完形填空(共20小题；每小题l分，满分20分)

阅读下面短文，从短文后各题所给的A，B，C，D四个选项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑．

Last night I was driving from Harrisburg to Lewisburg, a  36  of about eighty miles. It was late and I was in a hurry. However, if anyone asked me how fast I was  37  ,I’d say I was not over-speeding. Several times I got  38  behind a slow-moving truck on a narrow road, and I was holding my fists tightly with  39  .

At one point along an open highway, I  40  a crossroad with a traffic light. I was alone on the road by now, but as I  41  the light, it turned red and I braked to a stop. I looked left, right and behind me. Nothing. Not a car, no suggestion of headlights, but there I sat, waiting for the light to  42  , the only human being for at least a mile in any  43  .

I started  44  why I refused to run the light. I was not afraid of being  45  , because there was obviously no policeman around, and there certainly would have been no  46  in going through it.

Much later that night, after I  47  a group of my friends in Lewisburg and climbed into bed near midnight, the question of why I’d stopped for that light  48  me, I think I stopped because it’s part of a contract(合同) we all have with each other. It’s not only the  49  , but it’s an arrangement we have, and we trust each other to  50  it: we don’t go through red lights. Like most of us, I’m more likely to be  51  from doing something bad by the social convention that  52  it than by any law against it.

It’s amazing that we ever  53  each other to do the right thing, isn’t it? And we do, too, Trust is our  54  preference.

I was so  55  of myself for stopping for the red light that night.

1. A. flight        B. distance             C. road                 D. length

2.A. thinking       B. driving              C. complaining          D. running

3. A. stopped           B. changed         C. stuck                D. lost

4.A. horror             B. strength             C. understanding        D. impatience

5. A. ran off           B. came to              C. passed by            D. left behind

6.A. passed        B. watched              C. approached           D. found

7. A. stop              B. change               C. turn                 D. die

8.A. way            B. side                 C. city                 D. direction

9. A. wondering         B. suspecting           C. struggling           D. regretting

10.A. abused            B. fined                C. injured              D. killed

11. A. danger           B. sign                 C. time                 D. record

12. A. met with         B. got over             C. got rid of           D. called back

13. A. turned out to        B. came back to       C. referred to            D. occurred to

14. A. virtue           B. suggestion         C. law                D. order

15. A. honor            B. solve                C. break                D. judge

16.A. stopped           B. protected            C. rejected             D. frightened

17. A. speaks of       B. stands by             C. takes in             D. disapproves of

18. A. suspect          B. trust                C. teach                D. care

19.A. only           B. first              C. lucky                D. living

20. A. sorry            B. doubtful             C. sure                 D. proud

 

A husband-and-wife team from California reached the Pacific Ocean after a 4,900- mile-cross

-country walk, becoming the first to backpack the American Discovery Trail in one continuous

walk. 

Marcia and Ken powers, of Pleasanton, started the travel across 13 states, through 14 national parks and 16 national forests on Feb. 27 from Cape Henlopen in Delaware. Nearly eight months later, the excited couple walked through water into the Pacific Ocean at Point Reyes, a day ahead of time. 

“We are a little sad that a great adventure is over. It was a fantastic adventure. And now we go home and just do housework. It's really sad.” Marcia, who said she's in her 50s, and her 60-year-old husband traversed cities, desert, mountains and farmland before reaching the Pacifics alone with arms around each other' s backpacks.

They overcame deep snow in the East, a quicksand in Utah, close lightning strikes in the Mid- west and strong desert sandstorms in the West while averaging 22 miles a day and taking only four days off. But they enjoyed the French history of St. Louis' the beauty of the Colorado Rockies and the kindness of strangers they met along the way. They particularly remember two brothers ---- a

doctor and dentist-------who put them up in their homes, after terrible days, and a motorcyclist who gave them water after they failed to find any on Utah's lonely Wah Wah Desert.

“Americans are truly warm-hearted and wonderful people.” Marcia Powers said. “We got to meet people that we would never meet in our daily living at home. We got to touch it with our feet and hands and smell all its scents and hear its wildlife. It' s an amazing country,” she added.

1.Which of the following about couple's walk is TRUE?

A．The walk covered more than 13 states.

B．The walk lasted about half a year.

C．The walk didn't meet any desert.

D．The walk might end before October 27.

2.The underlined word “traversed” in the third paragraph means “____________.”

A．enjoy	B．move across, through or over
C．overcome	D．look at

3. According to the text, we can infer that during the walk the couple __________.

A．were treated warm-heartedly by the local people

B．never stopped to have a rest

C．were ever caught in a heavy rain and became ill

D．felt the quicksand in Utah was very interesting

4.The couple went through many places except ____________.

A．big rivers

B．desert

C．hills

D．fields

 

  Chinese are very generous when it comes to educating their children. Not caring about the money, parents often send their children to the best schools or even abroad to England, the United States or Australia. They also want their children to take extra-course activities where they will learn a musical instrument or ballet or other classes which will give them a head start in life. The Chinese believe that the more expensive an education is, the better it is. So the parents will spend an unreasonable amount of money on education. Even poor couples will buy a computer for their son or daughter.

However, what most parents fail to see is that the best early education they can give their children is usually very cheap.

Parents can see that their children’s skills vary, skilled in some areas while poor in others. What most parents fail to realize though, is that today’s children lack (缺乏) self-respect and self-confidence.

The problem is that parents are only educating their children on how to take multiple-choice tests and how to study well, but parents aren’t teaching them the most important skills they need to be confident, happy and clever.

Parents can achieve this by teaching practical skills like cooking, sewing and doing housework.

Teaching a child to cook will improve many of the skills that he will need later in life. Cooking demands patience and time. It’s an enjoyable but difficult experiment. A good cook always tries to improve his cooking, so he will learn to work hard and gradually to finish his job successfully. His result, a well-cooked dinner, will give him much satisfaction and a lot of self-confidence.

Some old machines , such as a broken radio or TV set that you give your children to play with will make him curious (好奇) and arouse his interest He will spend hours looking at them, trying to fix them; your child might become an engineer when he grows up. These activities aren’t merely teaching a child to read a book, but rather to think, to use his mind. And that is more important.

1.Parents in China, according to this passage, _________.

A. are too strict with their children        

B. are too rich to educate their children

C have some problems in educating their children correctly

D. are too poor to educate their children

2.Generally speaking, children’s skills_______.

A．come from their parents

B．have nothing to do with their education

C．may be different

D．have something to do with their marks in the exams

3.The writer of this passage doesn’t seem to be satisfied with_______.

A．the parents’ idea of educating their children

B．the education system

C．children’s skills

D．children’s hobbies

4.Doing some cooking at home helps children_________.

A．learn how to serve their parents

B．learn how to become strong and fat

C．benefit from it and prepare themselves for the future

D．make their parents believe that they are clever

5.According to the last paragraph, we can conclude that_________.

A．broken radios and television sets are useful

B．one’s curiosity may be useful for his later life

C．an engineer must fix many broken radios

D．a good student should spend much time repairing radios

 

Terraforming (Earth-forming) other planets, also known as planetary engineering (行星工程), seems like a task still centuries away for mankind to accomplish. However, it is a vigorous topic that attracts both popular and scientific interest. Why should the possibility of terraforming other planets be studied when it may be centuries before we know enough to even decide if it’s a good idea?

Mankind is getting more and more hard facts about other planets. The atmosphere of Venus has been explored; robots have surveyed the surface of Mars; Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn have been studied by spacecraft. Speculations have been answered; new questions have been raised, and enough hard data is right now becoming available to allow us to make the first attempt of planetary engineering.

In the past, people with excellent ideas about terraforming have kept them to themselves, or buried them in a desk drawer because they did not realize that anyone else was interested. But now, a wide circle of people has begun to do this kind of work. For instance, NASA funded a project on transforming Mars.

There are several strong reasons which demand that the possibilities of terraforming be studied carefully. First, it’s an exciting idea of a possible future for human beings. Such thinking has a valuable role in providing options for our future directions. Secondly, the techniques of terraforming will also help contemporary technologies in weather and climate control. Thirdly, such study may assist us in detecting any possible existence of extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI, The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, 地外文明搜索) and alien (异己的) civilizations on other planets.

Though the mission is far beyond our reach at the moment, we should at least keep our options open. Through debate and study on this subject, the possibility of rebuilding other planets to make them suitable homes for people may come true some day in the future.

1..

. According to the context, what’s the meaning of the word “speculation” in paragraph 2?

A. The act of discussing something with a group of people.

B. The act of studying and researching.

C. The act of guessing without knowing all the facts about something.

D. The acting of writing letters to a certain organization.

2..

 Why did people keep the idea of terraforming to themselves in the past?

A. They thought no one else would show interest in the idea.

B. They gradually came to find the idea crazy.

C. They thought the idea would never come true.

D. They had few resources for further study on this topic.

3..

. Which is NOT the reason to support the study of terraforming?

A. Even if we don’t succeed in terraforming, such study may help us to better understand technologies such as climate and weather control.

B. Such study may explore a new direction of development for human beings.

C. Such study may enable us to find the lives on other planets.

D. As the resources on Earth are being drained, it’s very urgent to study how to migrate (迁移) to other planets。

4..

 What’s the main idea of the article?

A. It’s highly possible that terraforming other planets will come true so we should increase investing in this program.

B. Even if the idea of terraforming other planets may take centuries to realize, we have many reasons to support such studies.

   C. Terraforming other planets is the best option for human being’s future.

   D. More and more people are taking planetary engineering as their occupation. 

 

Ok, I admit it: Emoticons(表情符号) are popular. Some people even think they are fun. Many seem unable to get through an e-mail or Instant Message chat sentence without using one. Some feel that they add feeling and character to otherwise cold digital communications.

Some, however, such as editor and Hollywood scriptwriter John Blumenthal, blast the use of emotions as “ infantile(幼稚的) just like the people who use them”. He believes that words themselves should be enough. “If you’re being funny, happy or sad, that should be apparent from the comment that goes before the emoticons,” he argues.

In the eyes of Blumenthal, the use of emoticons is a gender issue. “Men don’t use emoticons very much. Maybe not at all.,” he said. “Teenage girls and women seem to use them a lot. Maybe there’s an emoticons gene.”

It’s an interesting opinion, but it is not shared by all.

In an interview with The New York Times, Dacher Keltner, professor of psychology at the University of California, said that emoticons are popular because our brains are programmed “to seek out representations of humanity”. He believes that they appeal not because they are shortcuts for the lazy, but because they tap into（输入）something beyond language. They reach to our need to be with and communicate with people.

All of these arguments may be somehow valid（正确的）. Each one of us will choose to communicate in our own way. I do not have much time for emoticons. I tried to use one once and felt like I was stealing into a primary school class that I had no place being in. I’d rather let my words do the talking.

Friends, however, send me messages and e-mails full of emoticons. I have no problem with this, I don’t regard any of my friends as lazy or immature. It’s just a question of individuality.

1.According to the article, emoticons are popular because_________.

A. most of them look funny

B. they are easy for lazy people to use

C. they add feeling and character to a communication

D. a reader cannot understand a message without them

2. Which of the following views would John Blumenthal agree with ?

  A. Instant Message chatters are childish.

  B. It’s enough to use language in digital communication.

  C. Men never use emoticons.

  D. There is an emoticon gene in everybody.

3.From the text, we can conclude that the author________.

A. feels he has no difficulty using emoticons    

B. thinks emoticons don’t suit him

C. encourage his friends to use emoticons   

D. believes that emoticons are suitable for everyone

4.What is the main point of the article ?

  A. Advice on language used over the Internet.

  B. The history of emoticons.

  C. Arguments over the use of emoticons.

  D. Reasons for the popularity of emoticons.