Stephen William Hawking was born on January 8th, 1942 in Oxford, England. His parents’ house was in North London, but during the Second World War Oxford was considered a safer place to have babies. When he was eight, his family moved to St Albans. At eleven Stephen went to St. Albans School, and then on to University College, Oxford, his father’s old college. Stephen wanted to do math, although his father would have preferred medicine. Math was not available at University College, so he did physics instead.
Stephen then went on to Cambridge to do research in Cosmology (宇宙论). After gaining his Ph.D. （哲学博士）he became first a Research Fellow, and later on a Professorial Fellow at Gonville and Caius College. After leaving the Institute of Astronomy in 1973, Stephen came to the Department of Applied Math and Theoretical Physics (理论物理), and since 1979 has held the post of Lucasian Professor of math.
Stephen Hawking has worked on the basic laws which rule the universe. With Roger Penrose he showed that Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity implied space and time would have a beginning in the Big Bang and an end in black holes. These results show it was necessary to unify（统一）General Relativity with Quantum Theory （量子论）. One result of such a unification that he discovered was that black holes should not be completely black, but should give off radiation and disappear in the end.
59. Which of the following is NOT suitable for describing Stephen Hawking?
A. He once studied at the same college that his father studied at.
B. At one time he did research in Cosmology in Oxford.
C. He preferred math to medicine at college.
D. He contributed to the unification of General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Theory.
60. The underlined word “available” in the first paragraph probably means “________”.
A. able to be had B. allowed to study
C. easy to understand D. limited to learn
61. Why did Stephen Hawking’s parents move to Oxford from North London?
A. Because they liked it better than North London.
B. Because there was a world-famous university there.
C. Because they were tired of living in North London.
D. Because it was safer to give birth to a baby in Oxford.
62. Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?
A. Einstein and Stephen Hawking
B. Big Bang, a great theory
C. Stephen Hawking, a great British scientist
D. The unification of two theories
Jackie Heinricher's love affair with bamboo started in her backyard. “As a child, I remember playing among the golden bamboo my dad had planted, and when there was a slight wind, the bamboos sounded really musical.”
A fisheries biologist, Heinricher, 47, planned to work in the salmon industry in Seattle, where she lived with her husband, Guy Thornburgh, but she found it too competitive. Then her garden gave her the idea for a business: She'd planted 20 bamboo forests on their seven-acre farm.
Heinricher started Boo-Shoot Gardens in 1998. She realized early on what is just now beginning to be known to the rest of the world. It can be used to make fishing poles, skateboards, buildings, furniture, floors, and even clothing. An added bonus: Bamboo absorbs four times as much carbon dioxide as a group of hardwood trees and releases 35 percent more oxygen.
First she had to find a way to mass-produce the plants—a tough task, since bamboo flowers create seed only once every 50 to 100 years. And dividing a bamboo plant frequently kills it.
Heinricher appealed to Randy Burr, a tissue culture expert, to help her. “People kept telling us we'd never figure it out,” says Heinricher.“Others had worked on it for 27 years! I believed in what we were doing, though, so I just kept going.”
She was right to feel a sense of urgency. Bamboo forests are being rapidly used up, and a United Nations report showed that even though bamboo is highly renewable, as many as half of the world's species are threatened with dying out. Heinricher knew that bamboo could make a significant impact on carbon emissions(排放)and world economies, but only if huge numbers could be produced. And that's just what she and Burr figured out after nine years of experiments—a way to grow millions of plants. By placing cuttings in test tubes with salts, vitamins, plant hormones, and seaweed gel, they got the plants to grow and then raised them in soil in greenhouses.
Not long after it, Burr's lab hit financial difficulties. Heinricher had no experience running a tissue culture operation, but she wasn't prepared to quit. So she bought the lab.
Today Heinricher heads up a profitable multimillion-dollar company, working on species from all over the world and selling them to wholesalers(批发商). “If you want to farm bamboo, it's hard to do without the young plants, and that's what we have，” she says proudly.What was the main problem with planting bamboo widely?
| A．They didn't have enough young bamboo. |
| B．They were short of money and experience. |
| C．They didn't have a big enough farm to do it. |
| D．They were not understood by other people. |
What does Heinricher think of bamboo?
| A．Fragile and affordable. |
| B．Productive and flexible. |
| C．Useful and earth-friendly. |
| D．Strong and profitable. |
The underlined word “renewable” in Paragraph 6 probably means “________”．
| A．able to be replaced naturally |
| B．able to be raised difficultly |
| C．able to be shaped easily |
| D．able to be recycled conveniently |
What do you learn from the passage?
| A．Heinricher's love for bamboo led to her experiments in the lab. |
| B．Heinricher's determination helped her to succeed in her work. |
| C．Heinricher struggled to prevent bamboo from disappearing. |
| D．Heinricher finally succeeded in realizing her childhood dream. |
In modern society there is a great deal of argument about competition. Some value it highly, believing that it is responsible for social progress and prosperity, others say that competition is bad; that it sets one person against another; that it leads to unfriendly relationship between people.
I have taught many children who held the belief that their self – worth relied (依赖) on how well they performed at tennis and other skills. For them, playing well and winning are often life – and – death affairs. In their single – minded pursuit (追求) of success, the development of many other human qualities is sadly forgotten.
However, while some seem to be lost in the desire to succeed, others take an opposite attitude. In a culture which values only the winner and pays no attention to the ordinary players, they strongly blame competition. Among the most vocal are youngsters who have suffered under competitive pressures from their parents or society. Teaching these young people, I often observe in them a desire to fail. They seem to seek failure by not trying to win or achieve success. By not trying, they always have an excuse: “I may have lost, but it doesn’t matter because I really didn’t try.” What is not usually admitted by themselves is the belief that if they had really tried and lost, that would mean a lot. Such a loss would be a measure of their worth. Clearly, this belief is the same as that of the true competitors who try to prove themselves. Both are based on the mistaken belief that one’s self – respect relies on how well one performs in comparison with others. Both are afraid of not being valued. Only as this basic and often troublesome fear begins to dissolve (缓解) can we discover a new meaning in competition.What does this passage mainly talk about?
| A．Competition helps to set up self–respect. |
| B．Opinions about competition are different among people. |
| C．Competition is harmful to personal quality development. |
| D．Failures are necessary experiences in competition |
Why do some people favor competition according to the passage?
| A．It pushes society forward. |
| B．It builds up a sense of duty. |
| C．It improves personal abilities. |
| D．It encourages individual efforts. |
The underlined phrase “the most vocal” in Paragraph 3 means ________ .
| A．those who try their best to win |
| B．those who value competition most highly |
| C．those who are against competition most strongly |
| D．those who rely on others most for success |
What is the similar belief of the true competitors and those with a desire to fail ?
| A．One’s worth lies in his performance compared with others. |
| B．One’s success in competition needs great efforts. |
| C．One’s achievement is determined by his particular skills. |
| D．One’s success is based on how hard he has tried. |
Which point of view may the author agree to?
| A．Every effort should be paid back. |
| B．Competition should be encouraged. |
| C．Winning should be a life–and–death matter. |
| D．Fear of failure should be removed in competition. |
She was born to wealth and power in an era when money and politics were left to the men. Later, as The Washington Post's publisher, Katharine Graham became one of America's most powerful women.
Despite a privileged background, Katharine had to deal, while growing up, with the high demands her mother placed on her children. Katharine's love of journalism, which she shared with her father, led to her career after college at The Washington Post, the newspaper her father bought in 1933. At the Post, Katharine met Phil Graham, a young, charming lawyer who became her husband. When, in 1945, Katharine's father chose Phil over her to take over his struggling paper, Katharine didn't object and stayed at home as a wife and mother of four.
While Phil's successful efforts to restore the Post to prominence (显著) made the Grahams popular members of the Washington social scene, Katharine privately suffered tremendous pain from her husband's increasingly abusive behavior and wild mood swings caused by severe depression. When Phil committed suicide (自杀), the 46-year-old Katharine found herself thrown into a new job, that of newspaper publisher. But determined to save the family paper for her children, Katharine rose to the challenge of running the Post, attending meetings in every department, working endlessly to prove herself to her critics, and becoming the toast of Washington.
In 1971, Katharine ordered the Post to print a copy of the Pentagon Papers, the top-secret documents revealing the truth about the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War. What's more, her courageous decision and support for her journalists prepared the Post to break the most important political story in modern history: Watergate, one of the greatest scandals (丑闻) in American political history. Katharine managed to keep control over the most chaotic (disorder) of situations when it was reported, all the time insisting the news stories be accurate and fair. Watergate made the Washington Post an internationally known Paper and Katharine was considered as the most powerful woman in America. Katharine Graham was born in a time when ______.
| A．women were not given the chance to receive education |
| B．women were not considered as intelligent as men |
| C．women were not permitted to achieve their goals |
| D．women were not allowed to enter every field |
When her husband was chosen to take charge of the newspaper, Katharine Graham ______.
| A．was strongly against the idea |
| B．was not happy to be rejected |
| C．was willing to take her share of responsibility |
| D．didn't believe her husband would do a good job |
Which of the following statements is true?
| A．It was Katharine Graham's husband who made the greatest contributions to the Post. |
| B．When Katharine Graham first took over the Post, her critics doubted her ability. |
| C．Katharine Graham was successful in her career but suffered severe depression. |
| D．Katharine Graham was free to do whatever she liked in her early life. |
Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?
| A．Ups and downs of The Washington Post. |
| B．Katharine Graham's family life and career. |
| C．Katharine Graham: from housewife to successful publisher. |
| D．Katharine Graham: a woman who shaped American journalism. |
Dear MSN,
I live in San Diego. I’m single and would like to meet people near me. Can I do this on the Internet?
Searching in San Diego
Dear Searching,
On the Internet, you could easily go looking for love in all the wrong places, but here are lots of great ways to meet singles near you.
The Web is a good place to start. MSN also has international sites for Europe, Asia, Australia and South America.
There are several California–based MSN Web communities where you can meet like –minded people near you as well as city-specific chat rooms for real-time interaction (互动). Hope for some clever friends. What a little more excitement in your online interactions? Try the “Gaming Zone!”
I also tried MSN Search, looked under the “Personal” heading and found “Relationships”. Clicked on that, then found “Ads & Personals”, by “Region” and found San Diego–specific personal from there. Try it!
Also, give “IRC” (Internet Relay Chat) and “Usenet Newsgroups” a try. Many a net romance has started and then developed in these off-the-Web communities. If you’d rather make friends F2F (face to face), the Web has some helpful dating and redating tips. Searching has written this letter with the purpose of _______
| A．getting help from MSN with his computer |
| B．winning the heart of a love from the web |
| C．meeting single people on line |
| D．looking for love in all the wrong places |
According to the second letter, MSN has several advantages such as ________
| A．shooting IRC and Usenet Newsgroups |
| B．giving you time and places to chat with others |
| C．satisfying you with whatever kind of help you want |
| D．supplying you with many methods to make friends |
From the second letter we can infer that MSN treats an ordinary reader so kindly and warmly because ________.
| A．it is its duty to help those who have trouble with their computers |
| B．it needs to attract as many readers as possible so as to make greater benefit |
| C．it likes to see more net romances and shares their happiness |
| D．all people need it and it needs all people |
A classical guitarist was excited to hear from New York City police that his valuable guitar had been found. It disappeared almost a year ago when he got out of a cab and forgot to take the guitar with him. Laurence Lennon, 44, said he was running late that day. He was talking to his manager on his cellphone when he dashed out of the taxi. He said that he gave the driver $ 60 and told him to keep the change. He walked through the front doors of the concert hall still talking on the phone to his manager.
Upon discovering his loss, Lennon used his cellphone to call the police. The policewoman asked him for the name of the cab company, the number of the cab, and the name of the driver. He said that she had to be kidding.
She told Lennon that he could file a missing items report at the police station or online. Lennon asked for the online address. She told him that finding the guitar might take a couple of years—finding guitars was not as important as finding murderers and marijuana smokers. Then she told him to have a nice day.
“This year has been depressing，” said Lennon. “I had to postpone the recording of two new CDs. I've been using borrowed guitars. And I was losing hope of ever recovering my guitar.”
Lennon was reunited with his $ 100,000 musical instrument yesterday. The case and the guitar had been discovered in the corner of a coffee house only two blocks from where Lennon had lost it in the first place. Lennon had offered a $ 10,000 reward for its return. He said he would give the reward to the coffee house owner, who had informed the police.It can be inferred from this reading passage that________.
| A．Lennon gave the driver much more money than what was actually needed |
| B．Lennon couldn't give any useful information about the driver and his cab |
| C．Lennon was too busy talking to his friend to remember to pay the cab driver |
| D．Lennon used to work at the concert hall in New York City |
The policewoman told Lennon________.
| A．not to worry about the guitar |
| B．to have a nice day in New York City |
| C．to find the cab driver and talk to him |
| D．to wait with patience |
Which of the following is the most important according to the policewoman?
| A．Finding a lost guitar. |
| B．Finding the cab driver. |
| C．Finding murderers. |
| D．Enjoying one's own life |
The underlined word“depressing”can be best explained by“________”．
| A．making people feel sad |
| B．making people unfortunate |
| C．making people losing money |
| D．making people losing good luck |
What do you guess the driver did to the guitar after Lennon left it in the cab?
| A．He sold it to someone for 10,000 dollars. |
| B．He took it to a coffeehouse and then left it there. |
| C．He gave it to a friend, who lost it some time later. |
| D．He kept it for himself but then lost it carelessly. |
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