BEIJING, China (CNN)-- China's economic growth dropped to 9 percent for 2008, according to numbers released by the government Thursday--in line with expectations, but still the slowest rate the nation has seen in seven years.
Economists are concerned about what the slowdown means for investment in the future, whether new projects will be undertaken in manufacturing companies and in factories. If not, it will translate into more job losses and erase any optimism about a rebound (反弹) in 2009.
Since 2001, China has been used to double-digit growth as consumers buy Chinese goods. However, the export sector was hit hard in late 2008, with December exports down 2.8 percent.
Consumer spending has mostly held up in China, as people there do not carry as much debt as their American counterparts and can continue to spend.
Consumer confidence, however, is a problem, said Dong Tao, Asia chief economist for Credit Suisse. Infrastructure (基础设施的建设) is the only thing driving the Chinese economy, Dong said.
Tens of thousands of Chinese factories have closed, millions of people are looking for jobs and an untold number of migrants who can't find work may be leaving cities for good because of the slowdown, which would have been unheard of six months ago.
Fourth quarter numbers showed growth at 6.8 percent. Goldman Sachs predicted 6.5 percent, down from 9 percent in the third quarter.
For all of 2008, Goldman Sachs had predicted 8.8 percent, down from 11.9 percent in 2007.
1. Since 2001, the slowest rate in annual economic growth China has seen is ___.
| A．6.8% | B．8.8% | C．9% | D．11.9% |
2. According to Dong Tao, the only thing driving the Chinese economy is ____.
| A．export | B．infrastructure | C．consumer confidence | D．consumer spending |
3. Which of the following is NOT the difficulty China is facing?
| A．Tens of thousands of factories have closed. |
| B．Millions of people are looking for jobs. |
| C．An uncertain number of migrant workers may be leaving cities forever. |
| D．The terrible situation will erase any optimism about a rebound in 2009. |
4. In which quarter of 2008 did the slowdown of China's economic growth first appear?
| A．1st. | B．2nd. | C．3rd. | D．4th. |
5. The best title of this passage should be _____.
| A．China's Economic Growth Slows. |
| B．Economic Crisis in China. |
| C．Economists Analyze China's Economy. |
| D．Several Factors Determine China's Economy |
Spending as little as $5 a day on someone else could significantly boost happiness, the team at the University of British Columbia and Harvard Business School found on Thursday.
Their experiments on more than 630 Americans showed they were measurably happier when they spent money on others—even if they thought spending the money on themselves would make them happier.
“We wanted to test our theory that how people spend their money is at least as important as how much money they earn,” said Elizabeth Dunn, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia. They asked their 600 volunteers first to rate their general happiness, report their annual (yearly) income and detail their monthly spending including bills, gifts for themselves, girls for others and donations to charity.
“Regardless of how much income each person made, those who spent money on others reported greater happiness, while those who spent more on themselves did not,” Dunn said in a statement.
Dunn’s team also surveyed 16 employees at a company in Boston before and after they received an ann
ual profit-sharing bonus of between $3,000 and $8,000. “Employees who devoted more of their bonus to pro-social spending experienced greater happiness after receiving the bonus and the manner 
in which they spent that bonus was a more important predictor of their happiness than the size of the bonus itself” they wrote in their report, published in the journal Science.
They gave their volunteers $5 or $20 and half got clear instructions on how to spend it. Those who spent the money on someone or something else reported feeling happier about it.
“These findings suggest that very minor alterations (changes) in spending allocations (shares)—as little as $5—may be enough to produce real gains in happiness on a given day，”Dunn said.
60. What is the general idea of the passage?
A. The more you earn, the greater happiness you will get.
B. Spending more money on yourself will make you happier.
C. Money can buy happiness, but only if you spend it on someone else.
D. You can spend only 5$ a day to get happiness.
61. The underlined word “boost” in the first paragraph probably means_______.
A. h
elp to find B. help to bring C. help to increase D. help
to get
62. Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?
A. Those who spend more money on others can 
get much more bonus.
B. People usually think spending money on themselves will make them happier.
C. Very small changes in spending your money may be enough to gain happiness.
D. Researchers think that how people spend their money is at least as important as how much money they earn.
63. It can be inferred from the 6th paragraph that ______.
A. the volunteers not given 5$ or 20$ spent their own money on themselves.
B. those who spent the money on someone or something else felt happier about it.
C. the volunteers were given 5$ or 20$ as a reward for the experiment.
D. half of the volunteers could spend the money as they liked.
第三部分阅读理解（共20小题；每小题2分，满分40分）
第一节（共15题；每小题2分，满分30分）
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A,B,C和D）中, 选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
Begin doing the work you love as soon as possible, even if you don’t get paid for it, or if you can only work at it part-time. Albert Einstein was unable to get a job as a physics professor. He could have said to himself, “Well, I just don’t have the work relative to physics. I should give up on it and settle for something else.” Instead, he wrote the two most famous papers while employed as a patent（专利）clerk. After their publication, there was not a major university in the world that would not have been glad to have him on their staff.
If you want to work as an artist and you are making a living as a waiter, don’t think of yourself as a waiter who hopes one day to become an artist. That puts the work you love somewhere off in the distant future. Rather, think of yourself as an artist, supporting yourself by waiting tables—and paint, or draw as much as you can. It is possible to earn a living wage as a waiter working 24 hours a week. That leaves plenty of time to devote to training or developing your craft（工艺）in the off hours.
While seeking the work you love, it helps to expand your awareness（意识）into the universe of all possibilities. You don’t want to be limited to the ideas of what you should do or what you have done before. Having opened to all possibilities, you can make a final decision and select the work you love as your own.
Doing the work you love requires that you be equally comfortable with the imaginative and the practical. It requires the ability to dream big dreams and the ability to face and master all the little details that make dreams come true.
56．According to the passage, perhaps Einstein once said to himself, “_______.”
A．Well, I just don’t have the work relative to physics. I should give up on it and settle for something else
B．The job is just what I want, I should work very hard at it
C．I have to support myself by working as a patent clerk now, but I won’t give physics up
D．I must wait until I find my favorite job
57．If a person works 24 hours a week, he can________.
A．have enough spare time for his hobbies
B．have no time left to make his dream come true
C．do nothing else
D．make a good living
58．Which of the following is not implied in the last paragraph?
A．Sometimes the imaginative is different from the practical.
B．We have to take care of a lot of details before we make our dreams come true.
C．We shall do practical things rather than dream.
D．We shall dream big dreams and practice as well.
59．According to the passage, the author encourages us to ________.
A．start work quickly B．select job carefully and patiently
C．dream often D．make up our minds quickly
Jamie Oliver has been invited by Gordon Brown to prepare a banquet at No. 10 for President Barack Obama and other leaders of the G20, offering a cut-price menu to reflect times when trade and industry are far from prosperous and the rate of employment is decreasing.
Downing Street sources say Oliver, the well-known chef, will cook using “honest high-street products” and avoid expensive or “fancy” ingredients.
The prime minister is trying to avoid a repeat of the embarrassment last year when he sat down to an 18-course banquet at a Japanese summit to discuss world food shortages.
Obama, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and other leaders will be served by apprentices (学徒) from Fifteen, the London restaurant Oliver founded to help train young people in poverty in order to make a living by mastering a skill.
Brown wants the dinner to reflect the emphasis of the London summit, which he hopes will lead to an agreement to lift the world out of recession. “To be invited to cook for such an important group of people, who are trying to solve some of the world’s major problems, is really a privilege,” said Oliver.
“I’m hoping the menu I’m working on will show British food and produce is some of the best in the world, but also show we have pioneered a high-quality apprentice scheme at Fifteen London that is giving young people a skill to be proud of.”
The chef has not yet finalized the menu, but is expected to draw inspiration from his latest book, Jamie’s Ministry of Food, which has budget recipes for beef and ale stew (啤酒炖菜) and “impressive” chocolate fudge cake.
72. The underlined word “recession” in Paragraph 5 is closest in meaning to “___________”.
A. business B. opposition
C. discussion D. depression
73. What can we learn about Oliver from the text?
A. He is a well-known American cook.
B. He is invited to attend the G20 summit.
C. He has founded the Fifteen London.
D. He is one of the apprentices serving leaders of the G20.
74. The menu of the banquet for the leaders of the G20 is supposed to ___________.
A. include all delicious British food
B. use inexpensive produce with special characteristics
C. be rich, varied and of high quality
D. imitate the menu of last Japanese summit
75. Which of the following is TRUE according to the text?
A. Oliver is honored to be invited to cook for the G20 leaders.
B. Altogether three presidents 
are mentioned in
the text.
C. President Barack Obama offers the cut-price menu.
D. The menu for the G20 dinner banquet has been decided.
You’re in a department store and you see a couple of attractive young women looking at a sweater. You listen to their conversation:
“I can’t believe it—a Lorenzo Bertolla! They are almost impossible to find. Isn’t it beautiful? And it’s a lot cheaper than the one Sara bought in Rome.”
They leave and you go over to see this incredible sweater. It’s nice and the price is right. You’ve never heard of Lorenzo Bertolla, but those girls looked really stylish. They must know. So, you buy it. You never realize that those young women are employees of an advertising agency. They are actually paid to go from store to store, talking loudly about Lorenzo Bertolla clothes.
Every day we notice what people are wearing, driving and eating. If the person looks cool, the product seems cool, too. This is the secret of undercover marketing. Companies from Ford to Nike are starting to use it.
Undercover marketing is important because it reaches people that don’t pay attention to traditional advertising. This is particularly true of the MTV generation—consumers between the age of 18 and 34. It is a golden group. They have a lot of money to spend, but they don’t trust ads.
So advertising agencies hire young actors to “perform” in bars and other places where young adults go. Some people might call this practice deceptive (骗人的), but marketing executive Jonathan Ressler calls it creative. “Look at traditional advertising. Its effectiveness is decreasing.”
However, one might ask what exactly is “real’ about of young women pretending to be enthusiastic about a sweater? Advertising executives would say it’s no less real than ad. The difference is that you know an ad is trying to persuade you to buy something. You don’t know when a conversation you overhear is just a performance.
68. The two attractive young women were talking so that they could___________.
A. get the sweater at a lower price
B. be hear
d by people around
C. be admired by other shoppers
D. decide on buying the sweater
69. Lorenzo Bertolla is ___________.
A. a very popular male singer
B. an advertising agency
C. a clothing company in Rome
D. the brand name of a sweater
70. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
A. The two girls are in fact employed by the Lorenzo Bertolla Company.
B. The MTV generation tend to be more easily influenced by ads.
C. Traditional advertising is becoming less effective because it’s too direct.
D. Undercover marketing will surely be banned soon by the government.
71. Which of the following would be the best title for the text?
A. Two Attractive Shoppers
B. Lorenzo Bertolla Sweaters.
C. Ways of Advertising
D. Undercover Marketing
Climate change, pollution, overuse of water and development are killing some of the world’s most famous rivers including China’s Yangtze, India’s Ganges and African’s Nile, WWF said on Tuesday. At the global launch of its report “World’s Top 10 Rivers at Risk”, the group said many rivers could dry out, affecting hundreds of millions of people and killing un
ique aquatic life.
“If these rivers die, millions will lose their livelihoods, biodiversity will be destroyed on a massive scale, there will be less fresh water and agriculture, resulting in less food security,” said Rayi Singh, secretarygeneral of WWF-India. The report launched ahead of “World Water Day” today, also cited the Rio Grande in the United States, the Mekong and Indus in Asia, Europe’s Danube, La Plata in South America and Australia’s Murray-Darling as in need of greater protection.
Rivers are the world’s main source of fresh water and WWF says about half of the available supply is already being used up. Dams have destroyed habitats and cut rivers off from their flood plains while climate change could affect the seasonal water flows that feed them, the report said. Fish populations, the top source of protein and overall life support for hundreds of thousands of communities worldwide, are also being threatened, it found… The Yangtze basin is one of the most polluted rivers in the world because of decades of heavy industrialization, damming and huge influxes of sediment from land conversion.
Climate change, including higher temperatures, also means serious consequences for fishery productivity, water supply and political security in Africa’s arid Nile basin. Tributaries flowing into the Ganges are drying up because of irrigation, WWF said.
64. What does the text mainly about?
A. Saving fresh water in our life.
B. How to protect our rivers.
C. An important discovery.
D. World’s top 10 rivers are at risk.
65. We can infer from the text that ___________.
A. rivers’ dying out could affect food security
B. there are four Asian rivers mentioned in the passage
C. the Yangtze is polluted thanks to the lack of enough tributaries
D. higher temperatures couldn’t affect fishery productivity
66. The top 10 rivers are fast dying as a result of the following EXCEPT___________
A. climate change B. wasting water
C. pollution D. dams
67. WWF is probably a name of ___________
A. an organization B. a newspaper
C. a magazine D. a report
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