第三部分：阅读理解 （共20小题，每题2分，满分40分）

第一节：(共15小题，满分30分)

Police in the Russian city of St. Petersburg were today searching for a rare missing leopard which was stolen yesterday when thieves attacked a TV producer and drove off in his luxury Mercedes 4×4.

The amur leopard, which was in the boot, is one of the world’s most highly endangered species, with fewer than 45 left in the wild in Russia’s remote far east. About 300 others are captive in zoos around the world.

According to its owner, Mikhail Barakin, the thieves were wearing masks. They attacked him and his driver, throwing both of them out of the vehicle, shortly after they drove to St. Petersburg with leopard from Moscow.

“She’s a female leopard cub and she’s incredibly tame,” Barakin told the Guardian this morning. “She’s just over a month old. The leopard was brought up in captivity.”

He went on, “We had been driving all night with the leopard in a travel cage. The plan was to take her to the vet. My driver and I were in the process of setting the leopard in the trunk of my Mercedes…when three masked assailants attacked us. They managed to get away with the car. My suspicion is the theft was done to order.”

Barakin said the leopard, a present from a Moscow businessman, was far more valuable than the stolen Mercedes. He has offered a ￡85,400 reward for its safe return, and says he is prepared to drop all charges if the thieves bring the animal back.

The leopard was to have been housed in a purpose-built enclosure on a country estate outside St. Petersburg, he added. Barakin said he had hired a specialist to look after it, and was planning to use the cub in TV commercials.

36. We can infer from the passage that the three assailants ______.

A. probably came for the leopard                                             B. would return the leopard safely

C. didn’t know there was a leopard in the car                      D. were known to Mikhail Barakin

37. The leopard was believed to be more valuable because ______.

A. it was already tamed                                                        B. it could be kept as a pet

C. it would be used in TV commercials                             D. it was an endangered species

38. Mikhail Barakin drove the leopard to ______.

A. put her in a bigger place                                                  B. use it in TV commercials

C. put her in better care                                                       D. keep her in the zoo

39. If the thieves brought the leopard back, Mikhail Barakin would ______.

A. send them to prison                                                          B. give them a reward

C. give them the car as a reward                                       D. not charge them

40. The underlined word “boot” in Paragraph 2 probably refers to ______.

A. a special cage                                                                     B. a type of shoe

C. the trunk of a car                                                               D. a kind of camera

What would you think if someone suggested knocking down St Paul’s Cathedral to widen the road? Or pulling down Big Ben to make way for a car park? It would be ridiculous, right? But when it comes to devastation (毁灭) of the natural world, we aren’t so easily shocked. But we should be…or we’ll be in a lot of trouble.
Nature is shrinking by the day. Ancient forests are destroyed. Wetlands are becoming dry. Woodland is disappearing, and all in the name of progress. This is bad in itself, but it’s devastating for biodiversity.
Biodiversity refers to the variety of plants, animals and other living things that are all interconnected. The ecological services provided by biodiversity are vital to everyday life. The air we breathe is a product of photosynthesis (光合作用) by green plants. Insects, worms and bacteria break down waste and make soils rich. And tiny organisms clean the water in rivers and sea. In fact, all life on the earth exists thanks to the benefits of biodiversity. More than 90 percent of the calories consumed by people worldwide are produced from 80 plant species. And 30 percent of medicines are developed from plants and animals. Maintaining a wide diversity of species in each ecosystem is necessary to preserve all living things.
The loss of biodiversity could be devastating. “It is wrong to think that biodiversity can be reduced indefinitely without threatening humans,” said Harvard University biologist Edward O. Wilson, known as the “father of biodiversity”. He warned, “We are about to reach a critical point beyond which biodiversity loss will become irreversible (不可挽回的).”
But what can we do? The present problem is that the concept of biodiversity is so vague (含糊的). People might care about giant pandas, but it is much harder to excite them about the fate of tiny sea creatures which are being boiled to death in the cooling systems of power stations along coastlines. The Guardian newspaper is trying to help. It has launched the Biodiversity 100 campaign to try to convince governments around the world to take action to deal with the widespread concerns about biodiversity. This includes persuading the UK government to create a series of marine reserves to reserve the decrease in the sea-life caused by industrial fishing, stopping fishing sharks by the Japanese fishermen and banning the killing of dingoes (wild dogs) in Australia, among many other things.
There is a lot to do. And we’d better act quickly if we don’t want to end up with a planet that can’t sustain life!
【小题1】The writer thinks it ________ to pull down Big Ben to make way for a car park.

Last year, two days after Christmas, we kicked China out of the house. Not the country obviously, but bits of plastic, metal, and wood with the words “Made in China”. We kept what we already had, but stopped bringing any more in. because it had coated our lives with toys, and useless stuff. Sometimes I worried about jobs sent overseas, but price triumphed over virtue at our house. We couldn’t resist what China was selling.

But on that dark Monday last year, an unease feeling washed over me as I sat on the sofa. It wasn’t until then that I noticed a fact: China was taking over the place.

It stared back at me from the empty screen of the television. I spied it in the pile of tennis shoes by the door. It glowed in the lights on the Christmas tree and watched me in the eyes of a doll lying on the floor, I slipped off the couch and sorted gifts into two piles: China and non-China. The count came to China, 25, the world, 14. Christmas, I realized, had become a holiday made by the Chinese. Suddenly I wanted China out.

I persuaded my husband, and on Jan. 1 st, we started a-year-long household embargo on Chinese imports. The idea wasn’t to punish China. And we didn’t fool ourselves into thinking because we wanted to measure how far it had pushed in. We wanted to know what it would take in time, money, and worry to kick our China habit!

In the spring, our 4-year-old son started a campaign to support “China things”. “It’s too long without China,” he cried. He kept at me all day. I have discovered for myself that China doesn’t control every aspect of our daily lives, but if you take a close look at the underside of boxes in the toy department, I promise it will give you pause. “When we can buy China things again? Let’s never stop.” My son said.

After a year without China I can tell you this: You can still live without it, but it’s getting costlier by the day. And a decade from now I may not be brave enough to try it again.

1. The best title for the text could be _______.

A．China Free Living: A Trouble One

B．A Year without “Made in China”

C．Why I Choose “Made in China”

D．“Made in China”: Good or Bad

2. According to the passage, why did the author stop bringing in things “Made in China”?

A．Because she wanted to bring back job opportunities for her natives.

B．Because she has a strong sense of nationalism against “Made in China”.

C．Because she wanted to learn what life would be like without “Made in China”.

D．Because too much stuff made in China was take over her house.

3. The Underlined word “embargo” in the forth paragraph means ________.

A．reaction                              B．ban

C．restriction                             D．cancellation

4.The writer’s purpose in writing this passage is ________.

A．to tell the readers an interesting experience

B．to describe the trouble facing a housewife

C．to explain the importance of Chinese goods

D．to show the difficulty without Chinese goods

Dine with General St. Amour

General St. Amour was famous for his bravery, but he was born into the family of a poor peasant. Even when he became a general, he never   1.  his humble origin（卑微的出身）. 

While his   2.  was stationed in his hometown, he invited some of his principal officers to a dinner party at a   3. . They had just sat down at the table when his father   4.  to drop in on him. When the guard   5.  it to the general, he   6.  rose and told his guests that his father had   7. .

He said that he knew the   8.  he owed to them, but at the same time he hoped they would  excuse him   9.  he withdrew (退出) because he would like to   10.  with his father in another room.

Hearing what he said, all the guests present   11.  that the father should be introduced to them, 12.  that they would be very pleased to see one who was so closely   13.  to him. But to their 14. , General St. Amour replied, “Ah, no, gentleman. You are   15.  wrong. I mean my father would find himself so   16.  in company with so many people who are unsuited to his rank.   17. , it would deprive(剥夺) us both of the only pleasure of the   18.  ——the natural intercourse(交流) of a parent and his son.”

He then   19.  himself from the table and spent the evening dining with his father.

The moral of the story is: you can’t give people   20. , but you can provide the kind of understanding that makes people keep their pride.

21.               A．forgot          B．knew          C．minded   D．cared

22.               A．family          B．army           C．company  D．organization

23.               A．park           B．school         C．restaurant D．cinema

24.               A．agreed         B．promised       C．decided   D．happened

25.               A．explained       B．whispered      C．reported  D．shouted

26.               A．strongly        B．immediately     C．simply D．suddenly

27.               A．resigned        B．started         C．left   D．arrived

28.               A．respect        B．understanding   C．support   D．love

29.               A．before         B．until           C．if D．unless

30.               A．chat           B．dine           C．walk  D．dance

31.               A．demanded      B．commanded     C．stressed   D．requested

32.               A．saying          B．complaining     C．admitting  D．reminding

33.               A．used           B．opposed        C．related    D．devoted

34.               A．joy            B．disappointment  C．excitement D．surprise

35.               A．terribly         B．completely      C．slightly    D．partly

36.               A．embarrassed    B．frightened      C．disturbed  D．disappointed

37.               A．Above all       B．After all        C．In addition D．In time

38.               A．party          B．interview       C．appointment   D．discussion

39.               A．defended       B．allowed        C．introduced D．excused

40.               A．time           B．money         C．pride D．confidence

改写后的课文内容填空 （共10个空，每空1分，满分10分）

Frederick William I, to whom the Amber Room b________1., could not have imagined it would have such an a________2.story. The Amber Room was designed in the fancy style popular in those days, d________3. with gold and jewels. He, however, gave it to Peter the Great as a g________4.. For the Czar, the Amber Room served as a small r________5. hall for important visitors. Later, Catherine II told her artists to add more d________6.to the Amber Room to make it even more beautiful.

During World War II, the Nazi army attacked St Petersburg. Though the Russians were able to remove some f________7.and small art objects, some of the Nazis s________8. stole the Amber Room itself. There is no d________9. that the Amber Room was put on a train for Königsberg. What happened to it later r________10. a mystery.