【推荐1】Do you like fishing? Have you ever put a fish back into the water after catching it? What made you decide to do this?

One day, two fishermen were fishing in a pool. Both of them were looking forward to getting a big catch. The first fisherman caught a big and beautiful fish after an hour. He was very happy. He put the fish in his icebox. He would cook it in the afternoon. Soon, the second fisherman also caught a large fish. Surprisingly, he threw it back into the pool. Later, he caught many more big fish. But he only threw them back into the water again and again.

The first fisherman felt strange and asked, "Why are you throwing the fish back into the water? They were beautiful and big!" The second fisherman answered,"I know they were big, but I don't have a pan（平底锅）big enough to cook big fish! So I'm looking for a smaller fish that fits my cooking pan. "The first fisherman was surprised by the answer. He told the second fisherman "I will cut the big fish into smaller pieces to fit them into the small pan."

Many of us are just like the second fisherman. We don't think carefully and this sometimes causes us to lose a chance.

1. What's the function of Paragraph 1?

A．To ask for readers' help.	B．To change readers' hobbies.
C．To attract readers' attention.	D．To test readers' fishing skills.

2. When did the second fisherman catch a fish?

A．After buying a big pan.	B．Next to the first fisherman.
C．On the afternoon of that day.	D．At the very beginning of fishing.

3. How did the first fisherman feel about the second one's action?

A．Shocked.

B．Bored.

C．Pleased.

D．Moved.

4. What can we learn from the story?

A．A chance calls for waiting patiently.	B．To teach fishing is better than to give fish.
C．One can't eat fish and own it at the same time.	D．Chances are for those who are good at thinking.

【推荐2】A young woman one day said something that hurt her best friend of many years. She regretted it immediately and would like to do anything to take the words back. what she had said hurt her friend so much that her woman herself also felt very painful. To make up what she had done, she went to an old wise man in the village and ask for advice.

The old man understood the young woman’s suffering. He know he must help her. He knew he could never remove her pain, but he could teach. And he also knew the result would depend only on her character.

“Tonight, take your best feather pillows and put single feather on the doorstep of each house in the village before the sun rises,” he said.

The young woman hurried home to prepare for it, even though the feather pillows were very dear to her. All night long, she made her efforts alone in the cold. Finally it got light and she places the last feather on the step of the last house. Just as the sun rise, she returned to the old man.

“Now,” said the man, “go back and refill your pillows with the feathers you have put on the steps. Then every thing will be as it was before.”

“You know that’s impossible! The wind blew away each feather as fast as I placed them on the doorsteps!” The young woman was surprised.

“That’s true,” said the old man. “Each of your words is like a feather in the wind. Once your words are spoken, no matter how much effort you make and how sincere you are, you can never return them to your mouth. Choose your words well and protect people you love from being hurt.”

1. According to Paragraph 2, the old man ______.

A．could remove her pain	B．knew a lot about her character
C．refused to teach her	D．decided to help her learn something

2. When did the woman come back to the old man?

A．In the evening	B．At midnight
C．At sunrise	D．In the afternoon

3. After the women came back to him, the old man advised her to ______.

A．put the feathers back to the pillows	B．make some now pillows
C．take away the feathers	D．Find more feathers

4. What can we learn from the story?

A．Taking one’s advice before doing.

B．Thinking carefully before speaking.

C．Asking for advice when you have troubles.

D．Talking to people when you have troubles.

【推荐3】Les Brown was adopted by Mamie Brown, a kitchen worker and maid, shortly after his birth in a poverty-stricken Miami neighborhood. Les had a dream of being a deejay.

Mamie Brown had taught Les to pursue his dreams. Finally, he got a job at a radio station as an errand boy (跑腿的人).

At the station, he taught himself their hand movements on the control panel. He stayed in the control rooms and soaked up whatever he could until they asked him to leave.

One Saturday afternoon while Les was at the station, a deejay named Rock was drinking while on the air. Les realized that Rock was drinking himself toward trouble. When the phone rang, Les rushed to pick it up. It was the station manager, as he knew it would be.

“Les, I don’t think Rock can finish his program.”

“Yes sir, I know.”

“Would you call one of the other deejays to come in and take over?” “Yes, sir. I sure will.”

Les did dial the telephone, but it wasn’t to call in another deejay. He called his mother first, and then his girlfriend. “You all turn on the radio because I’m about to come on the air!” he said.

He turned on the microphone switch and said, “Look out! This is me LB, Les Brown, your Platter Playing Poppa. There were none before me and there will be none after me. Therefore, that makes me the one and only. Young and single and love to mingle. Certified, undoubtedly qualified to bring you satisfaction, a whole lot of action. Look out, baby, I’m your love man.”

Because of his preparation, Les was ready. He earned the audience and his general manager’s   recognition. From that fateful beginning, Les went on to a successful career in broadcasting, politics, public speaking and television.

1. Which of the following can replace the underlined phrase “soaked up” in the third paragraph?

A．Cleared up.

B．Put up.

C．Was stuck in.

D．Was absorbed in.

2. We can learn from the story that Les was ________.

A．hardworking and confident	B．patient and organized
C．intelligent and honest	D．humorous and considerate

3. How did Les get the opportunity to host the programme?

A．The station manager appreciated his hard work and performance at the station.

B．Les applied to the station manager for a chance to be a DJ.

C．The deejay on the air could hardly finish the programme because of drinking.

D．Other deejays were busy and couldn’t come to the station immediately.

4. What may be the best title for the passage?

A．Don’t Sit on Your Talent	B．Prepare for the Chance
C．Challenge Yourself	D．Accept It or Try to Change

【推荐1】Girls do better at school

Around the world, girls do better than boys at school. These are the findings of a recent study that looked at the test results of 1.5 million 15-year-olds in 74 regions across the globe.

The level of gender equality in those regions made no difference to the results. Other causes, such as the income level of the region also had little impact on the findings. In only three regions – Colombia, Costa Rica and the Indian state Himachal Pradesh – was the opposite with boys doing better.

So what are the causes of girls’ stronger performance? In the UK, girls outperform boys in exams that are taken at the age of 15 or 16, called GCSEs(普通中等教育证书). According to education expert Ian Toone, this is down to the way girls and boys are brought up. “Boys are encouraged to be more active from an early age, whereas the restless movements of baby girls are calmed… Hence, girls develop the skill of sitting still for longer periods of time, which is useful for something like studying for GCSEs."

He goes on to say that boys often get together in larger groups than girls. Because of this they are more likely to be influenced by peer(同龄人) pressure and develop a gang mentality (帮派心态). He says that GCSEs require a lot of personal work and are not viewed as 'cool' in a childish culture.

This is backed up by research in the UK that says girls are out-performing boys at the age of five. So what is the answer? Should girls and boys be educated separately? Or do exams and school curricula need to be changed to better reflect boys’ skills? These are the questions facing educators in many countries.

1. What are the two things that made little or no difference to the results?

A．Gender equality and intelligence.

B．Gender equality and income level.

C．Income level and feelings.

D．Income level and intelligence.

2. According to Ian Toone, girls do better at school than boys because girls ______.

A．study harder	B．are cleverer
C．can sit still longer	D．are more restless

3. What does Ian Toone say can influence boys?

A．Gang mentality.	B．Personal work.
C．Peer pressure.	D．Childish culture.

4. What could be changed to include the skills boys have?

A．Exams and school curricula.

B．Ways of education and evaluation.

C．Outdoor activities and performances.

D．Separate education and different curricula.

【推荐3】At one time it was the dream of many little girls to become a nurse.     1     Recently about 2,000,000 nurses are needed and 60 percent of all hospitals in the US have shortages, large enough to threaten the quality of care provided.

What has become of these women in white?     2     One possibility is the fact that women have greater career options. In the past, women who chose to work outside the home had two basic choices: nursing or teaching. Today, more women than ever are in the workforce, but their options have greatly increased.     3    In fact, women today are found in nearly every field of work. Nursing has been left behind, as women move on to jobs with higher pay and greater status. A woman or man in the nursing field is often looked down upon as “merely a nurse”. Teachers may be also at fault.     4    

Americans are living longer than ever and requiring more medical attention.     5     Obviously a larger population requires more nurses. AIDS and other diseases have caused more and more people to need nursing care. Usually fatal（致命的）diseases mean long hospital stay, that is to say, more nurses are needed to care for these patients. It is estimated that the demand for nurses will be doubled the supply in the coming ten years.

A．The answer lies in not one but several causes.

B．Many students are actually away from nursing, told by teachers that they are “too bright to be a nurse”.

C．Today, however, many nurses have lost their jobs and led a poor life.

D．There are women doctors, lawyers, firefighters and police officers.

E．Today, however, America is facing its worst nurse shortage since World War I.

F．Women are treated unfairly when applying for jobs for quite a long time.

G．In fact, the number of elderly patients has almost doubled in the past twenty years.

【推荐1】Walter Osipoff was an experienced parachutist（伞兵）.He had already made more than 20 jumps by May 15 , 1941. That morning, Osipoff trained his soldiers to practice jumps. Three boxes, containing weapons, were also to be parachuted overboard as part of the exercise.

Most of the soldiers had already jumped when Osipoff, standing a few inches from the plane's door, started to push out the last box. Somehow his parachute was suddenly opened. Instead of flowing free, Osipoff’s parachute now wrapped itself around the plane's tail wheel. He was now hanging below the tail of the plane. The soldiers struggled to pull Osipoff to safety, but they could not reach him. The plane was starting to run low on fuel, but an emergency landing with Osipoff dragging behind would certainly kill him. And pilots had no radio contact with the ground. To attract attention below, they eased the transport plane down to 300 feet and started circling the airport.

Meanwhile, Bill Lowrey and John McCants saw the trouble at the same time. As the plane circled once again, Lowrey yelled to McCants, “We must save him!” Lowrey's plane took off quickly. Within minutes, they made five approaches, but the air proved too bumpy（颠簸）to try for a rescue. Lowrey flew back once again and edged the plane closer. McCants, standing upright in the back, reached for Osipoff. He grabbed him at the waist and pulled Osipoff into the plane. Lowrey then nosed his plane inch by inch closer to the transport and used his propeller（螺旋桨）to cut the parachute lines. After hanging for 33 minutes between life and death, Osipoff was finally free.

Three weeks later, Lowrey and McCants were awarded for accomplishing “one of the most brilliant and daring rescues in history". Osipoff spent the next six months in hospital. The following January, he went back to parachute jumping.

1. What happened to Walter Osipoff on May 15,1941 ?

A．He was trapped in a skydiving incident.

B．He threw weapon containers by mistake.

C．His soldiers refused to practice parachuting.

D．His parachute failed because of his carelessness.

2. Why did the transport plane circle the airport?

A．To inform the ground crew to refuel for it.

B．To warn other planes to keep away from it.

C．To show the dangerous situation to the ground.

D．To tell the ground to receive weapon containers.

3. How did Lowrey and McCants perform the rescue?

A．They pushed Osipoff back into the plane.

B．They boarded the transport plane to help.

C．They flew under Osipoff* s plane to free him.

D．They guided the transport plane to land safely.

4. What did people think of Lowrey and McCants' behavior?

A．Fearless.

B．Subjective.

C．Confidential.

D．Tentative.

【推荐3】“Your password has expired,” a message said on my screen, with instructions for changing it. Coming up with a new code doesn’t seem like a big deal, unless you work at my company, where we have to change it monthly, using at least one uppercase character, one lowercase character, one symbol, and one number. Oh, the whole password can’t be fewer than eight characters. And I can’t use any of the same passwords I’ve used in the past three months.

Suddenly I was very angry. What didn’t make it any better was that I was deeply depressed after my recent divorce. Disbelief about what she had done to me was all I thought about. Every day.

I remembered a tip I’d heard from my former boss. He’d said: “I’m going to use a password to change my life.” I couldn’t focus on getting things done in my current mood. There were clear signs of what I needed to do to get control of my life again.

My password became the sign. My password reminded me that I shouldn’t let myself be a victim of my recent breakup and that I was strong enough to do something about it.

I made my password Forgive@h3r. I had to type this several times a day. The simple action changed the way I looked at my ex-wife. That constant reminder led me to accept the way things had happened and find a new way of dealing with my depression. As the month wore on, I felt a slow healing begin to happen. By the time my server asked me to reset my password the following month, I felt free.

One month later, my dear Exchange server asked me yet again to reset my password. I thought about the next thing that I had to get done. My password became Quit@smoking4ever. I quit smoking overnight. This password was a painful one to type during that month, but doing it helped me to yell at myself in my mind as I typed that statement. It motivated me to follow my monthly goal. One month later, my password became Save4trip@thailand. Guess where I went three months later: Thailand.

Seeing how these reminders helped to achieve my goals kept me motivated and excited. While it’s something difficult to come up with your next goal, keeping at it brings great results.

1. What does the word “expired” underlined in the 1st paragraph refer to?

A．been renewed

B．changed

C．been mistaken

D．become due

2. Which of the following passwords meets the author’s company’s requirements?

A．buy@1ticket

B．See@h3r

C．Course4$Saving

D．Dream4future

3. What can be inferred about the author according to the text?

A．He finally recovered well from his divorce.

B．He started smoking to heal his broken heart.

C．He saved enough money to have 4 trips in Thailand.

D．He was always angry about his company’s requirements for passwords.

4. What would be the best title of the text?

A．Never to be a victim of others’ faults	B．To motivate yourself by setting your goals
C．How to come up with a new password	D．A new way of dealing with my depression