Malaria, the world’s most widespread parasitic (寄生虫引起的)disease, kills as many as three million people every year—almost all of whom are under five, very poor, and African. In most years, more than five hundred million cases of illness result from the disease, although exact numbers are difficult to assess because many people don't (or can’t) seek care. It is not unusual for a family earning less than two hundred dollars a year to spend a quarter of its income on malaria treatment, and what they often get no longer works. In countries like Tanzania, Mozambique, and the Gambia, no family, village, hospital, or workplace can remain unaffected for long.        
Malaria starts suddenly, with violent chills, which are soon followed by an intense fever and, often, headaches. As the parasites multiply, they take over the entire body. Malaria parasites live by eating the red blood cells they infect. They can also attach themselves to blood vessels in the brain. If it doesn’t kill you, malaria can happen again and again for years. The disease is passed on to humans by female mosquitoes infected with one of four species of a parasite. Together, the mosquito and the parasite are the most deadly couple in the history of the earth and one of the most successful. Malaria has five thousand genes, and its ability to change rapidly to defend itself and resist new drugs has made it nearly impossible to control. Studies show that mosquitoes are passing on the virus more frequently, and there are more outbreaks in cities with large populations. Some of the disease's spread is due to global warming.
For decades, the first-choice treatment for malaria parasites in Africa has been chloroquine, a chemical which is very cheap and easy to make. Unfortunately, in most parts of the world, malaria parasites have become resistant to it. Successful alternatives that help prevent resistance are already available, but they have been in short supply and are very expensive. If these drugs should fail, nobody knows what would come next.  
【小题1】According to paragraph 1, many people don’t seek care because ________.

A．Its resistance to global warming.

B．Its ability to pass on the virus frequently.

C．Its outbreaks in cities with large populations.

D．Its ability to defend itself and resist new drugs.

One cold January evening in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, America, I went with my father on an oil burner service call. My father was in his forties at that time and I was about twelve years old. He was always working hard trying to support us seven kids. I enjoyed hanging out with him whenever I could — he taught me so much.
We arrived at the call and after walking over snow and ice, we knocked on the customer’s door. A senior citizen opened the door and let us into her very cold home. She was wearing an old, worn-out brown coat that went down to her knees. On her head, covering her gray hair, was an old and worn hat. The home wasn’t furnished very well and was quite dark, except for a single light bulb over the dining room table. Below the light was an older man counting change from several old coffee cans. He looked up at us as we passed by to get to the kitchen where my dad would fix the oil burner. He didn’t say anything. He just looked up at us. He couldn’t speak English, nor could his wife. She only pointed to the kitchen and smiled at us.
After a short while, my father had the heater up and running, and it began to heat their cold home. The lady asked my dad in poor English how much she owed him for fixing the heater. My dad looked around the house and said that he had to go out to the truck and write the bill.
Once in the truck he marked the bill “no answer at home, no charge”, so they wouldn’t be charged for his work. He looked over at me and said, “He was counting his change to pay me. They need their money more than I do.”
As usual, my father taught me something important that time, which was to be kind to the poor.
【小题1】According to Paragraph 1, we know that the writer’s father                        .

   CHICAGO ---Call it a reward, or just “bribery(贿赂)”.
Whichever it is, many parents today readily admit to buying off their children, who get goodies(好东西) for anything from behaving in a restaurant to sleeping all night in their own beds.
That’s what worries parenting experts.
“I think that reward systems have a time and a place and work really well in certain situations,” says Marcy Safyer, director of the Adelphi University Institute for Parenting.
“But what often gets lost for people is being able to figure out how to communicate to their kids that doing the thing is rewarding enough,” Safyer says.
Parents and experts alike agree that the dynamic(动力) is partly a reflection of the world we live in. It’s unrealistic to think a parent wouldn’t reward their children with material things sometimes, says Robin Lanzi, a clinical psychologist and mother of four who’s the research director at the Center on Health and Education at Georgetown University.
“But you want to make sure that they match the behavior, so it’s not something huge for something small,” Lanzi says.
She recalls hearing about a father who offered his child a Nintendo Wii game system for scoring a couple goals in a soccer game.
Elizabeth Powell, a mother of two young daughters in Austin, Texas, knows what she means.
“You want to raise them in a way that they’re respectful and appreciate things,” Powell says of her children. “But sometimes, you wonder now if kids appreciate even a new pair of shoes. ”
【小题1】Parenting experts are worried that ____ .

Recently there was a major discovery in the scientific research — the mapping of all DNA in a human gene(基因) is complete. Couple of years ago, this seems an impossible task for scientist to accomplish. All this progress in science leads us to believe that the day, when the human being will be cloned, is not far away. Human cloning has always been a topic of argument, in terms of morality(道德) or religion.
Taking a look at why cloning might be beneficial, among many cases, it is arguable that parents who are known to be at risk of passing a genetic limitation to a child could make use of cloning. If the clone was free of genetic limitations, then the other clone would be as well. The latter could be inserted in the woman and allowed to ripen to term. Moreover, cloning would enable women, who can’t get pregnant, to have children of their own.
Cloning humans would also mean that organs could be cloned, so it would be a source of perfect transfer organs. This surely would be greatly beneficial to millions of unfortunate people around the world that are expected to lose their lives due to failure of single (or more) organ(s). It is also arguable that a ban on cloning may be unlawful and would rob people of the right to reproduce and limit the freedom of scientists.
Arguments against cloning are also on a perfectly practical side. Primarily, I believe that cloning would step in the normal “cycle” of life. There would be a large number of same genes, which reduce the chances of improvement, and, in turn, development — the fundamental reason how living things naturally adapt to the ever-changing environment. Life processes failing to do so might result in untimely disappearance. Furthermore, cloning would make the uniqueness that each one of us possesses disappear, thus leading to creation of genetically engineered groups of people for specific purposes, and chances are that those individuals would be regarded as “objects” rather than people in the society.
Scientists haven’t 100% guaranteed that the first cloned humans will be normal. Thus, this could result in introduction of additional limitations in the human “gene-pool”.
Regarding such arguable topics in “black or white” approach seems very innocent to me personally. We should rather try to look at all “shades” of it. I believe that cloning is only legal if its purpose is for cloning organs; not humans. Then we could regard this as for “saving life” instead of “creating life”. I believe cloning humans is morally and socially unacceptable.
【小题1】   Which of the following is true according to the passage？

B
The first time I saw Carlos I would never have believed he was going to change my life. I had my arms full of books and I was tearing into the classroom when I ran into something solid. It was Carlos.
“My, you’re tall,” he said.
Of course, the class began to laugh. Angry, I walked to my seat without a word.
I glanced back to see if Reed Harrington was laughing with the rest. That would be the last straw. But Reed was studying chemistry and did not seem to be aware of anything else. I didn’t know why I considered Reed my friend. Maybe just because he was a good two inches taller than I. Anyway, every time I blew out my birthday candles and made a wish, it was for a date with Reed Harrington. “Take that seat,” Mr. McCarthy told the proud newcomer Carlos, pointing to the only empty one, in the back of the room.
Carlos smiled broadly.“But I need a couple of dictionaries.” Again the class laughed, but now they were laughing with Carlos, not at him. He had been here only 10 minutes and already he had them on his side.
It was the school elections that made me think of Carlos again. Reed Harrington was voted president and Carlos vice?president.“How come?” I kept asking myself.“How come this shrimp(虾) who’s only been in town for a little over a month gets to be so popular.”
So on that morning, I stopped Carlos and said,“It doesn’t seem to bother you—being short.” He looked up at me.“Of course I mind being short. But there isn’t anything I can do about it. When I realized I was going to have to spend my life in this undersized skin, I just decided to make the best of it and concentrate on being myself.”“You seem to get along great,” I admitted.“But what about me? Nobody wants to date a girl taller than he is.”“The trouble with you is you’re afraid to be yourself. You’re smart. And you could be pretty. In fact, you might be more than pretty.” I felt myself turning red...
55.It’s a story about______.
A.a tall boy and a short girl      B.a short boy and a tall girl
C.a tall boy and a tall girl        D.a short boy and a short girl
56.From the story, we can see the boy Carlos is______.
A.handsome and humorous       B.humorous and confident
C.handsome and popular         D.honest and popular
57.The underlined sentence “That would be the last straw” suggests that the writer______.
A.cared much about Reed’s attitude
B.thought Reed was different from the rest
C.couldn’t stand Carlos making fun of her
D.hoped Reed was unaware of the event
58.According to the passage, what happened in the end?
A.Carlos and the author hurt each other.
B.Reed and the author fell into love with each other.
C.The author changed attitude and turned to be confident.
D.Carlos was finally elected president of student committee.