In 1953, the New Zealander Edmund Hillary, then 33, joined a British Qomolangma expedition led by Colonel John Hunt. Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans were the first team to attempt the summit (頂峰). Despite a violent storm, they reached the South Summit — at 28,700 feet (8,748 meters) — by 1 p.m. on May 26. But both men knew they would run out of oxygen if they went on. They agreed to turn back.
Two days later, Hillary and Norgay, set out from Camp IX at 25,900 feet to make the next attempt. At 27,900 feet they made a temporary camp on a six foot wide rock to spend the night. At 6:30 the next morning, cheered by clearing skies, the team moved out. Roped together, cutting steps with their ice axes, they inched up a steep, knife-edged ridge (山脊) southeast of the summit. They reached the South Summit by 9:00 a.m.
Farther up, they met a 40-foot icy rock face, which was later named the Hillary Step. “…looking up at the rock step at 29,000 feet, it really did look extremely difficult to overcome,” said Hillary. But they found a narrow crack on the surface of the rock, just large enough to move inside on hands and knees, and managed to climb it by supporting feet against one side and backs against the other. Hillary said, “That was really the first moment during the whole of the expedition that I was confident that we were going to get to the top.” 
The last few yards to the summit were relatively easy. “Then I realized that the ridge, instead of rising ahead, now dropped sharply away,” Hillary said. “I looked upward to see a narrow ridge running up to a sharp point. …and we stood on the summit.” It was 11:30 a.m. on May 29, 1953.
【小題1】What is the passage mainly about? 

A．The climbing history of Qomolangma.

B．The life and achievements of Edmund Hillary.

C．How Hillary and Norgay conquered Qomolangma.

D．How the Hillary Step got its name.

【小題2】At what height did Hillary and Norgay set out on May 29? 

A．25,900 feet.	B．27,900 feet.
C．28,700 feet.	D．29,000 feet.

【小題3】According to Paragraph 2, one of the main advantages to Hillary and Norgay was        .

A．fine weather conditions	B．good rest the night before
C．enough food supplies	D．good climbing skills

【小題4】When looking back, Hillary described the Hillary Step as        .

A．much easier to climb than she expected

B．impossible for her to overcome again

C．easy to climb up but hard to climb down

D．one of the biggest barriers before the summit

In recent years, the world has made progress in reducing deaths among children under the age of five. A new report says an estimated 6.9 million children worldwide died before their fifth birthday. That compares to about twelve million in1990.

The report says child mortality rates have fallen in all areas. It says the number of deaths is down by at least 50 percent in eastern, western and southeastern Asia. The number also fell in North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Ties Boerma is head of the WHO’s Department of Health Statistics and Informatics. He says most child deaths happen in just a few areas.

TIES BOERMA: “Sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia face the greatest challenges in child survival. More than eighty percent of child deaths in the world occur in these two regions. About half of child deaths occur in just five countries—India, which actually takes twenty-four percent of the global total; Nigeria, eleven percent; the Democratic Republic of Congo, seven percent; Pakistan, five percent and China, four percent of under-five deaths in the world.”

Ties Boerma notes that, in developed countries, one child in one hundred fifty-two dies before his or her fifth birthday. But south of the Sahara Desert, one out of nine children dies before the age of five. In Asia, the mortality rate is one in sixteen.  

The report lists the top five causes of death among children under five worldwide. They are pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and problems both before and during birth.

Tessa Wardlaw is with the U-N Children’s Fund. She is pleased with the progress being made in Sub-Saharan Africa. The area has the highest under-five mortality rate in the world. But she says the rate of decline in child deaths has more than doubled in Africa.

TESSA WARDLAW: “We welcome the widespread progress in child survival, but we importantly want to stress that there’s a lot of work that remains to be done. There’s unfinished business and the fact is that today on average, around nineteen thousand children are still dying every day from largely preventable causes.”

The World Health Organization says one way to solve these problems is to make sure health care services are available to women. In this way, medical problems can be avoided or treated when identified.

1.Since 1990, the number of the children who died before 5 in the world has dropped by about__________.

A．6,900,000         B．12,000,000        C．1,200,000         D．5,100,000

2. What does the underlined word “mortality” ( in Paragraph 2)mean?

A．illness            B．reduction         C．death            D．problem

3.According to the passage, the readers are likely to believe that __________.

A．child mortality rates have fallen just in five areas

B．Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest under-five mortality rate in the world

C．in developed countries, no children die before the age of five

D．the world has made little progress in reducing the rates of child mortality

4.______ is the top-one cause of death among children under five worldwide.

A．Global warming     B．Malaria           C．Pneumonia        D．Diarrhea

5.What will be probably referred to in the following paragraph?

A．Women do not want to have babies.

B．How more health care services are available to women.

C．Medical problems are completely solved.

D．The World Health Organization.

 

There are over 58000 rocky objects in ______space，about 900 of which could fall down onto ______ earth.

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

 

 There are over 58, 000 rocky objects in _______ space, about 900 of which could fall down onto _______ earth.

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

 

.There are over 58000 rocky objects in _______space，about 900 of which could fall down onto ______earth。

A. the；the   B. 不填；the   C. the； 不填   D. 不填；不填