Sharks have lived in the oceans for over 450 million years, long before dinosaurs appeared. There are now about 360 species of sharks, whose size, behavior, and other characteristics differ widely.
Every year, we catch and kill over 100 million sharks, mostly for food and for their fins. Dried shark fins are used to make shark fin soup, which sells for as much as $50 a bowl in fine Hong Kong restaurants. Other sharks are killed for sport and out of fear. Sharks are vulnerable(易受伤的) to overfishing because it takes most species 10 to 15 years to begin reproducing and they produce only a few offspring（后代）.
Influenced by movies and popular novels, most people see sharks as people-eating monsters. This is far from the truth. Every year, a few types of shark injure about 100 people worldwide and kill about 25. Most attacks are by great white sharks, which often feed on sea lions and other marine（海洋的） mammals. They sometimes mistake human swimmers for their normal prey, especially if they are wearing black wet suits.
If you are a typical ocean-goer, your chances of being killed by an unprovoked（非受挑衅而发生的）attack by a shark are about 1 in 100 million. You are more likely to be killed by a pig than a shark and thousands of times more likely to get killed when you drive a car.
Sharks help save human lives. In addition to providing people with food, they are helping us learn how to fight cancer, bacteria, and viruses. Sharks are very healthy and have aging processes similar to ours. Their highly effective immune system allows wounds to heal quickly without becoming infected, and their blood is being studied in connection with AIDS research.
Sharks are among the few animals in the world that almost never get cancer and eye cataracts（白内障）. Understanding why can help us improve human health. Chemicals taken from shark cartilage（软骨）have killed cancerous tumors in laboratory animals, research that someday could help prolong your life.
Sharks are needed in the world’s ocean ecosystems. Although they don’t need us, we need them. We are much more dangerous to sharks than they are to us. For every shark that bites a person, we kill one million sharks.Which of the following is NOT a reason why people kill sharks?
| A．People kill sharks for food. |
| B．People kill sharks for sport. |
| C．People kill sharks out of fear. |
| D．People kill sharks because they often attack swimmers. |
According to the passage, which of the following statements is NOT true?
| A．There are many different species of sharks, but only a few of them are dangerous to humans. |
| B．Sharks never get ill. |
| C．Sharks are a valuable resource for human. |
| D．Sharks play an important role in the ocean ecosystem. |
It can be inferred from the passage that _______.
| A．movies have given people the wrong impression of sharks |
| B．most sharks are dangerous to humans |
| C．sharks will attack anyone who is wearing black |
| D．it is dangerous to swim in the ocean |
The underlined word “prolong” in the last but one paragraph means ______.
| A．save | B．protect | C．lengthen | D．improve |
The best title for the passage would be _______.
| A．Are Sharks Dangerous? | B．Sharks And Humans |
| C．Sharks: Humans’ Friends | D．Sharks Help Save Human Lives |
Larry was on another of his underwater expeditions(探险)but this time, it was different. He decided to take his daughter along with him. She was only ten years old. This would be her first trip with her father on what he had always been famous for.
Larry first began diving when he was his daughter’s age. Similarly, his father had taken him along on one of his expeditions. Since then, he had never looked back. Larry started out by renting diving suits from the small diving shop just along the shore. He had hated them. They were either too big or too small. Then, there was the instructor. He gave him a short lesson before allowing him into the water with his father. He had made an exception. Larry would never have been able to go down without at least five hours of theory and another similar number of hours on practical lessons with a guide. Children his age were not even allowed to dive.
After the first expedition, Larry’s later diving adventures only got better and better. There was never a dull moment. In his black and blue suit and with an oxygen tank fastened on his back, Larry dived from boats into the middle of the ocean. Dangerous areas did not prevent him from continuing his search. Sometimes, he was limited to a cage underwater but that did not bother him. At least, he was still able to take photographs of the underwater creatures.
Larry’s first expedition without his father was in the Cayman Islands. There were numerous diving spots in the area and Larry was determined to visit all of them. Fortunately for him, a man offered to take him around the different Spots for free. Larry didn’t even know what the time was, how many spots he dived into or how many photographs he had taken. The diving spots afforded such a wide array of fish and sea creatures that Larry saw more than thirty varieties of creatures.
Larry looked at his daughter. She looked as excited as he had been when he was her age. He hoped she would be able to continue the family tradition. Already, she looked like she was much braver than had been then. This was the key to a successful underwater expedition.What can be inferred from Paragraph2?
| A．Larry had some privileges. |
| B．Larry liked the rented diving suits. |
| C．Divers had to buy diving equipment. |
| D．Ten-year-old children were permitted to dive. |
Why did Larry have to stay in a cage underwater sometimes?
| A．To protect himself from danger. |
| B．To dive into the deep water. |
| C．To admire the underwater view. |
| D．To take photo more conveniently. |
Recordings of angry bees are enough to send big, tough African elephants running away, a new study says. Beehives (蜂窝)-either recorded or real-may even prevent elephants from damaging farmer's crops.
In 2002, scientist Lucy King and her team found that elephants avoid certain trees with bees living in them. Today, Lucy wants to see if African honeybees might discourage elephants from eating crops. But before she asked farmer to go to the trouble of setting up beehives on their farms, she needed to find out if the bees would scare elephants away.
Lucy found a wild beehive inside a tree in northern Kenya and set up a recorder. Then she threw a stone into the beehive, which burst into life. Lucy and her assistant hid in their car until the angry bees had calmed down. Next，Lucy searched out elephant families in Samburu National Reserve in northern Kenya and put a speaker in a close to each family.
From a distance, Lucy switched on the pre-recorded sound of angry bees while at the same time recording the elephants with a video camera. Half the elephant groups left the area within ten seconds. Out of a total of 17 groups, only one group ignored the sound of the angry bees. Lucy reported that all the young elephants immediately ran to their mothers to hide under them. When Lucy Played the sound of a waterfall (瀑布) instead of the angry bees to many of the same elephant families, the animals were undisturbed. Even after four minutes, most of the groups stayed in one place.
Lucy is now studying whether the elephants will continue to avoid the sound of angry bees after hearing it several times. She hasn't tested enough groups yet to know, but her initial (最初的) results were promising enough to begin trials with farmers. She has now begun placing speakers in the fields to see if elephants are frightened away.
As mentioned in the passage, Lucy
| A．works by herself in Africa |
| B．needs to test more elephant groups |
| C．has stopped elephants eating crops |
| D．has got farmers to set up beehives on their farms |
Why did Lucy throw a stone into a wild beehive?
| A．To record the sound of bees. |
| B．To make a video of elephants. |
| C．To see if elephants would run away. |
| D．To find out more about the behavior of bees. |
Which of the following is true according to the passage?
| A．Young elephants ignore African honeybees. |
| B．Waterfalls can make elephants stay in one place. |
| C．Elephants do not go near trees with bees living in them. |
| D．Farmers do not allow Lucy to conduct tests in their fields. |
The idea of being able to walk on water has long interested humans greatly. Sadly, biological facts prevent us ever accomplishing such a thing without artificial aid --- we simply weigh too much, and all our mass pushes down through our relatively small feet, resulting in a lot of pressure that makes us sink.
However, several types of animals can walk on water. One of the most interesting is the common basilisk Basilicus basilicus, a lizard（蜥蜴）native to Central and South America. It can run across water for a distance of several meters, avoiding getting wet by rapidly hitting the water’s surface with its feet. The lizard will take as many as 20 steps per second to keep moving forward. For humans to do this, we’ll need huge feet that we could bring up to our ears in order to create adequate “hitting.”
But fortunately there is an alternative: cornflour. By adding enough of this common thickening agent to water (and it does take a lot), you can create a “non-Newtonian” liquid that doesn’t behave like normal water. Now if the surface of the water is hit hard enough, particles（粒子）in the water group together for a moment to make the surface hard. Move quickly enough and put enough force into each step, and you really can walk across the surface of an adequately thick liquid of cornflour.
Fun though all this may sound, it’s still rather messy and better read about in theory than carried out in practice. If you must do it, then keep the water wings handy in case you start to sink --- and take a shower afterward!What do we know about Basilicus basilicas from the passage?
| A．It is light enough to walk on water. |
| B．Its huge feet enable it to stay above water. |
| C．It can run across water at a certain speed |
| D．Its unique skin keeps it from getting wet in water |
What is the function of the cornflour according to the passage?
| A．To create a thick liquid. |
| B．To turn the water into solid. |
| C．To help the liquid behave normally. |
| D．To enable the water to move rapidly. |
What is the author’s attitude toward the idea of human’s walking on water?
| A．It is risky but beneficial. |
| B．It is interesting and worth trying |
| C．It is crazy and cannot become a reality |
| D．It is impractical though theoretically possible |
According to the dictionary definition of "create "，ordinary people are creative every day. To create means " to bring into being, to cause to exist"-something each of us does daily.
We are creative whenever we look at or think about something in a new way. First, this includes an awareness （意识）of our surroundings. It means using all of our senses to become aware of our world. This may be as simple as being aware of color and texture（质地），as well as taste, when we plan a meal. Above all, it is the ability to notice things that others might miss.
A second part of creativity is an ability to see relationships among things. If we believe the expression，"There is nothing new under the sun，" the creativity is remaking or recombining（重组）the old in new ways. For example, we might do this by finding a more effective way to study or a better way to arrange our furniture, or we might make a new combination of camera lenses and filters to create an unusual photograph.
A third part of creativity is the courage and drive to make use of our new ideas, to ask for them to achieve some new results. To think up a new idea is one thing; to put the idea to work is another.
These three parts of creativity are included in all the great works of geniuses, but they are also included in many of our day-to-day activities.Which of the following activities is NOT a creative one according to the passage?
| A．To prepare for a meal. |
| B．To arrange the furniture in a special way. |
| C．To buy some books from a bookstore. |
| D．To "write" a letter with the computer. |
"There is nothing new under the sun" really implies that __________.
| A．a new thing can only be created at the basis of earliest things |
| B．a new thing is only a tale |
| C．we can seldom create new things |
| D．we can hardly see really new things in the world |
What does the author think about the relationship between a new thought and its being put into practice?
| A．It's more difficult to create a new thought than to use it in practice. |
| B．To find a new thought will clearly lead to the production of a new thing. |
| C．A man with an excellent ability of practice can easily become an inventor. |
| D．One may come up with a new thought, but cannot put it into practice. |
The best title for this passage is __________.
| A．How to Cultivate One's Creativity |
| B．What Is Creativity |
| C．The Importance of Creativity |
| D．Creativity a Not Faraway Thing |
" Earthquake ！ " The word flashed in my brain. A roaring sound filled my ears. I tried to slide beneath my desk. The desk did a wild tap dance, slipping and sliding towards the centre of the room. I twisted my body and grabbed at the windowsill behind me, somehow kicking free of my dancing chair. I tried to stand. My legs skated a-way as if on a bucking escalator.
My fingers shook, grasped and held the windowsill tightly. Somewhere through the roar sounded the terrified scream of some wounded animal. I looked behind me and tried to steady my gaze on the other kids but the scene was a dizzy nightmare. Some of the class were sitting in the middle of the room, surrounded by chairs and desks. One girl was screaming. A boy was trying to claw his way across the floor to the door in a crazy overarm crawl. My grip froze me to the windowsill.
I cried aloud，" I'm going to die. I'm going to die. Save me, I'm not ready to die, I'm not ready ！" I hunched forward on my knees and pressed my face against my clenched fingers. I looked at the backs of my fingers and stupidly noticed the fragile pale hairs growing out of the pores. The fingers would soon cease to exist. Somehow the impending horror of my death was too terrible to even cry about.
Suddenly, I became aware that the rocking had ceased. Perhaps I wasn't going to die.The roaring sound was made by __________.
| A．a wounded animal | B．people screaming |
| C．children running | D．an earthquake |
When the narrator clenches his fingers, he is __________.
| A．afraid | B．angry | C．injured | D．impatient |
Paragraph two describes the __________.
| A．injuries suffered by the narrator |
| B．effects of a bad nightmare |
| C．disorder in the classroom |
| D．narrator's fear of death |
At the end of the passage there is a feeling of __________.
| A．panic | B．hope |
| C．sorrow | D．excitement |
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