第二部分：阅读理解（第一节20小题；第二节5小题；每小题2分，满分50分）

第一节：阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项，并在答题纸上将该选项标号涂黑。

A

If you were to walk up to Arthur Bonner and say, “ Hey, Butterfly Man,” his face would break into a smile. The title suits him. And he loves it.

Arthur Bonner works with the Palos Verdes blue butterfly(蝴蝶), once thought to have died out. Today the butterfly is coming back — thanks to him. But years ago if you’d told him this was what he’d be doing someday, he would have laughed, “ You’re crazy.” As a boy, he used to be “ a little tough guy on the streets”. At age thirteen, he was caught by police stealing. At eighteen, he landed in prison for shooting a man.

“ I knew it had hury my mom,” Bonner said after he got out of prison. “ So I told myself I would not put my mom through that pain again.”

One day he met Professor Mattoni, who was working to rebuild the habitat(栖息地) for an endangered butterfly called El Segundo blue.

“ I saw the sign ‘ Butterfly Habitat’ and asked, ‘ How can you have a habitat when the butterflies can just fly away?’” Bonner recalls. “ Dr. Mattoni laughed and handed me a magnifying glass(放大镜) , ‘Look at the leaves.’ I could see all these caterpillars(蝴蝶的幼虫) on the plant. Dr Mattoni explained, ‘ Without the plant, there are no butterflies.’”

Weeks later, Bonner received a call from Dr. Mattoni, who told him there was a butterfly needed help. That was how he met the Palos Verdes blue. Since then he’s been working for four years to help bring the butterfly back. He grows astragalus, the only plant the butterfly eats. He collects butterflies and brings them into a lab to lay eggs. Then he puts new butterflies into the habitat.

The butterfly’s population, once almost zero, is now up to 900. For their work, Bonner and Dr. Mattoni receiced lots of awards. But for Bonner, he earned something more: he turned his life around.

B

   People who have lost the ability to understand or use words due to brain damage are called aphasics(失语症患者). Such patients can be extremely good at something else. From the changing expressions on speakers’ faces and the tones of their voices, they can tell lies from truths.

Doctors studying the human brain have given a number of examples of this amazing power of aphasics. Some have even compared this power to that of a dog with an ability to find out the drugs hidden in the baggage.

Recently, scientists carried out tests to see if all that was said about aphasics was true. They studied a mixed group of people. Some were normal; others were aphasics. It was proved that the aphasics were far ahead of the normal people in recognizing false speeches — in most cases, the normal people were fooled by words, but the aphasics were not.

Some years ago, Dr. Oliver Sacks wrote in his book about his experiences with aphasics. He mentioned a particular case in a hospital. Some aphasics were watching the president giving a speech on TV. Since the president had been an actor earlier, making a good speech was no problem for him. He was trying to put his feelings into every word of his speech.

But his way of speaking had the opposite effect on the patients. They didn’t seem to believe him. Instead, they burst into laughter. The aphasics knew that the president did not mean a word of what he was saying. He was lying!

C

Below is a web page from Google.

D

Tell a story and tell it well, and you may open wide the eyes of a child, open up lines of communication in a business, or even open people’s mind to another culture or race.

People in many places are digging up the old folk stories and the messages in them. For example, most American storytellers get their tales from a wide variety of sources, cultures, and times. They regard storytelling not only as a useful tool in child education, but also as a meaningful activity that helps adults understand themselves as well as those whose culture may be very different from their own.

“ Most local stories are based on a larger theme,” American storyteller Opalanga Pugh says, “ Cinderella(

Working with students in schools, Pugh helps them understand their own cultures and the general messages of the stories. She works with prisoner too, helping them knowing who they are by telling stories that her listeners can write, direct, and act in their own lives. If they don’t like the story they are living, they can rewrite the story. Pugh also works to help open up lines of communication between managers and workers. “For every advance in business,” she says, “ there is a greater need for communication.” Storytelling can have a great effect on either side of the manager-worker relationship, she says.

Pugh spent several years in Nigeria, where she learned how closely storytelling was linked to the everyday life of the people there. The benefits of storytelling are found everywhere, she says.

E

I began working in journalism(新闻工作)when I was eight. It was my mother’s idea. She wanted me to “make something” of myself, and decided I had better start young if I was to have any chance of keeping up with the competition.

With my load of magazines I headed toward Belleville Avenue. The crowds were there. There were two gas stations on the corner of Belleville and Union. For several hours I made myself highly visible, making sure everyone could see me and the heavy black letters on the bag that said THE SATURDAY EVENING POST. When it was suppertime, I walked back home.

“ How many did you sell, my boy?” my mother asked.

“ None.”

“ Where did you go?”

“ The corner of Belleville and Union Avenues.”

“ What did you do?”

“ Stood on the corner waiting for somebody to buy a Saturday Evening Post.”

“ You just stood there?”

“ Didn’t sell a single one.”

“ My God, Russell!”

Uncle Allen put in, “ Well, I’ve decided to take the Post.” I handed him a copy and he paid me a nickle(

Afterwards my mother taught me how to be a salesman. I would have to ring doorbells, address adults with self-confidence(自信), and persuade them by saying that no one, no matter how poor, could afford to be without the Saturday Evening Post in the home.

One day, I told my mother I’d changed my mind. I didn’t want to make a success in the magazine business.

“ If you think you can change your mind like this,” she replied, “ you’ll become a good-for-nothing.” She insisted that, as soon as school was over, I should start ringing doorbells, selling magazines. Whenever I said no, she would scold me.

My mother and I had fought this battle almost as long as I could remember. My mother, dissatisfied with my father’s plain workman’s life, determined that I would not grow up like him and his people. But never did she expect that, forty years later, such a successful journalist as me would go back to her husband’s people for true life and love.

第三节：书面表达（满分30分）