The central government will pour billions of yuan into special projects to help meet the country’s energy-saving targets. Local officials are also about to come under increased pressure to toe the government line to meet the targets, otherwise their political futures could be in jeopardy. A top official from the National Development and Reform Commission reaffirmed China’s commitment to cutting energy use and emissions when making a report to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress yesterday.

   “We’re facing a very vital situation to cut energy use,” Ma Kai, the NDRC minister said. “If we don’t fasten our pace, it will be difficult to meet the targets this year.”

   Ma said the central government would also issue compulsory energy consumption standards for 22 products such as steel, cement, caustic soda and thermal power by the end of the year. NDRC figures show that the country’s energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) dropped 2.78 percent in the first six months from the same period a year earlier. However, the government has set the target of reducing energy consumption per unit of GDP by 20 percent between 2006 and 2010, about an annual fall of 4 percent. But it fell only 1.33 percent last year from 2005. In addition, official figures also show that SO₂ emissions dropped 0.88 percent to 12.63 million tons in the first half of the year.

   The minister blamed some local officials for dragging the rest of the country down in not meeting the targets. He said the assessment of officials in many places still focused too much on their performance in economic growth, and many cities and counties still lacked concrete plans to cut energy consumption. Ma said we had paid too much to economic growth and serious consequences are revealing themselves.

1. The underlined sentence in paragraph 1 means “________________”.

   A. their families would be healthy                 B. their futures would be bright

   C. their futures would be in danger               D. their jobs would be necessary

2. The Chinese government will pour billions of yuan into special projects to _______________.

A. help reduce energy use and emissions             

B. enlarge investment

C. improve the living conditions            

D. balance the income between the poor and the rich

3. The underlined word in paragraph 2 means “__________”.

   A. useless        B. strange      C. helpful       D. important

4. From the passage, we can infer that _______________.

   A. the government only focused on the economic growth

   B. some local officials could have done more for cutting energy use and emissions

   C. some local officials would not focus on the economic growth

   D. SO₂ emissions increased in the first half of the year

5. What caused the government to face a very vital situation to cut energy use?

   A. The assessment of officials.

   B. The central government would not issue energy consumption standards.

   C. Many cities and counties still lacked concrete plans to cut energy consumption.

   D. A and C.

----If this had happened to you, what would you have done?

----Me? I ________ the alarm.

A．would turn on                          B．would have turned on

C．had turned on                          D．must have turned on

Last Friday my brother and I were driving home together after doing some shopping and gave our attention to an interesting conversation. Because of this distraction (分心)my brother took a wrong turn.
Unfortunately, the wrong turn took us towards a bridge and we had no way to turn back. Unwillingly, my brother paid the bridge fee and drove on. He was clearly frustrated by the mistake and the needless waste of $4.
We eventually reached an exit and, as we took it, my brother noticed a young fellow pulled over to the side of the road. He came out of his car and tried to phone someone. I was busy trying to figure out which way we would go next but my brother pulled over and asked the guy if he needed any help. And he did. He had a flat tire and needed a tool to get it off.
My brother gave him a wrench, and then began to help him change the flat. The young man said that this had been a bad week for him: earlier he had gotten into a minor car accident, and now this flat on his way home from work. But he called us “a breath of fresh air” and kept thanking us because he really would have been stuck if we hadn’t come along.
After we finished the job he thanked us again and pulled out $20 from his pocket and tried to give it to us. “No,” I said. “We were never supposed to even get on that bridge,we took a wrong turn. But now we know why we did. It was to help you. Thank you for turning our mistake into an opportunity to serve.” 
What I loved most was that my brother was able to see a chance to help. His reaction in the situation is a lesson for everyone and we felt so good the rest of the day.
【小题1】When did the author and his brother notice the young man who had a flat tire?

By the mid-nineteenth century, the term "icebox" had entered the American language, but ice was still only beginning to affect the diet of ordinary citizens in the United States. The ice trade grew with the growth of cities. Ice was used in hotels, taverns(酒馆), and hospitals, and by some forward-looking city dealers in fresh meat, fresh fish, and butter. After the Civil War (1861-1865), as ice was used to refrigerate freight cars, it also came into household use. Even before 1880, half of the ice sold in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and one-third of that sold in Boston and Chicago, went to families for their own use. This had become possible because a new household convenience, the icebox, a precursor (前身) of the modern fridge, had been invented.
　　Making an efficient icebox as not as easy as we might now suppose. In the early nineteenth century, the knowledge of the physics of heat, which was essential to a science of refrigeration, was rudimentary(未发展的). The commonsense notion that the best icebox was one that prevented the ice from melting was of course mistaken, for it was the melting of the ice that performed the cooling. Nevertheless, early efforts to economize ice included wrapping up the ice in blankets, which kept the ice from doing its job. Not until near the end of the nineteenth century did inventors achieve the delicate balance of insulation(绝缘) and circulation needed for an efficient icebox.
　　But as early as 1803, and ingenious Maryland farmer, Thomas Moore, had been on the right track. He owned a farm about twenty miles outside the city of Washington, for which the village of Georgetown was the market center. When he used an icebox of his own design to transport his butter to market, he found that customers would pass up the rapidly melting stuff in the tubs of his competitors to pay a premium price(高价) for his butter, still fresh and hard in neat, one-pound bricks. One advantage of his icebox, Moore explained, was that farmers would no longer have to travel to market at night in order to keep their produce cool.
【小题1】Where was ice used after the Civil War?

I was born and raised in England in a culture where privacy and “keeping yourself to yourself”were valued traditions. Speaking to strangers was not encouraged. People were most hospitable(好客的) and friendly—but only once they had been introduced to new people.

However, I have been lucky enough to spend some time in both Italy and the US, where I found traditions of hospitality and politeness to be very different.

I experienced Italian hospitality first－hand on a crowded railway carriage travelling, one afternoon, from Genoa to Florence. Sinking gratefully into an empty seat, I was berated(斥责) in rapid Italian by a gentleman who was returning to this seat－it had not been “spare” after all. I apologized in English, and got up to allow him back into the seat. The gentleman obviously had no understanding of the English language, but he, too, realized my genuine mistake. He smiled and gestured for me to remain in the seat, and he himself remained standing in the corridor for the remainder of the journey. The other occupants of the carriage smiled and nodded at me and made me feel quite welcome amongst them. I feel that if this had been in England, a foreigner who made a mistake would not always be so kindly treated.

Transport also featured in the differences I noticed between English and American culture. I flew to New York on a plane with mainly English passengers. We sat together in near silence. Nobody spoke to me nor, as I expected, to anyone else they did not know. They felt it was not polite to intrude on someone else's privacy. However, when I travelled across the United States, whether by plane or Greyhound bus, I was never short of conversation. Conversation was going on all around me and whoever sat next to me was happy to introduce themselves and ask me about myself. They obviously felt it would have been rude not to speak to another person, whether they were strangers or not.

6. The purpose of the author is to tell us ________.

A. his travelling experience

B. cultural differences to show hospitality and politeness

C. the culture shock he experienced in Italy and the US

D. how to adapt ourselves to a new culture

7. What do we know about the occupants of the carriage when the author was travelling in Italy?

A. They all laughed at the author for his mistake.

B. They would not bear a mistake like the author's in public.

C. They were all on the side of the gentleman.

D. They all showed their understanding of the author's mistake.

8. The author probably believes the Italian people are________.

A. cold        B. rude           C. hospitable       D. helpful

9. According to the last paragraph, English passengers sat in near silence because________.

A. they were all strangers to each other

B. they were too tired to speak

C. privacy was a valued tradition in England

D. everybody had their own share of privacy

10. The last paragraph mainly tells us ________.

A. the difference between English and American culture

B. why Americans like to start a conversation

C. different attitudes of Englishmen and Americans towards conversation

D. the importance of privacy among Englishmen