There is an English saying, “Laughter is the best medicine.” Until recently, few people took the saying very seriously. Now, however, doctors have begun to study laughter and the effects it has on the human body. They have found facts that laughter really can improve people’s health.

  Tests were carried out to study the effects of laughter on the body. People watched funny films while doctors checked their heart rate, blood pressure, breathing and muscles. It was found that laughter has similar effects to physical exercise. It increases blood pressure, the heart rate and the rate of breathing. it also works several groups of muscles in the face, the stomach, and even the feet. If laughter exercises the body, it must be beneficial.

Other tests have shown that laughter appears to be able to reduce the effect of pain on the body. In one experiment doctors produce pain in groups of students who listened to different radio programmes. The group which tolerated(忍受) the pain for the longest time was the group which listened to a funny programme. The reason why laughter can reduce pain seems to be that it helps to produce endorphins(内啡肽) in the brain. These are natural chemicals which diminish both stress and pain.

There is also some fact to suggest that laughter helps the body’s immune （免疫的）system, that is , the system which fights infection. In an experiment, one group of students watched a funny video while another group of students served as the control group--- in other words, a group with which to compare the first group. Doctors checked the blood of the students in both groups and found that the people in the group that watched the video had an increase in the activity of their white blood cells, that is, the cells which fight infection.

As a result of these discoveries, some doctors and psychiatrists( 精神病医生) in the United States now hold laughter clinics, in which they try to improve their patients’ condition by encouraging them to laugh.

They have found that even if their patients do not really feel like laughing , making them smile is enough to produce beneficial effects similar to those caused by laughter.

It can be learnt from the passage that laughter can ______.

A. make people feel younger        B. change people’s habits

C. improve people’s health           D. make people love their lives

The underlined word “diminish” refers to _______.

A. test            B. reduce               C. stop           D. find

Smiling can produce____.

A. the same effects as laughter             B. more effects than laughter

C. less effects on the human body D. no effects on the human body

The main idea of this passage is that _____.

   A. there are several ways of studying the benefits of laughter.

   B. laughter and physical exercise have the same effects on human body.

   C. tests show that laughter can produce beneficial effects on human body.

   D. the doctors should learn how to make people laugh.

"But Ijust paid 1．69 for this bottle of wine last week．How is it that the price is 2.25?"

There are at least three things going on that have caused the price of wine to rise．All haveto do with the supply and demand factors of economics．

The first factor is that people are drinking more wine than ever before．This demand formore wine has increased wine sales in America at the rate of 15 percent a year．

The second factor is that the supply of wine has stayed relatively the same, which meansthat the same number of bottles is produced each year．Wine producers are trying to open upnew land to grow more grapes．But in at least three wine producing areas of the world-France,Germany, and California --- new vineyards（葡萄园）will not be useable in the near future．Wines are produced in other countries, such as Italy, Spain, and Portugal, as well as Argentine,Australia, Austria, and Chile．And these wines will be seen more often on the American market．But none of these countries will be able to fill the good wines．

The third factor is that costs of wine production are soaring．The workers who make wineare asking for more money, and the machinery needed to press the grapes is becoming moreexpensive．

When the demand for something is greater than the supply, prices go up．When productioncosts, meaning the price of labor and machinery rise, the producer adds this increase to theprice of the wine．For these reasons, that bottle of wine now costs 2．25 instead of 1．69．

1.What is the main idea of this passage?

2.This passage is written to      ．

3.Theunderlined word "soaring" means"___ .

Few laws are so effective that you can see results just days after they take effect. But in the nine days since the federal cigarette tax more than doubled—to $1. 01 per pack—smokers have jammed telephone “quit lines” across the country seeking to kick the habit.   

This is not a surprise to public health advocates. They’ve studied the effect of state tax increases for years, finding that smokers, especially teens, are price sensitive. Nor is it a shock to the industry, which fiercely fights every tax increase.  

The only wonder is that so many states insist on closing their ears to the message. Tobacco taxes improve public health, health, they raise money and most particularly, they deter people from taking up the habit as teens, which is when nearly all smokers are addicted. Yet the rate of taxation varies widely.   

In Manhattan, for instance, which has the highest tax in the nation, a pack of Marlboro Light Kings cost ＄10.06 at one drugstore Wednesday. Charleston, S, C., where the 7-cent-a-pack tax is the lowest in the nation. The price was $4. 78.  

The influence is obvious.   

In New York, high school smoking hit a new low in the latest surveys—13.8%, far below the national average. By comparison, 26% of high school students smoke in Kentucky, Other low-tax states have similarly depressing teen-smoking records.   

Hal Rogers, Representative from Kentucky, like those who are against high tobacco taxes, argues that the burden of the tax falls on low-income Americans “who choose to smoke.”  

That’s true, But there is more reason in keeping future generations of low-income workers from getting hooked in the first place, As for today’s adults, if the new tax drives them to quit, they will have more to spend on their families, cut their risk of cancer and heart disease and feel better.  

66 The text is mainly about___________.   

A. the price of cigarettes                       B. tie rate of teen smoking  

C. the effect of tobacco tax increase              D. the differences in tobacco tax rate  

67 What does the author think is a surprise?  

A. Teen smokers are price sensitive.  

B. Some states still keep the tobacco tax low.   

C.  Tobacco taxes improve public health.   

D.  Tobacco industry fiercely fights the tax rise.   

68. The underlined word "deter” in Paragraph 3 most probably means ______ .   

A. discarding    B. remove    C. benefit      D. free  

69. Rogers’ attitude towards the low-income smokers might be that of _____ .  

A. tolerance   B. unconcern    C. doubt   D. sympathy  

70. What can we learn from the last paragraph?  

A. The new tax will be beneficial in the long run.   

B. Low-income Americans are more likely to fall ill.  

C. Future generations will be hooked on smoking.   

D. Adults will depend more on their families.   

Whenever human populations have lived in forest areas, they have always cut down trees which they used for a number of purposes, for housing and ships and served as a source of heating fuel and timber. Growth of cities often meant expansion into forest areas, while even more trees were removed to provide space for agriculture. With the growing demand for paper, vast quantities of trees have also been cut down for paper production. These factors, along with many others, have been contributing to a dangerous phenomenon known as deforestation.

In the last 5,000 years, humans have reduced forest from roughly 50 percent of the earth’s land surface to less than 20 percent. Most of this original, or old growth, forest cover is concentrated in three large areas: the Canadian and Alaskan boreal forest, the boreal forest of Russia, and the tropical forest of the northwestern Amazon Basin and the Guyana Shield. These areas comprise almost 70 percent of the world’s remaining original forest cover. In most places, the rate of deforestation is increasing, with the alarming result of 16 million hectares disappearing worldwide every year.

Loss of forest does not just mean the decline of natural resources. There are several other factors that make deforestation seriously harmful to both the human and natural worlds. One of them is changes in the global climate. For example, forest clearance is releasing substantial volumes of carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the atmosphere as vegetation is burnt or decays. It has been suggested that this is a significant factor in global warming. Moreover, about 10 percent of the world’s tree species are in danger of extinction as a result of deforestation. Deforestation also threatens biological diversity through the destruction of wildlife habitats, which endangers a number of animal species and leads to their potential disappearance. Species are particularly easy to extinction in tropical rainforests because many species have few individuals per unit area, which makes reproduction more difficult. Finally, since forests play an important role in storing water and stabilizing soil, deforestation and the resulting change in land use cause soil erosion (腐蚀) and other forms of land degradation.

1.The passage discusses all of the following EXCEPT the ________.

    A. causes of deforestation              B. consequences of deforestation

    C. management of deforestation          D. rate of deforestation

2.  The word “diversity” in the last paragraph probably means “________”.

    A. variety                              B. expansion       

    C. development                      D. advantage

3.Why does the author mention fuel and timber in Paragraph 1?

    A. To explain the rate of deforestation.

    B. To compare them with housing and ships.

    C. To show the dangers of deforestation.

    D. To illustrate the causes of deforestation.

4.Which of the following sentences summarizes Paragraph 3 best?

    A. Deforestation threatens biological diversity.

B. Deforestation has many harmful consequences.

    C. Deforestation causes changes in global climate.

    D. Deforestation should be stopped.

   The north magnetic pole (磁极) is no longer a resident of Canada. It has drifted across the Canadian Arctic and is now angling toward Siberia.

   Not to be confused with the geographic North Pole―the northern extremity of the Earth’s axis（地轴），the north magnetic pole (where the Earth’s magnetic field is directed downward) is moving due to natural changes in the Earth’s magnetic field, a process that originates about 3, 000 kilometers below our feet, in the outer core（核心）of the planet. But scientists are now noticing that the magnetic pole has picked up its pace.

   Over the past century, the pole has been migrating at an average speed of about 10 kilometers per year, says Larry Newitt, head of Geomagnetic Laboratory at Natural Resources Canada in Ottawa. Since the 1970s, this speed has increased to about 50 kilometers per year.

   Scientists are wondering why the speed is increasing, says Newitt. One Hypothesis (假说) relates it to “magnetic jerks”, sudden shifts (变化) in the rate of change of the magnetic field. There have been three jerks in the past four decades, each one correlating to an increase in speed.

   If the north magnetic pole continues at its current rate, it could reach Siberia by 2056.

   “For most of recorded history, the pole has been a part of Canada, and now it’s not,” says Newitt. “It may be a blow to our collective psyche, but other than that, it doesn’t have a major effect on most people’s existence.

73. Find in the passage a word closest in meaning to the underlined word “angling”.

74. What could happen to the north magnetic pole by the middle of the 21 century? (回答词数不超过8个)

75. What is the main idea of the passage? （回答词数不超过8个）