Many people will remember the flight of the space shuttle（航天飞机）challenger，in June，1983. The achievement of Sally Ride，America’s first woman astronaut to fly into space，made this flight especially memorable. Students from two Camden, New Jersey, high schools, however, are probably to remember Norma rather than Sally whenever they think about the flight.
Norma didn’t travel alone. She brought about 100 companions along with her. Norma was an ant，a queen ant who，with her subject，made up the first ant colony（群体）to travel into space. The ants were part of a science experiment designed by students to test the effects of weightlessness on insects.
The equipment designed by the students for their colony functioned perfectly throughout the long space trip. The young scientists and their teachers were very sad to find that their insect astronauts had all died at some point before the container was returned to the school and opened. The problem didn’t occur in space，but on the ground after challenger had landed. The container remained in the desert for nearly a week before the ant colony was moved. The hot，dry desert air dried out the colony’s container and the ants died from lack of moisture（水分）.
The project was termed success because it did provide useful information. Students will continue their efforts to pinpoint（精确找到）what went wrong. They will try to prevent the same difficulties from reoccurring on future missions. They don’t want to be discouraged either by the demise of the ants or by the $ 10,000 shuttle fare they will have to pay to send the next colony of ants into space.
51．What does the passage mainly tell us？
A．Sally Ride，America’s first woman astronaut.
B．How to keep ants alive in space.
C．How to make equipment for insects in space.
D．An experiment with ants in space.
[答案]
52．According to the passage, we know that the underlined word“demise”is another word for“_____”.
A．death B．colony
C．insect D．moisture
[答案]
53．We don’t think the project was a failure. This is because_____.
A．everything went as smoothly as expected
B．the students had pinpointed exactly the reason
C．something important had been learned
D．the students had succeeded in the experiment
[答案]
54．We can conclude that ants _____ on the next space trip.
A．will have to be kept alive in a container full of water
B．will have to be sent into space with the first woman astronaut
C．should be put into a container where there is enough food
D．should be put into a container which is not too dry
[答案]
B
Russian President Putin named Time magazine’s“Person of the Year”
Russian President Vladimir Putin was named Time magazine’s“Person of the Year”on December 19th.2007 for strengthening stability（稳定）that made Russia a world power again.
The magazine recognized Putin’s“extraordinary feat（技艺）of leadership in taking a country that was in a mess and bringing it stability，”said Richard Stengel，Time’s managing editor.
The magazine noted that“Person of the Year”is not an honor or an endorsement（认可）but a recognition of leadership that shapes the world.
Putin，who is 56 years old，is very popular in Russia，making a great effort to cause economy to come to life on revenue（收入）from oil and natural gas.
Putin recently supported vice-PM Dmitry Medvedev’s presidential bid，and said he would accept Medvedev’s offer to serve as prime minister if Medvedev is elected on March 2.
The Kremlin said Wednesday the Time recognition was seen there as an acknowledgement of Putin’s role in helping Russia pull out of its social and economic troubles in the 1990s.
Others considered for“Person of the Year”included Nobel Prize-winner Al Gore and author J.K. Rowling.
This year’s choice was a return to the magazine’s tradition of picking an individual rather than last year’s choice of“You”，which refers to anyone creating or using content on the World Wide Web.
Putin is the fifth Russian（or Soviet）leader to be named Person of the Year：Gorbachev，Andropov，Khrushchev and Stalin，who was named twice.
55．How did Putin try to make Russia a world power again？
A．By performing arms race.
B．By making war.
C．By strengthening stability.
D．By getting foreign help.
[答案]
56．Which of the following is Not True according to the passage？
A．Russia used to be in a mess.
B．Time always picks an individual to be the“Person of the Year”.
C．Oil and natural gas caused Russia’s economy to come to life.
D．Putin will leave office on March 2,2007.
[答案]
57．What does the underlined word“acknowledgement”mean？
A．Praise. B．Support.
C．Scold. D．Recognition.
[答案]
58．How many times have Russian leaders been named“Person of the Year”so far？
A．Five times. B．Six times.
C．Seven times. D．Eight times.
[答案]
C
There is no doubt about it. The best way to learn new words is to do it unconsciously. I don’t mean while you’re unconscious. I mean while you are unconscious of the fact that it is sinking in.
That is how I learnt the 30,000 words in my vocabulary by living in an English-speaking world，mother tongue. I just pick them up. But some of them may be misunderstood. Now，to misunderstand does not mean not to understand. To misunderstand is to understand but incorrectly.
The 5％ mislearnt of all the words we“know”will be the least frequently used words，as the more frequently used words are less likely to be mislearnt. Some of the misunderstandings may live with all our lives，without knowing that we got them wrong.
Many English teachers think that this natural method of learning words in one’s own mother tongue can be used for a second language learning. They teach their students how to play the Guessing Game.“There is no time to look up in your dictionaries all the new words you come across，”they will say.“You have to practise guessing what the word means from the context.”
This method of guessing in a second language learning does not work. It may succeed in many cases，but results in hundreds or thousands of wrongly-guessed meanings of words.
And what’s more，there are more separate meanings than there are words themselves. Our learners’ dictionaries usually have many meanings. A good dictionary is what makes self-learning possible.
Don’t guess! Look it up!
59．It is certain that the best way to learn new words is_____.
A．to learn them by oneself
B．to learn by living in an English-speaking world and using them frequently
C．to guess them from the context
D．to get more separate meanings of each word
[答案]
60．The underlined word“them”in Paragraph 2 refers to_____.
A．the 30，000 words
B．English teachers
C．misunderstood words
D．frequently used words
[答案]
61．Which of the following is most likely NOT true？
A．Some of the words the writer knows must have been misunderstood.
B．Most of the 30,000 words the writer learned are frequently used ones.
C．How many words the writer got wrong are not known.
D．All the words the writer knows were learned by reading them.
[答案]
62．It can be inferred that_____.
A．when somebody is conscious，he or she usually can’t learn new words by heart
B．we must use the words as often as possible in order to master them
C．it’s the best way to learn new words that one should only guess their meanings from the context
D．only dictionaries can help us learn language well
[答案]
D
Friendship can deeply affect the physical and mental health of both men and women. Studies show that people who have no friends or who are lonely，are more likely to die earlier，get sick more often and suffer greater physical wear and tear（折磨）than those who have a support system of friends.
Sometimes，family members may be more likely to give you advice or tell you what you don’t want to hear. It may not be as good as a friend who will listen to you and guide you，but support your decisions anyway. The most important elements about friendship are those who suffer support and do not judge your decisions based on society.
One reason for the link between social support and good health practice seems to be that people who feel cared for by others are less stress-out and are protected against the symptoms（症状）of depression and loneliness.
Generally，women benefit most because of how they deal with stress. Women are more social in how they deal with stress than men, while men are more likely to have a“fight or flight”reaction.
Women also tend to have larger，denser social network，in which more people know each other and help each other, while men typically have smaller groups of friends and will rely on their wives or other important people for more support. While all these affect people psychologically（心理上），friendship brings comfort that reduces the ill effects of stress, and the sex difference also contributes to the difference in the length of one’s life time.
63．In the author’s opinion，a real friend should _____.
A．tell you what to do even if you refuse to hear it
B．try to persuade you to change your mind quickly
C．judge your decision according to his／her experience
D．give you advice but respect your own decision
[答案]
64．Women benefit more from friendship than men because_____.
A．women are always cared for by more people than men
B．women are usually less stress—out when staying with others
C．women are more likely to solve problems with friends’ help
D．women can always keep more long-life friendship than men
[答案]
65．According to the passage we can infer that _____.
A．it’s good for women to tell men what they should do or not
B．friends are always more important than family members
C．men don’t want to share their problems with many people
D．the trend that women can live longer makes them more relaxed
[答案]
66．This passage mainly talks about _____.
A．why people should develop friendship
B．when friendship affects people’s health
C．people’s different attitudes towards friendship
D．the friendship which can make people live longer
[答案]
E
I've been writing for most of my life. The book Writing Without Teachers introduced me to one difference and one practice that have greatly helped my writing processes. The difference is between the creative mind and the critical mind. While you need to use both of the creative mind and the critical mind to reach a finished result，they cannot work in parallel no matter how much we might like to think so.
Trying to criticize writing on the fly is possible the single greatest trouble with writing that most of us meet. If you are listening to a 5th grade English teacher correcting your grammar while you are trying to capture a fleeting（稍纵即逝的）thought, the thought will die. If you catch the fleeting thought and simply share it with the world in raw form, no one is likely to understand. You must learn to create first and then criticize if you want to make writing the tool for thinking as it is.
The practice that can help you overcome your learned bad habits of trying to edit as you write is what Elbow calls“free writing”. In free writing, the goal is to get words down on paper non-stop，usually for 15—20 minutes. No stopping, no going back, no criticizing. The aim is to get the words flowing. As the words begin to flow，the ideas will come from the shadows and let themselves be captured on your notepad or your screen.
Now you have raw materials that you can begin to work with using the critical mind that you’ve persuaded to sit on the side and watch quietly. Most likely，you will believe that this will take more time than you actually have and you will end up staring blankly at the pages as the deadlines draws near.
Instead of staring at a blank start and filling it with words no matter how bad they could be，stop halfway through your available time and rework your raw writing into something closer to the finished product. Move back and forth until you run out of time and the final result will most likely be far better than your current practices.
67．When the author says the creative mind and the critical mind“cannot work in parallel”in the writing process，he means_____.
A．no one can be both creative and critical
B．they can’t be regarded as equally important
C．they are in constant conflict with each other
D．one cannot use them at the same time
