Why do men die earlier than women? The latest research makes it known that the reason could be that men’s hearts go into rapid decline when they reach middle age.

The largest study of the effects of ageing on the heart has found that women’s longevity may be linked to the fact that their hearts hardly lose their pumping power with age.

“We have found that the power of the male heart falls by 20---25 percent between 18 and 70 years of age,” said the head of the study, David Goldspink of Liverpool John Moores University in the UK. “Within the heart there are millions of cells that enable it to beat. Between the age of 20 and 70, one-third of those cells die and are not replaced in men,” said Goldspink. “This is part of the ageing process.”

What surprises scientists is that the female heart sees very little loss of these cells. A healthy 70-year-old woman’s heart could perform almost as well as a 20-year-old one’s.

“This gender (性别)difference might just explain why women live longer than men,” said Goldspink.

They studied more than 250 healthy men and women between the ages of 18 and 80, focusing on healthy persons to remove the confusing influence of disease.

The team has yet to find why ageing takes a greater loss on the male heart, said Goldspink.

The good news is that men can improve the health of their heart with regular exercise. Goldspink stressed that women also need regular exercise to prevent their leg muscles becoming smaller and weaker as they age.

The underlined word “longevity” in the second paragraph probably refers to _________.

 A．health         B．long life        C．ageing         D．effect

The text mainly talks about ________.

A．men’s heart cells                 B．women’s ageing process 

C．the gender difference             D．hearts and long life

According to the text, the UK scientists have known that _________.

A．women have more cells than men when they are born

       B．women can replace the cells that enable the heart to beat

       C．the female heart loses few of the cells with age

       D．women never lose their pumping power with age

We can know from the passage that _______.

       A．the reason why ageing takes a greater loss on the male heart has been found out

       B．scientists are on the way to finding out why the male heart loses more of the cells

       C．the team has done something to prevent the male from suffering the greater loss

       D．women over 70 could lose more heart cells than those at the age of 20

The bee，like the ant，is a social insect（昆虫）.Bees live in large groups in box-like houses called hives or beehives.Every bee does a certain job that helps the other members of the group.In a beehive there live three kinds of bees:the queen bee，the male bees and the worker bees.The worker bees are born to be hard-working，flying from flower to flower collecting nectar（花蜜），which is made up mostly of sugar mixed with water.Bees draw this nectar into their honey bags where some sort of liquid in their bodies turns the nectar into honey.The newly made honey flows slowly from the bees’ underside and then is stored in small cells in the hive.When the weather turns cold，and there are no flowers for them to collect nectar，the stored honey will see them through the winter months.People who raise bees and depend on bees for a living are thought of as beekeepers.A bee-keeper usually keeps hundreds of hives，and removes honey from hives and keeps it in glass bottles or jars.Honey usually appears as a clear golden-colored liquid，but this lies in the sort of flowers from which bees have taken the nectar.

66.The best title of this passage is_______.

A.The Social Habits of Bees                              B.Three Kinds of Bees

C.The Production of Honey                               D.Bee Keepers’ Work

67.Bees are regarded as social insects because they_______.

A.form themselves into a good organization

B.have learned something from human society

C.need beekeepers to arrange their jobs

D.are born to work hard

68.The color of honey in its final stage depends on the_______.

A.type of flowers which the nectar is taken from

B.amount of sugar the beekeeper gives the bees

C.season in which the nectar is collected

D.quantity of water the bees are able to drink

69.Worker bees are always busy collecting nectar in order to_______.

A.help beekeepers to earn money from honey

B.turn it into honey

C.have something to eat in winter months

D.please the queen bee at the hive

70.During the course in which nectar change into honey_______.

A.water and sunlight are necessary conditions

B.some special liquid inside bees must be in the presence

C.many complex（复杂的）chemical changes will take place

D.worker bees have to bring up what they collected into their hive

第三部分阅读理解（共20小题；每小题2分，满分40分）
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项。
Spiders are actually useful. They do not harm plants, as some people think. Instead, they protect plants by controlling insects. If you see spiders in a garden, it doesn’t mean the garden is unhealthy. It means the spiders are helping the garden stay healthy.
If you spend some time watching spiders, you may be surprised by what you see. There are many wonderful webs. They may perform skillfully on their thin silk threads. However, some spiders spin (织) no webs at all. They follow insects on the ground with all the skill and cruelty of a tiger hunting big game.
Scientists have named about 30,000 species of spiders, but they think this is only one-fourth of all the different kinds of spiders in the world. In most species, people can easily tell the female spider from the male because the female is much bigger. For example, the female black widow (黑寡妇) weighs about one hundred times as much as the male.
Female spiders lay eggs. After hatching (孵), most spiders live less than a full year, but some don’t. Tarantulas (狼蛛) do not become adults until they are 10 or 11 years old. Female tarantulas often live an extra 10 years! The baby spiders that hatch from the eggs are called spiderlings.
56. The underlined in Paragraph 2 part “a tiger hunting big game” refers to “______.”
A. laying eggs                  B. hatching baby spiders
C. spinning webs               D. catching insects
57. How many kinds of spiders are there in the world according to the passage?
A. About 30, 000.      B. About 60, 000.    C. About 90, 000.    D. About 120, 000.
58. What can we know from the passage?
A. If there are spiders in your garden, it means it is unhealthy.
B. All spiders can spin webs.
C. Normally, a male spider is smaller than a female one.
D. All spiders can live 10 or 11 years after hatching.
59. What will be probably talked about after the last paragraph?
A. The way spiders spin webs.                   B. Something about spiderlings.
C. How the spiders protect plants.                 D. The way spiders stay healthy.

Have you ever wondered why birds sing? Maybe you thought that they were just happy. After all, you probably sing when you are happy.
Some scientists believe that birds do sing some of the time just because they are happy. However they sing most of the time for a very different reason. Their singing is actually a warning to other birds to stay out of their territory.
Do you know what a ‘territory’ is? A territory is an area that an animal, usually the male, claims as its own. Only he and his family are welcome there. No other families of the same species are welcome. Your yard and house are your territory where only your family and friends are welcome. If a stranger should enter your territory and threaten you, you might shout. Probably this would be enough to frighten him away.
If so, you have actually scared the stranger away without having to fight him. A bird does the same thing. But he expects an outsider almost any time, especially at nesting(筑巢) season. So he is screaming all the time, whether he can see an outsider or not. This screaming is what we call a bird’s song, and it is usually enough to keep an outsider away.
Birds sing loudest in spring when they are trying to attract a mate and warn others not to enter the territory of theirs.
You can see that birds have a language of their own. Most of it has to do with attracting mates and setting up territories.
【小题1】Some scientists believe that most of the time bird’s singing is actually _____________.