Mandara seemed to know something big was about to happen. So she let out a yell, caught hold of her 2-year-old daughter Kibibi and climbed up into a tree. She lives at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.
And on Tuesday, August 23rd, witnesses say she seemed to sense the big earthquake that shook much of the East Coast before any humans knew what was going on. And she’s not the only one. In the moments before the quake, an orangutan (猩猩) let out a loud call and then climbed to the top of her shelter.
“It’s very different from their normal call,” said Brandie Smith, the zookeeper. “The lemurs (monkey-like animals of Madagascar) will sound an alarm call if they see or hear something highly unusual.”
But you can’t see or hear an earthquake 15 minutes before it happens, can you? Maybe you can — if you’re an animal. “Animals can hear above and below our range of hearing,” said Brandie Smith. “That’s part of their special abilities. They’re more sensitive to the environment, which is how they survive.”
Primates weren’t the only animals that seemed to sense the quake before it happened. One of the elephants made a warning sound. And a huge lizard (蜥蜴) ran quickly for cover. The flamingoes (a kind of bird) gathered before the quake and stayed together until the shaking stopped.
So what kind of vibrations were the animals picking up in the moments before the quake? Scientist Susan Hough says earthquakes produce two types of waves — a weak “P” wave and then a much stronger “S” wave. The “P” stands for “primary”. And the “S” stands for “secondary”. She said she thinks the “P” wave might be what set the animals off.
Not all the animals behaved unusually before the quake. For example, Smith says the zoo’s giant pandas didn’t jump up until the shaking actually began. But many of the other animals seemed to know something was coming before it happened. “I’m not surprised at all,” Smith said.
【小题1】Why did Mandara act strangely one day?

根据短文内容，从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。选项中有两项为多余选项。
A group of happy, high-performing individuals is not a team. Even if each of the people is highly motivated and wants to do great work, you will still need to spend time actively developing a sense of unity and cooperation to create a truly team-oriented(团队精神的)environment. 【小题1】
Building a team takes time. 【小题2】 We will review the building blocks of a team environment, so you can work on this aspect of your role over time.
Successful teams have some common attributes（品质） you can encourage and develop as you work with the members of your group.【小题3】Making them clear to every member of your group is a great first step toward developing a team-oriented culture.
All effective teams operate on the basis of trust. 【小题4】Each member on your team needs to see consistent(一致的)behavior patterns from you and their colleagues over time to be able to believe a certain person will act in a certain way.
【小题5】  While having these discussions can be great for your team’s creativity, you want to ensure they remain within respectful communication. Challenging another team member’s view can help refine an idea and make it more perfect. You should encourage everyone to contribute to the discussion.

The fictional Chinese-American detective Charlie Chan was the subject of popular books and movies for many decades. In recent years, however, the character has been criticized as an ill image of Asian-Americans.
Yunte Huang, an English professor at the University of California, says that’s not the case. He has been exploring the character and real-life policeman who inspired him.
Charlie Chan has been a familiar character to readers and film-goers, beginning in the 1920s. The detective solved crimes around the world in more than 40 films through the 1940s, and with the invention of television, found a new audience in the 1950s and 1960s.
Huang discovered Charlie Chan through books by American author Earl Derr Biggers, who created the character.
“One day, I happened to find two Charlie Chan novels. At that point I thought I knew that he was a negative character against Asians, but when I read the book,” he says, “I was immediately attracted. Ever since then, I’ve been a fan of Charlie Chan.”
As a fan of the books and films, Huang was surprised to learn that Charlie Chan was based on a real detective named Chang Apana, who was born to Chinese parents in Hawaii around 1871. Apana worked as a cowboy, and joined the Honolulu police force in 1898.
“He almost immediately became a local legend because as a former cowboy,” says Huang, “he would walk the most dangerous areas in Chinatown carrying a bullwhip（皮鞭）instead of a gun. He didn’t need that.”
Although some say the image of Charlie Chan, with his broken English, is embarrassing for Asian-Americans, Huang believes Chan’s broken English and unusual ancient sayings were part of his charm（魅力）.
“Let me just quote（引用）a few – ‘Actions speak louder than French,’ or ‘Mind like parachute (降落伞). Only function when open.’ Charlie Chan always owes these instructive sayings to Confucius’ eastern wisdom.
For Huang, the fictional Charlie Chan is highly entertaining, while the real-life policeman, Chang Apana, is a Chinese-American success, whose story is worth telling.
【小题1】The passage mainly talks about ______________.

Have you ever noticed someone "talking" to them-selves? What did you think? The word "crazy" probably came to your mind. Wait a minute, though. Maybe they’re doing something meaningful.
Speaking practice can be effective in many different forms when people learn English or another foreign language. Imitating the speech of others is proven to be highly effective in developing a native speaker’s level of fluency in a language. Actually you’ve already proven that to your-self.
How? That’s how you learned your first language! Whether it was English, Spanish, French or some other language, you "imitated" your mother, father, other family members, friends, teachers and whoever else was around making "talking" noises at you as you formed your first communicative language skills.
So don’t think those who are talking to themselves are "crazy". At least don’t do so until you’ve tried it for your-self, in English or in your new foreign language.
As you go through your day, in English or your new foreign language, tell yourself what you’re doing at the moment and what you’re going to do during the day.
"Which of these shirts, ties, etc. should I wear today? Not this one, I wore it just last week. Maybe this one, but I don’t like this color with the pants. Let’s try another one," you might say as you are getting dressed.
If you live alone, you can talk aloud whenever you want without disturbing others. If you don’t live alone, however, then first explain to your family or roommates what you’ll be doing, to avoid a quiet phone call to the local psychiatrist (精神病学家).
【小题1】The author wrote the passage mainly to _______.

LONDON, England（CNN）--- The youngest person to sail solo around the world returned home Thursday from his 30,000-mile, 282-day ocean journey.
Mike Perham, 17, sailed into Lizard Point in Cornwall, the southernmost point in Britain, at 9:47 a.m., his race team said.
“It feels absolutely brilliant,” Mike told CNN by phone hours before crossing the finish line. “I'm really, really excited to be going across the line at last. It doesn't feel like long since I crossed it first.”
Mike set off on his round-the-world trip on November 18, 2008. He has been sailing his yacht single-handedly, though a support team has been sailing next to him along the way.
The teen has now achieved the title of Youngest Sailor to Circumnavigate the Globe Solo, according to the Guinness World Records.
Mike learned how to sail when he was seven years old from his father, Peter and at age 14, he sailed across the Atlantic alone.
The teenager's school --- which Mike describes as “highly supportive” of his trip --- has redesigned his coursework to fit in with his trip. It also gave him some coursework to do during “quiet moments,” according to Mike's Web site.
There haven't been many of those quiet moments. Repeated autopilot failures forced him to stop for repairs in Portugal, the Canary Islands, South Africa, and twice in Australia, according to his Web site.
Bad weather in the Southern Ocean --- between Australia and Antarctica --- forced Mike to battle 50ft waves and 57 mph winds. He said at one point, a “freak wave” picked up the boat and turned it on its side.
“My feet were on the ceiling at the time,” he told CNN. “That was a really hairy moment, and I was certainly thinking, ‘Why am I here?’ But we took the sails off and the day after I thought, ‘This is brilliant!’”
Mike describes his father as his biggest hero, always supportive of what he wanted to achieve. Peter Perham said he wasn't too worried about his son facing dangerous situations at sea, as long as he knew what to do and stayed safe.
49. Mike Perham returned to Britain in ________.
A. August      B. November      C. October          D. September 
50. Mike Perham is ________ that went on the round-the-world trip in the world up till now.
A. the first       B. the bravest     C. the luckiest     D. the youngest
51. We can infer from the passage that ________.
A. the English school is the same as ours
B. the English school gives students a lot of course work
C. the English school has a humane management
D. the English school doesn’t care for students
52. The passage mainly tells us ________.
A. Mike’s exciting sail trip around the globe
B. how Mike’s father taught him to sail a boat
C. why CNN wanted to report the news to the public
D. the introduction of the Guinness World Records