--- Can I ask you a favour?

---            .

A．Sure, go ahead.       B．It’s my pleasure.      C．I’ve no time.    D．What is it?

Why did you take a taxi         you could come here by bus?

A．while        B．unless              C．when        D．until

       in a well – known university is what everybody wishes for.

A．Educated         B．Being educated        C．To educate       D．Educating

Get involved in sports or other activities you enjoy          you can meet people who like what you like.

A．what        B．when        C．that        D．where

--- Wake up, Tom. Time to rise.

--- I         asleep while I was reading.

A．should have fallen        B．must have fallen       C．could fall             D．must fall

A healthy life is frequently thought to be          with the open countryside and homegrown food.

A．associated        B．bound       C．related      D．tied

Mrs. Jones didn’t          during the flood, but she was very frightened.

A．give away        B．give out    C．give way   D．give off

Transforming Obstacles into Benefits

A group of frogs was traveling through the woods and two of them fell into a deep pit. Immediately, all the other frogs in the group   1   the pit and watched as the   2   frogs tried to jump out. The pit was very   3   , so the frogs on top started yelling at the two frogs in the pit to give up.  4   the trapped frogs kept trying, the crowd yelled louder, “Give up. You’re   5   dead.” After a while, one of the exhausted frogs took heed to what the others were saying, and fell down and died.

But   6  , the second frog kept jumping as hard as she could despite the   7   remarks. Finally, with one brave leap, she   8   it out of the pit!

This amazing   9   occurred because the second frog was   10   and unable to hear what the others had been saying. She thought they had been   11   her on the entire time they were yelling! What she had   12   perceived (理解) as encouragement inspired her to try harder and succeed against all odds. And that made all the   13  !

With a   14   mindset, and being deaf to other’s opinions, the second frog made use of such negativity to overcome   15   and reach her goals by using it as encouragement.  16  , when we get round others’ criticism, or laughter, we can do   17   we set our minds to, just as the second frog did. But, if we are not deaf like this frog, who could not be   18   by others due to a physical condition, we need the   19   to guide us to the proper way, so as not to be blindly   20   by worldly opinion.

1．A．gathered around     B．got round            C．jumped into         D．escaped from

2．A．unconscious          B．tiresome              C．awkward             D．imprisoned

3．A．dangerous             B．shallow               C．deep                   D．secure

4．A．Before                  B．When                  C．Because              D．Although

5．A．as long as              B．as well as            C．as soon as           D．as good as

7．A．innocent                B．active                  C．negative              D．inspiring

8．A．made                    B．reached               C．got                     D．kept

9．A．response               B．adjustment           C．reflection             D．result

10．A．deaf                    B．disabled               C．stubborn             D．confident

11．A．flattering              B．teasing                C．congratulating      D．cheering

12．A．entirely                B．accurately            C．mistakenly           D．constantly

13．A．success               B．difference            C．conclusion           D．consequence

14．A．positive               B．desperate             C．ridiculous            D．passive

15．A．loneliness            B．tension                C．obstacles             D．fear

16．A．Besides               B．However             C．Thus                   D．Eventually

17．A．something           B．anything              C．nothing               D．everything

18．A．informed             B．convinced            C．persuaded            D．influenced

19．A．support               B．wisdom               C．environment        D．consensus

20．A．guided               B．pitied                   C．suspected          D．opposed

Even though she’s just 5 years old, Cindy Smart speaks five languages. She’s a good reader. She can tell time and do simple math, including multiplication (乘法) and division. Cindy looks like an average doll, with long, blond hair, baby – blue eyes, and a button nose.

But loaded with some devices, Cindy is the first doll that can see, think, and do as she’s told. The eagle – eyed Cindy follows in the path of other breakthrough toys like Sony’s barking Robot Aibo, which was the first to popularize voice command in the late 1990s. Cindy takes Aibo’s innovations (创新) one step beyond: she not only follows instructions but also recognizes shapes, colors and words, and remembers. The effect is a doll that appears to be learning.

The toy company which produced Cindy Smart spent a decade trying to see how much human nature it could breathe into an inanimate (无生命的) object. Its engineers began creating minibots that sense light, sounds, and pressure. However, without the sense of sight, their toys seemed to be lacking in one of the abilities that life – forms use to react to their environments.

So how do the engineers make a doll actually see? In Cindy’s case, it’s a multistep process. When presented a text like “I love you” and asked “Can you read this?” Cindy identifies it as one of 70 preprogrammed commands. Then the inbuilt digital camera scans a 15 – degree radius (半径) in search of number – or letter – shaped objects. Buried in her stomach, Cindy’s 16 – bit microprocessor compares the text with her database of 700 words. If it’s a match, “I love you,” she says.

1．This passage most likely appears in a         .

      A．medical report      B．classified ad         C．science journal        D．music magazine

2．According to the passage, which of the following statements is TRUE about Robot Aibo?

       A．It could recognize shapes and colors.

       B．It could respond to spoken commands.

       C．It came onto the market no later than 1990.

       D．It was created much later that Cindy Smart.

3．The underlined “it” in the third paragraph most likely refers to          .

       A．the process          B．the object            C．the doll                D．the company

4．According to the passage, how can Cindy “see”?

      A．She recognizes any text as “I love you”.

       B．She is equipped with a camera to search for text.

       C．She is instructed by an engineer standing next to her.

       D．She makes contact with the shapes of the text with her stomach.

5．What can we infer from this passage?

       A．Cindy can learn exactly like a human.

       B．Cindy has much more human nature than Aibo.

       C．Cindy is the first doll that can see, think, and do as she’s told.

       D．Cindy has no ability to react to her environment.

Nuclear power’s danger to health, safety, and even life itself can be summed up in one word: radiation.

Nuclear radiation has a certain mystery about it, partly because it cannot be detected by human senses. It can’t be seen or heard, or touched or tasted, even though it may be all around us. There are other things like that. For example, radio waves are all around us but we can’t detect them, sense them, without a radio receiver. Similarly, we can’t sense radioactivity without a radiation detector. But unlike common radio waves, nuclear radiation is not harmless to human beings and other living things.

At very high levels, radiation can kill an animal or human being outright (全部地) by killing masses of cells in vital organs. But even the lowest level of radiation can do serious damage. There is no level of radiation that is completely safe. If the radiation does not hit anything important, the damage may not be significant. This is the case when only a few cells are hit, and if they are killed outright, your body will replace the dead cells with healthy ones. But if the few cells are only damaged, and if they reproduce themselves, you may be in trouble. They reproduce themselves in a deformed way. They can grow into cancer. Sometimes this does not show up for many years.

This is another reason for some of the mystery about nuclear radiation. Serious damage can be done without the victim being aware at the time that damage has occurred. A person can be irradiated and feel fine, then die of cancer five, ten, or twenty years later as a result. Or a child can be born weak or liable (易于) to serious illness as result of radiation absorbed by its grandparents.

Radiation can hurt us. We must know the truth.

1．According to the author, the danger of nuclear power lies in          .

       A．nuclear mystery                                   B．radiation detection

       C．nuclear radiation                                  D．radiation level

2．Radiation can hurt us in that it can         .

       A．affect the healthy growth of our children.

       B．damage cells which grow into cancer years later

       C．kill large numbers of cells in main organs so as to cause death immediately.

       D．all of the above.

3．The word “deformed” in paragraph 3 has the similar meaning with           .

      A．unnatural             B．normal                C．usual                   D．proper

4．What can we infer from the passage?

       A．We can’t detect radioactivity even with modern equipment.

       B．Only radiation at very high levels can kill an animal or human being.

       C．If a few cells are only damaged healthy cells will take the place of dead ones

       D．Radiation is harmful no matter what level it is.

5．What’s the author’s main purpose in writing this passage?

       A．Discussing the cause of cancer.

       B．Solving the mystery about radiation.

       C．Emphasizing the importance of protection of radiation.

       D．Introducing the nuclear power.