1 . Recently， a 1935 letter in which Ernest Hemingway detailed his catch of a 500lb blue marlin（青枪鱼）， an adventure that is believed to have partly inspired his novel The Old Man and the Sea， has been sold for﹩28，000 （£22，000）．

The handwritten letter was sent by Hemingway on 8 May to the fishing editor of the Miami Herald， laying out in great detail how the author and his friend Henry Strater battled to keep sharks away from the marlin after catching it off the Bahamian island of Bimini．

Nate D Sanders， the auction（拍卖） company which sold the letter， said it documented for the first time in Hemingway's own words not only the size of the marlin， but also the attack by sharks， reflecting the plot of the novel．

The company added that Hemingway's account of the marlin catch differed from other anecdotes of it， one of which described Hemingway using a machine gun on the sharks， which is said to have attracted more sharks rather than frightened them away．

The Old Man and the Sea was also inspired by an anecdote told by Hemingway's Cuban friend Carlos Gutierrez． In 1936， Hemingway wrote in a magazine that Carlos had told him about an old fisherman who caught a great marlin alone．

Three years later， Hemingway told his editor Max Perkins that he was planning a short story about the old commercial fisherman who fought the swordfish all alone in his sailing boat． Instead， he ended up writing For Whom the Bell Tolls， not returning to the story about the old fisherman until January 1951． It won him the Pulitzer in 1953， and was specifically cited when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1954．

1. What does the underlined phrase "laying out" in the second paragraph mean？

A．Discussing．

B．Wondering．

C．Imagining．

D．Presenting．

2. What did the auction company stress when selling the 1935letter？

A．The style of the writer．

B．The history of the letter．

C．The contents of the letter．

D．The popularity of the writer．

3. What inspired Hemingway to write The Old Man and The Sea besides his own adventure？

A．Henry Strater's account．

B．Carlos Gutierrez's story．

C．Max Perkins' life experience．

D．Nate D Sanders' description．

4. Which is the correct order of time for the following facts in the passage？
1Hemingway wrote a letter to describe his adventure．
2Hemingway caught a big blue marlin．
3The letter was sold at auction．
4The Old Man and The Sea won the Nobel Prize．

A．①③②④

B．②①④③

C．②④①③

D．②③①④

2 . C
Napoleon, as a character in Tolstoy’s War and Peace, is more than once described as having “fat little hands．”Nor does he “sit well or firmly on the horse．”He is said to be “undersized,” with “short legs” and a “round stomach”．The issue here is not the accuracy of Tolstoy’s description—it seems not that far off from historical accounts—but his choice of facts：other things that could be said of the man are not said．We are meant to understand the difference of a warring commander in the body of a fat little Frenchman．Tolstoy’s Napoleon could be any man wandering in the streets and putting a little of powdered tobacco up his nose—and that is the point．
It is a way the novelist uses to show the moral nature of a character．And it turns out that, as Tolstoy has it, Napoleon is a crazy man．In a scene in Book Three of War and Peace, the wars having reached the critical year of 1812,Napoleon receives a representative from the Tsar(沙皇),who has come with peace terms．Napoleon is very angry：doesn’t he have more army? He, not the Tsar, is the one to make the terms．He will destroy all of Europe if his army is stopped．“That is what you will have gained by engaging me in the war!” he shouts．And then, Tolstoy writes, Napoleon “walked silently several times up and down the room, his fat shoulders moving quickly．”
Still later, after reviewing his army amid cheering crowds, Napoleon invites the shaken Russian to dinner．“He raised his hand to the Russian’s．．．face,” Tolstoy writes, and “taking him by the ear pulled it gently．．．” To have one’s ear pulled by the Emperor was considered the greatest honor and mark of favor at the French court．“Well, well, why don’t you say anything?” said he, as if it was ridiculous in his presence to respect any one but himself, Napoleon．
Tolstoy did his research, but the composition is his own．
1. Tolstoy’s description of Napoleon in War and Peace is ___________．

A．far from the historical facts	B．based on the Russian history
C．based on his selection of facts	D．not related to historical details

2. Napoleon was angry when receiving the Russian representative because ________．

A．he thought he should be the one to make the peace terms

B．the Tsar’s peace terms were hard to accept

C．the Russians stopped his military movement

D．he didn’t have any more army to fight with

3. Tolstoy intended to present Napoleon as a man who is __________________．

A．ill-mannered in dealing with foreign guests

B．fond of showing off his iron will

C．determined in destroying all of Europe

D．crazy for power and respect

4. What does the last sentence of the passage imply?

A．A writer doesn’t have to be faithful to his findings．

B．A writer may write about a hero in his own way．

C．A writer may not be responsible for what he writes．

D．A writer has hardly any freedom to show his feelings．

3 . C

Susan Sontag (1933—2004) was one of the most noticeable figures in the world of literature. For more than 40 years she made it morally necessary to know everything—to read every book worth reading, to see every movie worth seeing. When she was still in her early 30s, publishing essays in such important magazines as Partisan Review, she appeared as the symbol of American culture life, trying hard to follow every new development in literature, film and art. With great effort and serious judgment, Sontag walked at the latest edges of world culture.

　　Seriousness was one of Sontag’s lifelong watchwords (格言), but at a time when the barriers between the well-educated and the poor-educated were obvious, she argued for a true openness to the pleasure of pop culture. In “Notes Camp”, the 1964 essay that first made her name, she explained what was then a little—known set of difficult understandings, through which she could not have been more famous.“Notes on Camp”, she wrote, represents “a victory of ‘form’ over ‘content’, ‘beauty’ over ‘morals’ ”.
        By conviction (信念) she was a sensualist (感觉论者), but by nature she was a moralist (伦理学者), and in the works she published in the 1970s and 1980s, it was the latter side of her that came forward. In “Illness as Metaphor”—published in 1978, after she suffered cancer—she argued against the idea that cancer was somehow a special problem of repressed personalities(被压抑的性格), a concept that effectively blamed the victim for the disease. In fact, re-examining old positions was her lifelong habit.
       In America, her story of a 19th century Polish actress who set up a perfect society in California, won the National Book Award in 2000. But it was as a tireless, all-purpose cultural view that she made her lasting fame.
       “Sometimes,” she once said,“I feel that, in the end, all I am really defending…is the idea of seriousness, of true seriousness.”And in the end, she made us take it seriously too.
1. The underlined sentence in paragraph l means Sontag ____________.

A．was a symbol of American cultural life

B．developed world literature, film and art

C．published many essays about world culture

D．kept pace with the newest development of world culture

2. She first won her name through____________.

A．her story of a Polish actress

B．her book Illness as Metaphor

C．publishing essays in magazines like Partisan Review

D．her explanation of a set of difficult understandings

3. Susan Sontag’s lasting fame was made upon____________.

A．a tireless, all-purpose cultural view

B．her lifelong watchword: seriousness

C．publishing books on morals

D．enjoying books worth reading and movies worth seeing

4. From works Susan published in the 1970s and 1980s，we can learn that _____.

A．she was more a moralist than a sensualist

B．she was more a sensualist than a moralist

C．she believed repressed personalities mainly led to illness

D．she would like to re-examine old positions

4 . 第三部分阅读理解(共20小题；
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项(A、B、C和D)中，选出最佳选项。
A
　　After my husband died suddenly from a heart attack, my world crashed around me. My six children were all under 10, and I was burdened with the responsibilities of earning a living, and caring for the children. I was fortunate to find a wonderful housekeeper to care for the children during the week, but from Friday nights to Monday mornings, the children and I were alone.
　　One Friday evening I came home from work to find a big pretty German Shepherd（牧羊犬）on our doorstep. This dog seemed to intend to enter the house. The children liked“German”immediately and begged me to let him in. I agreed to let him sleep in the basement. That night I slept peacefully for the first time in many weeks.
　　The following morning we made phone calls and checked lost-and-found ads for German’s owner, but with no results.
　On Sunday I had planned to take the children on a picnic. Since I thought it best to leave German behind in case his owner came by, we drove off without him. When we stopped to get gas, we were amazed to see German racing to the gas station after us. No way was he going to be left behind.
Monday morning I let him out for a run. He didn’t come back and we were all disappointed. We were convinced that we would never see him again. We were wrong. The next Friday evening, German was back on our doorstep. Again he stayed until Monday morning, when our housekeeper arrived.
This pattern repeated itself every weekend for almost 10 months. We grew more and more fond of German. We took comfort in his strong, warm presence, and we felt safe with him near us. As German became part of the family, he considered it his duty to check every bedroom to be sure each child was cozy in bed.
　　Each week, between German’s visits, I grew a little stronger, a little braver and more able to handle; every weekend we were no longer alone and enjoyed his company. Then one Monday morning we patted him on the head and let him out for what turned out to be the last time. We never saw German again.
1. The dog first came to the family when _______________.

A．it was needed most

B．the writer became strong enough

C．the writer was away on a business trip

D．the writer was busy on the weekday

2. The family planned to go on a picnic without the German Shepherd because ____________.

A．it was too wild to control

B．it was too young to walk so far

C．the owner might come by to pick it up

D．it might spoil the trip

3. The writer was ____________ the German Shepherd.

A．afraid of	B．grateful to
C．cruel to	D．annoyed with

4. Which of the following can’t be used to describe the dog？

A．Loyal	B．Beautiful
C．Lovely	D．Wild

5 . American college students are becoming more adventuresome as they study abroad, showing less interests in English-speaking destinations such as Great Britain and Australia and more in such countries as China, India, Argentina and Brazil.

Britain remained the most popular study destination in 2005, according to annual figures from the Institute of International Education, followed by Italy, Spain and France. But the number of American students studying in Britain and Australia descended a little, even as the number of American students abroad rose by 8%. The growth came in non-English speaking European countries and in Asia. China is now the eighth most popular destination for American students, attracting nearly 6,400 in 2005, up 35% from the number of the year before. Argentina and India saw increases of more than 50%.

Allan Goodman, president of the Institute of International Education, said that a range of factors contributed to the trend, from growing awareness of globalization after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, to programs such as former President Bush’s National Security Language Initiative, which trains soldiers, intelligence officers and diplomats in foreign languages. “What Americans are doing is waking up and discovering there’s a world out there,” he said.

Other figures showed the flow of students in the opposite direction, from foreign countries into American universities. The institute found that international enrollment (入学) in American higher education remained steady at about 565,000. The figures are of keen interest to universities, which depend on foreign students for teaching and research help, and to policy-makers, who consider it important, as future foreign leaders may be familiar with the United States. The year of 2005 saw big increases in students from South Korea, Mexico and Taiwan of China. India sends the most students and China is No.2. Other countries that show large percentage increases in the number of students sent to the US include Nepal and Vietnam, while Japan, Turkey and Malaysia saw declines. About 58% of international students in the US come from Asia.

1. What does the underlined word “descended” in Paragraph 2 means?

A．Changed.

B．Declined.

C．Multiplied.

D．Increased.

2. Why do more American students study in Asia?

A．They expect to get more teaching and research help.

B．They lose confidence in English-speaking countries.

C．They are afraid that terrorist attacks will happen again.

D．They prefer to explore a different world from their own.

3. Where were most foreign students in America from in 2005?

A．China.

B．India.

C．Argentina.

D．Britain.

4. What can we infer from the passage?

A．There were 6,400 American students studying in China in 2005.

B．Chinese students to America will overpass Indians in the future.

C．International enrollment in American higher education changed a lot.

D．Asian students account for a large part of foreign students in America.

6 . Cities are likely to be affected by overheating, thanks to something called the urban heat island effect. Cities tend to be short of trees, which provide shade, and they are covered with black pavement, which absorbs heat from the sun. Think of how it feels to wear a dark shirt versus a white shirt on a sunny day. A black shirt absorbs light, heating you up. But a white shirt reflects light, keeping you cool.

The average temperature in a city of a million or more people can be more than 5 degrees F hotter than surrounding areas. That extra 5 degrees can turn a hot day from uncomfortable to deadly. As temperatures rise, cities will be an especially dangerous place to be during a heat wave. To protect public health, city officials are going to make the city cooler.

As part of that effort, Los Angeles is coating its roads in CoolSeal, a gray paint that keeps streets and parking lots 10 degrees cooler than black asphalt（沥青）. It will help Angelinos save money during the summer, when air conditioning sends power bills soaring. And it will save lives by lowering temperatures and improving air quality. Hot weather worsens air pollution by turning car exhaust into smog, which can make life miserable for people with asthma（哮喘）and other breathing problems.

Of course, LA will have to do more than paint over a few streets to cool off the city. Angelinos will also need to plant more trees and apply white paint to rooftops—at least those not already covered in solar panels. While LA is a pioneer of reflective streets, other cities, like New York, are already experimenting with reflective roofs or, like Melbourne, lowering the temperature by planting trees. LA is hardly alone in its effort to stay cool.

“This is an urgent challenge, and it’s much bigger than one person,” said Mayor Garcetti in a recent statement. “Climate change is a fact of life that people in Los Angeles and cities around the world live with every day.”

1. Which of the following contributes to the urban heat island effect?

A．Planting more trees in the streets.

B．Covering the streets with white paint.

C．Applying reflective paint to rooftops.

D．Furnishing every house with air conditioners.

2. What should the city officials emphasize during hot summer?

A．How to make the city cooler.

B．Where to wear a white shirt.

C．Why to coat the roads with black paint

D．When to cut off the electricity supply.

3. What benefit can people gain from the use of CoolSeal?

A．Increasing the indoor activities.

B．Promoting the sale of air conditioners.

C．Making life easier and more comfortable.

D．Reducing the number of cold days.

4. What’s the main idea of the passage?

A．L.A. adopted many approaches to fight against the heat.

B．L.A. calls on people to fight against global warming.

C．More and more countries begin to plant trees in the streets.

D．L.A. is painting its streets white to keep the city cool.

7 . A culture's values can be mirrored by its humor.Humor has been evaluated by many great minds such as Thomas Hobbes,who,in"On Nature",disliked humor,"Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from sudden thought of feeling far better than others."He thought humor to be a negative quality of human narrow-mindedness.

However,Mordechai Gordon,PhD of Education,insists,"Humor allows us to view the world from an angle that is amusing rather than serious."I agree with Gordon.Learning to look at the world through humor is important.

In the United States,every four years an election occurs.Without humor as a way to express their feelings,how would Americans be willing to support the election?Television shows like "The Daily Show" have become important parts of American culture.They are mothering the masses by unconsciously inputting politics into our mouths.They make politics fun.

Of course, politics is only one type of humor.Social humor helps people through the twists and turns of the human condition.American pop culture promotes an unhealthy self image.On the topic of self-image,Hari Kondabolu stands out.He has a joke about the popular musical group "The Pussycat Dolls",describing their hit song "Don't Cha" as a negative representation of women.He points out an obvious offence in American culture.

A study from Loyola University of Maryland has shown that humor is one determining factor for selecting a mating partner.Amongst other things,mates look for an outstanding funny bone in a potential partner.

Of course,humor is not always used for good purposes.Humor can be linked to vulgarity（粗俗）and racism,but, like everything else,it has potential to unite human beings by allowing us to laugh at ourselves,our failures and our connection with one another.

Though life may seem tough and depressing at times,all I have to do is look in the mirror at my increased wrinkles（皱纹）to know that there is a comedy out there that even Chaplin wasn't aware of.

With that in mind,remember to laugh with humanity and sometimes at humanity.

1. Hobbes believes that humor_______.

A．resulted in narrow-mindedness of human beings

B．was only a way to laugh at others to make oneself feel better

C．had the power to mirror personal glory and national values

D．was for people to view the world from another angle

2. What is the author's attitude towards political humor?

A．Worried	B．Disappointed
C．Curious	D．Appreciative

3. The fourth paragraph is developed mainly______.

A．by process	B．by example
C．by comparison	D．by classification

4. What can we learn from the last two paragraphs?

A．Chaplin wasn't aware of being laughed at

B．The author feels helpless and sad about getting older

C．Never be the one who laughs at other people

D．The author is determined to face life with a sense of humor.

8 . Number sense is not the ability to count. It is the ability to recognize a _______, in number. Human beings are born with this ability. _________, experiments show that many animals are, too. For example, many birds have good number sense. If a nest has four eggs and you remove one, the bird will not _______However, if you remove two, the bird _______ leaves. This means that the bird knows the _______ between two and three.

Another interesting experiment showed a bird's _______ number sense. A man was trying to take a photo of a crow(乌鸦)that had a nest in a tower, but the crow always left when she saw him coming. The bird did not _______ until the man left the tower. The man had an _______. He took another man with him to the tower. One man left and the other stayed, but they did not _______ the bird. The crow stayed away until the second man left, too. The experiment was ________with three men and then with four men. But the crow did not return to the nest until all the men were ________. It was not until five men went into the tower and only four left that they were ________ able to fool the crow.

How good is a human's number sense? It's not very good. For example, babies about fourteen months old almost always notice if something is taken away from a________group. But when the number goes beyond three or four, the children are ________ fooled.

It seems that number sense is something we have in common with many animals in this world, and that our human________is not much better than a crow's.

1.

A．rise

B．pattern

C．change

D．trend

2.

A．Importantly

B．Surprisingly

C．Disappointedly

D．Fortunately

3.

A．survive

B．care

C．hatch

D．notice

4.

A．generally

B．sincerely

C．casually

D．deliberately

5.

A．distance

B．range

C．different

D．interval

6.

A．amazing

B．annoying

C．satisfying

D．disturbing

7.

A．relax

B．recover

C．react

D．return

8.

A．appointment

B．excuse

C．idea

D．explanation

9.

A．fool

B．hurt

C．catch

D．kill

10.

A．reported

B．repeated

C．designed

D．approved

11.

A．confused

B．gone

C．tired

D．drunk

12.

A．gradually

B．luckily

C．strangely

D．finally

13.

A．single

B．small

C．local

D．new

14.

A．seldom

B．temporarily

C．merely

D．often

15.

A．sight

B．nature

C．ability

D．belief

9 . Everyone in business has been told that success is all about attracting and retaining (留住) customers. It sounds simple and achievable. But,_______, words of wisdom are soon forgotten. Once companies have attracted customers they often_______the second half of the story. In the excitement of beating off the competition, negotiating prices, securing orders, and delivering the product, managers tend to become carried away. They forget what they regard as the boring side of business—_______that the customer remains a customer._______to concentrate on retaining as well as attracting customers costs business huge amounts of money annually. It has been estimated that the average company loses between 10 and 30 per cent of its customers every years. In constantly changing_______, this is not surprising. What is surprising is the fact that few companies have any idea how many customers they have lost.

Only now are organizations beginning to wake up to those lost opportunities and calculate the_______implications. Cutting down the number of customers a company loses can make a big_______in its performance. Research in the US found that a five per cent decrease in the number of defecting (流失的) customers led to_______increases of between 25 and 85 per cent.

In the US, Domino’s Pizza estimates that a regular customer is worth more than $5,000 over ten years. A customer who receives a poor quality product or service on their first visit and_______never returns, is losing the company thousands of dollars in__________profits (more if you consider how many people they are likely to tell about their bad experience).

The logic behind cultivating customer__________is impossible to deny. “In practice most companies’ marketing effort is focused on getting customers, with little attention paid to__________them”, says Adrian Payne of Cornfield University’ School of Management. “Research suggests that there is a close relationship between retaining customers and making profits.__________customers tend to buy more, are predictable and usually cost less to service than new customers. Furthermore, they tend to be less price__________, and may provide free word-of-mouth advertising. Retaining customers also makes it__________for competitors to enter a market or increase their share of a market.

1.

A．in particular

B．in reality

C．at least

D．first of all

2.

A．emphasize

B．doubt

C．overlook

D．believe

3.

A．denying

B．ensuring

C．arguing

D．proving

4.

A．Moving

B．Hoping

C．Starting

D．Failing

5.

A．markets

B．tastes

C．prices

D．expenses

6.

A．culture

B．social

C．financial

D．economical

7.

A．promise

B．plan

C．mistake

D．difference

8.

A．cost

B．opportunity

C．profit

D．budget

9.

A．as a result

B．on the whole

C．in conclusion

D．on the contrary

10.

A．huge

B．potential

C．extra

D．reasonable

11.

A．beliefs

B．loyalty

C．habits

D．interest

12.

A．altering

B．understanding

C．keeping

D．attracting

13.

A．Assumed

B．Respected

C．Established

D．Unexpected

14.

A．agreeable

B．flexible

C．friendly

D．sensitive

15.

A．unfair

B．difficult

C．essential

D．convenient

10 . The death of languages is not a new phenomenon. Languages usually have a relatively short life span as well as a very high death rate. Only a few, including Egyptian, Chinese, Greek, Latin, have lasted more than 2,000 years.

What is new, however, is the speed at which they are dying out. Europe's colonial conquests caused a sharp decline in linguistic diversity, eliminating at least 15 percent of all languages spoken at the time. Over the last 300 years, Europe has lost a dozen, and Australia has only 20 left of the 250 spoken at the end of the 18th century.

The rise of nation-states has also been decisive in selecting and consolidating national languages and sidelining others. By making great efforts to establish an official language in education, the media and the civil service, national governments have deliberately tried to eliminate minority languages.

This process of linguistic standardization has been boosted by industrialization and scientific progress, which have imposed new methods of communication that are swift, straightforward and practical. Language diversity came to be seen as an obstacle to trade and the spread of knowledge. Monolingualism became an ideal.

More recently, the internationalization of financial markets, the spread of information by electronic media and other aspects of globalization have intensified the threat to “small” languages. A language not on the Internet is a language that “no longer exists'' in the modern world. It is out of the game.

The serious effects of the death of languages are evident. First of all, it is possible that if we all ended up speaking the same language, our brains would lose some of their natural capacity for linguistic inventiveness. We would never be able to figure out the origins of human language or resolve the mystery of "the first language". As each language dies, a chapter of human history closes.

Multilingualism is the most accurate reflection of multiculturalism. The destruction of the first will inevitably lead to the loss of the second. Imposing a language without any links to a people's culture and way of life stifles the expression of their collective genius. A language is not only used for the main instrument of human communication. It also expresses the world vision of those who speak it, their ways of using knowledge. To safeguard languages is an urgent matter.

1. Which of the following does not contribute to the death of languages?

A．Colonial conquests of Europe

B．The boom of human population

C．Advances in science and industrialization

D．The rise of nation-states

2. The underlined word “stifles” in the last paragraph probably means " ".

A．boosts	B．fuels
C．imposes	D．kills

3. The serious effects of the death of languages include all except that .

A．People would fail to understand how languages originated

B．Language diversity would become an obstacle to globalization

C．Monolingualism would lead to the loss of multiculturalism

D．Human brains would become less creative linguistically

4. What is the authors purpose of writing this passage?

A．To explain the reasons why languages are dying out.

B．To warn people of the negative aspects of globalization.

C．To call people's attention to the urgency of language preservation.

D．To argue how important it is for people to speak more languages.