After their 15-year-old dog Bailey died in 2007, Ron and his wife, Ann, looked for months to find the right new pet. “I love dogs,” says Ron, a worker at a health club in Waukesha, Wisconsin. “I can’t imagine not having one.”
Finally, the couple spotted a young dog at the Humane Society in Milwaukee. His name was Oscar. “He was very attractive,” says Ron, 65. Oscar quickly made himself at home, sleeping on his new owners’ bed at night.
A diabetic(糖尿病人) for 25 years, Ron faithfully took his medicine four times a day and generally had no problems. But on March 17, at about 3 a.m., he got out of bed to use the bathroom. Suddenly, he fell down to the floor. “I must have taken the wrong amount of medicine before I went to sleep, because my blood sugar was dangerously low,” he says.
“Normally, Oscar is very quiet and well-behaved,” says Ron. “But when I hit the floor, he let out sounds like a wild animal.”
“Honestly, it sounded like the dog from hell,” says Ann, who was awakened by the sound.” I didn’t know what the sound was. Then I saw my husband lying on the bathroom floor. He was cold.” She ran for the phone and called an ambulance.
Ron spent several hours in the hospital. By 6:30a.m., he was well enough to go home. “You would never suspect Oscar of any heroism.” says his grateful owner. “He’s a wonderful little guy. We are lucky enough to own him.”
Even before Oscar’s heroic action, the couple had given their pet a new nickname(昵称). “We felt the name Oscar wasn’t good enough,” says Ron, “so sometimes we call him Eduardo”—more suitable, they think, for their dog.
【小题1】What was Ann doing when Ron went to the bathroom?

A．She was sleeping.

B．She was watching TV.

C．She was taking care of Oscar.

D．She was talking with someone on the phone.

【小题2】Why did Ron fell onto the floor in the bathroom?

1. He forgot to take his medicine.
2. The floor in the bathroom was too wet.
3. He took the wrong amount of medicine.
4. He is a diabetic and accidentally ate some sugar.

【小题3】Which of the following is TRUE?

1. Oscar was 15 years old when he was found.
2. The sound of Oscar was usually like a wild animal.
3. Ron got diabetes when he was 40 years old.
4. Ron had to take his medicine three times a day.

【小题4】From the passage we can learn that Oscar_______________.

1. is a little noisy at home
2. sleeps with his owners at night
3. got his new nickname after the story
4. was found at a health club in Waukesha

English is the most widely used language in the history of our planet. One in every seven human beings can speak it. More than half of the world’s books and three quarters of international mail are in English. Of all languages, English has the largest vocabulary—perhaps as many as two million words.
However, let’s face it: English is a crazy language. There is no eggs in an eggplant, neither pine nor apple in a pineapple and no ham in a hamburger. Sweet-meats are candy, while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.
We take English for granted. But when we explore its paradoxes ( 探讨它的矛盾)， we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, public bathrooms have no baths in them.
And why is it that a writer writes, but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce, and hammers don’t ham? If the plural(复数形式) of tooth is teeth, shouldn’t the plural of booth be teeth? One goose, two geese—so one moose, two meese?
How can a slim chance and a flat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell the next?
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects( 反映) the creativity of human beings. That’ why, when stars are invisible. And why , when I wind up my watch, I start it; but when I wind up this essay, I end it.
【小题1】According to the passage ______.

A．sweet-meats and sweetbreads are different things

B．there should be an egg in an eggplant

C．pineapples are the apples on the pine tree

D．boxing rings should be round

【小题2】Which of the following is the correct plural?

A．Beeth

B．Greese

C．Meese

D．Tooth

【小题3】Which of the following includes two items which have the similar meaning?

A．A wise man and a wise guy	B．Overlook and oversee
C．Quite a lot and quite a few.	D．Hot as hell and cold as hell.

【小题4】The underlined words “wind up” in the last paragraph probably mean “___”.

A．blow

B．roll up

C．get hurt

D．finish

【小题5】Through the many paradoxes in the English language, the writer wants to show that human beings are _______.

A．clever

B．crazy

C．lazy

D．dull

To take the apple as a forbidden fruit is the most unlikely story the Christians (基督教徒) ever cooked up. For them, the forbidden fruit from Eden is evil. So when Colu brought the tomato back from South America, a land mistakenly considered to be Eden, everyone jumped to the obvious conclusion. Wrongly taken as the apple of Eden, the tomato was shut out of the door of Europeans.
What made it particularly terrifying was its similarity to the mandrake, a plant that was thought to have come from Hell. What earned the plant its awful reputation was its roots which looked like a dried-up human body occupied by evil spirits. Though the tomato and the man were quite different except that both had bright red or yellow fruit, the general population considered them one and the same, too terrible to touch.
Cautious Europeans long ignored the tomato, and until the early 1700s most of the Western people continued to drag their feet. In the 1880s, the daughter of a well-known plant expert wrote that the most interesting part of an afternoon tea at her father's house had been the "introduction of this wonderful new fruit -- or is it a vegetable?" As late as the twentieth century some writers still classed tomatoes with mandrakes as an "evil fruit".
But in the end tomatoes carried the day. The hero of the tomato was an American named Robert Johnson, and when he was publicly going to eat the tomato in 1820, people journeyed for hundreds of miles to watch him drop dead. "What are you afraid of?" he shouted. "I'll show you fools these things are good to eat!" Then he bit into the tomato. Some people fainted. But he survived and, according to a local story, set up a tomato-canning factory.
【小题1】The tomato was shut out of the door of early Europeans mainly because _______.

A．it made Christians evil	B．it was the apple of Eden
C．it came from a forbidden land	D．it was religiously unacceptable

【小题2】What can we infer from the underlined part in Paragraph 3?

A．The process of ignoring the tomato slowed down.

B．There was little progress in the study of the tomato.

C．The tomato was still refused in most western countries.

D．Most western people continued to get rid of the tomato.

【小题3】What is the main reason for Robert Johnson to eat the tomato publicly?

A．To make himself a hero.

B．To remove people's fear of the tomato.

C．To speed up the popularity of the tomato.

D．To persuade people to buy products from his factory.

【小题4】What is the main purpose of the passage?

A．To challenge people's fixed concept of the tomato.

B．To give an explanation to people's dislike of the tomato.

C．To present the change of people's attitudes to the tomato.

D．To introduce the establishment of the first tomato-canning factory.

阅读下面短文，掌握其大意，然后从36~55各题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

Once upon a time there was a child ready to be born. So one day he   36   God, “They tell me you are sending me to   37   tomorrow but how am I going to live there being so   38 

and helpless?”

God replied, “Among the many   39  , I chose one for you. She will be   40   for you and will take care of you.”

But the child wasn’t   41   he really wanted to go. “But tell me, here in Heaven, I don’t do

  42   but sing and smile, that’s  43   for me to be happy.” “Your angel will sing for you and will also   44   for you every day. And you will   45   your angel’s love and be happy.”

“And   46   am I going to be able to understand when people talk to me.” The child continued, “if I don’t know the   47   that men talk?”

God patted him on the head and said, “your angel will tell you the most beautiful and sweet

  48   you will ever hear, and with much   49   and care, your angel will teach you how to

  50  .”

“And what am I going to do when I want to talk to you?”

“Your angel will place your   51   together and will teach you how to pray(祈祷).”

“I’ve heard that on earth there are bad men, who will   52   me?”

“Your angel will defend you even if it means   53   her life!”

And then God   54   the child on the shoulder and said, “Your angel’s name is not   55  

to remember. You will simply call her Mommy.”

A. asked      B. answered    C. taught     D. told

A. heaven    B. hell         C. earth       D. space

A. big       B. small      C. strong       D. stupid

A. nurses     B. doctors       C. teachers      D. angels

A. hiding     B. waiting      C. heading      D. voting

A. sure       B. urgent     C. conscious   D. impressive

A. anything  B. something  C. everything  D. nothing

A. much      B. little       C. few         D. enough

A. clear      B. dive        C. smile      D. react

A. damage  B. feel         C. govern           D. resign

A. when     B. why        C. how        D. whether

A.language B. meaning     C. topic       D. politics

A. poems   B. stories     C. arguments  D. words

A. strength B. patience     C. warning     D. thinking

A. sing       B. dance      C. speak      D. paint

A. hands    B. feet         C. arms       D. legs

A. replace  B. convert      C. educate      D. protect

A. burying B. risking      C. experiencingD. attacking

A. hit      B. ruined     C. touched      D. cleaned

A. hard      B. easy        C. strange       D. convenient

English is the most widely used language in the history of our planet. One in every seven human beings can speak it. More than half of the world’s books and three quarters of international mail are in English. Of all languages, English has the largest vocabulary — perhaps as many as two million words.

However, let’s face it: English is a crazy language. There is no egg in an eggplant, neither pine nor apple in a pineapple and no ham in a hamburger. Sweet-meats are candy, while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But when we explore its paradoxes (探讨它的矛盾), we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,  public bathrooms have no baths in them.

And why is it that a writer writes, but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce, and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn’t the plural of booth be beeth? One goose, two geese — so one moose, two meese?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell the next?

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects (反映) the creativity of human beings. That’s why, when stars are out, they are visible (能看见的); but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it; but when I wind up this essay, I end it.

1. According to the passage ______.

A. sweet-meats and sweetbreads are different things

B. there should be egg in an eggplant

C. pineapples are the apples on the pine tree

D. boxing rings should be round

2. Which of the following is the correct plural?

A. Beeth.        B. Geese.         C. Meese.        D. Tooth.

3. Which of the following includes two items which have the similar meaning?

A. A wise man and a wise guy.    B. Overlook and oversee.  

C. Quite a lot and quite a few.     D. Hot as hell and cold as hell.

4. The underlined words “wind up” in the last paragraph probably mean “______”.

A. blow        B. roll up         C. get hurt        D. finish

5. Through the many paradoxes in the English language, the writer wants to show that human beings are ______.

A. clever      B. crazy        C. lazy         D. dull