阅读理解:  阅读下列短文，从每题所给的A、B、C和D项中，选出最佳选项。

The traditional tent cities at festivals such as Glastonbury may never be the same again. In a victory of green business that is certain to appeal to environmentally-aware music-lovers, a design student is to receive financial support to produce eco-friendly tents made of cardboard that can be recycled after the bands and the crowds have gone home.

Major festivals such as Glastonbury throw away some 10,000 abandoned tents at the end of events each year. For his final year project at the University of the West of England, James Dunlop came up with a material that can be recycled. And to cope with the British summer, the cardboard has been made waterproof.

Taking inspiration from a Japanese architect, who has used cardboard to make big buildings including churches, Mr. Dunlop used cardboard material for his tents, which he called Myhabs.

The design won an award at the annual New Designers Exhibition after Mr. Dunlop graduated from his product design degree and he decided to try to turn it into a business

To raise money for the idea, he toured the city’s private companies which fund new business and found a supporter in the finance group Mint. He introduced his idea to four of Mint’s directors and won their support. Mint has committed around £500,000 to MyHabs and taken a share of 30 per cent in Mr. Dunlop’s business. The first Myhabs should be tested at festivals this summer, before being marketed fully next year.

Mr. Dunlop said that the design, which accommodates two people, could have other uses, such as for disaster relief and housing for the London Olympics.

For music events, the cardboard houses will be ordered online and put up at the sites by the Myhabs team before the festival-goers arrive and removed by the company afterwards. They can be personalized and the company will offer reductions on the expense if people agree to sell exterior (外部的) advertising space. 

The biggest festivals attract tens of thousands of participants, with Glastonbury having some 150,000 each year. Altogether there are around 100 annual music festivals where people camp in the UK. The events are becoming increasingly environmentally conscious.

1. “Eco-friendly tents” in paragraph 1 refer to tents _______.

  A. economically desirable    B. favorable to the environment

  C. for holding music performances1   D. designed for disaster relief

2. Mr. Dunlop established his business        .

  A. independently with an interest-free loan from Mint

  B. with the approval of the City’s administration

  C. in partnership with a finance group

  D. with the help of a Japanese architect

3. It is implied in the passage that _______.

  A. the weather in the UK is changeable in summer 

  B. most performances at British festivals are given in the open air

  C. the cardboard tents produced by Mr. Dunlop can be user-tailored

D. cardboard tents can be easily put up and removed by users.

4. The passage is mainly concerned with        .

A. an attempt at developing recyclable tents

B. some efforts at making full use of cardboards

C. an unusual success of a graduation project

D. the effects of using cardboard tents on music festivals

5. Which of the following would be the best title for the text?

A. Don’t Use Tents Again

B. The Advantages of Tents

C. How to Produce Tents

D. The Development of Recyclable Tents

If I raised the question, “What would be the last thing you would expect to happen while watching your son’s flag football game?” you probably still couldn’t come up with what happened to me and my family.

As we were sitting on the sidelines enjoying the game, a low-flying bird came swooping in attempting to land on my daughter’s head! It honestly came out of nowhere. We were seated by ourselves on the tree lined side of the field. I was able to calm my daughter’s shock and fear once I showed her that the bird was not some wild animal, it was in fact, somebody’s pet!

Now, we’re sitting at the outdoor fields of the Pontiac Silverdome, far from any populated area, wondering where this very social cockatiel, an Australian parrot (澳洲鹦鹉) could have come from. I walked up to the bird and put out my hand. Immediately, it hopped on and chirped in a friendly way. We looked around us and knew that we could not just leave and suppose that the bird would return to where it came from. This was a very domesticated bird that needed help or it would not survive.

The flag football game had ended so we walked the bird over to other groups of adults and asked if they knew of anyone who had lost a bird. All the kids were excited about the bird and fed it with some post game snacks. The bird’s nails were getting long and he was looking pretty dirty, so we knew it had been out here for a long time and was hungry. Since its wings were clipped, it could fly a little but probably not more than 100 yards or so at a try. We all just scratched our heads as a group wondering what to do with the lost bird.

We explained to the kids that this bird needed our help since it was someone’s pet and would not know how to get its own food, and it could not fly well since its wings were clipped. The kids understood, and all of them wanted to take the bird home! The parents however, knew this was not a good choice as one had a large dog, another two cats, etc. We explained to the kids that one of us could take the bird home for the night and then bring it to the Humane Society in the morning in hopes to connect it to its owners. We couldn’t keep the bird. It wasn’t ours. This was tough for the kids to understand at first. We couldn’t just leave the bird either. There was no way it could attend itself. The group of us sat around the Silverdome practice fields for quite a while trying to determine the best course of choice for the lost bird. It was getting dark out but no one was willing to leave that parking lot until we had a game plan for how to help the bird.

The owner of the football league, Chris Novak, offered to take the bird. It was extremely nice of him and he really stepped in to help while all the rest of us who had kids tugging on our shirts and begging to take it home. We took a box and put a bunch of holes in it and he brought it home for the night. Another mom went online and found a family that had lost a bird that looked just like the one we’d found. She emailed the info to Chris who got in touch with the family and the next day, reunited the bird with the family that lost it almost 3 weeks earlier! When Chris emailed us to let us know, we could not believe that this bird had traveled from The Rochester Tienken area all the way to the Silverdome!

We were so happy to be able to save this bird and get it back to its family. I showed my kids the email about how the other family got their pet back. The family has 3 kids who were so happy to see their bird. My kids realized what a nice ending this story had. Not only had we been able to save this bird’s life, but we were able to bring it back to the family that loves and misses him.

The life lesson in the missing bird story seemed to miss its mark with my kids at first. They were a little bummed out that they couldn’t keep the lost bird. I explained to them that when an animal or someone needs help, you just can’t turn a blind eye and hope everything works out OK. The “lost bird incident” was also a reminder to them that teamwork and the kindness of strangers can make a world of difference and that a group of well-meaning strangers can work together to help someone. It wasn’t a heroic act, but one that I knew had sunk in with my kids when they realized that trying to help was the best and only real course of action. 　

1.What happened when the author watched his son’s football games?

A．A parrot tried to eat their food.

B．His daughter was hurt by a parrot.

C．A parrot flew towards his daughter.

D．A parrot landed on his daughter’s head.

2.The underlined word “domesticated” in the second paragraph probably means_______.

A．having been abandoned                  B．having been used to home life

C．having been used to life in the wild          D．having been week and hungry

3.Who was the first one to find the bird’s owner?

A．The author                            B．Chris Novak

C．The Humane Society                     D．A participant’s mother

4.What can be learned from the “lost bird incident”?

A．Strangers can also work well together.

B．Humane Society helps children in teamwork.

C．Children can keep lost injured pet birds home.

D．Helping others is always regarded as a heroic act.

5.What did the author want to tell in the text?

A．How to help a lost parrot to find home.

B．The experience of watching a football games.

C．The importance of teamwork and helping others.

D．How a parrot can fly a long distance from home.

6.The best title of the text should be________. 

A．What Animals Can Teach Us

B．Complete Care for a Lost Bird

C．Life Lessons When You Least Expect It

D．Love First, Teamwork and Kindness Second

 

My six-year-old granddaughter stared at me as if she were seeing me for the first time.”Grandma, you are an antique(古董),”she said. "You are old. Antiques are old. You are my antique."
I was not satisfied to let the matter rest there. I took out the Webster's Dictionary and read the definition(定义)to Jenny.I explained, "An antique is not only old, it's an object existing since or belonging to earlier times...a work of art... piece of furniture. Antiques are treasured,"I told Jenny as I put away the dictionary. "They have to be handled carefully because they sometimes are very valuable. In order to qualify as an antique, the object has to be at least 100 years old."
"I'm only 67,"I renunded Jenny.
We looked around the house for other antiques, besides me. There was a desk that was handed down from rone aunt to another and finally to our family. "It's very old,"I told Jenny.“I try to keep it polished and I show it off whenever I can. You do that with antiques."
There was a picture on the wall purchased at a garage sale. It was dated 1867. "Now  that's an antique," I boasted. "Over 100 years old." Of course it was marked up and scratched and not in very good condition. "Sometimes age does that," I told Jenny. "But the marks are good marks. They show living, being around. That's something to display with pride. In fact, sometimes, the more an object shows age, the more valuable it can become." It was important that I believed this for my own self-esteem.
Our tour of antiques continued. There was a vase on the floor. It had been in my house for a long time. I was not certain where it came from but I didn't buy it new. One thing about antiques, I explained to Jenny, was that they usually had a story. They'd been in one home and then another, handed down from one family to another, traveling all over the place. They'd lasted through years and years. They could have been tossed away, or ignored. or destroyed, or lost. But instead, they survived.
For a moment, Jenny looked thoughtful. “l don't have any antiques but you," she said. Then her face brightened. "Could I take you to school for show and tell?"
"Only if I fit into your backpack," I answered. And then Jenny's antique lifted her up and embraced her in a hug that would last through the years.
【小题1】Grandma read the definition of "antique" to Jenny in order to         .

A．list all the important characteristics of antiques

B．tell Jenny the importance of protecting antiques

C．change Jenny's shallow understanding of antiques

D．express her disappointment at being called "antique"

【小题2】Which of the following information did grandma convey to Jenny?

A．The desk reminded her of her dear relatives.

B．The marks on the picture showed its age and value.

C．There was usually a sad story behind each antique.

D．She planned to buy a new vase to replace the old one.

【小题3】By saying "I don't have any antiques but you" (Paragraph 7), Jenny meant         .

A．grandma was a treasure to her

B．antiques were rare and valuable

C．she had nothing but a few possessions

D．grandma and antiques had a lot in common

【小题4】What can be inferred from the last paragraph?

A．Grandma was too old to lift Jenny up.

B．Jenny had a strong desire for grandma's love.

C．Jenny was too young to know grandma's humor.

D．Grandma had a deep long-lasting love for Jenny.

【小题5】What can be the best title for the passage? 

A．Jenny's Antique	B．A Story of Antiques
C．A Tour of Antiques	D．Grandma's Antique

C

An oasis (绿洲) is an island of life in an ocean of temperature extremes．Any oasis always contains one or more springs Oases make it possible to survive through the desert．In large deserts such as the Sahara．towns are located around sources of water such as oases and rivers．

What causes an oasis? An oasis is actually a spot in the desert where the altitude is low enough that the water table is fight below the surface，resulting in the presence of springs．Even in a desert, it rains occasionally，and this produces a water table just above the bedrock，usually several hundred feet below the surface．Sand is very porous (可渗透的)，so most water runs right

through it and down to the bedrock．

Deserts consist of many millions of tons of sand．There is only one natural force capable of moving it in noticeable amounts：the wind．Although，in an average dust storm，ten cubic feet of air only holds about an ounce of sand，a cubic mile of air can move about 4,600 tons of it，leading to erosion (侵蚀)．A severe storm is capable of moving as much as 100 million tons of sand and dust．

In certain areas where large quantities of sand are moved by storms，erosion digs all the way down to the water table，putting it just beneath the surface Seeds planted in the ground there are capable of extending roots into the moist land，producing an oasis．

Sometimes．the oasis produced by the wind can be very large when vast tracts of desert are wiped clean by storms．The great Kharga oasis in the Sahara，for example，is over 100 miles long and 12 to 50 miles in width. The oasis was produced when erosion caused the edges of the hollow places to sink down to the water table.    

63．What does “it” in Paragraph 4 refer to_______．

A．erosion        B．water table          C．sand                      D．storm

64．How many conditions of the oasis formation are mentioned in the passage without considering

The wind and seeds?

A．3                B．4                        C．5                           D．6

65．We can infer from the passage ________．

A．there is at least one spring on an oasis

B．the bedrock is usually just right below the surface

C．the great Kharga oasis is the biggest oasis in the world

D．the great Kharga oasis is at a low altitude

66．In the last paragraph，the author mentions the great Kharga oasis as an example to_______．

A．introduce the great oasis to the readers

B．tell how the oasis was produced by rain

C．show the oasis produced by the wind can be very large

D．tell it’s easy to form oases in the desert after storms

 

In recent years, the world has made progress in reducing deaths among children under the age of five. A new report says an estimated 6.9 million children worldwide died before their fifth birthday. That compares to about twelve million in1990.

The report says child mortality rates have fallen in all areas. It says the number of deaths is down by at least 50 percent in eastern, western and southeastern Asia. The number also fell in North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Ties Boerma is head of the WHO’s Department of Health Statistics and Informatics. He says most child deaths happen in just a few areas.

TIES BOERMA: “Sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia face the greatest challenges in child survival. More than eighty percent of child deaths in the world occur in these two regions. About half of child deaths occur in just five countries—India, which actually takes twenty-four percent of the global total; Nigeria, eleven percent; the Democratic Republic of Congo, seven percent; Pakistan, five percent and China, four percent of under-five deaths in the world.”

Ties Boerma notes that, in developed countries, one child in one hundred fifty-two dies before his or her fifth birthday. But south of the Sahara Desert, one out of nine children dies before the age of five. In Asia, the mortality rate is one in sixteen.  

The report lists the top five causes of death among children under five worldwide. They are pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and problems both before and during birth.

Tessa Wardlaw is with the U-N Children’s Fund. She is pleased with the progress being made in Sub-Saharan Africa. The area has the highest under-five mortality rate in the world. But she says the rate of decline in child deaths has more than doubled in Africa.

TESSA WARDLAW: “We welcome the widespread progress in child survival, but we importantly want to stress that there’s a lot of work that remains to be done. There’s unfinished business and the fact is that today on average, around nineteen thousand children are still dying every day from largely preventable causes.”

The World Health Organization says one way to solve these problems is to make sure health care services are available to women. In this way, medical problems can be avoided or treated when identified.

1.Since 1990, the number of the children who died before 5 in the world has dropped by about__________.

A．6,900,000         B．12,000,000        C．1,200,000         D．5,100,000

2. What does the underlined word “mortality” ( in Paragraph 2)mean?

A．illness            B．reduction         C．death            D．problem

3.According to the passage, the readers are likely to believe that __________.

A．child mortality rates have fallen just in five areas

B．Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest under-five mortality rate in the world

C．in developed countries, no children die before the age of five

D．the world has made little progress in reducing the rates of child mortality

4.______ is the top-one cause of death among children under five worldwide.

A．Global warming     B．Malaria           C．Pneumonia        D．Diarrhea

5.What will be probably referred to in the following paragraph?

A．Women do not want to have babies.

B．How more health care services are available to women.

C．Medical problems are completely solved.

D．The World Health Organization.