One of the political issues that is heard a lot about in the States lately is campaign（竞选）finance reform（改革）. The people who are  36  for reform usually want the  37  to pay for campaigns and/or limit the amount of money that candidates（候选人）and their  38  can spend.

One reason that reform is called for is that it costs so much to  39  for political office. Candidates have to spend a great deal of time and effort  40  money. The incumbents (those already in office) have less time to do chief jobs since they must  41  so many money raising events.

Another  42  is the fear that candidates will be owned or  43  by the “special interest groups” that give money to their campaigns. Sometimes this certainly seems to be the  44 .

On the  45  side are those who say that it doesn’t mean it’s really  46  just because you call something “reform”. They argue that the right to freedom of speech is  47  if the government can limit anyone’s ability to get his or her message out to the people.

If one person or a group of people want to tell the  48  what they think about an issue or candidate, they have to buy  49  on TV, radio, and in newspapers and magazines. They might want to put up advertisements along highways and on websites. All this costs a lot of  50 .

Those against laws that control or limit spending say that you don’t really have freedom of  51  or freedom of the press if you can’t get your message out. They say the government should never be able to control  52  discussions. They believe that this is most important when the voters are about to make  53 .

What do you think about this  54 ? Listen to what the candidates for national office have to say. Which candidates  55  the most sense to you?

36．A．waiting                   B．calling                    C．standing                  D．preparing

37．A．government            B．president                 C．candidates               D．citizens

38．A．leaders                   B．bosses                     C．supporters               D．states

39．A．pay                        B．compete                  C．wait                       D．work

40．A．raising                    B．earning                   C．giving                    D．getting

41．A．notice                     B．report                     C．guard                            D．attend

42．A．event                      B．cost                        C．reason                    D．office

43．A．encouraged             B．forced                    C．controlled               D．ordered

44．A．joke                       B．purpose                  C．case                        D．example

45．A．other                      B．same                      C．another                   D．different

46．A．worse                     B．better                            C．easier                     D．harder

47．A．meaningless            B．unimportant            C．unnecessary             D．impossible

48．A．reporters                 B．truth                       C．story                      D．public

49．A．time                       B．copies                     C．rights                            D．advertising

50．A．energy                    B．effort                            C．time                       D．money

51．A．argument                B．opinion                   C．speech                    D．election

52．A．common                 B．political                  C．general                   D．special

53．A．profit                            B．trouble                   C．plans                      D．decisions

54．A．quarrel                   B．problem                  C．issue                       D．affair

55．A．find                       B．make                      C．create                     D．produce

No country in the world has more daily newspapers than the USA. There are almost 2,000 of them, as compared with 180 in Japan, 164 in Argentina and 111 in Britain. The quality of some American papers is extremely high and their views are quoted all over the world. Famous dailies like the Washington Post or the New York Times have a powerful influence all over the country. However, they are not national newspapers in the sense that The Times is in Britain or Le Monde is in France, since each American city has its own daily newspaper. The best of these present detailed description of national and international news, but many tend to limit themselves to state or city news.
　Like the press in most other countries, American newspapers range from the “sensational” which feature crime and gossip(闲谈), to the “serious”, which focus on factual news and the analysis of world events. But with few exceptions, American newspapers try to entertain as well as give information, for they have to compete with the attraction of television.
Just as American newspapers satisfy all tastes, so do they also try to attract readers of all political parties. A few newspapers support extremist(极端主义的) groups on the far right and on the far left, but most daily newspapers try to attract middle-of-the-road Americans who are moderate(中立的). Many of these papers print columns by well-known journalists of different political and social views, in order to present a balanced picture.
As in other countries, American newspapers can be either responsible or irresponsible, but it is generally accepted that the American press serves its country well and that it has more than once courageously exposed political scandals(丑闻) or crimes, for instance, the Watergate Affair(水门事件). The Newspapers drew the attention of the public to the horrors of the Vietnam War.
【小题1】There are fewer national newspapers in          .
　　A. Britain than in the USA.    B. France than in Britain
　　C. the USA than in Britain or France
　　D. France than in the USA or Britain
【小题2】Most American newspapers try hard to entertain their readers because
.　　

根据句中所给汉语，完成下列句子。（每空一词，每空0.5分，共10分）

David _____   _________  _________ (突然放声大哭), when he saw his aunt.

It will be two hours _____  ______  _____  _____ (我们才到家). (before)

有些人认为成功和运气有关。

Some people think that success _______ _________ _______ _______ with luck.

请记下我的电话号码。万一有什么重要事情，可以打电话给我。

Please _______ _______ my telephone number. You can call me ______ ______ anything important happens.

大自然给香格里拉提供了无数的自然宝藏，使得这片土地成为当地人民的幸福家园。

    Nature _________ Shangri-la ________ endless natural treasures, making the land a happy home for the local people.

我来这里只是确认一切进展顺利。

I only came here to _____ _____ _____ everything went on well.

假设你叫李明，下面是你的一位外国笔友Kristie给你写的电子邮件，询问有关小悦悦事件的情况。
Dear Li Ming,
I learned from a news flash that a two-year-old baby girl was ignored by more than a dozen passers-by after being run over twice in a south China town．I'm very shocked．I used to think the Chinese were hardworking and kindhearted, and they really were when I was on a visit in China two years ago．So I doubt whether it was true news．Can you tell me what you learned about this incident?
Sincerely yours,
Kristie
请你给她回一封邮件，要点如下：
1．社会陷入自责和反思；
2．某些路人的冷漠或另有原因，可最终还是有一名拾荒婆婆挺身而出；
3．单个事件不能代表中国，助人为乐一直是中国传统美德。
注意：
1．不能照抄原信件语句；
2．可自由发挥添加细节；
3．词数120左右；
4．回信的开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
参考词汇：伦理道德- ethical and moral （adj．）; 美德- virtue （n．）
Dear Kristie,
I was in very low spirits                                                        
                                                                              
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________
Believe me, Kristie, and believe in the Chinese people!
Sincerely yours,
Li Ming

Saving the Planet with Earth-Friendly Bamboo Products
Jackie Heinricher’s love affair with bamboo started in her backyard. “As a child, I remember playing among the golden bamboo my dad had planted, and when there was a slight wind, the bamboos sounded really musical.”
A fisheries biologist, Heinricher, 47, planned to work in the salmon industry in Seattle, where she lived with her husband, Guy Thornburgh, but she found it too competitive. Then her garden gave her the idea for a business: She’d planted 20 bamboo forests on their seven-acre farm. 
Heinricher started Boo-Shoot Gardens in 1998. She realized early on what is just now beginning to be known to the rest of the world. It can be used to make fishing poles, skateboards, buildings, furniture, floors, and even clothing. An added bonus: Bamboo absorbs four times as much carbon dioxide as a group of hardwood trees and releases 35 percent more oxygen.
First she had to find a way to mass-produce the plants—a tough task, since bamboo flowers create seed only once every 50 to 100 years. And dividing a bamboo plant frequently kills it.
Heinricher appealed to Randy Burr, a tissue culture expert, to help her. “People kept telling us we’d never figure it out,” says Heinricher. “Others had worked on it for 27 years! I believed in what we were doing, though, so I just kept going.”
She was right to feel a sense of urgency. Bamboo forests are being rapidly used up, and a United Nations report showed that even though bamboo is highly renewable, as many as half of the world’s species are threatened with dying out. Heinricher knew that bamboo could make a significant impact on carbon emissions (排放) and world economies, but only if huge numbers could be produced. And that’s just what she and Burr figured out after nine years of experiments—a way to grow millions of plants. By placing cuttings in test tubes with salts, vitamins, plant hormones, and seaweed gel, they got the plants to grow and then raised them in soil in greenhouses.
Not long after it, Burr’s lab hit financial difficulties. Heinricher had no experience running a tissue culture operation, but she wasn’t prepared to quit. So she bought the lab.
Today Heinricher heads up a profitable multimillion-dollar company, working on species from all over the world and selling them to wholesalers. “If you want to farm bamboo, it’s hard to do without the young plants, and that’s what we have,” she says proudly.
56. What was the main problem with planting bamboo widely?
A. They didn’t have enough young bamboo.
B. They were short of money and experience.
C. They didn’t have a big enough farm to do it.
D. They were not understood by other people.
57. What does Heinricher think of bamboo?
A. Renewable and acceptable                                               B. Productive and flexible.
C. Useful and earth-friendly.                                  D. Strong and profitable.
58. The underlined word “renewable” in Paragraph 6 probably means “________”.
A. able to be replaced naturally                B. able to be raised difficultly
C. able to be shaped easily                    D. able to be recycled conveniently
59. What do you learn from the passage?
A. Heinricher’s love for bamboo led to her experiments in the lab.
B. Heinricher’s determination helped her to succeed in her work.
C. Heinricher struggled to prevent bamboo from disappearing.
D. Heinricher finally succeeded in realizing her childhood dream.