The African elephant, the largest land animal remaining on earth, is of great importance to African ecosystem (生态系统). Unlike other animals, the African elephant is to a great extent the builder of its environment. As a big planteater, it largely shapes the forestandsavanna (稀树草原) surroundings in which it lives, therefore setting the terms of existence for millions of other animals that live in its habitat.
It is the elephant's great desire for food that makes it a disturber of the environment and an important builder of its habitat. In its continuous search for the 300 pounds of plants it must have every day, it kills small trees and underbushes, and pulls branches of big trees. This results in numerous open spaces in both deep tropical forests and in the woodlands that cover part of the African savannas. In these open spaces are numerous plants in various stages of growth that attract a variety of other planteaters.
Take the rain forests for example. In their natural state, the spreading branches overhead shut out sunlight and prevent the growth of plants on the forest floor. By pulling down trees and eating plants, elephants make open spaces, allowing new plants to grow on the forest floor. In such situations, the forests become suitable for large hoofed planteaters to move around and for small planteaters to get their food as well.
What worries scientists now is that the African elephant has become an endangered species. If the elephant disappears, scientists say, many other animals will also disappear from vast areas of forest and savanna, greatly changing and worsening the whole ecosystem.What is the passage mainly about?
| A．Disappearance of African elephants. |
| B．Forests and savannas as habitats for African elephants. |
| C．The effect of African elephants' search for food. |
| D．The eating habit of African elephants. |
What does the underlined phrase “setting the terms” most probably mean?
| A．Fixing the time. | B．Worsening the state. |
| C．Improving the quality. | D．Deciding the conditions. |
What do we know about the open spaces in the passage?
| A．They result from the destruction of rain forests. |
| B．They provide food mainly for African elephants. |
| C．They are home to many endangered animals. |
| D．They are attractive to planteating animals of different kinds. |
According to the passage, which of the following statements is TRUE?
| A．The African elephant is the largest animal on earth. |
| B．African elephants have 300 pounds of plants every day, including small trees and under bushes. |
| C．The African elephant is in a way the builder of the environment like other land animals. |
| D．If the African elephant disappears, the whole ecosystem won't be affected. |
The passage is developed mainly by ________.
| A．showing the effect and then explaining the causes |
| B．pointing out similarities and differences |
| C．describing the changes in space order |
| D．giving examples |
Someone asked me, “what do you think of youth?” I showed him a can of COKE. See this?
“C” means “courage”. There’s a seed in everyone’s heart. As long as you really keep watering it, it will grow and harvest. Courage gives us the power to follow our dreams. Believe in yourself and be prepared for anything in the future.
“O” stands for “optimism”. When in trouble, some people feel disappointed but some people still keep their dreams. Be sure to choose the latter. Life is very much like a mirror. If you smile on it, it smiles back on you. If you frown, you will get a similar look in return. Throw away the sadness in your heart while filling it with brightness and hope.
“K” can be understood as “knowledge”. In order to keep up with the times, we should use knowledge to enrich ourselves. Knowledge is the food of thought and, as long as it is put in our brain, we will grow wiser.
“E” is short for “enthusiasm (热情)”. Enthusiasm is the sign of youth. We use colourful paint-brushes in our hands to create the pictures of youth on our own. Let the sky and sea know we’re young. Let out our enthusiasm wherever we go.
Drink a can of COKE. You will find your youth as refreshing (有活力的) as a can of coke. Enjoy and value your youth.In the passage, the word “COKE” refers to .
| A．a kind of drink young people enjoy |
| B．what young people should have |
| C．basic abilities young people need |
| D．young people’s confidence and pride |
The seed in everyone’s heart in fact is .
| A．hope | B．knowledge | C．courage | D．imagination |
What should young people do to prepare themselves for the highly technological future?
| A．Learn to be an active learner. |
| B．Have confidence in themselves. |
| C．Follow their interests and dreams. |
| D．Be enthusiastic wherever they are. |
According to the writer, young people are .
| A．confident | B．optimistic | C．learned | D．enthusiastic |
Mark was walking home from school one day when he noticed that the boy ahead of him had tripped and dropped all the books he was carrying, along with two sweaters, a baseball bat, a glove and a small tape recorder. Mark knelt down and helped the boy pick up the scattered articles. Since they were going the same way, he helped to carry part of the burden. As they walked, Mark discovered the boy’s name was Bill, that he loved video games, baseball and history that he was having a lot of trouble with his other subjects and that he had just broken up with his girlfriend.
Mark went home after leaving Bill at his house. They continued to see each other around school, had lunch together once or twice, and then both graduated from junior high school. They ended up in the same high school, where they had brief contacts over the years. Finally the long-awaited senior year came. Three weeks before graduation, Bill asked Mark if they could talk.
Bill reminded him of the day years ago when they had first met. “Do you ever wonder why I was carrying so many things home that day?” asked Bill. “You see, I cleaned out my locker because I didn’t want to leave a mess for anyone else. I had stored away some of my mother’s sleeping pills and I was going home to commit suicide(自杀). But after we spent some time together talking and laughing, I realized that if I had killed myself, I would have missed that time and so many others that might follow. So you see, Mark, when you picked up my books that day, you did a lot more. You saved my life.”What happened to Bill on his way home from school?
| A．Bill almost killed himself. |
| B．Bill was caught on something and almost fell down. |
| C．Bill was sleepy from the sleeping pills. |
| D．Bill noticed Mark following him home. |
After Bill got home, .
| A．he missed his friend Mark very much |
| B．he decided to break up with his girlfriend |
| C．he intended to kill himself immediately |
| D．he thought of the friendliness of Mark |
Mark saved Bill from committing suicide by .
| A．helping Bill pick up the fallen books on the ground |
| B．saying something comfortable and friendly to Bill |
| C．persuading Bill not to leave a mess for other people |
| D．being friendly to Bill in trouble |
Bill cleared his locker in order to .
| A．store away some of his mother’s sleeping pills |
| B．prepare for the next school year of high school |
| C．leave the world without troubling others |
| D．help his mother do some housework the last time |
I first met Annie Mae, a maid (女仆), at my parents-in-laws’ in 1959. She prepared and 36 meals in her quiet, gentle way and then returned to the kitchen to read her Bible (《圣经》) while we 37 . She was a devoted Christian. I found this increasingly true 38 I came to know her more by observation than by conversation.
My husband and I 39 visited his parents. Each time I saw her eating 40 , reading her Bible, I wanted to sit down with her and just talk. 41 , whites didn’t do that with blacks then, and I had to 42 the practice.
In 1965, I decided to 43 the furniture and return to my home state with my two 44 when my husband wanted a divorce (离婚).
Annie Mae asked if she could buy the boys’ 45 . When I answered 46 , she asked the price. Then, she asked if she could 47 a little money each month. She was 48 , and I knew her well.
Then each month, an envelope 49 us from Annie Mae with 2 or 3 dollars. A year passed. Annie Mae’s 50 payment arrived along with the following note:
Dear Mrs. Holladay,
I am sending you my last payment of three dollars for the beds 51 . I told my two sons they could now put the beds 52 and sleep in them, for they are now paid for and rightfully 53 us.Thank you for your 54 .
Annie Mae
I read the note two or three times, my eyes filled with tears. Had I only known earlier, I would have said, “Use them now. Don’t 55 until you pay for them.”
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Everybody is happy as his pay rises. Yet pleasure at your own can disappear if you learn that a fellow worker has been given a bigger one. Indeed, if he is known as being lazy, you might even be quite cross. Such behavior is regarded as “all too human”, with the underlying belief that other animals would not be able to have this finely developed sense of sadness. But a study by Sarah Brosnan of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, which has just been published in Nature, suggests that it is all too monkey, as well.
The researchers studied the behaviors of some kind of female brown monkeys. They look smart. They are good-natured, co-operative creatures, and they share their food happily. Above all, like female human beings, they tend to pay much closer attention to the value of “goods and services” than males.
Such characteristics make them perfect subjects for Doctor Brosnan’s study. The researchers spent two years teaching their monkeys to exchange tokens (奖券) for food. Normally, the monkeys were happy enough to exchange pieces of rock for pieces of cucumber. However, when two monkeys were placed in separate and connected rooms, so that each other could observe what the other is getting in return for its rock, they became quite different.
In the world of monkeys，grapes are excellent goods (and much preferable to cucumbers). So when one monkey was handed a grape in exchange for her token, the second was not willing to hand hers over for a mere piece of cucumber. And if one received a grape without having to provide her token in exchange at all, the other either shook her own token at the researcher, or refused to accept the cucumber. Indeed, the mere presence of a grape in the other room (without an actual monkey to eat it) was enough to bring about dissatisfaction in a female monkey.
The researches suggest that these monkeys, like humans, are guided by social senses. In the wild, they are co-operative and group-living. Such co-operation is likely to be firm only when each animal feels it is not being cheated. Feelings of anger when unfairly treated, it seems, are not the nature of human beings alone. Refusing a smaller reward completely makes these feelings clear to other animals of the group. However, whether such a sense of fairness developed independently in monkeys and humans, or whether it comes from the common roots that they had 35 million years ago, is, as yet, an unanswered question. According to the passage, which of the following statements is TRUE?
| A．Only monkeys and humans can have the sense of fairness in the world. |
| B．In the wild, monkeys are never unhappy to share their food with each other. |
| C．Women will show more dissatisfaction than men when unfairly treated. |
| D．Monkeys can exchange cucumbers for grapes, for grapes are more attractive. |
The underlined statement “it is all too monkey” means that ________.
| A．monkeys are also angry with lazy fellows |
| B．monkeys, like humans, tend to be envious of each other |
| C．no animals other than monkeys can develop such feelings |
| D．feeling angry at unfairness is also monkey’s nature |
Female monkeys of this kind are chosen for the research most probably because they are _________.
| A．more likely to pay attention to the value of what they get |
| B．attentive to researchers’ instructions |
| C．nice in both appearance and behaviors |
| D．more ready to help others than their male companions |
We can learn ________according to the passage?
| A．Human beings' feelings of anger are developed from the monkeys. |
| B．Cooperation between monkeys stays firm before the realization of being cheated. |
| C．In the research, male monkeys are less likely to exchange food with others. |
| D．Only monkeys and humans have the sense of fairness dating back to 35 million years ago. |
What can we infer about the monkeys in Sarah’s study?
| A．The monkeys can be trained to develop social senses. |
| B．The monkeys may show their satisfaction with equal treatment. |
| C．They usually show their feelings openly as humans do. |
| D．Cooperation among the monkeys remains effective in the wild. |
Most earthquakes occur within the upper 15 miles of the earth’s surface, but earthquakes can and do occur at all depths to about 460 miles. Their number decreases as the depth increases. At about 460 miles one earthquake occurs only every few years. Near the surface earthquakes may run as high as 100 in a month, but the yearly average does not vary much.
The extent of the disaster in an earthquake depends on many factors. If you carefully build a toy house with an erect set (坚立架), it will still stand no matter how much you shake the table. But if you build a toy house with a pack of cards, a slight shake of the table will make it fall. An earthquake in Agadir was not strong, but it completely destroyed the city. Many stronger earthquakes have done comparatively little damage. If a building is well constructed and built on solid ground, it will resist an earthquake. Most deaths in earthquakes have been due to faulty building construction or poor building sites. A third and very serious factor is panic. When people rush out into narrow streets, more deaths will result.
There is one type of earthquake disaster that little can be done about. This is the disaster caused by seismic (地震的) sea waves, or tsunamis (海啸). These are often called tidal waves, but the name is incorrect. They had nothing to do with tides. In certain areas, earthquakes take place beneath the sea. These submarine earthquakes sometimes give rise to seismic sea waves. The waves are not noticeable out at sea because of their long wave length. But when they roll into harbors, they pile up into walls of water 6 to 60 feet high. The Japanese call them “tsunamis” meaning “harbor waves”, because they reach a sizable (相当大的) height only in harbors.
Tsunamis travel fairly slowly, at speeds up to 500 miles an hour. An earthquake warning system is in use to warn all shores likely to be reached by the waves. But this only enables people to leave the threatened shores for higher ground: There is no way to stop the oncoming wave. Which of the following can NOT be concluded from the passage?
| A．The number of earthquakes is closely related to the depth. |
| B．Roughly the same number of earthquakes occur each year. |
| C．Earthquakes are impossible at depths over 460 miles. |
| D．Earthquakes are most likely to occur near the surface. |
The destruction of Agadir is an example of .
| A．faulty building construction |
| B．an earthquake’s strength |
| C．widespread panic in earthquakes |
| D．ineffective instruments |
According to the passage, the waves caused by submarine earthquakes are not noticeable out at sea because of .
| A．their high speed |
| B．the wide shores |
| C．their silent movements |
| D．their long wave length |
The significance of the slow speed of tsunamis is that people may .
| A．help reduce fear |
| B．find ways to stop them |
| C．be warned early enough |
| D．develop warning systems |
According to the passage, the number of factors that may determine the extent of the disaster in an earthquake is .
| A．two | B．five | C．four | D．three |
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