There are some choices of food and beverage for you on the plane.

Over vast areas of every continent,the rainfall and vegetation necessary for life are disappearing.Already more than 40 percent of the earth's land is desert or desertlike.About 628 million people—one out of seven—live in these dry regions.In the past,they have managed to survive,but with difficulty.[ZZ(Z]Now largely through problems caused by modern life,their existence is threatened by the slow,steady spread of the earth's deserts. Scientists still do not understand all the complex problems of the desert,but there have been many ideas for saving the land.Sandi Arabia has planted 10 million trees to help keep the sand from taking over fertile areas.The Israelis are aga in using some of the water collection systems left by the ancient people in the　Negev desert.They plan to water their orchards with the extra water.Some Sahel farmers still raise cattle on their poor farm land,but before the cattle are sold, they are taken to greener lands in the south to get fat.

26. What is the article mainly concerned？

A.The problem of spreading desert.

B.The rainfall and vegetation in desert areas.

C.The water collection systems.

D.The difference between modern life and ancient life. 

27. “one out of seven” refers to____.

A.more than a third of the lands' earth

B.the percentage of the earth's land that is desert-like

C.the number of people who live in dry regions

D.a day of a week 

28. In paragraph 2,“they are taken to the greener lands in the south.”They refers to____.

A.the Sahel farm land

B.the farmers

C.the cattles

D.the trees 

29. How many ideas for saving the land are described？

A.Five.    B.Two.   C.Four.       D.Three. 

30. Which of the following statements is true, according to the passage？

A.The earth's desert are slowly spreading.

B.One out of 10 people lives in dry regions.

C.Their life in the desert is threatened now by traditional problems.

D.New water wells can solve the problem in Africa's desert.

Part I Reading Comprehension Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following passage. Some futurologists have assumed that the vast upsurge (剧增) of women in the workforce may portend a rejection of marriage. Many women, according to this hypothesis, would rather work than marry. The converse (反面) of this concern is that the prospects of becoming a multi-paycheck household could encourage marriages. In the past, only the earnings and financial prospects of the man counted in the marriage decision. Now, however, the earning ability of a woman can make her more attractive as a marriage partner. Data show that economic downturns tend to postpone marriage because the parties cannot afford to establish a family or are concerned about rainy days ahead. As the economy rebounds, the number of marriages also rises. Coincident with the increase in women working outside the home is the increase in divorce rates. Yet, it may be wrong to jump to any simple cause-and-effect conclusions. The impact of a wife’s work on divorce is no less cloudy than its impact on marriage decisions. The realization that she can be a good provider may increase the chances that a working wife will choose divorce over an unsatisfactory marriage. But the reverse is equally plausible. Tensions grounded in financial problems often play a key role in ending a marriage. Given high unemployment, inflationary problems, and slow growth in real earnings, a working wife can increase household income and relieve some of these pressing financial burdens. By raising a family’s standard of living, a working wife may strengthen her family’s financial and emotional stability. Psychological factors also should be considered. For example, a wife blocked from a career outside the home may feel caged in the house. She may view her only choice as seeking a divorce. On the other hand, if she can find fulfillment through work outside the home, work and marriage can go together to create a stronger and more stable union. Also, a major part of women’s inequality in marriage has been due to the fact that, in most cases, men have remained the main breadwinners. With higher earning capacity and status occupations outside of the home comes the capacity to exercise power within the family. A working wife may rob a husband of being the master of the house. Depending upon how the couple reacts to these new conditions, it could create a stronger equal partnership or it could create new insecurities. 1. The word “portend” is closest in meaning to “________”.

A、defy

B、signal

C、suffer from

D、result from

A、shortage

B、damage

C、price

D、quality

Byalmost any measure, there is a boom in Intemet-based instruction. In just a fewyears,34 percent ofAmerican universities have begun offering some form. ofdistance learning (DL), and among the larger schools,it's closer to 90 percent.If you doubt the popularity of the trend, you probably haven't heard of theUniversity ofPhoenix. It grants degrees entirely on the basis of onlineinstruction. It enrolls 90,000 students, a statistic used tosupport its claimto be the largest private university in the country.

Whilethe kinds of instruction offered in these programs will differ, DL usuallysignifies a course in which theinstructors post syllabi(课程大纲), reading assignments, and schedules on Websites, and students sendin theirassignments by e-mail. Generally speaking, face-to-face communicationwith an instructor is minimized oreliminated altogether.

Theattraction for students might at first seem obvious. Primarily, there's theconvenience promised by courseson the Net: you can do the work, as they say, inyour pajamas (睡衣). But figures indicate that the reducedeffortresults in a reduced commitment to the course. While dropout rates for allfreshmen at American universitiesis around 20 percent, the rate for onlinestudents is 35 percent. Students themselves seem to understand theweaknessesinherent in the setup. In a survey conducted for eComell, the DL division ofComell University, lessthan a third of the respondents expected the quality ofthe online course to be as good as the classroom course.

Clearly,from the schools' perspective, there's a lot of money to be saved. Althoughsome of the moreambitious programs require new investments in servers andnetworks to support collaborative software, most DLcourses can run on existingor minimally upgraded(升级)systems. The more students who enroll in acourse butdon't come to campus, the more the school saves on keeping the lightson in the classrooms, paying doorkeepers,and maintaining parking lots. Andthere's evidence that instructors must work harder to run a DL course foravariety of reasons, they won't be paid any more, and might well be paid less.

56、What is the most striking feature of theUniversity of Phoenix？

A.Allits courses are offered online.

B.Itsonline courses are of the best quality.

C.It boasts the largest number of studentson campus.

D.Anyone taking its online courses is sure to get a degree.

57、According to the passage, distance learning isbasically characterized by____

A.aconsiderable flexibility in its academic requirements

B.the great diversity ofstudents' academic backgrounds

C.a minimum or total absence of face-to'faceinstruction

D.the casual relationship between students and professors

58、Manystudents take Internet-based courses mainly because they can ____

A.earntheir academic degrees With much less effort

B.savea great deal on traveling and boarding expenses

C.select courses from variouscolleges and universities

D.work on the required courses whenever andwherever

59、What accounts for the high dropout rates for online students？

A.Thereis no strict control over the academic standards of the courses.

B.Theevaluation system used by online universities is inherently weak.

C.There is nomechanism to ensure that they make the required effort.

D.Lack of classroominteraction reduces the effectiveness of instruction.

60、According to the passage, universities showgreat enthusiasm for DL programs for the purpose of____

A.building up their reputation

B.cutting down on their expenses

C.upgrading their teaching facilities

D.providing convenience for students

Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice.

Many now have been breathing hot flames at our industry and so I thought it would be time to say my piece this week, after all, we in the business cannot deny that it has been a rough spring for newspaper editors and reporters. Ethical scandals great and small have soiled news- rooms from coast to coast. Everyone knows about the profound deceits of Jayson Blair at The New York Times, and the "Writergate" controversy involving Rick Bragg, which led to the departure of the two top editors at the paper. Other misdeeds have ranged from two reporters at The Salt Lake Tribune selling information to The National Enquirer, to a food writer for The Hartford Courant fired for plagiarizing recipes. Are newspaper standards going to pot?

Some say ethics are worse than ever—or are they? The past is filled with people running photos of wrestlers in the sports section in exchange for money. In fact, ethical breaches may be less of a problem than 20 years ago. A lot of newspapers are cutting corners, but the standards in the business have improved. There were things going on in the past such as reporters writing speeches for politicians they covered and taking bribes from lobbyists but people back then were quietly moved out or they left on their own. There was no public display.

The industry as a whole is in trouble because, due to media concentration, people at the top are taking out too much money and driving the profits up. The perception is that the real customers are not those who read the paper but those who buy the stock, which damages the profession. Some of this is about resource pressure. Copydesks are overloaded and there is not enough time and more reporters are having to report by phone. The larger the size of news- papers, the less communication between divisions there tends to be. Reporters don't climb the Stairs anymore, they are highly trained people who sit in their offices and write term papers and won't sully themselves going to a greasy housing project or stand out in the rain for a few hours. The economics of journalism along with technological changes has created an atmosphere of trying to get enormous amounts of information as rapidly as possible. The important thing is to make sure the ownership understands the value of a news organization with integrity and every paper needs to slow down and remind ourselves that we have nothing to sell if the readers don't believe us.

The main idea of the first paragraph is that ______.

A．newsrooms are suffering from a decline in standards

B．there a. re too many ethical scandals going on in newspapers

C．there is a perception that newspapers should do more to correct mistakes

D．this has been a rough time for newspapers and many are wondering what is wrong

Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice.

The planet's wild creatures face a new threat—from yuppies (雅皮士), empty nesters and one parent families.

Biologists studying the pressure on the planet's dwindling biodiversity today report on a new reason for alarm. Although the rate of growth in the human population is decreasing, the number of individual households is exploding.

Even where populations have actually dwindled in some regions of New Zealand, for instance— the numbers of individual households has increased, because of divorce, career choice, smaller families and longer lifespan.

Jianguo Lin of Michigan State University and colleagues from Stanford University in California report in Nature, in a paper published online in advance, that a greater number of individual households, each containing on average fewer people, meant more pressure on natural resources.

Towns and cities began to sprawl (蔓生，蔓延) as new homes were built. Each household needed fuel to heat and light it; each household required its own plumbing, cooking and refrigeration.

"In larger households, the efficiency of resource consumption will be a lot higher, because more people share things," Dr Liu said. He and his colleagues looked at the population patterns of life in 141 countries, including 76 "hotspot' regions unusually rich in a variety of local wildlife. These hot spots included Australia, New Zealand, the US, Brazil, China, India, Kenya, and Italy. They found that between 1985 and 2000 in the "hotspot" parts of the globe, the annual 3.1% growth rate in the number of households was far higher than the population growth rate of 1.8%.

"Had the average household size remained at the 1985 level," the scientists report, "there would have been 155 million fewer households in hotspot countries in 2000.

Dr Liu's work grew from the alarming discovery that the giant pandas living in China's Wolong reserve are more at risk now than they were when the reserve was first established. The local population had grown, but the total number of homes had increased more swiftly, to make greater inroads into the bamboo forests.

Only around 1.75 million species on the planet have been named and described. Biologists estimate that there could be 7 million, or even 17 million, as yet to be identified. But human numbers have grown more than sixfold in the past 200 years, and humans and their livestock are now the greatest single consumer group on the planet. The world population will continue to soar, perhaps leveling off around 9 billion in the next century. Environmental campaigners have claimed that between a quarter and a half of all the species on earth could become extinct in the next century.

Biologists report that the biodiversity is decreasing because ______.

A．more individual households are increasing greatly

B．human beings are threatening many wild creatures

C．human populations have been decreasing in recent years

D．wild creatures depend on more individual households