Karen, grown up in a very traditional family in the western United States, maintained high moral（道德的）standards throughout her youth. In 1984, at the age of 23, she married Bill. They

were blessed with two children, a boy and a girl.

       By 1991 their love had deepened, and they were happy. Later that year, Bill developed a white spot on his tongue. He visited a doctor.

       One day shortly after that, Bill called Karen to sit beside him. He said with tears in his eyes that he loved her and wanted to live forever with her. The doctor suspected that he had been infected with HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS.

The family was tested, Bill and Karen’s results were positive. Bill had become infected before he met Karen then he passed the virus on to Karen. The children’s results were negative. Within three years. Bill was dead, “I don’t know how to express what it is like to watch the once handsome man you love and intend to live with forever dying slowly. I cried many nights. He died three months short of ten years of our marriage,” says Karen. Though a doctor told Karen that she would soon follow her husband into death, she is still alive. The infection has progressed to the early stages of AIDS.

Karen is hut one of about 30 million people now living with HIV/AIDS, a figure larger than the combined populations of Australia. Ireland and Paraguay. According to one UN report, Africa has 21 million of these victims. By the turn of the century that number could reach 40 million and the disease will bring on the greatest disaster in human history. Of the world’s sexually active adults aged 15 to 49. 1 in 100 has already been infected with HIV. Of these, only 1 in 10 realizes that he or she is infected. In some parts of Africa, 25 percent of the adults are infected.

Since the beginning of the spread of AIDS in1981, about 11.7 million people have died of it. It is roughly calculated that in 1997 alone, about 2.3 million people died of it. Nevertheless, there are fresh reasons for optimism in the battle against AIDS. During the past few years, there has been a drop in new AIDS cases in wealthy nations. In addition, promising drugs hold out hope of better health and longer life.

By telling the story of Karen , the author intends to             .

A．warn people against high risk behaviors

B．stress the importance of medical tests

C．express sympathy for AIDS victims

D．show the consequences of AIDS

The underlined part in Paragraph 1 most probably means “            ”.

A．were lucky in having

B．were asked to adopt

C．regretted having

D．gave birth to

Bill was suspected of being infected with HIV after            .

A．he got married to Karen

B．the family members were tested

C．Karen persuaded him to see the doctor

D．he found something wrong with his tongue

It can be concluded from the passage that            .

A．promising drugs will soon stop AIDS

B．the spread of AIDS could be controlled

C．it is hopeless to win the battle against AIDS

D．the death rate of AIDS patients has been reduced

In the old days, children were familiar with birth and death as part of life. Now this is perhaps the first generation of American youngsters who have never been close by during of the birth a baby and have never experienced the death of a family member.

Nowadays when people grow old, we often send them to nursing homes. When they get sick, we send them to a hospital, where children are forbidden to visit terminally (晚期的）in patients— even when those patients are their parents. This deprives（剝奪）the dying patient of family members during the last few days of his life and it deprives the children of an experience of death, which is an important learning experience.

Some of my colleagues and I once interviewed and followed about 500 terminally in order to find out what they could teach us and how we could be of more benefit, not just to them but to the members of their families as well. We were most impressed by the fact that even those patients who were not told of their serious illness were quite aware of its potential outcome.

It is important for family members, and doctors and nurses to understand these patients’ communication in order to truly understand their needs, fears and fantasies . Most of our patients welcomed another human being with whom they could talk openly, honestly, and frankly about their trouble. Many of them shared with us their great need to be informed, to be kept up - to - date on their medical condition and to be told when the end was near. We found out that patients who had been dealt with openly and frankly were better able to cope with the coming of death and finally to reach a true stage of acceptance before death.

The elders of today's Americans _______ .

A. are often absent when a family member is born or dying

B. are unfamiliar with birth and death

C. usually see the birth or death of a family member

D. have often experienced the fear of death as part of life

Children in America are deprived of the chance to________.

A. visit a patient at hospital   B. visit their family members

C. learn how to face death    D. look after the patients

The need of a dying patient for people to accompany him shows________.

A. his wish for communication with other people      B. his fear of death   

C. his unwillingness to die             D. he feels very upset about his condition

It may be concluded from the passage that________.

A. dying patients should be truthfully informed of their condition

B. dying patients are afraid of being told of the coming of death

C. most patients are unable to accept death until it can’t be avoided

D. most doctors and nurses understand what dying patients need

Have you ever dreamed of visiting a planet in the Milk Way? While the trip sounds exciting, it would take years and years to reach your destination. So in the future, bedtime for astronauts may be more than a few hours of regular shut-eye. They would have to sleep for years.

European researchers are now conducting hibernation experiments. The study may help them understand whether humans could ever sleep through the years it would take for a space flight to distant planets. "If there was an effective technology, it could make deep-space travel a reality," said Mark Ayre of the European Space Agency last month.

What seems like science fiction is not completely unlikely. Researchers have been able to use chemicals to put living cells into a sleep-like state where they don't age. They have now moved on to small, non-hibernating mammals like rats. The results will be out by the end of 2004.

A major challenge is the fact that cells can be very simple systems, whereas body organs are far more complex.

"It's like moving from a simple Apple computer to a supercomputer," said Marco Biggiogera, a hibernation researcher at Italy's University of Pavia.

Just like bears and frogs, the hibernation of human beings would cause a person's metabolism (新陳代謝) to lower so they would need less energy.

Medical research, however, is just half of a space flight hibernation system.

There is the challenge of designing a suitable protective shelter. Such a shelter would provide the proper environment for hibernation, such as the proper temperature. It would also have to monitor (監(jiān)控) life functions and serve the physiological needs of the hibernator.

According to Ayre, the six-person Human Outer Planets Exploration Mission to Jupiter's moon (木星的衛(wèi)星) Callisto, could be an opportunity to use human hibernation. The mission aims to send six humans on a five-year flight to Callisto, where they will spend 30 days, in 2045.

9. European researchers are conducting hibernation experiments to ________.

A. ensure astronauts to get a complete sleep  B. find the secret of some creatures

C. make preparations for the journey to Jupiter’s moon Callisto

D. know if man can sleep for years

 10. The sentence “What seems like science fiction is not completely unlikely” means ______.

A. Science fiction is people’s imagination.

B. Science fiction is imaginative, but it can be realized.

C. Things seem impossible may come true.

D. Things described in science fiction are sure to become true.

11. The passage is implied but doesn’t states that ________.

A. putting living cells into a sleep-like state is full of failure

B. Biggiogera is confident with the experiment

C. human’s hibernation needs no energy

D. medical research is the key to space flight hibernation system

12. By designing a suitable protective shelter, astronauts can ________.

A. have a good hibernation        B. lessen the pressure of traveling in space

C. feed themselves in spaceship    D. moinitor their body changes

13. What’s the best title for the passage?

A. Six humans to fly to Callisto  B. Human hibernation improves health

C. Space travel attracts people   D. Deep sleep for deep space travel

If you look for a book as a present for a child, you will be spoiled for choice even in a year when there is no new Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling’s wizard is not alone: the past decade has been a harvest for good children’s books, which has set off a large quantity of films and in turn led to increased sales of classics such as The Lord of the Rings.

Yet despite that, reading is increasingly unpopular among children. According to statistics, in 1997 23% said they didn’t like reading at all. In 2003, 35% did. And around 6% of children leave primary school each year unable to read properly.

Maybe the decline is caused by the increasing availability of computer games. Maybe the books boom has affected only the top of the educational pile. Either way, Chancellor Gordon Brown plans to change things for the bottom of the class. In his pre-budget report, he announced the national project of Reading Recovery to help the children struggling most.

Reading Recovery is aimed at six-year-olds, who receive four months of individual daily half- hour classes with a specially trained teacher. An evaluation earlier this year reported that children on the scheme made 20 months’ progress in just one year, whereas similarly weak readers without special help made just five months’ progress, and so ended the year even further below the level expected for their age.

International research tends to find that when British children leave primary school they read well, but read less – often for fun than those elsewhere. Reading for fun matters because children who are keen on reading can expect lifelong pleasure and loving books is an excellent indicator of future educational success. According to the OECD, being a regular and enthusiastic reader is of great advantage.

Which of the following is true of Paragraph 1?

A. Many children’s books have been adapted from films.

B. Many high-quality children’s books have been published.

C. The sales of classics have led to the popularity of films.

D. The sales of presents for children have increased.

Statistics suggested that ___.

A. the number of top students increased with the use of computers.

B. a decreasing number of children showed interest in reading.

C. a minority of primary school children read properly.

D. a large percentage of children read regularly.

What do we know about Reading Recovery?

A. An education of it will be made sometime this year.

B. Weak readers on the project were the most hardworking.

C. It aims to train special teachers to help children with reading.

D. Children on the project showed noticeable progress in reading.

Reading for fun is important because book-loving children ____.

A. takes greater advantage of the project.

B. shows the potential to enjoy a long life.

C. is likely to succeed in their education.

D. would make excellent future researchers.

The aim of this text would probably be ____.

A. to overcome primary school pupils’ reading difficulty.

B. to encourage the publication of more children’s books.

C. to remind children of the importance of reading for fun.

D. to introduce a way to improve early childhood reading.

The history of newspapers is an often-dramatic chapter of the human experience going back some six centuries.In Renaissance Europe handwritten newsletters circulated(發(fā)行) privately among merchants,passing along information about everything from wars and economic conditions to social customs and “human interest” features.The first printed newspaper appeared in Germany in the late 1400s in the form of news pamphlets(小冊(cè)子) or broadsides.

In the English-speaking world,the earliest predecessors(前身) of the newspaper were corantos,small news pamphlets produced only when some event worthy of notice occurred.The first successively published title was The Weekly News of 1622.The first true newspaper in English was the London Gazette of 1666.  

In America the first newspaper appeared in Boston in 1690,entitled Public Occurrences.Published without official permission,it was immediately suppressed(查禁).Its publisher was arrested,and all copies were destroyed.The first successful newspaper was the Boston News-Letter,begun by postmaster John Campbell in 1704.By the eve of the Revolutionary War,some two dozen papers were issued at all the colonies.At the war’s end in 1783 there were forty-three newspapers in print. The Bill of Rights in 1791 at last guaranteed freedom of the press,and America’s newspapers began to take on a central role in national affairs.By 1814 there were 346 newspapers.

In the 1830s,advances in printing and papermaking technology led to an explosion of newspaper growth—the emergence(出現(xiàn)) of the “Penny Press”;it was now possible to produce a newspaper that could be sold for just a cent a copy.The cheap newspaper helped people to get more interesting reading materials easily.In 1850,there were 2526 different papers.By the 1910s,all the basic features of the modern newspaper had emerged.

Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?

A.Handwritten newsletters came out publicly in Renaissance Europe.

B.The first printed newspaper was seen about six hundred years ago.

C.The first successively published newspaper in the English-speaking world was corantos.

D.In America the first newspaper was successful as soon as it appeared.

What does the underlined phrase “Penny Press” in the last paragraph mean?

A.People can press pennies easily.

B.People can produce newspapers with little cost.

C.It is a penny factory.

D.The name of the press owner is Penny.

What is the main reason for newspapers in the USA increasing so fast in the 1830s?

A.The pass of the Bill of Rights in 1791.

B.Newspapers began to take on a central role in national affairs.

C.Advances in printing and papermaking technology.

D.All the basic features of the modern newspaper had emerged

Which of the following is NOT a newspaper?

A. Public Occurrences.

B. The Boston News-Letter.

C. The Bill of Rights.

D. The London Gazette.