In every British town, large and small, you will find shops that sell second-hand goods. Sometimes such shops deal mostly in furniture, sometimes in books, sometimes in ornaments and household goods, sometimes even in clothes.

The furniture may often be “antique”, and it may well have changed hands many times. It may also be very valuable, although the most valuable piece will usually go to the London salerooms, where one piece might well be sold for hundreds of thousands of pounds. As you look around these shops and see the polished wood of chests and tables, you cannot help thinking of those long-dead hands which polished that wood, of those now-closed eyes which once looked at these pieces with love.

The books, too, may be antique and  very precious; some may be rare first printings. Often when someone dies or has to move house, his books may all be sold, so that sometimes you may find whole libraries in one shop. On the border between England and Wales, there is a town which has become a huge bookshop as well.Even the cinema and castle have been taken over, and now books have replaced sheep as the town’s main trsde.

There are also much more humble shops, sometimes simply called “junk shops”, where you can buy small household pieces very cheaply. Sometimes the profits from these shops go to charity. Even these pieces, though, can make you feel sad; you think of those people who once treasured them, but who have moved on, to another country or to death.

Although the British do not worship their ancestors, they do treasure the past and the things of the past. This is true of houses as well. These days no one knocks them down; they are restored until they are often better than new. In Britain, people do not buy something just because it is new. Old things are treasured for their proven worth; new things have to prove themselves before they are accepted.

1.Books found in second-hand book shops may _____.

A．be copies of the earliest printing                 B．be on sale for the first time

C．never be worth very much                     D．never be rare

2.Second-hand goods sometimes fill you with sadness because_____.

A．they are too expensive for average buyers

B．they remind you of the original owner

C．they are now neglected

D．they are sold for charity

3.Which of the following word can best take the place of the word “antique” in the second paragraph?

A．invention               B．possession             C．material                 D．relic

4.According to the passage, the British people_____.

A．do not respect old things because they are not fashionable

B．like to build new houses simply because it is fashionable to do so

C．like to buy new things because they are fashionable

D．do not like to buy things simply because they are fashionable

Not long ago , Richard Denniston found himself suffering the same pain that millions of other pet owners have faced . His little Scottish dog had a brain tumor（肿块）and would soon die. Like others who faced the problem before him , Denniston just wanted to end his pet’s suffering . However , he took one step further.
Deniston , an expert who studies animals , collected a tiny skin sample from the dog and took it to his laboratory at Louisiana State University. There he  cultivated  it and froze it in liquid nitrogen.
From that idea , Denniston started a new technology .Denniston’s company will save pet’s DNA ＄500，plus a monthly storage fee of Us ＄10, until cloning becomes a reality .
Thanks mostly to the contribution of a California multimillionaire , that day may not be so far off.
“It could happen extremely soon if everything went on well.”says Mark Westhusin , a professor leading a dog cloning team . Most experts put successful dog cloning a year to five years down the road . The cost is bound to be expensive at first , but it would eventually drop to a few thousand dollars.
Since Dolly , the sheep which was first cloned in 1997 ,cattle ,goats ,mice and monkeys have been cloned in labs . Pets are likely to be next.
“I really believe that the technology is going to become available for many species in the near future ,”Denniston says .
1. After his pet died ,Richard Denniston_______.
A. did something more than the ordinary pet owners
B. did as other pet owners
C. did nothing but feel very sad
D.could not help feeling lonely without his dear pet
2. Richard Denniston_________in liquid nitrogen for an experiment.
A. was a doctor who put his dog
B. was an animal expert who put a piece of his dog’s skin
C.was an expert at collecting skin samples who then put them
D.took great interest in freezing things
3. The underlined word “cultivated ”in Para . 2 probably means_________.
A. bought     B.discovered    C.caught     D.trained
4. Cloning will cost people_______.
A. a lot of money in five years .
B. much in the beginning and then be reduced to a thousand dollars.
C. much and then will surely be reduced to thousands of dollars.
D.much at first and then might be reduced to a few thousand dollars.

If you ask people to name one person who had the greatest effect on the English language, you will get answers like “Shakespeare,” “Samuel Johnson,” and “Webster,” but none of these men had any effect at all compared to a man who didn’t even speak English—William the Conqueror.

Before 1066, in the land we now call Great Britain lived peoples belonging to two major language groups. In the west-central region lived the Welsh, who spoke a Celtic language, and in the north lived the Scots, whose language, though not the same as Welsh, was also Celtic. In the rest of the country lived the Saxons, actually a mixture of Anglos, Saxons, and other Germanic and Nordic peoples, who spoke what we now call Anglo-Saxon (or Old English), a Germanic language. If this state of affairs had lasted, English today would be close to German.

But this state of affairs did not last. In 1066 the Normans led by William defeated the Saxons and began their rule over England. For about a century, French became the official language of England while Old English became the language of peasants. As a result, English words of politics and the law come from French rather than German. In some cases, modern English even shows a distinction (区别) between upper-class French and lower-class Anglo-Saxon in its words. We even have different words for some foods, meat in particular, depending on whether it is still out in the fields or at home ready to be cooked, which shows the fact that the Saxon peasants were doing the farming, while the upper-class Normans were doing most of the eating.

When Americans visit Europe for the first time, they usually find Germany more “foreign” than France because the German they see on signs and advertisements seems much more different from English than French does. Few realize that the English language is actually Germanic in its beginning and that the French influences are all the result of one man’s ambition.

1. The two major languages spoken in what is now called Great Britain before 1066 were

 ________.

A. Welsh and Scottish              B. Nordic and Germanic

C. Celtic and Old English            D. Anglo-Saxon and Germanic

2. Which of the following groups of words are, by inference, rooted in French?

A. president, lawyer, beef            B. president, bread, water

C. bread, field, sheep            D. folk, field, cow

3.Why does France appear less foreign than Germany to Americans on their first visit to

 Europe?

A. Most advertisements in France appear in English.

B. They know little of the history of the English language.

C. Many French words are similar to English ones.

D. They know French better than German.

4.What is the subject discussed in the text?

A. The history of Great Britain.   

B. The similarity between English and French.

C. The rule of England by William the Conqueror.     

D. The French influences on the English language.

He is a real turtle（海龟）.

         Someone who always moves very slowly.

         She is such a sheep.

         A follower; someone who can’t think for him or herself.

         He’s being an ostrich（鸵鸟）.

         Someone who hides his/her head in the sand and refuses to face problems or reality.

         He’s a lamb.

         A gentle, patient, understanding person. Nice and considerate.

         What a crab（蟹） he is!

         A grouchy（发牢骚的） person; someone who is often angry and in a bad mood.

1.In which of the following situations are the people acting like sheep?

A. A teenager tells a small child to stop bothering an animal.

B. A young man is driving fast because all his friends do.

C. Someone runs for monitor of the senior class in the school.

D. People are walking and singing together along the road.

2.If a person is like a turtle, which of these is most likely to be a problem to him or her?

A. Keeping the house clean.               B. Learning a new language.

C. Getting to school on time.               D. Saving money for future use.

3.Buddy hates to wake up on Monday morning. He doesn’t speak to his wife or children, and he often shouts at the other drivers on his way to work. Everybody stays out of his way at least until noon time. After that he’s all right. Buddy’s boss says, “ Buddy is a good guy, but on Monday morning, he’s an absolute _________.”

A. crab                         B. lamb                        C. turtle                                D. ostrich

4.Jerry has not been well for weeks. He knows he has a problem but he is afraid to see a doctor .If he is sick, he doesn’t want to know about it. His wife says, “ Jerry, don’t be a(n) __________. Go to the doctor. She can help you get of your illness.

A. crab                         B. lamb                        C. sheep                               D. ostrich

"If I rest, I rust"——would be an excellent motto for those who are troubled by the slightest bit of idleness．Even the most hard-working person might adopt it with advantage to serve as a reminder that, if one allows his abilities to rest, like the iron in the unused key, they will soon show signs of rust and, eventually, cannot do the work required of them．

Those who would attain the heights reached and kept by great men must- keep their ability polished by constant use, so that they may unlock the doors of knowledge, the gate that guard the entrances to the professions, to science, art, literature, agriculture—every department of human endeavor．

Industry keeps the key bright that opens the treasury of achievement．If Hugh Miller, after toiling all day in a quarry, had devoted his evenings to rest and recreation, he would never have become a famous geologist．The celebrated mathematician, Edmund Stone, would never have published a mathematical dictionary, never have found the key to science of mathematics, if he had given his spare moments to idleness, had the little Scotch lad, Ferguson, allowed the busy brain to go to sleep while he tended sheep on the hillside instead of calculating the position of the stars by a string of beads, he would never have become a famous astronomer．

Labor defeats all—not inconstant, or ill-directed labor; but faithful, persistent, daily effort toward a well-directed purpose．So industry is the price of noble and enduring success．

1.What may be the meaning of the underlined word "rust" in the 1st paragraph?

2.Why does a hardworking person even use the motto? Because ______．

3.By saying "Those who would attain the heights reached and kept by great men must keep their ability polished by constant use", the author means_______．

4.The main point of the 3rd paragraph is that ______