From age eight to eleven, I attended a small school in Bath, England. It was a small school of four classes with about twenty-five children in each class according to age. For the most part, one teacher had to teach all subjects to the children in the class. However, sometimes the headmaster, Mr. Ronald Broches, would come in and spend an hour or so,teaching some subjects in which he was especially interested. He was a large man with a very happy nature. He had a sense of humor and would delight in telling the children small stories that would make us laugh. He was a very fair man and had a great influence on many of the children.

In my own case , I found that he took great interest in me and he quickly found that I enjoyed puzzles(难题) . He would often stop me as I was going to class and take a piece of paper out of his pocket, often with a puzzle on it. The puzzles were usually mathematical or logical. As time went on, they slowly got more difficult, but I loved them. Not only that, they made me interested in math and problem-solving that stays with me to this day. They also showed me that intellectual(智力的) activity was rewarding when the correct answers were found, but perhaps more importantly it was great fun.

To this day, I can remember Mr. Broches’ cheerful cry of “Well done!” whenever I got a problem right. The simple communication with a man whom I loved greatly has had a deep influence on my life. I shall forever be thankful that our paths crossed. Mr. Broches died just two weeks after I had won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Unluckily, I had no chance to speak to him before he died. I learnt later that he heard of my success and I will always hope that he knew the deep influence he had made on my life.

56. There were about        children in each class when the writer was in the school in Bath, England.

  A. 4          B.8        C.11        D.25

57. From the text, we can learn that         .

A the puzzles made the students laugh

B the students were afraid of the headmaster

C  the puzzles made Richard enjoy math

D  the headmaster never taught in the school.

58. The writer felt sorry because        .

A.      Mr. Broches had passed away before he won the Nobel Brize

B.      he didn’t express his thanks before Mr. Broches died

C.     he couldn’t find Mr. Broches after he grew up

D.     Mr. Broches didn’t know his success

Roy died at an old age with many memories. His life was full of both good and bad memories, but he  26  to remember mostly the good. The bad memories that broke his heart and that he  27 with friends, involved the big war－World War II. So many things about his war experience he remembered  28 great detail.

Roy survived the attack on Normandy－he was part of the second wave that landed. He 29 with him the memories of water mixed with the blood of fallen soldiers. He experienced 30 , sweat, blood, fire and salt water just to get to the beach. In terror-filled moments that would forever change his life and the history of our world, his life was robbed of innocence（天真）  31  the realities of war engulfed（吞噬）him.
Not too many months later, he found himself cold and  32 . Close to being completely 33 from air supplies（供给）because of the weather, Roy and his fellows hung on to what little hope they could have. Then Christmas morning came, the weather cleared long enough for supplies to be  34 and word to spread that other troops would soon be there.
Many of the young men who began with Roy did not make it home  35 . They gave their lives to fighting against the Nazi. Those who did survive would never be the same. Many of them were the most patriotic（爱国的）people you would  36 meet, but most of them  37 war. They had experienced it. They knew its final realities－things got blown up while people were killed, and robbed of their beloved ones.
It is Memorial Day in the United States today. We all pray for an end for the world’s need for young men and young women to be placed in harm’s way. We also need to remember those who paid the huge  38 of wars－costs not counted in dollars, but in lost lives, broken hearts, forgotten innocence, broken families, and terrible memories. And as we remember to  39 those who paid this awful price, we also remember in hopes to see an end to war itself.
Please, in their honor, don’t forget their sacrifices（牺牲）. Please, for our world’s sake, don’t forget to pray for  40 .

One of the greatest contributors to the first Oxford English Dictionary was also one of its most unusual. In 1879, Oxford University in England asked Prof. James Murray to serve as editor for what was to be the most ambitious dictionary in the history of the English language. It would include every English word possible and would give not only the definition but also the history of the word and quotations(引文) showing how it was used.
This was a huge task, so Murray had to find volunteers from Britain, the United States, and the British colonies to search every newspaper, magazine, and book ever written in English. Hundreds of volunteers responded, including William Chester Minor. Dr. Minor was an American surgeon who had served in the Civil War and was now living in England. He gave his address as “Broadmoor, Crowthorne, Berkshire,” 50 miles from Oxford.
Minor joined the army of volunteers sending words and quotations to Murray. Over the next 17 years, he became one of the staff’s most valued contributors.
But he was also a mystery. In spite of many invitations, he would always decline to visit Oxford. So in 1897, Murray finally decided to travel to Crowthorne himself. When he arrived, he found Minor locked in a book-lined cell at the Broadmoor Asylum(精神病院) for the Criminally Insane.
Murray and Minor became friends, sharing their love of words. Minor continued contributing to the dictionary, sending in more than 10,000 submissions in 20 years. Murray continued to visit Minor regularly, sometimes taking walks with him around the asylum grounds.
In 1910, Minor left Broadmoor for an asylum in his native America. Murray was at the port to wave goodbye to his remarkable friend.
Minor died in 1920, seven years before the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was completed. The 12 volunteers defined 414,825 words, and thousands of them were contributions from a very scholarly and devoted asylum patient.
【小题1】According to the text, the first Oxford English Dictionary ____.

  Drawings of human colonies on other planets often picture the entire community under a glass or plastic bubble. The bubble is intended to create an atmosphere with adequate oxygen and other essential elements. But similar bubble-like structures have also been constructed on earth. One of the most famous, and controversial, is a site in the Arizona desert.
Biosphere 2, as it is called, was built not far from Tucson in 1984 and is now run by Columbia University. This huge（7,200,000-cubic-foot）glass and steel construction contains several separate ecosystems, including a desert, a rain forest, and a 900,000-gallon “ocean.” The climatic conditions-humidity, temperature, air quality-are regulated by sensors and can be adjusted as needed or desired. For example, a rainstorm can be created to increase the humidity. The adjustable features of Biosphere 2 make it an ideal location to perform experiments to help determine the effects of such climatic changes as global warming.
The current conditions at Biosphere 2 are vastly different from those in 1993, when eight people who had moved into the environment with great fanfare two years earlier moved out in failure. Though promising to be self-sufficient（自足的）, these “colonists” had so much trouble regulating the environment that they reportedly had food smuggled into them. Oxygen levels became dangerously low; most plants and animals died. In taking over the unsuccessful site, Columbia hopes to erase its notorious past by focusing on small research projects that gradually answer some of Biosphere 1’s — that is, Earth’s most basic environment questions.
【小题1】This passage primarily deals with _________.