（江西省瑞昌一中2010届高三上学期期中考试）

Advancing age means losing your hair, your waistline and your memory，right ? Dana Denis is just 40 years old, but  36   she's worried about what she calls “my rolling mental blackouts” . “I try to remember something and I just blank out.” she says. You may  37   about these lapses, calling them “senior moments ”or blaming “early Alzheimer's (老年痴呆症)”. Is it an inescapable fact that the older you get, the  38   you remember? Well, sort of. But as time goes by, we tend to blame age   39   problems that are not necessarily age-related.
　“When a teenager can't find her keys, she thinks it's because she's distracted or disorganized”, says Paul Gold. “A 70-year-old blames her  40   ”. In fact，the 70-year-old may have been   41  things for decades.
　In healthy people, memory doesn't worsen as  42    as many of us think. “As we  43   , the memory mechanism isn't  44   ”, says psychologist Fergus Craik. “It's just inefficient”.
　The brain's processing speed  45  over the years，though no one knows exactly   46  . Recent research suggests that nerve cells lose efficiency    47   there's less activity in the brain. But, cautions Barry Gordon, “It's not clear that less activity is  48   . A beginning athlete is winded（气喘吁吁）more__49__than a senior athlete. In the same way,   50  the brain gets more skilled at a task, it expends less energy on it.”
　There are  51  you can take to compensate for normal slippage in your memory, though it  52   effort. Margaret Sewell says “We're a quick-fix culture, but you have to  53   to keep your brain  54   . It's like having a good body. You can't go to the gym once a year  55  expect to stay in top form”.

    36. A. almost              B. seldom                  C. already                 D. never

    37. A. joke                B. laugh                    C. blame                 D. criticize

    38. A. much               B. little                     C. more             D. less

    39. A. since              B. for                     C. by               D. because

    40. A. memory                   B. mind                     C. trouble            D. health

    41. A. organizing           B. misplacing                C. putting             D. finding

    42. A. rapidly              B. frequently                C. timely              D. quickly

    43. A. mature              B. progress                C. age                D. grow

    44. A. broken              B. poor                    C. perfect                 D. working

    45. A. falls down          B. slows down            C. sets down            D. turns down

    46. A. why                B. how                    C. what                   D. when

    47. A. although           B. so                     C. since                   D. that

    48. A. irregular             B. better                    C. normal                 D. worse

    49. A. difficultly            B. easily                    C. common                D. fast

    50. A. as                  B. till                      C. though                 D. yet

    51. A. stages             B. steps                    C. advantages              D. purposes

    52. A. tries                B. takes                    C. does                    D. spends

    53. A. rest               B. come                   C. work                   D. study

    54. A. in peace            B. in detail               C. in fashion             D. in shape

    55. A. so                B. or                      C. and                     D. if

When you are little, it’s not hard to believe you can change the world. I remember my enthusiasm when, at the age of 12, I addressed delegates at the Rio Earth Summit. “I am only a child,” I told them .“Yet I know that if all the money spent on war was spent on ending poverty and finding environment answers, what a wonderful place this would be. In school you teach us not to fight with others, to work things out, to respect others, to clean up our mess, not to hurt other creatures, to share, not to be greedy. Then why do you go out and do the thing you tell us not to do ? You grown-ups say you love us, but I challenge you, please, to make your actions reflect your words.”

I spoke for six minutes and received a standing ovation. Some of the delegates even cried. I thought that maybe I had reached some of them, that my speech might actually spur(激励) action. Now, a decade from Rio, after I’ve sat through many more conferences, I’m not sure what has been accomplished. My confidence in the people in power and in the power of an individual’s voice to reach them has been deeply shaken.

When I was little, the world was simple. But as a young adult, I’m learning that as we have to make choices — education, career, lifestyle — life gets more and more complicated. We are beginning to feel pressure to produce and be successful. We are taught that economic growth is in progress, but aren’t taught how to pursue a happy, healthy or sustainable(可持续的) way of living. And we are learning that what we wanted for the future when we were 12 was ideal and innocent.

Today I’m no longer a child, but I’m worried about what kind of environment my children will grow up in. I know change is possible, because I am changing, still figuring out what I think. I am still deciding how to live my life. The challenges are great, but if we accept individual responsibility and make sustainable choices, we will rise to the challenges, and we will become part of the positive tide of change.

1.The purpose of what the writer said at the age of 12 was to _____.

A. end poverty and make school beautiful

B. find environmental answers and keep the words that they always told themselves

C. end poverty and solve the problems about environment

D. find a wonderful place and clean it up

2.What does the underlined word “ovation” in the second paragraph refer to _____.

A. a long period of laughing ?????????????

B. a warm welcome

C. an expression used for greeting ?????????????

D. a long period of clapping and applause

3.It becomes clear that the writer is possibly _____ now.

A. in his teens

B. in his twenties? ????????????? ?????????????

C. in his thirties ????????????? ?????????????

D. in his forties

4.Which of the following is true according to the passage?

A. the writer thinks what he thought at the age of 12 is mature.

B. the writer’s children will certainly live in an ideal environment.

C. the writer’s confidence in the people in power has deeply shaken their voice.

D. the writer’s belief does not change when he grows up.