This week we will be celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, one of Britain’s most extraordinary scientists. His theory of evolution, one of the greatest discoveries of all time, gives us a way of understanding the connectedness of all life and the uniqueness of human life within it. Together with other branches of scientific exploration, evolution begins to unfold and illuminate the interplay of forces that make our universe such an extraordinary dynamic reality. In this sense, science is itself a journey of learning and exploration. This I find exciting and humbling.Towards the end of his life Darwin wrote: “It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent Theist and an evolutionist.” The science opens me not only to puzzles and to questions about the world I live in; it leads me to marvel at its complexity. Here, I find science is a good friend to my faith. It also calls me to a journey of learning and understanding. One of the things that mars our culture is the fracture between faith and science. It impoverishes our inquiry into the realities that make up our life and world. This is a false opposition.If we see the two as fundamentally opposed—science endangering and undermining faith, or faith obstructing knowledge—then distortions are produced on both sides. For example, some Christians argue for “Young Earth Creationism” or Intelligent Design as an alternative to evolutionary theory. Creationism is the belief that the biblical stories of Creation as described in the Book of Genesis are literally true.Is genuine Christianity obliged to adopt any of these positions? No, it is not. Belief in creation is not equivalent to any one of them. It is a mistake to treat the theology of creation in the Book of Genesis as a scientific textbook. It does unfold a profound and valid truth about the world in which we live, its order and purpose. The Book of Genesis speaks about the relationship between God and creation and especially about the place of humanity in that relationship. That wonderful narrative of creation offers us a first vision of an “ecology of holiness” in which every material and living thing has a place and its creativity is consecrated in goodness by God. The account of creation in Genesis is pointing us beyond the question “how?” to the question “why?” Ultimately, science as well as faith must come to that most fundamental of all questions: the question of meaning and purpose.31. According to the author, Darwin’s theory of evolution shows that ______.32. Which of the following would Darwin most probably agree to?33. The author finds science “humbling” because it ______.34. The author believes that The Book of Genesis is true in that it ______.35. In the author’s opinion, the relationship between science and faith is ______.

A.life are all interrelated B.human life are most dynamic C.animal life are most unique D.life comes from an interplay of forces
问题2：
A.A believer in God cannot be a follower of his theory. B.A man can believe in God and science at the same time. C.Faith can be blind while science cannot be. D.Science is surely more rational than religion.
问题3：
A.creates a strong faith for mankind B.opens up a new world of life for him C.helps him realize the richness of life D.solves many questions about the world
问题4：
A.proves true the discoveries in science B.answers the question of how mankind is created C.discloses the origin of human beings D.explains where humanity is in relation to God
问题5：
A.supplementary B.opposing to each other C.interdependent D.mutually exclusive

40.中国与美国及其他国家的贸易关系在寻求共同繁荣中既有机会又有不寻常风险。对国际公司来说，面临的威胁是，在他们将其最佳实践(bestpractice)带入全球时，中国可能会由此爬上“价值链”——生产出更先进的产品——从而使美国、日本和欧洲的大多数工人的生活水平停滞不前。41.我们还在为实现和平发展目标而斗争，我们也有很多问题需要解决，但是，此次的政府工作报告表明，我们的政府正勇于面对未来的挑战，并且有决心和方法来应对挑战。42.许多地方政府官员“忠诚地”相信“污染发展”的公式，即“先发展、后清洁”。但如果培养的下一代缺少智慧或者劳动力的整体智力水平低下，经济将如何能持续发展？

Apart from the Moon and occasional comets and asteroids, Venus is often our nearest neighbor. Its orbit brings it closer to Earth than any other planet—only 26 million miles away at certain times. Despite that proximity, for a long time it was generally termed “the planet of mystery.” This is because the atmosphere of Venus is so dense and so cloud-laded that its surface is permanently hidden from sight.The first attempt to learn more about Venus was to analyze its upper atmosphere using spectroscopic methods. In size and mass, Venus is almost the equal of Earth, and its gravitational field is only slightly weaker than ours, so that logically it might be expected to have the same kind of atmosphere—but this is emphatically not so. Scientists found that the main constituent of its atmosphere is carbon dioxide. Since this is a heavy gas that would be expected to sink, it was reasonable to assume that carbon dioxide made up most of the atmosphere down to ground level. Carbon dioxide acts in the manner of a greenhouse, trapping the Sun’s heat, so it followed that Venus was likely to be a very torrid sort of world.Yet opinions differed. According to one theory, the clouds contained a great deal of water. It was even claimed that the surface might be largely ocean covered, in which case: the atmosphere carbon dioxide would have fouled the water and produced seas of soda water. Another intriguing theory made Venus very similar to the Earth of over 200 million years ago. There would be marshes, luxuriant vegetation of the fern and horsetail variety, and primitive life-forms such as giant dragonflies. If so, then Venus might presumably evolve the same way Earth has done.In 1962 the American probe Mariner 2 bypassed Venus at less than 22,000 miles and gave us our first reliable information. The surface proved to be very hot indeed; we now know that the maximum temperature is almost 500°C. The atmosphere really is almost pure carbon dioxide, and those shining clouds are rich in sulfuric acid. All ideas of a pleasant, oceanic Venus had to be abandoned. In 1975 Venera 9, a Russian automatic lander, visited Venus and sent back pictures directly from the surface. The scene—a rocky, scorched landscape—could hardly be more hostile. Subsequent probes have confirmed this impression.Why is Venus so unlike Earth? The answer can only lie in its lesser distance from the Sun. It seems that in the early days of the solar system the Sun was less luminous than it is now, in which case Venus and Earth may have started to evolve along the same lines, but when the Sun became more powerful the whole situation changed. Earth, at 93 million miles, was just out of harm’s way, but Venus, at 67 million, was not. The water in oceans vaporized, the carbonates were driven out of the rocks, and in a relatively short time or the cosmic scale, Venus was transformed from a potentially life-bearing world into the inferno of today.25. The primary purpose of this passage is to ______.26. The statement “In size ... so” (bold in Paragraph 2) functions primarily to ______.27. The primary purpose of the third paragraph is to ______.28. In order for the hypothesis in “There would ... dragonflies” (bold in Paragraph 3) to be correct, which statement could NOT be true of conditions on Venus?29. The statement in “In 1962 … information” (bold in Paragraph 4) suggests that the ______.30. The tone of the statement in “The answer ... Sun” (bold in Paragraph 5) is best described as ______.

A sense of smell is something we are born with. Or is it?Until recently scientists believed that the commonsense view was wrong: research had suggested that we learn to distinguish between pleasant and unpleasant smells by experience. From early experiments that involved asking children between three and five years old what they thought of certain smells, researchers concluded that children must learn their appreciation of pleasant and unpleasant smells as they get older, rather than being born with it. One of the most surprising results of these tests was that the children said they liked the smell of faeces nearly as often as they said they liked banana.Psychologist Hilary Schmidt understandably found this research hard to accept. She looked at the way the tests were conducted, and applied lessons from other work on child psychology to design her own experiments. She noted that children younger than five will often answer ‘Yes’ to leading questions even if the answers are contradictory. She therefore decided to set her experiment up as a game. She asked the children if they would give a particular smelly thing to Oscar the Grouch, a popular television character who lives in a dustbin and likes ‘smelly’ things, or to Big Bird, another television character who likes ‘nice’ things. She found that the children distinguished between pleasant and unpleasant smells in much the same way as an adult. With the help of younger and younger subjects, she hopes to shed light on the importance of the inherited component of the sense.Children younger than seven or eight are notoriously bad at recognizing what an object is from its shape alone. Schmidt points to an experiment she has carried out with children under five who were given a large styrofoam ball and a small, but heavy, lead ball to compare. After they had a chance to feel the two, she took the balls away, and showed them another pair of Styrofoam and lead ball. When she asked them which of the two would be the heavier, they invariably pointed to the Styrofoam ball just because it was bigger. Despite their earlier experience, they had not grasped the idea of what an object is made of—its substance—as well as size and shape. But in other experiments when she introduced odors, she found that children under five understood that smell was an important characteristic of substance, and children could use a scent to recognize substance irrespective of the shape or size in which it was presented to them.Schmidt has also found that girls are more sensitive to smell than boys. The sex difference is well known in adults, but not in children. Explaining the difference in adults has centered on the suggestion that as girls get older, they tend to take part in activities such as cooking, which train them to distinguish between smells. Another suggestion was that after puberty, female hormones bring about some change in the olfactory equipment. But Schmidt’s observations that the sex difference exists in children does not fit in with either explanation.31. According to the text, it is well-known that our sense of smell is ______.32. Which would Hilary Schmidt most probably agree to?33. Schmidt’s styrofoam and lead ball experiment shows that younger children ______.34. The word “subjects” (Para. 3) most probably means ______.35. From the last sentence of the text, we can infer that Schmidt may ______.

1. Patterns of trade and travel may encourage enthusiasms for language learning. Languages other than English may become important regional business languages. Already the number of learners of Chinese as a second or foreign language is on the increase.2. The first gay couple to wed since France became the 14th country to permit same-sex marriage, Vincent Autin (文森特•奥丁), 40, and Bruno Boileau (布鲁诺•波洛), 29, exchanged vows and rings on Wednesday to cheers and applause at a city hall ringed by riot police.3. Snowden’s (斯诺登) leaks of highly classified material have resulted in numerous news stories about U.S. surveillance activities at home and abroad and have caused debate about the legality of those activities and the privacy implications for average Americans.4. In the United States, individuals have their own definitions of success. One of them might be financial wealth—and many are the college dropouts working in their parents’ garage in hopes of creating the next Google, Microsoft, or Apple Computer.5. Are humans justified in feeding on animal meat and making animals carry burdens? The fundamental question here is: should animals be treated with the same consideration we extend to other humans? Or, to put it another way, do animals have rights?

1. 贸易和旅游的模式可能会鼓励语言学习的热情。除了英语，其他语言可能成为重要的地区性商务语言。越来越多的人把中文作为第二语言或外语来学习。2. 自从法国成为第14个允许同性结婚的国家以来，周三，这首对同性夫妻——40岁的文森特•奥丁和29岁的布鲁诺•波洛宣誓和交换了戒指，在由防暴警察围住的市政厅中欢呼和庆祝。3. 斯诺登泄露的高度机密材料已经引发了众多关于美国对国内和国外的监视活动的新闻报道，引发了关于这些监测活动的合法性和对美国普通民众的隐私影响的辩论。4. 在美国，每个人都有自己对成功的定义。其中之一也许就是拥有财富——许多在大学就辍学的人在父母的车库里工作，希望创造下一个谷歌、微软或苹果公司。5. 人类是否有正当理由以动物肉为食，让动物承担自己的负担？这里最根本的问题是：动物是否像我们对待其他人类一样受到关怀？或者，换句话说，动物有权利吗？

She was so ______ to hear of her mother’s illness that she could no longer concentrate on her.