Of the 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, linguists (语言学家) say, nearly half are likely to disappear this century. In fact, one falls out of use about every two weeks.

    Some languages die out in an instant, at the death of the only surviving speaker. Others are lost gradually in bilingual (双语的) cultures, as local tongues are edged out by the dominant (占主导地位的) language at school, in the marketplace and on television.

    New research, supported by the National Geographic Society and the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, has found the five regions where languages are disappearing most rapidly. They are northern Australia, central South America, North America's upper Pacific coastal zone, eastern Siberia, and Oklahoma and the southwestern United States.

K. David Harrison, an associate professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College, US, said that more than half the languages had no written form and were vulnerable to loss and being forgotten." Their loss leaves no dictionary, no text, or no record of the accumulated knowledge and history of a disappeared culture.

    Harrison and other researchers started their rescue project last year. They have been trying to identify and record endangered languages. They interviewed and made recordings of the few remaining speakers of a language and collected basic word lists. The individual projects, some lasting three to four years, involve hundreds of hours of recording speech, developing grammar and preparing children's readers in the obscure (逐渐没落的) language. The research has concentrated on preserving entire language families.

    "These are probably languages that cannot be brought back, but at least we made records of them," said Gregory Anderson, director of the Living Tongues Institute, in Oregon, US.

1.What does the passage mainly tell us?          

A. Many languages are quickly disappearing.

B. Some languages are disappearing because they are hard to remember.

C. Chinese is one of the languages that are disappearing.

D. Thanks to some researchers, many endangered languages have been rescued.

2.What does the word vulnerable in the fourth paragraph mean?  

A. easy to remember.                         B. easy to forget.

C. likely to be damaged.                     D. likely to be protected.

3.Which of the following is true according to the fifth paragraph?  

A. Harrison and other researchers are trying to find out why some languages died out.

B. Harrison and other researchers tried to start a rescue project.

C. Harrison and other researchers have concentrated on preserving all the languages.

D. Harrison and other researchers have done some rescue work on the obscure languages.

4.One of the things that Harrison and other researchers did was         .   

A. to have more people speak the disappearing language

B. to make records of the disappearing language

C. to limit dominant languages

D. to publish a dictionary of the disappearing language

5.What do you think is the suggested reason for some languages disappearing?     

A. Local tongues are gradually edged out by the dominant language at school, in the marketplace and on television.

B. The number of people who speak the languages are small.

C. There are no dictionaries for the languages.

D. No one make records of the languages, so they gradually disappear.

Teaching materials for learning Chinese are provided here. There are sites where you may find interesting instructions suitable for you. Here are some sites to begin your surfing.

You may start with these pages from this website — just to get a little taste of it without working too hard.

● A Is For Love

Flash cards for learning a few Chinese words

● Listening to the sound of Chinese

Play a few words of Chinese on your computer.

● A few Chinese words

Each word is enlarged for easy study.

If you are studying Chinese, these tools can help. [来源:]

● Zhongwen site

More than a dictionary!

● Clavis Sinica

 Excellent program by Professor David Porter. It displays a whole document in Chinese [GB] or [BIG5], and gives individual word’s definition, pronunciation as well as much more information when you click on that word. If you are studying Chinese, this is a very useful tool.

● Chinese Character Visual Dictionary

If you like to know more, go to the following sites on the Internet.

● The Chinese Outpost[来源:ZXXK]

Pronunciation, Character and Grammer By Mark Andrew Baker. The best. A must-visit site.

● Learn Cantonese / Mandarin Online

● Internet Based Chinese Teaching and Learning

● Rainland Kids discover Chinese — Site is in Germany

If you want to have a better understanding of China, go to this one.

● Wanfang Data

As an affiliate (分支) of Chinese Ministry of Science && Technology, Wanfang Data has been the leading information provider in China since 1950s. With a wide range of database resources and value-added services, Wanfang Data has become a gateway to understanding Chinese culture, medicine, business, science, etc.

1.This passage is most probably from ______.

A. a TV programme            B. a teacher’s lecture

C. a newspaper                  D. the Internet

2.If you want to know each Chinese character’s definition, pronunciation and much more information, you’d better surf ______.

A. Zhongwen site   B. A Is For Love         C. Clavis Sinica   D. A few Chinese words

3.If you want to know China about its culture, medicine, business, science, you’d better surf ______.

A. Learn Mandarin online                   B. Wanfang Data

C. Rainland kids discover Chinese        D. The Chinese Outpost

4. The underlined word “gateway” in the last paragraph probably refers to ______.

A. an opening in a wall that can be closed by a gate[来源:学*科*网Z*X*X*K]

B. a place through which you can go to another place  

C. the space when a door is open 

D. a means of getting or achieving something

Your name made you do it, though unconsciously, suggests new research that finds your name can negatively make you achieve less. Psychologists at Yale and the University of California, San Diego studying the unconscious influence of names say a preference for our own names and initials — the “name-letter effect” — can have some negative consequences.

Students whose names begin with C or D get lower grades than those whose names begin with A or B; major league baseball players whose first or last names began with K (the strikeout-signifying letter) are significantly more likely to strike out.

Assistant professors Leif Nelson of UCSD and Joseph Simmons of Yale have conducted five studies over five years using information from thousands of individuals.

“The conscious process is baseball players want to get a hit and students want to get A's,” Nelson says. “So if you get a change in performance consistent with the name-letter effect, it clearly shows there must be some unconscious desire operating in the other direction.”

The researchers' work supports a series of studies published since 2002 that have found the “name-letter effect” causes people to make life choices based on names that resemble their own. Those studies by Brett Pelham, an associate professor at SUNY University, have found that people are disproportionately（不定比例地）likely to live in states or cities resembling their names, have careers that resemble their names and even marry those whose surnames begin with the same letter as their own.

The twist, Pelham says, is that he has believed the name-letter effect would apply only to positive outcomes. Nelson and Simmons, he says, are “showing it applies more so to negative things than positive things.”

The researchers say the effect is definitely more than coincidence but is small nevertheless. “I know plenty of Chrises and Davids who have done very well in school,” Simmons says.

1.The new research is mainly about the relationship between one’s ______.

2.Who may serve as an example to show the “name-letter effect”?

3.Which can be used to explain the underlined word “twist” in the last but one paragraph?

4.The last paragraph mainly tells us that the “name-letter effect” ______.                

The sun shone in through the dining room window，lighting up the hardwood floor. We had been talking there for nearly two hours．The phone of the“Nightline”rang yet again and Morrie asked his helper．Connie，to get it .She had been taking down the callers’names in Morrie’s small black appointment book .It was clear 1 was not the only one interested in visiting my old professor—the“Nightline”appearance had made him something of a big figure—but I was impressed with．perhaps even a bit envious of，all the friends that Morrie seemed to have
“You know．Mitch，now that I'm dying，I've become much more interesting to people．I’m on the last great journey here——and people want me to tell them what to pack．”
The phone rang again．
“Morrie，can you talk?”Connie asked .
“I’m visiting with my old friend now，”he announced．“Let them call back．”
I cannot tell you why he received me so warmly．I was hardly the promising student who had left him sixteen years earlier．Had it not been for“Nightline，”Morrie might have died without ever seeing me again．
What happened to me?
The eighties happened .The nineties happened．Death and sickness and getting fat and going bald happened．I traded lots of dreams for a bigger paycheck，and I never even realized I was doing it .Yet here was Morrie talking with the wonder of our college years，as if I'd simply been on a long vacation
“Have you found someone to share your heart with?” he asked .
“Are you at peace with yourself?”
“Are you trying to be as human as you can be?”
I felt ashamed，wanting to show I had been trying hard to work out such questions．What
happened to me? I once promised myself I would never work for money，that I would join the
Peace Corps，and that 1 would w*w^w.k&s#5@u.c~o*mlive in beautiful，inspirational places．
Instead, I had been in Detroit for ten years，at the same workplace，using the same bank，visiting the same barber .I was thirty-seven，more mature than in college，tied to computers and modems and cell phones．I was no longer young，nor did I walk around in gray sweatshirts with unlit cigarettes in my mouth．I did not have long discussions over egg salad sandwiches about the meaning of life．
My days were full，yet I remained，much of the time，unsatisfied .
What happened to me?
56．When did the author graduate from Morrie’s college?
A．In the eighties．                             B．In the nineties．
C．When he was sixteen                          D．When he was twenty-one．
57．What do we know about the“Nightline”?
A．Morrie started it by himself          B．It helped Morrie earn a fame．
C．The author helped Morrie start it．           D．It was only operated at night．
58．What can we infer from the passage?
A．Both the author and Morrie liked travelling.
B．Morrie liked helping people pack things for their journeys.
C．The author envied Morrie’s friends the help they got from him.
D．The author earned a lot of money at the cost of his dreams.
59．What’s the author’s feeling when he writes this passage?
A．Regretful.      B．Enthusiastic.      C．Sympathetic.       D．Humorous.

第一部分英语知识运用（共三节，满分 40分）

第一节语音知识（共5小题；每小题1分，满分5分）

从A、B、C、D四个选项中，找出其音标与所给单词的读音相同的选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

1．reform     A．/ ' rif?:m/          B．/ ' ref?:m /     C．/ ri' f?:m /           D．/ re' f?:m /

2．exact         A．/ ig 'zækt /       B．/ eg 'zækt /    C．/ ' igzækt /        D．/ ' egzækt / 

3．whistle       A．/ ' wistl/            B．/ ' histl /       C．/ ' wisl/            D．/ ' hisl/[来源:

4．professor     A．/ ' pr?ufes? /      B．/ ' pr?fes? /    C．/ pr?u' fes? /     D．/ pr?' fes? /

5．convenient  A．/ k?n' veni?nt/   B．/ k?n' vi:ni?nt / C．/ k?n' veni?nt /    D．/ k?n' vi:ni?nt /