Generally speaking, that city is ___ crowded than ___ in the same area.

A. less, the others   B. less, others   C. more, another   D. more, some other

My parents have promised to come to see me before I ____ for Africa.

A. have left                B. leave                      C. left                       D. will leave

The telephone _______, but by the time I got indoors, it stopped.

A. had rung                B. was ringing                 C. rings                   D. has rung

Language learning begins with listening. Children are greatly different in the amount of listening they do before they start speaking, and later starters are often long listeners. Most children will “obey” spoken instructions some time before they can speak, though the word “obey” is hardly accurate as a description of the eager and delighted cooperation usually shown by the children. Before they can speak, many children will also ask questions by gesture and by making questioning noises.

Any attempt to study the development from the noises babies make to their first spoken words leads to considerable difficulties. It is agreed that they enjoy making noises, and that during the first few months one or two noises sort themselves as particularly expressive as delight, pain, friendliness, and so on. But since these can’t be said to show the baby’s intention to communicate, they can hardly be regarded as early forms of language. It is agreed, too, that from about three months they play with sounds for enjoyment, and that by six months they are able to add new words to their store. This self-imitation(模仿) leads on to deliberate(有意的) imitation of sounds made or words spoken to them by other people. The problem then arises as to the point at which one can say that these imitations can be considered as speech.

It is a problem we need to get our teeth into. The meaning of a word depends on what a particular person means by it in a particular situation; and it is clear that what a child means by a word will change as he gains more experience of the world. Thus the use, at seven months, of “mama” as a greeting for his mother cannot be dismissed as a meaning-less sound simply because he also uses it at another time for his father, his dog, or anything else he likes. Playful and meaningless imitation of what other people say continues after the child has begun to speak for himself. I doubt, however, whether anything is gained when parents take advantage of this ability in an attempt to teach new sounds.

1. Before children start speaking _______.

A. they need equal amount of listening

B. they need different amounts of listening

C. they are all eager to cooperate with the adults by obey spoken instructions

D. they can’t understand and obey the adult’s oral instructions

2. Children who start speaking late _______.

A. may have problems with their listening

B. probably do not hear enough language spoken around them

C. usually pay close attention to what they hear

D. often take a long time in learning to listen properly

3. A baby’s first noises are _______.

A. an expression of his moods and feelings

B. an early form of language

C. a sign that he means to tell you something

D. an imitation of the speech of adults

4. The problem of deciding at what point a baby’ imitations can be considered as speech _______.

A. is important because words have different meanings for different people

B. is not especially important because the changeover takes place gradually

C. is one that should be properly understood because the meaning of words changes with age

D. is one that should be completely ignored(忽略) because children’s use of words is of-ten meaningless

5. The speaker implies _______.

A. parents can never hope to teach their children new sounds

B. children no longer imitate people after they begin to speak

C. children who are good at imitating learn new words more quickly

LONDON — Britain awoke on Easter Monday to a period of mourning for the Queen Mother, who died over the weekend after a life spanning a century of noisy and evident change. The 101-year-old royal matriarch died in her sleep last Saturday with Queen Elizabeth, her elder and only surviving daughter, at her bedside. For a woman who was one of the best-known figures in Britain for more than 80 years — from the era of tinted portraits on tin biscuit boxes and cigarette cards to the age of the Internet, the Queen Mother remained an enigmatic(不可思议的) and elusive(躲避的) figure.

She achieved such a respect through aeons(永世, 亿万年) of, first, fawning and, later, intrusive media fascination, by remaining almost entirely silent. Her private thoughts were never paraded(炫耀) in public. What the public saw was a charming and benign elderly lady, adept at winning the admiration of press photographers, whom she always favoured with a particular smile.

CHINA’s third unmanned spacecraft, Shenzhou Ⅲ, landed safely in central Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Monday afternoon, after orbiting the earth 108 times in slightly less than a week. The craft, which lifted off from Jiuquan in Gansu Province last Monday night, landed after successfully conducting a chain of flight and scientific experiments over a period of 162 hours.

A powerful earthquake jolted Taiwan, killing five construction workers, authorities(官方) said. Over 200 injuries ware reported across the island, mostly minor, as a result of Sunday’s 7.5-magnitude quake. The quake was centred off Hualien, 180 kilometres east of Taipei. It struck at 2:53 pm and lasted for nearly a minute.

1. Which of the following statements is true according to the news?

　　A. The Queen Mother died on Easter Monday alone.

　　B. The Queen Mother was an attractive person in her political life.

　　C. The British people felt sorry for the death of the Queen Mother.

　　D. The Queen Mother was suffering a lot when she was dying.

　　2. It can be inferred that _______.

　　A. the craft landed in central Inner Mongolia unexpectedly

　　B. it took the craft at least 2 hours to orbit the earth once

　　C. the Chinese scientists did a lot of experiments in space

　　D. China was successful in sending an unmanned spacecraft into space

3. The third news mainly talks about the _______ in Taiwan.

    A. political matters                         B. social problems

　　C. unexpected damage                     D. construction workers

Americans think that travel is good for you, some even think it can help one of the country’s worst problems — crime. Crime worries a lot of people. Every year, the number of crimes goes up and up. And many criminals(罪犯) are young. They often come from sad homes, with only one parent or no parents at all.

There are many young criminals in prison. But prison doesn’t change them. Six or seven in ten will go back to crime when they come out of prison. One man, Bob Burton, thought of a new idea. In the old days, young men had to live a difficult life on the road. They learned to be strong and brave, and to help their friends in time of danger. This helped them to grow into men. So Bob Burton started “Vision Quest”. He takes young criminals on a long, long journey with horses and wagons, 3 000 miles through seven states. They are on the road for more than a year.

The young people on Vision Quest all have had problems. Most of them have already spent time in prison. This is their last chance. It’s hard work on the road. The day starts before the sun comes up. The boys and girls have to feed the horses. Some of them have never loved anyone before. But they can love their horses. That love can help them to a new life.

Not all the young people on Vision Quest will leave crime behind them. Three or four in ten will one day be in prison again. Bob Burton is right. Travel can be good for you. Even today, Americans still say, “Go west, young man.”

1. In paragraph 4 “leave crime behind them” means _______.

    A. no longer do a crime               B. leave people who do a crime

    C. don’t do all the crime                     D. leave criminals behind

2. From the passage we may infer that _______.

    A. getting up before the sun rises can help people out of crime

    B. loving can help young people to a new life

    C. traveling can help all criminals out of prison

    D. being brave and strong can do with crime

3. On “Vision Quest” _______.

A. young people have bad problems

B. young people grow tall very fast

C. young people often help their friends in time of danger

D. all of the above

4. Americans still say, “Go west, young man”, because _______.

A. if they go west they can have a travel

B. in the west there is a prison

C. there they have to live a hard life to grow into men

D. the prison doesn’t change them

Suppose we built a robot to explore the planet Mars. We provide the robot with seeing detectors(探测器) to keep it away from danger. It is powered entirely by the sun. Should we program the robot to be equally active at all times? No, the robot would be using up energy at a time when it was not receiving any. So we would probably program it to stop its activity at night and to wake up at dawn the next morning.

According to evolutionary(进化的) theory of sleep, evolution equipped us with a regular pattern of sleeping and waking for the same reason. The theory does not deny that sleep provides some important restorative functions. It merely says that evolution has programmed us to perform those functions at a time when activity would be inefficient and possibly dangerous. However, sleep protects us only from the sort of trouble we might walk into; it does not protect us from trouble that comes looking for us. So we sleep well when we are in a familiar, safe place, but we sleep lightly, if at all, when we fear that bears will nose into the tent.

The evolutionary theory explain the differences in sleep among creatures. Why do cats, for instance, sleep so much, while horses sleep so little? Surely cats do not need five times as much repair and restoration as horses do. But cats can afford to have long periods of inactivity because they spend little time eating and are unlikely to be attacked while they sleep. Horses must spend almost all their waking hours eating, because what they eat is very low in energy value. Moreover, they cannot afford to sleep too long or too deeply, because their survival depends on their ability to run away from attackers.

1. The author uses the example of the robot in space exploration to tell us _______.

A. the differences between robots and men

B. the reason why men need to sleep

C. about the need for robots to save power

D. about the danger of men working at night

2. Evolution has programmed man to sleep at night chiefly to help him ______.

A. keep up a regular pattern of life

B. prevent trouble that comes looking for him

C. avoid danger and inefficient labor  

D. restore his bodily functions

3. Which of the following is the main idea of the passage?

A. Evolution has equipped all creatures with a regular pattern of sleeping and waking.

B. The study of sleep is an important art of the evolutionary theory.

C. Sleeping patterns must be taken into consideration in the designing of robots.

D. The sleeping pattern of a living creature is determined by the food it eats.

－Where did you put the car keys?

－Oh, I ______ I put them on the chair because the phone rang as I _______ in.

A. remembered; come                       B. remembered; was coming

C. remember; come                          D. remember; was coming

—Why don’t we choose that road to save time?  

—The bridge to it __________.  

A. has repaired           B. is repaired  

C. is being repaired       D. will be repaired

According to the art dealer, the painting ______  to go for at least a million dollars.

A. is expected             B. expects               C. expected                D. is expecting