1 . As more and more people speak the global language of English, Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic, other languages are rapidly disappearing. In fact, half of the 6,000-7,000 languages spoken around the world today will be likely to die out by the next century, according the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

In an effort to prevent language loss, scholars from a number of organizations — UNESCO and National Geographic among them — have for many years been documenting dying languages and the cultures they reflect.

Mark Turin, a scientist at the Macmillan Center, Yale University, who specializes in the languages and oral traditions of the Himalayas, is following in that tradition. His recently published book, A Grammar of Thangmi and Their Culture, grows out of his experience living, working, and raising a family in a village in Nepal.

Documenting the Thangmi language and culture is just a starting point for Turin, who seeks to include other languages and oral traditions across the Himalayan reaches of India, Nepal, Bhutan, and China. But he is not content to simply record these voices before they disappear without record.

At the University of Cambridge Turin discovered a wealth of important materials —including photographs, films, tape recordings, and field notes — which had remained unstudied and were badly in need of care and protection. Now, through the two organizations that he has founded — the Digital Himalaya Project and the World Oral Literature Project — Turin has started a campaign to make such documents, found in libraries and stores around the world, available not just to schools but to the younger generations of communities from whom the materials were originally collected. Thanks to digital technology and the widely available Internet, Turin notes, the endangered languages can be saved and reconnected with speech communities.

1. Many scholars are making efforts to ________.

A．promote global languages	B．rescue disappearing languages
C．search for languages communities	D．set up language research organizations

2. What does “that tradition” in Paragraph 3 refer to ________.

A．having detailed records of the languages	B．writing books on language users
C．telling stories about language speakers	D．living with the native speakers

3. What is Turin’s book based on?

A．The cultural studies in India.	B．The documents available at Yale.
C．His language research in Bhutan.	D．His personal experience in Nepal.

4. Which of the following best describes Turin’s work?

A．Write, sell and donate.	B．Record, repair and reward.
C．Collect, protect and reconnect.	D．Design, experiment and report.

3 . Although we're surrounded by millions of bricks every day, most of us don't think about them too often. For thousands of years, the humble clay-fired bricks haven't changed.

They're made from natural materials, but there are problems with bricks at every step of their production. Bricks are made from clay—a type of soil found all over the world. Clay mining is harmful to plant growth. In conventional brick production, the clay is shaped and baked in kilns(窑) mostly heated by fossil fuels, which contributes to climate change. Once made, bricks must be transported to construction sites, generating more carbon emissions. With so many bricks produced globally, their impact adds up.

Gabriela Medero, a professor at Scotland's Heriot-Watt University, decided to find solutions to that. With her university's support, Medero set up Kenoteq in 2009. The company's signature product is the K-Briq. Made from more than 90% construction waste, Medero says the K-Briq—which does not need to be fired in a kiln—produces less than a tenth of the carbon emissions of conventional bricks. With the company testing new machinery to start scaling up production, Medero hopes her bricks will help to build a more sustainable world.

The K-Briq will be comparably priced to conventional bricks. Additionally, as a new product, the K-Briq has been subjected to strict assessment and authoritative certification. Reusing old bricks is an expensive process and there is no standardized way to check the strength, safety or durability (耐久性) of recycled bricks. Medero says that K-Briq could solve both these problems. She claims that K-Briq is stronger and more durable than fired clay bricks.

Over the next 18 months, Medero plans to get K-Briq machines on-site at recycling plants. "This will reduce transport-related emissions because trucks can collect K-Briq when they drop off construction waste," says Medero.

1. What inspired Medero to invent the K-Briq?

A．The poor quality of the conventional bricks.

B．The outdated style of the conventional bricks.

C．The high cost of manufacturing conventional bricks.

D．The problems with the conventional brick production.

2. Why is the K-Briq production sustainable?

A．It won't produce waste.

B．It brings no pollution to the air.

C．The plants occupy much less land than before.

D．The K-Briq is mainly made from construction waste.

3. What is the fourth paragraph mainly about?

A．The popularity of the K-Briq.

B．The advantages of K-Briq over traditional bricks.

C．The special materials used in K-Briq.

D．The advanced technology used for K-Briq.

4. Why does Medero decide to put K-Briq machines at recycling factories?

A．To ensure fewer emissions.

B．To speed up the production.

C．To lower the production cost.

D．To collect more construction waste.

5 . As a child, Jane Goodall had a natural love for the outdoors and animals. And at age 23, she left for Nairobi, Kenya. There, Jane met famed Dr. Louis Leakey, who offered her a job at the local natural history museum. She worked there for a time before Leakey decided to send her to the Gombe Stream Game Reserve in Tanzania to study wild chimpanzees. He felt her strong interest in animals and nature, and her knowledge as well as high energy made her a great candidate to study the chimpanzees.

In December 1958, Jane returned home to England and Leakey began to make arrangements for the expedition(考察), securing the appropriate permissions from the government and raising funds. In May 1960, Jane learned that Leakey had gained funding from the Wilkie Brothers Foundation.

Jane arrived by boat at the Gombe Stream Game Reserve on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika with her mother. The early weeks at Gombe were challenging. Jane developed a fever that delayed the start of her work. Finally, an old chimpanzee named David Greybeard began to allow Jane to watch him. As a high-ranking male of the chimpanzee community, his acceptance meant other group members also allowed Jane to observe. It was the first time that Jane had witnessed David Greybeard using tools. Excited, she telegraphed Dr. Leakey about her observation. He wrote back, "Now we must redefine 'tool' and 'man' or accept chimpanzees as humans."

Jane continued to work in the field and, with Leakey's help, began her doctoral program without an undergraduate degree in 1962. At the University of Cambridge, she found herself at odds with senior scientists over the methods she used—how she had named the chimpanzees rather than using the more common numbering system, and for suggesting that the chimps have emotions and personalities. She further upset those in power at the university when she wrote her first book, My Friends, the Wild Chimpanzees, aimed at the general public rather than an academic audience. The book was wildly popular, and her academic peers were outraged. Dr. Jane Goodall earned her Ph. D. on February 9, 1966, and continued to work at Gombe for the next twenty years.

1. Why did Leakey appoint Jane to Tanzania?

A．Jane asked to change her workplace.

B．Jane was not suitable for her previous job.

C．Jane's abilities and talents were discovered.

D．The natural history museum was out of business.

2. What does the underlined phrase "at odds" mean in Paragraph 4?

A．Agree.

B．Disagree.

C．Resemble.

D．Coincide.

3. In the opinions of the academic peers, what was the value of Jane's first book?

A．A new direction of knowledge.

B．A common achievement.

C．Worth farther discussion.

D．Absolute nonsense.

4. What can we learn from Jane Goodall?

A．Challenging senior scientists is a must in gaining fame.

B．Cooperation is the only key to making significant discoveries.

C．Passion and hard work can make a difference in scientific research.

D．The ability to raise funds counts for achieving great success.

8 . When I was young, my mother didn't have the money to send me to school, but she thought it was important for me to keep up with education. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself. But because she had to go to work, the only time she could do it was at 4:30 in the morning.

We need every one of you to develop your talents and your skills so that you can help us old folks solve our most difficult problems. If you quit on school—you're not just quitting on yourself, you're quitting on your country. No one's written your destiny（命运）for you, because you write your own destiny. You make your own future. That's why today I'm calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education and do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending some time reading a book.

But whatever you decide to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it. I know that sometimes you get that sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work—that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star. No one's born being good at all things. You become good at things through hard work. You're not a good athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don't hit every note the first time you sing a song. You've got to practice.

1. What can we learn from the first paragraph?

A．The writer's home was very rich.

B．The writer's mother was a teacher.

C．The writer was born in a poor family.

D．The writer didn't like reading books.

2. What does the writer want everyone to do by improving their talents and skills?

A．To quit on their country to earn more money.

B．To offer help to the old people who have difficulties.

C．To write their own new destiny by working as TV star.

D．To spend some time writing books about their own life.

3. Why does the writer call on everyone to set his/her own goal?

A．Because everyone's future is determined by themselves.

B．Because everyone's future is to do simple work.

C．Because everyone should do their homework.

D．Because everyone should pay attention in class.

4. How can people realize their great dream?

A．By rapping.

B．By playing basketball.

C．By being a reality star.

D．By working hard.

9 . It is widely believed that smiling means a person is happy, and it usually occurs when they're meeting another person or a group of people. However, a new study led by the body language expert Dr Harry Witchel shows this isn't always the case.

In his research, he asked 44 participants aged 18—35 to play a geography quiz game consisting of nine difficult questions so that they often got the answer wrong. Participants seated interacted with a computer alone in a room while their faces were video recorded.

After the quiz, the participants were asked to rate their experience using a range of 12 emotions including “bored”, “interested” and “frustrated”. Meanwhile, their facial expressions were then computer analysed frame by frame in order to judge how much they were smiling based on a scale of between 0 to 1.

Dr Witchel said: “According to some researchers, a real smile reflects the inner state of cheerfulness or amusement. However, behavioral ecology theory suggests that all smiles are tools used in social interactions, meaning cheerfulness is neither necessary nor rich for smiling. Our study showed that in these human­computer interaction experiments, smiling isn't driven by happiness; it is associated with subjective involvement(主观参与) , which acts like a social fuel for smiling, even when socialising with a computer on your own.”

Surprisingly, participants didn't tend to smile during the period when they were trying to figure out the answers. However, they did smile right after the computer game informed them if their answer was correct or wrong. Participants smiled more often when they got the answer wrong. Dr Witched added: “During these computerised quizzes, smiling was greatly increased just after answering questions incorrectly.This behaviour could be explained by self­ratings of involvement, rather than by ratings of happiness or frustration.”

1. Why did Dr Witchel use difficult questions in the quiz game?

A．To make it hard for participants to answer them correctly.

B．To make the answer period last as long as possible.

C．To discover the most intelligent participants.

D．To create a stressful situation for participants deliberately.

2. What can we infer from what Dr Witchel said in Paragraph 4?

A．Other researchers' opinion of a real smile is quite right.

B．Smiles aren't necessarily useful tools in social interactions.

C．Subjective involvement doesn't motivate smiling in social interactions.

D．Witchel's study finding is consistent with behavioural ecology theory.

3. What do we know about the text?

A．Participants were asked to interact with each other in the quiz.

B．Participants in the quiz smiled less often when they got the answer wrong.

C．In Dr Witchel's opinion, smiling is connected with subjective involvement.

D．Dr Witchel thinks that a real smile reflects the inner state of cheerfulness.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．What Contributes to Real Happiness?

B．How to Identify Whether a Person Is Really Happy?

C．Smiling Doesn't Necessarily Mean Happiness.

D．People Generally Hold a Wrong View on Happiness.