the pool all the years I was growing up. The park was almost like my own yard. Then the summer I was fifteen the drought came and things changed.
There had been almost no rain at all that year. The city stopped watering the park grass. Within a few weeks I found myself living across the street from a huge brown desert. Leaves fell off the park tress, and pretty soon the trees started dying, too. Next, the park swimming pool was closed. The city cut down on the work force that kept the park, and pretty soon it just got too ugly and dirty to enjoy anymore. As the drought lasted into the fall, the park got worse every month. The rubbish piled up or blew across the brown grass. Soon the only people in the park were beggars and other people down on their luck. People said drugs were being sold or traded there now. The park had gotten scary, and my mother told us kids not to go there anymore. The drought finally ended and things seemed to get back to normal, that is, everything but the park. It had gotten into such bad shape that the city just let it stay that way. Then about six months ago I heard that the city was going to ―redevelop‖ certain worn-out areas of the city. It turned out that the city had planned to get rid of the park, sell the land
and let someone build rows of apartment buildings on it. The chain-link fencing and the bulldozers did their work. Now we live across the street from six rows of apartment buildings. Each of them is three units high and stretches a block in each direction. The neighborhood has changed without the park. The streets I used to play in are jammed with cars now. Things will never be the same again.
Sometimes I wonder, though, what changes another drought would make in the way things are today. 本文是一篇夹叙夹议的文章。
53. How did the writer feel when he saw the fence and bulldozers? k*s5u
A. Scared. B. Confused. C. Upset. D. Curious. 答案：C
解析：推理判断题。根据第一段叙述了解到作者从四岁开始住在Southway Park对面。从第二段了解到作者小时候和朋友在公园里玩耍。而现在公园被围了起来，事实上，作者是很失望、沮丧，自己不能去玩了，而且树都被砍掉了。
54. Why was the writer told not to go to the park by his mother?
A. It was being rebuilt. B. It was dangerous.
C. It because crowded. D. It had turned into a desert. 答案：B
解析：推理判断题。仔细阅读第四段，可以了解到，公园被废弃了，里面住着流浪汉，甚至有人贩毒，所以母亲叮嘱我们不要去那里，因为危险。k*s5u
55. According to the writer, what eventually brought about the disappearance of the park?
A. The drought. B. The crime. C. The beggars and the rubbish. D. The decisions of the city. 答案：D
解析：推理判断题。从第五段，可以明显的了解到：干旱结束了，但是政府仍然对公园不管不问，而是要重新规划这块废弃地，在作者眼中是“the city had planned to get rid of the park”。故选择D。
56. The last sentence of the passage implies that if another drought came, ______.
A. the situation would be much worse B. people would have to desert their homes C. the city would be fully prepared in advance D. the city would have to redevelop the neighborhood 答案：A
解析：推理判断题。最后一段作者描述了目前自己居住的街道的变化，变得更加拥挤了。从而作者有了另一种思考：如果再来一次干旱，是否会造成如这次干旱一样的一些变化。从而可推测作者是隐射，环境会变的更加糟糕。k*s5u
E. www.ks*5u.co I needed to buy a digital camera, one that was simply good at taking good snaps (快照), maybe occasionally for magazines. Being the cautious type, I fancied a reliable brand. So I went on the net, spent 15 minutes reading product reviews on good websites, wrote down the names of three top recommendations and headed for my nearest big friendly camera store. There in the cupboard was one of the cameras on my list. And it was on special offer. Oh joy. I pointed at it and asked an assistant, ―Can I have one of those?‖ He looked perturbed (不安). ―Do you want to try it
first?‖ he said. It didn’t quite sound like a question. ―Do I need to?‖ I replied ,―There is nothing wrong with it？‖ This made him look a bit insulted and I started to feel bad. ―No, no. But you should try it,‖ he said encouragingly. ―Compare it with the others.‖
I looked across at the others: shelves of similar cameras placed along the wall, offering a wide range of slightly different prices and discounts, with each company selling a range of models based around the same basic box. With so many models to choose from, it seemed that I would have to spend hours weighing X against Y, always trying to take Z and possibly H into account at the same time. But when I had finished, I would still have only the same two certainties that I had entered the store with: first, soon after I carried my new camera out of the shop, it would be worth half what I paid for it; and second, my wonderful camera would very quickly be replaced by a new model.
But something in the human soul whispers that you can beat these traps by making the right choice, the clever choice, the wise choice. In the end, I agreed to try the model I had chosen. The assistant seemed a sincere man. So I let him take out of my chosen camera from cupboard, show