1 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

Getting rid of dirt, in the opinion of most people, is a good thing. However, the attitudes to dirt are always changing.

In the early 16th century, people thought that dirt on the skin was a means to block out disease, and washing off dirt with hot water could open up the skin and let ills in. A particular danger was thought to lie in public baths. By 1538, the French king had closed the bath houses in his kingdom. The king of England did something similar in 1546. Thus began a long time when the rich and the poor in Europe lived with dirt in a friendly way. France’s Henry IV was famously dirty. Upon learning that a nobleman had taken a bath, the king ordered that, to avoid the attack of disease, the nobleman should not go out.

Though the belief above was long-lived, dirt has no longer been regarded as a nice neighbour ever since the 18th century. Scientifically speaking, cleaning away dirt is good to health. Clean water supply and hand washing are practical means of preventing disease. Yet, it seems that standards of cleanliness have moved beyond science since World War II. Advertisements repeatedly sell the idea; clothes need to be whiter than white, cloths ever softer, surfaces to shine. Has the hate for dirt, however, gone too far?

Attitudes to dirt still differ hugely nowadays. Many first-time parents nervously try to warn their children off touching dirt, which might be responsible for the spread of disease. On the contrary, Mary Ruebush, an American immunologist(免疫学家) , encourages children to play in the dirt to build up a strong immune system. And the latter position is gaining some ground.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2 . 我从未想到会有如此多的人在短时间内感染上这么严重的病毒。(Never; occur) (汉译英)

3 . ________ is often the case, we have worked out the production plan.

5 . If you examine the birth certificate of every soccer play in the last World Cup tournament, you will most likely find the excellent players were born in the earlier months of the year. If you then examine the European national youth teams that feed the World Cup, you will find this phenomenon even more ________.

What might account for this strange phenomenon? Some guess a certain astrological sign (星座) ________ superior soccer skills; others maintain that winter-born babies have higher oxygen capacity, which increases soccer stamina (耐力). But Anderson Ericsson, a 58-year-old professor who is called the expert on experts, believes in neither. His first experiment, nearly 30 years ago, involved ________: training a person to hear and repeat a random series of numbers. "With the first subject, after 20 hours of training, his digital span rose to 20", Ericsson recalls, "and after about 200 hours of training he could repeat up to 80 numbers."

This success, coupled with later research showing memory itself is not ________ determined, led Ericsson to conclude that the act of memorizing is a cognitive exercise, which means whatever inborn differences two people may exhibit in their abilities to memorize, those differences are ________ by how well each person encodes the information. And the best way to learn how to encode information meaningfully, Ericsson determined, was a process known as ________ practice. It involves more than simply repeating a task — playing a C-minor scale 100 times, ________, or hitting tennis serves until your shoulder pops out of its socket. ________, it involves stepping outside your comfort zone, setting specific and well-defined goals, focusing on ________ areas of expertise, obtaining immediate feedback from professionals and concentrating as much on technique as on outcome.

Ericsson and his colleagues have thus taken to studying high achievers in a wide range of ________, including soccer, golf, chess, piano playing and darts. They gather all the data they can and make a rather shocking statement: the trait we commonly call talent is highly ________. And yes, expert performers are nearly always made.

Ericsson's formula seems appealing to many tiger parents: "practice makes perfect" is naturally ________ to genetic determination. By ________ innate ability as insignificant, many are confident they can make a concert-level pianist or an Olympic figure skater of their kids as long as they push them hard enough. Ericsson, ________, believes what parents should learn from the science of expertise is not the effect of logging thousands of hours, but how to get kids to ________ the importance and challenge of effective practice.

1.

A．understandable

B．misleading

C．appealing

D．noticeable

2.

A．promises

B．improves

C．compromises

D．masters

3.

A．numbers

B．subjects

C．memory

D．practice

4.

A．physically

B．genetically

C．fundamentally

D．psychologically

5.

A．overshadowed

B．demonstrated

C．strengthened

D．produced

6.

A．enormous

B．deliberate

C．desperate

D．persistent

7.

A．on average

B．more importantly

C．for instance

D．in particular

8.

A．Besides

B．Nevertheless

C．Therefore

D．Rather

9.

A．various

B．comprehensive

C．targeted

D．minor

10.

A．pursuits

B．vacations

C．performances

D．assumptions

11.

A．underestimated

B．overrated

C．flexible

D．demanding

12.

A．equal

B．inferior

C．preferable

D．beneficial

13.

A．dismissing

B．lacking

C．recognizing

D．highlighting

14.

A．likewise

B．therefore

C．besides

D．however

15.

A．study

B．practice

C．reflect

D．embrace