Us, night's meteor (流星) shower left many people in the community dissatisfied and demanding answers. According to Gabe Rothschild. Emerald Valley's mayor, people gathered in the suburbs of the city, carrying heavy telescopes, expecting to watch the brightly burning meteors passing through the sky What they found instead was a sky so brightened by the city's lights that it darkened the light of the meteors passing overhead.

"My family was so frustrated." admitted town resident Daune Cosby.” We wanted to make this an unforgettable family outing, but it turned out to be a huge disappointment.”

Astronomers—scientists who study stars and planets—have been complaining about this problem for decade, They say that light pollution prevents from seeing objects in the sky that they could see quite easily in the past. They call on people and the government to take measures to fight against it.

There is yet a population besides professional and amateur star observers that suffers even more from light pollution. This population consist of birds, bats, frogs, snakes, etc. For example, outdoor lighting severely affects migrating(遷徙的) birds. According to the International Dark-Sky Association, “100 million birds a year throughout North America die in crashes with lighted buildings and towers.”

Countless more animal casualties(傷亡) result from the use of artificial lighting. Clearly, people enjoy the benefits of lighting their evenings, but some scientists think it can be harmful to humans, too. They worry that exposure to light while sleeping can increase a person's chances of getting cancer.

Emerald Valley is only one community that is becoming aware of the negative effects of light pollution. For years. Flagstaff, Arizona, has enforced lighting regulations in its city in order to assist astronomers at the Lowell Observatory. Similar efforts have been made worldwide, and a movement is underway to remind us to turn off lights when we are not using them, so that other creatures can share the night.

41. It happened last night that ______.

A. the city's lights affected the meteor watching

B. the meteors flew past before being noticed

C. the city light show attracted many people

D. the meteor watching ended up a social outing

42. What do the astronomers complain about?

A. Meteor showers occur less often than before.

B. Their observation equipment is in poor repair.

C. Light pollution has remained unsolved for years.

D. Their eyesight is failing due to artificial lighting

43. What is the author concerned about according to Paragraph 4?

A. Birds may take other migration paths.

B. Animals' living habits may change suddenly.

C. Varieties of animals will become sharply reduced.

D. Animals' survival is threatened by outdoor lighting.

44. Lighting regulations in Flagstaff. Arizona are put into effect to

A. lessen the chance of getting cancer

B. create an ideal observation condition

C. ensure citizens a good sleep at night

D. enable all creatures to live in harmony

45. What message does the author most want to give us?

A. Saving wildlife is saving ourselves.

B. Great efforts should be made to save energy.

C. Human activities should be environmentally friendly.

D. New equipment should be introduced for space study.

第三節(jié)．完形填空(共20小題；每小題1．5分，滿分30分)

閱讀下面的短文，掌握其大意，然后從21--40各題所給的四個(gè)選項(xiàng)(A、B、C和D)中選出最佳選項(xiàng)。     

Greg Mortenson is a mountaineer. In 1993, he   21   but failed to reach K2, one of the most forbidding of the Himalyayan  22  . He staggered(蹣跚) into a tiny village of Korphe in Pakistan, barely alive. The   23   villagers cared for him and fed him back to health. The __24   they showed to a stranger moved Mortenson, and filled him with a' desire to 25   it.

Looking around, he saw that the poor villagers had actually nothing. 26   , he could see the desire of the villagers to   27   their community. For example, they dreamed of 28   for their children. The children received schooling two days a week from a teacher they   29   with another village, because they couldn't   30   to hire one alone. Naturally, the village had no schoolhouse. Moretenson thought it was by building a school   31   he could best express his   32   for their kindness to him. He left,   33   he would return with necessary materials.

However, things didn't go  34   as he had expected. He was a nurse by profession, and wasn't  well   35    It was a struggle for him to raise the $10,000 or so needed to buy the building materials.    36   problems, including his then Cultural   37   of the area led to a series of frustrations. But with his efforts and cooperation of the villagers, he eventually overcame the __ 38  . He fulfilled his promise.

After that he wanted to return to America,build a career and start a family. However, it ba-came clear that a school for Korphe was just the start. There were so many other villagers in Pa-kistan that had the similar needs. The more   39   he became, the more he came to understand the area and the more he realized how important education was. The   40   was that, in the pe-riod of over a decade, 55 schools were built.

21. A. approached     B. paused           C. hesitated          D. attempted

22. A. peaks          B. levels            C. hills              D. slopes

23. A. cold           B. mean             C. kind              D. tiny

24. A. bravery        Ｂ. ability            C.poverty           D.generosity

25. A. receive        B. repay              C. respect         D. recycle

26. A. Besides        B. However         C. Therefore          D. Moreover

27. A. develop        B. visit              C. design            D. increase

28. A. career         B. development      C. education         D. health

29. A. traded          B. worked           C. communicated    D. shared

30. A. help            B. manage           C. decide            D. afford

31. A. that             B. which            C. what              D. if

32. A. sympathy        B. gratitude          C. attitude           D. anger

33. A. adding          B. promising         C. demanding        D. warning

34. A. smoothly        B. badly             C. closely            D. properly

35. A. dressed          B. received           C. respected          D. paid

36. A. Some             B. Others            C. Other             D. Another

37. A. interaction       B. ignorance         C. background       D. difference

38. A. difficulities       B. fears            C. temptations(誘惑)D, shortcomings

39. A. interested        B. rooted            C. involved          D. lost

40. A. result            B. idea              C. cause             D. report

 

閱讀下列應(yīng)用文及相關(guān)信息，并按照要求匹配信息。請(qǐng)?jiān)诖痤}卡上將對(duì)應(yīng)題號(hào)的相應(yīng)選項(xiàng)字母涂黑。

首先，請(qǐng)閱讀下列六本書籍的圖片及相應(yīng)簡(jiǎn)介：

A.

Everybody Loves Our Town：An Oral History of Grunge

By Mark Yarm

Crown Archetype

592 pp;  $25.00

B.

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry

By Jon Ronson

Riverhead； 288 pp;  $25.95

C.

The Red Market: On the Trail of the World’s Organ Brokers，Bone Thieves，

Blood Farmers, and Child Traffickers

By Scott Carney

Morrow; 272 pp;  $25.99

D.

Car Guys vs. Bean Counters：The Battle for the Soul of American Business

By Bob Lutz

Portfolio; 256 pp;  $26.95

E.

Henry Kissinger On China

By Henry Kissinger

Penguin Press; 608 pp;  $36

F.

Biopunk：DIY Scientists Hack the Software of Life

By Marcus Wohlsen

Current; 256 pp;  $25.95

以下是對(duì)這些書的描述。請(qǐng)將這些描述與書籍的圖片及相應(yīng)簡(jiǎn)介匹配起來。

1.According to Jon Ronson, the writer of the book, psychopaths are very charming, smart, easily bored and cruel. In the book, Ronson takes readers into the fascinating world of psychopaths by speaking to the experts and having amusing conversations with the psychopaths themselves.

2.This book is about a deeply funny story, as well as a deeply sad story—the great Nineties moment when a bunch of punk rock bands from Seattle accidentally blew up into the world’s biggest noise. The author gives the unique chronicle of how it all happened, and how it ended too soon. The book also makes readers appreciate how strange it was.

3.This is just one of the terrifying everyday tales of the body trade documented.  It started out extremely well, with some fascinating stories about the trade in human body parts. It covers many different aspects of the “red market”, ranging from skeletons to blood, and even the giant business of collecting and selling human hair.

4.It’s been reported that the author has often attracted as much attention as his cars. The book is partly a biography covering a very short portion of the author’s own life—his second stint at General Motor（GM）—which recently ended after about a decade. However, it’s more than a biography. It is also a view on what went wrong with the US car industry and US industry in general.

5.This is a great book for anyone who has an interest in science, or wants to see advances in medicine at greater rates that we’ve seen them so far. If a reader has teenagers with interests in science, he should have them read this book. It will inspire them to broaden their horizons beyond the typical research lab.

 

Section B

A．a(chǎn)ccompanied B．trend C．resist D．murder E. incredible F. severe           G. involving    H. tolerant     I. roughly     J. particular

 

Drunken driving——sometimes called America’s socially accepted form of41_——has become a national infectious disease．Every hour of every day about three Americans on average are killed by drunken drivers, adding up to an42number of 250,000over the past decade．

A drunken driver is usually defined as one with a 0．10 blood alcohol content or      43three beers, glasses of wine or shots of whisky drunk within two hours．Heavy drinking used to be an acceptable part of the American strong man image and judges were not44in most courts, but the drunken slaughter has recently caused so many well-publicized tragedies, especially45young children, that public opinion is no longer so      46      of it．

Twenty states have raised the legal drinking age to 21, altering a47in the 1960s to reduce it to 18．After New Jersey lowered it to 18, the number of people killed by 18-20-year-old drivers more than doubled, so the state recently upped it back to 21．

Reformers, however, fear raising the drinking age will have little effect unless48by educational programs to help young people to develop “responsible attitudes” about drinking and teach them to49strong pressure to drink．

Tough new laws have led to increased arrests and tests and, in many areas already, to a marked decrease in fatalities（死亡事故）．Some states are also penalizing bars for serving customers too many drinks．

 

New York Times-The already crazed competition for admission to the nation’s most famous universities and colleges became even more intense (激烈的) this year, with many recording the lowest acceptance rates.

Harvard College, for example, offered admission to only 7.1 percent of the 27,462 high school seniors who applied — or, put another way, it rejected 93 of every 100 applicants, many with extraordinary achievements, like a perfect score on one of the SAT exams. Yale College accepted 8.3 percent of its 22,813 applicants. Both rates were records.

Columbia College admitted 8.7 percent of its applicants, Brown University and Dartmouth College about 13 percent, and Bowdoin College and Georgetown University 18 percent — also records.

“We love the people we admitted, but we also love a very large number of the people who we were not able to admit,” said William R. Fitzsimmons, dean (主任) of admissions and financial aid at Harvard College.

Some colleges said they placed more students on their waiting lists than in recent years, in part because of uncertainty over how many admitted students would decide to enroll （登記入學(xué)）. Harvard and Princeton stopped accepting students through early admission this academic year; that meant that more than 1,500 students who would have been admitted in December were likely to have applied to many famous schools in the regular round.

Many factors contributed to the tightening of the competition at the most selective colleges, admissions deans said. The number of high school graduates in the nation has grown each year over the last decade and a half, experts estimate that the figure will reach the highest point this year or next, which might reduce the competition a little.

Other factors were the ease of online applications, expanded financial aid packages, an ambitious students’ applying to ever more colleges.

1．What’s the passage mainly about?

A．Harvard has the lowest admission rate this year.

B．Many factors have led to the intense competition.

C．Famous universities prefer to have more students on their waiting lists.

D．Admission to famous universities became even more difficult this year.

2．Which of the following has the highest acceptance rate this year?

A．Yale College.                 B．Georgetown University.  

C．Columbia College.         D．Dartmouth College.

3．How many of the 20,000 applicants would be rejected by Columbia College this year?

A．18,260     B．1,740        C．18,350         D．1,950