Old age may not sound exciting. But recent findings offer good news for older people and for people worried about getting older.
Researchers found that people become happier and experience less worry after they reach the age of fifty. In fact, they say by the age of eighty-five, people are happier with their life than they were when they were eighteen years old.
The findings came from a survey of more than three hundred forty thousand adults in the United States. The Gallup Organization questioned them by telephone in two thousand eight. At that time, the people were between the ages of eighteen and eighty-five.
The researchers asked questions about emotions like happiness, sadness and worry. They also asked about mental or emotional stress.
Arthur Stone in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Stony Brook University in New York led the study. His team found that levels of stress were highest among adults between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-five.
The findings showed that stress levels dropped sharply after people reached their fifties.
Happiness was highest among the youngest adults and those in their early seventies. The people least likely to report feeling negative emotions were those in their seventies and eighties.
The study also showed that men and women have similar emotional patterns as they grow older. However, women at all ages reported more sadness, stress and worry than men.
The findings appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers say they do not know why happiness increases as people get older. One theory is that, as people grow older, they grow more thankful for what they have and have better control of their emotions. They also spend less time thinking about bad experiences.
Professor Stone says the emotional patterns could be linked to changes in how people see the world, or maybe even changes in brain chemistry.
The researchers also considered possible influences like having young children, being unemployed or being single. But they found that influences like these did not affect the levels of happiness and well-being related to age.
【小题1】 What is the report about?

完成句子（共14空，每空0．5分，满分7分）

1.你只有在不远离河岸的条件下才能去游泳。

You can go swimming               that you don’t go too far from the river bank．

2.他被委任承担学校各方面的管理工作。

He has been        to        the school management in all respects．

3.写一篇名为音乐的回忆的文章，字数不限。

Write an essay of as many words as you like        the        of “Musical Memories”．

4.幸福不在于拥有很多，而在于就算拥有很少也很满足。

Happiness        not in having much, but in being        with little．

5.麦克很谦虚，他把他的成功都归功于他的父母和老师们。

Mike is modest and he        a lot of his success        his parents and teachers．

6.据报道中国的经济总量目前仅次于美国——比日本或欧洲任何一个国家都要大。

It is reported that China’s economy is now               to the United States, larger than that of Japan or any single member of the European Union．

7.在上世纪90年代，他来到深圳,寻求成功的机会。

In the 1990’s, he came to Shenzhen to        his       ．

第II 卷

第一节短文改错（共10小题；每小题1，满分10分）

假定英语课上老师要求同桌之间交换修改作文，请你修改你同桌写的以下作文。文中共有10处语法错误，每句中最多有两处。错误涉及一个单词的增加、删除或修改。

增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧）,并在其下面写上该加的词。

删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。

修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写上修改后的词。

注意：1.每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；

2.只允许修改10处，多者（从11处起）不计分。

Mike is a warm-hearted man and is always readily to help anyone that turn to him for help. Yesterday evening, his friend Jim telephoned him and asked him to help prepare for dinner, for Jim’s parents would come to see their son from another city. Hearing news, Mike turned off the light, locking the door and left for Jim’s home. He hurried to Jim’s house, only find there were many of his friend there. “Happy birthday!” they all said to him. Surprised and happily, Mike was deeply moved. At the very moment, Jim came and patted himself on the shoulder, saying, “Mike, you are such a kind man because we all would like to give you a big surprise.”

单词拼写（共10小题；每小题0.5分，满分5分）

1.His rare gifts and bold strategy are ____________ (普遍)acknowledged.

2.There was a deep-rooted racial __________(偏见) long before the two countries became rivals and went to war.

3.The ________________(共识) among the world's scientists is that the world is likely to warm up over the next few decades.    

4.The government will provide temporary __________(住宿) for up to three thousand people in the flooded areas.

5.Helicopters arrived soon , ________________ (营救)nearly 20 people from the roof of the burning building.

6.In c_________________ with other students, Mike is more diligent.

7.You’d better make a r____________ for a room in National Holidays, because there are always many travelers then.

8.This money , i__________ for the development of the tourist industry, should be used widely.

9.It is well-known that the weather in Britain is c______________.

10.Don't worry, your memory will return g______________.

Britain is set to face an increase in cold winters, with up to one-in-seven hitting the UK with longer periods of time when temperatures are below freezing, a study has suggested．The prediction was based on research that found out how low solar activity affected winter weather patterns．
However, the researchers were eager to stress that their findings did not suggest that the region was about to fall suddenly into a "little ice age"．The findings appear in the journal Environmental Research Letters．"We could get to the point where one-in-seven winters are very cold, as we had at the start of last winter and all through the winter before last," said co-author Mike Lockwood, professor of space environment physics at the University of Reading．
Using the Central England Temperature （CET） record, the world's longest instrumental data series that dates back to 1659, the team said that in general temperatures during recent winters had been obviously lower than the longer-term temperatures．"The mean CET for December, January and February for the recent relatively cold winters of 2008 ~ 2009 and 2009~2010 were 3．50℃ and 2．53℃ respectively," they wrote．"However, the mean value for the previous 20 winters had been 5．04℃．The series of lower winter temperatures in the UK during the last three years had raised questions about the probability of more similar, or even colder, winters occurring in the future．"
Last year．Professor Lockwood and colleagues published a paper that found a link between fewer sunspots and atmospheric conditions that "blocked" warm westerly winds reaching Europe during winter months, opening the way for cold easterly winds from the Arctic and Russia to sweep across the region．Professor Lockwood, while acknowledging that there were a range of possible meteorological factors （气象因素） that could influence blocking events, said the latest study moved things forward by showing that there was "improvement in the predictive skill" when solar activity was taken into consideration．
【小题1】We can know from the second paragraph that _____．