A “l(fā)ost tribe” that reached America from Australia may have been the first Native Americans, according to a new theory.
If proved by DNA evidence, the theory will break long established beliefs about the southerly migration of people who entered America across the Bering Strait, found it empty and occupied it.
On this theory rests the belief of Native Americans to have been the first true Americans. They would be classified to the ranks of escapee, beaten to the New World by Aboriginals (土著人) in boats.
To a European, this may seem like an academic argument, but to Americans it is a philosophical question about identity, Silvia Gonzales, of Liverpool University said .
Her claims are based on skeletons found in the California Peninsula of Mexico that have skulls quite unlike the broad Mongolian features of Native Americans. These narrow-skulled people have more in common with southern Asians, Aboriginal Australians and people of the South Pacific Region.
The bones, stored at the National Museum of Anthropology (人類(lèi)學(xué)) in Mexico City, have been carbon-dated and one is 12,700 years old, which places it several thousand years before the arrival of people from the North. “We think there were several migration waves into the Americas at different times by different human groups,” Dr. Gonzales said. “The timing, route and point of origin of the first colonization of the Americas remains a most contentious topic in human evolution.”
But comparisons based on skull shape are not considered conclusive by anthropologists, so a team of Mexican and British scientists, backed by the Natural Environment Research Council, has also attempted to take out DNA from the bones. Dr. Gonzales declined yesterday to say exactly what the results were, as they need to be checked, but indicated that they were consistent(一致) with an Australian origin.
小題1:It is generally considered that the first Native Americans came from ________.
A．North AsiaB．Australia
C．South PacificD．South Asia
小題2:The skeletons found in the California Peninsula of Mexico have ________.
A．the broad skull shape
B．the narrow skull shape
C．different features of Aboriginal Australians
D．the same features of Native Americans
小題3:The underlined “contentious” is similar in meaning to “________”.
A．likely to cause great interestB．difficult to solve
C．well-known to allD．likely to cause argument
小題4:Which of the following statements is true according to the text?
A．Research on skulls can draw an exact conclusion.
B．DNA tests have proved the fact that the first Native Americans came from Australian.
C．Scientists are still not sure about the origin of the Native Americans.
D．People began to enter America across the Bering Strait about 12,700 years ago.

小題1:A
小題2:B
小題3:D
小題4:C

小題1:A 推斷題。第二段的意義是“如果DNA檢測(cè)證實(shí)了這個(gè)理論的話，這將動(dòng)搖長(zhǎng)期以來(lái)人們一直堅(jiān)信的觀點(diǎn)：一群往南遷徙的移民穿過(guò)白令海峽進(jìn)入美洲后，發(fā)現(xiàn)無(wú)人在此居住，便占領(lǐng)了它�！� 據(jù)此推斷可得。
小題2:B 細(xì)節(jié)題。根據(jù)第五段表述的意思“這些頭骨和美國(guó)土著居民那種蒙古人寬頭骨的特征極為不同。這些窄頭骨的人種和南亞人、澳洲土著和環(huán)南太平洋國(guó)家的人種有更多共同點(diǎn)�！笨芍�。
小題3:D 詞義猜測(cè)題。科學(xué)家一直在探討“誰(shuí)是美洲最早的土著居民”這一問(wèn)題，根據(jù)上下文可猜測(cè)出，在人類(lèi)進(jìn)化史上，最早在美國(guó)進(jìn)行殖民活動(dòng)的時(shí)間、路線和人口來(lái)源是一個(gè)最“有爭(zhēng)議的”話題。
小題4:C 事實(shí)確認(rèn)題。本文提到的“新理論”和“長(zhǎng)期以來(lái)人們一直堅(jiān)信的觀點(diǎn)”都在探討研究之中。對(duì)于DNA檢測(cè)，岡薩雷斯博士拒絕透露確切的結(jié)果，因?yàn)檠芯拷Y(jié)果還需要核對(duì)，他只是暗示這些DNA和澳大利亞人的血統(tǒng)是吻合的。由此可確認(rèn)C是正確的。
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科目：高中英語(yǔ) 來(lái)源：不詳 題型：閱讀理解

The Baima is a minority group of about 1,400 people. They have lived in Northern Sichuan and Southern Gansu Provinces for centuries. They have long depended on the forests as their main source of income. But since a ban on cutting down forests was introduced in the late 1990s to fight yearly flooding, the villagers have had to look for other means of earning a living.
Several are now in the process of developing a small tourism industry as their lands are rich in forests and natural scenery and are the home of the giant pandas. Xiangshujia, in particular, is becoming a popular bed and breakfast centre for tourists heading to Wanglang to see the giant pandas. Visitors are also starting to take notice of the Baima people themselves.
As our jeep stopped in the courtyard of a house, we were greeted by the village leader Li Qin and young Baima girls dressed in traditional costumes with white feathers in their hair. As we took our places on wooden benches near an open fire, the girls began to sing traditional songs as they served us.
“The number of tourists is growing,” said Li Qin. “We realize that to attract visitors we have to show our culture by offering more traditional singing and dancing and ensuring our houses are built in the traditional way.”
Relations between the Baima people and the reserve were once tense following the ban on cutting down forests. Villagers had to make a new living. They entered the Wanglang Nature Reserve to collect wild mushrooms and herbs (藥草), often at the expense of disturbing the pandas’ habitat. But things greatly improved as villagers started receiving training in how to sell things to tourists.
“Our aim was to deter the villagers, because they often disturbed the pandas’ habitat, and to ensure they could have a long-lasting means of earning a living,” emphasized Chen Youping, director of the Wanglang Nature Reserve. “All the money from the reserve goes back into the community and conservation projects,” said Chen. “We take into consideration first the animals and then tourism.”
小題1:From Paragraph 1 we learn that ________.
A．the Baima has the longest history among all the minority groups in China
B．the Baima people live in most areas of Sichuan and Gansu Provinces
C．forests are the main source of firewood for the Baima people
D．in order to fight floods, the Baima people are forbidden to cut down forests
小題2: We can infer that the Baima girls wore their traditional costumes to greet visitors mainly because _______.
A．they wanted to look more beautiful
B．their leader Li Qin asked them to do so
C．it was a way to show their culture to attract visitors
D．it was necessary before they sang traditional songs
小題3:Which of the following was NOT an effect of the ban on cutting down forests?
A．The Baima people had a tense relationship with the reserve.
B．Villagers had to look for other means of making a living.
C．The pandas’ habitat was often disturbed by villagers.
D．Villagers stopped selling things to tourists.
小題4:The underlined word “deter” in the last paragraph can be replaced by “________”.
A．punishB．stopC．encourageD．threaten

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科目：高中英語(yǔ) 來(lái)源：不詳 題型：閱讀理解

We do not know exactly how many whales there are in the sea because we can’t count them. But we believe at the beginning of the eighteenth century there were 105,000 humpback whales and 120,000 right whales. At the beginning of the twentieth century there were 75,000 humpbacks and 80,000 rights.
Since 1900 their numbers have fallen very quickly. Between 1935 and 1950 the number of humpbacks fell from 20,000 to 10,000 and since 1950 the number has fallen to only 6,000. The number of right whales has fallen even faster. In 1935 there were 25,000. The number fell to 6,000 in 1950 and since 1950 the number has fallen to 4,000. Men have always been hunters. Thousands of whales have become victims(犧牲品). It’s time to do something to protect whales.
小題1:Which of the following is true?
A．We know the exact number of whales in the sea.
B．It’s easy for us to count whales in the sea.
C．We find it impossible to count whales in the sea.
D．We don’t want to know how many whales there are in the sea.
小題2:The number of right whales has fallen _______.
A．more slowly than that of humpback whales
B．faster than that of humpback whales
C．a(chǎn)s slowly as that of humpback whales
D．a(chǎn)s fast as that of humpback whales
小題3:The passage is mainly about _______.
A．the number of humpback whales
B．the number of right whales
C．hunting whales
D．the necessity of protecting whales

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科目：高中英語(yǔ) 來(lái)源：不詳 題型：閱讀理解

Antarctica and Environment
Antarctica has actually become a kind of space station – a unique observation post for detecting important changes in the world’s environment. Remote from major sources of pollution and the complex geological and ecological systems that prevail elsewhere, Antarctica makes possible scientific measurements that are often sharper and easier to interpret than those made in other parts of the world.
Growing numbers of scientists therefore see Antarctica as a distant-early-warning sensor, where potentially dangerous global trends may be spotted before they show up to the north. One promising field of investigation is glaciology. Scholars from the United States, Switzerland, and France are pursuing seven separate but related projects that reflect their concern for the health of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet – a concern they believe the world at large should share.
The Transantarctic Mountain, some of them more than 14,000 feet high, divide the continent into two very different regions. The part of the continent to the “east” of the mountains is a high plateau covered by an ice sheet nearly two miles thick. “West” of the mountain, the half of the continent south of the Americas is also covered by an ice sheet, but there the ice rests on rock that is mostly well below sea level. If the West Antarctic Ice Sheet disappeared, the western part of the continent would be reduced to a sparse cluster of island.
While ice and snow are obviously central to many environmental experiments, others focus on the mysterious “dry valley” of Antarctica, valleys that contain little ice or snow even in the depths of winter. Slashed through the mountains of southern Victoria Land, these valleys once held enormous glaciers that descended 9,000 feet from the polar plateau to the Ross Sea. Now the glaciers are gone, perhaps a casualty of the global warming trend during the 10,000 years since the ice age. Even the snow that falls in the dry valleys is blasted out by vicious winds that roars down from the polar plateau to the sea. Left bare are spectacular gorges, rippled fields of sand dunes, clusters of boulders sculptured into fantastic shapes by 100-mile-an-hour winds, and an aura of extraterrestrial desolation.
Despite the unearthly aspect of the dry valleys, some scientists believe they may carry a message of hope of the verdant parts of the earth. Some scientists believe that in some cases the dry valleys may soak up pollutants faster than pollutants enter them.
小題1:What is the best title for this passage?
A Antarctica and environmental Problems.
B Antarctica: Earth’s Early-Warning station.
C Antarctica: a Unique Observation Post.
D Antarctica: a Mysterious Place.
小題2:What would the result be if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet disappeared?
A The western part of the continent would be disappeared.
B The western part of the continent would be reduced.
C The western part of the continent would become scattered Islands.
D The western part of the continent would be reduced to a cluster of Islands.
小題3:Why are the Dry Valleys left bare?
A Vicious wind blasts the snow away.                B It rarely snows.
C Because of the global warming trend and fierce wind.  D Sand dunes.
小題4:Which of the following is true?
A The “Dry Valleys” have nothing left inside.
B The “Dry Valleys” never held glaciers.
C The “Dry Valleys” may carry a message of hope for the verdant.
D The “Dry Valleys” are useless to scientists.

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科目：高中英語(yǔ) 來(lái)源：不詳 題型：閱讀理解

 To many web-building spiders, most of whom are nearly blind, the web is their essential window on the world: their means of communicating, capturing prey（獵物）, meeting mates and protecting themselves. A web-building spider without its web is like a men cast away on an island of solid rock，totally out of touch and destined to

starve to death.
So important is the web to an orb-web spider's survival that the animal will continue to construct new webs daily even if it is being starved. For 16 days the starving spider builds completely normal webs. Then, as the animal gets scrawnier（憔悴的）， it constructs a wider-meshed web using fewer strands（線）. Such webs would only trap larger prey, which is more economical from the perspective of a starving spider.
The spider stores energy by recycling web protein. It simply eats its own web each evening and reuses it to produce new silk. In studies with radioactively，labeled materials, it was found that 95 percent of web protein reappears in the next day' web. Most of the energy needed for web-building is used in walking over the strands as they are laid down．
Scientists are impressed by the adaptability of the spider's highly preprogrammed brain, which is larger for its size than the brain of any other invertebrate（無(wú)脊推動(dòng)物）．If web-building is interrupted, or if some of the existing strands are destroyed，the spider simply goes back to see where the web is left off and then finishes building a normal web. One spider will finish building the incomplete web of another.　
小題1: Which of the following best expresses the main ideas of the passage?
A．Secrets of Spiders' AdaptabilityB．Importance of Webs to Spiders
C．Secrets of the Spiders' Life D．Spiders' Highly Preprogrammed Brain
小題2:According to the passage, which of the following statements is TRUE?
A．Most spiders will stop conducting webs when hungry.
B．One Web-building spider usually conducts one web.
C．Web-building spiders will probably die without their webs．
D．Web-building spiders have good eyesight.
小題3:A spider conducts a wider-meshed web when____________.
A．it is 16 days oldB．it is getting weaker
C．it has fewer wendsD．it hunts for food
小題4:A spider's ability to finish an incomplete web proves that___________.
A．it has a highly preprogrammed brainB．it reuses its web protein to reproduce new silk
C．the web is everything for a spiderD．it is able to rebuild a destroyed web

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科目：高中英語(yǔ) 來(lái)源：不詳 題型：閱讀理解

Tell a story and tell it well, and you may open wide the eyes of a child, open up lines of communication in a business, or even open people’s mind to another culture or race.
People in many places are digging up the old folk stories and the messages in them. For example, most American storytellers get their tales from a wide variety of sources, cultures, and times. They regard storytelling not only as a useful tool in child education, but also as a meaningful activity that helps adults understand themselves as well as those whose culture may be very different from their own.
“ Most local stories are based on a larger theme,” American storyteller Opalanga Pugh says, “ Cinderella(灰姑娘), or the central idea of a good child protected by her goodness, appears in various forms in almost every culture of the world.”
Working with students in schools, Pugh helps them understand their own cultures and the general messages of the stories. She works with prisoner too, helping them knowing who they are by telling stories that her listeners can write, direct, and act in their own lives. If they don’t like the story they are living, they can rewrite the story. Pugh also works to help open up lines of communication between managers and workers. “For every advance in business,” she says, “ there is a greater need for communication.” Storytelling can have a great effect on either side of the manager-worker relationship, she says.
Pugh spent several years in Nigeria, where she learned how closely storytelling was linked to the everyday life of the people there. The benefits of storytelling are found everywhere, she says.
“I learned how people used stories to spread their culture,” she says, “ What I do is to focus on the value of the stories that people can translate into their own daily world of affairs. We are all storytellers. We all have a story to tell. We tell everybody’s story.”  
小題1:What do we learn about American storyteller from Paragraph 2?
A．They share the same way of storytelling.
B．They prefer to tell the stories from other cultures.
C．They learn their stories from the American natives.
D．They find storytelling useful for both children and adults.
小題2:The underlined sentence (Paragraph 4) suggests that prisoners can _____.
A．start a new lifeB．settle down in another place
C．direct filmsD．become good actors
小題3:Pugh has practised storytelling with _____ groups of people.
A．2B．3C．4D．5
小題4:What is the main idea of the text?
A．Storytelling can influence the way people think.
B．Storytelling is vital to the growth of business.
C．Storytelling is the best way to educate children in school.
D．Storytelling helps people understand themselves and others.

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科目：高中英語(yǔ) 來(lái)源：不詳 題型：閱讀理解

Electricity, like clean water, is a resource that’s often taken for granted. But last summer, when blackouts struck much of the northeastern US, Ontario and Rome, consumers on two continents were given a painful reminder of just how easily broken electricity supplies can be. The massive disorder stranded (使陷入困境)commuters, stopped freezers, shut down businesses and refocused attention on where most of the planet’s power comes from：oil-and-gas-fired generators and nuclear plants, These sources not only pollute the environment but also make many consumers feel unacceptable health risks.
Companies are trying to offer an alternative, clean energy from renewable resources that’s plentiful and portable. Lifton’s Medis Technologies, as well as companies like Hydrogenics and Nanosys, is tapping into fuel cells and dolor panels to give people power whenever and wherever they want it, free from dependence on local grids(電網(wǎng)).
The search for alternative energy is nothing new, but the current trend of innovators is focusing on the goal of making clean and sustainable power a mainstream commodity. For example, the fuel cell, which produces electricity from the chemical reaction between oxygen and hydrogen, has been around for about 150 years, though its commercial development did not begin until the 1960s and then only as part of NASA spacecraft. Today this technology is coming down to Earth in places like Tokyo; in nine European cities, from Stockholm to Porto, each operating three hydrogen-fuel-cell buses; and in Iceland, which is trying to create the first fuel free hydrogen economy by 2030.
When hydrogen and oxygen molecules(分子)combine, the reaction produces heat and water. Fuel cells use this reaction to generate electricity. With the cell phone and gadget(小機(jī)件)market in mind, Medis has developed a fuel cell with cheap components that produces little heat and effortlessly reduces waste water without turning to energy consuming pumps.
小題1:What is the passage mainly about?
A．The future of alternative energy
B．How the fuel cells works
C．People’s search for alternative energy
D．The damage done by the blackout last summer.
小題2:What can we know about the fuel cell?
A．Its commercial use began in the 1960s.
B．Today it’s being used in almost every corner of the world.
C．It has been in widespread used for about 150 years.
D．It supplies electricity to make the combination of oxygen and hydrogen possible.
小題3:Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?
A．Lifton’s Medis Technologies is tapping into fuel cells and solar panels.
B．The fuel cell has been around for about 150 years.
C．The fuel cell’s commercial development did not begin until the 1960s.
D．When hydrogen and oxygen molecules combine, the reaction produces o2 and H2O.
小題4:The underlined word “blackouts” in the 1 st paragraph means_____.
A．power failureB．the delivering of electricity
C．the power of electricityD．power station

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科目：高中英語(yǔ) 來(lái)源：不詳 題型：閱讀理解

"I’ve changed my mind. I wanted to have a telescope, but now I want my dad back." Lucien Lawence’s letter to Father Christmas written after his father had been knifed to death outside his school gate, must have touched every heart. Lucien went on to say that without his father he couldn’t see the stars in the sky. When those whom we love depart from us, we cannot see the stars for a while.
But Lucien, the stars are still there, and one day, when you are older and your tears have gone, you will see them again. And, in a strange way, I expect that you will find your father is there too, in your mind and in your heart. I find that my parents, long dead now, still figure in many of my dreams and that I think of them perhaps more than I ever did when they were alive. I still live to please them and I’m still surprised by their reactions. I remember that when I became a professor, I was so proud, or rather so pleased with myself, that I couldn’t wait to cable my parents. The reply was a long time in coming, but when it did, all mother said was, "I hope this means that now you will have more time for the children.” I haven’t forgotten. The values of my parents still live on.
It makes me pause and think about how I will live on in the hearts and minds of my children and of those for whom I care. Would I have been as ready as Philip Lawrence have been to face the aggressors (挑釁者),and to lay down my life for those in my care? How many people would want me back for Christmas? It’s a serious thought, one to give me pause.
I pray silently, sometimes, in the dead of night, that ancient cry of a poet "Deliver my soul from the sword, and my darling from the power of the dog." Yet I know the death comes to us all, and sometimes comes suddenly. We must therefore plan to live forever, but live as if we will die tomor­row. We live on, in the lives of those we loved, and therefore we ought to have a care for what they will remember and what they will treasure. If more parents knew this in their hearts to be true, there might be fewer knives on our streets today.
小題1:according to the whole text we can see that the first paragraph ________.
A．puts forward the subject of the text
B．shows the author’s pity on the kid
C．a(chǎn)cts as an introduction to the discussion
D．makes a clear statement of the author’s views
小題2:In the second paragraph the author mainly wants to explain to us ________.
A．how much he misses his parents now
B．why his parents often appear in his dreams
C．when Lucien will get over all his sadness
D．how proud he was when he succeeded in life
小題3: What feeling did the author’s mother express in her reply?
A．Proud.B．Happy.C．Disappointed.D．Worried.
小題4: In the author’s opinion, the value of a person’s life is ________.
A．to leave behind a precious memory to the people related
B．to have a high sense of duty to the whole society
C．to care what others will remember and treasure
D．to share happiness and sadness with his family
小題5: What does the writer mean by the sentence taken from an old poem?
A．Call on criminals and murderers to lay down their guns.
B．Advise parents stay with their children safely at home.
C．Spend every day meaningfully in memory of the death.
D．Try to keep violence and murder far away from society.

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科目：高中英語(yǔ) 來(lái)源：不詳 題型：閱讀理解

The year 2006 was a busy one for space and technology workers. A planet lost its status and space flights caught the imagination of people around the world.
The following is a short list of the major events of the year:____________
IBM has built a chip that runs about 100 times faster than the ones we have now. The development could lead to faster computers. The chip was first made in June. It can run at a speed of 500 gigahertz (千兆赫).
Pluto loses face  
The International Astronomical Union created the first scientific definition (定義) of the word "planet" in August. Under the new rules, Pluto is no longer called a planet but a "dwarf planet" (矮行星).
Pluto had been considered a planet since its discovery in 1930. For now, there are only the eight "classical" planets in the solar system (太陽(yáng)系): They are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
Woman space tourist
The first woman space tourist was launched on a Russian rocket from Kazakhstan on September 18. The flight carried a businesswoman, named Anousheh Ansari, along with a fresh crew for the International Space Station (ISS). Ansari is a 40-year-old American. She has paid at least US$20 million for the trip. She returned on September 28 after her eight-day stay at the International Space Station.
Discovery sent up
The US space shuttle Discovery took seven astronauts on a 12-day repair mission (任務(wù)) to the International Space Station on December 9. It was the first night launch by NASA in four years. The last one ended in the failure of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003.
小題1: The sub-title of the second paragraph probably would be _______.
A．IBM
B．The development of computers
C．The first chip born
D．Faster computer chip
小題2:The US space shuttle Discovery was sent up mainly to ________.
A．do some research
B．do some repairs
C．be in memory to Columbia shuttle.
D．build a space station.
小題3:Which of the following statements is WRONG?
A．Pluto is no longer a real planet according to the new theory.
B．People have been dreaming about space flight.
C．Anousheh Ansari was the first women space tourist.
D．The US space shuttle Discovery is the first one launched by NASA at night.
小題4:The passage is written mainly to tell us_______.
A．exciting new science of the year of 2006.
B．space flight full of wonders.
C．the major events of the year of 2006.
D．science and technology is the first productive.

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