In Britain and other countries, young people sometimes take a “gap year,” a year off between high school and college. This idea never gained a big following in America. Recent news reports have suggested that interest may be growing, though there are no official numbers.
    Charles Deacon，Dean of Admissions at Georgetown University in Washington，D．C．，estimates that in the current first-year class of 1,600 students, only about 25 decided to take a year off．He says this number hasn’t changed much over the years.
    Mr. Deacon says the most common reason for taking a “gap year” is to have a chance to travel, but he says international students may take a “gap year” to meet requirements at home for military duty.
    Some high school graduates see a year off as a chance to recover after twelve years of required education, but it can also give students a chance to explore their interests. Students hoping to be doctors, for example, could learn about the profession by volunteering in a hospital.
    Many colleges and universities support gap-year projects by permitting students to delay their admission. Experts say students can grow emotionally and intellectually as they work at something they enjoy.
    The Harvard admissions office has an essay on its Web site called “Time Out or Burn Out for the Next Generation.” It praises the idea of taking time off to step back, think and enjoy gaining life experiences outside the pressure of studies. It also notes that students are sometimes admitted to Harvard or other colleges partly because they did something unusual with that time.
    Of course，a gap year is not for everyone．Students might miss their friends who go on directly to college, and parents might worry that their children will decide not to go to college once they take time off. Another concern is money. A year off, away from home, can be costly.
    Holly Bull’s job is to specialize in helping students plan their gap year. She notes that several books have been written about this subject. She says these books along with media attention and the availability of information on the Internet have increased interest in the idea of a year off, and she points out that many gap-year programs cost far less than a year of college.
1. What is the passage mainly about？

A．If you want to go to an American university, take a gap year first.

B．It is likely that taking a “gap year” is becoming popular in America.

C．More and more American students are choosing to take a year off.

D．Americans hold different opinions towards students’ taking a “gap year”.

2. How many reasons for students’ taking a “gap year” are mentioned in the passage？

A．2                        B．3                            C．4                           D．5．

3. The essay “Time Out or Burn Out for the Next Generation” suggests that ______．

A．the stress of studies does harm to the students’ health

B．taking a ‘gap year’ can make students free from life learning

C．some famous universities encourage students to gain more life experiences

D．every student must take a “gap year” before applying for a famous university

4. What can we learn from the passage？

A．Charles Deacon doesn’t support the idea of the students’ taking a “gap year”.

B．Books and media have contributed to the students’ interest in school learning.

C．Experts agree taking a year off will benefit the students emotionally and physically.

D．Parents might disagree with the program, concerned about their children’s future.

    Cheaters called “pirates” often use camcorders(便携式摄像机) and cell phones to make illegal copies of blockbusters in the local theater. These pirates then sell those recordings on the street or over the Internet for very low prices. Some share them for free.
    “It’s unfair for people to pirate movies,” says 15-year-old Hadaia Azad Ezzulddin. Movie piracy “takes money out of the pockets of thousands of people in the movie industry,” she notes. Victims include famous actors and directors as well as local theater owners and their employees.
    Hadaia came up with an idea that could help stop movie piracy. Hadaia’s idea uses infrared(红外线的) light. This range of light is invisible to the human eye. It is visible, however, to many types of cameras. Theater owners could place small infrared lights on their movie screens. The lights would not disturb people watching the movie. It would, however, distort (扭曲) the recordings made by many types of cameras.
    To test her idea, Hadaia built a box with a movie screen inside. Then, she projected images on that screen through a hole in the box. She took recordings of those images, using nine different types of cameras. These included the types found in cell phones as well as camcorders. During some tests, she also turned on light emitting diodes(发光二极管), or LEDs. The LEDs were embedded（植入的）in a certain place behind the movie screen. They gave out infrared light.
    Sure enough, she showed, a pirated movie included odd stripes or spots if it had been recorded while the LEDs were on. It might be possible to use the LEDs to flash the date and time on the movie screen. The information would then appear in the illegal recordings. Theater owners or police might use the information to track down the pirates.
    Cutting down on piracy might get more people into theaters to watch the real movie instead of an illegal copy. Six out of every ten films now produced aren’t profitable. They don’t make enough money to recover how much was spent to make and market them. Such a poor payback can discourage filmmakers from producing anything but the types expected to become blockbuster hits. It might also keep smaller theaters from showing a wider variety of movie types.
5.From what Hadaia says in Paragraph 2, we can infer that _______.

A．most people spend less money on pirates moves

B．she criticizes those who video movies in the theater

C．theater owners will increase the price of movie tickets

D．the pirates don’t have to pay for the movie tickets

6. Infrared lights are put on the movie screens to _______.

A．adjust the brightness of the movie screens     

B．make sure the images of movies are dark

C．protect the eyesight of viewers in the darkness

D．make illegal copies of movies unpleasant to see

7. What is the correct order of the steps in Hadaia’s test?
a. She projected pictures on the screen.

b. She used cameras to record the pictures.
c. She turned on the LEDs placed behind the screen.
d. She made a special box with a movie screen inside.

A．b a c d                      B．d b a c          C．d c a b             D．b c a d

8. According to the last paragraph, we can know that _______.

A．forty percent of the movies now are profitable

B．small theaters often choose to show low-cost movies

C．more and more people go to theaters to fight movie piracy

D．filmmakers prefer to produce ordinary movies than blockbusters

    When going through major life changes, like changing careers, I would change the people with whom I spent the most time. We’ve all gone through periods when the people in our lives have changed -- graduation, moving to a new city, getting a new job, joining a new club, etc. I don’t think I need to convince you just how much influence other people can have over your identity. If you’ve ever experienced a major switch in your people environment, then you know that you change as well.

    Most people don’t make these choices consciously, though. You might consciously decide to spend more time with a certain friend, or you may ask someone out on a date to begin a new relationship. But few people choose their existing friendships deliberately.

    There’s no “getting rid of people”. People are always dropping into and out of each other’s lives. Associations grow into friendships, and friendships fade into associations. You don’t get rid of anyone. The truth is that in order to make room for new people and new experiences, you may need to loosen up some of your existing connections.

    What about loyalty? Shouldn’t you always be loyal to your friends? Once you have a close friend, even if his influence on you is slightly harmful, shouldn’t you stick by him?

    Loyalty to a friend sometimes means having to let go. It means being loyal to his highest and best self as well. If someone is destroying his health by smoking, for example, you aren’t showing loyalty by smoking right along with him. True loyalty sometimes requires that you break damaging connections, get yourself back on solid ground, and then decide what you can really do to help your friend.

    It can take a lot of courage to tell someone, “I’m sorry, but I can’t have you in my life anymore.” But even though this might seem like a selfish act at times, it’s often the best thing for the other person, too. If a relationship is holding you back in some way, understand that it’s also hurting the other person. For example, if you work for a violent boss, your acceptance of that situation is considered to be silent approval, encouraging your boss to continue to behave violently.

9. When experiencing major life changes, people may _______.

  A. join a new social community                    B. influence their friends around

  C. choose their friendships purposely                D. have their people environment changed

10. What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 3 mean?

A. Everyone is supposed to have at least one friend.                

B. It is unnecessary for you to make new friends.

  C. You ought to treat your old and new friends equally.

  D. Friendships still exist though there are fewer connections.

11. What is the author’s opinion on the loyalty to friends?

  A. Never betray your close friends whatever happens.

  B. Stick by your friends even though they do harm to you.

  C. Correct their mistakes while you guard their goodness.

  D. Break up with your friends immediately if they smoke.

12. How should we behave when employed by a violent boss?

  A. We should accept what we are told to do.     B. We should bravely disobey him if he is wrong.

  C. We should stay silent and be in favor of him.  D. We should give our boss courage to continue.

AIDS researchers say they still have much work to do on a vaccine (疫苗) against HIV. But the first reports of some success have raised hopes.    1  

The study was designed to test for two abilities. One was the ability of the vaccine to prevent HIV infections. The other was its ability to reduce the amount of virus in the blood of people who became infected during the study.

Volunteers received vaccinations over a period of six months and were tested for HIV for an additional three years. The study began in 2003. It was the largest AIDS vaccine trial yet.  2    Half received the vaccine. The other half received a placeho, an inactive substance (物质). The volunteers did not know which they were getting.

Seventy-four people in the placeho group became infected during the study.    3    Doctor Supachai Rerks-Ngarm, who led the study for the Thai Ministry of Public Health, called it a scientific breakthrough.

The National Institutes of Health also took part. Doctor Anthony Fauci at NIH called the findings an important step forward.    4    But he also said additional research was needed to better understand how the vaccine reduced the risk in those individuals.

The vaccine did not lower the amount of virus in the blood of volunteers who became infected during the study. The study was based on versions of HIV commonly found in Thailand. The volunteers received a combination of two vaccines.    5   The second, or booster, vaccine was developed by VaxGen. The nonprofit group Global Solution for Infectious Diseases now has rights to it.

Neither vaccine had been successful by itself when tested earlier. More detailed results of the study are expected to be presented at an AIDS vaccine conference in Paris next month.

1. Since my father stopped sending me money, I __________a small retail business for all these years.

2. China is the first country in the world to plant rice, which ____________more than 6000 years ago.

3. Mary lost her job last month so she had no alternative but______________ with her old coat this winter.

4.______________several times by door-to-door salesmen, the old woman is very careful to open the door when she was alone at home.

5. The couple is satisfied with the pretty and comfortable room ____________ a flower-filled garden.

6. I had got myself well prepared for the interview and then it ________________at the last minute, which disappointed me very much.

7. It is ________________a famous key university that will bring the fresh graduates a little bit closer to getting a job.

8. With her perseverance _____________, she became a doctor and joined the medical team in Africa.