Are you sometimes a little tired and sleepy in the early afternoon? Many people feel this way after lunch. They may think that eating lunch is the cause of the sleepiness. Or, in summer, they may think it is the heat. However, the real reason lies inside their bodies. At that time – about eight hours after you wake up – your body temperature goes down. This is what makes you slow down and feel sleepy. Scientists have tested sleep habits in experiments where there was no night or day. The people in these experiments almost always followed a similar sleeping pattern. They slept for one long period and then for one short period about eight hours later.
In many parts of the world, people take naps(小睡) in the middle of the day. This is especially true in warmer climates(氣候), where the heat makes work difficult in the early afternoon. Researchers are now saying that naps are good for everyone in any climate. A daily nap gives one a more rested body and mind and therefore is good for health in general. In countries where naps are traditional (傳統(tǒng)的), people often suffer less from problem such as heart disease.
Many working people, unfortunately, have no time to take naps. Though doctors may advise taking naps, employers do not allow it! If you do have the chance, however, here are a few tips about making the most of your nap. Remember that the best time to take a nap is about eight hours after you get up. A short sleep too late in the day may only make you feel more tired and sleepy afterward. This can slao happen if you sleep for too long. If you do not have enough time, try a short nap – even ten minutes of sleep can be helpful.
1. Why do people feel sleepy in the early afternoon according to the text?
A. They eat too much for lunch.            B. They sleep too little at night.
C. Their body temperature becomes lower.  D. The weather becomes a lot warmer.
2. If you get up at 6:30 am, what is the best time for you to take a nap?
A. About 12:30 pm.                 B. About 1:30 pm.
C. About 2:30 pm                  D. About 3:30 pm
3. What would be the best title for the text?
A. Just for a Rest               B. All for a Nap
C. A Special Sleep Pattern.             D. Taking Naps in Warmer Climate.

This is why Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo came back.
The Chinese pair finally won the Olympic gold medal that eluded （避開） them for so many years Monday night, a prize so compelling it lured（誘使）them out of the cozy life of a happily retired married couple. It wasn’t the best skate of their career, but it was good enough for gold and that was all that mattered.
Their score of 216. 57 points was more than three points ahead of teammates Pang Qing and Tong Jian. When Shen and Zhao finished their routine, Zhao knelt to the ice, burying his face in his hands while his wife patted his back. He pumped his fist several times while she smiled, her grin was so bright it could light up the entire arena（圓形運動場）.
Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy of Germany dropped to the bronze medal after a flawed free skate.
It’s the first time since 1960 that a Russian or Soviet couple isn’t atop the Olympic platform, ending one of the longest winning streaks in sports. Perhaps even more shocking, the Russians are leaving empty - handed, with no medals of any color.
Shen and Zhao, bronze medalists at the last two Olympic Games, retired after winning their third title in 2007.  They got married, and lived the easy life of retirees, doing shows and appearances. But something was missing--that gold medal.
1. Which statement is WRONG according to paragraph one?
A. It was the Chinese pair who eventurelly won the Olympic gold medal.
B. The Chinese pair performed the excellent skate of their career.
C. The Chinese pair have been living a comfortable life.
D. The Chinese pair don’t get along well with each other.
2. From paragraph two and three, we can learn ________.
A. Shen and Zhao’s efforts paid off at last
B. Shen was so tired that she knelt to the ice
C. Pang and Tong won the bronze medal
D. The German pair ranked the second place
3. What’s the meaning of the underlined word “grin” ?
A. wide smile     B. happy laugh       C. excited feeling     D. happiness
4. What can we know from the passage?
A. The Soviet pair also got some medals in the Olympic.
B. Shen and Zhao retired in 2007 and got married after they got their silver medal.
C. It’s the gold medal that lures them back to the Olympic.
D. The German pair always performed well during the competition.

My daddy doesn’t know how to express love. It is my mum that makes everyone happy and calm in
our family; while Daddy only works day and night, never looking us in the face. But Mum makes a
wrongdoing list of us for Daddy scolding us. She was a spy!
Once, I stole a candy. Daddy asked me to put it back and told the shopkeeper I would like to carry
loads for her. Well, Mum told him I was jut a child.
I broke my leg on the playground. It’s still Mum that held me tightly in her warm arms. Daddy
drove us right to emergency room. He was asked to move the car away for that space was for
ambulance. Daddy got angry, “What do you think of it? A touring car?”
On my birthday party, it was, again, my mum that took over the cake for me. And my dad was busy
with blowing balloons and setting the table and doing the housework.
While looking over our album, my friends always ask, “What does your father look like?” God
knows. He photos others all the time. So there are many photos of my mum and me, pretty and lovely
photos.
And I still remembered the day when dad taught me riding. I asked him not to let his hands away,
but he did the opposite. And I certainly fell onto the ground. I got angry and decided to get on the bike
and rode. But he smiled again.
Mum wrote every letter to me while I was in college. He, except checks, did write a letter, but
extremely short, just a few words, saying, “Without your playing on the lawn, my son, my lawn grows
prettier than before.”
Every time I phoned, it seemed that he wanted to talk, but he would say, “I will get your mum.”
On the day of my wedding, Mum cried as if we would never meet again, while dad went out with a
nasal sound.
From very young, I heard him saying, “Where have you been?” “When do you go home?” “Did you
get oil for your car?” “…” Dad really knows nothing about showing love. Unless…
Maybe he showed while I didn’t notice.
1. From the first and second paragraphs, we can infer that ______.
A. it was the daddy that was in charge of his children’s education
B. the writer’s parents loved their children, at the same time, they were strict with them
C. the children were all afraid of their father so they had to be cute
D. the writer’s mom was like a spy who reported what the children did to the father
2. Why did the father get angry when he sent the writer to the hospital?
A. Because he parked his car at a wrong place.
B. Because the parking space of the ambulance was very crowded.
C. Because the writer’s injury made the father quite upset.
D. Because the person paid little attention to his son’s serious injury.
3. According to Paragraph Six, we know the father______.
A. was not patient when he taught the writer riding
B. might want to see his child fall off the bike
C. used a wrong way of teaching his child riding
D. might want his son to learn riding through independent practice
4. Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?
A. The dad posted checks to the writer while he was in college.
B. The dad had no single photo of his own in the album.
C. The dad scolded the writer for having damaged the lawn.
D. The dad got excited when participating in the writer’s wedding.

When you watch a movie in the cinema, you may wonder how “the moving pictures” is made and where the voices, and noises and music come from. Now here is the answer.
In modern times, the middle part of a cinema film has lots of small photographs, each one of which is different from the one before it. Each photograph is brought in front of a strong light, and there it stops for a very small part of a second. This photograph, therefore, appears on the screen, and we see it. Then the light is covered and the next photograph is moved to the position in the front of the strong light. Meanwhile, the metal cover turns away from the light. Thus, the second photograph is shown on the screen. This is done again and again, twenty-four times a second, and we think we are watching a moving picture on the screen. But nothing on the screen actually moves. ”The moving picture” is in fact made up of a lot of bits. We see about 86,000 different pictures every hour, but none of them moves.
The voices, noises and music are recorded on the side of the cinema film. The record looks like marks of strange shapes. The side of the film passes in front of another light, and the rays of light which pass through change as the marks change. These marks have been made from the voices and other sounds of the people and events in front of the cinema when the film is being made. The marks may be considered as “printed sounds”.
1. When a cinema film is shown, how long does each photograph appear on the screen?
A. One twenty-third of a second.
B. One twenty-fourth of a second
C. A few seconds
D. One thirty-fifth of a second.
2. Why can we see pictures moving on the screen?
A. We see about 86,000 different pictures every hour.
B. Each picture is a little different from the former.
C. Photographs change quickly.
D. Both B and C.
3. What is a cinema film made up of?
A. Small photographs and a strong light.
B. Small photographs and the sounds.
C. A lot of bits.
D. Voices and photographs.
4. Which is the true about the sound record?
A. It sounds strange.
B. It looks as irregular marks.
C. It is printed in the middle of a film.
D. It is made while the film is being shown on the screen.

For more than six million American children, coming home after school means coming home to an empty house. Some deal with the situation by watching TV. Some may hide. But all of them have something in common. They spend part of each day alone. They’re called latchkey children. They’re children who look after themselves while their parents work and their bad condition has become a subject of concern（關(guān)心）。
Lynette Long was once the principal（校長）of an elementary school. Said, “We had a school rule against wearing jewelry. A lot of the kids had chains around their necks with keys attached（附帶）。 I was often telling them to put them inside their shirts. There were so many keys that it never came to my mind what they meant.” Slowly, she learned they were house keys.
She and her husband began talking to the children who had them. They learned of the effect working couples and single parents had on their children Fear is the biggest problem faced by children at home alone. One in each three latchkey children the Longs talked to reported being scared（害怕）.Many had nightmares and were worried about their own safety.
The most common way latchkey children deal with their fears is by hiding. It might be in a shower stall, under a bed, in a closet. The second is TV. They’ll often play it high volume.
It’s hard to get statistics（統(tǒng)計數(shù)字）on latchkey children, the Longs learned. Most parents are slow to admit they leave their children alone.
1. The main idea about “l(fā)atchkey” children is that they ______.
are growing in numbers
are also found in middle-class neighborhoods  
watch too much TV during the day
suffer problems from being left alone
2. Which sentence in the second paragraph is the topic sentence?
We had a school rule against wearing jewelry.
A lot of kids had chains around their necks.
I was often telling them to put them inside their shirts.
She learned they were house keys.
3. The main feeling these children have when they are at home by themselves is ______.
A. tiredness     B. freedom     C. loneliness     D. fear
4. The word “nightmare” in the third paragraph probably means______.
A. night suit                                 B. night habit
C. terrible dream at night         D. staying up at night
5. We may draw a conclusion that_______.
latchkey children enjoy having such a large amount of time alone
latchkey children try to hide their feeling
latchkey children often watch TV with their parents
it’s difficult to find out how many latchkey children there are

（5）閱讀理解
Can you believe your eyes? A recent experiment suggests that the answer to that question may depend on your age.
Martin Doherty, a psychologist at the University of Stirling in Scotland, led the team of scientists. In this experiment, Doherty and his team tested the perception(觀察力) of some people, using pictures of some orange circles. The researchers showed the same pictures to two groups of people. The first group included 151 children aged 4 to 10, and the second group included 24 adults aged 18 to 25.
The first group of pictures showed two circles alone on a white background. One of the circles was larger than the other, and these people were asked to identify the larger one. Four-year-olds identified the correct circle 79 percent of the time. Adults identified the correct circle 95 percent of the time.
Next, both groups were shown a picture where the orange circles, again of different sizes, were surrounded by gray circles. Here’s where the trick lies in. In some of the pictures, the smaller orange circle was surrounded by even smaller gray circles — making the orange circle appear larger than the other orange circle, which was the real larger one. And the larger orange circle was surrounded by even bigger gray circles — so it appeared to be smaller than the real smaller orange circle.
When young children aged 4 to 6 looked at these tricky pictures, they weren’t fooled — they were still able to find the bigger circle with roughly the same accuracy as before. Older children and adults, on the other hand, did not do as well. Older children often identified the smaller circle as the larger one, and adults got it wrong most of the time.
As children get older, Doherty said, their brains may develop the ability to identify visual context. In other words, they will begin to process the whole picture at once: the tricky gray circles, as well as the orange circle in the middle. As a result, they’re more likely to fall for this kind of visual trick.
1．Doherty and his team of scientists did an experiment to evaluate        .
A．children’s and adults’ eye-sight
B．people’s ability to see accurately
C．children’s and adults’ brains
D．the influence of people’s age
2．When asked to find the larger circle,        .
A．children at 6 got it wrong 79 % of the time with no gray ones around
B．only adults over 18 got it right 95% of the time with gray ones around
C．children at 4 got it right about 79 % of the time with gray ones around
D．a(chǎn)dults got it right most of the time with gray ones around
3．According to the passage, we can know that        .
A．a(chǎn) smaller orange circle appears bigger on a white background
B．a(chǎn)n orange circle appears bigger than a gray one of the same size
C．a(chǎn) circle surrounded by other circles looks bigger than its real size
D．a(chǎn) circle surrounded by bigger ones looks smaller than its real size
4．Visual context may work when children get older than        .
A．4                           B．6                            C．10                          D．18
5．Why are younger children not fooled?
A．Because they are smarter than older children and adults.
B．Because older people are influenced by their experience.
C．Because people’s eyes become weaker as they grow older.
D．Because their brain can hardly notice related things together.

“Here, waiter! Look at your soup. What’s this? Is it vegetable soup? No. It’s fly(蒼蠅) soup! Look at the bluebottle! Terrible! Pour it onto the face of the cook. Who wants such a wonderful soup?” shouted a middle-aged lady. In less than a second, the customers gathered around her table. A young waiter was already holding the soup plate, searching for the fly with a spoon. The lady was angry. The manager came out to see what the trouble was. “Bring her another bowl of soup” was his order. The lady wanted to show the fly to the manager. As she reached for the spoon, she pointed at something blue in it. “Look, that’s the fly!” she shouted.
The crowd pressed closer and stared at the spoon in the young waiter’s hand. Just before they could see it clearly, the man put the spoon full of soup into his mouth. Biting slightly, after a while, he smiled and nodded, “It’s really a piece of burnt green onion. I firmly believe that is worthy of our fame.” On hearing this, people laughed and walked away. The woman was at a loss and didn’t know if she could drink the soup or leave it there.
The whole incident lasted only a few minutes. Not long after that the waiter who had saved the restaurant form disgrace (不光彩) soon got a rise.
1. The “bluebottle” the lady mentioned means          .
A. a kind of soup          B. a kind of fly             C. the soup plate           D. the spoon
2. Seeing what had happened, the manager          .
A. knew that the fault would make this restaurant lose face
B. scolded the waiter to smooth down (消除) the lady’s anger
C. said sorry to the woman for the soup
D. sent away the cook who had caused so much trouble
3. Form the passage we can infer that the young waiter ate the fly, just because       .
A. it’s really his fault to make the lady angry
B. he didn’t want others to drive the cook out of the restaurant
C. he wanted to show what he ate was nothing but a piece of green onion
D. he was afraid he would be sent away by the manager
4. The young waiter saved the restaurant’s fame by           .
A. eating the fly in soup                  B. telling the truth to everyone
C. saying sorry to the lady                D. pointing out what the lady said was wrong

第三部分 閱讀理解(共20小題；每小題2分，滿分40分)
閱讀下列短文，從每題所給的四個選項A、B、C和D中，選出最佳選項。
Tears are nature’s way of making us feel more comfortable. When our eyes are made uncomfortable by some small pieces of pollution, or when we are cutting onions, or when we are exhausted and “red-eyes” from over work and late hours, tears form in our eyes to clean and refresh them.
Tears are also a sign of strong emotion. We cry when we are sad and we cry when we are happy.
And tears seem to be uniquely human. We know that animals also experience emotion--fear, pleasure, loneliness, but they do not shed (流) tears.
Biologically speaking, tears are actually drops of saline fluid, which is a little bit salty, produced by a gland (腺) in the body. Because salt is an important component, tears may actually constitute the most conclusive evidence that the human animal is the end product of a long evolutionary process that began in the sea.
And it is clear that, in addition to the emotional benefits, the shedding of tears has a specific biological function as well. Through tears, we can eliminate from our body certain chemicals which build up in response to stress and create a chemical imbalance in the body. Crying actually makes us feel better by correcting that imbalance and making us feel good again. And thus the emotional and the biological functions of tears merge (合并) into one and make us even more “human” than we would otherwise be.
1. According to the passage, human beings may have originated in
A. the sea         B. the salt              C. chemicals            D. animals
2. Which of the following is NOT a function of tears?
A. Biological.      B. Emotional.           C. Political.             D. Chemical.
3 According to the article, which of the following is unique to humans?
A. The feeling of loneliness.                 B. The state of feeling good.
C. The ability to shed tears.                D. The feeling of fear.
4. The underlined word "eliminate" probably means
A. add             B. produce             C. replace               D. remove

Today, among people everywhere, there is an increasing awareness and worry about the steady growth in the world’s population．A recent survey conducted by the United Nations Fund for Population Activities （UNFPA） reported that this growth will continue until the end of the next century．For developing countries alone, the annual average population growth is, at present, 4．6% compared to 2．0% for developed countries．At this rate, the world’s population will reach 10．2 billion by the turn of the 21st century．With the growth in population is the problem of food security… the guarantee of a steady supply of food．The unstoppable growth in population justifies the Malthusian Doctrine that population of a region will continue to grow unless checked, and this is of course alarming since it will inevitably lead to food shortages of considerable proportions．
Our forests are an abundant source of food and fuel, two items essential in sustaining life．Above 30% of the world’s land surface is covered by such forests．In Asia alone, more than two billion people depend heavily on forest products for their subsistence and survival．To maintain a reasonable balance between population growth and food supply, this natural source of life — sustaining food and fuel must be conserved and protected from its worst enemy — man himself．It is appalling （令人震驚的） to note that in many developing countries, which are themselves heavily hit by population-food imbalance, governments approve the cutting down of forests to meet their immediate needs for saleable timber, and also for agricultural land．Often the cutting down and burning of forests is conducted with total abandon owing to the absence of sound forestry techniques and management．At the rate tropical forests are now being cleared each year, the world’s tropical forests will be completely destroyed within the next 100 years．
In order to maintain food security for the world’s population, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations （FAO） has launched a campaign aimed at ensuring food supply, maximizing stability in the flow of this supply and ensuring access to it by all．Forestry, according to the FAO, plays a vital role in making it possible to fulfill all its three objectives．Its most important role is that of conserving soil and water．Trees provide natural protection against soil erosion （侵蝕） by absorbing the excess water brought by heavy rains．
1．The first paragraph tells us that ____．
A．the flow of food supply is the result of population increase．
B．the world population has reached the 10-billion mark．
C．the problem of population growth has caused considerable alarm in a few countries．
D．the problem of food supply goes hand-in-hand with population increase．
2．The Malthusian Doctrine presents ____ as far as world population is concerned．
A．a(chǎn)n optimistic view of the future     B．a(chǎn) pessimistic outlook for the future
C．a(chǎn)n encouraging picture          D．a(chǎn)n indifferent picture
3．In this context, “this natural source of life — sustaining food and fuel” （in Paragraph 2） refers to ____．
A．the flow of food supply           B．forests
C．woodland products               D．man’s worst enemy
4．The three objectives of the FAO can be replaced by ____．
A．stopping population growth       B．increasing food production
C．a(chǎn)chieving food security          D．ensuring maximum utilization of forests