The Great Fire of London started in the very early hours of 2 September 1666. In four days it destroyed more than three-quarters of the old city, where most of the houses were wooden and close together. Over one hundred people became homeless, but only a few lost their lives.

　　 The fire started on Sunday morning in the house of the King’s baker（面包师）in Pudding Lane. The baker, with his wife and family, was able to get out through a window into the roof. A strong wind blew the fire from the bakery（面包房）into a small hotel next door. Then it spread quickly into Thames Street. That was the beginning.

　 　By eight o’ clock three hundred houses were on fire. On Monday nearly a kilometer of the city was burning along the River Thames. Tuesday was the worst day. The fire destroyed many well-known buildings, old St Pauls and the Guildhall among them.

　　Samuel Pepys, the famous writer, write about the fire, “People threw their things into the river. Many poor people stayed in their houses until the last moment. Birds fell out of the air because of the heat .”

　　The fire stopped only when the King finally ordered people to destroy hundreds of buildings in the path of the fire. With nothing left to burn, the fire became weak and finally died out.

　　After the fire, Christopher Wren, the architect(建筑师), wanted a city with wider streets and fine new houses of stone. In fact, the streets are still narrow, but he did build more than fifty churches, among them the mew St Pauls.

　　The fire caused great pain and loss, but after it London was a better place: a city for the future and not just of the past.

1.The fire began in_________ .

A. a hotel　　　　B. the palace　　　C. Pudding Lane　　　　D. Thames Street

2.The underlined word “family” in the second paragraph means_________ .

A. home　　     B. children　　   C. wife and husband　　  D. wife and children

3.Why did the writer cite(引用)Samuel Pepys?

A. Because Pepys was among those putting out the fire.

B. Because Pepys also wrote about the fire.

C. To show that poor people suffered most.

D. To give the reader a clearer picture of the fire.

4.How was the fire put out according to the text?

A. The soldiers came to help.

B. All the wooden houses in the city were destroyed.

C. People managed to get enough water from the river.

D. Houses standing in the path of the fire were destroyed according to the King’s order.

The heart of Mexico is a high, oval valley surrounded by mountains. Once, forests covered the mountainsides, and broad, shining lakes covered nearly all the valley floor. Now, the mountains are bare and scarred with erosion（侵蚀）, and much of the valley floor is dry and dusty.

Cortez and his Spanish soldiers were the first Europeans to enter this valley. They saw the thriving Aztec city of Tenochtitlan rising from an island in one of the lakes. Surrounding it were green floating gardens. The Spaniards said it was as beautiful as a dream. Then the conquest  began. 

By 1521, when the Spaniards had conquered the fierce Aztecs, the island city was in ruins. Cortez decided to rebuild it after the pattern of European cities. Using the conquered Aztecs as slave laborers, Cortez built the new city, now Mexico City, in just four years.

“But a generation had scarcely passed after the conquest before a sad change came over these scenes so beautiful,” writes one historian. The broad, shining lakes began to dry up.

Modern historians believe that Cortez began the destruction of the valley’s lakes when be ordered the city rebuilt. A great deal of charcoal was needed to burn the limestone (石灰石) from which cement (水泥) and mortar were made. Wood was needed to finish the interiors of the buildings.

The mountainside forests were destroyed to provide the charcoal and wood. Once the sloped were bare, rainfall o longer seeped (渗漏) slowly into the earth to feed the springs that filled the valley’s lakes. Instead, rainfall poured off the mountainsides the city from floods, later rulers made a cut through the mountains so that the water drained away into another valley. Mexico City, once an island, had become a city of a dry plain.

The underlined word “thriving” in the second paragraph means _______.

A. developing successfully          B. increasing

C. failing                         D. growing little

Which statement does this article lead you to believe?

Keeping nature’s balance is not important any more.

Men thought nature’s resources would last forever.

New forests always automatically replace old ones.

The Aztecs didn’t begin to flourish until Cortez came.

Why did later rulers cut through the mountains ?

They wanted to fill the city with rainwater.

They wanted the valleys to flood regularly.

They wanted to plant more trees.

They wanted to protect the city from floods.

One the whole, the article tells about ______.

Mexico as it looked when it was a European city

Modern historians who write about Mexico City

Mexico city before and after the Spaniards came

The beautiful scenery in Mexico

What is the author’s purpose of writing this article?

A .To tell the beauty and ugliness of Mexico City

B. To introduce the terrible change of Mexico City

C. To explain how Mexico City changed

D. To make people aware of the importance of nature balance

With nothing ________ to burn, the fire became weak and finally died out before the firefighters came.

      A . leave       B. leaving           C. left         D. to leave

  The Great Fire of London started in the very early hours of 2 September 1666. In four days it destroyed more than three-quarters of the old city, where most of the houses were wooden and close together. One hundred thousand people became homeless, but only a few lost their lives.

        The fire started on Sunday morning in the house of the King's baker(面包师) in Pudding Lane. The baker, with his wife and family, was able to get out through a window in the roof. A strong wind blew the fire from the bakery (面包房) into a small hotel next door. Then it spread quickly into Thames Street. That was the beginning.

        By eight o'clock three hundred houses were on fire. On Monday nearly a kilometer of the city was burning along the River Thames. Tuesday was the worst day. The fire destroyed many well-known buildings, old St Paul's and the Guildhall along them.

        Samuel Peyps, the famous writer, wrote about the fire. People threw their things into the river. Many poor people stayed in their houses until the last moment. Birds fell out of the air because of the heat.

        The fire stopped only when the King finally ordered people to destroy hundreds of buildings in the path of the fire. With nothing left to burn, the fire became weak and finally died out.

        After the fire, Christopher Wren, the architect (建筑师), wanted a city with wider streets and fine new houses of stone, In fact, the streets are still narrow, but he did build more than fifty churches, among them the new St Paul's.

       The fire caused great pain and loss, but after it London was a better place: a city for the future and not just of the past.

It seems that the writer of the text was most sorry for the fact that______.

    A. some people lost their lives                    

B. the birds in the sky were killed by the fire

    C. many famous buildings were destroyed  

D. the King's bakery was burned down

Why did the writer cite (引用) Samuel Pepys?

    A. Because Pepys was among those putting out the fire.  

 B. Because Pepys also wrote about the fire.

    C. To show that poor people suffered most.       

D. To give the reader a clearer picture of the fire.

How was the fire put out according to the text?

    A. The King and his soldiers came to help.

    B. All the wooden houses in the city were destroyed.

    C. People managed to get enough water from the river.

    D. Houses standing in the direction of the fire were pulled down.

Which of the following were reasons for the rapid spread of the big fire?______.

    (a) There was a strong wind.                         (b) The streets were very narrow. 

    (c) Many houses were made of wood.           (d) There was not enough water in the city.     

    (e) people did not discover the fire earlier.

    A. (a), (b)       B. (a), (b), (C)      C. (a), (b), (d)        D. (b), (c) (e)

Burning the midnight oil before an exam or interview has an opposite effect according to a research which found that sleep is necessary for memories to be “downloaded” into the brain.

“A good night's sleep within 30 hours of trying to remember a new task is a necessary condition of having good recall in the weeks ahead，” scientists have found.

“We think that getting that first night's sleep starts the process of memory consolidation(加强)，” said Robert Stickgold, a sleep researcher at Harvard Medical School who conducted the latest study.

“It seems that memories are normally washed out of the brain unless some process nails them down. I feel uncertain that sleep is one of those things that do the nailing down，” Professor Stickgold said.

Professor Stickgold's team trained the 24 people to tell the direction of three diagonal bars (斜线) shown for a sixtieth of a second on a computer screen full of horizontal stripes(水平线)．

Half the subjects were kept awake that night, while the others slept. Both groups were allowed to sleep for the second and third nights to make up for any differences in tiredness between the volunteers.

Those who slept the first night were much better at remembering the task while the second group showed no improvement in spite of enjoying two nights of catch－up sleep.

A further study by scientists at the Medical University at Lubeck in Germany showed that memories are laid down in two stages during the night. The first is during the deep, so－called “slow wave” sleep, which usually takes place in the first half of the night. The second, and less important stage happens during the periods of dreaming or “rapid eye movement (REM)”. When people don't sleep well in the first half of the night, their memory consolidation is almost the same as having no sleep at all.

1. Which of the following statements is CORRECT according to the first paragraph?

A. It is necessary to burn the midnight oil before an exam or interview.

B. Sleep speeds up the loss of memory.

C. Man should have a good sleep if he wants to keep a good memory.

D. Staying up late will make you better prepared for an exam or interview.

2. It can be inferred from the fourth paragraph that________.

A. some process helps memories to be washed out of the brain

B. Professor Stickgold is doubtful about whether sleep can make memories worse

C. some memories normally influence the function of the brain

D. sleep may can improve the condition of memories

3. How was the research conducted by Professor Stickgold?

A. The subjects were divided into two groups.

B. All the subjects were kept awake for 3 nights.

C. One group slept at the first night but was kept awake the next two nights.

D. One group was kept awake for 3 nights but the other slept for the second and third nights.

4. What was the study result of the scientists' at the Medical University at Lubeck?

A. REM sleep is not important at all for the consolidation for memory.

B. Intellectual performance mainly depends on the slow wave sleep period.

C. When people sleep poorly in the first half of the night, it is almost the same as having no sleep at all.

D. REM sleep is as important as slow wave sleep in terms of memory recall.

5. The BEST title of this passage is “________”．

A. Sleep Necessary for Memories

B. The Importance of the First Stage of Sleep

C. Studies Made by Scientists About Sleep

D. The Scientists' Achievement in Sleep Research