that he has to qualifications in his new job, Patrick plans to gain the necessary skills by taking a part-time course.

       A．To concern       B．To be concerned      C．Concerning      D．Concerned

--What do you want to do next?We have half an hour until the baseball game.

---_____.Whatever you want to do is fine with me.

A. It just depends     B. It’s up to you    C. All right      D. Glad to hear that

Watercolour is the oldest paints known. It dates back to the early cave men who discovered they could add lifelike qualities to drawings of animals and other figures on the walls of caves by mixing the natural colours found in the earth with water.

       Fresco (壁画), one of the greatest of all art forms, is done with watercolour. It is created by mixing paints and water and applying these to wet plaster (灰泥). Of the thousands of people who stand under Michelangelo’s heroic ceiling in the Sistine Chapel, very few know that they are looking at perhaps the greatest watercolour painting in the world.

       The invention of oil painting by the Flemish masters in the fifteenth century made fresco painting go down-hill, and for the next several centuries watercolour was used mainly for doing sketches (草图) or as a tool for study. It was not until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that English painters put back watercolour as a serious art form. The English have a widely-known love for outdoors and also small private pictures. The softness of watercolour had a remarkably strong attraction for them.

       The popularity of watercolour continued to grow until the twentieth century. The United States passed England as the center for watercolour, producing such well-known watercolour artists as Thomas Eakins and Andrew Wyeth.

The purpose of the passage is to introduce _____. 

A. the gradual weakness of fresco painting

B. oils’ power or influence over watercolour

C. the discovery of watercolour in England        

D. the start and development of watercolour

In the 16^th and 17^th centuries the artists thought _____.

A. watercolour was softer, and thus better

B. oil painting lasted longer, and was better

C. watercolour wasn’t fit for finished works

D. watercolour was too hard to use in any works

According to the passage, watercolour painting was put back in England because ____

A. it was easy to use outdoors                            B. it was a strong medium

C. it was extremely bright in colour                   D. it was suited to popular tastes

What would the next paragraph most probably deal with?

A. The works of famous US watercolour artists  B. Modern American oil painters

C. The weakness of oils as popular paints          D. Techniques of producing watercolour

从A、B、C、D四个选项中，找出其划线部分与所给单词的划线部分读音相同的选项。

1. tick       A. diamond      B. flexible     C. minimum     D. bride

2. alcohol    A. adolescent     B. sorrow     C. cottage       D. appropriate

3. cigarette   A. automatic     B. decide      C. subscribe     D. advocate

4. concrete   A. random       B. quantity     C. glance       D. blank

5. absolute   A. appreciation   B. actual       C. candidate     D. wave

---Why didn’t you try your best to get on the bus?

  ---I tried to, but _____ I could, it started moving．

      A．until                B．when      C．before              D．after

By the end of last year, another new theme park _______ completed in that area.

A. was being           B. would be            C. has been          D. had been

We've got into trouble and don't know what to do next. Hopefully -someone will come to our

       A．mind B．knowledge           C．attention       D．assistance

______ a good result，the professor decided to do the experiment once more．

     A．Not getting         B．Getting not     C．Not having got       D．Having not got

Let’s paint one side of the paper red, and _____ side black.

       A．the other   B．another     C．the others  D．one another

Vampires (吸血鬼)

Vampire stories go back thousands of years. The acts we now associate with vampires, such as rising from the grave and drinking blood, were popularized by eastern European stories.

Most early cultures created stories to explain things they didn’t understand. For example, hair and nails continue to grow after people die, which has already been proved possible by modern science.

These facts were unknown to most people in the 19th century, however. As a result, the legends surrounding such mysteries were kept alive.

Count Dracula

In 1897, Irish writer Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula was published, spreading the vampire stories to a mass audience. In the novel, the Count Dracula of Transylvania, a 500-year-old vampire, has drunk his country dry and must move to England in search of new victims. Dracula means “son of the dragon” or “son of the devil” in Romania.

Werewolf

The story of a half-man, half-wolf beast is as old as that of vampires, and almost as varied. In most werewolf stories, however, a beast would silently enter settlements at night and steal a young child or an animal.

The most common explanation of werewolf stories is that the beast was usually an ordinary wolf. The genetic disorder, which causes too much body hair, may also have helped to popularize the story.

Frankenstein

This is a fictional scientist created by British writer Mary Shelly in 1818. Dr Frankenstein lives in a castle and is so addicted to making living beings from parts of dead bodies that he refuses to marry.

The story of Frankenstein may have been planted in Shelly’s mind since she visited Castle Frankenstein in Germany, where an alchemist(炼金术士) tried to do experiments with the aim of making people live longer.

The Invisible Man

In HG Wells’ 1897 story, a young scientist called Griffin, manages to make himself invisible. But he cannot find a way to become visible again. He then wants to make use of his super power but finally has gone mad. Wells’ tale owes a great debt to Greek philosopher Plato’s book Republic.

The best title for this passage should be ________.

A. Origins of Ghosts   B. Tales of Horror       C. Exciting Stories       D. Science Fictions

The people in the 19th century did NOT know _________.

A. why vampires drank blood

B. why dead people rose from the grave

C. that vampires always kept their nails

D. that hair could continue to grow after people died

What do most of the werewolf stories have in common according to the passage?

A. The beast often silently entered settlements at night and stole a little child.

B. The werewolf was in genetic disorder and so had a lot of body hair.

C. An ordinary wolf would enter settlements at night and steal a child.

D. The beast was sometimes a half-man and sometimes a half-wolf.

Which of the following statements is right about Frankenstein and the Invisible Man?

A. They were produced based on the writers’ real experience.

B. They were the producers of science and technology.

C. They were not well suited to their surroundings.

D. They were folk legends in the writers’ homeland.