.

       Our brains work in complex and strange ways. There are some people who can calculate the day of the week for any given date in 40,000 years, but who cannot add two plus two. Others can perform complex classical piano pieces after hearing them once, but they cannot read or write.

       Dr．J．Langdon Down first described this condition in 1887．He called these people idiot savants. An idiot savant is a person who has significant mental impairment （損傷） , such as in autism or retardation.  At the same time, the person also exhibits some extraordinary skills, which are unusual for most people．The skills of the savant may vary from being exceptionally gifted in music or in mathematics, or having a photographic memory.

       One of the first descriptions of a human who could calculate quickly was written in 1789 by Dr．Benjamin Rush, an American doctor．His patient, Thomas Fuller, was brought to Virginia as a slave in 1724. It took Thomas only 90 seconds to work out that a man who has lived 70 years, 17 days, and 12 hours has lived 2,210,500,800 seconds．Despite this ability, he died in 1790 without ever learning to read or write．

       Another idiot savant slave became famous as a pianist in the 1860s. Blind Tom had a vocabulary of only 100 words, but he played 5 ,000 musical pieces beautifully．

       In the excellent movie Rain Man, made in 1988 and available on video cassette, Dustin Hoffman plays an idiot savant who amazes his brother played by Tom Cruise, with his ability to perform complex calculations very rapidly.

       Today we more clearly recognize that the idiot savant is special because of brain impairment．Yet not all brain impairment leads to savant skills．Some studies have shown that people who have purposeful interruption of the left side of the brain can develop idiot savant skills. However,few people wish to participate in such experiments. There are many excellent reasons for not undergoing unnecessary experimentation on one's brain. The term idiot savant is outdated and inappropriate. Virtually all savants have a high degree of intelligence and are thus not idiots.

48．What does the passage mainly talk about?

       A．Idiot savants have areas of outstanding abilities．

       B．Human Beings have complicated thinking process．

       C．The brains of the idiot savants are partly impaired．

       D．The reasons why people have wonderful skills vary．

49．Which of the following can be done by Rain Man?

       A．He can play wonderful pieces of classical music．

       B．He can guess out exactly the length of a man's life．

       C．He can memorize the contents of the pictures fast．

       D．He can count matches dropped on the floor quickly．

50．What can you infer from the passage?

       A．Idiot savants have real talents for art and math．

       B．Dr．Down is the first person who found idiot savants．

       C．Few people wish to risk becoming savants by brain operations．

       D．Intentional left brain impairments will surely lead to idiot savants．

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第三節(jié)  書面表達(滿分30分)

假設(shè)你校舉行題為“網(wǎng)吧的危害（Harmful Influence of Cyber Centers）”的征文活動。請根據(jù)下圖寫一篇英語短文，描述圖中的內(nèi)容，并就其反映的現(xiàn)象發(fā)表評論和提出方案。

要點提示：

 1. 一位父親在找兒子 2. 街上滿是網(wǎng)吧   3. 兒子在網(wǎng)吧玩

 4. 描述網(wǎng)吧多的現(xiàn)狀 5. 網(wǎng)吧的危害（評論） 6. 解決方案

注意：

1. 詞數(shù)：100左右；

2. 可適當(dāng)增添細節(jié)，以使行文連貫；

3. 文中不可使用真實姓名和學(xué)校名稱；

4. 參考詞匯：網(wǎng)吧:cyber center。

.

Last year the factory ______ over six million records.

A. put forward    B. put down    C. put out    D. put through

.

—___________ is the population of the United States?

     —I don’t know exactly, but I’m sure that it has __________ population than China.

A. How much; much less      B. How many; fewer

     C. What; much less           D. What; a much smaller

.

Mary has _________ 18-year-old daughter who has ________ gift for singing.

A. a; a     B. an; the    C. an; a     D. the; a

.

 She carefully ______ her clothes and her hair before going into her office.

       A. operated            B. obeyed              C. dragged                    D. adjusted

.

 —— John wants to see you today.

  —— I would rather he ____ tomorrow instead of today.

    A. come              B. has come          C. should come      D. came

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Who doubts ______ he will visit the temple？.

   A .that   B. whether   C. if  D. which

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Commercial (商業(yè)廣告) business is profitable (有利可圖的),and most radio and TV stations depend on the income.  The prices for radio and TV commercials are different according to the popularity (聲望) of the station and the time they give. Take WGY, a rock music station in Albary, New York, for instance, they ask $100 for a one-minute commercial from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., the morning driving time. This is a time when people are driving on their way to work and they like to turn on their car-radios.

During other hours of the day the cost varies (變化) from $25 to $60 for one minute. TV commercials are much more expensive. During a good national or international football game or baseball game, the price for a one-minute TV commercial may reach as high as $100,000. On local TV station, prices of commercials are different according to the different programmes and the time of showing. At 7 p.m., when the TV stations are showing their most popular programmes, the price for a commercial for 30 seconds is $800.

49. This passage mainly tells that ________.

A. WGY, a rock music station earns much money by broadcasting commercials

B. the prices for commercials are different according to the different programmes

C. TV commercials are much more expensive than radio ones

D. commercial business can help most radio and TV stations earn a lot of money

50. The prices for radio and TV stations depend mainly on _______.

A. different radio and TV stations

B. different time the commercials are given

C. the most popular programmes

D. all of the above

51. How much does WGY, a rock music station ask for a half minute commercial at 9 a.m.?

A. $25    B. $50     C. $60     D. $100

52. When a commercial is shown at 7 a.m. on the local TV station for one minute, it will cost ________.

A. eight hundred dollars B. eighty hundred dollars

C. sixteen hundred dollars     D. sixty hundred dollars

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第三節(jié)  書面表達（滿分30分）

假如你叫李華，最近你校在為一批來自英國的學(xué)生征尋住宿家庭，你有意申請。請用英語給校長寫封信，說明你申請的理由：

1、住房寬敞，有私家車；  2、擅長英語，樂于交流；         3、去年接待過英國學(xué)生。

注意：1、詞數(shù)100左右；               2、可適當(dāng)增加細節(jié)以使行文連貫；

  3、信得開頭已為你寫好，不計入總詞數(shù)。

Dear Sir,

I’m writing to request a valuable chance to be one of the host families for the British students.

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

Yours,

                                                                       Li Hua