Death valley is one of the most famous deserts in the United States, covering a wide area with its alkali（碱性）sand. Almost 20 percent of this area is well below sea level, and bad water, a salt water pool, is about 280 feet below sea level and it is the lowest point in the United States.

    Long ago the Panamint Indians called this place Tomesha—the land of fire. Death Valley’s present name dates back to 1849 when a group of miners coming across from Nevada became lost in its unpleasantness and hugeness and their adventure ended with a disaster. Today Death Valley has been declared a National Monument and is crossed by several well-marked roads where good services can be found easily. Luckily the changes created by human settlement has hardly ruined the special beauty of this place.

Here nature created a lot of surprising scenes, almost like the sights on the moon, every changing as the frequent wind moves the sand about, showing the most unusual colors. One of the most astonishing and variable parts of Death Valley is the Devil’s Golf Course, where it seems hard for one to tell reality from terrible dreams. Sand sculptures（泥雕）stand on a frightening ground, as evening shadows move and lengthen.

1.The name of the valley comes from ________.

    A. an Indian name

    B.the local people

    C.a National Monument

D.the death of the miners

2. From the passage we can learn that ________.

    A. people can find gas stations, cafes and hotels in the desert

    B.no one had ever known the desert before the miners

    C.it’s still not easy to travel across the desert

D.people have changed the natural sights of the desert

3. From the passage we can see the writer ________ the Death Valley.

    A.is fearful of

    B.appreciates

    C.dislikes

    D.has never been to

 When people first walked across the Bering Land Bridge thousands of years ago, dogs were by their sides, according to a study published in the journal Science.

   Robert Wayne of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Jennifer Leonard of the Smithsonian Institute, used DNA material—some of it unearthed by miners in Alaska—to conclude that today’s domestic dog originated in Asia and accompanied the first humans to the New World about 10,000 to 15,000 years ago. Wayne suggests that man’s best friend may have enabled the tough journey from Asia into North America. “Dogs may have been the reason people made it across the land bridge,” said Wayne. “They can pull things, carry things, defend you from fierce animals, and they’re useful to eat.”

   Researchers have agreed that today’s dog is the result of the domestication(驯化) of wolves thousands of years ago. Before this recent study, a common thought about the precise origin of North America’s domestic dog was that Natives domesticated local wolves, the descendents(后代) of which now live with people in Alaska, Canada, and the Lower 48.

   Dog remains from a Fairbanks-area gold mine helped the scientists reach their conclusion. Leonard, an evolutionary biologist, collected DNA from 11 bones of ancient dogs that were locked in permafrost(永冻层) until Fairbanks miners uncovered them in the 1920s. The miners donated the preserved bones to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where they remained untouched for more than 70 years. After borrowing the bones from the museum, Leonard and her colleagues used radiocarbon techniques to find the age of the Alaska dogs. They found the dogs all lived between the years of 1450 and 1675 A.D., before Vitus Bering and Aleksey Chirikov who were the first known Europeans to view Alaska in 1741. The bones of dogs that wandered the Fairbanks area centuries ago should therefore be the remains of “pure native American dogs,” Leonard said. The DNA of the Fairbanks dogs would also expose whether they were the descendents of wolves from North America.

   Along with the Fairbanks samples, the researchers collected DNA from bones of 37 dog specimens(标本) from Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia that existed before the arrival of Columbus. In the case of both the Alaska dogs and the dogs from Latin America, the researchers found that they shared the most genetic material with gray wolves of Europe and Asia. This supports the idea of domestic dogs entering the New World with the first human explorers who wandered east over the land bridge.

   Leonard and Wayne’s study suggests that dogs joined the first humans that made the adventure across the Bering Land Bridge to slowly populate the Americas. Wayne thinks the dogs that made the trip must have provided some excellent service to their human companions or they would not have been brought along. “Dogs must have been useful because they were expensive to keep,” Wayne said. “They didn’t feed on mice; they fed on meat, which was a very guarded resource.”

1. The underlined word “remains” is closed in meaning to ______.

A. leftover food     B. animal waste

C. dead bodies    D. living environment

2. According to the study described in Paragraph 4, we can learn that ______.

A. ancient dogs entered North America between 1450 and 1675 AD

B. the 11 bones of ancient dogs are not from native American dogs

C. the bones discovered by the gold miners were from North American wolves

D. the bones studied were not from dogs brought into North America by Europeans

3. What can we know from the passage?

A. Native Americans domesticated local wolves into dogs.

B. Scientists discovered some ancient dog remains in 1920s.

C. Latin America’s dogs are different from North America’s in genes.

D. Ancient dogs entered North America across the Bering Land Bridge.

4. The first humans into the New World brought dogs along with them because ______.

A. dogs fed on mice                    B. dogs were easy to keep

C. dogs helped protect their resources      D. dogs could provide excellent service

5.What does the passage mainly talk about ______.

A. the origin of the North American dogs

B. the DNA study of ancient dogs in America

C. the reasons why early people entered America

D. the difference between Asian and American dogs

BUKHANNON, West Virginia—Two rescue teams slowly moved along a two-mile path on Monday night to the site of a coal mine explosion that trapped 13 miners, who had not been heard from since the early morning accident.

Meanwhile, at a nearby church, more than 250 family members and friends gathered, waiting for updates（最新报道）on the rescuers’ progress.

The miners were trapped at about 6:30 and many families weren’t informed of the accident until about 10 a.m-more than three hours after it happened. “It’s very upsetting, but you’ve got to be patient, I guess,” said John Helms, whose brother, Terry, was trapped in the mine.

The trapped miners were about 260 feet underground and about 10,000 feet from the Sago Mine’s entrance, said Roger Nicholson, general counsel from International Coal Group.

At a late night news conference, Nicholson said one team had advanced about 4, 800 feet in the four hours since entering the mine just before 6 p.m. Another team entered the mine about 30 minutes later.

He said the crew was very experienced, with some members having worked underground for

30 to 35 years. The miners were equipped with about one hour of breathable oxygen each. The company has not released the names of the miners.

The teams test the air about every 500 feet, and have to disconnect （remove） the power to the phones they use to communicate with the surface before doing that. “ We don’t want to be energizing anything if it’s in an atmosphere with burnable gases,” Kips said.

The cause of the explosion was not immediately known. High levels of carbon monoxide were detected shortly after the explosion, which delayed rescue efforts, but those levels have since subsided（减退）, authorities said.

1. According to the passage, we can infer that ________.

A. all the miners who were trapped underground were still alive

B. communication with the trapped miners was cut off

C. the two rescue teams entered the mine at the same time

D. the rescue started as soon as the accident happened

2. If the first team advanced at an average speed, they could dig about _______ per hour.

A. 1,000 feet         B. 2,400 feet          C. 1,200feet                  D. 4,800feet

3. Where can the passage be seen?

A. In a magazine.                               B. In a newspaper.

C. In a science book..                        D. On an advertisement.

4. Which of the following shows the position where the miners were trapped?

C
BUKHANNON, West Virginia—Two rescue teams slowly moved along a two-mile path on Monday night to the site of a coal mine explosion that trapped 13 miners, who had not been heard from since the early morning accident.
Meanwhile, at a nearby church, more than 250 family members and friends gathered, waiting for updates（最新报道）on the rescuers’ progress.
The miners were trapped at about 6:30 and many families weren’t informed of the accident until about 10 a.m-more than three hours after it happened. “It’s very upsetting, but you’ve got to be patient, I guess,” said John Helms, whose brother, Terry, was trapped in the mine.
The trapped miners were about 260 feet underground and about 10,000 feet from the Sago Mine’s entrance, said Roger Nicholson, general counsel from International Coal Group.
At a late night news conference, Nicholson said one team had advanced about 4,800 feet in the four hours since entering the mine just before 6 p.m. Another team entered the mine about 30 minutes later.
He said the crew was very experienced, with some members having worked underground for 30 to 35 years. The miners were equipped with about one hour of breathable oxygen each. The company has not released the names of the miners.
The teams test the air about every 500 feet, and have to disconnect (remove) the power to the phones they use to communicate with the surface before doing that. “We don’t want to be energizing anything if it’s in an atmosphere with burnable gases,” Kips said. The cause of the explosion was not immediately known. High levels of carbon monoxide were detected shortly after the explosion, which delayed rescue efforts, but those levels have since subsided（减退）, authorities said.
53. According to the passage, we can infer that ______.
A. all the miners who were trapped underground were still alive
B. communication with the trapped miners was cut off
C. the two rescue teams entered the mine at the same time
D. the rescue started as soon as the accident happened
54. If the first team advanced at an average speed, they could dig about ______ per hour.
A. 1,000 feet          B. 2,400 feet            C. 1,200 feet                D. 4,800 feet
55. Where can the passage be seen?
A. In a magazine.                                  B. In a newspaper.       
C. In a science book..                           D. On an advertisement.
56. Which of the following shows the position where the miners were trapped?

BUKHANNON, West Virginia~~Two rescue teams slowly moved along a two—mile path on Monday night to the site of a coal mine explosion that trapped 13 miners, who had not been heard from since the early morning accident.

Meanwhile, at a nearby church, more than 250 family members and friends gathered, waiting for updates on the rescuers' progress.

The miners were trapped at about .6:30 and many families weren't informed of the accident until about 10 a.m.~~more than three hours after it happened. "It's very upsetting, but you've got to be patient, I guess," said John Helms, whose brother, Terry, was trapped in the mine.

The trapped miners were about 260 fee underground and about 10,000 feet from the Sago Mine's entrance, said Roger Nicholson, a lawyer from International Coal Group.

At a late night news conference, Nicholson said one team had advanced about 4, 800 feet in the four hours since entering the mine just before 6 p.m. Another team entered the mine about 30 minutes later.

He said the crew was very experienced, with some members having worked underground for 30 to 35 years. The miners were equipped with al>out one hour of breathable oxygen each. The company has not released the names of the miners.

The teams test the air about every 500 feet, and have to disconnect the power to the phones they use to communicate with the surface before doing that. "We don't want to be electrifying anything if it's in an atmospfiere with hurnahle gases," Kips said.

The cause of the explosion was not immediately known. High levels of carbon monoxide ( 一氧化物) were discovered shortly after the explosion, which delayed rescue efforts, but those levels have weakened since then, authorities said.

According to the passage, we ran infer that    .

communication with the trapped miners was cut off

the rescue started as soon as the accident happened

the two rescue teams entered the mine at the same time

all the miners who were trapped underground were still alive

If the first team advanced at an average speed, they could dig about______per hour.

A. 1,000 feet   B. 1,200 feet   C. 2,400 feet   D. 4,800 feet

Where ran the passage he seen?

A. Iii a magazine.  B. In a science hook. C. On an advertisement. D. In a newspaper.