The USA is a land of immigrants. Between 1815 and 1914, the world witnessed the greatest peaceful migration in its history: 35 million people, mostly Europeans, left their homelands to start new lives in America. Why did these people risk everything by leaving their homes and families?

First, what forced emigrants to make the decision to leave? One major cause for European farmers to leave was the rise in population which in turn led to land hunger. Another was politics. There was an increased taxation（税收） and the growth of armies, and many young men fled eastern Europe to avoid being forced to join the army.

Physical hunger provided another pressing reason. Following the collapse （衰退）of the economy of southern Italy in the 1860s, hundreds of thousands decided to start a new life in America. Religion also encouraged millions to leave the Old World.

In short, people chose to leave their homes for social, economic and religious reasons. As a result, by 1890 among a total population of 63 million, there were more than nine million foreign-born Americans.

But what were the attractions? First of all, there was the promise of land which was so scarce in Europe. Next, factories were calling for workers, and pay conditions were much better than back home. Men were needed to open up the West and build the long railroads, and new towns needed settlers to live in and to develop business. There was the space for religious people to practice their faith in peace.

This immigration meant that by around the 1850s Americans of non-English had started to be more than those of English. As we know, there were losers. To start with, there were those unwilling immigrants, the slaves who had been used as a source of cheap labour. Nor should we forget the equally unlucky American Indians. By 1860 there were 27 million free whites, four million slaves and a mere 488,000 free blacks.

Nowadays, the USA is still seen by millions as the Promised Land. As always, it remains an attractive place to those who think it will offer them a second chance.

41．What is not the cause for people to leave their homeland?

A. The search for religious freedom.

B. The search for adventure.

C. Unwillingness to join the army.

D. Economics.

42．Why was life of the 19th Century European farmers difficult?

A. There was no land.

B. There was no peace.

C. The population had gone down.

D. There were too many of them.

43． Which of the following was not an attraction of the USA?

A. Employment                                              B. A healthy life

C. freedom of religion                                     D. Business opportunities

44．What is the topic of this passage?

A. The USA is still seen by millions as the Promised Land.

B. The USA is a land of immigrants.

C. Religion encouraged millions to leave the Old World.

D. About one-eighth of non-native born Americans live in the USA in 1890.

45． The American Indians __________.

A. were as fortunate as the slaves

B. were more unfortunate than the slaves

C. were the most unfortunate      

D. were as unfortunate as the slaves

He’s out there somewhere, an instant icon in the records of American conflict, the final big-game hunter. But a puzzle, too, his identity would be kept a secret for now, and maybe forever.

He is the unknown shooter. The nameless, faceless triggerman who put a bullet in the head of the world’s most notorious（臭名昭著的）terrorist, Bin Laden.

He’s likely between the ages of 26 and 33, says Marcinko, founder of the “SEALs Team 6” that many believe led the attack on Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan. He’ll be old enough to have had time to hurdle the extra training tests required to join the counter-terrorism unit, yet young enough to stand the body-punishing harshness of the job. The shooter’s a man, it’s safe to say, because there are no women in the SEALs. And there’s a good chance he’s white, though the SEALs have stepped up efforts to increase the number of minorities in their ranks, Marcinko and Smith say.

He was probably a high school or college athlete, Smith says, a physical specimen who combines strength, speed and wisdom. “They call themselves ‘tactical athletes,’” says Smith, who works with many future SEALs in his Heroes of Tomorrow training program in Severna Park. “It’s getting very scientific.”

Marcinko puts it in more conventional terms: “He’ll be ripped,” says the author of the best-selling autobiography “Rogue Warrior.” “He’s got a lot of upper-body strength. Long arms. Thin waist. Flat stomach.”

On this point, Greitens departs a bit. “You can’t make a lot of physical assumptions,” says the author of “The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL.” There are SEALs who are 5 feet 4 and SEALs who are 6 feet 5, Greitens says. In his training group, he adds, there were college football boys who couldn’t hack it; those who survived were most often men in good shape, but they also had a willingness to show their concerns in favor of the mission.

The shooter’s probably not the crew-cut（平头）, neatly shaven ideal we’ve come to expect from American fighting forces. “He’s bearded, rough-looking, like a street naughty boy,” Marcinko supposes. “You don’t want to stick out.” Marcinko calls it “modified grooming standards.”

His hands will be calloused（长老茧）, Smith says, or just rough enough,” as Marcinko puts it. And “he’s got frag in him somewhere,” Marcinko says, using the battlefield shorthand for “fragments” of bullets or explosive devices. This will not have been the shooter’s first adventure. Marcinko estimates that he might have made a dozen or more deployments（部署）, tours when he was likely to have dealt with quite a number of dangerous situations, getting ready any time for explosive devices or bullets.

1.Which of the following is most likely to be the title of the passage?

    A. Who shot Bin Laden?                B. What do the SEALS do?

    C. How can boys be SEALS?             D. What SEALS are like?

2. From the passage we can know that the writer ___________.

   A. knows clearly what the shooter is like                B. doubts whether Bin Laden is dead

   C. is certain that the shooter is a man                  D. is not sure of the shooter’s gender

3.We can say for sure according to the passage that ___________.

    A. the shooter will eventually be revealed in the Press

    B. the writer is a person who is curious about the shooter

    C. the writer is a detective who tries to arrest the shooter

    D. the shooter is a strong man with a pair of rough hands

4.Which of the following are the names of writers mentioned in the passage?

   ①. Marcinko ②. Greitens ③. Smith ④. Abbottabad

   A. ①④ B. ③④    C. ②③    D. ①②

The space shuttle Discovery has had a long and busy career. For 27 years, it has worked for NASA, carrying astronauts to space and back on 39 missions. On March 9, 2011, after returning from its final voyage, the world’s most traveled spaceship was retired.
A crowd of shuttle workers, reporters and schoolchildren waited to greet Discovery at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Three minutes before noon, they watched as the shuttle appeared in the sky and made one last touchdown. “For the final time: wheels stop,” Discovery’s commander Steven Lindsey said when the shuttle rolled to a stop.
Discovery’s final trip was to the International Space Station (ISS), a giant space lab in the sky. Discovery’s crew took care of the last U.S. construction project at ISS. They delivered 10 tons of supplies for the ISS. The six-person crew also dropped off an unusual companion for ISS’s researchers: a human-like robot named Robonaut 2. Astronauts will assemble（组装）R2 at the ISS over several months.
Now, NASA is winding down its shuttle programme. NASA is to begin work on new spaceships that can travel longer distances. Discovery’s retirement is the first of three. Endeavor, another shuttle, is scheduled to make its final voyage soon. And Atlantis’s last trip is planned for the end of June.
Museums across the country have requested the retired shuttles. The Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum, in Washington, D.C., was the lucky recipient（接收者）of Discovery. The museum’s collection contains hundreds of NASA artifacts.
Where will the other shuttles go? You’ll have to wait to find out. NASA will announce its decision on April 12, the 30^th anniversary of the first space shuttle launching. Stay tuned!

1. 1.

   As part of the final mission, Discovery’s crew___________.

   1. A.
      carried researches to space
   2. B.
      assembled the Robonaut 2 at the ISS
   3. C.
      brought supplies to the ISS
   4. D.
      went on a spacewalk
2. 2.

   The underlined phrase “winding down” in Paragraph 4 probably means _________.

   1. A.
      improving
   2. B.
      ending
   3. C.
      changing
   4. D.
      testing
3. 3.

   What can we infer from the text?

   1. A.
      Discovery completed 39 missions during its two decades of space travel.
   2. B.
      The ISS is a big project and six researchers live on the station.
   3. C.
      American space exploration will focus on longer missions.
   4. D.
      The shuttles Endeavor and Atlantis will make their last missions next month.
4. 4.

   According to the text, we can learn about ___________.

   1. A.
      people’s opinions of Discovery’s retirement
   2. B.
      the government’s concern about the shuttles’ future
   3. C.
      the shuttles’ final homes after retirement
   4. D.
      museums’ great interest in the retired shuttles

I was born and raised in the shadow of the Capitol(美国国会大厦), in Washington, D.C., as were my parents and my mother’s parents.

Our row house was on a tree-lined street just blocks from the building that was the heart of the federal legislative branch. When I was a child, in the 1940s, friends and I would pack a lunch or ride a streetcar to the Capitol. If we roller-skated, we hid the skates in the bushes in the park across the street before entering the building.

I knew every corner of the Capitol. We’d play hide-and-seek and pretend we saw ghosts in the halls and stairways. I don’t know how we got away with it. I remember the beautiful ladies’ rooms, with their marble floors and sinks. I pretended that I was a fine lady in them.

In those days, you could walk around the Capitol dome(圆顶屋), which was a little scary for me. I loved the wonderful paintings and statues and the subway rides to the Senate Office Building. It was like an amusement ride. I even used to sit in the gallery of the U.S. House of Representatives—until I became bored with all the talk and went on another adventure.

Whenever I ran up the steps to the huge bronze doors of the Rotunda, I would look back to the world below like a hero. As soon as the doors were opened, the sense of history surrounded me, and I knew it was someplace special.

Those were lucky days, when an American citizen could wander in the Capitol and be a part of history.

Once war was declared, some things changed in the nation’s capital. Because of concerns that Washington might be attacked, as London had been, everyone prepared. Kids at my elementary school wore dog tags, and each of us was fingerprinted.

My father, a pipe worker, became a civil defense warden(民防队员). During an air-raid(空袭), his job was to turn off any leaking gas. Since he always had a cigarette in his mouth, maybe that was not a good choice, but he had a gas mask and flashlight hanging in the rafters of our basement. The mask looked like a monster in the ceiling. My 15-year-old brother was a junior civil defense warden. During air-raid drills, he knocked on doors and asked people to put out their lights. I remember huge searchlights that crisscrossed the skies during the drills, looking for enemy planes.

What can we infer from the passage?

A. The writer attended the meeting in House of Representative.

B. The writer’s family lived in Washington D.C. for generations.

C. American citizen, except children, could never enter the Capitol.

D. The writer’s father had a gas mask to prevent him from smoking.

When the writer said “I was born and raised in the shadow of the Capitol” (1st paragraph),    she most probably meant that ________.

A. she spent her childhood in an area near the Capitol

B. she grew up under the pressure of the Capitol

C. the Capitol had some bad influence on my childhood

D. she was born and brought up secretly in the Capitol

By telling the childhood experience, the passage suggests that ________.

A. London was attacked during the war, as well as Washington

B. the writer is a daughter of a member of Representatives

C. the writer’s father and brother joined the army during the war

D. the Capitol used to be open to the public in history

What is the writer’s attitude towards the things that changed in the nation’s capital?

A. neutral                     B. positive             C. negative D. ironic

Here are some of the best movies you like. I believe they can accompany you to spend your dull weekend.

The Matrix

In this story a computer hacker searches for the truth behind the mysterious force . In the 22nd century it turns out that the world is controlled by a magic computer system called the Matrix and people live in an unreal world. The computer hacker and his comrades overcome much difficulty and at last find the way to take over the Matrix and save the world.

Men in Black

      This comedy is about J and K, agents in a top secret agency , and they fight bravely with the alien to save the galaxy from a bad-tempered alien “bug” and save the Earth from being destroyed .

Harry Potter

    Harry has lived under the stairs at his aunt and uncle’s house. But on his 11th birthday, he learns he’s a powerful wizard——with a place waiting for him at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. There, he uncovers the truth about his parents’ deaths and about the bad man who’s to blame .

Andromeda Strain

      When a satellite crashes in New Mexico, the Air Force sends two men to reach it. To their horror, they discover that the probe carries an alien virus that’s already killed all but two of the residents of the town where it landed. Now, scientists must stop the virus from spreading .

12 Monkeys

      In the year 2035, James Cole is forced to be sent back to 1996 by scientists to discover the origin of a virus that wiped out nearly all of the earth’s population. When Cole is mistakenly sent to 1990, he’s arrested and locked up in a mental hospital, where he meets the son of a famous virus expert.

1. In which film secret agents fight with the bad creature from outer space?

A. The Matrix    B. Men in Black    C. Andromeda Strain  D. 12 Monkeys

2.Harry Potter _________.

A. does’t know he’s a powerful wizard until he is 11 years old

B. has a happy and pleasant childhood with his aunt and uncle

C. hates to stay at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

D. Knows how his parents died before he goes to the Hogwarts school

3. Which of the following is NOT true?

A. Men in black is a comedy.

B. The Matrix is a mysterious force which is later taken over by a group of computer hackers.

C. The alien virus killed all the residents of the town where it landed.

D. James Cole is sent back to 1990 mistakenly and is kept in a mental hospital.

4.    The author writes the passage in order to ________.

A. let readers know more about the latest movies

B. increase the income of the cinemas of the city

C. tell readers some interesting summaries of movies

D. help readers to choose the best movie they like