Football, to me, is more than just a game. I have probably learned more than valuable lessons from it than from school.

    When I joined the team freshman year, I didn't realize what I was getting into. Even though I had been playing since fourth grade and knew it was hard work, nothing would prepare me for the effort I would put into football that year. We worked all summer in the weight room and ran on the track to get in physical and mental shape before the season.

    See, football is more of a mental sport than anything else, so running on the track wasn't only about getting in shape. We would push our minds by running as hard as we could even if we felt like we were going to pass out. At the beginning, I was immature（幼稚的）and only thought of myself, sometimes even giving up when I was tired or hurting. Then after the third game I had a season-ending injury. Imagine working all summer and then only being able to play three games! I needed an operation on my arm and at least five months to recover.

    After freshman year I decided that I would always give my best effort. Playing football in the college has taught me so much more than just what my tasks are on a particular play or how to block. I have learned to think about others first, and realized how important working hard is. Being with all my friends, even sweating and bleeding with them, really made us unite as a group of hard-working young men, who will succeed in life.

根据短文内容，选择最佳答案，并将选定答案的字母标号填在题前括号内。

    How does an ecosystem（生态系统）work? What makes the populations of different species the way they are? Why are there so many flies and so few wolves? To find an answer, scientists have built mathematical models of food webs, noting who eats whom and how much each one eats.

    With such models, scientists have found out some key principles operating in food webs. Most food webs, for instance, consist of many weak links rather than a few strong ones. When a predator（掠食动物）always eats huge numbers of a single prey（猎物）, the two species are strongly linked; when a predator lives on various species, they are weakly linked. Food webs may be dominated by many weak links because that arrangement is more stable over the long term. If a predator can eat several species, it can survive the extinction（灭绝）of one of them. And if a predator can move on to another species that is easier to find when a prey species becomes rare, the switch allows the original prey to recover. The weak links may thus keep species from driving one another to extinction.

Mathematical models have also revealed that food webs may be unstable, where small changes of top predators can lead to big effects throughout entire ecosystems. In the 1960s, scientists proposed that predators at the top of a food web had a surprising amount of control over the size of populations of other species—including species they did not directly attack.

    And unplanned human activities have proved the idea of top-down control by top predators to be true. In the ocean, we fished for top predators such as cod on an industrial scale, while on land, we killed off large predators such as wolves. These actions have greatly affected the ecological balance.

    Scientists have built an early-warning system based on mathematical models. Ideally, the system would tell us when to adapt human activities that are pushing an ecosystem toward a breakdown or would even allow us to pull an ecosystem back from the borderline. Prevention is key, scientists says because once ecosystems pass their tipping point（临界点）, it is remarkably difficult for them to return.

    It is never too early, or too late, to encourage a child to read. With the chill (寒冷)of winter upon us, the following is a list of wonderful stories with winter and or snow themes.

    Waiting for Winter

    It was written by Sebastian Meschenmoser. A little squirrel(松鼠), who has never seen snow, is determined that he will not miss it this year. He gets the help of his good friends, a bear and a hedgehog, trying to stay a- wake until they can all see the first snowfall of winter. This book is a wonderful story to read aloud to young children or for older children to read by themselves.

    The Snowy Day

    The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats is a short read, but since its first publication it has been loved by millions. It tells about a beautiful story about the magic and possibility of the first snowfall of winter, which appeals to young and older children.

    The Polar Express

    Popularized by the 2004 Warner Brothers all-digital film, The Polar Express was first published in 1985. The hero of this story is a boy who is given the opportunity to receive a gift from Santa himself. A magical train appears outside his bedroom window» taking him away on a fantastic journey to the North Pole.

    Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree

    It was written by Robert E. Barry. Mr Willowby orders a lovely new Christmas tree, and when it is delivered to his home he finds it far too tall. He has the top of the tree cut off in order to make it just the right height. This book follows the treetop on its journey through the forest, where it brings the joy of the holidays for some woodland creatures. This book teaches us a valuable lesson about the joy of giving, and happiness that it can bring to the hearts of recipients (接受者).

Joy Adamson (Jan, 20, 1910-Jan. 3, 1980) was a popular wildlife conservationist of the 1960s and an author, best known for her book, Born Free, which described her experiences in saving the life of a lioness, Elsa.

Mrs. Adamson was born as Friedericke Victoria Gessner in Troppau. Silesia, Austria-Hungary (now Opava, Czech Republic). In 1937 she moved to Kenya. then a British Colony. In 1944 she married George Adamson, a British game warden in Kenya. and adopted Kenya as her own country, living on the shores of Lake Naivasha. It was with George Adamson, her third husband, that her most crucial and well-known work was done. Their works were pivotal (关键的)for the foundation of modern conservation.

They acquired Elsa, a tame lion cub, in 1956, after George had killed the cub's mother in self-defense. For two years Joy and George trained the animal for a return to the wild, and the subsequent book about Elsa. Born Free (1960), was an international success. Adamson followed the book with Living Free (1961) and Forever Free (1962). These first two books were made into films. In addition to her books about lions, Adamson also wrote two books about Pippa. a cheetah (猎豹) she took on in 1964. as well as numerous other books about her life in Africa. She was also an accomplished artist and many of her paintings are displayed in a museum in Nairobi, Kenya.

Joy and George separated in the 1970s, though they never divorced. On January 3, 1980, Joy was found murdered in a remote region of Kenyn. George was murdered on August 20, 1989, in an isolated region of Nairobi. This was an ironic (讽刺的) end to the lives of two who had lived in such seemingly dangerous circumstances with wild animals; that their deaths were at, the hands of men.

增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号(∧),并在其下面写上该加的词。

删除：把多余的词用斜线(＼)划掉。

修改：在错的词下划一横线,并在该词下面写上修改后的词。

注意：1.每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；2.只允许修改 10 处,多者(从第 11 处起)不计分。

As the Internet is developing fast,more and more new words and phrases have created in Chinese.Here are some as examples.One of most popular words are Dianzan,that is often used when you quite agree someone.Another example is Renxing.When you say somebody is Renxing,you mean that they will do however they like.The phrase Miaosha first come from online shopping, which means you can complete your shopping orders before others.And now it's wide used when you achieve your purpose in a very short time.If you describe somebody as a Tuhao,you mean that he or she is very rich.You can find lots of such new Chinese words.Keep learn and you'll know more about Chinese culture.