The United States will introduce a new and comprehensive(綜合的) exam for students who seek to study in American and other English-speaking countries, Xinhua News Agency reported from New York.

The exam, which stands for a great change from the current English level test, was disclosed by Theresa Chang Wei Jen, associate director of the International Service of the US College Board, America’s leading educational organization.

The Advanced Placement International English Language (APIEL) will be offered for the first time throughout the world on May 10, 2002, said Jen.

However, the APIEL is a strange title to most Chinese students, and it is unlikely to soon gain the similarity of other already existing exams, such as the TOEFL(Test of English as a Foreign Language), the GRE(Graduate Record Examination), or the IELTS(International English Language Testing System).

“I have never heard of such a test and I would prefer the IELTS if I need another exam,” said Xu Jingyan, a graduating student from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, who wants to study in England and has already taken the TOEFL.

Most of Xu’s classmates have never heard of the APIEL. “The APIEL is designed for international students who wish to get university studies in English-speaking countries, including the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia.” said Jen.

The APIEL has been adopted, said Jen, because the TOEFL can no longer accurately reflect the abilities of students of using the English language comprehensively in an academic environment. Xinhua reported that a fairly large number of foreign students who earned high scores in TOEFL exam turned out to be very ordinary educational performers after admission.

Compared with the TOEFL, the APIEL measures a student’s ability to read, write, speak and understand English through testing his or her skills in listening comprehension, speaking with accuracy(精確) and resourcefulness, and writing with clarity and fluency(流暢), Jen said.

1. The United States will introduce a new exam because _______.

A. more and more students want to get further education in the USA

B. the Chinese people pay special attention to English studies with China’s entry into the WTO

C. the already existing exam systems seem to be far from perfect

D. it will bring the US government quite a lot of money

2. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the selection？

A. It will take quite a period of time for people to accept the APIEL.

B. The TOEFL is more popular with the Chinese than the IELTS.

C. A student will have to take the APIEL if he or she wants to study in English—speaking countries from 2002.

D. Chinese students will prefer the IELTS rather than the APIEL even in the future.

3. The underlined word current in the second paragraph means _______.

A. modern            B. present             C. standard           D. formal

4. Please decide which of the following would be the best title for this news report.

A. The Key to English-speaking Countries

B. The Four Skills in Learning English

C. TOEFL, IELTS and GRE to be Out of Date

D. New Exam Designed for Students

Humans are social animals. They live in groups all over the world. As these groups of people live apart from other groups, over the years and centuries they develop their own habits and ideas, which form different cultures. One important particular side of every culture is how its people deal with time.

       Time is not very important in non-industrial societies. The Nuer people of East Africa, for example, do not even have a word TIME that is in agreement with the abstract thing we call time. The daily lives of the people of such non-industrial societies are likely to be patterned around their physical needs and natural events rather than around a time schedule(時間表) based on the clock. They cook and eat when they are hungry and sleep when the sun goes down. They plant crops during the growing seasons and harvest them when the crops are ripe. They measure time not by a clock or calendar(日歷), but by saying that an event takes place before or after some other events. Frequently such a society measures days in terms of “sleeps” or longer periods in terms of “moons”. Some cultures, such as the Eskimos of Greenland measure seasons according to the migration of certain animals.

       Some cultures which do not have a written language or keep written records have developed interesting ways of “telling time”. For example, when several Australian aborigines want to plan an event for a future time, one of them places a stone on a cliff or in a tree. Each day the angle of the sun changes slightly. In a few days, the rays of the sun strike the stone in a certain way. When this happens, the people see that the agreed-upon time has arrived and the event can take place.

       In contrast(成對比), exactly correct measurement of time is very important in modern, industrialized societies. This is because industrialized societies require the helpful efforts of many people in order to work. For a factory to work efficiently(well, quickly and without waste), for example, all of the workers must work at the same time. Therefore, they must know what time to start work in the morning and what time they may go home in the afternoon. Passengers must know the exact time that an airplane will arrive or depart. Students and teachers need to know when a class starts and ends. Stores must open on time in order to serve their customers. Complicated(復(fù)雜的) societies need clocks and calendars. Thus, we can see that if each person worked according to his or her own schedule, a complicated society could hardly work at all.

1. By saying “Humans are social animals”, the author means _______.

       A. they live all over the world

       B. they are different from other animals

       C. they live in one place, district or country, considered as a whole

       D. they are divided into many groups

2. Time is not very important in non-industrial societies. This is because people in those societies _______.

A. don’t have the word "time" in their languages

B. don’t get used to using clocks and other timepieces

C. don’t measure time in their daily-lives around an exact time schedule

D. don’t need to plan their daily lives around an exact time schedule

3. The Australian aborigines’ way of “telling time” is based on _______.

       A. the change of the sun rays

       B. the movement of the earth in relation to the sun

       C. the position of the stone

       D. the position of the tree or the cliff

4. Which of the following might be the best title for this passage?

       A. Time and Culture            

    B. The Measurement of Time

       C. Time Schedule and Daily Life 

    D. Clock, Calendar and Society

According to a famous optical(光學) expert, Alexander, who recently visited Shanghai, the developed countries in Europe and America have made rules that children must wear resinous(樹脂) glasses instead of the traditional glasses made of glass. This is because the glass glasses are more likely to do harm to children’s eyesight.

Alexander pointed out: wearing the right glasses as soon as possible is still the best way to cure and put right children’s eyesight problems.

In America and Japan the resinous glasses have taken up 80 percent of the glasses market. And some European countries and America have made it a law that children, teenagers and drivers must wear resinous glasses. Now, about 10 million children in China have different eyesight problems and they need timely treatment.

But still, too many parents are buying the traditional glass glasses for their children. This is mainly because many parents know little or nothing about the good points of the resinous glasses. Besides, the price for the new glasses is a little higher than the traditional ones.

1. This news article mainly wants to tell us _______.

    A. Alexander visited China and introduced a new type of glasses

    B. we should wear resinous glasses instead of glass glasses

    C. resinous glasses are popular in Europe and America

    D. glasses can be made of other materials instead of glass

2. According to Alexander, the “timely treatment” to eyesight problems is _______.

    A. to stop wearing glass glasses any more

    B. to buy a pair of glasses and wear them right away

    C. to wear suitable resinous glasses at the right time

    D. to buy glasses made in Europe, Japan or America if possible

3. It can be inferred from this news text that _______.

    A. resinous glasses are not on sale in China yet

    B. resinous glasses are not acceptable in China

    C. glass glasses have disappeared on western market because there is a law against them

    D. glass glasses are the first choice in China not only because of their price

(1—3 BCD)

As the years passed, many occasions—birthdays, awards, graduations—________ with Dad’s flowers.

A. are marked           B. were marked         C. have marked         D. had marked

The way the guests ___ in the hotel influenced their evaluation of the service.

A. treated    B. were treated    C. would treat    D. would be treated

If you ___ nature, you will not succeed in the end.

A. go with  B. go against   C.against   D, be against

This composition is ___ order, ___ makes the teacher ____.

 A.in, which. Puzzled   B. for, that, happy   C. out of, which, angry   D. no, it, disappointed

If you ask people to name the one person who had the greatest effect on the English language,you will get answers like “Shakespeare”,“Samuel Johnson”and“Webster”,but none of these men had any effect at all compared to a man who didn't even speak English—William the Conqueror.

Before 1066,in the land we now call Great Britain lived peoples belonging to two major language groups.In the west?central region lived the Welsh,who spoke a Celtic language,and in the north lived the Scots,whose language,though not the same as Welsh, was also Celtic.In the rest of the country lived the Saxons,actually a mixture of Anglos,Saxons,and other Germanic and Nordic peoples,who spoke what we now call Anglo?Saxon(or Old English),a Germanic language.If this state of affairs had lasted,English today would be close to German.

But this state of affairs did not last.In 1066 the Normans led by William defeated the Saxons and began their rule over England.For about a century,French became the official language of England while Old English became the language of peasants. As a result,English words of politics and the law come from French rather than German.In some cases,modern English even shows a distinction (區(qū)別) between upper class  French and lower?class Anglo?Saxon in its words. We even have different words for some foods,meat in particular,depending on whether it is still out in the fields or at home ready to be cooked,which shows the fact that the Saxon peasants were doing the farming,while the upper?class Normans were doing most of the eating.

When Americans visit Europe for the first time,they usually find Germany more“foreign” than France because the German they see on signs and advertisements seems much more different from English than French does. Few realize that the English language is actually Germanic in its beginning and that the French influences are all the result of one man's ambition.

1.The two major languages spoken in what is now called Great Britain before 1066 were_________.

A.Welsh and Scottish         B.Nordic and Germanic

C.Celtic and Old English      D.Anglo Saxon and Germanic 

2.Which of the following groups of words are,by inference,rooted in French?

A.president,lawyer,beef      B.president,bread,water

C.bread,field,sheep          D.folk,field,cow 

3.Why does France appear less foreign than Germany to Americans on their first visit to Europe?

A.Most advertisements in France appear in English.

B.They know little of the history of the English language.

C.Many French words are similar to English ones.

D.They know French better than German. 

4.What is the subject discussed in the text?

A. The history of Great Britain.

B. The similarity between English and French.

C. The rule of England by William the Conqueror.

D. The French influences on the English language. 

If you dream of going someplace warm to escape the cold winter weather,a trip to a recently discovered planet would certainly warm you right up.The planet,named

OGLE-TR-56b,has temperatures of more than 3,000°F.“This is the hottest planet we know about,”says Dr Dimitar Sasselov,a scientist who led the discovery team.“It is hot enough to have an iron fog and to rain hot iron droplets(細沫).”

The new planet is 30 times farther away than any planet discovered by scientists

 before.It is in the Milky Way(銀河)but it is not in our solar(太陽的)system.The new planet moves around a star much like our sun,however scientists discovered the planet by using a new planet?searching method called transit technique.They were able to catch sight of the planet when it moved in front of its star,causing the star's light to dim(變暗).Scientists compare the method to discovering the shadow of a bee flying in front of a searchlight 200 miles away.“We believe the door has been opened wide to go and discover planets like the Earth,”says Sasselov.

1.We can infer from the passage that_________.

A.there is iron on the new planet

B.we could go to the new planet in winter

C.the star could block our view of the new planet

D.scientists are studying the weather

2.The “transit technique”can_____________.

A.help dim the light of a star

B.help scientists with a searchlight

C.help discover a bee on a planet

D.help find a planet moving before its star

3.Which is the best title for the passage?

A.New Planet searching Technique

B.New Distant Discovery

C.Space Searching

D.Dream Planet

---____ is your nationality? ---My nationality is Chinese.

A.What   B. Where    C.Which     D.Who