Now we have comfortable buses in New York. I would like to describe to you how comfortable
 they are. The number of the seats on a bus has been reduced from 44 to 19.      
     In the beginning, they just changed the normal seats to airplane seats and took off 10 seats on the 
bus.  However, every passenger (乘客) wanted to have a more comfortable seat on the bus when he
 took long distance trips by bus.  Also, the bus manager wanted to get more profits (利潤),  so they
 changed the airplane seats to sofas, -and the  number of the seats becomes 19.     
    The new buses are coming out, but the prices are going up too. The owners have many ideas which
 you have probably never thought about before.  Now they have bus attendants (服務(wù)員) who serve 
water, snacks, newspapers and towels.       
     Also,  you can change the direction of the sofas so that you can feel more comfortable, and they 
have a service bell on each sofa.  Moreover (而且), some companies play some videos on the bus. 
In addition, when you take a long distance trip, they provide luxurious buses that have an LCD  (液晶
顯示器) on each seat.  That is not the only surprising thing on the bus-they also have three different 
video channels, and seventy TV games for killing time when you are on the bus.      
     In a word, we want to be more comfortable when we are on a trip. That is the reason why we 
have sofas on the buses.  Maybe we will have beds on the buses in the future.

1. How many seats did they take off in the beginning?            

A. 44.     
B. 19.     
C. 10.      
D. 34.

2. What does the word "luxurious" mean in the passage?               

A. 豪華的    
B. 堅固的   
C. 明亮的   
D. 寬敞的

3. They provide TV programs and games on the bus to _______.                

A.  cut the price of the bus                
B.  make the trip not boring                    
C.  get people interested in driving                
D.  let the passengers know the latest news

4.  What would be the best title for this passage?                

A.  Fewer Seats, More Bus Fares                
B.  A Comfortable Long Distance Trip                    
C.  Buses, a Usable (可用的) Form of Traveling                
D.  Comfortable Bus Seats Make Travel Life Good

     Fire can help people in many ways.  But it can also be very harmful. Fire can heat water, warm 
your houses, give light, and cook food.  But fire can burn things, too. It can burn trees, .houses, animals, 
or people.  Sometimes big fires can burn forests.      
     Nobody knows for sure how people began to use fire. But there are many interesting, old stories
 about the first time a man or woman started a fire. One story from Australia tells about a man a very,
 very long time  ago. He went up to the sun by a rope and brought fire down.      
     Today people know how to make a fire with matches.  Children sometimes like to play with them.  
But matches can be very dangerous. One match can burn a piece of paper, and then it might burn a
house. A small fire can become a big fire very fast.     
     Fires kill many people every year. So you must be careful with matches. You should also learn to put 
out fires. Fires need oxygen. Without oxygen they'll die. There is oxygen in the air. Cover a fire with  
water, sand, or in an emergency, with your coat or something else. This keeps the air away from a fire
 and kills it.              
     Be careful with fire, and it will help you.  Be careless with fire, and  it will burn you.

1.Which of the following is true?                   

A. We are not sure how people started to use fire.                   
B.  It is an Australian who started a fire.                   
C.  We know how people began to use fire.                   
D.  Nobody knows how to make a fire.

2. Children mustn't play with matches because  ______.                   

A.  matches bum paper                    
B.  it is not interesting                    
C.  matches can be dangerous                    
D.  they don't know how to make a fire with matches

3. If you are going to put out a fire, you ______.                

A.  must be careful with matches                
B.  ought to know it can be harmful                 
C.  have to cover it with water only                 
D.  should keep air away from it

4. We must be careful with fire, or it ______.              

A.  can die                       
B.  warms our houses               
C.  might burn us                
D.  will help us

     Solar energy (power from the sun) is of many uses. In many parts of the world, people are building 
solar houses with large numbers of windows to collect the heat of the sun. Solar collectors can make hot
 water  from sunlight. The rays of the sun heat water in a solar collector, and  the hot water goes into a 
storage tank  (蓄水箱). People can use the hot  water for washing or for heating their houses.  In the
 future, people may use the rays of the sun to make electricity for their homes. They will use photovoltaic 
cells to make electricity from sunlight.             
     The sun is an important "new" source of energy. It is less expensive than oil or nuclear energy.  
Furthermore, it does not cause pollution, and  it is not as dangerous as nuclear power. Many people 
think that solar energy will be the answer to our future energy problems.

1. What is the source of solar energy?               

A. The earth.             
B. Oil.               
C. The sun.               
D. Nuclear energy. 

2. A solar collector can  ______.                 

A. answer our future energy problems                  
B. make electricity from sunlight                  
C. use hot water for washing                  
D. make hot water from sunlight

3. Solar energy may solve ______.              

A. water shortages              
B. storage problems              
C. future energy problems       
D. future water problems

4. People may use the hot water from a solar collector ______.              

A. for nuclear power              
B. for washing and heating              
C. to cause pollution              
D. to change sunlight into electricity

     One of nature's most remarkable effects is the mirage.  Mirrages occur when there is a great 
difference in temperature between one layer of  air in the atmosphere and the next.        
     On a hot day, light rays from the sky. hit the unusually hot air just  above pavement or sand.  
These rays bend and then continue horizontally along the line of vision, giving the illusion that a body
 of water  lies ahead.       
     Sometimes sailors in northern seas observe ships or icebergs seemingly hanging upside down in 
the sky. In this case, the warmer air lies  above cooler, denser air. The warm air above reflects the
 image of the  distant ship or iceberg, even when the same object is not seen directly  because of 
atmospheric density.       
     Between the coast of Italy and the island of Sicily lies the Strait of Messina.        
     For centuries sailors have seen there the mirage of a whole city; this  mirage is known as the fatal 
marriage (命運注定的婚姻).       
     Scientists believe that some of the flying saucers that have been reported in many parts of the 
United States were actually mirages.  When light rays are reflected at night by the warm air above
 the earth, the mirage of a lighted object appears in the sky.

1. The body of water seen ahead while driving on a hot day is a ______.                  

A. body of water                  
B. reflection of light rays from the sky                  
C. reflection of a body of water                  
D. reflection of sand

2. Sailors in northern seas have observed mirages of  ______.                 

A. bodies of water                  
B. flying saucers                  
C. ships or icebergs ahead                  
D. ships or icebergs upside down in the sky

3. Scientists believe that mirages can give a reason for ______.                 

A. none of the flying saucer reports                 
B. some of the flying saucer reports                 
C. most of the flying saucer reports                 
D. all of the flying saucer reports

     Years ago ,if a teenager had some problems in his life,he might write them in his diary (日記). Now a
teenager (1)w____   the same problems might get on the Internet and write them in his blog(博客). In
many ways, a diary and a blog are almost the same. So, what makes a blog (2)d____  from a diary?    
     The biggest difference is that a blog is much more public(公共的)  (3)t____  a diary. Usually,a
teenager likes hiding his diary book and treats it as one full of (4)s____  .Both diaries and blogs tell what
happened to the writer that day.    
     A blog has both good and bad points(特點). The biggest problem is that anyone can read what you
write in your blog. If you are not satistied(滿意的)with a friend during school and write something bad
about him in your diary , he will never know it. (5)H____  , if you do this on the Internet, that friend may
read your blog and get (6)a____ . So we have to be careful of what we write.     
     A blog has good points, of course. People choose to write in blogs,they know that their friends will
read what they write. If you are  (7)f____ sad one day and write in your diary, no one will know about it.
If you write the same words in your blog, your friends may quickly (8)w____ back to comfort you or offer their help. Blogs help people stay in close contact(聯(lián)系)and let them know what their friends are doing.
     T(9)____  it's a good way to write blogs about everyday life，I still (10)p____ my old diary.

1.________  2.________  3.________ 4.________  5.  ________
6.________ 7. ________  8.________ 9.________ 10. ________

      Can plants eat people? Probably not, but there are many plants that eat meat. Some of them are 
big.  And they can eat small animals. One famous meat-eating plant is the Venus flytrap  (捕蠅草).     
     The Venus flytrap is a very strange plant.  It grows in dry parts of the United States. Its leaves are
 like the pages of a book. They can open and close very quickly. Inside the leaves, there are three small
hairs.  If a fly touches one of the hairs,  the leaf closes quickly.  The fly cannot get out.  In about half an 
hour,  the leaf presses the fly until it is dead.  Then, the plant covers the fly.  Slowly, the plant eats the fly.   
     Why do plants do it? Most plants get what they need from the sun, the air, and the ground. In some
 places, the ground is very poor. It doesn't have all these important things, especially nitrogen (氮).  
Animal meat has a lot of nitrogen,  so some plants eat meat to get what they need.  Let's hope that some
 of the bigger plants don't get the same idea!

1. The Venus flytrap is a kind of  _______.           

A. plant            
B. animal           
C. food              
D. meat

2. The Venus flytrap grows in  _______.                 

A. most parts of the world                 
B. some parts of Africa                 
C. dry parts of the United States                 
D.  wet parts of England

3. From the passage,  we learn that _______.               

A. all plants can eat people                 
B. all plants can eat animals                   
C. some plants can eat people                 
D. some plants can eat animals

4. The  underlined  word  "presses"  probably  means "_______" in Chinese.     

A. 擠壓    
B. 關(guān)上     
C. 打開    
D. 松開

5. Why do some plants eat animal meat? Because _______.     

A. plants are dangerous to animals     
B. animals are dangerous to plants     
C.  plants want to get what they need from animals' meat    
D.  plants want to protect themselves against animals

The panda is one of the animals most in danger. There are about 1,000 pandas living in nature reserves
today. Zoos and research centres look after about 160 pandas. Scientists are studying how they live and
more baby pandas are born in the zoos.
    Pandas live in the forests and mountains of southwest China. They mainly live on bamboo, and each
panda needs to eat a lot of bamboo everyday. The area of bamboo is becoming smaller for many different reasons, so pandas have less and less land to live on. Pandas don't have many babies , and baby pandas
often die. The situation is becoming very serious.
    Our government is working hard to save pandas. There are more than 30 nature reserves to protect
pandas but these are not enough. The government has made a new plan to help pandas. The nature
reserves will be bigger and the bamboo will grow better. Then the pandas will have enough food to eat
and enough places to live in. Pandas born in the zoos may go back to live in the nature reserves.
    Most people love pandas. The panda is one of the best-known animals in the world. It is the symbol
for the World Wide Fund for Nature. The WWF works to protect all animals in danger, so the panda
has become the symbol of all animals in danger. There is still a long way to go to save the panda. Think
of other animals in danger such as tigers, whales, turtles and elephants-we need to save the panda, and
we need to save them, too.

1. There are about _________ pandas living in nature reserves today.

A. 30
B. 160
C. 300
D. 1,000

2. Paragraph 2 is mainly about __________.

A. why pandas are in danger
B. Why baby pandas often die
C. how to protect all animals
D. how to plant more bamboo

3. The government is trying __________ to help the pandas.

A. to build more zoos
B. to send more scientists
C. to make bigger nature reserves
D. to ask the WWF to work in China

4. ___________ is the symbol for the World Wide Fund for Nature.

A. The tiger    
B. The panda
C. The elephant
D. The whale

Many Chinese students think American students enjoy more freedom than them at school. But American
schools also have their rules. If the students break the rules, they will get punishment, too. On the first
day of a new term, 128 students of Morton High School were sent home for wearing the wrong clothes.
There are altogether 1,200 students in the school. Usually only 20 students break the school dress rule
every day. So the headmaster Therea Mayerik said it was the worst new term she had ever seen. At
Morton High School, students’favorite clothing such as baggy(寬大的)trousers, low-    hecked shirts
and tank tops(緊身短背心)are not allowed in classrooms. Some students think they have the right to
choose what to wear , but the headmaster doesn’t think so. “I’d be supportive if  half the school was
sent home, because 99% will get the message that our school is for education. “Freedom” does not mean
“free of restrictions(約束)”. That is to say there is no total freedom in the world, no matter in the USA or in China.

1.ManyChinese students think that____.

A. American students are very free at school          
B. American students are not so clever as them          
C. American students don't love their school at all

 2. 128 students of Morton High School were sent home for       .

A. not finishing their homework        
B. being late for school        
C. not wearing the right clothes

 3. Some students in Morton High School think that they have the right to       .

A. decide when to go to school          
B. choose what to wear        
C. eat and drink in class

4. What does the underlined word “supportive” mean in Chinese?

A. 高興的    
B. 支持的    
C. 害怕的

5. What’s the writer’s attitude(態(tài)度)to the school dress rule?

A. Agree.            
B. Disagree(不同意).       
C. Not sure.