His eyes nearly in tears from the crush of fellow travelers at Guangzhou's train station, Hong Tao said things were much better on Sunday, after days of waiting for a train to his home in Hubei province.

"I think it's fine today, and everything is going smoothly," the 28-year-old said. "I thought it would be really crowded but it has turned out to be OK."

Chinese authorities say they expect 1.3 million people to travel out of Guangzhou's train station over the next few days, as they rush to get home by Wednesday, the eve of Lunar New Year.

Hong's optimism may have been helped by the blue skies that emerged over Guangzhou on Sunday for the first time in a week.

Last week, a rare winter storm paralyzed China's transportation system as millions tried to get home to celebrate the holiday — the only chance for many migrant workers to see their families all year.

China's state-run Xinhua news agency said Friday that 95 percent of rail traffic had "returned to normal." But Guangzhou's train station remained packed with a backlog of hundreds of thousands of travelers hoping to get home for the holiday.

A young woman was stepped on in a stampede (人群蜂拥) at the train station Friday, and later died of her injuries, according to Xinhua. Video of the situation on Friday showed crowds of people screaming, elbowing each other, in some cases sobbing and collapsing in the rush to get a slot (狭缝，窄孔) on a train.

China Sunday announced it has organized over 300,000 People's Liberation Army forces to southern China in what it described as a "war on winter weather".

The government also announced a $700 million plan to help farmers whose crops have been destroyed.

6. How many days is it from the day this article was made to the Lunar New Year?

A. Two days.         B. Three days.               C. Four days.         D. Five days.

7. What can we know about the weather condition of last week in Guangzhou?

A. Sunny with blue sky.               B. Rainy for a whole week.

C. Heavily snowy.                       D. Rainy first and snowy now.

8. Why are there so many passengers in Guangzhou’s train station?

A. Because the heavy snow stopped the passengers from leaving the station.

B. Because the passengers didn’t hope to leave the station right now.

C. Because the passengers hoped to leave for their hometown.

D. Because the holiday was coming near.

9. Where is Hong Tao from?

A. Shandong province.                B. Hubei province.

C. Guandong province.                      D. Not mentioned.

10. What can we infer from the passage?

A. On Friday, a young man was dead because of crowds’ elbowing, screaming.

B. China’s Government have arranged the PLA forces to help.

C. The government of China have offered money to help farmers enjoy the new year.

D. Many crops have been destroyed by the crowds of people.

The Atlantic Ocean is one of the oceans that separate the Old World from the New. For centuries it kept the Americans from being discovered by the people of Europe.

Many wrong ideas about the Atlantic made early sailors unwilling to sail far out into it. One idea was that it reached out to “the edge of the world.” Sailors were afraid that they might sail right off the earth. Another idea was that at the equator the ocean would be boiling hot.

The Atlantic Ocean is only half as big as the Pacific, but it is still very large. It is more than 4,000 miles (6,000km) wide where Columbus crossed it. Even at its narrowest it is about 2,000 miles (3,200km) wide.

Two things make the Atlantic Ocean rather unusual. For so large an ocean it has very few islands. Also, it is the world’s saltiest ocean.

There is so much water in the Atlantic that it is hard to imagine how much there is. But suppose no more rain fell into it and no more water was brought to it by rivers. It would take the ocean about 4,000 years to dry up. On the average the water is a little more than two miles (3.2km) deep, but in places it is much deeper. The deepest spot is near Puerto Rico. This “deep” measures 30,246 feet-almost six miles (9.6km).

One of the longest mountain ranges of the world rises from the floor of the Atlantic. This mountain range runs north and south down the middle of the ocean. The tops of a few of the mountains reach up above the sea and make islands.

Several hundred miles eastward from Florida there is a part of the ocean called the Sargasso Sea. Here the water is quiet, for there is little wind. In the days of sailing vessels(船) the crew were afraid they would be becalmed(停滞不前) here. Sometimes they were.

Today the Atlantic is a great highway. It is not, however, always a smooth and safe one. Storms sweep across it and pile up great waves. Icebergs float down from the Far North across the paths of ships.

We now have such fast ways of traveling that this big ocean seems to have grown smaller. Columbus sailed for more than two months to cross it. A fast modern steamship can make the trip in less than four days. Airplanes fly from New York to London in only eight hours and from South America to Africa in four!

Which world is the Old World?

A. Africa               B. Europe                     C. Asia                  D. All of above

What caused people to be unwilling to explore the Atlantic?

A. There are no ships big enough to get across the Ocean.

B. Sailors were afraid of being lost in the Ocean.

C. The Atlantic Ocean was very unusual because it has few islands and the saltiest water.

D. Many incorrect ideas such as “the edge of the world”, “the equator with boiling hot water”, made people think the Ocean was full of danger.

What is the topic of the fifth paragraph?

A. How deep the water is

B. How to measure the water in the Atlantic Ocean

C. How much water the Ocean holds.

D. How rain affects the Ocean water.

We can learn from the text that ______.

A. the Atlantic is the largest ocean on earth

B. one of the longest mountain ranges lies in the Atlantic

C. the Atlantic has a lot of islands in it

D. sailing on the Atlantic Ocean is always quiet, smooth and safe

They stayed up until midnight _____ the old year out and the new year in.

A. and saw     B. to see

C. seeing D. for seeing

Dorothea Shaw is 71 years old and nearly blind, and she chose to live alone far away from people. She lives in Belize — a county the size of Wales with a population only that of Swansea. Her home is at Gales Point, a tiny village which can be reached only by sea or air; after a 10-mile walk into the hills one finally reaches a piece of land and two small houses so hidden in the thick over-grown forest that only a handful of people know Dorothea is there.

She lives happily and totally alone – growing her vegetables, looking after her trees and dogs, cats and chickens. Once a month or so an old friend passes by with her food supplies and letters-usually including a letter from her sister in Scunthorpe and some bits of clothing from friends in Canada. Sometimes a local man will come and cut wood for her and a group of British soldiers will come across her and be greeted with the offer of a cup of coffee.

At night she lies in her tiny sleeping room with the dogs on the floor, the cats on the table near the typewriter and one of the hens settled down in a corner of the bookshelf, and listens for hours to any Spanish, English, German or French broadcasts she can find on her radio. Sometimes she gets lonely but most of the time the animals and the radio are company enough.

But recently the very things that she had tried to get free from so well have begun to catch up with her. The peace of the forest has been destroyed by the noise of earth-moving machines not many miles away. What she once only heard of distantly on the radio is now on her doorstep. Things began to change three years ago. The new main north-south road in Belize was cut through the forest only four or five miles away. “Now more people know I’m here.” She says. “I feel more and more uneasy each day.”

Dorothea’s small houses ________.   

A. are entirely surrounded by trees   

B. have always been her home

C. were built for just a few people   

D. are in a county with the same population as Wales

Dorothea lives in the tiny village because ________.

A. she doesn’t like living near people    B. she is too old to move

C. machines destroyed her home        D. there’s nowhere else for her to live

Dorothea doesn’t get lonely since she has _______ with her.

A. her sister   B. some animals     C. friends from Canada    D. a postman

Dorothea spends a lot of time __________.

A. growing all the food she needs         B. cutting down trees

C. listening to the radio                 D. studying languages

One day a girl gets a package in the mail. It contains US$3,000___31__cash and a letter from ????her late (去世的) Aunt Peg. Aunt Peg has something useful to pass __32___to her niece, but a rather unusual way of going about it. The girl __33___ (give) a set of instructions: "Go to an address in New York and pick up a package, get a passport and buy yourself a one-way ticket to London." ___34___ she flies she is told to make sure she only takes ___35___she can fit into a backpack. No money, credit cards, camera. No mobile phone ___36____ laptop. And once she gets to Europe she can't call or even e-mail home. On the plane, Ginny opens the New York package. It sends her to a flat in London where a man___37__ (name) Richard seems to be expecting her.

This is __38____ US author Maureen Johnson's hit teen novel, "13 Little Blue Envelopes" opens. ___39____ heroine (女主人公) is Ginny, a quiet, 17-year-old girl , __40___ has a great adventure ahead of her.