第三篇 Dangers await babies with altitude
Women who live in the world's highest communities tend to give birth to under-weight babies, a new study suggests. These babies may grow into adults with a high risk of heart disease and strokes.
Research has hinted that newborns in mountain communities are lighter than average. But it wasn't clear whether this is due to reduced oxygen levels at high altitude or because their mothers are under-nourished — many people who live at high altitudes are relatively poor compared with those living lower down.
To find out more, Dino Giussani and his team at Cambridge University studied the records of 400 births in Bolivia during 1976 and 1998. The babies were born in both rich and poor areas of two cities: La Paz and Santa Cruz. L Paz is the highest city in the world, at 3.65 kilometers above sea level, while Santa Cruz is much lower, at 0.44 kilometers.
Sure enough, Giussani found that the average birthweight of babies in La Paz was significantly lower than in Santa Cruz. This was true in both high and low-income families. Even babies born to poor families in Santa Cruz were heavier on average than babies born to wealthy families in lofty La Paz. "We were very surprised by this result," says Giussani.
The results suggest that babies born at high altitude are deprived of oxygen before birth. "This may trigger the release or suppression of hormones that regulate growth of the unborn child," says Giussani.
His team also found that high-altitude babies tended to have relatively larger heads compared with their bodies. This is probably because a fetus starved of oxygen will send oxygenated blood to the brain in preference to rest of the body.
Giussani wants to find out if such babies have a higher risk of disease in later life. People born in La Paz might be prone to heart trouble in adulthood, for example. Low birth weight is a risk factor for coronary(冠状的) heart disease. And newborns with a high ratio of head size to body weight are often predisposed to high blood pressure and strokes in later life.
41. What does the new study discover?
A. Babies born to wealthy families are heaver.
B. Women living at high altitude tend to give birth to underweight babies.
C. Newborns in cities are lighter than average.
D. Low-altitude babies have a high risk of heart disease in later life.
42. Giussani and his team are sure that _____.
A. babies born in Lance Paz are on average lighter than in Santa Cruz.
B. people living at high altitudes tend to give birth to underweight babies.
C. the birth weight of babies born to wealthy families is Santa Cruz.
D. mothers in La Paz are commonly under-nourished.
43. It can be inferred from what Giussani says in Paragraph 4 that_____.
A. the finding was unexpected
B. he was very tired.
C. the study took longer than expected.
D. he was surprised to find low-income families in La Paz.
44. The results of the study indicate the reason for the underweight babies is _____.
A. lack of certain nutrition.
B. power of their mother.
C. different family backgrounds.
D. reduction of oxygen levels.
45. It can be learned about form the paragraph that_____.
A. high-altitude babies tend to have high blood pressure in later life.
B. under-weight babies have a shorter life span.
C. babies born to poor families lack hormones before birth.
D. new born wealthy families have larger heads compared with their bodies.
第5部分：补全短文(第46～50题，每题2分，共10分)
Saving a City's Public Art
Avoiding traffic jams in Los Angeles may be impossible, but the city's colorful freeway murals(壁画)can brighten even the worst commute. Paintings that depict(描述)famous people and historical scenes cover office buildings and freeway walls all access the city. With a collection of more than 2,000 murals, Los Angeles is the unofficial mural capital of the world.
But the combination of graffiti(涂鸦), pollution, and hot sun has left many L.A. murals in terrible condition. _____(46)in the past, experts say, little attention was given to caring for public art. Artists were even expected to maintain their own works, not an easy task with cars racing by along the freeway.
_____(47)The work started in 2003. So far, 16 walls have been selected and more may be added later.
Until about 1960, public murals in Los Angeles were rare. But in the 1960s and 1970s, young L.A. artists began to study early 20th-century Mexican mural painting_____(48)
The most famous mural in the city is Judith Baca's "The Great Wall," a 13-foot-high(4-meter-high)painting that runs for half a mile (0.8 kilometer) in North Hollywood, _____(49)it took eight years to complete—400 underprivileged teenagers painted the designs—and is probably the longest mural in the world.
One of the murals that will be restored now is Kent Twitchell's "Seventh Street Altarpiece." which he painted for the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. _____ (50) Twitchell said, "it was meant as a kind of gateway through which the traveler to L.A. must drive. The open hands represent peace."
Artists often call murals the people's art. Along a busy freeway or hidden in a quiet neighborhood, murals can teach people who would never pay money to see fine art in a museum, "Murals give a voice to the silent majority," said one artist.
A. The city trying to stop the spread of graffiti, has painted over some of the murals complete.
B. This striking work depicts two people facing each other on opposite sides of the freeway near downtown Los Angeles.
C. Artists like murals because they like the work of Mexican artists.
D. Now the city is beginning a huge project to restore the city's murals.
E. The mural represents the history of ethnic groups in California.
F .Soon, their murals became a symbol of the city's cultural expressions and a showcase for L.A.'s cultural diversity.
第6部分：完形填空
I'll Be Bach
Composer David Cope is the inventor of a computer program that writes original works of classical music. It took Cope 30 years to develop the software. Now most people can't _____(51)the difference between music by the famous German composer J. S. Bach (1685-1750) and the Bach-like compositions from Cope's computer.
It all started in 1980 in the United States, when Cope was trying to write an opera. He was having _____(52)thinking of new melodies, so he wrote a computer program to create the melodies. At first this music was not_____(53)to listen to. What did Cope do? He began to rethink how human beings compose music. He realized that composers, brains_____(54)like big databases. First, they take in all the music that they have ever heard. Then they take_____(55)the music that they dislike. Finally, they make new music from what is_____(56). According to Cope, only the great composers are able to create the database accurately, remember it, and form new musical patterns from it.
Cope built a_____(57)database of existing music. He began with hundreds of works by Bach. The software analyzed the data_____(58)it down into smaller pieces and looked for patterns. It then combined the_____(59)into new patterns. Before long, the program could compose short Bach-like works. They weren't good, but it was a start.
Cope knew he had more work to do-he had a whole opera to write. He continued to improve the software. Soon it could_____(60)more complex music. He also added many other composers, including his own work to the database.
A few years later, Cope's computer program, called "Emmy", was ready to help him with his opera. The_____(61)required a lot of collaboration between the composer and Emmy. Cope listened to the computer's musical ideas and used the_____(62)that he liked. With Emmy, the opera took only two weeks to finish. It was called Cradle Falling, and it was a great_____(63)! Cope received some of the best reviews of his career, but no one knew exactly_____(64)he had composed the work.
Since that first opera, Emmy has written thousands of compositions. Cope still gives Emmy feedback on what he likes and doesn't like of her music, _____(65)she is doing most of the hard work of composing these days!
51. A. Make B. tell C. Take D. understand
52. A. trouble B. time C. Fear D. pleasure
53. A. Loud B .peaceful C. classic D. easy
54. A. Feel B. look C. sound D .work
55. A.in B.at C. with D. out
56. A. added B .left C. created D .released
57. A .Small B. huge C .Simple D. colorful
58.A. cut B. drop C. broke D. turned
59.A .parts B. programs C. ideas D .pieces
60. A. play B. hear C. collect D. analyze
61. A .stage B. process C. period D. application
62. A. ones B. cases C. others D. sides
63. A. loss B. end C. success D. rush
64 A .when B. how C. what D. why
65. A. but B. until C.so D .because