British English and American English are almost the same. But there are slight differences between British and American English in vocabulary, pronunciation, spelling and grammar.
The first difference between British and American English is in vocabulary. Almost all of the words used in British English and American English are exactly the same. Only a very small number of words are used disparately. For example, Americans would say “apartment”, but the British would say “flat” to talk about the place where they live. In addition to some common words, many idiomatic（慣用的）expressions are different. In England people might say “I’ll ring you up tonight”, but in the US, people might say “I’ll call you up tonight”.
The second difference between British and American English is in Pronunciation. The main difference in pronunciation concerns the vowels（元音）. Some American dialects and some British dialects use vowels in different ways. Sometimes, Americans and the British don’t understand each other’s pronunciation. But most of the time, the British and Americans do understand each other’s pronunciation because most of the sounds of the two dialects are the same.
The third difference is very small. This is the difference in spelling. A few types of words are spelled differently in British and American English. The most common example is in a word like “center”. In British English, this word would be spelled C-E-N-T-R-E, while in American English the same word would be spelled C-E-N-T-E-R. Another example is “or” vs “our”. The word “color”is spelled C-O-L-O-U-R in Britain but C-O-L-O-R in the US.
There are a few differences in grammar, too. The British may say “Have you got..?” while Americans prefer “Do you have..?” An American might say “my friend just arrived”, but a British would say “my friend has just arrived”. Sometimes function words are used differently: the British may say “at the weekend”, but Americans would say “on the weekend”.
【小題1】What is this passage mainly about?

A．The development of American English

B．Differences between British and American English

C．The influences of British English on American English

D．The causes of the differences between British and American English

【小題2】What does the underlined word “disparately” in Paragraph 2 mean?

A．Frequently

B．Regularly

C．Eventually

D．Differently

【小題3】According to Paragraph 3, Americans and the British may find it hard to understand each other because of       .

A．the different ways of using vowels

B．the different idiomatic expressions they use

C．the differences in grammar

D．the differences in spelling

【小題4】Which of the following words probably belong to the American English vocabulary?
a. flavour    b. theater   c. humor   d. centre   e. kilometer   f. honour     g. color

A．a(chǎn)bce

B．bcde

C．bceg

D．defg

【小題5】Which of the following sentences is most probably used by Americans?

A．I’ll learn with you at the weekend

B．Have you got a dictionary?

C．I’ll ring her up tonight.

D．Do you have a pen?

E

Windows not only let light in to cut down an electricity use for lighting, but the light coming through the window also provides heat. However, windows are not something people typically associate with being a cutting edge technology. Researchers are now working on new technologies that enable a window to quickly change from clear to dark and anywhere in between with a turn of a switch.

“It took us a long time to figure out what a window really is,” says Claes Granqvist, a professor of solid—state physics at Uppsala University in Sweden.“It’s contact with the outside world. You have to have visual contact with the surrounding world to feel well.” So, windows and natural light are important for improving the way people feel when they’re stuck indoors.

Yet, windows are the weak link in a building when it comes to energy and temperature control. In the winter, cold air leaks in. When it’s hot and sunny, sunlight streams in. All of this sunlight carries lots of heat and energy. And all of this extra heat forces people to turn on their air conditioners. Producing cold air, which can feel so refreshing, actually suck up enormous amounts of electricity in buildings around the world.

Windows have been a major focus of energy research for a long time. Over the years, scientists have come up with a variety of strategies for coating, glazing, and layering windows to make them more energy efficient. Smart windows go a step further. They use some technologies involving changes of color.

Electrochromic windows use electricity to change color. For example, a sheet of glass coated with thin layers(層) of tungsten oxide(氧化鎢) works a bit like a battery. Tungsten oxide is clear when an electric charge is applied and dark when the charge is removed, that is, when the amount of voltage(電壓) is decreased, the window darkens until it’s completely dark after all electricity is taken away. So applying a voltage determines whether the window looks clear or dark.

One important feature that makes a smart window so smart is that it has a sort of “memory”. All it takes is a small shock of voltage to turn the window from one state to the other. Then, it stays that way. Transitions take from 10 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the size of the window. The development of smart windows could mean that massive air conditioning systems may no longer need.“In the future,” Granqvist says,“our buildings may look different.”

67.Which statement does not indicate the importance of windows as described in the first two paragraphs?

A.Windows can change from clear to dark to save energy.

B.Windows help to save energy by letting light in.

C.Windows help to save energy by providing heat.

D.Windows enable people to have contact with the outside world.

68.According to the passage, smart windows are windows_______.

A.that are coated                        B.that use electricity

C.the color of which can be changed        D.that have many layers

69.To make electrochromic windows change color, what is applied to the window glass?

A.Electricity.     B.Tungsten oxide.    C.A battery.         D.A voltage.

70.What will be the benefit if the research on smart windows turns out to be successful?

A.The buildings will look different.

B.Windows can be as large as you want.

C.We may not need air conditioners any more.

D.They are less expensive than traditional windows.

 

The word “conservation” has a thrifty（節(jié)儉）meaning. To conserve is to save and to protect, to leave what we ourselves enjoy in such good condition that others may also share the enjoyment. Our forefathers had no idea that human population would increase faster than the supplies of raw materials; most of them, even until very recently, had the foolish idea that the treasures were “l(fā)imitless” and “inexhaustible”. Most of the citizens of earlier generations knew little or nothing about the complicated and delicate system that runs all through nature, and which means that, as in a living body, an unhealthy condition of one part will sooner or later be harmful to all the others.

Fifty years ago nature study was not part of the school work; scientific forestry was a new idea; wood was still cheap because it could be brought in any quantity from distant woodlands; soil destruction and river floods were not national problems; nobody had yet studied long-term climatic cycles in relation to proper land use; even the word “conservation” had nothing of the meaning that it has for us today.

For the interests of ourselves and those who will come after us, we must now set about repairing the mistakes of our forefathers. Conservation should, therefore, be made a part of everyone’s daily life. To know about the water table（水位）in the ground is just as important to us as a knowledge of the basic arithmetic formulas. We need to know why all watersheds（上游源頭森林地帶集水區(qū)）need the protection of plant life and why the running current of streams and rivers must be made to yield ( produce ) their full benefit to the soil before they finally escape to the sea. We need to be taught the duty of planting trees as well as of cutting them. We need to know the importance of big nature trees, because living space for most of man’s fellow creatures on this planet is figured not only in square measure of surface but also in cubic volume（容積量）above the earth. In brief, it should be our goal to restore as much of the original beauty of nature as we can.

1. According to the author the greatest mistake of our forefathers was that   _______.

A．they had no idea about scientific forestry

B．they had little or no sense of environmental protection

C．they did not realize the importance

D．they had no idea of how to make good use of raw materials

2. It can be inferred from the passage that earlier generations didn’t realize _______.

A．the interdependence（相互依存）of water, soil, and living things

B．the importance of the proper land use

C．the harmfulness of soil destruction and river floods

D．the extraordinary rapid growth of population

3.With a view to correcting the mistakes of our forefathers, the author suggests that ______.

A．we plant more trees

B．our forefathers be taught environmental science, as well as the science of plants

C．environmental education be directed toward everyone

D．we return to nature

4.. What does the author imply（express indirectly）by saying “l(fā)iving space for most of man’s fellow creatures on this planet is figured not only in square measure of surface but also in cubic volume（容積量）above the earth.”?

A．Our living space on the earth is getting smaller and smaller.

B．Our living space should be measured in cubic volume.

C．We need to take some measures to protect space.

D．We must create better living conditions for both birds and animals.

5. The underlined word “restore” probably is closest to the meaning of “_________”.

A．put back

B．bring back

C．keep

D．protect

 

When I was growing up, I had an old neighbor named Dr. Gibbs. He didn’t look like any doctor I’d ever known. He never yelled at us for playing in his yard. I remember him as someone who was a lot nicer than most of the adults in our community.

　　When Dr. Gibbs wasn’t saving lives, he was planting trees. His house sat on ten acres, and his life’s goal was to make it a forest.

　　The good doctor had some interesting theories concerning plant care and growth. He never watered his new trees, which flew in the face of conventional wisdom. Once I asked why. He said that watering plants spoiled them so that each successive tree generation would grow weaker and weaker. So you have to make things rough for them and weed out(淘汰) the weaker trees early on.

He talked about how watering trees made for shallow roots, and how trees that weren’t watered had to grow deep roots in search of moisture. I took him to mean that deep roots were to be treasured.

　　So he never watered his trees. He planted an oak and, instead of watering it every morning, he’d beat it with a rolled-up newspaper. Smack! Slap! Pow! I asked him why he did that, and he said it was to get the tree’s attention.

Dr. Gibbs passed away a couple of years after I left home. Every now and again, I walked by his house and looked at the trees that I’d watched him plant some twenty-five years ago. They’re extremely tall, big and robust since they have deep roots now. However, the trees in my garden trembled in a cold wind although I had watered them for several years.

It seems that adversity(逆境) and suffering benefit these trees in ways comfort and ease never could. I stood there deep in thought.

　　Every night before I go to bed, I check on my two sons. I stand over them and watch their little bodies, the rising and falling of life within. I often pray for them. Mostly I pray that their lives will be easy. But I think it’s time to change my prayer(禱詞) because now I know my children are going to encounter hardship..

1.According to Dr. Gibbs’ theories, trees will become weaker if they______

    A. are lack of care   B. are watered   C. are weeded out    D. are beaten

2..According to Para.3 and Pare.4, we can infer that Dr. Gibbs’moto（座右銘）may be_____

     A. “seeing is believing”        B.“Put everything in proper use”

     C. ”P(pán)ractice makes perfect”     D. “No pains, no gains”

3..The underlined word robust in Para.5 most probably means______

      A. strong         B. strange         C. deep        D. old

4. Which of the following may be the author’s best prayer for his two sons now ?

  A. I wish them strong wings, with which they can fly higher and touch the sky.

  B.I wish them nice fortune so that they can meet people like Dr. Gibbs in the future.

  C.I wish them deep roots into the earth since the rains fall and the winds blow often.

  D.I wish them great shades under the tree since the sunlight is always sharp and bitter.

5. Which of the following can be the best title of the passage?

   A. A Nice Doctor                      B. The Deep Roots  

C. Adversity and Suffering              D. My Childhood Memory

 

People say time is relative．But relative to what．I do know that sometimes time“seems”to be moving slower．Remember Christmas Eve when you were a child? It was the longest night of the year．It lasted forever! And now it seems like I just paid my bill yesterday．．．a(chǎn)nd it’s due again!  

People tell me all too frequently…I need more time! Oh ，really?…Mother Teresa，Michelangelo，and Helen Keller all had 24 hours a day．Look what they did with their time!

Is it that we need to manage our time better…or our priorities(重點(diǎn))?You’ve heard the expression“first things first．”The first step in understanding the power of time is to understand that it is limited．Why is it then that some people get a lot more done? We know the answer．They use their time smartly．   

One day an expert on time management was speaking to a group of students and announced a quiz．He pulled out a wide-mouthed jar．Next，he placed about a dozen fist-sized rocks，one at a time , into the jat, until no more would fit．“Is it full?” he asked．”Yes，”responds the class．”O(jiān)h really?” he asked．So he took out a bucket of gravel(砂礫), which he managed to work down into the spaces between the larger rocks．“Is it full now?” he asked．

Wising up，one answered，‘'Probably not．”Sure enough, he took out a bucket of sand，which he poured into the empty spaces．”Is it full now?” he asked．”No,” reply the students confidently．So he took a glass of water and filled it in．Then he asked，“What is my point?’’

One said，‘'No matter how full your schedule is，if you try really hard，you can always fit some more things into it！”

“No，”the speaker replied，“It tells us if you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all．’’

What are the big rocks? The things you should put in to your jar first．

The rich don’t get 25 hours and the poor don’t get 23…we all get the same．Let’s use them wisely! Invest your time wisely!

49．What does the point of the quiz lie in_______.

A．How to put more things into ajar． B．How well the students learn the lesson．

C．How to get more done in limited time      D．The skill and order is very important．

50． “The big rocks”in this passage refers to_______?

A．difficult points．        B．a(chǎn)dvantages     C．minor things           D．focuses

51. How is the passage mainly developed?

A．By inferring．             B．By comparing．

C．By listing examples．        D．By giving facts．

52. The text is written mainly            

A．to explain the origin of the expression “first things first”

B．to call on us to use our time in a smart manner   

C．to introduce a meaningful class given by an expert

D．to tell us about the relativity and the power of time