A group of robbers dug their way into the basement of a bank in Paris and emptied almost 200 private safes(保险箱).

They entered the Credit Lyonnais branch using building equipment to dig holes and destroy walls.

1.        Saturday night, they tied up a security guard and spent 2.        next nine hours robbing the bank.

One investigator described the robbery 3.        a “professional job”. The robbers came in at about 22:00 on Saturday 4.        left at 7:00 on Sunday. They entered through the basements of the neighboring building, digging through a series of tunnels and making a hole into a wall of 80 cm thick to get into the bank, 5.        was having building works at the time.

         When 6.        left, the robbers set the place on fire to remove any trace of evidence, switching  on the anti-fire system and flooding the building. Fortunately, the guard escaped unharmed.

7.         is difficult to estimate the total value of 8.        was stolen as only the bank’s clients(储户) know the content of their private safes.

As you are students of English, it’s very possible that you’ll be interested in England. That’s where the language was first spoken. But England is often called by other names. This often confuses people and I wonder if you know what these names mean. So, now I would like to tell you about this matter of names. I believe that you have heard people use the names—England, Britain or Great Britain. Let’s see what each of these names means.

If you look at a map of Europe, you’ll see a group of islands--one larger island off the northwest coast, one smaller and many tiny ones. These make up what is called the British Isles. The largest island of the British Isles is Britain. It is also called Great Britain. The smaller island is Ireland.

Britain is divided into three parts: Scotland, Wales and England. But sometimes the word “England” is used instead of “Britain”. Why so?

In ancient times, what is Britain now used to be three different countries. People in these different countries spoke different languages. Over many years the three countries became one. England is the largest and richest of the three and it has the most people. So the English people take it for granted that their own name stands for the whole island.

There’s another thing that confuses people: sometimes you may hear people say “the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”. That is the official name of the country. Northern Ireland is only one sixth of the island of Ireland. The rest of the island is an independent state, called the Republic of Ireland. So we have the names of “England”, “Britain”, “Great Britain”, and “the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”. Now do you know what each of them means?

1.English was first spoken in ____.

A．Britain            B．England           C．Great Britain       D．Ireland

2.According to the passage, which of the following statements is true?

A．Wales is the richest of the three.

B．Scotland is the largest of the three.

C．Sometimes England is used instead of Britain.

D．Britain is the only name of the largest island of British Isles.

3.The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is _____.

A．part of Britain

B．part of British Isles

C．the official name of the whole country

D．the largest country of all mentioned in the passage

4.Which of the following is the best title?

A．Students of English

B．Different Names of England

C．Different Languages Spoken in England

D．The Republic of Ireland

Everyone has done experiments in high school laboratories, but have you ever thought about designing a satellite to explore space?

On Nov. 19, a team of students from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in the US awed peers and even scientists by successfully launching a satellite.

The first satellite designed and built by high school students was sent up into space along with a record-setting. 28 other small ones on a rocket were sent from a NASA center in Virginia, CNN reported. It took the students seven years to build.

The students call their tiny satellite TJ3Sat, which is named after their school. It is just 10x10x12 centimeters and weighs only 0.89 kilograms, according to Orbital Sciences, a company which developed the rocket and supported the students’ project. It can be controlled with a smartphone.

Like most satellites, TJ3Sat can send and receive data. The small spacecraft is equipped with a voice synthesizer (合成器), which can switch text to voice and transmit those sounds back to Earth over radio waves, said Orbital officials. In this case, anyone can give it a try via the project’s website (school website) by submitting (提交) a text. The texts that get approved will be sent to the satellite, changed to voice and then broadcast back to Earth via radio waves.

“I can say ‘Go Colonials’ on our ground station and when it is on the other side of the world, in India, someone can hear ‘Go Colonials’over the radio,” the team explains on the website.

The satellite will stay in space for at least three months.

School principal Evan Glazer told The Washington Post that the project started in 2006 as an activity in the spare time. Later it became a research project for a select group of seniors.

At a time when American students are busy with SATs, the launch of the satellite shows what diligent teenagers can achieve when allowed to pursue their own curiosities, Glazer said.

“It used to be that kids growing up wanted to be an astronaut,” Andrew Petro, program executive (主管) for small spacecraft technology at NASA, said in a statement. “I think we might be seeing kids saying what they want to do is build a spacecraft. The idea here is that they really can do that.”

1. The underlined word “awed” in the second paragraph is closest in meaning to ___.

A. influenced ??? B. amazed? ??? C. delighted ????? D. inspired

2.Which of the following statements about TJ3Sat is TRUE according to the article?

A.It took a group of students about a decade to build the satellite.

B.Besides TJ3Sat, 28 other small satellites were built by the students.

C.TJ3Sat can receive text messages that the students send into space, which it can change to voice messages and broadcast back to Earth.

D.TJ3Sat is expected to stay in orbit for the next year, sending out messages together with information about its position in space.

3.According to the article, the launch of the satellite _______.

A.is evidence of the advance of spacecraft technology

B.proves that hard-working teenagers can achieve a lot

C.shows the importance of extracurricular activities at school

D.has inspired many people to take an interest in space travel

The writer Margaret Mitchell is best known for writing Gone with the Wind, first published in 1936. Her book and the movie based on it, tell a story of love and survival during the American Civil War. Visitors to the Margaret Mitchell House in Atlanta, Georgia, can go where she lived when she started composing the story and learn more about her life.

Our first stop at the Margaret Mitchell House is an exhibit area telling about the writer’s life. She was born in Atlanta in 1900. She started writing stories when she was a child. She started working as a reporter for the Atlanta Journal newspaper in 1922. One photograph of Ms. Mitchell, called Peggy, shows her talking to a group of young college boys. She was only about one and a half meters tall. The young men tower over her, but she seems very happy and sure of herself. The tour guide explains: “Now in this picture Peggy is interviewing some boys from Georgia Tech, asking them such questions as ‘Would you really marry a woman who works?’ And today it’d be ‘Would you marry one who doesn’t?’ ”

The Margaret Mitchell House is a building that once contained several apartments. Now we enter the first floor apartment where Ms. Mitchell lived with her husband, John Marsh. They made fun of the small apartment by calling it “The Dump ” .

Around 1926, Margaret Mitchell had stopped working as a reporter and was at home healing after an injury. Her husband brought her books to read from the library. She read so many books that he bought her a typewriter and said it was time for her to write her own book. Our guide says Gone with the Wind became a huge success. Margaret Mitchell received the Pulitzer Prize for the book. In 1939 the film version was released. It won ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

1. The book Gone with the Wind was _________.

A. first published on a newspaper

B. awarded ten Academy Awards

C. written in “The Dump”

D. adapted from a movie

2.The underlined phrase “tower over” in Paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to_________.

A. be very pleased with

B. show great respect for

C. be much taller than

D. show little interest in

3.Why did Ms. Mitchell stop working as a reporter according to the passage?

A. Because she was rich enough.

B. Because she was injured then.

C. Because her husband didn’t like it.

D. Because she wanted to write books.

4.Which is the best title for the passage?

 A. Gone with the Wind: A Huge Success.

 B. Margaret Mitchell: A Great Female Writer.

 C. An Introduction of the Margaret Mitchell House.

 D. A Trip to Know Margaret Mitchell.

A friend of mine met with an accident driving in darkness. His legs were so hurt that he couldn't move. What was the  36  was that he found himself unable to ask for help ------ his mobile phone went out of   37__ as a result of exhausted battery. Nothing could be done but  38__ in cold wilderness. It was 8 hours later that day broke, and then the  39 of rescue.

It is almost  40__ that he could stand the horror in the darkness for so long. Even more surprising was his  41_ ,“First of all I checked up my  42  condition and found myself not in fatal danger. As there was no  43  to call for help, I leaned back in my seat trying my best to keep the wound from  44  . In this way I fell lightly asleep. ”

His story put an end to my regret for the  45  of an exploration adventure that happened last year. A group of young men  46  to explore a mountain cave and got lost.  47_ to find a way out in the dark cave they were frightened and ran anxiously without a sense of  48  . Finally they fell dead in fear and exhaustion. According to the  49  people that found them, the place where they got lost was only about 10 meters away from the  50  of the cave. If they stayed on the spot when they lost their way and tried to  51   themselves, they would probably sense a faint light glimmering ( 闪烁 ) far away.

Don't you think that you can compare it with  52  itself ? When you meet with difficulties in life, you are   53  in darkness. Mind you it's unclear yet and you needn't put up struggle  54  . It seems to be a negative attitude,  55    a person who can afford to do so must have foresight as well as great courage in the first place.   

1.                A．hopeless        B．worst          C．more D．best

2.                A．service         B．way            C．order    D．work

3.                A．cry            B．lie             C．wait D．sleep

4.                A．delay          B．success         C．team D．arrival

5.                A．untrue         B．unimaginable    C．true D．useless

6.                A．plan           B．decision        C．explanation    D．excuse

7.                A．physical        B．mental         C．working  D．medical

8.                A．method        B．way            C．alternative D．strength

9.                A．rotting         B．spreading       C．hurting   D．bleeding

10.               A．loss           B．failure         C．disappointment D．sadness

11.               A．had           B．managed       C．tried  D．succeeded

12.               A．Willing         B．Unable         C．Determined    D．Deciding

13.               A．hearing        B．sight           C．feeling    D．direction

14.               A．rescue         B．village          C．local  D．brave

15.               A．end           B．top            C．opening   D．side

16.               A．save           B．help           C．stop  D．calm

17.               A．adventure      B．work           C．life   D．Mankind

18.               A．lost            B．gone           C．losing     D．missing

19.               A．really          B．immediately     C．carefully   D．hopefully

20.               A．and           B．so             C．but   D．while