You don’t have to ask Barack Obama what it is like to be a president-elect. Chances are you can be one, too, and it won’t take more than 30 years’ efforts to achieve that.

A new computer game, Commander in Chief, offers the chance to step into the president’s shoes and see whether you can do a better job running the country than he can.

The video game will be available on January 20, the day Obama is sworn in (宣誓就职) as president.

So what will you do in the game?

Like Obama, your early task is to select members of the Cabinet（内阁）from 250 personality types. Then you immediately face internal（国内的）and external challenges. Every decision you make has an in-game consequence.

“You can put your own political theories into action and see the domestic（国内的）and international effect,” said the lead designer Louis-Marie Rocques.

Internal decisions involve managing budgets, security, education, health care and discussion over many proposed laws. You also have to respond to critics. Every decision has a consequence, which changes the political environment. For example, raising taxes will raise criticisms and protests while lowering taxes means you will have less money to play with.

What about external decisions? Well, you have to deal with military issues, global economics, trade agreements, and spending time lobbying（游说）other presidents. You can determine the course of world events by invading（侵略）a neutral country, or toppling（推翻）an unfriendly country but then you must face the economic, political, and military consequences.

Don’t want to be president of the US? The game also lets you become virtual（虚拟的）leader of other countries including France, Germany, Spain and Russia.

The purpose of writing this passage is mainly to     .

   A. show you how hard it is to be the newly-elected president, Barack Obama

   B. explain why the video game is so popular among American citizens

   C. introduce to you one special computer game, Commander in Chief

   D. inform how designers developed the interesting computer game

Which of the following items belongs to internal affairs in the game?

A. Managing budgets, responding to critics and military issues.

   B. Managing budgets, raising taxes and trade agreements.

   C. Health care, discussing proposed laws and lowering taxes.w(w w.ks&5 u.c*o m

   D. Education, security and lobbying other countries.

Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

   A. Those who want to be a president one day will get a taste of their private life.

   B. The first task in the game is to form the Cabinet consisting of 250 members.

   C. The video game has hit the stores in America and enjoys sales success.

   D. Like a real president, the players will face challenges at home and abroad

书面表达

2009年6月，江苏省教育厅做出决定：严禁中小学利用暑假和双休日补课。引起了社会各界强烈的反响。请你根据下表提供的信息，用英语给某报社写一封信。

注意：

1、信必须对所给要点逐一陈述，可作适当发挥；至少表达2点个人感想；信的内容不能涉及考生姓名和所在班级。

2、词数150左右。开头已写好，不计入总词数。

Dear editor:

I’m writing to tell you about the different attitudes towards the newly decision announced.

In June, 2009, the Education Department of Jiangsu Province made a decision that giving lessons during the summer vacation and weekends should be banned in middle and primary school. .

书面表达
2009年6月，江苏省教育厅做出决定：严禁中小学利用暑假和双休日补课。引起了社会各界强烈的反响。请你根据下表提供的信息，用英语给某报社写一封信。

When an ant dies, other ants move the dead insect out. Sometimes, the dead ant get moved away very soon—within an hour of dying. This behavior is interesting to scientists, who wonder how ants know for sure—and so soon—that another ant is dead.

One scientist recently came up with a way to explain this ant behavior. Dong-Hwan Choe is a biologist. Choe found that Argentine ants have a chemical on the outside of their bodies that signals to other ants, “I’m dead—take me away.”

But there’s a twist to Choe’s discovery. Choe says that the living ants—not just the dead ones—have this death chemical. In other words, while an ant crawls around, perhaps in a picnic or home, it’s telling other ants that it’s dead.

What keeps ants from dragging away the living ants？Choe found that Argentine ants have two additional chemicals on their bodies, and these tell nearby ants something like, “Wait—I’m not dead yet.” So Choe’s research turned up two sets of chemical signals in ants: one says, “I’m dead,” and the other set says, “I’m not dead yet.”

Other scientists have tried to figure out how ants know when another ant is dead. If an ant is knocked unconscious, for example, other ants leave it alone until it wakes up. That means ants know that unmoving ants can still be alive.

Choe suspects that when an Argentine ant dies, the chemical that says “Wait-I’m not dead yet” quickly goes away. Once that chemical is gone, only the one that says “I’m dead” is left. “It’s because the dead ant no longer smells like a living ant that it gets carried to the graveyard, not because its body releases(释放) new unique chemicals after death,” said Choe. When other ants detect the “dead” chemical without the “not dead yet” chemical, they drag away the body.

Understanding this behavior may help scientists figure out how to stop Argentine ants from invading new places and causing problems. Choe would like to find a way to use the newly discovered chemicals to spread ant killer to Argentine ant nests.

The ants’ removal behavior is important to the overall health of the nest. “Being able to quickly remove dead individuals and other possible sources of disease is extremely important to all animals living in societies, including us,” says Choe. “Think about all the effort and money that we invest daily in waste management.”

1.The underlined word “twist” in Paragraph 3 means             .

A．an unexpected change                   B．a clear mistake

C．an important key                        D．a shocking conclusion

2.Ants judge whether another one is dead or not depending on            .

A．the sense of taste                       B．the sense of smell

C．the sense of touch                      D．the sense of sight

3.The result of the research can be used to            .

A．kill troublesome pests

B．solve the problem of endangered species

C．prevent further expansion of the ants’ territory

D．keep the balance of nature

4.Why is it important to remove dead individuals?

A．Because it is easier to manage the living.

B．Because it can save money to deal with the waste.

C．Because it can provide more space for the living.

D．Because it can keep the living from suffering disease.

5.What might be the best title of the text?

A．Dead or living? It is easy to judge

B．Pulling away the dead ants is a difficult task

C．Ant nests have great undertaking capacity

D．Leaving it alone or taking it away? Ants feel puzzled

Tom has agreed to let me use his computer to surf the Internet, and ____I' m treating him to a good dinner at the newly-built restaurant just around the corner．

       A．in charge         B．in place           C．in return          D．in turn