B

As an effect of the high fuel prices spent on bus transportation, some American schools are changing to a four-day week. That means longer days instead of the traditional Monday through Friday schedule.

Having been approved for three years and beginning in the fall, students in the Maccray school district in Minnesota will be in school from Tuesday to Friday. Each school day will be 65 minutes longer. Officials say the district expects to save about sixty-five thousand dollars a year in transportation costs.

In new Mexico, the first school district changed to a four-day week in 1974 because of the Arab oil boycott(抵制). Now, 17 out of 89 districts use it.

In Custer, South Dakota, students have been going to school four days a week since 1995. Superintendent Tim Creal says the change has saved about one million dollars over just the past eight years. He sees other benefits, too. Students get more instructional time, and activities that used to take up class time are now held on non-school days. He says that in the future, the growth of online classes could make it possible to require even fewer days in school. High fuel prices are driving college students to take more online classes.

A four-day school week sounds like a great idea for students and teachers, but working parents may have to pay for child care for that fifth day.

1.According to Tim Creal, what makes it possible to have even fewer days in school?

A．The increasing number of private tutors.(私人教师)

B．The development of teaching methods.

C．The increase in the number of online classes.

D．The growth in the income of Americans.

2. It can be learned from the passage that______

A．students will be in school from Monday to Tuesday.

B．four-day week was first carried out in South Dakota.

C．Maccray will save one million dollars every year.

D．Minnesota state has approved the four-day week plan

3.The passage is mainly about______

A．some school’s four-day week plan         B．districts using a four-day week.

C．how to save on transportation fees.          D．expense of school transportation.

Since 1995,_____people call the Year of the Internet, the world has turned flat thanks to the network.

Scientists have developed a water treatment system that they say is a powerful but simple way to save lives. Four grams of chemicals can treat ten liters of dirty water for a low cost, about ten cents.
Experts say infections from dirty water kill several thousand children in developing countries every day. The Procter and Gamble company has been developing the "PUR Purifier of Water" system since 1995. The company has been working with the United States Centers for Disease control and Prevention(C.D.C.).
C.D.C. researchers tested it in Guatemala, Pakistan and Kenya. Procter and Gamble researcher Greg Allgood says cases of diarrhea(腹泻) in those studies fell by about 50 percent. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Maryland tested the system at a refugee camp in Liberia. Mr. Allgood says that study found a reduction of more than 90 percent. Use of the system is being expanded worldwide.
The treatment contains bleach(漂白剂) to kill disease-causing organisms. It also contains something that dirt and other particles stick to. Mr. Allgood says the chemicals can remove lead and other dangerous metals and even agricultural poisons like D.D.T.
Mr. Allgood heads the Children's Safe Drinking Water program at Procter and Gamble. He says about forty million packets of the treatment have been given to countries for free. They have been used in emergencies and in areas with limited supplies of clean water.
Clean water is a limited resource in many parts of the world. Delegates from about 130 nations attended the Fourth World Water Forum last month in Mexico City. Scientists, policy experts and others discussed ways to provide clean water to the world’s poor. Organizers say more than twenty percent of the world population lacks clean drinking water. The final declaration did not go so far as to declare water a human right. But it did say that governments, not private companies, must take the lead in improving the public’s ability to have clean water.
46. What is mainly talked about in this passage?
A. Water pollution around the world.
B. The causes of diarrhea in African countries.
C. A newly developed water treatment system.
D. The Fourth World Water Forum in Mexico City.
47. Which of the following developed the water treatment system?
A. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
B. The Procter and Gamble Company and C.D.C.
C. The Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program.
D. Johns Hopkins University.
48. Which of the following about the new water treatment system is NOT true?
A. It is effective but very expensive.
B. It was tested in Guatemala, Pakistan and Kenya.
C. It is being expanded worldwide.
D. It can remove dangerous metals in the water.
49. Which of the following shows that the shortage of clean water is a serious problem?
A. Forty million packets of the treatment have been given to countries for free.
B. Delegates from about 130 nations attended the Fourth World Water Forum.
C. Four grams of chemicals can treat liters of dirty water for a low cost.
D. Infections from dirty water kill several thousand children every day.
50. The best title for this article is ______.
A. A Small Packet of Chemicals, a Big Effect on Dirty Water
B. The Procter and Gamble Company and C.D.C.
C. The Shortage of Clean Water                           
D. How to Cure Diarrhea

In 1995, Susan Boyle went to Glasgow to audition (试演) for My Kind of people, a televised talent show popular in the UK. She was immediately rejected. She was nervous during the audition, and felt she didn't perform well, but her brother said that she was rejected because of her plain looks. Boyle was not discouraged and continued to sing at church and at the karaoke nights in a local pub.
Boyle suffered a personal loss in 1997, when her father passed away. After his death. Boyle put her big dreams on hold to care for her sick mother Bridget Boyle. The mother and daughter often talked of Susan's possible fame. Bridget Boyle encouraged her daughter to take part in singing competitions. “She was the one who said I should enter Britain's Got Talent. We used to watch it together.” Susan later told reporters. “She thought I would win.”
In 1999, Boyle used all of her savings to pay for a professional demo (样本唱片) tape. which she sent to record companies. In 2002, Boyle began taking singing lessons from voice coach Fred O'Neil.
In 2007, Boyle's mother passed away at the age of 91. A neighbor reported that when Bridget Boyle died, her daughter “wouldn't come out for three or four days or answer the door or phone.” She lived alone with her cat, Pebbles. For over a year, she refused to sing. But in August of 2008, O'Neil urged her to try out for Britain's Got Talent. Convinced that the performance would be an honor to her mother, Boyle auditioned in Glasgow, Scotland. She sang I Dreamed A Dream in the first round of the show, which was aired on 11 April 2009.
The 47-year-old Scottish woman's plain looks provided a sharp contrast (对比) to her powerfully beautiful voice. The performance astonished the audience and the judges. Online videos of her performance totaled over 40 million views within a week. Although she failed to win the final of Britain's Got Talent, Susan Boyle became globally popular. Her first album I Dreamed A Dream has sold over five million copies.
【小题1】Bridget Boyle's attitude towards her daughter's musical talent can be described as      .

Romanian-born German writer Herta Mueller won the 2009 Nobel Prize in literature yesterday, honored for work that "with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, describes the landscape of the dispossessed(被流放者)," the Swedish Academy said.

The 56-year-old author, who immigrated to Germany from Romania in 1987, first gained public attention in 1982 with a collection of short stories titled Niederungen, or Lowlands in English, which was promptly censored(审查通过) by her government.

In 1984 an uncensored version was smuggled to Germany where it was published and her work describing life in a small, German-speaking village in Romania was popular with the readers there. That work was followed by Oppressive Tango in Romania.

"The Romanian national press was very critical of these works while, outside of Romania, the German press received them very positively," the Academy said. "Because Mueller had publicly criticized the dictatorship(独裁) in Romania, she was prohibited from publishing in her own country.” In 1987 she immigrated to Germany with her husband two years before dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was toppled from power.

Mueller's parents were members of the German-speaking minority in Romania and father served in the Waffen SS during World War II. After the war ended, many German Romanians were deported(放逐) to the Soviet Union in 1945, including her mother, who spent five years in a work camp in what is now Ukraine.

Most of her works are in German, but some works have been translated into English, French and Spanish, including The Passport, The Land of Green Plums, Traveling on One Leg and The Appointment.

Mueller has given guest lectures at universities, colleges and other venues in Paderborn, Warwick, Hamburg, Swansea, Gainsville (Florida), Kassel, Gottingen, Tubingen and Zurich among other places. She lives in Berlin. Since 1995 she has served as a member of Deutsche Akademie fur Sprache und Dichtung, in Darmstadt."

Mueller is the 12th woman to win the literature prize. Recent female winners include Austria's Elfriede Jelinek in 2004 and British writer Doris Lessing in 2007.

The award includes a $1.4 million prize and will be handed out on December 10

51．Herta Mueller was awarded Nobel Prize in literature because of____________.

A．her public criticism upon the dictatorship in Romania

B．her works with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose

C．her works describing the life of the dispossessed in Germany 

D．the popularity of her works with the readers in the German-speaking village

52．Which of the following statements is mentioned by the author?

A．German Romanians were treated unfairly in Germany in the 1940s.

B．Her parents were dispossessed to Ukraine after the World War II.

C．Her first work was published in Germany in the early 1980s.

D．Her works were all translated into versions in different languages.

53．It can be inferred from the fourth paragraph that _____.

A．people then in Romania had the right to say whatever was true.

B．Herta Mueller left her home country after the dictatorship was ended.

C．Herta Mueller immigrated to Germany together with her parents.

D．Romanian citizens lived a hard life without democracy in the 1980s.

54．According to the passage, which of the following works has an English version? 

A．Lowlands in English                  B．Oppressive Tango in Romania.  

C．Traveling on One Leg                 D．The Land of Green Plums

55．What is the passage mainly about?

A．Mueller made great contribution to literature through hard work

B．Mueller won the Nobel Prize for her great literature works.

C．Mueller gained great popularity by describing dictatorship.

D．Mueller was treated badly in Romania and immigrated to Germany.