1 . We don’t have beds in the space shuttle but we do have sleeping bags. During the day, when we are working, we leave the bags tied to the wall, out of the way. At bedtime we untie them and take them wherever we’ve chosen to sleep.

On most space shuttle flights everyone sleeps at the same time. No one has to stay awake to watch over the space-plane; the shuttle’s computers and the engineers at Mission Control do that. If anything goes wrong, the computers will ring an alarm and the engineers call us on the radio.

In the space shuttle, sleep-time doesn’t mean nighttime. During each ninety-minute orbit the sun “rises” and shines through our windows for about fifty minutes, then it “sets” as our path takes us around the dark side of the Earth. To keep the sun out of our eyes, we wear black sleep masks.

It is surprisingly easy to get comfortable and fall asleep in space. Every astronaut sleeps differently. Some sleep upside down, some sideways, some right side up. When it’s time to sleep, I take my bag, my sleep mask, and my tape player with earphones and float up to the flight deck. Then I crawl into the bag, and float in a sitting position just above a seat, right next to a window. Before I pull the mask down over my eyes, I have a rest for a while; listening to music and watching the Earth go by beneath me.

1. When it’s bedtime, astronauts put their sleeping bags ________.

A．on the wall	B．at Mission Control
C．in the flight deck	D．in any place they like

2. The underlined phrase “watch over” in the second paragraph has the closest meaning to ________.

A．go over	B．research on
C．look into	D．take care of

3. How long does it take for the space shuttle to go round the Earth?

A．Forty minutes.	B．Fifty minutes.
C．Ninety minutes.	D．Twenty-four hours.

4. The best title for this passage is ________.

A．Sleeping in the Space Shuttle	B．Travel in Space
C．Sleeping Equipment for Astronauts	D．The Earth Seen from Outer Space

2 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入几个适当的单词。

The experts were now fully convinced that the animal was a puma， but where had it come from? As no puma had been reported missing from ant zoo in the country, this one must have been in the possession of a private collector and somehow     1     The hunt went on for several weeks, but the puma was not caught. It is disturbing to think that a dangerous wild animal is still     2     in the quiet countryside.

3 . Biologists from Boise State University have been making noise in the forests of the western American state of Idaho. They are making noise to study the value of quiet in nature. They want to know how people and animals react to noise pollution.

The researchers placed outdoor speakers on the side of a half-kilometer-long part of a road in the Boise National Forest. For two years, they played the sounds of passing cars through the speakers. Professor Jesse says they found the sounds caused migratory （迁徙的）birds to flee. The birds also failed to gain weight.

Recently, researchers played sounds of machines that are used to remove natural gas from the ground. That sound is heard in natural gas fields throughout the American West. Professor Barber says these experiments are designed to help researchers learn the effects of noise pollution on birds, insects, bats, and people.

"We are testing the idea that these things are coupled -- that as the soundscape gets louder, wildlife suffers. But that also feeds back on to how much people get out of that experience, how much they value it, and thus how much they are willing to protect that same place."

The research team also studied a group of volunteers who watch birds for fun. Mitch Levenhagen is a graduate student in the research team. He measured how much the artificial noise lessened the ability of the birdwatchers to recognize recorded bird songs.

The birdwatchers said the artificial noise affected their ability to recognize bird sounds more than they thought it would. Birdwatcher Jim Lyons said the experiment caused him to value quiet more.

"I moved out of the city to a little place in the country where I wanted it to be quiet. I greatly value that. It is hard to find those places more and more. There are lots of ways to mitigate（减轻） sound. But it is trade-off. There is always a cost. And it comes down to people's values. What do we value more." said Volunteer Janice Engle.

1. What is the purpose of carrying out the research?

A．To prevent people making any noise in their daily life.

B．To find out the effect noise has on humans and animals.

C．To call on many more people to protect the environment.

D．To encourage people to keep quiet while they are in nature.

2. By playing sounds of machines, the researchers try to make the findings ________.

A．impressive

B．unique

C．instructive

D．convincing

3. What have some volunteers realized after the experiment?

A．The great importance of quiet in nature.

B．The big price humans will pay for health.

C．The great value of a sharp sense of hearing.

D．The necessity of protecting wildlife in nature.

4 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. countless       B. exhausted       C. comparison       D. essential       E. estimates       F. features G. relatively       H. cleared       I. unfortunately       J. recycled       K. restricts

Rain forests, found in Earth's temperate and tropical zones, are some of the most biologically varied ecosystems on the planet. All rain forests share certain    1    , including a closed canopy,     the dense vegetation of the top branches that forms a roof above the forest floor, a damp and warm climate, and    2     constant   temperatures throughout the   year. Most of   the forest's insect   and   animal life grows well in the canopy's leafy and sunlit environment. The forest's ground cover, by comparison, is small. Less than 2 percent of the sun's light makes its way through the canopy and the darkness below. This darkness, along with the poor quality of the soils,    3    plant growth.

Rain forests are a(n)    4     part of   Earth's   total   ecology.   Huge   amounts   of   water are absorbed into tree roots and    5    into   the atmosphere   from the   tree leaves through   a process called transpiration（蒸发）. Tree roots also fix the soil in place and slow the runoff of rains into rivers and oceans. Through the process of photosynthesis（光合作用）, rain forests absorb more carbon dioxide and give off more oxygen than any other ecosystem.

The rain forests are    6    shrinking at a rapid rate as a result of the profitable ventures of farming, logging, and mining. When tropical rain forests are    7    in order   to raise cattle and     crops, the nutrient-poor soils are quickly    8    . When farmers move on to new areas heavy rains and baking sun leave the land fruitless and lifeless. Logging and mining cause similar damage to the land and destroy the territory of    9     millions of birds, insects and animals. By some     10    an area of tropical rain forest the size of the state of Delaware disappears in this way every month.

5 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入适当的内容（1个单词）或括号内单词的正确形式。

Global warming refers to the fact that the earth's atmosphere is warming near     1     (it) surface — in other words, it's getting hotter. Some scientists say it is human activity     2     has caused global warming. However, there are other theories as well.

One popular theory relates to the “greenhouse effect”. Gases that make up the atmosphere are similar to     3     greenhouse because they allow sunlight     4     (pass) through, and then trap much of the heat from     5     (escape). This naturally occurring phenomenon,     6     is called greenhouse warming, keeps the earth's surface     7     (warm) than it would be.

While scientists agree that human-produced compounds (化合物) like carbon dioxide and others are being released into the atmosphere, some argue it's not clear how this results     8     the changes in temperature.

Global warming can     9     (great) affect human life on many levels. Scientists have made great     10     (contribute) to finding out how long the earth has been warming, at what rate it is warming, and what factors are causing it. These answers may better prepare people to handle its effects.

6 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

The 15 wild Asian elephants left their habitat in Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve in Southwest China's Yunnan province and     1    (move) to the north. 41 days later, the herd traveled to Hongta district, Yuxi city neighboring with the south of Kunming. The     2    (locate) was only 20 km away from Kunming's Jingning district and less than 100 km away from the capital s downtown area. The herd,     3    (original) consisting of 17 elephants in total at their departure time,     4    (report) to leave Xishuangbanna last year.     5     May 24th, a young elephant found alcoholic food at a villager's home and got drunk. Luckily, the baby elephant,     6     overslept, rejoined the unit the next day. The 15 elephants continued their journey. The Asian elephant,     7    (include) on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species as endangered, enjoys Class-A protection in China, the same level as that of the giant panda. Yunnan     8    (be) the only habitat of wild Asian elephants in China. Before the 1970s, the species was threatened due to many reasons, such as an increase in the human population, reduced forestry areas     9     illegal(非法的) hunting. The number of elephants dropped significantly. However, due to determined protection efforts in recent     10    (decade), the Asian elephant population in China has risen from 170 in the 1970s to 300.

7 . 阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。

Some researchers think there might be a connection between UFOs and angel sightings. They say the angels and heavenly figures might actually have been extraterrestrials(外星人)。

After his experience in the 1980s with "the most beautiful thing" he ever saw, Lewis might agree with that assessment.

It was a Saturday morning in Mariposa, California, and Lewis had to work that day. The air was fresh from a cool rain the night before, and the morning sky was bright with a few scattered clouds.

"I was heading out to my car in the back parking lot of the apartment complex where I lived when I noticed someone kneeling next to my car," Lewis says. "This person saw me and quickly stood up holding a crowbar(撬棍),"

The young man was quite obviously astonished by Lewis's interruption, and although Lewis sensed the boy was up to no good, it hadn't yet hit him what he was doing. Then Lewis looked through the passenger window of his car and saw that the steering wheel column had been stripped(脱去)of its cover. He realized that the young man was trying to steal his car.

"I asked him what he was doing," Lewis recalls, "He gave me a lame story about his friend's car being stolen last night and that my car looked like his friend's and so on. I didn't want to hear it. I told him I was going to call the police, which I did on my cell phone."

Lewis dialed 911 and gave the dispatcher(调度员)the address. He told the would-be thief that the police were on their way and warned him not to leave. "If he did, I wasn't going to try to stop him because he had that crowbar," Lewis says.

As Lewis was questioning the young man, trying to detain(扣留)him, he began to notice three rather large clouds in a single-file formation that were almost overhead.

"Then I saw it," he says."A shiny object exited from the first cloud and entered the next and then came out of that one. It was shiny, like brightly polished objects, moving at a good speed. I couldn't make out the shape."

注意：
1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.请在答题卡的相应位置作答。

By this time, Lewis was so distracted by the UFO.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"As it sailed overhead, some of the arms and legs would move up and down, giving the impression of being alive!"

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8 . A lone humpback whale travelled more than 9,800 kilometers from breeding areas in Brazil to those in Madagascar, setting a record for the longest mammal migration even documented.

Humpback whales are known to have some of the longest migration distances of all mammals, and this huge journey is about 400 kilometers father than the previous humpback record. The finding was made by Peter Stevick, a biologist at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine.

The whale's journey was unusual not only for its length, but also because it travelled across about 90 degrees of longitude from west to east. Typically, humpbacks move in a north-south direction between cold feeding areas and warm breeding grounds.

The whale, a female, was first spotted off the coast of Brazil, where researches photographed its tail fluke and took skin samples to determine the animal's sex. Two years later, a tourist on a whale-watching boat snapped a photo of the humpback near Madagascar.

To match the two sightings, Stevick's team used an extensive international catalogue of photographs of the undersides of tail flukes, which have distinctive markings. Researchers routinely compare the markings in each new photograph to those in the archive.

The scientists then estimated the animal's shortest possible route: an are skirting the southern tip of South Africa and heading north-east towards Madagascar. The minimum distance is 9,800 kilometers, says Stevick, but this is likely to be an underestimate, because the whale probably took a roundabout way to feed on frill in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica before reaching its destination.

Most humpback-whale researches focus on their efforts on the Northern Hemisphere because the Southern Ocean near the Antarctica is a tough environment and it is hard to get to, explaining Rochelle Constantine, who studies the ecology of humpback whales at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. But, for whales, oceans in the Southern Hemisphere are wider and easier to travel across, says Constantine. Scientists will probably observe more long-distance migrations in the Southern Hemisphere as satellite tracking becomes increasingly common, she adds.

Daniel Palacios, an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii at Monoa, says that record-breaking journey could indicate that migration patterns are shifting as populations begin to recover from near-extinction and the population increases. But the reasons why whale did not follow the usual migration routes remain a mystery. She could have been exploring new habitats, or simply have lost her way. “We generally think of humpback whales as very well studied, but then they surprise us with things like this,” Palacios says. “Undoubtedly there are a lot of things we still don't know about whale migration.”

1. In what way was the whale's journey considered unusual?

A．It covered a long distance from west to east.

B．A female whale rather than a male one completed it.

C．The whale moved from its breeding ground to its feeding area.

D．No one had ever spotted the whale other than at its destination.

2. Why did the researchers compare the markings on tail flukes?

A．There is a vast collection of such markings.	B．The markings there last by far the longest.
C．No two whales share the same markings.	D．The markings are easiest to photograph.

3. What can be inferred from the passage?

A．More evidence should have been provided that the whale had even arrived at Madagascar.

B．South Hemisphere can provide more information about humpback whales' migration.

C．The whale's actual route might well have been shorter than the scientists had estimated.

D．North Hemisphere's environment is becoming tougher for whales to survive.

4. What is the passage mainly about?

A．A female whale was spotted twice in the Southern Ocean.

B．Research on whales is a breakthrough.

C．Whales' migration routes vary with the climate change.

D．A whale surprises researchers with her journey.

9 . 语法填空

In ancient China, many people built walls around their states to protect their land. It was Emperor Qin Shihuang who had the walls     1    (join) up. The project cost much money and hundreds of thousands of people worked on     2     wall. On the top of it, it is wide enough for five horses or ten men     3    (walk) side by side. Along the wall are watchtowers,     4     soldiers used to keep watch.

I’m a new senior secondary school student. I feel excited because this school     5    (different) in many ways from the former one. Previously, we had     6    (fix) classrooms where students sat in rows. But now it is different. We go to different classrooms for different subjects of our own     7    (choose).

In Tibet, she saw an antelope that told her they were being killed     8     mercy by people for their wool and were now an endangered species.     9    (feel) sad, Daisy traveled to Zimbabwe with the carpet to see the elephants there. Much to her relief, the     10    (Africa) living there protected the elephants well and their number was growing.

10 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

If you want to save your seaside snack from a hungry seagull (海鸥) this summer, just try staring it down. A University of Exeter study found that the gulls are less likely     1    (work) up courage to steal someone’s food if the person is looking at them directly.

Researcher Madeleine Goumas bought a bag chips at     2    (variety) seaside places, held it at arm’s length and     3    (time) how long gulls took to steal     4     food if she was looking away, and when she was looking straight at them. Most gulls would not approach if they were being stared at, and those who did took an average 21 seconds     5     (long) to try their luck when they were being watched.

Gulls are often seen     6     aggressive and willing to take food from humans, Goumas told the BBC, so it was     7     (interest) to find that most gulls wouldn’t even come near during our tests. She says the gulls     8     (main) swoop in from behind, so the best way to save your chips is to eat with your back to a wall and with your eyes open for gulls.