How clean are the nation’s homes?
According to a survey by CIF, there’s room for improvement all over Britain.
Love or hate it — cleaning your home is one job you simply can’t ignore（忽视）. But that’s not to say everyone spends the same amount of time or effort on making their places spotless. A new survey by CIF— experts on making tough cleaning jobs easier—— shows that when it comes to washing windows or cleaning the oven（烤箱）,where you live in the UK it may show how much effort you put into the task.
BATHROOM
25% of men have never cleaned the toilet — but those in Wales are the worst. Nearly four in 10 Welsh men said they never cleaned anywhere in the house. Hate cleaning the shower head? You’re not alone — a  quarter of a million Brits say the same. 20% of Scots regard window-cleaning as their most hated job.
KITCHEN
36% of people in the south-east say cleaning the cooker is their hated task. 68% of those in the north-east spend more than six hours a week cleaning their homes — especially the kitchen — in sharp contrast to the 49% of Welsh and West Country folk, who put their hands up to cleaning for under an hour.
BEDROOM
18% believe cleaning starts here: that’s the percentage of women who clean wearing their dressing gowns. 51% of women in the north-west may be staying in bed and giving their husband a cuddle（拥抱）—as a thank-you for helping them clean. In other places, there are far fewer helpful men.
LIVING ROOM
32% of women in the north-east turn up the stereo to help make the dusting more fun. Almost six in 10 women agree, however, that cleaning is seriously energetic exercise.
SHIFT THE DIRT WITH CIF
It’s no secret that the right cleaning products will cut cleaning time and effort in half— and no one knows that better than How Clean Is Your house? Presenters Aggie Mackenzie and Kim Woodburn. For solutions（解决办法）to all your cleaning needs, here are some of CIF’s top tips:
·Stop a lot of build-up on your shower head—give it a quick squirt（喷洒）with CIF bathroom spray once a week.
·Stainless steel（不锈钢）tools seem to need endless cleaning. The CIF Wild Qrchid Qxy-Gel-it lifts dirt easily and leaves the kitchen smelling fresh and clean.
·Cooking outside? CIF cream will get your barbecue （烤架）spotlessly clean, ready for those long, lazy summer evenings. Perfect!
【小题1】The main purpose of this passage is to ______.

Motorists used to listening to the radio or their favorite tunes on CDs may have a new way to entertain themselves, after engineers in Japan developed a musical road surface.
The Hokkaido Industrial Research Institute has built a number of “melody roads”, which use cars as tuning forks to play music as they travel.
The concept works by using grooves(凹槽). They are cut at very specific intervals(间隔) in the road surface. The melody road uses the spaces between to create different notes(音符).
Depending on how far apart the grooves are, a car moving over them will produce a series of high or low notes, and designers are able to create a distinct tune.
Patent documents for the design describe it as notches “formed in a road surface so as to play a melody without producing simple sound or rhythm and reproduce melody-like tones”.
There are three musical roads in central and northern Japan---one of which plays the tune of a Japanese pop song. Reports say the system was invented by Shizuo Shinoda. He scraped some markings into a road with a bulldozer(推土机) before driving over them and found that they helped to produce all kinds of tones.
The optimal speed for melody road is 44 kph, but people say it is not always easy to get the intended sound.
“You need to keep the car windows closed to hear well,” wrote one Japanese blogger. “Driving too fast will sound like playing fast forward, while driving around 12 mph (20 kph) has a slow-motion effect, making you almost car-sick.”
59. According to the passage, to create different notes, melody roads use ______.
A. cars    B. grooves    C. spaces between internals    D. bulldozers
60. We can learn from the passage that the highness of notes is dependent on ______.
A. how far the grooves are                B. how big the grooves are
C. the number of the grooves              D. the speed of the car
61. The underlined word “optimal” in the passage might mean ______.
A. fastest      B. possible      C. best     D. suitable
62. In order to hear the music well, you have to ______.
A. drive very fast                       B. drive slowly
C. open the window wide                D. keep the window closed  

Each year, road accidents kill a million people and injure millions more . The economic costs are greatest for developing countries . Earlier this year , the United Nations called for a campaign to improve road safety .
One way to avoid accidents is better driving . Another is better roads and bridges . Engineers in the Unites States have designed ten new concrete mixtures that they think could make bridges last longer .
Professor Paul Tikalsky leads the experiments by a team at Pennsylvania State University . He says bridges made of concrete now last about twenty-five to thirty-five years . But he says the new mixtures might extend that to seventy –five or even one-hundred years .
Concrete is made of stone , sand , water and cement(水泥). The materials in the cement hold the concrete together . Ancient Romans built with concrete . Yet strengthened concrete bridges did not appear until the late 1800s . People keep looking for new ways to improve concrete . Professor Tikalsky says it is one of the most complex of all chemical systems .
The new mixtures designed by his team contain industrial waste products . He says these make the concrete better able to resist damage from water and salt over time . One of the products is fly ash . This is released into the air as pollution when coal is burned .
Professor Tikalsky says particles (颗粒)of fly ash are almost exactly the same size and chemical structure as Portland cement . This is the most costly material in concrete . So using fly ash to replace some of it would save money .
The federal government is paying for part of the research . Engineers anywhere can use the technology . Professor Tikalsky says some of the ideas have already been put to use in China , the Philippines and other countries .
【小题1】Why did the United Nations launch the campaign ?

C
Not many years ago, some American farmers began to complain about hawks(鹰). The hawks were killing chickens. The farmers did not know what to do. They went to the government officials and asked for help.
The officials said, “ We’ll pay you for each hawk you kill.” The farmers began to kill the hawks. Many hawks were killed, but the farmers now had another problem. The field mice were growing in number and they were eating up the farmers’ corn. Hawks eat not only chickens but also field mice. They eat more field mice than chickens. But if the farmers had known that, they would not have upset(打乱) the balance of nature. In one part of the USA, there are deer which eat a kind of wild rose. The deer are eaten by mountain lions. The number of deer, mountain lions, and wild rose does not change much if people stay away from them. If there are too many deer, mountain lions will increase rapidly in number and kill many deer. If there are too many mountain lions, there will be fewer deer and there will be more roses.
It is always necessary for us to keep the balance of nature. The government once killed almost all the mountain lions to protect the deer. Soon there were so many deer that they ate up all the wild roses. Then they began to eat the green leaves of young trees which were important to the farmers.
So the farmers protected their trees from the deer. The deer had nothing to eat, and many of them died.
The government learned a valuable lesson from nature.
44. What had happened after the hawks were killed?
A. People wouldn’t worry about their chickens.
B. The number of the field mice became too large.
C. The number of the field mice became small.
D. The field mice were eating up the farmers’ corn.
45. Why did American people have to protect their trees?
A. Because the mountain lions destroyed the trees.
B. Because there were so many deer that they began to eat the green leaves.
C. Because they wanted the trees to grow well.
D. Because the trees are more important than the deer.
46. What can we learn from the article?
A. We must keep the balance of nature.
B. We must not kill any animals.
C. we must feed the hawks with our corn to keep the balance of nature.
D. Both A and B.

It was Thanksgiving morning and in the crowded kitchen of my small home I was busy preparing the traditional Thanksgiving turkey when the doorbell rang. I opened the front door and saw two small children in rags(破旧衣服) huddling together inside the storm door on the top step.
"Any old papers, lady? " asked one of them.
I was busy. I wanted to say "no" until I looked down at their feet. They were wearing thin little sandals(凉鞋), wet with heavy snow.
“Come in and I'll make you a cup of hot cocoa.”
They walked over and sat down at the table. Their wet sandals left marks upon the floor. I served them cocoa and bread with jam to fight against the cold outside. Then I went back to the kitchen and started again on my household budget.
The silence in the front room struck me. I looked in. The girl held the empty cup in her hands, looking at it. The boy asked in a flat voice, "Lady, are you rich? "
"Am I rich? no!"
I looked at my shabby slipcovers(旧家具套). The girl put her cup back in its saucer (茶托;浅碟)carefully and said, "Your cups match your saucers." Her voice was hungry with a need that no amount of food could supply. They left after that, holding their bundles of papers against the wind. They hadn't said "Thank you." They didn't need to. They had reminded me that I had so much for which to be grateful.
Plain blue china(瓷的) cups and saucers were only worth five pence. But they matched.
I tasted the potatoes and stirred the meat soup. Potatoes and brown meat soup, a roof over our heads, my man with a good steady job--these matched, too.
I moved the chairs back from the fire and cleaned the living room. The muddy prints of small sandals were still wet upon my floor. Let them be for a while, I thought, just in case I should begin to forget how rich I am.
1. Why did the writer let the children in?
A. She showed great pity on them.
B. She wanted to sell old papers.
C. She knew them and wanted to make them a cup of cocoa.
D. She wanted to invite them to her Thanksgiving party.
2. The girl thought the writer was rich perhaps because_________
A. she saw that the lady's room was comfortable
B. she saw the cups matched the saucers
C. the writer's slipcovers were very new
D. the woman had expensive clothes
3.What was the weather probably like when the story happened?
A. cloudy     B. sunny      C. windy      D. snowy
4. From the passage, we can infer that whether you are rich depends on_______
A. how much money you have had    B. how you feel about your life
C. how you have helped others       D. what job you are doing

An Experiment
Materials: Newspaper, ‘ACE’ hardware ruler (1/8 “think”), a flat table.
Purposes: We’ll show that there is air pressure pushing on us, from every direction while we’re on this Earth.

A lonely and sad pug (哈巴狗) was photographed as he waited for his owner by the side of the road has been considered as the world’s saddest dog. Pictures of the pet taken by a passer-by have become an internet foucus after being posted on the photo-sharing  website Flickr. The dog which is nicknamed Mr Newman looks terribly upset as he sits on the pavement tied to a lamp-post with a rope.
The photograph was taken outside a café in the Californian city of San Francisco, which may go some way to explaining why he is dressed in a stylish grey and purple sweater.
"He was hanging around looking for somebody to love him. I tried to cheer him up – he seemed happy to see me," said the photographer Chris Michael.
One of the four photos of the pug on Flickr is titled "Tough day for Mr Newman" and with some other words as follows: "Despite his cool clothes, the girls just aren't interested in him any more."
Dozens of people on the site said they had been touched by the dog's pitiful expressions gaze. "I come back to see this photo every now and then because it's too cute, so does my daughter. In fact, my family all are touched," wrote one of the pedestrians who had seen the photo. Another viewer said that she had been moved as to buy a pug of her own after seeing the photos.
Mr Newman may have won the hearts of internet users but he is unlikely to be more famous than a cat competitor Keyboard Cat, the musical pet who has become a star on YouTube.
1．The little pug waited by the road probably because           .
A．it was abandoned by its owner       B．it was left behind by his owner
C．it was trapped by a passer – by      D．it couldn’t find the way home
2．We can infer from the passage that the photographer Chris Michael          .
A．knew much about the owner of the dog 
B．helped to find the owner of the pug
C．took great interest in its colorful sweater
D．tried to amuse the pug in some ways
3．The writer used the underlined sentence from the website to           .
A．add some humor to the passage
B．describe the pug’s loveliness
C．help the god owner recognize it
D．inform girls to adopt the dog
4．What would be discussed next according to the text?          .
A．Description of another dog
B．The pug’s recent situation
C．Some details about the keyboard cat
D．Pet owners’ responsibility

E

B

D
We all know what it is like to be unable to turn your head because of a cold in the muscles of your neck, or because an unexpected twist has made your neck ache and stiff. Your whole body feels tight. The slightest move makes you jump with pain. Nothing could be worse than a pain in the neck.
That is why we use phrase to describe some people who give you the same feeling. We have all met such people.
One is the man who always seems to be clapping his hands—often at the wrong time—during a performance in the theater. He keeps you from hearing the actors.
Even worse are those who can never arrive before the curtain goes up and play begins. They come hurrying down to your row of seats. You are comfortably settled down, with your hat and heavy coat in your lap. You must stand up to ;et them pass. You are proud of your self—control after they have settled into their seats…Well, what now…Good God, one of them is up again. He forgot to go to the men’s room, and once more you have to stand up, hanging on to your hat and coat to let him pass. Now, that is “a pain in the neck.”
Another, well—known to us all, is the person sitting behind you in the movies. His mouth is full of popcorn;  he is chewing loudly, or talking between bites to friends next to him. None of them remain still. Up and down, back and forth, they go—for another bag of popcorn, or something to drink.
Then, there is the main sitting next to you at a lunch counter smoking a smelly cigar. He wants you to enjoy it too, and blows smoke across you food into your mouth.
We must not forget the man who comes into a bus or subway car and sits down next to you, just as close as you will let him. You are reading the newspaper and he leans over and stretches his rock so that he can read the paper with you. He may even turn the paper to the next page before you are ready for it.
We also call such a person a “rubber neck,” always stretching his neck to where it does not belong, like neighbors who watch all your visitors. They enjoy invading your privacy. People have a strong dislike for rubbernecks. They hate being spied upon.
68．Where can you find this passage?
A．Medicine dictionaries.                          B．Social science books,
C．Kids’ comic books.                              D．Science text books.
69．How do you feel when late comers walk back and forth in front of you in a cinema?
A．Ignored.              B．Bored.                C．Disturbed            D．Relaxed.
70．A “rubber neck” often                  .
A．says bad words behind people.
B．quarrels face to face with neighbors.
C．bargains the price with sales women
D．asks about other people’s business
71．Which of the follow is a “pain on the neck”?
A．Someone who helps you find your seat in a movie theatre.
B．Someone who smokes in a smoking section on a train.
C．Someone who throws trash out of his car window on the highway.
D．Someone who goes to the doctor for his severe pain on the neck.