When I was about ten years old, I spotted a mouse running across our living room floor. My four younger siblings（ 兄弟姐妹） heard me screaming 16 and joined me on the couch， 17 my father found us standing, yelling and pointing.

   Dad grabbed 18  and chased that mouse all over the place. We followed him in hot pursuit,  19  him on，“Get it, Dad. Get it!”

   Finally, the mouse was  20 , but when Dad pushed the broom into it, the mouse  21  a little squeal (尖叫). All  22  of us jumped our father. We  23  his arms and legs, “Don't hurt him. Let him go！”

   Dad dropped his head 24 .He pulled the broom away and the mouse scampered off(奔逃). “Run.” we yelled.

   My father looked at us like we'd turned into numskulls(傻瓜). He bought a trap the next day.

   Ray, my husband, and I live in the country. Our garage is kept free of field mice by our outdoor cat, Snickers. Her mother was a great mouser and 25 her baby well. I was in the garage one day, 26 a mouse ran across the floor. I 27. Snickers was sleeping, so I  28  her name to get her attention. She had the mouse  29  a nanosecond.

   Then…I heard 30 . “Let it go,” I yelled. When she refused, I ran into the house to 31 my husband to save it.

     I watched  32 a crack in the door as my husband donned (戴上) a pair of work gloves, took the mouse out of the cat's mouth, walked it out to the field. When he came back, he bent down to pet the cat and told her she was a good girl for 33  the mouse.

  Opening the door 34, I thanked him. Both my husband and the cat looked up at me. They had a 35 look on their faces. I'd seen that look before. It was the same one my father had on his face, all those years ago...

The government-run command post in Tunis is staffed around the clock by military personnel, meteorologists and civilians. On the wall are maps, crisscrossed with brightly colors arrows that painstakingly track the fearsome path of the enemy.
　　What kind of invader gives rise to such high-level monitoring? Not man, not beast, but the lowly desert locust(蝗虫). In recent months, billions of the 3-inch-long winged warriors have descended on Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia, blackening the sky and eating up crops and vegetation. The insect invasion, the worst in 30 years, is already creating great destruction in the Middle East and is now treating southern Europe. The current crisis began in late 1985 near the Red Sea. Unusually rainy weather moistened the sands of the Sudan, making them ideal seedbed for the locust, which lays its eggs in the earth. The insect onslaught threatens to create yet another African famine. Each locust can eat its weight (not quite a tenth of an ounce) in vegetation every 24 hours. A good-size swarm of 50 billion insects eats up 100,000 tons of grass, trees and crops in a single night.
　　All ﹩150 million may be needed this year. The U.S. has provided two spraying planes and about 50,000 gal. of pesticide. The European Community has donated ﹩3.8 million in aid and the Soviet Union, Canada, Japan and China have provided chemical-spraying aircraft to help wipe out the pests. But relief efforts are hampered by the relative mildness of approved pesticides, which quickly lose their deadly punch and require frequent replications. The most effective locust killer dieldrin has been linked to cancer and is banned by many Western countries and some of the affected African nations. More than 5 million acres have been dusted with locust-killing chemicals; another 5 million will be treated by the end of June.
　　On May 30, representatives of Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Mauritania will meet in Algiers to discuss tactics to wipe out the ravenous swarms. The move is an important step, but whatever plan is devised, the locust plague promised to get worse before the insects can be brought under control.
【小题1】The main idea of the first sentence in the passage is that ______.

A．to devise anti-locust plans.

B．to wipe out the swarms in two years.

C．to call out for additional financial aid from other nations.

D．to bring the insects under control before the plague gets worse.

These changes may cost quite a lot, _____ they will save us money in the long run.

The government-run command post in Tunis is staffed around the clock by military personnel, meteorologists and civilians. On the wall are maps, crisscrossed with brightly colors arrows that painstakingly track the fearsome path of the enemy.

　　What kind of invader gives rise to such high-level monitoring? Not man, not beast, but the lowly desert locust(蝗虫). In recent months, billions of the 3-inch-long winged warriors have descended on Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia, blackening the sky and eating up crops and vegetation. The insect invasion, the worst in 30 years, is already creating great destruction in the Middle East and is now treating southern Europe. The current crisis began in late 1985 near the Red Sea. Unusually rainy weather moistened the sands of the Sudan, making them ideal seedbed for the locust, which lays its eggs in the earth. The insect onslaught threatens to create yet another African famine. Each locust can eat its weight (not quite a tenth of an ounce) in vegetation every 24 hours. A good-size swarm of 50 billion insects eats up 100,000 tons of grass, trees and crops in a single night.

　　All ﹩150 million may be needed this year. The U.S. has provided two spraying planes and about 50,000 gal. of pesticide. The European Community has donated ﹩3.8 million in aid and the Soviet Union, Canada, Japan and China have provided chemical-spraying aircraft to help wipe out the pests. But relief efforts are hampered by the relative mildness of approved pesticides, which quickly lose their deadly punch and require frequent replications. The most effective locust killer dieldrin has been linked to cancer and is banned by many Western countries and some of the affected African nations. More than 5 million acres have been dusted with locust-killing chemicals; another 5 million will be treated by the end of June.

　　On May 30, representatives of Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Mauritania will meet in Algiers to discuss tactics to wipe out the ravenous swarms. The move is an important step, but whatever plan is devised, the locust plague promised to get worse before the insects can be brought under control.

1.The main idea of the first sentence in the passage is that ______.

　 A. the command post is stationed with people all the time.

　 B. the command post is crowded with people all the time.

　 C. there are clocks around the command post.

　 D. the clock in the command post is taken care of by the staff.

2.The favorable breeding ground for the locust is ______.

　 A. rich soil.                               B. wet land

　 C. paces covered crops and vegetation        D. the Red Sea

3.People are alert at the threat of the locust because ______.

　 A. the insects are likely to create another African famine.

　 B. the insects may blacken the sky.

　 C. the number of the insects increases drastically.

　 D. the insects are gathering and moving in great speed.

4.Which of the following is true?

　 A. Once the pesticides are used, locust will die immediately.

　 B. Relief efforts are proved most fruitful due to the effectiveness of certain pesticides.

　 C. Dieldrin, the most effective locust killer, has been widely accepted in many countries.

　 D. Over 10 million acres of affected area will have been treated with locust-killing chemicals by the end of June.

5. The purpose for affected nations to meet in Algiers on May 30 is ______.

　 A. to devise anti-locust plans.

　 B. to wipe out the swarms in two years.

　 C. to call out for additional financial aid from other nations.

D. to bring the insects under control before the plague gets worse.

“Humans should not try to avoid stress any more than they would shun food, love or exercise.” said Dr. Hans Selye, the first physician to document the effects of stress on the body. While here’s no question that continuous stress is harmful, several studies suggest that challenging situations in which you’re able to rise to the occasion can be good for you.
　　In a 2001 study of 158 hospital nurses, those who faced considerable work demands but coped with（设法处理） the challenge were more likely to say they were in good health than those who felt they couldn’t get the job done.
　　Stress that you can manage may also boost immune(免疫的) function. In a study at the Academic Center for Dentistry in Amsterdam, researchers put volunteers through two stressful experiences. In the first, a timed task that required memorizing a list followed by a short test, subjects believed they had control over the outcome. In the second, they weren’t in control: They had to sit through a gory(血淋淋的) video on surgical procedures. Those who did go on the memory test had an increase in levels of immunoglobulin A, an antibody that's the body’s first line of defense against germs. The video-watchers experienced a downturn in the antibody.
　　Stress prompts the body to produce certain stress hormones（荷尔蒙）. In short bursts these hormones have a positive effect, including improved memory function. “They can help nerve cells handle information and put it into storage,” says Dr. Bruce McEwen of Rockefeller University in New York. But in the long run these hormones can have a harmful effect on the body and brain.
“Sustained stress is not good for you,” says Richard Morimoto, a researcher at Northwestern University in Illinois studying the effects of stress on longevity(长寿), “It’s the occasional burst of stress or brief exposure to stress that could be protective.”
【小题1】The passage is mainly about ________.