When I was growing up, I had an old neighbor named Dr. Gibbs. He didn’t look like any doctor I’d ever known. He never yelled at us for playing in his yard. I remember him as someone who was a lot nicer than most of the adults in our community.
When Dr. Gibbs wasn’t saving lives, he was planting trees. His house sat on ten acres, and his life’s goal was to make it a forest.
The good doctor had some interesting theories concerning plant care and growth. He never watered his new trees, which flew in the face of conventional wisdom. Once I asked why. He said that watering plants spoiled them so that each successive tree generation would grow weaker and weaker. So you have to make things rough for them and weed out(淘汰) the weaker trees early on. He talked about how watering trees made for shallow roots, and how trees that weren’t watered had to grow deep roots in search of moisture. I took him to mean that deep roots were to be treasured.
So he never watered his trees. He planted an oak and, instead of watering it every morning, he beat it with a rolled-up newspaper. Smack! Slap! Pow! I asked him why he did that, and he said it was to get the tree’s attention.
Dr. Gibbs passed away a couple of years after I left home. Every now and again, I walked by his house and looked at the trees that I’d watched him plant some twenty-five years ago. They’re extremely tall, big and robust since they have deep roots now. However, the trees in my garden trembled in a cold wind although I had watered them for several years.
It seems that adversity(逆境) and suffering benefit these trees in ways comfort and ease never could. I stood there deep in thought.
Every night before I go to bed, I check on my two sons. I stand over them and watch their little bodies, the rising and falling of life within. I often pray for them. Mostly I pray that their lives will be easy. But I think that it’s time to change my prayer(祷词) because now I know my children are going to encounter hardship.
【小题1】According to Dr. Gibbs’ theories, trees will become weaker if they _________.

When I was growing up, I had an old neighbor named Dr. Gibbs. He didn’t look like any doctor I’d ever known. He never yelled at us for playing in his yard. I remember him as someone who was a lot nicer than most of the adults in our community.
　　When Dr. Gibbs wasn’t saving lives, he was planting trees. His house sat on ten acres, and his life’s goal was to make it a forest.
　　The good doctor had some interesting theories concerning plant care and growth. He never watered his new trees, which flew in the face of conventional wisdom. Once I asked why. He said that watering plants spoiled them so that each successive tree generation would grow weaker and weaker. So you have to make things rough for them and weed out(淘汰) the weaker trees early on.
He talked about how watering trees made for shallow roots, and how trees that weren’t watered had to grow deep roots in search of moisture. I took him to mean that deep roots were to be treasured.
　　So he never watered his trees. He planted an oak and, instead of watering it every morning, he’d beat it with a rolled-up newspaper. Smack! Slap! Pow! I asked him why he did that, and he said it was to get the tree’s attention.
Dr. Gibbs passed away a couple of years after I left home. Every now and again, I walked by his house and looked at the trees that I’d watched him plant some twenty-five years ago. They’re extremely tall, big and robust since they have deep roots now. However, the trees in my garden trembled in a cold wind although I had watered them for several years.
It seems that adversity(逆境) and suffering benefit these trees in ways comfort and ease never could. I stood there deep in thought.
　　Every night before I go to bed, I check on my two sons. I stand over them and watch their little bodies, the rising and falling of life within. I often pray for them. Mostly I pray that their lives will be easy. But I think it’s time to change my prayer(祷词) because now I know my children are going to encounter hardship..
【小题1】According to Dr. Gibbs’ theories, trees will become weaker if they______

       New York times, Nov, 24,2011-It is not just any bug, but the native nine-spotted ladybug. And its reappearance is something of a relief, because it is the official New York State insect, even though the last recorded sighting of it in New York was 29 years ago.

       Its absence had not gone completely unnoticed. There was a moment in 2006 when the State Assembly, realizing that the state insect had left the state, tried to replace it with a different species of ladybug, an attempt that fortunately gave in to law.

       And now—after all these years—the state insect has been found. Like so many other New Yorkers, it was seen summering in Amagansett. Peter Priolo, a volunteer participant in an effort called the Lost Ladybug Project, found the ladybug on July 30 in a patch of sunflowers during a group search he had organized.

       “I didn’t realize it was a nine-spotted when I found it,” Mr. Priolo said. He was on his way to do an end-of-the-day ladybug record, so, he said, “I put it in my jar and hurried back to meet with everybody.”

       If the ladybugs are making a comeback, it is only beginning. The lost Ladybug Project started surveys in 2000. As of 2006, only five nene-spotted ladybugs had been found in North America in the previous 10 years, none of them in the East. Then one lone ladybug was found in Arlington, Va. None had been found in the East since, and only 90 have been reported in North America.

After scientists at Cornell confirmed Mr. Priolo’s find, they went to the Amagansett farm in mid-August to lead a search that turned up about 20 more of the bugs. An area between rows of carrots and beans turned out to be a hot spot. “We found a lot of them on cosmos and zinnias,” said Dr. Losey said, an insect expert. The farm is part of the 10,000-acre Peconic Land Trust in Amagansett, and it is organic. For ladybugs, Dr. Losey said, “you couldn’t design a better place.”

Dr. Losey wants to find out if it makes sense to reintroduce this strain of the ladybug in other areas. And he expects volunteers to be back out in the field when ladybug season starts again in the spring. Now, he said, “we need to find out more places where there are just as many.”

49．The last time the New Yorkers saw their state insect in            .

       A．2000                      B．2006                       C．1998                      D．1982

50．The New Yorkers are so delighted to see the insect because           .

       A．it has some bright spots on its back

       B．it is the official insect of the city

       C．it had been out of sight for quite some time

       D．it is a new species unknown to New York

51．What does the second paragraph of the passage imply?

       A．It’s against the law to bring new insects to New York.

       B．The State Assembly don’t like to live with Ladybugs.

       C．The absence of the state insect had never been known.

       D．The state insect had to leave because of a new species.

52．From the last two paragraphs we know that       .

       A．only some insect experts are really interested in ladybugs

       B．Dr Losey is quite confident about the future of the insect

       C．most ladybugs have m moved to live in the down area

       D．more vegetables will be grown to welcome the state insect