If Confucius（孔子）were still alive today and could celebrate his September 28 birthday with a big cake, there would be a lot of candles． He’d need a fan or a strong wind to help him put them out．

While many people in China will remember Confucius on his special day, few people in the United States will give him a passing thought． It’s nothing personal． Most Americans don’t even remember the birthdays of their own national heroes．

But this doesn’t mean that Americans don’t care about Confucius． In many ways he has become a bridge that foreigners must cross if they want to reach a deeper understanding of China．

In the past two decades, the Chinese studies programs have gained huge popularity in Western universities． More recently, the Chinese government has set up Confucius Institutes in more than 80 countries． These schools teach both Chinese language and culture． The main courses of Chinese culture usually included Chinese art, history and philosophy． Some social scientists suggest that Westerners should take advantage of the ancient Chinese wisdom to make up for the drawbacks of Westerners philosophy． Students in the United States, at the same time, are racing to learn Chinese． So they will be ready for life in a world where China is an equal power with the United States． Businessmen who hope to make money in China are reading books about Confucius to understand their Chinese customers． 

So the old thinker’s ideas are still alive and well．

Today China attracts the West more than ever, and it will need more teachers to introduce Confucius and Chinese culture to the West．

As for the old thinker, he will not soon be forgotten by people in the West, even if his birthday is．

1.The opening paragraph is mainly intended to _______．

2.We can learn from Paragraph 4 that American students_______．

3.What is the best title for the passage?

4.The passage is likely to appear in _______．

How is it that siblings （兄弟姐妹） can turn out so differently? One answer is that in fact each sibling grows up in a different family． The firstborn is, for a while, an only child, and therefore has a completely different experience of the parents than those born later． The next child is, for a while, the youngest, until the situation is changed by a new arrival． The mother and father themselves are changing and growing up too． One sibling might live in a stable and close family in the first few years; another might be raised in a family crisis, with a disappointed mother or an angry father．

Sibling competition was identified as an important shaping force as early as in 1918． But more recently, researchers have found many ways in which brothers and sisters are a lasting force in each others’ lives． Dr． Annette Henderson says firstborn children pick up vocabulary more quickly than their siblings． The reason for this might be that the later children aren’t getting the same one-on-one time with parents． But that doesn’t mean that the younger children have problems with language development． Later-borns don’t enjoy that much talking time with parents, but instead they harvest lessons from bigger brothers and sisters, learning entire phrases and getting an understanding of social concepts such as the difference between “I” and “me”． 

A Cambridge University study of 140 children found that siblings created a rich world of play that helped them grow socially． Love-hate relationships were common among the children． Even those siblings who fought the most had just as much positive communication as the other sibling pairs．

One way children seek more attention from parents is by making themselves different from their siblings, particularly if they are close in age． Researchers have found that the first two children in a family are typically more different from each other than the second and third． Girls with brothers show their differences to a maximum degree by being more feminine than girls with sisters． A 2003 research paper studied adolescents from 185 families over two years, finding that those who changed to make themselves different from their siblings were successful in increasing the amount of warmth they gained from their parents．

1.In terms of language development, later-borns ________．

2.What was found about fights among siblings?

3.The word “feminine” （in Para． 4） means “_______”．

请认真阅读下列短文，并在文章后表格中的空格里填入一个最恰当的单词。每空一词。

In the United States, engineering is a profession that has been dominated historically by men． Even today, it’s still true that few women become civil or chemical or mechanical engineers, but that’s something www．EngineerGirl．org aims to change． Young women who visit the web site can find out about a great career choice they might not have considered．

“Women are very much underrepresented in engineering and in engineering education programs and then of course, down the road, in the engineering workforce． So only about 20 percent of engineering undergraduate degrees go to women, and then only about nine percent of working engineers are women．”

Mary Mattis in the National Academy of Engineering, says the EngineerGirl website aims to reach young women around ages 11 through 14, when they are just getting old enough to start thinking about their futures．

“We know from the research that middle-school girls are at a critical point in their lives, and that it’s a time when we need to reach them, both with an understanding, increasing their awareness of interesting fields in engineering, what a wonderful productive and exciting career you can have as an engineer． But we also need to reach them at that time because you have to take certain courses, and you can’t start thinking about taking those courses when you’re a junior in high school．”

Engineering is a demanding course of study ---there is a lot of science and mathematics, for many girls and even boys, that can be challenging． But Ms． Mattis says that the EngineerGirl website stresses that engineering can also be fun and exciting．

“It’s about designing things． It’s about changing the world for people． It’s about making a difference． And, in addition, you can make a good living, you can be independent economically by becoming an engineer． All of those things are messages that girls need to get．”

While most engineers go into traditional fields such as mechanical and electrical engineering, the EngineerGirl site also highlights unusual engineering careers in fields such as sports engineering and --- believe it or not --- chocolate engineering．

“There’s a section called ‘why be an engineer,’ and that talks about the many opportunities and increasingly different opportunities like with bio-engineering and environmental engineering, some fields that might appeal to girls who want to make a difference or have a meaning for their careers beyond earning an income．”

Even if you are not a girl in the target age group, there’s a lot of interesting information on the site, including biographies of some notable women engineers．

Employers fear they will be unable to recruit (招募) students with the skills they need as the economic recovery kicks in, a new survey ___21___.

Nearly half of the organizations told researchers they were already struggling to find ___22___ with skills in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), ___23___ even more companies expect to experience ___24___ of employees with STEM skills in the next three years.

The Confederation of British Industry___25___694 businesses and organizations across the public and ___26___sectors , which together employ 2.4 million people.

Half are ___27___ they will not be able to fill graduate posts in the coming years, while a third said they would not be able to ___28___ enough employees with the right A-level skills.

　　“___29___ we move further role recovery and businesses plan ___30___ growth, the demand for people with high-quality skills and qualifications will ___31___.” said Richard Lambert, Director General, CBI. “Firms say it is already hard to find people with the right ___32___ or engineering skills. The new government must make it a top ___33___ to encourage more young people to study science-related ___34___.”

　　The survey found that young people would improve their job prospects (预期) ___35___ they studied business, maths, English and physics or chemistry at A-level. The A-levels that employers ___36___least are psychology and sociology. And while many employers don’t insist on a ___37___ degree subject . A third prefer to hire those with a STEM-related subject.

The research ___38___ worries about the lack of progress in improving basic skills in the UK ___39___. Half of the employer expressed worries about employees’ basic literacy and numeracy（计算) skills, while the biggest problem is with IT skills, ___40___ two-thirds reported concerns.

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For six hours we shot through the landscape of the Karoo desert in South Africa. Just rocks

and sand and baking sun. Knowing our journey was ending, Daniel and I just wanted to remember all we had seen and done. He used a camera. I used words. I had already finished three notebooks and was into the fourth, a beautiful leather notebook I’d bought in a market in Mozambique.

Southern Africa was full of stories. And visions. We were almost drunk on sensations. The roaring of the water at Victoria Falls, the impossible silence of the Okavango Delta in Botswana . And then the other things: dogs in the streets, whole families in Soweto living in one room, a kilometre from clean water.

As we drove towards the setting sun, a quietness fell over us. The road was empty -- we  hadn’t seen another car for hours. And as I drove, something caught my eye, something moving   next to me. I glanced in the mirror of the car; I glanced sideways to the right, and that was when I saw them. Next to us, by the side of the road, thirty, forty wild horses were racing the car, a cloud of dust rising behind them -- brown, muscular horses almost close enough to touch them, to   smell their hot breath. I didn’t know how long they had been there next to us.

I shouted to Dan: “Look!”, but he was in a deep sleep, his camera lying useless by his feet.   They raced the car for a few seconds, then disappeared far behind us, a memory of heroic forms   in the red landscape. When Daniel woke up an hour later I told him what had happened.

“Wild horses?” he said. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“I tried. But they were gone after a few seconds.”

“Are you sure you didn’t dream it?”

“You were the one who was sleeping!”

Typical, he said. “The best photos are the ones we never take.”

We checked into a dusty hotel and slept the sleep of the dead.

1. During their journey in Africa, the two travelers______.

2. What did Daniel think when he woke up and was told what had happened?

3. What is the passage mainly about?

1.This passage is most probably ______.

2.     According to the “Experience” section, we can infer that Donald Sloan can be _____ .

3.     From the passage we can learn that Donald Sloan ______.

You never see him, but they’re with you every time you fly. They record where you are going, how fast you’re traveling and whether everything on your airplane is functioning normally. Their ability to withstand almost any disaster makes them seem like something out of a comic book. They’re known as the black box.

　When planes fall from the sky, as a Yemeni airliner did on its way to Comoros Islands in the India ocean June 30, 2009, the black box is the best bet for identifying what went wrong. So when a French submarine (潜水艇) detected the device’s homing signal five days later, the discovery marked a huge step toward determining the cause of a tragedy in which 152 passengers were killed.

　In 1958, Australian scientist David Warren developed a flight-memory recorder that would track basic information like altitude and direction. That was the first mode for a black box, which became a requirement on all U.S. commercial flights by 1960. Early models often failed to withstand crashes, however, so in 1965 the device was completely redesigned and moved to the rear of the plane – the area least subject to impact – from its original position in the landing wells (起落架舱). The same year, the Federal Aviation Authority required that the boxes, which were never actually black, be painted orange or yellow to aid visibility.

　Modern airplanes have two black boxes: a voice recorder, which tracks pilots’ conversations, and a flight-data recorder, which monitors fuel levels, engine noises and other operating functions that help investigators reconstruct the aircraft’s final moments. Placed in an insulated (隔绝的) case and surrounded by a quarter-inch-thick panels of stainless steel, the boxes can withstand（抵挡）massive force and temperatures up to 2,000℉. When submerged（潜入水中）, they’re also able to emit signals from depths of 20,000 ft. Experts believe the boxes from Air France Flight 447, which crashed near Brazil on June 1,2009, are in water nearly that deep, but statistics say they’re still likely to turn up. In the approximately 20 deep-sea crashes over the past 30 years, only one plane’s black boxes were never recovered.

1.What does the author say about the black box?

2.. What information could be found from the black box on the Yemeni airliner?

3. Why was the black box redesigned in 1965?

4. What do we know about the black boxes from Air France Flight 447?

Global warming is causing more than 300,000 deaths and about $125 billion in economic losses each year, according to a report by the Global Humanitarian Forum, an organization led by Annan, the former United Nations secretary general.

The report, to be released Friday, analyzed data and existing studies of health, disaster, population and economic trends. It found that human-influenced climate change was raising the global death rates from illnesses including malnutrition (营养不良) and heat-related health problems.

But even before its release, the report drew criticism from some experts on climate and risk, who questioned its methods and conclusions.

Along with the deaths, the report said that the lives of 325 million people, primarily in poor countries, were being seriously affected by climate change. It projected that the number would double by 2030.

Roger Pielke Jr., a political scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who studies disaster trends, said the Forum’s report was “a methodological embarrassment” because there was no way to distinguish deaths or economic losses related to human-driven global warming amid the much larger losses resulting from the growth in populations and economic development in vulnerable (易受伤害的) regions. Dr. Pielke said that “climate change is an important problem requiring our utmost (极度的) attention.” But the report, he said, “will harm the cause for action on both climate change and disasters because it is so deeply flawed (有瑕疵的).”

However, Soren Andreasen, a social scientist at Dalberg Global Development Partners who supervised the writing of the report, defended it, saying that it was clear that the numbers were rough estimates. He said the report was aimed at world leaders, who will meet in Copenhagen in December to negotiate a new international climate treaty.

In a press release describing the report, Mr. Annan stressed the need for the negotiations to focus on increasing the flow of money from rich to poor regions to help reduce their vulnerability(弱点) to climate hazards(危害)while still curbing (限制) the emissions of the heat-trapping gases. More than 90% of the human and economic losses from climate change are occurring in poor countries, according to the report.

1.What is the finding of the Global Humanitarian Forum?

2.  What do we learn about the Forum’s report from the passage?

3. What does Dr. Pielke say about the Forum’s report?

4.  What is Soren Andreasen’s view of the report?

5.  What does Kofi Annan say should be the focus of the Copenhagen conference?

认真阅读下列短文，并根据所读内容在文章后表格中的空格里填入最恰当的单词。注意：每空格只填一个单词。

If we agree that the function of education is to prepare us for life, then there is very little time to waste. So, while we can, we ought to concentrate on teaching children something really useful. Here is what our schools should teach.

Politeness is a mark of civilization. The sooner children learn this, the better. In any case, a lot can be accomplished by a smile and good manners.

Like it or not, our adult lives will be consumed by the struggle for money, but we don’t make an effort to teach children how to manage it. So our schools have a duty to teach them this ability from the beginning.

We’re likely no accept something we are told, but that’s not what educated people do. Educated people are reasonable and they look at facts. If our schools teach nothing else, they should at least teach critical（批判性的）thinking.

Children should learn to take care of their health. They should know that if they eat junk food（垃圾食品）, they will become fat and unhealthy. They should be very clear about what happens to their bodies when they drink or smoke.

All of us are part of society. We have rights and responsibilities. We ought to understand what they are. We have to know a little bit of history and geography, because we need to have an environment in which to relate to the people around us.

How will we test students on these? We can’t. But that’s not a reason to avoid teaching what is important. Our schools should spend every moment they have telling this to our children: “This is life, this is what you are going to face, and this is how you deal with it.”

教材单句填空，每个空格只填一个单词。

1.It can be an analysis of how teams are __________ in the various sports leagues, or a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of different players and their teams.  

2.__________ Australia’s small population, its outstanding performance at the Olympic Games was really amazing.   

3.The Ming and Qing Imperial Tombs are among the most extraordinary cultural __________ to be found anywhere.  

4.Colour is a medium for expressing different feelings, but the meaning of colour is not __________ across different cultures.   

5.After spending every penny of his money and being __________ to hiring himself out to feed pigs, he realized that he had been a fool and went home. 

6.．In __________ with the dilemma of worldwide hunger, the United Nations set up an agency called the World Food Programme (WFP) in 1963.  

7.．This is why many people are __________ for the use of alternative energy sources.

8.．Older Americans are on the __________ .Throughout the Midwest and the Northeast, people aged 60 and over are packing their bags and heading south along the freeway to states like Florida.   

9.．Contrary to what many people think, HIV cannot be __________ through mosquitoes, a cough or sneeze, or by merely touching someone with Aids.  

10.．You need to work with every __________ of your being.