Imagine，one day，getting out of bed in Beijing and being at your office in Shanghai in only a couple of hours，and then，after a full day of work，going back home to Beijing and having dinner there．

Sounds unusual，doesn't it? But it's not that unrealistic，with the development of China’s high—speed railway system．And that’s not a11．China has an even greater high—speed railway plan—to connect the country with Southeast Asia，and eventually Eastern Europe．

China is negotiating to extend its own high·-speed railway network to up to 17 countries in 1 0 to 15 years，eventually reaching London and Singapore．

China has proposed three such projects．The first would possibly connect Kunming withSingapore via Vietnam and Malaysia．Another could start in Urumqi and go through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan，and possibly

to Germany．The third would start in the northeast and go north through Russia and then into Western Europe．

If China’s plan for the high-speed railway goes forward，people could zip over from London to Beiling in under two days．

The new system would still follow China’s high—speed railway standard．And the trains would be able to go 346 kilometers an hour，almost as fast as some airplanes．

    China’s bullet train(高速客车)，the one connecting Wuhan to Guangzhou，already has the

 World’s fastest average speed．It covers 1,069 kilometers in about three hours．

Of course，there are some technical challenges to overcome．There are so many issues that need to be settled，such as safety，rail gauge(轨距)，maintenance of railway tracks．So，it’s important to pay attention to every detail．

But the key issue is really money．China is already spending hundreds of billions of yuan on

domestic railway expansion．

China prefers that the other countries pay in natural resources rather than with capital

investment．Resources from those countries could stream into China to sustain development．

It’11 be a win-win project. For other countries，the railway network will definitely create more opportunities for business，tourism and so on，not to mention the better communication among those countnes．

For China，such a project would not only connect it with the rest of Asia and bring some much-needed resources，but would also help develop China’s far west．We foresee that in the coming decades，millions of people will migrate to the western regions，where the land is empty and resources unused．With high-speed trains，people will set up factories and business centers in the west once and for a11．And they’11 trade with Central Asian and Eastern European countries．

1．China’s new high-speed railway plan will be a win-win project because ____________．

  A．China will get much-needed resources and develop its western regions

  B．China and the countries involved will benefit from the project in various ways

  C．China will develop its railway system and communication with other countries

  D． the foreign countries involved will develop their railway transportation，business and tourism

2．According to the passage，the greatest challenge to the new high-speed railway plan is____________．

  A．technical issues    B．safety of the system

  C．financial problems  D．maintenance of railway tracks

3.Which of the following words best describes the author’s attitude towards China’s high-speed

  railway plan?

  A．Critical．    B．Reserved．    C．Doubtful     D. Positive．

4．Which of the following might be the best title for the passage?

  A．New Railway Standards    B．Big Railway Dreams

  C．High—speed Bullet Trains D．International Railway Network

The Queen’s English is now sounding less upper-class, a scientific study of the Queen’s Christmas broadcasts had found. Researchers have studied each of her messages to the Commonwealth countries since 1952 to find out the change in her pronunciation from the noble Upper Received to the Standard Received.

Jonathan Harrington, a professor at Germany’s University of Munich, wanted to discover whether accent (口音) changers recorded over the past half century would take place within one person. “As far as I know, there just is nobody else for whom there is this sort of broadcast records,” he said.

He said the noble way of pronouncing vowels (元音) had gradually lost ground as the noble upper-class accent over the past years. “Her accent sounds slightly less noble than it did 50 years ago. But these are very, very small and slow changes that we don’t notice from year to year.”

“We may be able to relate it to changes in the social classes,” he told The Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper. “In 1952 she would have been hears saying ‘thet men in the bleck het’. Now it would be ‘that man in the black hat’. And ‘hame’ rather than ‘home’. In the 1950s she would have been ‘lorst’, but by the 1970s ‘lost’.”

The Queen’s broadcast is a personal message to the Commonwealth countries. Each Christmas, the 10-minute broadcast is put on TV at 3 pm in Britain as many families are recovering from their traditional turkey lunch. (传统火鸡午餐).

The results were published (发表) in the Journal of Phonetics.

1.The Queen’s broadcasts were chosen for the study mainly because ______.

2.Which of the following is an example of a less noble accent in English?

3.We may infer from the text that the Journal of Phonetics is a magazine on _______.

4.What is the text mainly about?

What’s the language ______to Germany?

第二节：Peter，Helen，Catherine，Elizabeth和Levin想根据各自在环保方面的兴趣(61—65)进行案例研究。阅读下面某杂志的专题报道摘要(A、B、C、D、E和F)，选出适合他们研究的最佳案例，并在答题纸上将相应选项的标号涂黑。选项中有一项是多余选项。

61. Peter: Reducing plastic and other wastes through DTY

62. Helen : Making use of the heavy traffic to produce electricity

63. Catherine: Building a community without private cars

64. Elizabeth: Building houses with recycled materials and energy-efficiency systems

65. Levin: Developing a new type of urban car which bums less gas

请阅读下列交友信息，并按照要求匹配信息。请在答卷上把对应题号的相应选项的字母写出来。（请将该部分答案涂在电脑答题卡上，AB同时涂黑代表E；CD同时涂黑代表F。）

A．Piotrek Kowalski, 18, from Italy. Looking for a pen friend who is interested in discussing the current (当前的) political situation in the world. Like jazz and playing tennis in my free time.

B. Olga, 32 years old, historian, from Warsaw, Poland. Looking for a pen friend to exchange views on the political problems in East European countries after the Second World War.

C. Jack, 27, from London. My favorite pastime (消遣) is learning foreign languages. I go to evening language classes and use my computer to improve my language learning by visiting Internet sites.

D. Elle, 35 years old, from Paris. I like learning languages, but do not like using modern technology. Need a pen friend who also enjoys learning languages in a traditional way.

E. Petro, 42, businessman, from Argentina. Trying to get a pen friend with the same profession(职业) and lives in North America. Married, with three children and like surfing the Internet.

F. Kim Lee, 18, high school student in Seoul, South Korea. I love traveling and hope to visit Great Britain in the future. I would like a friend about the same age to get some information about the differences between life in Europe and that in Asia.

以下是交友者的信息。请匹配交友者与他们所对应的信息。

1.Mary, 21, a university student on history, comes from Scotland and would like to find a pen friend who comes from East Europe. She is interested in the things of the past in those countries.

2.Helga, 33, comes from Germany and speaks French, English and Russian. She prefers a pen friend who is also fond of exchanging ideas about language learning by writing letters and she firmly believes that language learning can only happen in a classroom.

3.Alessandro, 25, comes from Rome. He is interested in finding a pen friend who speaks English and can exchange ideas on using the computer for learning purpose.

4.Bob, 17, a middle school student in Liverpool, is interested in making a pen friend. He once visited China with his parents when he was a child and then fell in love with Asian culture. He would like a friend of the same or nearly the same age.

5.Jim, 35, has a company in Boston. His hobby is surfing the Internet in his spare time and looking for any useful information for him, whether at home or abroad.