Getting close to active or erupting volcanoes can be dangerous. But for Michael Rampino, it’s all in a day’s work. Rampino is a volcanologist, a scientist who studies volcanoes and how they affect our planet. Rampino has been close to red-hot lava flows (熔岩流) in Hawaii and explosive volcanoes in Indonesia. He knows when to get close to an active volcano and when to back away.
Rampino wasn’t always a volcanologist. He worked for NASA for seven years. He studied rocks until he began to research climate change and the effects that volcanoes have on climate. He became interested in the subject. “Once I started working with volcanoes,” Rampino said, “I was hooked.”
Rampino is a professor at New York University. As part of his job, he travels to areas where volcanoes have been active. “Active” means they have erupted within the past few centuries and probably will erupt again. Rampino studies the deposits (沉积物) of ash and other materials from the eruptions. The ash may hold clues to what happened to the Earth in the distant past. It may also help scientists predict what could happen to Earth’s climate in the future.
Rampino doesn’t work alone. He works with a team of scientists who use computers to stimulate (模拟) the effects volcanoes have on Earth’s atmosphere.
Being a volcanologist may be hard work, but it’s also fun. “It’s cool traveling the world studying volcanoes,” Rampino says. When he talks to students about his work, he tells them that his goal is “to understand the events that have shaped Earth’s history.”
【小题1】To Rampino, being close to active volcanoes is _____.

New York: when the first jet struck, World Trade Center at 8:48 am on Tuesday, the People in 2 World Trade Center with a view of the instant damage across the divide had the clearest sense of what they, too, must do: get out fast.

Katherine Hachinski, who had been knocked off her chair by the blast of heat exploding from the neighboring tower, was one of those. Despite her 70 years of age, Ms Hachinski, an architect working on the 91st floor of 2 World Trade Centre, the south tower, went for the stairs. Twelve floors above her, Judy Wein, an executive (经理), screamed and set off too.

But others up and down the 110 floors, many without clear views of the damage across the way and thus unclear about what was happening, were not so sure. And the 18 minutes before the next plane would hit were ticking off.

Amid the uncertainty about what was the best thing to do, formal announcements inside the sound tower instructed people to stay put, assuring them that the building was sound and the threat was limited to the other tower.

Some left, others stayed. Some began to climb down and, when met with more announcements and other cautions(警告) to stop or return, went hack up. The decisions made in those instants proved to be of great importance, because many who chose to stay were doomed(注定死亡) when the second jet crashed into the south tower, killing many and stranding(使某物留在) many more in the floors above where the jet hit.

One of those caught in indecision was the executive at Fuji Bank UAS.

Richard Jacobs of Fuji Bank left the 79th floor with the other office workers, but on the 48th floor they heard the announcement that the situation was under control. Several got in the lifts and went back up, two minutes or so before the plane crashed-into their floor.

“I just don’t know what happened to them,” Mr. Jacobs said.

1. From the passage, we know that the south tower was hit by the plane_______.

A. at 8: 30                   

B. 18 minutes earlier than the north tower

C. at around 9:06

D. at 8:48

2. The underlined words “stay put” means_______.

A. stay in the building                        B. leave at once

C. put everything back and then leave   D. keep silent

3. Which floor was hit by the second jet?

A. the 91st floor                                 B. the 103rd floor

C. the 60th floor                                D. the 79th floor

4. Fewer people would have died if_______.

A. more announcement had been made

B. people hadn’t used the lifts

C. the incident had happened on a weekend

D. the people had obeyed the office rules

III  完型填空       15%
Reports about stolen virtual property(虚拟财产), (for example, the money that is gained through Web games,) are becoming increasingly frequent.
Who is responsible(负责任的) for this?
“Virtual property theft(偷窃) is __31__ today all over the world,” __32__ professor Greg Lastowka, an American specialist in internet law.
Though a few cases have managed to make it to the courtroom(法庭), most of the time __33__ are not reported or not followed up. “local police are __34____ confused by virtual theft, thinking it has no real value,” says Lastowka.  “But virtual items(虚拟物) can be sold easily for__35___ money, making it a “lucrative(赚钱的) opportunity for criminals(罪犯).”
___36____“theft”, “users in China whose virtual property is stolen can report it to the Internet department of the local public security bureaus(公安局),” says Tencent Mao. “We can cooperate（合作）with officials and offer technical __37____.”
But lawyers suggest that the companies involved have the obligation(义务) to safeguard consumers’ virtual property.  “__38__ they can’t prove they have done __39___ to protect the virtual property, they should bear the responsibility (担责任),” says Guo Qing, of Beijing’s Yingke Law Firm.
_40__themselves are advised to __41__ their virtual property. Mao suggests “not __42___ files from strangers, __43___going to websites with a bad reputation（名声）”. Changing __44___ every three months can ___45___ help.
31. A. happening           B.    happened        C. occurred            D. appearing
32. A. speaks                B. says                         C .talks                 D. reports
33. A. when                  B. which               C they                   D. it
34. A. seldom               B. hardly               C. often                 D. usually
35. A. real                           B. more                   C. much                  D. many
36. A. In search of         B. In case of           C. In time of     D Instead of
37. A. support               B. advices                     C. request          D. demand
38. A. If                       B. When                C. Because             D. As
39. A. better                 B. enough                 C. more                 D. less
40. A. They                  B. Users                   C. Those         D. Companies
41. A. have                   B. own                     C. protect              D. keep
42. A. receiving            B. accepting              C. getting              D. accept
43. A. and                       B. but                  C. or                     D. so
44. A. passwords       B. keys                     C. answers             D. computers
45. A .even                   B. also                    C. as well              D. too

Getting close to active or erupting volcanoes can be dangerous. But for Michael Rampino, it’s all in a day’s work. Rampino is a volcanologist, a scientist who studies volcanoes and how they affect our planet. Rampino has been close to red-hot lava flows (熔岩流) in Hawaii and explosive volcanoes in Indonesia. He knows when to get close to an active volcano and when to back away.

Rampino wasn’t always a volcanologist. He worked for NASA for seven years. He studied rocks until he began to research climate change and the effects that volcanoes have on climate. He became interested in the subject. “Once I started working with volcanoes,” Rampino said, “I was hooked.”

Rampino is a professor at New York University. As part of his job, he travels to areas where volcanoes have been active. “Active” means they have erupted within the past few centuries and probably will erupt again. Rampino studies the deposits (沉积物) of ash and other materials from the eruptions. The ash may hold clues to what happened to the Earth in the distant past. It may also help scientists predict what could happen to Earth’s climate in the future.

Rampino doesn’t work alone. He works with a team of scientists who use computers to stimulate (模拟) the effects volcanoes have on Earth’s atmosphere.

Being a volcanologist may be hard work, but it’s also fun. “It’s cool traveling the world studying “to understand the events that have shaped Earth’s history.”

1.To Rampino, being close to active volcanoes is _____.

A．scary but necessary                     B．adventurous but meaningful

C．impossible and unnecessary               D．dangerous but urgent

2.The underlined word “hooked” in Paragraph 2 probably means “_____”.

A．trapped           B．touched           C．attracted          D．frightened

3.Rampino’s study on volcanoes might help _____.

A．warn people to protect the environment

B．support the study of Earth’s future climate

C．tell the future eruption time of the volcanoes

D．reduce the possibility of the volcanoes’ eruptions

4.In which part of a newspaper could we find this text?

A．People.           B．History.           C．Climate.           D．Business.