【推荐1】When I was young, I lived on an island in the north of Scotland, but I went to school in Edinburgh. It was a music school, and I studied the violin. We practiced for six hours every day. Our school was a boarding school. At the end of the term, we all packed our bags and our instruments to go home for the holidays. Most kids went by train, or bus, or their parents took them home by car. Not me! I went home by ferry (渡船) —14 hours overnight on the open sea. I loved it!

One summer I packed my suitcase and violin and said goodbye to my friends. I took the train to the ferry station and then got on the ferry. When we started moving away, I remembered a terrible thing! I left my violin on the train! I went to ask one of the crew (船员) what to do, but he said he couldn’t stop the ferry for me.

What should I do? What would my dad say? He’d be really angry! I was worried, and didn’t sleep all night. The next morning I got off the ferry to meet my dad. I didn’t want to look at him. I told him what happened. He laughed. I looked at him and couldn’t believe it. Why was he laughing?

In my violin case, I always have a label with my address and a telephone number. My dad told me, “A cleaner found your violin by the label on the train in London and took it to the police. They called me. They put the violin on a plane and it arrived an hour before you did.” My dad had it in his car! Thanks to those people, my violin was safe home!

1. Where was the writer’s home?

A．On an island.	B．In London.
C．In Edinburgh.	D．In the south of Scotland.

2. The underlined word “label” in the last paragraph probably means.

A．模型

B．标签

C．绰号

D．唱片公司

3. Who found the writer’s violin?

A．His father.

B．The police.

C．A cleaner.

D．A crewman.

4. What can be the best title for the text?

A．Travelling Violin	B．Boarding School
C．Unforgettable Train	D．Missing Suitcase

【推荐2】At a clinic in Waterloo, Ontario, an elderly woman sat on the edge of a waiting room chair belting out the Celine Dion’s tune My Heart Will Go On.With little effort, she was able to send her sweet, high-pitched voice to every corner of the clinic. I had fun watching how people reacted. There was some shifting in seats, but mainly they turned away their eyes in embarrassment and tried to pretend there was nothing unusual.

I was there with my father, who was getting a routine blood test when the woman arrived. She took a seat directly across from my dad. I was concerned about how my dad would react to the possible interaction on his space. He was 77 and had been living with Alzheimer’s for several years. He was a brilliant man of few words in public. When he was healthy, he considered it bad manners to bring more attention to oneself.

Her singing began gently, like a quiet hum. I glanced over at Dad. His smile was gone, and he was staring right at her. It seemed to be something like confusion. This wasn’t an unusual state for him, and I wondered whether he was actually seeing her at all or if he was lost somewhere deep in his mind, not really aware of her singing at that point.

Her singing slowly got louder. By the time she got to the chorus — “near,far, wherever you are...”, Dad looked a little surprised. Still, I watched for any sign of an angry outburst. Instead, his face softened, and the tension eased in his brow. He no longer looked confused.

People say that Alzheimer’s is a thief, and that it steals your loved ones slowly, day by day. There is so much heartbreaking truth in that statement. But certain experiences with my dad have allowed me to see aside of him that I never knew existed. That’s what happened for me that day in the clinic. When her song ended, the woman opened her eyes. My dad was still looking directly at her. “That was beautiful,” he said. And she smiled and said, “Thank you.”

1. How did people react to the elderly woman’s singing at the clinic?

A．They mainly looked away and ignored her.

B．They politely signaled to her to stop singing.

C．They all enjoyed her singing and sang with her.

D．They felt quite annoyed and changed their seats.

2. Why was the author worried about his father’s reaction to the singing?

A．His father disliked Celine Dion’s songs.

B．His father was suffering from Alzheimer’s.

C．His father was easily angered by strangers.

D．His father preferred silence in public places.

3. As the woman’s singing got louder, the author’s father’s expression____________.

A．remained the same

B．became more angry

C．softened and relaxed

D．showed more confusion

4. What can we learn from the last paragraph?

A．I got to know that my father liked music.

B．Alzheimer’s steals many things from old people.

C．This song helped me understand more about my father.

D．Everyone with Alzheimer’s has experienced some bad moments.

【推荐3】I’m an English teacher working in Russia, and for some reason I really don’t like that classroom topic—Talk About Your Family. Perhaps it’s because everyone studied English from the same book at school. So all the students say, “My family consists of five members: me, my mother, my father, my brother and my dog...”and so on, as if all families are exactly the same.

Let’s get rid of the phrase“my family consists of ...”and look at some more interesting ways to talk about families. English is rich in idioms (习语) to talk about family life. Let’s ignore the black sheep of the family—that’s someone who doesn’t fit in, or causes a family scandal (丑闻). If you’re loyal (忠诚) to your family, you can say blood is thicker than water or keep it in the family. If you share a talent with another family member, you can say it runs in the family. You might have your father’s eyes or your mother’s nose. If you’re like one of your parents, you can say like father, like son or you can be a chip off the old block.

Then there are idioms that have left the family (flown the nest) and gone on to have a life of their own. For example, a Londoner is telling someone how to get a new passport. “Get four pictures taken, pick up a form in the post office, hand it in with your old passport and... Bob’s your uncle.”It means“the problem is solved”. But I’d love to know who the original Bob was, and why he was such a useful uncle to have.

1. Why does the writer dislike the classroom topic—Talk About Your Family?

A．Because he works in Russia.	B．Because all families are the same.
C．Because all answers are similar.	D．Because he has no family there.

2. When we mention the black sheep of the family, we may refer to someone __________.

A．who causes a family scandal	B．who is loyal to the family
C．who has the father’s eyes	D．who has a useful uncle

3. What can you say if you want to express you have the same talent with your brother?

A．Blood is thicker than water.	B．It runs in the family.
C．You are the chip off the old block.	D．Bob is your uncle.

4. According to the text, how do you probably feel when you hear “Bob’s your uncle”?

A．Sad.

B．Bored.

C．Stressed.

D．Satisfied

【推荐1】I was born with a disability (残疾). When I started to go to school, my classmates were always teasing about it. I told them I’d fallen as a baby and cut my lips on a piece of glass. Somehow it seemed more acceptable to have suffered an accident than to have been born different. By seven, I was sure no one outside my own family could ever love me or even like me.

And then I entered the second grade, and Mrs. Leonard’s class. She was round, pretty and sweet, with shining brown hair and warm, smiling dark eyes. Everyone loved her. But no one came to love her more than I did.

The time came for the annual hearing tests given at our school. I was hardly able to hear anything out of one ear, and wasn’t about to show yet another problem that would single me out as different. So I cheated.

During the hearing tests, each child would go to the door of the classroom, turn sideways, close one ear with a finger, and the teacher would whisper something from her desk, which the child would repeat. Then the same thing was done for the other ear. I had discovered in kindergarten that nobody checked to see if the untested ear was being fully covered, so I only pretended to block mine.

My turn came. I knew from previous years that the teacher whispered things like “The sky is blue.” or “Do you have new shoes?” I turned my bad ear to her, covering the other with my finger, and gently backed my finger out enough to be able to hear. I waited, and then came the seven words that changed my life forever: “I wish you were my little girl.”

1. What does the underlined phrase “teasing about” in paragraph 1 mean?

A．Looking into.

B．Caring about.

C．Arguing over.

D．Laughing at.

2. Why did the author worry about the hearing test?

A．She didn’t want to make her disability public.

B．She couldn’t understand the teacher’s words.

C．She was afraid to make mistakes in the test.

D．She didn’t want to disappoint Mrs. Leonard.

3. What can we know about what Mrs. Leonard said?

A．It made the girl very discouraged.	B．It proved the girl cheated in the test.
C．It made a huge difference to the girl.	D．It embarrassed the girl immediately.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．A Hearing Test Upsetting a Girl	B．Seven Words Changing a Girl’s Life
C．A Strict Primary School Teacher	D．Clever Ways to Pass a Hearing Test

【推荐2】William Berloni, 59, is Broadway's dog expert, training and managing dogs for musicals and plays that need a well-behaved dog. He also works on movies and TV shows with all kinds of animals, including cats, pigs, sheep, snakes and rats. His retired (退役的) actors, including 30 dogs that have acted in shows such as “Annie” and “Oliver!” live with him and his wife on a farm in Connecticut.

Berloni's main playmates as a kid were his dog, cat and rabbit, but he says he never thought he would become a professional (职业的) animal trainer. He wanted to be an actor. But while working as an assistant for the pre-Broadway production of “Annie” in 1976, he was given the job of finding a dog to play Sandy.

Berloni visited an animal shelter (收容所), where lost dogs and other pets are kept until they are adopted (收养). Shelters take in a lot of animals — so many that some shelters kill pets that aren't quickly adopted. “I didn't know that animals were killed,” says Berloni, who ended up adopting a dog on the day it was supposed to be put down.

The dog, which Berloni named Sandy, turned out to be a perfect fit for the show after a little training. The pair learned from each other, with Berloni becoming better and better as a trainer. Sandy starred in almost all of the show's 2,377 Broadway performances and enjoyed retirement on Berloni's farm when the production's first Broadway run ended in 1983.

Since then, Berloni has made a point of finding all his dogs at shelters. Nessa is one of his

dogs who plays Toto in “The Wizard of Oz”. After about a year of working together, Berloni and
Nessa are like old friends. She's happy to lie on his leg, even when she's not performing. Nessa gets prizes in return for performing, but “Love is the big motivator (动力),” Berloni says.
1. What do we know about Berloni?

A．He was once a Broadway actor.

B．He is good at dealing with animals.

C．He keeps all kinds of animals on his farm.

D．He wanted to be an animal trainer when he was a child.

2. The underlined phrase “put down” in paragraph 3 can most probably be replaced by_____.

A．rescued out	B．moved down
C．kept in	D．made dead

3. In Berloni's opinion, he builds a good relationship with his dogs mainly because of _____.

A．his professional training	B．the dogs' good state
C．his great care	D．the big prizes

【推荐2】There are stories about two U.S. presidents, Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, which attempt to explain the American English term OK. We don’t know if either story is true，but they are both interesting.
The first explanation is based on the fact that President Jackson had very little education. In fact，he had difficulty reading and writing. When important papers came to Jackson，he tried to read them and then had his assistants explain what they said. If he approved of a paper, he would write “all correct” on it. The problem was that he didn’t know how to spell. So what he really wrote was “ol korekt”. After a while，he shortened that term to “OK”.
The second explanation is based on the place where President Van Buren was born，Kinderhook，New York. Van Bnren’s friends organized a club to help him become President They caned the club the Old Kinderhook Club，and anyone who supported Van Buren was called “OK”.
1. The author____________.

A．believes both of the stories

B．doesn’t believe a word of the stories

C．is not sure whether the stories are true

D．is telling the stories just for fun

2. According to the passage, President Jackson__________.

A．couldn’t draw up any documents at all

B．didn’t like to read important papers by himself

C．often had his assistants sign documents for him

D．wasn’t good at reading，writing or spelling

3. According to the first story, the term “OK”____________.

A．was approved of by President Jackson

B．was the title of some Official documents

C．was first used by President Jackson

D．was an old way to spell “all correct”

4. According to the second story, the term “OK” was first used __________.

A．by Van Buren

B．in a presidential election

C．to organize the Old Kinderhook Club

D．by the members of the ‘‘Old Kinderhook Club”

【推荐3】Mark Twain left school when he was twelve. He had little school education. In spite of this, he became the most famous writer of his time. He made millions of dollars by writing. His real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, but he is better known all over the world as Mark Twain, his pen name.

Mark Twain was born in 1835 and he was not a healthy baby. In fact, he was not expected to live through the first winter. But with his mother's care, he managed to survive. As a boy, he caused much trouble for his parents. He used to play jokes on all his friends and neighbors. He didn't like to go to school, and he often ran away from home. He always went in the direction of the nearby Mississippi. He was nearly drowned nine times.

After his father's death, Mark Twain began to work for a printer, who only provided him with food and clothing. Then, he worked as a printer, a riverboat pilot and later joined the army. But shortly after that he became a miner. During this period, he started to write short stories. Afterwards he became a fulltime writer.

In 1870, Mark Twain got married. In the years that followed he wrote many books including Tom Sawyer in 1876, and Huckleberry Finn in 1884, which made him famous, and brought him great fortune. Unfortunately, Mark Twain got into debts in bad investments (投资) and he had to write large numbers of stories to pay these debts. In 1904, his wife died, and then three of his children passed away. At the age of 70, his hair was completely white. He bought many white suits and neckties. He wore nothing but white from head to foot until his death on April 21,1910.

1. In his childhood, ________.

A．he learned a lot at school

B．he often went swimming with other boys

C．his mother often worried about his safety

D．he often played games with other boys

2. In order to make a living, Mark Twain ________.

A．first worked as a printer	B．did many kinds of work
C．wrote stories in the beginning	D．joined the army after he worked in a mine

3. From the passage we can see that Mark Twain ________.

A．had a happy childhood

B．was a good boy and always did what he was asked

C．was very naughty when he was young

D．lived a pleasant life

4. Before his death，Mark Twain ________.

A．became a white man	B．was in low spirits
C．liked to buy all kinds of clothes	D．had nothing on

【推荐1】With exams just around the comer, now is a good time to explore some of UCL’s lesser-known (鲜为人知的）study spaces and get down to some revision. Here are some good choices for you:

UCL Senate House Hub

UCL Senate House Hub opened in 2015 and provides 144 study spaces. What’s more, you can check how many spaces are available online, before you head to the place. Located on the 3rd floor of the South Block of Senate House, the center has room for individual and group study in traditional library spaces, as well as armchairs and computers.

UCL Eastman Dental Library

The newly-redecorated UCL Eastman Dental Library is located halfway along Gray’s Inn Road and is open from Monday to Friday, 9 am to 8 pm. The library has 72 study spaces and many IT facilities (设备）.The library also has a study room for meetings, and a computer room with a whiteboard.

UCL Language & Speech Science Library

UCL Language & Speech Science Library (LaSS) has disabled access and has recently been redecorated to add extra study spaces. With only 49 spaces, LaSS is smaller than most UCL libraries and tends to fill up quickly, so get there early to avoid disappointment.

Senate House Library

This one may be cheating as Senate House Library is not technically a UCL library. However, all UCL students and staff can register (注册）for free membership online. With millions of books and journals, Senate House Library offers some places which are a little less used by UCL students but perfect for students who want to focus on some hard work.

1. Who are the four places mainly introduced to?

A．Those who loves reading.

B．Those who is preparing for exams.

C．Those who likes learning online.

D．Those who prefers to study in libraries.

2. What should students do online before they go to UCL Senate House Hub?

A．Make an appointment in advance.

B．Check the library’s opening hours.

C．Check whether there are available seats.

D．Check whether there are available armchairs.

3. How many libraries can offer Internet services?

A．Two.

B．Three.

C．Four.

D．Five.

【推荐2】Do you want to experience a small town festival in America? Here are some you can consider going to.

National Cherry Festival

The lovely town of Traverse City, Michigan is famous for cherries, and there’s no better time to visit than during the National Cherry Festival. You have eight days to try pies, pancakes, and many other foods made with the delicious fruit. You can also enjoy concerts, an air show, and amusement rides. It takes place in July in Traverse City, Michigan.

Maine Lobster (龙虾) Festival

Every summer, over 80,000 visitors eat more than 25,000 pounds of lobsters caught fresh in nearby waters. There are also concerts and the world-famous lobster crate race, in which kids and adults compete to see who can run the fastest. It takes place in August in Rockland, Maine.

Wellfleet OysterFest (牡蛎节)

About twenty years ago, the small town of Wellfleet started its annual OysterFest to bring some of the summer crowds back to Cape Cod by putting food, fun, and music on the half shell. Home to one of the world’s great oyster beds, Wellfleet puts on a two-day event that attracts more visitors who come to try oysters nowadays. It takes place in October on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Barbecue Festival

The 19,000 residents of Lexington, North Carolina want the world to know that their hometown has been the capital of barbecue since 1919 when a local resident set up the first BBQ tent. Nowadays when the Barbecue Festival takes over the town’s Main Street, it draws nearly a quarter of a million people. At the festival there are also concerts and other entertainments. It takes place in October in Lexington, North Carolina.

1. At which festival can people of different ages join a competition?

A．Barbecue Festival.

B．Wellfleet OysterFest.

C．Maine Lobster Festival.

D．National Cherry Festival.

2. How does Wellfleet attract more visitors nowadays?

A．By offering cultural activities.

B．By providing fishing trips.

C．By improving its transportation.

D．By making full use of local products.

3. What do we know about the Barbecue Festival?

A．It puts on shows in August.

B．It offers free delicious food.

C．It is very popular among people.

D．It was set up by the government.

【推荐3】Planning a vacation is one activity your family is sure to enjoy as there are plenty of options to choose from. To help you decide, here are four of the best cities for family vacation.

Washington, DC

The nation's capital is a treasure place of fun, family activities that just happen to be rich with history. Start off exploring the National Mall and you'll find the Washington, Lincoln t and Jefferson monuments all within walking distance. Then there are the war memorials: Vietnam, Korean, and WWII.

Boston

Can't get enough US history? A trip to Boston just might be for you. Go back in time by taking a tour of the USS Constitution, aka Old Ironsides. From there, walk The Freedom Trail where you'll come across such landmarks as the site of the Boston Massacre, the Old North Church, Paul Revered house, and the Bunker Hill Monument.

Los Angeles

There is always something to do in Los Angeles. For starters, enjoy a beach day on the miles and miles of coastline. Malibu, Redondo, Manhattan, Venice, and Hermosa are just a handful of sunny SoCal beaches. In need of some culture? Get your art and architecture on at the Getty Center, where admission is free though you do have to pay to park.

San Francisco

If Southern California isn't your speed, perhaps Northern California is. And San Francisco is a great place for a family to explore. Start by driving, or walking, across the Golden Gate Bridge On the west side of the oily is over 1 ,000 acres known as Golden Gate Park, home to gardens, trails, playgrounds and much more.

1. Which is suitable for you if you are interested in some late American presidents?

A．Washington, DC.	B．Boston.
C．Los Angeles.	D．San Francisco.

2. Where should you pay for parking?

A．The Bunker Hill Monument.	B．The Golden Gate Park.
C．The Getty Center.	D．The Freedom Trail.

3. What can you do in San Francisco?

A．Drive across the Golden Gate Park.	B．Enjoy some gardens or playgrounds.
C．Learn some culture and architecture.	D．Visit some famous monuments.