Several hundred strangers received “l(fā)ove letters” from a young man on the street. The letter was written and given out by Yang Yang, a student majoring in human resources at Chongqing University of Science and Technology，who hoped to show his disappointment with job hunting.

    Yang’s story has caught media attention perhaps because it is similar to those of millions of recent graduates seeking jobs and struggling for survival in the country’s wealthiest cities. They have diplomas, rather than professional skills，and come to big cities in hopes of better lives, only to find low-paying jobs and poor living conditions.

They are China’s “ant tribe(蟻族)”, a term created by sociologist Lian Si from Peking University in his 2009 book, Ant Tribe. “They’re so similar to ants. They share small and narrow living areas. They’re intelligent and hard-working, yet nameless and underpaid.” The term also speaks to their helplessness in a world governed by the law of the jungle -- only the strongest survive.

A survey in Lian’s another book published this year, Ant Tribe II, found nearly 30 percent of “ants” are graduates of famous universities—almost three times last year’s percentage. Most had degrees in popular majors. In addition, 7.2 percent of "ants" have at least a master’s degree compared to 1.6 percent in 2009.

    An “ant’s” average monthly salary is l, 904 yuan, with about 64 percent of them earning less than 2,000 yuan a month.

  Another survey in the 2010 Annual Report on the Development of Chinese Talent found more than 1 million “ants” live in big cities.

   “Most ants are from rural families or small towns, and their experiences in universities didn’t arm them well enough to fight with competitors in big cities’ employment markets.” Professor Zhang Ming at Renmin University of China said.

The “ant tribe’s” embarrassing living situations have become a serious social problem, and the government should develop smaller cities to attract more graduates from big cities, Zhang

believed.

    However, “ants” expect more study and training opportunities in big cities, which keeps them positive despite their situations.

1.Yang’s story is introduced in order to_________.

A. analyze graduates’ difficulties in finding jobs

B. lead to the topic of the article—“ant tribe”

C. tell readers a story about those big cities

D. show a clever way of dealing with pressure

2. The “ants” fail to find high-paying jobs mainly because__________.

A. they have no diplomas from good universities

B. their majors do not meet the needs of society

C. those from rural areas are not treated equally

D. they do not have necessary professional skills

3. “Ant tribe” members are similar to ants in the following aspects EXCEPT that_________.

A. they live in narrow and small places in groups

B. they work hard but earn little for survival

C. they are in a world judged by the jungle law

D. they are pleased with being nameless and underpaid

4.Professor Zhang thought “ants” problems could be solved by__________.

A. creating more jobs for graduates in big cities

B. developing smaller cities to attract graduates

C. sending graduates to rural areas and small towns

D. training graduates to improve their ability

A great French writer has said that we should help everyone as much as we can because we often need help ourselves. The small even can help the great. About this, he told the following story.
An ant was drinking at a small river and fell in. she tried her best to reach the side, but she couldn’t move at all. The poor ant got too tired but was still doing her best when a big bird saw her. With a pity, the bird threw a piece of wood. With it the ant reached the bank again. While she was resting and drying herself in grass she heard a man coming up. He was walking without shoes on his feet and carrying a gun in his hand. As soon as he saw the bird, he wished to kill her, and he would certainly do so, but the ant bit(咬) him in one of his feet and at that moment the bird flew away at once. It was an animal much weaker and smaller than the bird herself that had saved her life.
【小題1】 According to the French writer, we often need help from others, so we should _____ .

Researchers believe that the insect(昆蟲) is better at managing congestion (擁擠) than humans. Ants are the most many type of animal on earth with brains that contain about 250,000 cells ---- the largest among insects.

Now an intelligence expert Dr. Dirk Helbing says understanding more about ants could help solve one of the headaches of modern life -- road congestion.

His team set up an "ant motorway" with two routes of different widths from the nest to some sugar syrup (糖漿). Soon the narrower（更窄的） route soon became crowded（擁擠的）. But when an ant returning along the crowded route to the nest met with another ant just starting out, the returning ant pushed the newcomer onto the other path. However, if the returning ant had enjoyed a trouble-free journey, it did not send the newcomer in a different direction.

The result was that just before one route became clogged , the ants had turned to another route and traffic jams never formed.

The researchers also created a computer model of more complex ant networks with routes of different lengths. The team found that even though ants being sent in another direction sometimes took a longer route, they still got to the food quickly and efficiently.

Dr. Helbing, of the Dresden University of Technology in Germany, said that while you cannot allow cars to meet with traffic coming in the opposite（相反的）direction as a form of traffic control, you could do the next best thing and allow them to communicate.

His plan is to force cars traveling in one direction to tell oncoming traffic what the conditions they are about to meet with-- so they can avoid that situation if necessary.

1.The first paragraph suggests that _______.

2. The underlined word "clogged" can be replaced by _______ in the following four words.

3.If an ant returns along crowded route to the nest, how does the ant solve the traffic problem?

4. What's the advice that Dr. Helbing gives us?

When an ant dies, other ants move the dead insect out. Sometimes, the dead ant get moved away very soon—within an hour of dying. This behavior is interesting to scientists, who wonder how ants know for sure—and so soon—that another ant is dead.
One scientist recently came up with a way to explain this ant behavior. Dong-Hwan Choe is a biologist. Choe found that Argentine ants have a chemical on the outside of their bodies that signals to other ants, “I’m dead—take me away.”
But there’s a twist to Choe’s discovery. Choe says that the living ants—not just the dead ones —have this death chemical. In other words, while an ant crawls around, perhaps in a picnic or home, it’s telling other ants that it’s dead.
What keeps ants from dragging away the living ants? Choe found that Argentine ants have two additional chemicals on their bodies, and these tell nearby ants something like, “Wait—I’m not dead yet.” So Choe’s research turned up two sets of chemical signals in ants: one says, “I’m dead,” and the other set says, “I’m not dead yet.”
Other scientists have tried to figure out how ants know when another ant is dead. If an ant is knocked unconscious, for example, other ants leave it alone until it wakes up. That means ants know that unmoving ants can still be alive.
Choe suspects that when an Argentine ant dies, the chemical that says “Wait- I’m not dead yet” quickly goes away. Once that chemical is gone, only the one that says “I’m dead” is left. “It’s because the dead ant no longer smells like a living ant that it gets carried to the graveyard, not because its body releases new unique chemicals after death,” said Choe. When other ants detect the “dead” chemical without the “not dead yet” chemical, they drag away the body.
Understanding this behavior may help scientists figure out how to stop Argentine ants from invading new places and causing problems. Choe would like to find a way to use the newly discovered chemicals to spread ant killer to Argentine ant nests.
The ants’ removal behavior is important to the overall health of the nest. “Being able to quickly remove dead individuals and other possible sources of disease is extremely important to all animals living in societies, including us,” says Choe. “Think about all the effort and money that we invest daily in waste management.”
51. The underlined word “twist” in Paragraph 3 means _____.
A. an unexpected change                              B. a clear mistake
C. an important key                                        D. a shocking conclusion
52. Ants judge whether another one is dead or not depending on ______.
A. the sense of taste                                      B. the sense of smell
C. the sense of touch                                               D. the sense of sight
53. The result of the research can be used to ______.
A. kill troublesome pests
B. solve the problem of endangered species
C. prevent further expansion of the ants’ territory
D. keep the balance of nature
54. Why is it important to remove dead individuals?
A. Because it is easier to manage the living.
B. Because it can save money to deal with the waste.
C. Because it can provide more space for the living.
D. Because it can keep the living from suffering disease.
55. What might be the best title of the text?
A. Dead or living? It is easy to judge
B. Pulling away the dead ants is a difficult task
C. Ant nests have great undertaking capacity
D. Leaving it alone or taking it away? Ants feel puzzled

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。
　　Many people will remember the flight of the space shuttle（航天飛機）challenger，in June，1983. The achievement of Sally Ride，America’s first woman astronaut to fly into space，made this flight especially memorable. Students from two Camden, New Jersey, high schools, however, are probably to remember Norma rather than Sally whenever they think about the flight.
　　Norma didn’t travel alone. She brought about 100 companions along with her. Norma was an ant，a queen ant who，with her subject，made up the first ant colony（群體）to travel into space. The ants were part of a science experiment designed by students to test the effects of weightlessness on insects.
　　The equipment designed by the students for their colony functioned perfectly throughout the long space trip. The young scientists and their teachers were very sad to find that their insect astronauts had all died at some point before the container was returned to the school and opened. The problem didn’t occur in space，but on the ground after challenger had landed. The container remained in the desert for nearly a week before the ant colony was moved. The hot，dry desert air dried out the colony’s container and the ants died from lack of moisture（水分）.
　　The project was termed success because it did provide useful information. Students will continue their efforts to pinpoint（精確找到）what went wrong. They will try to prevent the same difficulties from reoccurring on future missions. They don’t want to be discouraged either by the demise of the ants or by the $ 10,000 shuttle fare they will have to pay to send the next colony of ants into space.
51．What does the passage mainly tell us？
A．Sally Ride，America’s first woman astronaut.
B．How to keep ants alive in space.
C．How to make equipment for insects in space.
D．An experiment with ants in space.
52．According to the passage, we know that the underlined word“demise”is another word for“_____”.
A．death 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　B．colony
C．insect　　　　　　　　　　　　　　D．moisture
53．We don’t think the project was a failure. This is because_____.
A．everything went as smoothly as expected
B．the students had pinpointed exactly the reason
C．something important had been learned
D．the students had succeeded in the experiment
54．We can conclude that ants _____ on the next space trip.
A．will have to be kept alive in a container full of water
B．will have to be sent into space with the first woman astronaut
C．should be put into a container where there is enough food
D．should be put into a container which is not too dry