Perhaps the most wonderful building put up in the 19th century was the Crystal Palace（水晶宫）which was built in Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Crystal Palace was different from all the other buildings in the world, for it was made of iron and glass. It was one of the biggest buildings of all the time and a lot of people from many countries came to see it. Plenty of goods were sent to the exhibition from all parts of the world. There was also a great deal of machinery on show. Though in those days, traveling was not as easy as it is today, steamboats carried thousands of visitors across the Channel from Europe. On arriving in England, they were taken to the Crystal Palace by train. There were six million visitors in all, and the money from the exhibition was used to build museums and colleges. Later, the Crystal Palace was moved to the South London. It remained one of the most famous buildings in the world until it was burnt down in 1936.

1.The Crystal Palace was built up_________.

A. in the 1950s     B. in the 1990s    C. shortly before 1851   D. after 1851

2. People from many countries came to the Crystal Palace mainly to______.

   A. buy goods                            B. visit an exhibition    

C. travel                               D. enjoy the Crystal Palace itself

3. What happened to the Crystal Palace in 1936?

   A. It caught a terrible fire.

   B. It disappeared suddenly.

   C. It was moved away to the south of London

   D. It was rebuilt.

4.The writer__________.

   A. thought the Crystal Palace very useful

   B. thought highly of the Crystal Palace.

    C. wanted the Crystal Palace to be rebuilt

   D. was one of the visitors who had visited the Crystal Palace.

5. The Crystal Palace was famous to all because__________.

   A. it was the biggest building in the world then.

   B. it was made of iron and glass.

   C. so many visitors had been there.

   D. it was burnt down at last.

As society advances and basic needs are most often being met, things that were not considered important in the past have taken priority(优先). In the past, people could easily get a job and progress pretty well, as long as they were hard-working; education was important but not as crucial(关系重大) as it is today.

Nowadays, just as clothes are important to first impressions, degree is important to a person’s first job interview or even a job with a good salary. Although experience is important to survive in any trade or profession, the first thing that companies look for is that piece of paper before looking at one’s experience.

A passport into the world of any profession is what having a degree means today, especially for professions that have need of certification and pay well, such as architects, doctors, lawyers, and teachers.

That piece of paper, the degree, is also a passport to jobs in top or middle management in any company, especially so for multi-national corporations(跨国公司). Having a degree opens up opportunities that one would not have had if one did not have any kind of degree. A degree simply proves that one has gone through the necessary training and understanding of how to carry out a job.

Although there are many that may say having a degree may not necessarily equal to success, it would most definitely help any person achieve success in shorter and easier steps. Success cannot simply be a result of hard work and/or depending on one’s experience or degree alone; it is the art and knowledge of how to work that determines one’s success. Therefore, it should not be for the sake to get a degree, but the quality of the degree and experiences that one can learn from that matter as well.

What would be the best title for this passage?

A. People used to be hard-working

B. How important is the degree?　　

C. How can we enter the top management?

D. Degree surely leads to success

Why does the author mention clothes in the second paragraph?

A. To prove the importance of the first impression.

B. To stress the importance of job interviews.　　

C. To show the importance of clothes.

D. To explain the importance of degree.

What does the underlined word “it” in the last paragraph refer to?

A. Having a degree

B. Success

C. Necessary training

D. Having an opportunity

Never before 　　　　 in greater need of technical experts than it is today.

A. has Hunan been   B. Hunan has been

C. was Hunan       D. Hunan was

Pop music is the name for various popular，commercial music．It originated in the USA and spread through the whole world during the 1950s and 60s．It is widely liked by the young people．The best known early form of pop music was “rock’n’ roll”; another was “blues”. A more recent development is “folk rock”．Pop music has taken the place of native music in many parts of the world．It has caused the number of people for “jazz” music to become much smaller than in the 1950s and earlier, and it has now began to rule music stage productions．It is a big industry．

 Much pop music is without artistic value, but the work of some pop singers e.g. the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the group like Pink Floyd and Crosby, Still and Nash, is on a higher musical level. And there is still great interest in it today. Pop music concerts and festivals are held all over the world.

1. In this passage the underlined word "originated" means _______.

A. got around   B. began  C. invented  D. reached

2. According to the text, the number of people for “jazz” in the 1950s and earlier was

     it is today.

A. much greater than  B. as small as   C. as greater as   D. much smaller than

3. All of the following forms belong to pop music except       .

A. blues        B. rock’n’ roll     C. jazz    D. folk rock

4. Which of the following is TRUE?

In the atmosphere, carbon dioxide acts rather like a one-way mirror or the glass in the roof of a greenhouse which allows the sun's rays to enter but prevents the heat from escaping.

　　 According to a weather expert' s prediction, the atmosphere will be 3℃ warmer in the year 2050 than it is today, if man continues to burn fuels at the present rate. If this warming up took place, the ice caps in the poles would begin to melt, thus raising sea level several metres and severely flooding coastal cities. Also, the increase in atmospheric temperature would lead to great changes in the climate of the northern hemisphere (北半球), possibly resulting in an alteration of the earth's chief food growing zones.

　　  In the past, concern about a man-made warming of the earth has concentrated on the Arctic because the Antarctic is much colder and has a much thicker ice sheet. But the weather experts are now paying more attention to West Antarctic, which may be affected by only a few degrees of warming, in other words, by a warming on the scale that will possibly take place in the next fifty years from the burning of fuels.

　　  Satellite pictures show that large areas of Antarctic ice are already disappearing. The evidence available suggests that a warming has taken place. This fits the theory that carbon dioxide warms the earth.

　　  However, most of the fuel is burnt in the northern hemisphere, where temperatures seem to be falling. Scientists conclude , therefore, that up to now natural influences on the weather have gone beyond those caused by man. The question is: Which natural cause has most effect on the weather?

　　  One possibility is the variable behavior of the sun. Astronomers at one research station have studied the hot spots and "cold" spots (that is, the relatively less hot spots) on the sun. As the sun rotates (使旋转), every 27. 5 days, it presents hotter or "colder" faces to the earth, and different aspects to different parts of the earth. This seems to have a considerable effect on the distribution of the earth's atmospheric pressure, and consequently on wind circulation. The sun is also changeable over a long term: its heat output goes up and down in cycles, the latest trend being downward.

　　  Scientists are now finding shared relations between models of solar weather interactions and the actual climate over many thousands of years, including the last Ice Age. The problem is that the models are predicting that the world should be entering a new Ice Age and it is not. One way of solving this theoretical difficulty is to assume a delay of thousands of years while the solar effects overcome the inertia (惯性) of the earth's climate. If this is right, the warming effect of carbon dioxide might thus be serving as a useful opposed balance to the sun's fading heat .

It can be concluded that a concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would_________.

   A. mean a warming-up in the Antarctic

   B. raise the temperature of the earth' s surface

C. prevent the sun's rays from reaching the earth's surface

D. explain the cause of  great changes in the climate in the northern hemisphere

The article was written to explain ___________.

A. the greenhouse effect

B. the solar effects on the earth

C. the causes affecting weather

D. the models of solar-weather interactions

Although the fuel consumption is greater in the northern hemisphere, temperatures there　seem to be falling. This is__________.

A. mainly because the levels of carbon dioxide are rising

 B. partly due to changes in the output of solar energy

C. possibly because the ice caps in the poles are melting

D. only due to the effect of the inertia of the earth' s climate

On the basis of their models, scientists believe the opinion that__________.

A. the climate of the world should be becoming cooler

B. the new Ice Age will be delayed by the greenhouse effect

C. the man-made warming effect helps to increase the solar effects

D. it will take thousands of years for the inertia of the earth's climate to take effect

If the assumption about the delay of a new Ice age is correct, ____________.

A. ice would soon cover the northern hemisphere

B. the greenhouse effect could work in favor of the earth

C. the best way to overcome the cooling effect would be to burn more fuels

D. the increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could warm up the earth even more quickly