1 . J. K. Rowling frequently shows there is magic every day. Her Harry Potter series has helped people through times of stress and depression and she is always there to deliver wise words of encouragement.
She is one celebrity who is very active on Twitter. So when a single dad named Matt Burke sent her a message thanking her for the series, she noticed. Her series had helped strengthen his relationship with his 9yearold daughter Bailey.
He included a link to his article titled Being a Broke Parent. He explained how he hadn’t found a level of financial stability that allowed him to pay bills on time and take his daughter on more activities and events. The family also doesn’t have the Internet or TV, which means there’s no “digital babysitter” and he has to rely on his own creative ways to bond with his daughter. Since he received the series, the main thing that has occupied them these days is reading books together.
Burke admits that he thought he was “too cool” for the books when they first came out and he was in his twenties, but he’s loving reading them now. “We switch off chapter by chapter reading them out loud，“Burke explains.” This not only allows her to get more used to reading aloud in front of someone, but it gets me directly involved in something she loves, and it gives me the chance to be very dramatic when I read my chapters and bring myself into the characters in the book, which has proven to be a ton of fun.”
After hearing Burke’s story, Rowling said how honored she was when Harry Potter was a part of his family’s life and offered Burke more books. Besides, people are also offering to send Burke more books as gifts. For Burke, this experience, far more than gifts, will be what he treasures.
1. Why did Burke thank J. K. Rowling according to the text?| A．She guided him how to write a good story. |
| B．She encouraged him when he was in trouble. |
| C．Her books helped him through times of confusion. |
| D．Her books helped him improve his bond with his daughter. |
| A．He has found it interesting to read the series. | B．He was too old to understand the series better. |
| C．He has chosen a better way of reading the series. | D．He hopes to play a role in the drama in the future. |
| A．Useless. | B．Normal. | C．Valuable. | D．Boring. |
| A．J. K. Rowling chooses to help improve kids’ health. |
| B．J. K. Rowling gives a magical gift to a single father. |
| C．J. K. Rowling has a deep influence on others’ growth. |
| D．Burke comes to know J. K. Rowling through her series. |
2 . T. S. Eliot wrote of “Distracted from distraction by distraction /Filled with fancies and empty of meaning.” T. S. Eliot never had a smartphone.
Neither did I for a long time. No Facebook account; not even email. But according to my date of manufacture, I’m supposed to be a digital native. Perhaps it’s because by the age of 20 I was living in the Welsh countryside with no signal and no Wi-Fi.
When I finally fell into the digital world, I fell hard. Unlike my friends for whom social media and mobile technology had grown and flowered around them, for me it was a sudden immersion. I got Facebook, Twitter and Gmail accounts at the same time that I got an iPhone 4. I would check my phone; five minutes later I would check my phone again. I was addicted and it started to affect my relationships with friends and family
One night, without a word, I abandoned my iPhone and bought a Nokia 3310 and became the talk of the town. Soon I became aware that not only had I stolen secret time back from the hurried days, but somehow a secret space as well. I could stretch out, free to think again, to be wholly creative and to learn meaningfully.
But, wherever I went I got bloody lost. Wandering blindly around London, only to miss appointments, became a frequent pastime (消遣). What did we do before Google Maps? I was useless. The change was worth it, though. I’ll sound like an overstatement but I think it changed my life. My choices are broader and healthier because I’m not being screamed at all day.
I bought a new Samsung phone last week. I had been scared of the rate of progress, crying: “Stop the train! Stop the madness.” But I want to be part of building the future, and to do that, you’ve got to swim in contemporary waters. Rejecting the modern world doesn’t help anyone. It slows you down and I need to be efficient. Time will tell whether I’ve mastered the wisdom to reject constantly checking my phone.
1. What can be learned about the author when she lived in the Welsh countryside?| A．She read a lot of T. S. Eliot. | B．She had no friends to talk with. |
| C．She had no access to the Internet. | D．She was afraid of the digital world. |
| A．She thought she needed a spare phone. | B．She found her iPhone stopped working. |
| C．She wanted to attract people’s attention. | D．She hoped to break her smartphone addiction. |
| A．She led a simple and healthy life. | B．She found her life was in a mess. |
| C．She spent more time with her friends. | D．She became an example for other people. |
| A．To seek wisdom. | B．To stop her madness. |
| C．To keep pace with the times. | D．To get back to the real world. |
3 . Pat Patterson, a pilot for 25 years, had never met anyone like the handsome young man in the wheelchair who faced him at the Medford, Oregon, airport on July 28, 1976. Mike Henderson, a quadriplegic (四肢瘫痪者), wanted flying lessons.
As a 22-year-old Coast Guardsman eight years before, Henderson had fallen off a dock and landed on a floating log, breaking two of his bones. Doctors said that he would probably never walk again, let alone fly. “Here was this doctor telling me how it was going to be,” he says, “but no one was going to limit my freedom to try.”
Henderson parked his wheelchair next to the airplane and began to climb up onto the wing. He injured his elbow on the way, and after a great struggle, finally managed to pull himself into the airplane’s pilot’s seat. In the flight office, Pat Patterson watched in disbelief. “He crawled his way up that wing!” he says. “It took him 45 minutes. When I went out, he was sitting in the pilot’s seat, bleeding from his injured elbow all over the place. When I saw him go through that much pain, I knew nothing could stop him.”
Now everything was up to the instructor and the student, and together they set about solving each problem as it arose. A small piece of carpet gave Henderson traction (摩擦力) to climb the slippery wing. A headset freed his hands from the radio microphone, and the two men developed a moving bar that enabled Henderson to operate the airplane more easily.
Three weeks and eight flying hours after the first lesson, Henderson and Patterson happily phoned Dr. Stoddard — Henderson’s physician. At the airport, as the physician looked on, Henderson quickly wheeled himself around the airplane, doing a thorough, professional ground check. With Patterson and Dr. Stoddard on board, he went through his preflight instrument check. Minutes later, engine starting, the plane rolled down the runway and took off into the gray sky.
1. When did Mike Henderson become disabled?| A．At the age of 25. | B．In 1968. |
| C．At the age of 30. | D．In 1976. |
| A．Depressed. | B．Experienced. |
| C．Determined. | D．Delighted. |
| A．How Patterson and Henderson overcame the difficulties together. |
| B．How Patterson helped Henderson overcome the difficulties. |
| C．How Patterson taught Henderson to fly with difficulty. |
| D．The difficulties Henderson faced before flying. |
| A．Patterson didn’t want to teach Henderson at first. |
| B．Henderson finally succeeded in flying alone. |
| C．Patterson was very strict with Henderson. |
| D．Henderson went through a lot of difficulties. |
4 . Several months ago, a tornado fiercely hit our city without any signs before. We hadn’t
Never did I imagine that we would put our regular
I couldn’t
Because of the tornado, I realized that my job as a teacher meant a lot. Behind every well-behaved students are a long line of teachers who have made it their life’s
| A．paid | B．searched | C．accounted | D．prepared |
| A．agency | B．education | C．emergency | D．selection |
| A．suddenly | B．finally | C．secretly | D．immediately |
| A．games | B．trainings | C．languages | D．saving |
| A．mixed up | B．stood out | C．lined up | D．spoken out |
| A．fear | B．anger | C．shame | D．shock |
| A．encounter | B．comfort | C．satisfy | D．praise |
| A．problem | B．result | C．success | D．reason |
| A．hate | B．expect | C．see | D．approach |
| A．simple | B．ideal | C．scary | D．strange |
| A．follow | B．provide | C．repeat | D．change |
| A．fortunate | B．honest | C．confident | D．brave |
| A．trust | B．pride | C．interest | D．growth |
| A．reward | B．power | C．wisdom | D．goal |
| A．chances | B．challenges | C．adventures | D．discussions |
5 . I often read of incidents of misunderstanding or conflict. I’m left
I was growing up in Kuala Lumpur in the early 1960s, when children from different races and religions played and studied together
One spring afternoon in 1983, I stopped a taxi in Kuala Lumpur. When I
If we can allow our children to be themselves without prejudice, they’ll build friendships with people
| A．fascinated | B．curious | C．frustrated | D．puzzled |
| A．parties | B．nationalities | C．regions | D．races |
| A．at random | B．in harmony | C．on occasion | D．by turns |
| A．cast | B．drop | C．flight | D．roll |
| A．embraced | B．removed | C．sought | D．defended |
| A．paid | B．preserved | C．meant | D．treated |
| A．get through | B．come across | C．deal with | D．run into |
| A．absence | B．choice | C．effort | D．company |
| A．stated | B．traced | C．decided | D．ordered |
| A．instructions | B．attempts | C．intentions | D．arrangements |
| A．similarly | B．strangely | C．familiarly | D．dramatically |
| A．departures | B．decades | C．years | D．months |
| A．infection | B．affection | C．motivation | D．homesickness |
| A．let alone | B．according to | C．rather than | D．regardless of |
| A．from | B．with | C．by | D．against |
6 . Many people have difficulty in getting up in the morning. This might be called laziness, but Dr. Kleitman has a new explanation. He has proved that everyone has a daily energy cycle.
During the hours when you work, you may say that you’re “hot”. That’s true. The time of day when you feel most energetic is when your cycle of body temperature is at its peak (顶峰). For some people the peak comes during the morning. For others it comes in the afternoon or evening. No one has discovered why this is so, but it leads to such familiar words as: “Get up, John! You’ll be late for work again!” The possible explanation to the trouble is that John is at his temperature-and-energy peak in the evening. Much family quarrelling ends when husbands and wives realize what these energy cycles mean, and which cycle each member of the family has.
You can’t change your energy cycle, but you can learn to make your life fit it better. Habit can help, Dr. Kleitman believes. Maybe you’re sleepy in the evening but feel you must stay up late anyway. If so, staying up later than you want to may counteract your cycle in some way. If our energy is low in the morning but you have an important job to do early in the day, rise before your usual hour. This won’t change your cycle, but you’ll get steam and work better at your low point.
Get off to a slow start which saves your energy. Get up with a comfortable yawn and stretch. Sit on the edge of the bed for a minute before putting your feet on the floor. Avoid the troublesome search for clean clothes by laying them out the night before.
1. Dr. Kleitman explains that a person is difficult to get up in the morning probably because of ________.| A．his own laziness. | B．his bad rest at night. |
| C．his own habit . | D．his own energy cycle. |
| A．in the morning . | B．in the evening. |
| C．in the afternoon . | D．at different hours. |
| A．Family. | B．Energy cycle. | C．Good habit. | D．Change. |
| A．do your work at the energy peak. | B．manage to control your temper. |
| C．work at the bottom of energy cycle. | D．manage to keep you clean all day. |
7 . Research suggests public support for spanking (打屁股) has been falling over the years. But surveys also show that 75 percent to nearly 90 percent of parents admit spanking their child at least once.
I was raised in a zero-tolerance home for disrespect, and my parents often turned to physical punishment. And, no, I don’t feel I was damaged by it.
Nothing is more annoying than watching ill-mannered behavior from children.
But two years ago, Newsweek reported that it had found data suggesting that teens whose parents used physical punishment were more likely to become aggressive.
Murray Straus, professor at the University of New Hampshire in America, has studied the topic of children and spanking for decades. He said that children who were physically punished have lower IQs than their peers. It may be that children with lower IQs were more likely to get spanked, but the punishment may have been counterproductive (反作用的) to their mental development, as well.
Some researchers make the argument that occasional open-handed smacks (用巴掌打) on the bottom are not only harmless but can have some benefit.
Last year, Marjorie Gunnoe, a psychologist at Calvin College, studied teens who have never spanked. There are a greater number of children growing up without ever having been physically punished. Gunnoe’s research suggests they don’t turn out any better than those who were sometimes spank.
There are some parents who simply cannot control their tempers. But I still believe that the best parents are the ones who are able to offer fair and firm discipline without ever turning to physical punishment.
1. What might be the best title of the passage?| A．What makes some parents spank their children? |
| B．Why spanking is not supported? |
| C．How should parents teach their children? |
| D．Should parents hit their children? |
| A．are less aggressive toward others when they get older |
| B．may develop lower IQs than their peer |
| C．benefit from occasional spanking |
| D．have slower physical development |
| A．More than half of the parents admit that they have spanked their children. |
| B．Children who suffer no physical punishment may not better students. |
| C．Occasional open-handed spanking on the bottom are mentally harmful. |
| D．Researchers disagree over whether smacking is mentally harmful to children. |
| A．disapproving | B．optimistic | C．objective | D．indifferent |
8 . One day when I was 5, my mother scolded me for not finishing my rice and I got angry. I wanted to play outside and not to be made to finish eating my rice. When angrily opening the screen door with my foot, I kicked back a 12-inch part of the lower left-hand corner of the new screen door. But I had no remorse, for I was happy to be playing in the backyard with my toys.
Today, I know if my child had done what I did, I would have scolded my child and told him about how expensive this new screen door was, and I would have given him a spanking (打屁股) for it. But my parents never said a word. They left the corner of the screen door broken, creating an opening.
For years, every time I saw that corner of the screen door, it would constantly make me think about my mistake. For years, I knew that everyone in my family would see that hole and remember who had done it. For years, every time I saw a fly in the kitchen, I would wonder if it came in through the hole that I had created with my angry foot. I would wonder if my family members were thinking the same thing, silently blaming me every time a flying insect entered our home. My parents taught me a valuable lesson, one that a spanking or stern (严厉的) words perhaps could not teach. Their silent punishment for what I had done delivered a hundred stern messages to me. Above all, it has helped me become a more patient person and not get mad so easily.
1. What does the underlined word “remorse” in Paragraph 1 most probably mean?| A．Regret. | B．Hurt. | C．Joy. | D．Notice. |
| A．They gave him a spanking. | B．They left the screen door unrepaired. |
| C．They scolded him for what he had done. | D．They told him how expensive it was. |
| A．He can hide his anger in front of others. | B．He can have better control of himself. |
| C．He will never go against his parents’ will. | D．He will never make such mistakes in the future. |
| A．Adults should ignore their children’s bad behavior. |
| B．Parents are the best teachers of their children. |
| C．What is the best way to become a more patient person? |
| D．Silent punishment may have a better effect on educating people. |
9 . Today we travel to film festivals around the world to learn about their different histories and goals. Some of the festivals are major competitions, while others are smaller events to help draw attention to more experimental movies.
One of the most famous film festivals in the world takes place in the French town of Cannes during twelve days in May. The Cannes Film Festival started in 1946 as a social gathering for showing movies. Later, the popular event developed into an important competition.
Visitors to the festival also see a series of short films, as well as films which don’t compete for awards. But the Cannes Film Festival is more than about honoring special movies and seeing famous actors. Each year, more than 1,000 people from almost 100 countries gather to watch about 900 movies. This helps link people from all areas of the movie industry. Also, it helps filmmakers sell their movies to distributors(发行人) so they can be shown in theaters around the world.
The Venice International Film Festival starts in late August. Dating back to 1932, it is one of the oldest movie festivals in the world.
Many film festivals have very specialized subjects. In Belgium you can go to the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival. For 26 years this festival has been showing science fiction and horror movies from around the world. If this event seems too frightening, you can attend the International Children’s Film Festival in Frankfurt, Germany. In Turkey, the International Istanbul Film Festival, which was first organized in 1982, shows movies about art, music, dance or literature.
On any given day, a film festival is probably taking place somewhere around the world. Here we’ve only discussed a small number of them. These important and exciting events help to celebrate the art and industry of movies.
1. What do we know about the Cannes Film Festival?| A．It lasts twelve days in winter. | B．It started as a film competition. |
| C．It attracts about 1,000 actors every year. | D．It increases the popularity of some films. |
| A．The Venice International Film Festival. |
| B．The Cannes Film Festival. |
| C．The International Istanbul Film Festival. |
| D．The Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival. |
| A．there are many film festivals |
| B．film festivals have a long history |
| C．many film festivals have their own subjects |
| D．film festivals are popular around the world |
| A．The Oldest Film Festival in the World. | B．Film Festivals Around the World. |
| C．Development of Films in the World. | D．The History of Film Festivals in the World. |
10 . “A bird with a broken wing will never fly high.” I’m sure that John would agree with this saying, as he felt this way almost every day in school.
By high school, John was the most famous
I met John for the first time at a weekend leadership training program since John was one of the 405 students who
The ice really melted when the groups started building a list of
John started
A bird with a broken wing only needs mending. Once healed, it can fly
| A．storyteller | B．troublemaker | C．dream-seeker | D．peacemaker |
| A．work | B．debt | C．difficulties | D．fights |
| A．driven away | B．left out | C．turned to | D．sent to |
| A．have | B．accompany | C．love | D．chase |
| A．signed up | B．took over | C．fell down | D．went by |
| A．hurriedly | B．easily | C．readily | D．warm |
| A．drew | B．led | C．sent | D．reminded |
| A．useless | B．meaning | C．strange | D．positive |
| A．changed | B．noticed | C．expressed | D．reserved |
| A．refused | B．welcomed | C．ignored | D．gathered |
| A．founder | B．part | C．leader | D．heart |
| A．impressed | B．anxious | C．disappointed | D．familiar |
| A．walking away | B．dropping out | C．going down | D．showing up |
| A．buying | B．collecting | C．donating | D．making |
| A．longer | B．farther | C．higher | D．happier |
