As we enjoy the summer ocean waves along the beaches, we may think nervously about Steven Spielberg's Jaws and the great fear that sharks inspire in us. Yet we are happy to see global efforts to protect the declining number of sharks. The world has realized that we need the species, like sharks, to keep a balanced ecosystem.
Sharks, in particular, are “in” these days. Thanks to good public policy and famous stars such as Jackie Chan and Ang Lee, killing sharks for fin soup is no longer cool.
The demand for shark fins has been rising for decades, threatening sharks with extinction -- up to 100 million sharks are killed each year just for their fins. But we have started to reverse the trend, particularly in many areas of the United States and overseas where restaurants once proudly provided delicious shark fins on the menu.
In California, a ban on the sale and possession of shark fin soup has gone into effect this year through the efforts of Wild Aid and other organizations.
Overseas marketing and public efforts featuring posters on public transportation systems and TV ads have been underway for the past few years. These efforts all show signs of success, on both the supply side and the demand side of trade in shark fins.
Actually, stopping the killing of sharks is part of a broader movement to stop the killing of wild animals and the buying and selling of wildlife products. These products come from hunting elephants, tigers and rhinos, besides killing marine life.
Whether it is shark fin soup or ivory piano keys, killing animals is big business. The hunting of elephants in search of ivory tusks for luxury（奢侈的）goods has become a full-scale war. The decrease of African elephant populations is alarming. Together with international partners, the United States is leading the worldwide effort to reduce demand for high-end products that rely on killing animals. The underlined word “reverse” in Paragraph 3 probably means _______.
| A．follow | B．keep | C．change | D．show |
From the passage, we know _______.
| A．a lot of wild animals have been killed for products |
| B．Jackie Chan and Ang Lee make fin soup popular |
| C．Steven Spielberg's Jaws inspires us to protect sharks |
| D．the number of African elephants has been increased |
What can we infer from the passage?
| A．People have kicked the habit of having shark fin soup. |
| B．Shark fins will not be available any more in restaurants. |
| C．Global efforts have succeeded in stopping killing wild animals. |
| D．More animals for high-end products will be saved. |
The Donkey Mobile Library
It is a bright morning in the Ethiopian countryside. Yohannes walks beside a pair of donkeys that are pulling a two-wheeled cart. They arrive at the agricultural town of Awassa where Yohannes opens the sides of the cart to display, not the usual vegetables or tools, but children’s books. This is the Donkey Mobile Library, the first of its kind in Ethiopia and one of only a few in the world.
Yohannes was born in Ethiopia, North Africa, but trained to be a librarian in the USA and returned to Ethiopia years ago. The cart is full of picture books donated by American libraries, teachers and school children.
Yohannes arranges small painted benches in the shade of the trees, and suddenly Ethiopian children come shouting and racing down every road and path. It’s mobile library day! They circle the bookshelves with great excitement. Until the Donkey Mobile Library began its regular two-monthly visits, many of these children had never seen a book.
“Without books, education is very dull, like food without salt. You can survive but you can’t really come alive,” says Yohannes. “The ability to read is the basis for greater productivity, better health and longer life. Even though the children lack material goods, with books they can imagine a world of possibilities.”
Yohannes first worked in the children’s section of the main library in America. Surrounded by books he had never seen before, he realized how joyful and imaginative children’s literature is. He says, “I always thought of Ethiopia. But how could I bring children’s books to my home country when it had almost no libraries to keep the books in?”
He contacted Jane Kurtz, a writer born in America but brought up in Ethiopia, and together they created the Donkey Mobile Library. The children say that the Library has given them ideas about what they might do in the future. A child called Dareje wants to be a scientist and find a cure for life-threatening diseases. An eleven year-old girl, Fikerte, wants to do research about the moon and discover new facts about outer space. Tamrat, aged 10, comes every time.
“What brings you back here time and time again?” the librarian asks him.
“The stories,” Tamrat replies instantly. How do the children feel when they see the Donkey Mobile Library?
| A．Curious. | B．Surprised. | C．Interested. | D．Excited. |
We can conclude from the passage that .
| A．Ethiopian children have no idea about their future |
| B．Yohannes and Kurtz share similar life experiences |
| C．donkey carts in Awassa usually carry vegetables and tools |
| D．most books in the Donkey Mobile Library were bought in America |
According to the passage, the Donkey Mobile Library .
| A．visits the countryside every day | B．benefits Ethiopian children a lot |
| C．was created by Yohannes himself | D．was the first of its kind in the world |
Where is the passage most likely to have been taken from?
| A．A news report. | B．A book review. | C．A historical story. | D．An advertisement. |
Science, as we think, was born when the Greek philosopher (哲学家) Thales ( about 640-546 B.C.) asked a difficult question: What makes up our universe?
No one had a ready answer, so Thales went on studying the earth around him, the sky and the stars. He saw so much water on earth and so much water falling from the sky as rain that he decided water must be the basic substance (物质) of the universe.
Other Greek thinkers became interested in this question. They suggested other answers. One said that because air lies around the earth, it must be air that makes up all things. Another said that fire, appearing in different forms, was the building block of the universe.
The Greek philosophers were feeling their way towards the ideas on which chemistry is based. Centuries later, scientists proved that the universe is made up of certain basic substances. But the list is much more complicated than the Greeks realized. We now know of 103 basic substances which we call “ elements (元素)”.Thales, the famous Greek philosopher, died when he was about_________.
| A．94 years old | B．106years old | C．40 years old | D．46 years old |
The meaning of the underlined word “complicated” in the last paragraph is “_______”.
| A．not difficult | B．not simple | C．not famous | D．not different |
From the passage we know that _______.
| A．Thales asked many questions | B．Greeks were all philosophers |
| C．science began long ago | D．water and air make up all things. |
On the whole, the passage tells about _______.
| A．early tries to understand the universe | B．the famous Greek thinkers |
| C．water falling from the sky | D．air lying all around the earth |
After reading the passage, we can be sure that_______.
| A．nothing ever changes in the universe |
| B．Thales decided that the basic substance of the universe was air |
| C．the universe is made up of four different substances |
| D．the early Greek thinkers did much valuable work for the progress of science |
It doesn’t matter when and how much a person sleeps , but everyone needs some rest to stay alive. That’s what all doctors thought , until they heard about Herpin. Herpin, it was said , never slept. Could this be true? The doctors decided to see this strange man themselves.
Herpin was 90 years old when the doctors came to his home in New Jersey. They thought for sure that he got some sleep of some kind. So they stayed with him and watched every movement he made. But they were surprised. Though they watched him hour after hour and day after day, they never saw him sleeping. In fact, he did not even own a bed. He never needed one.
The only rest that Herpin sometimes got was sitting in a comfortable chair and reading newspapers. The doctors were puzzled by this strange continuous sleeplessness. They asked him many questions, hoping to find an answer. They found only one answer that might explain his condition. Herpin remembered some talk about his mother having been injured several days before he was born. But that was all. Was this the real reason? No one could be sure. Herpin died at the age of 94.The main idea of this passage is that_____
| A．large numbers of people do not need sleep |
| B．a person was found who actually didn’t need any sleep |
| C．everyone needs some sleep to stay alive |
| D．people can live longer by trying not to sleep |
The doctors came to visit Herpin, expecting_____
| A．to cure him of his sleeplessness |
| B．to find that his sleeplessness was not really true |
| C．to find out why some old people did not need any sleep |
| D．to find a way to free people from the need of sleeping |
After watching him closely, the doctors came to believe that Herpin_____
| A．needed some kind of sleep |
| B．was too old to need any sleep |
| C．needed no sleep at all |
| D．often sleep in a chair |
One reason that might explain Herpin’s sleeplessness was _____
| A．his mother’s injury before he was born |
| B．that he had gradually got rid of the sleeping habit |
| C．his magnificent physical condition |
| D．that he hadn’t got a bed |
Herpin’s condition could be regarded as ______
| A．a common one | B．one that could be cured | C．very healthy | D．a rare one |
“Fire! Fire!” What terrible words to hear when one wakes up in a strange house in the middle of the night! It was a large, old, wooden house and my room was on the top floor. I jumped out of bed, opened the door and stepped outside the house. There was full of thick smoke.
I began to run, but as I was still only half-awake, instead of going towards the stairs I went in the opposite direction. The smoke grew thicker and I could see fire all around. The floor became hot under my bare feet. I found an open door and ran into a room to get to the window. But before I could reach it, one of my feet caught in something soft and I fell down. The thing I had fallen over felt like a bundle of clothes, and I picked it up to protect my face from the smoke and heat. Just then the floor gave way under me and I crashed to the floor below with pieces of burning wood all around me.
I saw a doorway in fire, then I put the bundle over my face and ran. My feet burned me terrible, but I got through. As I reached the cold air outside, my bundle of clothes gave a thin cry, I nearly dropped it in my surprise. Then I was in a crowd gathered in the street. A woman in a night-dress and a borrowed man’s coat screamed as she saw me and came running madly.
She was the Mayor’s wife, and I had saved her baby.When the fire arose in the middle of the night, the author was _______.
| A．at home | B．sleeping | C．sitting in bed | D．both A and B |
The author saved the baby _____.
| A．because he was very brave. | B．because he liked the baby very much. |
| C．but he just happened to save it. | D．because it was the Mayor’s baby. |
He ran in the wrong direction because he _______.
| A．was a stranger there | B．could see nothing |
| C．was not completely awake | D．Both A and C |
He put the bundle over his face and ran in order to ______.
| A．save the baby | B．call for help | C．protect his face | D．run quickly |
Form which group of words, we can learn the fire took place out of people’s surprise?______
| A．old and wooden house, a bundle | B．crashed to, fell down |
| C．terrible, half-awake | D．bare feet, a borrowed man’s coat |
There are about fifteen hundred languages in the world. But 21 a few of them are very 22 . English is one of these. Many, many people use it, not only in England and the U.S.A., but in other parts of the world. About 200,000,000 speak it as their own language. It is difficult to say how many people are learning it as a 23 language. Many millions are 24 to do so.
Is it easy or difficult to learn English? Different people may have different 25 . Have you ever 26 ads of this kind in the newspapers or magazines? “Learn English in six weeks, or your 27 back.”.“Easy and funny! Our records and tapes 28 you master(掌握) your English in a month. 29 the first day your 30 will be excellent. Just send us ... ” Of course, it never 31 quite like this.
The only language that seems easy to learn is the mother tongue. We should 32 that we all learned our own language well when we were 33 . If we could learn English in the same way, it would not seem so difficult. 34 what a small child does. He listens to what people say. He tries what he hears. When he is using the language, talking in it, 35 in it all the time. Just imagine how much 36 that gets!
So it is 37 to say that learning English is easy, because a good command of English 38 upon a lot of practice. And practice needs great effort and 39 much time. Good teachers, records, tapes, books, and dictionaries will 40 . But they cannot do the student's work for him.
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