1 . Great tits（大山雀）in the UK are the same in almost every way as great tits in the Netherlands: black and yellow feathers，and white spots across the cheeks.But the British ones have slightly longer beaks（鸟喙），and the reason might be the wide use of bird feeders in Britain. In a recent study，researchers reported that great tits in the UK have evolved to have longer beaks in past decades.

Both Britain and the Netherlands are home to great tit populations that have been studied for many years，and the team suspected that the birds' genes might help explain whether they've evolved differently.Measurements dating back to the 1970s showed that the UK great tits' beaks had increased in length by about 0.2 millimeters.The birds with the longer-beaked gene variants（基因变种）successfully raised about one more baby bird every five years than those with the short-beaked variants.“The assumption would be that if a great tit has a longer beak and is better able to access food, then it is in general in better condition and better able to focus on its young,”says Lewis Spurgin, one of the researchers.

So are the bird feeders behind all this? "Something in the Dutch habitat might be different from that in Britain, or perhaps the distinct beaks have to do with the song. But previous research has suggested that bird feeders might be driving selection for longer beaks among birds that spend their winters in the United Kingdom,” Spurgin says.

British people adore birds. More than half of their gardens are believed to host a feeder, and the UK spends twice as much on bird food annually as all of mainland Europe.“Humans are causing animals to evolve in lots of ways, many of which we probably don't understand. It's going to be an interesting area for future research,”Spurgin says.

1. What do we know about great tits in the UK and the Netherlands?

A．The British ones live in a fragile environment.

B．They feed on completely different food.

C．The British ones live longer in general.

D．They are almost alike in appearance.

2. What does Spurgin mainly talk about in paragraph 3?

A．Possible reasons for the different beaks.

B．Further research findings about great tits.

C．Different results reported by other studies.

D．Strong evidence of bird feeders' influence.

3. What does the study about great tits indicate?

A．The birds were evolving rapidly in the1970s.

B．Natural selection could be affected by humans.

C．All genetic changes are blamed on bird feeders.

D．Short-beaked birds tend to have more babies.

4. What does the passage mainly talk about?

A．Longer-beaked great tits are found in the UK.

B．British people's love for birds might harm them.

C．Great tits could be evolving to eat from bird feeders.

D．It's easier for longer-beaked birds to eat food from bird feeders.

2 . The panda bear may be one of the world's cutest animals, but it also has one of the world's grossest habits：They like to spread horse dung（粪便） on their necks and faces and roll around in it to cover their entire bodies. Now, researchers say they have an explanation for these dung baths. The horse dung contains something that might help the animals deal with colder temperatures .

To get to the bottom of things, researchers analyzed 38 instances of dung rolling recorded by cameras at the reserve. The bears tended to roll in horse dung less than 10 days old. The dung contained natural compounds（化合物），called BCP and BCPO，that are scarce in older dung, say the scientists .

The team then added these compounds to the hay（草料） of pandas and found the animals favored the hay treated with these compounds. What's more, the pandas tended to roll in horse dung in colder weather, at temperatures between−5℃and 15°C. Could BCP and BCPO help keep the giant pandas warm?

As giant pandas are a national treasure for China, there are strict limitations on conducting research on these protected animals, so the team turned to mice. Covering mice in a BCP-BCPO solution boosted the animals' cold tolerance, the authors report. Treated mice more readily walked on colder surfaces. The researchers discovered BCP-BCPO blocks receptors that sense cold.

“Although it's not concrete proof, the authors provided solid evidence to explain the unique behavior,”Fan Yang, a biophysicist at the Zhejiang University School of Medicine, wrote in an email.“The same receptors are present in many animals. So it is possible that using natural compounds to manage body temperature may actually be a general strategy widely adopted by other animals.”

Staying warm in the winter can be challenging for pandas,   notes Zejun Zhang, an ecologist at China West Normal University ,because their low-calorie diet of bamboo makes it hard to store extra fat. It's possible, the authors say, that pandas have used horse dung in this way for thousands of years.

1. What does the underlined word“grossest”Paragraph 1 mean?

A．Funniest.	B．Healthiest .
C．Most tiring.	D．Most disgusting .

2. How did the researchers find out the functio BCP and BCPO?

A．By applying them to pandas.

B．By experimenting them on mice.

C．By analyzing pandas'dung rolling cases.

D．By experimenting on different kinds of dung.

3. Why can BCP and BCPO help pandas against cold?

A．They adjust their sense of cold.

B．They make them physically active.

C．They provide a heat-trapping cover.

D．They help raise their body temperature .

4. Which of the following makes pandas suffer in winter?

A．Their body shape.

B．Their body color.

C．Their habitat.

D．Their diet.

3 . 国内某英文报社开设有专门帮助读者解决困惑的求助信箱（letters to Mr. Helper）。假如你是高三学生李华，请就以下学习生活中的烦恼，给Mr. Helper写一封信，寻求他的帮助。
1.自己学习已经很努力，可父母还是不满意;
2.学校几乎每周都安排考试，心理压力大。
注意: 1.为使语句连贯，可以适当增加细节;
2.词数100左右。信的开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
Dear Mr. Helper,

I’m Li Hua, a Senior 3 student. Faced with great pressure in life, I’m writing to seek your help.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Looking forward to your reply.

Yours sincerely,

Li Hua

4 . You improve your robot’s software by improving its software. Agrim Gupta of Stanford University, however, begs to differ. He thinks you can also improve a robot’s software by improving its hardware. He and his colleagues have invented a way of testing this idea.

They brought to their robots, unimals, the principles of evolution (进化) by natural selection. Unimals, with globes for heads and sticks for arms and legs, are software beings interacting with a virtual environment. The environments where they wandered were in three varieties: flat grounds, grounds with hills and steps, and ones that had the complexities of the second sort, but with added objects.

To begin with, the unimals were randomly assigned various shapes, but with identical software— derl. Newly created unimals learned to face the challenges in a virtual bootcamp. They were then entered into tournaments in groups. Each group winner was awarded one mutation (变异) —one extra arm or leg, or one extra turning in a joint. The new replaced the oldest unimal and then was assigned to a new group, and the process repeated. About 4,000 varieties of them underwent training.

The team were surprised by the diversity of shapes that evolved. Crucially, though, the researchers found the most successful unimals learned tasks in half the time their oldest ancestors had taken, and that those evolving in the toughest grounds were the most successful.

In this evolution of unimals’ morphology (形态) to promote the ability to learn, Dr Gupta sees a version of something called the Baldwin effect. In 1896 James Baldwin, a psychologist, argued that minds evolve to make the best use of the morphologies of the bodies. What Dr Gupta has shown, though in software, is that the opposite can also be true — changes in body morphology can improve the way minds work. Even though he held the software constant, it became more efficient at learning as the unimals’ bodies evolved.

Whether that discovery can be turned to account in the way robots are developed remains to be seen. But the way of testing is certainly an out-of-the-box idea.

1. How was the test conducted?

A．By promoting Unimals’ learning.	B．By adjusting the environments.
C．By proving the evolution theory.	D．By stimulating unimals’ mutation.

2. What turned out to be surprising in the test?

A．The number of trained unimals.	B．The decline in time for learning tasks.
C．The variety of evolved shapes.	D．The replacement of old unimals.

3. What can be concluded from the test?

A．Mind evolution affects body shaping.

B．Body changes better mind work.

C．Hardware changes do not impact software.

D．The discovery is useful in robot development.

4. What’s the author’s attitude to the finding?

A．Negative.	B．Objective.
C．Indifferent.	D．Approving.

5 . All children experience that moment—the moment when they open their mouth and their mother comes out. “Clean up after yourself, I’m your mother, not your maid.” And my personal favourite is what my mother said, “Eat your dinner. There are kids starving in Africa who would love to have this food.”

I can’t get away from it. For better or worse, my mother is the voice in my head, part of who l am and howl handle my day-to-day life. I almost feel as though the years of advice she poured into me have acquired a life of their own and are helping me make good decisions for my life.

“Grow your own food. It’ll taste better and be healthier. ”And, finally, the words I live by, “If you’re not sure you should, you shouldn’t.”

It’s been a good rule for my whole life. Generally, I know that I should do what’s important anyway. So, if I’m not sure, chances are, I shouldn’t. Once my mom was trying to make a decision and called to talk it over with me. “Well . . . you used to say,” I said, “If you are not sure, you shouldn’t. . . ” We laughed together. Mom is always happy when I quote her, maybe because it’s proof I am paying attention.

I have inherited a lot of things from my mother, but what I treasure most is her voice in my head, reminding me that wherever I go and whatever I do, a part of her will always be with me. And every now and then, the voice comes up with something special and something worth passing on.

1. What can we learn from the underlined sentences in Paragraph 1?

A．All people experience the same moment.

B．Children will be generally difficult to teach.

C．Mothers always try to teach their children some lessons.

D．Mothers’ demands on their children are beyond their power.

2. Which of the following can best describe the author’s mother?

A．Bad-tempered.	B．Thoughtful.
C．Determined.	D．Narrow-minded.

3. What can you infer from the author and his mother?

A．They get along well.

B．The author is scared of his mother.

C．The author neglects his mother’s requirements.

D．The author’s mother wouldn’t like her child to resist her.

4. What message does the author seem to convey in the text?

A．Parents should be looked up to by their children.

B．Parents’ instructions will affect their children greatly.

C．Parents ought to set good examples for their children.

D．Parents’ words are golden principles for their children.

6 . Growing up, I was often the first Jewish person my classmates had ever met. I lived in Mississauga, Ontario, and was the only Jewish student in my grade—sometimes the only one in the whole school. This difference set me apart.

Every September, I hated presenting the note my parents had expertly made to a teacher I was just getting to know. The note explained that I would be absent during the Jewish High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I fretted that my teachers would label me the “Jewish kid”.

The real trouble always came as the local new year’s festival approached. I was Jewish and celebrated Hanukkah, not this festival. At school, on one day before the winter break, every class would sit in neat rows in the gym and sing songs from the festival. However, the music teacher sometimes played Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel, a Jewish festival song, and I would feel hundreds of eyes staring at my red cheeks. As my friends counted down the days until the festival, I counted the days until it was over and I could go back to feeling normal.

Each year during primary school, my mother would coordinate (协调) with my teacher to come to my class and tell the story of Hanukkah. She would prepare treats and materials depending on my age. Every time I would proudly stand beside her as she told the story of Hanukkah and explained the symbols. The children who had attended the presentation previously competed to answer questions. After my mom left, I would overhear them showing off their fried treats to kids in other classes.

My mom’s annual visits to my school sparked (激发) interest from other parents as well. Over the years, we had visits from parents who shared how festivals were celebrated in Germany and Italy.

My mom showed me, my classmates and their families that what sets us apart should be celebrated and shared, an intention which I continue to set for myself as I cycle through another holiday season.

1. What does the underlined word “fretted” in paragraph 2 refer to?

A．Noticed.

B．Disagreed.

C．Worried.

D．Expected.

2. What really annoyed the author during the local festival?

A．Being a trick target.	B．Singing holiday songs.
C．Being culturally different.	D．Celebrating others’ festival.

3. How did the author’s classmates react to Mom’s coming?

A．They welcomed it warmly.	B．They gave away her treats.
C．They showed off themselves.	D．They expressed sympathy for her.

4. Which of the following best states what Mom did at school?

A．She protected her child from being hurt.

B．She encouraged cross-cultural understanding.

C．She made Hanukkah a school-celebrated festival.

D．She saved the Jewish tradition from being changed.

7 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入一个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Tibet was a region I was desperate to see,     1     its remoteness and my inability to go delayed my journey. Last summer, my brother and I finally decided to take the trip.

We set off at the Guangzhou train station and three days later, we arrived in Lhasa. The trip certainly took a while; however, we     2     (reward) with the most beautiful views and made friends along the way, all at a     3     (low) cost than flying.

We started our tour of Lhasa watching pilgrims(朝圣者)doing their morning prayers,     4    (comprehensive) exploring the palace. We had an incredible lunch at one of the best restaurants in Lhasa,     5     offered a beautiful view overlooking the Jokhang Temple.

Then we started our journey to the Qomolangma base camp    6     road from Lhasa. Along the way we stopped     7     (admire) the Yamdrok Lake. Its beauty was beyond     8    (describe).

About a week later, we arrived. We stayed in a guesthouse just next to the base camp and after dropping off our luggage,     9     (head) straight outside to see the Mt. Qomolangma. The tip of the mountain emerged through the clouds,     10     (astonish) us with its unbelievable height. The clouds parted and we watched the sunset over the peak.

8 . Like many military wives, I had to stand the long separations until my husband retired. Though I supported his chosen career, I _________ every moment away from him.

To _________ our separations, I wrote letters every day. I made up dozens of small _________ for him which I secretly put into his bag, so that he could_________ them when he was out to sea. To this day those notes are still _________ to us.

_________ in 1996 my husband retired from the Navy. But the only job _________for my husband was six-and-a-half hours away in Norfolk, Virginia.

We spent eight months_________. That was our hardest separation, perhaps because we had _________ planned to be apart again. He__________ to apply for jobs in the area where we hoped to live. We expected we would soon be able to be __________ again.

One day Louie called me with the good __________. He found a job in southwest Virginia. We were excited ! There was only one small__________. Louie would have to live in a camper(露营车),__________ our daughters and I lived in a little house an-hour-and-a-half away. My daughters were __________enough to take care of themselves, so I left them and stayed with Louie.

Louie and I spent a __________ three-and-a-half weeks together. One morning after he left for work, I sat __________ in the camper trying to remember any possession that was as priceless as the __________we stayed together. I couldn’t __________a single thing. Then all of us moved into that camper and lived there for a year. It was pure joy! I’ve learned in that year that the greatest __________ I have is the time I ’ve spent with the ones I love.

1.

A．spent

B．enjoyed

C．hated

D．missed

2.

A．deal with

B．prepare for

C．think of

D．fight against

3.

A．stories

B．gifts

C．letters

D．notes

4.

A．receive

B．discover

C．consider

D．write

5.

A．precious

B．satisfactory

C．strange

D．necessary

6.

A．Once

B．Again

C．Soon

D．Finally

7.

A．convenient

B．common

C．ready

D．available

8.

A．easily

B．separately

C．normally

D．happily

9.

A．already

B．just

C．never

D．always

10.

A．continued

B．began

C．managed

D．liked

11.

A．rich

B．young

C．close

D．together

12.

A．news

B．job

C．chance

D．skill

13.

A．shame

B．mistake

C．fault

D．problem

14.

A．if

B．so

C．while

D．though

15.

A．clever

B．old

C．strong

D．beautiful

16.

A．long

B．simple

C．wonderful

D．busy

17.

A．patiently

B．alone

C．sadly

D．calmly

18.

A．plan

B．promise

C．time

D．place

19.

A．depend on

B．think of

C．care about

D．focus on

20.

A．treasure

B．present

C．luck

D．feeling

9 . Eating fruits and vegetables is part of keeping a healthy diet. Health experts ______ people should eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day. A(n) ______ way to remember this is to try to eat each color of the rainbow (彩虹) ______. This is because different colored fruits and vegetables contain different vitamins and minerals. ______ you eat one of each color each day, you are sure to ______ the necessary nutrition your body needs.

______ fruits and vegetables is good for the heart. There are many delicious ______ in this group. Have an apple with lunch. You can ______ have a red pepper for a hot tasty small meal. ______ some tomatoes and put them on your sandwich. Or ______ you can have strawberries after dinner. When you ______ red, your heart works better.

Orange and yellow fruits and vegetables contain vitamin C. Vitamin C helps the ______ protect itself against disease. In this way it helps your body stay in good health. ______, these wonderful foods are good for your sight. So it is a great ______   to have a glass of orange juice with breakfast. Then put some peaches in your lunchbox. Are you afraid of catching a cold? ______ that from happening by eating a juicy tangerine (a type of small sweet orange).

Green fruits and vegetables have long been widely known as healthy foods. ______, they are especially good for keeping teeth and bones strong. When you eat green, your smile will thank you! Your bones will thank you too!

Blue and purple fruits and vegetables are useful to the ______. They help with memory. Put blueberries in your bowl. You can easily ______ where you put your keys!

Eating the rainbow is an easy way to ______ yourself. So make your eating habits a little more ______!

1.

A．forget

B．suggest

C．expect

D．doubt

2.

A．useful

B．difficult

C．old

D．strange

3.

A．safely

B．directly

C．slowly

D．daily

4.

A．Until

B．Unless

C．If

D．Although

5.

A．receive

B．know

C．share

D．discover

6.

A．Orange

B．Green

C．Blue

D．Red

7.

A．vegetables

B．smells

C．choices

D．drinks

8.

A．again

B．also

C．yet

D．only

9.

A．Taste

B．Grow

C．Pick

D．Cut

10.

A．perhaps

B．nearly

C．rather

D．finally

11.

A．eat

B．find

C．see

D．turn

12.

A．heart

B．body

C．head

D．mouth

13.

A．Instead

B．However

C．Besides

D．Next

14.

A．habit

B．dream

C．chance

D．fact

15.

A．Treat

B．Test

C．Enjoy

D．Prevent

16.

A．On purpose

B．As usual

C．In fact

D．At last

17.

A．brain

B．nose

C．teeth

D．bones

18.

A．prove

B．remember

C．describe

D．explain

19.

A．rely on

B．believe in

C．learn from

D．care for

20.

A．social

B．formal

C．colorful

D．personal

10 . When Matty Sallin was working on a degree in art and technology at New York University, he got an interesting assignment in electronics class: Create something for the household. He decided to create an alarm clock.

“Everybody has to deal with these every day, and they are extremely unpleasant!" he says. He asked different people what they’d like to wake up to instead of a clanging, noisy alarm. A lot of them said, "The smell of bacon.”

So Sallin and two classmates invented a new kind of alarm clock: a wooden box with a pig face and a digital clock that uses the smell of cooking bacon rather than sound to wake someone up. He explains, “There’s no danger of burning, because it uses halogen light bulbs（卤素灯泡）instead of a flame for cooking and turns off automatically after ten minutes.”

Just a few easy steps are required to set the “alarm.”

“What you do is to put a couple of frozen pieces of bacon in the night before,” says Sallin. “If you set the alarm for 8:00, it will turn on at 7:50 and slow cook for ten minutes under the halogen bulbs,” he says. Then the bulbs turn off and a fan blows the smell out through the pig nose.

“So instead of an alarm or a beep or a radio, you smell yourself awake,” says Sallin. “Then you can open the door on the side and pull the bacon out and eat it.”

When Sallin was a kid, he spent a lot of time making drawings of inventions. “I wanted to make an elevator in my back yard and a special tree house,” he says. “But I never really thought I’d be called an inventor!”

1. Why did Sallin choose to create a new alarm clock?

A．His classmates had no alarm clocks.	B．His alarm clock in use was out of fashion.
C．Many people disliked the noisy alarm.	D．Many people had difficulty in waking up.

2. In what way is Sallin’s alarm clock special?

A．It wakes people up with the smell of bacon.

B．It warns people of the danger of burning.

C．It can also be used as a lamp.

D．It is very small in size.

3. The pig nose on the alarm clock is used _______.

A．to cook the bacon	B．to let the smell out
C．to sound the alarm	D．to blow the flame.

4. What do we know about Sallin?

A．He decides to make more alarm clocks.

B．He has a special gift for clock designing.

C．He always forget the time.

D．He showed an interest in invention at an early age.