1 . About 5,000 children die each day because of preventable diseases such as cholera (霍乱) and dysentery (痢疾), which spread when people use unclean water for drinking or cooking. A lack of water for personal health leads to the spread of totally preventable diseases like trachoma (沙眼), which has blinded some six million people.

Water troubles also trap many low­income families in a cycle of poverty and poor education and the poorest suffer most from lack of access to water. People who spend much of their time on ill health, caring for sick children, or collecting water at a distance averaging 3.75 miles a day don’t have educational and economic chances to better their lives.

Agriculture is called the lion’s share of clean water worldwide, using some 70 percent, and industrial use needs another 22 percent. Water areas have no political borders and nations don’t always work together to share common resources, so water can be a frequent source of international problems as well.

Day­by­day demand keeps growing, further draining water sources, from great rivers to groundwater. “We’re going deeper into debt on our groundwater use,” Postel said, “and that has great effects on global water safety. The rate of groundwater use has doubled since 1960.”

Some of Earth’s groundwater is fossil water created when Earth’s climate was far different. Today such water is as limited as petrol. “But we’re pumping much of them out faster than ever,” Postel explained. “Man’s growing thirst also causes a major problem about water and our ecosystems. And that also creates a cost to us, to our sons and to our grandsons, not just to nature.”

1. What does the author mainly discuss in the passage?

A．Water shortage has been a most serious challenge.

B．So many children die of polluted water every day.

C．Diseases should be properly controlled and treated.

D．Wasting water leads to the unrest of the world.

2. Why is agriculture called the lion’s share of clean water?

A．Because nations don’t always work together to save water.

B．Because agriculture uses about two ­thirds of clean water.

C．Because more people live on the agricultural produce.

D．Because agriculture is much stronger than industry.

3. According to what Postel said we can know ________.

A．groundwater is rich for us to use	B．there is no need to dig deep for groundwater
C．we are using our next generation’ water	D．we should use river water instead of groundwater

4. What can we infer from the passage?

A．Water should be distributed equally.	B．Laws should be passed from groundwater.
C．We shouldn’t use water from rivers.	D．We should protect our ecosystems.

2 . Everywhere I look outside my home I see people busy on their high-tech devices, while driving, walking, shopping, even sitting in toilets. When connected electronically, they are away from physical reality.

People have been influenced to become technology addicted. One survey reported that "addicted" was the word most commonly used by people to describe their relationship to iPad and similar devices. One study found that people had a harder time resisting the allure of social media than they did for sleep, cigarettes and alcohol.

The main goal of technology companies is to get people to spend more money and time on their products, not to actually improve our quality of life. They have successfully created a cultural disease. Consumers willingly give up their freedom, money and time to catch up on the latest information, to keep pace with their peers or to appear modern.

I see people trapped in a pathological(病态的) relationship with time-sucking technology, where they serve technology more than technology serves them. I call this technology servitude. I am referring to a loss of personal freedom and independence because of uncontrolled consumption of many kinds of devices that eat up time and money.

What is a healthy use of technology devices? That is the vital question. Who is really in charge of my life? That is what people need to ask themselves if we are to have any chance of breaking up false beliefs about their use of technology. When we can live happily without using so much technology for a day or a week, then we can regain control and personal freedom, become the master of technology and discover what there is to enjoy in life free of technology. Mae West is famous for proclaiming the wisdom that "too much of a good thing is wonderful." But it's time to discover that it does not work for technology.

Richard Fernandez an executive coach at Google acknowledged that "we can be swept away by our technologies." To break the grand digital connection people must consider how life long ago could be fantastic without today's overused technology.

1. What does the underlined word "allure" in Paragraph 2 probably mean?

A．Advantage.

B．Attraction.

C．Adaption.

D．Attempt.

2. What is the purpose of technology companies?

A．To attract people to buy their products.	B．To provide the latest information.
C．To improve people's quality of life.	D．To deal with cultural diseases.

3. What can we infer from the passage?

A．People will get sick when using technology.

B．People have realized the harm of high-tech devices.

C．People can regain freedom without high-tech devices.

D．People may enjoy life better without overused technology.

4. What's the author's attitude towards the overusing of high-tech devices?

A．Neutral.

B．Indifferent.

C．Disapproving.

D．Supportive.

3 . On average, primary school children in England have at least three sugary snacks a day, Public Health England (PHE) found. This means that the sugar they consume is three times more than the recommended maximum.

Children between the ages of 4 and 10 consume 51.2% of sugar from unhealthy snacks. PHE has launched a campaign, Change4Life, to encourage parents to look for healthier snacks of no more than 100 calories, and to limit them to two a day. The campaign advises parents to give their children a maximum of two snacks a day, with each containing no more than 100 calories. The campaign will also offer parents special suggestions on a range of healthier snacks—ones with 100 calories or fewer—at selected supermarkets, PHE said.

PHE said it had also improved its app so that it could mark the content of sugar, salt and fat in food and drinks. Dr Alison Tedstone told the BBC she hoped the campaign would help parents to choose healthier snacks for their children. “If you wander through a supermarket, you can see much more goods being sold as snacks than ever before,” she said, “It’s a common phenomenon that kids’ lunchboxes are full of snacks, leading to a lot of calories for lunch. Our research shows that parents usually appreciate a rule of thumb (经验法则). However, they are surprised to know how much sugar their children are consuming in snacks now.”

Justine Roberts, founder of Mumsnet, said, “The intake (摄入量) of sugar that kids are getting from snacks and sugary drinks alone is pretty astonishing, and it can often be difficult to distinguish which snacks are healthy and which are not. The rule of thumb from Change4Life can help parents make their decision correctly and wisely. ”

1. In terms of snacks, the Change4Life recommends that children have at most ________.

A．one snack a day	B．three snacks a day
C．100 calories a day	D．200 calories a day

2. What can PHE’s improved app help parents do?

A．Test the calories of snacks.

B．Choose delicious snacks.

C．Know the exact content in snacks.

D．Save much money buying snacks.

3. Which of the following can be inferred from Justine Roberts’ words?

A．Most parents’ former experience about snacks is practical.

B．It is easy to tell healthy snacks and unhealthy snacks apart.

C．Children only take in lots of sugar from snacks and drinks.

D．Change4Life is meaningful for parents’ decisions on snacks.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．Solve the Health Problems of Children

B．Change the Eating Habits of Children

C．Limit Children’s Intake of Calories

D．Ensure Children’s Healthy Lifestyle

4 . A study showed that the experiences children have in their first few years are important . These experiences affect the development of the brain. When children receive more attention, they often have higher IQs. Babies receive information when they see, hear and feel things, which makes connections between different parts of the brain. There are a hundred trillion(万亿)connections in the brain of a three-year-old child.

Researcher Judit Gervain tested how good newborns are at distinguishing different sound patterns. Her researchers produced images of the brains of babies as they heard different sound patterns. For example, one order was mu-ba-ba. This is the pattern"A-B-B". Another order was mu-ba-ge. This is the pattern “A-B-C”. The images showed that the part of the brain responsible for speech was more active during the" A-B-B"pattern. This shows that babies can tell the difference between different patterns. They also were sensitive to where it occurred in the order.

Gervain is excited by these findings because the order of sounds is the building block of words and grammar. "Position is key to language," she says. "If something is at the beginning or at the end, it makes a big difference: 'John caught the bear.' is very different from 'The bear caught John.'”

Researchers led by scientist Patricia Kuhl have found that language delivered by televisions, audio books, the Internet, or smartphones－no matter how educational－doesn’t appear to be enough for children’s brain development. They carried out a study of nine-month-old American babies. They expected the first group who’d watched videos in Chinese to show the same kind of learning as the second group who were brought face-to-face with the same sounds. Instead they found a huge difference. The babies in the second group were able to distinguish between similar Chinese sounds as well as native listeners. But the other babies －regardless of whether they had watched the video or listened to the audio－learned nothing.

1. What makes connections in a baby’s brain?

A．Having a higher IQ.	B．Experiencing new information.
C．The baby’s early age.	D．The connection with other babies.

2. What did Judit Gervain and her team find in the experiment?

A．Babies can identify different sound patterns.

B．Word order is relevant to meaning.

C．Babies can well understand different words.

D．A certain brain region processes language.

3. What does the underlined sentence mean in Paragraph 3?

A．Words have different sounds.

B．Different orders have different meanings.

C．Different languages have different grammar.

D．Grammar is important in learning languages.

4. What is the main conclusion from the study led by Patricia Kuhl?

A．Babies shouldn’t watch a lot of television.

B．Foreign languages help babies’ brain develop.

C．Listening to different languages develops babies’ brain.

D．Social communication improves babies’ brain development.

5 . As data and identity theft becomes more and more common, the market is growing for biometric(生物测量) technologies—like fingerprint scans—to keep others out of private e-spaces. At present, these technologies are still expensive, though.

Researchers from Georgia Tech say that they have come up with a low-cost device(装置) that gets around this problem: a smart keyboard. This smart keyboard precisely measures the cadence(节奏) with which one types and the pressure fingers apply to each key. The keyboard could offer a strong layer of security by analyzing things like the force of a user’s typing and the time between key presses. These patterns are unique to each person. Thus, the keyboard can determine people’s identities, and by extension, whether they should be given access to the computer it’s connected to—regardless of whether someone gets the password right.

It also doesn’t require a new type of technology that people aren’t already familiar with. Everybody uses a keyboard and everybody types differently.

In a study describing the technology, the researchers had 100 volunteers type the word “touch” four times using the smart keyboard. Data collected from the device could be used to recognize different participants based on how they typed, with very low error rates. The researchers say that the keyboard should be pretty straightforward to commercialize and is mostly made of inexpensive, plastic-like parts. The team hopes to make it to market in the near future.

1. Why do the researchers develop the smart keyboard?

A．To reduce pressure on keys.	B．To improve accuracy in typing.
C．To replace the password system.	D．To cut the cost of e-space protection.

2. What makes the invention of the smart keyboard possible?

A．Computers are much easier to operate.

B．Fingerprint scanning techniques develop fast.

C．Typing patterns vary from person to person.

D．Data security measures are guaranteed.

3. What do the researchers expect of the smart keyboard?

A．It’ll be environment-friendly.	B．It’ll reach consumers soon.
C．It’ll be made of plastics.	D．It’ll help speed up typing.

4. Where is this text most likely from?

A．A diary.

B．A guidebook

C．A novel.

D．A magazine.

6 . According to a study conducted in 2010, about 39 % companies had blocked employee access to Facebook. They think some employees spend their entire day sitting glued to Facebook, updating and commenting, which has a negative effect on their work.    1    Some reasons are listed why employees should be allowed access to Facebook.

    2    Employees may be working hard to find a particular solution, but cannot come up with anything. Browsing through Facebook can help them gel inspired to find solutions in a different way and be successful at it.

Blocking access to Facebook means that the employer doesn’t trust the employees. People are dissatisfied with the company if they’re not allowed access to Facebook.    3    Therefore, allowing access to Facebook means that the employees are given a certain amount of freedom.

Today many companies have pages on Facebook which they use for spreading news and something about products. If Facebook pages are blocked in an office, how will employees like or share something from the company page? Employees can also interact with each other through Facebook. It creates a sense of bonding and they get along well with each other.    4    Many talented professionals don’t like to join places where Facebook is blocked, and thus companies may lose talented employees.

As far as I’m concerned, whether an organization should ban Facebook depends largely on factors like its culture, type of work, Internet policy, business goals, etc. As far as the employees are concerned, most of them will be in support of allowing access to Facebook.    5    .

A．However, their banning isn’t widely accepted.

B．People hold different attitudes towards Facebook now.

C．People who have special skills are interested in Facebook.

D．Keeping in touch through it helps in improving their relations.

E．So the company should take the employees, interest into account.

F．In order to keep people active, essential that they are kept happy.

G．Firm, they think it’s necessary to take a break after working for hours.

7 . Birth order plays a vital role in deciding the characteristics of a child. And when it comes to the middle child, it certainly plays a huge role. The middle children go through some things only they can understand.     1    

Mostly, middle children have to share a room.     2     They need to share a room with an elder one because they're too young to sleep alone. And just when they think they'll finally have a room of their own, a voice is heard saying, “Dear, please share the room with your younger one, as he's too small to sleep alone.”

Middle children tend to share clothes with their siblings (兄弟姐妹). Their cupboard is full of hand­me­downs from their older sibling, and they need to wear his clothes.     3     They can always show off their elder sibling's clothes and things at school. Also, they get to pass their own clothes to their younger sibling.

    4     They're liked by both, because they can relate well to both generations. On one hand they can recall how much fun it was watching Garfield and Friends, and on the other hand they can talk about the latest video game released in the market.

Siblings' talking is one interesting thing about a middle child. They are not as boring as they appear.    5     Also, thanks to the divided attention at home, middle children are independent and need not rely on anyone.

A．Instead, they are very artistic and creative.

B．But this comes with its own advantage too.

C．Here are some things a middle child can relate to.

D．They rarely enjoy the experience of having their own room.

E．And the dream of having their own room is completely destroyed.

F．They're the problem solvers between their older and younger siblings.

G．As a middle kid, they are the bridge between their younger and older siblings.

8 . Since the first Earth Day in 1970, Americans have gotten a lot “greener” toward the environment. “We didn’t know at that time there even was an environment, let alone that there was a problem with it,” says Bruce Anderson, president of Earth Day USA.

But what began as nothing important in public affairs has grown into a social movement .Business people, political leaders, university professors, and especially millions of grass-roots Americans are taking part in the movement. “The understanding has increased many， many times,” says Gaylord Nelson, the former governor from Wisconsin, who thought up the first. According to US government reports, emissions (排放)from cars and trucks have dropped from 10.3 million tons a year to 5.5 tons .The number of cities producing CO beyond the standard has been reduced from 40 to 9. Although serious problems still remain and need to be dealt with, the world is a safer and healthier place. A kind of “Green thinking” has become part of practices.

Great improvement has been achieved. In 1988 there were only 600 recycling programs; today in 1995 there are about 6,600. Advanced lights, motors, and building designs have helped save a lot of energy and therefore prevented pollution.

Twenty –five years ago, there were hardly any education programs for environment. Today, it’s hard to find a public school, university, or law school that does not have such a kind of program. “Until we do that, nothing else will change!” says Bruce Anderson.

1. According to Anderson, before 1970, Americans had little idea about ___.

A．the social movement	B．recycling techniques
C．environmental problems	D．the importance of Earth Day

2. Where does the support for environmental protection mainly come from?

A．The grass –roots level.	B．The business circle.
C．Government officials.	D．University professors.

3. What have Americans achieved in environmental protection?

A．They have cut car emissions to the lowest.

B．They have settled their environmental problems.

C．They have lowered their CO levels in forty cities.

D．They have reduced pollution through effective measures.

4. What is especially important for environmental protection according to the last paragraph?

A．Education.	B．Planning
C．Green living	D．CO reduction