Half a century ago, during the Sino-Japanese War, I was a student at National Southwest Associated University at Kunming in southern China, Lectures were often accompanied by the pitter-patter of rain on the tin roofs of the classrooms; that mud floors were full of holes; and wind blew through paneless windows. As for the library, it was a bare skeleton. A good reference book was used for years and journals usually arrived after a couple of years’ delay.
But despite such hardship, I had the best of my student days in Kunming. Although we were short of research materials, we were uncompromising（坚定的）in our pursue of knowledge and truth. I spent six years at Southwest and obtained my first and second degrees in physics here. I still value those days fervently. In fact it was at Southwest that I first came across Reader’s Digest. To me, the magazine’s insistence on perfection both in style and accuracy—as well as its celebration of life even in the face of hardship—is similar to the values I learned at Southwest.
Later, I went to the United States to study under Enrich Ferimi, the famous physicist who directed the world’s first nuclear chain reaction. One of the first things Ferimi emphasized to me was that physics shouldn’t be so overwhelming（压倒性的）that it is beyond the average man. Physics research, he said, should be connected with our daily lives and physicists should devote most of their efforts to solving practical problems. I couldn’t agree more. Indeed, I think this simple, close-to-life.
Approach applies other attempts too. Reader’s Digest is highly informative, but it is easy to read, and easy to understand, never exaggerating or mystifying. This truthful, down-to earth quality is what I treasure now.
【小题1】What is the author?

根据所给汉语提示或首字母填写词的适当形式，完成下列句子
（共15小题；每空1分，满分15分）
1. The boss needed many employees, so he decided to h      some.
2. The farmer had only twenty   (牛) left after the serious snowstorm on the farm.
3. The editor said that the book would be improved by     (插入) another chapter.
4. From 1842 to 1940 Angel Island was a famous immigration station where many
Chinese people a        for right to live in USA.
5. I’m sorry to b     you, but can you show me the way to the railway station?
6. Cloning is a way of making an e     copy of another animal or plant.
7.When we describe something very light, we say "as light as a        (羽毛)". 
8. His opinion d       entirely from mine, so I had to change mine.
9. In case of fire, please d     119.
10. The doctor felt the child’s f     and found the fever was gone.
11. He kept         ( 轻敲) his fingers on the table.
12. P      experience is better than theoretical knowledge
13. He works in a small firm and lives on his wages（工资）. How can he makeaf ?
14. Could you lend me 20 yuan? I left my w      at home.
15. The police worked out a plan to catch        (小偷) in the whole city.

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?

E
Some people have it easy. When their kids ask them what they do at work, they can give a simple, direct answer: “I put out fires” or “I teach primary school”. As a theoretical physicist, I never had this luck. Society has come to expect many things from the physicists. It used to be that we only had to discover the basic laws of the world and supply the techniques that would power the next Silicon Valley. With these expectations we were fairly comfortable: they are the sorts of things we think we know how to do. What makes us uncomfortable and what makes it hard for us to tell our kids what we’re up to is that in this century we have become, though unwillingly, gurus on questions such as “What is the nature of Reality?”
We now deal with a whole new class of problems. We ask how the world began and what the nature of matter is. The answers we are coming up with are just not easy to comprehend for the average person.
So, when physicists get out of their cars in the morning, have a cup of coffee and sit down in front of their computers, they leave a familiar world and enter a place where things act in strange ways that are impossible for ordinary people to understand.
72. According to the passage, in a way physicists are        .
A. honest        B. comfortable    C. strange        D. unlucky
73. By what the writer says about physicists, we know that physicists        .
A. don’t like their careers
B. live in two different worlds
C. are coming up with new answers to old questions
D. don’t have to tell people what they are doing
74. From the passage we can conclude that theoretical physicists        .
A. contributed to the new industry in Silicon Valley
B. only have to answer the basic questions about the world
C. have disappointed the expectations of many people
D. have found it hard to make themselves popular
75. What’s the main idea of the passage?
A. Society seems to know a bit about physicists’ work.
B. Most people are expecting to know what physicists are doing.
C. Physicists are doing more and more difficult jobs.
D. It’s impossible for average people to know physicists’ work.

B
Senior First Aid
Registration(注册) Details: PARASOL EMT Pty Limited (ABN 39 072 488 914)
Recognition Period: 01/01/1997 to 30/03/2008
Purpose: The aim of this course is to develop a student’s competence(胜任) and confidence in providing emergency first aid. This includes calling for help, the ability to respond to first aid situations, decision-making, and basic life support functions. This course covers adult and child conditions.
Target Audience: This course is suitable for anyone requiring a first aid certificate(证书) for the workplace, recreational purposes, sporting, or home use.
Format(形式): A mixture of theoretical and practical elements(成分), with at least 50% of time spent on practical skills.
Requirements: Be at least 14 years of age.
Learning Objectives: 
● Apply(运用) Life Support Skills
● Apply First Aid Management Skills for Burns
● Demonstrate the identification and management of bleeding and wounds.
● Describe the recognition and management of internal（内部的） bleeding
● Manage an Emergency (Basic)
● Apply First Aid Management for bone and joint(关节) injuries
● Manage Emergency Situations
● Apply First Aid Management skills for bites, stings（刺伤） and poisoning.
● Manage an acute（急性） illness
● Describe the recognition and management of an eye injury
● Describe the basic structure and function of the human body.
● Apply First Aid Management skills for chest, abdominal(腹部的) and head injuries
55. The underlined part “target audience” probably means _______.
A. what performance the audience want to see
B. all kinds of audience who are to be attracted by the course
C. people are suitable to be engaged in first aid work
D. a limited group that the course is aimed at
56. According to the ads after you finish this course, you will probably do all the following EXCEPT _______.
A. you can deal with common animals’ bites and stings
B. you can do an operation on the chest and head
C. you can give first aid when someone hurt his leg badly
D. you can tell whether a person is bleeding inside his body
57. What is the main purpose of the advertisement?
A. To make a person competent（胜任） to give first aid.
B. To develop the students’ ability to give first aid.
C. To persuade the students to take part in the first aid course.
D. To tell the students more about basic structure and function of the human body.