When I was growing up, I had an old neighbor named Dr. Gibbs. He didn’t look like any doctor I’d ever known. He never yelled at us for playing in his yard. I remember him as someone who was a lot nicer than most of the adults in our community.

　　When Dr. Gibbs wasn’t saving lives, he was planting trees. His house sat on ten acres, and his life’s goal was to make it a forest.

　　The good doctor had some interesting theories concerning plant care and growth. He never watered his new trees, which flew in the face of conventional wisdom. Once I asked why. He said that watering plants spoiled them so that each successive tree generation would grow weaker and weaker. So you have to make things rough for them and weed out(淘汰) the weaker trees early on.

He talked about how watering trees made for shallow roots, and how trees that weren’t watered had to grow deep roots in search of moisture. I took him to mean that deep roots were to be treasured.

　　So he never watered his trees. He planted an oak and, instead of watering it every morning, he’d beat it with a rolled-up newspaper. Smack! Slap! Pow! I asked him why he did that, and he said it was to get the tree’s attention.

Dr. Gibbs passed away a couple of years after I left home. Every now and again, I walked by his house and looked at the trees that I’d watched him plant some twenty-five years ago. They’re extremely tall, big and robust since they have deep roots now. However, the trees in my garden trembled in a cold wind although I had watered them for several years.

It seems that adversity(逆境) and suffering benefit these trees in ways comfort and ease never could. I stood there deep in thought.

　　Every night before I go to bed, I check on my two sons. I stand over them and watch their little bodies, the rising and falling of life within. I often pray for them. Mostly I pray that their lives will be easy. But I think it’s time to change my prayer(祷词) because now I know my children are going to encounter hardship..

According to Dr. Gibbs’ theories, trees will become weaker if they______

    A. are lack of care   B. are watered   C. are weeded out    D. are beaten

.According to Para.3 and Pare.4, we can infer that Dr. Gibbs’moto（座右铭）may be_____

     A. “seeing is believing”        B.“Put everything in proper use”

     C. ”Practice makes perfect”     D. “No pains, no gains”

.The underlined word robust in Para.5 most probably means______

      A. strong         B. strange         C. deep        D. old

Which of the following may be the author’s best prayer for his two sons now ?

  A. I wish them strong wings, with which they can fly higher and touch the sky.

  B.I wish them nice fortune so that they can meet people like Dr. Gibbs in the future.

  C.I wish them deep roots into the earth since the rains fall and the winds blow often.

  D.I wish them great shades under the tree since the sunlight is always sharp and bitter.

Which of the following can be the best title of the passage?

   A. A Nice Doctor                      B. The Deep Roots  

C. Adversity and Suffering              D. My Childhood Memory

第二节：完型填空(共20小题，每小题1.5分，满分30分)
Recently I was invited to a friend’s house for supper—and had a meal I have never had before.
All the friends invited were a little 　36　. It’s not that Ben is unsociable, or a bad cook, but it’s just that he never　37　more than he has to. So how come he was inviting us round for a meal? Had he bought something　38　 for his friends? He greeted us at the door and showed us into his dining room where a　39　table was waiting for us. “Nothing but the　40　 for my friends! ” said Ben. We all sat down and looked　41　at each other—what was he 　42　?
Ben returned with four bowls of hot soup. “It’s a　43　of carrots, potatoes and tomatoes, ”said Ben. The next　44　was also a little strange　45　we didn’t quite know what it was again. “It’s just another mixture of vegetables. ”
As we ate we chatted and finally the　46　turned back to what we were eating. “Was there a recipe(菜谱) for this, ”asked Marina, “or did you　47　it up? ”Ben put his fork down. “What I cooked　48　what I could find. ”Marina was surprised. “But you can find anything in supermarkets these days. ”“But there’s　49　choice in what you can find　50　supermarkets, ” he replied.
　51　that we had all finished the food, Ben decided to tell the truth. He had read recently that supermarkets usually　52　away 5 percent of their food every day. So Ben decided to look inside his local supermarket bins. There he found food that was slightly out of　53　, boxes of thrown-away vegetables and fruit.
So Ben had　54　 provided a decent meal for his friends, and made us aware of the fact that there are many poor people who need the food, but the amount of food thrown away is enough to 　55　millions of people.
36.A. excited      B. disappointed  C. surprised   D. delighted
37.A. takes        B. spends       C. uses       D. does
38.A. cheap        B. special       C. practical    D. usual
39.A. new         B. separate      C. booked     D. laid
40.A. freshest      B. most         C. best        D. least
41.A. nervously     B. carefully      C. sadly      D. happily
42.A. in for         B. up to         C. away from   D. out of
43.A. mixture       B. liquid         C. matter      D. dish
44.A. course      B. food            C. soup       D. salad
45.A. in that      B. on condition that  C. in case that   D. so that
46.A. dinner      B. idea            C. food        D. subject
47.A. pick        B. look            C. make       D. take
48.A. referred     B. depended on     C. lay in       D. resulted from
49.A. less         B. more           C. some       D. any
50.A. within       B. beyond         C. inside      D. outside
51.A. Feeling      B. Seeing          C. Realizing   D. Thinking
52.A. store        B. move           C. throw      D. hide
53.A. order        B. place           C. season     D. date
54.A. successfully   B. possibly        C. hardly     D. hopefully
55.A. enrich        B. please          C. affect     D. Feed

A team of researchers in California has developed a way to predict what kinds of objects people are looking at by scanning what’s happening in their brains.
When you look at something, your eyes send a signal about that object to your brain. Different regions of the brain process the information your eyes send. Cells in your brain called neurons(神经元) are responsible for this processing.
　　The fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging功能性磁共振造影) brain scans could generally match electrical activity in the brain to the basic shape of a picture that someone was looking at.
　　Like cells anywhere else in your body, active neurons use oxygen. Blood brings oxygen to the neurons, and the more active a neuron is, the more oxygen it will consume. The more active a region of the brain, the more active its neurons, and in turn, the more blood will travel to that region. And by using fMRI, scientists can visualize which parts of the brain receive more oxygen- rich blood--and therefore, which parts are working to process information.
　　An fMRI machine is a device that scans the brain and measures changes in blood flow to the brain. The technology shows researchers how brain activity changes when a person thinks, looks at something, or carries out an activity like speaking or reading. By highlighting the areas of the brain at work when a person looks at different images, fMRI may help scientists determine specific patterns of brain activity associated with different kinds of images.
　　The California researchers tested brain activity by having two volunteers view hundreds of pictures of everyday objects, like people, animals, and fruits. The scientists used an fMRI machine to record the volunteers' brain activity with each photograph they looked at. Different objects caused different regions of the volunteers' brains to light up on the scan, indicating activity. The scientists used this information to build a model to predict how the brain might respond to any image the eyes see.
In a second test, the scientists asked the volunteers to look at 120 new pictures. Like before, their brains were scanned every time they looked at a new image. This time, the scientists used their model to match the fMRI scans to the image. For example, if a scan in the second test showed the same pattern of brain activity that was strongly, related to pictures of apples in the first test, their model would have predicted the volunteers were looking at apples.
　　 51. What is responsible for processing the information sent by your eyes?
　　A A small region of the brain.
　　B The central part of the brain.
　　C Neurons in the brain.
　　D Oxygen-rich blood.
　　52. Which of the following statements is NOT meant by the writer?
　　A Cells in your brain are called neurons.
　　B The more oxygen a neuron consumes, the more blood it needs.
　　C fMRI helps scientists to discover which parts of the brain process information.
　　D fMRI helps scientists to discover how the brain develops intelligently.
53. "Highlighting the areas of the brain at work" means
　　A "marking the parts of the brain that are processing information"
　　B "giving light to the parts of the brain that are processing information"
　　C "putting the parts of the brain to work"
　　D "stopping the parts of the brain from working"
　　54. What did the researchers experiment on?
　　A Animals, objects, and fruits.
　　B Two volunteers.
　　C fMRI machines.
　　D Thousands of pictures.
55.What is the best title for the passage?
A Mind-reading Machine
B A Technological Dream
C Device that can Help You Calculate
D The Recent Development in Science and Technology

He was 11 years old and went fishing every chance he got from the dock at his family’s   cabin on an island in the middle of a New Hampshire lake.

　　 On the day before the bass season opened, he and his father were fishing early in the evening, catching sunfish and perch (鲈鱼)  with worms. Then he tied on a small silver lure（鱼饵） and practiced casting. The lure struck the water and caused colored ripples in the sunset, then silver ripples as the moon rose over the lake.

　　When his peapole doubled over, he knew something huge was on the other end. His father watched with admiration as the boy skillfully worked the fish alongside the dock.

　　Finally, he very gingerly lifted the exhausted fish from the water. It was the largest one he had ever seen, but it was a bass. The boy and his father looked at the handsome fish, gills playing back and forth in the moonlight. The father lit a match and looked at his watch. It was 10 P.M.-- two hours before the season opened. He looked at the fish, then at the boy.

　　“You’ll have to put it back, son,” he said.

　　“Dad!” cried the boy.

　　“There will be other fish,” said his father.

　　“Not as big as this one,” cried the boy.

　　He looked around the lake. No other fishermen or boats were anywhere around in the moonlight. He looked again at his father. Even though no one had seen them, nor could anyone ever know what time he caught the fish, the boy could tell by the clarity of his father’s voice that the decision was not negotiable（可协商的）. He slowly worked the hook out of the lip of the huge bass and lowered it into the black water.

　　The creature swished its powerful body and disappeared. The boy suspected that he would never again see such a great fish.

　　That was 34 years ago. Today, the boy is a successful architect in New York City. His father’s cabin is still there on the island in the middle of the lake. He takes his own son and daughters fishing from the same dock.

　　And he was right. He has never again caught such a magnificent fish as the one he landed that night long ago. But he does see that same fish-again and again-every time he comes up against a question of ethics (道德规范).

1. Why did the father ask his son to put the perch back?

2.When does the architect (the father’s son) think of that perch put back?

3.Which word can not be used to describe the boy’s father?

While I was in 9th grade, I built a circuit (电路装置) for the traffic system of our city. After getting the first prize, I got this valuable advice from my father: “Do whatever interests you, and don’t let the work challenge you, make sure you are challenging that work.” 

I have always preferred the projects which are challenging and related to real life problems. I clearly remember building a shipping program several years ago. I divided the whole project into several small sections. When I understood it clearly, I used my brainstorming skill on it, and gave some basic ideas. Then I asked my professor for help before jumping into coding (编码). At first, I did not know how to ask questions correctly and always asked the question “How do I do it?” As I kept working and discussed with my professor, I became more comfortable and those “how” questions soon turned into “what if I do this and that” types of questions.

     It took me four days to write the code. The desire to solve the problem kept me sleepless all nights brainstorming in even greater details. Every time I saw my program running smoothly, I exploded with joy. I still remember the last day of my work. I was getting some problem and didn’t know what to do. At that moment, a man came in to clean. He had headphones, and he was dancing while cleaning the room. Seeing this, I burst out laughing. That moment calmed me. I regained energy and interest and started to work again, and soon I fixed the problem.　

    My success in the project proved that breaking up a large problem into small parts could help find a possible solution. Discussing the problem with others was also very beneficial. Now I have gained the confidence to attempt any kind of project.　

According to the passage, the writer was interested in ______.

  A. developing traffic systems          B. doing challenging projects

C. winning great prizes                 D. writing different codes

The writer asked the question “how do I do it” at first because ______.

A. he had no clear idea about his program   B. he was too shy to express himself

C. he wanted to be understood easily       D. he preferred this kind of question

We learn from the passage that the writer’s shipping program ______.

A. would benefit people a lot             B. was done together with others

C. was difficult and needed patience       D. cost much money and energy

What would be the best title for the passage?

A. Do It Yourself           B. No Pains, No Gains

C. Learning with Interest               D. Practice Makes Perfect