单选题Travel Across Africa 1 For six hours we shot through the barren(荒芜的)landscape of the Karoo desert in South Africa. Just rocks and sand and baking sun. Knowing our journey was ending, Daniel and I just wanted to remember all we had seen and done. He used a camera. I used words. I had already finished three notebooks and was into the fourth, a beautiful leather notebook I'd bought in a market in Mozambique. 2 Southern Africa was full of stories. And visions. We were almost drunk on sensations. The roaring(咆哮)of the water at Victoria Falls, the impossible silence of the Okavango Delta in Botswana. 3 And then the other things: dogs in the streets, whole families in Soweto living in one room a kilometre from clean water. 4 As we drove towards the setting sun, a quietness fell over us. The road was empty—we hadn' t seen another car for hours. And as I drove, something caught my eye, something moving close enough to touch them, to smell their hot breath. I didn't know how long they had been there next to us. 5 I shouted to Dan : "Look !" but he was in a deep sleep, his camera lying useless by his feet. They raced the car for a few seconds, then disappeared far behind us, a memory of heroic forms in the red landscape. 6 When Daniel woke up an hour later I told him what had happened. 7 "Wild horses?" he said. "Why didn't you wake me up, Sophia?" 8 "I tried. But they were gone after a few seconds. " 9 "Are you sure you didn't dream it'?" 10 "You were the one who was sleeping!" 11 "Typical , "he said. "The best photos are the ones we never take. " 12 We checked into a dusty hotel and slept the sleep of the dead.

单选题阅读下面的短文，文中有15处空白，每处空白给出了4个选项，请根据短文的内容从4个选项中选择1个最佳答案。 {{B}} Pretty Good{{/B}} When Spanish football club Barcelona paid US$35 million for Ronaldinho last summer, they weren't buying a pretty face. "I am {{U}}(51) {{/U}}," admits the Brazilian superstar. "But everyone has got a different kind of beauty. What I {{U}}(52) {{/U}} have is charm." Indeed he has. His buck teeth, flowing hair, big smile, and of course his {{U}}(53) {{/U}} skills are always eye-catching on the pitch. The 23-year-old striker scored two goals in a 3-2 win over Deportivo La Coruna on March 1. It was BarCelona's sixth win in a row and, thanks to their Brazilian's 10-goal contribution, {{U}}(54) {{/U}} looked like a poor season could now end a success. Ronaldinho - full name Ronatdo De Assis Moreira - is one of many South Americans who learned their skills playing in the backstreets before {{U}}(55) {{/U}} them off on the world stage. Great things were {{U}}(56) {{/U}} when Gremio signed him as a seven-year-old, and he soon became friends with Ronaldo, who was then the other young star of Brazilian football. It was Ronaldo who first called him Ronaldinho, which {{U}}(57) {{/U}} Little Ronaldo, and the name stuck. He first {{U}}(58) {{/U}} for his country in 1999 but it was at the 2002 World Cup where he showed his real worth, scoring an unbelievable free-kick in Brazil's quarter-final victory {{U}}(59) {{/U}} England. "I have never failed to deliver in big matches," Ronaldinho says. "My game is based on {{U}}(60) {{/U}} . Often a forward does not have the time to decide whether to shoot or pass. It is instinct that gives out the orders." While he may not have David Beckham's good looks, Ronaldinho has a {{U}}(61) {{/U}} reputation off the pitch. At former club Paris Saint Germain, which sold him to Barcelona, he broke {{U}}(62) {{/U}} rules by going out and enjoying the city's nightlife. "Without doubt, Ronaldinho is the most {{U}}(63) {{/U}} player I have ever come across," says former PSG coach Luis Ferdandez. "The main {{U}}(64) {{/U}} for any coach is that one player without discipline can hurt the whole team." But Ronaldinho doesn't think he has done anything wrong. "I am just a young person who enjoys {{U}}(65) {{/U}}," he says.

单选题Come out, or I"ll bust the door down.

单选题The concert was called off due to the storm.

单选题If you consider this problem {{U}}in terms of{{/U}} others' interest, you may change your view. A. because of B. with C. due to D. according to

单选题Some Things We Know about Language Many things about language are a mystery, and many will always remain so. But some things we do know. First, we know that all human beings have a language of some sort. There is no race of men anywhere on earth so backward that it has no language, no set of speech sounds by which the people communicate with one another. Furthermore, in historical times, there has never been a race of men without a language. Second, there is no such thing as a primitive language. There are many people whose cultures are undeveloped, who are, as we say, uncivilized, but the languages they speak are not primitive. In all known languages we can see complexities that must have been tens of thousands of years in developing. This has not always been well understood; indeed, the direct contrary has often been stated. Popular ideas of the language of the American Indians will illustrate. Many people have supposed that the Indians communicated in a very primitive system of noises. Study has proved this to be nonsense. There are, or were, hundreds of American Indian languages, and all of them turn out to be very complicated and very old. They are certainly different from the languages that most of us are familiar with, but they are no more primitive than English and Greek. A third thing we know about language is that all languages are perfectly adequate. That is, each one is a perfect means of expressing the culture of the people who speak the language. Finally, we know that language changes. It is natural and normal for language to change; the only languages which do not change are the dead ones. This is easy to understand if we look backward in time. Change goes on in all aspects of language. Grammatical features change as do speech sounds, and changes in vocabulary are sometimes very extensive and may occur very rapidly. Vocabulary is the least stable part of any language.

单选题The city centre was wiped out by the bomb.

单选题The company has the right to {{U}}end{{/U}} his employment at any time．

单选题As a politician, he knows how to manipulate public opinion.

单选题The Spanish Flu Epidemic If you"re worried about the possibility of a coming bird flu epidemic, you can take comfort in the fact that humanity has survived a similar influenza epidemic in the past. Starting its rounds at the end of World War I, the 1918 flu killed an estimated 50 million people. Popularly known as the Spanish Flu, this type of influenza was far worse than your common cold. Normally, influenza only kills those who are more vulnerable to disease, such as newborns, the old or the sick. However, the Spanish Flu was prone to killing the young and healthy. Often it would disable its victims in hours; within a day, they would be dead, typically from extreme cases of pneumonia (肺炎). The Spanish Flu was quite nasty-fast-spreading and deadly. It managed to spread across the globe, devastating the world. Then suddenly, after two years ravaging (蹂躏) the earth, it disappeared as quickly as it had arisen. Despite its nickname, the Spanish Flu did not originate in Spain. Its true origins are unknown. Some believe it started in US first and then spread to Europe as America joined the war; others think that it populated the trenches of the English and the French and eventually broke out in 1918. Regardless of where it started, eventually a fifth of the world population suffered the disease, with a global mortality rate (死亡率) estimated at 2.5% of the population. Modernity was partly to blame for the quick spread of the disease. It passed throughout the world on trade routes and shipping lines. It hit Northern America, Europe, Asia, Africa and the South Pacific. The war did not help at all-the movement of supplies and troops aided the spread of the Spanish Flu, as well as the trench warfare. Imagine the speed at which a virus can spread in a crowded ditch. The fast emergence of the virus in the trenches caused some soldiers to believe that the Spanish Flu was a new form of biological warfare. Luckily, the Spanish Flu simply vanished by 1920. It is believed the flu simply ran out of fuel to spread.

单选题At last John Smith chose to {{U}}step down{{/U}} as the company's chief executive and return to hisroots in software research. A. resign B. remove C. retire D. replace

单选题In short , I am going to live there myself.

单选题Zoo How could we possibly think that keeping animals in cages in unnatural environments—mostly for entertainment purposes is fair and respectful? Zoo officials say they are concerned about animals. However, most zoos remain "collections" of interesting "things" rather than protective habitats (栖息地). Zoos teach people that it is acceptable to keep animals bored, lonely, and far from their natural homes. Zoos claim (声称)to educate people and save endangered species(物种), but visitors leave zoos without having learned anything meaningful about the animals" natural behavior, intelligence, or beauty. Zoos keep animals in small spaces or cages, and most signs only mention the species" name, diet, and natural range (分布区). The animals" normal behavior is seldom noticed because zoos don"t usually take care of the animals" natural needs. The animals are kept together in small spaces, with no privacy and little opportunity for mental and physical exercise. This results in unusual and self-destructive behavior called zoochosis. A worldwide study of zoos found that zoochosis is common among animals kept in small spaces or cages. Another study showed that elephants spend 22 percent of their time making repeated head movements or biting cage bars, and bears spend 30 percent of their time walking back and forth, a sign of unhappiness and pain. Furthermore, most animals in zoos are not endangered. Captive breeding(圈养繁殖) of endangered big cats, Asian elephants, and other species has not resulted in their being sent back to the wild. Zoos talk a lot about their captive breeding programs because they do not want people to worry about a species dying out. In fact, baby animals also attract a lot of paying customers. Haven"t we seen enough competitions to name baby animals? Actually, we will save endangered species only if we save their habitats and put an end to the reasons people kill them. Instead of supporting zoos, we should support groups that work to protect animals" natural habitats.

单选题The police had to restrain the prisoners from escaping.

单选题Bees and Colour On our table in the garden we put a blue card, and all around this blue card we put a number of different grey cards. These grey cards are of all possible shades of grey and include white and black. On each card a watch-glass is placed. The watch-glass on the blue card has some syrup(果汁) in it, all the others are empty. After a short time bees find the syrup, and they come for it again and again. Then, after some hours, we take away the watch-glass of syrup which was on the blue card and put an empty one in its place. Now What do the bees do? They still go straight to the blue card, although there is no syrup there. They do not go to any of the grey cards, in spite of the fact that one of the grey cards is of exactly the same brightness as the blue card. Thus the bees do not mistake any shade of grey for blue. In this way we have proved that they do really see blue as a colour. We can find out in just the same way what other colours bees can see. It turns out that bees can see various colours, but these insects differ from us as regards their colour-sense in two very interesting ways. Suppose we train bees to come to a red card, and, having done so, we put the red card on the table in the garden among the set of different grey cards. This time we find that the bees mistake red for clark grey or black. They cannot distinguish between them. This means that red is not a colour at all for bees; for them it is just dark grey or black. That is one strange fact; here is another. A rainbow is red on one edge, violet on the other. Outside the violet of the rainbow there is another colour which we cannot see at all. This colour beyond the violet, invisible to us, is called the ultra-violet. Although it is invisible, we know that the ultra-violet is there because it affects a photographic plate. Now, although we are unable to see ultra-violet light, bees can do so; for them ultra-violet is a colour. Thus bees see a colour which we cannot even imagine. This has been found out by training bees to come for syrup to various parts of a spectrum, or artificial rainbow, thrown by a prism on a table in a dark room. In such an experiment the insects can be taught to fly to the ultra-violet, which for us is just darkness.

单选题Sport or Spectacle? Muhammad Ali is probably the most famous sports figure on earth: he is recognized on every continent and by all generations. The 1 of his illness as Parkinson"s disease after his retirement fuelled the debate about the dangers of boxing and criticism 2 the sport. That, plus his outspoken opposition 3 women"s boxing, made people wonder how he would react when one of his daughters decided to 4 up the sport. His presence at Leila"s first professional fight, however, seemed to broadcast a father"s support. Of course Muhammad All wanted to 5 his daughter fight. The ring announcer introduced him as the "the greatest" and as he sat down at the ringside the crowd chanted. Twenty-one-year-old Leila"s debut fight (首次亮相) was a huge success and there was as much publicity for the 6 as her father"s fights once attracted. 7 , Leila"s opponent was much weaker than she was and the fight lasted just 31 seconds. Since then, Laila has won most of her fights by knocking out her opponent. "She knows 8 she"s doing," said one referee about her, "She knows about moving well, You can see some of her dad"s moves." Laila Ali would rather not 9 herself to her father. She prefers to make her own 10 . Her father supports her decision to enter the sport but he has not spared her the details of what can happen. Laila 11 that her father wants her to understand the worst possible scenario (局面) to see 12 she still wants to go forward with it. She knows she"s going to get hit hard at times, that she may get a broken nose or a swollen (肿胀的) face, but at least she is prepared for it. Laila"s decision to start boxing despite her father"s 13 with the symptoms of Parkinson"s disease has of course sparked a mixture of praise and 14 . But Laila is a determined individual and it is her famous last name that has made her a magnet for worldwide media attention. Of course, the 15 on the boxing scene of a woman with her family history attracts even more questions about whether women"s boxing is sport or spectacle.

单选题But decent , affordable accommodation for new city residents is thin on the ground.

单选题A red flag was placed there as a token of danger.

单选题According to the passage, which of the following has changed the most in the last 500 years?

单选题{{B}}第二篇{{/B}} Dancing in the Streets If there is one thing certain to get Brazilians on their feet, it is the Rio Carnival (狂欢节). Held in Rio de Janeiro, the country's biggest city, the carnival began on February 20 when the mayor gave key of the city to Rei Momo—the Lord of Misrule (无序之皇). On his orders, each year people turn the city into a paradise of dance and music. The following six days are so fun of parades, street dancing, fantastic clothes and partying (聚会) that many people forget about eating and sleeping. "It was the passion of the carnival that attracted me to Brazil and made me settle down in Rio. " said Bob Nadkami, a British man who has lived in the city for several years. For many Brazilians, the centerpiece of the carnival is samba (桑巴舞), a typical Brazilian dance. Every year, tens of thousands of visitors and locals show off their passion and energy in the streets, following the beat (节拍) of the Latin music. The climax to this street party is the float (彩车) parade, in which floats decorated with tons of fresh flowers by various samba schools and local communities move through the city. On the top of each float stands the candidate for the Drum Queen, who is chosen at the end of the party. While most people are free to enjoy the celebrations, Rio's police officers have to keep a clear head. Following the murder of three officers in a gunfight early last week, the Brazilian Government has tightened security in Rio. The street fighting, robbery and sex crimes that accompany the carnival are very difficult to police. Carnivals began in ancient Rome as a celebration at which people fed wild wolves, in honor of the city's founder who was said to have been raised by a she-wolf. Brazil gave new life to this tradition and so despite the troubles, the carnival will remain a symbol of the country's culture.