Plants may not have eyes and ears，but they can recognize their siblings (兄弟姐妹)，and researchers at the University of Delaware have discovered how.The ID system lies in the roots and the chemical signals they secrete (分泌)．

Canadian researchers published that sea rocket，a common seashore plant，can recognize its siblings.Susan Dudley observed that when siblings are grown next to each other in the soil，they “play nice” and don’t send out more roots to compete.However，the moment one of the plants is thrown in with strangers，it begins competing with them by rapidly growing more roots to take up the water and mineral nutrients in the soil.

After reading Dudley’s study，Bais decided to find the method behind the sibling recognition.Working in his laboratory，Bais and his doctoral student Meredith Biedrzycki set up a study with wild populations of Arabidopsis thaliana.In a series of experiments，young seedlings were exposed to liquid media containing the root secretions from siblings，from strangers，or only their own secretions.The length of the longest lateral (侧面的) root was measured.The exposure of plants to the root secretions of strangers induced (引诱) greater lateral root formation than exposure of plants to sibling secretions.Strangers planted next to each other are often shorter，because so much of their energy is directed at root growth.Because siblings aren’t competing against each other，their roots are often much shallower (浅的)．

Biedrzycki did the painstaking laboratory research，observing more than 3,000 plants involved in the study every day for seven continuous days and documenting the root patterns.“Arabidopsis roots are nearly translucent (半透明的) when they are young and were also twisted when I removed them from plates，”Biedrzycki notes.“This manuscript (手稿) is very important for my research since the focus of my thesis project is understanding the biochemical ways behind root secretions.”

The research also may have implications for the home gardener.“Often we’ll put plants in the ground next to each other and when they don’t do well，we blame the local garden center where we bought them or we attribute their failure to a germ，”Bais says.“But maybe there’s more to it than that.”

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

A．A Great Biology Researcher

B．Plants Recognize Their Siblings

C．Plants’ Roots and Secretions

D．A Research on Plants

2. What encouraged Bais to study the sibling recognition?

A．Sea rocket.

B．Plants’ sensing system.

C．Biedrzycki’s thesis project.

D．Dudley’s study.

3. What does the underlined word “painstaking” in Paragraph 4 probably mean?

A．Important.? B．Adventurous.

C．Careful.? D．Hard?working.

4.What can we infer from the last paragraph?

A．The local garden center should be blamed when plants can’t grow well.

B．The local garden center often sells low quality seeds to customers.

C．Plants in the home garden can’t grow well because of the germ and seeds.

D．Competing against strangers，plants in the home garden can’t grow well.

Complete the sentence with the right word. The first letter of the word is given. (10 points)

1.There is n_______________ like a holiday to make us feel bored on the beaches.

2.He was deeply m______________ by the moving novel.

3.I will a____________________ it if you help me out of the difficulty.

4.Our a_________________ towards English learning should be improved usually.

5.The opening c__________________of the Olympic Games was so wonderful that it improved us with its fireworks.

6.The p__________________of our school is so strict that we dare not come to school late, or  we will be punished by our headteachers.

7.We often do much r______________ before exams to pass the exams.

8.He was a____________ to Beijing University this year,and he is the only one to study there.

9.In the lab , we do experiments following the i_________________ of our teacher.

10.My first day at senior high school was u______________________, and it will live in my heart.

 It’s an either-or situation—we can buy a new car this year or we can go on holiday but we can’t do       .

A. others                     B. either                      C. another                   D. both

第二节：读写任务（共1小题，满分25分）
阅读下面短文，然后按照要求写一篇150字左右的英语短文。
Life is filled with challenges. As we get older we come to realize that those challenges are the very things that shape us and make us who we are, it is the same with the challenges that come with friendship.
When we are faced with a challenge, we usually have two choices: we can try to beat if off, or we can decide that the thing presenting the challenges isn’t worth the trouble and call it quits. Although there are certainly times when calling it quits is the right thing to do, in most cases all that is needed is commitment and communication.
When we are committed to something, it means that no matter how painful or how uncomfortable something is, we will always choose to face it and work through instead of running away from it. Communication is making a space for discussion and talking about how you feel as opposed to just saying what the other person did wrong. If you can say to a friend, “I got my feelings hurt.” rather than “You hurt my feelings.” You are going to be able to solve the problem much faster.
In dealing with many challenges that friendship will bring to you, try to see them for what they are: small hurdles you need to jump or get through on your way through life. Nothing is so big that it is impossible to get over, and hurt only serves to make us stronger. It’s all part of growing up. It happens to everyone, and some day you will look back on all of this and say, “Hard as it was, it made me who I am today. And that’s a good thing.”
［写作内容］
以约30个词概括短文的要点；
然后以约120个词就“在生活或学习中如何面对挑战”这个主题发表看法，并包括如下要点：
①   在生活或学习上，你曾经遇到过什么比较大的挑战？
②   你是如何面对这个挑战的？你成功了吗？
③   对你面对挑战的经历，你有何感悟？
［写作要求］
1）可以使用实例或其他论述方法支持你的观点，也可以参照阅读材料的内容，
但不得直接引用原文中的句子；2）题目自拟。
［评分标准］      概括准确，语言规范，内容合适，篇章连贯。

---We’d better hurry or we’ll be late.

---_____ Do you really want to listen to the boring lecture?