Wang Jiaming from Beijing Chenjinglun High School says he is a lucky boy .He’s happy that he’s sitting the senior high school entrance exam in2014 instead of 2016.
On October 22,Beijing Municipal Commission of Education* announced that, from 2016,the English scores in the senior high school entrances exam will be reduced* from 120 to 100.Of the 100 points, the listening ability scores will increase to 50.Meanwhile, the points for Chinese will increase from 120 to 150.
“The change won’t affect me. I fell so lucky because English is my strongest subject,’’ said Wang. Why such a change? It places the importance on Chinese in our study and reduces students’ pressure, said Li Yi, a spokesman of the commission.
“The change will also push us to pay attention to the practical usage of English.,’’ said Li. “Students will be encouraged to learn to understand English menus and read English news on mobile phones.”
There isn’t news that other cities will have the same change. But several places are making changes to English tests in the college entrance exams.
For example, Shandong is considering taking out the listening part of the English exam in its Gaokao. But, “ being tested for less points doesn’t mean the subject can be taken lightly,” Bai Ping wrote in China Daily.
English has long been the world’s most commonly used language. Wang Jiaming said he understood the change.
“Chinese, not English, is our mother tongue*,” he said. “ but still, I think English is both interesting and useful.”
小题1: In the Beijing senior high school entrances exam of 2016, the English scores will be cut down to __________.

A．50

B． 100

C．120

D．150

小题2: Wang Jiaming feels lucky because _______

A．the exam change from 2016 doesn’t affect him

B．he doesn’t need to take the important exam

C．Chinese is his strongest subject

D．he is not good at chemistry

小题3:The sentence “ being tested for less points doesn’t mean the subject can be taken lightly,” in the passage means ______________

A．the students can spend less time on English.

B．it’s harder to for the students get a high score.

C．English is not as important and useful as before

D．studying English is still important for the students.

小题4: What is the main purpose of the change?

A．To encourage students to learn how to order meals in English.

B．To make students to learn to read English news on mobile phones.

C．To ask students to prepare for the college entrance exam.

D．To make students pay more attention to learn Chinese.

The air pollution was so bad in Harbin, in China, on October 21,2013 that the city had to close roads and schools, and cancel* hundreds of flights from its airport.
News reports said the smog (a mixture of smoke and fog) was so thick that people couldn’t see more than 10 or 20 metres in front of them.
It is also said that people could not even see the person standing next to them. The city’s website said: “You can’t see your own fingers in front of you.”
The local people said there was a “burning” smell in the air. Many people covered their noses and mouths with scarves or masks*.
The pollution was caused on several factors* including: farmers burning off old corn stalks* and crop stubble*; coal*-fired heating systems; and low winds that allowed the smoke to remain over the city.
The smog had been building up for several days. It became worse when the city turned on the public heating system, which uses coal to heat millions of homes and offices in the city.
Harbin has a population of more than 10 million people. It lies in northeastern China, where cold winter weather can last up to six months. The main fuel* there is coal, because it is cheaper than other types of fuel.
Air pollution from burning coal can cause health problems like heart disease. During the smog crisis* in Harbin, the number of people taken to the hospital with breathing problems was 30% higher than usual.
The city government is trying to reduce its use of coal by adding more insulation* and better roofs and windows to buildings to reduce heating needs. It has also used cleaner fuel for cars and factories.
小题1:The roads and schools in Harbin had to be closed on October 21, 2013 because of  ____

A．the heavy rain

B．the strong wind

C．the serious smog

D． the terrible snow

小题2:There are many reasons for the air pollution EXCEPT____________.

A．farmers burn off old corn stalks and crop stubble

B．people use coal to heat millions of homes and offices

C．The smoke remains over the city because of low winds

D．Many buses and cars use cleaner fuel and so do factories.

小题3: What is the government trying to do when the air pollution get worse?

A．To offer cars new fuel.

B．To give people more masks.

C．To reduce its use of coal.

D．To ask people to stay at home.

小题4:What does the passage mainly tell us?

A．The serious air pollution in China

B．Coal-fired heating systems

C．The population crisis in Harbin

D．The reasons for heart disease

Everyone needs to sleep. This is a fact of life that everyone has to deal with and       that they get plenty of it. Your body needs time to get back the energy that you        during the whole day. This usually happens when you are sleeping. Your body is building your energy again to        you to work.
If you don’t get enough sleep, your body will have a(n)     time fighting against illnesses. You have to give your body enough time to rest or you will get      . Have you ever       that when you are very tired, you have        thinking or dealing with problems? This is because not only your        but your mind is tired. So sleep is       to your mind, too.
By getting enough sleep, you will be able to       your body and mind, feeling relaxed and energetic. So sleep as much as you can, and let your body and mind rest.

小题1:	A．talk with B．make sure C．make up D．use up

小题2:	A．caught B．saved C．used D．bought

小题3:	A．ask B．stop C．make D．help

小题4:	A．shocked B．unhappy C．hard D．free

小题5:	A．rich B．busy C．angry D．ill

小题6:	A．watched B．replied C．noticed D．created

小题7:	A．trouble B．records C．matters D．things

小题8:	A．body B．feeling C．sleep D．energy

小题9:	A．final B．enough C．important D．difficult

小题10:

A．wake up B．take up C．live up D．leave off

Now satellites are helping to forecast（预报）the weather. They are in space, and they can reach any part of the world. The satellites take pictures of the atmosphere, because this is where the weather forms. They send these pictures to the weather stations. So meteorologists（气象学家）can see the weather of any part of the world. From the pictures, the scientists can often say how the weather will change.
Today, nearly five hundred weather stations in sixty countries receive satellite pictures. When they receive new pictures, the meteorologists compare them with earlier ones. Perhaps they may find that the clouds have changed during the last few hours. This may mean that the weather on the ground may soon change, too. In their next weather forecast, the meteorologists can say this.
So the weather satellites are a great help to the meteorologists. Before satellites were invented, the scientists could forecast the weather for about 24 or 48 hours. Now they can make good forecasts for three or five days. Soon, perhaps, they may be able to forecast the weather for a week or more ahead.
小题1:Satellites travel _____________.

A．in space	B．in the atmosphere
C．above the ground	D．above space

小题2:Why do we use the weather satellites to take pictures of the atmosphere? Because __________.

A．the weather satellites can do it easily

B．clouds form there

C．the weather forms there

D．the pictures can forecast the weather

小题3:Meteorologists forecast the weather __________.

A．when they have received satellite pictures

B．after they have compared new satellite pictures with earlier ones

C．before they received satellite pictures

D．during they study satellite pictures

小题4:Maybe we’ll soon be able to forecast the weather for ________.

A．one day	B．two days
C．five days	D．seven days or even longer

小题5:The main idea of this passage is that satellites are now used in _________.

A．taking pictures of the atmosphere

B．receiving pictures of the atmosphere

C．doing other work in many ways

D．weather forecasting

At the beginning of this century, medical scientists made an interesting discovery（发现）: we are built not just of flesh (肌肉) and blood but also of time. They were able to show that we all have a ‘body clock’       us, which controls the       and fall of our body energies. It can       us different from one day to the next.
The idea of a ‘body clock’ should not be too       because the lives of most living things are controlled by the 24-hour night-and-day cycle (循环). We feel       and fall asleep at night. We become       and energetic during the day. Most people will have a bad feeling if the 24-hour cycle is      . For example, people who are not used to working at night can find that lack (缺少) of sleep causes them to     badly at work.
      the daily cycle of sleeping and waking, we also have other cycle which lasts longer than one day. Most of us would       that we feel good on some days and not so good on others; sometimes our ideas seem to be so active and at other times, they are not.

小题1:	A．beside B．inside C．outside D．under

小题2:	A．life B．offer C．use D．rise

小题3:	A．show B．treat C．make D．change

小题4:	A．difficult B．natural C．surprising D．frightening

小题5:	A．quiet B．tired C．comfortable D．cheerful

小题6:	A．regular B．serious C．lively D．clear

小题7:	A．disturbed B．pushed C．restarted D．troubled

小题8:	A．perform B．suffer C．count D．control

小题9:	A．With B．As well as C．Except D．Rather than

小题10:

A．afford B．admire C．advise D．agree

Every school has notice boards. Let's see what is on the notice board of an American school.

小题1:From         , parents can get information on the parents’ meeting.

A．School Policy	B．Report Card
C．Class Announcement	D．After-school Program

小题2:Report Card shows parents        .

A．certain school rules	B．after-school activities
C．plans for classes and tests	D．children's school life and work.

小题3:If Tony doesn't do well at school but makes progress, he will get        on the Report Card.

A．1

B．2

C．3

D．4

小题4:Students do their homework and read books          .

A．from 3:30 to 4:30	B．from 3:30 to 6:00 .
C．from 4:30 to 6:00	D．from 6:00 to 7:00

小题5:According to School Policy, visitors have to __________ when entering the school.

A．hand in a note	B．call at 524-9752
C．check in at the office	D．telephone the school

Oil is so important that it is sometimes called “black gold”. Almost half of our energy comes from oil. We use it to run our cars and factories and to heat our homes, offices and schools. Many everyday things are made from oil. Your shirt may have oil in the material. The soap you wash your hands with might also be made from oil. Your favorite plastic toy is made from oil.     
Oil is hard to find, because it is trapped deep under the earth. Once the only way people knew there was oil someplace if it leaked（渗漏）out of the ground. Today, however, we have many ways of finding oil. One tool measures（测量）the pull of gravity. Places where gravity is weaker are more likely to have oil. Another tool is sound waves（声波）. Sound waves travel through different kinds of rocks at different speeds. We can use them to find the rocks that have oil in them.     
We need a lot of oil, and we are using up the oil wells we know about. Soon we must find new ways of looking for this “black gold”.
小题1:Which of the following isn’t the way to help find oil?

A．Sound waves travel through different kinds of rocks at different speeds.

B．People measure the pull of gravity to know if there is oil.

C．Sound waves tell us where the oil has leaked out of the ground.

D．People know there is oil if it leaks out of the ground.

小题2:Which of the following does the passage lead you to believe?

A．Oil was firstly found by measuring gravity.

B．Many things are made from oil.

C．We will never run out of oil.

D．Our lives would not be different if we didn’t have oil.

小题3:The main idea of the whole story is that ________________.

A．many things are made from oil

B．we must find new ways of looking for oil

C．people spend a lot of time looking for oil

D．oil is important for us but hard to find

"Here's the advance payment(预期款) of 10,000 dollars. You will get the other half when we get those papers," the agent told Mike. "But sir, Mr. Smith has been very suspicious (怀疑) since last week," Mike replied.
"In that case, be careful and don't worry. You are very clever," the agent said." Take 5,000 dollars more," Mike looked around uneasily but took the money.
Mike was a clerk in a large company. A few years ago he started to get very worried because it was very hard for him to support his family. He wanted to give his child an excellent education and a bright future, but the future looked rather hopeless.
One day some agents called him. They were his company's competitors. At first he refused their offers. But when he thought his dream could come true, he agreed to their offers and began giving them information.
However, his spy work started to get more and more difficult because his owner had become suspicious, since a lot of important information was leaking out.
One night when Mike was on one of his spying tasks, he met Alim, the night watchman." What are you doing here, Mike?" shouted Alim.
"Oh, I had just forgotten some documents here, Alim, "Mike replied, trying to look comfortable." I just came to get them."
"Is that true?" Alim said." We’ll see what Mr. Smith says."
Alim called Mr. Smith and told him to come right away. Mr. Smith looked at Mike and said. "So you are the thief! I believed in you, Mike."
"Call the police, Alim. We have finally caught the spy," Mr. Smith said. "And by the way, Mike ,no man can serve two masters. You should have left if you did not work with us any longer."  
小题1:Why did Mike take the job as a spy? Because ______________.

A．he didn't want to work for his company any longer.

B．some agents forced him to do so.

C．he wanted to give his child an excellent education and bright future.

D．Mr. Smith did not give treat him very well.

小题2:What did the agents ask Mike to do?  

A．To give them some important information of his company.

B．To follow his boss secretly.

C．To serve his master very honestly.

D．To leave his company and join them.

小题3:Mr. Smith thought Mike was______ before he knew that Mike was a spy.

A．kind

B．clever

C．honest

D．dishonest

小题4:What's the meaning of the phrase "leak out" in the passage?___________.

A．land on

B．cross out

C．become known

D．come out

小题5:What can you learn from the passage?______________.

A．We should be careful at work.	B．We should be honest at work.
C．We should work hard.	D．We should serve the masters.

Carmen Arace Middle School is situated in the pastoral town of Bloomfield, Conn., but four years ago it faced many of the same problems as inner-city schools in nearby Hartford: low scores on standardized tests and dropping enrollment（入学注册）. Then the school’s hard-driving headmaster, Delores Bolton, persuaded her board to shake up the place by buying a laptop computer for each student and teacher to use, in school and at home. What’s more, the board provided wireless Internet access at school. Total cost: $2.5 million.
Now, an hour before classes start, every seat in the library is taken by students who cannot wait for getting online. Fifth-grade teacher Jen Friday talks about different kinds of birds as students view them at a colorful website. After school, students on buses pull laptops from backpacks to get started on homework. Since the computer arrived, enrollment is up 20%. Scores on state tests are up 35%.
Indeed, school systems in rural Maine and New York City also hope to follow Arace Middle School’s example. Governor Angus King had planned using $50 million to buy a laptop for all of Maine’s 17,000 seventh-graders – and for new seventh-graders each fall.
In the same spirit, the New York City board of education voted on April 12 to create a school Internet portal（入口）, which would make money by selling ads and licensing public school students. Profits（盈利）will also provide e-mail service for the city’s 1.1 million public school students. Profits will be used to buy laptops for each of the school system’s 87,000 fourth-graders. Within nine years, all students in grades 4 and higher will have their own computers.
Back in Bloomfield, in the meantime, most of the kinks have been worked out. Some students were using their computers to visit unauthorized（非法的）websites. But teachers have the ability to keep an eye on where students have been on the Web and to stop them. “That is the worst when they disable you,” says eighth-grade honors student Jamie Bassell. The habit is rubbing off on parents. “I taught my mom to use e-mail,” says another eighth-grader, Katherine Hypolite. “And now she’s taking computer classes. I’m so proud of her!”
小题1:The example of Carmen Arace Middle School in the passage is used to ______.

A．show the problems schools are faced with today

B．prove that a school without high enrollment can do well

C．express the importance of computers in modern education

D．tell that laptops can help improve students’ school performance

小题2:According to the writer, students in New York City’s public schools will ______.

A．enjoy e-mail service in the near future

B．make money by selling ads on websites

C．all have their own laptops within nine years

D．become more interested in their studies with laptops

小题3:The underlined word “kinks” in the last paragraph most probably means ______.

A．plans

B．projects

C．problems

D．products

小题4:From the passage we learn that ______.

A．a school Internet portal is the key to a laptop program

B．the laptop program also has a good influence on parents

C．students slowly accept the fact their online activities controlled

D．the laptop program in public school is mainly for the eighth-graders

“Yes, ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard NASA’s Space Elevator. We’re going to leave soon. The entire ride will take about five hours, so sit back and enjoy the trip. As we rise, be sure to look out the window. You’ll see the sky change from deep blue to black. It is one of the most wonderful views（景色）you will ever see! ”
Does this sound like the Sci-Fi Channel? Well, it’s not. Scientists are thinking that a “space elevator” will be possible toward the end of the 21st century. A space elevator will consist of a long cable (电缆) from the Earth’s surface into space to an altitude(高度) of about 35,786 km. “Elevators” will travel along the cable and move people and loads between Earth and space. One of the greatest advantages is that the cost will be much less. Researchers estimate (估计) that a passenger with baggage at 150 kg might cost only $222! Compare that to today’s cost of around $3.3 million for the same weight. It would make “cheap” space travel possible. Scientists believe carbon nanotubes (纳米管) may be used to make high-strength materials for the cables, although they are still being studied.
It was Arthur C. Clarke who brought this idea to the general public. In his science fiction novel Fountains of Paradise, engineers build a space elevator on top of a mountain peak on an island. One day, Clarke was asked a question by a student during his speech. The student asked when the space elevator would become a reality. Clarke answered, “Probably about 50 years after everybody stops laughing.” He’s got a point. When we stop thinking of something as impossible, then we start working on its development.
小题1:Why should passengers in a space elevator look out the window while they are moving into space?

A．Because the blue sky is very beautiful.

B．Because the view outside is wonderful.

C．Because the sky changes from black to blue.

D．Because the trip will take about seven hours.

小题2:Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?

A．Scientists haven’t used carbon nanotubes to make the cables.

B．Traveling in space elevators will cost much less in the future.

C．Passengers will be able to travel in space elevators with baggage.

D．Space elevators will travel for 35,786 km around the Earth’s surface.

小题3:What is the best title for this passage?

A．Possible Now: Space Travel	B．Cheap Space Travel
C．Going into Space in an Elevator	D．Space Travel — Impossible