, was to have an unhappy childhood. If this is true, Robert Frost’s childhood was unhappy enough to make him a very good writer. Robert Frost’s father was a reporter who wanted to be a politician. He often drank too much wine and became angry. Robert was the victim of his anger.
Robert Frost finished high school in 1891. After high school, Robert’s grandfather offered to pay his costs at Dartmouth College. But Robert left the school after a few months. He did not like it. He spent the next few years working at different jobs. At one time, he worked in a factory. Later, he repaired shoes. He was a teacher. He was a reporter. Always, he wrote poetry.
Robert Frost attended Harvard University for two years. After that, he returned to the many jobs he held before. For a while, Frost tried to take care of a farm in the state of New Hampshire. He was not a successful farmer. And he continued to write poetry. He said that until 1930, he earned only about ten dollars a year from writing.
In 1912, he decided to try to make a new start. He took his family to Britain. The cost of living was low. In Britain, Frost found a publisher for his first book of poems. The book was called A Boy’s Will. When it appeared in 1913, Frost received high praise from British readers. Praise was something he had not received in his own country.
Ezra Pound, another American poet living in Britain, read the poems and liked them very much. He wrote a magazine article about Frost. He also helped get Frost’s second book of poems published in America. That book was called North of Boston.
【小题1】The followings are writers EXCEPT __________.

Sometimes there doesn’t seem to be enough rain. Other times there is too much. Maybe thereisn’t a lot we can do to control the rain, but there is a lot we can do to reduce problems caused bydifferent rainfall patterns.
A new development at the London Wetland Centre in Barnes solves the problems of managingwater with a “Rain Garden”. We are likely to be hearing about it a lot more often over the next fewyears. The idea is that the garden owner can store rainwater and use it in dry periods. They canreduce the problems caused by extra rain this way.
One of the key problems that the rain garden tries to deal with is the problem caused by toomuch water in the street. In a natural environment, a lot of rainwater is sent back into the air byplants. Much is also absorbed deep into the ground, and flows into streams and rivers. What happensin city environments can be completely different —— a large amount of rainwater flows straight offthe hard surfaces of roofs and roads. The harder the rain, the less likely it will be absorbed into theground —— floods are the result. Rainwater running off roads is often polluted.
The rain garden deals with living plants rather than hard surfaces. Plants are designed to holdwater and release it slowly, either into the ground, to be absorbed by plant roots (and so eventuallyback up into the atmosphere) or to go down into the water table. Not only does the rain gardenreduce the amount of water that flows onto the street, but it helps to clean it because plants are very goodat breaking down pollutants(污染物).
【小题1】What’s the main idea of the first paragraph?

Ⅱ   阅读(共两节，满分50分)
第一节：阅读理解（共20小题；每小题2分，满分40分）
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的A、B、C和D项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
A couple of years ago,before a trip to China,Nicole Davis and her US women’s volleyball teammates were warned about the prominence (显著、突出) of coach “Jenny” Lang Ping in her native country.
“I was pushed over by Chinese journalists while I was just trying to put my luggage on the bus,”said Davis.
Known as the “Iron Hammer” for her punishing spikes(扣球),Lang made it possible for China to dominate in the sport in the early 1980s.She was a key player on China’s 1984 Olympic gold medal winning team.
When the US team arrived for the Olympics,Lang,48,who is from Beijing,had to take a different route to avoid a crowd of reporters and fans.
Then came the greatest moment to Lang：While the US team was playing in a packed gym,at least 8,000 Chinese fans unfurled an American flag.
“That really says it all,” Davis said.“They look at her as an icon(偶像)．I’m sure it’s hard for them to see her coaching another country,but they love her so dearly that her success is their success.”
The loyalty of the Chinese fans was tested on Friday,when China lost a match to the US.
“It’s a pity that China lost the match,but I’m still glad that Lang Ping’s team won,since she is the pride of China’s volleyball,” said Liu Chengli,a spectator.“We also cheered for
Lang’s victory.”
Lang said she just tried to stay professional when the two teams meet.“It doesn’t matter if we play China or any other team.It’s the same.” Lang said.
Davis said she and her teammates could not have imagined the passion for volleyball among Chinese because the sport was lack of popularity in the US. The reception from Chinese fans has touched the US players,said US volleyball player Lindsey Berg.
“It’s such an honor to be here and play for our coach here in China,”she said.“The amount of support that the Chinese give to her and us has been tremendous.The whole event has been unbelievable.”
1．What’s the passage mainly about?
A．Staying professional.                           B．Cheering for the Iron Hammer.
C．A match between China and the US.      D．Lang Ping’s career as a coach.
2．Lang Ping avoided meeting the reporters and fans probably because she ________.
A．was afraid to be questioned about her strategy
B．didn’t want to be paid much attention to
C．disliked to be with her fans
D．didn’t want to disturb public order
3．What does the underlined word “unfurled” exactly mean?
A．destroyed completely                           B．tore into pieces
C．spread out to the wind                          D．rolled up
4．What does Lang Ping mean by saying “It doesn’t matter if we play China or any other team.”？
A．American Volleyball Team will beat any team.
B．Chinese Volleyball Team is the same as other teams.
C．She just tried to stay professional.
D．The results of each match will be the same.
5．What impressed the US team players most?
A．The tolerance of Chinese people.
B．The popularity of volleyball in China.
C．Lang Ping’s coaching skills.
D．The loyalty for volleyball of the Chinese.

FOR many young people, having to attend school with a parent would be their worst nightmare. However, Senior 1 student Li Qinmei is happy taking her father with her as long as she can go to classes. He is disabled and unable to take care of himself.
The 16-year-old country girl in Zhucheng, Shandong Province has experienced one disaster after another in her short life. Li lost her mother at three. Four years later, her father became paralyzed after a tractor accident. At 12, her misfortune returned with the death of her grandma. Since then she has been forced to shoulder all the responsibility for her broken family.
Li learnt to cook and managed to live a life with an allowance of only 24 yuan per month. The most difficult thing she had to deal with was helping her father bathe, dress and use the toilet as he could hardly move.
"I felt embarrassed, and so did my dad. It was really hard at the beginning," she recalled.
During most of her junior school years, Li went to classes only once a month as her father was seriously ill at the time.
"I taught myself at home and asked teachers for help on my school days," she explained.
Li's hard work paid off this fall. She was admitted by Zhucheng No 1 High School, a local key school, based on her good performance in the entrance exams.
The school offered Li and her father a room on campus to live in so she could look after him during breaks.
Once in a while, Li felt sad when she saw her classmates going shopping or hanging out with friends.
"I envy them sometimes because they have both mum and dad to look after them. However, I soon feel relieved as I still have my dad with me," she said.
Li admitted that the difficulties in life had taught her to be strong.
"I believe I will go on and continue my studies at a good university," she said, in a confident tone.
Her teacher Mr. Wang has the same belief. Li made great progress in the recent monthly exams. "She works hard and is always eager to excel (好强的). It's not easy for her never to be late for school, but she has managed to make it work," Wang said.
【小题1】Li Qinmei has to shoulder the family because ________.

The conflict(争执) over what or how much homework should be comes partly from the fact that people can't seem to agree on the purpose of homework.
What teachers think?
Some teachers think that homework is necessary to reinforce(巩固)what is learned in school. And so they ask their students to memorize what was discussed in class through homework..
Some teachers think the point of homework is to cover material that the class didn't have time to get to, so their homework is to let students learn additional things.
Other teachers like homework simply because they want students to form work habits and still others believe homework is necessary because it is the best way for parents to learn what their children do in school.
Parents' ideas.
But many parents seem to have different ideas.
Elissa Cohen,who has twins at Lafayette Elementary School, doesn't like the fact that third-grade students in DC elementary schools are asked to write about 25 book summaries a year. “They do the same thing over and over without really getting into alternate(交替) ways of thinking about books and thinking about reading and writing. ”
Experts' opinions.
Some education reformers (改革者), such as Howard Gardner, a Harvard University, professor well-known for his theory on multiple intelligence(智力), think that Cohen is on the right track. But it is often hard to persuade overworked teachers to give much thought to homework tasks.
60. How many opinions do the teachers have on "homework"?
A. 3.            B. 4.          C. 5          D.6
61. According to the experts' opinions,
A. teachers should give necessary work to the students
B. teachers should not work too hard or too long
C. teachers should let the students repeat what they didn't have time to get in class
D. what Cohen's thinking about is correct
62. What's the problem with Elissa Cohen's twins in writing about their book report?
A. They find homework really hard.
B. They simply copy one repeatedly.
C. They aren't given much thinking about what they read.
D. They get different ways of thinking about their work.