In the 1950s，a family who owned a farm near Beulah，Michigan kept a bull chained to an elm (榆树)．The bull paced around the tree，dragging the heavy iron chain，which led to a groove (槽) in the bark.The groove deepened over the years，though for whatever reason，it did not kill the tree.
After some years，the family took their bull away.They cut the chain，leaving the loop (圈) around the tree and one link hanging down.
Then one year，agricultural disaster struck Michigan in the form of Dutch Elm Disease.All of the elms lining the road leading to the farm became infected and died.Everyone thought that the old elm would be next.
The farm’s owners considered doing the safe thing：pulling it out and cutting it up into firewood before it died.But they simply could not bring themselves to do it.It was as if the old tree had become a family friend.So they decided to let_nature_take_its_course.
Amazingly，the tree did not die.Nobody could understand why it was the only elm that was still standing in the country!
Plant pathologists(病理学家) from Michigan State University came out to observe the tree.They observed the scar left by the iron chain，now almost completely covered by bark.The plant experts decided that it was the chain that saved the elm’s life.They reasoned that the tree must have absorbed so much iron from the chain that it became immune (免疫) to the fungus (真菌)．
It’s said that what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.Or，as Ernest Hemimgway put it，“Life breaks us all，but afterwards，many of us are strongest at the broken places.”What happened to the elms in Michigan during the agricultural disaster?
| A．The elms were tied by iron chains. |
| B．Some of the elms were cut up into firewood. |
| C．All the elms were infected by a disease and died. |
| D．Nearly all of the elms died of a disease. |
From the passage we can learn that the old elm was saved by________.
| A．the groove in the bark | B．the fungus in the tree |
| C．the iron remaining in it | D．its own immune system |
The underlined sentence “let_nature_take_its_course” means______.
| A．leave the elm at the mercy of nature |
| B．help the elm grow normally |
| C．let nature take the elm away |
| D．have nature give a lesson to the elm |
What is the best title for the text?
| A．Never Lose Heart in Trouble |
| B．Strike While the Iron is Hot |
| C．Brave to Face Failure |
| D．Stronger after Suffering |
Using too much water or throwing rubbish into our rivers are clear ways that humans can put our water supply in danger ,but we also affect our water supply in less obvious ways.
You may wonder how paving(铺砌) a road can lead to less usable fresh water. A major part of the water we use every day is groundwater. Groundwater does not come from lakes or rivers .It come from underground. The more roads and parking lots we pave, the less water can flow into the ground to become groundwater.
Human activity is not responsible for all water shortages(短缺). Driver climates are of course more likely to have droughts(干旱)than areas with more rainfall, but in any case, good management can help to make sure there is enough water to meet our basic needs.
Thinking about the way we use water everyday can make a big difference, too. In the United States, a family of four can use 1.5 tons of water a day! This shows how much we depend on water to live, but there’s a lot we can do to lower the number.
You can take steps to save water in your home. To start with, use the same glass for your drinking water all day. Wash it only once a day .Run your dishwasher (洗碗机)only when it is full. Help your parents fix any leaks in your home. You can even help to keep our water supply clean by recycling batteries instead of throwing them away. Which of the following is most likely to lead to less groundwater?
| A．Using river water. |
| B．Throwing batteries away. |
| C．paving parking lots. |
| D．Throwing rubbish into lakes. |
What can be inferred from the text?
| A．All water shortages are due to human behavior. |
| B．It takes a lot of effort to meet our water needs. |
| C．There is much we can do to reduce family size. |
| D．The average family in America makes proper use of water . |
The last paragraph is intended to .
| A．show us how to fix leaks at home |
| B．tell us how to run a dishwasher |
| C．prove what drinking glass is best for us |
| D．suggest what we do to save water at home |
The text is mainly about .
| A．Why paving roads reduces our water |
| B．how much we depend on water to live |
| C．why droughts occur more in dry climates |
| D．how human activity affects our water supply |
Wikipedia: The Online Know-It-All
If you want to find out a piece of information about anything, the best place to search for it is Wikipedia. The name “Wikipedia” is from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning “quick”. This online encyclopedia (百科全书) is written by thousands of people around the world. Anyone with Internet access can write, add or make changes to Wikipedia articles if he or she finds it incorrect or not well written. In this way, people who know a lot about a certain subject can write about it even if they are not university professors. But contributions cannot damage Wikipedia because many experienced editors are watching pages and techies (技术专家) can write editing programs to keep track of or correct bad edits. Where there are disagreements on how to present facts, editors’ work together to arrive at an article that fairly represents current expert opinion on the subject.
Wikipedia is quite different from paper-based reference sources in important ways. Unlike printed encyclopedias, it is continually created and updated, with articles on historic events appearing within minutes, rather than months or years.
What’s more, Wikipedia includes articles written in about 285 languages. This fact makes it one of the few websites on the Internet that are truly international. It was started in 2001 by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales, as a free online English-language encyclopedia project. Since its creation, it has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference websites, attracting nearly 500 million unique visitors monthly. There are more than 77,000 active contributors working on more than 22,000,000 articles in different languages. As of today, there are 4,396,866 articles in English.
So, if you are looking for some information, why not try Wikipedia? It’s free, multilingual，and informative. According to the passage, what is Wikipedia?
| A．A free website encyclopedia. | B．A computer game. |
| C．A free encyclopedia in book form. | D．An online university. |
From the passage we know that ______.
| A．Wikipedia catches a wide audience |
| B．Wikipedia only charges users a small fee |
| C．incorrect editions might do great harm to Wikipedia |
| D．it will take long to update the information on Wikipedia |
Where can we probably read the passage?
| A．In a story book. | B．In a research report. |
| C．In a science magazine. | D．In a travel brochure. |
How to look good in a photo?
What should you do if you want to have a nice photo taken? Whether it's work or fun, the most important thing is lighting．If you get bad lighting, you will look bad, too．Know where the light is．You don't want it below you or above you, you want it to shine directly at you．
The key thing is no shadow．If you are being photographed outside, do it in the morning, or wait till the 2 o'clock shadow has passed．Also don't let pictures in the magazines stress you out —all the pictures are taken by great photographers．And all the faces have had pimples （丘疹，粉刺） taken out by computers．
Tip your head and learn what angles work with your face; everyone is different．So you have to learn what suits you．You can practice in Photo Booth for as long as it is your turn, to learn what angles suit your face．Tip your neck to make it look longer, make eye contact with the camera．No one can look bad if they smile．
For long legs, point one leg into center of the frame and get the photographer to shoot looking up your body．
For just leg shots, lie upside down and raise legs in the air for the best angle．And your legs will look thinner and be in better shape．
Keep shoulders back．
Always have mouth slightly open, enough to put a penny between your lips, as this will make your lips look fuller．
Lower your eyes and then look up just as shutter （快门） is clicked for full eyes．
Delete any evidence of a less than perfect photogenic moment, everyone has off days．If you want to look good in a photo, the light should be ______．
| A．below you |
| B．above you |
| C．directly at you |
| D．right behind you |
According to the passage, we should consider all EXCEPT ______．
| A．light |
| B．shadow |
| C．angles |
| D．photographers |
What advice does the author give on taking photos?
| A．Raise legs on the wall． |
| B．Look down． |
| C．Keep shoulders back． |
| D．Put a penny between lips． |
There is a lot of talk these days about how kids should be interested in science. Here’s an area of science for everyone, and these cool new books might inspire you to discover your inner scientist.
Scaly Spotted Feathered Frilled by Catherine Thimmesh, 58 pages, ages 9-12
Seeing a picture or a model of a dinosaur, do you wonder how anybody knows what they look like? After all, nobody has seen a living dinosaur. This book explains how scientists and artists work together to re-create dinosaurs. As scientific discoveries have been made, the models have changed. Scientific tests may one day expose what a dinosaur’s coloring was, but now artists have to use their imagination to determine how these huge creatures looked.
Beyond the Solar System by Mary Kay Carson, 128 pages, ages 10-13
This book takes readers back to the beginnings of space exploration—thousands of years ago, when people began star observation—and forward to today’s search for planets in distant parts of the Milky Way. Along with history lessons, readers get 21 activities, such as making a black hole and creating a model of Albert Einstein’s universe using a T-shirt. The activities are perfect for cold winter days.
Ultimate Bugopedia by Darlyne Murawski and Nancy Honovich, 272 pages, ages 7 and older
If you’re always on the lookout for butterflies, this book is for you. Hundreds of color photos of common and unusual insects fill this hardcover. There are fascinating stories related to the photos. For example, do you know an insect feeds on the tears of Asian cattle? There’s a question-and-answer section with an insect scientist and advice on how to help preserve endangered insects.
Journey Into the Invisible by Christine Schlitt, 80 pages, ages 9-12
If you use a magnifying（放大的）glass, you know a leaf looks quite different. This book explains what microscopes do and then shows what happens to things around the house when watched with this amazing scientific tool. The bacteria in your mouth, when magnified 20,000 times, look a bit like swimming pool noodles. Fascinating photos are paired with suggestions about how to learn about the world around you, just by looking a little closer. Kids interested in pre-historical animals might read ______.
| A．Ultimate Bugopedia |
| B．Beyond the Solar System |
| C．Journey Into the Invisible |
| D．Scaly Spotted Feathered Frilled |
Beyond the Solar System is mainly about ______.
| A．space exploration |
| B．the Milky Way |
| C．history lessons |
| D．Albert Einstein’s universe |
From the passage, we can learn that ______.
| A．butterflies are fond of the tears of Asian cattle |
| B．scientists have discovered the dinosaur’s coloring |
| C．microscopes can present you with an amazing world |
| D．man has explored the black hole for thousands of years |
The main purpose of the passage is to ______.
| A．compare features of different books |
| B．inspire people to become scientists |
| C．teach children some knowledge of science |
| D．recommend new science books to children |
Half of the world’s population lives in areas affected by Asian monsoons（季风）, but monsoons are difficult to predict. American researchers have put together a 700-year record of the rainy seasons, which is expected to provide guidance for experts making weather predictions.
Every summer, moist（潮湿的）air masses, known as monsoon, produce large quantities of rainfall in India, East Asia, Indonesia, Northern Australia and East Africa, which are pulled in by a high pressure area over the Indian Ocean and a low pressure area to the south.
According to Edward Cook, a weather expert at Columbia University in New York, the complex nature of the climate systems across Asia makes monsoons hard to predict. In addition, climate records for the area date to 1950, too recent and not detailed enough to be of much use. Therefore, he and a team of researchers spent more than fifteen years travelling across Asia locating trees old enough to provide long-term records. They measured the rings（年轮）or circles, inside the trunks of thousands of ancient trees at more than 300 sites.
Rainfall has a direct link to the growth and width of rings on some kinds of trees. The researchers developed a document—a Monsoon Asia Drought Atlas（地图集）. It shows the effect of monsoons over seven centuries, beginning in the 1300s.
Professor Cook says the tree-ring records show periods of wet and dry conditions. “If the monsoon basically fails or is very weak one year, the trees affected by the monsoon at that location might put on a very narrow ring. But if the monsoon is very strong, the trees affected by that monsoon might put on a wide ring for that year. So, the wide and narrow ring widths of the tree chronology（年表）that we developed in Asia provide us with a measure of monsoon variability. ” Armed with such a sweeping set of data, researchers say they now can begin to refine climate computer models for predicting the behavior of monsoons.
“There has been widespread famine and starvation and human dying in the past in large droughts. And on the other hand, if the monsoon is particularly heavy, it can cause extensive flooding,” said Eugene Wahl, a scientist who is with America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s paleoclimate（古气侯）branch studying weather patterns over the history of the Earth. “So, to get a knowledge of what the regional moisture patterns have been, dryness and wetness over such a long period of time in great detail, I would call it a kind of victory for climate science.”What’s the passage mainly about?
| A．A breakthrough in monsoon prediction. |
| B．The necessity of weather forecast. |
| C．The achievements of Edward Cook. |
| D．The effects of Asian monsoons. |
It is difficult for experts to predict Asian monsoons because______.
| A．it is hard to keep long-term climate records |
| B．they are formed under complex climate systems |
| C．they influence many nations |
| D．there is heavy rainfall in Asia |
What can be inferred from the passage?
| A．The trees affected by monsoon grow fast if the monsoon is weak. |
| B．The Monsoon Asia Drought Atlas has a monsoon record for about 1,300 years. |
| C．Long and detailed climate records can offer useful information for monsoon research. |
| D．The rainfall might be low although the monsoon is strong in monsoon- |
affected areas.According to Professor Cook, the rings of the trees_________.
| A．determine the regional climate |
| B．have a great influence on the regional climate |
| C．offer people information about the regional climate |
| D．reflect all kinds of regional climate information |
What do we know about the research according to Eugene Wahl?
| A．It will help people prevent droughts and floods. |
| B．It should include information about human life in the past. |
| C．It has analysed moisture models worldwide. |
| D．It is a great achievement in climate science. |
Which of the following best describes the tone of this passage?
| A．Friendly. | B．Pessimistic. |
| C．Humorous. | D．Matter-of-fact. |
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