1 . Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with. He was quiet in his ways, and his habits were regular. It was rare for him to be up after ten at night, and he had invariably breakfasted and gone out before I rose in the morning. Sometimes he spent his day at the chemical laboratory, sometimes in the dissecting (解剖) rooms, and occasionally in long walks, which appeared to take him into the lowest portions of the city.

Nothing could exceed his energy when the working fit was upon him, but now and again a reaction would seize him, and for days on end he would lie upon the sofa in the sitting room, hardly saying a word or moving a muscle from morning till night. On these occasions, I have noticed such dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes, that I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some drugs, had not the moderation and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a thought.

As the weeks went by, my interest in him and my curiosity as to his aims in life gradually deepened and increased. His very person and appearance were such as to strike the attention of the most casual observer. In height he was rather over six feet, and so thin that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp, except during those intervals of torpor (麻木) to which I have mentioned, and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole expression a feeling of alertness and decision. His chin (下巴), too, had the excellence and squareness which mark the man of determination. His hands were invariably blotted with ink and spotted with chemicals, yet he was possessed of extraordinary delicacy of touch, as I frequently had occasion to observe when I watched him playing his musical instruments.

1. Holmes would usually _________.

A．get up early

B．burn night oil

C．skip breakfast

D．walk in the wood

2. Holmes was suspected of using drugs because __________.

A．he worked nonstop like a horse

B．he didn’t talk and move for long

C．he was leading moderate and clean life

D．he had an empty and dreamy expression

3. Which of the following accurately describes Holmes?

A．He kept his hand invariably spotless.

B．He hardly caught observers’ attention.

C．His eyes, nose and chins showed determination.

D．He was neither thin nor tall in physical appearance.

4. What can be inferred from the article?

A．Holmes always kept his eyes sharp.

B．Holmes had interest in both science and art.

C．Holmes was not an easygoing person to get along with.

D．Nothing excited Holmes except low portion of the city.

2 .

Travel Back in Time
TOMORROW THEY WON’T DARE TO MURDER US By Joseph Andras In 1956, National Liberation Front Member Fernand Iveton planted a bomb near Algiers. The hoped-for explosion was intended only to be a piece of symbolism, so he put it in an unused shed. He was arrested before it could go off and then mercilessly tortured and hanged. Andras’s fictionalized retelling of Iveton’s story was published in French in2016 to immediate acclaim, winning the prestigious Prix Goncourt. It’s now been translated into English. The book is just 137 pages long, but every one of them is tense, a nightmare of noble intentions gone horribly wrong.	INSIDE MONEY By Zarchary Karabell Given complete access to the 200-year accomplishment of the U.S.’s oldest private bank, Karabell weaves a fascinating tale of the East Coast WASP establishment includes characters such as Alan Greenspan and Averell Harriman, one-time governor of New York. The firm has remained privately held, so its inner workings have been a mystery until now.
Or See the Future
THE FLIP SIDE OF FREE By Michael Kende It’s not a new insight that we pay for “free” apps and sites with our personal data, but Kende has a more detailed take than most. The digital development specialist at the World Bank Group looks at how the web came to be free via unified standards and the coming social considerations that will need to be faced once the public understands how much “free” actually costs.	THE CODE BREAKER By Walter Isaacson Isaacson’s previous biographies have focused on such men as Steve Jobs and Leonardo da Vinci. Here he tells the story of Jennifer Doudna, a biochemist who won a Noble Prize for the gene-editing technology known as Crispr. The book is an excellent reader on the complex subject, its benefits (fighting disease) and its ethical hurdles (designer babies).
Anything Other Than Covid
LETTERS TO CAMONDO By Edmund de Waal There are very few ceramic artists working today and even fewer ceramic artists with a part time as an author. Best known for his exquisitely crafted porcelain and his bestseller The Hare with Amber Eyes, de Waal’s latest piece of fiction combines the two sides of his professional life. This book consists of imaginary letters to the real-life Moise de Camondo, a rich Jewish banker who ran one of the most successful institutions in the Ottoman Empire and was also an art sponsor.	ANTIQUITIES By Cynthia Ozick Most people experienced some form of Covid isolation. Ozick, 92, who’s been shortlisted for the Pulitzer and Man Booker International prizes, has created a character who's similarly tortured, though it’s old age, rather than a pandemic, that finds him holed up indoors. As he recalls his life, he is drawn to memories of his cousin, a famous archaeologist and to a mysterious schoolmate.
Or More About Plagues
LET THE RECORD SHOW: A POLITICAL HISTORY OF ACT UP NEW YORK, 1987-1993 By Sarah Schulman Michael Lewis is something of a master at the onset of the AIDS crisis that no one, other than the tortured, seemed to care. ACT UP, a political and activist effort, was born from that apathy. Schulman's comprehensive, timely Book records the group’s hundreds of demonstrations, and almost as many political groups.	THE PREMONITION: A PANDEMIC STORY By Michael Lewis Thirty years ago, fear and death played out at capturing complex events in the very recent past. Here he turns the pandemic into a tale of good and evil: Evil, in this case, is the administration; good is a crew of scientists, doctors and public health experts. The narrative follows three central characters-a biochemist, a public health worker, and a U.S. federal employee.

1. In the section “Travel Back in Time”, both of the two books            .

A．drew inspiration from something real.

B．reveal something ugly about their society

C．are works written against a background of war.

D．provide thrilling plots even though they are short in length.

2. Which of the following themes are covered by “The Flip Side of Free” and “The Code Breaker” respectively?
①cybersecurity
②artificial robot
③disease-curing
④economic development

A．①②

B．①③

C．②③

D．③④

3. In what aspects do “Letters to Camondo” and “Antiquities” have in common?

A．Both are fictionalized works.

B．Both are about artistic creations

C．Both deal with the theme of isolation

D．Both are written against the background of Covid-19.

4. In describing plagues, what’s the main difference between the two books in the section “Or More About Plagues”?
①One is a true story and the other is fictional.
②One is about history and the other focuses on the present.
③One is about the causes of the plague and the other focuses on the results.

A．①②

B．①③

C．②③

D．①②③

3 . Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle is an icon of British literature, world renowned for his crime fiction creation, “Sherlock Holmes”. His ability to create exciting stories filled with mystery still resonates with readers today, and modern reincarnations (再生) in both film and television mean Holmes is as popular as ever. The creation of such an extraordinary world would be an impossible task for most, so where did Doyle find the inspirations behind its conception?

The topics, characters and events that unfold within Doyle’s creations may seem far removed from you or I, but for Arthur, they were much closer to home. The main inspiration for Holmes was Arthur’s professor at Edinburgh Medical School, Dr. Joseph Bell. The doctor, armed with fantastic scientific knowledge and remarkable abilities in observation and deduction (演绎), would know someone’s occupation and habits from the tiniest details. On one occasion, he shocked his class by deducing the occupation of a patient simply from his accent, schedule, and hands. Additionally, working with murder investigations, illnesses and dead bodies through his studies, Doyle became very knowledgeable about this area.

Since school, Doyle’s talent as a writer was clear as fellow pupils paid him in sweets just to continue his stories, so you would have to assume that the success of Sherlock on the national stage brought Doyle great happiness, right?

Well, not quite. Few people know that it didn’t take long for Doyle to get frustrated with the character. While he ranked his work highly, he actually felt that his career had, “gone off the rails” and wrote to his mother saying, “I must save my mind for better things.” Doyle saw Sherlock as an unwelcome distraction from more serious work which is why he killed him off in The Final Problem. Holmes and Moriarty plunge to their deaths at the Reichenbach Falls and Sherlock Holmes was finished.

But, as with any Holmes tale, there is a twist! Fans were extremly angry and canceled their subscriptions for The Strand Magazine in record numbers. The continuous pressure from fans and publishers finally led Doyle to publish a new story, The Hound of Baskervilles, in 1901. This, however, was set before the death of Sherlock so the complete resurrection (复活) happened in 1903, with The Adventure of the Empty House, in which it is revealed that only Moriarty fell and Holmes faked his death.

1. Which of the following is true according to the passage?

A．The success of Sherlock Holmes made Doyle instant famous.

B．The invention of film and television has helped to promote Sherlock Holmes.

C．Doyle found inspiration mainly from Dr. Joseph Bell and his teacher in school.

D．Doyle’s writing capabilities was long recognized by his peers.

2. Why did Doyle feel frustrated with Sherlock Holmes?

A．The character was not as keen as Dr. Joseph Bell.

B．He couldn’t make much money from the book.

C．The book kept him from writing serious literature.

D．He was attacked by the fans of the book.

3. What can you infer from the passage?

A．Doyle didn’t show talent for writing until he met Dr. Joseph Bell.

B．The success of Sherlock Holmes was bitter-sweet to Doyle.

C．Many movies are adapted from the story of Sherlock Holmes.

D．Doyle was involved in murder investigations in order to write Sherlock Holmes.

4. This passage is most probably taken from ________.

A．a booklet of Doyle museum	B．a website for fans of Holmes
C．a literary magazine	D．an academic report

5 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

The Bennets had made plans to dine with the Lucases. And during the main part of the day Miss Lucas was kind enough to spend a lot of time listening sympathetically to Mr. Collins. Elizabeth made sure to thank her, but Charlotte assured her friend that she was happy to be useful, and     1     this was worth the little sacrifice of her time.

This was very kind, but Charlotte’s kindness went further than Elizabeth     2     imagine. Charlotte’s purpose was nothing less than to prevent Mr Collins from proposing marriage again to Elizabeth, by encouraging him to proposing marriage to     3    . Miss Lucas would have felt almost certain of her plan’s success if Mr Collins did not plan to leave so very soon.

But here she underestimated him, because the very next morning he rushed to Lucas Lodge to swear his love to her. In as short     4     time as Mr. Collins long speeches would allow, Miss Lucas accepted his proposal of marriage, and everything was settled down between them.

Charlotte did not think highly of men, but marriage     5    (always be) her only goal. It might not always bring happiness, but it was the only way     6     a well-educated young woman who was not rich could live a secure and prosperous life.

What she liked the least about the arrangement was the surprise     7     would give to Elizabeth Bennet,     8     friendship she valued beyond that of any other person.

In a private meeting with Elizabeth, she told her of the news. Elizabeth was so astonished that she could not help but     9    (cry) out: “Engaged to Mr. Collins! My dear Charlotte-that’s impossible!” “Why should you be so surprised, my dear Eliza? Do you think it is unbelievable that any woman could be attracted by Mr. Collins,     10     he was not lucky enough to succeed with you?”

6 . John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939, was followed ten years later by A.B. Guthrie’s The Way West. Both books record a migration, though that of Guthrie’s pioneers is considerably less bleak (没有希望的) in origin. What strikes one at first glance, however, are the commonalities. Both Steinbeck’s and Guthrie’s characters are primarily farmers. They look to their destinations with nearly religious enthusiasm, imagining their “promised” land the way the Biblical Israelites envisioned Canaan. Both undergo great hardship to make the journey. But the two stories differ clearly in origin. Steinbeck’s Oklahomans are forced off their land by the banks that own their mortgages (抵押借款), and they follow a false promise— that jobs as seasonal laborers await them in California. Guthrie’s farmers willingly remove themselves, selling their land and trading their old dreams for their new hope in Oregon. The pioneers’ decision to leave their farms in Missouri and the East is frivolous and ill-founded in comparison with the Oklahomans’ unwilling response to displacement. Yet it is they, the pioneers, whom our history books declare the heroes.

1. From the context of the passage, it can be determined that the word frivolous most nearly means ______.

A．silly.

B．careful.

C．difficult.

D．unexpected.

2. Which of the following sentence can best illustrate “Both undergo great hardship to make the journey.”?

A．The migrants in The Way West cross the Missouri, then the Kaw, and make their way overland to the Platte.

B．The Oklahomans’ jalopies (破旧的汽车) break down repeatedly, while the pioneers’ wagons need frequent repairs.

C．Today’s travelers would consider it a hardship to spend several days, let alone several months, getting anywhere.

D．The Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath loses both grandmother and grandfather before the journey is complete.

3. Which of the following is an important difference between Steinbeck’s and Guthrie’s characters?

A．Steinbeck’s and Guthrie’s characters are primarily farmers.

B．Steinbeck’s migration was forced, while the Guthrie farmers chose to leave their land.

C．They look to their destinations with nearly religious enthusiasm, imagining their “promised” land the way the Biblical Israelites envisioned Canaan.

D．none of these

4. The language in the paragraph implies that which of the following will happen to the Oklahomans when they arrive in California?

A．They will find a means to practice their religion freely.

B．They will be declared national heroes.

C．They will not find the jobs they were promised.

D．They will realize their dreams when reaching the city.

7 . During a judging period for a recent short story contest, I started thinking a lot about dialogue tags. Because in many submissions characters didn’t “say” a thing. They shouted, they inquired, they assumed. Some characters screamed while others murmured. But no one “said” anything. And I started wondering why.

Why do we tell beginner writers to avoid creative dialogue tags in the first place? Why do we insist that characters should stick to “said,” “asked,” and the occasional “sighed?” And, if the advice is so oft-repeated, why are writers still unable to resist the siren call of weep, scream, snap, or laugh?

The more I thought about it, the more I understood the temptation. We’re always encouraged to use strong, actionable verbs in our prose. Why walk when you can skip or wander? Why cry when you can sob on weep? Why wouldn’t we reach for exciting verbs instead of mild-boring dull-blah said? Why couldn’t each verb be a tiny sparkling gem in its own right?

The problem, I think, is that every jewel needs a setting to become something more than the sum of its parts. Without something to provide structure, a collection of the world’s most glorious diamonds would still only amount to a heap of rocks.

And a dialogue tag should never, ever be the diamond in any given sentence.

Dialogue is your diamond, friends. When we read your work, your dialogue should be so bright, so sparkling, so lifelike, so wonderfully realistic that our brains “hear” each line instead of merely reading it. We don’t need to be told a character is shouting - we can sense it in the way they spit out words, clench fists, or storm from the room.

A dialogue tag is a mere signpost along the narrative journey, gently indicating who said what. It’s part of a story’s experience, but it’s not part of the story itself, nor should it be treated as such. Dialogue tags are similar to lighting in a Broadway play: without it, the audience would have no idea what was going on, but it usually strives to shine without calling too much attention to itself.

What’s more, readers may not initially imagine a particular line being “sobbed.” When we reach the end of a sentence and find out our leading lady has actually sobbed instead of whispered, it pulls us right out of the story. We pause. We reread the line. We adjust our understanding and begin again. But that wonderful momentum when we’re fully immersed in the scene, holding our breath to find out what our heroine says next, is lost.

Creating a successful work of fiction is about giving the reader all the materials they need to build your fictional world in their mind and not a scrap more. Readers need believable dialogue. They need voices so compelling that they pop right off the page and into our ears. And if you’ve created dynamic characters who speak words we can really hear you will never need to tell us how something was said.

Senior Editor

1. According to the Senior Editor, the beginner writers are tempted to __________.

A．replace a dull “said” with exciting verbs

B．omit what the character said in a dialogue

C．resist the warning against strong emotions

D．overuse the word “said” in their submissions

2. The Senior Editor compares dialogue tags to __________.

A．glorious diamonds	B．heaps of rocks
C．tiny, sparkling gems	D．Broadway play lighting

3. What can be inferred about the dialogue in a novel?

A．The dialogue tag “say” can help keep readers immersed in the plot.

B．A dialogue tag indicates a character’s way of speech is part of narration.

C．Writers should state in the dialogue whether the character sobbed or whispered.

D．Readers are advised to imagine the scene after rereading the line in a dialogue.

4. The writer most probably agrees that __________.

A．dynamic characters’ voices are quoted from people’s exact words in real life

B．creative dialogue tags play a vital role in building a realistic fictional world

C．the more materials a work fiction contains, the more successful it is

D．what was said should be prioritised over how it was said

8 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Chekhov (契科夫)wrote more than 500 short stories, which, in terms of depth and artistry, rival the great novels of other writers. He was the first     1     (focus) not on overblown drama, but on everyday life. Maxim Gorky wrote to Chekhov that no one could equal him when it came to     2     (write) about the simple things. “After reading even your     3     (insignificant) story, everything else seems crude, written not with a pen, but with a log.”

Here are 2 of the master storyteller’s must­reads.

1. The Chameleon《变色龙》, 1884

A minor episode occurs on the market square of the city of N: a dog bites the finger of the goldsmith Khryukin. Police inspector Ochumelov arrives to sort out the issue. At first, the inspector exclaims that the animal     4     be put down and its owner fined. But when he learns     5     the dog belongs to a general, his opinion changes. All of a sudden, Khryukin is     6     (blame) for provoking the animal.

One of Chekhov’s first stories, read by all schoolchildren, it is a humorous critique of how people’s attitudes change chameleon­like, depending     7     who they are dealing with.

2. Man in a Case, 1898

Even in warm weather, Belikov wears a coat and carries an umbrella in a case. In fact, all his possessions have their own personal case. He hides his face behind his collar. Suspicious and paranoid, he craves order and neatness in     8    . Only in his coffin     9     he wear an almost cheerful expression on his face.

In Russian, the phrase “man in a case” has become an idiom, said about people     10     are afraid to open up to the world and lose many opportunities by never leaving their comfort zone.

9 . People of every culture tell each other fairy tales and the same story often takes a variety of forms in different parts of the world. The universal appeal of these fantastical tales is frequently owed to the idea that they contain warning messages: in the case of Little Red Riding Hood, to listen to your mother, not wander away from the path, and avoid talking to strangers. “It might be what we find interesting about this story is that it's got this survival-relevant information in it,” says anthropologist Jamie Tehrani at Durham University in the UK. But his research suggests otherwise. By exploring how fairy tales have changed and evolved as they spread between cultures, he believes he has discovered what truly makes them appealing.

His analysis focused on Little Red Riding Hood in its many guises (变体), which include another Western fairy tale known as The Wolf and the Kids. Exploring academic collections for variants of these two tales and similar stories from Africa, East Asia and other regions, he ended up with 58 stories recorded from oral traditions.

First he tested some assumptions about which aspects of the story change least as it evolves, indicating their importance. Folklorists believe that events are more central to the story than characters; however, Tehrani found no significant difference in the rate of evolution of events compared with that of characters. “Certain events are very stable because we recognize them as being crucial to the story but there are lots of other details that can evolve quite freely,” he says.

Neither did his analysis support the theory that the middle section of a story is the most conserved part. He found no significant difference in the flexibility of events at the beginning, middle and end. But the really big surprise came when he looked at the warning elements of the story. In his analysis, such elements were just as flexible as seemingly unimportant details. What, then, is important enough to be reproduced from generation to generation?

The answer, it would appear, is horror: horrifying aspects of the story turned out to be the best preserved of all. In many European versions, for example, the wolf feeds Red Riding Hood a meal made from the remains of her grandmother. “There’s this brilliant Italian one where the wolf says there’s some tortellini (意式饺子), but of course those are her grandmother's ears,” says Tehrani. In East Asian variants, a group of sisters spend the night in bed with a tiger and awake to hear it eating the bones of the youngest one. “Those kinds of features are very common in lots of versions of the story,” says Tehrani.

Why are these details treated with such respect by generations of storytellers, when other features are readily substituted? Tehrani has an idea: “In an oral context, a story won't survive because of one great teller. It also needs to be interesting when it's told by someone who's not necessarily a great storyteller.” Maybe dining on the remains of a relative is so fascinating that it helps the story remain popular, no matter how badly it's told.

1. What did Teherani's analysis focus on?

A．A series of fairy tales related to each other.	B．Fairy tales that have been studied before.
C．Fairy tales assumed to be informative.	D．A series of fairy tales that come in various forms.

2. What can be learned about Little Red Riding Hood?

A．In its different versions, events stay the same but characters don't.

B．All of its different editions have the same middle part.

C．It is most famous for its survival-related information.

D．There is always something scary in its variants.

3. According to Tehrani's explanation in the last paragraph, what can be inferred?

A．Whether a story can survive depends on whether the story teller is interesting or not.

B．If a story itself were not attractive enough, it could hardly be passed on orally.

C．Dining on the remains of a relative is the commonest plot in fairy tales.

D．Good storytellers can make up for the story that is not well written.

4. The passage is mainly concerned with __________.

A．why some assumptions about fairy tales are acceptable

B．which fairy tales have stood the test of time

C．what is behind the enduring appeal of fairy tales

D．how anthropologists have been studying fairy tales

10 . Hugely ambitious in scope, The Lord of the Rings occupies an uncomfortable position in 20th century literature. This book of J.R.R.Tolkien’s poses a challenge to modern literature and its defenders. (Tolkien on his _______: “Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, ridiculous, or annoying; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently _________.”) Yet The Lord of the Rings has enjoyed massive and enduring popularity. It would seem that Tolkien’s work supplied something that was _________ among the formal innovations of 20th century fiction, something for which readers were hungry. But what was it, and why was it important?

It seems that the key point lies in Tolkien’s wholehearted rejection of modernity and modernism. This is what so powerfully _________ some readers, and just as powerfully drives away others. In his book J.R.R.Tolkien: Author of the Century, T.A. Shippey expands on this idea by arguing that Tolkien saw his story of Middle-earth not as fiction or invention, but as the _________ of something genuine that had become buried beneath the fairy tale and nursery rhythm.

“However fanciful Tolkien’s creation of Middle earth was,” Shippey writes, “he did not think that he was entirely _________. He was ‘reconstructing’, he was harmonizing conflicts in his source-texts, sometimes he was supplying entirely new concepts, but he was also reaching back to an imaginative world which he believed had once really _________, at least in a collective imagination.”

The book is also deeply grounded in Tolkien’s linguistic expertise （语言专长） —he _________ whole languages for his characters. Sometimes he became so absorbed in the creation of languages, in fact, that he _________ the story itself for months or years at a time, believing he could not continue until some inconsistency（不一致）in his invented world had been resolved. But Tolkien’s great intellect and knowledge is not the source of his ____________; without his storytelling gift, The Lord of the Rings would be little more than a curiosity. And this gift seems to originate straight from his ____________ to break from classical and traditional forms.

Tolkien himself often spoke of his work as something ‘found’ or ‘discovered’, something whose existence was ____________ of him. It’s wise to be careful with this sort of interpretation, but it seems ____________ that he believed his work to be something given, something revealed, which contained a kind of truth beyond measure. ____________, his details have the weight of reality, and because of this his great sweep of story feels real as well; you might say that his ____________ castles are built with a certain amount of genuine stone.

1.

A．books

B．critics

C．readers

D．ambitions

2.

A．dislike

B．challenge

C．review

D．prefer

3.

A．common

B．possible

C．missing

D．funny

4.

A．annoys

B．influences

C．attracts

D．concerns

5.

A．recovery

B．designing

C．analysis

D．questioning

6.

A．taking it down

B．making it up

C．turning it down

D．looking it up

7.

A．remained

B．struck

C．moved

D．existed

8.

A．spoke

B．invented

C．neglected

D．recalled

9.

A．put aside

B．set up

C．look into

D．get along

10.

A．style

B．tension

C．success

D．tradition

11.

A．decision

B．request

C．struggle

D．refusal

12.

A．representative

B．independent

C．conscious

D．thoughtful

13.

A．clear

B．weird

C．unfair

D．pitiful

14.

A．As a result

B．On the contrary

C．Even so

D．What’s worse

15.

A．ancient

B．broken

C．imaginary

D．foreign