When students and parents are asked to grade subjects according to their importance, the arts are usually at the bottom of the list. Music is nice, people seem to say, but not important. Too often it is only viewed as entertainment, but certainly not an education priority（优先）. This view is shortsighted. In fact, music education is very important for all students.

Music tells us who we are. Because music is an expression of the beings who create it, it shows their thinking and values, as well as the social environment it came from. Rock music represents a lifestyle just as surely as does a Schubert song. The jazz influence that George Gershwin and other musicians introduced into their music is obviously American because it came from American musical traditions. Music expresses our character and values. It gives us identity（身份，特性）as a society.

Music provides a kind of perception（感知）that cannot be acquired any other way. Science can explain how the sun rises and sets. The arts can express the emotive（情感的）meaning of the same thing. We need every possible way to discover and respond to our world for one simple but powerful reason: No one way can get it all.

The arts are forms of thought as powerful in what they communicate as mathematical and scientific symbols. They are ways we human beings “talk” to each other. They are the language through which we express our fears, our hungers, our discoveries, our hopes. The arts are ways we give form to our ideas and imagination so that they can be shared with others. When we do not give children an important way of expressing themselves such as music, we take away from them the meanings that music expresses.

Science and technology do not tell us what it means to be human. The arts do. Music is an important way we express human suffering, celebration, the value of peace and love.

So music education is far more necessary than people seem to realize.

1.What can we learn from Paragraph 1?      

2.In Paragraph 2, the writer uses jazz as an example to____________.       

3.According to the passage, the arts and science____________.      .

4.What is the main idea of the passage?

It was the last day of final examinations at a large college. On the steps of one building, a group of engineering students were discussing the exam that was ahout to begin. On their faces was confidence. This was their last exam before they graduated(毕业)and found jobs.

Some talked of jobs they already had，others of jobs they would get. With four years of college study，they felt ready and able to conquer(征服)the world.

The coming exam，they knew，would be easy. The professor(教授)had said they could bring any books or notes they wanted，but they couldn’t talk to each other during the test.

They walked into the classroom. The professor passed out the papers. The students’ smiles became wide as they saw that there were only five essay-type questions.

Three hours passed and the exam came to an end. Then the professor began to collect the papers. The students no longer looked confident. They seemed worried. No one spoke as the professor faced the class with the papers in her hand.

She looked at all the worried faces in front of her, and then asked，“How many students completed all five questions?”

Not a hand was put up.

‘‘How many of you answered four?” Still no hands.

“Three?Two?”The students moved restlessly in their seats.

“One，then. Certainly somebody finished one．”But the class stayed silent. The professor put down the papers.“That is just what I expected，”she said.

“I just wanted to make sure you realize that even though you have studied engineering for four years, there are still many things about the subject you don’t know. Instead of testing you on what you learned in this class, I’ve given you questions that skilled engineers face in the world outside the classroom. You can’t expect to be an expert(专家)on the day you graduate. You have to learn as you go.”

Then，smiling, she added，“You will all pass this course, but remember that your education has just begun.’’

1.What does the underlined word“restlessly”mean in the passage?

A.confidentIy    B.proudly       C.excitedly       D.nervously

2.Why did the professor design the final exam in such a way?

A.To make the students realize that they still had much to learn after graduation.

B.To find out whether the students could put what they had learned into practice.

C.To show that she had much more knowledge than her students in engineering.

D.To examine whether the students learned what they had been taught in her class.

3.What can be the best title of the passage?

A.A Playful Joke             B.A Lucky Chance

C.A Strange Professor         D.A Special Exam

People cannot reach an agreement on the use of science and technology. For example, will radiation from electronic equipment destroy the environment? Should medical scientists change gene structures to prevent genetic disease or to create “more perfect” human beings? While people are arguing about these and others, technology continues to influence our everyday lives—the home, health and education, entertainment and communication, and so on.

   Some people carry on active social lives with computers —their own or the ones in public places like cafes, social centers, libraries, and so on. Communicating with others in chat rooms,  computer users can get to know people they might never meet in traditional ways. With live online video connections, two people with cameras in their computers can see and talk to each other from separate places.

   With modern telephone technology, most people stopped writing lettters—especially personal letters and notes. But now, writing to communicate has returned in electronic form, or e-mail, which is a way of sending messages from one computer to another. For some computer users, the wish to communicate intelligently or creatively with others makes them want to write better.

   Computer technology has also made it possible to run a house electronically. From turning lights on and off to starting the coffee and cooking the hot meal, computers are taking care of people at home. Many modern machines have computer chips that allow their owners to program them. For instance, you can “instruct” a microwave oven how to cook a dish. Most entertainment equipment operates with computer technology too. Computers can even start cars automatically so that on cold winter mornings you can get into a warmed-up vehicle and drive off.

   Although much of the technology in our everyday lives has good effects, there are some uses that raise questions. For example, are interactive media ( i.e., a combination of television, telephone, and computer) going to control minds, cause people to forget about family life and personal relationships? What effects will the genentic engineering of food have on people’s health? High-tech medical treatments can make a person live a much longer life, but can they improve the health and happiness of human beings? Only time will tell, but, in the meantime, science and technology will continue to move forward. 

1. What does the underlined word “ chips” mean?

A. thin pieces of potatoes  B. small holes    C. small pieces of wood   D. central parts

2.We can know from the passage that _________.

   A. technology never stops changing our everyday lives 

   B. with computers each of us can live a comfortable life

   C. people can do more activities with computers

   D. the more you use computers, the better you might write

3.What can we infer from the underlined sentence in the last paragraph?

A. The longer you live, the happier you are.

B. High-tech medical treatments can’t improve our health and happiness.  

C. High-tech medical treatments can’t help us with everything.

D.The writer questioned high-tech medical treatments somehow.

4.What is the best title for the passage?

   A. Science and New Technology        B. Computers Change Our Lives

   C. Everyday Uses of Technology        D. Only Time Will Tell

Hundreds of years ago, life was much harder than it is today．People didn’t have modern machines．There was no modern medicine, either．
Life today has brought new problems．One of the biggest is pollution．Water pollution has made our rivers and lakes dirty．It kills our fish and pollutes our drinking water．Noise pollution makes us talk louder and become angry more easily．Air pollution is the most serious kind of pollution．It’s bad to all living things in the world．
Cars, planes and factories all pollute our air every day．Sometimes the polluted air is so thick that it is like a quilt over a city．This kind of quilt is called smog．
Many countries are making rules to flight pollution．Factories must now clean their water before it is thrown away and they mustn’t blow dirty smoke into the air
We need to do many other things．We can put waste things in the dustbin and do not throw them on the ground，there will be less pollution．
Rules are not enough．Every person must help to fight pollution．
【小题1】Hundreds of years ago．life was much harder than it is today because        ．

My grandfather is eighty years old. He sometimes complains（抱怨）about how fast things have changed.
He often says that families aren’t the families they used to be. A lot of families have broken up（破裂）. If husband and wife have problems with their marriage, they will no longer stay together. And mothers used to stay at home to take care of their children, but now they’re busy working. They have no time to look after children at home. What’s more, more and more people drive. We used to walk five miles to school every day, even in winter. But now children don’t. And in school, children don’t have to think more as we used to. In math class, for example, we used to add, subtract, multiply and divide（加、减、乘、除）using our heads. But now most students use calculators. Most families have computers now. In the past, we didn’t have computers. We even had no lights. My mother to spend all day cooking in the kitchen. But now few people eat home-cooked food. And people seldom talk to each other. They are too busy to talk, too busy to eat, too busy to think… Life used to be simple, but it isn’t any more.
根据短文内容，判断句子是否正确，正写（A），错写（B）。（10分）
【小题1】The writer’s grandfather thinks people now are much busier than they used to be.
【小题2】Students have to think more at school now than past.
【小题3】．People like to eat home—cooked food now.
【小题4】．Lots of couples（夫妇）don’t live together because of unhappy problems.
【小题5】5．People have too much time to talk with each other now.