第一部分阅读理解（共两节，满分40分）第一节（共15小题；每小题2分，满分30分）ADear Santa,What do I ask this year？ I have read each ad carefully in my mailbox, and looked through the colorful ads in the newspaper. There are so many lovely things, but I need nothing.I realize this as I walk up the hill on my strong legs. I can hear the air fill my lungs. I feel the cold on my cheeks. I smell the smoke of the fire that warms my home. I see the snow-covered mountains and the small river dotted with fat geese.I need nothing. There are people who love me. There are people who forgive my sometimes bad temper and who touch me with loving hands. There are neighbors who smile in the store. There are shopkeepers who tolerate me when I don’t have enough money. There are kind faces in public places.There is a fat cat who often slides into my garage. Dogs and other cats share my hearth（炉床）; I love to feel their fur with my feet. There are hawks that teach their young how to fly, right there behind my house. There are deer that wander into my yard and smell apples.Green beans, tomatoes, peas and carrots color my kitchen. And a full bucket （桶） of hand tools and neatly dried seeds promise next year’s rich harvest. I need nothing.Today I discovered a hole in my jeans. I felt the December air flow down my leg. How powerful the hand is that sweeps the wind along the mountains! Santa, dear old soul, just give me another day like this one in my life.1. The author has read each ad in his mailbox in order to .A. find something as a present for himselfB. find something as a present for his kidsC. get the news about vegetable pricesD. get the news about pet animals2. What’s the author’s attitude towards life？A. Uncertain.B. Anxious.C. Hopeful.D. Dissatisfied.3. We can learn from the text that the author .A. is very old and in bad healthB. lives alone and has few friendsC. is too poor to pay for good clothesD. may live close to mountains and riversBI want to become a journalist and I wonder what makes a good journalist. In order to find the answer, I talked to Mary Harte who worked with the BBC for over 20 years as a journalist.“You’ve got to have the interest. If you don’t like it, you will not persist because journalism is a very difficul t job,” Mary said.Out of experience Mary told me that it was very important for a journalist to watch and talk to people. She said, “What a journalist does is painting a little picture of a story. The information has to be accurate. Therefore, you really have to be watching and listening.”Mary also emphasized（强调）the importance of experience. “It is important to collect as many skills as possible to be able to stand out of the crowd. A lot of the skills come from experience, so you won’t walk in the str eet and be a good journalist. You will be a goodjournalist because you’ve done it long enough,” she said.Mary said, “You will not get a job handed to you. You will have to be prepared to put in long hours; you will have to be prepared to ring people, and you will have to be prepared to have no money for quite a while. In a word, you will have to work hard for it. Then it gets to the stage where you love your job and you think ‘Why is somebody paying me to do something that I really love？’”From what an experienced journalist said, I learn that it is not just about the skills, but also the passion required to work in the field of journalism.4. The underlined part “not persist” in Paragraph 2 can be replaced by “ ”.A. stay upB. stand outC. give upD. keep up5. In Paragraph 2, Mary Harte mainly tells us that .A. being a journalist is interestingB. journalists will face a lot of difficultiesC. the author must be fond of journalismD. many people give up journalism6. According to Paragraph 3, Mary Harte thinks that it is important to .A. get accurate information through talking and watchingB. watch what other journalists do to make a wonderful storyC. talk to people about how they want their stories to be writtenD. add as much information to a story as possible to make it funny7. By saying “You will not get a job handed to you” in Paragraph 5, Mary Harte means the author .A. will not become a journalistB. will have to work hard for the jobC. will not get any help from othersD. will get tired of being a journalist soonCVolcan de Lodo El Totumo, ColombiaIf in Colombia at the end of February, you should make Cartagena part of your journey —here between December and March every year is the opportunity to get dirty. Bathing in mud from the Volcan de Lodo El Totumo can be best described as a primal（原始的） experience. The volcano is small, looking more like a little hill. If you reach the very top, you’ll discover gray mud. It’s believed that th e mud has a curing effect in cleaning your skin.La Tomatina, SpainIt’s possibly the most famous food fight in the world. So if you think tomatoes are only for salads, you are on a wrong track. In a small Spanish village named Bunol, on the last Wednesday of August every year, trucks dump（倾倒）about 120 tons of tomatoes in the streets of the town and tomato juice flows from there.El Dia de los Muertos （Day of the Dead）, MexicoIn early November each year Mexicans gather in cemeteries（墓地） to hold a celebration. That’s a celebration of the dead. People smoke cigars and eat festive foods to show life goes on as they honor those who have died. The idea is based on the belief that the spirits of the dead pay their families a visit on October 31 and stay until November 2.World Ice Golf Championship, GreenlandFor more than 10 years the World Ice Golf Championship has been regarded as the most extreme golf tournament in the world. There golfers take extreme temperatures as their first task to deal with. Then it will take players time and patience to be accustomed（习惯）to orange balls to play with. Determined by weather conditions, the tournament is scheduled for March each year in Greenland.8. The text is mainly about .A. interesting holiday centers for travelersB. some unusual festivals and eventsC. strange customs around the worldD. special sports events in Europe9. Which of the following lasts the longest？A. Volcan de Lodo El Totumo.B. World Ice Golf Championship.C. El Dia de los Muertos.D. La Tomatina.10. The most challenging thing for golfers in the World Ice Golf Championship is .A. to reach Greenland in MarchB. to walk on the ice instead of grassC. to make themselves used to the weatherD. to find the orange balls in the snow11. El Dia de los Muertos is held in order to .A. pass their belief to the next generationB. visit the dead in a special wayC. celebrate the death of othersD. honor their ancestorsDAt 91, Philip Theil lives in a century-old house in Seattle’s University District and that’s the way he wants to keep it. “As far as I’m concerned, I would not like to leave this place. Living in a group is something I couldn’t tolerate. I’d kill myself before I have to do that.” Many elderly Americans, who can no longer manage on their own, spend their final years in a nursing home. However, the vast majority of seniors would prefer to live in their own homes as long as possible.Theil says he and his wife manage pretty well right now. But the couple can feel their advancing age and realize they will soon need more help with basic household chores, like changing the light bulb at the top of the stairs.“To change that tube, I have to bring in a stepladder （折梯）and put it partly on the landing and partly on the stairs and climb up,” Theil says. “It’s frightening.” In the old days, the Theils could ask their children to help them. But those young helpers have grown up and gone. “We have kids and we call them sometimes, but one li ves in Munich, Germany, another lives in London and the third lives in New York,” Theil says. “They’re not going to visit us for a weekend.”So the Theils would like to join a virtual（虚拟的） village, which provides a local network of volunteers helping the elderly people in place. They help seniors with anything from transportation to home repairs and dog walking. The concept came into being in Boston a decade ago and has since grown into a national movement. In most cases, the villages charge a membership （会员）fee from about $100 to more than $1,000 per year. Once you’re amember, some of the services are free.12. Theil wants to .A. live with his children togetherB. kill himself before moving outC. live in his own home for his final yearsD. spend the rest of his life in a nursing home13. The difficulty for the Theils at present is that .A. the light bulbs in their house always break downB. they can’t do some household chores easilyC. they can’t take care of themselves at allD. they miss their children too much14. What can we learn about Theil’s family？A. The old couple can’t depend on their kids helping them.B. Their children all live in foreign countries.C. Their children are too busy to go home.D. Theil’s wife can’t manage on herself.15. According to the text, we learn that .A. the number of the old people in the US is increasing greatlyB. virtual villages help the old people stay in their own homeC. people often offer help to the old people for free in the USD. virtual villages have become popular around the world第二节（共5小题；每小题2分，满分10分）根据短文内容，从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。