The United Nations says forty million people or so around the world went hungry in 2008, mainly because of higher food prices. Early estimates from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) show that 963 million people did not get enough to eat.
World food prices have dropped since early 2008. Prices of major crops have decreased by more than half from their height earlier last year. But they remain high compared to earlier years.
But FAO official Hafez Ghanem says lower prices have failed to end the food crisis (危機(jī)) in many poor countries. “For millions in developing countries,” he says, “getting enough food every day to live an active and healthy life is a distant dream. ”
The FAO says food shortage is a threat to people's health. Today, two-thirds of the world's undernourished people live in just a few countries. These are India, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Ethiopia and so on.
A report on food insecurity warns that the current economic crisis could send even more people into hunger and poverty.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the percentage of the people who continually go hungry fell from 34% in 1997 to 30% in 2008. But the FAO says Ghana is the only country that has reached two sets of hunger reduction targets. These were set by the 1996 World Food Summit and the Millennium Development Goals. The main reason is the growth in agricultural production in Ghana.
The FAO says some countries in Southeast Asia like Thailand and Vietnam have made progress in hunger reduction goals. But South Asia and Central Asia haven't, and North Korea is still in hot water.
【小題1】What FAO official Hafez Ghanem says implies（暗示）__________

From James Dean to Growing Pains, Hollywood has long had a love affair with the relationship between teens and their parents. As the fascination with this relationship attests, parents play a crucial role in the development of their children's personalities.
Teenagers learn by closely observing what people around them do. Parents are literally their first teachers and serve as role models. From hygiene to habits, from time management to personal manner, parents form the foundation of their children's characteristics. These tiny individual factors on our everyday behavior collectively constitute who we are.
A second influence occurs at the spiritual level. Parental treatment of children is reflected in children's relationship with others. For example, my dad was quite angry with my study habits a few years back and lost his temper.I clearly remember that I too would easily lose my cool and shout at people, often saying things I later regretted, in those difficult days.
Parents of my fellow classmates often tend to be anxious about the studies of their children, which can lead to a lack of confidence in their children. If we are boats weathering a storm as we navigate toward maturity, then parents should be our captains. It is as easy to lead us to shipwreck as is to take us ashore safely.
To be fair, the guidance and influence of our parents are not the sole factors in molding us. There are numerous examples of teens forging their own paths and becoming something of which their parents never dreamed. Even so, parents must be a fundamental force that positively influences their children. At their best, they can help to solve teenage problems with a respect for their children's thoughts.
【小題1】 James Dean and Growing Pains in the first paragraph are described as follows EXCEPT    .

Dear Students,
I am delighted to be your guest.
I would like to tell you about myself. I have been a news reporter for the past fifteen years. I chose this job so I could travel the world, but the job has taught me many unforgettable lessons. The work is sometimes difficult. I have seen famines, wars, earthquakes, poverty and death. But I have also seen courage, hope and happiness.
In India, I visited a city where there were many homeless children. Some were as young as four years old. They lived in the streets and survived by begging or stealing. But then a wonderful lady called Rosa opened a home for them. Within one year, she was looking after two hundred children. She clothed them, fed them, and taught them. She gave them hope.
Another time, I was in Turkey after a terrible earthquake, in one place. I found an old lady whose house was in ruins, her son was missing and rescue workers said there was no chance that he was still alive. But the old lady did not give up hope. For four days, she moved heavy stones one at a time by herself. She did not stop until she found her son. He was alive.
Here in China, I met a young boy with a serious condition. He had undergone twenty operations and spent nearly his whole life in hospital. I thought he would be sad, but when I met him, his smile was so warm and welcoming.
In life, we need role models that we can admire and learn from. When my life is difficult, I try to remember the courage and goodness of these three people.
【小題1】The speaker is giving a speech to students in __________.

Technology today has stolen away our voices and robbed our children of memories. I’ve been keeping count of how often people sing around the house these days. The fact is, they don’t.
My earliest memories are of my mother crooning lullabies(催眠曲) in a gentle low voice as she rocked each infant in turn. She said she “didn’t have a singing voice,” but her low, wavering alto will always mean comfort to me. Every time I have sat through the night with a feverish body or held a pre – schooler through a nightmare, the melodies returned, words appearing and disappearing like fragments of a dream but held together by the hum (低聲吟唱)of love.
Today, young mothers are routinely presented with lullaby tapes at the baby shower. When baby cries, the idea goes, they will be able to switch on the high-tech audio system and the little one will drift off with the voices of strangers in his ears, perfectly on pitch. If I had my way, new parents would learn the songs themselves, throw out their stereos, and give their child the gift of their own sleepy voices through the midnight hours.
These days, when we go on a trip, my daughters take along tiny personal stereos and headphones. They are lost in their private worlds, and I can’t help wishing that at least here, in the car my girls would be forced to listen to their mother’s voice raised in lost – the – words again, sure I’m out－of－tune songs that they might then pass down to another generation. Those sophisticated earphones have robbed them of something I think every kid should carry from childhood car trips into adulthood.
I drove away from that party humming, and all the way home the good old songs kept tumbling out. Dammit (該死), I thought, why did I ever stop singing in the car and start turning on the radio instead? Why don’t I sign anymore while I’m doing the dishes? I’m going to yank those stereo wires right out of the wall when I get home. We’re going to sing grace before meals, sing coals around the piano, sing in the shower instead of switching on that waterproof radio that stol away our voices and our souls.
63．The author hates today’s technology because________
A．driving a car requires high concentration
B．children are learning pop songs from tapes
C．children have lost touch with good old songs
D．high – tech systems do not record the voices of aged people
64．The underlined sentence “the little one will drift off” in Paragraph 3 means that “________ ”.
A．the play of the high – tech system is of little use
B．the high – tech system will play on and on
C．the low voice will delight the baby
D．the baby will slowly go to sleep
65．To the author, the voices of strangers ________       .
A．a(chǎn)re not familiar to the baby
B．lack the motherly love the baby needs
C．work better to stop the baby’s cry
D．surely sound more pleasant
66．What the author wishes to make her girls do is to________          .
A．help memorize the words while she is singing
B．take off their well – designed earphones
C．listen and learn the old songs from her
D．remember their childhood car trips

第三部分閱讀理解(共20小題；每小題2分，滿分40分)
閱讀下列短文，從每題所給的四個選項(A、B、C和D)中，選出最佳選項。
　　Many people will remember the flight of the space shuttle（航天飛機(jī)）challenger，in June，1983. The achievement of Sally Ride，America’s first woman astronaut to fly into space，made this flight especially memorable. Students from two Camden, New Jersey, high schools, however, are probably to remember Norma rather than Sally whenever they think about the flight.
　　Norma didn’t travel alone. She brought about 100 companions along with her. Norma was an ant，a queen ant who，with her subject，made up the first ant colony（群體）to travel into space. The ants were part of a science experiment designed by students to test the effects of weightlessness on insects.
　　The equipment designed by the students for their colony functioned perfectly throughout the long space trip. The young scientists and their teachers were very sad to find that their insect astronauts had all died at some point before the container was returned to the school and opened. The problem didn’t occur in space，but on the ground after challenger had landed. The container remained in the desert for nearly a week before the ant colony was moved. The hot，dry desert air dried out the colony’s container and the ants died from lack of moisture（水分）.
　　The project was termed success because it did provide useful information. Students will continue their efforts to pinpoint（精確找到）what went wrong. They will try to prevent the same difficulties from reoccurring on future missions. They don’t want to be discouraged either by the demise of the ants or by the $ 10,000 shuttle fare they will have to pay to send the next colony of ants into space.
51．What does the passage mainly tell us？
A．Sally Ride，America’s first woman astronaut.
B．How to keep ants alive in space.
C．How to make equipment for insects in space.
D．An experiment with ants in space.
52．According to the passage, we know that the underlined word“demise”is another word for“_____”.
A．death 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　B．colony
C．insect　　　　　　　　　　　　　　D．moisture
53．We don’t think the project was a failure. This is because_____.
A．everything went as smoothly as expected
B．the students had pinpointed exactly the reason
C．something important had been learned
D．the students had succeeded in the experiment
54．We can conclude that ants _____ on the next space trip.
A．will have to be kept alive in a container full of water
B．will have to be sent into space with the first woman astronaut
C．should be put into a container where there is enough food
D．should be put into a container which is not too dry