Part B

　　Directions:

　　In the following article, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41-45, choose the most suitable one from the list A-G to fit into each of the numbered blanks. There are two extra choices, which do not fit in any of the blanks. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (10 points)

　　Long before man lived on the Earth, there were fishes, reptiles, birds, insects, and some mammals. Although some of these animals were ancestors of kinds living today, others are now extinct, that is, they have no descendants alive now. Nevertheless, we know a great deal about many of them because their bones and shells have been preserved in the rocks as fossils. 41. That kind of rock in which the remains are found tells us much about the nature of the original land, often of the plants that grew on it, and even of its climate。

　　When an animal dies, the body, its bones, or shell, may often be carried away by streams into lakes or the sea and there get covered up by mud. If the animal lived in the sea its body would probably sink and be covered with mud. More and more mud would fall upon it until the bones or shell become embedded and preserved. 42. Thus it follows that there must be many kinds of mammals, birds, and insects of which we know nothing。

　　43. Later forms are more complex, and among these are the sea-lilies, relations of the star-fishes, which had long arms and were attached by a long stalk to the sea bed, or to rocks. There were also crab-like creatures, whose bodies were covered with a horny substance. The body segments each had two pairs of legs, one pair for walking on the sandy bottom, the other for swimming. The head was a kind of shield with a pair of compound eyes, often with thousands of lenses. They were usually an inch or two long but some were 2 feet。

　　The shellfish have a long history in the rock and many different kinds are known. Of these, the ammonites are very interesting and important. They have a shell composed of many chambers, each representing a temporary home of the animal. As the young grew larger it grew a new chamber and sealed off the previous one. Thousands of these can be seen in the rocks on the Dorset Coast。

　　The first animals with true backbones were fishes, first known in the rocks of 375 million years ago. About 300 million years ago the amphibians, the animals able to live both on land and in water, appeared. They were giant, sometimes 8 feet long, and many of them lived in the swampy pools in which our coal seam, or layer, formed. 44. About 75 million years ago the Age of Reptiles was over and most of the groups died out. The mammals quickly developed, and we can trace the evolution of many familiar animals such as the elephant and horse. 45.

　　\[A\] The best index fossils tend to be marine creatures. These animals evolved rapidly and spread over large areas of the world。

　　\[B\] The amphibians gave rise to the reptiles and for nearly 150 million years these were the principal forms of life on land, in the sea, and in the air。

　　\[C\] Many of the later mammals, though now extinct, were known to primitive man and were featured by him in cave paintings and on bone carvings。

　　\[D\] Nearly all of the fossils that we know were preserved in rocks formed by water action, and most of these are of animals that lived in or near water。

　　\[E\] The earliest animals whose remains have been found were all very simple kinds and lived in the sea。

　　\[F\] Many factors can influence how fossils are preserved in rocks. Remains of an organism may be replaced by minerals, dissolved by an acidic solution to leave only their impression, or simply reduced to a more stable form。

　　\[G\] From them we can tell their size and shape, how they walked, the kind of food they ate. Very occasionally the rocks show impression of skin, so that, apart from color, we can build up a reasonably accurate picture of an animal that died millions of years ago。

　　Part C

　　Directions:

　　Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese. Your translation should be written clearly on ANSWER SHEET 2. (10 points)

　　It is hard to get a grip on food. The UN's World Health Organisation worries about diminishing supplies and increased prices in poor countries; recent riots and near-riots in Haiti, Bangladesh and Egypt were sparked by the growing cost of wheat and rice. But, as Paul Roberts observes in “The End of Food”， the developed world has lived through “a near miraculous period during which the things we ate seemed to grow only more plentiful, more secure, more nutritious, and simply better。” 46. In the second half of the 20th century, world output of corn, wheat and cereal crops more than tripled. Yet there is not enough to feed the rich, the aspirational and the poor in the world. A golden age has been transformed quite suddenly into a global crisis。

　　Mr Roberts insists that modern agribusiness is unsustainable and becoming more so. “Precisely at the moment in history when we need to shift our system of food production into overdrive, our agricultural engine is breaking down,” he says. The industry has taken cheap oil for granted. Oil fuels transportation and farm machinery, and natural gas is the basis of synthetic nitrogen production (prices have tripled since 2002). Agriculture accounts for three-quarters of freshwater use, and water is becoming an increasingly scarce and expensive resource. Climate change makes some old assumptions about farming redundant. 47. A combination of these factors, he says, will ultimately force a complete rethinking of the way we make food。

　　For years government subsidies held down grain prices, making food cheaper. 48. Water was also plentiful — it takes 1,000 tonnes of water to produce a tonne of grain — and an ingenious process known as Haber-Bosch makes synthetic nitrogen fertiliser easily available to grain farmers. Ruthless price-cutting at supermarkets means consumers have grown accustomed to eating too much. (In the late 19th century, Europeans already thought Americans ate three or four times more than was necessary。) The most damaging consequence is that by 2000 31% of American adults were obese, with another 16% defined as overweight. American airlines spend $275 million a year more on fuel simply to lift the heavier passengers. Mr Roberts claims that every year obesity causes 400,000 premature deaths in America. Food has become as deadly as tobacco。

　　A fruitful start would be to halve the size of portions in all American restaurants, but most consumers are reluctant rethinkers. 49. Eating organic product could be a partial solution, although one study suggests that the cost of avoiding intensive farm chemicals would mean a 31% increase in food prices. Government scientists believe that genetically modified crops might be the only way out of the crisis, but a majority of consumers are reluctant to listen。

　　Is there a model for the future? 50. Fashionably, Mr. Roberts believes that a local system based on easily obtainable seasonal foods that do not need to be transported huge distances would form part of a solution. The economics and greenery of this are far from proven. Mr Roberts can find only one country that has made “serious efforts” in this direction: Cuba, hardly a comforting example. The coming food crisis, warns the author, is as intractable as global warming, and no less urgent。

　　Section III Writing

　　Part A

　　51. Directions:

　　One of your pen friends, John, will be visiting your city. However, for some reasons, you cannot meet him at the airport on time. Write a letter asking him to wait for you at the airport and tell him how to recognize you. Your letter should be no less than 100 words. You don't need to write the address. Don't sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use Roger instead. (10 points)

　　Part B

　　52. Directions:

　　Study the following drawing carefully and write an essay in which you should

　　1) describe the drawing;

　　2) interpret its meaning;

　　3) support your view with examples。

　　You should write about 160-200 words neatly on ANSWER SHEET 2.(20 points)

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