D?
People in the United States honor their parents with two special days：Mother's Day, on the second Sunday in May ,and Father's Day ,on the third Sunday in June .These days are set aside to show love and respect for parents .They raise their children and educate them to be responsible citizens .They give love and care .These two days offer an opportunity to think about the changing roles of mothers and fathers .More mothers now work outside the home .More fathers must help with child-care.?
These two special days are celebrated in many different ways .On Mother's Day people wear carnations .A red one symbolizes a living mother .A white one shows that the mother is dead .Many people attend religious services to honor parents .It is also a day when people whose parents are dead visit the cemetery（公墓）.On these days families get together at home ,as well as in restaurants .They often have outdoor barbecues for Father's Day .These are days of fun and good feelings and memories.
Another tradition is to give cards and gifts. Children make them in school .Many people make their own presents .These are valued more than the ones bought in stores .It is not the value of the gift that is important ,but it is “the thought that counts”.Greeting card stores, florists ,candy makers ,bakeries ,telephone companies ,another stores do lots of business during these holidays.?
53．What do you know from the passage??
A.Mother's Day and Father's Day are both in May.?
B.Fewer women worked outside the home in the past.?
C.Not all the children respect their parents.?
D.Fathers are not as important as mothers at home.?
54．Which do you think is right about “carnation”??
A.It only has two kinds of color.?
B.It refers to the special clothes people wear on Mother's Day or Father's Day.
C.It's a kind of flower showing love and best wishes.?
D.People can wear carnations only on the second Sunday in May.?
55．On Mother's Day and Father's Day, ________.?
A.people usually have family parties
B.everyone goes to visit the cemetery?
C.children always go to parents' home
D.hand-made cards are the most valuable gifts?
56．What do you think “florists” do??
A.They sell flowers.?
B.They make bread or pastry.?
C.They offer enough room for having family parties.?
D.They sell special clothes for Mother's Day and Father's Day.?

D

It was Sunday morning. All the summer world was bright and fresh, and full of life. There was cheer on every face and a spring in every step.

Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He stopped by the fence in front of the house where he lived with his aunt Polly. He looked at it, and all joy left him. The fence was long and high. He put the brush into the whitewash and moved it along the top of the fence. He repeated the operation. He felt he could not continue and sat down.

He knew that his friends would arrive soon with all kinds of interesting plans for the day. They would walk past him and laugh. They would make jokes about his having to work on a beautiful summer Saturday. The thought burned him like fire.

He put his hand into his pockets and took out all that he owned. Perhaps he could find some way to pay someone to do the whitewashing for him. But there was nothing of value in his pockets—nothing that could buy even half an hour of freedom. So he put the bits of toys back into his pockets and gave up the idea.

At this dark and hopeless moment, a wonderful idea came to him. It filled his mind with a great, bright light. Calmly he picked up the brush and started again to whitewash.

While Tom was working, Ben Rogers appeared. Ben was eating an apple as he walked along the street. As he walked along, he was making noises like the sound of a riverboat. First he shouted loudly, like a boat captain. Then he said “Ding-Dong-Dong”, “Ding-Dong-Dong” again and again, like the bell of a riverboat. And he made other strange noises. When he came close to Tom, he stopped.

Tom went on whitewashing. He did not look at Ben. Ben stared a moment and then said: "Hello! I’m going swimming, but you can’t go, can you?”

No answer. Tom moved his brush carefully along the fence and looked at the result with the eye of an artist. Ben came nearer. Tom's mouth watered for the apple, but he kept on working.

Ben said, "Hello, old fellow, you’ve got to work, hey?"

Tom turned suddenly and said, "Why, it's you, Ben! I wasn't noticing."

"Say — I'm going swimming. Don't you wish you could? But of course you’d rather work — wouldn't you? Of course you would."

Tom looked at the boy a bit, and said "What do you call work?"

"Why, isn't that work?"

Tom went back to his whitewashing, and answered casually,

"Well, maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. All I know is, it suits Tom Sawyer."

"Oh come, now, you don't mean to say that you like it?"

The brush continued to move.

"Like it? Well, I don't see why I shouldn’t like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?" Ben stopped eating his apple. Tom moved his brush back and forth, stepped back to look at the result, added a touch here and there, and stepped back again. Ben watched every move and got more and more interested. Soon he said,

"Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little."

Tom thought for a moment, was about to agree; but he changed his mind:

"No — no — it won’t do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly wants this fence to be perfect. It has got to be done very carefully. I don’t think there is one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it well enough."

"No — is that so? Oh come, now —let me just try. Only just a little."

"Ben, I'd like to, but if it isn’t done right, I’m afraid Aunt Polly— "

"Oh, I'll be careful. Now let me try. Say -- I'll give you the core（核心）of my apple."

"Well, here — No, Ben, now don't. I'm afraid —"

"I'll give you all of it."

Tom gave up the brush with unwillingness on his face, but joy in his heart. And while Ben worked at the fence in the hot sun, Tom sat under a tree, eating the apple, and planning how to get more help. There were enough boys. Each one came to laugh, but remained to whitewash. By the time Ben was tired, Tom sold the next chance to Billy for a kite; and when Billy was tired, Johnny bought in for a dead rat — and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, Tom had won many treasures

And he had not worked. He had had a nice idle time all the time, with plenty of company -- and the fence had been whitewashed three times. If he hadn't run out of whitewash, Tom would have owned everything belonging to his friends.

He had discovered a great law of human action, namely, that in order to make a man or a boy want a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to get.

68．Tom was about to agree to let Ben whitewash when he changed his mind because ______ .

A. Tom wanted to do the whitewashing by himself

B. Tom was unwilling to let Ben do the whitewashing

C. Tom was afraid Ben would do the whitewashing better

D. Tom didn’t want to let Ben do the whitewashing before he made him give up his apple first

69．The underlined word “casually” is most similar to “______” in meaning.

A. carelessly                 B. delightedly               C. seriously                  D. angrily

70．We can learn from the passage that ______ .

A. Tom was interested in whitewashing the fence.

B. Tom had a lot of friends who are ready to help others.

C. Tom was unwilling to whitewash the fence, but he managed to let other boys do it for him

D. Tom was good at whitewashing the fence, so he looked at the result of his work with the eye of an artist.

D?

People in the United States honor their parents with two special days：Mother's Day, on the second Sunday in May ,and Father's Day ,on the third Sunday in June .These days are set aside to show love and respect for parents .They raise their children and educate them to be responsible citizens .They give love and care .These two days offer an opportunity to think about the changing roles of mothers and fathers .More mothers now work outside the home .More fathers must help with child-care.?

   These two special days are celebrated in many different ways .On Mother's Day people wear carnations .A red one symbolizes a living mother .A white one shows that the mother is dead .Many people attend religious services to honor parents .It is also a day when people whose parents are dead visit the cemetery（公墓）.On these days families get together at home ,as well as in restaurants .They often have outdoor barbecues for Father's Day .These are days of fun and good feelings and memories.

   Another tradition is to give cards and gifts. Children make them in school .Many people make their own presents .These are valued more than the ones bought in stores .It is not the value of the gift that is important ,but it is “the thought that counts”.Greeting card stores, florists ,candy makers ,bakeries ,telephone companies ,another stores do lots of business during these holidays.?

53．What do you know from the passage??

A.Mother's Day and Father's Day are both in May.?

B.Fewer women worked outside the home in the past.?

C.Not all the children respect their parents.?

D.Fathers are not as important as mothers at home.?

54．Which do you think is right about “carnation”??

A.It only has two kinds of color.?

B.It refers to the special clothes people wear on Mother's Day or Father's Day.

C.It's a kind of flower showing love and best wishes.?

D.People can wear carnations only on the second Sunday in May.?

55．On Mother's Day and Father's Day, ________.?

A.people usually have family parties

B.everyone goes to visit the cemetery?

C.children always go to parents' home

D.hand-made cards are the most valuable gifts?

56．What do you think “florists” do??

A.They sell flowers.?

B.They make bread or pastry.?

C.They offer enough room for having family parties.?

D.They sell special clothes for Mother's Day and Father's Day.?

A new study says one part of the human brain may become smaller as the result of a condition known as jet lag. Jet lag results from flying long distances in an airplane. People with jet lag feel extremely tired for several days. They may also have problems in thinking clearly and remembering.

Recently a researcher at the University of Bristol in Britain reported the findings of his jet lag study, which involved twenty women who worked for international airlines. They had served passengers on airplanes for five years. These flight attendants flew across many countries and at least seven time zones. In the study, the flight attendants had different amounts of time to recover from jet lag. Half the women spent five days or fewer in their home areas between long flights. The other half spent more than fourteen days in their home areas.

The researcher took some saliva from the women’s mouths to measure levels of a hormone  (荷尔蒙 ) that increases during stress . He tested them to see if they could remember where black spots appeared on a computer screen .And he took pictures of their brains to measure the size of the brain’s temporal lobes. (脑叶).

It was found that the women who had less time between flights had smaller right temporal lobes. This area of the brain deals with recognizing and remembering what is seen. The same group performed worse and had slower reaction times on the visual memory test. And their saliva samples showed higher levels of stress hormones.

The researcher believes the brain needs at least ten days to recover after a long trip. He says airline workers told him their ability to remember got worse after working on planes for about four years. Other studies have shown that increased feelings of stress can cause a loss of cells in the part of the brain that controls memory.

Scientists say more tests are needed to study the effects of jet lag on the brain. They want to find out if too much jet lag could permanently affect memory.

47．According to the text, jet lag _____.

A. can cause difficulties in speaking  

B. can make people feel tired for a few weeks

C. can be only found in flight attendants

D. can be caused by flying over several time zones

48．It can be inferred from the text that ______.

A. the conclusion is refused by many scientists

B. scientists fear that this research is not done properly

C. every scientific conclusion needs the support from many tests

D. the women who were examined in the research were not healthy

49．From the result of the research we can see that _____.

A. the women who have longer rest at home perform better on the test.

B. the women who fly in short time have smaller right temporal lobes

C. the women who have longer flights fail the memory test

D. the women who rest more than 14 days produce more hormones

50．What is the subject discussed in the test?

A. The cause of jet lag.

B. A story of a group of flight attendants.

C. The importance of having enough rest after flights.

D. A research about the effects of jet lag on the brain.

The price of books is now so high that I hesitate before buying a book I love. Many people feel the same way. But I remember that only a few years ago, when I was a college student, I bought several books almost every month, using what was left out of the living expenses sent by my parents, and that was not more than 200 yuan.

But now that I am working and the money I earn is only used to support my own expenses, I find I can’t afford many good books.

There is a saying, “Book lovers have no money, but rich people have no feelings for books”. This is exactly the case. Sometimes I wonder about who the books are published for, especially those books with beautiful hard covers.

It is said that usually, the listed price is more than twice as much as the book’s cost and we can see high profits from selling books. But now there is a contradiction. On one hand, readers who want to buy books aren’t able to, while on the other hand, publishers and sellers suffer from the large stockpiles of unsaleable books being stored in their warehouses. This situation is also a disadvantage to intellectual property right protection because many books of bestsellers are sold at a lower price at some book stands.

The key to resolve the problem is to cut the price to an acceptable level to both sellers and consumers.

I wish sincerely that in the near future common readers like me can buy the books we want without worrying about the high prices too much.

1．The first paragraph of this article tells us that　　   .

A. the prices of some books are too high

B. many readers are too poor to buyお expensive books

C. the writer is one of those who can’tお afford to buy books

D. all the above are correct

2．The writer　　    at college.

A. often bought books when studying

B. was very rich when studying

C. was living a very simple life

D. hesitated to buying anything but books

3． “Book lover have no money, but rich people have no feeling s for books”. means　　   .

A. those who like reading maybe have not enough money to buy books

B. those who don’t want to study otherwise are very rich

C. everything in the world has been changed to its opposite

D. both A and B

4．Fromお the fifth paragraph, we can see　　   .

A. publishers shouldn’t have set the prices of books so high

B. booksellers can hardly earn their living by selling books

C. it’s no good for publishers and sellers if the prices are too high

D. the high prices of books were set by man factors

5．The writer of this article wished　　   .

A. the prices of books could be acceptable

B. the prices of books would be low

C. the prices of books would be lowered down soon

D. he could buy books without worrying about the prices