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（平頭）, 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（長老繭）, 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.
【小題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?

【小題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

【小題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

【小題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

People who put a smiley face at the end of a message, in an attempt to show feeling, show no feeling. I wish there was a symbol for two fingers in the air.
I had some bad news this week. My manager informed me of this news via email. It was like hearing about the death of a loved one via pigeon. Bad news should only ever be delivered face to face or voice to voice.
We seem to celebrate our numerous methods of communication, but really there is no communication at all. I talk to my plants more than I talk to my neighbors, I get text messages that take me three hours to read because they’re written like this: “Hi, I ope you av a gr8 day. Call me La8tr.” I had an email from someone this week that read, “Da ut ov 2day are really annoying me!” Ut? I had to say this 20 times before I understood it. Youth has now become ut. Haven’t we taken enough from them—now we have to take their letters?
I had an email recently from a girl who used to live over the road from me as a child. She wrote, “Hi Shazia, howz u? Im sure u used 2 live across the road from me. We sumtimes played tennis 2 gever at the park and you was in your eliment. I am married now wif 3 daughters.” Then, to my horror, she ended the email with: “Im now teachin in Leeds. Luv Clare.”
Teaching? With English like this. It’s like saying you’re a train driver when you’ve never seen a train. It was like reading modern Morse code.
Getting bad news via email makes it seem so much worse than it actually is. Just a few lines, no emotion, no comfort, not really an explanation. Just a few cold hard words. It’s an excuse. Just write a few words and the problem of delivering it is no longer yours. A close friend recently told me she was very happy to announce she was getting married—and made the announcement by email. I don’t know how she didn’t fall off her chair with excitement while writing it. If you are really happy or really sad to announce something important, wouldn’t you like a human reaction? Some euphoria, elation, tears, a punch in the face?
I receive long text messages every day with information and explanations that I don’t bother reading. They’re boring, and annoy me. In the time it took someone to write me three laborious texts, they could have called, spoken to me, made some tea. People who put a smiley face at the end of a sentence, in an attempt to show feeling, show no feeling. I wish there was a symbol for two fingers in the air, because that’s the one I’d send back.
The telegram has been responsible for reporting world-shattering events when there were very few other options(選擇權(quán)). Now we have options, and people opt for the least humane one. My mum, in an attempt to get down with the ut of today, asked me to teach her to text. Now she constantly texts me in block capitals, so it looks as if she is still angry and annoyed with me after all these years.
People don’t even write by hand any more. My doctor prints out prescriptions from his computer; even my mechanic prints out a receipt. I get typed Christmas cards and my friends send me emails. I get very excited when hand-written letters come through my door, only because they rarely do.
When I was at school, the girls used to write letters to each other, even though we sat side by side and spoke to one another all day. I think it was a way of expressing private things we were afraid to say when we were 14 and too shy. We used to write things like, “You are my best friend, can’t wait to sit next to you in math.”
I miss the personal method of communication. Once the pen was mightier than the sword, now it seems the keyboard is mightier than the pen.
【小題1】We can learn from paragraph 3 and paragraph 4 that the writer wants to say ________.

A．the spelling mistakes in the messages make her very annoyed

B．only writing letters will bring friends and neighbors much closer

C．she talks to plants more because no one shares her joys and sorrows

D．gestures and the pen can express a lot more than the cold keyboard

【小題2】According to the writer, which of the following can support her opinion?

A．She has been separated from all his classmates many years.

B．No doctors write prescriptions by hand because of computers.

C．In communication, we should write more letters than send messages.

D．Less shy than school girls, boys rarely write letters to their friends.

【小題3】According to the passage, we can conclude that ________.

A．the writer is a person full of emotions and treasures friendship and affections

B．the writer becomes excited when she gets priceless gifts from other people

C．her classmates would write to each other because they couldn’t send messages

D．people put a smiley face at the end of a message just to show they are happy

【小題4】What message is conveyed in the passage?

A．The writer wastes much time in reading many rubbish text messages every day.

B．Few people can write letters well in modern society owing to texting messages.

C．Now people are too busy to communicate with each other face to face often.

D．The writer prefers personal communication rather than electronic equipment.

【小題5】Why does the writer mention the telegram?

A．Because she thinks the annoyance of reading text messages is originated from it.

B．Because we have more options to keep in touch with each other than ever before.

C．Because advanced technology partly takes the blame for lacking the human touch.

D．Because she thinks humans today become colder with the development of society.

【小題6】Which of the following best describe the tone of this passage?

A．Optimistic.

B．Critic.

C．Sympathetic.

D．Pessimistic.

The year is 2094. It has been announced that a comet (彗星) is heading towards the Earth. Most of it will miss our plant, but two pieces will probably hit the southern half of the Earth.

On 17 July, a piece four kilometers wide enters the Earth’s atmosphere with a massive explosion. About half of the piece is destroyed, but the remaining part hits the South Atlantic at 200 times the speed of sound. The sea boils and a huge hole is made in the sea bed. Huge waves are created and spread outwards from the hole. The wall of water, a kilometer high, rushes towards southern Africa at 800 kilometers an hour. Cities on the African coast are totally destroyed and millions of people are drowned.

Before the waves reach South America, the second piece of the comet lands in Argentina. Earthquakes and volcanoes are set off in the Andes Mountains. The shock waves move north into California and all around the Pacific Ocean. The cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Tokyo are completely destroyed by earthquakes. Millions of people in the southern half of the earth are already dead, but the north won’t escape for long. Because of the explosions, the sun is hidden by clouds of dust, and temperatures around the world fall to almost zero. Crops are ruined. The sun won’t be seen again for many years. Wars break out as countries fight for food. A year later, no more than 10 million remain alive.

Could it really happen? In fact, it has already happened more than once in the history of the Earth. The dinosaurs were on the Earth for over 160 million years. Then 65 million years ago they suddenly disappeared. Many scientists believe that the Earth was hit by a piece of object in space. The dinosaurs couldn’t live through the cold climate that followed and they died out. Will we meet the same end?

1.What is mainly described in the passage?

A. A historic discovery.               B. An event of imagination.

C. A research on space.               D. A scientific adventure.

2.A. an earthquake                     B. damages to cities  

C. an Earth explosion                 D. huge waves

3.Why can’t the northern half of the earth escape for long?

A. Because the land is covered with water

B. Because the light and heat from the sun can not reach the earth.

C. Because people there can not live at the temperature of zero.

D. Because wars break out among countries.

4. By giving the example of dinosaurs, the author tries to prove_____________.

A. animals could not live in the cold climate

B. what happened 65 million years ago was an invented story

C. the human beings will die out in 2094  

D. the Earth could be hit by other objects in space

5.We may guess that the writer is ______________.

A. worried        B. practical        C. a scientist       D. full of imagination

 

The English are often described as unfriendly people who don’t talk to strangers（陌生人）。 But not London taxi drivers. I once asked one cabby to describe his life to me and he didn’t stop talking until I arrived home half an hour later. He told me many interesting stories and this is one of them.“Some strange things happen late at night. The other day I was taking a woman home from a party. She had her little dog with her. When we got to her house， she found that she’d lost her key. So， I waited in the cab with her dog while she climbed in through the window.”

“I waited and waited. After half an hour of ringing the bell I decided to find out what was going on. I tied the dog to a tree and started to climb in through the window. The next thing I knew was that the police came. They thought I was to rob the house！ Luckily， the woman came downstairs. She’d gone to sleep and forgotten about me and the dog. I was in such a hurry to get away that I forgot to ask her for the fare.”

1. What does the writer think of the London taxi driver？

A．They are unfriendly.

B．They like to talk to strangers.

C．They talk too much.

D．They are not English.

2. From the passage， we know_________.

A．the writer is the taxi driver’s friend	B．the writer often travels by taxi
C．the writer is a foreigner visiting London	D．the writer lives in London

3. What does “cabby” mean？

A．Taxi.

B．Stranger.

C．Taxi driver.

D．Londoner.

4.Why did the taxi driver wait for the woman？

A. Because she had left her dog with him.

B. Because she had not paid him.

C. Because she wanted to go out again.

D. Both A and B.

5. Why do you think the woman didn’t go out of the house again.

A．Because she didn’t want to pay the taxi driver.

B．Because she was so tired that she had forgotten about the taxi driver.

C．Because she wanted to keep the taxi driver waiting.

D．Because she wanted to go to sleep first.

 

It is a matter of common observation that although money income keeps going up over the years, we never seem to become richer. Prices are rising continuously. This condition is what we call inflation: the money supply is becoming inflated so that each unit of it becomes less valuable. We have got used to higher and higher rates of inflation in recent years. What could be bought twenty years ago for one pound now costs well over 2 pounds. And at present this rate of inflation seems to be rising rather than falling. If in the real world our money incomes go up at the same rate as prices do. One might think that inflation doesn’t matter. But it does ------.When money is losing value it also loses one of the qualities of a good money—stability of value. It is no longer acceptable as a store of value; and it becomes an unsuitable means of delayed payment. Nobody wants to hold a wasting possession, so people try to get rid of money as quickly as possible. Inflation therefore simply stimulates（刺激）our spending and discourages saving.
【小題1】From the passage we can know that inflation is a situation in which________.

A．everyone’s incomes rise

B．money will hold its value

C．we can watch our money grow

D．money constantly loses its value

【小題2】．In the writer’s view, if incomes and prices rise at the same rate, ________.

A．inflation maybe still be a problem

B．we have nothing to worry about

C．inflation is no longer a problem

D．we will become richer and richer

【小題3】．Under inflation people are likely to ________.

A．go to the bank more often than usual

B．save more money since their incomes rise

C．spend money quickly rather than to save it

D．keep money at home instead of going to banks

【小題4】．We can conclude according to the passage that ________.

A．the writer is a government official

B．the writer is worried about inflation

C．the writer encourages people to spend money

D．the writer has become richer because of inflation

【小題5】. Which of the following words is omitted at the end of the underlined sentence “But it does”?

A．matter,

B．goes.

C．rises

D．fall