I took the bus to work for many years. No one knew each other; the passengers all sat there sleepily in the morning. The bus was cheerless and silent.

One of the passengers was a small grey man who took the bus to the center for senior citizens every morning. No one ever paid very much attention to him. One July morning he said good morning to the driver and smiled. The driver nodded guardedly. The rest of us were silent.

The next day, the old man boarded with a big smile and said in a loud voice, “A very good morning to you all!” Some of us looked up, amazed, and murmured “ good morning” in reply.

The following weeks, our friend was dressed in a nice old suit and tie. The thin hair had been carefully combed. He said good morning to us every day and we gradually began to nod and talk to each other.

One morning he even had a bunch of wild flowers in his hand. The driver turned around smilingly and asked, “Have you got yourself a girlfriend, Charlie?” We never got to know if his name really was “Charlie”, but he nodded shyly and said yes. The other passengers whistled and clapped at him. Charlie waved the flowers before he sat down on his seat.

Every morning after that Charlie always brought flowers. Some passengers also brought flowers for him. The bus became a happy place.

Then, one morning, as autumn was closing in, Charlie wasn’t waiting at his usual stop. When he wasn’t there the next day and the day after that, we started wondering if he was sick or hopefully---on holiday somewhere. When we came nearer to the center for senior citizens, one of the passengers even asked the driver to wait.

We all held our breaths when he went to the door. The old gentleman was fine, but one of his close friends had died over the weekend. How silent we were the rest of the way to work.

The next Monday Charlie was waiting at the stop, and without a tie. Inside the bus was silent.

1. The story is mainly developed by ______.

A. time   B. logic    C. comparison    D. cause and result 

2. Greeted with “good morning” from the old man, people aboard the bus at first _____.

A. felt tired and sleepy and didn’t want to talk   B. greeted him back loudly and politely

C. guarded against the conversation from strangers D. felt surprised and became angry with him.

3. When the passengers found the old man was not waiting at the bus stop as usual, they did NOT _____.

A. buy flowers and wait for him to come   B. feel anxious and worried about him 

C. miss him and expect to see him    D. hope he was going on holiday rather than falling ill

4. It can be inferred from the text that _____.

A. the driver didn’t like the old man at first  B. people usually wear a tie when they are happy

C. passengers brought flowers to express gratitude(感激) to the old man 

D. the old man had a great influence on the passengers’ emotion

5.The purpose of the passage is to _____.

A. introduce the old gentleman and praise his good deeds

B. persuade us to become friendly and considerate to people around

C. tell us to keep silent when somebody passes away

D. criticize those who remain silent when they are greeted

 

In 1995, Susan Boyle went to Glasgow to audition(试镜)for My Kind of People, a televised talent show popular in the UK. She was immediately rejected. She was nervous during the audition, and felt she didn’t perform well, but her brother said that she was rejected because of her plain looks. Susan was not discouraged and continued to sing at church and at the karaoke nights in a local pub.

Susan suffered a personal loss in 1997, when her father passed away. After his death, Susan put her big dreams on hold to care for her sick mother, Bridget Boyle. The mother and daughter often talked of Susan’s possible fame. Bridget Boyle encouraged her daughter to take part in singing competitions. “She was the one who said I should enter Britain’s Got Talent. We used to watch it together,” Susan later told reporters. “She thought I would win.”

In 1999, Susan used all of her savings to pay for a professional demo(样本唱片)tape, which she sent to record companies. In 2002, Susan began taking singing lessons from voice coach Fred O’Neil.

In 2007, her mother passed away at the age of 91. A neighbor reported that when Bridget Boyle died, her daughter “wouldn’t come out for three or four days or answer the door or phone”. She lived alone with her cat, Pebbles. For over a year, she refused to sing. But in August of 2008, O’Neil urged her to try out for Britain’s Got Talent. Convinced that the performance would be an honor to her mother, Susan auditioned in Glasgow, Scotland. She sang I Dreamed A Dream, a hit song from the musical Les Miserables(《悲惨世界》), in the first round of the show, which was aired on April 11, 2009.

The 47-year-old Scottish woman's plain looks provided a sharp contrast(对比)to her powerfully beautiful voice. The performance astonished the audience and the judges. Online videos of her performance totaled over 40 million views within a week. Although she failed to win the final of Britain’s Got Talent, Susan Boyle became globally popular. Her first album I Dreamed A Dream has sold over five million copies.

1. Bridget Boyle’s attitude towards her daughter’s musical talent can be described as ___.

   A. critical    B. doubtful     C. indifferent     D. confident

2. From Paragraph 4, we can learn that Susan _____.

A. was slightly discouraged by her voice coac B. entered Britain’s Got Talent to prove her ability

C. decided to give up her singing career    D. was deeply affected by her mother’s death

3. Which of the following is TRUE about Susan Boyle?

A. Her international fame grew rapidly in 2008. B. Her audition for My Kind of People failed.

C. She has never stopped singing since 1995.  D. She was the winner of Britain’s Got Talent. 

4. We can infer from the passage that ______.

A. Susan Boyle was convinced by her brother that her plain looks were disadvantageous to her success

B. It was at the age of forty that Susan Boyle established a student-teacher relationship with O’Neil.

C. Susan Boyle was so struck by her father’s death that she shut herself out from the neighborhood.

D. The online views of Les Miserables numbered over 40 million within a week in 2009.

5.In writing this passage, the author mainly intends to ______.

A. tell us how Susan’s dream come true       B. let us know more about Susan’s personal life

C. show how Susan was influenced by her family D. explain how to enter and win a talent show

 

 

PLAYA GRANDE, COSTA RICA----This resort town was long known for Leatherback Sea Turtle(棱皮龟)National Park, nightly turtle beach tours and even a sea turtle museum. However, on a beach where dozens of turtles used to nest on a given night, scientists spied only 32 leatherbacks all of last year.

With leatherbacks threatened with extinction, Playa Grande’s turtle museum was abandoned (抛弃)three years ago and now sits among a sea of weeds. And the beachside ticket office for turtle tours was washed away by a high tide in September. “We do not promote that as a turtle tourism destination any more because we realize there are far too few turtles to please,” said Alvaro Fonseca, a park ranger.(管理员)

Even before scientists found temperatures going up over the past decade, sea turtles were threatened by beach development, drift net fishing and Costa Ricans’ interest in eating turtle eggs. But climate change may cause the most serious harm to an animal that has lived in the Pacific for 150 million years.

Sea turtles are sensitive to numerous effects of warming. They feed on reefs, which are dying in hotter seas. They lay eggs on beaches that are being covered by rising seas and more violent waves.

More uniquely(独特地), their gender is determined not by genes but by the egg’s temperature during development. Small rises in beach temperatures can result in all-female populations, obviously problematic for survival. If the sand around the eggs hits 30 degrees Celsius, the gender balance shifts to female; at about 32 degrees they are all female. Above 34, you get boiled eggs.

On some nesting beaches, scientists are artificially cooling nests with shade or irrigation and trying to protect broader areas of coastal property from development to ensure that turtles have a place to nest as the seas rise.

1.Why does the resort town stop promoting its turtle tourism?

A.It decides not to disturb the turtles’ normal life.

B.Tourists have lost interest in watching turtles.

C. There are only very few turtles now.   D. The turtle museum was destroyed by a high tide.

2. Which of the following is the major factor in the turtles’ endangerment?

A. The locals’ eating habit.   B. Drift net fishing.  C. Beach development. D. Global warming.

3. The underlined word “gender” in Paragraph 5 means ____.

A. the sex of turtles   B. the habit of turtles   C. the weight of turtles   D. the kind of turtles

4. We learn from the last paragraph that scientists ____.

A. are doing research on the sea rise   B. are moving turtles to new homes

C. are protecting turtles’ nests        D. are going rid of sea weeds

5. The passage intends to ____.

A. introduce a special kind of sea turtle   B. explain the mystery of turtles’ eggs

C. show the dangers a certain kind of sea turtle is facing  

D. attract more visitors to a sea turtle museum

 

信息匹配(每小题2分,共10分)

阅读下列应用文及相关信息,并按照要求匹配信息。首先,请阅读以下世界古代奇观的简介:

A. The Great Wall was begun more than two thousand years ago. It was built to keep out invaders. It extends about six thousand seven hundred kilometers across northern China. Today, the Chinese government is working to repair parts of the wall and protect as much of it as possible. The Great Wall of China is one of the largest building projects ever attempted. It is also the only object built by people that can be seen from space.

B. The Coliseum in Rome, Italy was built almost two thousand years ago. The ancient Roman sports center could hold fifty thousand people who gathered there to watch public events. Experts say it is one of the finest examples of Roman design and engineering.

C. The city of Machu Picchu in Peru includes some of the best stone work ever built. The ancient Inca people built Machu Picchu high in the Andes Mountains, northwest of the city of Cuzco. Machu Picchu is about thirteen square kilometers. Historians say it might have been one of the last places of safety for the Incas who were fleeing invaders from Spain.

D. India is famous for its temples and buildings. The most famous is the Taj Mahal, considered one of the most beautiful buildings ever built. The fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan, ordered it built in Agra in sixteen thirty-one. He built it as a burial place in memory of his wife. The Taj Mahal has tiny colorful stones inlaid in white marble. The structure seems to change color during different times of the day and night.

E. Abu Simbel was built more than three thousand years ago. It is about 280 kilometers south of Aswan on the western bank of the Nile River. It took an army of workmen and artists more than thirty years to cut the huge temple into the face of a rock mountain. In front of the main temple are four huge statues of Ramses the Second. Each statue is about twenty meters high.

F. Stonehenge also belongs on a list of ancient wonders. It is a circle of huge stones in southeastern England. Experts believe work began on Stonehenge about five thousand years ago. We know very little about Stonehenge. We do not even know how these huge stones were moved to the area. Much has been written about Stonehenge, but experts say they still are not sure what it was used for.

以下是旅行者信息,请匹配他们计划参观的世界奇观。

1. Mr. Smith, who comes from Rome, Italy, plans to visit Asia. He hears about a beautiful building which tells a moving story about the love between an ancient ruler and his wife.

2.Li Hua, who has been to the Great Wall several times, plans to visit an ancient wonder in Europe which has as long a history as the Great Wall.

3. Cindy, who comes from India, plans to visit an ancient temple on the bank of a famous river in Africa. The temple, in front of which there were some huge statues, is one of the greatest stone works ever built.

4.Jack will visit one of the oldest stone work ever built by people. It was made up of huge stones, but how ancient people moved the stones and why they built it remain a mystery.

5.A scientist will be sent into space. He hopes he can see an object built by human beings when he looks at our earth with his bare eyes.

 

完形填空(共15小题;每小题2分,满分30分)

  阅读下面短文,掌握其大意,然后从下列各题所给的四个选项中, 选出最佳选项,并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

Last summer Tom and his friends George and Bill wanted to take a vacation. But they did not have much __26__.They decided that a ___27____ mountain climbing expedition(探险;郊游)was the only trip they could ___28____.Since each of them was ____29____ to climbing,the vacation would be a lot of fun. Tom made all the plans. He ____30_____ that they should share the expenses for food and gas equally and that each one should bring some ____31____ clothes because the weather at ____32____ altitudes is usually cold. The boys were not in a hurry,so they climbed ____33____ the first day. The weather was __34__,and they enjoyed the fresh __35__ as they climbed up a narrow path.

Tom expected the weather to stay nice,but late in the afternoon there was a __36__.The boys rushed toward a cave and decided to camp there that night.

When the sun rose the next morning,they continued __37__.As the boys went higher,the climbing became more __38__,and by late that afternoon the trip appeared endless. When they finally reached the __39__ of the mountain,they saw a beautiful sight. The colors of the sunset were yellow,red,and gold. The boys relaxed and enjoyed the view. The farms and fields of wheat and corn below appeared very small. In the distance,they could see trees,hills and valleys. They __40__ a week in the mountains. They really had great fun.  

1..

A.time

B.money

C.cost

D.fare

 

2.

A.short

B.long

C.free

D.pleasant

 

3.

A.take

B.have

C.afford

D.go

 

4.

A.accustomed

B.liked

C.fond

D.interested

 

5.

A.said

B.thought

C.suggested

D.wanted

 

6.

A.more

B.extra

C.beautiful

D.expensive

 

7.

A.low

B.high

C.mountainous

D.top

 

8.

A.usually

B.casually

C.quickly

D.happily

 

9.

A.pleasant

B.please

C.hot

D.cold

 

10.

A.rain

B.air

C.view

D.plants

11..

A.sunshine

B.wind

C.storm

D.cloud

 

12.

A.climbing

B.camping

C.cycling

D.hunting

 

13.

A.easy

B.exciting

C.tired

D.dangerous

 

14.

A.side

B.middle

C.foot

D.top

 

15.

A.took

B.rested

C.spent

D.walked

 

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