(09·湖南D篇)

Andrew Ritchie, inventor of the Brompton folding bicycle, once said that the perfect portable bike would be “like a magic carpet…You could fold it up and put it into your pocket or handbag”. Then he paused: “But you’ll always be limited by the size of the wheels. And so far no one has invented a folding wheel.”

It was a rare — indeed unique — occasion when I was able to put Ritchie right. A 19th-century inventor, William Henry James Grout, did in fact design a folding wheel. His bike, predictably named the Grout Portable, had a frame that split into two and a larger wheel that could be separated into four pieces. All the bits fitted into Grout’s Wonderful Bag, a leather case.

Grout’s aim: to solve the problems of carrying a bike on a train. Now doesn’t that sound familiar? Grout intended to find a way of making a bike small enough for train travel: his bike was a huge beast. And importantly, the design of early bicycles gave him an advantage: in Grout’s day, tyres were solid, which made the business of splitting a wheel into four separate parts relatively simple. You couldn’t do the same with a wheel fitted with a one-piece inflated （充气的） tyre.

So, in a 21st-century context, is the idea of the folding wheel dead? It is not. A British design engineer, Duncan Fitzsimons, has developed a wheel that can be squashed into something like a slender ellipse （椭圆）. Throughout, the tyre remains inflated.

Will the young Fitzsimons’s folding wheel make it into production? I haven’t the foggiest idea. But his inventiveness shows two things. First, people have been saying for more than a century that bike design has reached its limit, except for gradual advances. It’s as silly a concept now as it was 100 years ago: there’s plenty still to go for. Second, it is in the field of folding bikes that we are seeing the most interesting inventions. You can buy a folding bike for less than £1,000 that can be knocked down so small that it can be carried on a plane — minus wheels, of course — as hand baggage.

Folding wheels would make all manner of things possible. Have we yet got the magic carpet of Andrew Ritchie’s imagination? No. But it’s progress.

69. We can infer from Paragraph 1 that the Brompton folding bike        .

A. was portable

B. had a folding wheel

C. could be put in a pocket

D. looked like a magic carpet

70. We can learn from the text that the wheels of the Grout Portable        .

A. were difficult to separate

B. could be split into 6 pieces

C. were fitted with solid tyres

D. were hard to carry on a train

71. We can learn from the text that Fitzsimons’s invention        .

A. kept the tyre as a whole piece

B. was made into production soon

C. left little room for improvement

D. changed our views on bag design

72. Which of the following would be the best title for the text?

A. Three folding bike inventors

B. The making of a folding bike

C. Progress in folding bike design

D. Ways of separating a bike wheel

 (09·湖南)

“It’s no use, Mum,” said Johnny. “I’m just no good at dancing.”

“You’ve got to keep trying. Tonight will be     36    , dear. Try a turn with that pretty Lisette.”

Johnny     37    . Every Saturday night used to be the best of the week. He and his parents went to the     38     at the Club, where his hero, Alcide, played the accordion （手风琴） with the band. But lately everything had changed. Now that Johnny was older, he was     39     to dance with a girl!

40     Johnny and his parents arrived at the Club, music had already started. Johnny got up his     41     to approach Lisette. “May I have this dance?” Johnny asked. “That’s all right,” said Lisette. Johnny struggled to keep up with Lisette’s     42     steps, but he was always one beat behind her. Then Johnny heard his friend Pierre say, “Look! Johnny has two left feet!”     43

burst from the crowd. Johnny     44     and ran outside, determined never to go to another dance.

The next Saturday, Alcide     45     to Johnny’s house for some potatoes. He happened to hear Johnny playing the accordion. Alcide’s eyes     46    . “Bring that accordion and play some songs tonight,” Alcide said. Then he drove off, leaving Johnny staring open- mouthed     47     him.

At the Club, Johnny scanned the crowd for Lisette and     48     her. The band played for a long time before Alcide said, “Dear friends, I got a     49     for you tonight. Young Johnny is going to join us!”     50    , Johnny stepped up on the platform, his eyes on the floor. He began to play, and the band     51     behind him. When the song ended, he heard cheers. Johnny kept playing until the dance was     52    . “You did a fine job tonight. Play with us again next Saturday night,” Alcide said. “Yes, sir!” said Johnny.   53   he went outside, Johnny saw Lisette and her friends near the door. Lisette stepped     54    , smiling. “You played really good tonight!” she said.

“Thank you,” Johnny blushed （脸红）. As he walked on, Pierre     55     moved out of the way for him to pass.

Johnny patted his accordion. Come to think of it, in his whole life, he had never once seen Alcide out on the dance floor.

36. A. difficult                  B. troublesome           C. different             D. terrible

37. A. answered                B. sighed                   C. smiled                D. laughed

38. A. platform                 B. appointment          C. meeting              D. dance

39. A. expected                 B. invited                   C. allowed               D. chosen

40. A. If                           B. Since                    C. Though              D. When

41. A. spirits                     B. feelings                 C. courage              D. strength

42. A. smooth                 B. clumsy                 C. slow                   D. small

43. A. Shouts                    B. Laughter               C. Applause             D. Cheers

44. A. broke away             B. went out               C. broke up             D. turned out

45. A. ran                         B. walked                  C. drove                  D. cycled

46. A. opened                   B. rolled                    C. sharpened           D. widened

47. A. off                         B. with                     C. after                   D. for

48. A. caught                   B. searched               C. sought                D. spotted

49. A. surprise                   B. puzzle                   C. story                   D. joke

50. A. Struggling              B. Trembling            C. Wandering          D. Whispering

51. A. got round                B. joined in                C. turned around      D. showed off

52. A. in                         B. out                        C. over                  D. on

53. A. As                           B. Because                 C. Until                    D. So

54. A. backward               B. forward                C. onward               D. downward

55. A. still                         B. even                     C. ever                   D. almost

 (09·湖南B篇)

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61. How long does it take the battery to charge up an iPhone?

A. 15 minutes.               B. 30 minutes.              C. 1.5 hours.                D. 3 hours.

62. What is special about the battery?

A. It is built in an iPhone.

B. It is the smallest of its kind.

C. It can also be used as a charger.

D. It keeps power for about 30 days.

63. Who mentions the transporting of the battery?

A. P.S.                         B. B.L.                        C. M.C.                      D. T.K.

64. The customer comments on the battery are mainly about its _______.

A. quality                       B. service                   C. function                   D. shopping

 (09·湖南C篇)

People diet to look more attractive. Fish diet to avoid being beaten up, thrown out of their social group, and getting eaten as a result. That is the fascinating conclusion of the latest research into fish behavior by a team of Australian scientists.

The research team have discovered that subordinate fish voluntarily diet to avoid challenging their larger competitors. “In studying gobies we noticed that only the largest two individuals, a male and female, had breeding （繁殖） rights within the group,” explains Marian Wong. “All other group members are nonbreeding females, each being 5-10% smaller than its next largest competitor. We wanted to find out how they maintain this precise size separation.”

The reason for the size difference was easy to see. Once a subordinate fish grows to within 5-10% of the size of its larger competitor, it causes a fight which usually ends in the smaller goby being driven away from the group. More often than not, the evicted fish is then eaten up.

It appeared that the smaller fish were keeping themselves small in order to avoid challenging the boss fish. Whether they did so voluntarily, by restraining how much they ate, was not clear. The research team decided to do an experiment. They tried to fatten up some of the subordinate gobies to see what happened. To their surprise, the gobies simply refused the extra food they were offered, clearly preferring to remain small and avoid fights, over having a feast.

The discovery challenges the traditional scientific view of how boss individuals keep their position in a group. Previously it was thought that large individuals simply used their weight and size to threaten their subordinates and take more of the food for themselves, so keeping their competitors small.

While the habits of gobies may seem a little mysterious, Dr. Wong explains that understanding the relationships between boss and subordinate animals is important to understanding how hierarchical （等级的） societies remain stable.

The research has proved the fact that voluntary dieting is a habit far from exclusive to humans. “As yet, we lack a complete understanding of how widespread the voluntary reduction of food intake is in nature,” the researchers comment. “Data on human dieting suggests that, while humans generally diet to improve health or increase attractiveness, rarely does it improve long-term health and males regularly prefer females that are fatter than the females’ own ideal.”

65. When a goby grows to within 5-10% of the size of its larger competitor, it        .

A. faces danger                                                B. has breeding rights

C. eats its competitor                                        D. leaves the group itself

66. The underlined words “the evicted fish” in Paragraph 3 refer to        .

A. the fish beaten up                                       B. the fish found out

C. the fish fattened up                                      D. the fish driven away

67. The experiment showed that the smaller fish        .

A. fought over a feast                                                                 B. went on diet willingly

C. preferred some extra food                             D. challenged the boss fish

68. What is the text mainly about?

A. Fish dieting and human dieting.

B. Dieting and health.

C. Human dieting.

D. Fish dieting.

 (09·湖南A篇)

Eddie McKay, a once-forgotten pilot, is a subject of great interest to a group of history students in Canada.

It all started when Graham Broad, a professor at the University of Western Ontario, found McKay’s name in a footnote in a book about university history. McKay was included in a list of university alumni （校友） who had served during the First World War, but his name was unfamiliar to Broad, a specialist in military history. Out of curiosity, Broad spent hours at the local archives （档案馆） in a fruitless search for information on McKay. Tired and discouraged, he finally gave up. On his way out, Broad’s glance happened to fall on an exhibiting case showing some old newspapers. His eye was drawn to an old picture of a young man in a rugby uniform. As he read the words beside the picture, he experienced a thrilling realization. “After looking for him all day, there he was, staring up at me out of the exhibiting case,” said Broad. Excited by the find, Broad asked his students to continue his search. They combed old newspapers and other materials for clues. Gradually, a picture came into view.

Captain Alfred Edwin McKay joined the British Royal Flying Corps in 1916. He downed ten enemy planes, outlived his entire squadron （中队） as a WWI flyer, spent some time as a flying instructor in England, then returned to the front, where he was eventually shot down over Belgium and killed in December 1917. But there’s more to his story. “For a brief time in 1916 he was probably the most famous pilot in the world,” says Broad. “He was credited with downing Oswald Boelcke, the most famous German pilot at the time.” Yet, in a letter home, McKay refused to take credit, saying that Boelcke had actually crashed into another German plane.

McKay’s war records were destroyed during a World War II air bombing on London — an explanation for why he was all but forgotten.

But now, thanks to the efforts of Broad and his students, a marker in McKay’s memory was placed on the university grounds in November 2007. “I found my eyes filling with tears as I read the word ‘deceased’ （阵亡） next to his name,” said Corey Everrett, a student who found a picture of Mckay in his uniform. “This was such a simple example of the fact that he had been a student just like us, but instead of finishing his time at Western, he chose to fight and die for his country.”

56. What made Professor Broad continue his search for more information on McKay?

A. A uniform of McKay.                                    B. A footnote about McKay.

C. A book on McKay.                                        D. A picture of McKay.

57. What did the students find out about McKay?

A. He trained pilots for some time.

B. He lived longer than other pilots.

C. He died in the Second World War.

D. He was downed by the pilot Boelcke.

58. McKay’s flying documents were destroyed in        .

A. Belgium                     B. Germany                 C. Canada                  D. England

59. We can learn from the last paragraph that McKay        .

A. preferred fight to his study

B. went to war before graduation

C. left a picture for Corey Everrett

D. set an example for his fellow students

60. What is the text mainly about?

A. The research into war history.

B. The finding of a forgotten hero.

C. The pilots of the two world wars.

D. The importance of military studies.