Watching the red lanterns is one of the main traditions. Lanterns of different shapes and sizes are usually put on trees, or along river banks on show. It is said that sky lanterns were first used by Zhuge Kongming to ask for help when he was in trouble. Today, when the lanterns slowly rise into the air, people make wishes.
Another tradition is guessing lantern riddles. The riddles are usually short, wise, and sometimes humorous. The answer to a riddle can be a Chinese character, a famous person's name, or a place name.
The most important thing is to eat sweet dumplings with different tastes. In northern China, they are called yuan xiao while in southern part they're named tangyuan. Because making sweet dumplings is like a game or an activity, they are usually done happily by a group of friends or family members.
In old times, the Lantern Festival was also romantic. Watching lanterns gave young people a chance to meet each other. A line from Xin Qiji a poet during the Song Dynasty, shows this;
Hundreds and thousands of times I searched for her in the crowed. Suddenly I turned，and there she stood，in the dim light.
1. What were sky lanterns first used for by Zhuge Kongming in ancient times?
| A．Making wishes. | B．Celebrating birthdays. |
| C．Playing games | D．Asking for help. |
| A．boring | B．humorous | C．romantic | D．popular |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Have you ever eaten at a restaurant that serves Western food? If so, do you remember what the menu looked like? Western restaurant menus are quite different from Chinese restaurant ones.
Most Western restaurant menus do not have as many pictures as Chinese ones do—with a picture, you can tell what is in a dish. In some expensive Western restaurants, a menu may not have any pictures at all.
But most Western menus show a list of ingredients (原料) for each dish. If you order a burger, the menu might tell you that the burger has cheese, ketchup and mustard (芥末). The menu can also tell you how the food is cooked, for example, whether it is fried or steamed (蒸).
Western restaurants use many different methods to design their menus and make them more attractive. In fact, there is a whole industry called “menu making”, according to the BBC. Menu makers are experts at designing menus. Their menus can increase sales and influence customers’ thoughts.
A well-designed menu can encourage customers to eat certain dishes. It can even make them believe that your restaurant’s food is of higher quality, even if they haven’t eaten the food yet.
For example, using descriptive (描述性的) words like “juicy” or “cheesy” can help dishes sell better. Instead of just writing “steak (牛排)” in their menu, a restaurant might write “sizzling steak”. This makes the steak sound more delicious.
Also, it is known that people pay the most attention to items at the top of a page. This is the best place for dishes that you want to order.
As you can see, menus are not just simple lists of food!
1. How are different between Western restaurant menus and Chinese menus?| A．Chinese menus with easy pictures. | B．Western menus with small pictures. |
| C．Chinese menus with easy pictures and ingredients. | D．Western menus with less or without pictures. |
| A．How Western people make their menus. | B．Why Western menus have no pictures. |
| C．Why Western menus list ingredients for each dish. | D．What Western menus are like. |
| A．鲜嫩 | B．热度 | C．价格 | D．质量 |
| A．It is easy to design a successful Western menu. |
| B．A well-designed menu can attract more customers. |
| C．Good menus depend on how well each dish is described. |
| D．Dishes at the top of a menu page are the most delicious ones. |
【推荐2】Americans and Chinese have quite different views about how to treat friends.
Friendships between Americans can be close and real, yet disappear soon. They don’t feel hurt. If the same two people meet again, even years later, they pick up the friendship. This can be quite difficult for us Chinese to understand. Friendships between us develop more slowly but may become lifelong feelings, extending deeply into both families.
There is another difficult point for us to understand. Although Americans treat friends warmly in their personal everyday lives, they don’t show their politeness to them if they are asked to spend a lot of time staying with friends. But in China, we are usually generous with our time. We, as hosts, will appear at an airport even in the middle of the night to meet a friend. We may take days off from our work with a visitor outside their daily plans. It is opposite in America, Americans can’t manage the time to do a great deal with a visitor outside their daily plans. They will probably expect the visitors to get to the hotels by themselves, and expect the visitors to phone them there. Once the visitors arrive at their homes, the welcome will be full, warm and real.
For Americans, it is often considered more friendly to invite friends to their homes than to restaurants, except for business matters. Americans are ready to receive us foreigners at their homes, share their holidays, and their home life. So accept their hospitality (款待) at home and enjoy your visit in America!
根据短文内容，判断下列句子正（T）误（F）。
1. Chinese people’s friendships develop more slowly but keep much longer.
2. Americans enjoy staying with friends for a long time in their daily lives.
3. In China, it is polite to take days off to treat friends who come from other places.
4. Whenever you arrive in America and phone your American friend, he will be pleased to meet you at the airport.
5. Americans think inviting friends for dinner at home is more friendly than doing that in restaurants.
Many students experienced the same thing as Chen. They got their gift money, only to immediately have it taken away.
Xiong Shengyue, 14, from Nanjing, doesn't agree with the practice. "I think the money should be the children's, " she said. " We should take care of it by ourselves."
It is not that simple, said Chu Chaohui, a researcher at national Institute of Education Sciences.
Giving gift money is used to show social status (地位)and develop relationships, he told Beijing Legal Evening News. Gift money has lost its traditional meaning of good will and has "little to do with the children". What's more, children don't earn the money through work. So he thought that parents should still play a big part in dealing with the money.
But Yan Honglan, a mother of a 14-year-old boy in Beijing, has let her son be responsible (承担责任的)for his gift money since the age of 8. "I want to develop his financial(理财) skills, ' Yan said.
She also added:"No matter how you deal with the money, the most important thing is to make the children feel they're respected(尊重) and trusted.
Chen supported Yan's idea. She said that though she knew her grandmother wouldn't waste her gift money, she would feel happier if she could at least know how the money is spent.
"It would make me feel a little bit more grown-up," she said.
1. Chen Jie’s grandmother ________.
| A．took away all her money and put it in a bank | B．let her take care of all her money |
| C．gave all her money to her parents | D．spent all her money |
| A．children | B．grandmother | C．parents | D．friends |
| A．to make children feel a little bit more grown-up |
| B．to take care of the gift money by themselves |
| C．to put the gift money in a bank account |
| D．to make the children feel they're respected and trusted. |
| A．Chen Jie got 3600 yuan as reward this Spring Festival. |
| B．Xiong Shengyue thought children should take care of the gift money. |
| C．Chu Chaohui thought parents shouldn’t play a big party in dealing with the money. |
| D．Yan Honglan has let her son be responsible for his gift money since the age of 9. |
【推荐1】Chopsticks play an important part in Chinese food culture. Chopsticks are called “Kuaizi” in Chinese and were called “Zhu” in ancient times. Chinese people have been using “Kuaizi” for more than 3000 years.
It was written in Liji that chopsticks were used in the Shang Dynasty (王朝). It was said in one Chinese history book that Zhou, the last king of the Shang Dynasty, used ivory (象牙) chopsticks. Experts believe the history of wood or bamboo chopsticks can go back to about 1000 years earlier than ivory chopsticks. Gold and silver chopsticks became popular in the Tang Dynasty.
Chopsticks can be divided into different groups, such as wood, metal, bone, stone chopsticks. Bamboo and wood chopsticks are the most popular ones used in Chinese homes.
There are a few things to be careful about when using chopsticks. Chinese people usually don’t beat their bowls while eating, since the act used to be practised by beggars. Also don’t put chopsticks in a bowl because it is a custom only used in sacrifice (祭祀). If you are really interested in chopsticks, you may want to visit the Kuaizi Museum in Shanghai. The museum has collected over 1000 pairs of chopsticks. The oldest one is from the Tang Dynasty.
1. What are the most popular chopsticks in Chinese homes?| A．Gold and silver chopsticks. | B．Ivory chopsticks. |
| C．Bamboo and wood chopsticks. | D．Stone chopsticks. |
| A．Ivory chopsticks, bamboo chopsticks, gold chopsticks. |
| B．Bamboo chopsticks, ivory chopsticks, gold chopsticks. |
| C．Gold chopsticks, bamboo chopsticks, ivory chopsticks. |
| D．Gold chopsticks, ivory chopsticks, bamboo chopsticks. |
| A．Chopsticks were called “Kuaizi” in ancient times. |
| B．“Kuaizi” and “Zhu” are the same. |
| C．All people used gold chopsticks in the Tang Dynasty. |
| D．Chinese people beat their bowls with chopsticks while eating. |
| A．How to Use Chopsticks | B．Useful Chopsticks |
| C．Chinese Food Culture | D．History of Chopsticks |
When you use a knife and fork, you have to take the knife with your right hand and the fork with your left hand, or you can’t put food into your mouth. But with chopsticks, you can solve the eating problems with just one hand.
Chopsticks were called zhu or jia in ancient China. It is said that they were invented by Da Yu, who successfully controlled the heavy flood. One day he was busy dealing with the flood. In order to save time when eating, he used two sticks from a tree to take the hot food. That was how chopsticks came into use.
In fact, the earliest chopsticks found in China were made of bronze (青铜), which were unearthed from Yinxu in Anyang city, Henan province.
Many people probably haven’t realized the cultural meanings of chopsticks.
The influence of Chinese culture has stretched (延伸) far and wide.
根据短文内容，从下面七个选项中选择五个还原到文中。
| A．Besides, chopsticks are used in pairs. |
| B．It’s convenient and efficient (有效率的). |
| C．It was one of the legends about chopsticks. |
| D．You should not point your chopsticks at others while eating. |
| E．At least 1.8 billion people are using chopsticks around the world. |
| F．They are regarded as one of the symbols of Chinese food culture. |
| G．Chopsticks are usually made of bamboo, wood, metal and other materials. |
Clean, bright and shining-snow is very beautiful. It inspires excitement for the holidays and hometowns for childhood. But these aren’t the only things that snow shows.
Snow is often a symbol of purity (纯洁) in English literature. Shakespeare uses snow as a metaphor (隐喻) for purity in many of his plays. Another is in the name of the famous fairy tale character, Snow White.
But Chinese people probably like snow more than people from any other country in the world. There are many Chinese cultures that are connected with snow. Snow has reminded people of white jade (玉) in China. People believe that, just like one of the country’s favorite treasures, snow also shows purity.
Chinese people especially like the first snow of each year. A heavy snow will give children a natural playground. It also covers the winter wheat with a thick quilt of snow that keeps it warm. In addition, snow in warm weather can moisturize the land. That’s why people say “Rui Xue Zhao Feng Nian”. It means that a heavy snow promises a fruitful year.
A lot of famous ancient Chinese masters loved painting snow, such as Fan Kuan (Northern Song dynasty), Guo Xi (Northern Song dynasty), Zhao Yong (Yuan dynasty) and so on.
In modern times, landscape (风景) painters further develop the skills of snow painting. They have made it an independent type of Chinese landscape painting. Chinese snow landscape paintings mainly show the heavy snow of the northern parts of China.
Artists like painting snow landscapes because snow is connected with their soul. They paint snow not to show the coldness of the snowy world. Instead, they want to express their mood through painting. In a world of whiteness, all the dirty things seem to have disappeared. It is a symbol of the painter’s high moral principle (道德准则).
1. Which of the following shows that snow is a symbol of purity?a. Metaphor in Shakespeare’s plays b. Snow white
c. Chinese white jade d. The first snow
| A．a.b.d | B．b.c.d | C．a.b.c | D．a.c.d |
| A．Heat. | B．Water. | C．Cool. | D．Warm. |
| A．many ancient Chinese masters had great spirits |
| B．landscape painters love snow more than themselves |
| C．all the dirty things certainly disappear in the snow |
| D．artists only want to show their mood through painting |
| A．Snow is a symbol of the high moral principle. |
| B．Whoever they are, people always love snow. |
| C．People around the world like to paint snow. |
| D．Mood could be reflected with the help of snow. |
【推荐1】Do you know how to cook, clean or grow vegetables? Do you know the skills of raising chickens or fixing the washing machine in your home? If not, don’t worry, because Chinese primary and middle school students will learn to do these soon.
A new standard(标准) for labor(劳动) education has recently came out. Students in primary and middle school will have at least one class a week to experience different kinds of labor so as to learn different life skills and even job skills.
In order to develop students’ all-around abilities, students from different grades are asked to complete various tasks(任务), from cooking to growing vegetables, and from school labor classes to community volunteer services. For example, students from Grade 3 and Grade 4 will learn how to wash their own clothes, help clean the classroom and even try planting vegetables. Fifth- and sixth-graders will learn to cook two or three common dishes and plant at least two kinds of vegetables. As for middle school students, in addition to cooking meals on their own, they also need to learn fixing some machines, do some voluntary work in the community and even make one or two traditional handicrafts. These courses make teachers and students quiet interested.
This move can greatly enrich Chinese students’ life and hopefully build their character through labor. Compared to students from the US, Chinese students haven’t paid enough attention to the courses which require hands-on ability. According to a 2019 report, Chinese kids only do 12 minutes of practical activity each day, while US kids do 1.2 hours each day, China Daily reported. Meanwhile, the standard also calls on families to take part in students’ labor education. They will make housework lists to help students be more independent. Hopefully, students can take care of themselves better in the future.
1. Why does the author raise two questions in Paragraph 1?| A．To lead out the topic. |
| B．To tell an interesting story. |
| C．To explain what labor education is. |
| D．To require readers to answer the questions. |
| A．Simple. | B．Different. | C．Boring. | D．Time-wasting. |
| A．1. | B．2. | C．3. | D．4. |
| A．Parents should play a role in labor education. |
| B．Students of different grades will learn the same skills. |
| C．Chinese students will do 1.2 hours of practical activity each day. |
| D．Chinese students do more practical activity than American students. |
| A．What life skills we should learn. |
| B．Where we can receive this education. |
| C．Why we should have labor education. |
| D．How we can enrich Chinese students’ life. |
【推荐2】These days, reading the news on the Internet isn’t as easy as before. Many things are there to trick people. So, it’s hard to get the right information. Sometimes, people can’t even tell real news stories from advertisements (广告). The best way to fix it is to become Internet smart. Here are some tips to help you.
First, check the website. Make sure it’s from a real newspaper or news magazine. You can trust those to have real news. Second, look at the story itself. It should have a headline that tells you what the story is about. There should be another line under that. That’s the byline (署名行), and it has the writer’s name and the date of the story. If that isn’t there, the story might not be true.
Stories without bylines may look like real news stories. Sometimes, they have the words of “sponsored content (推广内容).” That means somebody paid for that information to appear. In other words, they are advertisements. Companies use them to attract readers to stories and buy their products.
Sponsored content fools many people. So do some pictures and videos. Those can also be advertisements and take you to other websites. If the pictures are too crazy to be true, they’re probably fake. News sites also have different parts for different kinds of news. If the stories are in the opinion part, be careful. Opinions are not facts, and the information may just be the writers’thoughts and feelings.
Remember, you can avoid all these tricks by being Internet smart.
1. How does the writer start the passage?| A．By telling a story. | B．By comparing two facts. |
| C．By describing the situation. | D．By giving a question. |
| A．正文 | B．标题 | C．插图 | D．排版 |
| A．The news that has the writer’s whole name and the date. |
| B．The news story that includes a headline and a byline. |
| C．Advertisements with crazy pictures and videos. |
| D．All the stories in the opinion part on a news site. |
| A．Because you have to pay for it before you read. |
| B．Because it doesn’t have a headline or a byline. |
| C．Because it could be some writers’ personal opinion. |
| D．Because it may trick you into reading advertisements. |
| A．How to judge real news stories on the Internet. | B．What useful things we can do on the Internet. |
| C．Where we can get real news on the Internet. | D．Why we have to avoid all tricks online. |
This book is Sleep to Win! by Dr. James Maas and Haley Davis. In this book, you can find out how getting more sleep helped fifteen-year-old Sarah Hughes win an Olympic gold medal. She said the biggest change she mad e in her training for the Olympics was getting more sleep. Sleep to Win! also gives examples of other professional athletes as well as student athletes becoming faster runners because of getting more sleep. For example, after Amber Way, a high school student in Michigan, changed her sleeping time from seven to over nine hours each night, her running speed increased a lot. She finally became the state champion (州冠军) after breaking five school records.
Dr. Haley Davis explained, “Why is sleeping so helpful? The reason is that teenagers whose bodies are still growing need to get about 9.25 hours of sleep each night. That’s about two hours more than most American teenagers are getting. Enough sleep helps the brain work properly. While teenagers are sleeping, their brains are preparing for the next day. A good night’s sleep can help them pay attention, make decisions and be creative.”
1. Who is an Olympic champion?
| A．Dr. James Maas. |
| B．Dr. Haley Davis. |
| C．Sarah Hughes. |
| D．Amber Way. |
| A．young athletes |
| B．the authors |
| C．hard-working students |
| D．great coaches |
| A．7 | B．7.25 | C．9 | D．9.25 |
| A．适当地 | B．永久地 | C．独立地 | D．不断地 |
| A．Training hard. |
| B．Having a good coach. |
| C．Never giving up. |
| D．Getting enough sleep. |
【推荐1】Fish and apple soup? Yes, and you won't believe how delicious it is. This first came out of a restaurant in Singapore, but it is now very popular as the soup du jour(例汤)in Chinese restaurants.
Ingredients(serves 4)：
1 whole fish
2 apples, quartered
4～6 ginger slices(姜片)
1 bunch of spring onions, cut into pieces
1 red tomato, cut into 8 pieces
Oil, salt and pepper
Methods：
1. Remove the bones from the fish.
2. Pour oil into a pan. Fry the ginger slices and the spring onions. Add the fish bones and fry.
3. Add enough water and boil it for about 15 to 20 minutes.
4. Add the apples, the fish and the tomato. When the apples go soft, add salt and pepper.
1. This passage is probably ________.
| A．a poem | B．a piece of news |
| C．a story | D．a recipe |
| A．Singapore. | B．China. |
| C．Japan. | D．America. |
| A．榨汁 | B．切成四份 |
| C．洗净 | D．剁碎 |
| A．apples, fish and the tomato→ginger slices and spring onions→oil→fish bones |
| B．oil → fish bones→ginger slices and spring onions→apples, fish and the tomato |
| C．oil→ginger slices and spring onions→fish bones→apples, fish and the tomato |
| D．ginger slices and spring onions→fish bones→apples, fish and the tomato→oil |
【推荐2】Some time ago I discovered that one of my chairs had a broken leg. I didn’t think there would be any difficulty in getting it repaired, as there are a lot of antique (古董) shops near my home. So I left home one morning carrying the chair with me. I went into the first shop expecting a friendly reception(接待). I was quite wrong. The man wouldn’t even look at my chair.
The second shop, though slightly more polite, was just the same, and the third and the fourth--so I decided that my way must be wrong.
I entered the fifth shop with a plan in my mind. I placed the chair on the floor and said to the shopkeeper, “Would you like to buy a chair?” He looked it over carefully and said, “Yes, not a bad chair. How much do you want for it, sir?” “Twenty pounds,” I said. “OK,” he said, “I’ll give you twenty pounds.” “It’s got a slightly broken leg,” I said. “Yes, I saw that, it’s nothing.”
Everything was going according to my plan and l was getting excited. “What will you do with it?” I asked. “Oh, it will be easy to sell once the repair is done.” “I’ll buy it,” I said. “What do you mean? You’ve just sold it to me,” he said. “Yes, I know but I’ve changed my mind. I am sorry. I’ll give you twenty-seven pounds for it.” “You must be crazy,” he said. Then, suddenly the penny dropped. “I know what you want. You want me to repair your chair.” “You’re right,” I said. “And what would you have done if I had walked in and said, ‘Would you repair this chair for me?’” “I wouldn’t have agreed to do it,” he said. “We don’t do repairs, not enough money in it and too much trouble. But I’II repair this for you. Shall we say for five pounds?” He was a very nice man and was greatly amused by the whole thing.
1. We can learn from the text that in the first shop the writer .| A．was rather impolite | B．was warmly received |
| C．asked the shopkeeper to buy his chair | D．asked the shopkeeper to repair his chair |
| A．changed his mind | B．accepted the offer |
| C．saw the writer’s purpose | D．decided to help the writer |
| A．￡5. | B．￡7. | C．￡20. | D．￡27. |
| A．careful | B．honest | C．funny | D．smart |
【推荐3】In this age of Facebook and Twitter, we are all supposed to have hundreds of friends. But in fact most of us have just two close friends — down from an average(平均水平) of three 25 years ago, a study says.
Researchers (研究者) say there is no need to worry about that. Instead, they say that while some of us may be getting “more vulnerable (脆弱的)”, many are becoming better at deciding who is their close friend.
The result seems unexpected. Because a lot of young people are trying to make as many “friends” as possible on the Internet.
According to Facebook, the average user usually has 130 friends, but many of these are people who are known by accident or people the user will never meet in real life.
But the researcher, Mr. Brashears says, although the circle(圈子) of friends is getting smaller, which may make us more vulnerable, we’re not as “lonely” as the result shows.
For his study, Mr. Brashears did a survey in more than 2,000 adults aged 18 and older. He found that, modern discussion networks have been smaller in size. It is the same as other researchers’ findings, but few people have become lonelier.
Researchers asked people to list the names of people they had discussed important matters with over the past six months. About 48% of them listed one name, 18 % listed two, and about 29% listed more than two names for these close friends.
On average, one person had 2.03 close friends. And just over 4% of them didn’t list any names.
1. According to the study, how many close friends do most of us have?| A．25. | B．2. | C．3. |
| A．有趣 | B．令人兴奋 | C．意外 |
| A．The Facebook user never meet some Facebook friends in real life. |
| B．The average user usually has 310 friends. |
| C．Facebook friends are all old and close friends. |
| A．giving advice | B．telling stories | C．listing numbers |
| A．Many people are worrying about their circle of friends. |
| B．Researchers find many people have only two close friends. |
| C．Young people make as many friends as possible on the Internet. |
