(06·北京)

Learning to Accept

I learned how to accept life as it is from my father.  36 , he did not teach me acceptance when he was strong and healthy, but rather when he was  37  and ill.

My father was  38  a strong man who loved being active, but a terrible illness  39  all that away. Now he can no longer walk, and he must sit quietly in a chair all day. Even talking is  40 . One night, I went to visit him with my sisters. We started  41  about life, and I told them about one of my  42 . I said that we must very often give things up  43  we grow --- our youth, our beauty, our friends --- but it always  44  that after we give something up, we gain something new in its place. Then suddenly my father  45  up. He said, “But, Peter, I gave up  46 ! What did I gain?” I thought and thought, but I couldn’t think of anything to say.  47 , he answered his own question: “I  48  the love of my family,” I looked at my sisters and saw tears in their eyes, along with hope and thankfulness.

I was also  49  by his words. After that, when I began to feel irritated (愤怒的) at someone, I  50  remember his words and become  51 . If he could replace his great pain with a feeling of love for others, then I should be  52  to give up my small irritations. In this  53 , I learned the power of acceptance from my father.

Sometimes I  54  what other things I could have learned from him if I had listened more carefully when I was a boy. For now, though, I am grateful for this one  55 .

36. A. Afterwards              B. Therefore               C. However             D. Meanwhile

37. A. tired                       B. weak                      C. poor                   D. slow

38. A. already                    B. still                        C. only                    D. once

39. A. took                       B. threw                     C. sent                    D. put

40. A. impossible               B. difficult                  C. stressful              D. Hopeless

41. A. worrying                 B. caring                    C. talking                 D. asking

42. A. decisions                 B. experiences             C. ambitions            D. beliefs

43. A. as                           B. since                      C. before                 D. till

44. A. suggests                 B. promises                C. seems                 D. requires

45. A. spoke                     B. turned                    C. summed              D. opened

46. A. something               B. anything                 C. nothing               D. everything

47. A. Surprisingly             B. Immediately            C. Naturally             D. Certainly

48. A. had                         B. accepted                 C. gained                 D. enjoyed

49. A. touched                  B. astonished              C. attracted              D. warned

50. A. should                    B. could                     C. would                 D. might

51. A. quiet                       B. calm                      C. Relaxed               D. happy

52. A. ready                      B. likely                      C. free                    D. able

53. A. case                       B. form                      C. method               D. way

54. A. doubt                      B. wonder                  C. know                  D. guess

55. A. award                     B. gift                        C. lesson                 D. word

 (06·北京B篇)

I was 9 years old when I found out my father was ill. It was 1994, but I can remember my mother’s words as if it were yesterday: “Kerrel, I don’t want you to take food from your father, because he has AIDS. Be very careful when you are around him.”

AIDS wasn’t something we talked about in my country when I was growing up. From then on, I knew that this would be a family secret. My parents were not together anymore, and my dad lived alone. For a while, he could take care of himself. But when I was 12, his condition worsened. My father’s other children lived far away, so it fell to me to look after him.

We couldn’t afford all the necessary medication for him, and because Dad was unable to work, I had no money for school supplies and often couldn’t even buy food for dinner. I would sit in class feeling completely lost, the teacher’s words muffled as I tried to figure out how I was going to manage.

I did not share my burden (负担) with anyone. I had seen how people reacted to AIDS. Kids laughed at classmates who had parents with the disease. And even adults could be cruel. When my father was moved to the hospital, the nurses would leave his food on the bedside table even though he was too weak to feed himself.

I had known that he was going to die, but after so many years of keeping his condition a secret. I was completely unprepared when he reached his final days. Sad and hopeless, I called a woman at the nonprofit National AIDS Support. That day, she kept me on the phone for hours. I was so lucky to find someone who cared. She saved my life.

I was 15 when my father died. He took his secret away with him, having never spoken about AIDS to anyone, even me. He didn’t want to call attention to AIDS. I do.

60. What does Kerrel tell us about her father?

   A. He had stayed in the hospital since he fell ill.

   B. He depended on the nurses in his final days.

   C. He worked hard to pay for his medication.

   D. He told no one about his disease.

61. What can we learn from the underlined sentence?

   A. Kerrel couldn’t understand her teacher.

   B. Kerrel had special difficulty in hearing.

   C. Kerrel was too troubled to focus on the lesson.

   D. Kerrel was too tired to bear her teacher’s words.

62. Why did Kerrel keep her father’s disease a secret?

   A. She was afraid of being looked down upon.

   B. She thought it was shameful to have AIDS.

   C. She found no one willing to listen to her.

   D. She wanted to obey her mother.

63. Why did Kerrel write the passage?

   A. To tell people about the sufferings of her father.

   B. To show how little people knew about AIDS.

   C. To draw people’s attention to AIDS.

   D. To remembered her father.

  

 (06·北京D篇)

While parents, particularly mothers, have always been attached to their infants (婴儿), societal conditions frequently made this attachment difficult to maintain (保持). First of all, the high infant death rate in the premodern times meant that such attachments often ended in hopelessness. Perhaps to prevent the sadness that infant death caused, a number of societal practices developed which worked against early attachment of mother and child.

One of these premodern attachment-discouraging practices was to leave infants unnamed until they had survived into the second year. Another practice that discouraged maternal (母亲的) attachment was tightly wrapping (包裹) infants. Wrapping effectively prevented the close physical interactions like stroking (抚摸) and kissing that are so much a part of modern mothers’ and fathers’ affection for their infants.

A third practice which had the same distancing effect was wet-nursing. Breast-feeding (母乳哺育) was not popular among the well-to-do in the early modern times; infants were often fed by wet nurses hired for the purpose. In some places, such as nineteenth-century France, city infants were sent to wet nurses in the country. Often a wet nurse would feed her own child first, leaving little for the city infant— who, in many case, died. In Rouen, the death rate for children sent to a wet nurse was 35 percent.

68. Babies were unnamed until they were two so that ________.

   A. an old social custom could be kept up

   B. maternal attachment could be maintained

   C. they could have better chances to survive

   D. their parents would not be too sad if they died

69. Why were babies wrapped?

   A. To protect them from the cold.

   B. To distance their mothers from them.

   C. To make them feel more comfortable.

   D. To make it easy for their mothers to hold them.

70. Wet nurses were women who _________.

   A. babysat city infants

   B. fed babies of other families

   C. sent their babies to the country

   D. failed to look after their babies

71. Which is the best title for the passage?

   A. Societal Conditions in Premodern Times

   B. Practices of Reducing Maternal Attachment

   C. Poor Health Service and High Infant Death Rate

   D. Differences between Modern and Premodern Parents

 (06·北京E篇)

A study published in September suggests there is a surprising way to get people to avoid unhealthy foods: change their memories. Scientist Elizabeth Loftus of the University of California at Irvine asked volunteers to answer some questions on their personalities (个性) and food experiences. “One week later,” Loftus says, “we told those people we’d fed their answers into our smart computer and it came up with an account of their early childhood experiences.” Some accounts included one key additional detail (细节). “You got sick after eating strawberry ice-cream.” The researchers then changed this detail into a manufactured (人为促成的) memory through leading questions— Who were you with? How did you feel? By the end of the study, up to 41% of those given a false memory believed strawberry ice-cream once made them sick, and many said they’d avoid eating it.

When Loftus published her findings, she started getting calls from people begging her to make them remember hating chocolate or French fries. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. False memories appear to work only for foods you don’t eat on a regular basis. But most important, it is likely that false memories can be implanted (灌输) only in people who are unaware of the mental control. And lying to a patient is immoral, even if a doctor believes it’s for the patient’s benefit.

Loftus says there’s nothing to stop parents from trying it with their overweight children. “I say, wake up— parents have been lying about Father Christmas for years, and nobody seems to mind. If they can prevent diseases caused by fatness and all the other problems that come with that, you might think that’s more moral lie. Decide that for yourself.”

72. Why did Loftus ask the volunteers to answer some questions?

   A. To improve her computer program.

   B. To find out their attitudes towards food.

   C. To find out details she can make use of.

   D. To predict what food they’ll like in the future.

73. What did Loftus find out from her research?

   A. People believe what the computer tells them.

   B. People can be led to believe in something false.

   C. People tend to forget their childhood experiences.

   D. People are not always aware of their personalities.

74. According to the study, people may stop having a certain food if they _______.

   A. learn it is harmful for health

   B. lie to themselves that they don’t want it

   C. are willing to let doctors control their minds

   D. think they once had a bad experience of eating it

75. What is the biggest concern with the method?

   A. Whether it is moral.                      B. Who it is best for.

   C. When it is effective.                      D. How it should be used.

Tsunami warning system is tested
If he, the founder of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, were alive, Thomas Jaggar would be proud of the U.S. tsunami warning system after Friday’s devastating earthquake in Japan sent a surge (大浪，汹涌) of ocean water dashing toward the West Coast.
● WASHINGTON — So many people surged to the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center website that it slowed to a crawl early Friday, unable to provide critical information to the public about the coastal impact in the U.S. of a massive earthquake in Japan.
McClatchy Washington Bureau — Mar 11 06:09 p.m.
● CHICAGO — A tsunami warning has been issued for the central and northern California coast and Oregon, the National Weather Service announced early Friday.
Chicago Tribune— Mar 11 06:07 a.m.
● HONOLULU — A tsunami warning was issued late on Thursday for Hawaii after an 8.9 magnitude earthquake struck in the Pacific near Japan, prompting state civil defense officials to order all coastal areas evacuated（把…撤出…）by 2 a.m. local time. Tsunami sirens (警报) began sounding at 9:59 p.m. on Thursday. They have sounded every hour since 11:15 p.m.
Alaska Tsunami Warning Center also issued a warning for much of the coasts of Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California.
Reuters via Yahoo! News — Mar 11 01:22 a.m.
● LOMPOC — Tsunami warning ‘a wake-up call’
A tsunami warning that led to evacuations for coastal

communities and campgrounds in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties Friday served as a successful trial for a more serious emergency, officials said after the danger passed.
The Lompoc Record — Mar 11 11:29 p.m.
● WELLINGTON — The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued a warning after an 8.9 magnitude earthquake struck in the Pacific near Japan, and it said the sea level readings confirm that a tsunami has been generated and was in effect for some Pacific islands — Hawaii, China’s Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia etc.
New Straits Times — Mar 11 07:48 a.m.
— Reproduced by Yahoo Greenwich Meantime
【小题1】.
. A tsunami warning was issued for all the following states in the U.S. except for _____.

A．Ohio

B．California

C．Oregon

D．Alaska

【小题2】.
The underlined word “prompting” (in the fourth paragraph) most probably means _____.

A．promoting

B．advocating

C．urging

D．appealing

【小题3】.
According to the passage, the Pacific Tsunami warning was first reported by _____.

A．New Straits Times	B．Reuters via Yahoo! News
C．McClatchy Washington Bureau	D．Chicago Tribune

【小题4】.
In which city did the news agency issue a tsunami affecting for some other places apart from Japan and Hawaii?
A. LOMPOC.       B. WASHINGTON.      C. HONOLULU.    D. WELLINGTON.