Guilin City Daily Bus Tour

63. How much is the cost for a family of a couple and an 8-year-old child to book this tour?

64. In which place on the itinerary can visitors appreciate towers?

65. Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

66. This passage is most likely to be______.

The world’s native languages are dying out at an unprecedented(空前的) rate, taking with them irreplaceable(不能替代的) knowledge about the natural world, according to a new study.

The study identified five global “hot spots” where languages are vanishing faster than anywhere else ---- eastern Siberia, northern Australia, central South America, the US state of Oklahoma and the US Pacific Northwest. “Languages are suffering a global extinction crisis that greatly goes beyond the pace of species extinction,” linguistics(語(yǔ)言學(xué)的) professor David Harrison noted, who said half of the world’s 7,000 languages were expected to disappear before the end of the century.

Native people had an intimate(詳盡的) knowledge of their environment that was lost when their language disappeared, along with other certain things often unfamiliar to us, Harrison stressed. “Most of what we know about species and ecosystems is not written down anywhere, it’s only in people’s heads,” he said. “We are seeing in front of our eyes the loss of the human knowledge base.”

Harrison was one of a team of linguists who carried out the study. The researchers traveled to Australia this year to study native languages, some of the most endangered. According to Harrison, in Australia, they were heartened to see a woman in her 80s who was one of the only three remaining speakers of the Yawuru language passing on her knowledge to schoolchildren. He said such inter-generational exchanges were the only way native languages could survive. “The children had elected to take this course, no one forced them,” he said. “When we asked them why they were learning it, they said, ‘This is a dying language, we need to learn it’.” Also, while there they found a man with knowledge of the Amurdag language, which had previously been thought extinct.

The researchers said all five of the hot spots identified were areas that had been successfully colonized and where a dominant language such as Spanish or English was threatening native tongues.

60. What does this text mainly talk about?

A. A study on native languages endangered.  

B. The knowledge of native languages.

C. People’s efforts in saving native languages. 

D. Harrison and his study on languages.

61. The underlined word “vanishing” in the second paragraph can be best replaced by         .

62. According to Harrison, language extinction         .

A. causes the researchers lots of worries

B. speeds up the pace of species extinction

C. brings about a loss of knowledge about the environment

D. threatens the existing of Spanish and English

Family traditions were important in our house, and none was more appreciated than the perfect Christmas tree.

“Dad, can we watch when you trim(修剪) the tree?” My eldest son, Dan, nine, and his seven-year-old brother John, asked.

“I won’t be cutting this year,” my husband Bob said. “Dan, you and John are old enough to measure things. Do it all by yourselves. Think you boys can handle it?”

Dan and John seemed to grow six inches in their chairs at the thought of such an amazing responsibility. “We can handle it,” Dan promised. “We won’t let you down.”

A few days before Christmas, Dan and John rushed in after school. They gathered the tools they’d need and brought them out to the yard, where the tree waited. I was cooking when I heard the happy sounds as the boys carried the tree into the living room. Then I heard the sound that every mother knows is trouble: dead silence. I hurried out to them. The tree was cut too short. John crossed his arms tight across his chest. His eyes filled with angry tears.

I felt worried. The tree was central to our holiday. I didn’t want the boys to feel ashamed every time they looked at it. I couldn’t lower the ceiling, and I couldn’t raise the floor either. There was no way to undo the damage done. Suddenly, a thought came to my mind, which turned the problem into the solution.

“We can’t make the tree taller,” I said. “But we can put it on a higher position.”

Dan nodded his head sideways. “We could put it on the coffee table. It just might work! Let’s try it!”

When Bob got home and looked at the big tree on top of the coffee table, Dan and John held their breath.

“What a good idea!” he declared. “Why didn’t I ever think of such a thing?”

John broke into a grin. Dan’s chest swelled with pride.

56. The underlined part “grow six inches” (Para. 4) implies the brothers felt         .

57. Who trimmed the Christmas trees this year?

58. How could the short tree be turned into a perfect one?

59. What the writer’s husband said in the end showed         .

When I was growing up, I had an old neighbor named Doctor Gibbs. He didn’t look like any doctor I’d ever known. He never yelled at us for playing in his yard, but was always very   36   . When Doctor Gibbs wasn’t   37   lives, he was planting trees. His house was   38   on ten acres of land, and his life’s  39   was to turn this land into a forest. The good doctor had some  40   theories about planting trees. He believed in the principle: “No pain, no gain”. He never watered his new trees, a(n)  41   which is contrary to   42    wisdom.

Once I asked why and he told me that watering plants   43    them because it made them grow weaker. He said you have to make things tough for the trees so that only the strongest    44   . He talked about how watering trees made them develop   45  

roots and how, if they were not watered, trees would grow deep roots   46    moisture

(水分). So Doctor Gibbs would plant an oak(橡樹) and, instead of watering it every morning, he’d beat it with a rolled-up newspaper. I asked him why he did that, and he said it was to get the tree’s   47   .

Doctor Gibbs died a couple of years after I left home. Every now and then, I walked by his house and looked at the trees that I’d watched him   48    some 25 years ago. They were tall and    49   .

I planted a couple of trees myself a few years ago. Two years of coddling(溺愛) these trees meant they grew up weak. Whenever a cold wind blew, their branches     50   .

Adversity (逆境) seemed to benefit Doctor Gibb’s trees in ways comfort and ease  51   

could.

Every night before I got to bed, I   52   my two sons. I stand over them and watch their little bodies. I often pray that their lives will be easy. But lately I’ve been thinking that it’s time to   53   my prayer. I know my children are going to    54   hardships. There’s always a cold wind blowing somewhere. What we need to do is to pray for deep roots so when the rains fall and the winds blow, we won’t be    55   .                       

36. A. cruel                     B. mean                     C. kind                       D. grateful

37. A. living                     B. saving             C. wasting           D. helping

38. A. depended               B. sat              C. located             D. existed

39. A. work                     B. goal                       C. value                  D. belief

40. A. interesting              B. complicated     C. funny                     D. abnormal

41. A. rule                       B. attitude            C. trend                  D. principle

42. A. current               B. conventional         C. original            D. reasonable

43. A. spoiled                B. restored                C. strengthened     D. discouraged

44. A. support               B. survive                 C. insist                      D. continue

45. A. shallow               B. strong           C. slim                        D. deep

46. A. in need of              B. in spite of               C. in view of               D. in search of

47. A. attention                B. interest            C. injury                      D. improvement

48. A. grow                     B. plant                      C. bring                      D. destroy

49. A. weak                     B. colorful           C. beautiful                  D. strong

50. A. waved                B. danced                 C. swung                D. trembled

51. A. never                     B. always            C. sometimes               D. almost

52. A. look through              B. care for               C. watch out               D. check on

53. A. improve                     B. correct                 C. stop                        D. change

54. A. experience             B. challenge                C. beat                        D. reach

55. A. put out           B. held up            C. taken over               D. torn apart

 ---Would you like to meet Krystal at the airport?

---________. She is the last person I want to see.

A. Yes, I’d like to       B. With pleasure

C. Oh, no, not me       D. I’d like to, but I have no time 

The bus hit against a tree in the fog and　　　 to the deep valley, with twenty passengers on board killed, most of whom are pupils.

A. down it rolled　 B. down rolled it　 C. down did it roll D. it down rolled

She was shy and feeling pretty nervous,　　　 on such a big stage.

A. for the first time she was　　 B. this being her first time

C. she was the first time　 D. being her first time

I have kept that picture　　　 I can see it every day as it always reminds me of my stay in the country.

A. in which　 B. whether　 C. where　　　 D. when

 ---Did you go to the lecture delivered by Professor Li last week?

---I________, but I was fully occupied the whole week.

A. had gone   B. went   C. would go   D. would have gone

 Poorer families often lack _____to a car, which they would need to drive their children to a more successful school outside their own district.

A. tendency   B. caution      C. access       D. profession