About a century ago more people would not have appreciated the study of a foreign language

For example, it is recorded in many history books the people who lived over three thousand years ago ate salted fish. Thousands of years ago in Egypt, salt was used to preserve the dead.

In some periods of history, a person who stole salt was thought to have broken the law. Take the eighteenth century for an example, if a person was caught stealing salt, he would be thrown into prison. History also records that only in England about ten thousand people were put into prison during that century for stealing salt! About one hundred and fifty years ago, in the year 1553, if a man took more than his share of salt, he would be thought to have broken the law and would be seriously punished. The offender' s ear was cut off.

Salt was an important item on the dinner table of a king. It was always placed in front of the king when he sat down to eat. Important guests at the king' s table were seated near the salt. Less important guests were given seats farther away from it.

Thousands of years ago in Egypt, salt was used ______.

A．to punish people who had broken the law

B．to keep dead bodies from decay

C．to keep fish alive

D．to make chemicals

Bad news for bankers

There was great uncertainty today about the future for employees of Lancet Bank following publication of (29) ...company's yearly financial results. Losses reached ￡8.5m, (30) ... this year's financial figures the worst (31) ... almost 20 years. Lancet Bank, (32) .,. was founded over a century ago (33) ...Jamie McCIoud, currently employs more (34) ... 5,000 staff at 200 branches, mainly in Wales and the north of England. Many people believe stories that the bank is planning to close most of (35) ... branches in Wales. However, the bank has refused to comment on (36) ... rumours. Gary Tooley, a spokesman for Lancet, warned that (37) ... some redundancies would be unavoidable, he could give no further details (38) ... September at the earliest. Union officials are currently involved. (39) ... talks with management and are trying to find an acceptable solution for (40) ... parties.

(29)

A．the

B．a

C．any

First, sometimes early scientists have an idea which is correct, but scientists in later centuries do not believe it. For example, about 270 B. C., a Greek scientist had an idea which we all believe today: The earth moves around the sun. But for the following 1,600 years scientists did not believe this. In their opinion, the sun clearly moved around the earth. They discovered the truth again only in the fifteenth century!

The second fact of history that many people forget is this: Ancient does not mean primitive. For example, the ancient Egyptians knew a great deal about the stars; they used this knowledge to find their way across the oceans. Two thousand years ago a Greek scientist who lived in Egypt calculated the distance around the earth. The results of his calculations were close to the real distance we know today! So the ancients had a great deal of scientific knowledge. They also had skills which equaled the skills of to- day. For example, 1,300 years ago and before, fishermen in Ireland built their boats of wood and leather. Today some fishermen in Ireland still make boats of the same de- sign. They use tools and materials which are not very different from the tools and materitals which their ancestors used. Why？ The ancient design of the boats was good, and with skillful sailors, these boats can sail in all kinds of weather.

Clearly long before the sixteenth century, people had the skill, the knowledge and the equipment which were necessary for long journeys by sea. The world did not have to wait until the sixteenth century for its first explorers!

Which of the following statements is consistent with the passage？

A．According to the writer, we only began to really explore the world in the sixteenth century.

B．In the history of science, people sometimes have to discover a fact a second time.

C．The ancient Egyptians had very little knowledge about the stars.

D．The writer agrees with many Americans and Europeans except for the two facts mentioned in the passage.

Compared with the eastern part of the country,the unsettled frontier land and life were ()

A、more civilized and interesting

B、dull and primitive

C、rugged and unbearable

D、rough and primitive

High in the Swiss Alps many years ago, there lived a lonely shepherd(牧羊人)boy who longed for a friend to share his evenings.One night he saw three old men, each holding a glass.

The first old man said：“Drink this liquid and you shall be victorious in battle.”

The second old man said：“Drink this liquid and you shall have countless riches.”

The last old man said：“I offer you the happiness of floated across the valley. He had found a friend.

So goes the legend(传说) of the horn. First known in the ninth century, the horn was used by herdsmen to call cattle, for its deep tones echoed across the mountainsides. Even today, on a quiet summer evening, its music can be heard floating among the peaks.

6.The passage tells us his lonely job about the shepherd boy.

A.T

B.F

7.The boy choose to drink the glass offered by the last old man because the boy was thirsty.

A.T

B.F

8.After the shepherd boy found the horn, he discovered it was like a new-found friend.

A.T

B.F

9.Today the horn is heard in the Swiss Alps when it rains.

A.T

B.F

10.The Legend of the Horn would be the best title for the passage.

A.T

B.F

(判断)AIDS, fifty years ago, didn’t exist.Fifteen years ago a few doctors and public health officials noticed the first cases.Within a few years it was clear that it has now killed almost 14 million people around the world.

Four years ago doctors came up with the first treatment to make a dent in the spiraling death rate.Today that treatment works for some patients, but it’s not clear how long results will last.And still there is no cure.

For the nearly 35 million people around the world now living with HIV, there may never be a cure.Once cells are infected with HIV, it is very difficult — perhaps impossible ―to rid them of the virus.The only sure way to stop AIDS is to prevent infection in the first place, and only a vaccine can do that.

Unfortunately HIV is one of the most changeable viruses known to science.After more than a dozen years, it is still rather difficult to produce effective vaccine.

Still the billions of dollars spent on AIDS research over the past 20 years has not been wasted.As scientists learn more about how HIV survives in the human body, they are realizing that drugs alone may not be enough.To contain the virus effectively, it may take a balance between drug treatments that can keep HIV levels low and a strengthened immune system that can then target and destroy the remaining virus.Until scientists find a vaccine, however, they may control but never cure the century’s final scourge.

46.AIDS didn’t exist fifteen years ago.

47.Scientists have found a vaccine which can prevent HIV infection.

48.Although some treatment works for some patients with HIV, there is still no cure.

49.HIV is a changeable virus so that it is very difficult to produce effective vaccine.

50.We have wasted billions of dollars on AIDS research.

Voices have been raised in protest since the beginning, rising in pitch and violence in the nineteenth century during the early stages of the industrial revolution, summoning urgent crowds into the streets any day on the issue of nuclear energy. The principal discoveries in this century, all in all, are the glimpses of the depth of our ignorance about nature. Things that used to seem clear and rational, matters of absolute certainty—Newtonian mechanics, for example—have slipped through our fingers, and we are left with a new set of gigantic puzzles, cosmic uncertainties, ambiguities; some of the laws of physics are amended every few years, some are canceled outright, some undergo revised versions of legislative intent as if they were acts of Congress.

Just thirty years ago we call it a biological revolution when the fantastic geometry of the DNA molecule was exposed to public view and the linear language of genetics was decoded. For a while, things seemed simple and clear, the cell was a neat little machine, a mechanical device ready for taking to pieces and reassembling, like a tiny watch. But just in the last few years it has become almost unbelievably complex, filled with strange parts whose functions are beyond today's imagining.

It is not just that there is more to do; there is everything to do. What lies ahead, or what can lie ahead if the efforts in basic research are continued, is much more than the conquest of human disease or the improvement of agricultural technology or the cultivation of nutrients in the sea. As we learn more about fundamental processes of living things in general we will learn more about ourselves.

What CAN'T be inferred from the 1st paragraph？

A．Scientific experiments in the past three hundred years have produced many valuable items.

B．For three hundred years there have been people holding hostile attitude toward science.

C．For centuries scientific discoveries have been hailed by the human world unanimously.

D．Three hundred years is not long enough to settle back for critical appraisal of the scientific method.

record of the weather even further back.

It's clear that a tree would grow best in a climate with lots of sunlight and rainfall. It is also expected that little sunlight or rainfall would limit the growth of a tree. The change from a favorable (有利的) to an unfavorable climate can be reading the tree rings in tree trunk. To find out the weather of ten years ago，count the rings of a tree trunk from the outside to the inside. If the tenth ring is far from the other rings，then we are sure that lots of sunny and rainy weather happened. If the rings are close together，then the climate was bad for the tree.

Studying tree rings is important not only for the history of the weather，but also for the history of man. In a place of New Mexico you can find only sand-no trees and no people. However，many centuries ago a lot of people lived there. They left suddenly. Why？

A scientist studied the dead tree rings which had grown there. He decided that the people had to leave because they had cut down all the trees. Trees were used to make fires and buildings. So, after the people cut down the trees，they had to move.

(1)、It is understood that in a favorable climate tree rings grow far from each other.

A：T

B：F

(2)、Trees brought lots of sunlight and rainfall.

A：T

B：F

(3)、The scientists are interested in studying tree rings because they can tell whether the climate was favorable or not.

A：T

B：F

(4)、Studying dead tree rings shows how the people left.

A：T

B：F

(5)、The people had to leave the place of New Mexico because they had cut down all the trees.

A：T

B：F

The World of the Flat-footed Fly

George Poinar has been fascinated by amber, and the insects embedded in it, since childhood. Now a professor of entomology at the Berkeley Campus of the University of California, he has successfully combined these interests to produce Life in Amber, a scholarly and yet very readable book. In it he tells the story of this curious, almost magical substance and the unique record of fossilized life that became trapped and entombed in the sticky resin as it oozed from the forest trees of the ancient past.

Amber has been endowed with special worth from prehistoric times, Adornments of amber have been found that date back as far as 35,000 BC, and in 1701, King Frederick I of Prussia commissioned an entire room made of amber as a gift for Peter the Great of Russia. Historically that probably represented the peak of value for amber. Since then our appreciation of it as a decorative material worth its weight in gold has declined somewhat. In Victorian times amber beads had something of a renaissance as an adornment. It now holds greater value as a potential store of fossil DNA.

Scientific interest in amber has also fluctuated. The embedded small organisms, particularly insects but also frogs and feathers, have always been part of amber's allure. In the first century AD, Pliny noted that amber was the discharge of a pine-like tree, originated in the north and often contained small insects. It was not until the 19th century that collection of the amber flora and fauna really got under way. The largest hoard was of Baltic origin, amassed by Wilhelm Stantien, an innkeeper, and Moritz Becker, a merchant. They took their collecting seriously and used mining techniques to extract pieces of amber from clays of Tertiary age that had formed during the Eocene, 38 million years ago, in the Samland peninsula, near Kaliningrad (the former Kbnigsberg) on the Russian Baltic seaboard. Their efforts resulted in about 120,000 amber-embedded animal and plant fossils. These were housed in the Geological Institute Museum at Kbnigsberg University. Unfortunately, despite being dispersed for safety during the Second World War much of this amazing collection was lost.

Although the depth of this unique view of the insect life in Baltic forests of Eocene age is sadly no longer available in a single collection, we can see something of it. There are still large collections of Baltic amber in public museums around the world but even in total they do not amount to much more than that one unrepeatable collection. The Natural History Museum in London has a "mere" 25,000 specimens.

Popular misconceptions about amber exist; for example, suggesting that it is the fossilized resin of coniferous trees from the Baltic region, and that its abundance is the result of some unusual condition of these ancient trees. It is true that an astonishing amount of amber has been recovered from this region. However, the most likely candidate to have produced the Baltic amber is an araucariacean tree similar to the living Agathis from New Zealand, which secretes resin. This could well accumulate in this order of magnitude, given the geological time scale of hundreds of thousands, if not million of years. And, as Poinar discusses, the Baltic region was only one of many different areas, on a worldwide scale, from the Dominican Republic, which is his own favourite hunting ground, to China and Romania, that produced amber in Tertiary times. Furthermore, amber resin producing trees are shown to have an extended geological history extending back to Cretaceous times, more than 100 million years ago and possibly as far back as the Carboniferous (more than 300 million years ago ). Many of these older ambers have not been rigorously investigated with modem techniques but Poinar has collected all the available published knowledge on their biological content.

&n

A．Y

B．N

C．NG

The first real steps took place in France, in 1783.Two brothers, the Montgolfiers, made a very large “hot air balloon”.They knew that hot air rises.Why not fill a balloon with it？The balloon was made of cloth and paper.In September of that year，the King and Queen of France came to see the balloon.They watched it carry the very first air passengers into the sky.The passengers were a sheep and a chicken.We do not know how they felt about the trip.But we do know that the trip lasted eight minutes and that the animals landed safely.Two months later，two men did the same thing.They rose above Paris in a balloon of the same kind.Their trip lasted twenty-five minutes and they travelled about eight kilometers.

26.Leonardo da Vinci ______ .

A.said that man would fly in the sky one day

B.built a kind of machine which never flew

C.drew many beautiful pictures of birds

D.made designs for flying machine

27.Eight hundred years ago an Englishman ______ .

A.made a kind of flying machine

B.tried to fly with wings made of chicken feather

C.wanted to build a kind of balloon

D.tried to fly on a large bird

28.In fact，the Englishman who tried to fly ______ .

A.lost his life

B.flew only 8minutes

C.got badly wounded

D.succeeded in flying

29.The very first air passengers in the balloon were ______.

A.two animals

B.two Frenchmen

C.the King and the Queen

D.the Montgolfiers

30.When did two Frenchmen rise above Paris？______

A.In December 1783.

B.In September 1783.

C.In November 1783.

D.In the seventeenth century.