第二节：以下五人正在寻找一些网站，阅读以下六段不同网站的介绍（A、B、C、D、E和F），对应选出正确答案,并在答题纸上将该选项标号涂黑。A、B、C、D、E和F选项中有一项是多余选项。

51. Jasper enjoys listening to music. He is expecting to find a website where he could search for various songs with similar tunes that he prefers.

52. Luke is planning to buy a car. But right now he has not made up his mind. He prefers Mazda RX-8. He wants to find more information about this car to make sure that it is a good choice.

53. Connie works in a beauty salon. She always talks about fashion with her customers. She is especially interested in dresses with new designs.

54. This Sunday is Valentine’s Day. Roderick is still deciding what kind of presents he should buy for his girlfriend. He prefers to have something traditional, like chocolate.

55. Fiona is retired. She begins to pay attention to her health. What interests her most now is how to remain healthy and young. She always surfs on the internet for such information.

A. Naturespath.com is an excellent health-food website. “Life enhancement expert” Allan Hunkin interviews such guests as nutrition expert Dr. David Katz and tri-athlete Melanie McQuaid. They talk up health food and weight management, including debates on the benefits of whole grain and organics.

B. Autoblog.com tops the category by covering “auto industry news from A to Z.” They discuss hundreds of car models and links to outside articles for more information. While the site provides no reliability reviews, its “royal and growing fan base” comments frequently on the entires.

C. Mrchocolate.com—The Consumer Reports “best buy” for “unusual” chocolates for the one you love. Jason’s choice is 50 pieces of small dark, milk, and white chocolate with offbeat (标新立异的) centers, including coffee, nut butter, and tropical fruit.

D. Elizabeth-charles.com highlights new fashion designs from the Southern Hemisphere. This fall, that means “drapery pieces” of New Zealand brand Zambesi and the “tailored, Greek-inspired dresses” of Australian Jayson Brunsdon.

E. Carpet-rug.org— The Carpet and Rug Institute awards a “Green Label” to vacuums (真空吸尘器) that release fewer than 100 micrograms of dust particles per cubic meter of air. Find a list at this site.

F. Pandora.com takes one of your favorite tunes, then suggests songs that you might enjoy. Pandora offers 10 hours of free use, then charges $ 36 a year.

Most of us would say that the older we get, the less we look forward to celebrating another birthday. For children, though, a birthday is that one occasion each year when they are the center of attention all day long.
It’s not surprising, then, that children’s birthday parties have turned into big business in America. Kids—or more likely their parents—often try to outdo one another in putting on the most extravagant birthday party. In the past, you might have hired a man with a horse to come by and give everyone horse rides. Today, you can hire an entire petting zoo’s or a truck filled with animals from abroad.
Barb Hill, a mother of two girls, doesn’t hold extravagant (奢侈的) parties, but she says she does feel pressure to come up with new ideas each year. Her daughter Fiona celebrated her most recent birthday, her eighth, at a sporting-goods store. The kids enjoyed the climbing wall, as well as the pizza and cupcakes. “They always want to do something that nobody else has done yet,” Barb says. You also have to decide how many guests to invite, and if you’re celebrating at a place other than home, that means figuring out how to transport everyone.
William Doherty, a professor at the University of Minnesota, recently started a project called Birthdays without Pressure. Its website (www. birthdayswithoutpressure.org) gives parents the resources to make kids’ birthday parties less stressful and more fun for all. “Our goal was to start a local and national conversation about what’s happened to birthday parties,” Doherty told me. “We’ve succeeded beyond our expectations—tens of thousands of parents are viewing our website, contacting us and taking our online quizzes.”
In the end, most parents would agree that the best parties are usually the ones where the kids have time to hang out and play with each other. After all, isn’t what being a kid is all about?
1. The purpose of this passage is to tell us_________.
A.all the children look forward to celebrating their birthday
B.the children’s birthday parties have turned into big business in America
C.parents would like to make children’s birthday parties less stressful and more fun for all
D.parents don’t know how to hold children’s birthday parties
2. Which of the following sentences is TRUE ______.
A.The girl didn’t enjoy the party held by her mother.
B.The project called Birthdays without Pressure is popular with parents.
C.Children look forward to their birthday parties because they like extravagant parties.
D.Parents feel like hiring an entire petting zoo for their children.
3. The aim of the project called Birthdays without Pressure is to______.
A.attract parents to view the website
B.provide resources for making kids’ birthday parties
C.release parents’ stress of organizing children’s birthday parties
D.hold conversation about what’s happened to birthday parties
4. The best title for this passage may probably be ______.
A project called Birthdays without Pressure
B.Children enjoy their birthday parties
C.  How to hold children’s birthday parties
D.  How children feel about their birthday parties

______in her most beautiful skirt, the girl tried to make herself ______ at the party.

Martha was busy with her job. She believed she had to work harder because she loved her father who was sick with cancer. She had to provide for his expensive medicines. Her brothers and sisters meanwhile stayed with their father most of the time. They bathed him, sang for him, spoon-fed(用匙喂) him or simply kept him company.

One day Martha was hurt. She overheard(无意中听到) her father telling her mother, "All our children love me except Martha."

 "How can this be?" Martha thought. "Am I not the one killing myself in my work to have money to pay for his medicines? My brothers and sisters do not even provide their share in the expenses."

One night, as Martha was as usual late in going home, she saw her father was lying awake. She walked close to his bedsides. Her father held her hands and said, "I miss you. I don't have much time. Stay with me." And she stayed with her father holding his hand the whole night.

The next morning Martha said to everybody, "I have taken a leave of absence. I would like to be with father. I will bathe him and sing for him from now on." Her father had a beautiful smile. He knew Martha loved him, too.

     As children, we need the presence of our loved ones. Adults need no less. I have observed my mother’s orchids(兰花). When she is away for a long time, they are unhealthy and many of them wither(干枯). But when she is around , they bloom with beautiful flowers. My mother does nothing special . She just spends her time looking after them.

1.Before Martha heard her parents’ talk ,she thought her father _____.

  A. was satisfied with her love for him

  B. disliked her brothers and sisters

  C.was proud of her

  D. would recover from the disease

2.After staying with her father for one night, Martha _____.

  A.decided to give up her job

  B.understood what her father really needed

  C.realized her father loved her most

  D. loved her father more than before

3.By telling Matha’s story, what does the author try to express?

A.Nothing is more important than the company of loved ones.

 B. Money and a successful career don’t always bring happiness

C.Adults need the presence of their loved ones more than children do.

D.Plants like orchids do have feelings.

请认真阅读下列短文，并根据所读内容在文章后表格中的空格里填入一个最恰当的单词。注意：每个空格只填1个单词。请将答案写在答题卡上相应题号的横线上。
Health researchers have noticed that some groups of people are more consistently healthy than others, and wondered… Is it race? Income? Where you live? In the United States, these disagreements in health outcomes have been the focus of intense research for the past several decades.
Harvard University health policy researcher Ellen Meara says scholars have found some clues as to why some groups of people have more or less disease than others. She says one important factor in people’s health is the amount of education they have.
In her most recent paper, Meara looked at data from the United states census. These counts of people occur every 10 years. Meara and her colleagues examined data from several decades.
“We looked at life expectancy(预测寿命) at age 25,” Meara says.
“How many additional years can you expect to live if you arrive at age 25 and your education has stopped at high school, or sooner? Versus how many years, can you expect to live if you’ve reached aged 25 and you’ve gone on to at least some college…”
Meara says they found that in 1990, a 25-year-old who only had some secondary school could expect to live for a total of 75 years. In 2000, a 25-year-old with some secondary education could also expect to live to the age of 75.
In contrast, for a better educated 25-year-old, they could expect to live to the age of 80 in 1990. Someone with a similar education level in the year 2000, could expect to live to be more than 81 years, 81.6 years to be exact.
Meara says, not only do better-educated people live longer to begin with, but in the past ten years, more educated people have made gains in the length of their lives. Meanwhile, the life expectancy hasn’t changed for less educated people.
Some of these gains can be explained. Meara says researchers know that people who are more educated are more likely to quit smoking cigarettes, or not start at all, compared to people with less education.
“I think it’s a reminder not to be satisfactory,” Meara says. “Just because a population overall appears to be getting healthier, it doesn’t always mean that those advantages and successes that many people have enjoyed really extend into all parts of the population. And I think that’s something to really pay attention to regardless of whether you live in the US or elsewhere.”
Meara points out that education can often determine income---people with more education frequently make more money. This makes them aware of health care, and purchase other resources and services that can keep them healthier. But the data on income do NOT show that people who make more money are automatically healthier.
Meara says education is key. People need to be educated in order to take advantage of opportunities for better health.