love charity(慈善) shops and so do lots of other people in Britain because you find quite a few of them on every high street. The charity shop is a British institution, selling everything from clothes to electric goods, all at very good prices. You can get things you won’t find in the shops anymore. The thing I like best about them is that your money is going to a good cause and not into the pockets of profit-driven companies, and you are not damaging the planet, but finding a new home for unwanted goods.

The first charity shop was opened in 1947 by Oxfam. The famous charity’s appeal to aid postwar Greece had been so successful it had been flooded with donations(捐赠物). They decided to set up a shop to sell some of these donations to raise money for that appeal. Now there are over 7,000 charity shops in the UK. My favourite charity shop in my hometown is the Red Cross shop, where I always find children’s books, all 10 or 20 pence each.

Most of the people working in the charity shops are volunteers, although there is often a manager who gets paid. Over 90% of the goods in the charity shops are donated by the public. Every morning you see bags of unwanted items outside the front of shops, although they don’t encourage this, rather ask people to bring things in when the shop is open.

The shops have very low running costs: all profits go to charity work. Charity shops raise more than ￡110 million a year, funding（资助）medical research, overseas aid, supporting sick and poor children, homeless and disabled people, and much more. What better place to spend your money? You get something special for a very good price and a good moral sense. You provide funds to a good cause and tread lightly on the environment. （08天津卷）

The author loves the charity shop mainly because of _______.

   A. its convenient location

   B. its great variety of goods

   C. its spirit of goodwill

   D. its nice shopping environment

The first charity shop in the UK was set up to ____.

   A. sell cheap products

   B. deal with unwanted things

   C. raise money for patients

   D. help a foreign country

Which of the following is TRUE about charity shops?

   A. The operating costs are very low.

   B. The staff are usually well paid.

   C. 90% of the donations are second-hand.

   D. They are open twenty-four hours a day.

Which of the following may be the best title for the passage?

   A. What to Buy a Charity Shops.

   B. Charity Shop: Its Origin & Development.

   C. Charity Shop: Where You Buy to Donate.

   D. The Public’s Concern about Charity Shops.

love charity(慈善) shops and so do lots of other people in Britain because you find quite a few of them on every high street. The charity shop is a British institution, selling everything from clothes to electric goods, all at very good prices. You can get things you won’t find in the shops anymore. The thing I like best about them is that your money is going to a good cause and not into the pockets of profit-driven companies, and you are not damaging the planet, but finding a new home for unwanted goods.
The first charity shop was opened in 1947 by Oxfam. The famous charity’s appeal to aid postwar Greece had been so successful it had been flooded with donations(捐赠物). They decided to set up a shop to sell some of these donations to raise money for that appeal. Now there are over 7,000 charity shops in the UK. My favourite charity shop in my hometown is the Red Cross shop, where I always find children’s books, all 10 or 20 pence each.
Most of the people working in the charity shops are volunteers, although there is often a manager who gets paid. Over 90% of the goods in the charity shops are donated by the public. Every morning you see bags of unwanted items outside the front of shops, although they don’t encourage this, rather ask people to bring things in when the shop is open.
The shops have very low running costs: all profits go to charity work. Charity shops raise more than ￡110 million a year, funding（资助）medical research, overseas aid, supporting sick and poor children, homeless and disabled people, and much more. What better place to spend your money? You get something special for a very good price and a good moral sense. You provide funds to a good cause and tread lightly on the environment. （08天津卷）
【小题1】The author loves the charity shop mainly because of _______.

A．its convenient location

B．its great variety of goods

C．its spirit of goodwill

D．its nice shopping environment

【小题2】The first charity shop in the UK was set up to ____.

A．sell cheap products

B．deal with unwanted things

C．raise money for patients

D．help a foreign country

【小题3】 Which of the following is TRUE about charity shops?

A．The operating costs are very low.

B．The staff are usually well paid.

C．90% of the donations are second-hand.

D．They are open twenty-four hours a day.

【小题4】 Which of the following may be the best title for the passage?

A．What to Buy a Charity Shops.

B．Charity Shop: Its Origin & Development.

C．Charity Shop: Where You Buy to Donate.

D．The Public’s Concern about Charity Shops.

 (08·天津)

Jenna, a popular girl from Westwood Middle School, had graduated first in her class and was

ready for new  16  in high school.

      17  , high school was different. In the first week, Jenna went to tryouts(选拔赛) for cheerleaders(拉拉队队员). She was competing against very talented girls, and she knew it would be  18  for her to be selected. Two hours later, the  19  read a list of the girls for a second tryout. Her heart  20  as the list ended without her name. Feeling   21   , she walked home carrying her schoolbag full of homework.

Arriving home, she started with math. She had always been a good math student, but now she was  22  . She moved on to English and history, and was  23   to find that she didn’t have any trouble with those subjects. Feeling better, she decided not to  24   math for the time being.

The next day Jenna went to see Mrs. Biden about being on the school  25  . Mrs. Biden wasn’t as  26  as Jenna. “I’m sorry, but we have enough  27  for the newspaper already. Come back next year and we’ll talk then.” Jenna smiled  28  and left. “Why is high school so

29  ?” she sighed.

Later in  30  class, Jenna devoted herself to figuring out the problems that had given her so much   31  . By the end of class, she understood how to get them right. As she gathered her books, Jenna decided she’d continue to try to  32  at her new school. She wasn’t sure if she’d succeed, but she knew she had to  33  . High school was just as her mom had said: “You will feel like a small fish in a big pond  34  a big fish in a small pond. The challenge is to become the  35  fish you can be.”

16. A. processes                    B. decisions             C. challenges            D. exercises

17. A. Therefore             B. However              C. Otherwise           D. Besides

18. A. difficult                B. easy                        C. boring              D. interesting

19. A. editor                        B. boss                        C. candidate            D. judge

20. A. jumped                B. sank                 C. stopped             D. raced

21. A. strange                B. happy                C. awful               D. lonely

22. A. struggling             B. improving             C. working            D. complaining

23. A. ashamed              B. disappointed           C. shocked            D. relieved

24. A. put up                B. prepare for            C. worry about         D. give up

25. A. committee             B. newspaper                   C. radio               D. team

26. A. enthusiastic            B. artistic                C. sympathetic         D. realistic

27. A. speakers                B. readers                C. cheerleaders         D. writers

28. A. widely                  B. weakly                C. excitedly            D. brightly

29. A. similar                  B. ordinary               C. different            D. familiar

30. A. physics                 B. history                C. English             D. math

31. A. pleasure                 B. hope                  C. trouble            D. sorrow

32. A. fit in                   B. look out               C. stay up            D. get around

33. A. swim                  B. try                    C. ask               D. escape

34. A. in return for             B. in case of              C. in terms of         D. instead of

35. A. slimmest                B. smallest               C. best              D. gentlest

 (08·天津D篇)

We can achieve knowledge either actively or passively(被动地). We achieve it actively by direct experience, by testing and proving an idea, or by reasoning.

We achieve knowledge passively by being told by someone else. Most of the learning that takes place in the classroom and the kind that happens when we watch TV or read newspapers or magazines is passive. Conditioned as we are to passive learning, it’s not surprising that we depend on it in our everyday communication with friends and co-workers.

Unfortunately, passive learning has a serious problem. It makes us tend to accept what we are told even when it is little more than hearsay and rumor(谣言).

Did you ever play the game Rumor? It begins when one person writes down a message but doesn’t show it to anyone. Then the person whispers it, word for word, to another person. That person, in turn, whispers it to still another, and so on, through all the people playing the game. The last person writes down the message word for word as he or she hears it. Then the two written statements are compared. Typically, the original message has changed.

That’s what happens in daily life. The simple fact that people repeat a story in their own words changes the story. Then, too, most people listen imperfectly. And many enjoy adding their own creative touch to a story, trying to improve on it, stamping（打上标记）it with their own personal style. Yet those who hear it think they know.

This process is also found among scholars and authors: A statement of opinion by one writer may be restated as a fact by another, who may in turn be quoted by yet another; and this process may continue, unless it occurs to someone to question the facts on which the original writer based his opinion or to challenge the interpretation he placed upon those facts.

48. According to the passage, passive learning may occur in _______.

   A. doing a medical experiment                   B. solving a math problem

   C. visiting an exhibition                             D. doing scientific reasoning

49. The underlined word “it” in Paragraph 2 refers to _____.

   A. active learning                                        B. knowledge

   C. communication                                       D. passive learning

50. The author mentions the game Rumor to show that _____.

   A. a message may be changed when being passed on

   B. a message should be delivered in different ways

   C. people may have problems with their sense of hearing

   D. people tend not to believe in what they know as rumor

51. What can we infer from the passage?

   A. Active learning is less important.               B. Passive learning may not be reliable.

   C. Active learning occurs more frequently.     D. Passive learning is not found among scholars.

 (08·天津C篇)

Michael Fish may soon be replaced as a weather forecaster by something truly fishier—the shark(鲨鱼).

Research by a British biology student suggests that sharks could be used to predict storms.

Lauren Smith, 24, is close to completing her study on shark’s ability to sense pressure.

If her studies prove the theory, scientists may be able to monitor the behaviour of sharks to predict bad weather.

Miss Smith had previously studied the behaviour of lemon sharks in the Bahamas.

She then used their close relatives, lesser spotted dogfish, for further research at Aberdeen University.

Her work—thought to be the first of its kind to test the pressure theory—resulted from the observation that juvenile blacktip sharks off Florida moved into deeper water ahead of a violent storm in 2001.

Miss Smith said: “I’ve always been crazy about traveling and diving and this led me to an interest in sharks.”

“I was delighted to have been able to research in the area for my degree. I know there’s so much more we need to understand—but it certainly opens the way to more research.”

It has been discovered that a shark senses pressure using hair cells in its balance system.

At the Bimini Shark Lab in the Bahamas, Miss Smith fixed hi-tech sensors to sharks to record pressure and temperature, while also tracking them using GPS (Global Positioning System) technology.

In Aberdeen, she was able to study the effects of tidal(潮汐的) and temperature changes on dogfish—none of which were harmed. She also used a special lab which can mimic(模拟) oceanic pressure changes caused by weather fronts.

She is due to complete her study and graduate later this year. She says she will be looking for a job which will give her the chance to enrich her experience of shark research.

44.The passage is most probably taken from _____.

A. a short-story collection                                 B. a popular science magazine

C. a research paper                                   D. a personal diary

45. What do we learn from the first four paragraphs of the passage?

A. Sharks may be used to predict bad weather.

B. Sharks’ behaviour can be controlled.

C. Michael Fish is not qualified for his job.

D. Lauren Smith will become a weather forecaster.

46. Lauren Smith conducted her research by _______.

   A. removing hair cells from a shark’s balance system

   B. measuring the air pressure of weather fronts

   C. recording sharks’ body temperature

   D. monitoring sharks’ reaction to weather changes

47. What is the passage mainly about?

   A. A popular way of forecasting weather.

   B. A new research effort in predicting storms.

   C. Biologists’ interest in the secrets of sharks.

   D. Lauren Smith’s devotion to scientific research.