Although he was in poor health, Robert succeeded          other more famous engineers failed．

A．which           B．that　        C．what　          D．where

Obama, the first black president in American history, ________ presidency on January 20th, 2009.

A．set up          B．held up         C．took up            D．picked up

_________ all the required papers, he didn’t answer the questions fluently in class.

A．Having not read                                  B．Not having read

C．Not read                            D．Not to read

Jack’s room always has the dusty smell of an apartment whose windows are          

opened.

A．rarely        B．generally          C．apparently           D．frequently

During my last stay in France, I took to biking down a quiet road．Round a   1   , I found a woman sitting in front of a little shabby house．I don’t know why, but something about her attracted my   2   ．I waved at her as I went by, and she must have thought I was some   3 

tourist because she didn’t wave back．The same thing happened the second day．But on the third day, the old woman returned a hesitated     4   , and the next day, she   5    got out of her chair as I called out, “Morning, madam!” It became a small ritual(仪式)   6    us．She had no idea who I was, nor   7    I was coming, but she seemed to be    8    for me.

       On my last ride, I bought some flowers and    9    down to the house, only to find she wasn’t there．She had gone to hospital for surgeries．  10   , I tied the flowers to her gate as a    11    gift．Back at my place, I    12    Roger, the gardener, of my missed    13   ．“The old lady at the corner is suffering    14    injuries, through which walking has been troubling her,” he said,   15    “by the quiet road there used to be a station．Whenever a train passed, the couple would see the passengers waving    16   , especially the children—for them, such a ride was high adventure． 17   , everything is gone except for this couple.”

       It seems that my bicycle ride    18    mind her past days．As Roger said, “she has    19    the trains and the waves．You brought them back to her.” By reaching out, in a way that cost me    20   , I’d given more than I had realized.

1．A．corner                B．garden               C．hospital            D．shop

2．A．sympathy              B．feeling                 C．impression          D．interest

3．A．humorous            B．silly              C．enthusiastic       D．willing

4．A．smile                 B．wave                C．look                  D．weep

5．A．nearly                  B．hardly                C．merely               D．mostly

6．A．from                   B．beyond              C．between             D．among

7．A．where                 B．whether             C．how                  D．when

8．A．applying              B．looking              C．searching           D．waiting

9．A．counted               B．cycled               C．fled                   D．drove

10．A．Disappointed      B．Relaxed              C．Amazed             D．Exhausted

11．A．greeting             B．visiting               C．parting               D．celebrating

12．A．asked                B．told                   C．reminded           D．convinced

13．A．connection         B．devotion             C．reaction             D．donation

14．A．leg                    B．head                  C．hand                  D．arm

15．A．adding               B．denying              C．predicating         D．concluding

16．A．surprisingly        B．angrily               C．excitedly            D．casually

17．A．Besides              B．Thus                 C．However            D．Therefore

18．A．called back         B．called to             C．called by            D．called for

19．A．missed               B．forgotten            C．lost                   D．passed

20．A．something        B．little             C．much            D．nothing

Geniuses amaze us, impress us and make us all a little jealous．How do they differ from the average person? Scientists are working hard to figure out that answer．Tune in to the National Geographic Channel to find out about the discoveries they’re making in the series My Brilliant Brain.

       When Marc Yu was only two years old, he began to play the piano．After a year, he started learning pieces by Beethoven．Now he’s a world-famous concert pianist at age eight．He learns newer and more difficult pieces with ease and can identify any note he hears．He seems to be specially designed for music．In Born Genius, National Geographic looks at the science behind child prodigies (神童) to explain why some children seem to be born without limits.

       Genius didn’t come naturally to Tommy McHugh．His came only after he nearly died from bleeding in his brain．After recovering, McHugh’s head was filled with new thoughts and pictures．So, he began to express them in the form of poetry and art．Now, he’s a seemingly unstoppable creative machine．Sufferers of autism and brain injury have shown that great mental ability can sometimes come from damage or disease．Accidental Genius explores this puzzling relationship.

       Can normal people be trained to be geniuses? Susan Polger has shown no signs of extraordinary intelligence．Yet, during her childhood, she studied thousands of chess patterns and learned to recognize them immediately．As a result, she was able to beat skilled adult players by age 10 and can now play up to five games at the same time without even seeing the boards．Make Me a Genius examines what it takes to turn an ordinary brain into that of a genius.

       If becoming a genius were easy, we’d all be one．Yet, there is much more to super intelligence than simply being born lucky．Learn more about amazing brains this month on National Geographic’s My Brilliant Brain.

1．My Brilliant Brains is most probably from _______.

       A．a website            B．the radio           C．a magazine         D．a newspaper

2．The author takes Marc Yu as an example to show that a child prodigy is        .

       A．a person who learns something easily

       B．a child who is eager to learn new things

       C．a student who practices an instrument a lot

       D．a kid who works hard to do well in school

3．Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?

       A．New things about the brain are still being discovered.

       B．People without natural abilities can learn to do things well.

       C．Some people naturally have more active brains.

       D．People are usually smarter when they recover from brain injury.

4．What would be the best way to describe Susan Polger’s special abilities?

       A．Born．             B．Magical．         C．Developed．           D．Ridiculous.

5．From the passage, we know that         .

       A．scientists completely understand the brain

       B．people can only be born as geniuses

       C．there’s no such thing as a true genius

       D．there are many factors in being a genius

6．The author develops the passage mainly by         .

       A．providing typical examples

       B．following the natural time order

       C．presenting a cause and analyzing its effects

       D．comparing opinions from different scientists

During the recent milk crisis in China, different related parts of the society have been put under the microscope, including stars.

       An online survey asked if celebrity spokespersons should bear responsibilityfor endorsing （代言） tainted milk products．Thirty?four percent answered“yes”．They said that the celebrities had betrayed the trust of the people andshould be more morally responsible.

       They are right．But what’s more important is that we should train ourselves to be wise enough not to blindly accept what is being sold, even by our favorite stars.

       No doubt television advertisements, together with other media products, inform and entertain us．But, too often, there are hidden messages in the information we receive．The songs we hear, the images we see, and the articles we read, are carefully selected to convey political, cultural, economic and moral messages．The mass media delivers us these messages in an attempt to persuade us into believing or buying whatever is being pushed.

       The question is: should we always believe what the advertisement or mass media says? The answer is that we should use our minds to dig out the hidden meaning and rely on our own judgment to make a choice.

       In some countries, students take a course called “media literacy”．They learn to analyze the mass media．They are encouraged to challenge everything they see or hear and to do research into missing views．They learn to ask questions and to be critical （批判性的） thinkers.

1．What does the underlined word “tainted” in the second paragraph probably mean?

    A．Popular             B．Healthy            C．Tasteless            D．Harmful.

2．The writer mentioned celebrity spokespersons to         .

       A．point out the shortcomings of advertisements

       B．call on us to think more about the product

       C．warn us not to blindly copy popular stars

       D．stress that they are to blame for misleading

3．What can we conclude from Paragraph 4?

       A．The media products are created with a purpose.

       B．We should take media products as entertainment.

       C．Messages in products do no good to customers.

       D．We seldom take some information for granted.

4．To think critically, we need to do the following except         .

       A．making judgment about what we see and hear

       B．analyzing the intention of messages presented

       C．making a decision after asking for others’ opinion

       D．digging out the missing views behind the information

An Australian company, Smart Car Technologies, has developed a system that lets drivers know when they’re speeding．When the technology becomes commercially available, it could help lead-footed drivers avoid tickets and also save lives．The company that developed the product hopes to convince Australian government agencies to put the technology into use in their automobile fleets.

       The product, called Speed Alert, links real-time location data and speed obtained with the help of GPS to a database of posted speed limits stored in a driver’s PDA or programmable mobile phone．The setup of the product does not need to be hooked up to a car’s speedometer．In fact, it is entirely portable．It will also work with newer phones and PDAs that have built-in GPS receivers．If a driver exceeds the speed limit, the speed is shown and an alert sounds.

       Michael Paine, an Australian vehicle design engineer and traffic safety consultant, was hired to analyze the product．He told Live Science that his colleagues in the road safety field are “very enthusiastic” about what they’re now calling “intelligent speed alert.” Other research, according to Paine, shows that 40 percent of all traffic deaths involve speeding．There is also a potentially controversial future use: “Since the system is so portable, it would be easy to make it a requirement for teenage drivers to always use a speed alert device when driving,” Paine said．“The system even has the capability to record speeding violations, so parents can monitor their teenage drivers.”

       The product will soon go on sale in Sydney.

1．What’s the purpose of the new product?

       A．To inform us of the new car system.

       B．To introduce some improvement in cars.

       C．To limit certain drivers to safe driving.

       D．To popularize the built-in car system.

2．Lead-footed drivers refer to the ones        .

       A．who drive too carelessly                                                                                             B．that drive extremely fast

       C．who are partly disabled                                                                                               D．that drive too slowly

3．The second paragraph mainly talks about        .

       A．the project of the built-in product

       B．why the system becomes popular

       C．the functions of GPS in cars

       D．how the product is programmed

4．Which of the following is true of Speed Alert according to Michael Paine?

       A．Most of the traffic deaths can be avoided.

       B．Speeding violations can be easily found out.

       C．The system will excite some teenage drivers.

       D．The product will not be available for adults.

5．What can be the best title of the passage?

       A．Speed Alert and Its Future Use

       B．Progress in Car-making Science

       C．Warning for Adventurous Drivers

       D．New In-Car Device Against Speeding

There were times when it was only schoolchildren who felt sick before they got their grades．But now teachers in Germany are scared, too, as they are being graded by their students.

       Many teachers are opposed to it．They don’t mind being evaluated．But they are upset because the results are then being posted on the Internet and accessible to millions of Internet users．On the website www.spickmich.de during the past four months students have posted evaluations of 100,000 teachers.

       The teachers are graded on categories such as “motivated”, “good instruction,” “easy examinations”, or even “sexy.” Many teachers think that their privacy has been violated.

       The creators of the website say that the students are only being offered the chance to provide teachers with some feedback about their classroom instruction．Bernd Dicks, who founded the website with three friends, says that the students are largely quite satisfied with their teachers．On a grading scale of one to six, the teachers’ average grade is 2.7 and it has been improving lately．He often says the impression is that students are bullying（欺负） their teachers．But there is also bullying of the students by teachers.

       “Teachers must also learn to live with criticism,” he added．But still, the website is not totally immune from manipulation（操纵）, as one teacher near the northern city of Hanover recently proved．He registered himself on the website as a student and then rated his own teaching colleagues highly．Within a few days, seven of his colleagues were listed in the top 10 rankings of Germany’s best teachers.

1．Many teachers are opposed to the website because        .

       A．their privacy has been violated

       B．they are afraid of being assessed

       C．their evaluations are unfair

       D．the results are not satisfying

2．The founders of the website intended to         .

       A．get the students to know their teachers better

       B．conduct a survey on teachers’ performances

       C．help the teachers to improve their teaching

       D．change the teachers’ ways of giving instructions

3．From what the teacher in Hanover did, we can infer         .

       A．he intended to help his colleagues

       B．there was some disadvantage of the website

       C．his colleagues were more popular than him

       D．he wanted to know how he was evaluated

4．From the passage we can learn that          .

       A．teachers feel upset for their students are bullying them

       B．the website is well received by the teachers

       C．teachers hope to be graded by their teaching skills

       D．teachers have different opinions of the website

5．Which of the following can be the best title of the passage?

       A．Teachers get graded by pupils

       B．Teachers are angry with website

       C．Teachers need self-assessment

       D．New invention in assessing teachers

阅读下面短文, 请根据短文后的要求进行答题。（请注意问题后的字数要求）

       Surgeons in Spain have successfully carried out the world’s first organ transplant（移植） using new stem cell technology．Some people are calling it the greatest medical breakthrough so far this century．

       But what are stem cells? As we know, most cells in our bodies are designed                 —for example, a liver cell develops to work in the liver and cannot become a heart cell．But stem cells are different．They are very young and in the laboratory scientists can grow them into different types of cell.

       Claudia Castillo needed a new windpipe （气管） after getting a serious disease．Scientists from the University of Bristol took a donor windpipe, from someone who had recently died．They used strong chemicals to remove the donor’s cells, leaving a tissue scaffold （组织支架）．This was refilled with cells from Ms Castillo’s windpipe and stem cells from her bone．After four days the cells had grown sufficiently for the windpipe to be transplanted into Ms Castillo.

       Currently, transplant patients have to take drugs for the rest of their lives to prevent their bodies rejecting the new organs．These drugs can have bad side-effects, and do not always prevent rejection．But by using Ms Castillo’s own cells, doctors were able to trick her body into thinking the new windpipe was her own organ．Five months on, Claudia Castillo is in perfect health.

       This ground-breaking procedure could be used in other transplant operations in the future．Scientists also believe stem cells might be used to treat Parkinson's disease, heart disease, stroke, arthritis, burns and so on..

       However, stem cell research is extremely controversial．The most effective stem cells do not come from adults but from embryos （胚胎） created in laboratories which are just a few days old．Many people have religious or ethical objections to growing embryos, even if they can be used to cure diseases.

1．What’s the best title for the passage? （Please answer within 8 words）

_______________________________________________________________________________

2．Fill in the blank in Paragraph 2 with proper words．（Please answer within 8 words）

_______________________________________________________________________________

4．Which sentence in the text is the closest in meaning to the following one?

   However, Ms Castillo’s body mistook the new windpipe for her own because doctors put her own cells in it.

_______________________________________________________________________________

4．What do you think of the stem cell transplant? Why? （Please answer within 30 words）

5．Translate the underlined sentence in Paragraph 4 into Chinese.