Mail was usually carried west on ships that sailed around the bottom of South America and then north to California．That could take several months.  
So, in eighteen fifty-seven, D.C．Lawmakers in Congress（国会） in Washington wanted to make it possible to send mail all the way across the United States by land．Congress offered to help any company that would try to deliver mail overland to the West Coast. A man named John Butterfield accepted this offer. He developed plans for a company that would carry the mail—and passengers, too.
Congress gave John Butterfield six hundred thousand dollars to start his company. In return, he had to promise that the mail would travel from Saint Louis, Missouri, to San Francisco, California, in twenty-five days or less.
It was not possible to travel straight through because of the Rocky Mountains and the deep snow that fell in winter. So the stagecoach（马车） would travel south from Saint Louis to El Paso, Texas, then over to southern California, then north to San Francisco. The distance was about four thousand five hundred kilometers.
Two hundred of these stations were built, each about thirty-two kilometers apart. The workers were to quickly change the horses or mules whenever a stagecoach reached the station. There could be no delay. Each stagecoach was to travel nearly two hundred kilometers a day.
One hundred stagecoaches were built and painted red or dark green. They were the most modern coaches that money could buy. They were designed to hold as many as nine passengers and twelve thousand pieces of mail. The seats inside could be folded down to make beds. Passengers either slept on them or on the bags of mail.
The cost would be one hundred fifty dollars to travel from Saint Louis to San Francisco. If a passenger was not going all the way, the cost was about ten cents a kilometer. The passengers had to buy their own food at the stations. The stagecoach would stop for forty minutes, two times a day.
The company warned passengers about the possible dangers. A poster said: “You will be traveling through Indian country and the safety of your person cannot by granted by anyone but God.”
1．What is the passage mainly about?
A．Different ways of sending mail in the United States.
B．The difficulty in sending mails across the USA by land.
C．The first stagecoaches that carried both passengers and mail.
D．The history of the first stagecoaches carrying mail to the American West.
2．The reason why Lawmakers wanted to send mail by land was that ________.
A．mail was usually carried west on ships  
B．it was safer to travel to send mail by land
C．it would take less time to send mail by land
D．stagecoaches could carry passengers and mail
3．As is described in the passage, the stagecoach ________.
A．could only stop once a day           
B．was modern with seats ,beds and cooking equipment
C．was a closed wagon operated only by skillful drivers.
D．had different horses or mules pulled all the way
4．What can we learn from the passage?
A．John Buttterfield got thousands of dollars for delivering mail in stagecoaches.
B．John Buttterfield kept his promise to deliver mail straight to the West Coast.
C．Passengers might be robbed by Indians when traveling through the West.
D．Passengers needed to pay one hundred dollars for their journey. 

原创（四）
It is universally known that friendship is one of the permanent themes in the literature of all languages. Friends are people who willingly and readily help us when we are in trouble, and show   36  for us when we are in misery. This is   37   human beings were born to need the warmth and laughter of friends. Some of us like    38  friends, while others different friends. Personally,I prefer both.
It goes without saying that having similar friends has many    39  , We can feel a renewed sense of    40  when we have a group of old friends who would    41    our sufferings and happiness.   42  ,  old friends always  know  how to   43  mutual trust（互信）and how to avoid    44   conflicts. I always feel    45   when I meet an old friend after a long   46  . Immediately, hearty laughter    47   the atmosphere.
Nevertheless I believe that a mixture of friends is    48  advantageous. One can ___49___ various sorts of friends in three aspects. First, frequent    50   with different friends broadens my world   51   ．Just as various kinds of nutriments keep you healthy, making a   52   of friends keeps you lively. Secondly , I have found that the   53  friends cannot only    54  new adventures but alse show me new   55  to success in life. Thirdly, they can help me with whatever difficulties I encounter in life.
To conclude, I prefer to have both types of friends and as many as possible. Of course, I will not forget friends wisely.
36．A．direction         B．respect                    C．sympathy         D．anxiety
37．A．because          B．why                       C．how                D．What
38．A．true                B．right                       C．same               D．similar
39．A．problems        B．advantages             C．disadvantages   D．duties
40．A．tension           B．challenge                C．strength          D．oppression
41．A．share             B．convey                   C．guarantee         D．cause
42．A．Therefore       B．Otherwise               C．However          D．Moreover
43．A．lack               B．abandon                  C．bear                D．maintain
44．A．obvious          B．impossible                 C．impressive              D．hidden
45．A．stressed          B．worried                  C．delighted         D．confused
46．A．experience      B．departure                C．work               D．discussion
47．A．fills               B．weakens                  C．ruins               D．buries
48．A．eagerly           B．equally                  C．bitterly            D．rarely
49．A．make with             B．benefit from            C．result from       D．appeal to
50．A．quarrel           B．contact                   C．argument               D．view
51．A．attitude           B．position                  C．outlook         D．ambition
52．A．range                     B．series                      C．quantity           D．variety
53．A．strange           B．doubtful                 C．available          D．different
54．A．result from     B．stick to                   C．attend to          D．lead to
55．A．avenues         B．appeal                    C．benefit             D．attitude

As many as five courses are provided，and you are free to choose ________ suits you best.????????????? ????????????? ????????????? ????????????? ????????????? ????????????? ????????????? ????????????? ????????????? ????????????? ????????????? (2012·陕西，20)

A．whatever? B．whichever

C．whenever? D．wherever

   As many as one in five US teenagers have some degree of hearing loss, according to researchers.
They say the problem is growing.
Teenagers really don’t pay attention to how much noise they are exposed (暴露) to, Josef Shargorodsky of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston told Reuters. “Often people won’t notice it, but even slight hearing loss may affect language development,” said Shargorodsky, one of the researchers.
The study compared surveys from the early 1990s and the mid-2000s. Each included a few thousand teenagers. In the first survey, about 15 percent of teenagers had some degree of hearing loss. Some 15 years later, that number had risen by a third, to nearly 20 percent.
“This certainly is big news,” said Alison Grimes, an ear doctor. Hearing loss is very common in old people, Grimes said, but she added that it was worrying to see it happen in the younger age group.
In babies and young children, hearing problems are known to slow language development. The science is less clear for teenagers, but it is easy to imagine how being hard of hearing could affect learning, said Grimes,.
The reasons for the rise are still unclear. When researchers asked teenagers about noise exposure – on the job, at school or from activities, for example – the teenagers didn’t report any change. But Shargorodsky said that might not be true. “We knew from before that it is difficult to ask this age group about noise exposure – they underestimate (低估) it.” Few people would call it noise when they listen to music on their MP3 player, for example. “There is a difference between what we think is loud and what is harmful to the ear,” said Grimes.
Although it’s not clear that the MP3 players cause teenagers’ hearing loss, Grimes said it was still a good idea to turn down the sound and take short breaks from listening.
【小题1】According to the researchers, in a US class of 40 students, about ____ students have some degree of hearing loss.

A．the reasons for the rise have been found	B．MP3 players are to blame
C．listening to loud music may be a cause	D．noise is the main reason

English is the most widely used language in the history of our planet. One in every seven human beings can speak it. More than half of the world’s books and three quarters of international mail are in English. Of all languages, English has the largest vocabulary — perhaps as many as two million words.
However, let’s face it: English is a crazy language. There is no egg in an eggplant, neither pine nor apple in a pineapple and no ham in a hamburger. Sweet-meats are candy, while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.
We take English for granted. But when we explore its paradoxes (探讨它的矛盾), we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,  public bathrooms have no baths in them.
And why is it that a writer writes, but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce, and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn’t the plural of booth be beeth? One goose, two geese — so one moose, two meese?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell the next?
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects (反映) the creativity of human beings. That’s why, when stars are out, they are visible (能看见的); but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it; but when I wind up this essay, I end it.
1. According to the passage ______.
A. sweet-meats and sweetbreads are different things
B. there should be egg in an eggplant
C. pineapples are the apples on the pine tree
D. boxing rings should be round
2. Which of the following is the correct plural?
A. Beeth.        B. Geese.         C. Meese.        D. Tooth.
3. Which of the following includes two items which have the similar meaning?
A. A wise man and a wise guy.    B. Overlook and oversee.  
C. Quite a lot and quite a few.     D. Hot as hell and cold as hell.
4. The underlined words “wind up” in the last paragraph probably mean “______”.
A. blow        B. roll up         C. get hurt        D. finish
5. Through the many paradoxes in the English language, the writer wants to show that human beings are ______.
A. clever      B. crazy        C. lazy         D. dull