A few years ago I had an “aha!” moment regarding handwriting.

I had in my hand a sheet of paper with handwritten instructions on it for some sort of editorial task. It occurred at first that I did not recognize the handwriting，and then I realized whose it must be. I finally became aware of the fact that I had been working with this colleague for at least a year，maybe two，and yet I did not recognize her handwriting at that point.

It was a very important event in the computerization of life—a sign that the informal. Friendly communication of people working together in an office had changed from notes in pen to instant messages and emails. There was a time when our workdays were filled with little letters，and we recognized one another's handwriting the way we knew voices or faces.

As a child visiting my father’s office，1 was pleased to recognize，in little notes on the desks of his staff，the same handwriting 1 would see at home in the notes he would leave on the fridge—except that those notes were signed “dad” instead of “RFW”.

All this has been on my mind because of the talk about The Rise and Fall of Handwriting，a book by Florey. Sire shows in her book a deep concern about the fall of handwriting and the failure of schools to teach children to write well，but many others argue that people in a digital age can’t be expected to learn to hold a pen.

I don’t buy it.

I don’t want to see anyone cut off from the expressive，personal associations that a pen still promotes better than a digital keyboard does. For many a biographer，part of really getting to know their subjects is learning to read their handwriting.

What some people advocate is teaching one of the many attractive handwritings based on the handwriting of 16th-century Italy. That may sound impossibly grand—as if they want kids to learn to draw by copying classical paintings. However，they have worked in many school systems.

51. Why was the author surprised at not recognizing his colleague’s handwriting?

A. He had worked with his colleague long enough.

B. His colleague’s handwriting was SO beautiful.

C. His colleague’s handwriting was SO terrible.

D. He still had a 1ot of Work to do.

52. People working together in an office used to ____________.

A. talk more about handwriting

B. take more notes on workdays

C. know better one another's handwriting

D. communicate better with one another

53. The author’s father wrote notes in pen _________.

A. to both his family and his staff

B. to his family in small letters

C. to his family on the fridge

D. to his staff on the desk

54. According to the author，handwritten notes _______.

A. are harder to teach in schools

B. attract more attention

C. are used only between friends

D. carry more message

55. We can learn from the passage that the author __________.

A. thinks it impossible to teach handwriting

B. does not want to lose handwriting

C. puts the blame on the computer

D. does not agree with Florey

A major earthquake rocked Haiti at 4:53 pm local time on Jan.12, 2010, killing possibly thousands of people but no official figure has been released so far.

The quake, which struck about 15km (10 miles) south-west of the capital, Port-au-Prince, was quickly followed by two strong aftershocks. In the space of a minute, numerous buildings fell down. A five-story U.N. building was also brought down by the 7.3 magnitude quake, the most powerful to hit Haiti in more than 200 years according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

As night fell, the whole city is in total darkness. You can see thousands of people sitting in the streets with nowhere to go. There are people running, crying, screaming. Describing the earthquake as a "catastrophe", Haiti’s president said the cost of the damage could run into billions.

Haiti became the first independent Caribbean state in the early 19th century. Haiti's location, history and attracting climate once made it a tourist hot place. However, decades of poverty, environmental pollution and violence have left it as the poorest nation in the Americans. It has suffered a lot, including four hurricanes and storms in 2008 that killed hundreds.

41. The great earthquake happened to the _______ of the capital city.

   A. south-west          B. north-west      C. south-east     D. north-east

42. What can we infer from the underlined sentence?

A. People in Port-au-Prince don’t like to light on.

B. The earthquake happened in the evening.

C. Electricity in the city was cut off that night.

D. There are no lights at all in Port-au-Prince.

43. Which statement about Haiti is NOT true?

A. Haiti became an independent state in the early 19th century.

B. Haiti belongs to Americas, just like Canada, America and so on.

C. At one time, tourism was important to the economy of Haiti.

D. Haiti is a country where such strong quakes often take place.

A new study finds that the animal known as man’s best friend can also be a good friend to the heart. Researchers in California say they have found that even just a short visit with a dog helped ease the worries of heart patients.               

The study divided the patients into three groups. In Group A, a dog and a person visited each patient for twelve minutes. Patients in Group B received just a human visitor for twelve minutes. And members of Group C received no visitor, human or canine(犬的).

The dogs would lie on the hospital bed so the heart patients could touch them. The researchers say some patients immediately smiled and talked to the dog and the human visitor. Dogs, in her words, “make people happier, calmer and feel more loved.”

The researchers examined the patients before, during and after the visits. They measured stress levels based on blood flow and heart activity. They say they found a twenty-four percent decrease in the group visited by both a dog and a person. They reported a ten percent decrease in the group visited by a person only. There was no change in the patients without any visit. These patients, however, did have an increase in their production of the hormone epinephrine (epinephrine肾上腺素). The body produces epinephrine during times of stress.

The increase was an average of seven percent. But the study found that patients who spent time with a dog had a seventeen percent drop in their levels of epinephrine. Patients visited by a human but not a dog also had a decrease, but only two percent.

The author believes that _______.  

   A. the dog can take the place of most medicines

   B. the dog is the most popular pet for man

   C. the findings of the research cannot be trusted

   D. visits by a human work better than visits by a dog

Which of the following best shows the stress level changes in the groups of patients? BACC

  

From the research findings we may conclude that _______.

A. the less the body produces epinephrine, the better

B. the longer a visit lasts, the happier the patient should be

C. the patients enjoyed the dogs’ company more than the human visitors’

D. it’s impossible for heart patients to recover without dogs’ visits

Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

  A. Worried Heart Patients               B. Epinephrine and Stress

  C. Good Friend to the Heart             D. Three Groups of Patients

    A child who has once been pleased with a tale likes, as a rule, to have it retold in almost the same words, but this should not lead parents to treat printed fairy stories as formal texts. It is always much better to tell a story than read it out of a book, and, if a parent can produce what, in the actual situation of the time and the child, is an improvement on the printed text, so much the better.

   A charge made against fairy tales is that they harm the child by frightening him or making him sad thinking. To prove the latter, one would have to show in a controlled experiment that children who have read fairy stories were more often sorry for cruelty than those who had not. As to fears, there are, I think, some cases of children being dangerously terrified by some fairy story. Often, however, this arises(出现) from the child having heard the story once. Familiarity with the story by repetition turns the pain of fear into the pleasure of a fear faced and mastered.

There are also people who object to fairy stories on the grounds that they are not objectively true, that giants, witches, two-headed dragons, magic carpets, etc. do not exist; and that, instead of being fond of the strange side in fairy tales, the child should be taught to learn the reality by studying history. I find such people, I must say so peculiar(奇怪的) that I do not know how to argue with them. If their case were sound, the world should be full of mad men attempting to fly from New York to Philadelphia on a stick or covering a telephone with kisses in the belief that it was their beloved girl-friend.

No fairy story ever declared to be a description of the real world and no clever child has ever believed that it was.

1. The author considers that a fairy story is more effective when it is _______.

A. repeated without any change                  B. treated as a joke

C. made some changes by the parent            D. set in the present

2. According to the passage, great fear can take place in a child when the story is _______.

A. in a realistic setting                       B. heard for the first time

C. repeated too often                                  D. told in a different way

3. The advantage claimed(提出) for repeating fairy stories to young children is that it _______.

A. makes them less fearful

B. develops their power of memory

C. makes them believe there is nothing to be afraid of

D. encourages them not to have strange beliefs

4. The author’s mention of sticks and telephones is meant to suggest that _______.

A. fairy stories are still being made up

B. there is some misunderstanding about fairy tales

C. people try to modernize old fairy stories

D. there is more concern for children's fears nowadays

5. One of the reasons why some people are not in favor of fairy tales is that _______.

A. they are full of imagination

B. they just make up the stories which are far from the truth

C. they are not interesting

D. they make teachers of history difficult to teach

A well-dressed man came into a famous jeweler shop. He explained that he wished to buy a pearl (珍珠) for his wife's birthday and that the price didn't matter since business had been very good for him that year. After examining a number of beautiful and valuable pearls, he chose a nice black one that cost $ 5,000. He paid for the pearl, shook hands with the jeweler and left.

    A few days later the man returned and said his wife had liked the pearl so much that she wanted another one just like it. It had to be exactly the same size and quality(质地) as she wanted a pair of earrings (耳环) made. "Can you give me any advice on how to get such a pearl?" said the man. The jeweler replied,   "I would say it's nearly impossible to find an exact one like that pearl.”

    The rich man asked the jeweler to advertise(登广告) in the newspapers, and offered $25,000 for the  matching pearl. Many people answered the ad(广告), but nobody had a pearl that was just right. Just when the jeweler had given up hope, a little old lady came in. To his surprise, she pulled the wonderful pearl from her handbag. "I don't like to sell it," she said sadly. "I inherited(继承) it from my mother, and my mother inherited from hers. But now I really need the money. "

    The jeweler was quick to pay her before she changed her mind. Then he called the rich man’s hotel to tell him the good news. The rich man, however, was nowhere to be found.

He paid$ 5,000 for the pearl without bargaining(讨价还价)______________.

A. because he loved his wife very much  

B. in order to get it as quickly as possible

C. since his business had been successful           

D. so as to make the jeweler believe him

Which of the following is true?

A. The people who answered the ad wanted to sell their pearls at a high price.

B. The woman was the well-dressed man's wife.

C. The jeweler was lucky enough to buy the little old lady's pearl.

D. The rich man didn't know the little old lady.

The jeweler could not find the rich man anywhere because he__________.

A. had moved to another hotel    B. was busy doing business with others

C. had escaped with $ 20,000     D. had told the wrong telephone number