Whether I’m looking for a good chat with some old Mends or a quiet place to meet a colleague, the pub will be the place I always choose.
I could, of course, go to a bar. But a pub, I always find, is far more comfortable and has a more relaxed atmosphere.
Many people in the UK also have a favorite pub at the end of the road where they live or nearby to where they work. I can almost always guarantee that I’ll bump into someone I know at my “l(fā)ocal”, as we British call our nearest pub.
In fact, many people from the UK say that the pub is a cornerstone (基礎(chǔ)) of British life. Coming together over a drink, usually of beer, is generally con­sidered the best way to catch up with friends. For those who are a little reserved (內(nèi)向的), as the British sometimes are, it’s the best way to open up and get chatting.
However, this habit is slowly changing among some British people. According to a survey completed in August by UK trade magazine The Publican, eating, rather than drinking, has become the main source of income for our 52,000 pubs.
The gastropub (美食酒吧), with its greater emphasis on food, is primarily responsible. All over the country, this more expensive type of pub has been springing up, providing a place for more formal meetings with business partners. Wine is often drunk instead of the traditional beer.
But not everyone’s happy. Many people hate the fact that some local pubs are closing because new gastropubs are proving more profitable. “Beer sales are sinking and many pubs are struggling to survive,” Rob Haward, of the British Beer and Pub Association, told UK newspaper The Daily Mail.
For my part, I’m going to do all I can to keep the local British pub alive. It will be the first place I visit when I go back home.
小題1:.  The article is mainly about         .

A．the British pub losing popularity	B．the author’s love of pubs
C．how the British socialize	D．the local British pub

小題2:. Many British people say that the pub is a cornerstone of British life because         .

A．it is nearby and convenient

B．it is a great place for meeting friends

C．it is far more comfortable than a bar to have a drink

D．it is easy to bump into people they know in a pub ,

小題3:. From the text, we can conclude that gastropubs         .

A．will replace the local pubs

B．a(chǎn)ttach more importance to drinks

C．a(chǎn)re somewhere between a restaurant and a bar

D．a(chǎn)ttract beer lovers as well as wine lovers

小題4:.  Which of the following is TRUE according to the article?

A．The author is in favor of gastropubs.

B．Wine is thought to show one’s class and taste.

C．British people do not go to pubs as often as be­fore.

D．Local pubs are being seriously affected by gastropubs.

With large and small keyboards everywhere, neither children nor adults need to write much of anything by hand. That’s a big problem. Study after study suggests that handwriting is important for brain development — helping kids get fine motor skills and learn to express and create ideas. Yet the time devoted to teaching penmanship in most schools has shrunk to just one hour a week. Is it time to give up handwriting? Have a look at the link between the brain and penmanship, and you may get the answer.
A test among students in grades 2, 4 and 6 found that they not only wrote faster by hand than by keyboard, but also created more ideas when composing essays with handwriting. And other research shows that the finger movements required to write by hand activate brain areas involved with thought, language, and short-term memory.
A recent Indiana University study had one group of children practice writing letters by hand while a second group just looked at those letters. Then, both groups of kids entered a functional MRI (核磁共振)that scanned their brains as the researchers showed them the same letters. Researchers found that the brain activity in the first group was far more advanced and “adult-like”.
Handwriting also affects other people’s way they think of adults and children. Several studies have shown that the same average essay will score much higher if written with good penmanship and much lower if written out in poor handwriting. These studies have also found that people judge the quality of a person’s ideas based on his or her handwriting. And the consequences are real: On standardized tests with handwritten sections, like the SAT, all essay that is considered hard to recognize gets a big zero.
Studies show that this isn’t only an English-language phenomenon. Chinese and Japanese youths are suffering from “character amnesia”. They can’t remember how to write characters, thanks to computers and text messaging. Some experts fear that Chinese writing and reading are so closely linked in the brain that China’s reading ability as a nation could suffer.
小題1:.
What does the Indiana University study imply?

A．Children should practice writing letters

B．Handwriting can increase brain activity

C．It’s good for children to enter a functional MRI.

D．Letters should often be shown to children

小題2:.
What does the 4th paragraph mainly talk about?

A．Handwriting affects both adults and children.

B．Handwriting helps a person write better essays.

C．SAT should be done with good handwriting.

D．Good handwriting makes a person seem smarter.

小題3:.
Which of the following statements is TRUE?

A．Essays written with keyboards will get lower scores.

B．The quality of your ideas depends on your handwriting.

C．Chinese and Japanese youths don’t know how to write.

D．Less handwriting may affect China’s reading ability.

小題4:.
The passage tries to tell us that __________________.

A．keyboards are more popular than handwriting

B．we shouldn’t judge people by their handwriting

C．handwriting is of great importance

D．it’s time to give up using keyboards

For thousands of years, the most important two buildings in any British village have been the church and the pub. Traditionally, the church and the pub are at the heart of any village or town, where the people gather together to socialize and exchange news.
As a result, British pubs are often old and well preserved. Many of them have become historic sites. The most famous example is the pub in the city of Nottingham called “Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem”, which dates back to the year 1189 AD and is probably the oldest pub in England.
However, British pubs are not just for kings and queens; they welcome people from all classes and parts of society. On a cold night, the pub’s landlord or landlady can always find a warm place for you by the fire. There is always honest and hearty food and plenty of drink available at an affordable price.
That’s how things used to be. Things are beginning to change. It is said that the credit crunch(信貸緊縮) is causing 39 British pubs a week to go out of business. People do not have enough spare money to spend on beer. Recently, the UK government banned smoking in all pubs, and that may also have affected the number of customers going to pubs.
This decline is happening despite the fact that in 2005 the UK government started to allow pubs to stay open after 1l pm. Previously, with 1l pm as closing time, customers would have to drink quite quickly, meaning they sometimes got more drunk than they would if allowed to drink slowly. The British habit of drinking a lot very quickly is known as “binge drinking”, and it causes long-term health problems for people and problems with violent crime for communities.
In order to save their businesses, pubs are trying to change with the market. British pubs now offer something for everyone. A lot of pubs used to be “Working Men's Clubs”, meaning that women could not usually enter. Today, however, women can freely enter 99% of pubs without experiencing any problems. Perhaps things are changing for the better after all.
小題1:. The passage mainly tells us something about       

A．the past and present of British pubs	B．the decline of British pubs
C．the long history of British pubs	D．the importance of British pubs

小題2:. Which may not be the cause of the decline of British pubs?

A．The credit crunch.	B．The present closing time.
C．The ban of smoking.	D．Having no spare money.

小題3:.. We can infer from the passage that       

A．British people used to like drinking slowly

B．closing the pubs early will reduce social problems

C．binge drinking means drinking less beer

D．British government aims to discourage people from binge drinking

小題4:. We can see from the last paragraph that the author ________

A．is against the admission of too many women to the pubs

B．holds an optimistic attitude towards the British pubs

C．thinks that women in the pubs will cause less social problems

D．thinks that British pubs should offer everything you need

Terraforming (Earth-forming) other planets, also known as planetary engineering (行星工程), seems like a task still centuries away for mankind to accomplish. However, it is a vigorous topic that attracts both popular and scientific interest. Why should the possibility of terraforming other planets be studied when it may be centuries before we know enough to even decide if it’s a good idea?
Mankind is getting more and more hard facts about other planets. The atmosphere of Venus has been explored; robots have surveyed the surface of Mars; Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn have been studied by spacecraft. Speculations have been answered; new questions have been raised, and enough hard data is right now becoming available to allow us to make the first attempt of planetary engineering.
In the past, people with excellent ideas about terraforming have kept them to themselves, or buried them in a desk drawer because they did not realize that anyone else was interested. But now, a wide circle of people has begun to do this kind of work. For instance, NASA funded a project on transforming Mars.
There are several strong reasons which demand that the possibilities of terraforming be studied carefully. First, it’s an exciting idea of a possible future for human beings. Such thinking has a valuable role in providing options for our future directions. Secondly, the techniques of terraforming will also help contemporary technologies in weather and climate control. Thirdly, such study may assist us in detecting any possible existence of extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI, The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, 地外文明搜索) and alien (異己的) civilizations on other planets.
Though the mission is far beyond our reach at the moment, we should at least keep our options open. Through debate and study on this subject, the possibility of rebuilding other planets to make them suitable homes for people may come true some day in the future.
小題1:.
. According to the context, what’s the meaning of the word “speculation” in paragraph 2?

A．The act of discussing something with a group of people.

B．The act of studying and researching.

C．The act of guessing without knowing all the facts about something.

D．The acting of writing letters to a certain organization.

小題2:.
Why did people keep the idea of terraforming to themselves in the past?

A．They thought no one else would show interest in the idea.

B．They gradually came to find the idea crazy.

C．They thought the idea would never come true.

D．They had few resources for further study on this topic.

小題3:.
. Which is NOT the reason to support the study of terraforming?

A．Even if we don’t succeed in terraforming, such study may help us to better understand technologies such as climate and weather control.

B．Such study may explore a new direction of development for human beings.

C．Such study may enable us to find the lives on other planets.

D．As the resources on Earth are being drained, it’s very urgent to study how to migrate (遷移) to other planets。

小題4:.
What’s the main idea of the article?

A．It’s highly possible that terraforming other planets will come true so we should increase investing in this program.

B．Even if the idea of terraforming other planets may take centuries to realize, we have many reasons to support such studies.

C．Terraforming other planets is the best option for human being’s future.

D．More and more people are taking planetary engineering as their occupation.

Being a mother is apparently not like it was in the good old days.
　　Today’s parents yearn for the golden age that their own mothers enjoyed in the 1970s and 1980s, researchers found. Mothers have less time to themselves and feel under greater pressure to handle work and family life than the previous generation. As a result, 88 per cent said they felt guilty about the lack of time they spent with their children.
The survey of 1,000 mothers also found that more than a third said they had less time to themselves than their mothers did – just three hours a week or 26 minutes a day. And 64 per cent said this was because they felt they ‘had’ to go out to work, while nearly a third (29 per cent) said they were under constant pressure to be the ‘perfect mother’, the report found.
Other findings showed social networking and parenting websites, as well as technology such as Skype, were important in providing help and support among female communities. Kate Fox, a member of the Social Issues Research Centre, which conducted the survey for Procter & Gamble, said: ‘With increasing pressure on mothers to work a “double shift” — to be the perfect mother as well as a wage-earner — support networks are more important than ever.
It comes as a separate report examining childcare in the leading industrialised nations found that working mothers in Britain spend just 81 minutes a day caring for their children as a ‘primary activity’. Mothers who stay at home, on the other hand, manage twice as much time – more than two and a half hours – looking after their offspring, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
　　Critics say the pressure on women to work long hours, and leave their offspring in the hands of nurseries or childminders, is putting the well-being of their children at risk.
　　The study also reveals that, despite the fact that more and more modern mothers go out to work, the burden of childcare still falls on them - even if their husband is not in work. A father who is not in work tends to spend just 63 minutes a day looking after his child - 18 minutes less than a mother who goes out to work. Working fathers spare less than three quarters of an hour with their children.
小題1:. What does the passage mainly talk about?

A．The good old days of mothers in the 1970s and 1980s.

B．The great sufferings of today’s children.

C．The statistics of working mothers and full-time mothers.

D．The big problems that today’s working mothers face.

小題2:. What does the underlined phrase “yearn for” probably means ___________.

A．hate

B．miss

C．a(chǎn)bandon

D．control

小題3: Which of the following problems is NOT mentioned in the passage?

A．Today’s mothers have less time left for their children and themselves.

B．The working mothers can hardly strike the balance between work and family.

C．Most of the mothers can not control their husbands nowadays.

D．Modern fathers do not spend enough time with their children.

小題4: From para. 4, we can infer that ___________.

A．working mothers can seek help on line

B．Skype is a very famous expert in studying social issues

C．working mothers’ double shift is to be a wife and a mother

D．Kate Fox has opened a website offering help to working mothers

小題5:. What critics say means that _____________.

A．it is wise for working mothers to put their kids in nurseries or childminders

B．too much time in nurseries or childminders is bad for kids’ mental and physical health

C．nurseries or childminders are dangerous places for children

D．children do not like nurseries or childminders at all

XI'AN - China's conservation work for the endangered crested ibis（朱鹮）is facing new challenges, including an increasing mortality rate due to inbreeding, and the conflict between the need to expand natural habitats and local communities' economic interests, bird experts have warned.
The crested ibis, once widespread in Japan, China, Russia and the Korean Peninsula, almost became extinct in the first half of the 20th century.
Before 1981, when seven crested ibis were accidentally found in Yangxian county, in Northwest China's Shaanxi province, academics thought the species had been extinct in China for almost 17 years.
Due to the huge effort put into species protection since 1981, the number of crested ibis in China has risen to an estimated 1,617, including 997 in the wild, the State Forestry Administration said at a meeting on crested ibis protection in Xi'an on Monday.
However, although the ibis population exceeds 1,000, the birds are still not free from the threat of extinction, said Fang Shengguo, director of the State Conservation Center for Gene Resources of Endangered Wildlife at Zhejiang University.
“Ornithologists used inbreeding in the early stages of protection so that numbers of the precious birds could increase quickly, but that method had consequences,” Fang said.
"Studies have proved that as a result of inbreeding, crested ibis have the lowest genetic diversity of all endangered birds," Fang said.
"It means a high mortality rate and more physical defects for hatched chicks."
“The government should collect genetic information from all crested ibis and establish a genetic database as soon as possible, then design a scientific mating plan for the species,” Fang said.
So far, about 90 percent of crested ibis live in Shaanxi province, and fewer than 140 ibis live in three zoos in other parts of the country, including Beijing Zoo, according to Liu Dongping, an assistant researcher at the National Bird Banding Center of China, which is affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Forestry.
The bird has lost the ability to migrate, he said, adding that if an unexpected natural disaster occurred in Shaanxi province or an infectious disease spread through the area, the ibis population could be greatly reduced.
Experts also warned that the increased population of ibis, whether in the wild or in captivity, requires a larger and more varied natural habitat.
Rampant hunting, the massive loss of habitat caused by deforestation and the overuse of pesticides, which killed aquatic insects on which the ibis feed, are believed to be the main reasons for the sharp reduction in the ibis population before 1981.
So, in 1983, a State-level natural reserve was set up in Shaanxi province to protect the bird. But the struggle for living space between human and animal has never stopped, said Lu Baozhong, deputy director of the Shaanxi Crested Ibis Conservation Station.
"For example, ibis often look for loaches in farmers' rice fields. Sometimes their claws trample the rice seedlings. In another case, villagers discovered some land with abundant mineral resources which happened to be a habitat for ibis," said Lu, who has devoted 30 years to ibis protection.
A long-term win-win solution for ibis and local communities needs to be developed, one that would provide ecological compensation for local residents, Lu said.
小題1:. What’s the best title for the passage?

A．The Rare Bird in China	B．New Problems for the Crested Ibis
C．The Way to Save the Crested Ibis	D．The Reason for the Crested Ibis’s Extinction

小題2:  Which of the following statement is TRUE ?

A．The crested ibis is a native of China.

B．Before 1981, the crested ibis was extinct in China.

C．The crested ibis is now free from the threat of extinction.

D．Most of the crested ibis are in Shaanxi province.

小題3:. Why did the experts adopt the way of inbreeding to protect the crested ibis?

A．To increase the mortality rate.

B．To increase the number of the crested ibis.

C．To get more physical defects for hatched chicks

D．To have the lowest diversity of the endangered bird.

小題4:. What may be the reason for the reduction in the population of the crested ibis before 1981?

A．inbreeding	B．economic development
C．over hunting	D．sandstorm

小題5:. What can we learn from the passage?

A．Due to our great efforts, the crested ibis lives in the wild well.

B．Scientists will choose a better habitat for the crested ibis.

C．The problems of the crested ibis have not been solved now.

D．The government has established a genetic database of the crested ibis.

It was a village in India. The people were poor. However, they were not unhappy. After all, their forefathers had lived in the same way for centuries.
Then one day, some visitors from the city arrived. They told the villagers there were some people elsewhere who liked to eat frog’s legs. However, they did not have enough frogs of their own, and so they wanted to buy frogs from other places.
This seemed like money for nothing. There were millions of frogs in the fields around, and they were no use to the villagers. All they had to do was catch them. Agreement was reached, and the children were sent into the fields to catch frogs. Every week a truck arrived to collect the catch and hand over the money. For the first time, the people were able to dream of a better future. But the dream didn’t last long.
The change was hardly noticed at first, but it seemed as if the crops were not doing so well. More worrying was that the children fell ill more often, and, there seemed to be more insects around lately.
The villagers decided that they couldn’t just wait to see the crops failing and the children getting weak. They would have to use the money earned to buy pesticides (殺蟲劑）and medicines. Soon there was no money left.
Then the people realized what was happening. It was the frog. They hadn’t been useless. They had been doing an important job — eating insects. Now with so many frogs killed, the insects were increasing more rapidly. They were damaging the crops and spreading diseases.
Now, the people are still poor. But in the evenings they sit in the village square and listen to sounds of insects and frogs. These sounds of the night now have a much deeper meaning.
小題1:.
. From Paragraph 1 we learn that the villagers      .

A．worked very hard for centuries	B．dreamed of having a better life
C．were poor but somewhat content	D．lived a different life from their forefathers

小題2:.
Why did the villagers agree to sell frogs?

A．The frogs were easy money.	B．They needed money to buy medicine.
C．They wanted to please the visitors.	D．The frogs made too much noise.

小題3:.
. What might be the cause of the children’s sickness?

A．The crops didn’t do well.	B．There were too many insects.
C．The visitors brought in diseases.	D．The pesticides were overused.

小題4:.
What can we infer from the last sentence of the text?

A．Happiness comes from peaceful life in the country.

B．Health is more important than money.

C．The harmony between man and nature is important.

D．Good old days will never be forgotten.

Modern inventions have speeded up people’s lives amazingly. Motor-cars cover a hundred miles in little more than an hour, aircraft cross the world inside a day, while computers operate at lightning speed. Indeed, this love of speed seems never-ending. Every year motor-cars are produced which go even faster and each new computer boasts (吹噓) of saving precious seconds in handling tasks.
All this saves time, but at a price. When we lose or gain half a day in speeding across the world in an airplane, our bodies tell us so. We get the uncomfortable feeling known as jet-lag; our bodies feel that they have been left behind in another time zone. Again, spending too long at computer results in painful wrists and fingers. Mobile phones also have their dangers, according to some scientists; too much use may transmit harmful radiation into our brains, a consequence we do not like to think about.
However, what do we do with the time we have saved? Certainly not relax, or so it seems. We are so accustomed to constant activity that we find it difficult to sit and do nothing, or even just one thing at a time. Perhaps the days are long gone when we might listen quietly to a story on the radio, letting imagination take us into another world.
There was a time when some people’s lives were devoted simply to the cultivation of the land or the care of cattle. No multi-tasking there; their lives went on at a much gentler pace, and in a familiar pattern. There is much that we might envy about a way of life like this. Yet before we do so, we must think of the hard tasks our ancestors faced: they farmed with bare hands, often lived close to hunger, and had to fashion tools from wood and stone. Modern machinery has freed people from that primitive existence.
小題1: The new products become more and more time-saving because       .

A．the manufacturers boast a lot	B．time is limited
C．the prices are increasingly high	D．our love of speed seems never-ending

小題2: What does “the days” in Paragraph 3 refer to?

A．Simple life in the past.	B．Imaginary life.
C．Times of inventions.	D．Time for constant activity.

小題3:. What is the author’s attitude towards the modern technology?

A．Critical.

B．Optimistic.

C．Objective.

D．Negative.

小題4:. What does the passage mainly discuss?

A．The present and past times.	B．Modern technology and its influence.
C．Imaginations and inventions.	D．Machinery and human beings.

A green house is a building made of glass which is used for keeping warm when the outside temperature is low. In a similar way there are several gases in the atmosphere (mixture of gases that surround the earth) which trap the heat produced by the sun and prevent it from escaping. These gases are known as “greenhouse gases”. and the way in which they trap heat in the atmosphere is called the “greenhouse effect”. This is not simply air pollution. Most of the main greenhouse gases exist naturally in small amounts in our atmosphere, and without them the earth would be 30 degrees colder and human life would not exist. In other words, the greenhouse effect is a natural course which is to some degree helpful to us.
The problem is that in the last century and a half, we have been putting too many of these gases into the earth’s atmosphere by burning large quantities of coal and oil and by cutting down forest. The rapid increase in greenhouse gases is making the world warmer. The world’s temperature has already gone up by half a degree this century, and the sea level has risen by 10 centimetres. If the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubles, there will probably be a rise in the earth’s temperature of between I and 4℃;. This may seem a small increase, but it would be enough to cause major changes in geography and agriculture. Large areas of the world would be flooded, and some areas would become dry and unable to produce crops. It is important, too, to consider that there may be a delay of about 30 years in the greenhouse effect. This means that we are probably experiencing only now the effect of the gases put into the atmosphere before the 1960s. Since then, our use of these gases has greatly increased.
小題1: According to the passage, we can know “greenhouse effect” means_______.  

A．the way in which gases are used for keeping plants warm

B．a(chǎn) natural course that is to a certain degree useful to us

C．the way “greenhouse gases” trap heat on the earth

D．the whole course in which greenhouse gases prevent heat

小題2: If there were no greenhouse effect,_______.

A．a(chǎn)ll plants would not grow on our planet	B．soil would reduce the temperature by 30 degrees
C．man would breathe the cleaner air	D．people couldn’t live in the earth

小題3: Which of the following is not true?

A．Burning too much coal and oil produces lots of greenhouse gases.

B．It has become warm on the earth now than in the past.

C．Gases put into the atmosphere now will affect the earth years later.

D．The temperature in a greenhouse is as high as that in the atmosphere.

小題4: Suppose the earth’s temperature rose by 3 degrees, _______. 

A．great harm will be done to mankind	B．the sea level would go up by 10 centimeters
C．a(chǎn)ll the land in the world would be flooded	D．crops would be unable to grow on the earth

小題5: This passage mainly deals with ________.

A．the concept (概念) and the harm of the greenhouse	B．the relation between greenhouse gases and man
C．the concept and change of greenhouse effect	D．the effect of the rise of the earth’s temperature

Chinese tradition says a different animal represents each new year of the 12-year Chinese Zodiac(黃道十二宮) cycle. According to the Chinese calendar, the year you were born may determine your personality. Every year of this cycle is represented by an animal, and legend has it that people born under that animal have certain personality traits. Here are some of them:
Dragon
The Real Thing: The mythical dragon is a symbol of power and good fortune in Chinese culture. One of the most popular figures in Chinese art, the dragon is believed to be a combination of nine animals, including a frog, a tiger, an eagle, and a fish.
Born a Dragon: You go out of your way to help your friends, who often seek you out for advice. Your outgoing personality helps you get along with many types of people.
Snake
The Real Thing: Snakes have great instincts. Some “play dead” to fool predators（捕食者）, and most sense prey by detecting ground vibration（震動(dòng)）. They can take more than an hour to swallow a meal, and they become inactive for up to two weeks before they shed their skin.
Born a Snake: You rely on yourself before asking others their opinions. At times you want to take a break from the action. It’s not that you are lazy---sometimes you just like to think.
Pig
The Real Thing: Domesticated（馴養(yǎng)）pigs have been helping human for about 9,000 years. Incredibly intelligent, a pig shows its smarts by rolling in mud and sticking its snout in dirt. Why? The mud keeps it cool, and rooting in the dirt provides important vitamins.
Born a Pig: Smart and caring, you live to help other people. You have great taste and love to wallow in the nicer things in life.
Rat
The Real Thing: Most rats are highly adaptable. They can live just about anywhere and eat about anything. Before brown rats leave their underground burrows, these clever creatures send one rat ahead to make sure danger doesn’t exist outside.
Born a Rat: You welcome challenges and enjoy learning about new things. Funny and smart, you are generous and will protect your pack of friends. 
______
The Real Thing: The largest of the big cats, they hunt alone. They secretly move towards prey, then leap and attack when the time seems right. Dinner still escapes most of the time.
Born a _____: You are a natural leader but often like to do things by yourself. (That’s how you stay in charge!) You believe in fighting for what’s right, even if you’ll lose in the end.
小題1:  According to the description of the last animal, we can choose _____ to fill in the blanks. 

A．Tiger

B．Lion

C．Ox

D．Monkey

小題2:   The underlined word “snout” probably means _____.

A．back

B．nose

C．head

D．tail