When the six very best students from different cities in Guangdong Province all together chose universities in Hong Kong ; when the very best students of Beijing picked up HK University while giving up the nearby Peking or Tsinghua University ; when the highest enrollment(录取) rate of Hong Kong Science and Industry University reached 48:1, it’s the high time to ask where the real education heaven for students in China is.
Years ago, the answer certainly would be “Peking or Tsinghua University”. But now no one could give the exact answer without hesitation . The only sure thing is that HK universities have gradually showed an unusual attraction to a great many mainland students.
There’s no doubt to call this HK craze (狂热), which is even out of the expectation of those HK universities themselves.
How can HK universities shake the steady foundations of Peking and Tsinghua University and attract so many mainland students?
First, Hong Kong universities offer large-amount scholarship, especially for the top students who can receive the scholarship as much as 400,000 HK dollars. Since higher education has become a kind of heavy burden of many families, it’s easy to understand why the reaction to the generous offering of HK universities is great.
Second, most HK universities receive professors and students from all over the world and carry out bilingual (双语) education. This kind of excellent language atmosphere is another attraction for mainland students.
Furthermore, university students in Hong Kong have a better chance to study abroad as exchange students.
Can mainland top universities like Peking or Tsinghua University be calm as before when facing the unexpected competition from HK? Will they take relevant measures to win back the top students who once help them set the worldwide reputation? Time will explain it .
The fierce competition brought by HK universities can be a good thing for an entire improvement of education in China. After the awakening and action-taking of mainland universities , they can perform better together with HK universities.
At least, it reminded the mainland universities the tuition fees (学费) are among students’ top concern when they are choosing universities . It’s time to move.
【小题1】What is the passage mainly talking about?

Dear Sir,

I have to travel every day from Souk Road to the airport． Two buses travel along their route (路线): the number 49 and number 16． But by the time the number 16 bus reaches Souk Road it is always full, so I can’t get on it． I have to wait for the number 49, because sometimes there are empty seats on it．

The timetable says that there are buses from Souk Road to the airport every ten minutes． If this is so, why do I have to wait half an hour for a bus nearly every day?

The regulations say that if there are empty seats on a bus, the bus must stop at every stop where people are waiting． Why do the half-empty buses go straight past me when I am standing at the bus stop?

The regulations say that no bus may carry more than 40 seated passengers  and 20 standing passengers． Yesterday I was the first to get off the bus when it reached the airport． I counted the other passengers as they got off． There were 129 of them．

It is clear that our bus companies break the regulations and think little of their passengers． Can nothing be done to make your service  better?

Yours

Tired passenger

The writer has to take Bus No.49 because       ．

       A．it arrives on time     B．it is not always full

       C．it travels faster       D．it has fewer seats on it

How long does the writer usually have to wait for a bus?

A．Ten minutes．  B．One hour． 

C．Half an hour.    D．Nearly a day．

The regulations say that each bus may carry       passengers at most．

A．20        B．40          C．60               D．129

From the passage we can see that       ．

A．the bus service was poor   

B. no buses except the No.49 bus passed Souk Road

C. no passengers took their buses 

D. the writer was always the first to get on the bus

Misery and setbacks are not always as terrible as one imagines. Hard times can offer new ways of looking at life that would otherwise never be known. And, if you are a writer, this can be the source of much of your success.
Popular British author, Charles Dickens' （1812-1870）family could hardly make ends meet. They could only afford to send one of their six children to school. Dickens was not that child. His parents chose to send a daughter, who had a talent for music, to an academy. Then at the age of 12, Dickens' life took another turn for the worse.
His father, a clerk, was placed in prison for unpaid debts. And, being the oldest male left at home, Dickens took up work at a factory. His horrible experience there became the fuel for his future writing. His father was freed three months later and inherited a small amount of money. Dickens was then sent to school.
From 1836 to 1837, he wrote a monthly series of stories. Thus the Pickwick Papers, came into being, which brought fame to the 23-year-old man.
Throughout his career, Dickens covers various situations in his novels. He wrote about the miserable lives of the poor in Oliver Twist, the French Revolution in Tale of Two Cities, and social reform in Hard Times. He also wrote David Copperfield, a book thought to be modeled on his own life.
“I do not write bitterly or angrily: for I know all these things have worked together to make me what I am,” he once said. His difficult childhood did indeed shape the person he became, as well as his writing career. There are shades of young Dickens in many of his most beloved characters, including David Copperfield and Oliver Twist.
Like the author, all these characters come from poor beginnings and are able to rise above their setbacks and achieve success. “Minds, like bodies, will often fall into an ill-conditioned state from too much comfort,” he once wrote. On June 9th, 1870, aged 58, Dickens died, leaving one unfinished work．The words on his tombstone read: “He was a sympathizer to the poor, the suffering and the oppressed, and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world.”
【小题1】The book that first called public attention to Dickens was ______.

Making an advertisement for television often costs more than a movie. For example, a two-hour movie costs $6 million to make. A TV commercial（广告节目）can cost more than $6000 a second. And that does not include cost of paying for air time. Which is more valuable, the program or the ad? In terms of money-and making money is what television is all about-the commercial is by far the more important.

Research, market testing, talent, time and money—all come together to make us want to buy a product．No matter how bad we think a commercial is, it works．The sales of Charm went up once the ads began．TV commercials actually buy their way into our head．We, in turn, buy the product.

And the ads work because so much time and attention are given to them．Here are some rules of commercial ad making．If you want to get the low middle-class buyer, make sure the announcer has a tough, manly voice．Put some people in the ad who work with their hands．If you want to sell to upper-class audience, make sure that the house, the furniture, and the hair style are the types that the group identifies with(认同)．If you want the buyer feel superior to the character selling the product, then make that person so stupid or silly that everyone will feel great about himself or herself.

     We laugh at commercials．We don’t think we pay that much attention to them．But facts show we are kidding ourselves．The making of a commercial that costs so much money is not kid stuff（非常简单的事物）．It’s a big, big business．And it’s telling us what to think, what we need, and what to buy．To put it simply, the TV commercial is a form of brainwashing.

TV commercials are more important than other programs to television because _______.

A．they bring in great profits

B．they require a lot of money to make

C．they are not difficult to produce

D．they attract more viewers than other programs

The purpose of all the efforts made in turning out TV commercials is _______.

A．to persuade people to buy the product

B．to show how valuable the product is

C．to test the market value of the product

D．to make them as interesting as TV movies

From the rules set for making commercial ads, we can see that_______.

A．the lower-middle-class buyer likes to work with his hand

B．the more stupid the characters, the more buyers of the product

C．ad designers attract different people with different skills

D．an upper-class buyer is more interested in houses and furniture than a lower-middle-class

buyer

It is believed by the writer that_______.

A．few people like to watch TV commercials

B．TV commercials are a good guide to buyers

C．TV commercials often make people laugh

D．people do not think highly of TV commercials

Recently, one of my best friends, whom I've shared just about everything with since the first day of kindergarten, spent the weekend with me. Since I moved to a new town several years ago，we've both always looked forward to the few times a year when we can see each other.

Over the weekend, we spent hours and hours, staying up late into the night, talking about the people she was hanging around with. She started telling me stories about her new boyfriend, about how he experimented with drugs and was into other self­destructive behaviour. I was blown away! She told me how she had been lying to her parents about where she was going and even stealing out to see this guy because they didn't want her around him. No matter how hard I tried to tell her that she deserved better, she didn't believe me. Her self­respect seemed to have disappeared.

I tried to convince her that she was ruining her future and heading for big trouble. I felt like I was  getting nowhere. I just couldn't believe that she really  thought it was acceptable to hang out with a bunch of losers, especially her boyfriend.

By the time she left，I was really worried about her and exhausted by the experience. It had been so frustrating，I had come close to telling her several times during the weekend that maybe we had just grown too far apart to continue our friendship, but I didn't. I put the power of friendship to the final test. We'd been friends for far too long. I had to hope that she valued me enough to know that I was trying to save her from hurting herself. I wanted to believe that our friendship could conquer anything.

A few days later, she called to say that she had thought long and hard about our conversation, and then she told me that she had broken up with her boyfriend. I just listened on the other end of the phone with tears of joy running down my face. It was one of the truly rewarding moments in my life. Never had I been so proud of a friend.

56．In the writer's opinion，her friend ________.

A. was a girl with no self­respect

B. could find a better boyfriend

C. was brave enough to stick  to her own choice

D. didn't value the writer's suggestion

57．What did the writer worry about?

A. She would lose the friendship with her.

B. Her friend's parents would be worried about their daughter.

C. Her friend would get into great trouble with the boy.

D. Her friend's boyfriend would be in great trouble.

58．We may learn from Paragraph 3 that the writer________.

A. didn't want to go anywhere else

B. understood her friend's hanging with her boyfriend

C. couldn't  believe  that  her  friend's  choice  was acceptable

D. doubted that she could in any way help her friend

59．What can be concluded from the passage?

A．Friendship starting from childhood is not reliable.

B．Friendship is a cure for any injury in life.

C．Friendship should be everlasting once begun.

D．Friendship can have magical power in life.