(07·四川)

It's fourteen years since I left the Philippines to live with my family in the USA. A month ago, while on summer vacation back in my motherland, I learned a lesson from mosquito (蚊子) bites. Right before    36   Kennedy Airport in New York, my grandma   37   me of the behavior of the native mosquitoes around the   38   like me. She said, "There's an old saying—the   39   you stay away from the motherland, the sweeter your blood   40   to the mosquitoes. " Not   41   it, I replied, "Grandmaaaa, that's just an old wives' tale!" 

Well, less than a week   42   my arrival in Manila, I was already carpeted with a   43   of mosquito bites. I took many measures to keep myself from being   44   , but they all proved useless.

Late one   45   in my cousin's home, I couldn't bear the   46   of the bites. Hoping to find some comfort, I   47   my cousin, who was sleeping peacefully in the bed next to mine. Unhappy for being   48    she said, "There is nothing you can do. Go back to sleep. "  With a few turns, she slept again. Enviously (妒嫉地)   49   her sleep, I hoped a big mosquito would   50   on her face.  However, the mosquitoes would just lightly dance around her forehead and fly away quickly, never biting her. Amazed (惊奇的), I ran to others'   51   , only to find they were all sleeping   52   as the same thing occurred again and again.

From those bites, I came to   53   my grandma's silly tale. From then on, I've always tried to keep a(n)   54   mind about those strange old wives' tales   55   they do have some truth to them.

   

36. A. leaving          B. passing               C. visiting                   D. finding

37. A. persuaded        B. reminded          C.  warned                D.  informed

38. A. students         B. foreigners           C. passengers                 D. visitors

39. A. earlier             B. longer            C. sooner                   D. later

40. A. grows           B. goes               C. flows                   D. remains

41. A. expecting          B. understanding      C. recognizing               D. believing

42. A. after            B. before              C. when                    D. as

43. A. shade            B. pile                C. cloud                           D. blanket

44. A. touched               B. bitten                C. defeated                  D. discovered

45. A. morning         B. afternoon            C. evening                  D. night

46. A. noise            B. hit                 C. pain                      D. effect

47. A. woke up       B. shouted at         C. looked for                 D. dropped on

48. A. blamed          B. interrupted          C. moved                    D. frightened

49. A. having           B. watching           C. making                   D. helping

50. A. land              B. fly                 C. fall                             D. wait

51. A. houses         B. flats               C. rooms                  D. homes

52. A. joyfully        B. anxiously            C. soundlessly               D. worriedly

53. A. tell            B. know               C. remember                  D. accept

54. A. open          B. active               C. clear                     D. honest

55. A. and           B. so                 C. because                  D. until

 (07·四川A篇)

I believe that my country, Poland, is a perfect example for a place where food is particularly important. When we were little children, we began to understand how much a loaf of bread meant to our parents—to some it might sound silly but for me the custom of kissing bread before you started cutting it was simply amazing. It's not so common nowadays to treat food that way, since you hardly ever bake your own bread. Besides, everyone would call you crazy if you tried to kiss every bread roll before you ate them! But though we no longer make our food from scratch (起点), some customs have been kept--that's why I feel so sorry every time I have to throw any food away—even though I no longer live with my parents and nobody would blame me for this anymore!

Many people of our nation are still working as farmers, eating what they grow and harvest and therefore enjoying everything more. It's widely known that you value more anything that needs your effort in the first place. In most homes in Poland, especially those of farmers, the whole family would try and have their meals together--extremely difficult now, but so rewarding (值得) ! You can share other members' troubles and successes, give your children some attention, or just sit down for a moment instead of rushing through life aimlessly. Furthermore, your body, and stomach in particular will be very grateful (感激) for such a time!

In Poland, a wedding, Christmas or even a birthday is celebrated with a great meal. Women in the house get together and cook, sometimes for a few days before the event, and the extremely good or unusual food will be remembered and widely talked about.

You cannot over-value the importance of food in the country. What's more, almost everyone in Poland will be as interested in the topic as I am.

56. When the writer was a child, he / she ________.

   A. found people were crazy about bread   

B. began to realize the importance of food

C. thought that cutting bread was amazing        

D. learned people hardly baked their own bread

57. The writer feels very sorry when he/she has to throw away any food because

   A. he/she makes food from scratch                

B. his/her parents would blame him/her

   C. some customs still have effect on him/her     

D. many people are still working hard as farmers

58. From the text, we can learn that, in Poland, ________.

    A. most meals can be interesting topics for a long time

    B. the whole family often have meals together nowadays

    C. it's common for women to get together to cook for a few days

    D. family members can know more. about each other by having meals together

 (07·四川B篇)

Jim suffered heart problems. In conversation he expressed little joy and it seemed that his life was drawing to a close.

When his heart problems led to operation, Jim went through it successfully, and a full recovery was expected. Within days, however, his heart was not beating properly. Jim was rushed back to operation, but nothing was found to explain the cause of his illness. He died on the operating table on the day before his 48^th birthday.

Dr. Bruce Smoller, a psychologist (心理学家), had had many conversations with him, and the more he learned, the stranger he realized Jim's case was. When Jim was a child, his father, a teacher, suffered a heart attack and stayed home to recover. One morning Jim asked his father to look over his homework, promising to come home from school at noon to pick it up. His father agreed, but when Jim returned his father had died. Jim's father was 48.

"I think all his life Jim believed he killed his father," Dr. Smoller says. "He felt that if he had not asked him to look at his homework, his father would have lived. Jim had been troubled by the idea. The operation was the trial (判决) he had expected for forty years. " Smoller believes that Jim willed himself not to live to the age of 48.

     Jim's case shows the powerful role that attitude (态度) plays in physical health, and that childhood experiences produce far-reaching effect on the health of grown-ups. Although most cases are less direct than Jim's, studies show that childhood events, besides genes, may well cause such midlife diseases as cancer, heart disease and mental illness.

59. Jim was sent back to operation because ________.

A. his heart didn't work well                     B. he expected a full recovery

    C. his life was drawing to a close             D. the first one wasn't well performed

60. What made Dr. Smoller feel strange about Jim's case?

A. Jim died at a young age.     

B. Jim died on the operating table.

C. Both Jim and his father died of the same disease.    

D. Jim's death is closely connected with his father's.

61. From Smoller's words, we can infer that ________.

    A. Jim's father cared little about his study

    B. Smoller agreed that Jim did kill his father

    C. Jim thought he would be punished some day

    D. Smoller believed Jim wouldn't live to the age of 48

  

 (07·四川D篇)

Sorry to say, our brains naturally start slowing down at the Cruelty young age of 30. It used to be thought that this couldn't be helped, but new studies show that people of any age can train their brains to work faster. "Your brain is a learning machine," says University of California scientist Dr. Michael Merzenich. Given the right tools, we can train our brains to act like they did when we were younger. All that's required is the practice designed just for the purpose: a few exercises for the mind.

Merzenich has developed a computer-based training method to speed up the process(过程)                         in which the brain deals with information (positscience.com). Since much of the data we receive comes through speech, the Brain Fitness Program works with language and hearing to better speed and accuracy (准确性).

Over the course of training, the program starts asking you to distinguish (辨别) sounds (between "dog" and "bog", for example) at an increasingly faster speed. It's a bit like tennis instructor, says Merzenich, hitting balls at you ~faster and faster to keep you challenged(受到挑战). You may start out slow, but before long you're pretty quick.

The biggest finding in brain research in the last ten years is that the brain at any age is highly plastic. If you ask your brain to learn, it will learn. And it may even speed up while in the process.

To keep your brain young and plastic you can do one of a million new activities that challenge and excite you: playing table tennis or bridge, doing crossword puzzles, learning a language.... "When it comes to preventing ageing, you really do 'use it or lose it' ," says Barbara Sahakian, professor at Cambridge University.

67. Dr. Merzenich’s training method mainly depends on ________.

A. speech training                             B. computer languages

   C. the activities one joins in               D. the information being dealt with

68. By saying "the brain at any age is highly plastic ", the writer probably means the brain can be______.

    A. used              B. mastered        C. developed             D. researched

69. What can we learn from the text?

    A. Practice makes a quick mind.

    B. Brain research started ten years ago.

    C. Dr. Merzenich is a scientist in computer,

    D. People believed nothing could stop the brain slowing down.

70. Which of the following agrees with the writer's idea?

    A. The training methods work better for the old.

    B. People should use the brain to stop it from ageing.

    C. The training of the brain should start at an early age.

    D.  It's necessary to take part in as many activities as possible.

 (07·四川E篇)

I entered high school having read hundreds of books. But I was not a good reader. Merely bookish, I lacked a point of view when I read. Rather, I read in order to get a point of view. I searched books for good expressions and sayings, pieces of information, ideas, themes—anything to enrich my thought and make me feel educated. When one of my teachers suggested to his sleepy tenth-grade English class that a person could not have a "complicated (复杂的) idea" until he had read at least two thousand books, I heard the words without recognizing either its irony (嘲讽) or its very complicated truth. I merely determined to make a list of all the books I had ever read. Strict with myself, I included only once a title I might have read several times. ( How, after all, could one read a book more than once?) And I included only those books over a hundred pages in length. ( Could anything shorter be a book?)

There was yet another high school list I made. One day I came across a newspaper article about an English professor at a nearby state college. The article had a list of the "hundred most important books of Western Civilization. " "More than anything else in my life," the professor told the reporter with finality , " these books have made me all that I am . " That was the kind of words I couldn’t ignore (忽视). I kept the list for the several months it took me to read all of the titles. Most books, of course, I hardly understood. While reading Plato's The Republic, for example, I needed to keep looking at the introduction of the book to remind myself what the text was about. However, with the special patience and superstition (迷信) of a schoolboy, I looked at every word of the text. And by me time I reached the last word, pleased, I persuaded myself that I had read The Republic, and seriously crossed Plato off my list.

71. On heating the teacher's suggestion of reading, the writer thought________.

A. one must read as many books as possible

   B. a student should not have a complicated idea

   C. it was impossible for one to read two thousand books

   D. students ought to make a list of the books they had read

72. While at high school, the writer________.

   A. had plans for reading                            B. learned to educate himself

   C. only read books over 100 pages             D. read only one book several times

73. The underlined phrase "with finality" probably means

   A. firmly             B. clearly                   C. proudly             D. pleasantly

74. The writer's purpose in mentioning The Republic is to________.

   A. explain why it was included in the list

   B. describe why he seriously crossed it off the list

   C. show that he read the books blindly though they were hard to understand

   D. prove that he understood most of it because he had looked at every word

75. The writer provides two book lists to ________.

   A. show how he developed his point of view

   B. tell his reading experience at high school

C. introduce the two persons' reading methods

   D. explain that he read many books at high school