On the 36th day after they had voted, Americans finally learned Wednesday who would be their next president: Governor George W. Bush of Texas.

Vice President Al Gore, his last realistic avenue for legal challenge closed by a U. S. Supreme Court decision late Tuesday, planned to end the contest formally in a televised evening speech of perhaps 10 minutes, advisers said.

They said that Senator Joseph Lieberman, his vice presidential running mate, would first make brief comments. The men would speak from a ceremonial chamber of the Old Executive office Building, to the west of the White House.

The dozens of political workers and lawyers who had helped lead Mr. Gore’s unprecedented fight to claw a come-from-behind electoral victory in the pivotal state of Florida were thanked Wednesday and asked to stand down.

“The vice president has directed the recount committee to suspend activities,” William Daley, the Gore campaign chairman, said in a written statement.

Mr. Gore authorized that statement after meeting with his wife, Tipper, and with top advisers including Mr. Daley.

He was expected to telephone Mr. Bush during the day. The Bush campaign kept a low profile and moved gingerly, as if to leave space for Mr. Gore to contemplate his next steps.

Yet, at the end of a trying and tumultuous process that had focused world attention on sleepless vote counters across Florida, and on courtrooms form Miami to Tallahassee to Atlanta to Washington the Texas governor was set to become the 43d U. S. president.

The news of Mr. Gore’s plans followed the longest and most rancorous dispute over a U. S. presidential election in more than a century, one certain to leave scars in a badly divided country.

It was a bitter ending for Mr. Gore, who had outpolled Mr. Bush nationwide by some 300000 votes, but, without Florida, fell short in the Electoral College by 271votes to 267—the narrowest Electoral College victory since the turbulent election of 1876.

Mr. Gore was said to be distressed by what he and many Democratic activists felt was a partisan decision from the nation’s highest court.

The 5-to –4 decision of the Supreme Court held, in essence, that while a vote recount in Florida could be conducted in legal and constitutional fashion, as Mr. Gore had sought, this could not be done by the Dec. 12 deadline for states to select their presidential electors.

James Baker 3rd, the former secretary of state who represented Mr. Bush in the Florida dispute, issued a short statement after the U. S. high court ruling, saying that the governor was “very pleased and gratified.”

Mr. Bush was planning a nationwide speech aimed at trying to begin to heal the country’s deep, aching and varied divisions. He then was expected to meet with congressional leaders, including Democrats. Dick Cheney, Mr. Bush’s ruing mate, was meeting with congressmen Wednesday in Washington.

When Mr. Bush, who is 54, is sworn into office on Jan.20, he will be only the second son of  a president to follow his father to the White House, after John Adams and John Quincy Adams in the early 19th century.

Mr. Gore, in his speech, was expected to thank his supporters, defend his hive-week battle as an effort to ensure, as a matter of principle, that every vote be counted, and call for the nation to join behind the new president. He was described by an aide as “resolved and resigned.”

While some constitutional experts had said they believed states could present electors as late as Dec. 18, the U. S. high court made clear that it saw no such leeway.

The U.S. high court sent back “for revision” to the Florida court its order allowing recounts but made clear that for all practical purposes the election was over.

In its unsigned main opinion, the court declared, “The recount process, in its features here described, is inconsistent with the minimum procedures necessary to protect the fundamental right of each voter.”

That decision, by a court fractured along philosophical lines, left one liberal justice charging that the high court’s proceedings bore a political taint.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in an angry dissent:” Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the law.”

But at the end of five seemingly endless weeks, during which the physical, legal and constitutional machines of the U. S. election were pressed and sorely tested in ways unseen in more than a century, the system finally produced a result, and one most Americans appeared to be willing at lease provisionally to support.

The Bush team welcomed the news with an outward show of restraint and aplomb. The governor’s hopes had risen and fallen so many times since Election night, and the legal warriors of each side suffered through so many dramatic reversals, that there was little energy left for celebration.

The main idea of this passage is

[A]. Bush’s victory in presidential election bore a political taint.

[B]. The process of the American presidential election.

[C]. The Supreme Court plays a very important part in the presidential election.

[D]. Gore is distressed.

     What does the sentence “as if to leave space for Mr. Gore to contemplate his next step” mean

[A]. Bush hopes Gore to join his administration.

[B]. Bush hopes Gore to concede defeat and to support him.

[C]. Bush hopes Gore to congraduate him.

[D]. Bush hopes Gore go on fighting with him.

     Why couldn’t Mr. Gore win the presidential election after he outpolled Mr. Bush in the popular vote? Because

[A]. the American president is decided by the supreme court’s decision.

[B]. people can’t directly elect their president.

[C]. the American president is elected by a slate of presidential electors.

[D]. the people of each state support Mr. Bush.

     What was the result of the 5—4 decision of the supreme court?

[A]. It was in fact for the vote recount.

[B]. It had nothing to do with the presidential election.

[C]. It decided the fate of the winner.

[D]. It was in essence against the vote recount.

     What did the “turbulent election of 1876” imply?

[A]. The process of presidential election of 2000 was the same as that.

[B]. There were great similarities between the two presidential elections (2000 and 1876).

[C]. It was compared to presidential election of 2000.

[D]. It was given an example.

Dad came in the midnight. We heard every sound, but we pretended to be asleep.
Next morning he looked weak and thin, sitting in a chair by the kitchen fire. The light of the fire shone through his long empty sleeve. Everything went as usual. Grandma found something to do in the bedroom. Grandpa went out for some water. Mother, with her back to us, was getting the cakes ready for breakfast.
But nothing was right. When grandma came out of the bedroom, she walked on tiptoe. When grandpa came back, he said nothing about the weather. At breakfast Mother passed us the fruit and said something, but her voice was too high.
At last my sister, Lou, pushed back her chair. “It’s your turn to wash the dishes.” But I had washed the dishes the night before. I said nothing because it was not right to quarrel in front of Dad just home with the empty sleeve.
“It is your turn,” Lou said again. I looked at her in surprise.
“It is not,” I said because I suddenly remembered Mother had told us to go on as usual.
“Children, children,” Mother said in a quiet, glad kind of voice.
And Dad was smiling because he felt at home at last.
【小题1】What do you know happened to Dad in the story?

A Swedish man aws dug out alive after being snowed in car on a forest track for rwo months with no food, police and local media reported on Saturday, The 45-year-old from southern Sweden was found on Friday , Fedruary 17, Too weak to say more than a rew wouds, He was found not far from the city of UImea in the north of Sweden by snowmobilers who thought they had come across a ruined car until they dug their way to a window and wawmovement inside.
The man ,who was lying in the back seat in a sleeping bag ,said he had been in the car since December 19.
“Just incredible that he’s alive considering that he had no food,but also since it’s been ,really cold for some time after Christmas,” a rescue team member told regional daily Vasterbottens - Kuriren ,which broke the news.
Ebbe Nyberg, duty officer at the Umea police , said police waw no reason to doubt that the man had been stuck in the car for a very long time,“We sould not make up something like this, The rescue services were on site too and saw the same as us”,he told Vasterbottens-Kuriren.
Umea University Hospital ,where the man is recovering after being rescued by police and a rescue team , said in a statement he was doing well considering the circumstances.
Doctors at the hospital said humans would normally be able to survive for about four weeks without food ,Besides eating snow , the man probably survived by going into a dormant-like（休息似的）state ,physician Stefan Branth told Vasterbottens-Knriren ,“He probably had a body temperature of around 31 degrees which the body adjusted to ,Due to the low temperature ,not much energy was used up”
【小题1】Who found the Swedish man in the snow?

I lost my sight when I was four years old by falling off a car and landing on my head. Now I am thirty-two. I can vaguely remember the brightness of __36____ and what color red is. It would be ___37____ to see again, but a(n) __38____ can do strange things to people. I don’t mean I would __39___ to go without my eyes. I simply mean that the loss of them made me appreciate more what I had _40_____.
My parents and my teachers saw something in me ----- a __41____ to live ---- which I didn’t see, and they made me want to fight in out with _42____.
The __43___ lesson I had to learn was to believe in myself. I am not talking about simply the kind of __44____ that helps me down so unfamiliar staircase alone. I __45___ something bigger than that: a confidence that I am, despite being __46____, a real, positive person; that there is a special place where I can make myself fit.
It took me years to discover and strengthen this confidence. It had to start with the easy and simple things. __47____ a man gave me an indoor baseball. I thought he was laughing at me and I was __48____. “I can’t use this,” I said. “Take with you,” he urged me, “and roll it around.” The words __49___ in my head. “Roll it around!” By rolling the ball I could _50_____ where it went. This gave me an idea how to achieve a goal I had thought _51____ before playing baseball. At Philadelphia’s Overbrook School for the Blind I _52___ a successful variation of baseball. We called it ground ball.
I have set ahead of me a series of goals and then tried to reach them, one at a time. I had to be clear about my _53____. It was no good crying for something that I knew at the start was __54___ out of reach because that only invited bitterness of failure. I would fail something anyway, __55___ on the average I made progress.

第二节完形填空(共20小题；每小题1.5分，满分30分)
阅读下面短文，掌握其大意，然后从36—55各题所给的四个选项(A、B、C和D)中，选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项。
I was only eight years old when the Second World War ended, but I can still remember something about the   36   celebrations in the small town where I lived on the day when the war in Europe ended. We had not   37   much from the war where, though, like most children of my age, I often saw   38   houses in the streets and the very big   39   lorries(卡车) passing through. But both at home and at school I had become   40   to the phrases “before the war” and “when the war is over”. “Before the war”, obviously,   41   had been better, though I was too young to understand why,   42   there had been no bombs then, and people had eaten things like ice cream and bananas, which I had  43   heard of. When the war was over we would go back to London, but this meant very  44   to me. I did not remember what London was like.
What I remember now  45   V-Day(victory day) was the afternoon and the evening. Some boys and girls were collecting   46  and building an enormous bonfire(篝火). We stood and watched them for a time, and then I went home and   47   myself in with my key and waited for my parents to come back from work.
It was May and still broad   48  when my mother arrived, and my father came in about an hour later. After dinner I said I wanted to   49   the bonfire, so when it got dark my father took me to the end of the street. The bonfire was very   50  , and somehow people had collected some old clothes to   51   “Hitler” with the moustache(胡子) they had put on top of it. Just as we arrived, they set light to it. The flames   52   soon. Everyone was cheering and shouting.
I stood beside my father until the   53   started to go down, not knowing what to say. He said nothing, either. He had   54   in the First World War and remembered everything he had experienced. At last he said, “Well, that’s it, son. Let’s hope that this time it really will be the   55   one.”
36. A. war                    B. victory                        C. Christmas                 D. birthday
37. A. suffered                 B. learnt                       C. heard                      D. read
38. A. crowded             B. rebuilt                  C. bombed                    D. enlarged
39. A. modern           B. old                          C. railway                    D. army
40. A. used                   B. devoted                    C. engaged                   D. related
41. A. food                   B. things                  C. houses                  D. news  
42. A. except that      B. now that                   C. for fear that                 D. in order that
43. A. never                  B. hardly                  C. only                         D. already
44. A. much                  B .little                        C. great                        D. important
45. A. about                  B. on                           C. for                           D. during
46. A. money            B. wood                       C. information                 D. clothes
47. A. showed           B. allowed                    C. let                           D. called
48. A. early                  B. daylight                   C. dark                         D. warm
49. A. see                        B. light                        C. find                         D. put out
50. A. high                   B. hot                          C. dangerous             D. far
51. A. draw                  B. paint                        C. write                        D. dress
52. A. disappeared     B. happened                  C. rose                         D. came
53. A. sun                     B. moon                       C. fire                          D. noise
54. A. fought            B. worked                    C. grown                  D. changed
55. A. best                    B. worst                       C. first                         D. last