I was walking along the deserted main street of a small seaside town in the north of England looking somewhere to make a phone call. My car had broken down outside the town and I wanted to get in touch with the Automobile Association .Low gray clouds were drifting across the sky and there was a cold damp wind blowing off the sea. It had rained in the night and water was dripping from the bare trees that lined the street. I was glad that I was wearing a thick coat.

There was no sign of a call box, nor was there anyone at that early hour I could ask. I had thought I might find a shop selling the Sunday papers or a milkman doing his job, but the town was completely dead.

Then suddenly I found what I was looking for. There was a small post office, and almost hidden from sight in a dark narrow street next to it was the town's only public call box, which badly needed a coat of paint, I hurried forward but stopped in astonishment when I saw through the dirty glass that there was a man inside. He was very fat, and was wearing a cheap blue plastic raincoat and rubber boots. I could not see his face - he was bending forward over the phone with his back pressed against the glass and didn't even raise his head at the sound of my coming nearer and nearer. Carefully and surprisedly, I remained standing a few feet away and lit a cigarette to wait my turn. It was when I threw the dead match on the ground that I noticed something bright red trickling from under the call box door.

1.The author was walking through the small seaside town__________.

2.The weather of the day was ____, when the story happened.

3. Why was the author astonished when he saw that there was a man in the call box? Because____.

4.The author waited, standing a few feet away from the box because____.

5. What do you suppose happened to the man in the call box?

On a sunny day last August, Tim heard some shouting. Looking out to the sea carefully, he saw a couple of kids in a rowboat were being pulled out to sea.
Two 12-year-old boys, Christian and Jack, rowed out a boat to search for a football. Once they'd rowed beyond the calm waters, a beach umbrella tied to the boat caught the wind and pulled the boat into open water. The pair panicked and tried to row back to shore. But they were no match for it and the boat was out of control.
Tim knew it would soon be swallowed by the waves. "Everything went quiet in my head," Tim recalls(回忆). "I was trying to figure out how to swim to the boys in a straight line."
Tim took off his clothes and jumped into the water. Every 500 yards or so, he raised his head to judge his progress. "At one point, I considered turning back," he says. "I wondered if I was putting my life at risk." After 30 minutes of struggling, he was close enough to yell to the boys, "Take down the umbrella!" Christian made much effort to take down the umbrella. Then Tim was able to catch up and climb aboard the boat. He took over rowing, but the waves were almost too strong for him.
"Let's aim for the pier(码头)," Jack said. Tim turned the boat toward it. Soon afterward, waves crashed over the boat, and it began to sink. "Can you guys swim?" he cried. "A little bit," the boys said. Once they were in the water, Tim decided it would be safer and faster for him to pull the boys toward the pier. Christian and Jack were wearing life jackets and floated on their backs. Tim swan toward land as water washed over the boys' faces.
“Are we almost there?” they asked again and again. "Yes," Tim told them each time. After 30minutes, they reached the pier.
【小题1】Why did the two boys go to the sea?

When I was seven my father gave me a Timex, my first watch. I loved it, wore it for years, and haven’t had another one since it stopped ticking a decade ago. Why? Because I don’t need one. I have a mobile phone and I’m always near someone with an iPod or something like that. All these devices（装置）tell the time—which is why, if you look around, you’ll see lots of empty wrists; sales of watches to young adults have been going down since 2007. 

But while the wise have realized that they don’t need them, others—apparently including some distinguished men of our time—are spending total fortunes on them. Brands such as Rolex, Patek Philippe and Breitling command shocking prices, up to £250.000 for a piece.

This is ridiculous. Expensive cars go faster than cheap cars. Expensive clothes hang better than cheap clothes. But these days all watches tell the time as well as all other watches. Expensive watches come with extra functions—but who needs them? How often do you dive to 300 metres into the sea or need to find your direction in the area around the South Pole? So why pay that much of five years’ school fees for watches that allow you to do these things?

If justice were done, the Swiss watch industry should have closed down when the Japanese discovered how to make accurate watches for a five-pound note. Instead the Swiss reinvented the watch, with the aid of millions of pounds’ worth of advertising, as a message about the man wearing it. Rolexes are for those who spend their weekends climbing icy mountains; a Patek Philippe is for one from a rich or noble family; a Breitling suggests you like to pilot planes across the world. 

Watches are now classified as“investments”(投资). A 1994 Philippe recently sold for nearly £350, 000, while the 1960s Rolexes have gone from £15, 000 to £30, 000 plus in a year. But a watch is not an investment. It's a toy for self-satisfaction, a matter of fashion. Prices may keep going up—they’ve been rising for 15 years. But when fashion moves on, the owner of that £350, 000 beauty will suddenly find his pride and joy is no more a good investment than my childhood Timex.

1.It seems ridiculous to the writer that_______________.

A．people dive 300 meters into the sea

B．expensive clothes sell better than cheap ones

C．cheap cars don’t run as fast as expensive ones

D．expensive watches with unnecessary functions still sell

2.What can be learned about Swiss watch industry from the passage?

A．It’s hard for the industry to beat its competitors.

B．It targets rich people as its potential customers.

C．It wastes a huge amount of money in advertising.

D．It’s easy for the industry to reinvent cheap watches.

3.Which would be the best title for the passage?

A．Watches? Not for Me!                    B．My Childhood Timex

C．Timex or Rolex?                        D．Watches—a Valuable Collection

When I was seven my father gave me a Timex, my first watch. I loved it, wore it for years, and haven’t had another one since it stopped ticking a decade ago. Why? Because I don’t need one. I have a mobile phone and I’m always near someone with an iPod or something like that. All these devices（装置）tell the time—which is why, if you look around, you’ll see lots of empty wrists; sales of watches to young adults have been going down since 2007. 
But while the wise have realized that they don’t need them, others—apparently including some distinguished men of our time—are spending total fortunes on them. Brands such as Rolex, Patek Philippe and Breitling command shocking prices, up to £250.000 for a piece.
This is ridiculous. Expensive cars go faster than cheap cars. Expensive clothes hang better than cheap clothes. But these days all watches tell the time as well as all other watches. Expensive watches come with extra functions—but who needs them? How often do you dive to 300 metres into the sea or need to find your direction in the area around the South Pole? So why pay that much of five years’ school fees for watches that allow you to do these things?
If justice were done, the Swiss watch industry should have closed down when the Japanese discovered how to make accurate watches for a five-pound note. Instead the Swiss reinvented the watch, with the aid of millions of pounds’ worth of advertising, as a message about the man wearing it. Rolexes are for those who spend their weekends climbing icy mountains; a Patek Philippe is for one from a rich or noble family; a Breitling suggests you like to pilot planes across the world. 
Watches are now classified as“investments”(投资). A 1994 Philippe recently sold for nearly £350, 000, while the 1960s Rolexes have gone from £15, 000 to £30, 000 plus in a year. But a watch is not an investment. It's a toy for self-satisfaction, a matter of fashion. Prices may keep going up—they’ve been rising for 15 years. But when fashion moves on, the owner of that £350, 000 beauty will suddenly find his pride and joy is no more a good investment than my childhood Timex.
【小题1】It seems ridiculous to the writer that_______________.

Sharks have lived in the oceans for over 450 million years, long before dinosaurs appeared. There are now about 360 species of sharks, whose size, behavior, and other characteristics differ widely.
Every year, we catch and kill over 100 million sharks, mostly for food and for their fins. Dried shark fins are used to make shark fin soup, which sells for as much as $50 a bowl in fine Hong Kong restaurants. Other sharks are killed for sport and out of fear. Sharks are vulnerable(易受伤的) to overfishing because it takes most species 10 to 15 years to begin reproducing and they produce only a few offspring（后代）.
Influenced by movies and popular novels, most people see sharks as people-eating monsters. This is far from the truth. Every year, a few types of shark injure about 100 people worldwide and kill about 25. Most attacks are by great white sharks, which often feed on sea lions and other marine（海洋的） mammals. They sometimes mistake human swimmers for their normal prey, especially if they are wearing black wet suits.
If you are a typical ocean-goer, your chances of being killed by an unprovoked（非受挑衅而发生的）attack by a shark are about 1 in 100 million. You are more likely to be killed by a pig than a shark and thousands of times more likely to get killed when you drive a car.
Sharks help save human lives. In addition to providing people with food, they are helping us learn how to fight cancer, bacteria, and viruses. Sharks are very healthy and have aging processes similar to ours. Their highly effective immune system allows wounds to heal quickly without becoming infected, and their blood is being studied in connection with AIDS research.
Sharks are among the few animals in the world that almost never get cancer and eye cataracts（白内障）. Understanding why can help us improve human health. Chemicals taken from shark cartilage（软骨）have killed cancerous tumors in laboratory animals, research that someday could help prolong your life.
Sharks are needed in the world’s ocean ecosystems. Although they don’t need us, we need them. We are much more dangerous to sharks than they are to us. For every shark that bites a person, we kill one million sharks.
【小题1】Which of the following is NOT a reason why people kill sharks?