BUKHANNON, West Virginia—Two rescue teams slowly moved along a two-mile path on Monday night to the site of a coal mine explosion that trapped 13 miners, who had not been heard from since the early morning accident.
Meanwhile, at a nearby church, more than 250 family members and friends gathered, waiting for updates（最新报道）on the rescuers’ progress.
The miners were trapped at about 6:30 and many families weren’t informed of the accident until about 10 a.m-more than three hours after it happened. “It’s very upsetting, but you’ve got to be patient, I guess,” said John Helms, whose brother, Terry, was trapped in the mine.
The trapped miners were about 260 feet underground and about 10,000 feet from the Sago Mine’s entrance, said Roger Nicholson, general counsel from International Coal Group.
At a late night news conference, Nicholson said one team had advanced about 4,800 feet in the four hours since entering the mine just before 6 p.m. Another team entered the mine about 30 minutes later.
He said the crew was very experienced, with some members having worked underground for 30 to 35 years. The miners were equipped with about one hour of breathable oxygen each. The company has not released the names of the miners.
The teams test the air about every 500 feet, and have to disconnect (remove) the power to the phones they use to communicate with the surface before doing that. “We don’t want to be energizing anything if it’s in an atmosphere with burnable gases,” Kips said. The cause of the explosion was not immediately known. High levels of carbon monoxide were detected shortly after the explosion, which delayed rescue efforts, but those levels have since subsided（减退）, authorities said.
53. According to the passage, we can infer that ______.
A. all the miners who were trapped underground were still alive
B. communication with the trapped miners was cut off
C. the two rescue teams entered the mine at the same time
D. the rescue started as soon as the accident happened
54. If the first team advanced at an average speed, they could dig about ______ per hour.
A. 1,000 feet          B. 2,400 feet           C. 1,200 feet                D. 4,800 feet
55. Where can the passage be seen?
A. In a magazine.                                     B. In a newspaper.       
C. In a science book..                            D. On an advertisement.
56. Which of the following shows the position where the miners were trapped?

One day when I was driving on the freeway, I noticed all the way there were large dividing walls, which had been built between it and the road running parallel to it, for noise reduction (减少) and a sense of separation. The purpose was to create a sense of privacy (隐私) for people on the other side.

This got me thinking: How often do we put up mental barriers that keep us distant from others? Lifting the artificial barriers that keep us apart can offer opportunities to express our goodwill and create better relationships. If we can do like this, maybe our life will be a little different.

There is a little post office in a nearby town, and since it is closer to me than the post office in my own town, I go there. One day, with many people jammed into the little building, a man came hurrying in to mail a letter, and the girl at the counter saw he had too little postage on it. She told him he needed 2 more cents. Obviously he was a little at a loss. He had hurried over from his office, and didn’t have any money on him or time to stand in line. He was going to run back to get the needed money and wait in line again, but he hurried to get the letter mailed in the first place.

As we were watching him, one woman volunteered a two-cent stamp, and the whole line became very quiet. It was a beautiful moment. The man hesitated for a little while and asked her if she was sure, and she assured him she was fine with giving him the stamp. He offered to go back to his office to get the two cents, and she told him not to bother.

It was a small thing, but it meant something to both of the people involved, and to the rest of us. We aren’t a yard that needs defining or a freeway that needs barriers. We are human beings who can contribute to each other’s wellbeing by taking time to pay attention and interact. After all, we are all parts of a whole living in society.

1.The purpose of the first paragraph is to __________.

A. summarize the main idea

B. give detailed information

C. tell readers the author’s opinion

D. introduce the topic

2.What happened after the man being told he needed two more cents?

A. The man went back to his office immediately.

B. The man turned to a lady for help.

C. A woman offered a stamp to the man.

D. The man waited in line patiently.

3.What can we learn about the author?

A. She pays too much attention to privacy.

B. She believes people should participate in the world around them.

C. She confuses real barriers with false ones.

D. She insists all small things always have the greatest meaning.

4.Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?

A. Artificial Barriers                                      B. Unnecessary Separation

C. An Unforgettable Experience                 D. The Kindness of People

Weekend Miracles
Weekend Miracles give children aged 9 and older in the Children’s Center the opportunity to visit a host family who partners the child to find the child a permanent family. The host family arranges activities that the child will enjoy and introduces the child to their circle of friends—in order to develop a lasting connection with someone.
Organization: Kidsave International
Location: the United States
Duration: 2 days to 6 weeks
Web Designer Needed
We need the skills of a Web designer to help us redesign our website. The project will be fun and fulfilling, and give much needed visibility (能见性) to our grass-roots projects that are serving children and mothers in every corner of the world.
Organization: Children’s Fund
Location: the United States
Duration: 3 weeks to 2 months
Living Miracles
Doctors and dentists are needed as volunteers at Shechen Medical Clinic in Nepal for two months or longer. In Tibet, we need doctors for only 1-2 months. Dentists can come for one month or longer. Please understand that modern conveniences are not available here.
Organization: Dilgo Khyentse Fellowship
Location: Nepal
Duration: 21 days to 6 years
Teaching English to Children in India
The Salus Foundation, Inc. needs help from volunteers, teachers, college students or recent college graduates trained in ESL, or who are willing to be trained in ESL to teach English to the students at the Sulaxim School.
Organization: The Salus Foundation, Inc.
Location: India
Duration: 6 weeks to 9 months
Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Cameroon
In Defense of Animals in Africa needs help from highly motivated, mature volunteers who care about the conservation of great apes and are willing to live in an isolated, challenging, French-speaking environment for six months to benefit our future generation.
Organization: In Defense of Animals in Africa
Location: Cameroon
Duration: 6 months
【小题1】We can infer from the passage that           .

Far from the land of Antarctica(南极洲), a huge shelf of ice meets the ocean. At the underside of the shelf there lives a small fish, the Antarctic cod.
For forty years scientists have been curious about that fish. How does it live where most fish would freeze to death? It must have some secret. The Antarctic is not a comfortable place to work and research has been slow. Now it seems we have an answer.
Research was begun by cutting holes in the ice and catching the fish. Scientists studied the fish’s blood and measured its freezing point.
The fish were taken from seawater that had a temperature of -1.88℃ and many tiny pieces of ice floating in it. The blood of the fish did not begin to freeze until its temperature was lowered to -2.05℃. That small difference is enough for the fish to live at the freezing temperature of the ice-salt mixture.
The scientists’ next research job was clear: Find out what in the fish’s blood kept it from freezing. Their search led to some really strange thing made up of a protein(蛋白质) never before seen in the blood of a fish. When it was removed, the blood froze at seawater temperature. When it was put back, the blood again had its antifreeze quality and a lowered freezing point.
Study showed that it is an unusual kind of protein. It has many small sugar molecules(分子) held in special positions within each big protein molecule. Because of its sugar content. It is called a glycoprotein. So it has come to be called the antifreeze fish glycoprotein. Or AFGP.
【小题1】What is the text mainly about?

第三部分：阅读理解（共20小题；每小题2分，满分40分）
Before the mid 1860’s, the impact of the railroads in the United States was limited, in the sense that the tracks ended at this Missouri River, approximately the center of the country. At the point the trains turned their freight, mail, and passengers over to steamboats, wagons, and stagecoaches. This meant that wagon freighting, stagecoaching, and steamboating did not come to an end when the first train appeared; rather they became supplements or feeders. Each new “end of track” became a center for animal drawn or waterborne transportation. The major effect of the railroad was to shorten the distance that had to be covered by the older, slower, and more costly means. Wagon freighters continued operating throughout the 1870’s and 1880’s and into the 1890’s. Although over constantly shrinking routes, and coaches and wagons continued to crisscross the West wherever the rails had not yet been laid. The beginning of a major change was foreshadowed in the later 1860’s, when the Union Pacific Railroad at last began to build westward from the Central Plains city of Omaha to meet the Central Pacific Railroad advancing eastward from California through the formidable barrier of the Sierra Nevada. Although President Abraham Lincoln signed the original Pacific Railroad bill in 1862 and a revised, financially much more generous version in 1864, little construction was completed until 1865 on the Central Pacific and 1866 on the Union Pacific. The primary reason was skepticism that a Railroad built through so challenging and thinly settled a stretch of desert, mountain, and semiarid plain could pay a profit. In the words of an economist, this was a case of “premature enterprise”, where not only the cost of construction but also the very high risk deterred private investment. In discussing the Pacific Railroad bill, the chair of the congressional committee bluntly stated that without government subsidy no one would undertake so unpromising a venture; yet it was a national necessity to link East and West together. ?
61. The author refers to the impact of railroads before the late 1860’s as “limited” because
A. the track did not take the direct route from one city to the next?
B. passengers and freight had to transfer to other modes of transportation to reach western destinations              C. passengers preferred stagecoaches
D. railroad travel was quite expensive
62. What can be inferred about coaches and wagon freighters as the railroad expanded?
A. They developed competing routes.
B. Their drivers refused to work for the railroads.?
C. They began to specialize in private investment.?
D. There were insufficient numbers of trained people to operate them.
63.  Why does the author mention the Sierra Nevada in line 17? ?
A. To argue that a more direct route to the West could have been taken.??
B. To identify a historically significant mountain range in the West.?
C. To point out the location of a serious train accident.?
D. To give an example of an obstacle faced by the central pacific.   
64.  The word “subsidy” in line 27 is closest in meaning to_____.?
A. persuasion             B. financing              C. explanation           D. penalty ?