第三部分：阅读理解（共20小题，每小题2分，满分40分）
Back in the old times, there was an old man, who had spent his life learning many different things. He had traveled to many places as well. “I must be the wisest man in the world.” The man thought to himself. As he grew old, he felt that there was no need for him to learn any longer because of the arrival of the end of life. Every day he spent his time complaining about many things. It seemed that he was satisfied with nothing his life.
One day while he was sitting in the chair, there was a knock on the door. The old man opened the door and found a little girl，whose face was covered with soil． “Can I borrow some fire ?”the girl whispered softly．At that time，matches hadn’t been  invented，and people used to borrow fire from neighbors by loading a bucket （铲子）  with a few hot coals．It was much better than trying to start a fire with sticks．
Not finding a bucket in her hand，the old man asked impatiently , “Well , where’s your bucket ? How are you going to get the coals home ?” However , the girl said she didn’t have one and went to the fireplace ．She put a pile of cold ashes into her hand and put the coal on top of the ash heap （灰堆）．“Thanks !”she said on her way out．Seeing the girl’s happy and grateful appearance, the man was moved and felt ashamed of himself．“If I can learn something new from a little farm girl,  there must be a lot I still don’t know．I’d better get busy while I still have time．”
1．We can learn from the first paragraph that the old man ____________________
A．failed to know what he needed to do
B．lost confidence in himself
C．lost the fame of the world’s wisest man
D．often expressed his dissatisfaction with life
2．How did the girl change the old man’s opinions ?
A．By solving an old problem in a new way
B．By following the old man’s instructions
C．By pointing out his mistakes politely
D．By helping the old man to make a fire
3．It can be inferred from the underlined part in me last paragraph that the old man would become_______________．
A．more confident                 C．more modest
C．more modest                  D．more intelligent
4．What can we infer from the text ?
A．Failure is the mother of success         B．Action speaks louder than words
C．It’s never too late to learn            D．Great minds think alike

第三部分：阅读理解（共20小题，每小题2分，满分40分）

Back in the old times, there was an old man, who had spent his life learning many different things. He had traveled to many places as well. “I must be the wisest man in the world.” The man thought to himself. As he grew old, he felt that there was no need for him to learn any longer because of the arrival of the end of life. Every day he spent his time complaining about many things. It seemed that he was satisfied with nothing his life.

One day while he was sitting in the chair, there was a knock on the door. The old man opened the door and found a little girl，whose face was covered with soil． “Can I borrow some fire ?”the girl whispered softly．At that time，matches hadn’t been  invented，and people used to borrow fire from neighbors by loading a bucket （铲子）  with a few hot coals．It was much better than trying to start a fire with sticks．

Not finding a bucket in her hand，the old man asked impatiently , “Well , where’s your bucket ? How are you going to get the coals home ?” However , the girl said she didn’t have one and went to the fireplace ．She put a pile of cold ashes into her hand and put the coal on top of the ash heap （灰堆）．“Thanks !”she said on her way out．Seeing the girl’s happy and grateful appearance, the man was moved and felt ashamed of himself．“If I can learn something new from a little farm girl,  there must be a lot I still don’t know．I’d better get busy while I still have time．”

1．We can learn from the first paragraph that the old man ____________________

A．failed to know what he needed to do

B．lost confidence in himself

C．lost the fame of the world’s wisest man

D．often expressed his dissatisfaction with life

2．How did the girl change the old man’s opinions ?

A．By solving an old problem in a new way

B．By following the old man’s instructions

C．By pointing out his mistakes politely

D．By helping the old man to make a fire

3．It can be inferred from the underlined part in me last paragraph that the old man would become_______________．

A．more confident                 C．more modest

C．more modest                  D．more intelligent

4．What can we infer from the text ?

A．Failure is the mother of success         B．Action speaks louder than words

C．It’s never too late to learn            D．Great minds think alike

Mothers can still offer comfort, even from a distance, a new study has found. The results show that simply hearing their mothers’ voice over the phone works just as well at calming the nerves of stressed children as a real-life pat on the shoulder.

The soothing（抚慰的）effect is most likely due to the release of the hormone（荷尔蒙）, oxytocin（催生素）, in the brain, the researchers say. This “love hormone” is known to quell stress and is likely to be involved in social connections, including those between a mother and a child.

Previous work has revealed that this hormone is released during physical contact with a mother. “But it’s clear from these results that a mother’s voice can have the same effect as a hug, even if she isn’t actually standing there,” said the researcher, Leslie Seltzer, a biological scientist.

Seltzer tested a group of 61 girls, aged 7 to 12, by having them make an unprepared speech and solve a series of maths problems in front of a group of strangers, sending their hearts racing and levels of cortisol—a hormone associated with stress—soaring.

Facing a challenge like that raises stress levels of a lot of people. Once stressed, a third of the girls were comforted in person by their mothers with hugs. A third of the girls watched an emotionally neutral 75-minute video. The rest were handed a telephone with their mothers on the line.

For the girls who interacted in person or over the phone with their mothers, the levels of the “love hormone” rose significantly, and the stress-marking hormone was washed away. This effect didn’t show up for participants who watched the video.

Seltzer is now testing the amount of oxytocin released with other communication methods—like text messaging—and hopes to see the research spread out from human subjects. “It’s not just us, of course. Lots of very social species have voices,” she said. “on the one hand, we are curious to see if this effect is unique to humans. On the other, we’re hoping researchers who study vocal communication will consider looking at oxytocin release in other animals and apply it to broader questions of social behavior and evolutionary biology.

1.Mothers’ voice over the phone can reduce children’s nerves according to the study, because           .

2.The underlined word “quell” in the second paragraph probably means “         ”.

3. From the study, we know that                .

4.From the last paragraph, we can conclude that          .

第二部分　阅读理解 (共15小题；每小题2分，满分30分)
A
Residents along Australia’s east coast awoke in the morning to an orange sky as winds swept millions of tons of red dust from the country’s inland and dumped it on Sydney．
Tanya Ferguson，living in Sydney，saw that the room was completely orange．She thought there was a bush fire．But when she went outside，the entire city was covered in a film of orange dust．
“It was like being in the outback(澳大利亚内陆)，but it was right here in the city，”she said On that day，a big dust storm swept through Sydney．It covered the city in orange dust for about eight hours，making landmarks such as the Sydney Opera House and Harbor Bridge invisible．
The storm affected the transportation system．Flights were delayed．Roads were busy as drivers struggled in the difficult conditions．Children and the elderly were told to stay indoors until the dust had cleared．Later strong winds blew it out to the sea and up the coast．
No one was hurt in the storm，though health officials answered hundreds of calls from
people with breathing difficulties．Emergency services responded to hundreds of calls about
tree branches brought down by strong winds．
Dust storms are common in the Australian outback，where the land is arid(贫瘠的)．But the storms rarely reach the coastal regions．
Officials said it was the worst dust storm of the past 70 years．Air pollution levels were
15，500 micrograms of pollutants per cubic meter．
“On a clear day the pollutants are around 10—20 micrograms per cubic meter，”said Chris
Eiser of the NSW department of the environment．
Experts said that dry conditions in the outback and strong winds caused the sandstorm．
“Ten very dry years over inland southern Australia and very strong winds have combined to produce the storm，”said Nigel Tapper，an environmental scientist at Monash University， Australia．
56．The article is about            ．
A．the causes of the major dust storm in Australian cities
B．different reactions to a dust storm in Australia
C．the damage caused by the big dust storm in Australia
D．the worst dust storm in Australia in the past 70 years
57．Which of the following is TRUE?
A．The dust storm didn’t blow up to the coastal regions of Australia．
B．The level of air pollution was very high due to the dust storm．
C．People called the emergency service because they had got lost．
D．Children stayed indoors for the schooling had been cancelled．
58．From the passage we can see that              ．
A．Tanya Ferguson lives in the Australian outback at the moment
B．a bush fire may have brought the orange dust along the coast
C．this terrible sandstorm lasted about 24 hours after it hit the city
D．Sydney’s landmarks were out of sight when the storm happened
59．The tone of the article is               ．
A．worried              B．sympathetic                C．objective         D．Angry

Mothers can still offer comfort, even from a distance, a new study has found. The results show that simply hearing their mothers’ voice over the phone works just as well at calming the nerves of stressed children as a real-life pat on the shoulder.
The soothing（抚慰的）effect is most likely due to the release of the hormone（荷尔蒙）, oxytocin（催生素）, in the brain, the researchers say. This “love hormone” is known to quell stress and is likely to be involved in social connections, including those between a mother and a child.
Previous work has revealed that this hormone is released during physical contact with a mother. “But it’s clear from these results that a mother’s voice can have the same effect as a hug, even if she isn’t actually standing there,” said the researcher, Leslie Seltzer, a biological scientist.
Seltzer tested a group of 61 girls, aged 7 to 12, by having them make an unprepared speech and solve a series of maths problems in front of a group of strangers, sending their hearts racing and levels of cortisol—a hormone associated with stress—soaring.
Facing a challenge like that raises stress levels of a lot of people. Once stressed, a third of the girls were comforted in person by their mothers with hugs. A third of the girls watched an emotionally neutral 75-minute video. The rest were handed a telephone with their mothers on the line.
For the girls who interacted in person or over the phone with their mothers, the levels of the “love hormone” rose significantly, and the stress-marking hormone was washed away. This effect didn’t show up for participants who watched the video.
Seltzer is now testing the amount of oxytocin released with other communication methods—like text messaging—and hopes to see the research spread out from human subjects. “It’s not just us, of course. Lots of very social species have voices,” she said. “on the one hand, we are curious to see if this effect is unique to humans. On the other, we’re hoping researchers who study vocal communication will consider looking at oxytocin release in other animals and apply it to broader questions of social behavior and evolutionary biology.
【小题1】Mothers’ voice over the phone can reduce children’s nerves according to the study, because           .