Despite rising education levels, Americans of every age are reading less and less for pleasure these days, according to an analysis by the National Endowment for the Arts. The decline(下降) could have bad effects as people tune out books, tune in popular culture and become less socially engaged.

"We've got a public culture which is almost entirely commercial(商业化)and novelty - driven (追新)," says NEA chairman Dana Gioia. "I think it's letting the nation down."

The study gathers years of data on Americans' reading habits and finds that, at every age group, we're reading less.

Most of the data have appeared in private, government and university surveys, but today's report is the first to combine them into a single portrait. It suggests that the demands of school, work and family and the decisive advantage of other forms of entertainment have caused the decline in reading for millions of Americans.

·Only 38% of adults in 2006 said they had spent time reading a book for pleasure.

·65% of college freshmen in 2005 said they read little or nothing for pleasure.

·30% of 13 - year - olds in 2004 said they read for fun "almost every day," down from 35% in 1984.

According to Gioia, a poet, they decline is probably the single most important social issue in the United States today. The findings should be a wake - up call to educators to change the way they teach literature at every level. It was once believed that if someone went to college, they would become a lifelong reader. What we're seeing right now is that we're no longer producing readers. We're producing B. A. s and M. A. s and Ph. D. s.

Cioia also wants main media to wake up to how they can promote good books in many ways. He notes that when a character in the 1994 film Four Weddings and a Funeral recited a few lines of W. H. Auden's poem Funeral Blues, the poet briefly became a best seller.

65.The underlined phrase "tune out" in the first paragraph probably means________.

A.close    B.publish C.prove   D.read

66.According to Dana Gioia, the change of Americans' reading habit________.

A.is positive and valuable      B.does harm to the nation

C.is caused only by popular culture      D.can make poets best sellers

67.Which of the following is NOT the cause for the change in reading habit?

A.Demands of getting a B. A., M. A. or Ph. D.

B.Demands of family, school and work.

C.The change in the way the literature is taught.

D.Advantages of the entertainment.

68.We can infer that the number of teenagers reading for pleasure reduced by________in 20 years.

A.30%    B.38%    C.65%    D.5%

单词拼写（共10小题；81-90每小题1分，满分10分）
根据下列句子所给汉语意思或单词首字母，写出空缺处各单词或词组的正确形式。(将单词写在答案页本题的横线上)
1. It’s quite o________ that he isn’t telling the truth because his face becomes red.
2. An old lady was killed in the hotel ,so nobody there was allowed to leave without p_________.
3. Zhao Benshan’s h__________ words made every audience present laugh.
4. We cannot e              without food as well as water.
5. Diets are most effective when they are _______(结合) with exercise.
6.Whether there is life in outer-space remains a mystery,          (使困惑) many scientists.
7. __________(恐惧) of the terrible scene, the girl ran away in terror.
8. I will never forget the __________(给人深刻印象的) speech he made. 
9. She seems g____________ (真诚的) ，but I still don’t know whether I should trust her.
10. Smoking  m___________（增加） the risk of heart attacks and other health problems.

对话填空 （共10小题，每小题1分，满分10分）

W: Sir, you’ve been using the online catalogue（目录）for

quite a (76) w______. Is there anything I can do to help you?

M: Well, I’ve got to write a paper about Hollywood in the 30s and 40s, and I’m really struggling. There are hundreds of books, and I just don’t know (77) w_____ to begin.

W: Your topic sounds pretty big. Why don’t you narrow it down to something like…uh… the history of the studios during that time?

M: You know, I was thinking about doing that, but more than 30 books came up when I (78) t_____ in “movie studios.”

W: You could cut that down even further by listing the specific (79) y_____ you want. Try adding “1930s” or “1940s” or maybe “Golden Age.”

M: “Golden Age” is a good idea. Let me type that in. Hey, look, just 6 books this time. That’s a lot better.

W: Oh… another thing you might consider. Have you tried looking for any (80) m_______ or newspaper articles?

M: No, I’ve only been (81) s________ for books.

W: Well, you can look up magazine articles in the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature. And we do have the Los Angeles Times available over there. You might go (82) t________ their indexes (索引) to see if there’s (83) a_______ you want.

M: Okay, I think I’ll get (84) s_______ with these books and then I’ll go over the magazines.

W: If you need any (85) h_____, I’ll be over at the Reference Desk.

M: Great, thanks a lot. 

第一节、根据汉语或首字母提示结合句意写出正确的单词（共10小题；每小题1分，满分10分）

________(不知怎么地) it didn’t seem very important to her.

A f_____ teller would say that he can tell everything about a person from looking at the palm of his hand.

He can’t _______(抵抗...的诱惑) ice cream.

His suggestion was accepted by all present at the conference as it sounded___________(合理的).

The police made an  ___________( 逮捕) in our neighbourhood last night. 

He has got a train ticket v_______ for three months, so he can decide to go out at any time.

If you think you can drink so much without damaging your health, then you’re m__________.

In the word “knife”, the letter “k” is not p___________.

They were ________(打断) by a knock at the door

If you have any questions, please don’t h__________ to ask me.

We’ve used the wind as an energy source for a long time. The Babylonians and Chinese were using wind power to pump water for irrigating crops 4,000 years ago, and sailing boats were around long before that. Wind power was used in the Middle Ages, in Europe, to grind(磨碎) corn, which is where the term “windmill” comes from.

We can use the energy in the wind by building a tall tower, with a large propellor（螺旋桨） on the top. The wind blows the propellor round, which turns a generator to produce electricity. We tend to build many of these towers together, to make a “wind farm” and produce more electricity. The more towers, the more wind, and the larger the propellors, the more electricity we can make. It’s only worth building wind farms in places that have strong, steady winds, although boats and caravans（大篷车）increasingly have small wind generators to help keep their batteries charged.

The best places for wind farms are in coastal areas, at the tops of rounded hills, open plains and gaps in mountains — places where the wind is strong and reliable. Some are offshore. To be worthwhile, you need an average wind speed of around 25 km/h. Most wind farms in the UK are in Cornwall or Wales. Isolated places such as farms may have their own wind generators. In California, several “wind farms” supply electricity to homes around Los Angeles.

The propellors are large, to obtain energy from the largest possible volume of air. The blades can be angled to cope with varying wind speeds. Some designs use vertical turbines (垂直涡轮机), which don’t need to be turned to face the wind. The towers are tall, to get the propellors as high as possible, up to where the wind is stronger. This means that the land beneath can still be used for farming. 

The first paragraph aims to introduce to us _______.

A. the function of wind power                     B. the source of wind power

C. the nations using wind power                     D. the history of using wind power

The best places for building the wind farm are places where _______.

A. boats and caravans can often be seen      B. isolated farms don’t have enough electricity

C. there are less human activities                 D. the wind is strong and reliable

We can infer from the passage that _______.

A. wind farms will not take up too much farming land

B. wind farms need no fuel because wind is free

C. the blades can be angled to turn to face the wind wherever it comes from

D. the higher and larger the towers are, the stronger the wind is

What can be a suitable title for the passage?

A. Where to build a wind farm.                 B. ABC of the using of wind energy.

C. How to make best use of wind.              D. Wind energy is the best energy.

The underlined sentence in the last paragraph means______________________.

A. The blades can increase wind speeds   

B. The blades can decrease the wind speeds

C. The speed of blades can be changed.

D. The blades can be adjusted to face different wind speeds