I remember the buzz (嘈杂声) of excitement inside the theatre as we all found our
I can’t recall any of the songs that the band played. I just
After the
| A．members | B．friends | C．fans | D．volunteers |
| A．guessed | B．discovered | C．thought | D．predicted |
| A．flowers | B．drinks | C．clothes | D．tickets |
| A．booked | B．offered | C．returned | D．found |
| A．relaxed | B．embarrassed | C．excited | D．encouraged |
| A．seats | B．entrance | C．spots | D．space |
| A．comfortable | B．quiet | C．serious | D．nervous |
| A．silence | B．noise | C．darkness | D．smoke |
| A．fell upon | B．got through | C．broke into | D．stepped onto |
| A．forget | B．hear | C．repeat | D．bear |
| A．loud | B．hard | C．sweet | D．fast |
| A．feel | B．touch | C．enjoy | D．digest |
| A．realize | B．understand | C．believe | D．remember |
| A．continue | B．delay | C．finish | D．change |
| A．party | B．theatre | C．opera | D．stage |
| A．escaped | B．traveled | C．benefited | D．woken |
| A．aching | B．burning | C．ringing | D．rolling |
| A．competition | B．performance | C．interview | D．celebration |
| A．though | B．otherwise | C．instead | D．besides |
| A．decide | B．regret | C．conclude | D．imagine |
Recently, two researchers, Jose Millan and Michele Tavella from the Federal Polytechnic School in Lausanne, Switzerland, demonstrated (展示) a small robotic wheelchair directed by a person's thoughts.
In the laboratory, Tavella operated the wheelchair just by thinking about moving his left or right hand. He could even talk as he watched the vehicle and guided it with his thoughts.
“Our brain has billions of nerve cells. These send signals through the spinal cord (脊髓) to the muscles to give us the ability to move. But spinal cord injuries or other conditions can prevent these weak electrical signals from reaching the muscles.” Tavella says. “Our system allows disabled people to communicate with external world and also to control devices.”
The researchers designed a special cap for the user. This head cover picks up the signals from the scalp (头皮) and sends them to a computer. The computer interprets the signals and commands the motorized wheelchair. The wheelchair also has two cameras that identify objects in its path. They help the computer react to commands from the brain.
Prof. Millan, the team leader, says scientists keep improving the computer software that interprets brain signals and turns them into simple commands. “The practical possibilities that BCI technology offers to disabled people can be grouped in two categories: communication, and controlling devices. One example is this wheelchair.”
He says his team has set two goals. One is testing with real patients, so as to prove that this is a technology they can benefit from. And the other is to guarantee that they can use the technology over long periods of time.
1. BCI is a technology that can ________.
| A．help to update computer systems |
| B．link the human brain with computers |
| C．help the disabled to recover |
| D．control a person's thoughts |
| A．By controlling his muscles. |
| B．By talking to the machine. |
| C．By moving his hand. |
| D．By using his mind. |
| A．scalp→computer→cap→wheelchair |
| B．computer→cap→scalp→wheelchair |
| C．scalp→cap→computer→wheelchair |
| D．cap→computer→scalp→wheelchair |
| A．make profits from them |
| B．prove the technology useful to them |
| C．make them live longer |
| D．learn about their physical condition |
| A．Switzerland, the BCI Research Center |
| B．New Findings About How the Human Brain Works |
| C．BCI Could Mean More Freedom for the Disabled |
| D．Robotic Vehicles Could Help to Cure Brain Injuries |
3 . One morning, Ann’s neighbor Tracy found a lost dog wandering around the local elementary school. She asked Ann if she could keep an eye on the dog. Ann said that she could watch it only for the day.
Tracy took photos of the dog and printed off 400 FOUND fliers (传单), and put them in mailboxes. Meanwhile, Ann went to the dollar store and bought some pet supplies, warning her two sons not to fall in love with the dog. At the time, Ann’s son Thomas was 10 years old, and Jack, who was recovering from a heart operation, was 21 years old.
Four days later Ann was still looking after the dog, whom they had started to call Riley. When she arrived home from work, the dog threw itself against the screen door and barked madly at her. As soon as she opened the door, Riley dashed into the boys’ room where Ann found Jack suffering from a heart attack. Riley ran over to Jack, but as soon as Ann bent over to help him the dog went silent.
“If it hadn’t come to get me, the doctor said Jack would have died,” Ann reported to a local newspaper. At this point, no one had called to claim the dog, so Ann decided to keep it.
The next morning Tracy got a call. A man named Peter recognized his lost dog and called the number on the flier. Tracy started crying, and told him, “That dog saved my friend’s son.” Peter drove to Ann’s house to pick up his dog, and saw Thomas and Jack crying in the window. After a few moments Peter said, “Maybe Odie was supposed to find you, maybe you should keep it.”
1. What did Tracy do after finding the dog?| A．She looked for its owner | B．She gave it to Ann as a gift. |
| C．She sold it to the dollar store. | D．She bought some food for it. |
| A．By breaking the door for Ann. | B．By leading Ann to Jack’s room. |
| C．By dragging Jack out of the room. | D．By attending Jack when Ann was out. |
| A．Sympathetic | B．Doubtful |
| C．Tolerant | D．Grateful |
| A．To help her friend’s son. | B．To interview Tracy |
| C．To take back his dog. | D．To return the flier to her. |
| A．It would be given to Odie. | B．It would be kept by Ann’sfamily. |
| C．It would be returned to Peter. | D．It would be taken away by Tracy. |
The shoes- named Square Eyes- contain an electronic pressure sensor and a tiny computer chip to record how many steps the wearer has taken in a day. A wireless transmitter passes the information to a receiver connected to a television, and this decides how much evening viewing time the wearer deserves, based on the day’s efforts.
The design was inspired by a desire to fight against the rapidly ballooning waistlines among British teenagers, says Gillian Swan, who developed Square Eyes as a final year design project at Brunel University in London, UK. “We looked at current issues and childhood overweight really stood out,” she says. “And I wanted to tackle that with my design.”
Once a child has used up their daily allowance gained through exercise, the television automatically switches off. And further time in front of the TV can only be earned through more steps.
Swan calculated how exercise should translate to television time using the recommended daily amounts of both. Health experts suggest that a child take 12,000 steps each day and watch no more than two hours of television. So, every 100 steps recorded by the Square Eyes shoes equals precisely one minute of TV time.
Existing pedometers (计步器) normally clip onto a belt or slip into a pocket and keep count of steps by measuring sudden movement. Swan says these can be easily tricked into recording steps through shaking. But her shoe has been built to be harder for lazy teenagers to cheat. “It is possible, but it would be a lot of effort,” she says. “That was one of my main design considerations.”
1. According to Swan, the purpose of her design project is to _____.
| A．keep a record of the steps of the wearer. |
| B．deal with overweight among teenagers. |
| C．enable children to resist the temptation of TV. |
| D．prevent children from being tricked by TV programs. |
| A．They regulate a child’s evening TV viewing time. |
| B．They determine a child’s daily pocket money. |
| C．They have raised the hot issue of overweight. |
| D．They contain information of the receiver. |
| A．The exact number of steps to be taken. |
| B．The precise number of hours spent on TV. |
| C．The proper amount of daily exercise and TV time. |
| D．The way of changing steps into TV watching time. |
| A．make it difficult for lazy teenagers to cheat. |
| B．counts the wearer’s steps through shaking. |
| C．records the sudden movement of the wearer. |
| D．sends teenagers’ health data to the receiver. |
| A．Smart Shoes Decide on Television Time |
| B．Smart Shoes Guarantee More Exercise |
| C．Smart Shoes Measure Time of Exercise |
| D．Smart Shoes Stop Childhood Overweight |
5 . When Andrea Peterson landed her first teaching job, she faced the daunting task of creating a music program with almost no money for equipment or supplies in a climate where standards-based learning was the focus and music just provided a break for students and teachers.
For her drive and creativity in overcoming those challenges, she’s been name national teacher of the year.
Principal Waynes Kettler said he’s worked with many outstanding teachers in his 22 years as an educator, but Peterson is “just that one step above anybody I’ve ever worked with before.”
Kettler and others at Monte Cristo Elementary School talk about the ways she has introduced the learning from other classrooms into her music program and her creativity in working around things such as the lack of money for new music.
When students were reading S.E. Hinton’s novel The Outsiders in their regular classroom, Peterson helped them write a 30-minute play with scenes from the book. Then they chose three Broadway tunes that focused on race, equality and social justice, the themes of the book. Peterson composed two other sons herself after classroom discussions about the play and the book.
The honor means a lot to residents of Granie Falls. It’s inspiring to know that people from small towns can even win national honors.
As national teacher of the year, Peterson will spend the next year outside classroom, as a national and international spokeswoman for education.
Not surprisingly, she is a big believer in the value of arts education. She said it’s essential for schools to offer classes such as art or music and physical education because for some kids one of those subjects is the only thing that motivates them to come back to school day after day.
1. The underlined word “daunting” in Paragraph 1 most probably means ___ .| A．discouraging | B．interesting | C．creative | D．unbearable |
| A．music was focus of learning in most schools. |
| B．the environment was favorable to music teaching. |
| C．the school lacked teaching facilities for music. |
| D．financial support for music programs was unavailable. |
| A．She concerned herself with current social problems. |
| B．She motivated students to learn music with her creativity. |
| C．She has taught music at the elementary school for 22 years. |
| D．She made great efforts to arouse students’ interest in literature. |
| A．She wrote plays on themes of race, equality and social justice. |
| B．She made use of the contents of other classes in her teaching. |
| C．She organized classroom discussions of Broadway tunes. |
| D．She helped students compose songs by themselves. |
| A．art, music and PE classes are all important. |
| B．more subjects should be offered to students. |
| C．students should be motivated to attend art classes. |
| D．arts education is more important than other subjects. |
| A．Peterson’s honor was a surprise for the local people. |
| B．Peterson’s art classes attracted students back to school. |
| C．Peterson aroused the local residents’ passion for music. |
| D．Peterson will change her profession next year. |
6 . If you look for a book as a present for a child, you will be spoiled for choice even in a year when there is no new Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling’s wizard is not alone: the past decade has been a harvest for good children’s books, which has set off a large quantity of films and in turn led to increased sales of classics such as The Lord of the Rings.
Yet despite that, reading is increasingly unpopular among children. According to statistics, in 1997 23% said they didn’t like reading at all. In 2003, 35% did. And around 6% of children leave primary school each year unable to read properly.
Maybe the decline is caused by the increasing availability of computer games. Maybe the books boom has affected only the top of the educational pile. Either way, Chancellor Gordon Brown plans to change things for the bottom of the class. In his pre-budget report, he announced the national project of Reading Recovery to help the children struggling most.
Reading Recovery is aimed at six-year-olds, who receive four months of individual daily half- hour classes with a specially trained teacher. An evaluation earlier this year reported that children on the scheme made 20 months’ progress in just one year, whereas similarly weak readers without special help made just five months’ progress, and so ended the year even further below the level expected for their age.
International research tends to find that when British children leave primary school they read well, but read less – often for fun than those elsewhere. Reading for fun matters because children who are keen on reading can expect lifelong pleasure and loving books is an excellent indicator of future educational success. According to the OECD, being a regular and enthusiastic reader is of great advantage.
1. Which of the following is true of Paragraph 1?| A．Many children’s books have been adapted from films. |
| B．Many high-quality children’s books have been published. |
| C．The sales of classics have led to the popularity of films. |
| D．The sales of presents for children have increased. |
| A．the number of top students increased with the use of computers. |
| B．a decreasing number of children showed interest in reading. |
| C．a minority of primary school children read properly. |
| D．a large percentage of children read regularly. |
| A．An education of it will be made sometime this year. |
| B．Weak readers on the project were the most hardworking. |
| C．It aims to train special teachers to help children with reading. |
| D．Children on the project showed noticeable progress in reading. |
| A．takes greater advantage of the project. |
| B．shows the potential to enjoy a long life. |
| C．is likely to succeed in their education. |
| D．would make excellent future researchers. |
| A．to overcome primary school pupils’ reading difficulty. |
| B．to encourage the publication of more children’s books. |
| C．to remind children of the importance of reading for fun. |
| D．to introduce a way to improve early childhood reading. |
Before the trip, I’d had my car fixed. When the office employee of the garage was writing up the bill, she noticed my Louisiana license plate. “You from New Orleans?” she asked. I said I was. “No charge,” she said, and firmly shook her head when I reached for my wallet. The next day I went for a haircut, and the same thing happened.
As my wife was studying in Florida, we decided to move there and tried to find a rental house that we could afford while also paying off a mortgage(抵押贷款) on our ruined house. We looked at many places, but none was satisfactory. We’d begun to accept that we’d have to live in extremely reduced circumstances for a while, when I got a very curious e-mail from a James Kennedy in California. He’d read some pieces I’d written about our sufferings for Slate, the online magazine, and wanted to give us (“no conditions attached”) a new house across the lake from New Orleans.
It sounded too good to be true, but I replied, thanking him for his exceptional generosity, that we had no plans to go back. Then a poet at the University of Florida offered to let his house to me while he went to England on his one-year paid leave. The rent was rather reasonable. I mentioned the poet’s offer to James Kennedy, and the next day he sent a check covering our entire rent for eight months.
Throughout this painful experience, the kindness of strangers has done much to bring back my faith in humanity. It’s almost worth losing your worldly possessions to be reminded that people are really nice when given half a chance.
1. The garage employee’s attitude toward the author was that of ____.
| A．unconcern | B．sympathy | C．doubt | D．tolerance |
| A．He was a writer of an online magazine. |
| B．He was a poet at the University of Florida. |
| C．He offered the author a new house free of charge. |
| D．He learned about the author’s sufferings via e-mail. |
| A．the author’s family was in financial difficulty. |
| B．rents were comparatively reasonable despite the disaster. |
| C．houses were difficult to find in the hurricane-stricken area. |
| D．the mortgage on the ruined house was paid off by the bank. |
| A．worldly possessions can be given up when necessary. |
| B．generosity should be encouraged in some cases. |
| C．people benefit from their sad stories. |
| D．human beings are kind after all. |
Not long after the surgery, Tim saw a brochure describing Imagination Library, a program started by Dolly Parton' s foundation (基金会) that mailed a book every month to children from birth to age five in the singer's home town of Sevier, Tennessee.“I thought, maybe Linda and I could do something like this when we retire," Tim recalls. He placed the brochure on his desk, "as a reminder."
Five years later, now retired and with that brochure still on the desk, Tim clicked on imagination library .com. The program had been opened up to partners who could take advantage of book and postage discounts.
The quality of the books was of great concern to the Richters. Rather than sign up online, they went to Dollywood for a look-see. “We didn’t want to give the children rubbish,” says Linda. The books-reviewed each year by teachers, literacy specialists and Dollywood board members-included classics such as Ezra Jack Keats’s The Snowy Day and newer books like Anna Dewdney’s Llama Llama series.
Satisfied, the couple set up the Richter Family Foundation and got to work. Since 2004, they have shipped more than 12,200 books to preschoolers in their in their area. Megan Williams, a mother of four, is more than appreciative: “This program introduces us to books I’ve never heard of .”
The Richters spend about ＄400 a month sending books to 200 children. “Some people sit there and wait to die,” says Tim. “Others get as busy as they can in the time they have left.”
1. What led Tim to think seriously about the meaning of life?
| A．His health problem. | B．His love for teaching. |
| C．The influence of his wife. | D．The news from the Web. |
| A．Give out brochures. | B．Do something similar. |
| C．Write books for children | D．Retire from being a teacher. |
| A．a well-known surgeon | B．a mother of a four-year-old |
| C．a singer born in Tennessee | D．a computer programmer |
| A．To avoid signing up online. |
| B．To meet Dollywood board members. |
| C．To make sure the books were the newest. |
| D．To see if the books were of good quality. |
| A．He needs more money to help the children. |
| B．He wonders why some people are so busy. |
| C．He tries to save those waiting to die. |
| D．He considers his efforts worthwhile. |
9 . Rae Armantrout, who has been a poetry professor at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) for two decades, has won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in the poetry category for her most recent book, Versed.
“I’m delighted and amazed at how much media recognition that the Pulitzer brings, as compared to even the National Book Critics Award, which I was also surprised and delighted to win,” said Armantrout.“For a long time, my writing has been just below the media radar, and to have this kind of attention, suddenly, with my 10th book, is really surprising.”
Armantrout, a native Californian, received her bachelor’s degree at UC Berkeley, where she studied with noted poet Denise Levertov, and her master’s in creative writing from San Francisco State University. She is a founding member of Language Poets, a group in American poetry that analyzes the way language is used and raises questions to make the reader think.
In March, she won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Versed.
“This book has gotten more attention,” Armantrout said, “but I don’t feel as if it’s better.” The first half of Versed focuses on the dark forces taking hold of the United States as it fought the war against Iraq. The second half looks at the dark forces casting a shadow over her own life after Armantrout was diagnosed with cancer in 2006.
Armantrout was shocked to learn she had won the Pulitzer but many of her colleagues were not. “Rae Armantrout is a unique voice in American poetry,” said Seth Lerer, head of Arts and Humanities at UCSD.
Versed, published by the Wesleyan University Press, did appear in a larger printing than her earlier works, which is about 2,700 copies. The new edition is scheduled to appear in May.
1. According to Rae Armantrout, ____.| A．her 10th book is much better |
| B．her winning the Pulitzer is unexpected |
| C．the media is surprised at her works |
| D．she likes being recognized by her readers |
| A．She published a poetry textbook. |
| B．She used to teach Denise Levertov. |
| C．She started a poets’ group with others. |
| D．She taught creative writing at UC Berkeley. |
| A．It consists of three parts. |
| B．It is mainly about the American army. |
| C．It is a book published two decades ago. |
| D．It partly concerns the poet’s own life. |
| A．should write more |
| B．has a sweet voice |
| C．deserves the prize |
| D．is a strange professor |
| A．About 2,700 copies of Versed will be printed. |
| B．Cancer made Armantrout stop writing. |
| C．Armantrout got her degrees at UCSD. |
| D．Versed has been awarded twice. |
阅读下面短文，从短文后各题所给的四个选项(A、B、C和D)中，选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项，并从答题卡上将该选项涂黑。
It was a cool October evening. Excitement and family members
My dance class was doing a routine on wooden boxes two feet by two feet, facing the
When the curtain dropped, so did my
Recently I realized I had been a
| A．filled | B．visited | C．attended | D．decorated |
| A．pressure | B．impression | C．debate | D．attention |
| A．take over | B．show off | C．look after | D．give up |
| A．reasonable | B．suitable | C．obvious | D．perfect |
| A．dressed up | B．folded up | C．covered up | D．mixed up |
| A．suggested | B．explained | C．announced | D．predicted |
| A．music | B．audience | C．curtain | D．stage |
| A．easy | B．active | C．adventurous | D．extra |
| A．containing | B．hiding | C．sharing | D．keeping |
| A．why | B．whether | C．where | D．what |
| A．wandered | B．slipped | C．waved | D．skipped |
| A．blood | B．pleasure | C．pride | D．tear |
| A．leave | B．cheer | C．believe | D．notice |
| A．gesture | B．example | C．advice | D．plan |
| A．doubts | B．hopes | C．voice | D．patience |
| A．argued | B．shouted | C．begged | D．sobbed |
| A．turn | B．calm | C．let | D．put |
| A．star | B．pioneer | C．loser | D．fool |
| A．satisfied | B．moved | C．embarrassed | D．confused |
| A．However | B．Instead | C．In total | D．in return |
