LONDON: What could possibly be wrong with planting trees? The advantages are obvious; they  firm the soil, soak up (摄取) extra water and take carbon dioxide (二氧化碳) out of the atmosphere.
However, it now turns out that planting trees could add to global warming.
Tree roots do a great job of keeping soil firmly on the ground and out of the wind’s power. The problem is that some of those dust clouds play an important part in soaking up carbon dioxide.
Huge dust storms blow out over the oceans from dry parts of North Africa and central Asia. Tons of dust are lifted and left as a thin film over the ocean surface. The dust fuels oceanic life.
Dust from China is carried east and left in the Pacific Ocean. If a tree-planting programme there is successful and the dust supply reduced, the net result may be that less carbon dioxide gets locked away in the ocean.
Andy Ridgwell, an environmental scientist from the University of East Anglia, has spent the past few years studying dust and says his work “shows clearly the complexity of the system and the importance of not tinkering(粗劣地修补) with it without understanding the results. For this reason there is the need to focus(集中) on cutting carbon dioxide giving off rather than monkeying (瞎弄) about with the land surface.”
An American scientist, Robert Jackson, has shown that when native grassland areas are invaded(侵入) by trees, carbon is lost from the soil. “We are studying why the soil carbon disappears, but one theory is that trees do a lot more of their growing above ground compared to grasses, so less carbon goes directly into the soil from trees, ” says Jackson.
In wet areas of the world, the gain from trees absorbing carbon dioxide above ground seems to be outweighed(超过) by the loss of carbon from the soil below ground. Countries that plan to combat global warming by planting trees may have to think again. Solutions(解决办法) to environmental problems are often more complex than they first appear, and understanding the Earth’s climate is a very great challenge.
【小题1】People usually hold the opinion that    

II. 完形填空
Sometimes a small thing during your childhood can leave a lasting impression. The event happened one day when we were having  16  after shopping. I was glad to see there were so many  17  dishes on the table except for a plate of peas.
I can’t  18  why so many people like to eat peas. But I do not like peas at all.
“Eat your peas,” my grandmother said. “Mother,” said my mother in her  19  voice, “he doesn’t like peas.” My grandmother did not  20  , but there was something in her eyes that    21   she was not going to  22   . She said slowly but firmly, “I’ll pay you five dollars if you eat those peas.” I didn’t know what to do then. I only knew that five dollars was a good amount of money. I began to  23  the awful things down my throat.
With a  24  smile on her face, Grandmother said, “I can do what I want to, Ellen, and you can’t   25  me.” My mother glared at me. No one can glare like my mother. The glares made me nervous, and every single pea made me want to  26 . Finally I swallowed the last pea. My grandmother   27  me the five dollars with a smile.  28   , my mother continued to glare  29   .
That night, at dinner, my mother  30  two of my all-time favorite dishes, beef and potatoes. Along with them  31  a big, steaming bowl of peas. She offered me some peas, and I    32  ， “Mum, I don’t like peas,” I said.
“You ate them for  33  ,” she said. “You can also eat them for love.” “But, I ...” What could I say to refuse my mother? There was  34 . I had no choice but to eat the peas. The five dollars were quickly  35 . But the story of the peas lives on to this day.
16.  A. tea              B. lunch          C. coffee        D. supper
17.  A. delicious     B. perfect    C. expensive       D. colorful
18.  A. believe        B. agree      C. understand    D. forgive
19.  A. violent        B. angry      C. unattractive         D. warning
20.  A. analyze       B. reply         C. insist        D. resist
21.  A. proved        B. suggested   C. wondered     D. advised
22.  A. give up       B. give in    C. allow for        D. leave alone
23.  A. conduct       B. digest         C. absorb    D. force
44.  A. greedy        B. disappointed  C. satisfied     D. sensitive
25.  A. prevent       B. master    C. scare           D. arrange
26.  A. put forward   B. set out   C. throw up      D.break through
27.  A. spared         B. borrowed    C. showed      D. handed
28.  A. But             B. However     C. So         D. Though
29.  A. in silence      B. with excitement
C. in surprise      D.with doubt
30.  A. chose       B. gathered           C. served         D. ordered
31.  A. arrived        B. appeared      C. came            D. went
32.  A. smiled        B. refused      C. accepted      D. admitted
33.  A. Grandmother  B. lunch      C. Mother            D. money
34.  A. no one        B. nothing     C. anything       D. everything
35.  A. saved       B. used            C. spent       D. lost

单词拼写（共10小题；每小题1分，满分10分）
根据下列各句句意和空白之后的汉语提示词，在答题卡指定区域的横线上写出对应单词的正确、完整形式，每空只写一词。
【小题1】 ______________(明显地) this key is the wrong one. It didn’t work.
【小题2】It is ____________ (不礼貌) to keep silent when asked.
【小题3】He did all he could to rescue the ______（溺水的） boy, and his effort was not in vain.
【小题4】It is a long ________ （距离）from New York to Hongkong.
【小题5】 What a surprise! It is his ________(九十) birthday.
【小题6】I have kept the photos where I can see it every day as they always __________（使……想起）me of my university days in London.
【小题7】We should know our own strengths and________（弱点） and think what could be done about them.
【小题8】 The school was   ____   （包围）   by green trees
【小题9】Her parents don’t   ____  （允许）her to go out alone at night.
【小题10】 We have established socialist  ____  (制度)

   The most frightening words in the English language are, “Our computer is down” . You hear it more and more when you are on business. The other day I was at the airport waiting for a ticket to Washington and the girl in the ticket office said, “I’m sorry, I can’t sell you a ticket. Our computer is down.”
“If your computer is down, just write me out a ticket.”
“I can’t write you out a ticket. The computer is the only one allowed to do so.”
I noticed every passenger was just standing there drinking coffee and staring at the black screen. Then I looked down on the computer and asked her, “What do all you people do?”
“We give the computer the information about your trip, and then it tells us whether you can fly with us or not.”
“So when it goes down, you go down with it.”
“That’s good, sir.”
“How long will the computer be down?” I wanted to know.
“I have no idea. Sometimes it’s down for 10 minutes, sometimes for two hours. There’s no way we can find out without asking the computer, and since it’s down it won’t answer us.”
After the girl told me they had no backup(备用) computer, I said. “Let’s forget the computer. What about your planes? They’re still flying, aren’t they?”
“I couldn’t tell without asking the computer.”
“Maybe I could just go to the gate and ask the pilot if he’s flying to Washington, ” I suggested.
“I wouldn’t know what gate to send you to. Even if the pilot was going to Washington, he couldn’t take you if you didn’t have a ticket.”
“Is there any other airline flying to Washington within the next few hours?”
“I wouldn’t know, ” she said, pointing at the dark screen. “Only ‘IT’ knows. ‘It can’t tell me.”
By this time there were quite a few people standing in lines. The word soon spread to other travelers that the computer was down. Some people went white, some people started to cry and still others kicked their luggage.
56. Where do you often hear these frightening words “Our computer is down”?
A. At the airport.          B. At the gate.             C. On business.     D. In the ticket office.
57. What could the girl in the ticket office do without asking the computer?
A. She could do nothing.
B. She could sell a ticket.
C. She could write out a ticket.
D. She could answer the passengers’ questions.
58. What does the underlined word “down” in Paragraph 1 mean?
A. White.                            B. Broken.             C. Black.                D. Dark.
59. We can learn from the last paragraph that _______.
A. a modern computer won’t be down
B. computers can take the place of human
C. there will be great changes in computers
D. sometimes a computer may bring suffering to people
60. The best title for the article is _______.
A. Asking the Computer                              B. When the Computer Is Down
C. The Computer of the Airport                         D. The Most Frightening Words

My bookshelves are full of dust — and with good reason. When it comes to cleaning that part of my home, I suffer from the most serious case of avoidance (回避反应症).
The thing is this: when I do set out to clean and re-organize my books, which seldom happens, I place myself into a really bad situation. No sooner do I take a title from the shelf, blow off the dust, and wipe down the cover than I find myself sitting on the floor with legs crossed and my back against the wall. Pretty soon books get piled up on my legs as I am reunited with old friends.
It is as if these books have voices, and each wants to say its piece. “Remember me? I was given to you when you went into the Navy, so that you would never lack for companionship,” one whispers. Another says, “I was your first book of poems, given to you before you learned to love poetry.” And a third, “I was the book that made history so attractive to you.”
Perhaps the greatest pleasure of re-organizing my books are the surprises — or better said, reunions — that occur. During my latest book-cleaning adventure, I found one that had fallen behind the shelf: “Tales of Edgar Allan Poe.” Not an unusual title, but the words written on the first page made it very special: “With Love from Mom and Dad, Christmas 1965.” What’s this? A book on the physics of lasers（激光）. It is filled with mathematical statements, and I had bought it at a library sale when I was 12, not long after the laser had been invented. I couldn’t understand a bit of it, but I did learn what “laser” meant.
What I end up with when I empty my bookshelves is a cross-section (横剖面) of my personal history. It’s like a road cut where one sees all the layers of rock going back through time to the beginning of the simplest life forms. The books I’ve read — and kept — are not just old friends. They are my résumé.
【小题1】What could be said about the author?