Friends play a very important part in everyone's life．Friendship usually

develops during childhood. New friends are made when you progress through school. Those friends that you make as a student can usually last long. Friends influence your development, maturity（成熟）and sense of responsibility（责任）. A familiar expression is“You can tell a lot about a person by knowing who his fiends are.”Friendship is based on common interests. If you like sports, most of your friends are likely to be athletic（竞技的）. If you enjoy reading and shopping, most of your friends do the same.

　　Some people call you their friends for the wrong reasons. These people are not really friends. They are superficial（表面的）only“friends”on the outside, not the inside where it counts. Superficial friends only want to be your friends if is to their advantage. True friends are there if you are rich or poor. It is easy to have many so-called“friends”if you are rich．By this time you should be able to separate your friends into the real or the“phoney”.

　　True friends are most special. They are also difficult to find. You can consider yourself very lucky if you have one true friend. This friend is eager to help you whenever necessary. He or she knows you would do the same for them. A true friend is someone you can talk to about any subject or problem. You and your true friend have good understanding of each other. True friends support you, take your side, and build up your confidence.

(1) The first paragraph tells us__________.

[　　]

A．how to make a true friend

B．we should make friends in our childhood

C．what is friendship based on

D．friends play a very important part in our life

(2) Which of the following is TRUE?

［　　］

A．What you value above anything is the friendship developing during childhood.

B．The friendship developing during your school days will be with you for a long time.

C．Only through your friends' influence will you take the responsibility for your task.

D．If you have no music in you, none of your friends will be a music lover.

(3) “So-called”friends refer to_________.

［　　］

A．fair-weather friends

B．those who want to benefit from you

C．the friends who are on the surface only

D．all of the above

(4) Which of the following is NOT TRUE?

[　　]

A．You should tell true friends from phoneys.

B．True friendship too difficult to find.

C．You can share your joys and sorrows with a true friend.

D．A true friend will stand by you whatever happens.

(5) The proper title for this article may be“___________”.

［　　］

　　Joe Bloggs always had a cigarette on his lips. He smoked while he read, while he looked at the television, and while he drank a cup of coffee. He smoked forty cigarettes a day, but he was happy.

　　Joe's friend, Fred Brown, said to him,“It is very bad to smoke.”When Joe heard this, he started to worry and became thin. So he did not buy any more cigarettes. He became so thin he went to Fred for help.

　　Fred Said,“You must eat more.”So Joe did not smoke, but he ate chocolate, and he became very fat. Again he went to Fred for help.

　　Fred Said,“You must not eat chocolate.”So Joe stopped eating chocolate, but he went back to smoking cigarettes. He became thin again but he was not happy, because he still smoked.

　　Sometimes Joe Bloggs wished Fred Brown was not his friend!

(1) When Joe became thin the first time it was because__________.

[　　]

(2) The following sentences tell what happened to Joe．Which is the right order of the events（事实）?

a．He did not smoke; he ate chocolate; he was fat; he was unhappy.

b．He smoked; he did not eat chocolate; he was thin; he was unhappy.

c．He smoked; he did not eat chocolate; he was not fat; he was happy.

[　　]

(3) In the end Joe was unhappy about his friendship with Fred because ___________.

[　　]

A．Fred had given him the wrong advice on purpose

B．he never 1iked being told what to do

C．he in fact had never really trusted Fred

D．Fred's advice had brought him no good

(4) What kind of person would you say Joe was?

[　　]

A．He was not the kind of person who used his head much.

B．He had no will power to carry out a decision（决定）.

C．He was not happy to let others make decisions for him.

D．He was always changing his mind and was never satisfied.

(5) What is the writer trying to tell us with this story?

[　　]

A．Chocolate is bad for one's health.

B．One should ask friends for help and advice.

C．Smoking is bad for one's health.

D．One should think and decide for oneself.

　　If you want to stay young, sit down and have a good think. This is the research findings of a team of Japanese doctors, who say that most of our brains are not getting enough exercise, and as a result, we are growing old unnecessarily soon.

　　Professor Taiju Matsuzawa wanted to find out why quite healthy farmers in northern Japan appeared to be losing their ability to think and reason at a rather early age, and how the speed of getting old could be slowed down.

　　With a team of researchers at Tokyo National University, he set about measuring brain sizes of a thousand people of different ages with different jobs.

　　Computer technology helped the researchers to get most exact measurements of the sizes of the front and side parts of the brain which have something to do with thinking and feeling, and decide the human character. As we all know the back part of the brain, which controls tasks like eating and breathing, does not contract（萎缩）with age.

　　Contraction of front and side parts, as cells（细胞）die off, was seen in some people in their thirties, but it was still not found in some sixty and seventy-year-olds.

　　Matsuzawa concluded from his tests that there is a simple way to prevent the contraction--using the head.

　　The findings show that contraction of the brain begins sooner in people in the country than in the towns. Those with least possibility, says Matsuzawa, are lawyers, followed by university professors and doctors. While collar workers doing the same work day after day in government offices are, however, as possible to have contracting brains as the farm workers, bus drivers and shop assistants.

(1) The team of doctors want to find out ________.

[　　]

A．at what point people grow mentally old

B．how to make people live longer

C．the size of certain people's brains

D．which people are the most clever

(2) Their research findings are based on ____________.

[　　]

A．an examination of farmers in northern Japan

B．tests given on a thousand old people

C．examining the brain sizes of different people

D．using computer technology

(3) The doctor's tests show that ___________.

[　　]

A．our brains contract as we grow older

B．one part of the brain does not contract

C．sixty-year-olds have better brains than thirty-year-olds

D．some people's brains have contracted earlier than other people

(4) The most possible conclusion of the article is that __________.

[　　]

A．most of us should take more exercise

B．the brain contracts if it is not used

C．it's better to live in the towns

D．the more one uses his brain, the sooner he becomes old

　　The big Town Hall clock was striking midnight when Frank began to cross the bridge. The dark night air was cold and slightly wet, and the street lamp gave little light.

　　Frank was anxious to get home and his footsteps rang loudly on the pavement（人行道）. When he reached the middle of the bridge he thought he could hear someone coming near behind him. He looked back but could see no one. However, the sound continued and Frank began to walk more quickly. Then he slowed down again, feeling shame at having acted so foolishly. There was nothing to fear in a town as quiet as this.

　　Just then, he heard short, quick steps closely behind him. By the time he reached the other side of the bridge, he could almost feel someone at his heels（脚后跟）. He turned round and there stood a man in a large overcoat. A hat pulled down over his eyes and very little of his face could be seen. Frank said something about the weather, trying to sound friendly and calm. The man did not answer but asked rudely where Oakfield House was. Frank pointed to a big house in the distance and the stranger continued his way.

　　Then Frank wondered why the stranger had wanted to find Oakfield House at such an hour.

　　He knew that the people who lived there were very rich. Almost without realizing what he was doing, he began following the stranger quickly. Then the man was soon outside the house and Frank saw him look up at the window. A light was still on and the man waited until it went out. When about half an hour had passed, Frank saw him climb noiselessly over the wall and heard him drop on the ground at the other side.

　　Now Frank realized what was going to happen. He walked quickly and silently across the street towards a telephone box on the comer.

(1) Frank was feeling shame at _________.

[　　]

A．having walked so quickly

B．having made a big noise at midnight

C．having been afraid

D．having been so anxious to go home

(2) Frank said something about the weather to the stranger because _____.

[　　]

A．he wanted to know what the weather would be the next day

B．he wanted to start a conversation

C．he was a very friendly person

D．he wanted to hide his nervousness

(3) The man dressed in a large overcoat was _________.

[　　]

A．very friendly

B．not polite at all

C．a visitor to Oakfield House

D．a police officer

(4) What did Frank think was going to happen？

[　　]

A．Someone was going to rob the house.

B．The stranger would get himself hurt.

C．The stranger would spend the night in the Oakfield House.

D．Somebody was going to make a telephone call.

　　One night about one o'clock, Dr Eyck, a surgeon, had a phone call from Dr Haydon at the hospital in Clens Falls. The surgeon was asked to go there at once to operate on a very sick boy who shot himself while playing with a gun.

　　The doctor was soon on his way to Clens Falls. It was 60 miles away. And it was snowing heavily in the city. The surgeon thought he could get there before two o'clock.

　　A few minutes later, the doctor was stopped by a man in an old black coat. Gun in hand, the man ordered the doctor to get out. Then the man drove the car down the road, leaving the doctor in the falling snow.

　　It was after three o'clock when the doctor arrived at the hospital in Clens Falls. Dr Haydon told him that the boy had died an hour before.

　　The two doctors walked by the door of the hospital's waiting room. There sat the man in the old black coat with his head in his hands.

　　“Mr Cuninghan,” said Dr Haydon to the man, “this is Dr Eyck. He is the surgeon who came all the way from Albany to save your boy.”

(1) Dr Haydon asked Dr Eyck to come to Clens Falls because ______.

[　　]

A．Dr Eyck knew the boy was wounded by a shot

B．the boy needed the help of a surgeon

C．Dr Eyck was the boy's father

D．Dr Eyck was Haydon's friend

(2) The surgeon was late because ________.

[　　]

A．he was stopped by the policeman

B．the weather was rather terrible

C．Clens Falls was too far away from Albany

D．his car was taken away

(3) Choose the right order of the following events given in the story ______.

a．Dr Eyck was asked to come to the hospital in Clens Falls.

b．Dr Eyck arrived at the hospital.

c．The boy shot himself.

d．The boy died.

e．The man in an old coat reached the hospital.

f．Dr Eyck was robbed of his car.

[　　]

A．c, e, f, a, b, d

B．a, c, f, d, b, e

C．c, a, f, e, d, b

D．a, c, f, e, d, b

(4) The boy could have been saved if______.

[　　]

A．he had not been sent to the hospital

B．his father hadn't arrived in time

C．Dr Eyck had arrived earlier than the man

D．Dr Eyck had arrived there two hours earlier

　　Before trains, most things went by road. But 200 years ago the roads were very bad, and the horses couldn't pull the heavy wagons（动货马车）very fast. Sometimes, when the road was wet, they couldn't pull them at all! When that happened, the driver took flat pieces of wood and put them on the ground under the wheels; then it was easy to pull the wagons, and the horse could do the job very well when the road was flat. When the road was going down a hill, the horse didn't pull the wagon at all, but when the road was going up a hill, it was very difficult to pull the wagon.

　　On the first railways, the horse pulled the train when the road was flat. There was a wagon at the back of the train to carry the horse when the train was going down a hill. There was an engine with a long rope to pull the train when it was going up a hill. But the engine stayed in the same place all the time; it didn't move with the train. The first engines didn't work very well, and they sometimes didn't work at all, but they often helped the horses to climb up the hills.

　　Then Richard Trevithick had an idea. “Let's put the engine on the train,” he said. And that was the first real train.

(1) 200 years ago _______.

[　　]

A．the roads were very good

B．the roads were very bad

C．there weren't any roads

D．there were trains but no roads

(2) When the road was flat, __________.

[　　]

A．the horse pulled the wagon very well

B．the horse pulled the wagon very badly

C．the horse couldn't pull the wagon at all

D．the horse didn't pull the wagon

(3) There was a wagon at the back of the train _____.

[　　]

A．to pull the horse

B．to carry the driver

C．to carry the horse

D．to pull the train

(4) The first engines ________.

[　　]

A．worked very well

B．didn't work at all

C．didn't help the horses to climb up the hills

D．sometimes worked and sometimes didn't work

　　Every reader of this passage must spend the whole of his waking life looking at things. Looking, like breathing, is natural; we do it without noticing it. Looking is passive but seeing is active. Once you start seeing things you really begin to wake up. People who see things which others have only looked at, and draw conclusions from what they have seen, can add to man's knowledge and help progress.

　　Someone recently discovered a place where metal had been worked continuously longer than anywhere else in England. He “saw” a wall in the Forest of Dean. Thousands of people must have looked at it without really seeing it, but this man noticed that among the usual stones of that place were bits and pieces of a different color; they also felt different to the hand. A closer sight showed that these pieces had been left behind in the fires of ancient （古代的）peoples who had melted（熔解）rocks to get metals, looking around, he found more and more information, until the history of what men had done at the place over tens of centuries was known.

(1) “His waking life” means _______.

[　　]

A．all his life

B．all the time he is awake

C．all the time he is breathing

D．the time when he is waking up

(2) The man found a place where ________.

[　　]

A．men had built some walls of metal tens of centuries before

B．men had learned to make fire with stones in ancient time

C．men had melted metal many years ago

D．men were starting to work metal a thousand years ago

(3) The man who “saw” the wall got more and more information _____.

[　　]

A．from a history book

B．from the unusual stones of that place

C．from the usual metals of that place

D．from thousands of people who had looked at it

(4) According to the passage, which of the following is true?

[　　]

A．In England men had made things of metal before they learned how to make them of stone.

B．Metal was melted in the Forest of Dean longer than at any other place in England.

C．Metal was used in England before any other part of the world.

D．The people in the Forest of Dean were the cleverest people in the world.

　　If you have a watch, don't repair it! I know it for certain. Once I had a beautiful watch. And this watch kept perfect time. But one night it happened that I forgot to wind it up（上发条）. Next morning I went to a watchmaker as I wanted my perfect watch to be set by the exact time. The watchmaker examined my watch and said, “The regulator（调节器）is to be pushed up as your watch is four minutes slow.”

　　I tried to stop him and tried to make him understand that my watch kept perfect time, but he did not listen to me and pushed to regulator.

　　My beautiful watch began to gain. It gained faster and faster day by day. By the end of the second month it had left all the clocks and watches of the town far behind.

　　What did I have to do? To take it to another watch maker to be regulated. I expected him to regulate the watch immediately but he asked me to come in a week's time. When at last I took my watch from him it began to slow down. And I began to be late for trains, business appointments（约会）and even missed my dinners.

　　Now I went to the third watchmaker. While I waited for him to repair my poor watch, he took it to pieces and said that he could finish this work in three or four days. I had nothing to do but agree. That time my watch went for half a day and then stopped.

　　So I kept taking my watch from one watchmaker to another for a considerable（相当长的）period of time.

　　And as a result of it the cleverest man in the world could not tell time by my watch. The thing was getting serious. My watch had cost two hundred dollars originally（原先）but I paid for repair over two thousand. At last I decided to buy another watch, which I did.

(1) His watch gained faster and faster because ______.

[　　]

A．the watchmaker pushed up the regulator

B．the watch wasn't set up by the exact time

C．his watch never kept the perfect time

D．the author didn't follow the watchmaker's advice

(2) How many watchmakers did the author go to altogether?

[　　]

(3) How much did it cost to repair the watch?

[　　]

A．Two hundred dollars.

B．Not mentioned.

C．Over ten times as much as its original value.

D．Less than two thousand.

(4) What do you think the author felt after he had his watch repaired?

[　　]

　　A lot of us lose life's tough battles by starting a frontal（正面的）attack--when a touch of humor might well enable us to win. Consider the case of a young friend of mine, who hit a traffic jam on his way to work shortly after receiving an ultimatum（最后通牒）about being late for the job. Although there was a good reason for Sam's being late--being seriously ill at home--he decided that this by-now-familiar excuse wouldn't work any longer. His supervisor was probably already pacing up and down preparing a dismissal speech. Yes, the boss was, as Sam entered the office at 9∶35. The place was as quiet as a locker room（更衣室）; everyone was hard at work. Sam's supervisor came up to him. Suddenly, Sam forced a grin and stretched out his hand. “How do you do?” he said. “I'm Sam Maynard. I'm applying for a job, which, I understand, became available just 35 minutes ago. Does the early bird get the worm?”

　　The room exploded in laughter. The supervisor clamped off a smile and walked back to his office. Sam Maynard had saved his job--with the only tool that could win, a laugh.

　　Humor is a most effective, yet frequently neglected（忽略）means of handling the difficult situations in our lives. It can be used for patching up differences, apologizing, saying“no”, criticizing, getting the other fellow to do what you want without his losing face. For some jobs, it's the only tool that can succeed. It is a way to discuss subjects so sensitively that serious dialogue may start a quarrel. For example, many believe that comedians（喜剧演员）on television are doing more today for racial and religious tolerance（忍受力）than people in any other forum.

(1) Why was Sam late for his job?

[　　]

A．Because he was ill.

B．Because he got up late.

C．Because he was caught in a traffic jam.

D．He was busy applying for a new job.

(2) The main idea of this passage is ________.

[　　]

A．Sam Maynard saved his job with humor

B．humor is important in our lives

C．early bird gets the worm

D．humor can solve racial discrimination

(3) The phrase“clamped off”in Paragraph 2 means _______.

[　　]

(4) Which of the following statements can we infer from the passage?

[　　]

A．Many lose life's battles because they are lacking in a sense of humor.

B．It wasn't the first time that Sam came late for work.

C．Sam was supposed to arrive at his office at 8∶30.

D．Humor is the most effective way of solving problems.

　　American magician David Blaine left the glass box in which he had lived for 44 days without food on October 19. Hundreds of people came to watch the end of his starvation experiment, which had become one of London's main tourist attractions.

　　Looking thinner and darker, 30-year-old Blaine was taken out of his box over the River Thames（泰晤士河）and immediately went to hospital. He was then slowly reintroduced to food, a process（过程）doctors said could be life threatening. He had been drinking only water since September 5.

　　A native of Brooklyn, New York, Blaine first became known as a street magician in the early 1990s. He soon found himself doing magic tricks in bars for the likes of American actor Leonardo Dicaprio and his supermodel friends.

　　Over the last decade Blaine had become famous with a combination of breathtaking magic and clever tricks aimed at getting a lot of attention.

　　In 1999, he was buried in a coffin（棺材）for one week and, in 2000, he spent 62 hours in a giant block of ice. Last year he stood on top of a 25-meter pillar（柱子）in the center of New York for 35 hours before jumping into a pile of boxes.

　　“I think a lot of people are unable to accept that they're able to do what they can do,” he said. “They don't realize we can survive. The human being is an amazing creation.”

　　But he seemed to have suffered from spending so long in the glass box. He said that at times he was unable to see, had serious back pains and lost his sense of taste.

(1) It is ____ for David Blaine to eat food after such a long starvation.

[　　]

(2) Having spent such a long time in the glass box, he suffered the following EXCEPT that _____.

[　　]

A．he had become blind

B．he had serious back pains

C．he lost his sense of taste

D．he was in weak health

(3) Which of the following can best describe David Blaine?

[　　]

(4) Which of the following is NOT true of David Blaine?

[　　]

A．Blaine immediately went to hospital after he was taken out of his box because he was in dangerous condition.

B．Blaine was born and brought up in England.

C．In Blaine's opinion, people can create a wonder.

D．Blaine didn't have any food for 44 days.