Britain and France are separated by the English Channel, a body of water that can be crossed in as few as 20 minutes. But the cultures of the two countries sometimes seem to be miles apart.

　　Last Thursday Britain and France celebrated the 100th anniversary(周年纪念) of the signing of a friendship agreement called the Entente Cordiality. The agreement—signed in London on April 8, 1904—marked a new beginning for the countries following centuries of wars and love-hate partnership.

　　But their relationship has been ups and downs over the past century. Just last year, there were fierce disagreements over the Iraq war—which British Prime Minister Tony Blair supported despite(不管, 尽管) French President Jacques Chirac speaking out against it. This discomfort is expressed in Blair and Chirac's body language at international meetings. While the French leader often greets German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder with a hug (拥抱), Blair just receives a handshake.

However, some political experts say the war in Iraq could in fact have helped ties. “The British population was against war, ” said Francois Heisbourg, director of the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research(战略基金研究会). “So it could have actually helped bring the two sides closer. ”

　　The history of divisions(分割, 区分) may well be because of the very different ways in which the two sides see the world. “The French think Britain is not doing its best to become part of Europe by not introducing the single European currency(货币), ” said Geoff Hare, a former lecturer in French politics and language at Newcastle University in Britain. “France has spent the past 15 to 20 years making itself seen as part of the European Union. ”

　 But this doesn't stop 12 million Britons taking holidays in France each year. However,only 3 million French come in the opposite direction. Surveys show that most French people feel closer to the Germans than they do to the British. And the research carried out in Britain has found that only a third of the population believes the French can be trusted.Perhaps this bad feeling comes because the British dislike France's close relationship with Germany. Or because the French are not happy with Britain's close links with the US.

　　Whatever the answer is, as both sides celebrate 100 years of “doubtful friendship”, they are at least able to make jokes about each other. Here's one:What's the best thing about Britain's relationship with France? The English Channel.

1. For centuries, the relationship between England and France is______.

A. friendly

B. impolite

C. brotherly

D. a mixture of love and hate

2. The war in Iraq does ______ to the relationship between France and England.

A. good

B. harm

C. neither good nor harm

D. both good and harm

3. The British are not so friendly to ______ and the French are not so friendly to ______.

A. Germany;America

B. America;Germany

C. Germany;Germany too

D. America;America too

4. What does the last sentence mean?

A. As long as the English Channel exists, no further disagreement will form between France and Britain.

B. The English Channel can prevent anything unfriendly happening in both France and Britain.

C. France and Britain are near neighbors, and this will help balance the relationship between them.

D. The English Channel is the largest enemy between France and Britain.

5. What is the main idea of this passage?

A. The British differ greatly from the French in culture, origin and custom.

B. The British and The French are against each other because of the very different ways in which they see the world.

C. The celebration of the 100th anniversary of the signing of a friendship agreement mark-ed the mixture feeling of love and hatred over the last century between Britain and Franc-e.

D. The British dislike France's close relationship with Germany, while the French are not happy with Britain's close links with the US.     

The Mother Goose Stories, so well known to children all over the word, are commonly said to have been written by a little old woman for her grandchildren. According to some people, she lived in Boston, and her real name was Elizabeth Vergoose. Her son-in-law, a printer named Thomas Fleet, was supposed to have published the famous stories and poems for small children in 1719. However, no copy of this book has ever been found, and most scholars doubt the truth of this story—and doubt, moreover, that Mother Goose was ever a real person. They point out that the name is a direct translation of the French “Mere I’ Oye.” In 1697 the Frenchman Charles Perrault published the first book in which this name was used. The collection contains eight tales, including “Sleeping Beauty,” “Cinderella,” and “Puss in Boots.” But Perrault did not originate these stories; they were already quite popular in his day, and he only collected them.

In 1729 there appeared an English translation of Perrault’s collection,Robert Samber’s Histories or Tales of Past times, Told by MotherGoose(London,1729), which introduced “Sleeping Beauty”, “Little Red-hood”, “Puss in Boots”,”Cinderella” and other Perrault’s tales to English-speaking audiences. These were fairy tales(童话)。 John Newbery published a book of English rhymes，Mother Goose’s Melody, or Sonnets for the Cradle( London, undated,1765), which switched the focus from fairy tale to nursery  rhymes, and in English this was until recently the primary meaning for Mother Goose.A book of poems for children entitled Mother Goose’s Melody was published in England in1781, and the name “Mother Goose” has been associated with children’s poetry ever since.

1.What is supposed to have happened in 1719?

　 A.　Elizabeth Vergoose wrote the first Mother Goose Stories.

　 B.　 The Mother Goose Stories were translated into French.

　 C.　 Thomas Fleet published the Mother Goose Stories.

　 D.　Charles Perrault published the first Mother Goose Stories.

2. Most scholars consider Mother Goose to be _________.

　　 A. a real person                                                 B. a translation from French

 　　C. a collection by Elizabeth Vergoose          D.　 a book written by a little old woman

3.When Perrault published the first book in 1679, _______.

　　 A. no story of the book had been known to people

　　 B. some stories of the book were already well known

　　 C. few people were interested in the stories of the book

　　 D. stories like “Sleeping Beauty” and “Cinderella” became popular

4.The name used in the first book published in 1679 is supposed to have been _______.

　A. Mother Goose         B. Charles Perrault C. Elizabeth Vergoose  D. Mere I’ Oye 

5.When people talk about Mother Goose, they refer to,___________

     A.    a printer of Boston          B. a kind of animal

     C.    children’s  poetry            D. the  French “Mere L’oye

　完形填空（共20小题；每小题1.5分，满分30分）

　　阅读下面短文，从短文后各题所给的四个选项（A、B、C、和D）中，选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

Tina and Thomas Sjogren were the fourth people to reach the earth's poles. Years ago, the couple were  16    across the North Atlantic on their way to Europe. Tina looked out of her window and was   17   by the vast amount of space in Greenland. “The sky outside the window burst into different   18  and auroras (极光) flew all around us. I   19   what it would be like to step down there and start walking   20   , all alone in such a place. ”She thought, “If this is what Iceland and Greenland are like, how   21   then must the Arctic be?” She turned to her husband,   22   him awake and said, "Honey, let' s go to the Poles !"

Tina’s   23   would not be their first adventure. They had already climbed Mount Qomolangma. The pair soon made a   24    to visit both the North and South Poles on skis, Traveling   25 

    On February 2, 2002, they reached the South Pole. Their journey 26   2,000 kilometres. After just 35 days of recovery and preparation, they   27   again. "You are so    28      after the long expedition to the South Pole, so you don' t know if you could do   29    right away."

On May 29　, after traveling for the whole morning, as the couple watched with weak    30     , the numbers on their GPS showed that their goal had   31  been achieved. They had made it.

    Without the    32    of dogs or supplies dropped from planes, it was only their strength and willpower that   33    them to ski and swim their way. They got valuable experience but that did not come without a    34   If you go on an adventure, there's always the risk of something going wrong.    35    , you will learn from it.

16. A. flying           B. exploring           C. swimming           D. sailing

17. A. frightened       B. bored               C. amazed             D. amused

18. A. shapes           B. colors               C. sounds               D. waves

19. A. remembered     B. wondered           C. enjoyed             D. doubted

20. A. carefully         B. quickly              C. aimlessly             D. freely

21. A. cold            B, bright              C. wonderful           D. terrible

22. A. shook           B. knocked            C. kept                D. beat

23. A. idea             B. advice               C. order                D. offer

24. A. suggestion       B. plan                C. proposal             D. change

25. A. non-stop         B. unsupported         C. unreturned          D. unprepared

26. A. covered          B. included            C. lasted                D. crossed

27. A. broke down      B. settled down         C. set out               D. came back

28. A. excited          B. disappointed        C. confused            D. tired

29. A. more             B. another              C. one                  D. others

30. A. torchlight       B. sunlight            C. breath              D. eyesight

31. A. surprisingly      B. luckily             C. accidentally         D. eventually

32. A. reward           B. burden              C. help                 D. company

33. A. attracted        B. allowed             C. taught               D. forced

34. A. price            B. success             C. mistake             D. change

35. A.Therefore         B. Instead          C. Otherwise         D.However

"Indeed," George Washington wrote in his diary in 1785, "some kind of fly, or bug, had begun to eat the leaves before I left home." But the father of America was not the father of bug. When Washington wrote that, Englishmen hade been referring to insects as bugs for more than a century, and Americans had already created lightning-bug(萤火虫). But the English were soon to stop using the bugs in their language, leaving it to the Americans to call a bug a bug in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

　　The American bug could also be a person, referring to someone who was crazy about a particular activity. Although fan became the usual term, sports fans used to be called racing bugs, baseball bugs, and the like.

　　Or the bug could be a small machine or object, for example, a bug-shaped car. The bug could also be a burglar alarm, from which comes the expression to bug, that is, "to install (安装) an alarm". Now it means a small piece of equipment that people use for listening secretly to others' conversation. Since the 1840s, to bug has long meant "to cheat", and since the 1940s it has been annoying.

　　We also know the bug as a flaw in a computer program or other design. That meaning dates back to the time of Thomas Edison. In 1878 he explained bugs as "little problems and difficulties" that required months of study and labor to overcome in developing a successful product. In 1889 it was recorded that Edison "had been up the two previous nights discovering 'a bug' in his invented record player."

1.We learn from Paragraph 1 that __________________.

A. Americans had difficulty in learning to use the word bug

B. George Washington was the first person to call an insect a bug

C. the word bug was still popularly used in English in the nineteenth century

D. both Englishman and Americans used the word bug in the eighteenth century

2.What does the word "flaw" in the last paragraph probably mean?

A. Fault.      B. Finding.        C. Origin.      D. Explanation.

3.The passage is mainly concerned with__________________.

A. the misunderstanding of the word bug

B. the development of the word bug

C. the public views of the word bug

D. the special characteristics of the word bug

PALO ALTO, California------"Switching off the television may help prevent children from getting fatter------ even if they do not change their diet or increase the amount they exercise," US researchers said last week.
　　A study of 192 third and fourth graders, generally aged eight and nine, found that children who cut the number of hours spent watching television gained nearly two pounds(0.9kg) less over a one-year period than those who did not change their television diet.
　　"The findings are important because they show that weight loss can only be the result of a reduction in television viewing and not any other activity," said Thomas Robinson, a pediatrician(儿科专家) at Stanford University.
　　"American children spend an average of more than four hours per day watching television and videos or playing video games, and rates of childhood being very fat have doubled over the past 20 years," Robinson said.
　　In the study, presented this week to the Pediatric Academic Societies‘ annual meeting in San Francisco, the researchers persuaded about 100 of the students to reduce their television viewing by one-quarter to one-third.
　　Children watching fewer hours of television showed a significantly smaller increase in waist size and had less body fat than other students who continued their normal television viewing, even though neither group ate a special diet or took part in any extra exercise.
　　"One explanation for the weight loss could be the children unstuck to the television may simply have been moving around more and burning off calories," Robinson said.
　　"Another reason might be due to eating fewer meals in front of the television. Some studies have suggested that eating in front of the TV encourages people to eat more," Robinson said.
【小题1】The author tries to tell us in the first two paragraphs that ________.