Northern California’s national parks appear pure and clean, almost untouched. But scientists are finding that there is more to this wild area than one can see. Even in the deep forests and on the mountain tops, animals may be poisoned by pesticides (杀虫剂) used in valley farms far below.

Researchers with the United States Geological Survey  (美国地质勘探局) are working late into the night. They are searching for and catching frogs in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada. The Pacific chorus frog (拟蝗蛙) breeds in the high mountains just as the snow melts. The pools basically fill with meltwater, and as soon as the ponds melt the chorus frogs begin breeding there. Some Pacific chorus frogs in the mountains of California have tested positive for farming pesticides.

Gary Fellers is a researcher who once worked for the USGS. He and other team members are collecting the frogs to test them for agricultural poisons. No one farms in these forested national parks. However, winds carry chemicals from the Central Valley farming area into the mountains.

Kelly Smalling was the lead writer of the USGS study. “The decline of amphibians (两栖动物) has been documented for decades and decades. Some populations have gone extinct. And why these populations are declining is still a mystery.” Ms. Smalling says pesticides could be harming frogs and other amphibians.

The researchers tested pond water and soil from the bottom of the ponds.  They were clean or almost free of  pesticides. But tests on the bodies of the frogs showed the presence of 12 agricultural pesticides.

The concentration on the frog becomes greater than the concentration that is present on the water or some other part of the environment. Kelly Smalling says the next step is to find a way to deal with the pollution. “The first thing we need to do is understand how these chemicals that we’re finding harm the frogs. We have to understand the problem before we can fix it.”

1.Animals in Northern California’s national parks ________.

A. are well protected

B. are killed by air pollution

C. are harmed by pesticides

D. will be sent to the farms in the valley

2.According to the text,  the Pacific chorus frogs ________.

A. breed when it snows

B. are only found in the ocean

C. are studied by the scientists

D. are free from the farming pesticides

3.What will the researchers do next?

A. Keep the pond clean.

B. Deal with the pollution.

C. Find new homes for the frogs.

D. Search for and catch the frogs.

She is widely seen as proof that good looks can last forever. But, at nearly 500  years  of age, time  is catching up with the Mona Lisa.

The  health  of  the  famous picture, painted by Leonardo da Vinci in 1505, is getting worse by the year, according to the Louvre Museum where it is housed.

“The thin, wooden panel on which the Mona Lisa is painted in oil has changed shape since experts checked it two years ago，”the museum said.Visitors have noticed changes, but repairing the world’s most famous painting is not easy.Experts are not sure about the materials the Italian artist used and their current (现在的) chemical state.

Nearly 6 million people go to see the Mona Lisa every year, many attracted by the mystery of her smile.“It’s very interesting that when you’re not looking at her, she seems to be smiling, and then, you look at her and she stops，”said Professor Margaret Livingstone of Harvard University.“It’s because direct vision (视觉) is excellent at picking up detail, but less suited to looking at shadows.Da Vinci painted the smile in shadows.”

However, the actual history of the Mona Lisa is just as mysterious as the smile.Da Vinci himself loved it so much that he always carried it with him, until it was eventually sold to France’s King Francis Ⅰ in 1519.

In 1911, the painting  was  stolen  from  the  Louvre Museum by a former employee, who took it out of the museum hidden under his coat.He said he planned to return it to Italy.The painting was sent back to France two years later.

During World War Ⅱ， French men hid the painting in small towns to keep it out of the hands of German forces.

Like many old ladies, the Mona Lisa  has some interesting stories to tell.

1.The underlined sentence in the first paragraph means the Mona Lisa________.

A. is losing its value

B. is being damaged after so many years

C. is getting more valuable with years passing

D. will rot away

2.The smile of the Mona Lisa can only be seen ________.

A. by indirect vision    B. at a distance

C. by direct vision    D. in shadows

3.From the last paragraph, we can infer that ________.

A. many interesting stories have been written about the Mona Lisa

B. people are interested in the stories about the Mona Lisa

C. some mysteries still remain to be solved about the Mona Lisa

D. many more stories will be told about the Mona Lisa

4.Experts haven’t had any repairs on the Mona Lisa because ________.

A. it is now in a poor chemical state

B. they don’t know how to replace the wooden panel

C. they don’t have the materials Da Vinci used

D. they are afraid it will be done further damage

♦Yuanxiao, Chinese Lantern Festival

The Lantern Festival is celebrated on the 15th of the first month of the Chinese lunar calendar. The festival ends the New Year’s celebration. It is a fun festival. People carry lanterns and go into the streets at night to watch lion or dragon dances, play games and light firecrackers. Yuanxiao, a sweet dumpling made of rice flour, is the traditional food eaten during the festival. In Chinese, the festival is named after this food, which is said to represent family unity and happiness because it is sticky (粘的), round and sweet.

♦The Dai Water­Splashing Festival

The Dai minority in Yunnan celebrate the Water­Splashing Festival in the middle of April. The festival celebrates the Dai Lunar New Year and lasts for three days. There are dragon races and fireworks displays on the first day and a fair on the second day. At the fair, young lovers throw love pouches to each other. The third day is the actual water­splashing day, people splash water on each other to wash away illnesses and bad luck and bring good luck for the coming year.

♦Losar

Losar is a Tibetan word for New Year.“Lo” means “year” and “sar” means “new”. As the most popular festival among Tibetans, it is celebrated from the first day in the first month to the fifteenth day based on the traditional Tibetan calendar.

On the last day of the year, people clean their houses and prepare for the festival. On the first day of the New Year, Tibetan women usually wake up early at about 5 o’clock, and prepare for a special kind of barley wine for the family which have tsamba (糌粑), brown sugar, and milk dregs (渣). The whole family have to drink the wine in their beds and then continue to sleep, while the housewives sit in front of their windows, waiting for the sunrise. As soon as they see the sun rays in the east, they go to the well for the first bucket of water in the New Year. It is said that water in the well is the freshest and sweetest at this time and the family who get the lucky water earliest will be the most fortunate.

1.People eat yuanxiao during the Lantern Festival because ________.

A. it is the traditional food and has its symbolic meaning

B. it is delicious and easy to be made

C. it is sticky, round and sweet

D. it is made of rice flour

2.What can we know from Paragraph 2 about the word “fair”？

A. Young people splash water on each other at the fair.

B. It is the time when young people have meetings.

C. Young people find their lovers there.

D. Young people sing and dance there to celebrate the festival.

3.How many days does Tibetan Losar last?

A. 2    B. 3

C. 15    D. 25

4.The passage is mainly about________.

A. the culture and custom in China

B. the reason why people celebrate festivals

C. several festivals in China

D. the history of three festivals in China

Back in the old days, there were three wise men in ancient Greece. These three wise men were from three different generations. Socrates was the oldest of the three. He passed his knowledge to his student, Plato, who then passed it on to Aristotle.  Socrates,  Plato, and Aristotle were all great philosophers (哲学家). Together, their schools of thought have since become the foundation of Western philosophy.

Aristotle was born in 384 BC. His father, Nicomachus, was a doctor to the king of Macedonia. As the son of a doctor, Aristotle was no stranger to science. Growing up, he learned quite a lot about medicine and biology from his father. Later, after Nicomachus passed away, he was sent to study in Plato’s Academy in Athens. Aristotle was about eighteen years old then.

Plato’s Academy was Europe’s first university. It offered courses on various subjects. Shortly after Aristotle began his study there, he devoted himself to learning everything on the curriculum. He soon proved himself an excellent student. Because of his wide range of interests, Aristotle never limited his range of education. As a result, he became the leading expert in many fields. Philosophy was simply one of them. Aristotle was in the Academy for nearly 20 years. He first joined as a student and then stayed on as a teacher. By the time that Plato died around 347 BC, Aristotle had already built up a very good name for himself. However, he did not get the job as the head of the Academy. That post went to Plato’s nephew. Some people believed that Aristotle felt angry at the choice. But there is no proof to that theory. Regardless of what he had truly felt, Aristotle decided to leave Athens. So in 347 BC, he quit the Academy and went to work for Hermeias, ruler of Atarneus, in Asia Minor (today’s Turkey). Aristotle was not alone in this time. He and another Academy member, Xenocrates, who was also a famous philosopher, founded the Assus Academy. They taught there for several years. During his stay in Atarneus, Aristotle was on very good terms with Hermeias.  He even married the man’s niece, Pythias. Interestingly, when Aristotle later wrote his famous book, Politics, he said that the ideal ages for marriage was 37 for the husband and 18 for the wife. Given that Aristotle was 37 years old at the time, it is very likely that Pythias was 18.

1.Which of the following is NOT a philosopher?

A. Socrates.    B. Xenocrates.

C. Plato.    D. Nicomachus.

2.What’s the right order of the following events?

a．Socrates passed his knowledge to his student, Plato.

b．Aristotle was sent to Plato’s Academy.

c．Aristotle wrote his famous book, Politics.

d．Aristotle learned about medicine and biology from his father.

e．Plato died.

A. a, c, b, d, e    B. a, d, b, e, c

C. d, a, c, b, e    D. b, a, e, c, d

3.According to the passage we can know in Plato’s Academy________.

A. students were provided with only a few subjects at that time

B. Aristotle worked hard but he was still not famous

C. Aristotle didn’t have a very good time for 20 years

D. Aristotle was not only a student but also became a teacher

4.The passage mainly tells us ________.

A. some information about Aristotle

B. three wise men in ancient Greece

C. the foundation of Western philosophy

D. Europe’s first university

针对最近报道的“扶起摔倒的老人而官司缠身”，“救人反而惹来麻烦”等事件，你们班开展了一次主题班会：老人摔倒，你会伸手去扶吗？请结合讨论情况写一篇短文，并发表自己的看法。

注意：1.词数：100左右；

2．开头已给出，不计入总词数。

Recently, our class held a heated discussion about whether we should lend a helping hand when an old man has a fall. The opinions vary from person to person.

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假定英语课上老师要求同桌之间交换修改作文，请你修改你同桌写的以下作文。文中共有10处语言错误，每句中最多有两处。每处错误仅涉及一个单词的增加、删除或修改。

增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号(∧)，并在其下面写出该加的词。

删除：把多余的词用斜线(\)画掉。

修改：在错的词下画一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。

注意：1.每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；

2．只允许修改10处，多者(从第11处起)不计分。

Dear classmates，

I’ll tell you everything about my future. Every one of us is thinking about the future. Do you know what that mine is? I have decided to become the middle school teacher. Does it sound surprising？I have this dream when I was only a child. I love children. As we all can see, teachers are great needed in our country, especially in the countryside. Many parents want his children to be well­educated, and they don’t want them to be teachers. Perhaps one of the main reason is that teachers work too hard but get too little. In spite that, I am determined to devote all my life to teach in my hometown.

阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Oscar Pistorius was born into Henke and Sheila Pistorius in Johannesburg, South Africa on November 22, 1986, with fibular hemimelia (腓侧半肢畸形) in both legs. When he was 11 months old, his legs were amputated (截肢) halfway 1. his knees and ankles. In most homes, that would bring years of sadness. Not so in 2. .

“I grew up in a home where disability was not 3. issue，” Pistorius says. “My parents made me cherish 4. I had.”

Pistorius started running in 2004, and became more and more successful. 5. (know) as “the Blade Runner” and “the Fastest Man on No Legs”， Pistorius took part in the 2004 Summer Paralympics (残奥会) in Athens and 6. (come) third overall in the T44 (one leg amputated below the knee) 100­metre event.

At the 2012 Summer Olympics on August 4, Pistorius became the first amputee runner 7. (compete) at an Olympic Games. In the 400 metres race, he took second place in the first heat of five 8. (run), finishing with a time of 45.44 9. (second) to advance to the semi­finals on August 5. He ran in the second semi­final, where he finished eighth with a time of 46.54 seconds. In the 200 metres competition he set a new world record of 21.30 seconds in his heat on August 29, 10. was defeated in the final by Alan Oliveira of Brazil and took silver.

True leadership is not just the ability to identify the talent and skill of the polished individuals around you. It involves being able to dig beneath the surface and discover ______.

Once there was a boy who constantly sat and talked in his math class, and seemed ______ in group activities. Most teachers would ______ think of him as a problem student.

However, Anna was different. She believed the student was above ______ in other areas so she created a strategy to find out.

Anna didn’t ______ the parents. Instead, she organized a handful of activities in the class to get more information. In place of calling out for volunteers in class she created a ______ for each Friday: Girls VS Boys.

The first week the class was totally ______. Everyone wanted to win. Even the boy had his hand up the whole time trying to get a turn. ______， Anna waited, and waited, and waited. Finally the ______ teacher paired the boy with the most ______ girl student in class.

Now the two teams had a ______ score, all the students sat back eager to see the result. As the teacher placed the question on the board, most of the students began to ______ their heads: this was a question they had never ______ in class.

“______！” the teacher yelled. Both students started doing it ______thinking of how to solve the complex question. Their classmates, full of ______， exclaimed, “Hurry, hurry, hurry！”The boy finished it just seconds before the girl and spun around with his ______ raised, “I won！”Almost nobody could believe the student they admired failed until Anna ______ the result.

This was what Anna tried to get — it turned out that the student wasn’t bad, he was ______.

So we can see that ______ hidden abilities is not always easy but the end results can be magical. Try your hand at this quality of leadership now and report your results.

1.A. truth    B. treasure    C. potential    D. motivation

2.A. active    B. cautious    C. discouraged    D. disconnected

3.A. immediately    B. appropriately    C. abnormally    D. scarcely

4.A. limit    B. average    C. prejudice    D. value

5.A. contact    B. comfort    C. warn    D. blame

6.A. dilemma    B. debate    C. game    D. competition

7.A. creative    B. noisy    C. enthusiastic    D. curious

8.A. Yet    B. Still    C. Somehow    D. Therefore

9.A. arbitrary    B. wise    C. ridiculous    D. puzzled

10.A. elegant    B. careless    C. hard­working    D. considerate

11.A. rare    B. close    C. poor    D. different

12.A. turn    B. lift    C. shake    D. nod

13.A. raised    B. feared    C. overlooked    D. covered

14.A. Go    B. Hurry    C. Look    D. Try

15.A. skillfully    B. slowly    C. casually    D. abruptly

16.A. chaos    B. anxiety    C. courage    D. excitement

17.A. arms    B. hopes    C. confidence    D. eyes

18.A. obtained    B. analyzed    C. confirmed    D. adjusted

19.A. upset    B. bored    C. tired    D. spoiled

20.A. foreseeing    B. assessing    C. appreciating    D. recognizing

If he’d survived his sudden illness in 1990, Jim Henson might be turning 79 years old on September 24, 2015. He would probably still be at work. We can only guess where his imagination would have taken him — and us — in the 25 years we missed. There’s no doubt that he would have broken new ground, for Henson was a never­stopping innovator (创新者)．

His long career began far back in 1955, when he created Sam and Friends for a Washington D．C. television station. The programmes were just five minutes long and scheduled in the no­man’s­land between afternoon and evening programming. Yet the show won an Emmy for best local entertainment programme in 1958.

When it ended in 1961, Henson struggled to find work. He could only get brief appearances on other programmes like The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live.  Only in 1976 did a British producer finally give Henson the green light to start a full­scale television show. The Muppet Show was produced and broadcast in Great Britain before finally arriving on prime time (黄金时间) US television. The network continued to identify it as a children’s programme, though the programme won a wide following of adult viewers.

One reason for its appeal to grown­ups was the obvious skill in catching the imagination. Henson’s talent was so great that it’s difficult to think of Kermit or Miss Piggy as nothing more than piles of cloth when they aren’t being operated. But Henson himself never forgot how much work went into creating his characters.

Way back in his early days, Henson created Kermit the Frog. His body was made from a green coat his mother had thrown away and his eyes were two halves of a ping­pong ball. Over the years, his shape became more expressive. “Kermit is the character through whose eyes the audience is viewing the show. He’s a nice guy，” Henson said.

1.Which of the following programmes marked the start of Jim Henson’s career?

A. The Tonight Show.    B. Sam and Friends.

C. Saturday Night Live.    D. The Muppet Show.

2.It can be inferred from the passage that Miss Piggy was ________.

A. a character Jim Henson created

B. Jim Henson’s close friend

C. a television programme

D. Kermit’s girlfriend

3.From the passage, we can infer that ________.

A. it was easy for Jim to create his characters

B. Jim Henson died of illness at the age of 54

C. the Muppet Show was broadcast in the US first

D. the programme Sam and Friends was not popular locally

Most parents in Britain log onto social networking sites like Facebook to spy on what their children are doing, a study has found. Figures showed that nearly 55% of parents thought of snooping_around on their children’s profiles (基本信息) to see what they are up to. They did it to avoid having “awkward conversations” with the children but nearly a quarter admitted it was the only way they could find out about their lives.

Websites like Facebook and MySpace along with microblogging site Twitter have become popular among teenagers and children. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that last year among 16 to 24­year­olds,75% posted messages on them. The majority of 13 to 16­year­olds have more than 100 “friends” on Facebook while more than 750,000 are using the website below the age limit, which is 13.

Experts and parents however have expressed anxiety about how they can monitor what the young are up to when they go online. Almost one in 20 mothers and fathers even log on with a friend’s account to avoid detection and gain better access to their children’s profiles.

While 55% said they did spy on their children, 40% said they did not, but the remaining 5% said they would do if they knew how.

Some 41% monitor their children’s status updates and 39% look at their “wall”， which is where they and friends can write things. Just under one third, 29%, looked at pictures their children had uploaded (上传)．

When asked why they behaved like they did, 6% of parents blamed their “overprotective” instincts (本能) and 14% admitted they were just being curious.

1.What do the underlined words “snooping around” probably mean?

A. Posting messages freely.

B. Investigating secretly.

C. Moving around casually.

D. Communicating easily.

2.According to the passage, what makes experts and parents worried?

A. What children write in their profiles.

B. Whom the children would make friends with.

C. Why teenagers like posting messages online.

D. How they can monitor children’s online behavior.

3.According to the study, ________.

A. more than one third parents monitor their children’s status updates

B. uploading pictures is bringing children great danger

C. most parents are against making net friends

D. few parents know what “wall” is

4.According to the passage, which of the following is NOT true?

A. Experts and parents want to know what the young do online.

B. People younger than 13 are not allowed to use Facebook in Britain.

C. Under one third of parents looked at pictures their children had uploaded.

D. About 25% of parents have many ways to find out about their children’s lives.