—Was the driving pleasant when you vacationed in Mexico last summer?

—No, it _______ for four days when we arrived, so the roads were very muddy.

A. has rained           B. had been raining     C. rained               D. has been raining

When you make a decision to buy something, you must remember that a good name of a product doesn't           mean good quality of it．

    A．necessarily B．simply   C．essentially D．purposefully

Too cold for recess?  School policies vary as much as temps

When is it too cold for schoolchildren to go outside for recess（課間休息）? The answer varies widely based on where a school is located and what the kids are used to.

Consider:  One northern Minnesota school says it has to be 15 below zero before kids are kept inside. But in areas along the East Coast, temperatures below 35 to 40 degrees could keep kids inside. Canceling recess because of the cold is no small issue considering that much of the USA is trembling through what may be its coldest winter in a generation, according to  AccuWeather.

There is no national temperature standard for when to keep kids inside during the winter months, the U.S. Department of Education says. Decisions are made at the local level, either by principals or school districts.

Consequently, policies are all over the map:

?? In International Falls, Minn., the self-described "Icebox of the Nation," where the average high temperature in January is 13 degrees, Falls Elementary School Principal Jerry Hilfer says, "if it's 15 below (or warmer), they go out, no matter what." "At 20 below, it gets iffy," he adds.

?? In Wicomico County, Md., principals typically keep children indoors when temperatures drop below freezing, or if it's raining or snowing, says Susan Jones, the school system's director of elementary education.

"That's the bottom line," says Curtis Twilley, principal of Pemberton Elementary School in Salisbury, Md. Twilley says students get little exercise when recess stays indoors. At Pemberton Elementary, the students will typically play board games or computer games in a classroom because the school's gym is occupied with other classes, he says.

?? For schools in Marquette, Mich., which averages about 12 feet of snow per season, school officials acknowledge students are probably a little more prepared than those in some more mild climates.

Which of the following is not true according to the passage_________.

A. No national temperature standard is made for when to keep kids inside during the winter months.

B. Susan Jones insists students get little exercise when recess stays indoors.

C. In Wicomico County, children are kept indoors when temperatures dip below freezing.

D. Mich has about 12 feet of snow per season on average.

Which place calls itself Box of Ice?

Wicomico County  B. Marquette    C.Salisbury       D. Minn

Considering_______, canceling recess In USA because of the cold is a big issue.

A. different schools have different principles.

B. much of the USA has very cold winter.

C. physical activity can boost student performance.

D. decisions are made at the local level,

The underlined word iffy means _______.

A. uncertain        B. surprising  C.  serious     D. worse

What will be talked about next?

A. More school policies 

B. The reasons why school policies vary.

C. Measures to improve the situation.

D. Necessities to improve the situation

Directions： Read the following passage. Complete the diagram by using the information for the passage.

Write NO MORE THAN 3 WORDS for each answer.

The contemporary environmental movement is often said to have begun with the publication of Silent Spring by the zoologist and biologist Rachel Carson (1907–1964). This landmark work, which took Carson 4 years to complete, diligently detailed the relationship between animal death  and the use— now understood as the abuse—of man-made chemicals used as pesticides, especially DDT. One of the claims of the book that she tried to demonstrate was that DDT had the effect of softening the eggshells of birds as well as interfering with their reproduction, and that such effects would lead to their extinction if use of DDT were to continue. It would eventually create a springtime of silence when the songs of birds would not be heard. Her studies also found DDT to be a cause of human cancers.

Born in Springdale, Pennsylvania, Carson graduated from the Pennsylvania College for Women in Pittsburgh (now Chatham College), where she majored in English until her junior year, when a course in biology inspired her to switch to zoology as her field of concentration. She earned a master’s degree in this area from Johns Hopkins University and became a biologist at the Bureau of Fisheries in 1936. During this time, she wrote for various national magazines, and her first book, Under the Sea-Wind, was published. Carson had concerns as early as 1945 about pesticides being used more and more by the government. But her cautionary claims in Silent Spring were met with anger by the pesticide and chemical industries. Her authority as a scientist were challenged, and it was held that her findings were just the roars of a hysterical(歇斯底里的) woman. She was even accused of being a member of the Communist Party. Some go so far as to say that she told a lie .

But She is often celebrated as the founder of the contemporary U.S. environmental movement. Yet her work in Silent Spring, warning about the misuse of pesticides and other chemicals, has not as yet taken firm hold. Americans likely use twice as much the volume of pesticides that they did at the time she published her seminal work, and globally, their use is ever increasing. Powerful pesticides are sold over the counter, and their use is so widespread that many environmentalists are fearful that chemical runoff into streams and rivers is still popullting the animals that humans eat and the water that they drink.

In short, while the main purpose of Silent Spring was to warn the public of the dangers of the overuse of pesticides and chemicals, nonetheless the public hasn’t refused such use. Isn't it time that we firmly said no to pesticides?

________ will it take to see the Chinese Dream come true for our children and grandchildren?

A. What             B. When             C. Why              D. How

________ unemployment insurance would mean telling millions of our neighbors who are out of work today that they’re on their own.

A. Cut              B. Cutting          C. Having cut       D. Being cut

—Listen! There is a knock on the door． Who _____ it be?

—It must be Jack． Just now I sent for him．

    A． shall  B． can     C． must    D． might

As we all know, China is a developing country, _____ attracting more and more foreigners．

   A． the one     B． one    C． it     D． that

Noise is unpleasant, _____ when you are trying to sleep．

    A． especially                          B． specially 

    C． extremely                           D． naturally

It was once thought that air pollution affected only the area immediately around large cities with factories and/or heavy automobile traffic. Today, we know that although these are the areas with the worst air pollution, the problem is actually worldwide. On several occasions over the past decade, a heavy cloud of air pollution has covered the entire eastern half of the United States and led to health warnings even in rural areas away from any major concentration of manufacturing and automobile traffic. In fact, the very climate of the entire earth may be affected by air pollution. Some scientists feel that the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the air resulting from the burning of fossil fuels (coal and oil) is creating a “greenhouse effect" - holding in heat reflected from the earth and raising the world's average temperature. If this view is correct and the world's temperature is raised only a few degrees, much of the polar ice cap will melt and cities such as New York, Boston, Miami, and New Orleans will be under water.

Another view, less widely held, is that increasing particulate (廢氣排往空中而形成的微粒、顆粒) matter in the atmosphere is blocking sunlight and lowering the earth's temperature ─ a result that would be equally disastrous. A drop of just a few degrees could create something close to new ice age and would make agriculture difficult or impossible in many of our top farming areas. At present we do not know for sure that either of these conditions will happen (though one recent government report prepared by experts in the field concluded that the greenhouse effect is very likely). Perhaps, if we are very lucky, the two tendencies will offset each other and the world's temperature will stay about the same as it is now.

As pointed out at the beginning of the passage, people used to think that air pollution ______.

    A. caused widespread damage in the countryside

    B. affected the entire eastern half of the United States

    C. had damaging effects on health

    D. existed merely in urban and industrial areas

As far as the greenhouse effect is concerned, the author ______.

    A. shares the same view with the scientists

    B. is uncertain of its occurrence

    C. rejects it as being ungrounded

    D. thinks that it will destroy the world soon

The underlined word “offset" in Para. 2 could best be replaced by______.

    A. slip into    B. make up for  C. set up   D. catch up with

This passage is mainly concerned with ______.

    A. the greenhouse effect                B. the burning of fossil fuels

    C. the potential effect of air pollution    D. the possibility of a new ice age