Concorde’s Birthday

CONCORDE, the world’s fastest passenger plane, will soon be over 33 years old. It first __51__ on 2 March 1969 in France. Concorde was developed by both France and Britain. From 1956 these two countries had a _52__ of a supersonic passenger plane. In 1962 they started to __53__ together on the project. The plane __54_ over 1.5 billion pounds to develop. It is the most tested plane in the history. It was given over 5000 hours of testing. Concorde flies at twice the speed of _55__. This means that it _56_ only 3 hours 25 minutes to fly between London and New York, compare with 7—8 hours in other passenger jets. Because of the five-hour time difference between the USA and Britain, it is _57__ to travel west on Concorde and arrive in New York before you leave London! You can catch the 10:30a.m. _58__ from London, Heathrow and start work in New York an hour _59_! Concorde is much used by business people and film stars. Each Concorde is built at a cost of 55 million pounds. Twenty have been built so far. Air France and British Airway _60_ the most. They each have seven planes.

1.A. invented    B. produced    C. flew      D. took off

2.A. talk        B. dream      C. meeting   D. fight

3.A. work       B. do         C. carry      D. finish

4.A. paid        B. wanted     C. needed     D. cost

5.A. voice       B. sound      C. noise      D. shout

6.A. spends      B. takes       C. covers     D. travels

7.A. possible     B. impossible   C. real       D. unreal

8.A. plane       B. passenger    C. flight      D. airline

9.A. later        B. late         C. earlier      D. early

10.A. build       B. make      C. sell        D. own

The question whether there is life on Mars (火星) has made the public think a lot for more than a century. The closest look showed Mars to be a dusty, cold world, covered by air too thin to breathe. A British spaceship and Europe's Mars spaceship plan to land on Mars or enter orbit (轨道) around it. One of the NASA’s (美国宇航局) spaceships is expected to land on January 3, the other is going to land on the opposite side of Mars on January 24. Since 1960, over twenty spaceships sent to Mars have failed. Most have been lost on flying up or landing because those are the most difficult times of any flights.     Scientists wanted to find out whether there was water in Mars. In October, a team of scientists reported that Mars had been a dry wasteland. But weeks later, a second team reported differently that they had found some marks showed clearly that they were made by the rivers. Such marks told us that Mars was a warmer place billions of years ago — just as life first appeared here on Earth. Scientists at once raise a question: if what they said is true, what happened on Mars? Then what about the earth?

1.Which is right about Mars?

A．It’s cold without dust.

B．There is no water or air.

C．It’s warm with some thin air.

D．It’s a dusty, cold world almost without air.

2.Two NASA’s spaceships _______________.

A．will land on the different sides of Mars

B．will land on the same day

C．will enter orbit around Mars

D．will land with a man

3.The most difficult times of a flight are _______________.

A．taking off

B．flying up and arriving

C．entering the orbit and landing

D．leaving the earth and entering the orbit

4.A team of scientists reported that there might be_____________ in Mars.

A．nothing but air

B．nothing

C．water billions of years ago

D．thick air and lakes

5.What are scientists worried about when they raise the question?

A．Life disappeared on Mars.

B．Spaceships can’t land on Mars.

C．The air on the earth gets less and less.

D．The earth might be changed like Mars

1. If you want to fly to Paris, you should take________.

2. Flight 289 to Hong Kong leaves at_______.

3. A lady wants to take Flight 12 to Beijing, she should go to Gate________.

4. Flight 226 to London is from _________.

5.A man is at Gate 18. He’s going to________.

阅读理解

Sarah left school at eighteen，went to collage and then worked at a computer company.Four years later，she got a new job as a manager in British Airways（英国航空公司）.This is what she told us about her job:

“My office is at Heathrow Airport，but I spend 60% of my time in the air.I teach air-hostesses（空姐）and help them with any problems I also go to lots of meetings.

My hours are usually from 8 a.m.to 4 p.m.but sometimes I work from 1 p.m.to 9 p.m.At work，the first thing I do is check plane times on my computer and then I speak with some of the air-hostesses.

Sometimes I go on long flights（飞行）to check how the air-hostesses are doing.That’s my favourite part of the job，but I like office work，too.Travelling can be hard work.When I get back from a long trip，all I can do is eat something and then go to bed! I don’t make much money，but I’m happy with British Airways and want to stay there and continue to travel.”