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Unit 1Part I Reading ComprehensionDirections: There is one passage in this part. The passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them, there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice. Man has three basic needs: food, clothing and shelter. If a man lives in a warm climate, clothing is not absolutely necessary. However, man cannot live without food, and, he has little chance of survival without shelter. Mankind needs shelter to protect him from the weather, wild animals, insects, and his enemies. Long before man learned how to build houses, he looked for natural shelters, as the animals did. The first shelters or homes actually built by man were very simple. For his building materials, he used what he could find easily around him: rocks, tree branches, dried grasses, animal skins. It was a long time, however, before man began to build permanent shelters because, until man learned to farm, he lived by hunting. And, in order to follow game, he had to be able to move from one hunting ground to another. Thus, the first man-made shelters were those that could be easily transported. The first permanent shelters were probably built twenty to forty thousand years ago by fish-eating people who lived in one place as long as the fish supply lasted. Fish-eaters could stay in one place for several years. However, once man learned to farm, he could live longer in one place. Thus, he was able to build a permanent home. Once again, he built his home with the materials he found at hand. In Egypt, for example, wood was scarce, so most houses were built of bricks made of dried mud, with a roof supported by palm tree trunks. (253 words)1) Among the three basic needs of human beings, which is less important? A) Food. B) Clothing. C) Shelter. D) Water.2) Where did man live in before he could build shelters? A) Buildings. B) Natural shelters. C) Apartment. D) Houses.3) What are the building materials of the first man-made shelters? A) Rocks , bricks, tree branches and dried grasses. B) Concrete and steel. C) Rocks, tree branches, dried grasses and animal skins. D) Bricks made of dried mud.4) The word “permanent” (Line 5, Para.2) means “_”. A) lasting for a long time or for ever B) proper C) allowed D) lasting for a short time only5) The first people to have permanent shelters were probably _. A) hunters B) farmers C) fishermen D) none of thesePart II Short Answer QuestionsDirections: There is one passage in this part. The passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C), and D). You should decide on the best choice. Every people has its own special words and expressions that become part of the language. One such American expression is “eager-beaver”. An “eager-beaver” is a person who is always willing and excited to do what is expected of him. The expression comes from a hard-working animal, the beaver（河貍）. Beavers are strange-looking creatures. They are rodents（嚙齒動(dòng)物）. Beavers have a larger black, flat tail to help them swim. They also have thick brown hair of fur to keep them warm in cold water, and they have front teeth sharp enough to cut down large tress. Beavers spend a lot of time in the water building dams to create little lakes or ponds. They work hard to cut down trees, remove branches and put them together with mud to make dams. Few other animals are so hard-working. Historians say the beaver had an important part in the settlement of North America. There were hundreds of millions of beavers when European settlers first arrived. The settlers put great value on the fur of the beaver. In fact, for 200 years or more, beaver was the most valuable fur in North America. Most beavers were trapped or killed. For a time, they were in danger of disappearing completely. But laws were passed to protect the beaver. And today the population is rising. In fact, wild beavers are building dams in a national park only 50 kilometers from Washington. And like the animal, the expression “eager-beaver” is in no danger of dying out. (252 words)1. According to the passage, eager-beaver is used to describe a person who _.2. Why were beavers on the edge of disappearing?3. European settlers killed beavers because _.4. Whats the main idea of the passage?5. The phrase dying out in the last sentence probably means “_”.Unit 2Part I Reading comprehensionDirections: There is one passage in this part. The passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C), and D). You should decide on the best choice. Honeybees cannot live alone. Their body structure and instincts equip them for life in a colony or community, where they have a complex social organization and the various duties are divided among the individuals according to physical fitness and age. An individual worker bee cannot reproduce itself. While it may continue to live forcibly isolated from its mates, it fails to care for itself adequately, and soon dies. Most insects have the ability to hibernate in winter, but the honeybee seems to have lost this. Since at low temperatures the bee will die, it must have the ability to make its own environment, so far as temperature is concerned. This makes a colony necessary to the bees in winter, so that they may collectively warm each other. Efficiency, if not necessity, demands that the work of the colony be divided, and such a division of labor tends to enhance the need to maintain the colony. The physical structure of the honeybee is further suited for the defense of the entire colony rather than for its own defense. The bees barbed sting is used only once and is made more effectively by the fact that it is left behind in the victim. With the loss of the sting, however, the bee dies. This kind of defensive weapon is not of service to the individual, but to the community. (227 words)1. According to the passage, bees are fitted for communal life by virtue of their _.A) flexibility and initiativeB) intelligence and sensitivityC) independence and enduranceD) instincts and form2. According to the passage, a worker bee may survive for a short time even if it is _.A) deprived of its stingB) denied access to oxygenC) isolated from other beesD) exposed to a wide range of temperatures3. It can be inferred from the passage that at one time bees had the ability to _.A) increase their activity in lower temperaturesB) leave cold climates during winterC) remain dormant through periods of cold weatherD) have a complex defense system4. According to the passage, bees differ from most other communities of insects in their need to _.A) reproduce in large numbersB) control the temperature where they liveC) divide the work of their coloniesD) have a complex defense system5. According to the passage, the honeybees sting is particularly effective because it _.A) has many potential usesB) can kill several victims at onceC) is isolated in the rear of the bees bodyD) remains in the bees victimPart II Short Answer QuestionsDirections: In this part there is one passage with five questions or unfinished statements. Read the passage carefully. Then answer the questions or complete the statements in the fewest possible words (not exceeding 10 words) Hunting was originally a means of providing food, but it has now become a sport. Though in some parts of the world there are still people who hunt wild animals to provide themselves with food.A great many years ago, fishermen in Japan used birds to catch fish. This art of fishing in this way has simply become a sport, for the fishermen are not seriously interested in catching fish.On summer nights the fishing boats set out on rivers in various parts of the country. At the front of each boat there is an iron basket in which a wood fire is kept burning. Steering down the river, the fishermen beat the sides of the boat to encourage the birds. This method of fishing demands great skill for the fisherman has to handle three or four birds in one hand. A long piece of string is tied round the neck of each bird and the fisherman must take care to keep the birds separate from each other. Every so often, the birds are set free and they fly close to the water in search of fish. The moment a bird catches a fish in its beak, it is pulled back on to the boat. The string is held tightly round the birds throat to prevent it from swallowing the fish it has caught. When there do not seem to be many fish in the river, the fishermen can sometimes be seen secretly throwing dead fish into the water for the birds to catch. No one really objects to this practice, as it is all part of this unusual sport. (270 words)1. What was the original purpose of hunting?2. In which season of the year do the fishing boats set out?3. What do the fishermen do to encourage the birds?4. What is tied round the neck of each bird?5. What does the fisherman do after the bird catches a fish? Unit 3Part I Reading comprehensionDirections: There is one passage in this part. The passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C), and D). You should decide on the best choice. The temperature of the Sun is over 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit at the surface, but it rises to perhaps more than 16 million degrees at the center. The Sun is so much hotter than the Earth that matter can exist only as a gas, except at the core. In the core of the Sun, the pressures are so great against the gases that, despite the high temperature, there may be a solid core. However, no one really knows, since the center of the Sun can never be directly observed. The Suns outermost layer begins about 10,000 miles above the visible surface and goes outward for millions of miles. This is the only part of the Sun that can be seen during as eclipse (日食) such as the one in February 1979. At any other time, the corona (日冕) can be seen only when special instruments are used on cameras and telescopes to shut out the glare of the Suns rays. The corona is a brilliant, pearly white, filmy light, about as bright as the full Moon. Its beautiful rays are sensational sight during an eclipse. The coronas rays flash out in a brilliant fan that has wispy (小束狀的) spikelike rays near the Suns north and south poles. The corona is thickest at the Suns equator. The corona rays are made up of gases streaming outward at tremendous speeds and reaching a temperature of more than 2 million degrees Fahrenheit. The rays of Sun thin out as they reach the space around the planets. By the time the Suns corona rays reach the Earth, they are weak and invisible.(269 words)1) Matter on the sun exists in the form of gas because of the Suns_.A) pressures B) size C) temperatureD) location2) Who made it confirmed that the Suns core is solid?A) Scientists.B) No one.C) Solar astronomers.D) Physicists.2) Which part of the Sun can be seen during an eclipse?A) Core.B) The Suns equator.C) Corona.D) The main body of the Sun.4) According to the passage, as the corona rays reach the plants, they become_.A) hotterB) clearerC) thinnerD) stronger5) The paragraphs following the passage most likely discuss _. A) the remaining layers of the SunB) the evolution of the sun to its present formC) the eclipse of February 1979D) the scientists who study astronomy Part II Short Answer QuestionsDirections: In this part there is one passage with five questions or unfinished statements. Read the passage carefully. Then answer the questions or complete the statements in the fewest possible words (not exceeding 10 words)Deep inside a mountain near Sweetwater in East Tennessee is a body of water known as the Lost Sea. It is listed by the Guinness Book of the World Records as the worlds largest underground lake. The Lost Sea is part of an extensive and historic cave system called Craighead Caverns.The caverns have been known and used since the days of the Cherokee Indian nations. The cave expands in to a series of huge rooms from a small opening on the side of the mountain. Approximately one mile from the entrance, in a room called “The Council Room”, many Indian artifacts have been found. Some of the items discovered include pottery, arrowheads, weapons, and jewelry.For many years there were persistent rumors of a large underground lake somewhere in a cave, but it was not discovered until 1905. In that year, a boy named Ben Sands crawled through a small opening three hundred feet underground. He found himself in a large cave half filled with water.Today tourists visit the Lost Sea and ride far out onto in glass- bottomed boats powered by electric motors. More than thirteen acres of water have been mapped out so far and still no end to the lake has been found. Even though teams of divers have tried to explore the Lost Sea, the full extent of it is not unknown. (228 words) Why is the Lost Sea unique? When have the Craighead Caverns been known? Who located the Lost Sea in recent times? What was found in “The Council Room”? It can be inferred from the passage that the Craighead Caverns presently serve as_. Unit 4Part I Reading comprehensionDirections: There is one passage in this part. The passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C), and D). You should decide on the best choice. Taking an afternoon nap at the desk dramatically improves workers performance, according to research by NASA（美國(guó)航空及太空總署）. Bosses should welcome the sight of staff slumbering over their keyboards because when they wake up their performance will increase by 35 per cent and their ability to judge the right business decisions by 50 per cent, the space research agency said. However, they should sleep for only 45 minutes. Any longer and they risk falling into a deep sleep and will wake up groggy. The research was aimed originally at predicting the performance of astronauts on long missions. However, the scientist behind the study said that the same results had been achieved by office workers performing less glamorous tasks. Mark Rosekind, chief scientist of California-based Alertness Solutions, said that many managers believed it was an admission of weakness to give in to tiredness. “It is a false myth that if you spend more hours awake you are more productive,” he said. Most people suffer a decline in their alertness (清醒) between 3pm and 5pm, when they would most benefit from taking a nap. Mr. Rosekind said that napping was especially important in jobs such as flying passenger jets. “Controlled rest on the flight deck（駕駛艙） improves alertness in the final critical phase,” he said. Maximum alertness is normally achieved from 9-11am and 9-11pm. (220 words)1. What is the best title for this passage?A) NASA Study Favors Nap At WorkB) The Necessity of NapC) False Myth of NapD) Astronauts Need Nap2. The phrase “slumbering over” (Line 3, Para. 1) means “_”.A) PressingB) staring atC) sleeping onD) communicating with3. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage?A) Workers work better if they take a nap at work.B) 45 minutes is proper for taking a nap.C) Managers dont take a nap at work.D) People are most alert from 9-11am and 9-11pm.4. The word “decline” (Line 1, Para. 4) means “_”.A) dropB) riseC) extendD) reduce5. What can be inferred from the passage?A) Taking a nap at work is not an accepted custom in America.B) The research was done by NASA.C) The original purpose of the research was to predict how astronauts work on long mission.D) Bosses are suggested to support workers taking a nap at work.Part II Short Answer QuestionsDirections: In this part there is one passage with five questions or unfinished statements. Read the passage carefully. Then answer the questions or complete the statements in the fewest possible words (not exceeding 10 words). A transgenetic（轉(zhuǎn)基因的）pigs heart carrying human genes beat for 90 hours after it was implanted into a monkeys chest on November 30 at the Tongji Medical Sciences University in Wuhan. Doctors had to take the heart out 90 hours after the experiment because the pigs heart was too big for the one-year-old monkeys slight figure. But the object of the experiment, to alleviate the rejection reaction（排異反應(yīng)）, which used to occur within 72 hours of an operation, was basically successful. One of the common aspirations of man is to realize organ cross-transplantation. Due to the lack, or poor quality, of the organs, many people, who could have survived with a transplanted organ, have lost their lives. Organ cross-transplantation does work as an alternative, but the biggest problem, the rejection r