Mrs. Packletide intended to shoot a tiger. Not that the desire to kill had suddenly come to her, or that she felt she would leave India safer with one wild beast less. It was because Loona Bimberton had recently taken a plane to the forest and killed a tiger, and the newspapers showed photographs of Loona Bimberton with a tiger-skin on. In a world supposed to be moved by hunger and by love, Mrs. Packletide’s movements were largely governed by dislike of Loona Bimberton.
Circumstances proved favorable. Mrs. Packletide had offered a thousand rupees (印度卢比) for the opportunity of shooting a tiger without risk or effort, and it happened that an old tiger was frequently coming to a neighboring village at night. He was so old that he couldn’t kill animals in the wild and just satisfied his appetite to the smaller household animals. The villagers were eager to earn the thousand rupees; children were posted night and day in the jungle to watch the tiger, and the cheap goats were left about to keep him from going elsewhere. The one great fear was that he should die of old age before the day of Mrs. Packletide’s shoot.
The great night arrived. A platform had been built in a tree, on which sat Mrs. Packletide and her paid companion, Miss Mebbin. A goat with a loud bleat (咩咩叫) was tied down at the correct distance. With an accurate gun, they waited for the coming of the tiger.
“I suppose we are in some danger?” said Miss Mebbin.
She was not actually nervous about the wild beast, but she was unwilling to perform a bit more service than she had been paid for.
“It’s a very old tiger. It couldn’t spring up here even if it wanted to.” said Mrs. Packletide.
Their conversation was cut short by the appearance of the old tiger. He saw the goat, and lay on the earth for a short rest before attacking.
The gun fired very loudly, and the great yellow beast jumped to one side and then rolled over in the stillness of death. In a moment a crowd of excited villagers appeared on the scene, and their shouting carried the glad news to the village.
It was Miss Mebbin who found that the goat was dying from a bullet-wound, while no wound could be found on the tiger. Evidently the wrong animal had been hit, and the tiger had died of heart-failure, caused by the sudden loud noise of the gun. Mrs. Packletide was annoyed at the discovery; but anyway, she owned a dead tiger, and the villagers, anxious for their thousand rupees, gladly accepted the fiction that she had shot the tiger. And Miss Mebbin was a paid companion. Therefore Mrs. Packletide faced the cameras with a light heart, and her pictures appeared on the newspapers of England and America. As for Loona Bimberton, she refused to look at a newspaper for weeks, and was in a depressed emotion for quite some time.
Mrs. Packletide’s tiger-skin was inspected and admired by the neighbors, and Mrs. Packletide went to the Costume Ball in the character of Diana (狩猎女神).
“How amused everyone would be if they knew what really happened,” said Miss Mebbin a few days after the ball.
“What do you mean?” asked Mrs. Packletide quickly.
“How you shot the goat and frightened the tiger to death,” said Miss Mebbin, with her unpleasant laugh.
“No one would believe it,” said Mrs. Packletide, her face changing color1 rapidly.
“Loona Bimberton would,” said Miss Mebbin.
Mrs. Packletide’s face settled on greenish white. “You surely wouldn’t give me away?” she asked.
“I’ve seen a weekend cottage near Dorking,” said Miss Mebbin, “six hundred and eighty. Quite a bargain, only I don’t happen to have the money.”
Miss Mebbin possessed the pretty weekend cottage. Mrs. Packletide lost interest in animal-hunting.
“The extra expenses are so heavy,” she said to inquiring friends.
1.Mrs. Packletide planned to shoot a tiger because she ________.
A. would leave India safer B. hated the wild animal
C. admired her good friend D. disliked a certain person
2.The Indian villagers were afraid that the tiger might ________.
A. eat their goats B. kill their kids
C. die of old age D. attack them at night
3.What did Mrs. Packletide want the villagers to arrange for her?
A. A platform in a tree B. A paid companion.
C. An accurate gun. D. A safe shooting.
4.What was the result of Mrs. Packletide’s shooting?
A. The old tiger was shot to death.
B. Neither the tiger nor the goat was shot.
C. The old tiger missed being shot.
D. Both the goat and the tiger were shot.
A new study suggests that the more teenagers watch television, the more likely they are to develop depression(情绪低落) as young adults.
The researchers used a national long-term survey of adolescent（青少年的）health to survey the relationship between media use and depression. They based their findings on more than 4,000 adolescents who were not depressed when the survey began in the year 2000.
As part of the survey, the young people were asked how many hours of television or videos they watched daily. They were also asked how often they played computer games and listened to the radio. Media use totaled an average of five and one-half hours a day. More than two hours of that was spent watching TV.
Seven years later, in 2007, more than seven percent of the young people had signs of depression. The average age at that time was twenty-one.
The researchers say they did not find any such relationship with the use of other media such as movies, video games or radio, etc. But the study did find that every extra hour of television meant an eight percent increase in the chances of developing signs of depression. Young men were more likely than young women to develop depression given the same amount of media use.
The study didn’t explore if watching TV causes depression. But one possibility is that it was taking time away from activities that could help prevent depression.
Last December, the journal Social Indicators Research published a study of activities that help lead to happy lives. Sociologists from the University of Maryland found that people who describe themselves as happy spend less time watching television than unhappy people. The study found that happy people are more likely to be socially active, to read, to attend religious services and to vote.
1.We can learn from the survey that of all the media use ______.
A. computer games are teenagers’ favorite
B. most teenagers prefer to listen to the radio
C. teenagers enjoy watching TV very much
D. newspaper is not included in the survey
2.According to the passage, what kind of activity may help prevent depression?
A. Playing computer games. B. Taking part in sports.
C. Listening to the radio. D. Watching movies.
3.We can conclude that a teenager should ____________.
A. play more video games instead of watching TV
B. be active in taking part in outdoor activities
C. be more active in reading and studying
D. attend religious services and care for politics
The Great Plague(瘟疫) of London in 1665 was the last in a long senies of plague that first began in London in June 1499.1t killed between 75,000 and 100,000. First suspected in late 1664,it began to spread eastwards in April 1665 from the poor suburb of St. Giles to the crowded and dirty communities on its way to the walled City of London.
The Great Plague at Its Peak
By September 1665 ,the death rate had reached 8,000 per week. Helpless city authorities began to abandon quarantine(隔离) measures. Houses containing the dead and dying were no longer locked. London's mournful silence was broken by the noise of carts carrying the dead for burial in churches or public plague pits.
Well-off residents soon fled to the countryside, leaving the poor behind in poor old commun/ties. Thousands of dogs and cats were killed to remove a feared source of contagion (传染) ,and piles of rotting garbage were burned. Doctors cut swellings and bled black spots in attempts to cure plague victims.
Plague Orders prohibited churches from keeping dead bodies in their buildings during public assemblies or services, and camers of the dead had to identify themselves and could not mix with the public.
Samuel Pepys: Eyewitness Accounts
In his famous diary, Samuel Pepys, a member of Parliament, conveyed the sad image of desperate people wandering the streets in search of relief from the ruins of the plague. His notes during 1665 indicated the severity of London's Great Plague. In July, he mourned " the sad news of the death of so manv in the community, forty last night, the bell always going either for deaths or burials. " A month later, when London's death rate rose sharply, Pepys noted that surviors are forced to carry the dead to be buried by daylight, the nights not enough to do it
The Plague Declines and the Government Reacts
By February 1666,the Great Plague had nearly run its course.lt died out during the Great Fire that same year and never returned. Central parts of London were rebuilt with wider streets to relieve crowding and better waste water svstems to improve public cleanliness. New Plague Orders were issued in May 1666,which banned the burial of future plague victims in churches and small churchyards, enforced the use of quicklime (生石灰) at chosen burial sites, and strictly prohibited opening graves less than one year after burial as a safeguard against the spread of infection.
1.1n the course of the Great PJague,it was a common practice to .
A. keep dead bodies in the church buildings
B. burn piles of rotting garbage in the streets
C. carry the dead for church burials in the daytime
D. unlock the houses containing the dead and dying
2.lt can be inferred from the passage that .
A. dogs and cats were certain to spread the piague
B. doctors' treatment of plague victims was effective
C. city authorities allowed rich residents to go to the countryside
D. quarantine measures were powerless in preventing the plague
3.How did Samuel Pepys feel when the bell was going all the night during the Great Plague?
A. Frightened. B. Relieved.
C. Sorrowful. D. Moody.
4.What's the main purpose of this writing?
A. To blame poor public cleanliness for plague.
B. To inform readers of what happened in the Great Plague.
C. To show that plague was closely related to church activities.
D. To prove that plague could be controlled by humans.
In an ideal world，people would not test medicines on animals. Such experiments are stressful and sometimes painful for animals，and expensive and timeconsuming for people. Yet animal experimentation is still needed to help bridge vast gaps in medical knowledge. That is why there are some 50 to 100 million animals used in research around the world each year.
Europe，on the whole，has the world’s most restrictive(严格的) laws on animal experiments. Even so，its scientists use some 12 million animals a year，most of them mice and rats，for medical research. Official statistics show that just 1.1 million animals are used in research in America each year. But that is misleading. The American authorities do not think mice and rats are worth counting and，as these are the most common laboratory animals，the true figure is much higher. Japan and China have even less comprehensive（全面的） data than America.
Now Europe is reforming the rules governing animal experiments by restricting the number of animals used in labs. Alternatives to animal testing，such as using human tissue or computer models，are now strongly recommended. In addition，sharing all research results freely should help to reduce the number of animals for scientific use. At present，scientists often share only the results of successful experiments. If their findings do not fit the hypothesis（假设） being tested，the work never sees the light of day. This practice means wasting time，money，and animals’ lives in endlessly repeating the failed experiments.
Animal experimentation has taught humanity a great deal and saved countless lives. It needs to continue，even if that means animals sometimes suffer. Europe’s new measures should eventually both reduce the number of animals used in experiments and improve the way in which scientific research is conducted.
1.What is the main idea of this passage?
A. The success of animal experiments should be ensured.
B. A ban on the use of animals in the lab should be enforced.
C. Greater efforts need to be taken to reduce the number of lab animals.
D. Scientists should be required to share their research results with each other.
2.Which of the following statements is true about animals used in the lab?
A. America uses only about 1.1 million lab animals per year.
B. Europe does not use mice and rats as lab animals at all.
C. Britain does not use as many lab animals as China does.
D. Japan has limited data on the number of lab animals used each year.
3.Which of the following is mentioned as an alternative to replace animal experiments?
A. Statistical studies. B. Computer models.
C. DNA planted in animals. D. Tissue from dead animals.
4.What usually happens to unsuccessful animal experiments?
A. They are not made known to the public.
B. They are made into teaching materials.
C. They are collected for future publication.
D. They are not removed from the research topic list.
完成句子
1.枣庄位于山东的西南部。（be situated）
____________________________________________________________________。
2.面对困难，我们可以向老师求助。（face）
____________________________________________________________________。
3.是我们采取措施保护环境的时候了。( take measures to )
____________________________________________________________________。
4.我在做饭，弟弟却在做作业。（while）
____________________________________________________________________。
5.我突然想到编个故事来逃避惩罚。（It occurs to sb…）
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短文改错
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（＼）划掉。
修改：在错的词下画划一横线, 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l0处, 多者（从第11处起）不计分。
I just come back from Britain last week. I was luckily enough to be one of the student from different countries to visit the UK from Feb.16 to 28. We paid a visit to many places, like London, Oxford or the Lake District. I learned much about British culture and history in London, where was my favorite. I also liked Oxford, in which I saw much more old buildings. The Lake District was beautiful, but it was pity that it rained heavily when they were there. The most excited thing for me in the Britain was that I made a lot of friends there.
