Public schools in Washington, D.C. provide students with musical instruments for free. When something goes wrong with an instrument, Charles West and Larry Jernigan do the repairs. Both men approach their work with a passion(激情). For them, it’s important that students have a joyful experience with music.

The two have worked together for almost 20 years. This year alone, they’ve fixed about 450 instruments. Both men are musicians and music lovers, so learning to do repairs came naturally.

“I have been a musician all my life.” says West. “I played in an orchestra here in the city. I majored in music in college. I played in an army band.”

Jernigan’s musical interests are varied. “I was formerly trained in the piano and guitar. The alto sax, and the flute, I picked up while working here.”

In addition to fixing instruments, the two also go to schools to instruct teachers and students on how to make minor repairs on their own.

West believes if children start early and stay involved with music, it enriches other areas of their lives. “I see that in other kids. I see it in myself. I have seen it hundreds of times and it works,” he says. “They learn teamwork. They learn patience and respect.

But West has concerns about the future of music in the electronic age.

“This instant age has taken away from the sit-down, the patience. And to learn to play an instrument, it takes patience, it takes diligence, it takes time.”

Being able to enjoy music on the job is one of the benefits of the job. Both men agree their best rewards are the students’ performances.

1. What’s the job of West and Jernigan at school?

A. Teaching music.

B. Writing music.

C. Making musical instruments.

D. Repairing musical instruments.

2.They love the job because they can     .

A. earn more money                  B. learn repair skills 

C. enjoy music                      D. watch performances

3. Which of the following is true of the two men?

A. They have fixed 450 instruments in the past 20 years.

B. They can play and repair musical instruments.

C. Jernigan used to play in an army band.

D. West was trained to play the piano.

4. According to West, what can people learn from music?

A. Teamwork and patience.               B. The value of time.      

C. The truth of society.                    D. Diligence and confidence.

5. What is mainly talked about in the text?

A. How to repair musical instruments.

B. Learning experiences of two repairmen.

C. How to prepare a musical performance.

D. The enjoyable job of two music lovers.

“Our aim is to take our art to the world and make people understand what it is to move,” said David Belle, the founder of parkour(跑酷).

Do you love running? It is a good exercise, yet many people find it boring. But what if making your morning jog a creative one? Like jumping from walls and over gaps, and ground rolls? Just like the James Bond in the movie Casino Royale? Bond jumps down from a roof to a windowsill and then runs several blocks over obstacles on the way. It is just because of Bond’s wonderful performances that the sport has become popular worldwide.

Yes, that’s parkour, an extreme street sport aimed at moving from one point to another as quickly as possible, getting over all the obstacles in the path using only the abilities of the human body. Parkour is considered an extreme sport. As its participants dash around a city, they may jump over fences, run up walls and even move from rooftop to rooftop.

Parkour can be just as exciting and charming as it sounds, but its participants see parkour much more than that.

Overcoming all the obstacles on the course and in life is part of the philosophy(理念) behind parkour. This is the same as life. You must determine your destination, go straight, jump over all the barriers as if in parkour and never fall back from them in your life, to reach the destination successfully. A parkour lover said, “I love parkour because its philosophy has become my life, my way to do everything.”

Another philosophy we’ve learnt from parkour is freedom. It can be done by anyone, at any time, anywhere in the world. It is a kind of expression of trust in yourself that you earn energy and confidence.

1. Parkour has become popular throughout the world because of     .

A. its founder, David Belle         B. the film, Casino Royale

C. its risks and tricks             D. the varieties of participants

2. The underlined word “obstacles” in Paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to “    ”.

A. streets                          B. objects

C. barriers                     D. roofs

3. Which of the following is true of parkour?

A. It challenges human abilities.       B. It is a good but boring sport.

C. It needs special training.           D. It is a team sport.

4. As its participants move around a city,     .

A. they can ask for help                B. they may choose to escape

C. they should run to extremes      D. they must learn to survive

5. Which of the following is the philosophy of parkour?

A. Sports and extremes.             B. Excitement and popularity.

C. Dreams and success.              D. Determination and freedom.

Parents are often amazed at how fast their child grows and develops. New research has determined that the ability to quantify may develop much sooner than most parents realize.

Kristy vanMarle, professor of the University of Missouri, has determined that contrary to what previous studies have shown, infants（婴儿）are able to quantify substances（物质）—like sand or water—as early as 10 months. As long as the difference between the two substances is large enough, infants will choose the larger amount, especially when it comes to food.

With the assistance of her team researchers, vanMarle tested the quantifying skills of babies by presenting them with two cups: one containing a small amount of food, and one containing a larger amount. Consistently, the babies chose the larger amount.

“Several studies throughout the last 15 years have shown that infants are very good at telling how many objects they see; however, infants don’t seem to count things like water or sand,” vanMarle said. “What we’re saying is that they can quantify substances; it’s just much harder. The infants can see how much food goes into each cup and compare that in their memories. They decide which amount is larger, and they almost always select the larger one.”

This information further refutes（驳斥）the long-held idea that babies “know nothing of the world,” vanMarle said.

“Since psychologists have begun studying infants with sensitive measures, we’ve discovered a lot of early abilities. I think for parents, it should be exciting to know that there’s somebody in there that has some fundamental and basic knowledge of the world, and that knowledge is guiding their development,” vanMarle said.

In the future, vanMarle says this kind of study could be linked to a child’s progress in math-related skills, although programs marketed to increase those abilities, such as “Baby Einstein,” still have mixed reviews when it comes to academic study.

1.The quantifying ability refers to the ability to     .

A. choose between different substances

B. get much knowledge of the world

C. describe the quantity of something

D. obtain math-related skills

2. What is mainly talked about in Paragraph 4?

A. The process of doing research.

B. The scientific findings.

C. The final choice of infants.]

D. The observation of infants’ behavior.

3.Babies choose the larger amount of food     .

A. by saying numbers                B. with the help of parents

C. on personal preference           D. through their natural abilities

4.We can learn from the text that     .

A. some parents don’t care about their kids

B. people used to think the world is known to babies

C. little research has been done on infants

D. scholars disagree on baby-training programs

5. What’s the best title of the text?

A. Breakthrough in Baby Studies

B. Amazing Baby-training Ideas

C. Early Human Abilities

D. Unique Quantifying Methods

The website FarmersOnly.com calls itself an online dating and friendship finder. The idea started in the mind of a man, Jerry Miller in Ohio. He wondered how farmers could meet new people who understand the life of a farmer. Jerry Miller is not a farmer but he represents a lot of farmers.

As he tells it, the idea for the site was planted when a farmer told him one day that she was recently divorced and would like to date. But someone would invite her to meet for coffee at nine o’clock at night, when she had to start her day at five the next morning.

So, in 2005, Jerry Miller launched his website. “You don’t have to be a farmer to be on FarmersOnly.com, but you do have to have the good old-fashioned traditional values of America’s Heartland.” 

You also have to live in the United States or Canada to be a member of the site. Some services are free, but a full membership costs fifty dollars for a year. As of last week the site listed more than 58,000 members. Many of them are farmers in the United States. Others are students or workers involved in some way with agriculture. Jerry Miller tells us about thirty marriages in the last year have resulted from his website.

Some farmers have also found love through a group, Singles in Agriculture, which was formed as a nonprofit organization in 1986. It organizes gatherings that usually end with a dance, but is not a dating service. The purpose is to support educational and social activities that offer people a chance for friendship. Its website, singlesinag.org, says there are more than 1,000 members across the nation and as far away as France.

1.Jerry Miller started singlesinag.org in order to     .

A. help farmers                     B. support traditions

C. understand farmers                   D. represent farmers

2.What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 2 indicate?

A. She dislikes city lifestyle.

B. She prefers late night coffee

C. Country life isn’t well understood.

D. It’s tiring to get up early.

3.Which of the following is true of singlesinag.org?

A. Its services are free.

B. It provides dating services.

C. Only farmers can become its members.

D. Farmers in France can’t benefit from it.

4.The author of the text intends to     .

A. advertise for the two websites

B. introduce two websites

C. encourage social activities

D. urge readers to help farmers

5. It can be inferred from the text that     .

A. all farmers desire marriage

B. farmers are easy to meet new people

C. more farmers get divorced in the USA

D. the Internet helps improve farmers’ social life

阅读表达（共5小题；每小题3分, 共15分）

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）

［1］ What does a successful language learner do? Language learning research shows that successful language learners are similar in many ways.

［2］ First of all, successful language learners are independent learners. They do not depend on the book or the teacher. Instead of waiting for teachers to explain, they try to find the patterns and the rules for themselves. They are good guessers who look for clues and form their own conclusions.

［3］ Secondly, successful language learning is active learning. Therefore, successful learners do not wait for a chance to use the language but     . They find people who speak the language and they ask these people to correct them when they make a mistake. They will try anything to communicate. They are not afraid to repeat what they hear or to say strange things. They are willing to make mistakes and try again. When communication is difficult, they can accept information that is inexact or incomplete. It is more important for them to learn to think in the language than to know the meaning of every word.

［4］ Finally, successful language learners are learners with a purpose. They want to learn the language because they are interested in the language.

［5］ What kind of language learners are you? If you are a successful language learner, you have probably been learning independently, actively and purposefully. On the other hand, if your language learning has been less than successful, you might do well to try some of the techniques above.

1.What is the main idea of the text？ (Please answer within 10 words.)

2.Which sentence in the text can be replaced by the following one?

They make efforts to seek their own ways of learning rather than wait for explanations from their teachers.

3.Please fill in the blank in Paragraph 3 with proper words or phrases to complete the sentence. (Please answer within 8 words)

4. If you want to be a successful language learner, what should you do? (Please answer within 20 words)

5.Translate the underlined sentence in Paragraph 3 into Chinese.

写作（满分30分）

某英文网站刊登下面图画, 拟举行中学生英文征文比赛。请根据图画内容，并结合自己的生活实际，写一篇120~150词的英语短文参加比赛。要点如下：

1. 简要描述图画内容;

2. 阐明产生这种现象的原因并发表自己的观点。

Quancheng Square is one of _____ largest in China, _______second to Tian’anmen Square.

Tom is not _______ he was in the situation _______ he was pessimistic.

When Paul was a boy growing up in Utah, he happened to live near a copper smelter（炼铜厂），and the chemicals that poured out had made a wasteland out of what used to be a beautiful forest．One day a young visitor looked at this wasteland and called it an awful area．Paul knocked him down．From then on, something happened inside him.

Years later Paul was back in the area, and he went to the smelter office．He asked if they had any plans or if they would let him try to bring the trees back．The answer from that big industry was “No”.

Paul then went to college to study the science of plants．Unfortunately, his teachers said there weren't any birds or squirrels to spread the seeds．It would be a waste of his life to try to do it．Everyone knew that, he was told．Even if he was knowledgeable as he had expected, he wouldn’t get his idea accepted．

Paul later got married and had some kids．But his dream would not die．And then one night he did what he could with what he had．As Samuel Johnson wrote, “It is common to overlook what is near by keeping the eye fixed on something remote．Attainable good is often ignored by minds busied in wide ranges.” Under the cover of darkness, he went secretly into the wasteland and started planting.

And every week, he made his secret journey into the wasteland and planted trees and grass．For fifteen years he did this against the plain common sense．Slowly rabbits appeared．Later, as there was legal pressure to clean up the environment, the company actually hired Paul to do what he was already doing.

Now the place is fourteen thousand acres of trees and grass and bushes, and Paul has received almost every environmental award Utah has．It took him until his hair turned white, but he managed to keep that impossible vow he made to himself as a child.

1.When Paul was a boy，______________.

2.Why did Paul go to college to study the science of plants？

3.What does the underlined phrase “the plain common sense” probably refer to?

4.The company hired Paul to plant trees and grass because___________.

5.The message of the passage is that _____________.

—Do you like cooking, Sally?

         —      ．Luckily, I’ve never had to worry about it．

         A．I can’t agree more             B．Not really

         C．I don’t agree                  D．You said it