Although April did not bring us the rains we all hoped for, and although the Central Valley doesn’t generally experience the sound and lightning that can go with those rains, it’s still important for parents to be able to answer the youthful questions about thunder and lightning.

The reason these two wonders of nature are so difficult for many adults to explain to children is that they are not very well understood by adults themselves. For example, did you know that the lightning we see flashing down to the earth from a cloud is actually flashing up to a cloud from the earth? Our eyes trick us into thinking we see a downward motion when it’s actually the other way around. But then, if we believed only what we think and we see, we’d still insist that the sun rises in the morning and sets at night.

Most lightning flashes take place inside a cloud, and only a relative few can be seen jumping between two clouds or between earth and a cloud. But, with about 2,000 thunderstorms taking place above the earth every minute of the day and night, there’s enough activity to produce about 100 lightning strikes on earth every second.

Parents can use thunder and lightning to help their children learn more about the world around them. When children understand that the light of the lightning flashing reaches their eyes almost at the same moment, but the sound of the thunder takes about 5 seconds to travel just one mile, they can begin to time the interval (间隔) between the flash and the crash to learn how lose they were to the actual spark (闪光).

1.According to the author, in the area of the Central Valley____.

2.We believe that lightning is a downward motion because_______.

3.What is TRUE about lightning according to the passage?

4.The underlined word “activity”  is most closely related to the word (s) _____.

5.It can be concluded from the passage that _______.

Penguins live together，but each pair has a little piece of ground of their own.When a penguin wants to walk through its neighbor’s ground，it must ask permission.If it does not do that，it will have to fight.Most of the time，penguins live on the water.They eat shell fish and look after their children carefully.

All penguins are good parents—the male penguins are perhaps the best parents in the world. They walk in the sea in the middle of the dark Antarctic water. They choose their wives in the dark.They can only hear them—not see them.Then the female penguins lay their eggs and go away for about two months.The males take care of the eggs.If the eggs get cold，there will be no chicks.There is no food.The snow falls heavily and the wind blows strongly—sometimes at 150 kilometers an hour.The penguins do not move.When the females return from the sea，they will not remember their husbands.It does not matter.Only one thing matters—the eggs.Male penguins never fight—unless a penguin leaves a chick for a minute.They then fight because they all want it.They are strange and wonderful birds.

1.It seems interesting and unusual that the male penguins choose their wives ______.

2.Male penguins fight when ______.

3.From the passage we know that ______.

4.The penguins choose their wives in the dark. We can infer that ______.

5.Which of the following is NOT true?

Some teenagers admire those excellent artists who gain their success through their great efforts while ___16___ envy those young actresses who are discovered by famous directors and start glittering careers ___17___ their early 20s. Like Gong Li and Zhang Ziyi who were discovered by Zhang Yimou, the new lucky girl is 19-year-old Zhang Yuqi from Shandong Province.

__18__  (choose) by Hong Kong comedy actor and director Stephen Chow, Zhang made her first film performance in Chow's new successful movie, CJ7 or A Hope. The movie___19__(bring ) to the screen on January 31, 2008.

In the sci-fi movie, Chow plays a poor father working very hard to support his 9-year-old son. One day, Chow discovers a strange "toy" in the garbage __20__gives it to his son as a birthday present. Soon the "toy" turns out to be a communication device lost by aliens, who__21__(desperate) want it back. Zhang stars as his son's beautiful teacher, with __22__  Chow falls in love, not knowing that she is a robot. Although Zhang feels ___23___(fortune), as A Hope has made her__24__ overnight star, the student at Shanghai Drama Academy has to learn to adapt to the competitive film world.

"It's a good start, a good opportunity and a stressful challenge as well for__25__ age," Zhang said.

In 1956 Phoenix, Arizona, was a city with boundless blue   1 . One day as I walked around the house with my sister Kathy’s new parakeet （小鹦鹉）on my finger, I wanted to show Perky what the sky looked like. I took him into the backyard, and then, to my horror , Perky flew off. The enormous, blue sky swallowed up my sister’s blue  2   and suddenly he had gone, clipped wings and all. 

I told Kathy about Perky's disappearance and I was anxious that she would blame me. But , unexpectedly, Kathy managed to   3  me. With fake optimism, she even tried to convince me that Perky would find a new    4   . But I was far too clever to   5   that such a thing was possible.

Decades later, I watched my own    6  growing. We shared their activities, spending soccer Saturdays in folding chairs with the   7 of the kids’ friends, the Kissells. The two families went camping around Arizona together. We became the best of friends. One evening, the game was to tell Great Pet stories. One person claimed（宣称） to  8  the oldest living goldfish. Someone else had a psychic dog. Then Barry, the father of the other family, took the floor and ___9___that the Greatest Pet of All Time was his blue parakeet, Sweetie Pie.

"The best thing about Sweetie Pie," he said, "was the  10   we got him. One day, when I was about eight, out of the clear, blue sky, a little blue parakeet just  11   down and landed on my finger."

When I was finally able to  12 , we examined the amazing evidence. The dates and the locations and the pictures of the bird all  13 . It seems our two families had been  14  long before we ever met. Forty years later, I ran to my sister and said, "You were  15 ! Perky lived!"

阅读下面的短文，然后按照要求写一篇150词左右的英语短文。

The arrival of World Book and Copyright Day always draws public attention to young people's reading, but mere temporary attention cannot increase the popularity of reading. The lack of reading books is becoming an increasingly severe problem in China. 

According to a survey by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Shanghai residents read most in China, with only eight books read a year on average. About 1.3 billion Chinese people read less than one book every year, if textbooks are not taken into account. 

Nowadays, children's spare time is occupied by attending various tutorial classes, taking exam preparation training, and learning piano, painting, dancing, weiqi, or other techniques. 

 "Childhood is a good period for reading literature. Reading can wake up the true nature of children, and good education should fit children's nature," said Zhou Yimin, who is also a teacher. 

    Scholars are also worried about another adverse impact of the lack of reading. "If a child had never read a book from beginning to end before the fourth grade, he or she may lack the ability to read an entire book," said Jiang Junjing, an experienced teacher. What is worse, it may result in a lack of the ability to grasp the whole situation. Children who lacked the ability to read an entire book in childhood may end up being unable to grasp the whole picture or manage the whole team when they grow up.

【写作内容】

1.     以约30个词概括短文的要点。

2.     以约120词表达你就 “阅读书籍”发表看法，并要包括下列要点：

（1）你认为阅读书籍重要吗？为什么？

（2）请举例说明你的观点。

【写作要求】

1.     作文中你可以使用自己的亲身经历或虚构的故事，也可以参照阅读材料的内容，但不能直接引用原文中的句子。

2.     作文中不能出现真实姓名和学校名称。

【评分标准】  概括准确，语言规范，内容合适，篇章连贯。

假如你是学校的校报记者。以下是南中国海的简介，请你根据以下内容，写一篇英文的简介，发表在校报上。

地理位置: 位居太平洋和印度洋之间的航运要冲，在经济上、国防上都具有重要的意义。面积350多万平方公里，其中属于我国管辖范围的有210万平方公里左右。

气候特征：终年高温、雨量充沛。

资源：中国南海海洋鱼类有1500多种，其中很多具有极高的经济价值。

      由于气候适宜、雨量充沛，生长着200多种高等植物。

      海底资源十分丰富，尤其是海底石油和天然气储量巨大。

【写作内容】

    请根据以上简介，写一篇南中国海的英文简介，内容包括：

    1.地理位置；

    2.气候特征；

3.资源；

【参考词汇】

航运要冲 a major shipping juncture

【写作要求】

只能使用5个英语句子表达全部内容。

【评分标准】

句子结构准确，信息内容完整，篇章结构连贯。

_______________________________________________________________________________

首先请阅读下列电子产品的信息：

以下是五个人的购买意向。请匹配个人信息与适合的电子产品。

1.Jill wants a simple and cheap computer for her daughter’s bedroom that will let her daughter access the internet and run the programme she needs to do her homework.

2.Robert needs a computer for his frequent business trips. Besides checking email, looking for information online and preparing his reports he also wants to be able to watch some of his favourite DVD movies that he takes on his trip.

3.Li Hua is going on holidays and wants a machine that is portable, internet connected and good for multi media playing. As he will be on buses and trains a lot he is looking for something that can be used for a long time without a battery recharge.

4.John always wants to be the first to have the newest technology. He has had an iPad2 for over a year and now he wants to get a machine that will let him experience the latest innovations in games and movies.

5.Karen has recently put on a lot of weight so is planning to start jogging. As she is afraid she’ll get bored she wants a small, simple and inexpensive mp3 player to let her listen to her favourite music while she exercises.

Across the planet there are millions of people who engage in some type of meditation, the practice of concentrating and clearing the mind to bring the body into a state of peace, at least a semi-regular basis. For some, particularly among practitioners of Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism, this is part and parcel of their religious practice.

For others, particularly in Western cultures, meditation tends to be a response to stress. With the world economy approaching meltdown and people worried about their job or their ability to keep their home, it’s a way for people to attain a state of peace of mind and well-being.

For those interested in taking up the practice, instruction in meditation for beginners can be found in literally thousands of sources.

One of the most popular styles of mediation in the West, with classes offered in most major cities, is called Transcendental Meditation. TM, as it is known among its practitioners, first came to worldwide attention when the Beatles began practicing it in 1967. For direct, guided, personal instruction in meditation for the beginner, TM may be the hallmark.

Part of the confusion about how to practice meditation effectively is due to the fact that there are literally hundreds of techniques championed by various groups and individuals. As a general principle, it might be said that all meditation techniques seek to have the practitioner attain a state of consciousness that is different to our ordinary state of awareness. They attempt to train people to clear their minds and achieve a sense of inner peace. It sounds simple enough, but of the huge number of people experiment with meditation, very few are able to maintain its practice over the long haul. In most cases, this is due to frustration over the inability to experience any dramatic, instantly recognizable effects.

This is quite a sad state of affairs, that so few these days are willing or equipped to persist in something that doesn’t provide immediate life-changing results. It reflects a culture in which demands for discipline and sustained effort are considered unnecessary or even unfair. It is no surprise therefore that many people abandon their efforts at meditation before they have a chance to bear fruit.

But for anyone who does decide to take up this worthwhile practice, please remember. You must clear your mind, relax and “take it as it comes”. Maintain the practice with a sense of discipline and devotion, and eventually benefits of inner peace and calm will be yours.

1.The underlined part “part and parcel of” in paragraph 1 is nearest in meaning to ________.

A. closely associated with      B. very different to

C. usually sent from            D. an important element of

2.The goal of meditation is ________.

A. to clear the mind        B. to practice a religion

C. to develop a technique   D. to carry out an experiment

3.What can we infer about meditation from the passage?

A. It has two main types.

B. It is practiced by many famous artists.

C. Its benefits are not immediately obvious.

D. Most people find it a very good way to relax.

4.According to the writer, what has attracted many Western people to meditation practices in recent years?

A. Their improved understanding of foreign culture.

B. The need to fill in their growing free time.

C. Increasing employment instability.

D. Migration from countries in which meditation is traditional.

5.Who is the probable audience for this article?

A. Experienced meditation practitioners.

B. People interested in starting to learn meditation.

C. Buddhists and Hindus.

D. People who are very religious.

Studying volcanoes is a demanding profession. Hazel Rymer frequently has to struggle through rainforests, climb to the top of mountains, then climb 200 metres into the crater of active volcanoes. But the 38-year-old volcanologist does her best to make it sound less alarming than it is. “Driving to work is more risky,” she insists. “And the deepest I go into the crater of a volcano is about 300 metres,” she adds, trying to make it all sound as ordinary as taking the dog for a walk.

Hazel has been studying volcanoes for a long time, so it’s not surprising she is used to the danger. Her interest in volcanoes began at school. A teacher gave her a book about Pompeii. “I remember reading about the eruption of Vesuvius and the destruction of the city,” she explains. “The thought of all those people just frozen in time had quite an effect on me and I am still excited by their dangerous beauty today.”

Nowadays, volcanoes are getting more and more unpredictable. There have been many changes in sea level caused by global warming and melting ice caps. These have resulted in some dormant volcanoes erupting, so studying them is more dangerous than ever before. Hazel says that although she doesn’t take any unnecessary risk she has had some frightening moments. Her worst experience was on the slopes of Mount Etna in Sicily, when she was slowly surrounded by lava. “I had a choice of walking ten hours to get around the lava flow or just walking across it,” she explains. She chose to pick a path across the cooler rocks in the lava stream. “I guess it was five metres. The flow was 1,000°C, so if you hesitated your boots would begin to melt. It was scary, but it really was a practical decision --- there wasn't time to do anything else.”

And what about the future? “I haven’t been to the volcanoes in Indonesia yet. And I would love to spend some time working in the Antarctic,” she says. “I would also like to know why quiet lava flows erupt from some volcanoes and why other volcanoes go bang.” In other words, Hazel Rymer won’t be exchanging her volcanoes for the relative safety of driving to work just yet.

1.Hazel’s claim that “driving to work is more risky” than exploring volcanoes shows that ______.

A. people have exaggerated the dangers of volcanoes in the past

B. Hazel does not really understand the dangerous situations she puts herself in.

C. there are many bad drivers in the place where Hazel lives

D. Hazel is being modest and understating the dangers she faces

2.When did Hazel first become interested in volcanoes?

A. When she was visiting Italy.

B. When she was at school.

C. When she was twenty.

D. When she saw Vesuvius.

3.The underlined word “these” (in paragraph 3) refers to __________.

A. melting ice-caps         B. volcanic eruptions

C. changes in sea level         D. higher temperatures

4.When Hazel was on Mount Etna she had to ________.

A. take a dangerous route

B. take an unnecessary risk

C. leave her boots behind

D. walk for ten hours around the mountain

5.In the future, Hazel wants to ________.

A. revisit volcanoes she knows

B. go on holiday to the Antarctic

C. find a less dangerous job

D. discover new things about volcanoes

Normally when I pop in to see my parents, my mum bursts out of the house with a big smile. Not today. "Your brother," she says, "he's showered twice this afternoon. Does he know how much it costs to run this house?" Are we limiting water now? I didn't think the recession(萧条) had got that bad. My poor brother is a boomerang kid. Like 60 percent of guys immediately after university, he's back at home. Graduating ￡15,000 in debt and faced with unpaid internships(实习期) or low wages thanks to the flooding of the market with graduates, a lot of twenty some things simply don't have the necessary income or parental support to live independently.

Three years after getting their degree, most graduates are still not earning above the average salary. They have a near 50 percent tax burden, thanks to student loan repayments and council tax on top of income tax and national insurance. Unless you have parents who can afford to finance what is effectively a second home for them, returning to the parental nest is often the only affordable option.

The boomerang effect is becoming even more pronounced thanks to the recession. One in four of those losing their job during the downturn is under 25. Only 13 percent of final-year students have jobs. Home is the only place many are going: 111,000 16-29 year olds moved back home in 2008, five times the average of previous years.

Boomeranging is bad news. It poses serious problems for parents' finances. They've already supported their children through university, topping up loans with handouts, averaging ￡12,300 in total, to keep twenty somethings afloat. Now their retirement savings are being eaten away by continuously dependent children.

It’s bad for the returning kids too. Ambitious young people will be left frustrated, seeing their university peers from more wealthy backgrounds excel only because parents' money was there to support them through the initial period of poverty wages. Those living in rural areas are further disadvantaged by lack of access to cities where most new jobs are located. Half of all young people now feel they will not achieve their goals. Research by the Prince's Trust reveals that one-quarter of all 16-25 year olds are regularly down or depressed. And depression does not help self-motivation, the very trait needed to seek out job opportunities.

1.In paragraph 1, the mother’s criticizing her son for showering too often shows _________.

A. the price of water has increased

B. she thinks her son is selfish

C. her son is an economic burden

D. she wants to have a shower herself

2.What is the boomerang mentioned in the passage?

A. A person earning low income.

B. A person who has heavy tax burden.

C. A youth who cannot get parental support.

D. A youth returning to parents after graduation.

3.According to the passage, which of the following does NOT contribute to the tax bill of most young graduates?

A. National insurance.      B. Income tax.

C. Council income.      D. Student loans.

4.Who is comparatively most affected by the recession according to the passage?

A. Those who haven’t completed their university studies.

B. Those who are supported through by their parents.

C. Those who can have access to the urban facilities.

D. Those who were born into the well-off families.

5.Which is the best title of the passage?

A. Global Recession

B. Boomerang Kids

C. Unemployment Rate

D. Falling Incomes