Sports play an important role in British life. The most popular sport is football. Cricket is also popular in England, but is less important in the other home nations. Rugby union and rugby league are the other major team sports. Tennis is the most important sport for the two weeks of the Wimbledon Championships(温布尔登网球锦标赛)
Football
The modern global game of football developed from traditional British football games in the 19^th century. Club football is organized separately in each of the home nations. English football has a league system which combines thousands of clubs. Scotland has a similar but smaller club football structure. The top level league in Wales is the league of Wales. In Northern Ireland the main league is the Irish Football League.
Each season the most successful clubs from each of the home nations qualify for(使…具有…的资格) the two Europe wide club competitions organized by UEFA(欧足联), the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Cup.
Cricket
Cricket was invented in England. It is regarded as England’s national summer game and it is probably the second most widely covered sport.
There are eighteen professional country clubs, seventeen of them in England and one in Wales. Each summer the country clubs compete in the first class Country Championship, which consist of two leagues of nine teams and in which matches are played over four days.
Rugby
Like football, rugby union and rugby league both developed from traditional British football games in the 19^th century. For much of the 20^th century there was great antagonism between rugby leagues, which was a mainly working class game based in the industrial areas of northern England, and rugby union, which is a mainly middle class game in England, and is also popular in the other home nations.
Tennis
Tennis is yet another sport which originated in the United Kingdom and the governing body of the sport is the LTA(草地网球协会). However, no British man has won Wimbledon since 1936 and no British woman since 1977. The only British players of either sex to reach the world top 50 in recent years are Greg Rusedski, who learnt his tennis in Canada, and Tim Henman and Andrew Murray ,who did not pass through the LTA system either.
【小题1】What do we know about football?

What will man be like in the future — in 5,000 or even 50,000 years from now? We can only make guesses, of course, but we can be sure that he will be different from what he is today, for man is slowly changing all the time.
Let us take an obvious example. Man, even five hundred years ago, was shorter than he is today. Now, on average, men are about three inches taller. Five hundred years is a relatively short period of time, so we may assume that man will continue to grow taller. Again in the modern world we use our brains a great deal. Even so, we still make use of only about 20% of the brain’s capacity (容量). As time goes on, however, we shall have to use our brains more and more, and eventually we shall need larger ones! This is likely to bring about a physical change too: the head, in particular the forehead, will grow larger.
Nowadays our eyes are in constant use. In fact, we use them so much that very often they become weaker and we have to wear glasses. But over a very long period of time it is likely that man’s eyes will grow stronger.
On the other hand, we tend to make less use of our arms and legs. These, as a result, are likely to grow weaker. At the same time, however, our fingers will grow more sensitive because they are used a great deal in modern life.
But what about hair? This will probably disappear from the body altogether in course of time because it does not serve a useful purpose any longer. In the future, then, both sexes are likely to be bald.
Perhaps all this gives the impression that future man will not be a very attractive creature to look at! This may well be true. All the same, in spite of all these changes, future man will still have a lot in common with us. He will still be a human being, with thoughts and emotions similar to our own.
56. The size of man’s forehead will probably grow bigger because _______.
A. he will use his brain more and more as time goes on
B. he makes use only 20% of the brain’s capacity
C. his brain has grown larger over the past centuries
D. the other 80% of his brain will grow in due time    
57. What serves as the evidence that man is changing?
A. Man has got stronger eyes now than he ever had.
B. Man has been growing taller over the past 500 years.
C. Man’s hair is getting thinner and thinner.
D. Man’s arms and legs have become lighter and weaker.
58. What will be true about a human being in the future?
A. He will be hairless because hair is no longer useful.
B. He will have smaller eyes and will wear better glasses.
C. His fingers will grow weaker because he won’t have to make use of them.
D. He will think and feel in a different way.
59. It is implied that __________________.
A. human beings will become more attractive in the future
B. body organs will become poorer if they are not used often
C. human beings hope for a change in the future life
D. future life is always predictable
60. The passage mainly tells us that _______________.
A. man’s life will be different in the future  B. man is growing taller and uglier as time passes
C. future man will look quite different from us
D. human beings’ organs will function weaker

　　For those who make journeys across the world, the speed of travel today has turned the countries into a series of villages．Distances between them appear no greater to a modern traveler than those which once faced men as they walked from village to village. Jet planes fly people from one end of the earth to the other, allowing them a freedom of movement undreamt of a hundred years ago.
　　Yet some people wonder if the revolution in travel has gone too far. A price has been paid, they say, for the conquest (征服) of time and distance. Travel is something to be enjoyed, not endured (忍受).  The boat offers leisure and time enough to appreciate the ever-changing sights and sounds of a journey. A journey by train also has a special charm about it. Lakes and forests and wild, open plains sweeping past your carriage window create a grand view in which time and distance mean nothing. On board a plane, however, there is just the blank blue of the sky filling the narrow window of the airplane. The soft lighting, in-flight films and gentle music make up the only world you know, and the hours progress slowly.
　　 Then there is the time spent being “processed” at a modern airport. People are conveyed like robots along walkways; baggage is weighed, tickets produced, examined and produced yet again before the passengers move to another waiting area. Journeys by rail and sea take longer, yes, but the hours devoted to being “processed” at departure and arrival in airports are luckily absent. No wonder, then, that the modern high-speed trains are winning back passengers from the airlines.
　　Man, however, is now a world traveler and cannot turn his back on the airplane. The working lives of too many people depend upon it; whole new industries have been built around its design and operation. The holiday maker, too, with limited time to spend, patiently endures the busy airports and limited space of the flight to gain those extra hours and even days, relaxing in the sun. speed controls people’s lives; time saved, in work or play, is the important thing—or so we are told. Perhaps those first horsemen, riding free across the wild, open plains, were enjoying a better world than the one we know today. They could travel at will, and the clock was not their master.
【小题1】What does the writer try to express in Paragraph 1?

The young man has made so much noise that he _____ not have been allowed to attend the concert.

     A. could         B. must          C. would      D. should

What will man be like in the future－in 5,000 or even 50,000 years from now? We can only make guesses, of course, but we can be sure that he will be different from what he is today. For man is slowly changing all the time.

Let us take an obvious example. Man, even five hundred years ago, was shorter than he is today. Now, on average, men are about three inches taller. Five hundred years is relatively short period of time, so we may assume that man will continue to grow taller. Again, in the modern world we use our brains a great deal. Even so, we still make use of only about 20% of the brain's capacity. As time goes on, however, we shall have to use our brains more and more, and eventually we shall need larger ones! This is likely to bring about a physical change to the head, in particular the forehead, will grow larger.

Nowadays our eyes are in constant use. In fact, we use them so much that very often they become weaker and we have to wear glasses. But over very long period of time it is likely that man's eyes will grow stronger.

On the other hand, we tend to make less use of our arms and legs. These, as a result, are likely to grow weaker. At the same time, however, our fingers will grow more sensitive because they are used a great deal in modern life.

But what about hair? This will probably disappear from the body altogether in course of time because it does not serve a useful purpose any longer. In the future, then, both sexes are likely to be bald.

Perhaps all this gives the impression that future man will not be a very attractive creature to look at! This may well be true. All the same, in spite of all these changes, future man will still have a lot in common with us. He will still be a human being, with thoughts and emotions similar to our own.

1. The passage mainly tells us that ________.

A. man's life will be different in the future          

B. future man will look quite different from us

C. man is growing taller and uglier as time passes

D. man's organs' functions will be on the wane

2. What serves as the evidence that man is changing?

A. Man has got stronger eyes now than he ever had.

B. Man's hair is getting thinner and thinner.

C. Man's arms and legs have become lighter and weaker.

D. Man has been growing taller over the past 500 years.

3. The change in man's size of forehead is probably because ________.

A. he makes use only 20% of the brain's capacity

B. his brain has grown larger over the past centuries

C. the other 80% of his brain will grow in due time

D. he will use his brain more and more as time goes on

4. What is true about a human being in the future?

A. He is hairless because hair is no longer useful.

B. He has smaller eyes and wears better glasses.

C. His fingers grow weaker because he doesn't have to make use of them.

D. He thinks and feels in different way.

5. It is implied that ________.

A. human beings will become less attractive in the future

B. less use of a bodily organ may lead to its degeneration   

C. human beings hope for a change in the future life

D. future life is always predictable