阅读下面的短文, 然后按照要求写一篇 150 词左右的英语短文。

Every morning, when I drive past the street corner, I can always see the big sign standing outside the gas station.

The sign lists the price of gas per gallon (加仑). However, in the past few months, the price never seemed to decrease. One day, it went from US$2.85 to US$3.55 per gallon.

The car is one of the most popular forms of transportation in southern California; people even say, “We can not live without cars!” “We don’t get any benefit from the increasing prices at all,” complains my friend Raymond. “I might choose to ride my bicycle from now on! I will leave the car at home; maybe I should give it away to the museum since we are not going to use it anyway.”

According to scientific predictions, we will run out of gasoline in 50 years. People will not be able to drive cars, take planes or even sail ships. When the time comes, hardly anything will function normally.

In this case, governments will have to provide funds (基金) to research departments to develop new forms of energy on which cars can run. One idea, for example, is that people in California will be able to drive solar- powered cars since it is extremely sunny most of the time.

In other states, there are people developing new forms of fuel involving alcohol mixed with gasoline or new hybrids (混合物) like gasoline plus corn oil. Who knows what forms of new energy people will be using in the future? Without problems showing up, there will be no new solutions. Society needs to move forward. Sometimes, we need these challenges to motivate (激发) us to achieve great things.

[ 写作内容]

1. 概括短文的内容要点, 该部分大约 60 词;

2. 以 “Is the high price of gas a bad thing?”为话题, 谈谈你的同学的不同看法和发表你的观点, 至少包含以下的内容要点, 该部分大约 90 词:

a) 以你同学家用车为例, 谈谈你的同学对该问题的不同看法;

b) 你是如何看待这个问题的, 发表你的看法;

c) 你的家人如何对待油价高企。

   Join other teens for an intensive ten-day writing residency (训练) with Master Writers at the world renowned Atlantic Center for the Arts.

The Residency

The Teen Creative Writing Residency is a summer writing residency that offers 9th―12th grade teens writing workshops and mentorship (辅导) by distinguished authors in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. The Teen Creative Writing Residency will be held at Atlantic Center from July 13 through July 26, offering 21 teens from around the country an extraordinary opportunity to expand the power of their individual voices through writing workshops with Master Writers.

Residency Schedule

Teen writers will join three Master Writers-in-Residence, one in each of the following genres (类型) ― poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. The mentorship with the Master Writers-in-Residence will be the focus, but the chance to have conversations with the other Visiting Writers and participating Teen Writers will be valuable.

Classes meet Monday―Friday for two hours of workshops. Teen writers will have the opportunity to focus on one genre, while also exploring the other forms of literature through workshops and conversation.

Admission

The selection process for the unique literary residency opportunity will be competitive. Atlantic Center receives the applications, and the judges evaluate writing samples. As class sizes are kept small to provide the highest quality instruction, not all qualified writers may be accepted.

Applications should include the following:

1. Cover Letter: Your name, address, age, phone number(s)

2. Statement of Intent: Why do you want to attend this residency? (1 page)

3. Writing Sample: 3 pages: Your writing sample should be in your preferred genre. You may include more than one genre in your sample (for example, 1 poem, and 2 pages of fiction), but the entire sample is limited to 3 pages.

56. According to the passage, the writing residency ______.

A. will last three weeks 

B. will take place at sea

C. accepts teens from all over the world   

D. will offer 20 hours of workshops altogether

57. The teens to attend the writing residency will ______.

A. take one genre as a main genre

B. be allowed to take only one genre

C. spend an equal amount of time on each genre

D. take the three genres as well as other genres

58. At Atlantic Center, the Master Writers-in-Residence ______.

A. teach the three genres separately         B. teach the three genres together

C. design all the activities for the teens     D. train the teens in writing and reading

59. The writing samples included in the applications are used to judge ______.

A. what forms of literature the teen writers like best

B. how the teen writers will be trained at the writing residency

C. whether the applicants can be accepted as teen writers

D. what the teen writers need to learn at the writing residency

When it comes to the process of knowing , understanding and learning something , knowledge is processed （经加工的）information and , the way individuals select and store information leads to the formation of structure , which differs from one person to another and forms the basis for various jobs and potentials（潜力）.

The knowledge structure , thought invisible , is extremely important for learning and for distinguishing a good learner from the rest . What matters most during a person’s scholarly career is not how many books one has read but whether and how well one’s knowledge structure has been established.

Knowledge can be fully functional in the cerebral cortex（大脑皮层）only if it has been weaved into a network of knowledge or else it will fall apart with little use.

The most important thing for a knowledge structure is classification which is a complex individual mental process where new information is compared ,clarified and linked with the previous one . As a result , the processed information has been filed into specific areas , such as politics , literature and so on , available for use at any time . It is possible , however , that someone may have read and experienced a lot but still acts like a beginner . This phenomenon may be explained purely from a possibility that the information he received may have been dislocated in his memory stack where there is no shortage of materials ; what he is actually lacking is the system of processing materials , resulting in failure to retrieve information when it is required.

Instead of always staying the same , the knowledge structure is in fact forever in the process of trans-formation in terms of shape , angle and quality, which may sometimes produce certain surprise to a person all at once . To make the most of one’s intelligence , therefore , the best way is to better one’s knowledge structure before everything else.

71. What’s the passage mainly about?

A. The storage of your brain information    B. The functions of your knowledge

C. The structure of your knowledge        D. The process of transforming knowledge

72. The following statements about knowledge structure are true EXCEPT that       .

A. it lays a basis for your jobs            B. it can be adopted to judge learners

C. it differs from one person to another     D. it is always unchanging for individuals

73. A person’s scholarly career mainly depends on        .

A. the number of books he has read      B. the way his knowledge structure has been formed

C. the quality of materials he has collected   D. the memory of information he has got

74. The underlined word “retrieve” probably means        .

A. get back        B. adapt to       C. keep off           D. forget about

75. From the passage we may get the point that          .

A. all the information in your brain is ready for use at any time

B. the storage of information involves only one memory stack of your brain

C. one with a poor knowledge structure can never get improved

D. your knowledge will be of little use without knowledge structure

I clearly remember my mom telling me to drink milk every day—one glass in the morning and another at night. I also remember loving it while my sister thought quite the opposite—she would surreptitiously pour her milk into the sink or water the plants with it! I guess I should thank my mom for making us drink a lot of milk, so rich in calcium(钙), during those important years.

   Today, calcium shortage is one of the main concerns of women in their 30s or even early 20s. The great fear is that when we reach our 50s or 60s, osteoprosis(骨质疏松症)will set in. That is why you can see a lot of advertisements for products supposedly containing a lot of calcium.

   Because calcium is not that easy to acquire from the food we normally eat, busy women these days should take calcium supplements(补充物). There are a lot of different forms of these---calcium carbonate(碳酸钙)，oyster(牡蛎)shell or bone-meal-based calcium supplements.

   You have to be careful when choosing which kind to take. This is because calcium is not easily absorbed by the body. So the fact that you are taking supplements doesn’t mean that the body is actually benefiting from them. Different supplements may have different instructions on dosage(剂量)and manner of intake. You can ask your doctor to help you determine which supplement is the best for your needs.

From what the author’s mother did we may infer that___________________.

A. her children had osteoporosis

B. she knew her children would benefit from milk

C. she must have suffered from osteorosis

D. she didn’t like her daughter who didn’t obey her order

Based on the passage, which of the following is NOT true?

   A. The author’s sister will suffer from osteoprosis when reaches her 50s or 60s

   B. Many businessmen have already been selling products supposedly containing calcium.

   C. We can’t get enough calcium only from food we eat every day

   D. Women as young as their 20s should be concerned about calcium shortage

What does the underlined word “surreptitiously” in the first paragraph probably mean?

   A. Honestly           B. Frankly           C. Secretly          D. Curiously                                

We may infer from the last paragraph that____________________.

   A. what one chooses as a calcium supplement might not work

   B. one shouldn’t take in calcium without the permission of a doctor

   C. the more calcium supplements one uses, the more calcium one can take in

   D. it is dangerous to use calcium supplements without the guidance

Language learning begins with listening. Children are greatly different in the amount of listening they do before they start speaking, and later starters are often long listeners. Most children will “obey” spoken instructions some time before they can speak, though the word “obey” is hardly accurate as a description of the eager and delighted cooperation usually shown by the children. Before they can speak, many children will also ask questions by gesture and by making questioning noises.

Any attempt to study the development from the noises babies make to their first spoken words leads to considerable difficulties. It is agreed that they enjoy making noises, and that during the first few months one or two noises sort themselves as particularly expressive as delight, pain, friendliness, and so on. But since these can’t be said to show the baby’s intention to communicate, they can hardly be regarded as early forms of language. It is agreed, too, that from about three months they play with sounds for enjoyment, and that by six months they are able to add new words to their store. This self-imitation(模仿) leads on to deliberate(有意的) imitation of sounds made or words spoken to them by other people. The problem then arises as to the point at which one can say that these imitations can be considered as speech.

It is a problem we need to get our teeth into. The meaning of a word depends on what a particular person means by it in a particular situation; and it is clear that what a child means by a word will change as he gains more experience of the world. Thus the use, at seven months, of “mama” as a greeting for his mother cannot be dismissed as a meaning-less sound simply because he also uses it at another time for his father, his dog, or anything else he likes. Playful and meaningless imitation of what other people say continues after the child has begun to speak for himself. I doubt, however, whether anything is gained when parents take advantage of this ability in an attempt to teach new sounds.

Before children start speaking _______.

A. they need equal amount of listening

B. they need different amounts of listening

C. they are all eager to cooperate with the adults by obey spoken instructions

D. they can’t understand and obey the adult’s oral instructions

Children who start speaking late _______.

A. may have problems with their listening

B. probably do not hear enough language spoken around them

C. usually pay close attention to what they hear

D. often take a long time in learning to listen properly

A baby’s first noises are _______.

A. an expression of his moods and feelings

B. an early form of language

C. a sign that he means to tell you something

D. an imitation of the speech of adults

The problem of deciding at what point a baby’ imitations can be considered as speech _______.

A. is important because words have different meanings for different people

B. is not especially important because the changeover takes place gradually

C. is one that should be properly understood because the meaning of words changes with age

D. is one that should be completely ignored(忽略) because children’s use of words is of-ten meaningless

The speaker implies _______.

A. parents can never hope to teach their children new sounds

B. children no longer imitate people after they begin to speak

C. children who are good at imitating learn new words more quickly

D. even after they have learnt to speak, children still enjoy imitating