The Man of Many Secrets — Harry Houdini — was one of the greatest American entertainers in the theater this century. He was a man famous for his escapes — from prison cells, from wooden boxes floating in rivers, from locked tanks full of water. He appeared in theaters all over Europe and America. Crowds came to see the great Houdini and his “magic” tricks.

Of course, his secret was not magic, or supernatural powers. It was simply strength. He had the ability to move his toes as well as he moved his fingers. He could move his body into almost any position he wanted.

Houdini started working in the entertainment world when he was 17, in 1891. He and his brother Theo performed card tricks in club in New York. They called themselves the Houdini Brothers. When Harry married in 1894, he and his wife Bess worked together as magician and assistant. But for a long time they were not very successful. Then Harry performed his first prison escape, in Chicago in 1898. Harry persuaded a detective to let him try to escape from the prison, and he invited the local newspapermen to watch.

It was the publicity(宣传) that came from this that started Harry Houdini’s success. Harry had fingers trained to escape from handcuffs and toes trained to escape ankle chins. But his biggest secret  was how he unlocked the prison doors. Every time he went into the prison cell, Bess gave him a kiss for good luck — and a small skeleton key, which is a key that fits many locks, pass quickly from her mouth to his.

Harry used these prison escapes to build his fame. He arranged to escape from the local prison of every town he visited. In the afternoon, the people of the town would read about it in their local newspapers, and in the evening every seat in the local theater would be full. What was the result? World-wide fame and a name remembered today.

1. According to the passage, Houdini’s success in prison escapes depends on _______.

A. his special tricks and supernatural powers

B. his unusual ability and a skeleton key

C. his magic tricks and inhuman powers

D. his wisdom and magic tricks

2. In the fourth paragraph, the underlined word “this” refers to _______.

A. his first prison escape                     B. the year 1898

C. the publicity                           D. Harry Houdini’s success

3. It can be inferred from the passage that Houdini became famous _______.

A. in 1894                                  B. before he married

C. at the age of 17                       D. when he was about 24

4.Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

A. A Skeleton Key                       B. A Man of Many Secrets

C. World-wild Fame                   D. Great Escape 

Liu Xiang, a 21-year-old Chinese athlete, got the gold medal of the fascinating men’s 110m hurdles before a crowd of 70,000 at the Olympic Stadium in the 28th Olympics in Athens late Friday local time. He clocked an excellent 12.91 seconds to equal the world record set by Britain’s Collin Jackson in 1993.

It is the first gold Chinese men’s athlete has ever won from the track and field in the Olympics history. China has won over 100 gold medals from the summer Olympic Games since 1984 but its male athletes only got one medal from Olympics’ most popular sport, the track and field.

The Shanghai native, with his father a truck driver and mother an out-of-work housewife, loved sports when he was very little. Liu was selected to the Junior Sports School of Putuo District of Shanghai to practice jumping as a fourth grader in the primary school. But after a bone test showing that he will not be able to become a tall man, Liu was asked to give up sports one year later, although he had won the national champion at that level.

In 1998 when he attracted coach Sun Haiping’s attention as a 15-year-old jumper, Sun was a well-known hurdle coach and he believed a star was born at the first sight of Liu. He visited Liu’s parents several times and finally persuaded them to let Liu transfer to the 110m hurdles.

After only three years, Liu launched his career in style in the IAAF Grand Prix in Lausanne in 2001 by breaking the world youth and Asian record with a time of 13.12.

But the first warning he sent to the world was his bronze-winning feat（战绩）at the world indoor championships in Birmingham, England, last year.

In 2004, Liu won the silver in the world indoor championships in Budapest in March. Two months later, he proved the winner in a race against American great Allen Johnson in the IAAF Grand Prix in Osaka, Japan, where he clocked a new Asian record and world’s season best time of 13.06 seconds.

He went on to win two Johnson-absent races in Lille, France, on June 26 and Zagreb, Croatia, three days later. He put up an exciting show at the Golden Gala meet in Rome on July 3, when he and Johnson clocked an identical time of 13.11. Race officials had to examine a photo finish to declare Johnson the winner. Liu did a better job of clearing the hurdles than Johnson, but Johnson’s stronger start ended up making the difference. The race boosted（提高） Liu’s optimism(乐观) for the Olympics, although Johnson bettered his season best time by 0.01 second in Lausanne, Switzerland, on July 6.

The world has put the Olympics a Johnson-Liu duel but surprisingly Johnson crashed out of the Games after falling at the ninth hurdle at round 2. Johnson’s early exit paved the way for Liu’s win. He finally took the gold medal and put a Chinese man’s name on the record book.

       (chinadaily.com.cn /Xinhua)  Updated:2004-08-28  02:57

According to Paragraph One, which of the following is TRUE?

       A. Liu Xiang is the fastest of the mentioned athletes.

        B. Liu Xiang has set a new world record in the event of the men’s 110m hurdles.

       C. Both Liu Xiang and Jackson got a gold medal at the Athens Olympics.

       D. In the Olympics history, Liu Xiang is the fastest in this event.

Before the 28th Olympics in Athens,         .

       A. no Chinese athlete got a gold medal from the track and field at the Olympics

       B. there was already a Chinese male medal winner in the track and field at the Olympics

       C. Terrence Trammell got a gold medal from the men’s hurdles at the Sydney Olympics

       D. Zhu Jianhua got a bronze medal from the men’s hurdles in the 1984 Los Angeles Games

In the last paragraph, the underlined word “duel” most probably means “       ”.

       A. competition       B. friendship   C. partner       D. company

From the passage, we can conclude that          .

       A. Liu Xiang had no gift for jumping when he was a little boy

       B. Liu Xiang set a new world youth record when he was 17 years old

       C. Liu Xiang has succeeded because of his coach Sun

       D. Johnson might have won the gold medal if he had not dropped out

When Denis Hennequin took over as the European boss of McDonald's in January 2004, the world's biggest restaurant chain was showing signs of recovery in America and Australia, but sales in Europe were sluggish or declining．One exception was France, where Mr．Hennequin had done a reliable job as head on the group's French subsidiary（子公式） to sell more Big Macs to his relatives, His task was to copy this success in all 41 of the European countries where anti-globalisers’ favourite enemy operates．
So far Mr．Henncquin is doing well．Last year European sales increased by 5．8% and the number of customers by 3．4%, the best annual results in nearly 15 years．Europe accounted for 36% of the group's profits and for 28 of its sales．December was an especially good month as customers took to seasonal menu offerings in France and Britain, and to a promotion in Germany based on the game of Monopoly（垄断）．
Mr．Hennequin's recipe for revival（复兴） is to be more open about his company's operations, to be "locally relevant", and to improve the experience of visiting his 6.400 restaurants． McDonaId's is blamed for making people fat, exploiting workers, treating animals cruelly, polluting the environment and simply for being American．Mr．Hennequin says he wants to engage in a dialogue with the public to address these concerns．
He introduced "open door" visitor days in each country which became hugely popular．In Poland alone some 50,000 visitors came to McDonaId's through the visitors' program last year．The Nutrition Information Initiative（倡议）launched last year, put detailed Sables on McDonaId's packaging with data on calories, protein, fat, carbohy drates and salt content, "the details are also printed on tray-liners．
【小题1】Which of the following statement is RIGHT?

When we think about giving help to developing countries, we often think about giving money so that these countries can build schools and hospitals, buy food and medicine, or find clean water supplies. These seem to be the most important basic needs of the people we are trying to help. However, it's far from enough. Ladies and gentlemen, we've got to come up with some better ideas to help them.
I was very surprised, then, when I read about a plan to make cheap laptop computers for children in developing countries. A man called Nicholas Negroponte invented a cheap laptop computer and he planed to produce a lot and sell them to the children in developing countries at a low price after he visited a school in Cambodia. The laptop will be covered in rubber so that it is very strong and won't be damaged easily. The idea is that these computers will help the children's education as they will be able to surf the Internet. By improving children's education they should help people to find their own solutions to their problems in the long term.
Another idea to help children in developing countries is to recycle old mobile phones so that they can be used again. In the UK, and probably in many other countries too, millions of mobile phones are thrown away every year. The waste created by throwing away these old phones is very bad for the environment, so it seems to be an excellent idea to recycle them. In this way we will be able to achieve two important goals at the same time. We will reduce the waste we produce and help others. In other words, we will be able to 'kill two birds with one  stone’, and that is always a good thing.
【小题1】It's an excellent idea to recycle old mobile phones because         .

根据下列各句句意和空白之后的汉语提示词，在答题卡指定区域的横线上写出对应单词的正确形式，每空只写一词。
【小题1】An ______ (诚实 )student never cheats in the examination.
【小题2】The news______ (播送) over the radio soon spread in the whole country.
【小题3】Why don’t you call on my sister on your______(到达) in Harbin？
【小题4】The students were lying on their ______(胃部).
【小题5】When I said some people were so stupid, I wasn’t ______(指) to you.
【小题6】She as well as her friends ______(参加) in a party to celebrate Women’s Day every March 8.
【小题7】The weather of Xi’an in ______(一月) is very cold, especially at night.
【小题8】Freddy _______(不常), if ever, reads a book.  
【小题9】In the ______(二十) century, country music became more and more popular in America.
【小题10】With his new ____(照相机), he took lots of pictures when he visited the city.