A year ago, at the annual pre-Grammy party, Whitney Houston, the great star, walked on stage and closed the evening with a brilliant performance．

Last Saturday, Houston was once again the focus before the Grammy, but her presence was a regrettable one．Earlier that day, the pop music's former queen was found dead in her hotel room．She was 48．This, no doubt, is sad news to the whole music industry and her fans all over the world．

At her peak, Houston was the golden girl of the music world．From the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, she was one of the world's best-selling artists．She impressed audiences with her effortless, powerful and peerless performance．

Besides multi-million record sales, Houston made countless hits such as The Greatest Love of All, I Ha-oe Nothing , and the mostly famous I Will Always Love You．She also influenced a generation of younger singers, from Christina Aguilera to Mariah Carey．

       But by the end of her career, there was a shocking fall for this superstar．Houston had been addicted to drugs．Her album sales declined and the hits stopped coming and her once beautiful voice became hoarse （嘶哑的）, unable to hit the high notes as she used to．

In 2009, Houston staged a successful comeback with the album I Look To You, which fell on top of the charts．But hoarse voice, canceled concerts, and continuous illness-Houston's comeback trail wasn't smooth at all．In an interview with Oprah Winfreyin2009, Houston admitted: "It （show business） is too much for me and I wanted out．"

       Now that Houston has finally taken a break from all the chaos, may she rest in peace．

64．Whitney Houston died ______．

       A．shortly before the Grammy this year     B．earlier last Sunday

       C．a year ago                        D．at the annual pre-Grammy party

65．The underlined word "peerless" in Paragraph 3 most probably means ______．

       A．having great power                   B．having no equal

       C．requiring no effort                   D．leaving no impression

66．The cause of the fall of Whitney Houston was that _____ ．

       A．her album sales declined

       B．show business was too much for her

       C．her once beautiful voice became hoarse

       D．she had been addicted to drugs

67．Whitney Houston's achievements include the following except that     .

       A．She made countless hits such as I Have Nothing

       B．She influenced a generation of younger singers

       C．She became the focus before the Grammy this year

       D．She staged a successful comeback in 2009

第二节 完形填空（共20小题；每小题1分，满分20分）

请认真阅读下面短文，从短文后各题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

What is it about maths, anyway? Why is it that a ___36___ who would rather die than ___37___ they found reading difficult at school will happily say he is brain-dead when it ___38___ to numbers?

“I was ___39___ at maths at school,” they say. “still am. Can’t ___40___ up to save my life. My little girl takes after____41___. Thinks take-aways are something to do with fish and chips. Ha-ha!” Oh, how we all laugh.

But how many of us remember it being ___42___ at the time? How many of us remember the blind panic of the Monday morning maths test when the ___43___ we could hope for was a miracle(奇迹) to make the numbers we ___44___ without thinking as answers somehow ___45___ the questions?

On the face of it, today’s children can ___46___ be considered happier and more satisfied. They have a daily numeracy lesson ___47___ to improving their maths skills. But if that sounds like hell to you, you may ___48__ find that your child surprises you by actually quite ___49__ it.

One of the __50___ is that over the last ten years or so, there has been a ___51___ in the way maths is taught. And many of those who teach it feel it’s been a ___52__ for the better. There’s generally much more emphasis now on __53___ arithmetic, getting children used to doing calculations without forever having a pen in one hand and a calculator in the other. Often the first question a teacher will ask is: can you do this in your___54___? And if they can, they do.

The whole approach is more___55___, the goal to get children understanding numbers, not just putting them through the uninteresting process of learning something by repeating it until they remember it.

36     A.     teacher    B.     parent      C.     pupil          D.     teenager

37     A.     understand      B.     admit        C.     observe    D.     pretend

38     A.     add  B.     relate       C.     comes      D.     reject

39     A.     good         B.     expert      C.     special      D.     rubbish

40     A.     add  B.     make        C.     look  D.     pick

41     A.     stranger  B.     me   C.     herself      D.     somebody

42     A.     funny        B.     easy C.     attractive         D.     remote

43     A.     worst        B.     prize         C.     best D.     surprising

44     A.     missed     B.     lost  C.     found        D.     chose

45     A.     get   B.     foresee    C.     fit     D.     evaluate

46     A.     however  B.     frequently         C.     mostly      D.     hardly

47     A.     suggested        B.     devoted   C.     intended  D.     adapted

48     A.     well  B.     sometimes       C.     seldom     D.     extremely

49     A.     enjoying   B.     hating       C.     objecting D.     mastering

50     A.     consequences B.     reasons    C.     findings    D.     incidents

51     A.     mistake    B.     program  C.     policy        D.     revolution

52     A.     preparation      B.     reputation        C.     requirement    D.     change

53     A.     difficult     B.     general    C.     mental     D.     basic

54     A.     class         B.     head         C.     textbook  D.     own

55     A.     logical       B.     unbelievable    C.     direct        D.     conservative

It was a beautiful day at the beach—blue sky, gentle wind, calm sea．I knew these things because a man sitting five feet from me was shouting them into his mobile phone, like a play-by-play announcer （实况解说员）.

“IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY,” he shouted．“THE SKY IS BLUE, AND THERE’S A GENTLE WIND, AND THE WATER IS CALM, AND…”

Behind me, a woman, her mobile phone pressed to her ear was walking back and forth.

“She DIDN’T,” she was saying．“No．She DIDN’T．She DID? Really? Are you SERIOUS? She did NOT．She DID? No she…”

And so on．This woman had two children, who were playing in the sea．I found myself watching them, because the woman surely was not．A huge squid could have caught and snatched the children, and this woman would not have noticed．Or, if she had noticed, she’d have said, “Listen．I have to go, because a huge squid just……No! She didn’t ! She DID? No! She……”

And next to me, the play-by-play man would have said: “…AND A HUGE SQUID JUST ATE TWO CHILDREN, AND I’M GETTING A LITTLE SUNBURNED, AND …”

It used to be that the major trouble at the beach was the fellow who brought a boom box （便携式录音机） and turned it up so loud that the bass notes caused seagulls to explode．But at least you knew where these fellows were; you never know which beachgoers have mobile phones．You’ll settle next to what appears to be a sleeping sunbather, or even （you hope） a corpse , and you’ll lie happily on your towel, and you’ll get all the way to the second sentence of your 467-page book before you fall asleep to the hypnotic surge of the surf （催人入梦的潮声）, and …

BREEP! BREEP! The corpse sits up, feels urgently for its mobile phone, and shouts “Hello! I’m at the beach! Yes! It’s nice! Very peaceful! What? She did? No, she didn’t! She DID? No, she…”

Loud mobile-phoners never seem to get urgent calls．Just once, I’d like to hear one of them say, “Hello? Yes, this is Dr．Johnson．Oh, Dr．Smith．You’ve opened the abdominal cavity （腹腔）? Good! Now the appendix should be right under the … What? No, that’s the liver．Don’t take THAT out, ha ha! Oh, you did? My God! OK, now listen carefully…”

1.From the passage we can know that the writer of the passage _____.

2.According to the passage, which of the following is NOT true?

3.The underlined word“ corpse”in this passage has the closest meaning to________.

4.In the past the fellow who brought a boom box_________.

5.We can infer from the passage that _______.