The 2012 London Olympics had enough problems to worry about. But one more has just been added -- a communications blackout caused by solar storms.
　　After a period of calm within the Sun, scientists have detected the signs of a flesh cycle of sunspots that could peak in 2012, just in time for the arrival of the Olympic torch in London.
　　Now scientists believe that this peak could result in vast solar explosions that could throw billions of tons of charged matter towards the Earth, causing strong solar storms that could jam the telecommunications satellites and interact links sending five Olympic broadcast from London.
　　"The Sun's activity has a strong influence on the Earth. The Olympics could be in the middle of the next solar maximum which could affect the functions of communications satellites," said Professor Richard Harrison, head of space physics at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire.
　　At the peak of the cycle, violent outbursts called coronal mass ejections (日冕物质抛射) occur in the Sun's atmosphere, throwing out great quantities of electrically-charged matter. "A coronal mass ejection can carry a billion tons of solar material into space at over a million kilometres per hour. Such events can expose astronauts to a deadly amount, can disable satellites, cause power failures on Earth and disturb communications," Professor Harrison added. The risk is the greatest during a solar maximum when there is the greatest number of sunspots.
　　Next week in America, NASA is scheduled to launch a satellite for monitoring solar activity called the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which will take images of the Sun that are 10 times clearer than the most advanced televisions available.
　　The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory helped to make the high-tech cameras that will capture images of the solar flares (太阳耀斑) and explosions as they occur.
　　Professor Richard Harrison, the lab's director, said that the SDO should be able to provide early warning of a solar flare or explosion big enough to affect satellite communications on Earth "If we have advanced warning, we'll be able to reduce the damage. What you don't want is things switching off for a week with no idea of what's caused the problem," he said.
【小题1】The phrase "communications blackout" in paragraph 1 most probably refers to____________ during the 2012 Olympics.

Being a mother is apparently not like it was in the good old days.
　　Today’s parents yearn for the golden age that their own mothers enjoyed in the 1970s and 1980s, researchers found. Mothers have less time to themselves and feel under greater pressure to handle work and family life than the previous generation. As a result, 88 per cent said they felt guilty about the lack of time they spent with their children.
The survey of 1,000 mothers also found that more than a third said they had less time to themselves than their mothers did – just three hours a week or 26 minutes a day. And 64 per cent said this was because they felt they ‘had’ to go out to work, while nearly a third (29 per cent) said they were under constant pressure to be the ‘perfect mother’, the report found.
Other findings showed social networking and parenting websites, as well as technology such as Skype, were important in providing help and support among female communities. Kate Fox, a member of the Social Issues Research Centre, which conducted the survey for Procter & Gamble, said: ‘With increasing pressure on mothers to work a “double shift” — to be the perfect mother as well as a wage-earner — support networks are more important than ever.
It comes as a separate report examining childcare in the leading industrialised nations found that working mothers in Britain spend just 81 minutes a day caring for their children as a ‘primary activity’. Mothers who stay at home, on the other hand, manage twice as much time – more than two and a half hours – looking after their offspring, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
　　Critics say the pressure on women to work long hours, and leave their offspring in the hands of nurseries or childminders, is putting the well-being of their children at risk.
　　The study also reveals that, despite the fact that more and more modern mothers go out to work, the burden of childcare still falls on them - even if their husband is not in work. A father who is not in work tends to spend just 63 minutes a day looking after his child - 18 minutes less than a mother who goes out to work. Working fathers spare less than three quarters of an hour with their children.
【小题1】. What does the passage mainly talk about?

第三部分阅读理解（共两节，满分40分）
第一节（共15小题；每小题2分，满分30分）
　　阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
A
　　Soon it may be harder to stop and smell the roses.
　　Growing levels of air pollution from power plants and automobiles have reduced flower fragrances (芬芳) by up to 90 percent in the US.That is compared with pre-industrial levels,a new study has found.
　　The trend is unpleasant for human noses,but may be life - threatening for bees and butterflies.
　　"Many insects find flowers by folowing the scent(香味) produced by those flowers," said the studies lead author Jose D.Fuentes,an environmental scientist at the University of Virginia.
　　"The increasing pollution makes it difficult for them to locate the flowers and feed on their nectar(花蜜)."
　　Scientists have alrady known that flowers produce scent molecules(分子) that bond with pollutants.The process breaks down the plants' sweet smell.
　　With more pollution in the air,the scent molecules don't remain effective as long and travel shorter distances on the wind.
　　The new study suggests that in the mid - 19th century,when pollution levels were first recorded,scent molecules would have been able to travel some 1,000 to 1,200 meters.
　　Today,in the polluted air found downwind of large cities,scentst may only make it some 200 to 300 meters.
　　The report was recently published in the journal,Atmospheric Environment.
　　Bee farmers have reported that bee populations are dropping dramatically in many parts of the world in recent years. Could these missing scents be a factor?
　　Scientists trying to hind the cause of bee population declines have blamed bacteria,pesticides,and even cellphone radiation.
　　Jay Evans,an entomologist(昆虫学者) at the US Department of Agriculture's bee research laboratory,was interested in the new study.But he says he hasn't seen bee behavior that suggests trouble with scents.
　　"Over the last couple of summers I don't think the bees in this area were bringing in much less food,"he said.
　　"It might be that they had to work harder,but it seems like as long as there were bees to collect food they were finding flowers somewhere."
　　But Fuentes fears that the fading smell of flowers may stress insects that are already faced with other threats.
　　"The effects shown in these studies will simply exacerbate whatever the bees are going through right now,"he said.
　　"It's something that is really worthwhile paying attention to."
　　56.What's the passage mainly about?
　　　A.How greatly air plooution affects our lives.
　　　B.Effects of air pollution on bee populations.
　　　C.Measures to fight air pollution.
　　　D.The rapid decline of bee populations in the world.
　　57.According to the passage,Jay Evans probably agrees that ______ .
　　　A.bees are the insect that suffers most from air pollution
　　　B.bees are at risk of dying out owing to air pollution
　　　C.the fading smell of flowers doesn't affect bees so greatly as was thought
　　　D.as is often the case,bees fail to locate the flowers because of the missing scents
　　58.The word"exacerbate" in the last paragraph but one probably means ______.
　　　A.worsen B.improve C.get rid of D.decrease
　　59.Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?
　　　A.The more air pollution there is in a region,the greater the destruction of the flower scents.
　　　B.Bacteria,pesticides,and cellphone radiation are blamed for causing the decline of bees.
　　　C.The scent molecules produced by flowers in a less polluted environment oculd travel longer and farther.
　　　D.Air pollution does more harm to insects such as bees and butterflies than human beings.

Cancer is feared by everyone. And there is more and more fear about cancer. Not the disease itself — there is no such thing as a high incidence rates(发病率) of cancer. Except for lung cancer, mostly caused by cigarette smoking, the incidence rates are not on the rise. However, some kinds of cancer are decreasing. But the fear of cancer is catching, and the country stands at risk of an anxiety. The earth itself is coming to seem like a huge carcinogen(致癌物). The ordinary, more or less, scientific statement that something between 80 and 90 percent of all cancers are due to things in the environment is taken to mean that none of us will be safe until the whole environment is “cleaned up.” This is not at all the meaning.

The 80-percent calculation is based on the unthinkable differences in the incidence of cancer in various societies around the world — for example, the high incidence of liver cancer in Africa and the Far East, stomach cancer in Japan, breast cancer in Western Europe and North America, and the relatively low figures for breast cancer in Japan and parts of Africa and for liver cancer in America. These data show there may be specific environmental influences, but largely based on personal life-style, which determines the incidence of various forms of cancer in different communities — that is all the data suggest. The overall incidence of cancer, counting up all the cases, is probable roughly the same everywhere.

1.According to the passage, the incidence of cancer is generally believed _____.

2.It can be inferred from the passage that the writer’s opinion about the relationship between cancer and environment is _____.

3.According to the passage, the writer seems to feel that _____.

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

Despite all the reports of Internet security attacks over the years, including the recent ones on Google’s e-mail service, many people have reacted to the break-ins with a shrug（耸肩）.

　　Mr. Shulman and his company examined a list of 32 million passwords that an unknown hacker stole last month from RockYou, a company that makes software for users of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. The list was briefly posted on the Web, and hackers and security researchers downloaded it.

　　The list provided an unusually detailed window into computer users’ password habits. Typically, only government agencies like the F.B.I. or the National Security Agency have had access to such a large password list.

　　Some Web sites try to keep back the attackers by freezing an account for a certain period of time if too many incorrect passwords are typed. But experts say that the hackers simply learn to trick the system, by making guesses at an acceptable rate, for instance.

　　To improve security, some Web sites are forcing users to mix letters, numbers and even symbols in their passwords. Others, like Twitter, prevent people from picking common passwords.

　　Still, researchers say, social networking and entertainment Web sites often try to make life simpler for their users and are reluctant to put too many controls in place.

　　Even commercial sites like eBay must weigh the consequences of freezing accounts, since a hacker could, say, try to win an auction(拍卖) by freezing the accounts of other potential buyers.

　　But owing to the reality of our overcrowded brains, the experts suggest that everyone choose at least two different passwords — a complex one for Web sites where security is vital, such as banks and e-mail, and a simpler one for less risky places, such as social networking and entertainment sites.

　　Mr. Moss relies on passwords at least 12 characters long, figuring that those make him a more difficult target than the millions of people who choose five- and six-character passwords.

　　“It’s like the joke where the hikers run into a bear in the forest, and the hiker that survives is the one who outruns his companions,” Mr. Moss said. “You just want to run that bit faster.

59.   The underlined sentence “Many people have reacted to the break-ins with a shrug” shows that many people ______.

don’t take seriously the hacker’s break-ins

are worried and frightened at the hacker’s break-ins

don’t know what to do with the hacker’s attacks

are eager to get helps from the experts

60.   According to the passage, which of the following web sites needs a more complex password?

A social web site.

An entertainment web site.

A commercial web site.

A government web site.

61.   The Internet users are advised to______ in order to keep back the hackers.

mix letters, numbers and symbols as well

choose passwords with at least 12 characters

choose passwords with 5 or 6 characters

choose at least two different passwords

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

Password, Simple or Complex?

Popular Passwords, High Risk!

Clever Hackers, Stupid Netizens.

Hacker, the Enemy of Internet Security.